Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Magic of Healing Your Inner Child: Part One
192 Plays1 year ago
Welcome to Season 2 of Outside of Session!
To kick off this Season of Interviews, Julie sat down with Chris Dorsey to talk about understanding your different "Parts" and healing your inner child, and how Internal Family Systems (IFS) has become a passion for them both as therapists.
Make sure you tune in next week for Part Two of this episode!
A little more about today's guest:
Chris Dorsey, MBA, LCSW, spent twenty years in various leadership roles within the accounting and finance divisions of real estate and technology firms before becoming a licensed clinical social worker. With experience in palliative care and medical social work as well as his own father’s journey with dementia, Chris utilizes a broad and unique set of skills to whole-heartedly guide clients through the most challenging of circumstances. Chris values a humanistic approach to social work and therapy where the dignity and self-worth of the individual is protected at all times. Chris applies integrative approaches to grief and loss treatment focused on navigating the client through a difficult life transition while also opening up their system to safely explore their feelings and emotions to the loss. In addition to grief and loss, Chris has extensive training in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dignity Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
Get in touch with Chris:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Season Two
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome back to season two of Outside of Session. I'm your host, licensed clinical social worker, and therapist BFF, Julie Hilton. This season, I'm interviewing some incredible guests who also happen to be experts in their fields. Mental health, motherhood, spirituality, and so much more, I can't wait for their stories to be told. These are all the conversations I'm having outside of session.
00:00:45
Speaker
Hello friends and welcome back to Outside of Session.
Therapists on Grief and Emotional Regulation
00:00:50
Speaker
I have missed you. I've missed doing this and I cannot wait to share with you guys what I've been up to the past couple of months. Season two is officially kicking off and it's gonna be so good. And thank God this season I am not gonna be carrying the conversations by myself anymore. As you heard in the intro, all the upcoming episodes that I have for you will be interviews with guests.
00:01:15
Speaker
They're mostly fellow therapists who have varying specialties in our field, but you'll also get to hear a lot of amazing personal stories too, which I think you're really going to enjoy and be able to relate to.
00:01:28
Speaker
Just to give you a little bit of a sneak peek of some of the topics that I have lined up this season, we're going to be talking about grief, OCD, perinatal loss, EMDR, emotional regulation, and posture syndrome. Like each episode is going to have its own individual topic. And I seriously think that they're all going to be topics that you're going to want to learn about.
00:01:51
Speaker
And I actually learned a lot doing these interviews. But don't worry, these conversations aren't gonna be too clinical or overly therapist-y. You'll see pretty quickly that it's just regular people wanting to bring awareness to the different ways that we're trying to help people heal and live their best life.
00:02:14
Speaker
Another difference that you'll notice this season is that the episodes are definitely longer than last season because the conversations were just too good to get it all in in 20 or 30 minutes. So I do hope you'll listen though to the entire episode to get all of those nuggets of wisdom throughout. So today we're starting with my personal favorite topic.
Healing the Inner Child with Chris Dorsey
00:02:37
Speaker
And that's only because it's my jam and it's my specialty. Today we're gonna be talking about healing our inner child. And if you listen to the last couple of episodes that I did last season, you know that I already started to talk about this a little bit, but today we really are gonna dive into it. And I had the absolute pleasure of having my really good friend, Chris Dorsey, on the show to talk about how this has also become just a passion of both of ours in therapy.
00:03:04
Speaker
And in fact, we ended up geeking out on this topic so much that I needed to break it up into two episodes. So today you're going to get part one of healing your inner child and then next week you'll get the rest of the conversation.
00:03:17
Speaker
So a little bit more about Chris.
Chris Dorsey's Career Transition
00:03:19
Speaker
He is a licensed clinical social worker but also has his MBA and he has spent almost 20 years in various leadership roles within the accounting and finance divisions of real estate technology firms before becoming a licensed clinical social worker. And he shares a little bit about how he made that life transition in the beginning of the episode and how that really impacted his desire to want to do this specific kind of work.
00:03:45
Speaker
He also has experience in palliative care and medical social work as well, as he's been helping his father navigate his own journey with dementia. Chris utilizes a broad and unique set of skills to wholeheartedly guide clients through the most challenging of circumstances.
00:04:00
Speaker
Chris values a humanistic approach to social work and therapy where the dignity and self-worth of the individual is protected at all times. Chris applies integrative approaches to grief and loss treatment focusing on navigating the client through all the difficult life transitions while also opening up their system to safely explore their feelings and emotions to the loss.
00:04:22
Speaker
In addition to grief work, Chris also has extensive training in internal family systems, which is the majority of what we talk about in today's episode, but also dignity therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy if anybody has ever heard of those different modalities of therapy. So with all of that being said, here we go. Season two of Outside of Session officially starts now. Hey Chris, good morning.
00:04:52
Speaker
Good morning, Julie. It's good to be here. Thank you so much for being here today. You have the honor of being the very first guest that I'm interviewing. Um, I mean, I've already done a couple of other episodes, but I know I'm going to release this episode first because I want our episode to kick off season two of outside of session. Wow. No pressure. No pressure. This is the first time I've ever done anything like this. So.
00:05:21
Speaker
I'm kicking off your series and you're helping me kick off my radio recording life, you know, journey. I love it. But you know, I was just saying before we hit record, the reason why I wanted to start this season off with this episode is because I'm going to have a lot of topics this season and a lot of them are not my area of expertise. So I ended up learning a lot from the other therapists this season.
00:05:45
Speaker
But I wanted to start with this one because this is my jam. So today we're going to be talking about, I titled it the magic of healing your inner child. And I know that sounds a little bit dramatic, but I can be sometime. So I feel like that's me a little bit. I have a little drama part too.
Impact of IFS Therapy
00:06:05
Speaker
But I just, I love it. Cause I feel like this, this journey that we go with people on is just so healing and it does, it feels like such like life changing, right?
00:06:15
Speaker
But yeah, I like the word you use journey because it really does. Um, IFS really does take you on a journey. If you can really, really, really hone in with a client and create that safety and that calmness. Uh, there is no telling where they'll take you and they, it can be quite rewarding back to that inner child. Um, without really even that intention of what you're trying to do, right? It's a natural piece that it plays, plays so well as a therapist and as a, as a client too.
