How to Share After a Demo

After each demo, I invite everyone to first share how the work resonated with or inspired you.

Rather than analyzing the session or asking technique questions immediately, let's first stay connected to the emotional experience we just witnessed. After we've had time to share from our hearts, we'll switch into learning mode and make space for burning questions.

I've learned over many years of attending IFS workshops that it helps to keep emotional processing separate from learning and technique discussions. When we move too quickly into technique questions, the emotional openness of the room changes. It becomes harder for people to stay connected to the vulnerable experience they just witnessed. By sharing from our hearts first, we help create a space where deeper healing can happen before we shift into learning mode.

It also feels more caring to receive someone's vulnerable inner work before we begin discussing technique. When someone has just shared a tender part of themselves, simply witnessing them—and sharing what resonated in us or what the work awakened in us—helps preserve the safety of that moment. Rather than evaluating or analyzing the demo, we honor it by allowing ourselves to be touched by it.

Being witnessed while doing even ten or twenty minutes of inner work can be profoundly healing when it's held in a safe container. Creating that kind of safety is one of my highest priorities, and this simple practice helps us protect it.