Is this you?
You keep stumbling over old fears and patterns that get in the way of leading the life you desire.
You find yourself in that incredibly frustrating stuck place. You want to move forward in your life. You feel totally committed to getting going, but somehow you just can’t take action. It’s like you hit an invisible wall. You are just plain stuck and you don’t know why.
Or perhaps you find yourself exclaiming, “I can’t believe I did that! What was I thinking?” or “Gosh, I didn’t know I had that in me!” You have the unsettling feeling that you don’t understand what makes you tick and long to understand yourself and how you “work” much better.
You fear that you are leading your life on the surface. You’ve never plumbed your own depths to discover who you are at the deepest level. You’ve never taken the time to discern what matters most, what you really feel and truly want. You long for that opportunity before life passes you by.
If any of these situations seem familiar, Guided Inner Process Work can help.
Why Look Inside to Solve Problems Outside?
Most of us are outer directed. It makes sense that we are that way. Think about it. As pre-modern humans, the greatest threats to our survival were external, such as predators, famine, fire, or harsh weather. To survive, our brains adapted to focus on external conditions so that we could move towards food and safety or flee danger when necessary. It is tempting to think that all that has changed, but has it?
Consider this. As noted, our bodies and psyches are designed to adapt to the world in ways that ensure our survival. As small, powerless children, we were dependent on parents and other powerful others for nurturance and survival. We learned to suppress parts of ourselves that were not permitted or valued by those others–and we developed and expanded other parts that were supported. While these adaptive strategies may have helped us to survive through those vulnerable years, they became our implicit default coping strategies in later life.
So what’s the problem? As adults we are no longer small and powerless. We have many strengths and resources available to us and no longer need to rely so exclusively on the adaptive patterns developed in early life. Yet because those patterns are implicit and automatic, we tend to respond to challenges in our adult lives with those same strategies. However, rather than protect us, the automatic reliance on strategies from early life limits our freedom to choose the best path forward and to find a fuller expression of our true selves.
By exploring our inner patterns and processes through Guided Inner Process Work, we can shed these constraining legacies of childhood and fully embrace and utilize the many strengths, talents, experiences, and wisdom that we have gathered as adults.
What are the Benefits of Guided Inner Process Work?
A growing body of literature stresses the benefits of understanding what is at work in your inner world. There are dozens of books about the Inner Game of tennis, chess, work, stress, golf, selling, music—you name it. We also see books inviting us to be mindful of what goes on inside our own heads as we engage with the world. The foundational principle of all these works is that a deep understanding of our own inner processes—our thoughts, emotions and sensations—can help us to resolve our inner blocks, conflicts, confusion, and other unproductive inner dynamics and allow us to enjoy more fulfillment, peace, effectiveness, and success.
Guided Inner Process Work is a doorway to the “Inner Game of Your Own Life.” It is a pathway to greater realization of what makes you tick. It enables you to discover why you behave in the world as you do and what engenders the feelings that arise in response to external events and situation. It reveals a hidden treasure trove of inner resources. It is a fascinating and rewarding journey into your own inner depths. It can help you to discover:
- Core places inside that are the source of calm, confidence, self-compassion, and grounded knowing
- What you really, really want, underneath all the voices that say what you “should” want
- What blocks your pathway to success, fulfillment and satisfaction
- Why you can’t seem to commit and follow through on your own best plans for self-improvement and success.
- Why you can’t make that difficult decision and feel so torn and uncertain inside
- Why you can’t fully open your heart to life and all it has to offer
Here are just some of the results that can come from Inner Process work:
- Discover your core capacity for calmness, groundedness, and confidence
- Achieve greater self understanding
- Dissolve blocks to taking positive actions in your life
- Find solutions to inner dilemmas
- Make right choices on complex decisions
- Create inner alignment around your most important life goals
- Gain insight into the roots of your relationship problems
- Bring compassion and acceptance to yourself
- Calm your inner critics and increase self-assurance and confidence
What can you expect in a Guided Inner Process Session?
With the help of your Inner Process Guide, you will explore your own inner terrain to discover the deeper roots and dynamics underlying your feelings and behaviors. Because this is depth work, Guided Inner Process Sessions are generally set for 75 minutes rather than the more typical 50-60 minute coaching or psychotherapy session. As you examine various issues and patterns in your life, the process will reveal to you the fascinating depths of your own unique inner landscape. You will learn the power of self-compassion and curiosity to unlock the inner doors. Your Guide will help you to discover, map and work with your inner constellation. The extended session length allows ample time for you to move into your inner body process, make your journey, and emerge in a gentle way, as well as some time for processing and reflecting on your experience if desired.
How many sessions will it take?