00:06:44
Speaker
And I wanted to use specifically to be on here because you and I have had some really good conversations lately about how it's transformed our practice as we've learned more and done more trainings and stuff like that. So I knew you'd be the perfect person in this. But before we actually jump into how we work with our clients and what IFS is and how we work on healing our inner child,
00:07:04
Speaker
I wanted to see if you would share a little bit about just your story because it's so unique and I love it so much. And even how our paths crossed a few years ago and how, I don't know, just how we've gotten to know each other over the past few years. Yeah. Yeah. Can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah, I'd love to. So like most folks who graduate college back in the nineties, I had no idea what, what I was doing. It seemed like, well, maybe most people around me at school did. I did not. And that kind of,
00:07:33
Speaker
theme kind of played out for me for I'm 49 now. So for the next 20 something years, I never really was able to be in a career that felt all that fulfilling. It was, I found my way into accounting and finance and just for a really long time, just kind of never really had any attachment to it, but it was a job and, um, had a successful job too, right? Like you were, I was a controller for,
00:08:00
Speaker
real estate companies and a technology company, but I just never had that inner feeling of like, wow, I can't wait to get to work and do those numbers. In fact, what's funny is I was very busy with all, with the people, with all my coworkers, right? Like that human side. And I think that human side has always been with me. Like from the day I was born, I mean, my mom tells me credit report cards, not credit cards, all sort of said, Chris needs to spend more time worried about on Chris, as opposed to spending so much time
00:08:29
Speaker
worried about everybody around me. And I think that kind of played out in all my jobs too. I always kind of have this feeling of knowing a lot about people, what's going on. And if the girl next to me has questions about another coworker, I probably knew a little bit about everybody. I can see that, yeah. It's paid off. I think that active listening that we need as therapists was always there. I just didn't know how to hone it in and make money off of it till much later.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah. So I think I had the kind of misfortune. My job was going to be eliminated and that was, but that ended up being fortunate because at the same time I was at a Christmas party and a lady asked me if I would be interested in doing a Myers Briggs test with her. She was getting certified. And at the same time, I just heard about my company making changes that that test really said a lot. It really told me, um, came out really that forget the letters, but the ENFJ maybe, um,
00:09:31
Speaker
I forget what they were. But the more important piece was it came back that I would do really well in human resources if I stayed in corporate or a teacher, a social worker or a counselor. And it was just not really stood out to me because I think at that moment, knowing that I had an opening in my career that they said I could stay for a year or two, but then it would be eliminated.
00:09:56
Speaker
this test telling me, and so I kind of put the two and two together and was like, all right, let me go kind of explore what this could look like. So while still working, I did research on like how it would look to become a social worker, a counselor, a teacher. I was not going to do human resource. I was like, done with corporate America.
Journey into Social Work and Hospice Care
00:10:13
Speaker
Well, long story short, I ended up really settling in on social work.
00:10:17
Speaker
It really was the most broad for me. I know I needed something broad that had openings to kind of pivot into different arenas, therapists, medical, social work, you know, case management, anything. And so then made the decision to go back to school at 44, 43, found a program in Atlanta and at Kennesaw State. And then really just the journey, like we said earlier, like IFS takes you on a journey. I was on a journey and didn't know where I was going to go.
00:10:46
Speaker
walked across the campus one day and it hit me. I might want to try hospice, you know, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's definitely to make that decision to like uproot your entire career. Like that is a complete 180, right? To go from accountant financing to go to social work. Like I said to myself,
00:11:10
Speaker
44 year old in America that is off to social work school male even like in a female dominated sort of industry I was like, this is definitely I felt like out of my element but also I've got to tell you there was something in me that was just so Excited and I had never felt that and I think it was all the preparation that I did leading up to it I look back on that and I never really had that
00:11:35
Speaker
skill set and I think I gained it because it wasn't impulsive. I spent a year really researching and it felt confident. And that's parts of IFS that we'll talk about in here. There was energies that were happening then that I think also play a role in why I attached so well to IFS, why it really hit me when I met it.
00:11:54
Speaker
So I think that piece, yeah, I walked in the room and it was like, yeah, this is a 180. I have no idea about oppression and what social work really looks at early on. And then I just, my heart was open and my mind was open. You know, I had some critics that were like, what are you doing in my head? But I kept them pretty quiet for those two years as much as possible. And they got quieter and quieter as I got more and more involved in the journey. Yeah.
00:12:22
Speaker
That was, that was pretty cool. Just kind of settling in on something that I had never done anything like that. So I, um, I get goosebumps talking about it. I know. I love it so much. And that's when our paths crossed. Yeah, absolutely. So you were interning at hospice and I had gone back to the same hospice to work PRN while I was trying to build my private practice because you don't know that takes a lot of work and a lot of time. Absolutely.
00:12:49
Speaker
I remember hearing all that from you and was like, oh wow, how cool is that? Just kind of taking in everything you shared with me. I still remember that, sitting in the office talking and reflecting on like what I could do because it was my second year of that internship and I was kind of looking to see like, what am I going to do when I graduate?
00:13:07
Speaker
Well, and I remember you were talking about staying either in hospice or in medical social work. And I remember from the very beginning being like, uh, you need to be in private practice. Like, um, one of the things that, one of the reasons why I chose social work as well is because it is so broad. And so if you get burned out in one area, you don't have to completely leave the field. You can go from working in, you know, domestic violence shelters to medical social work, to private practice, to like, there's some school social work, like there's so many different avenues that you can go.
00:13:36
Speaker
Um, and people find like what fits their personality so well. But I just remember thinking for the, as soon as I met you, I was like, you need to be doing private practice. You have such good insight and such good, like, like you make people feel just so comfortable talking to you. But I was like, I want you to hurry up and do this so you can be my therapist one day. I need you to do this. I remember you telling me that. In fact, I remember when I told you I was going into private practice.
00:14:05
Speaker
I couldn't wait to tell you that because you were really the, I had never really considered it. I thought, yeah, I'm going to try hospice. I really felt compelled to aging. Like that was the area that demographic, um, just kind of my dad has had dementia for 16 years.
00:14:21
Speaker
He's 85 years old and I felt like, okay, I'm going to use that as my, you know, motivator to kind of help this demographic. And I'm going to do it in a way that looks like medical and mental and kind of hospice, palliative care, medical, social work, all of those types of areas really intrigued me. And so for you to kind of throw that little curve ball at me kind of stuck in my brain and
00:14:46
Speaker
Then sure enough, I got into hospice right after graduating, and it was just a different world than I had anticipated around. Not so much the care, but really the logistics of maintaining that type of job, given my lifestyle. I had a partner and family. My dad's got... I mean, it was just the time-consuming aspect of it became too much.
