The One You Feed - Richard Schwartz on Internal Family Systems

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

Richard Schwartz began his career as a systemic family therapist and an academic and has developed Internal Family Systems (IFS) in response to clients’ descriptions of various parts within themselves. He focused on the relationships among these parts and noticed that there were systemic patterns to the way they were organized across clients. Dr. Schwartz found that when the clients’ parts felt safe and were allowed to relax, they would spontaneously experience the qualities of confidence, openness, and compassion that he came to call the Self. He also found that when in that state of Self, clients would know how to heal their parts. Richard is a featured speaker for national professional organizations and has published many books and over fifty articles about IFS. In this episode, Eric and Richard discuss his book, No Bad Parts:  Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model But wait, there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you! Richard Schwartz and I Discuss Internal Family Systems and… His book, No Bad Parts:  Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model Defining Internal Family Systems (IFS) Understanding that we all have multiple “parts” within us The parallels of family therapy work to internal family systems Identifying the “Self” among our different parts IFS work is trying to understand what burdens each of our parts is carrying How the Self can take an active leadership role over our parts The roles that our parts take on:  exiles, managers, firefighters  How our parts can transform into powerful allies to bring healing Four goals of IFS:  Transforming, Restoring Trust, Bringing Harmony, Becoming more Self The 8 C’s – Creativity, Compassion, Confidence, Clarity, Connectedness, Curiosity, Calm, Courageous Trailheads refers to thought patterns or impulses that lead to the part from where it’s emanating How IFS is a type of spiritual practice in learning to access more of your Self The problems with positive thinking in working with your parts Richard Schwartz links: Richard’s Website (IFS Institute) Twitter Instagram Facebook By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you! If you enjoyed this conversation with Richard Schwartz, check out these other episodes: The Energy of Emotions with Ralph De La Rosa (2021) The Mind as Your Teacher with Ralph De La Rosa (2018) Understanding Emotions with Susan DavidSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I hate the power of positive thinking. I hate positive psychology. I hate all of that. The Dalai Lama, I don't hate him, but I hate his philosophy. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter.

It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to

reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Richard Schwartz. He began his career as a systematic family therapist and academic. He developed internal family systems, or IFS, in response to clients' descriptions of various parts within themselves. He focused on the relationships among those parts and noticed that there were systematic patterns to the way they were organized across his clients, and then found that when the client's parts felt safe and were allowed to relax, the clients would experience spontaneously the qualities of confidence, openness, and compassion

that he came to call the self. Richard is a featured speaker for national professional organizations and has published many books and over 50 articles about IFS. Hi, Richard. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Aaron. I am excited to have you on. We're going to be discussing your book, No Bad Parts, Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. But before we do that, we're going to get to the parable that I know you're excited to answer. In the parable, there's a grandparent talking with a grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love.

The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second and looks up at their grandparents and says, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you how that parable applies to you in your work and in your life. Well, it sort of contradicts my work. My path and passion in the last 40 years has been to try to reverse that kind of thinking in our culture. So I'm not a big fan. So I think that'll become clear to people here in a little while why. So I guess let's jump into it. And I'm going to assume that listeners don't know anything about internal family systems. Some I'm certain do, but many don't. So broadly speaking, what is IFS?

Well, I developed it to be a form of psychotherapy, but it's kind of evolved into being more like a life practice and for some people, a spiritual practice. Basically, what I found 40 years ago when I started on this journey is that things we think are bad, which would be the qualities that you mentioned about the, was it a black wolf or something? No, no, no colors to our wolves. Bad wolf. Bad wolf, yeah.

Greed, hatred, fear. All those things aren't what they seem. They're not just negative emotions. They're actually emanations from parts of us that, because of traumas in our lives or bad parenting, were forced out of their naturally valuable states and forced into roles that they don't like, which would be the ones you just mentioned and others, and carry a lot of the extreme beliefs and emotions that came into your system

during those traumas and drive the way these parts operate. So what I learned very early was, first of all, that we all have what I call parts, that it's the nature of the mind to be subdivided that way, and that they're all valuable, but that they get forced out of their naturally valuable states by traumas and attachment injuries, and they pick up these what I call burdens, extreme beliefs and emotions, that drive them into actually being negative and actually can be damaging to you or to people around you. But that isn't who they are. And when you think that's who they are and you starve them, as in the parable, they just get stronger and try harder to get your attention or take over your life.

