Being Self-led means honoring both of these truths equally: immanence—fully engaging our humanness—and transcendence or liberation—knowing that there’s so much more.

Richard C. Schwartz

Communing With God

Topic: Immanence & Transcendence

Being Self-led means honoring both of these truths equally: immanence—fully engaging our humanness—and transcendence or liberation—knowing that there’s so much more. When we try to deny our vulnerability, we lose touch with our heart. When we fail to realize our divinity, we lose access to our wisdom and perspective. Self-leadership means standing willingly and consciously in both dimensions—feeling the intense emotions of your parts while remaining connected to your transcendent, wave-state awakened mind. If you can hold both in yourself, you can be with both in others…

Richard C. Schwartz

Richard C. Schwartz was born on September 14, 1949, in the United States and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He earned his doctorate in marriage and family therapy from Purdue University and began his academic and clinical career in systemic family therapy. He later taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Family Institute at Northwestern University, and is currently on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

In the early 1980s, Dr. Schwartz observed that many clients described their inner lives as made up of distinct “parts” with different feelings and roles. Drawing on systems theory from family therapy, he developed the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, which emphasizes healing through listening to these parts and allowing a core Self to lead. This approach reframed symptoms as protective efforts by parts of the psyche and encouraged self-compassion, internal balance, and greater trust in one’s inner experience.

Dr. Schwartz has published more than fifty academic articles and several books, including Introduction to the Internal Family Systems Model, No Bad Parts, and You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For. In 2000, he founded the Center for Self Leadership, renamed the IFS Institute in 2019, to support the growth and training of IFS practitioners worldwide. His work has helped reframe psychotherapy as a process of inner relationship-building, rooted in curiosity, compassion, and respect for the complexity of the human psyche.

Psychology
No Bad Parts

Schwartz, Richard C. No Bad Parts : How the Internal Family Systems Model Changes Everything. [Boulder, Colorado, Sounds True, 2021.] P. 145.

Richard C. Schwartz

Theme: Everyday Divinity

About This Richard C. Schwartz Quotation [Commentary]

Richard C. Schwartz defines being “Self-led” as “honoring both of these truths equally: immanence—fully engaging our humanness—and transcendence or liberation—knowing that there’s so much more.” Self-leadership involves neither escaping from vulnerability nor rejecting spiritual clarity. Rather, it means “standing willingly and consciously in both dimensions.” For Schwartz, this includes “feeling the intense emotions of your parts while remaining connected to your transcendent, wave-state awakened mind.” Holding both truths together is not a tension to solve but a way of living that keeps us grounded and open.

Schwartz warns of the consequences when either truth is denied. “When we try to deny our vulnerability, we lose touch with our heart. When we fail to realize our divinity, we lose access to our wisdom and perspective.” Human emotion, including fear and pain, is not a barrier to Self-leadership—it is part of it. At the same time, remembering “there’s so much more” invites a deeper awareness that does not diminish our humanness but supports it with clarity and presence. This dual stance is what allows individuals to lead from a place that is both honest and clear-eyed.

This balanced way of being also shapes how we engage with the world. “If you can hold both in yourself, you can be with both in others.” Schwartz emphasizes the need for Self-led people not to withdraw but to “engage in the world,” and this requires cultivating an “inner/outer rhythm.” By staying connected to both immanence and transcendence, we can bring healing not just to ourselves but also to “the peace within and the peace based on justice on the outside.” Self-leadership, then, is not an escape from reality, but a steady, conscious participation in it.

Immanence and Transcendence

Being Self-led means honoring both of these truths equally: immanence—fully engaging our humanness—and transcendence or liberation—knowing that there’s so much more. When we try to deny our vulnerability, we lose touch with our heart. When we fail to realize our divinity, we lose access to our wisdom and perspective. Self-leadership means standing willingly and consciously in both dimensions—feeling the intense emotions of your parts while remaining connected to your transcendent, wave-state awakened mind. If you can hold both in yourself, you can be with both in others…

There’s more need than ever for Self-led people not to withdraw, but engage in the world. However, to be Self-led, people have to spend time inside themselves. Many leaders I know, including myself, find an inner/outer rhythm that works well for them. When you can balance immanence and transcendence, you can bring healing to the inner and outer worlds simultaneously… What I’m trying to say is, never lose sight of either the internal world or the external world, the peace within and the peace based on justice on the outside.

Exploration of the Literature of Spirituality and Religion

I began my own novice’s exploration into the literature of spirituality and religion and discovered a mother lode of esoteric writings by sages, holy seekers, wise men and women, who emphasized meditative and contemplative techniques as a means of coming to know their Self. (“Esoteric here means not exotic or far out, but derives from the Greek esotero, which means “further in.”) Though they used different words, all the esoteric traditions within the major religions—Buddhism. Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam—emphasized their same core belief: we are sparks of the eternal flame, manifestations of the absolute ground of being. It turns out that the divine within—what the Christians call the soul or Christ Consciousness, Buddhists call Buddha Nature, the Hindus Atman, the Taoists Tao, the Sufis the Beloved, the Quakers the Inner Light—often doesn’t take years of meditative practice to access because it exists in all of us, just below the surface of our extreme parts. Once they agree to separate from us, we suddenly have access to who we really are.

I have also found, however, that the most important variable in how quickly clients can access their Self is the degree to which I am fully present and Self-led. It’s this presence that constitutes the healing element in psychotherapy regardless of the method or philosophy of the practitioner.

—Richard Schwartz, The Larger Self [https://ifs-institute.com/resources/articles/larger-self].

Communing With God

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