00:15:06
Speaker
I kind of made the decision to come out of that, but loved every minute of it. I mean, that's really the piece that has helped me in private practice is that ability to sit with pain and suffering. I mean, not everybody has that gift and I learned early on that I do. You helped me with that at the internship, but it's always been sort of a natural place for me to be able to lean in and help those that are
00:15:30
Speaker
really struggling with it. So I took it to Grady Hospital and worked as a medical social worker. That's right. I forgot you were at Grady for a while. Yeah. I was there during COVID. I actually was thinking about this call yesterday. I know. It was pretty incredible and also scary. But yesterday I was thinking about our call and I was like,
00:15:52
Speaker
And I got very emotional because I remember the day I was walking in and I had my little lunchbox and my backpack. And I mean, I've never had an important in my mind at least felt that what I've done was important. Like, you know, and then that day there's people clapping and like all this stuff and you're like, Oh, you know, it just overwhelmed my system in this way of like, okay, validated everything I had sacrificed for the last four years to go back to school at 40 something years old. And there I am like walking in a hospital during COVID and
00:16:22
Speaker
boom, it was real, you know, and I'm helping people navigate nursing home admissions and all sorts of stuff with, you know, the geriatric, that was the population that was getting hit the most. And that was my, I was on a COVID only floor and all of that sort of stuff. So that journey, um, it's pretty incredible. And then at the same time made the decision to kind of try out private practice on the side part time. So that was like 2019 through COVID came in 2020 and then
00:16:54
Speaker
2022, in June of 2022, I went full time into private practice. And so that leap was just, it was time. I felt like, you know, I had pretty much experienced everything I could at Grady and was like, all right.
Transition to Private Practice
00:17:09
Speaker
And along the way, built my skills up in private practice to kind of feel like, let's give this thing a try full time. And so for the last almost year and a half, I've been solely in private practice at key counseling.
00:17:22
Speaker
I remember being so excited for you when you finally told me you were like, I'm doing it. I'm going full time. I was like, yes, so excited. It was just, I know. And I love that too. Cause that was another thing that reminded me of sort of my decision to go into social work was just like, I really took my time to go and make that decision. That was not impulsive either. And that's something I've really learned about myself and something IFS has really taught me is this.
00:17:45
Speaker
Slow down. I know you want that or you want to get to that place, but let's stop for a minute and see how this could work and how it could really work and the empowerment you can get from sort of taking your time with your parts to make that decision. That action piece doesn't have to happen so fast. Let's do some contemplation and some preparation. Those eight stages of change, so to speak, I sit a lot in contemplation and preparation. Action usually just seems to kind of happen pretty
00:18:14
Speaker
Not fast, but it's more of what you do before that action plan. I feel like IFS is a lot like that too.
00:18:26
Speaker
I think IFS, one of the things that the more and more you work with your parts, the more and more you start to trust yourself. And so even as you're going through this contemplation and preparation phases, like it doesn't take as long when you feel like you have built that trust up. And I say that all the time on this podcast, that one of the things that happens when we have, whether it's a big trauma or just emotional trauma, relational trauma, that kind of thing.
00:18:49
Speaker
One of the things that's always sacrificed is being able to trust yourself. Like I see that over and over with my clients that we feel like we don't trust our decisions, that we don't trust that we see things correctly because we've had people in our lives that tell us basically that we don't make good decisions and we shouldn't trust ourselves. And I feel like doing this work really helps you to be able to say, like, no, I make pretty good decisions for myself. And so I'm going to take the time, like you said, to think this through, but I know I'm going to make good decisions for myself.
00:19:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's that safety you sort of quiet down the external environment that can cause that trauma or have that voice that tells you you're not making good decisions. And once you can quiet down and create that safety for yourself and lead that yet the trust can
00:19:35
Speaker
can really take off. But I don't know, I tell everyone comes up like, let's look at your environment, you know, person and environment and who's all, what all is out there that's causing all this noise that's helping not feel safe and not feel secure. And then looking at that and then, you know, you can almost feel them coming closer and closer to self, so to speak. And yeah, but I think that trust is huge when you can create safety.
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah. Definitely what IFS does and therapists too. Like we're not just the intervention, but us as therapists are, you know, that's primary as well in the room, how to make that safe space for that client. Yeah. Okay. So let's jump into IFS.
Introduction to IFS Therapy
00:20:12
Speaker
So IFS stands for internal family systems and it's a type of therapy that Chris and I both use primarily on your practice at this point, right? Like, is it that? I would say grief, grief and loss. Those two are my primary. I mean, but I implement the IFS sort of in,
00:20:27
Speaker
Even within brief work, yeah. So last season I did an episode that I very briefly went over IFS and it was the part two of trauma drama, very last episode of last season. But I really want to dive into it a little bit more today and get your expertise and your experience with it as well. So I feel like we both have just fallen in love with this because of the way that we've seen it transform ourselves, but also so many of our clients.
00:20:57
Speaker
Why do you feel like this has been something that you immediately clicked with and found that you're so passionate about?
00:21:05
Speaker
I think on a micro level when I was reading about it for the first time, I was introduced to it. It was the first time I had ever read something that made sense to me as a clinician looking at interventions and trying to sort of align myself with one. You know, we get hit with a lot of options out there. People are saying CBT, ACT, yada, yada, yada. So many. What are all these things? And so quietly one day I just happened to read a book on it. I bought it and just sat down and
00:21:33
Speaker
just really hit me. It was like this, my parts, and I could identify all of the different elements of what they describe, which we'll probably talk about from managers and protectors. And it just, all of a sudden I was like, my goodness, I just was able to really see myself from that perspective. And it felt inside internally. It felt really good. It felt like something, you know, I had never felt before in that little one hour to two hours quickly feeling that. And so I felt the power of it.
00:22:02
Speaker
And I felt the understanding and it just made sense to me. And so when something makes sense to me, that confidence in it was just sort of like, let's keep looking. And so it took me and it really, I never questioned it. It was just like, and I had quit my, have a really strong skeptic part, which when we start talking about parts, but that skeptic really was quiet. It was like, yep, this, this sounds like something keep reading, you know, I can feel myself calm or, you know, reading it and just so curious about,
00:22:31
Speaker
What is this? And so that's the day the journey started really. I think for me, you're spot on. Like there was something about it that felt like
00:22:41
Speaker
Um, not over complicated. Like there was a part of me that was like, yeah, like this is just organizing and putting in paper on paper, something that I feel like I already know about myself in some ways. Um, when we talk about the different parts of our personality, I immediately was like, yeah. And we already use some of that language in our daily life and we don't realize it. You know, when we say like part of me really wants this, but part of me really wants that. Like we're already using parts language.