So I was working with eating disorders back in the day when I developed this. And that's what I was trying to do. I was trying to get my client to ignore the voice that told her to starve herself or the one that forced her to binge or fight with it. And they just got stronger that way. And at some point decided I've got to explore this and see what's going on. And that's when I started to learn that they're not what they seem. So in essence, the idea is that we're not a single mind. We have multiple parts within us. And I've got some questions about how many parts and what types of parts, but we've got these different parts of us. And those parts,

I think you were describing as naturally sort of beneficial, but that they then take on, I think the term you use in internal family systems would be burdens. They take on burdens based on traumas, challenges, injuries in the past where they step into a role where they think they need to protect. Yes. And thus then create behaviors and feelings and things that we might looking at it externally go, well, that's not good. That's not serving me. That's not helping me anymore. But it originates from these parts' deep desire to protect us. Exactly right.

And in addition, they're frozen in time usually. So they're stuck in the time of the trauma. And they think you're still five years old or whatever age you were. And that you're as vulnerable now as you were back then, and that you live in as dangerous a context as you did back then. So there's a lot of reasons why they do it. And, you know, it's commonsensical to think of them as just bad and to try and get rid of them. But, you know, that's a big mistake our culture has made for centuries. Now, according to internal family systems, we have parts whether or not we've suffered injury, trauma, neglect or not.

It's just that if we have, those parts have been forced into roles they don't necessarily want. Any idea, like, does everybody have a similar number of parts to start with? Is it radically different? If so, any idea why it's different? I mean, do you have any underlying ideas there? I have no idea about any of that. Okay. I know that with a client, we're mainly working with the parts that are stuck to the problem and helping them transform. And the range in terms of numbers could be, I would say, from 10 to maybe 30. Okay. As we go through course of therapy, sometimes more.

But in terms of how many are there, I have no idea. And so the question then comes up, if there are all these parts, then who's me? When I talk about me, who am I talking about? Yeah. I had that question too when I first ran into the phenomenon. My background is a family therapist. So as I was hearing about all these parts, I started to overlay my family therapy ideas onto them. And just to make one parallel, so family therapy's big insight was you can't take an acting out kid out of his family and tell him to cut it out. You have to understand the role he's been forced into

by the dynamics of that family and change those dynamics and liberate him from that role. So he doesn't have to protect himself or the family anymore. He'll naturally transform into who he really is. And that's what we're finding with these parts. It's the same process. So as I was getting that, which took quite a while, as a family therapist, I was trying to help change these internal relationships. And I was trying to get my client to actually listen to the parts rather than ignore or hate them or fight them. And so I was having these inner dialogues. And I might have you, Eric, talk to your critic, your inner critic.

And instead of yelling at it or fighting with it or ignoring it, I'd try to get you to listen to it and why it does this critical thing inside of you all the time. What's it afraid would happen if it didn't do that? And as I'm having those dialogues, maybe you, Eric, suddenly get angry at the critic, and the dialogue goes south. It reminded me of family sessions where maybe I'm having two family members talk to each other and trying to get them to listen, and suddenly one of them is angry at the other. And we were taught to look around the room and see if somebody isn't covertly signaling one that he disagrees with the other one too. And you've got these alliances happening. And we were taught to get that third person to step back and not interfere.

And then things settle down between the other two. And I thought maybe the same thing is happening in this inner system. other two. And I thought, maybe the same thing's happening in this inner system. Maybe as I'm having these two parts, or my client talk to the critic, a part who hates the critic has jumped in. And so I asked my clients, could you get that one to just relax in open space or step back in there? And my clients would say, yeah, okay, I did. And I'd say, okay, now how do you feel toward the critic? And out of the blue, it would be this completely different answer. Like, I'm just curious about why it calls me names. Seconds earlier, they hated it or they were terrified of it. You get that to separate, and it's like this other person popped out and knew how to relate to the critic in a healthy way.

