Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 323: How (and Why) to Hug Your Inner Dragons | Richard Schwartz

Episode Date: February 10, 2021

How do you relate to the more difficult— and even ugly— aspects of your personality? How do you feel about yourself when you are, say, in a judgmental or vengeful or jealous mode? Is that an opportunity for self-laceration? My guest today agrees with me that one of the healthiest possible inner moves is to learn how to hug your dragons, instead of attempting to slay them (which is only likely to make them stronger). Dr. Richard Schwartz is a psychotherapist with a Ph.D. in marriage and family therapy. He founded something called the Internal Family Systems model of therapy, often referred to as IFS. His basic idea is that our consciousness is broken down into several parts. These parts can become rebellious and troublesome when traumatized or unattended. In this conversation, we talk about: how to relate to your parts more successfully; the overlap between IFS and Buddhism; and why meditation isn’t enough, in his view. We also attempt to dive in and do some IFS therapy work together. I’m not sure I was a particularly good patient, but you can judge for yourself. Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/richard-schwartz-323 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. How do you relate to the more difficult and even ugly aspects of your personality? How do you feel about yourself when you are, say, in a judgmental or vengeful or jealous mode? Is that an opportunity for self-laceration?

My guest today agrees with me that one of the healthiest possible innermost is to learn how to hug your dragons instead of attempting to slay them, which is only likely to make them stronger. Dr. Richard Schwartz is a psychotherapist with a PhD in marriage and family therapy. He founded something called the internal family systems model of therapy, often referred to as IFS. His basic idea is that our consciousness is broken down into several parts or personalities. These parts, and that's the term he uses a lot, as you'll hear, can become rebellious and troublesome when they are unattended to.

In this conversation, Richard and I talk about how to relate to your parts more successfully, talk about the overlap between IFS and Buddhism, and why meditation is not enough in his view. We also attempt to dive in and do some IFS therapy work together, which is actually pretty dramatic the way he practices this. I'm not sure I was a particularly good patient for lots of idiosyncratic reasons, but I did attempt to play along as you will hear you can judge for yourself.

So here we go now with Dr. Richard Schwartz. Dick Schwartz, nice to meet you. You're too down. I'm so say it's I feel honored to be invited to be with you. Well, I'm honored that you agreed. I'm so curious, can you give a brief description of what IFS is for the uninitiated. And by the way, I would put myself in that category. So IFS started and still is a form of psychotherapy. That's my background. I have a PhD in Marital and Family Therapy.

And so I'm steeped in what's called systems thinking. And I was, you know, back in the early 1980s, actually. I was a recent graduate and was big zealot about family therapy, is the answer to the polar grail. And decided to prove that by doing an outcome study with bulimia. And we gathered together 30 bulimic kids and their families. And I found I could reorganize the family's just the way the book said to. And it didn't work the way I expected.

So out of frustration, I began asking these patients, what was happening inside? Why wasn't it working? And they started to teach me about what they call their parts, which scared me at first because they were talking about these parts as if they had a lot of autonomy and could take over and make them do things I didn't want to do and so on. And first, I thought maybe these clients are sicker than I thought. Maybe they have multiple personalities or... By parts, you mean aspects of their own personality, voices in their head, neurotic programs that have been running. What do you mean by parts?

I thought that that's what they were. I thought initially they were like the critic was this internalized parental voice that they got from their parents or the binge was some kind of out of control impulse. So I started to have them relate to these things as if that was okay. So I would have my client stand up for themselves with the critic when it starts to attack them. We're trying to control the binge and they were getting worse. And so that happened until the first client I was aware of with an extensive sex abuse history, who also cut herself on her wrists and insisted on showing me the open wounds. And that was so distressing that I decided we weren't going to let that part leave

my office until a degree not to do that to her. that part, leaving my office until it had agreed not to do that to her. And so I had my client badge of the part for a couple of hours and finally said it wouldn't cut her. And then I opened the door to the next session and she had a big gash down the side of her face. And I just collapsed emotionally and spontaneously said, we can't beat you with this. And the part started to talk about it, it didn't really want to beat us,

it really just wanted to keep her safe. And that shifted everything because I shifted out of that coercive place to just being curious and open. And we began to interview the part about how it was trying to protect her. And so in the process of doing that, I learned that these, what I call parts of their systems, called subpersonalities, aren't just bundles of

emotion or of programming, but they are actually full-range inner personalities that multiple personality disorder diagnosis show up as that, but it's the nature of the mind to have these parts. So this is a bit of a radical departure from the ordinarily view of the mind as unitary. You have a one mind that has different thoughts and emotions, but if you have inner minds, that means you're crazy or pathological. And I'm here to tell you after 40 years of doing this, that we all have these parts, and actually that that's a good thing, that it's the nature of the mind to be multiple, but we're born with them, either a manifest or a dormant, and that they all are valuable.

There are no bad parts. But trauma, and what I call attachment injuries, have the effect of forcing these parts out of their natural, valuable states into extreme roles that can be destructive. And also freeze these parts in time during the trauma. So many of them live as if what happened to you when you were a kid is still happening and they still think you're five years old that they have to protect you in that same way. All of this that I'm telling to you now, I never would have believed had I not learned it from my clients over and over. Because most people were schooled in the idea that we'd just have one mind.

