Invitation to explore:
Inner journey to the True Self.
Divine Heart Guidance.
Ancient & New Wisdom to show the way.
Courageous Joy.
Deep Connection to Self, Relationship & Earth Wisdom.
A series of nature-based, expressive arts-based, IFS-Informed, Deep Sharing Circles exploring our parts and Self/Soul using Mindfulness, Self Compassion, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Deep Ecology and Wild Mind Map of Wholeness (Bill Plotkin).
The other circle I guide is the Tend the Wild and Sacred Circle here
These circles combine all the healing strategies I use in my own life to understand my emotions / parts and to access more Self / Soul Energy; IFS-Informed art journalling, immersion in nature, rituals and ceremonies, Soulcraft/Wild Mind practices, embodied movement, music, free dance, poetry, gratitude practice, deep connection to the elements, Mother Earth and the more than human world, mindfulness, self-compassion and deep sharing in a safe and sacred circle.’ Sara
I’m on a journey to discover Deep Parts Wisdom would you like to join me?
Please register and ask for more information here: saraphillipstas@gmail.com
I would like to be free of the part of me that dares too little and fears too much.”
Sue Monk Kidd, Travelling with Pomegranates; A Mother-Daughter Story
Circle of Connection
Our intention is to:
Gather in a circle to listen deeply and connect to Self, Other Souls and Mother Earth,
Explore Wild Mind (Bill Plotkin) Self / Soul Archetypes and Parts through an Internal Family Systems, IFS-informed Lens, with embodied movement, visualisation, active imagination, creative expression, rituals and deep sharing in a soft, flowing, heart and soul circle
Leave each circle feeling held and supported with an embodied visual map of your next right step toward Self/Soul, feeling lighter and joy in your heart having dived deeper into your body, heart and soul wisdom.
Be held and healed in circle as you listen deeply to your own inner guidance in a safe and sacred space
We need circles of connection now more than ever to be seen, heard and understood, to find our way home to true belonging and active hope, to follow our yearning…” Sara
Deep Parts Wisdom Circles:
These Deep Parts Wisdom Circles are IFS-informed and are created to support you to NOTICE your parts, get to KNOW them, and find out what they NEED in order for you to access more Self energy, more integration, more Wholeness, more Soul.
We will do this using mindfulness, embodied movement/dance, explore wise-nature archetypes (from Wild Mind by Bill Plotkin), visualisation and creative expression as well as the healing power of sharing in a sacred safe circle of like-minded souls.
Deep Parts Wisdom Circle Details:
Where & When:
3rd Monday of the month (once a month for 6 months) starting 21st October 7-9pm
Dates:
- 21st October
- 18th November
- 16th December
- 20th January
- 17th February
- 17th March
Cost: Regular payment (direct bank transfer or paypal) of $45 per month ($270 per 6 months)
Set up $45 monthly subscription here: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/billing/plans/subscribe?plan_id=P-54B989703T8006237M4HQUJY
Donation: ( Includes $5 donation per month, $30 per 6 months, per participant, paid to Bush Heritage for each participant)
Numbers Limited: to ensure we have a small intimate circle.
Payment for first month needs to be received before the first circle to confirm your place.
Please speak to Sara before you register to ensure this circle is the right fit for you and to let her know where you are at in your healing journey right now: Ph 0458231968, Email: saraphillipstas@gmail.com
A more detailed invitation to Deep Parts Wisdom circle:
What parts are getting in the way of you feeling harmony within yourself and in your life?
What parts are stopping you from having an enlivened response to the world?
Is it fear, grief, anger, confusion, or numbness /powerlessness/hopelessness that is keeping you stuck?
If you are like me, on any given day, in any given moment, it might be a particular part that is trying to ‘drive’ your life or you might feel an internal tug-o-war as several parts are pushing and pulling you in different directions keeping you stuck and causing distress in your nervous system (draining your energy).
Would you like to grow in your ability to welcome all of your parts (to NOTICE them, get to KNOW them and find out what they NEED) to access more Wise Self Energy and then naturally feel more hopeful, more energised, more compassionate, curious, connected, creative and courageous as you respond to life with calm, confidence and clarity?
I have found personally and with people I guide that Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a great way to cultivate and expand in mindfulness, self-compassion, compassion for others, courage, curiousity and creativity.
When we work from the core of the self, our whole being is empowered.”