00:23:09
Speaker
I feel like this just gave a little bit of like structure and organization to say, this is, this is how our inner like network forms and develops and how you can engage with it in a way that feels like you can like learn yourself so, so much better. Learn control yourself and just sort of hit in a way that maybe you've never really thought about. Yeah. I mean, I remember reading in that book, it said rather than sort of looking at yourself as like, I am anxious or I am
00:23:39
Speaker
you know, I am unorganized. You could just say I have a part of me that at times can become anxious. When I read something, I was like, you're right. I'm not this head to toe. I'm not fully anxious. This whole system of me is not an anxious system. There's just area within my system that has this kind of
00:24:02
Speaker
maybe susceptibility to some anxiety. And when I look at that and I can control that, wow, that's rather than the whole body thinking and the mind thinking that you're anxious all day long and in every system, it's just one area and that just really
00:24:17
Speaker
I mean, I remember reading that and being like, yeah, you're right. Okay. And like softening up and, and yeah, it's almost like it deflates it because at first it feels like I, my entire being is anxious. And when you look at it this way, it's just like a little, a little piece of me is anxious. I, a part of me is experiencing anxiety. I am not.
00:24:39
Speaker
I'm not an anxious being. It's just a part of me. And it sounds softer, just like, I'm just, I mean, that sounds like a lot. Like, you know, you're all, wow. Okay. Let's talk about it when it's like, Oh, I just have a part of me actually. And when I think about school and all the homework, I become anxious. Oh, okay. So then how can we keep that contained within that piece so that you're not really anxious when you're all these other places. And so.
00:25:04
Speaker
Just that helps give you confidence, like, oh yeah, I can maybe help, I can maybe work on this anxiety. I know exactly where it's coming from. It's just that one part. Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about some of the language that we're already kind of like throwing out with IFS because it's so natural to us. When you have a client come in and it's a new client and you could tell immediately like, oh, we could do some really good parts work here.
00:25:28
Speaker
How do you explain the process to someone to let them understand like how you want to approach their therapy? Yeah, I think that's a great question because I think everybody has their own approaches and I think we could easily get I could have easily gotten kind of bogged down and
00:25:48
Speaker
like how to perfect that. And I think you just kind of come up with your own little system of how you want this intervention that you align so well with to come out. And I'm really kind of have a strong teacher part. So psycho education, explaining, I'm unfortunate to have a clientele that is, um, they have pretty good insight. They're pretty motivated and they have pretty stable environments in order to sort of explore. And so when they come in there, they're,
00:26:16
Speaker
usually in a state of like calm, you know, for the most part. So I know that education and that kind of teaching piece that you can deliver kind of lands well. So I'll sort of go, I'll listen, kind of hear their story, what's going on, and I'll drop sort of like questions like, oh, so what I hear is you have a part that is feeling overwhelmed by the changes within your job. And they'll say yes. And then I'll kind of map out all of the things I hear in a session.
00:26:45
Speaker
And I'll usually try to do it in the first session, at least kind of introduce the topic of like my approach, my framework, and kind of give them some idea of kind of what to expect. So that I know a lot of folks come in on that first session, you know, they kind of want you to deliver. They don't want you to bring like, Hey, I want money's worth. I get that a lot. I don't want to just sit and chat. So.
00:27:09
Speaker
And that teacher part of me that really likes to educate has really helped kind of go in and then explain how that part is something that we could look at through internal family systems and then really building a, you know, an understanding how you've reached this place of feeling overwhelmed and what's behind that through that education of, and how you're protecting against it and those things, and like maybe eventually leading back to some
00:27:35
Speaker
inner child that is likely at play due to the change in environment at work or whatever the presenting problem is. So I sort of mapped that out maybe in that first session, at least by the second, of sort of how parts work will play in looking at their here and the now, the presenting problem, and how that likely will tie back to something in the past and then bringing the two together to sort of help heal and building that relationship with that part from the past and how that can help in the present.
00:28:05
Speaker
kind of creating like a framework for them when they leave. And I think that lands really well with most. They seem to think we've got a plan, right? There's something, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think at the beginning I tried to talk and just normalize how we all have different parts of our personality. And one of the questions that I always get is people have like this concerned look on their face. Like, are you telling me I have multiple personalities? Do you hear that a lot?
00:28:32
Speaker
Like, do you mean I'll be talking to all these voices? Well, I have, yes. And I'm like, and I'm always like, yes you do, but that's because we all do. And I'm not talking about dissociative identity disorder, which is previously multiple personality disorder. We're talking about how all of us have like a complicated interworking where different parts of our personality come out at different times when we need them.
00:29:02
Speaker
Absolutely. So just to give some examples, like obviously I have a very professional part and that part comes out when I'm at work. And that part of me is very different than what my friends see, right? Because I have a very silly part around my friends. It's a like, which for laid back carefree. But then I also have parts that can be anxious. I have parts that can be very perfectionist.
00:29:32
Speaker
And how do you explain to people how to be able to tell like, I always say who's in the driver's seat. Like one part will be more in the driver's seat. I see something like who's in charge here. Like who's conducting business. Okay. Yeah. I like that. They use like kind of some examples of like the conductor or the driver of the school bus, like who's driving the bus, that kind of thing. So I think, yeah, I like what you're saying as far as
00:29:59
Speaker
identifying those types, those parts within you. Is that sort of how you, you're saying you introduce it like that? So yeah. And I kind of do the same thing too. Like I've got this really strong teacher part that's going to come forward in this room as a, you know, but I'm also a therapist, but I also have, you know, I am a caregiver to my father. I, you know, help with that. And you know, I have a part there and it's all,
00:30:22
Speaker
I really kind of that systems approach. So if you can kind of like take the systems like you're a friend in your social network, that's a system. And then within that, you've got parts likely that are in that system that are very different than that system that when you're home with your spouse and doing intimacy, those parts will come out differently, right? And kind of setting the stage for them to really understand systems.
00:30:49
Speaker
so that they can then see within each system, kind of that, um, not the genome app, but the, what's the, the eco map that we learned. I kind of used that a lot and I'll kind of design that and then we'll kind of, and I'll say, you know, help me see what parts are within each of these systems of yours. Yeah, I like that. And they'll kind of go on a little journey with that. And then, you know, usually in that first, um, session, something strong is presenting, right? There's a really strong part and we'll,
00:31:17
Speaker
And I'll clarify, you know, is this the part that is maybe leading you here today? You know, this feeling of being overwhelmed. Tell me more about that. And then that likely leads.
