The Liz Moody Podcast - This Celeb-Beloved Therapy Offers A Radical New Way To Heal With Dr. Richard Schwartz

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

The creator of Internal Family Systems therapy shares exactly how to identify and address your inner parts (plus a real life demo with me!).  exactly what IFS is & how it works, including a real time IFS demo with me & Dr. Schwartz how to change your relationship with parts of yourself you hate, starting today how to feel more empathy for people who annoy you practical ways to amp up your self-compassion (and why it’s so important to do so) a unique approach to healing anxiety, childhood trauma, and more how to overcome struggles when you don’t know where they come from how IFS can help with things like addiction, disordered eating, and other self-harming acts a genius trick for silencing your inner critic  how to use IFS techniques to level up your romantic relationships and so much more!  For more from Dr. Schwartz, head to the IFS website ifs-institute.com, find him on social media at @internalfamilysystems, and find all of his books at ifs-institute.com/store.  To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Pre-order my new book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  This episode is sponsored by: Paleovalley: go to paleovalley.com/lizmoody for 15% off your order. Seed: go to seed.com/lizmoody and use code LIZMOODY for 25% off your first month. Olive and June: visit oliveandjune.com/LIZMOODY for 20% off your first Mani System.  AG1: visit http://drinkag1.com/lizmoody and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today.  The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Liz Moody podcast. Formerly known as the Healthier Together podcast, we are the same podcast, but with even more of everything that you love. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and longtime journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're working towards overcoming anxiety about death, uncovering science-backed hacks for managing dopamine levels, or learning exactly how to communicate in the bedroom. And yes, those are all real.

episode, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives. Today, I am so excited to welcome Dr. Richard Schwartz to the podcast. Dr. Schwartz is a world-renowned therapist, academic, author, and creator of the Internal Family Systems, or IFS branch of therapy. Dr. Schwartz has taught at several institutions, including Harvard Medical School and Northwestern University, has published hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and multiple mega bestselling books, including you are the one you have been waiting for and no bad parts. Dr. Schwartz literally created this entire new type of therapy, which is absolutely wild to think about or say out loud or think about the fact that I'm having somebody who created a

whole new type of therapy on my podcast. And I have had so many friends have their lives absolutely transformed by IFS, even when no other type of therapy helps. so I knew that I needed to do an episode on this. This episode dives into what IFS is and it shares a lot of the philosophies behind it. So you can begin to use it to understand yourself better and even experience some of the transformation that it's responsible for immediately in your home today. Dr. Schwartz even did a little mini session on me, which you will hear in the episode. It was really vulnerable and, to be honest, something that I wasn't completely prepared for.

but I wanted to keep it in because I think it really demonstrates IFS in a helpful way, and it answered some of my questions about the practice, so I hope that it helps you too. This is a really unique episode, and I promise that if you come along for the ride, you will see yourself and the world around you completely differently, and you will learn some pragmatic tips along the way. We get into so much, including exactly what IFS is and how it works, including the real-time IFS demo with me and Dr. Schwartz, how to change your relationship with parts of yourself you hate starting today, how to feel more empathy for people who annoy you,

practical ways to amp up yourself compassion and why it is so important to do so. A unique approach to healing anxiety, childhood trauma, and more. How to overcome struggles when you don't even know where they come from. how IFS can help with things like addiction, disordered eating, and other self-harming acts, a genius trick for silencing your inner critic, how to use IFS techniques to level up your romantic relationships, and so much more.

I do want to give a quick warning that in the second half of this episode, we do discuss suicidal ideation, so if that is at all triggering to you, please consider skipping this week's episode and we will see you next week. We would love to hear your thoughts and your biggest takeaways as you're listening to the episode. So definitely screenshot and tag Dr. Schwartz.

He is at Internal Family Systems and me. I'm at Liz Moody on Instagram. One last thing. We are a little over a month away from the release of 100 Ways to Change Your Life, which is so crazy to say. That is my new book. If you haven't pre-ordered your copy yet, you want too soon to make sure that it is on your doorstep on release day. I was on a television show recently, and one of the producers mentioned that she sees a lot of

personal growth books, and she absolutely loved how grounded and actionable this one was, which made me so happy because that was the exact goal. I read so many books that feel like Doritos. They are satisfying while you read them, but they leave you feeling hungry right after. Like, this was interesting, but how do I apply it and what steps do I need to take in reality? This book, A Hundred Ways to Change Your Life, on the other hand, is like a big protein and veggie and fiber-packed meal from a five-star restaurant. It is so enjoyable while you read it, but you'll learn tips and tricks and mindset shifts that will change your life for years to come. It is not just a rah-rah, you can do it book, but a book filled with science and action steps, and I absolutely promise that it will change your life.

If you pre-order, you will be entered to win a $1,000 travel credit to an airline of your choice. That is how important pre-orders are. I ponied up that money myself. But pre-orders are the number one way to support a book. So if you ever want to snag a copy, please, please, please do so right now at 100100.000 ways to change your life.com. Okay, let's get right into it with Dr. Richard Schwartz. Dick, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. I was telling you before we started recording, you've literally transformed the lives of some of my friends. So it's an honor to get to speak with you today.

Well, I'm very honored, too. I've heard a lot about your podcast as well, and I like your friends. So it's great. Can you just start us off? Can you explain in as simple of terms as possible what IFS is and how it differs from other types of therapy out there? The basic assumption is that rather than being a unitary mind that has different thoughts and emotions, we all have a bunch of what I call parts that are like little subpersonalities, that's the nature of the mind to be that way.

The healthy mind has them because they're all valuable. What we call thinking is often the dialogue among them. And people say, how did you create IFS? And create isn't the right word. I really just discovered it through trial and error. This is like the 40-year anniversary of the birth of it. And in those early days in the early 80s, I had some clients that just started talking this language.

