The One Inside: An Internal Family Systems (IFS) podcast

Episode Description
This week I welcome Nancy Sowell to the podcast to kick off Season 8. She spearheaded the intervention program behind the landmark study with medical patients that helped establish IFS as a promising treatment, and she wrote a book about what IFS has to offer our physical health.
This one also feels like a full circle moment. Nancy was my lead trainer when The One Inside was just getting started.
In this episode we talk about how chronic stress, childhood adversity, perfectionism, and burdened parts affect our physical health, and what IFS can offer.
Takeaways
Parentification, taking on adult roles or becoming an emotional support for parents in childhood, shows up again and again in the trauma histories of people with autoimmune disease
Our health is influenced by our genome and our exposome - the collection of everything we've been exposed to throughout our lives, from gestation forward
Chronic internal stress from parts carrying burdens, like "I'm not good enough," has a measurable effect on the body
Nancy realized her body had been her guide all along, she just hadn't been tuning in
Admitting you're wrong is a relief to your protectors. It's worth considering what it costs them to keep you from doing it
Parts that don't want to connect to the body often have very good reasons. Start there
About Nancy
Nancy Sowell, LICSW, is a Senior Trainer for the IFS Institute and a Harvard Medical School Teaching Associate. She spearheaded the intervention program behind the landmark study with medical patients that helped establish IFS as a promising treatment. She has spent her career exploring how chronic stress, trauma, and unmet emotional needs--especially during childhood--affect our physical health throughout our lives, and what IFS offers for deep, sustainable well-being. Her new book, IFS Health Therapy, co-authored with Martha Sweezy and Richard Schwartz, is available now. 
Episode Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by the IFS Institute.

This October, join the IFS Institute for the 2026 IFS Annual Conference, happening fully online October 15th and 16th.
Over two days, you'll hear from over 45 voices from across the IFS community exploring the theme of Self in Relationship: From Inner Healing to Collective Repair.  This year's workshops will cover topics from clinical practice and emerging research to Self-leadership, relationships, culture, and the challenges we're navigating in the world today. Because this year's conference is fully virtual, you can join the IFS community from wherever you are. Early Bird pricing is available through September 30th. Visit ifs-institute.com/conference to learn more and register. 
About The One Inside
I started this podcast to help spread IFS out into the world and make the model more accessible to everyone. Eight years later, that's still at the heart of all we do.
Join The One Inside Substack community for bonus conversations, extended interviews, meditations, and more.
Find Self-Led merch at The One Inside store.
Listen to episodes and watch clips on YouTube.
Follow me on Instagram @ifstammy or on Facebook at The One Inside with Tammy Sollenberger.
I co-create The One Inside with Jeff Schrum, a Level 2 IFS practitioner, coach, and creativity consultant.
Resources
New to IFS? My book, The One Inside: Thirty Days to Your Authentic Self, is a great place to start.
Want a free meditation? Sign up for my email list and get "Get to Know a Should Part" right away.
Sponsorship
Want to sponsor an episode of The One Inside? Email Tammy.

Brian Jaudon is back on the podcast to help us wrap up Season 7.
We talk about soul alignment, what it means to organize your life around your divine essence, and what happens when a chapter closes and something new wants to emerge. 
Takeaways
The question Brian has asked clients for 30 years: what has your life been organized around, and what would you like to reorganize it around?
Invitation is a spiritual state. Have you invited what you want into your consciousness, your body, and your whole being?
Soul misalignment shows up as a felt sense, and the body knows when something is off
Once you've experienced a state of consciousness, you have access to it
Live into what is and what wants to be, not what was or what should be
Anything not aligned with your divine essence will surface to be examined, released, or renegotiated
Brian's medicine journey revelation: we get to exist on this planet without being of service; we can choose how we want to show up and share our gifts with the world
Relationship first, task second
About Brian
Brian Jaudon is a sacred witness to the divine unfolding of one's life. After 30 years as a coach, including his early role as a pioneer in the integration of IFS and coaching, Brian is embracing a new path and calling that is more vibrational and spiritual in nature. For the first time in his professional life, he is inviting individuals and couples to work with him in person at his home (Turtle Ridge) in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. Brian's new website is www.divinebecoming.love
Episode Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Therapy Training Boston.
Therapy Training Boston offers live, in-person, and online workshops, plus consultation for therapists and other helping professionals, designed to support you as a whole person while satisfying your CE requirements. All of their offerings are taught with an eye toward context, power, and relational justice, and draw on the family systems theories and best practices that shaped the IFS model. They also offer an Intensive Certificate Program in Couples and Family Therapy to help you build confidence and capacity in community.
About The One Inside
I started this podcast to help spread IFS out into the world and make the model more accessible to everyone. Eight years later, that's still at the heart of all we do.
Join The One Inside Substack community for bonus conversations, extended interviews, meditations, and more.
New to IFS? My book, The One Inside: Thirty Days to Your Authentic Self, is a great place to start.
Listen to episodes and watch select clips on YouTube.
Follow me on Instagram @ifstammy or on Facebook at The One Inside with Tammy Sollenberger.
I co-create The One Inside with Jeff Schrum, a Level 2 IFS practitioner, coach, and creativity consultant.
 