00:31:29
Speaker
Yeah. I love what you're saying. Tell me more about that because a lot of times I think people naturally would describe it as just a mood that they're in. And I'm saying when people say that I'm like, okay, so you already can identify it. Let's look at it if it's more than just a mood, but a part. And so what I start to look for is what do you notice when this, when this mood kind of comes over you? So say it's an overwhelmed part that, that feels very, um,
00:31:55
Speaker
overwhelmed or maybe desperate for help. And it's like, that's the part that finally got you to reach out for therapy. And so that's the one that's just like, I need help so bad. So I don't just say, like you've already identified a little bit about the mood, but let's look at it like it's its own person almost. How does it hold its posture?
00:32:13
Speaker
What is its tone? Is it really, is it afraid? Is it snippy? Is it sassy? Is it angry? Does it sound condescending? Like it, you almost start to notice that it has its own tone of voice. Yeah, like the finding more information about that part. Yeah. You're going on that journey.
00:32:37
Speaker
you'll notice how your body feels different. So maybe this part feels very much cerebral. So you feel it in your head more. Maybe it's more of a physical sensation where you feel just this part feels very tense. And every time I'm, every time this part is like in the driver's seat or in control, my whole body just tenses up. There could be parts of us that feel very, tries to make us feel very small. So we, you guys can't see what I'm doing.
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah, you go inward where your shoulders are down your heads down a little bit like there are parts of this to try to make us feel invisible or really small and again like a lot of times we might have an awareness of a mood that we're in and we can name maybe that emotion originally like anxiety or whatever it is.
00:33:25
Speaker
But when we start to do parts work, one of the things that I love is to really discover like, how much more do you already know about this part that you just haven't put together? And that helps to solidify like, oh my gosh, yeah, like when this part is in the driver's seat, so much about me changes, not just my mood. I look different physically. I might even have like a different tone of voice. You know, I hear people say sometimes I have a part that comes out that is so mean and lashes out to people and uses language that I typically don't use.
00:33:53
Speaker
Um, and it just kind of like comes out of nowhere, but when I feel threatened, I can just like snap on people and just go off on them. And that just doesn't feel like me. And I'm like, yeah, that's a part of you. Hey everyone. I just wanted to pause for a quick moment to say thank you so much for all the love and support that you're showing outside of session.
00:34:17
Speaker
If you haven't already, do me a huge favor and hit the subscribe button. Give me a five-star review and share this podcast with all of your friends. Help me take this show to another level. Now back to today's episode. There's that term, they blend into that part. What does that mean? So blending is essentially what you kind of sort of described of like that person could have easily just been walking down the street.
00:34:46
Speaker
and kind of listening to something in their radio and really enjoying the day and maybe even being so calm that there's nothing, you're not even in a part and someone could come and do something, maybe get in his way, kind of impede his walk and it triggers something that he may have felt threatened and then blend into what he just described, this mean part. Something can just cause me to blend in and he
00:35:15
Speaker
who knows, maybe some behavioral response comes too, right? Like pushes him, hits him, does something, right? And he has now discovered that he has blended into that, you know, maybe three, four, five times in the last month and it now has him concerned. And so we, you know, kind of could say the next term would be that that part is feeling a bit burdened, right? It's, it's now causing a problem with, with like his own,
00:35:44
Speaker
day to day, maybe even now, because of the five times it has increased, he's getting concerned, so now he's really feeling it, and it's causing him that calmness that he was experiencing down the street, no longer really there. The next time he goes out to do the same walk, he's noticing what's still thinking about what's going on with him, and then maybe thinking, okay, there's something there, I probably need to look at that.
00:36:10
Speaker
That's a lot of what walks in, not necessarily the same exact story, but really something quite like that, where they've reached a place where the part that he may have even known that that anger part was there, just hadn't seen it reach this level. And likely there's other things and other factors contributing that are going on. And so a lot of folks are coming in knowing that part, but seeing the burden piece of it, that it's just
00:36:37
Speaker
It's now causing problems and the biggest one usually is around alcohol or some sort of substance that can help ease that pain that maybe they used to be able to manage the part, maybe a loss someone has passed or they've lost a relationship and due to that their drinking takes a whole different turn and then they find themselves kind of burdened by that.
00:37:00
Speaker
working to kind of understand what happened. They got to this place. Does that help? Yeah. Yeah. So what's next? So you have a client come in. They're aware of some things that they are concerned about. You help them see that it's a part of them. Where do you go from there?
00:37:21
Speaker
So we've identified the part, we've gotten to know it. The next piece is really learning more about it. I know you just did a little bit of that kind of explaining, learning, where does it present, finding it in the system. In fact, IFS has sort of this, the six F's, like F is in Frank, that they kind of ask, you know, kind of set the tone on how to, how to really get to that part that is likely burdened, right? Like the one that's really bringing them in for therapy.
00:37:50
Speaker
You find it. You then focus on it. You talk to it. You know, you really start to understand kind of what it looks like. They'll say maybe it's in my chest. A lot of that, a lot of the anxiety is presenting in the chest. Good example. I'm nervous to even be here, right? They'll say like, I'm so nervous, but I know I need to be here. And I'll say, well, what, you know, they'll say it's in my chest. I feel like my shoulders are, you know, we just kind of spend some time
00:38:14
Speaker
really talking about that and understanding the somatic, the body piece of it and kind of settling in and then going on just to more questions around like, how do you feel towards that part right now?
Understanding Parts in IFS Therapy
00:38:27
Speaker
And that's the key question in IFS is really, how are we feeling towards that part?
00:38:33
Speaker
Yeah. And so I think that sometimes clients can get a little bit stuck there because that's a new, um, that's a new feeling. That's a new way of interacting with yourself is to look at this as its own part. And you ask yourself, how do you feel towards that part?
00:38:56
Speaker
I think that that can feel a little bit uncomfortable the first time that you're getting used to this type of therapy. Sometimes I even have to have people visualize if it's sitting next to you on the couch or if it's sitting across the table from you, like really trying to work to separate yourself from this part so that you can see it as an extension of you,
00:39:21
Speaker
But again, like you were saying earlier, I am not anxious. A part of me is anxious and I want to converse with that part that is anxious. Right. So go ahead. Sorry. I was just going to say that can be uncomfortable, but that's another part. Right. Absolutely. That's a protector that might. So that's another term. So what you just described is really that self, like kind of Julie in self kind of looking at the part.
