When Your Parts Show Up in a Coaching Session

Picture a day in your practice.

You're with a client who tends to be very intellectual — sharp, analytical, engaging. Something in you lights up with them. Your next session: a client is late and hasn't made progress on what you've been working on together. The one after that arrives with a brand new problem they want to focus on instead of what was planned. Then a client who's feeling successful, ready to move to the next phase — that one flows. But your previously open time slot just got filled with a new client to onboard, someone who wants to know what you can do for them, has limited time, and wants solutions. And somewhere in the middle of all of this, you notice a message from another client asking to reschedule — sent hours ago.

Notice what comes up in you as you read that.

Maybe a quiet tightening. Maybe something that feels like frustration, or fatigue, or the particular kind of deflation that comes when the work doesn't go the way you hoped. Maybe one of those scenarios hit very close to home. Whatever is here for you — that's the starting point. This post is an invitation to get curious about it.

The Internal Conversation

In an IFS-informed coaching approach, we remove hierarchy with clients and focus on authentic, Self-led connection. Part of what that requires is learning to work with our own system — not just our clients' — in real time. And that starts with noticing.

When a client arrives unprepared, or late, or pivots away from what you carefully planned, something in you responds. Let's say it feels like annoyance. That's worth pausing with. Because annoyance isn't a problem to manage — it's a part of you trying to communicate something.

Get curious about it. What is this part carrying? Often, you'll find something like high standards — a part that genuinely cares about the work and feels frustrated when it perceives a client's lack of follow-through as a kind of failure. That part means well. It wants results. It wants to be helpful, and it's bumping up against something that feels like an obstacle.

Here's what matters: if that annoyance gets projected onto the client — even subtly, even wordlessly — it does two things. It creates an energetic distance between you. And it reinforces the very hierarchy we're trying to dissolve. The client is probably already dealing with their own inner critic about not showing up prepared. Nobody likes walking into a room feeling like they've let someone down. They chose to be here. That matters.

So we do the internal work first. We notice the annoyed part, get curious about it, and — if you have a relationship with this part — ask if it can give you a little space during the session. You're not dismissing it. You're making an agreement: I see you, I'll come back to you, but right now I need access to something else.

What opens up when that part steps back, even a little? Often it's compassion. For the client's struggle. For whatever is getting in the way of their progress — life circumstances, competing priorities, fear. Once you can access that, the external conversation shifts too. Instead of something tight and managed, what comes out might sound like:

"I can see that being here means a lot to you. And I imagine it must be hard to feel unprepared. Would you like to explore what might not be working? I'm genuinely eager to do this with you — and sometimes the moments when things aren't sticking teach us more than the moments when they do."

That's a very different room than the one annoyance would have created.

When the Session Is Going Really Well

Now let's go to the other end of the spectrum — the intellectually alive session. A client who engages you at full capacity. The conversation is rich, they're asking for your expertise, and you have exactly the right thing to share. You're in it. It feels good.

This is worth pausing with too.

What parts of you are really enjoying this interaction? What's getting validated? Is the conversation building genuine connection — or is it starting to take over the work? There's a part of many coaches — and I include myself — that finds deep intellectual engagement deeply satisfying. Fulfilling. Even, sometimes, a little seductive. That part has its own history, its own needs. It may carry the weight of wanting to feel successful, capable, seen in the work.

Noticing that is not a criticism. It's information.

That part might feel adjacent to your inner coach — close to it, maybe even blended with it in the moment. The distinction worth finding is this: your inner coach is oriented toward the client's transformation. That other part is oriented toward the feeling of the moment. Both are real. Only one is running the session.

When you notice the pull, you can speak for it — out loud, with the client — and it becomes one of the most powerful modeling moments the session can offer:

"There's a part of me that is genuinely loving this conversation and wants to keep going. And there's a part of me that wants to make sure you get the coaching you came here for today. Could we switch gears?"

That kind of honesty is disarming. It's human. It shows your client — in real time — exactly the skill you're trying to help them build in their own life.

And their parts may resist the switch. That's worth getting curious about too. We all have parts that prefer the comfortable, engaging conversation to the harder work underneath it. If a client seems reluctant to redirect, that ambivalence itself is worth exploring — one that genuinely wants to do the work — they are here — and one that might have fears or concerns about "doing the work." Getting curious about that, when the timing is right, can open some of the most meaningful work in the whole coaching relationship.

The Practice of Pausing

Our parts can show up when we least expect them. That's not a failure of the work — it's the nature of being human and doing deeply relational work in relative isolation. Our sessions are private. We rarely see our clients interact with anyone else. We don't always know what's happening in their lives between sessions. And our own sense of how we're doing as coaches often depends heavily on how our clients are doing — which is a real thing, and also a part of the process worth acknowledging.

For me, there's a part that evolved from a younger version of myself that sought external validation for self-worth — and has slowly, through this work, become something more like my Self-led coach's little cheerleader: she brings playfulness to the work and is someone who cares deeply about the outcome. She is adjacent to my Self-led coach who trusts the client's inherent capacity, and holds the process even when results aren't visible yet. That evolution didn't happen because I pushed the approval-seeking part away. It happened because I kept getting curious about it.

So when your parts show up in session — pause. Notice them. If they're familiar, you might simply offer a quiet internal nod: I see you. My coach has got this. If they're newer or louder, ask for a little space and make the agreement to return to them after. Then actually return. Build that trust with your own system. Trying to hold a buoy underwater — forced suppression that takes enormous energy and eventually gives way — is very different. In this moment, we are not suppressing. We are creating space with curiosity. When parts of us feel heard, they tend to relax, and the energy is much easier than fighting to hold a buoy underwater for an extended period of time. This is relationship. Acknowledgment. A practice that deepens over time.

And when parts don't quiet, when they persist or return across sessions? That may be an invitation for trailhead work — deeper exploration, possibly with someone else guiding you. That's not a setback. That's part of our own growth as more confident coaches.

In the meantime, in session, it's always okay to say:

"A part of me has a lot of ideas about this. And I want to check in with you first — what feels most alive for you right now?"

That's not losing the thread. That's Self-leadership in action. And in IFS terms, choosing to pause, check in, and move from groundedness rather than reactivity — that's confidence. Not the performance of confidence. The real thing.

We are all on this journey together. And your parts showing up in session isn't evidence that something is wrong. It's evidence that you care, that you're paying attention, and that there's more connection available — with yourself and your clients — than you might have even thought possible.

This is the companion piece to What It Means to Coach from Self. If you haven't read that one yet, it's a good place to go next.

If this resonates and you're ready to go deeper into your IFS practice as a coach, the Coaching for Coaches space is where this work lives — 1:1 support, group series, and CE courses designed to take you experientially deeper into the model. Come find out what's available: www.altraform.com/coaching-for-coaches

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TheresaWV is an IFS Level 3 Certified Practitioner, IFS Program Assistant at the IFS Institute, and Board Certified Coach (BCC). She also holds her National Board Certification in Health & Wellness Coaching (NBC-HWC). She works with coaches who want to deepen their relationship with the IFS model — not just as a technique, but as a way of working that changes everything underneath. When she's not coaching, she can often be found deep inside a rabbit hole – and thoroughly enjoying it.