And I come from a very scientific family, so it's been quite a journey to come to that conclusion. Is there science validating this? Is there a scientific consensus that your view of the mind is correct now? No. There are some scientists who would agree with me. It is a bit of a radical departure from the traditional scientific view of the mind for sure. So the mainstream scientific community or psychological community would still argue that the mind is unitary, that there is kind of one mind, not a bunch of different parts that are competing for sailing instead at any given moment. Yeah, I would say so. I

mean, there are some theorists that would agree with me and people like Carl Young and some other theorists who were more obscure came to the same conclusion years ago about what I'm calling parts, what young called complexes and archetypes and so on, but it's not a mainstream view by any means. Let me press on it just for a little bit just based on my own experience. I for sure notice that I have modes that I go into angry mode, fearful mode, usually the fear is beneath the anger, sad mode, whatever it is, hustling and trying to be ambitious mode. I can see these characters come up in my own mind, but I don't know that I could

sit and have you interview one of those characters the way you were doing with your Belie-McPatient which sounds a little bit closer to like the Exorcist where the exorcist is interviewing the devil or talking to the devil that's taken over the poor young woman's body Well, I kind of guarantee that you could you know if want to try it, I can show you how it works. And that, you know, what you're talking about in terms of modes is the way most people would think about these things, but most people don't go inside and actually start to dialogue with them. And so I did start by talking directly to these parts, as you suggest. But as a family therapist, I was interested in dialogue. So I would try to have my clients talk to the critic, for example, rather than me talk to the critic

and try to help them get along better, especially as I learned that these parts went what they seen, that they were actually trying to protect. And so if we were to do this, I would have you focus on that critical voice in there and try to get curious about it, which could take some work because most people hate that critic. But once you got curious about it, I'd have you ask some questions of it and you would get some answers.

And as you talk to it, we would learn likely, I don't want to suggest, do you think, but that it was, you know, it was afraid that if it didn't push you, if it didn't call you names all the time, that you wouldn't try hard or that you might take risks, you thought we're not healthy for you. Or there's generally some protective role it's trying to play inside of you. And we would then learn about the fear, as you said, well your anger protects fear, yes. But we would learn about the parts of you it was trying to protect that were stuck in bad times in your childhood often. And then we would negotiate

permission to go to those and there's a way to actually heal those parts so they transform. Because you know, I'm listening to the podcast with you in town. You had the panic attack and it sounds like you still have some anxiety in there and meditation can be helpful, but it doesn't quite get to that. But when you say meditation can be helpful, but it doesn't quite get to it. Can you unpack that a little bit? Okay. So to do that, I have to bring forth another concept in IFS.

So as I was doing these dialogues, having my client talk to the critic, for example, when I learned the critic was trying to protect, I wanted my client to actually listen rather than attack yet. But it was hard because as I was doing it, my client would be quite angry and want to fight with it or it would be couted by it and couldn't really talk. And it reminded me of family sessions where I was trying to have a dialogue between two family members. And as I did that, other family members would jump in and interfere. And we learned this family, other family members would jump in and interfere. And we learned this family therapist to stop that process and to

have these others give more space for the two to have a dialogue that was protected. And so I started thinking maybe the same thing's happening in this intersystem. Maybe as I'm trying to have my client talk to the critic, a part who hates the critic is stepped in and is doing the talking. So I would ask clients, I would say, Dan, would you ask that part, and so angry with the critic, to just give us a little space for a few minutes so we can get to know the critic. And most clients would say, okay, it did. And then I would say, now how do you feel toward the critic? It would be an entirely different answer.

In the direction most of the time of I'm just kind of curious about why it calls me name, or even I feel sorry for it that it has to do this all day. So going so quickly just by getting these parts to open space from some kind of extreme feeling to this very openness and open-heartedness toward the part, and when my climb was in that place, the dialogue would go well, and the critic would share its secret history of how it got forced into that role and what it protects and how it was still frozen in time. And then we could actually begin some work with it that would lead to a transformation. And when I would do this with other clients in those early days, it was like the same person

would pop out when I got these other parts to open space. And that person would be calm, would be confident, would have curiosity, would have compassion, would have creativity relative to the part, would be courageous. All these sea words that as I proceeded were just popping out. And so after doing that enough and seeing it was like the same person popped out in these different clients. I started to wonder if maybe that isn't in everybody and it turns out that after almost 40 years of doing this, we can pretty safely say that that self, for that person, what I came to call the self, for the capital S, isn't everybody, can't be damaged and knows how to heal, knows how to relate in a healing way both internally and externally. And so that's the big

discovery for lack of a better word of IFS that that's in everybody just beneath the surface of these parts such that when they open space that person comes out and that person is who we meditate to get to. So the act in mindfulness of separating from your thoughts and emotions and watching them like a movie, that allows that space to happen where then yourself is just naturally there. where then yourself is just naturally there. And you start to feel a lot of those qualities. And the only difference, the main difference, is that rather than just be a passive witness

of those emotions and thoughts, you become an active leader, you become an active healer. And in the podcast I listened to, it sounded like you were headed in this direction that you were coming with more loving feelings and you were hugging your dragons. And that's what IFS is about. It's really about not just seeing them as thoughts and emotions, but honoring their personhood for a lack of a better word that they are little inner personalities and that people with that Diagnosis of multiple personalities are no different from any of us except their system got thoroughly blown apart by the horrific trauma they suffer

chronic trauma So that there stand out a lot more and are much more polarized and There don't have nearly the same level of access to what I'm calling the cell, but that's the only difference. You've referenced a few times this interview that I gave to Tim Ferris on his podcast, the Tim Ferris show, for people don't have the time or inclination to go listen to that, I'll just sum up the relevant portion of that podcast interview where I was talking about the one of the biggest developments in my own meditation

career and just life generally has been the increasing what I feel to be at least the increasing capacity to see my parts, different modes of aspects of my personality, different voices in my head, the different neurotic habitual programs or scripts that run, you know, the ambitious one, the angry one, the inner critic, etc. to see all of these, first of observing them non-judgmentally, which often in my meditation career knitted out to be sort of like somewhat aversive, to actually turn on the warmth. And I made a joke, I've been making this joke increasingly that because I'm kind of playing with the terminology that in Western individualistic society we have this notion of slaying the dragon, but it actually might be more useful. The radical disarmament here might be to hug the dragon and to see, as you've said