And when I would do the same process with other clients, it was like the same person popped out with the same curiosity, calm, confidence, compassion even. I'm sorry. I feel sorry for the creator.? They'd say, that's not a part like these others. That's myself, or that's me. So I came to call that the self, and in answering your original question, it turns out that that self is in everybody, can't be damaged, and knows how to heal, and is just beneath the surface of these parts, such that when they open space, it pops out. And that's who we really are. That essence is in everybody. And these parts are also who we are, except they're just part of us. And they add a lot of spice to our lives and a lot of discernment, and they can be very helpful.

But who we really are is that self. So we have this self then, and you use a capital s for it we've got this self that has these qualities that you are able to notice you call them the eight c's curiosity calm confidence compassion creativity clarity courage and connectedness right so our parts take on roles based on the things that happen to us, right? They are conditioned, right? They are conditioned by the experiences that we have. Is the self something that we would consider unconditioned?

Yes. And so it's beyond personality. So is my self, in essence, the same as your self? I think so, yeah. Okay. I think that's right. So for me, self has taken on, and this took quite a long time too, more of a spiritual connotation.

You know, I like the metaphor from quantum physics of photons being both a particle and a wave. Yeah. And like there's a wave state of self that when you meditate, you feel, you kind of lose your separateness and you become oceanic. And then there's a drop of that ocean that's in each of us and particleizes when it's in us so that we do feel separate from each other. But it's really the same self. So in that way, yes, I would certain schools of Buddhism we might call Buddha nature. Certain ways of thinking of Christianity, they might call that the karmic Christ or the inner Christ.

Inner Christ or the soul. Yep. Hindus call it Atman. Atman, yep. I co-authored a book where we looked at virtually every religion and every spiritual tradition. They've all got a word for it, even though almost no psychotherapies know about it. So, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And so, internal family systems then as a approach is where we're

working with trying to understand what is going on with the parts, why they're the burdens that they are carrying, trying to get them to perhaps set those burdens down so that the self, this thing that has clarity and connectedness and the rest of the seas naturally sort of emerges and we spend more time living in the place of the self versus living sort of through the perspective of or in battle with the parts? That's part of it. Okay. But it's also what I found in contrast in some ways to some of the spiritual traditions we mentioned, which where self is a kind of state that's fairly passive witness state

that you meditate to get to and maybe try to lead more of your life from. When I would get my clients to access self in the way I described earlier, self became a kind of active inner leader that could not only interview the parts, but also often see them and go and hold them and comfort them, almost like a parent with a child and actually sort of would take over the session and do what the part needed in a healing way, which just amazed me. Because I was working with clients who had terrible, terrible childhoods, and by most psychologies had no business having any of those qualities. But here I was, and they were actually healing themselves, basically,

with me coming along for the ride. And so this concept of self isn't just a passive witness, but it's an active leader both in the inner world and the outer world. One of the goals is to help the parts trust that self can do that because when you were little and you were hurt and your self couldn't protect you, your parts lost trust in its leadership. And they thought like a child in a family who becomes like a parent, they thought they had to take over and run things. So it's a big relief usually when

they actually realize you're not still five years old and you are a person who can handle them and also handle the world. And you talk about different types of parts. I'm just trying to sketch the groundwork here for people before I start to go into maybe some deeper questions. You talk about different types of parts. Maybe we could walk through those quickly. The first is exiles. Yeah. So just to clarify, these are not types of parts so much as the types of roles these parts are forced into by what happens to them. Ah, yes. So exiles, you know, we all are born with these, what other systems call inner children, these very young, vulnerable, but also when they're not hurt, playful and creative

and loving and open and, yeah, on and on, all these wonderful qualities they have that we love to be with. But when they're hurt or terrified or shamed and made to feel worthless, they take on those burdens. They take on those beliefs about themselves. They take on the emotions from those experiences. And when they carry those burdens, they have the power to make us feel all those feelings that they still carry from those experiences. So they can overwhelm us and make it so we can't function and make us feel terrible. So we kind of naturally try to lock them away in inner basements or abysses

