Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share The Self-Led Life
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
The Self-Led Life
The Self-Led Life episodes
- Grief After Caregiving: When You Don’t Even Know How You Feel (Episode 2)
In the first weeks after someone you love has died—or after losing a beloved pet—“How are you?” can be a surprisingly difficult question to answer.
You may notice blankness, numbness, or confusion. Perhaps you find yourself sharing logistics, talking about your loved one, or turning the conversation toward the person asking. After so much attention has gone toward caring for someone else, it can take time to discover what’s happening inside you.
In this episode of The Self-Led Life, Jaclyn Long, LMFT, offers a gentle exploration through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS). Together, we turn toward the caretaking part that has been carrying so much—with appreciation for its devotion, compassion, and depth of care.
Through a guided inner experience, you’re invited to ask how this caretaker is doing and what it needs you to understand. If it feels willing, it may stay nearby and witness a brief moment of compassion reaching a sad or grieving part inside—without having to provide all the care itself.
There’s no need to make grief happen or find a clear answer about how you feel. Spending time with the one who has been caring can itself be a meaningful encounter.
Come as you are. Bring all your parts. Let’s turn inward—together.
Hosted by Jaclyn Long, licensed marriage and family therapist and founder of Mindful Child & Family Therapy.
PLEASE NOTE: This podcast offers education and guided self-reflection. It is not therapy and does not establish a therapist-client relationship.29 min - Grief and the Fear of Overwhelm (Episode 1)
What if you let yourself cry—and couldn’t stop?
When grief rises, a part of us may tighten our throat, turn us toward work, or help us say, “I’m doing okay.” That part may be afraid that feeling even a little grief will leave us overwhelmed forever.
In this first episode of The Self-Led Life, Jaclyn Long, LMFT, shares why grief is especially alive for her right now and invites you into a gentle IFS practice. Together, we’ll get to know the part working so hard to hold grief back. If it feels willing, you may also make room for just one small drop of what’s there.
You can take the practice at your own pace. Getting to know your protector is a meaningful place to begin.
Come as you are. Bring all your parts. Let’s turn inward—together.
21 min
About The Self-Led Life
From the publisher's feed
The Self-Led Life is an Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed podcast creating intimate spaces for people to turn toward their inner lives with curiosity and…
compassion—meeting more of themselves, deepening their connection with Self, and discovering how that inner relationship can transform the way they inhabit their everyday lives.
Hosted by Jaclyn Long, LMFT, founder of Mindful Child & Family Therapy, a group psychotherapy practice in the San Francisco Bay Area, The Self-Led Life explores the parts of us that show up in the midst of ordinary—and sometimes extraordinarily difficult—human experiences.
Together, we'll travel the terrain of grief and loss, anxiety, relationships, chronic stress, pain and illness, caretaking, perfectionism, burnout, life transitions, and the places where we find ourselves feeling stuck.
Through guided inner experiences, personal reflections, conversations with therapists and IFS practitioners, and intimate interviews, Jaclyn invites us to become curious about the parts of ourselves we may have spent years judging, avoiding, or trying to change.
Sometimes, what seems to be getting in the way can become a trailhead—a doorway into a deeper relationship with ourselves.
There is room here to slow down. To notice. To feel. And sometimes, simply to be quiet long enough to hear what is happening inside.
Come as you are. Bring all your parts. Let's turn inward—together.