Sponsorship
Want to sponsor an episode of The One Inside? Email Tammy.

On today's episode we welcome Bob Falconer back to the podcast. Bob is an IFS teacher, consultant, and author who has devoted decades to trauma healing and the study of mind and spirit. He co-authored Many Minds, One Self with Dick Schwartz and wrote The Others Within Us. His memoir, Self Unbroken, is out now.
It's hard to pick a favorite "Bob" episode, but this one might be my favorite so far. We talk about his daily practice of dialoguing with Spirit, the sewer path to wisdom, what skeptical parts need, and the monk who changed everything for him
Takeaways
Self may be less like a particle and more like a field. 
The high road to wisdom is lined with people waving shiny objects. Bob suggests trudging through the sewer instead.
Skeptical parts don't need to be shut down, they need to be invited in.
Not knowing is the beginning of knowledge 
When a spirit dialogue starts making you feel superior to others, it's your clue the signal has been hijacked
Understanding a past life isn't what heals it. Witnessing and unburdening the emotional charge is what changes things
Use your client's language instead of imposing yours
Here's a link to The One Inside Audio Guides I mentioned in the intro.
About Robert Falconer:
For the early decades of his career, Bob focused on work with men who had histories of major sexual and physical abuse as Bob had. He used various forms of parts work (Ego State Therapy, Gestalt, and Pia Mellody's work among others) but some 16 years ago he discovered Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) and is now focused exclusively on IFS, which he finds to be the most respectful and powerful modality.  His own recovery is the deep basis for all his work.
Bob has taught IFS extensively and internationally online and has led classes and trainings in Pakistan, China, South Korea, Mexico, Poland , Spain, Canada, the UK, and for the Fort Belknap reservation. He has also been on the staff of over 20 of the official IFS institute trainings. Bob has been actively involved with psychedelics since 1967 and continues to view them as a powerful pathway.
He is the author of six books related to IFS, spirituality and inner healing: Many Minds, One Self (2017), co-authored with Richard C. Schwartz, founder of IFS; The Others Within Us (2023); When Going Through Hell… Keep Going (2024); Opening the Inner World (2025), co-authored with two experts on Emanuel Swedenborg; Spirit (2025), a compilation drawn from journals of his daily dialogues with Spirit, and Self Unbroken a memoir of the beginnings of his recovery from childhood sexual abuse (2026).
Now at in his late seventies, Bob mostly teaches and leads supervision classes, only occasionally seeing individuals, often with their therapist.
Episode Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Souliology.
Souliology offers retreats and immersive learning experiences for IFS professionals, many led by IFS Senior Lead Trainers and eligible for continuing education credits.
Their programs support deep professional and personal growth, offering space to step away from the demands of daily life so you can return to your practice more present and resourced for the clients you serve.
Souliology: Where growth meets depth. Learn more at souliology.com
The Others Within Us: A four-day online experiential workshop with Bob Falconer, March 2027. Learn more and register at Souliology.com
About The One Inside
I started this podcast to help spread IFS out into the world and make the model more accessible to everyone. Seven years later, that's still at the heart of all we do. 
Join The One Inside Substack community for bonus conversations, extended interviews, meditations, and more.

Find Self-Led merch at The One Inside store.

Listen to episodes and watch clips on YouTube.

Follow me on Instagram @ifstammy or on Facebook at The One Inside with Tammy Sollenberger.

I co-create The One Inside with Jeff Schrum, a Level 2 IFS practitioner and coach.
Resources
New to IFS? My book, The One Inside: Thirty Days to Your Authentic Self, is a great place to start.

Want a free meditation? Sign up for my email list and get "Get to Know a Should Part" right away.

Sponsorship
Want to sponsor an episode of The One Inside? Email Tammy.

