In this article I am going to describe the meditations included in the collection called “Meditations for Self” by Richard C. Schwartz. You can download these meditations from this link; if you would like to listen to free material, I am also going to include YouTube links to other meditations by Dick Schwartz.

I have used these meditations (some more than others) for a while now, and they are so rich that I hoped someone had told me about them when I started IFS. Like many of these collections of meditations, the “product description” in the website did not really tell me how beautiful and powerful these recordings are. It is also a plus that is it Dick Schwartz himself speaking in the recoding.

There are 7 meditations in total, with the first track being an introduction. Here I am going to give you an explanation of the content of these meditations.

1) Meditation

A better title would have been, perhaps, “trailheads”, which is one of those terms I had never heard before joining the IFS community. The beauty of this meditation is that it is an excellent tool for beginners to become familiar with their parts.
A trailhead is something in or around your body that does not feel like you. The meditation guides you step by step to “extend a loving hand” to a part of you and let it know they they are not alone. The result is a sense of spaciousness in your body. If you like this meditation, there is another one (called “embodiment” - see below) that expands on this even further.

This is a similar meditation on YouTube. I recommend it to get familiar with the idea of “target part” and “stepping back”.

2) The path meditation

This is one of the most original meditations by Dick Schwartz, and the most spiritual of all. The instructions invite you to let your Self go on a path after having asked permission to your parts to be left alone for a little while.
The meditation gives you the option of either staying with parts if they don’t let you Self go on a path, or to ask some parts of you that feel confident to stay behind and look after the parts that are scared.
This is a masterpiece meditation in which you will have a sense of how much (or how little) your parts trust Self to go on a path unassisted by parts for a little while.
By doing this IFS meditation for Self, you will also start to appreciate how almost all that we experience is a part, and that Self is a state of pure flowing awareness.

This meditation has a 36min version on YouTube. Here it is

3) Heart

This is my favourite of all because I generally feel my parts in my body and this IFS meditation is the most beautiful and elegant description of the various layer of physical sensations that we can feel around our heart.
You can do this meditation either by focussing on your physical heart or on your energetic heart (chakra).
Dick Schwartz’s words will guide you through getting to know the “state of your heart” at a physical level using a rich and detail vocabulary of all the body sensations we can possibly feel in our heart.
In addition, you will get to know what protectors are located in your heart area and what keeps your heart closed.

4) One part

In this IFS meditation Dick Schwartz keeps it simple: he guides you to connect to a part you want to get to know better.
This is the classic IFS techniques that helps you identify a target part, notice if other parts are getting in the way of you connecting to the target part, asking these parts to step aside, and connect to the target part.
Doing IFS without guidance can be difficult. If you are struggling to connect to a part, or if you simply want to get familiar with how IFS works, this is the meditation for you.

Here are the YouTube links to variations of this meditation.

5) Fire Drill

Is there someone who really gets on your nerves? If you want to get to know the parts of you that get triggered when you think of this person, Dick Schwartz will guide you through this simple exercise in which you imagine the person that triggers you in a room, and you get to know the parts of you that react to that person from outside of the room.
After you get to know these reactive parts, you will be invited to ask them permission to enter the room without these parts and see how it feels to connect to that person without being reactive.

6) Embodiment

We are back to trailheads, which are “manifestations of parts that are present in the body”. Richard Schwartz
invites you to a quick scan of body and mind to see what is there. The goal this time is not to get to know the part, but to get the part know that it is not alone, and that you (as Self) are there with it. You will notice that, when the part feels some form of love and curiosity, there will be a more space in your body and mind.

7) Courage

Look back in your life for when you were courageous. Imagine that version of you and reconnect to that courageous you to see if your parts can let you embody the quality of courage that you embodied in the past, even if circumstances are different now. After checking for parts that are resistant, Dick Schwartz will invite you to step into that courageous version of you and bring that state to the present as much as possible.

Other meditations and useful videos

I am going to keep on adding other meditations and clips by Dick Schwartz here. Please contact me if you know of other meditations so that I can add them.

The meditation below is a very little demonstration that Dick Schwartz does on stage while helping the presenter get in touch with a critical part. This is more of an explanation of the model than a meditation, but it gives a very good and light-hearted explanation of the IFS model.

Final thoughts

Whether you are an experienced meditator, an IFS practitioner or an IFS client, I strongly recommend having these meditations available. You can use as daily practice, or you can use them when you want to get to know specific parts of you.