Welcoming and Celebrating Everything that arises within Us

The EIFS Playing Field serves as the arena where Self (also known as Being, Presence, Peace, Love, Fulfillment) distinguishes, welcomes, celebrates, unifies and heals that which arises within us, commonly known as parts.

This Playing Field consists of moving amongst the Eight EIFS Views:

1. ORDINARY BLENDED MIND: From this first view, we often speak as, move as, and identify as blended parts.  From this parts perspective, we are often seeking relief, peace, love and fulfillment through future experience and rarely just rest in fulfillment.  We are often want, lack, desire or aversion.     

2. HOW ARE YOU & CELEBRATING EVERYTHING VIEW: From this second  view, we notice what arises inside to answer “How are you?”  We recognize and celebrate the expressions of our precious humanity–our thoughts, feelings and sensations–which we come to know as our parts.  This is a shift from blended mind to subtle awareness in recognizing and celebrating all arising parts from Self.  Before they can be welcomed or found to be transparent, the parts must first be recognized.   We are celebration.

3. RIDING THE BIKE OF BEING VIEW: In this third view, we practice discerning Self (aka Being) from parts (such as peace from resistance, fulfillment from lack, beingness from mind) and establish a sanctuary or home here and now in or as Self.  Similar to coming to know balance while riding a bike, by intimately knowing the contrasting nature of Self and parts, there is a finding of balance in abiding in or as Self.   We are clarity and discernment.   

4. WELCOMING PARTS HOME VIEW: Once Self is known as ever-present, we effortlessly welcome all arisings using either of two methods.  In the first method, you will discover your unique Self-to-Parts Metaphor. For example, you might know Self as an infinite hot tub, the galaxy, a warm womb, or an infinite ocean. Your Self-to-Parts Metaphor aids in maintaining inclusive awareness of multiple parts and of the field of Being in which parts arise from and soak in.  Here parts effortlessly find acceptance, welcoming and love. The second method entails hearing what each part truly longs for and realizing that the longings can be directly met and fulfilled by Self qualities that are always intrinsically here. Through either method, effortless healing, unburdening, and returning home to Self occurs.  We are awareness of Self welcoming parts.  

5. SELF-LEADERSHIP VIEW: Living from where one’s inner background and foreground have reversed to Self as foreground and parts as background, or Self is at least 51% of the system, or parts have restored their trust in Self.  Here, systemic reharmonization seems to occur.  We are identified more as Self.  

6. RECOGNIZING ALL PARTS ARE OF SELF VIEW: In this view, we know all parts as fundamentally of and inseparable from Self.  This clarity is often accompanied by somatic experiences such as  joy, oneness, love and bliss.  We are only Self.  

7. SIMULTANEOUS AWARENESS VIEW: Parts arise of Self.  Emerging out of the integration of the 5th View, where everything is of Self, this 6th View encompasses simultaneous awareness as the Human and Being, foreground and background, form and emptiness, or the feminine and masculine — referred to as Shiva and Shakti in India, co-arising as the inseparable pair. This 6th View is the embodied identification as parts, as precious expressions of life and aliveness, while being pervasive, ever-present Self.  We are the co-arising Tao of parts and Self.  

8. SELF-LED LOVING FLOW VIEW: We are alive innocence, beauty and perfection with no opposites nor foreground background distinctions.  We are loving flow.  

From observations of colleagues, friends and my own inner world along the journey, the Tipping Points below emerged as pivotal moments of realization, often leading to profound shifts in healing and Self-abidance.  The Ten Primary EIFS Tipping Points are the core of the model.   As always in EIFS, the focus is not on EIFS concepts but rather on your personal experience.   As such, as you read the below list,  I encourage you to reflect on your personal journey and consider if any of  these Tipping Points resonate with your healing and Self embodiment.   From your life, what would be your Primary Tipping Points?