There is no one answer to this question. Each person is unique. It depends on what you wish to work on and also on the complexity of the inner constellations you wish to explore. Each life issue you wish to explore may involve different parts of you, some of which will be readily accessible and others of which will take more time to reveal themselves. You can engage in Guided Inner Process Work on a short term targeted exploration or a longer term self-development exploration. You decide what’s best for you. You can add additional sessions, change the intervals between sessions, take a break, or terminate sessions whenever you choose. The choice and control are yours.
Our inner system is like a beautiful and complex tapestry. While it is made up of a multitude of interwoven threads, its patterns become clear as you study it. If you pull on one thread, you will affect the entire system. So too when you work on a specific issue in Guided Inner Process Work. You are likely to discover how that one strand connects to many other patterns and issues in your life. You may well want to go forward to explore other parts of your inner terrain. It’s a fascinating and rewarding journey. I like to call this longer process of self-exploration “Inner Spelunking”.
Armed with this greater awareness, over time, you may learn about the parts of you that you might be tempted to call your “self-saboteurs”. You will come to understand how they are seeking to protect you with outmoded or misguided strategies. As you gain their trust, you can help them to update their strategies in ways that no longer block you but actually support your moves towards clarity, action, self-actualization and satisfaction.
As the work deepens, you also may uncover cut off young or wounded parts of yourself that are surrounded by protective parts that keep them out of awareness. By gaining the trust of the protective parts, you can gain access to the young wounded parts. You then can bring them compassion. deep listening and understanding which will allow them to heal and to release their innate life forward energy into your whole system, eliminating blocks, creating wholeness, and increasing your sense of vitality, spontaneity, creativity and freedom.
What should you look for in an Inner Process Guide?
An Inner Process Guide is like a Sherpa on your exploration of your inner world. She is someone who has traversed the inner terrain herself and has guided others on their own journeys. She is familiar with the inner lay of the land and knows both the awesome beauty of the inner adventure, and also where the pitfalls are. She has the experience and tools to maintain your safety on the path.
An effective Inner Process Guide should have both training and experience in navigating the inner terrain. She should have in depth experience in guiding others to explore and navigate their inner world, as well as extensive experience in working with her own inner process. After all, would you take ski lessons from someone who has never actually skied herself?
How can my experience benefit you?
My training includes a PhD in Human Development, post-graduate professional coaching training, and extensive training two highly effective approaches to inner explorations–Focusing and Internal Family Systems (IFS). I am a Certified Focusing Professional and Certifying Coordinator for The International Focusing Institute and have been teaching Focusing and using it in my own personal practice for two decades. I have completed Levels I and II IFS training and have served as a Practice Assistant in yearlong IFS trainings. I have used these complementary modalities to guide others in their self explorations for over a decade. Learn more about the Focusing and IFS here.
What can you expect from our time together?
Here is what some of my clients have said:
“I have been working with Susan for almost a year now. It has been an amazing experience. It helped me so much to grow, expand, and find out how to be myself. I can feel deeply listened and supported in my healing process. I feel safe, respected, and empowered. It is a wonderful feeling of having the right to connect to my inner joy and aliveness, and of (finally!) trusting myself.” –Agnes W.
“Susan is a grounded, astute, and generous healer. She nurtures while calling out bullshit. She cheers as you walk into the unknown. She insists on truth in the gentlest way. Susan skillfully, simply, and compassionately guides you to all of the wisdom you already had before even walking into a session. I feel consistently empowered, supported, and respected in her presence. What a treat it is to work with her! Thank you!” —A.C.
Must we meet in person?
Not at all. Sessions are equally effective whether conducted in person, by telephone, or in an online audio-visual platform. In fact, the telephonic or online experience can provide a very focused, intimate and safe environment for confidential communications and allows you to save the cost and time of travel as well as enjoy a session in the privacy of your own environment. There is nothing “remote” about so-called remote sessions. One of my clients had this to say about telephonic sessions:
“I was concerned at first that conducting the sessions over the phone wouldn’t provide the intimacy needed to be honest, but it was surprisingly comfortable, perhaps even more so since I was in my own home for each of the sessions.”– Nicole C.
How can you schedule a Guided Inner Process Session?
It would be my profound privilege to accompany you on this exciting learning and healing journey. You can schedule a 75 minute appointments at a time that is convenient for you, using my online scheduler. If you prefer, you may email me at [email protected] or call me at 617-967-0798 for an appointment.
Generally it is good to schedule one appointment per week at least at the beginning of your inner journey. Whatever you choose, you are in complete control of the process. You may stop or take a break from Guided Inner Process Work at any time.
Want to Know More Before You Decide?
If you would like to get to know me, see if we are a good match, or ask questions about Guided Inner Process Work, you are welcome to schedule a free 30-minute consultation here. I look forward to supporting you on this exciting and life affirming path.
