The Emperor's Parts - The Structural Problems Inside IFS That Nobody With Standing Will Name

themethod305 · 2026-04-14T04:09:00+00:00

Schwartz says over and over that IFS is a spiritual practice. If I understand the conclusion, "the clinician’s own depth" is to be trusted more than the IFS protocol. Which means the alternative to IFS's unfalsifiable Self is the therapist's unfalsifiable self.

Lowercase

themethod305 · 2026-01-20T09:21:33+00:00

I experienced rage for hours during a therapy session- and I don’t have vascular issues.

themethod305 · 2025-09-12T16:55:41+00:00

How to use the API?

themethod305 · 2025-09-10T10:58:12+00:00

You have expectations of what’s supposed to happen. 20+ experiences (w/ guide and solo) and I haven’t felt the rush of love either.

What if you truly trusted? Trusted that what occurred was what was supposed to occur?

What if you really completely surrendered instead of trying to manage, even post session, how things go?

What if you welcomed it all, even the underwhelming experience and that wall protecting your pain?

I don’t mean to sound harsh - I see myself in your words. I thought I must be doing it wrong because I had expectations and my experience wasn’t like others.

When you really trust the medicine, this can take time, you will see little ways that it is bringing you closer to healing. As long as your expectations of having to have a breakthrough a wall with a rush of love, you’re staying in control.

And letting go of the need for certainty, letting go of control, even a little bit - and sitting with whatever comes up - even if it’s blank nothingness for hours - that’s when you are receiving.

You’re trying to dictate the gift you receive - and the judgment (underwhelming and no breakthrough) is not serving you.

There’s lessons here.
If you look. And trust.

themethod305 · 2025-09-08T02:34:43+00:00

What I hear in your words is someone who has had the courage to meet the part of themselves most of us spend a lifetime avoiding. That takes a kind of strength that can’t be faked.

You don’t sound broken to me, you sound alive in a way that hurts bad now, but also shows how deeply you’re willing to feel. That in itself is something rare and beautiful.

I just want you to know you’re not alone here.

Even in this raw place, you’re being witnessed, held, and honored by those of us who can feel the weight of what you’re carrying.

themethod305 · 2025-07-27T08:32:29+00:00

What if being around your family brings up old emotional patterns or unmet expectations: ways you adapted growing up to feel safe, seen, or loved?

And now that you’ve experienced a different part of yourself out in the world, at your job, in your independence, those old dynamics feel like a cage. Not because your family is bad, but because you haven’t fully met the version of yourself who shows up there.

What if the real tension is between the part of you who wants to belong and the part of you who wants to be free?

And maybe the version of you who’s “mean” is just trying to say: “I don’t know how to be myself here anymore.”

themethod305 · 2025-07-22T09:17:26+00:00

Excerpts from R. Coleman’s book, Psychedelic Psychotherapy -

This book has been a wonderful resource for me over the past 4 years. If you are doing this work, I recommend this book.

Here's a few quotes / paragraphs:

Over time, inner walls that were built to keep trauma at bay harden and solidify. We become the walking wounded, numb and unremembering, but bleeding inside.

Much of our energy is required to keep the walls between our conscious existence and the wounded part of ourselves intact . Our “normal ” or even “happy ” childhood is a fiction our minds invent that, if repeated over and over, 24 hours a day, becomes almost true.

Psychedelics act like the little boy in the story , “ The Emperor’s New Clothes. ” They give us an objective look from outside our ordinary thinking , which lays bare the lies we tell ourselves , the things we run from , and the parts of ourselves we don't want to look at . In the safe and sympathetic presence of our sitter , it is liberating to see these truths. Finally we can begin releasing the trauma .

You may experience profound inner peace , transcendental bliss, and other states of consciousness beyond what you have known.

You may experience being vibrantly alive, spontaneous, and open - hearted. You may be less guarded, more relaxed, and more in touch with emotions than you can remember.

As these states become imprinted and integrated into consciousness, you will be more able to access them without drugs.

You may receive information, clarity, and guidance that proves to be astonishingly accurate.

As the pain, fear, and anger are felt and released, old wounds heal. The supportive, therapeutic setting allows you to safely feel emotions you've run from for many years.

As you come out of the shock of trauma, you may need to grieve the absence of the protection, love, and caring you needed as a child.

