More about this online course and Internal Family Systems

Internal Family Systems (developed by Dick Schwartz) is a creative, evidence-based, non-pathologizing approach to human experience that welcomes the complex multi-faceted experience of being. It naturally supports the cultivation of awareness and compassion in an intelligent, empowering and skilful way.  Eva and I have become very interested and excited by this work as it brings a really intuitive and immediate way of working with the parts of ourselves that are stuck in ruts of behaviour and feeling – that often emerge in our meditation practice, but also perennially in our lives and relationships.  Find out more here.

In this course we want to give you some basics of this map and way of working so you can integrate it into your practice.

Like in our mindfulness practice, IFS invites us to recognise, investigate and befriend all the different parts of ourselves and to ask parts that have been dominating to step back and make space for more clarity, calmness, courage and compassion. But it does this in a very precise, efficient and powerful way – which really can free up the whole system and release burdens (feelings, sensation, impulses and thoughts) that are no longer helpful or relevant.

Through this process, we can recognise that there are protective parts of us that operate like managers; they make sure we stay safe and in control of every situation. You might recognise them as the inner critic, perfectionist, passive pessimist, controller, planner and coach.  All good!  But sometimes they need updating as they can be rather restrictive of our joy and brave engagement with the world.  Other protectors can be more extreme – using substances, dissociation and volatile behaviour to try and shut down vulnerable feelings.

All these protectors work to not feel our more vulnerable parts that have been shut down and hidden - like a sense of need, helplessness and dependency, a sense of shame, of being unlovable, fear or terror, grief and loss, rage and loneliness.  

IFS assumes that when these parts are accepted and understood they stop dominating the system, and what comes forth is “the self” (or “not-self” in mindfulness terms!) which has huge resources of compassion, courage and presence and can actually heal the parts that have been unconsciously running the scene.

Come along and join us for this online course to find more inner and outer freedom.

Do ring if you have questions:  Nique: 0409 437 912

“We think we tell stories, but stories often tell us, tell us to love or hate, to see or be seen. Often, too often, stories saddle us, ride us, whip us onward, tell us what to do, and we do it without questioning. The task of learning to be free requires learning to hear them, to question them, to pause and hear silence, to name them, and then become a story-teller.”
― Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby

This is for those who want to ~

• Shift and ease familiar tenacious patterns of reactivity
• Understand and have more compassion for the puzzling and difficult behaviour of others
• Develop more access to a calm, compassionate and curious presence inside
• Know more about the Internal Family Systems method
• Work more skilfully with emotions and thoughts in meditation practice

 Do come along to this transformative workshop which will strengthen your sense of integration and ease. To find out more, be in touch with Nique and we can arrange a phone call to discuss your interest.

About Nique Murch

B.A. Dip.,Adult Education, Feldenkrais Practitioner, Dip. Mime Mask and Movement, IFS level 1 and 2

Nique has a rich background in adult education teaching movement, improvisation and critical literacies. She is a is a qualified IFS practitioner, having completed both Levels 1 and 2 of the IFS Institute professional training in Australia. She has practiced meditation in both Eastern and Western traditions over many years, experiencing first hand how effective ontological approaches can be in the management of stress and pain.  She has trained in Mindfulness-based interventions with Openground, the Centre for Mindfulness (University of Massachusetts) and Breathworks in the UK. Nique has been facilitating MBSR since 2006, and tutors with the Mindfulness Training Institute - Australia and New Zealand.  She also works with the Humour Foundation - gleefully practicing radical simplicity as an elder clown with people in group residences.

About Timothea Goddard

BA, Dip Psych (ANZAP) Workplace Trainer, Cert V, Yoga teacher (YA500H)

Timothea Goddard is recognised as a pioneer in bringing MBSR to Australia over the past 16 years being the first in Australia to complete the training and be accredited as an MBSR teacher through the Center for Mindfulness, UMass Medical Center, USA; she maintains strong professional links there. Timothea has worked in private practice for 30 years as a psychotherapist, educator and workplace trainer, having trained in humanistic, psychodynamic and body-based psychotherapy as well as comprehensive training in MiCBT, and basic training in ACT, Breathworks, .B, and Mindful Schools. Since 2007, she has been offering MBSR training and supervision for health professionals and others.  She recently has trained in Level 1 and II of Internal Family Systems with the Center for Self Leadership. and Trauma Sensitive Yoga with the Center for Trauma and Embodiment in Boston, USA.

She is a long time student of yoga, Aikido and meditation and practices in the Insight tradition. She is the Director of Openground – an Australia-wide network of clinicians and teachers offering MBSR and related programs. She is a founding director of MTI and is currently the Director of Training. She is very interested in the interface of biology and psychology and how mindfulness practice can facilitate the integration between what we experience as "body" and "mind".

She swims in the ocean every morning, does yoga and Pilates, and loves cooking, people and straight-talking.

About Eva Papadopoulo

Cert.Couns., Grad Dip. Psychotherapy, Mem., A.A.S.P. Member PACFA Register.

Eva is a psychotherapist and is in private practice in Sydney. She has been an MBSR teacher with Openground since 2004 and is a co-director and mindfulness teacher with the Mindfulness Training Institute of Australasia. She has also designed and teaches the Living with Compassion workshop. She is a qualified IFS therapist, having completed both Levels 1 and 2 of the IFS Institute professional training in Australia. Eva trained in body-oriented, contemporary psychodynamic, developmental and relational orientations with the Somatic Institute of Australia in 2000 and trained with Openground and attended the Teacher Development Intensive offered by the CFM with Bob Stahl and Florence Meleo-Meyer in 2012. Eva has also had much experience in teaching mindfulness meditation as pain-management with cancer, HIV and AIDS and has worked in many organizations offering stress and anger management. Her interest in an integrated body-mind approach both personally and professionally has been deepened through many years of practice in insight meditation, yoga, Ortho-Bionomy, Body Mind Centering (BMC) and dance and theatre improvisation.  She has recently trained in Level I and II of Internal Family Systems with the Center for Self Leadership.