And I got intrigued and began asking questions. And they basically taught the basics to me, and then I tried it with other clients. And it really panned out. It's quite a different paradigm for most other psychotherapies. The basis assumption is we're all multiple personalities, not that we all have that disorder, but we all have these little parts that in multiple personality disorder are called alters, but full range personalities.

We're born with them, and it's great to have them because they all have valuable qualities and resources to help us in our lives. But trauma and bad parenting, attachment injuries, things like that, force them out of their naturally valuable states into roles that can be quite extreme and sometimes damaging to us. So the goal becomes getting to know them and getting to know what's behind their extremes and helping them transform actually into their naturally valuable states. And in the process of experimenting with that in the early days, I stumbled onto what I kind of come to call the self with a capital S, which is this healing essence within all of us that is

covered over by these parts and their extremes. And so the parts from the traumas will absorb extreme beliefs and emotions that then drive them almost like a virus. Those we call burdens. So these burden parts tend to obscure ourself and think they have to run our lives. but if I can convince them to open a little space inside, this self pops out immediately and has clarity, compassion, courage, creativity, connectedness, confidence, and curiosity. That's who we really are, that self with a capital S. and as I said, as these other parts open space, that pops out spontaneously in clients. And when they get into that state, I have them begin a dialogue with their parts that reveals

what the part is really trying to do behind its extremes and how it's trying to really protect you. And then we can honor it for its attempt to protect and learn about what it's protecting, which is often a much more vulnerable part of you. These parts are also frozen in time during the trauma. They live as if you're still five years old and they still have to protect you in the way they did when you were five. There's a way we can actually go back into the past in your mind and get them out of where they're stuck there

and take them to a safe present, at which point they're willing to unload these burdens, these extreme beliefs and emotions. and then they'll transform back into their naturally valuable state. So it's a model of transformation rather than like mindfulness where you just kind of notice these beliefs and emotions and thoughts and kind of be accepting of them, but not expect them to change, get mindful and notice, and then set to work to show them a lot of love and appreciation and help them out of their

extreme roles. We're going to dive into the specifics of a lot of the things you've mentioned. But just to start off, you mentioned trauma. And in case somebody is listening and they're like, well, I don't identify as a person who has a lot of trauma. Do you think somebody needs to have experienced childhood trauma that they identify to benefit from IFS or what type of person is IFS for? Yeah, not a bit. I might have you focus on one of your critics, let's say, and find it in your body and ask what it's afraid would happen if it didn't criticize you all the time. and it would point to a part that might be a little girl who's stuck in a situation in school

where you were shamed by a teacher. So it doesn't have to be a big-time trauma with the capital T. It can be a small-t trauma. And then we would go and help that girl and get her out of where she's stuck. So most everybody has moments in their lives and sometimes recurring moments where they pick up these birds. is. Can you share some examples either from your own life or from your client's lives where being aware of these parts has been really useful in practice in their day-to-day lives? As I go to do an event like this, I just kind of notice how much of those C-words am I feeling right now. So is my heart open or not?

Do I have a big agenda here? Am I really worried about pleasing you and performing or not? As I know, notice those parts, I'll just check in with them and I'll say, I get that you're a little bit nervous, but let me handle this. It always goes better if you just relax and let me take over. And I'll feel a palpable shift in my body as the anxious part not only relaxes but separates from me a bit. And the one who's worried about rejection will open my heart again. and I can enter that state of what I call self and have this conversation. It will have a very different tone than if I was dominated by one of those parts. That's just to kind of hear a now example, but it becomes a kind of life practice where you go

through life noticing what parts are there and how much of yourself is present and then you adjust accordingly. And do we have, like, do I have, say, five parts that are going to stay the same every day and different parts will come out in different interactions or will my parts change every single day? It varies, but most of us have a bunch of what we call manager parts. These are protective parts that manage our lives. And they're trying their best to keep us from anything that might trigger the parts of us that have. have been hurt that we've locked away, which we call exiles. Most of us have a manager part that's kind of scanning for danger in a relationship and won't let anybody get close enough to really hurt us again the way they got hurt in the past or might have a part that's looking in the mirror all the time to make sure your appearance is perfect,

so you don't get rejected or maybe another one who's trying to push you to have a perfect achievement to counter the worthlessness that some other part carries. Most of us have a cluster of those kind of manager parts that are scanning all the time, that are working constantly. Most of them are very tired. And they're mostly young. They're in over their heads. In family therapy, we used to call them parentified children.

They're young inner child parts who got too much responsibility. And they do their best, and some of them got us where we are, but not without a lot of strain. If you were to ask some of these parts, how old do you think I am, most of them will give you single digits, sometimes teenage, but they really think you're still quite young

and need their services in the roles they're in. So is a lot of the work that you're doing kind of getting the parts of you that aren't of service anymore to, is it to make them go away, or is it to make them step down, or is it to make them interact with you in a different way? It's to help them transform, actually,

into their naturally valuable states. So the critic I was talking about who maybe is trying to make you look perfect all the time and is on you all the time about how you look, when it's freed up and it really trusts it doesn't have to do this job anymore, you ask it, what do you want to do now? It might say, I want to be your cheerleader.

I want to get out there and help you feel good about yourself and how you look. So it's amazing how often the actual role is the opposite of the role that the part is stuck in. The one who makes you socially anxious now wants to get you out in the world more. And is the transformation going to happen simply by asking these parts what they want? No. So there's a whole process in IFS to help parts. what we call unburden, and that is to release the extreme beliefs and emotions that they carry. At which point, yes, it's like a curse has been lifted, and they do immediately transform. The first thing most of them will say is, I feel so much lighter, like this big weight has been lifted off of me.