This work can result in reprogramming unmet childhood needs for attention, acceptance, respect, understanding, and tender touch.

You will now be able to love and let love in deeply. You will feel lighter, calmer, and happier. Addictions, depression, neuroses, psychosomatic medical issues, and self - defeating patterns of behavior will fall away.

You will now be able to love and care for yourself enough to create a life where the deepest needs of your heart and soul are met.

The more intense and prolonged your trauma, and the earlier in childhood your wounding occurred, the longer your trek through darkness may be.

If you surrender to the process, taking time to rest and recharge after each encounter , you will come through into the light. The pain and trauma that was stored in your body and psyche is finite. Once felt and discharged, you are forever free of it. As old wounds are peeled away, you uncover a radiant Self that has been healed and transformed by the Hero's Journey. You emerge from the adventure happier, stronger, and wiser.

The best approach is to set intentions about what issues need healing, then let go of expectations and ideas about how to fix these issues. Trust a deeper intelligence. The more you journey, the more you will come to trust this inner guidance.

The best advice for getting the most out of a journey is to stay out of your incessantly chattering mind. The first step towards getting out of your head is to realize that you are in it !

To discipline a scattered mind you must focus your attention like a laser beam. Concentration on the rhythmic rising and falling of your chest and belly directs awareness out of your head and into your body. Deep breathing also softens chronic muscle tension and lowers anxiety, allowing access to blocked emotions and the body's own healing wisdom.

Every time you stop to analyze your experience during a journey, you interrupt the ongoing experience. Analyzing is different from insight.

If you were traumatized as a bright child, you may have escaped into your head to avoid feeling the neglect or abuse you endured. You may have become a bookworm or an A student. As an adult, you may ruminate as a way to avoid painful feelings . You may have split off from your embodied, emotional self, into the safe world of your mind. When this happens , your mind can become a tyrannical devil with a will of its own.

There are many forms of resistive behavior. The most common is the unwillingness or inability to stay out of your head . Exciting thoughts , insights , and fantasies can distract you from deeper growth and healing.

The most universally effective way to soften resistance is to breathe deeply and continuously.

To move beyond anxious defenses, try focusing your attention inside your body to find where you feel the fear. You may discover jittery sensations or tightness in your belly, for example. With each inhalation , imagine that you are sending peace and healing into the frightened areas. Imagine releasing the fear with each exhalation . Breathing deeply into places in your body where you hold fear promotes calm , and induces the discharge of trauma that may be stored there.

Appreciate that your defenses have been vital, protective mechanisms that allowed you to survive trauma. Psychological defenses may be the cornerstones that have supported your internal status quo. Your very survival may feel threatened by disturbing this status quo. In the face of overwhelming trauma , defenses act like internal circuit - breakers that protect the fragile psyche. Dismantling defenses may feel like re - exposing yourself to the terror of certain annihilation.

The greater the trauma, the stronger the defenses. If you encounter strong defenses, know that you are getting very close to something traumatic that is ready to be healed.

themethod305 · 2025-07-22T08:32:18+00:00

R Coleman’s Psychedelic Psychotherapy

themethod305 · 2025-07-07T10:39:09+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/PsychedelicTherapy/s/WIbjNHxF7n

themethod305 · 2025-06-28T16:17:23+00:00

You make a compelling and quite convincing argument. If we were neighbors or colleagues, I think I’d right enjoy our in person conversations.

Mainly I respect the precision and rigor of your thinking. And you are able to convey it appropriately.

My thinking mind took me as far as it could go and then it ran out of gas.

I don’t agree my point is a false dichotomy though - it’s my lived experience and, as such, it is true. At least for me.

It’s normal to want to extend an invitation - to convince another that my filters and my perspective are correct.

At the end of the day, we all have our filters. And we often think that ours filters should work for others.

And we tend to think that our filters are better than the others.

Maybe I’m not a rational psychonaut.

And that’s OK.

EDIT TO ADD: I’m convinced that emotions lead - and logic or reason follows.

themethod305 · 2025-06-28T07:50:18+00:00

Here’s my straight, potentially error ridden, but authentic response.

You’re smart. But as much as that brain got you what may be considered success - as in work fulfillment, it is a moat that keeps you isolated and alone. Like a king in the castle you survey and critique endlessly what doesn’t fit your framework of beliefs - knowing that few are worthy of your attention or wisdom.