Richard Schwartz, Founder of IFS
Wise Self Energy is always here, always present, (like the blue sky is always present behind the clouds). (Some people prefer the terms Soul, Essence, True Self, Inner Self…..I will use Wise Self Energy and Soul interchangeably). Even though Self Energy or Soul is always present we all have so many protective, vulnerable, wounded parts that adopted different coping strategies when we were younger to keep us safe and often these parts run our lives from a place of protection and not from Self or Wholeness.
When we work with and heal our inner eco-system (getting to know our own parts and cultivating more Self-energy) we are more able to engage with the world and the outer ecosystem in which we live. Internal Family Systems can lead to personal and collective healing/harmony, healing of the inner and outer ecosystem…(be that family, community or earth). Read more about this in Deep Ecology
when you experience Self, you naturally feel more connected to humanity in general and also to something larger and more encompassing, the earth, the universe, the big Self. And you will also discover other qualities rising up in you like joy, equanimity, forgiveness, perspective, and playfulness”.
Richard Schwartz in No Bad Parts
Aims of the Deep Parts Wisdom Circles:
In these IFS-Informed Circles we will be supported to discover more about, befriend and heal our:
- Manager Parts (often trying to please, perform, perfect, be socially acceptable)
- Firefighter Parts (often more extreme in their roles and trying to escape, numb, react, or distract in other ways, from painful emotions)
- Exiled Emotions (those emotions we were not allowed to express as young children, whatever we are keeping in the shadows, e.g. grief, rage, shame, guilt or even sometimes joy or play)
And as we befriend these parts and heal them we can access more of our
- Centred Wise Self Energy/ Soul: (courageous, curious, compassionate, calm, connected, centred, grounded, present, playful)
In a sacred and safe space we will experience the following practices to befriend our parts and bring some relief and healing to our parts as they feel seen. heard, understood and supported by Self Energy:
- Mindfulness & Visualisation
- Embodied Movement / Somatic Awareness
- Creative Expression, Intuitive Drawing and Journalling
- Nature-based healing and connection
- Community & Connection
- Deep Heartfelt Sacred Sharing in Circle/Council
- Laughter and Joy
No experience with creative expression or embodied movement is necessary, you will be invited to tune into your senses, your body, your emotions and respond intuitively in a way that feels right for you. There is also no pressure to share adn there is no right or wrong response.
The magic of doing this healing work in a safe and sacred circle is to witness other people’s parts (deeply comforting to know we are not alone in this journey!) and to have our own imperfect, vulnerable and/or protective parts and our Core Self heard, seen, valued and understood.
Deep Parts Wisdom Circle Details:
Where & When:
3rd Monday of the month (once a month for 6 months) starting 21st October 7 – 9 pm
Dates:
- 21st October
- 18th November
- 16th December
- 20th January
- 17th February
- 17th March
Cost: Regular payment (direct bank transfer or paypal) of $45 per month ($270 per 6 months)
Set up $45 monthly PayPal subscription here: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/billing/plans/subscribe?plan_id=P-54B989703T8006237M4HQUJY
Donation: ( Includes $5 donation per month, $30 per 6 months, per participant, paid to Bush Heritage for each participant)
Numbers Limited: to ensure we have a small intimate circle.
Payment for first month needs to be received before the first circle to confirm your place.
Please register and ask for more information here: saraphillipstas@gmail.com
What is needed: A journal with pen and crayons/pastels for writing and drawing, comfy clothes and a drink bottle, a private, comfortable space for the workshop where you can move freely and comfortably as well as meditate/visualise without interruption. It can be useful to have good bluetooth headphones or good speakers so the music sounds great. Please allow 5 minutes before the group starts to set your sacred space, you might want to light a candle, bring some sacred nature objects, do some breathing or stretching to feel ready to enter sacred space.
Recommended (optional) Reading: No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz and Wild Mind by Bill Plotkin. If you are unsure if this group is for you please email Sara to ask/discuss.
Prerequisites: This group is really for everyone – it will be useful if you have experienced some IFS, or have experienced mindfulness but not essential. Doing an IFS-informed group such as this one, might bring up some strong emotions and it is recommended that you have support from an individual therapist if you need.
Registration:
Please speak to Sara before you register to ensure this circle is the right fit for you and to let her know where you are at in your healing journey right now: Ph 0458231968, Email: saraphillipstas@gmail.com
Members Page:
All prompts for the activities we do in our monthly sacred circle (meditations, intuitive movement prompts, mythology, creative processing etc) will be recorded and available online (in our members page) to do in your own time if you can’t join us in the live online circle. We will also all be able to share online our insights, our deep process and any heart and soul resources we find useful throughout each moon cycle in our online message group.
