The One Inside: An Internal Family Systems (IFS) podcast

Bringing Your Whole Self to Prayer with Julie Honeycutt

Jul 9, 2025

Julie Honeycutt, a licensed professional counselor and certified IFS therapist, shares her insights on merging faith with counseling. She explores how attachment styles impact our prayer lives and emphasizes that prayer can be expressed in various creative ways, from gardening to movement. Julie introduces the concept of ‘levels of faith,’ noting that different parts of ourselves may hold on to outdated beliefs. The conversation also highlights the significance of meeting ourselves with compassion in spiritual practices, allowing for a deeper, more authentic connection with the divine.

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INSIGHT

Complexity of Attachment in Prayer

Attachment styles are complex and can vary among our different parts rather than being a single fixed category for a person.
Prayer can serve to comfort anxious parts and help them build trust and connection with the divine.

INSIGHT

Levels of Faith and Spiritual Growth

Spiritual development occurs in levels, with early levels focused on learning and scaffolding faith concepts.
Higher spiritual levels involve embracing mystery and unburdened connection, which requires integration of lower-level parts.

ADVICE

Use IFS to Enhance Prayer

When practicing prayer, notice which parts of you are engaging and how your attachment style affects your ability to pray.
Use Internal Family Systems (IFS) to understand and nurture parts resistant to prayer or spiritual connection.

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In this week's episode, I sit down with my friend Julie Honeycutt, a licensed professional counselor, certified IFS therapist, and approved clinical consultant. Julie has been integrating faith and counseling for over 20 years, and in this conversation, we explore how our attachment styles, parts, Enneagram, and developmental stages all shape our prayer life and spiritual connection.

Julie shares that our attachment patterns and spiritual experiences are deeply linked, and how IFS offers a pathway to spirituality and how our different parts, even those with doubts

We explore the idea that prayer doesn't have to look a certain way. It can show up in movement, in gardening, in painting, or even in those "texting prayers" we send up throughout the day. As Julie says, "What would it be like if our prayer life could reflect the unique way that God made us?"

Julie also introduces the idea of the "levels of faith" and how parts of us may sit at different levels. Some of our parts may still hold early beliefs that we've outgrown, but they are still worthy of attention and care.

We talk about:

How our parts have different attachment styles in prayer
Why anxious parts often get exiled in spirituality
The connection between the Enneagram, personality, and prayer
How our developmental stage impacts how we experience faith
Why meeting ourselves in our prayer life without shame changes everything
How gardening and movement can be a spiritual practice

Julie reminds us that all parts are welcome: "Even that part is welcome."

About Julie: Julie Honeycutt is a licensed professional counselor, certified IFS therapist for over 15 years and an Approved Clinical Consultant for the IFS Institute. She's been practicing the integration of faith and counseling for over 20 years in her private practice as well as in workshops and retreats. Through stillness-of-mind exercises (what the early Christians called hesychasm), she guides her clients in learning how to discern God over the crowd of voices inside all our parts! And, she has a myriad of free writings and resources on her website.

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