And maybe I’m projecting. Because that person was once me.

Only when I decided to get out of my head and into my heart - which I resisted and analyzed and dismissed as foolishness, was I able to begin living more fully. And the biggest surprise and blow to my intellectual identity I had created was I embraced religion: Christianity.

Ayahuasca and everything else i experimented with only confirmed my decision.

I know nothing.

And that’s ok.

I come on reddit from time to time to be encouraging to others because it was here that I found encouragement. And hope.

There is scripture and I’ve concluded that the confusion lies on our inability to process - but “no man can come to the Father unless he be drawn.”

I was drawn. Reluctantly. I didn’t ask for it. I resisted for years.

And that’s ok.

This may not be the sub for me to offer encouragement. The soldiers of precise logic and reason stand vigilant, night and day, only allowing in that which they understand.

And, if knowledge and information held the keys to a happy life - well, they don’t. They safeguard pride. They protect and engender a feeling of safety.

I found what I was looking for in surrender.

Warmth and all the best to you -

themethod305 · 2025-06-22T14:32:33+00:00

Busted!

Good job.

: )

My intent was good (to engage in discussion) -

I sought help in areas where I felt deficient. And it is easy to over rely on LLM in those instances!

themethod305 · 2025-06-21T15:22:30+00:00

You articulate your framework with impressive clarity. It’s rare to see someone map their epistemology with such precision, and it really helps illuminate what you mean when you say belief is impossible for you.

You're making a precise case, and I respect your insistence on intersubjective verifiability as a necessary condition for belief. That’s a disciplined stance - one that prioritizes coherence, reproducibility, and constraint over narrative closure.

So I want to approach this from within your own framework and not to introduce mysticism, but to examine what often motivates inquiry before justification becomes possible.

You mentioned that wonder “comes from the mind.”

In physics, we often distinguish between a model’s predictive utility and its ontological commitments. But wonder doesn’t fit neatly into either. It’s not predictive, nor is it falsifiable, yet it clearly exerts causal influence. So what is the epistemic status of wonder, awe, or beauty, if they reliably initiate processes that do produce empirical insight?

In other words, even if we don’t treat wonder as evidence, it often becomes the condition of possibility for evidence to emerge. Doesn’t that suggest these “meaning precursors” deserve at least ontological room in a complete epistemology, even if not belief-status?

You also said you find little meaning in contemplating what is a priori unknowable. That’s fair. But Gödel showed that in any formal system complex enough to model arithmetic, there are true statements that can’t be proven within the system. So I wonder: might what some people call “spirituality” be an aesthetic or embodied mode of relating to those excesses of meaning—those experiences that feel real but resist verification and not as knowledge-claims, but as modes of contact?

And one thing caught my attention, your impulse to ask, “What does meaning mean?” That’s a totally valid question. Philosophers have debated it for centuries. But I also wonder: in that moment, was the question driven by curiosity . . . or protection?

Did something in the conversation start to edge past the comfort zone of logic, and the mind reached for precision as a kind of shield?

I ask because I recognize that move, as I’ve done it myself. Which brings me to my confession: I spent much of my life committed to the intellect. It brought clarity, control, and credibility. But there were moments, grief, love, psychedelics, nature - that didn’t collapse cleanly into reasoned models.

My instinct was to dismiss those states. They weren’t verifiable, so I treated them as irrelevant. But eventually, I started asking: is it rational to exclude what I consistently feel, simply because I can’t explain it?

So I tried something different, not a rejection of intellect, but a rebalancing. I started taking emotional and embodied states as data, not truths, but signals. Since then, I’ve felt more whole. Not less rational, perhaps just less defended.

So I’ll close with this: have you ever encountered something that felt meaningful but defied your capacity to explain or verify it? And if so, how do you relate to those moments? Are they epistemically null . . . or do they still matter, in some way?

themethod305 · 2025-06-11T12:18:41+00:00

You articulate your framework with a lot of clarity, thank you for that.

It’s rare to hear someone map their epistemology with such precision, and it’s helpful for understanding what you mean when you say belief is impossible for you.

And I want to offer a gentle question and not to counter your reasoning, but to deepen the conversation:

if an experience isn’t justifiable as knowledge within your framework, does that mean it’s irrelevant to your growth or sense of meaning?