several times during the course of this brief interview, these parts, these voices, these modes, these inner characters are trying to help you, often on skillfully, but to fight them or to feed them is usually counterproductive, but there is this other way, which is to invite them into the party, give them a hearty hat, set them down, thank them for trying to help you, and then to take a breath, and you can make a wiser decision without being owned by either the feeding of these voices or the combat with the voice. So you've already started doing the first step survive, which is to actually see them,

although I don't see mine. There's a small percentage of us that don't see anything when we go inside. But most people can see an image of them. And I can find mine in my body and I can hear its voice and so on. So I have something to relate to. But yeah, the first steps are the focus on it, find it in your body, around your body. And then this question, how do you feel toward it? In answering that, you're telling me how much of what I call yourself as present versus parts that are polarized with it. And then we get those to step back and I ask again, how do you feel toward it now? And you say, well, I'm just kind of curious about why it does this. I said, let it know

that you're curious about it. And wait for an answer to come from that place in your body. Don't think of the answer. And then people will get an answer often that's surprising to them. And then we're kind of off and running, which ultimately we wind up honoring the part for its service like you might the military and learning about what it protects. And in answering that question, then we can really give it a lot of appreciation for trying so hard to keep us safe. And then we begin negotiating with it for permission to go to what it protects. What I call the exile part of you that you left in the dust

or tried to a long time ago because it got hurt. And then there's a process of actually going to that exile and helping it out of where it stuck in the past. So it could unload the pain or the fear or whatever, what I call burdens it got stuck with back in those days. So it turns out that because of the traumas we suffered or the attachment injuries, our parts take on these beliefs and emotions that aren't native to us. They come into our system almost like a virus and attach to the part and then drive the way the part operates thereafter,

like a virus. And it's possible to unload these extreme beliefs and emotions that came into you from those times once we get these parts out of where they're stuck in the past. And then they transform into their naturally valuable states and they become, you know, just happy inner children or they become the critic wants to now be helped you with discernment, for example, or the angry one wants to just encourage you to stand up for yourself and so on. When I used the term C before saying that I could see my inner parts or whatever. I didn't actually mean that.

Literally, I met more like I could, I was just aware of them. And I think just like you, I can't actually see anything, but I can notice the dialogue. I can notice the tone of voice. I can notice where it shows up in my body. The question is getting back to the comment you made earlier that a certain amount of this work, it seems you were saying can be done on the cushion to use a meditative term of art. But you can't get all the way there just through meditation alone. Is that accurate restatement of your view and if so, why do you believe that? Well, it's sort of accurate. So meditation, when I got out of college, I had a lot of anxiety, partly just because it's a legacy burden if you're Jewish. And so I signed up for TM and I did TM for about eight years very regularly and it was very helpful. It got me separate from those parts.

And I could access what I'm calling the self that way. And I felt those sea words. And it would also, at times, take me to this kind of non-dual place. It was really blissful. And so it was very useful in terms of my functioning, and my ability to handle the insecurity of being on my own. But it didn't touch those parts that I carried all the worthiness that I was generating a lot of the anxiety. It didn't touch a bunch of my protectors either because I wasn't

going to them. I was actually using the meditation to get away from them. What's called a spiritual bypass. And so many people come to meditation with a lot of trauma and use it to sort of live above all these parts, which again can be very helpful in terms of navigating life. And I'm a big advocate for meditation, but not to the exclusion of actually going to and healing a bunch of these parts that you don't want to leave in the dust. I don't have a beef with trans-adental meditation, but it's not my mode of practice, my mode of practice is Buddhist insight meditation, you know, secular mindfulness with a big, big dose of the brum of Vihara or loving kindness practices thrown in. With that recipe, do the job or do you think there's more that needs to be layered on top of it? Well, it doesn't do the job if you have an attitude

about the ego, for example, or about any other part, and too many Buddhists have that, and I'm a kind of crusader for the personhood of the ego and to see it as a protector, not the enemy. I think in the podcast I listen to you, I think you call it something like a malevolent puppet master or something like that. And that kind of attitude is rife in Buddhism and in meditation in general.

And so how much you can do what we're talking about depends on how you view these emotions and thoughts. And if you view them with an attitude, you're not going to get anywhere. But if instead you see them in the way I'm trying to portray as sort of sacred inner beings who are deserving of your attention and actually your love and who will respond to that in the way external children do if you give it to them. Then yes, then meditation can be a point where you do some of this kind of work. Yeah, so you'll, you may or may not be familiar with this, but you as a public figure,

somebody does presentations. You may occasionally find yourself falling into what the Jews call schtick and that line that you referenced about the malevolent puppeteer, that has actually been part of my schtick for a long time, which predates the sort of hug the dragon part of my schtick, which is newer and more evolved. And I can see now, as I listen to, how they would be in contradiction. But I think the more accurate description of my current view of the mind would be the more benevolent view of the parts. Including the ones that drive you crazy. They're stuck in the past.

They don't know any better. They don't trust you to lead. They lost trust in you back when you couldn't protect them when you were kid. And so they are like what in family therapy we used to call predefined children. Children who had to take on parental roles, they weren't equipped and they were sort of stuck in those roles. Just to say about the self, what I'm hearing from you is that you can think of the parts, aspects of your personality, and then beneath them, I believe,

if you were gonna think of this spatially, there is this capital S self, which when you access that space, you view all of your parts with the aforementioned seawards, like calm and compassion and curiosity and connectedness. That sounds right to me, except for I'm bumping up against my Buddhist training that would argue there is no self,

that the self is an illusion. How do you square that circle? My take on that is that what the Buddhist are calling no self is really what I would call no parts. So it's the open stillness, the quality of presence you have when your parts are not driving the bus when they're all kind of sleeping or you know if you remember the movie inside out, so that you've got these five characters in there, and who would be there if they all went to sleep? That would be no self, you know characters, but that's still you.