And then they can be who they're designed to be. But to get to the unburdening, you would need to witness what happened in the past when they picked up these burdens. So you become a compassionate witness to your own history. And then I would say, and now Liz, I want you to go into that time period and be with that little girl in the way she needed somebody in your mind. And most people can do that and say, okay, I'm with her. How is she reacting to being with her? well, she's glad she's not alone. And then I would have you do what she might have needed back then,

and then we can take her out to a safe place. At which point, I would say, ask her now if she's ready to unload the feelings and believe she got back there, which is the unburdening I'm talking about. If we don't like necessarily or we are struggling with parts of who we are now, but we can't tie them to experiences from our childhood, does the process still work? Yeah, but in contrast to a lot of other therapies, you don't have to figure out where they're stuck in the past. In fact, I would be asking you, Liz, the part that's really trying to figure this out, could we get it to just relax? You want to try it?

We could do a little piece, just illustrate it. Yeah. Okay. So I've talked about a bunch of different parts. Is there one you want to start with? I've long struggled with anxiety, so I think my anxious part would be a good place to start. Okay, that sounds good, and it might be what we call an exile. So as we contemplate going to it, especially in this context, is there any fear that comes up about doing that?

Yeah, like my heart starts beating quite quickly. So we're going to start with the one who's scared to do it and is making your heartbeat. So focus on that fear and ask that part what it's afraid would happen if it let us go to your anxious. part. And just to be clear as I'm going through this, I'll probably ask a lot of questions. Let me know if that impedes the process. But does that just mean ask that question in my brain and see what the first thing that pops to mind is? Exactly right. That's exactly what you do. The first thing that popped into my mind was I would lose a sense of myself. If you didn't have the anxiety. Yeah. The second thing that I immediately came up was that I would be unsafe, that I have to protect

myself. So those are two reasonable fears, right? So we have to address those fears. And we're not going to do it without permission from these fearful parts. The second one, that's a reasonable question. But focus again on the fear that you won't be able to protect yourself and maybe find that fear in your body or around your body. Where do you find that? I would say it's in a tightening of my chest. Just stay focused there. And ask that part of you how old it thinks you are. And don't think of the answer. Just wait and see what comes back. Three. So let it know you're not three, that you're a bit older than that, and see how it reacts to that information. And that's just me saying in my head, like I'm not three. Well,

you're actually saying it to that place in your body. Directing it towards my tight chest. That's right. Yeah. And see what happens to the tightness. There's definitely a relaxing of it. Let it know. You can handle a lot more now than you could when you were three. So it doesn't have to worry so much about your safety that way. The immediate thought I had is that the world is still an unsafe place. Well, it's got a point.

So let it know it has a point. Okay. But also let it know that you can keep an eye on things. and it doesn't have to be the one to worry constantly and see how it reacts to that. Just see if it knows you, if it actually knows that you can be a good leader in there. There's a softening, but I don't know if it knows me.

Yeah, so let's just have it get to know you better. Whatever it wants to know about you, just go ahead and respond. And tell it, it can look at you, too. A lot of times these parts have been looking outside forever, and they don't even know what you look like. How do I know what it wants to know? Like, if I'm struggling to connect with that. Let me see if it'll talk to me directly.

Are you willing to talk to me directly as the fearful part of Liz? Yes. So you think she's three years old, and it was surprising to you to learn that she's not? Is that right? Yes. But you've said the world is still a dangerous place, right? Yes.

And I said that makes a lot of sense because it is. So it sounds like even though you can see that she's older, you don't fully trust her to keep you safe. Is that right? Yes. And tell me more about why you don't trust her. Because I don't trust adults to keep me safe. So even though you know she's an adult,

you've had the experience that adults don't keep her. keep people save or don't keep you safe. Is that right? Yes. Okay, so before you can fully trust her, you have to get to know her about her and maybe learn that she's not like the adults that hurt you or didn't keep you safe. I don't know if I trust any adults, though. That makes sense. And I suspect you've had experiences that make you feel that way. Yes. which you don't have to share, but I get that you have good reasons to not trust any adults. So it makes sense that you wouldn't trust her either.

Are you open, though, to getting to know whether she's trustworthy? Are you open to letting her earn your trust? Yes, but I don't know what it would take to prove that. Okay. Well, there are a lot of things we can consider, but all we really need is for you to be open to that possibility. And if it were true, if it turned out you could trust her, would that be a relief? Would you like to not have to be on guard this much? Yes. Okay. So anything else you want me to know before I talk to Liz again? Just that the world is scary and I feel like I'm the one

behaving rationally and everybody else is getting it wrong. There is. There is, truth in what you're saying. The world is scary. That is true. Yeah. And it seems like you're kind of young. Is that true? Yeah. So you've been in this job of trying to keep her safe for a long time, but you're not that old. It's a hard job for a little one. Yeah. But I understand you feel like everybody else doesn't get it, and you're the only one who gets it. Yeah. I enjoy. talking to you and so are you there Liz? Yes. So as you listen to all that, how do you feel toward this part? Maybe a little embarrassed but also endeared. Yeah. So let's get the part who's embarrassed to relax back so we can just come with that endeared feeling and just show her that

care about her, particularly now as you get to know her better, and just see how she reacts to your compassion. Begrudgingly, but appreciatively, I would say. Yeah. As she said, you have to earn her trust. And that can take a while because she's had so many bad experiences with adults. So it might mean just coming to her in this way, this compassionate way, for a problem. period of time every day. Is that something you might be willing to do? Would that look like

picturing my three-year-old self, trying to ask myself, what would that look like in practice? It really varies across people, but in your case, you just got to know her and you sense her in your chest. She hasn't come to you as an image yet. Is that right? I have one strong image when I picture myself at three that I always picture. Go ahead and ask her if that would help. If you looked at that image every day and came to her with this compassion, or does she want you to just focus on her as a sensation? I think the image would help.

Okay. So that would be it. You would imagine that three-year-old. You would extend a lot of compassion to her. You would interact with her the way I did. And over time, she'll come to learn that there is a safe adult. her life, which is you. That's powerful.

