Why I Now Teach Only IFS-Informed Yoga, Breathwork, and Coaching

About a year ago, when I was just starting my Internal Family Systems (IFS) training, I went into the mountains in Chamonix with my partner and our then two-year-old daughter. We had hiked up to a mountain hut somewhere around 2,500 meters altitude and had just arrived when I noticed a woman lying on the floor near the bathrooms.

A small group of people had gathered around her. They were speaking loudly, giving instructions, clearly trying to help, but the situation felt chaotic and dysregulated. There was also a hiking guide present, though it didn’t seem like anyone really had control over what was happening.

At that point in my life, my main area of expertise was breathwork. I had spent years studying the science of breathing and had written a long audio course on the science and practice of breathwork. I taught large breathwork classes online and offline, worked extensively with stress physiology, and knew what hyperventilation looked like almost immediately. So I stepped in.

I asked if it was okay if I helped, sat down in front of her, held her hands, looked her in the eyes, and started slowing down my own breathing so she could co-regulate with me.

“Hey, what’s your name? I’m Inge. I’m going to breathe with you. You’re safe. Stay with me.”

And slowly, her breathing started regulating. Her heart rate came down. Her body softened.

But then something interesting happened. Every single time her physiology started calming down, a voice would suddenly take over again:

“But my asthma…”

“It’s my blood pressure…”

“If it gets too high it’s dangerous…”

And immediately, her breathing would spike again. We went through this cycle about five times.

At the time, I was trying to calm that voice down rationally. I was explaining to her that her breathing was stabilizing, that the event was mainly triggered by the hyperventilation itself, that I would stay with her, that I understood her asthma and that we had things under control, but that voice kept persisting.

So afterwards, while reflecting on the situation through the lens of Internal Family Systems, I realised something important: I was talking to a terrified protective part that felt emotionally stuck in a past experience. And instead of relating to that part with curiosity and compassion, I was arguing with it, trying to make it see with reason, even if I did that in the kindest way possible, that it “should just relax.”

But what I should have done was lean in. Ask:

“What are you afraid would happen?”

“What have you experienced before?”

“What are you trying to protect?”

Because that voice wasn’t irrational. It likely carried the memory of previous frightening asthmatic experiences. It had learned that breathing problems can be dangerous. It had very good reasons to stay hyper-alert. It was trying to protect her. And it needed to be heard, not reasoned with.

And this, for me, captures exactly why I now teach only IFS-informed yoga, breathwork, and coaching. Because that moment taught me something profound:

A stress response is never just physiological, nor is it ever just cognitive. It is deeply layered and emotional

Stress lives simultaneously in the body, the nervous system, emotions, identity, memory, beliefs, relationships, and protective survival strategies. And if we only address one layer (physiology or cognition), the system often pulls itself right back into activation.

So What Actually Is IFS?

IFS, or Internal Family Systems, is a form of psychotherapy developed by Richard Schwartz that views the mind not as one single stable personality, but as a system of different inner parts that all developed to help us survive life in some way. Other therapeutic modalities describe similar processes in different language. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy would probably call these learned behavioral patterns or coping strategies, Schema Therapy, speaks about schemas, psychodynamic traditions call these defense mechanisms. IFS simply approaches these patterns more relationally and compassionately.

Most people already intuitively recognize this experience. One part of you wants to rest, while another part wants to keep working. One part feels confident, another insecure. One part wants connection, while another wants to withdraw and binge watch your favorite series. All of them are You, but You may just want different things.

According to IFS, these parts are adaptive responses that developed in interaction with our environment and experiences, and the more stressful those experiences were, the more extreme those adaptive responses are.

Some parts try to proactively keep life safe and under control through planning, perfectionism, pleasing, overworking, or constantly anticipating what could go wrong. IFS calls these protective parts “managers.” Chronically stressed people often have very active managers. I have parts like Perfectionism, the Drill Sergeant, the Problem Solver, The Analyst. They have a purpose and they serve me well, but when they get to run the show, the consequence is that I don’t sleep.

Other parts try to regulate overwhelm more reactively through distraction, numbing, impulsive behavior, binge eating, doomscrolling, shutting down, or addiction. These reactive protectors are called “firefighters” or “distracters” because their aim is to take you away from negative experiences ASAP, and they can be pretty direct and intrusive in their means to make you not feel the thing.

Firefighters don’t really care how their behavior will hurt others, or jeopardize your future goals, they have one job: put the fire out immediately. I cll one of my firefighters the Rebel, it comes up when the Perfectionist and the Drill Sergeant have run the show, and it is allergic to rules and just want to make sure I have a good time.

Underneath managers and firefighters are usually more vulnerable parts carrying overwhelming and hopeless feelings like fear of abandonment, shame, or loneliness. IFS calls these “exiles” because they are pushed away and overridden by our managers and firefighters so we will never have to feel them again.