You follow what I'm saying? Yes, except you're able to get patients to occupy the capital S self while awake. Yeah, that's right. No, I'm saying there are parts went to sleep, but then you would be left. Yes. And who is that? Well, they didn't really have self in the movie. I hope they do in the sequel. But that's what we're accessing. And there have been articles written about this. how does IFS itself compare to no self in Buddhism and a prominent Buddhist scholar said it's really the same. It's just the absence of parts. So many schools of Buddhism will talk about Buddha nature and that there is that essence

in there and that's is that essence in there. And that's what we're accessing. Yeah. It's funny. Buddhism is often associated with, you know, calm and bulletproof imperturbability, but actually as soon as you start getting into these concepts, you're in an argument because the Buddhists really disagree. My understanding is that it's to say no self lacks clarity because it lacks a consonant. The consonant would be the letter T, that it should be not self, that if you look at the contents of your own consciousness, it's not that you will see there is no self,

although you might be able to see that, but it's easier to access not self. Anything that comes up in your mind, you can pretty clearly see if you look for it that it's not you. I think that I've just found that to be a very useful tweak. And then the other thing I'd say is the Tibetan term for enlightenment, as I understand it, roughly translates into a clearing away and a bringing forth. And that's

what it sounds like you're doing in IFS. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Although, again, because of the disparaging of parts, we are clearing away first and bringing forth self, but rather than trying to keep all these thoughts and emotions in bay thereafter, we're actually from that place of self, going to them and embracing them and bringing them back home and helping them trust self to lead both internally and externally in our lives. The analogy in Buddhism might be to you become an internal bodhisattva. You are going with love to these parts of you in the same way a bodhisattva goes with

love to every external living being. So the clearing away cannot be done with aggression. The clearing away is done the way you might ask a child to just give you a second. And with love and patience and the parts respond much better to that than when you try to push them away. Because they think you don't get how important their protective spiel is. And so they'll fight harder and so people have to work hard to meditate,

whereas if you meditate by just going and before you even start to meditate, just asking all your parts to give you some space and they start to trust that there's value in that, then they just do. Like when I meditate I don't have to struggle. My parts trust, okay it's helpful to us to give them 20 minutes and he'll come back to us with a lot more of those seawards. So let's do that. It's funny, when I meditate, I am not asking the parts to give me space. I'm actually saying, come on in.

Let me take a look at you. Yeah, initially you're getting some space through your mindfulness practice. And then you're saying, okay, let me get to know you. Come on in. And that's what we do, too. We get the space. And then we say, come on in. Let's get to know you. Come on in. And that's what we do too. We get the space. And then we say, come on in. Let's get to know you. Let's try and help you. Much more of my conversation with Dr. Richard Schwartz right after this.

Hey, I'm Aresha and I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wunderys Podcast, even the rich. Where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about drag icon RuPaul Charles. After a childhood of being ignored by his absentee father, Ru goes out searching for love and acceptance, but the road to success is a rocky one. Substance abuse and mental health struggles threatened to veer Rue off course. In our series, Rue Paul Bornnaked.

We'll show you how Rue Paul overcame his demons and carved out a place for himself as one of the world's top entertainers. Opening the doors for aspiring queens everywhere. Follow even the rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. You said earlier that there are no bad parts, but if a part of you is getting you to cut your wrists and your face, where's the nugget of goodness there? Okay, so I've worked with many such parts.

I specialize in the treatment of complex PTSD, you know, serious trauma for 20 years and lots of cutting parts and suicidal parts. And then I also consulted to a facility for sex offenders for seven years and worked with a lot of those parts that did heinous things and parts that have murdered people and even those parts, if approached from this place I'm describing of openness and

curiosity, will reveal their secret history of how they were forced into their roles and how much they ate the roles they got stuck in but they feel stuck with those roles. A lot of the perpetrators I worked with for example, if you go to the part that did the perpetrating, it would show scenes of when as a child he was being perpetrated and this part was desperate to protect him and looked around the room and said, who has power in this room? Oh, it's this guy who's hurting me. I'm going to take on his energy to protect the system from him and then it could stuck with this need to attack vulnerability and gets a big thrill out of hurting kids. But that's just a burden that it picked up to try and protect the system.

And so the same with cutting parts. If you ask them, what do you afraid will happen? If you don't do this, they'll say, she'll feel totally bereft or totally alone. And by doing this, the cutting could bring in some hormones that make you high, and cutting is a big distraction, and cutting out sometimes gets attention from people. And these parts have different reasons for doing what they do, but it's always protective. This is a tough sell. I can see your face, and it's tough to go with this approach as far as it goes

and say there are no bad parts. I understand your skepticism. No, no, I'm not actually skeptical. My wife is always saying that my resting face is quite stern, so it's easy to read into it. It's just my face. I don't know if you know Jerry Colona. I talked about him in the Tim Ferris, you don't know him,

but I've talked about him in the Tim Fair, you don't know him, but he, I've talked about him in the Tim Fairess interview. And Jerry is my executive coach. He works with me and also with the CEO of 10% happier and helps us individually and also does some like couples counseling with the two of us. And it's, it's, he's great. And he's been on the show before wrote an excellent book called Reboot. and I have to have confirmed this with Jerry But I have a sense that he's highly influenced by your view because Well, I might know I'm now that you mentioned his name again, but anyway, keep going He really has in my work with him over the past couple of years has