That's really powerful. Can I ask some follow-up questions about that? One question I have is I did feel sensation in my chest, but often in the past, when I've been asked, where do I feel this? Where do I feel this? I have a hard time identifying that. My body, I feel a certain sense of disconnection from my body, and it can often make me feel like I'm failing at that type of somatic exercise.

Do you have any advice for somebody who, when they're looking for where they're feeling, something is like, I don't know. Yeah. So that would be a protective part also that keeps you from feeling much in your body. And it would be a part that I could have a similar conversation with. We wouldn't have you feel much in your body until we had permission from that part who really doesn't want you to feel your body. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energy,

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When you were asking questions, obviously part of me knows that I'm sitting here. I'm an adult. I'm answering them. But I was just sort of answering with the first thing that came. into my mind? Is that the right thing to do? That's exactly right. I mean, I've been doing this 40 years and I know when it's an authentic conversation with the part and that was one. Yeah. I don't know what part of me this is, but I don't want to get it wrong. You know what I mean? And I don't want to feel like I'm performing for my therapist. That's something that I always like worry about is trying to give

them what they want versus what am I actually tapping into. Well, did it feel that way when I was interviewing that part? I think so. I had the knowledge that I was a woman in my mid-30s and not a three-year-old, but I also tried to identify with my three-year-old self and just say the first thing that popped into my mind. So you did it just right. That's right. Are there any questions that somebody listening could ask themselves to begin to get in touch with their various parts or what parts they might have? The process is pretty simple, actually. So as we did it, I just had you pick a part, you picked your anxiety. I asked you first, are there any parts that are afraid to let us go to the anxiety?

Because we always start with protective parts before we go to what I call exiles. And the anxiety could be one of these very vulnerable exiles. So we don't go to those parts without permission. So you did say these two fears. And between the two, I picked the more intense one, I think. So then we had you focus on that, find it in your body, which is the next step. When you notice a part, then where is it located in your body? Because that becomes the place you direct the questions to and listen for the answers from.

And then there's just a kind of standard set of questions that I had you try to ask the part. It wasn't that up for talking to you. so that's when I decided I would talk to it directly for a while. And part of that is just you're not used to doing that. If somebody were to do this on their own, they would think of a part they wanted to start with. If it is a really vulnerable part, then they would want to start with the parts that are afraid to go to that vulnerability. And then the questions to start with these protectors, first one is, how do I feel toward it? which is what I asked you.

And if you have any kind of attitude toward it, the conversation isn't going to go very well. So you don't want to start a conversation with any part until your mind is pretty open to the answers. There would be a process of getting others' parts to relax so that you could open your mind and just ask from this very open-hearted, open-minded place. what does it want you to know? What does it want you to know about itself? And then like you did, wait for the answer to come. Don't think of the answer.

And sometimes nothing comes, and that's okay. It's just not ready to talk. But more often an answer comes. And then the second question for these protectors is, what are you afraid would happen if you didn't do this job inside of Liz? What are you afraid would happen? In your part's case, it was afraid you'd be hurt like you have been by adults because it's dangerous out there.

And I tried to validate that. I was talking to it directly, but if people were doing this on their own, they would just say, okay, I get you just really scared. And then that question, how old do you think I am? Often you're getting the answer of when the part got into this role in the past. and in your case it was three years old and something maybe happened at that age. Yeah, my mom had an accident. So that convinced this part that the world isn't safe and you can't trust adults. And it's been in that role ever since.

So now we know where it's located in the past, where it's stuck. Then, like you ultimately did, I would have you send a lot of compassion to it and learn. about whether or not it trusts you to protect the system, which it didn't at all. And so then it starts a process of earning its trust by every day just meeting with it and letting it know you care about it. Because it's felt kind of ignored by you. Because I would assume that as much as it doesn't want you to trust in the adults, you override it a lot and you live your life. you kind of push it aside. Does that sound right? Yeah. So it's probably pissed about that. Fair. So instead, you go to it and you love it up and let it know that you're there for it

and you're still going to live your life, but you're going to live it with it connected to you instead of locked away. It'll transform into its naturally valuable state. So we would unload, ultimately, all the fear it carries from that time when you were three. And it would be who it was designed to be, which is, like I said, often the opposite of what it's been doing. In my case, if you had to say what my anxious part of myself would maybe transform into, what would you say? Sometimes it's a part that just wants to play.

Sometimes they just want to rest. There's been so tired. Then we see what they want to do. But a lot of times they just want to play. and have fun, you know, like a kid with. That's so interesting. And then you mentioned that this is a daily practice. Like IFS in general is a daily practice.

Would that mean doing something like sitting with yourself, asking yourself these questions, trying to get in touch with these parts of yourself in sort of a regimented fashion? And or something like when you're feeling anxious in the moment, asking yourself what part of yourself that is, when you're feeling angry in the moment, asking yourself what part of yourself that is?

That's a really good question because it is both. I have a kind of meditation practice where I include a lot of checking in with my parts and reassuring them and so on. And that takes 20 minutes in the morning. And then as I go through the day, I'm also quite aware of how much parts are there I'm in self. And like I was saying earlier, I noticed my parts. I just reassure them, let me handle this.

And I'll feel a dissipation like you did immediately as I remind them that I'm here. I'll feel the energy shift inside and I sort of feel myself entering my body more and feel more grounded in that sense. And then whatever I'm doing, whoever I'm talking to, it's a different kind of conversation. If we're saying this is your internal family unit, the part of you that's reassuring everybody is like the trustworthy head of the family unit, kind of telling everybody else, like, I've got this, you don't need to react in this way. Exactly. I don't know about you because you're young, but we all had to read Lord of the Flies in high school. I read Lord of the Flies, yeah.

