Insight Practices
An invitation to peer in so that we may more keenly peer out.
Modern meditative practices have existed for millennia. The earliest written mention of meditation can be found in the Hindu Vedas, from around 1500BCE. However, humans have been using meditation and other insight / awareness practices long before writing was invented. Prehistoric cave paintings depict figures in meditative postures, and indigenous cultures have been practicing vision quests, journeying and nature-based spiritual attunement for most of human history. Contemplative practices such as these are numerous and pervasive, and predate organized religion. Our ancestors have long turned to the timeless techniques of focused awareness as a trusted method for navigating landscapes both within and beyond—building a bridge between inner experience, the rhythms of the natural world, and their connection to the divine. Whether through ritual drumming, breath-work, mantra, or self-induced trance states, humans have always sought access to altered levels of consciousness. Sometimes this happened in groups, sometimes it happened alone, and other times the experience was mediated through the aid of plant medicines. Whatever shape a given practice has taken over the ages, the underlying purpose has remained the same: we meditate to awaken our awareness. With greater awareness, we are able to see the world as it is.
"With a mind well concentrated, one clearly sees the arising and passing of things. Such clear insight leads to liberation." — The Buddha, Anguttara Nikāya 4.41
Recent scientific research has confirmed meditation’s extensive health benefits. It has been found to enhance emotional well-being while reducing stress, anxiety and depression; increase focus and attention; boost working-memory and learning; improve sleep, decrease inflammation, lower blood pressure and promote greater cardiovascular health. But these are all side-effects of meditation, not the aim. The aim, according to Buddha, is to liberate us from illusion, ignorance and suffering. Insight practices like meditation allow us to realize the illusion of separation and clearly see the deep webs of connection which Buddhist monk and author Thich Nhat Hahn calls interbeing. By noticing how everything on the earth is interconnected we are better able to cultivate compassion and promote peace. This also applies to our inner world. The boundaries between the inner and outer are not as fixed and rigid as we might initially think. What is out comes in, and what is in comes out. The self is porous, permeable and plural. Inside each of us exists an entire internal ecosystem of parts.
Internal Family Systems
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a practice of drawing attention to our inner ecology. Just as a forest holds many beings — each with its own function, needs, and voice — so too does the inner world. We are not a single fixed identity, but a community of parts, each shaped by its own experience, longing, and pain. Some parts work tirelessly to protect us; to tighten around control, push toward perfection, or numb what feels too much. Others carry old grief, fear, shame; the tender exiles hidden beneath the surface. Underneath it all, there is the Self*: a steady, spacious presence within us that doesn’t need to fight or flee. It is calm, clear, curious, compassionate, courageous, confident, creative and connected — a kind of inner ground.
In IFS, we learn to turn toward our parts with curiosity, not judgment. We sit with them. Listen. Build relationship. Build inner community.
Similar to animism, IFS teaches that everything (even the parts we wish would go away) has its own intelligence. Its own story. Its own agency and place within the whole. And like insight meditation, it’s a practice of awareness. We learn to observe what arises in the field of our experience, to witness without clinging or pushing away. But rather than simply watching from a distance with detachment, IFS invites us to engage relationally, to respect our parts, to ask what they need, and to offer presence so we may better know them. It’s a middle path between doing and being. Between analysis and acceptance. Between a sacred inner wilderness and the wide, breathing world. IFS is not about becoming someone new. It’s about becoming someone who knows and loves what’s already here. It’s how we tend the forest within — so we can better tend the living world around us.
*Different traditions call the true self by different names. IFS calls it Self, in Buddhism it’s called Buddha-nature, Hinduism names it Atman, Christianity describes it as the soul. While there are minor variations on each of these themes, the heart of what they point at remains remarkably the same: beneath the surface of a superficial self there is a radiant essence which is already whole, already here, and intimately connected to something greater than the self we think we are.