I'm hearing so much Jerry in what you're talking about that he would give a name to my inner critic. We call him Robert Johnson. That's my grandfather's name. My grandfather was great in many ways, but also quite stern and pretty tough to personify the voice in that way. And then to, you know, he talks about the loyal soldier to sort of decommission the soldier that's been bivouacked out on the rocks of the Philippines thinking he's still fighting

World War II. Still fighting World War II, yeah. He may well be influenced because I used that analogy a lot, yeah. Okay, so no need to disentangle or disambiguate the threads here. It's just to say that I Come to this with that with a lot of skepticism for once good good Just because I've seen it play out in my own mind It just I don't know how to describe this I probably would have been skeptical if you said this a couple of years ago to me

But it turns out that if you can just show some Warmth one even might even say love to these characters, they tend to calm down. It won't work. In my case, it doesn't work in perpetuity. They'll come right back, but you just have to be continuously ready to go back into the stance of warms. If you were to actually unburden them and you were actually to get to what they protect and heal it, they wouldn't just snap back. You wouldn't have to work this way all the time because they literally do fully transform into their naturally valuable states once unburdened.

So, let's just go with that for a second. So, for example, let's take Robert Johnson. It's pretty obvious to me that the anger that I see inside is often undergirded by fear. Yes. I didn't have much fear in my household. In other words, I had really an intact family, very loving parents. But just like you said before, one of my parents is Jewish and definitely had a lot of anxiety. The other is a wasp and she had a lot of anxiety. They certainly had their own anxiety,

which I'm sure I picked up on. And then obviously as I entered out into the world, I encountered lots of bullies and fear of whatever older kids and then was a bully at times. And so I think there's something in there around the fear. Plus also the fear seems like a reasonably reasonable response to just living in a universe characterized by impermanence and entropy. Correct. And the nice thing about this work is you don't have to speculate.

So, and if you want, I could do a piece of work with you briefly if you'd like with Robert Johnson. Sure. Sure. But what I'm saying is as we got to know him and then if he gave us permission, got to know the fear, it could tell you where the fear came from. You wouldn't have to try and figure it out. We'd just start to see it or get it. Well, let's go for it. Great.

All right. See you ready? Yeah. So focus on Robert Johnson and find him in your body or around your body. He's not coming up right away. Okay. You can even focus on the memory of him. Oh, I, that I can retrieve.

Yes. So just see if you can find him that way. Mm-hmm. Do you have a sense of where he's located in your body or on your body? Yes, there's like a spot about two inches north west of my solar plexus. Okay, good. And as you notice them there, how do you feel toward them? I think at first it's a little inconvenient because it's actually painful, kind of like somebody spilled some coffee right there. You're burning buzzy sensation, but enough training over the last couple of

years where my reflex eventually kicks into more curiosity, compassion. Okay, good. So let him know that. Let him know you feel curious and compassionate toward him. And just see what he wants you to know, got himself, and don't think of the answer. Just wait for an answer to come from that place in your body. And if nothing comes, that's okay. But just see if something comes. Nothing is coming per se, but I can share something that may be relevant. This isn't coming from present moment experience, but it's coming from recent meditation where I've noticed that the anger, Robert Johnson, will come rushing in when I've noticed that I've been distracted

for the last five minutes, planning lunch or whatever. And it feels like, he's like a sheepdog, trying to just keep everything in order, trying to keep control. So Dan, just go back to him and ask if that's right. If that is what he's trying to do. And again, don't wait for an answer. I mean, don't think of the answer. Just wait and see if there's an answer. Not getting any direct communication. All right. Would it be okay if I tried to talk to him directly? Sure.

This may get stifled just by self consciousness. Okay. If that happens, let me know. And we'll, okay, we'll ask that part to give us some space. And that's okay. All right. So are you there? Are you willing to talk to me directly?

I don't know that I, I mean, I just whatever comes, just let that come out of your mouth, just, kind of it's no, it's okay. Yeah, I think the skeptical part of me is kicking in like, all right, I don't know that this is doable. So we need to work with that part first. Okay. So focus on that one and find him in your body around your body. Oddly it may also be Robert. Okay. Let me try and talk to the skeptical part directly. So are you there? Always. So you're the part of Dan that doesn't want him to do something that

you wouldn't believe is possible or something like that or tell me more about your role inside of Dan. I think probably not wanting him to look stupid. Ah yeah, okay. Okay, so you're very concerned about how he comes across to people. Yeah, I think this is probably the same part of me that won't let me dance. Yeah, I have that part too. Okay, so are you afraid if you step back and really let Dan try this, that he would look stupid, is that part of your fear right now? Yes.

Okay. Alright, so we don't have to do it, but I can tell you from my point of view, I have nothing but admiration for people who are willing to take a risk of doing this work. And I suspect your listeners would too. But I also get the context and, you know, there are some risks that people might be judging you. So. Well, what's interesting is generally on this show, I actually big part of me or several parts of me feel like ready to do this. It's just that when you started trying to speak to Robert Johnson, I couldn't channel him verbally. But just see if that part I just talked to will give us permission to try it again.

Yes. That part of me, the skeptic, feels like the closest to me. Yeah. Right. So I slash the skeptic. I'm saying I'm totally willing to go for this, except for I noticed earlier, and maybe this is the whole ballgame here. I noticed earlier, nothing came when you tried to speak to Robert. Maybe you'd have to really get me mad. That's possible when we can see about that, but it's also possible that this self-conscious one It's also possible that this self-conscious one was interfering. So, if he's willing to give us the space, it's more likely that we can actually go ahead and do the work. And you said he's very close to you, so just to see if he'll give you a little space in there.

I'll do my best. All right, that's all we can ask. All right. So Dan, then return to Robert Johnson, your memory of him anyway. And you find him in the same place. Yep. I think so. OK. And I'll try again to have you talk to him, but if not, then I'll try and talk to him. Okay.