So it's like that. It's a bunch of little kids with no adults around trying their best to stay alive and keep your body going. And they're dying for some grown-up to come in and say, it's okay, we got this. You don't have to struggle. You don't have to worry like you are about how dangerous the world is. I can handle this. One of the things that I like best about IFS is that you say, as in the title of one of your books, that there are no bad parts, that the way the system works is to say, like, the part of you

that's alcoholic isn't necessarily a bad part, the part of you that is angry. You've even used some pretty extreme examples of people who have committed. fairly atrocious acts, can you speak to basically how there could be no bad parts and then also for how we can begin to believe that about ourselves? Because I think a lot of us would say like, oh, sure, there's no bad parts, but I hate this part of myself. I hate this part of myself. I hate this part of myself. I've been doing this now 40 years. People are using this all around the world now with all kinds of different syndromes and severe problems. and everybody agrees there are no bad parts.

There are parts that carry energies and beliefs and emotions from bad, bad experiences, and get stuck with all that. And those drives are real, but they can be unburdened too. And when they are, that part will transform also. So it's a very optimistic, non-pathologizing approach. Two questions about that. One, where's the line between using our understanding of parts to cultivate empathy for other people to say there was just this hurt burden part of you that was performing these atrocious actions that maybe really even hurt me back? Like I was the victim in.

Where's the line between that and us being able to feel our very real feelings about these people's actions? There are spiritual traditions that advocate what I call premature forgiveness. that if you're a really good person, you'll forgive all your perpetrators. And what I find is that then is disrespectful to the parts that got hurt. And that before you can sincerely have true forgiveness, you have to do a lot of healing with those parts. And in the meantime, you don't have to look at what had happened to your perpetrator and make them do this.

He just can be as mad as you want at the perpetrator until all these parts that got hurt or healed. And then you just kind of naturally can see past, like you have x-ray vision, you see past the protectors of the perpetrator to the exiles that drove his perpetration. And you can't have compassion at that point. It does strike me how powerful it is, just the mindset shift of, If everybody is the function of all of these parts, how it would change your interactions with a boss who's angry, with a parent who keeps saying things that just absolutely drive you crazy or that poke at all of your insecurities, it would change how you interact with everybody in your life, just the empathetic understanding that they're functioning from a place of

their parts as well. That's exactly right. Do you have any tips for us finding that self-compassion for the parts of ourselves that we might not like the parts that might be causing the eating disorder, the parts that make us angry, the parts that have fear. If we've spent a long time hating and pushing those parts down, can you give us just one sort of actionable thing we can do to find that sense of compassion for those parts? Sure. And we could do another little roleplay if you wanted, if you've got anything like that. Sure. I mean, just to stick to the theme of my anxiety, I often find myself pretty angry

at the idea that it's preventing me from living the life that I want to live. I was completely agoraphobic for a long time and I like didn't leave the house for months. It got very severe. But at this point, I do the things I want to do. My brain is always like presenting these scenarios for how things can go bad and things I need to protect myself from. So I can rarely be fully present and just enjoy the experience. And I do have a lot of anger about that and a sense of unfairness of like why can other people

just be fully present and fully indefinitely? enjoying this. Okay, so let's take that next step and particularly now that we worked with the other one who had all the fear about doing it, see if you can go to that formerly agoraphobic part. See where you find it in your body, around your body. I think my throat and maybe my chest. And now, as you notice it in those places, how do you feel toward it in this moment? A modicum of compassion, but mostly like resentment. Yeah. It makes sense because it's so screwed up your life for so long, right?

So we can understand the resentment. Let that part, the resentful part, know it's got a point also of all that should have happened. And ask it if it would relax back for a few minutes so we could maybe help the agoraphobic part rather than attack it. And that might actually help it change because the attacking doesn't seem to work, right? Yeah. See if it will let you open your heart a little more to it. How do you feel toward it now? Sad.

So let it know that and see how it reacts to your compassion. Again, don't think. Just wait and see what comes from that place in your body. I just feel really like sad all the sudden, honestly. Good. Just stay with the sadness. And it could be you're feeling compassion for that part or it could be the sadness this part feels.

but we're just going to stay with it and see if anything else comes with the sadness. I honestly just had like a wave of anxiety that came with the sadness. Ask if that is from the agoraphobic part, the anxiety too. The first thought I had was that it's fear of letting myself feel the sadness that I feel. Yeah, that would be a different protector. And again, we don't do things without permission. so let the one who's so anxious about letting you feel the sadness know it's the boss, we're not going to do it without its permission.

But ask it what it's afraid would happen if it lets you feel that sadness or feel it in this context. That it would be too much? Did you be overwhelmed? Yeah. And what would that look like? Ask it that. That I would lose control.

And what would that look like? You'd be screaming and wailing or what? I'm not sure, but the thought I have is that being in control is good and being out of control is bad. Okay. So let this part know we get that it's a big kind of control freak. And it doesn't want you anywhere near the parts that could take you out of control in that sense. So we're going to spend a little time with this control part. And let the sadness know that,

We may not get to it today, but that you know it's in there. And we want to work to get permission to go to it and heal it. But it might have to wait. Okay. And then go to this control one, and how do you feel toward it? I'd say grateful and resentful in equal parts. Right. And where do you find it in your body?

In my head. So I'm going to ask the one who resents it to give us a little space to help you and see if you can lead with your gratitude to it. I'm grateful that it has worked so hard to fill in the gaps in my life. And how does it react to getting that gratitude from you directly? Like a little sigh of relief, I think. Yeah, it needs to be appreciated. It really got you to where you are in a lot of ways. With the appreciation, let it know if it ever lets you go to that sadness.

us. It can be done without you being overwhelmed and out of control so that you would just be with it in a compassionate way until it felt like you really got where the sadness came from. And then we could get that little one out of wherever she stuck back there with all the sadness and gorophobia. And then she could change and you wouldn't have to worry about her anymore. And then this controlling part could lighten up, it wouldn't have to work so hard. Yeah, that sounds nice. Yeah. A little break.