Deep Ecology / The Work that Reconnects:
If you are familiar with Deep Ecology and the Work that Reconnects then this is also deep 6 month exploration of the Active Hope Spiral and a deep dive into the Truth Mandala from an IFS lens. We can use the Wise Nature Archetypes to explore personal grief and anxiety as well as collective eco-grief and eco-anxiety
Reflection Questions we will explore in these workshops:
- When do our parts get triggered and try to run our lives as if they were the CEO’s of our internal systems, rather than letting our Wise Self/Soul be in charge?
- What if we could gently encourage our parts to hold lightly their negative beliefs and more extreme roles of perfectionism, people pleasing, fear of judgement, self doubt, need for certainty, fear of scarcity and desire to numb?
- What if we could reparent our parts who feel grief, fear, anger, shame, confusion so they feel heard, seen and understood and can re-channel their energy to acting in harmony with our Self /Soul and our values for the benefit of Mother Earth
- What if we could find a way to live more in Wholeness, more Self-Energy Aligned, more integrated?
- What if we could awaken our senses, deepen our connection with nature, listen deeply to our body wisdom and Mother Earth wisdom, to understand what it is to live more from Self/Soul?
- What if we can access the wisdom available from Wise Nature Archetypes described in Wild Mind and other ancestral / mythical archetypes?
...the four facets of Self, or the four dimensions of our human wholeness-wait within us, but we might not even know they exist until we discover how to access them, cultivate their powers, and integrate them into our everyday lives”
Bill Plotkin in Wild Mind
Deep Parts Wisdom Circles Content:
- October: Explore and experience the qualities of Self/Soul and some Protective and Vulnerable Parts. We will focus on increasing awareness of and access to the qualities of Wholeness/Self-Energy and increase our awareness of some parts
- November: Explore and experience the Manager (Loyal Soldier) parts that try to please, perform and perfect, try to keep control and keep you socially acceptable while they keep emotions at bay. We will then experience and explore the healthy archetypes of the South, including the Nurturing and Generative Adult.
- December: Explore and experience the Firefighter (escapist parts), who try to avoid / numb / distract or react so that you don’t have to feel any emotions and you can ‘deaden’ your response to the world and people around you. We will then experience and explore the healthy archetypes of the East, including the Innocent Sage, the Trickster/Fool.
- January: Explore and experience the Exiled parts (wounded child), the emotions such as fear, rage, sadness, shame and guilt that we learnt from a young age to bury, hide, ignore. Befriending these wounded parts with difficult emotions often means that we can ‘ENLIVEN’ our response to the world (See Deep Ecology). We will then experience and explore the healthy archetypes of the North, including the Wild One, the Wild Child.
- February: Explore and experience the Exiled parts, (shadow parts) that we are not consciously aware of but that when triggered affect our lives in ‘shadowy’ ways (e.g. envy at someone else living their dream can come out as judgment and criticism or self-sabotage when a shadow part doesn’t think we deserve to or are worthy enough of participating in the world fully). We will then explore the healthy archetypes of the West, including the Wanderer, Dreamer, Magician.
- March: Explore and experience how you might use these IFS-informed practices to engage the healthy Wild Mind archetypes in leading with Self-Energy/Soul/Wholeness to guide your wounded/protective parts in knowing the next right step forward in a current issue occurring in your life.
Sara creates a space…to remember that you belong as your unique self, perfectly imperfect. … living a life in connection with soul and heart.”
Louise K.
As we open ourselves to that element of wildness, we discover a quality of our own soul that longs to be embodied in the world, sung to the world, danced, cried and celebrated.
SOULCRAFT: CROSSING INTO THE MYSTERIES OF NATURE AND PSYCHE BY BILL PLOTKIN
In the shamanic traditions, the apprentice learns his craft by using the refined powers of his imagination to become the various animals and qualities of nature, by merging with the earth archetypes and re-membering’ as he remembers he has always been nature. … By becoming earth, through her forms and forces, we regain our souls.’
