When Your Vision Arrives (And Your Parts Panic)
What happened when I saw HeartSight Healing clearly in 2020—and immediately heard "people will think you're crazy." How to befriend the parts that resist.
What does having a vision mean to you?
Do you have a vision for your life? For your year? For yourself?
There's no right or wrong here. It's okay if you don't.
It's easy to interpret 'vision' as the goals you're setting for yourself. Like, by the end of this year I want to learn a new language, increase my savings by 20%, get the promotion, have the bathroom remodel project finished by the holidays.
And those things could be part of it, but I'm more wondering about the visions that come to you with a feeling. That north star sense of a state of being that really feels like you as you're offering your gifts to the world from your authenticity.
When My Vision Arrived
I've had this happen to me once unprompted. It was in 2020, and I was about a year into practicing reiki, which, as a Scientific Therapist I had not yet shared with anyone lest they think I had lost my marbles.
I was sitting in meditation in the soft upholstered corner chair in my bedroom and all of a sudden: I could just see it all.
The name of my practice. HeartSight Healing. That it would bridge clinical and intuitive modalities for a holistic healing experience. That it would embrace intuition while remaining grounded in evidence-based therapy.
I was so excited. It felt so clear and obvious.
And then, almost immediately afterwards, panic set in.
"People will think you're crazy!"
"No one will take this seriously!"
"This is a huge risk and threat to practicing as a therapist!"
(If you read my last newsletter about dismantling my internal patriarchy, those voices might sound familiar.)
What I Didn't Know Then
I knew about IFS at the time but hadn't started actively training or working with my own parts, so I didn't know that I was hearing from parts of me with hesitations and concerns, and that hearing from those parts is a natural and necessary part of any growth, expansion or creative process.
While HeartSight Healing launched the next year, it took a few more to begin integrating these other intuitive modalities into the way I practice and to share that publicly.
And an enormous piece of that process was connecting with the parts of me who didn't want that to happen, learning what they were protecting, and bringing healing to their fears.
This deconstructing of protective impulses that are there for good reason and creating enough safety to have more and more access to what is authentically YOU continues to be an ongoing process, one that seems to accelerate on the approach of midlife.
Receiving Your Vision
Receiving a vision for yourself can be a powerful part of that. This can happen spontaneously in moments of reflection or out in nature, but it can also be supported as part of a guided process.
Back in January I received a training in guiding this visioning process from the IFS Informed Pisgah Coaching Institute, and it was so powerful to experience that I recalibrated the first session of Practical Alchemy to include it.
Once your vision arrives, then the process of clearing blocks, connecting with parts that may have concerns so that they feel safer, and looking clearly at your gifts which are there in support can unfold.
It all starts with creating the space to let this clarity drop in for you.
If there's one thing these times seem to call for, it's showing up authentically from the heart and having the courage to act from that place. If you'd like support in cultivating the connection to that which already exists in you, I'm here!
If you've received a vision and immediately heard parts panic about it, you're not alone. That panic is actually a sign that your vision is real and threatening to the status quo your parts have worked hard to maintain. The question isn't whether to listen to those parts, but how to befriend them so they feel safe enough to let you move forward.
About the Author: Elizabeth Scott, LCPC is a licensed therapist specializing in Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy.She helps emotionally intelligent, spiritually curious women reconnect with their inner wisdom through individual therapy and through Practical Alchemy, a transformative 3-month coaching program that integrates IFS with intuitive modalities like astrology and reiki.