Sounds good. Yeah, of course. But mainly right now, we just want to honor it for how hard it's worked to keep you in control and to fill in those spaces. Would it be fair to say if somebody listening was trying to find that self-compassion then? I feel like what you just did with me is you had me zoom out and see what that part's intention was and then to honor that that part was trying to do something good for me, even if it didn't work out in the way I wanted it to.

That's exactly right. Now, let's go back to the agoraphobic part and tell me how you feel toward it now. Like a softness, like a tenderness. I have that sense of like it was trying to keep me safe, albeit poorly. That's right. Again, they're just little kids trying their best. They don't know what else to do. whereas when we started you had a lot of irritation toward it.

Now you just are soft with it. We can see it's a kid. So that's what we do. We just help you form this different idea about these parts and a different relationship with that. I love that. I have a friend who has used IFS to completely reframe her relationship with the part of her that has suicidal ideations. And I think that's a real. really interesting use of the practice. Can you speak to how that might work?

In my career, maybe 20 years, I specialized in the treatment of all those heavy-duty diagnoses and most of them were quite suicidal. And I got pretty good at not fearing the suicidal parts and instead going to them in the way that we just did. So if you had one, I would have you find it in your body and I would have you ask it what it's afraid would happen if it didn't kill you. And what do you think the common answers to that are? That you suffer more? Yeah, that's right. You'll keep suffering. I can't take it. I can't let you continue to suffer this way. That's the most common answer. The other answer is you'll keep doing this hurtful practice that hurts other people. And I can't let you keep hurting people that way. Or some bird.

version of that. And so then the follow-up is, if we could get her out of her misery in a different way, so you didn't have to worry about her continuing to suffer, would you have to kill her? And the part would say, no, but I don't think you can do that. And I would say, would you give me a chance to prove that we can because we can? I promise you we can. And if the part trusted me at all, they'll give us a space to do that. because they know they're going down with the ship. They don't want to die. They just don't see any other alternatives. My friend said that even beginning to have empathy for that part,

beginning to say this isn't what's wrong with me, this is me trying to protect myself in not the best way. That's right. Just completely changed her level of empathy for herself and her relationship with herself, which I think was a really beautiful sentiment for something that I think is really rightfully so scary for a lot of people. Suicidal parts are what I call firefighter protectors. So we talked about manager protectors earlier.

Like the control part we just talked to is a big time manager. It's just trying to manage everything, nothing gets out of control. When that doesn't work and one of your vulnerable exiles gets triggered and hurt, there's an immediate reaction from some other part to get you away from that pain or from that terror or from that worthlessness. And we'll do it impulsively and reactively. It doesn't care about the consequences to your body or to your relationships. It just knows it's got to get you away right now from that feeling or you're going to die. These are what we call firefighter.

They're fighting the flames of these exiles emotions. They'll either get you higher than the flames or distract you until they burn themselves out. Can you share some other examples of what a firefighter reaction or a firefighter part might look like? Most of the addictions start out as firefighter reactions. Urges to go and get high somehow or to binge on food or dissociate, like a dissociate. is a big firefighter reaction. So most of us have a kind of hierarchy of them. If this one doesn't work, we go to the next one.

And at the top of that hierarchy is suicide for most everybody. So when you're out of options, that's the one that kicks in. That makes sense. One of the things that you've mentioned a few times is this idea of a self. And the self is like our truest essence at our core. Would it be the bigger head of the family in essence? Ideally, yeah, more than the figurehead would be the leader. The leader of the family.

If we have no idea at our core who ourselves is outside of our parts, if our parts have been running the show for so long, do you have any concrete action steps we could take to begin to get in touch with ourselves? When I had you focus on it, find it in your body, and separate from it. So you were noticing it, the you who's, noticing it is yourself, you're still blended with some other parts, which we had to get to also separate. It's your seat of consciousness. The one who's noticing is yourself, but it's blended with a bunch of other parts. So the more we get parts to open space and separate, the more of those

sea words you start to access, then the more compassion you have, like this last thing we did, ultimately you got to where you really felt a lot of compassion for a part that mostly you've paid it all your life. And that was you. That was yourself doing that. I didn't tell you to feel compassion for it. Is our self always higher functioning, good, having our best intentions at heart, all of those things? Or can our self ever be messed up in its own way? The answer is yes and no. Yourself is always good. It's always in these C-word qualities. And that's who you really are.

But? But traumas and all these things inject all these extreme beliefs and emotions into us, attached to our parts and our parts then start to take over and start to obscure ourselves so we don't have access to it. It's still there. It's like the sun is still there even when the clouds obscure it. And as the clouds dissipate, it starts to shine again. And that's all we're doing. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want easier and the things that you don't want harder.

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That's 15% off at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody, Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. Is the idea like my three-year-old self is, as you say, frozen? And if I can talk to or see her empathize with her, will she be unfrozen and thus move forward in time? Or will I still always have this three-year-old self in me who's talking to me and playing out in my life in different ways? We would go to her where she's stuck in the past when your mother got that accident. and I would have you be with her in the way she needed somebody at the time. And when she was ready, we could literally take her out of that time and bring her to where you are now or to a fantasy place she'd like to live in.

And she would just feel much better. She would be so happy to be out of there. And then we could help her unload the feelings, the terror she felt, or whatever she felt when that happened. And then she would just be a happy little three-year-old who wants to play. So she'll always be there. She'll just have a very different form and she'll show up in my life in very different ways. Exactly.

And, you know, right now, because she's exiled, you don't have access to her joy, for example, or her playfulness. So as you bring her back out of the past into your life now, you have much more access to those qualities. Can you share some ways that we can use IFS practices or an understanding of IFS to help make our romantic relationships better? Most of us come out of our families with these young parts, these exiled parts that didn't feel taken care of like the part of you who doesn't trust adults and felt neglected or however that happened and are desperate to find somebody who will, do what they didn't get. So you scan around until you see somebody who fits that profile. And then you have this big infatuation with that person because finally you found the one who's going to take care of that part.