This episode didn't go as planned, and I'm grateful it didn't.
I invited Liz Brenner on the podcast to talk about the Family Process article on the family systems roots of IFS she co-authored with Dick Schwartz and Carol Becker in 2023. Instead, we found ourselves talking about grief.
A month before we recorded, my dad died unexpectedly. Liz lost her partner, Dan, in 2018, just six weeks after his cancer diagnosis. We both came into the conversation still processing our losses, and grief was the conversation we needed to have. 
Takeaways
Grief can break you, and it can also heal you. Both can be true at once
A felt connection to someone who has died can be a real and ongoing relationship
When the spiritual dimension of Self gets left out, the Self-to-part relationship can feel smaller than it actually is
Constraint release, an idea from family systems therapy, asks what pattern isn't working rather than what's broken
Meaning-making is an often-overlooked stage of grief
A part that's afraid of losing connection to someone you love can be asked to step back (Liz learned that during a session with Dick Schwartz)
Family systems theory shaped IFS more than we realize
We'll have Liz back on to finish the conversation about the family systems article. 
About Liz Brenner
Liz Brenner, LICSW, is the director of Therapy Training Boston, the continuing legacy of the Family Institute of Cambridge. She is the primary instructor of their Intensive Certification Program in Couples and Family Therapy and co-author, with Richard Schwartz and Carol Becker, of the 2023 Family Process article on the development of the IFS model (email Liz for access to the article). Follow Therapy Training Boston on Facebook or Instagram. Links: Therapy Training Boston Courses and Workshops
Episode Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Souliology.
Souliology offers retreats and immersive learning experiences for IFS professionals, many led by IFS Senior Lead Trainers and eligible for continuing education credits.
Their programs support deep professional and personal growth, offering space to step away from the demands of daily life so you can return to your practice more present and resourced for the clients you serve.
Souliology: Where growth meets depth. Learn more at souliology.com
About The One Inside
I started this podcast to help spread IFS out into the world and make the model more accessible to everyone. Seven years later, that's still at the heart of all we do. 
Join The One Inside Substack community for bonus conversations, extended interviews, meditations, and more.

Find Self-Led merch at The One Inside store.

Listen to episodes and watch clips on YouTube.

Follow me on Instagram @ifstammy or on Facebook at The One Inside with Tammy Sollenberger.

I co-create The One Inside with Jeff Schrum, a Level 2 IFS practitioner and coach.
Resources
New to IFS? My book, The One Inside: Thirty Days to Your Authentic Self, is a great place to start.

Want a free meditation? Sign up for my email list and get "Get to Know a Should Part" right away.

Sponsorship
Want to sponsor an episode of The One Inside? Email Tammy.

My guest on today's episode is Achara Tarfa. She is a certified IFS practitioner, co-founder of the Global Trauma Institute, and director of the PATH program. We talk about finding IFS, what trauma coaching offers that therapy often doesn't, and why she and her co-founders built GTI to create the spaces they needed but couldn't find.
Takeaways
IFS gave Achara language for her own anger for the first time
When the people you turn to for help fail you, the harm compounds. Achara experienced this firsthand and it shaped everything she built
Trauma coaching isn't replacing therapy. It's reaching people the system has missed
Healing isn't just individual. It's about dismantling the systems, cultural, institutional, hierarchical, that created the harm 
PATH meetings use IFS to address addiction and its underlying trauma together
AA teaches you how to survive; PATH teaches you how to live.
If you're in protection mode, there's no room to feel. That's not a flaw, it's survival
Catch my extended interview with Achara and our Audio Guides meditations over on Substack. 
About Achara
Achara Tarfa is a certified IFS practitioner, co-founder of the Global Trauma Institute, and director of the PATH program. Connect with her on Substack and Instagram.
Episode Sponsor
This episode is sponsored by Souliology.
Souliology offers retreats and immersive learning experiences for IFS professionals, many led by IFS Senior Lead Trainers and eligible for continuing education credits.
Their programs support deep professional and personal growth, offering space to step away from the demands of daily life so you can return to your practice more present and resourced for the clients you serve.
Souliology: Where growth meets depth. Learn more at souliology.com
About The One Inside
I started this podcast to help spread IFS out into the world and make the model more accessible to everyone. Seven years later, that's still at the heart of all we do. 
Join The One Inside Substack community for bonus conversations, extended interviews, meditations, and more.

Find Self-Led merch at The One Inside store.

Listen to episodes and watch clips on YouTube.

Follow me on Instagram @ifstammy or on Facebook at The One Inside with Tammy Sollenberger.

I co-create The One Inside with Jeff Schrum, a Level 2 IFS practitioner and coach.
Resources
New to IFS? My book, The One Inside: Thirty Days to Your Authentic Self, is a great place to start.

Want a free meditation? Sign up for my email list and get "Get to Know a Should Part" right away.

Sponsorship
Want to sponsor an episode of The One Inside? Email Tammy.