This episode explores Internal Family Systems (IFS) as a gentle and sustainable way to create change over time. Sara Avant Stover is joined by IFS practitioner Michelle Glass to discuss daily parts meditation, long-term healing, and staying connected with inner work between sessions. The conversation weaves together personal experience, clinical insight, and spiritual reflection. It is especially relevant for those seeking a compassionate approach to healing trauma and building self-trust.
In this episode, we explore:
- What makes IFS a gentle yet powerful approach to healing
- How daily parts meditation supports integration between therapy sessions
- Michelle Glass’s personal journey healing complex trauma with IFS
- The role of unburdened parts and ongoing relationship with them
- How embodiment, spirituality, and nervous system safety intersect in IFS
Key takeaways
- Change happens through consistent, compassionate relationship with inner parts
- Staying connected with parts between sessions builds trust and self-leadership
- Unburdened parts continue to need relationship and acknowledgment
- IFS can function as both a therapeutic model and a daily way of life
- Gentle practices often create the most sustainable long-term change
Resources mentioned
- Michelle Glass
- Free Guide: 7 Hidden Ways Your Unresolved Wounds Are Sabotaging Your Business
Episode FAQs
What makes this approach to change “gentle”?
IFS focuses on curiosity and relationship rather than force or correction. Change emerges as parts feel safe, seen, and supported over time.
Do I need to be in therapy to work with parts daily?
While therapy can be supportive, daily parts practices can be done independently. These practices help maintain connection, awareness, and integration between sessions.
What is a daily parts meditation practice?
It is a regular check-in with inner parts that supports unblending, embodiment, and relationship. The goal is connection rather than fixing or forcing change.
How does IFS relate to spirituality in this episode?
IFS is presented as compatible with spiritual perspectives while remaining accessible to those who are not spiritually oriented. Spirituality is described as something that can naturally emerge through healing.
Who is this episode most helpful for?
This conversation is especially helpful for people engaged in long-term healing work, those working with trauma, and anyone seeking a steady, non-overwhelming approach to personal change.
Read the Full Transcript
Internal Family Systems, or IFS, has become a central part of my life and work over the past several years. It is both an evidence-based therapeutic model and, for many people, a way of living that supports self-leadership rather than fear-based decision-making.
In today’s episode, I’m joined by Michelle Glass, a certified Level 3 IFS practitioner with nearly two decades of experience. Michelle shares her personal journey of healing childhood abuse and complex PTSD through IFS, as well as how this work evolved into her book, Daily Parts Meditation Practice.
Michelle describes IFS as a gentle way of deeply getting to know ourselves. Rather than forcing change, it invites curiosity and relationship with the parts of us that hold pain, protection, and survival strategies. Over time, this process creates space for self-energy to lead.
She explains the core IFS concepts of parts and self, including exiles that carry pain, protectors that manage or extinguish distress, and self as the steady, undamaged presence within. Healing happens as parts unburden and begin to trust self-leadership.
Michelle reflects on how daily connection with parts outside of therapy sessions supports trust, embodiment, and integration. Regular check-ins help parts feel remembered and reduce blending, allowing self to take up more space in the system.
The conversation also explores unburdened parts and the importance of maintaining relationship with them. These parts continue to offer qualities and strengths, and staying connected helps integrate healing into everyday life.
Michelle leads a guided parts meditation, offering listeners a direct experience of connecting with inner parts from self-energy. The practice emphasizes presence, listening, and relationship rather than effort or correction.
The episode closes with reflections on healing as a long-term, relational process. Change, in this framework, is not about pushing or fixing, but about building trust with the inner system and allowing transformation to unfold gently over time.