And you have that infatuation until that person hurts you in some way. And then your firefighters go crazy and say, oh, I guess it must be me. I've got to change more. You try to change, you've got to change him back into being that Redeemer that you were seeking so much. Either get him to change back or you change yourself so he'll change back. If neither of those work, then, oh, wrong and Redeemer.

That Redeemer is still out there somewhere. I've got to go looking around. If you get burned enough, you just give up on getting it from a person. You go to work or whatever you go to to help that. part. So that's the way most of us operate. But if instead we do some of what we've been doing in this session, which is you go to the part that's so desperate for a Redeemer, and it starts to trust you to take care of it, and you become the primary caretaker or the primary attachment figure to that part, then your partner can be the secondary one and doesn't have all that responsibility

for never hurting you and always doing the right thing. It feels freed up from this role of being the Redeemer. So that's what IFS can offer relationships. It does involve getting people to do a U-turn in their focus, rather than focusing on changing the other person to actually notice the parts that are involved and start to help them and have both. both people do that. It's so interesting because I feel like it would both change how you would

approach dating and finding a partner in the first place. And then if you're in a relationship, it would change how you would interact with that partner within the relationship. Very much, because once you know you're okay, even if you lose the partner, then you're freed up in a way that you aren't when you're so desperate to have that person be that redeemer. I've also found in micro moments that it's really helpful. Like if I'm getting in an argument with my partner, I'm so bad at apologizing. Like, I'm so stubborn about it. Even when I know I'm wrong, even when I'm sitting there and in my head over and over, I'm like, Liz, go apologize, go apologize, go apologize. And I'm very lucky that I have a husband who's very great at like

smoothing things over after an argument. And I've relied on that over the years. But since reading your work, I've been asking myself, like, what is the part? of you that doesn't want you to apologize. So even in these micro moments, I think saying, what is that part of you and what are they trying to do to protect you? Like, what is their good intention and how is that manifesting in your life? That's exactly right. It's a great example. Did you get an answer from the part? It's a self-protection mechanism. It's a fear of vulnerability. Exactly. Never let them see you're vulnerable and never give in. And that was probably need it at some point in your life, but it's not the best in relationships, hasn't it?

No. No, it's not particularly fair to my husband, certainly. These parts have a lot of power to affect your perception and what comes out of your mouth. Some of the practice is sort of what you did, which is to go inside, notice the parts, notice what they are feeling, particularly the vulnerable ones, and then ask for permission to speak for them to your partner rather than let them talk. Because when they talk, it's a lot more extreme most of the time. But if you can say, oh, I just noticed there's a part of me that when you said this thing, it felt hurt. This protector came in and wants to yell at you, but it would help me if you just didn't do this thing anymore or you tried to work on that. So a very different message than

Why the hell did you do there? Absolutely. And it's taking a little bit more personal responsibility and personal accountability. Like, I don't think it's saying other people's actions never impact us. Other people's actions never need to change. I don't think that IFS is saying that at all, but it's saying like, where are my internal reactions meeting these external actions? That's right. That's so powerful.

I'd love to give you just like a few scenarios and maybe in sort of a rapid fire way, you could tell me, what parts might be at play in that scenario and maybe one thing we could begin to do to change the situation if you're down. I'm given a try. I tend not to speculate because I've been surprised so often when we go inside. It's not what I thought at all. But I'm happy to give you whatever I got. We won't hold you to the answer.

Just a hypothesis. Somebody who's dealing with a really harsh, mean inner critic, like that inner voice who's just telling them that they're shit all the time. Let's suppose I had you find it in your body, most people find that one in their head, and I would have you ask it when it got you curious about it, what it was afraid would happen if it didn't criticize you all the time. There are three or four common answers to that question. Any guesses about that?

If they didn't criticize you all the time, maybe you wouldn't be like your best self, you wouldn't live up to your potential. That's right. That's one common answer. And maybe one is just this like, well, that's the truth? Like you are a piece of shit? Yeah. I mean, that's the first answer you get.

But if I was to stay with it and say, but yeah, okay, but why do you have to tell her that constantly? What are you afraid would happen if you lightened up at all? Another common one is if I didn't make you feel like shit all the time, you'd start taking these risks and then you get hurt. you'd start to be seen and be out there. And I can't let that happen. Oh, that's so interesting. That's a common one. So would the first step there be kind of identifying the underlying,

why must you say these mean things to me all the time? Yeah. And then trying to feel into some compassion, feel into some empathy for that part. Yeah, a lot of compassion to it, a lot of appreciation for how hard it works, to try and protect you and keep you safe. And then the negotiation, if we could go to the parts that have been hurt when you did shine

and heal them, so there wasn't that same level of risk, would you have to make her feel like shit all the time? The answer is no, but I don't think you can do that. And so I'd say, well, give me a chance to prove that we can. And how would you begin to do that? I would say, Liz, I want you to focus on that feeling of fear of being attacked if you were to shine and find it in your body and then have you connect with the part and then ask where it's stuck in the past with that feeling. And you would see scenes or get a sense of the time period. And then I would have you go in and get it out of there like we've been talking about and bring it to the president.

and then help it unload those feelings. Then we would bring in that critic to see, it doesn't have to protect this part anyway. And it would say, oh, but there's these others. And so, okay, you don't have to stop doing your job until we've healed the others too. We just do that until the critic says, okay, now I can change.

And often they become like a cheerleader to you. I love that. It almost feels like a magic trick to be able to turn the parts of you who are causing your life the most strife into the parts of you that will make your life so much better. Yeah, it is like that. I was amazed when I first ran into it. It is like a curse has been lifted.

