Rik Midgley Ph.D. is a Level 2 Internal Family Systems (IFS) practitioner, and has been working with IFS since 2015. In 2018 he became a certified trainer of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and from 2008 he has been developing and sharing self awareness skills in his Self-Connection Qigong.

I am an internationally certified trainer of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and level 2 practitioner of Internal Family Systems (IFS), living near Bangor, North Wales. I have worked with individuals and groups in the UK and internationally. Previously, I’ve worked for about a decade in climate research, and later as a ceramic artist and a cultivator of vegetables.

I grew up with much pain and confusion in a culture where feelings were actively suppressed. My yearning to live harmoniously with a sense of belonging led me on a journey of discovery. This began in 1990 with the self-introspection process of Vipassana Meditation. The self-awareness that this nurtured brought awareness of my previously ‘unconscious’ habitual behaviours and a growing sense of agency and calm. I learned of the power of listening tangibly to my body, and to trust its inherent capacity to heal.

Nonviolent Communication (NVC), from 2011, gave me the bridge between my mind and body, an understanding of how the energy driving my thoughts is both rooted in the body and is reflected back to the body. I realised that I risk becoming how I think. My journey became one of taking responsibility for my feelings by nurturing a self-empathic awareness of my body. Awareness grew of my judgmental thinking and eventually of the underlying pain which it concealed. This pain, previously hidden in shadow, became available to be witnessed and understood. In this process of compassionate embrace, I was gradually enable to let go of the charge behind the story and step towards inner harmony.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) has been transformational for me in understanding and bringing compassion to the underlying intention of parts of me that have brought pain and chaos to my life. In my realisation that they result from my successful survival strategy that got me through my childhood but no longer serve a life serving role, I have been able to move on and choose more effective ways to work in coordination with my whole body ‘system’. I was introduced to IFS in 2015, and now am a level 2 IFS practitioner.

I hold NVC as a powerful tool for social change. It is my experience that when I perceive ‘conflict’, it is my yearning for understanding, a recognition that my unprocessed pain lies as a barrier between my heart and my seeing the underlying intention of the other. The language of NVC consciousness, with its connection to values, invites a safety in mutual understanding, and brings space to explore potential ways forward. In connection to these values, I found support to accept myself as I am, to move into presence, to bring awareness to my otherwise habitual response, and thus enhance my capacity to choose compassion as the way that works for me.

The healing is in the feeling! I have experienced deep transformation in my life. I have conviction that the root of the change is in the open acceptance and sensitivity of awareness of my tangible body. It is in the how I listen to myself, my objectivity and the compassionate quality of my listening relationship. I am left in wonder of the world, and in gratitude to all that have supported my journey. I passionately long to step forward to support others on their journey, so that the world may be a safer and more beautiful place for us all to live.