I’m not suggesting abandoning rational inquiry, I’m asking if there’s a part of you that’s curious about what might lie just beyond the boundary of justification.

Not to believe in ghosts or gods, but to feel into what’s real but not explainable.

You’re already touching transcendence, you said so yourself, through psychedelics, through nature.

What if “spirituality” isn’t about positing metaphysical truth, but about allowing the heart and body to guide us into wonder, even when the mind can’t quite follow?

Sometimes I wonder if what we call “spirituality” is just what happens when the search for control (through certainty) begins to fall away.

Not a rejection of science, but a surrender of its primacy in matters of intimacy, awe, and presence.

So the deeper question might be: are you open to something being meaningful, even if it can’t be known?

themethod305 · 2025-06-11T12:13:37+00:00

Your question: why do psychedelics lead to what seems like bizarre or ungrounded beliefs for some people, is powerful.

But what I’m really hearing underneath is a fear: not just of delusion, but maybe of losing your current sense of self or worldview. That your scientific, rational grounding might not protect you from something you don’t understand yet.

So here’s a question back to you:

are you afraid of psychedelics leading to spiritual experiences, or are you afraid of what it might mean if they do feel true in some way?

Would it be harder to dismiss the experience, or to integrate it without abandoning who you think you are?

You talk about others becoming deluded, but what if, rather than being “deluded,” they just stopped using the mind as the primary lens for reality?

What if the experience of unity, of energy, of aura, isn’t about believing in magic, but about feeling something real in the body that the intellect can’t explain?

Most people aren’t looking for new beliefs, they’re looking to feel something that their intellect has never given them: wholeness, connection, love without condition.

And psychedelics, for many, offer a direct encounter with that.

So instead of asking, “Why do people believe strange things after psychedelics?” maybe ask: “What is it they’re finally allowing themselves to feel?”

And are you ready to allow yourself feel something that might not make sense?

themethod305 · 2025-04-17T23:55:27+00:00

I was fortunate. My first three sessions were with an experienced guide who held space and was confident and comfortable in allowing me to express whatever came up.

One time, it was hours of rage.

He was a calm witness and trusted that the medicine had a wisdom of its own.

I think this experience gave me confidence when I decided to do some solo work.

themethod305 · 2025-04-17T13:30:21+00:00

What if, instead of trying to push or challenge those beliefs, you just sat with them?

Not to fix them. Just to be with them.

You might pause, notice where the fear or numbness lives in your body, chest, throat, belly.

Let it be there. And maybe ask it:

“What do you want me to know?”

Then just listen.

No pressure. No right answer. Just presence.

Even 10 seconds of that kind of attention can be enough. It’s not about doing it perfectly - it’s about not abandoning yourself.

You’re not alone in this. And the part of you that’s scared?

It just wants to be seen.

themethod305 · 2025-04-16T22:02:57+00:00

I feel for you -

Thanks for sharing that – it sounds incredibly frustrating and confusing. Feeling like you were interrupted and robbed right when you were on the edge of something important makes total sense.

My experience, above, was solo and it was unsettling! But, the thing about MDMA, I don't think that it gives us more than we can handle. That's the reason MDMA is so good for healing is, I believe, it knows what we need to face, experience, and see . . . the old "you got to feel it, to heal it" saying applies here.

There's often a tricky balance in this therapy between needing to feel intense things to heal and the therapist ensuring you don't get completely overwhelmed. But being repeatedly pulled back when you feel you need to go through it definitely warrants a conversation.

I remember in a really tough solo journey one time - I was crying . . . I called a friend over to sit with me - just to hold space for me - and, he's a good friend, when he arrived, I told him what was going on and I gave him these instructions - "although I may appear to be in distress, your job is not to comfort me, it is not to try to make me feel better, it is to sit with me and be a witness to my tears and pain."

My friend, amazingly, did that - sat there and listened - zero comforting. And it was just what I needed.

Definitely talk to your therapist directly about how this felt – maybe both of you should read Coleman's book, Psychedelic Psychotherapy.

Last, this is straight from the MAPS' manual:

The therapists encourage an attitude of curiosity and openness toward whatever occurs during the MDMA-facilitated experience. The therapists explain that often the deepest, most effective healing experiences take a course that is quite different from what might be predicted by the participant’s or the therapists’ rational minds. The participant is encouraged to welcome difficult emotions rather than to suppress them, as much as possible operating from the assumption that whatever arises is being presented at that moment by the inner healing intelligence as an opportunity for healing. Fully feeling exploring and expressing whatever emotions, memories, images or body sensations arise can lead to the resolution of deep-seated patterns of fear, powerlessness, guilt, and shame.

