The History of True You Groups

My First Group: The Family I Grew Up In

My earliest experience of being part of a group was my family of origin. It was a large Catholic family with seven children. I loved my parents and siblings, but I did not often feel loved. I learned to earn approval, to work for belonging, and to hide who I really was to stay safe. Authenticity was punished. Humiliation and fear were common. I took on a caretaking role to protect my mother from my father and to protect my siblings from both parents. These strategies helped me survive, but they did not prepare me for a healthy adult life. They shaped the way I entered every group that came afterward.

As a member of my family, I was also expected to participate in the Catholic church and Catholic school. I had no autonomy. Those early experiences taught me that groups were not optional, not safe, and not places where I could be myself. When I left home at nineteen, I believed it was behind me. I thought survival meant freedom. What I did not realize was that my internal patterns followed me into every group I joined next.

Early Adulthood and My First Experiences of Safe Connection

My first job became another group experience, and without knowing it, I used the same survival strategies to please authority figures and avoid conflict. My first taste of a healthier group came through high school choir. It gave me a sense of encouragement and expression that felt new and different from what I had known before. Later, marriage formed a new group. Parenting created another. Sobriety in 1982 brought me into 12 step groups. These groups were imperfect but were also more functional than anything I had experienced. They helped me begin to feel what safety in community could be like, even though I still worked to earn my place.

Recovery and My First Steps Into Group Facilitation

Early in recovery, I went to treatment and experienced group therapy. I chaired meetings in my 12 step community and discovered that I enjoyed helping create structure and guiding the flow of a group. Later, I participated in “Home Is Where the Heart Is” meetings, created by two friends in recovery, and I eventually hosted the group in my home after they moved. These were my first experiences practicing group facilitation in a supportive environment.

Professional Life and Early Leadership Experience

My professional life also provided early opportunities to lead groups. While working in the mortgage business, I designed and facilitated workshops for real estate agents called “Creating the Year,” and I presented first time homebuyer classes. These experiences taught me how to support groups, hold space, and guide people through a structured process long before I became a coach.

Becoming a Coach and Discovering the IFS Lens

When I became a coach, forming groups felt natural. I facilitated a weekly Byron Katie group at the Alano Club in Spokane for five years. During that time, I was also learning the IFS model, and my approach to group facilitation began to shift. The IFS perspective helped me understand the inner world in a way that made group work even more meaningful and grounded.

Parts Work Practice and Community Support

After completing Levels 1 and 2 of IFS training, I shifted my Byron Katie group into an IFS group called Parts Work Practice. It began in January of 2021 and moved online during COVID, where it has continued ever since. The group is supported by IFS trained volunteers who understand the value of offering this kind of support to others. Today, Parts Work Practice is still free, is still ongoing, and includes a Facebook community of more than six thousand people. It has become a place where people from all over the world can practice parts work in a consistent and supportive environment.

The First Paid Groups and the Evolution Toward True You

I formed my first paid coaching groups in 2013. My first IFS coaching groups were created in 2019, and they have continued to evolve as my understanding of the model deepened. For a time, I referred to these groups as recovery groups, defining recovery as the reclamation of the true self. I have recently rebranded them as True You Groups to reflect the deeper purpose of the work and the direction these groups have taken.

What I Learned About the True You

My understanding of the IFS model and my experience as a coach have shown me that the True You is not a single, pure Self waiting somewhere inside. It is the whole internal system when parts are understood and supported in becoming more Self-led. When parts soften, people often begin to access qualities they believed they had lost. Those qualities were never gone. They were simply buried under protective strategies that made sense in earlier environments.

Why I Facilitate True You Groups Today

The True You Groups that I facilitate today are the result of everything I have learned through living in groups, healing in groups, training in IFS, and coaching people through inner change. This is the most refined and grounded version of group support I have created. Each group is designed to help people explore their inner world with clarity and compassion, and to experience what becomes possible when parts feel understood and supported.

I now facilitate four True You Groups and plan to train other IFS-informed coaches to become True You Group Coaches so this work can grow. This is the path that led me here. It is the reason these groups exist and the reason I believe in them. They are the kind of group I once needed. And now I offer them to others who want a safe place to explore their inner world and reclaim the parts of themselves that have been waiting to come forward.