All right. So just, do you feel curious again and compassionate? Hmm. I feel eager to please you. So that part also we want to step back. If this doesn't work, it's not going to ruin my career or affect my feelings for it. Okay. Okay.

Good to know. Yeah. So I don't want you to fake anything. I won't do that. Okay. That I'm incapable of. All right. Good. My wife says one of my most redeeming qualities. I'm pretty much incapable of lying. Good. Okay. Well, that's good enough. So go back to him and tell me how you feel toward him now. How I, the part of me that's at the surface right now feels toward Robert?

Yeah, the part of you is talking. How do you feel as Dan? How do you feel toward Robert? I feel grateful that he's expended so much energy over so much time trying to just keep it all together for me. So let him know. Let him know you have gratitude for that. And just see how he reacts.

Out loud or just internally? Either way, whichever is more comfortable, so you can do it either way. Yeah, it's like magic because if I do it internally, the buzzing subsides. Good. In my chest. Good. Yeah. And maybe ask more about what he's afraid would happen if he didn't work so hard. And again, just wait for the answer to come. Don't think of the answer. Well, I can't quite tell if the answer that's coming up is me thinking of one or what

has come organically. That's hard for me to discern. Just tell me what came though. Trying to protect you from everything running off the rails. Yeah. Yeah. And ask a little, because that sounds right to me. Just ask a little more about that.

What would it look like if things ran off the rails? look like if things ran off the rails. I think it's a nameless diffuse dread or just generalized badness. Okay, but that one you did say I think. So we're going to ask the thinking part also to give us some space. And we'll just see if we can better clearly hear from him. So ask the thinking part to step back and try it again. What's your friend would happen? What would it look like if that happened? I'm not getting an answer. Okay. Let me try again to see if you'll talk to me. Sorry, you're there. You willing to talk to me, Robert?

Self-conscious guys rushing back in. All right. Well, if it's too much for him, we don't have to do it, but just, you know, see if he'll give us a little chance. There's a bit of interesting sort of interplay between the self-consciousness and maybe and some sort of confusion or lack of confidence about maybe am I hearing something or I putting words in Robert's mouth, but what I felt maybe he was trying to say there was he probably would use a word that starts with F, but something

along the lines of what the hell do you want? Okay, good. So see if we can keep going. Okay, Robert, so you want to know what I want, is that right? Yes. So you want to know what I want, is that right? Yes. And you're the part of down that tries to keep everything under control, is that right? Okay, now I want to say yes, but I can't quite tell if I'm doing this for real or if I'm

faking it. Should I just go with it? Let's just go with it and see if you can do it. Okay. All right, cool. I'm just going to go with it. Yes. Okay. And sometimes you get angry at him and other people when it seems like it's not going that way. Is that right? Yes. Okay. I need to keep this idiot in line. Yeah. Okay. So you in particular,

you focus your anger on Dan. I'm pretty omnidirectional, but most Dan is the primary victim. Okay. And you can be pretty hard on him, is that right? He needs it. Uh-huh. Yeah, well, tell me more about that. So what are you afraid would happen if you didn't do this to him? He wouldn't get anything done and he would be broke. Okay. So you're a motivator. You kind of prod him into action. Yes.

Okay. So let me ask, do you like doing this to him? Because it sounds like a lot of responsibility. No, no, no, it's a stressful job. Okay. So, if there was a way you could trust him to do things without you having to be on him all the time, would you be interested? For sure.

Okay. And when you said he'd be out of money, where did you get that fear in the past? Do you have any idea? When I was a kid, my parents didn't want to pay the heating bills, so they basically didn't heat the house and the winter, so we used to have to sit around with our jackets on. Okay, okay. They heated it, but just, you know, like, just to the level where the pipes wouldn't burst. At some point, but just, you know, like, just to the level where the pipes wouldn't burst. At some point, you decided you were never gonna let him have to go through anything like that again.

Something like that? Yes, and I also have another memory, which is that I went to my parents were academic physicians, and when I was about 10, they took us on vacation in Europe. They weren't having to pay for it because they were being flown around to give speeches. And we went all over the place

and one of the places we went was Paris and we stayed in a fancy hotel. The first time my life I'd stayed in a really fancy hotel, hotel Regina. And I remember thinking, this is the way I'm gonna live. So is that true? That you at that point decided that you were going to make sure the Dan lived that way?

Yeah, I didn't quite succeed, but yes, that was a... That was the goal. Yes. And that you would never be scared about poverty like you was. Yes. Okay. All right. So if we could go to the boy who's stuck back there and get him out of there, so he didn't carry any of that anymore, and he felt okay, would you have to work so hard? I'm just not sure you'd be able to convince me.

Convince you are. That I don't need my hypervigilance. Okay, well, that's not my goal. It isn't to convince you that. It's to free you up. And so I'm just playing with different ways we can possibly free you up. So you trusted you didn't need to do it. But you don't have to change it all until it feels like it's safe to do that.

Because I get how much you're really afraid of those consequences. If you don't write them all the time. Yeah, even as... Now I'm going to speak from kind of two voices here, but even as I've been able to develop some warmth toward Robert, he does make the case, and I find now I'm Robert speaking again, that there's still plenty of things to worry about. Yeah, so we get that. So Dan, do you want to talk to him now that you're separating from him a little

again? Now that you get a sense of his voice, sure. I'm very familiar with his voice. Okay. So maybe ask him how old he thinks you are. And again, just wait for the answer. I don't hear anything specifically, but I have this sort of diffuse sense that this voice is stuck in childhood that he thinks that I'm a kid. Yeah. So let him know that you're not, let him know that you're not living that way anymore, and that you can do a lot more

than you could back then, and just see how he reacts to that news. Don't think he believes it. Yeah, so we're going to stay with this a little while until he does start to consider the possibility. And he could look at you or you know, we could tell him what the date is or whatever it would take. Just see if there's a way you can help them trust that you're not a little kid anymore. Well, he knows that I'm old because he every time I look in the mirror, he tells me I look old. I just don't think he trusts that I've got this. Okay. And ask him more about that. Why doesn't he trust that? Why doesn't he trust you?