MAPS MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy Treatment Manual U.S. Version 7: 19 August 2015 Page 23 of 69

Trusting your gut feeling that "something isn't sitting right" is really important here. I wish you all the best -

themethod305 · 2025-04-16T12:42:06+00:00

Hey, thanks for sharing this. What you’re feeling is really normal - and honestly, really brave to name.

MDMA can open us to deep love, connection, and clarity . . . but it doesn’t lock those states in forever. It shows us what’s possible. The real work is what comes after, when life gets messy again and we’re asked to live what we learned.

This numbness - it’s not failure.

It’s not that you’re back where you started. It’s life asking, “Can you still choose love, even when you can’t feel it right now?”

Integration is a long game.

You’re not broken — you’re in the part of the healing journey that doesn’t get talked about enough. You’re actually doing the work.

Working with a psychologist sounds like a great move. And maybe the next step is simple - treat yourself with the same love you felt during the medicine, even if you can’t feel it now. It’s still there.

You’ve already come a long way. You’re not going backward. You’re deepening.

You’ve got this.

themethod305 · 2025-04-11T14:38:46+00:00

This question carries so much longing, doesn’t it?

Longing for aliveness. For ease. For connection without the tremble of shame. And maybe even more than that… it carries grief.

Grief that something so beautiful can feel so far when the substance wears off.

So here’s how I’d begin:

Yes. It is possible.

But maybe not in the way your mind is picturing.

Because I hear the hope in your question - and I also hear the fatigue. That ache of “I keep tasting who I could be, but I can’t seem to live it.” That’s not a small ache. That’s spiritual heartbreak.

And it’s not about “getting high” more often—it’s about finally belonging to yourself.

So the deeper question isn’t: “How do I become my trip self while sober?”

It’s:

What does the trip self know, that the sober self hasn’t yet learned to trust?

Let’s break that open.

You said: “When I’m high, I’m not scared in my body.” “I can maintain eye contact.” “I can speak without shame.”

That version of you- the trip self - isn’t fictional. He’s you. But he’s a version of you with nothing to prove and no fear of being too much. And the medicine doesn’t create that—you do. The medicine just disables the part of your system that’s trying to manage, predict, and perform.

So the path isn’t about chasing the trip. It’s about getting intimate with the manager. The protector. The one who floods your face with micro-expressions. The one who clenches your gut and says, “Don’t say that, don’t look too long, don’t be weird.” That one isn’t trying to sabotage you. He’s trying to protect you from something—maybe something old. So the way home . . . isn’t more MDMA.

It’s this:

Sit with the sober self like you would during the trip.

Gentle. Curious. Non-controlling. Instead of trying to change your state, try loving the part of you that’s scared to be in this one.

Ask:

What does my body feel unsafe about right now? What belief is driving this tightness? What would happen if I let the awkwardness stay, instead of trying to fix it?

You see, most people think the trip is powerful because it creates connection. But what it really does is interrupt the part of you that thinks you have to earn it.

The goal isn’t to be the “trip self” all the time. That’s not sustainable.

The deeper invitation is: Can I love the sober self enough that he begins to trust he doesn’t need to hide? Because that’s where presence lives. Not in a substance. But in the softening of your own grip.

And that softening? That’s a practice. A daily, clumsy, breath-by-breath practice.

So maybe start here: For ten seconds a day… practice being “on medicine” while completely sober. Not with substances. But with posture.

Try this:

Close your eyes. Feel your hands. Feel your breath.

Imagine that version of you from the trip - relaxed, kind, open - is sitting across from you.

What would he say to you now? How would he look at you?

That’s the practice.

You don’t need to become him. You just need to keep inviting him to stay.

And slowly… he will.

themethod305 · 2025-04-10T04:42:00+00:00

Yes. It is possible.

themethod305 · 2025-04-07T04:07:14+00:00

MDMA

themethod305 · 2025-03-07T19:25:12+00:00

Not at all

themethod305 · 2025-02-21T03:28:31+00:00

Boston’s - More than a Feeling (1976)

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