and just move on from the trauma, thinking we're just moving away from the memories and the emotions of the trauma, thinking we're just moving away from the memories and the emotions of the trauma, not realizing we're locking away our most precious qualities simply because they got hurt. And so those we call exiles. We locked them away. And for them, it's insult to injury. The injury was the trauma. And the insult is we abandoned them and left them in the past. And when you get a lot of exiles, then you feel more delicate and the world feels more dangerous because so many things could trigger them.

And if they get triggered, they blast out of the basement and they overwhelm you and make you stay in bed for a week or whatever they do. And one other source of exiling is also if there are emotions in your family when you were getting raised that weren't acceptable, and you had to lock away the parts that felt those things, too. I think that was all of them. That's true for many of us, yes.

So when you have exiles, you've got to have protectors, because so many things could trigger them. as you got to have protectors because so many things could trigger them. And so a lot of other parts are recruited out of their naturally valuable states to become these protectors. And they spend enormous amounts of energy trying to manage your life so that no one hurts you again. No one gets close enough to hurt you. Maybe no one rejects you because you don't look right or everybody gives you accolades because you perform at such a high level. So these we call managers. They're just trying their best to manage your life, to please people and control the world.

And they'll also control your body by making you a little bit dissociated from your feelings and keeping you in your head. And it's all in an effort to contain these exiles and also to keep them from being triggered. And then the world still triggers your exile. So when that happens, it's a big emergency. And these flames of exiled emotion are encompassing you. So you need, in other parts, forced into this role of being what we call a firefighter. They're trying to fight the flames of exiled emotions, either by dousing it with some substance or getting you higher than the flames

or distracting you until they burn themselves out. So we all have these firefighter activities that immediately happen in an impulsive, and I don't care about the consequences to your body, to your relationships. I've just got to get you away from that. That's another set of protectors. So the very simple map, we've got protectors, one group of which is called managers, the other is called firefighters, protectors, one group of which is called managers, the other is called firefighters,

and they're both trying to contain and protect these vulnerable exiled parts of us. Let me relate some of this to my own life and my own story and see if it helps apply this in some ways. And I've got a couple questions. So a little bit about me, you know, recovering alcoholic heroin addict. I've been in recovery 15 years this time, and it was about 10 years before that. So most of my adult life, and I certainly recognize the firefighter role, right? That's what my addiction was, right? It was, I can't handle how I feel. So let's douse the flames. Let's, let's get rid of these feelings that we don't like. So lots of people are able to overcome their primary addiction. And again, depending on how the person recovered and the things that they did. But is it possible that

in one case what's happened is that that person's managers have gotten really skilled? And the managers now have got things under control to the point that the exiles don't break loose. Thus, we don't need the firefighting in the same way. Yeah, that's what most addiction treatment is in this country, or I guess around the world even. It's showing up the managers so that they not only contain the exiles, but they also lock up the firefighters. And that takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of vigilance and a lot of go to the meetings constantly and reinforce it. And that's good.

I mean, it's good in the sense that you're not addicted, but you become addicted to the meetings or you become addicted to whatever program you're doing to try and shore up your managers. And you become a kind of dry drunk in a way. And you're not that much fun because you're dominated by these managers. A better way, from my point of view, is to actually honor the addictive part for its attempts to try and save you from all that pain. It literally thinks it's saving your life every time it does that. And also go to the critic who's attacking you for not being able to control yourself and thinks you should have more willpower and so on.

And get it to back off, get it off your back. And then get permission from those parts to go to the exiles that are driving the whole thing. And we have a process, it's like a five-step process, from which we can actually heal those parts and get them out of where they're stuck in the past, and help them unload what we call unburden the feelings and beliefs they got back there, at which point it's like a curse has been lifted and they'll transform into who they naturally are. And then we can bring in the addictive part and the critic and see they don't have to spend all this time trying to deal with this pain. And then they shift into totally different roles themselves and they start to get along with each other.