Again, I don't, I mean, I'm kind of just go with it. Going with it here. Yes, but I think there are two parts of this. One is if I'm not on you, you will screw up. Yeah. And to even if you don't screw up, there are so many variables outside of your control that you could get screwed up. Yeah, but how does his speed on you prevent that. Now this is where we get to where I think I've had a real some real growth in recent years, which is that my capital S self can see the dis-utility of this scramble and send well wishes toward Robert and generally speaking some reasonable percentage of the time that actually works, if I remember to do it. Okay. So ask him how that's been for him to have you do that

and have him relax more, or I could talk to him again about that if that would help. Maybe you'll have better luck that I'm having. Yeah, okay. All right. So let me talk to Robert again. Maybe you'll have better luck that I'm having. Yeah. Okay. All right. So let me talk to Robert again. Sure.

Are you there? Yes. What the hell do you want? Okay. So is it true that when Dan comes to you with this kind of loving energy that you do let him try to run things for a while? Yes. And how is that for you to trust him for brief periods? He's on probation, but I'm giving it a shot.

And how does he do? Recently, well, but he's fallen behind on his book deadline as we speak. So it's not 100%. Okay. Okay. I get that. But what is it like for you during those probationary periods to not have to carry all that responsibility? What's that like for you? It's a relief.

Okay. So you're actually you're glad he's doing that. That he's coming and reminding you that he cares about you and appreciates you and asks that you let him handle whatever it is. Yes, because this is exhausting. Okay. All right, and you'd like him to do more of that, it sounds like. Yes. Okay. Very good. All right, let me talk to Dan again. You got him. How are you feeling toward this guy now? Toward Robert?

Yeah. Well, I came in with warmth and I still, I retain it. Yeah. Okay. So. It's still I retain it. Yeah. Okay. So it's still unpleasant though, it hurts. It actually hurts in physically. All right, well let me talk to him about that for a second.

Sure. Are you back? Yes. So you give down pain, is that right? Yes. And why do you do that? Wake him up. Okay. So it's not just the yelling at him, it's also kind of goading him with pain. Okay. Alright, so one last question for you. If you're okay with this, carry up though. I will. Do you carry anybody else's energy?

I have no idea what that means. You know, he named you for the grandfather. Do you carry the grandfather's energy? Do you carry some other person's energy? Not getting an answer. Okay. That's right. I didn't have to answer that. Robert, I really appreciate your indulging me.

I know that it's not your favorite thing, but I appreciate it, and let me talk to Dan again. Mm-hmm. Okay, are you there? Mm-hmm. So how is your skeptic doing with all that? We just, oh, it still feels a little like. Contrived? The exorcist, yes, or contrived.

And I'm on your side. Yeah, I believe you. I mean, the good news is going to him with his loving way, he relaxes, you get to break, you get to lean for a period of time. And that much has been working. Now, probably for him to really retire from this job and actually be more of a support, which is often the role that they like when they trust you enough to not have to do this, you probably have to work with that boy who stuck back in that cold house and maybe some other parts and get them out of there before he can really retire from this job. And how does one do that therapy or continue the meditation style that we discussed earlier? Well, some people can do it on their own.

So it would be to see that boy as much as you, I mean, if you're like me, you don't see anything. it would be to see that boy as much as you, I mean, if you're like me, you don't see anything, but I can kind of sense that boy. And then notice how you feel toward him. And if you can get to a place of compassion, then let him know and ask what he wants you to know about what it was like back there. I can conjure that boy pretty easily. Do you want to do that? Yeah, well, I'm remembering a moment where I went to an elementary school in my little corner of Newton, Massachusetts.

It was nice and pretty in cozy, and then I got fed into the junior high where lots of elementary schools came together. And it was big and kind of scary for me. And I remember being online at the water cooler, which in Massachusetts, we call the bubbler. And a bigger kid, he was my age, but a bigger kid, we later became friends. His name is John Spignolo. I'll have to ask his permission to use this here. But I remember he wanted to cut me in line and I said no and he punched me in the stomach. Okay. So that fearful, fretting, I can call that up reasonably easily. I don't know if I can get him to talk to you, but that felt sense of

what it was like to be unmoored and anxious. Yeah. I can access that. So focus on that right now and find that part in your body around your body. Some reason I'm actually now I can't I can't find it in my body, but I know you know the sensation or Yeah, I know the sensation. I know the sort of psychic sensation. How do you feel toward that young teenage boy? Part real compassion and part stop being such a wimp. Yeah. So we're gonna ask the guy who says he's a wimp to step out so you can lead with compassion with him. So see if that macho guy can give you a little space in there.

I think that macho guy may also be Robert. Yeah, it could be. Just see if he'll let us go help that boy. Sure, let's try it. So how do you feel towards him now? It's very sad. So you feel a lot of compassion for him. So let him know and see how he reacts to your compassion. I think he appreciates it. Okay, good. And ask if he's ready to really let you feel and see and sense what that was like for him. Not getting an answer to that. Okay, do you feel up for

that? Or is that too much for now? No, I do feel up for it. I wonder if combination of just my natural reticence, skepticism, self-consciousness, magnified by doing this in public, the thought came to me like, wow, I'd probably have to do this privately with, you know, Iowaska or something on board. Yeah, that makes sense. This is not the context to do it. But let this boy know that you get that he's in there, he's still living back there, and

that you want to get to him and get him out of there. And you'll do it when the time is right. See if you get a reaction. My thinking self now just finds that to be enormously, there's a lot of pathos in what you just said. Yeah. Is it okay to be with that feeling? That was feeling? Sure. Yeah, just, yeah, because I was really, that kid was very scared. Yeah. And as I keep saying, he still lives back there. Yes, no, I feel it.

