Finding Beci #1

New zine series about Internal Family Systems parts work.

It was a perfect storm: a few years of being worn down by a global pandemic, masks too tight, forest fires too close to home, political strife dialed up, and I found myself caught in a charged, unresolvable conflict at work.

After months of trying to obsessively resolve it, overextending empathy and still getting nowhere, my organization set me up with a package of executive coaching. I had never had executive coaching. I wasn’t technically an executive, but I was hopeful this assistance might help reground me in my work and workplace.

Burnout had been simmering for a few years and I was nearing a full boil.

My first session with the coach was not what I expected. It led like therapy, or something close to it, and a kind I had never experienced. Although the coach never named it, it was “parts work.” Later, I would learn it was my introduction to IFS (Internal Family Systems).

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On my birth certificate, I am named Rebecka, with a “k.”

All through childhood, teachers, medical professionals, admin staff would pause and say, “Oh, that’s an interesting way of spelling Rebecka.”

I’m not sure where I got my intel, but I would often reply, “Oh, it’s Greek.”

It’s not.

When I finally asked my mom, sixteen when she brought me into the world, she told me that’s just how she thought you spelled it.

No one called me Rebecka except my dad and his side of the family, who I rarely saw. Everyone else called me Becky.

When I was thirteen, my best friend and I made a list of ways to respell my name. You know, a rebrand the summer before seventh grade. We had a huge list of all the possible Beckys, and ultimately chose “Beci.”

It was perfect. Short. Alphabetically superior to all the other choices. I didn’t test it for readability. I just locked it in like any wonderfully impulsive teenager who wanted to be different.

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A few sessions with an executive coach, reconnecting with a the terrified little girl part, led me to an IFS therapist to continue building on the work I started. The new therapist took me on a quest to find Beci, my banished teenager part and this new comic is all about that adventure.

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Watercolor, ink.

I am finishing my final project for the Sequential Artist Workshop Year Long Comic Certificate Course, a 6-page comic. This is the first page. There was so much I tried to fit into the 6 pages that I plan on accompanying the final project with mini-zines with hopes I can work out the material for a 24 pager.

You can find the first mini zine out in the real world at some of my favorite places: The Interzone Cafe, Nake Crepe and Kinetic Bagel. Thanks so much for your support and engagement. Subscribed to my substack to the follow the story as it progresses here!

If you enjoyed reading this please tap that heart, your support and engagement has been quite the boost here - giving my comics more visibility! Thank you!!