SOULCRAFT: CROSSING INTO THE MYSTERIES OF NATURE AND PSYCHE BY BILL PLOTKIN
Hope you can join me in these circles, I’d love to see you there! Email Sara for more info: saraphillipstas@gmail.com
More Testimonials here
More on IFS here:
I personally have experienced how powerful IFS is in individual counselling and in a group setting through visualisation, embodied movement, creative expression and in sharing with others. I see often in my counselling practice, huge shifts in healing within a client’s awareness of self and others and their ability to grow mindfulness, self-compassion and then being able to access more Self Energy and move forward with their lives, in line with their values.
A recent personal example of healing in IFS for me was that I was feeling a lot of fear facing all the NEW challenges in my life this year; new empty nest, new renovations, new office, new offerings for work… In an IFS session with my therapist I could see my fearful part was reluctant to cross the creek to the NEW side, and it was incredibly powerful to visualise, draw and embody my Self and other parts supporting this fearful part to cross the creek in her own time, in her own way. Suddenly it was possible to start taking steps towards the NEW because all my parts and Self were in harmony.
The more Self-led that you become, the less afraid you are to act in a way that’s going to actually bring more harmony.” Dr Richard Schwartz
It is time to take another look at ourselves – to re-enliven our sense of what it is to be human, to breathe new life into ancient intuitions of who we are, and to learn again to celebrate, as we once did, our instinctive affinity with the Earth community in which we are rooted.”
Bill Plotkin Wild Mind
I have found Internal Family Systems (IFS) to be the healing modality/philosophy that incorporates all I believe and know to be useful in our growing and healing journey as human beings living on Earth today. IFS supports us to understand how to create more Self-energy (e.g. more centredness, harmony, integration through the Self qualities of the 8 Cs: compassion, connection, curiousity, calm, clarity, creativity, courage and confidence and the 5Ps: presence, playfulness, perspective, patience and persistence).
IFS also explains how we might feel calm and centred and then something happens and suddenly we are caught up in a wave of thoughts, feelings, beliefs, sensations and behaviours that indicate a part or parts of us has taken over our system and we are no longer centred (read more about IFS here).
Take a moment and tune in to what your parts say to this invitation? If you are like me, you may have excited parts, scared parts, parts that say we have no time and parts sitting on the fence! What does your Core Self say when you get really quiet and listen in? My Self is excited and my parts are keen to be seen and heard.
Hope you can join me in these workshops, I’d love to see you there! Email saraphillipstas@gmail.com
A little more about Sara:
I am fascinated with this life-long healing journey of moving out of my mind/ego/parts and into my heart/authentic Self. I used to struggle with anxiety and depression and as a busy Mum I was always searching for healing tools and practices that would support me to be in my heart and soul space in a realistic and very human way.
Over the years I practiced more and more meditation and mindfulness which calmed my nervous system and supported my well-being in a deep way. In 2015 I did the Artists Way program for the first time and discovered creative processing in art journals and stream of conscious journalling and it was a revelation to me how healing this practice is, how it supports deep subconscious insights and change. I have been doing both forms of journalling since! In 2023 I dived into Intuitive Drawing IFS-Informed Workshops with Ruth Culver and Journalling your parts with Nique Murch. I’ve just completed a Nature-based Expressive Arts Course with Cathy Malchiodi and Elizabeth Worson.
I discovered the Divine healing, support and insights available in sacred women’s circles and in 2017 I discovered the Great Round of Mandala, an exploration of the archetypal stages we cycle through as humans in our journey through the wheel of life. This journey encompassed creative processing in such a deep healing way I was drawn to repeat the journey in 2019 in a sacred women’s’ circle, the first Wise Woman Within Circle and this was continued 2020-2022.
I was so lucky to do a New Moon Dance Meditation with Ashuma Sachdeva in Delhi in 2019 and I have felt the call to offer similar intuitive dance since then. Ever since I can remember I have loved dancing, I have experimented with different dance styles but now I feel the call to move my body freely, to process emotions, to understand my innermost heart and spirit, to feel a connection with the Divine & Mother Earth, through intuitive dance, meditation and creative expression. I would love you to share some Courageous Joy with me! Inspiration for the dance we will do comes from https://www.dancingmindfulness.com/ and I am also a trained Chakradance facilitator.
Lately I’ve been craving even more support and holding for this midlife transition that I find myself in, where everything appears to be changing; my body, heart, soul, spirit, mind, relationships, role in life, my personal identity and so the list of changes goes on… So here I find myself again in 2024 wanting to dive in to exploring my parts in a sacred circle using the Wild Mind Archetypes – hope you can join me 🙂
All photos and drawings are attributed to Sara Phillips unless stated otherwise copyright 2012-2024
