Discovering our parts with clay
When I decided to start this blog, I made a promise to myself: to write not for an audience but for my own accountability, just to keep exercising my voice. I don’t expect many readers, but I hold a small hope that someone might find a reflection here that feels meaningful. Sometimes, a part of me feels guilty adding to the endless sea of information that already fills our days. I smile as I write this, because ever since completing Level 1 of Internal Family Systems therapy, I notice my parts showing up more often and more clearly. It is also important for me to emphasize, that I didn’t create this blog to promote anything. I created it to share what I love and what I believe can be healing for others and for myself.
IFS, or Internal Family Systems, teaches that we are not one single self inside. We are made of many parts. There can be a shaming part, a perfectionist part, a guilty part, an angry part, an anxious part. There are managers who try to control everything and firefighters who rush in to protect us from pain, sometimes through impulsive or addictive behavior. And there are exiles, the younger parts that carry the most pain. Managers and firefighters work very hard to keep the system safe. They do not always have the right tools, because they learned their ways long ago in childhood. But they keep trying. In therapy, we learn to meet these parts with curiosity and care. We listen to them, understand their roles, and begin to help them heal. This work is most powerful when done with another person who can hold space and guide the process with gentleness.
For me, clay has always been another language for this kind of conversation. After years of working with it, I have come to see clay as one of the most grounding and healing materials. It slows us down. It brings us into our bodies. It lets something quiet and wordless begin to speak through our hands. This is how Parts in Clay was born, a meeting of my two strongest sides: the potter and the therapist. It brings together my love for clay with my ability to hold space and facilitate exploration.
In these sessions, we connect to our parts, sculpt them, and interact with them. It is not about artistic skill but about curiosity, presence, and compassion. Parts in Clay is available both for individuals and for small groups of two to six people booking together. It can be a meaningful experience for friends who want to learn about themselves and each other, for parent and child pairs, couples, or anyone curious about exploring vulnerability and strength (my nod to you, Brené Brown).
This offering was born from love, experience, pain, and healing. It feels like a natural next step in the work I have been doing for years, bringing together the two worlds that have shaped me the most.
