Photo by Omer Salom on Unsplash

Is my heart open to you? 

This is the question I return to before every client session. A quiet check-in, rooted in the practice of Internal Family Systems.

I gently turn inward and notice—are there parts of me that might judge, criticize, or rush in to fix? Are there subtle pulls to react, to figure out, or to move away from what is here? Am I able to meet you with presence, steadiness, and care?

Sometimes I notice a voice, a tension, something that isn’t quite grounded in compassion. When that happens, I acknowledge those parts of me and invite them, kindly, to soften back—to give a little space—so I can sit with the client more fully.

And when my parts step back, something shifts.
There is warmth in my chest.
A softness in my body.
A quiet sense of openness.

Then I know I’m ready.

Ready to be with you.
Ready to hold space.
Ready to love.

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“I feel your pain because I love you.”

I heard this line in a teenage TV show, and it stayed with me. There is something deeply true in it.

When I am fully present—when my heart is open in that grounded, human, and deeply respectful way—I can sense what you are feeling while remaining anchored within myself. I can be with you as you touch what is painful, overwhelming, or long-held, without either of us getting lost in it.

I can meet the heaviness that weighs on you, the anger that surges through you, the grief that breaks you open, and the parts of you that protect in the only ways they know how. I can stay with the voices that feel frightening or confusing, and the younger places within you that are longing, lost, or alone.

And I can hold all of it with care.

Not to change it. Not to fix it.

But to be with it—steadily, compassionately—so that something within you can begin to soften, to feel, to trust.

In that space, you begin to sense your own presence. Your own capacity. Your own courage.

And I have the privilege of witnessing what unfolds from there—how the body releases what it has been holding, how meaning emerges, how your lived experience integrates and settles. Not because I made it happen, but because your system knows how to heal when it is met in this way.

Again and again, I am moved by this process.
By your strength.
By your humanity.

What an honor it is to do this work. To sit with you in these moments of truth and vulnerability. To know you in this way, and to meet you exactly where you are.

And it all begins here—with a simple, quiet question:

Is my heart open to you?