The Ten Primary EIFS Tipping Points

1. How are you?:  Recognizing, in the moment of response to this question, that you are either identified as Self or a part, the sky or weather, beingness or mind, speaking for or from a part while celebrating the ever-more subtle diverse expressions of your life that we label as parts. Updating discernment in each moment as to whether you are responding predominantly from Self or a part.
2. You and your parts are never alone:  Realizing that at least one aspect of Self is always present.  Discerning and sinking into your personal default qualities of Self.  Updating to the ever-presence of Self.   
3. Riding the bike of Being: Discerning more subtly the contrasting nature of Self and parts where, like somatically learning to ride a bike, the system effortlessly learns to rest more in “balance” abiding in or as Self.  Ever-more knowing of Self as the absence of lack and resistance or as fulfillment and burdened parts as essentially having a subtle lack, resistance or wanting.  Updating to more balance as Self and subtler Self-abidance.
4. Simultaneous awareness of multiple parts: Transitioning from awareness of one part to simultaneous awareness of two or more parts.  Recognizing when two or more parts are known simultanteously that blending with a part becomes difficult, resulting in a significant reduction in suffering instantly.  Updating to habitual simultaneous awareness of parts.  
5. Rumi’s Guest House — Parts welcomed home by ever-present Self: Recognizing how your parts experience Self and finding your personal Parts-to-Self Metaphor for how your system is able to be simultaneously aware of multiple parts (foreground) as well as ever-present Self (background).  Our most popular metaphors so far are parts “Soaking in Infinite Hot Tub of Self”, as “Planets Arising in Galaxy of Self”, or as “Waves of the Ocean of Self”, where parts are being loved, healed, spontaneously unburdened and welcomed home effortlessly by Self.  Updating to parts experiencing more the ever-presence of Self welcoming them home.  
6. Hearing the longing: Effortlessly hearing, knowing or listening for what your parts are really wanting or longing for such as acceptance, safety, love, to be heard, flow, ease, and connection.  Updating to effortlessly hearing the longing.  
7. Fulfillment is here now: Realizing that what your parts are longing for can be found in your intrinsic nature of Self.  Updating towards fulfillment is always available here now.
8. Intimacy with all arisings and current capacity: Noticing how intimate you are with each arising part from a perspective that healing might ultimately be just about “intimacy with” while recognizing and honoring your current capacity for intimacy before your protective parts intervene with feelings or thoughts of overwhelm or too much, moving you away or other gestures of distancing.   Updating to noticing degree of intimacy with parts and the relation to and honoring of current capacity.  
9. All is of Self including me: Knowing all parts, all arisings, thoughts, feelings, sensations, and everything is of Self.  This may open to I am Self.  Updating to all is of Self including me.
10. Knowing Innocence, Beauty and Perfection: Recognizing the innocence, beauty and perfection inherent in you, life and all parts.  This Tipping Point underlies and informs all of EIFS as it is a celebration of you and your parts as perfection and an embodiment of “loving what is”.  (Innocence, beauty and perfection are used here as descriptives that have no opposites.) Updating to loving what is. 

• What Remains: Responding enthusiastically to the recognition that any inability to perceive innocence, beauty, and perfection stems from parts that have yet to be welcomed home, prompting an ongoing adventure of embracing and adoring what remains.  Updating to the enjoyment in discovering and welcoming what remains.  
• Here Now: Knowing the peace, love, causeless ok-ness, sanctuary or home (whatever your descriptive) that is accessible for you Here Now. For some, “Here Now” (or your version) becomes like clicking Dorothy’s metaphorical ruby slippers to know the presence of home.  Updating to knowing Here Now.  
• The Universal Human Being Tuning Fork:  Resonating with the parts and Self qualities of others as if you are a resonant tuning fork of our shared Human experiences and Beingness.  Updating to a shared human being experience.
• The Clenched Hand: Recognizing that the perpetuation of burdens requires a holding, resistance or clenching.  Once seen, some find an option just to release the grip.  Updating to seeing what sustains burdens.
• The Reclining Chair of Parts and Self: Recognizing the choice between leaning forward into the foreground of parts (human aliveness) or reclining into the background of the Self (timeless Being), and enjoying the options while finding your optimal chair position, balance or ratio of parts and Self.  Updating to enjoyer of positions and empowered chooser of your unique balance or chair position of parts and Self.
• Conflict Resolution: Recognizing any inner conflict, stress, anxiety or tension is derived from parts being met by other parts rather than from Self.  Self has no resistance.  Updating to discerning of the source of all inner tension.  
• No Bad Parts: Recognizing the positive intent of all parts and that each part aspires to support and serve you. Updating to “No bad parts”.
• Not Mine:  Discerning ancestral, cultural and unattached burdens as not mine. Finding some liberation by recognizing certain internal shoulds, charges, and responsibilities as originating from external sources and thus not mine.  Updating to liberation from that which is not mine.  
• The Haunted House: Recognizing this that scares us are often just children wearing masks playing their roles in the haunted house experience.  Once we can see the parts or children wearing masks playing a role, though sometimes it takes going through the haunted house experience a few times, everything changes.  Updating to recognizing the haunted house game with patience and compassion.  
• Dream EIFS:  Opening to welcoming in dreamtime that which arises inside.  Updating to activated Dream EIFS.  
• Attachment Wounds:  Identifying parts that didn’t get what they needed in their early years–the attachment wound– while supporting their fulfillment.  Updating to recognizing, appreciating and supporting parts with attachment wounds.
• Exiles on a Shrine: Appreciating, loving and bowing to your exiles.  Viewing your exiled parts as sacred or as treasures within.  Updating towards seeing exiles as honored figures on a shrine.  
• Burdened or Unburdened Part: Differentiating between parts carrying contraction, charge, or resistance and those in a state of ease and flow.  Updating into more subtle discernment between burdened parts seeking relief and fulfillment and unburdened parts experiencing fulfillment and flow.    
• The Heart of Darkness: Recognizing that intimacy with the depths or heart of “darkness” opens into or as the heart of love.  Updating through intimacy to see through the “darkness”.   
• Somatic EIFS: Knowing or representing your cosmos of parts as sensations arising within the somatic field of Self, aka your body.  Updating to parts as sensations arising within and welcomed home by your somatic field of Self.  
• Including Death: Being aware of death and the fear it evokes in parts.  Updating to include and integrate death. 
• X-ray Vision: Developing x-ray vision to perceive the shame or fear of your vulnerable exiles underlying protector reactions in you and others.   Updating to seeing beneath to the vulnerable exile within.    
• Loving What Is: Do you perceive beauty, perfection and fulfillment or do you want something to be different?  Updating to more knowing the fulfillment and perfection of What Is, the Now, or Reality. 