That's amazing. Okay. Let's just do one more for the sake of time. I hear from people all of the time who just are having a hard time finding joy in their life. Like they don't find joy doing anything. They just kind of feel like they're going through the motions of love. life and feeling kind of disconnected from everything. Is there parts work that could help with that type of thing?

A lot of those people would be diagnosis depressed. If it were you, I would say, let's get to know the part that keeps you from feeling very much and keeps you out of your body and keeps you a little dissociated all the time. And we would get to know it and find out what it's afraid would happen if it really let you feel, particularly if it let you feel joy. and then it's very similar to what I was saying about the other parts. We would negotiate with it. We would appreciate it and then negotiate.

And if we could heal the parts that had been hurt when you felt joy, could you lighten up and so on. Can you just leave us with one homework assignment, something that anybody listening could turn off this podcast and do today to begin to get in touch with or benefit from the idea of parts work? There might be some people who just don't get what I'm talking about in terms of these parts, but most everybody has a critic inside. So if you really wanted to change your relationship with that critic,

I could have you just focus on it, find it in your head, usually, and just get curious about what it's afraid would happen if it didn't do this to you. And that by itself begins a process of really changing things inside your head. I love that. Can you tell us a little bit in your own words about your books, IFS, where people can find IFS therapists, can find more from you? Our website is IFS-institute.com, and there's a directory of therapists on it and lists who's certify.

There are a bunch of books. There's two that have come out recently on Sounds True that I recommend people start with, the introduction to internal family systems and also the one I alluded to, which is you're the one you've been waiting for. And then the book that you mentioned, people love, which is called No Bad Parts. There are a lot of meditations. So the kind of thing that we did, people can listen to me, lead them through some exercises. I found the exercises in that book to be incredibly helpful. So thank you for that.

And thank you for your time today. I really appreciated this. And I learned a lot. And I appreciated the mini session. So thank you for sharing all of this with us. I really enjoyed it, Liz. You're a great interviewer and a great sport for letting me tinker around with your system this way. I hope you feel good about it.

I know you were embarrassed at some point, but I think it was a great service to your audience, too. Thank you. I do feel good about it. And I can have compassion for the part of me that was embarrassed about it. That's right. Yeah. Thank you. I have a little bit of a vulnerability hangover from that episode.

I truly hope that you took away some nuggets, some actions, some new things to think about. If you did love it, I would so appreciate if you would send a quick link to someone that you think would love it or left a rating or review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Both are so, so helpful in helping people find the podcast and deciding whether or not to listen to it. it. And while our new name launch has gone so well, so thank you so much to every single person who shared last week's episode, who shared it on your Instagram, who shared it with friends and family and coworkers in real life, I'm still really nervous about it. I just feel very tender and I'm like, oh my gosh, I hope people are finding the podcast okay. I hope people are recognizing it in their feeds. So I really, really appreciate your support, especially right now. If you are new here,

Welcome. I am so glad that you're here. Make sure that you are following the podcast on whatever platform you like to listen on. You're just going to go to the main podcast page. That's the one that lists all of the Liz Moody podcast episodes. And you'll see the word follow under the logo on Spotify. And then there's a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that same page on Apple Podcasts. That way, all of our new episodes will show up right in your feed so you will never miss out on one. And we have some incredible episodes coming up, including one that's all about insomnia and diving into the science of sleep, but not in a scary way, I promise. I've had anxiety issues around insomnia for a long time, so I would never make a scary

episode about the subject for you. And then another one about eliminating money anxiety. Yes, really. So make sure that you are following so you do not miss out. Okay, I love you, and I will see you next Wednesday on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. The mattress that you sleep on is one of the highest exposures that you have. Like if it's off gassing, you're breathing that in for basically a third of your life. And most conventional mattresses are loaded with synthetic foams, flame retardants,

microplastics, and more. Plus, if it's not comfy, you're going to be tossing and turning. You're going to be really hot. And sleep is the foundation of health. It is so important. Because of all of this, if I were not going to invest in any other part of my house, no other things in my house, I would invest in my mattress. And in fact, I have four years well before I had much money to spend on any of these things

because it is such a big needle mover. The birch mattress is incredible. It is made with organic cotton, natural latex, and ethically sourced wool. So it has literally no off-gassing. You can not smell anything right when you unbox it. It has no micropastics, no synthetic foams or flame retardants. And the wool makes it so breathable, which if you've listened to this podcast for more than five minutes, you know that I run very, very hot. Like, I am a furnace. Zach has basically accepted

that sleeping next to me is like sleeping next to like a little fire. And the birch mattress has been a game changer for that. It's made me sleep so much better. Like I can see my sleep score going up because I'm not hot all night long. It's also hypoallergenic, which is really worth paying attention to if you find yourself waking up stuffy or congested. Dust mites in a conventional mattress can actually impact your breathing and your sleep quality without you even realizing it. And again, we need to need to be able to breathe to get good sleep and getting good sleep is the foundation of our health. And then comfort-wise, Zach sleeps on his back and then I sleep on my side and my stomach. So we have two completely different sleep styles and we both wake up feeling really good,

no aches and pains. CNN actually named the Birch mattress, the best mattress for side sleepers and Wired named it the best organic mattress period. So there you go. Birch has options for every kind of sleeper in your household. They have three firmness layers. I like the Lux Natural, which is the medium one. And then parents, they even have a Birch Kids natural mattress. Birch ships right to your door. It sets up in minutes and it comes with 120 night risk-free trial. So if it is not for you, they will pick it up for free.

You have nothing to lose here. I want all of you to enjoy a deep, restful night sleep with a new mattress from Birch. Go to birchliving.com slash Liz Moody for 20% off. That is birchliving.com slash Liz Moody. and you're going to get 20% off birchliving.com slash Liz Moody. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing with hormone issues, you are especially going to want to listen to this ad.

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