And it's possible to get him out of there. You know, what I can describe to you, what we would do if we were different. I would actually it's after you got how bad that was for him. And he said yes, you finally get it. I would have you Dan go into that scene and be with him in the way he needed somebody back there. And you wouldn't see yourself. You would just be there.

He would feel your presence. And then we would ask him what he wanted you to do. And it might be to deal with this kid, this bully. And I would have you do that for him. And then when he was ready, we would take him out of there to a good safe place. Could be the presence with your family. It could be fantasy place. And once

he was there, and he trusted, he didn't ever have to go back, and you'd take care of him, he'd be ready to unload all that feelings and beliefs that he could still carry. And then when he unloaded all that, and there's a kind of ritualized way we do that, then he would be this kind of carefree teenage kid again. And then we could bring in Robert and all the other parts to see that they don't have to protect him anymore. And often they're ready to unburden themselves and take on new roles. The skeptics still hear, but I'm intrigued.

Good. Yeah, what I can say is this is all very real. This is like a totally real other world that shamans have been going into for centuries. And it really works. All this is very real. And yeah, we have to get the skeptical parts to step back. One of the reasons I am so committed to this is because I had such a huge skeptical part. It's been very valuable to me as a scientist,

but it would keep hitting in the way and keep hitting the way of me doing my own work. And in my system operates very similar years. I do a lot better when people talk to my parts directly. And so on. And there's a percentage of us that are like this. Well, really, Lando, among other things, but one of the things that really landed with me was when you just said, this is very real. The world of me being bent over in pain in a big echoey junior high with concrete walls and like the smell of institutional tater tuts, that feels very real. That's right. And as I say, he still lives there. Yes, I believe that too. So he can give you all those, he can have you become a compassionate witness to what he went through.

And I felt that too, actually, I felt like I was a compassionate witness as you were guiding me through. Yeah, well, that's what he wants. He really wants. See, I didn't get into this so much with the theory, but we all have parts like him. I had a similar bully story. And when those, before they got hurt, kind of, carefree teenage parts that give us lots of vitality and interesting thoughts, before they get hurt, we love them and we like hanging around

with them. After they get sucker points like that, and they carry the burdens from that experience, we don't want anything to do with them. And so we do what I call exile them inside. We lock them in inner basements or abysses or caves, and we try to move on in life without them. Leave them there in the dust. And everybody around us tells us to do that, especially if you're a boy that age. It's like just get over it. You know, don't be of sissy.

Like, what do you say, a wissy? Like that part. So, a whip, don't be a whip. So we wind up exiling all these parts of us thinking we're just moving on from beliefs and sensations and memories from those experiences, not realizing we're locking away our most precious resources just because they got hurt. So for these exiles, it's insult to injury.

The injury was the sucker punch, the insult is now a human band in them. And they're cooking in there. They're just, and they'll organize your life. You said you had a panic attack. They don't find ways to be seen in some way or another. Yeah, I think that panic attack, if I can interpolate back to it from now, yes, it was like a primal scream from the kid. That's right. That's exactly right. So all that is possible. It's for me and probably for you, it's hard to do by myself. I need to have somebody with me to go to those scary places. And somebody I trust isn't going to be judging me because I have that same, don't be a wimp.

Part. So again, in this context, I just appreciate you're trying it this much. No, I appreciate you being willing to work with me. I'm always take free therapy. Yeah. I'm sensitive to time. If people have questions about, you know, they want to learn more about IFS or even to do it themselves and or to learn more about you and your work, what are the steps that people can take? So we do have a website, which is IFS-in-institute.com and on it there's a store and we have, there's a number of books for the public and some videos and a lot of the material

on the website are for therapists, but there are two books I wrote for clients which are pretty easy. One is an introduction to IFS and the other is you're the one you've been waiting for. And then I did an audio course for Sounds True last year called More Than the Some of Your Parts in which there are a lot of exercises, it's similar to what we for sounds true last year, called more than some of your parts, in which there are a lot of exercises, it's somewhat to what we just did, so people can try that on their own and see how far they go. We'll put links to all of this in the show notes.

One last question on a practical tip here. If people wanted to find a therapist who worked in this way, is there a way to do that? Yeah, there's a directory on our website. Okay, great. Dick, thank you so much. I asked you to do more labor than you might have thought you were signing up for, but it's appreciated very much. Well, I really appreciate you're being such a good sport.

And it's one thing to talk about it to an audience, but it's another to actually listen as we do the work. So from my point of view, and my goals for this, your willingness to be that vulnerable was invaluable in terms of conveying what I'm trying to convey. So I'm very appreciative. Big thanks to Dick Schwartz, really appreciate him coming on the show and apologies again if I was a suboptimal patient. Also, I want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make this show a reality. Samuel Johns is our lead guy, our senior producer, DJ Kashmir. As our associate producer, our sound designer is Matt Boynton from ultraviolet audio.

Maria Wartel is our production coordinator. We get an enormous amount of incredibly helpful input from TPH colleagues such as Jen Poient, Natoby, Liz Levin, and Ben Rubin. Also a big thank you to Ryan Kessler and Josh Cohan from ABC News. We'll see you all on Friday for a bonus with Joanna Hardy. for a bonus with Joanna Hardy. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with 1-3-plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.