• EIFS is a non-doing awareness practice:  It is an exploration of healing, Self-abidance, celebrating “what is” from a sense of Self exclusively as Being/Wave (with an absence of doing/agency) designed to complement more active healing and spiritual practices including Classic IFS.  
• Shifting from attention on a single part to Simultaneous Awareness of multiple parts.
• From clarity, there is hearing of parts’ underlying longings: Rather than meeting or responding to parts’ stories and wants, there is listening for what the parts truly long for and allowing that longing to evoke the longed for Self quality.  
• Parts and the system gradually realize that Self is fulfillment and is the parts primary source of attachment: After seeking fulfillment incessantly from experiences, relationships and substances, parts and the system slowly update to knowing and finding attachment and fulfillment primarily from your ever-present Self qualities.  This recognition of finding primary attachment in Self is shared with Classic IFS with EIFS merely highlighting it differently.  
• Three simultaneous unburdening “views”:  1) Abiding in or as Self, 2) Parts coming home through either one’s Self-to-Parts Metaphor or the system listening for and fulfilling the parts’ underlying longing, and 3) Knowing Self in the essence of all parts.  
• Healing polarities (aka parts stuck in yes/no, should/shouldn’t, want/don’t want): When both poles are viewed simultaneously from a zoomed out simultaneous awareness perspective, charged polarities often have difficulty maintain their charge or burden.
• Healing occurs effortlessly from background ever-present Self:  When Self is realized as ever-present and multiple parts are known through simultaneous awareness,  healing, unblending and spontaneous unburdening can happen 24/7 in the background to complement one’s active healing and spiritual work.

In EIFS, we often begin with the Classic IFS 8 C’s of Self qualities and explore as they expand and blossom in each of us into expanded Self qualities.  Ultimately, we are interested in which Self quality or qualities are default present for each of our unique beings and especially which quality is most ever-present for each of us. 

Examples of expanding and blossoming 8 C’s:  

• Calm: opening into Peace, Relaxation, Stillness, Silence, Spaciousness, Emptiness…
• Compassion: opening into Warmth, Care, Seeing, Hearing, Tenderness, Kindness, Nurture, Acceptance, Welcoming, Love, Adoration…
• Connection: opening into Belonging, Unity, Oneness, Bliss…
• Clarity: opening into Knowing, Innocence, Absolution, Awe, Perfection …
• Curiosity: opening into Openness, Fascination, Intimacy, Devotion…
• Confidence & Courage: opening into Ok-ness, Safety, Harmony, Fulfillment… 
• Creativity: opening into Flow, Ease, Play, Joy…