So it's a very different approach. It's like almost the opposite approach, sort of like what I was saying earlier about the two wolves. And it's a tough sell because the addictions community is very attached to the disease model and this sense that these addictive parts are just what they are. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the

opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I got sober at 24 from heroin addiction and very traditional 12-step

approach you know central Ohio in 1994 not a lot of uh you know not a lot of progressive thinking going on at that point you know and the basic idea was you don't need to know why you're an alcoholic you just are let's not talk about your parents let's not talk about your childhood let's and and that approach worked i got sober right but a few years into being sober i had some things happen my marriage fell apart i fell apart very promptly after that and that led me into a type of therapy at that time, you already addressed one of the words for it, you know, my therapist was very influenced by a gentleman by the name of john Bradshaw. And we did a lot of, you know, inner child work, which a lot of it feels similar

to what I see happening in parts work, we didn't necessarily talk about the protectors in the same way we kind of tried to get right to the exile if I had to, if I had to translate what I saw happening there and your approach. Although I think what happened with me was indirectly, we were working with those protectors for a long time in order to get there. Yeah. But at that point, what it was, is the work was really about letting that exile basically have the emotions that it was unable to have when it was younger. That's right. Historically, I did a lot of this similar type work a long time ago. And I have a question for you, though, about some of this type of work.

And you and I talked beforehand about, well, maybe we'll do some parts work here on the show. You'll do some with me. And what typically happens for me in a lot of these areas is that I have precious few memories of being a child at all. Like it's a blank slate back there. late back there. And despite doing lots of inner child work and lots of different things, like, I don't have memory of like three days ago. So it's not, it doesn't appear to only be my childhood. It seems to be a broader system. How do you do parts work if you don't have memories? When we get to these exiles, these inner children, we start the healing process by what we call the witnessing stage, where I would have you ask this vulnerable part what it wants you to know about what happened in the past and where it's stuck in the past. And you might get memories, you might get images, but sometimes people don't. They just get the emotion or they just feel the sensations and their body just starts to move in strange ways.

And many parts can feel fully witnessed without having you to know exactly the details of what happened. So it's really not a problem if you can't get the details. There are some parts that do want you to know the details, and the reason you can't get them is because other parts are afraid to let you know these things. So then we would work with the parts who are afraid for those memories to come and just go over all their fears and try to get permission for you to see what happened. Because these parts, even though you consciously

don't have memories, much of the time, and this has been true for me, if you get permission, the memories will start to come too. And so, you know, the other challenge that I found therapy-wise in general, inner child and a variety of different kinds, is I get asked a question. I looked at some of the exercises in your book and I know some people that like, you know, Ralph de la Rosa and I are close and I know he's a big proponent of your work. And so, you know, I've been around this kind of work. Part of what happens is if we were to say like, okay, let's talk to this part in Eric, right? I have a very difficult time differentiating. Is my brain generating something that I know to be what I think that part should be actually thinking, saying, or feeling? Because I kind

of know the answer, quote unquote, in a way, right? I mean, or is it really organically happening? It's very difficult to tell that apart. How do you help people differentiate that? Is this an authentic part speaking? Or is this a brain that knows what it thinks the answer should be? Yeah. So there are ways that you get tipped off, or I would get tipped off as your therapist that it was a part just trying to please me or trying to get through the session without getting dirty, you know, something like that. was a part just trying to please me or trying to get through the session without getting dirty, you know, something like that. And I would just say, Eric, could you just see if there's some part of you that's just trying to do this? And then we would talk to it and see

if we can get it to step out. So that's not a huge problem in this system. So you feel like over time by working with somebody that it starts to emerge when something real is happening versus something is not. Very much. Yeah. Yeah. It's not hard to tell. And then I think you still do parts work, right? So this is an ongoing practice for you. Would that be a safe way to say it? You mean me personally? Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I've done a lot of work over the years and still my wife has an ability to trigger new parts that I need to heal. So it never ends, it seems. And, you know, in many, many ways, I'm a lot better. I feel a lot better than I ever have, but there's still work to do.

