Welcome you to the audio guided
meditations that accompany the book,
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DISCLAIMER: These guided meditations are not intended to replace therapy with a licensed professional. They are only recommended for those high-level spiritual practitioners or folks very familiar with Internal Family Systems parts work, or under the direction of an IFS therapist or IFS practitioner. If you feel unsafe in any way or have distressing memories overwhelming you, please stop the meditation and take care of yourself. If you feel you are at risk of harming your self or someone else please call or text 988. You may need to find a therapist who can support your growth in a way that feels safe to your inner system. IFS therapists can be found at https://ifs-institute.com/practitioners and general practice therapists can be found at psychologytoday.com. You can always skip the audio meditations and return to a less intense level of engagement like a level one or two described below, when you feel ready to engage your inner parts and a place where you feel supported, comfortable and safe. If you are flooded with emotion it is difficult to make spiritual or psychological progress. If you have overwhelming emotions of physical reactions take care of yourself by disengaging from the content, give yourself space, remind yourself it is normal to react to intense material, ground your attention in pleasant present moment sights, sounds, smells, etc, and think about safe, comforting memories.
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Guide and Cautions for Levels of Engagement
While this is not intended to replace mental health therapy, these images, themes and narratives can be evocative and distressing with stories involving suicide, self harm, and abuse. Rouault intended to connect with the deepest levels of human experience. Some readers may come to this book with some level of trauma history. The higher the level of trauma history the more caution is advised, including working with an IFS therapist and gauging the level of intensity for engagement with the work. It is important to find your window of tolerance, enough emotional engagement but not overwhelming emotional engagement. Rouault's images and themes are intended to get us in touch with parts of us that are often underground and overlooked. For spiritual and psychological growth some people need increased intensity to get in touch with disowned parts of themselves. Others get flooded easily with intense emotion and need lower intensity in order to get the growth and healing needed. Please honor your inner system and your needs for safety and stretching appropriate to your current growth. In other words, ask yourself, where is that level of emotional intensity that is enough in order to learn and grow and where is it not so overwhelming to the point of shutting down of feeling flooded. There are at least three levels of intensity you may engage this book. I ask you to engage in at the level that is right for you.
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Lowest level of intensity - simply spend time with the images reading each chapter and skipping the meditation at the end of the chapter.
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Medium Intensity - spend time with the image, read the text, and journal around the written guided meditations.
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High Intensity - spend time with the text, and listen to the audio guided meditations pausing as you go to do your inner work. (this is only recommended for those high-level spiritual practitioners or folks very familiar with Internal Family Systems parts work, or under the direction of an IFS therapist or IFS practitioner)
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For the best results, find a safe, comfortable and quiet space to go through each meditation. Some space is left within the meditations, however, you are encouraged to pause the recording anytime you are connecting with and doing work with a part. Try not to hurry through the meditations. If there are prompts that do not apply to you, just notice what is coming up for you and work with that. instead. It is reasonable to expect that by adding time paused you may spend 30 minutes with one meditation though the recordings are not nearly that long. Best wishes in your inner explorations. May you take steps forward in your healing journey!