And then there is what IFS calls Self, that is similar to things like Observing Self, Mindful Awareness, atman, or non judgmental awareness from traditions and therapies like buddhism, yoga, Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, and Jungian Psychology. Self is a calmer, more compassionate, curious, grounded state of awareness that can begin relating to all these parts differently, not by suppressing or fighting them, but by listening to them.

And honestly, that last part is what changed everything for me.

The Missing Piece in Yoga, Breathwork, and Stress Recovery

I want to be very careful how I say this, because psychological science, yoga, meditation, and breathwork have profoundly changed my life. I would not be doing this work without them and all of them have an essential role to play in stress reduction and trauma work.

My PhD in psychology taught me all about how behavior, cognition, and emotion interact. Yoga introduced me to embodiment, to coming home to my body, and the philosophy of non-judgment. Meditation and buddhism introduced me to mindful awareness and compassion. Breathwork helped me to regulate my nervous system and how to use my body to induce or reduce stress. And all of these recognize and acknowledge the multi-layeredness of us as humans, and point out the importance of non-judgment and compassion.

But IFS was the first framework that showed me how to actually practice inner compassion. How to actively relate to the parts of ourselves that we want to ignore, push away, are most afraid or ashamed of, and to whom we need to listen, in order to accept ourselves fully.

And honestly, I think this is something still missing in large parts of the yoga and wellness world. Because wellness has become a thing to strive for. And in not recognizing the striving in it, and how that striving takes us away from precisely the thing we are looking for, we miss the entire point. And even though these traditions always mention this: that actually it is the striving (also for enlightenment or relaxation) that needs to be let go of, it is really difficult to find a practice that actually helps you with that in real life.

Many contemplative traditions point toward compassion, spacious awareness, loving presence, and non-reactivity. Tara Brach often describes compassion as the movement from self-judgment toward Radical Acceptance: learning to stop being at war with ourselves. In Tara Brachs' books and teachings, Radical acceptance also means accepting our unwellness. Our non-productivity. Our inability to relax. So its in there. But it seems to be saved for those who will spend yearly 10 day retreats in solitude, and meditate for hours on end.

And yet, in practice, many people who are fit and healthy on the outside still remain deeply adversarial toward themselves. I see this constantly in high-performing, thoughtful, ambitious people who are stressed and on the verge of burnout. Meditation, breathwork, or yoga becomes ‘a fix’, to help us relax, instead of a practice of radical acceptance, which is how it was originally designed. We can do the perfect handstand or breathe ourselves out of difficult situations, while still being unable to sit with our deepest fears. And that is, I think, because they are missing a 'hands-on practice' that actually helps them to do something, rather than just analyse it or sit with it.

And I think I can allow myself to say that (without judgment) because I am one of those people. I see my patterns clearly and have seen them for a long time. But I needed IFS to accept and work with them in the midst of the storm. Because it is when you are in the deepest shit, that you truly meet yourself. So I learned that even though I teach all these practices to be less stressed and help people regulate themselves, I still had some serious self-acceptance to do.

What IFS Actually Does Differently

The reason IFS resonated with me so deeply is that it was the first therapeutic framework that described the human mind the way I had already been observing it for years in myself. And when I was introduced to it, it just clicked. Think about it. Do you really experience yourself as one stable personality, always wanting, doing, and feeling the same thing?

One moment you may genuinely want rest, spaciousness, simplicity, slower living. And then an hour later, another part of you is on your phone at 22.00 (10 pm), planning a new project, worrying about money, scanning for what might go wrong, or criticizing yourself for not doing enough. Even though these are seemingly opposing wishes, feelings, and strategies, they happen in the same body. Why?

What I find beautiful about IFS is that it does not pathologize these responses. Just like the voice of the woman on the mountain made total sense from her point of view, so do the parts that are trying to protect us from failure, abandonment, collapse, punishment, shame, hopelessness, or heartbreak.

So instead of trying to treat someone who is anxious by diagnosing them with generalized anxiety disorder and thinking of ways to get rid of the anxiety, in IFS we lean in. We get curious.

IFS asks:

“What is this anxiety trying to do for you?”

Instead of:

“How do I stop overthinking?”

it asks:

“What is this anxious part afraid would happen if it stopped?”

And very often, underneath the behaviors we so dislike about ourselves, there is actually a deeply protective logic. The perfectionistic part is often trying to prevent rejection. The problem solver is trying to create safety. The numbing part is trying to keep overwhelm manageable.

What IFS does differently, in my experience, is that it fundamentally changes the relationship to these parts. Instead of treating them as obstacles, irrational symptoms, or weaknesses to overcome, it approaches them with curiosity and compassion.

Not: “How do I understand this pattern in order to get rid of this” (conventional therapy)

Not: “How do I just observe this thought and let it pass?” (conventional meditation)

But: “What is this part trying to do for me?”, “how is this part feeling?” “What happened that made this necessary?”, “What is this part afraid would happen if it stopped?”

And this is where I think IFS operationalizes curiosity and compassion in an incredibly practical way. Because compassion suddenly stops being an abstract spiritual idea, and becomes an intervention that is deeply practical, relational, and personal.