00:39:49
Speaker
I think is really key here is kind of extending what you're saying is creating this place where self Julie can see the part and it's like you're saying you want that part to be a good distance from while we're working because a lot of times the problem is the parts or maybe the
00:40:11
Speaker
The burden is so close. And we want to kind of find that space to move that part back that might be so heavy or causing so much, that feeling of overwhelm. And that's our job is sort of to kind of with questioning and with creating the space and really giving them this feeling of like, this is a safe place to explore beyond just naming it. I think that's
00:40:36
Speaker
That's kind of a lot, and that takes time. I know we're on a short time constraint here. That could take a couple sessions, right? It's not great. Yeah, I'm so glad you said that. The audience could know one thing. This is a very slow process. Some clients can kind of move fast because they want to, and you can kind of let them. But for the ones that are really coming in with some real...
00:40:58
Speaker
just heavy things going on, trauma that is feeling really close and really acute. I think that's the term, that's a good term. I know right away we gotta slow down, right? We gotta watch what we're doing and really honor that the part is here, that they're letting me meet it, and that they're meeting it, my client, for the first time in a way that they never met. And that can really overwhelm the system. And I just wanna, I think that's,
00:41:27
Speaker
The piece that really stands out for me is just really making sure that they feel safe, constantly asking, you know, how are you feeling right now? Can you do anything that that part wants to say to me, right? If they're really kind of in the part, you know, and they could say, I mean, I had a girl the other day, she's like, she really cannot stand you right now. She is so mad at you. And I'll say, tell her, thank you. Like we want to know she's, you know, it was a wall part that we've known the wall part and
00:41:57
Speaker
I was just moving closer to vulnerability for the client and the wall wanted to let me know that we weren't going to have that until we had some more talks. So yeah, we always tell our parts that we're, we're never going to push past their comfortable, their comfortability until they give us permission to because so much of this work is,
00:42:22
Speaker
Um, it's called internal family because you really start to think of all your parts as your family inside and there's Different ones that protect us in different ways at different times from different threats, right? And so so much of family work is respect and trust. Yes
00:42:40
Speaker
And so when we're working with our parts, we want to create that safe space. And one of the ways to do that is to say, you don't have to share or reveal anything that you're not ready for, and I will always respect that. One thing I wanted to go back, what you were saying a minute ago is about self.
00:42:56
Speaker
So I always say self with a capital S. Like it is our, it's our, it's at the core of who we actually are when we don't have any kind of part blending in or jumping in the driver's seat, ourself. And one of the things that I think that when I started reading and training at IFS, one of the things that I loved about it so much is that the concept that our true self, like our capital S self is undamaged.
00:43:23
Speaker
And at our core, all of us are still intact. And I think that that, like the first time I read that, like it almost brought tears to my eyes because of all this shit that we go through in life and all, all of the painful experiences to think that at our core, none of us are broken.
00:43:44
Speaker
It's sacred, so to speak. It's sacred, yeah. And that's what our parts have done for us all these years is to carry our pain for us so that self can continue to be preserved. Yes. Oof, I just got goosebumps. Right?
00:43:59
Speaker
Yeah. And so when we're doing all of this work, we're bringing self and trying to get itself back in the driver's seat because that is, um, I know some people call it like our wise self or I always just say capital S self, like who you are at your core. Um, that's the one that is always going to have compassion for all of our parts and curiosity about our parts. I think there's like eight C's too, um, of like all the different characters.
00:44:30
Speaker
And when we know that we're in stealth, sitting with one of our parts, it can be alarming for them because they're not used to fully like us being that protected version of ourselves. They're used to protecting that part of us.
00:44:45
Speaker
And so really like creating that safe space and letting them know if you share stuff with me, I'm going to be okay with whatever you share. I'm not going to be triggered. I'm not going to be overwhelmed. Um, when you're ready to share what you have been holding for me, whether it's our memories, our pain, um, we'll be able to work through it together. I think that that's such like a sacred moment. Like you said, who it is. I mean, I think really that may have been
00:45:11
Speaker
the primary piece around why I aligned so much with it when I read about it.
00:45:16
Speaker
when you have self-disclosure, sort of your own trauma, which I've had, and I've had a lot happen to me, which is another, I think, inspiration as to why I do this work, because I overcame so much of that. Reading about the role of protectors, and that's a term I normally define, but that protector, that part, is the one that's really keeping us safe from the experiences that we've had, which is another term that exile, like the
00:45:44
Speaker
Yeah. Talk about the terms a little bit. Yeah. So the trauma. The best way to look at it is something's happened to us, maybe in childhood, you felt that difference one day at school where I had a client, her daughter, her son, excuse me, shared that he loved pink. Well, the whole, several people in the school let kids in the class, let him know boys don't like pink. Right. And so that difference was felt.
00:46:09
Speaker
So immediately the boy came home and started to tell his mom, I no longer want pink. So that protector started to build that day saying, Hey, in order for me to feel safe at school, I need to throw pink away. We need to get rid of it. We need to abandon my love of pink. So he just, that self of being in the pink, nothing was, everything was sacred with his pink, right? But the, the love of pink, his relationship, his attachment. And then that day something happened. Imagine a life, you know, we go through that.
00:46:40
Speaker
He's just five, maybe six. He's going to be 45. You know, when I have a lot of other things happen to him where he's going to feel that same kind of exile, icky feeling, that difference. And so I think the key is when we have trauma happen, something usually will try to kick in to try to protect us from experiencing that again. But it gets harder and harder as you have more and more happen to you.
00:47:06
Speaker
But those protectors are what it's at work to try to keep so we can get back to self at some point, that sacred place that when we do, it's those parts. They're called managers and firefighters that fall under the category of protectors. And managers help you each day get out of bed, brush your teeth, get to work. They're parts that are kind of healthy. And then, you know,
00:47:29
Speaker
They step in at all various different times. And then when things get a little more threatened and your environment feels a little more unsafe, a firefighter can step in to kind of shut it down. Maybe because the protectors that are the managers, you know, just aren't able to do their job because the environment's getting threatened in a new way and something, you know, and sometimes those firefighters can be alcohol. Sometimes they can be a little healthier, you know, working out, something like that. But both of those parts can get burdened at some point too, and then lead.
00:47:59
Speaker
to the idea, just leading maybe to the need to come to therapy. You realize that what was working at 22 years old to protect you and to help you manage is no longer working at 35 because things have happened. So we meet those parts pretty early on, those protectors in the room as therapists. And that's usually what's, when they're sitting down, they're usually talking mostly about a protector that is no longer working.
00:48:27
Speaker
I'm feeling like, you know, I used to do this, but it's not working now. Okay, let's talk. And so it's usually something else has happened. So I think for the audience to really understand that exile is we all have them. We all have those feelings around ickiness and some people are lucky. They move on through life to where their protectors are able to keep that feeling at bay, right? They never really feel it. But then sometimes just given circumstances and how life is,
00:48:56
Speaker
gets complicated, it gets harder and harder to manage those, uh, exile feelings, right? And then they can come to the surface. And that's when that gentleman that kind of under, you know, the anger towards the other person, there was likely something happened maybe to him at a young age, at a child age, uh, that kept, you know, maybe it was, um, who knows what it was, you know, like abandonment, but he, you know, being alone or maybe threatened at some point by an older adult.
00:49:27
Speaker
And then he worked to protect himself against that. And then because of his life maybe getting more complicated and he was walking on the street that day, that same protector that was able to kind of manage people who feel threatening in one way when he was younger, he can't quite do that. And that's when you realize that it's like, let's talk. And then leading back to that childhood moment is sort of what IFS will take us out. We'll talk about
00:49:51
Speaker
what the presenting feelings are and then eventually be able to get back maybe to that threatening moment when he was six from some neighbor or something, right? And then heal that and begin to tell, so yeah.
00:50:04
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that you're spot on. Like we call them protectors, but so much of when the way that they have learned to protect us is not serving us
Self-Sabotaging Behaviors and Trauma
00:50:14
Speaker
well anymore. Like a lot of times people are confused because they're like, no, this is wreaking havoc in my life in some ways. So it can take a lot of work in therapy to really understand from this part, how do you think you're protecting me by having this behavior?
00:50:33
Speaker
Because a lot of times we see it as, I don't know why I self-sabotage. I hear that a lot, right? Like I sabotage my relationships and we have to get to know that part to understand it thinks it's protecting us by leaving the relationship before you get hurt.
00:50:50
Speaker
doing something to kind of like cause a breakup because you're scared that they're going to leave you right so maybe you had maybe your first love at 15 years old broke your heart right and so a protector part learned you're going to be abandoned like that's the pain point right and so it learns to protect you by
00:51:11
Speaker
not letting you be vulnerable with people. Or if you start to get too vulnerable, you do something to cause the breakup. And it looks like self-sabotage, but that part is kind of like, nope, my job was to make sure you didn't get broken up with again and you didn't because you left before you got broke up with. Talk about hyper vigilance around like, well, let me be ahead of the game in case it shifts a little bit and I'll break up before
00:51:34
Speaker
Yeah. Is that sort of what you were talking about? It is. And I think that, um, what I've noticed is that when we talk about the managers that are helping us try to stay on top of our life, they can be very helpful, but they can also cause a lot of anxiety because they are very proactive in trying to keep us from any kind of pain. So, um,
00:51:54
Speaker
they can be our parts that are perfectionist. They can be the parts of us that are really critical of ourselves. Like everybody kind of has that, that part of you that's always beating you up about something, whether it's, you know, I work with a lot of women that they have this part that beats them up about their diet and their weight. And they say if, and that protective part is saying, if I don't keep you on top of this, then I'm afraid. Um, something like you'll gain weight and then, um,
00:52:24
Speaker
That'll be a pain point because maybe sometime in the past somebody caused you pain because of your weight, right? And so they're very proactive so that I've noticed that those parts cause a lot of anxiety, a lot of self-doubt and guilt in a lot of ways because they're very, very critical, but they're proactive and they're trying to get you to stay on top of things because they're afraid if they don't, you'll experience some kind of consequence, right? Proactive management.
00:52:51
Speaker
proactive management. And then the firefighters are more reactive when the pain is already kind of there. So it's, it's, those are the parts that might say, um, well you've already messed the relationship up. You might as well go, go out and have an affair or you had, you've already blown your diet. And so that's when we see a lot of binge eating. Yeah.
00:53:15
Speaker
Um, or they try to numb you out. And so even like part, like depressive parts could be firefighters in some ways because they just like kind of shut you down so that you're not able to engage in relationships in life anymore. Do you notice that too? Oh yeah. Like anger is a big, like when the anger kind of comes out really quick and fast, uh, as opposed to just sort of like, and you know, that just, you know, you just, yeah, anger is a big one that people find out.
00:53:45
Speaker
figure out, it's like, how do I get control of this? Because it's, they're stressed out, and then they got to shut down whatever's feeling like they're dysregulating, or they're losing control. And that firefighter around anger is a real common one, I think, coming into the rooms, because they're, there's already build things are building, think stressors are feeling the you're feeling the impact of all of them. And then anger can tends to be this big,
00:54:10
Speaker
Firefighter that just lashes out and anytime you're lashing or you're doing anything kind of negative consequences. Yeah, those are usually the firefighters. Yeah I think that like they're shutting things down like
00:54:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's a good way to describe it. You know, I heard, so an IFS, that's the language, right? Like there's the protector parts and you have the managers, the firefighters, and they're both protecting you from the pain of the exiles, right? I read a different IFS book. Gosh, I can't remember what it was, but the way she described it, I really liked too, because sometimes those words can feel a little bit woo woo.
00:54:51
Speaker
I can't say that. Are we doing Hocus Pocus today? There's a part of me that cringes when I say firefighter because people are like, what in the world are you talking about? But the way that this therapist in this book described it was she said, we've got our
00:55:07
Speaker
Young parts are our exiles because a lot of the pain that we're talking about happened in Childhood when we were first getting our sense of self and then we were given those message of you're wrong for liking pink or something like that or when your heart gets broken for the first time so the exile she calls our young parts our child parts and then she called the managers our controlling adult our controlling parent or maybe
00:55:33
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, I can see that because adults are like always like staying on top of us trying to make sure that we're
00:55:41
Speaker
controlling our lives, right? And our firefighters are our pissed off teenage parts. Oh, I like that. And so those are the ones that aren't really thinking about consequences. They're only thinking about doing something rash in the moment, whatever needs to be done, they're willing to do. So whether it's drink, whether it's lash out, whether it's shut down, they're just kind of like our pissed off teenage parts that are willing to shut us down. I love that.
00:56:08
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, that's, that's kind of language that I can get on board with. Yeah. That's a big conversation just in general around IFS therapists is just, do you use these terms? How do you present it? How do you talk about it? You know, some people don't say self. They just use the energies. Yeah. And they don't, they just, a lot of them say protectors as opposed to managers and firefighters. So yeah, it's interesting. I don't think I really, I kind of say it all and just,
00:56:36
Speaker
see how it lands with the client. If it doesn't land well, then I send it to adjust. Now I have a new option. It's been a while since I said fighter fighters because I think that there's something in me that cringes at that a little bit.