Why Compassion and Connection Matter in IFS (and Healing).

Humans evolved as profoundly social beings. Our survival always depended on whether we were accepted, protected, and connected to others. So of course the nervous system responds differently when it feels held in connection rather than isolated in threat.

I have to be careful here, because research on IFS is still scarce, and as a psychological scientist, I want to be very careful not to position a model of the human mind as “the truth.” So I see this model of the mind more as a practical tool that I see work in myself and in others, than an absolute truth of how the mind is organized. Whether IFS is literally true as a model of mind, and is applicable for everyone, still requires much more research.

But clinically and practically, I find it incredibly useful because many people intuitively recognize themselves in it almost immediately.

As a social psychologist, it makes intuitive sense to me that the mind may organize itself relationally. Our brains developed in deeply social environments, so it is perhaps not surprising that many people naturally experience inner life through relationships between different parts of themselves.

And the way I see it, if those relationships are dominated by criticism, suppression, shame, fear, or constant self-improvement, the system often remains chronically dysregulated, even if you meditate, exercise, or do breathwork every day.

It is social connection, with others and within ourselves, that is missing from much of the self-help conversation.

Why I Use IFS in Yoga, Breathwork, and Coaching

At the same time, I also think something important is missing in many cognitive approaches to therapy, and in the way therapy often is done: very intellectually dominant.

You go to therapy, you gain insight into your patterns, and then somehow the assumption is that with enough awareness, you should now be able to change. But that’s not really how it works.

Our stress becomes an unconscious automated signature in how we move, breathe, speak, feel, think, and behave.

This is one of the reasons why the work of Bessel van der Kolk resonated with so many people. The body keeps score. Not metaphorically, but literally. The nervous system learns. And after enough repeated stress or overwhelm, many reactions stop being conscious choices and start becoming automatic survival patterns.

For many chronically stressed people, their entire system is organized around anticipation and survival. And honestly, I increasingly think this is where yoga, breathwork, somatic work, and IFS fit together incredibly naturally.

Because even though people may think of IFS as “talk therapy,” it actually has a very embodied side to it. When you work with parts, you are constantly tracking the body. Where do I feel this part? What sensations are attached to it? Tightness in the chest? A collapsed feeling in the stomach? Heat? Restlessness? An impulse to move away? To hide? To run?

Very often, parts have distinct physiological signatures that help us intuitively connect with them without words. And over the years, there has been an entire somatic stream emerging within IFS itself, because many practitioners noticed the same thing trauma researchers and body-oriented therapists have been saying for decades: we need to work with the body in order to resolve stress and trauma, and cognition alone is often not enough, but working only physically is also not enough. We need emotional, cognitive, and physical integration.

And this was exactly what I witnessed in Chamonix.

Breathwork helped me regulate the woman’s physiology. Slowing down the breathing changed her nervous system response in real time. Co-regulation, feeling another calm nervous system in front of her, also mattered. Eye contact mattered. Physical connection mattered.

But every time her body started calming down, the fearful protective part came back online again and pulled the entire system back into activation. And that moment changed how I look at healing. And since I have applied this in my practice, I now all of a sudden am able to help people do breathwork where they were previously stuck. Instead of just heplping them breathe through explaining mechanics and doing exercises, I use IFS when I see certain parts of their body seem to be stuck. And it has created so much space in so many people.

This experience in Chamonix made me realize that stress responses are never just physiological, and often also don’t make sense “in real time.” You cannot reason someone out of a stress response, or teach them the mechanics of breathing and expect them to relax.

What you need is a practice that helps someone release the feeling of being emotionally stuck in the stressful experience that is almost like a flashback to a past trauma. And that practice is learning how to hold yourself with compassion, calm, and understanding while you move through the experience emotionally, physically, and mentally.

Therapies like EMDR also aim to do that, through desensitization. But what I personally love about IFS is how teachable and immediately applicable it is in daily life. It empowers people through teaching them how to apply this themselves so they can apply it in real life stress situations.

Why IFS Feels Like the Missing Link

For me personally, IFS was the first framework where psychology, neuroscience, yoga, Buddhism, embodiment, stress physiology, and compassion all suddenly clicked together. It was the first framework that integrated compassion as a relational practice that was deeply personal. Because in IFS, you actually have a compassionate conversation with your own parts.

We need approaches that help us understand but also reprogram the whole inner system. And we need approaches that are compassionate enough to hold the complexity of being human without immediately trying to simplify, optimize, fix, diagnose, or pathologize it.

Most people who are chronically stressed or burned out have spent years trying to improve themselves, regulate themselves, discipline themselves, heal themselves, optimize themselves.

And paradoxically, sometimes the nervous system softens most not when we finally control ourselves perfectly, but when we stop relating to ourselves like a problem to solve. Healing (as much as that word makes my ‘sceptic scientist part’ go ‘ICK’), is about radical acceptance of all our parts, however imperfect they may initially seem.

With love,

Inge