00:56:48
Speaker
You have a part that doesn't like that. I have a part that's just like people aren't going to buy into this if you use that kind of language. Um, but I have some other clients that have gotten just really, um, because it's worked so well for them that they want to read all about it. And so they'll come back and they'll say, what is a firefighter? We've never talked about that before. And I'm like, Oh, that's the word that I don't like to use. Um, yeah.
00:57:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think the language is unique. And so have you applied that part and the controlling parent and the pistachio? Do you use that now?
00:57:26
Speaker
Um, yeah, I think I use that a little bit more. Um, and like, I even use the example a lot when we're talking about our manager parts about how helpful they are in our daily lives, right? Like my professional part is a manager part and that part wants me to do really, really well in my job. And so it keeps me awake and it keeps me alert and it helps me hone in all of my like clinical skills and stuff like that.
00:57:50
Speaker
But even our manager parts can wreak havoc in our life if they get pushed too far into their role and we blend with them too much. And I always use this example. I have a part on Saturday mornings that loves to wake up and clean because I love a clean house.
00:58:09
Speaker
I, everything about my life functions better if I don't have like a lot of clutter around me. Um, like my environment very much impacts me. And so on Saturday morning, if I wake up and I'm cleaning and I'm knocking it out and I'm getting it all done for the day and, um, you get the laundry done and you light the candle at the end and everything is going great, right? Like that is a part that helps me manage my life really well. But
00:58:36
Speaker
She's gonna come out tomorrow. But if that part gets pushed too far into her role, I can become just psycho. And before I know it, I'm yelling at the dogs because they're creating more mess while I'm trying to clean and I'm yelling at the kids and I'm frustrated with my husband because it's at that point not helping me manage. It has become perfectionist and mean.
00:59:03
Speaker
Because that part is so focused on like getting tasks done that she's like, I just, I want everything to be done and perfect. And nobody is helping me. And I'm lashing out again, um, at people who are preventing me from getting there. And at that point, she's not really helping me manage my life. She's actually causing problems in my life because that's damaging to relationships, right? Like nobody wants a mom that's waking up on Saturday morning and like,
00:59:32
Speaker
Yelling and frustrated and like everybody's like, dang, can we sleep? You know what I mean? And I don't want to be that person. Like I had that mom growing up, so I don't want to be that person, but that's, that's how I've learned to be. And so that's where you can work with your parts in the moment to say like, hang on a second. Let self have the floor for just a second.
00:59:51
Speaker
and decide what's more important? Is it the, the task that my manager part is kind of like conditioned to move me towards? How important is that if it's causing other areas of my life to suffer? And that's when if I can access self in that moment, self will say,
01:00:09
Speaker
Chill Jules, it's okay if everything is not perfect. Family and relationships are more important than a perfectly spotless house. Like this is not Southern living. So just take a deep breath. And then that's like, if I can work with that part, I can reel her back in a little bit and she could say, okay, we'll get done as much as we can, but it's not worth it to act this way.
01:00:30
Speaker
I love that. That's that awareness that sort of is what IFS does that you've created through that work of being able to see that this part is no longer in the role. This manager is not in the same role that it was when it was created. That's essentially what this is all about is how can we get that part back into the role that it was initially or originally put in and how do we, you know, cause that's,
01:00:57
Speaker
in the age that you're at or in the environment that you're in. Cause that's as you shift, like maybe you had that same cleaning part when you were 12 and 15 and it really served you well. And now you're at the stage in life where you've got other things, a family, a full-time career, all of that other stuff. And those things are impacting how that role can perform in that morning. Right. It sounds like. And so how do you get back to sort of creating that awareness that the part's not in the role that it used to be.
01:01:25
Speaker
redirecting it and informing it and getting it back to that, that awareness. And that's clients go like, you know, whereas they would come in and say, for four months I have had, I've been in this cleaning thing and it's driving me crazy, you know, and then through this education of learning about the part and then asking that, that self to go home and say, is there a part in you that could help with this cleaning part to kind of see
01:01:51
Speaker
and manage the environment in a new way to kind of have awareness of this before you just run right into cleaning. Yeah, and then the question that we always ask in therapy, once you've identified all of that, you ask this part, what are you afraid will happen if you don't get everything clean and
Deep-Seated Fears in Therapy
01:02:14
Speaker
perfect? What are you afraid will happen? And that's where you start to learn from your parts about the burdens, right? Yes.
01:02:21
Speaker
those fears that they have around if they don't do that for what will happen. Cause they get really anxious at the moment and they say, it has to be done this way. I have to help you with this. And so that's where you start to learn what is it protecting you from.
01:02:38
Speaker
And what I love about that question is when you get to that point of having the trust with that part to be able to ask it, what are you afraid of? You instantly learn things. And so often it's something that you had no idea was underneath what's going on in the moment. And I think that that's where we really start to connect the dots and understand our inner workings a lot better. And we realized that
01:03:01
Speaker
these parts that we have, the reason why they hold those positions so tight is because they've been tasked with protecting us from something. So I might ask that protector part, why do I feel like the house has to be perfect? What are you afraid of will happen if it's not perfect?
01:03:18
Speaker
And they'll end up telling you something like, well, I'm not afraid you're going to be judged or I'm going to, I'm afraid that you're not, not being a good enough mom. And it's just like, it seems counterintuitive because it's like, well, I'm actually not being a really good mom by yelling, but it's afraid that if I don't give my kids a clean environment, that that's not good enough. Right. And so you start to learn what their underlying fear is. And it points you in the direction of, okay, well, where did you get that message along the way in life somewhere?
01:03:46
Speaker
And that's how you end up making a connection back to an exile or a younger part that, that was injured at some point. I know. And the way you describe that, it's like, Oh, and in 15 minutes we get there. I mean, that can take several sessions and within that trust. But just to say when that happens, it is. It's like, it's why we do what we do. And I think that's kind of a light bulb moment for sure. It's a feeling that I makes me get up every day and do this job because that
01:04:16
Speaker
That is not in the textbook, so to speak. You know, there's not a, you know, a homework assignment I can do to go and get to that. That just takes so much, just skill and kind of all of the things about person. I don't know. It's just a, it's like magic, you know? And then you give them hope. That's what we call it. I have this like, this hope that now, like, it doesn't have to look, cleaning doesn't have to look like that, but they understand and trust that, wow, we kind of see why we got to this place.
01:04:45
Speaker
It's deeper than just, you know, all these other day-to-day things.
01:04:56
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of outside of session. Remember, while I am a licensed therapist, this podcast is not a substitute for individual therapy. The contents of this episode are for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you are having a mental health emergency, please dial 911 for immediate assistance or dial 988 for the suicide and crisis lifeline.