Yeah. You know, so a question that comes up for me a lot that I've been thinking feel a lot better than I ever have, but there's still work to do. Yeah. You know, so a question that comes up for me a lot that I've been thinking about a lot recently is what is mental health or what is when you're done or what does it mean to be healed or what is good enough or what is how healthy do I think I'm going to get? You know, I think that's a question that comes up a lot in my mind. How do you think about that question? Yeah, I'm a big transformation guy. So, you know, maybe in contrast to some schools of Buddhism, where the goal isn't to heal per se, it's really to become very accepting of what's in there and kind of live with it, but from a different place. This work actually helps you unload pain, unload terror, unload all the emotions or the emotions

you led with in terms of the second wolf. It helps you unburden all that. And when you do, not only do you not have to deal with those feelings that came into you, they aren't native to you, they came into you from the experiences, but also these parts will transform into being very valuable allies. And whereas you didn't have access to much creativity before, you do this unburdening with this part, and now you have all kinds of creativity that helps you steer you in a different place in your life. So there are four main goals of IFS. The first one is what we've been talking about, the liberation and transformation of these parts from the roles they've been stuck in, so they can be who they're designed to be.

And then the second, we also talked about restoring trust of the parts in self as a leader. And then the third is bringing harmony to this inner system. So not only are the parts different, but they're getting to know each other and working together in new ways and feel more unitary because they're not battling all the time. And then the fourth goal is to be more self-led in the outside world and bring more self to the world in that way. So that's, for me, what healing entails. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts?

His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all.

Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really? No, Really? And you can find it on the iHeartRadio

app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When I look at your list of C's for the self, I look at them and I'm like, you know, I feel like I spend a lot of time around many of those C's. You know, I feel pretty calm, pretty confident, pretty curious. I think naturally compassion. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here excessively by any stretch. But what I don't feel, I think, there's a C in here that is the one that I would describe as doesn't feel as present is connectedness. And I've described it this way before. I've described it that I think I've done a lot of work over 30 years in a lot of different ways and a lot of different schools. And I have taken away what I would call the vast majority of obvious suffering. Right? Like I don't feel like I suffer a whole lot. And yet if I were to describe what I would say would be, okay, here's where I want to continue to grow. It is in feeling more connected or in not having what is from time to time, sort of a low mood flat effect. There's nothing going on

there. It's like, when I look at it, I'm like, well, nothing is wrong that I can tell. Matter of fact, everything is actually pretty darn good. And, you know, and so then you read lots of different things and you hear about happiness set points, like, well, a certain amount of happiness is just going to be, you know, genetic. And that's where I start to get into when do you go, okay, like just onwards with living and when do you continue deeper into a healing journey? Well, you mentioned earlier the possibility of working on that. You want to spend some time checking in on that?

I am willing to try it for sure. So I guess we would start with the part of you that makes you feel so separate and flat. Does that sound okay? Mm-hmm. Yep. So, Eric, see if you can find that feeling in your body or around your body. Okay. Got it.

Where do you find it? It's kind of in the pit of my stomach. And as you notice it there, how do you feel toward it? In other words, do you like it or do you hate it or are you afraid of it? You wish it would change? You wish it would go away? How do you feel toward it? I certainly wouldn't say that there's a hate, but sure, I'd love to see it change. Okay.

Sure, I'd love to see it change. Okay. So we're going to ask the part that wants it to change to give us a little space now and step back in there so we can just get to know it and maybe get to know why it's doing this better. And just see if that one would give us a little space. I think so. Then go ahead and focus in the pit of your stomach again

and tell me how you feel toward it now. Well, here's the problem I described earlier. The answer that came to mind was curious, but I don't know if that's because I know that's what I'm aiming for. Let's just go with it and see what happens all right again i haven't detected it okay okay ask the part who's so skeptical about this to just give us the space to give it a try all right and to not constantly comment on how you're making it up okay and then follow your curiosity and ask this one in the pit of your stomach

what it wants you to know. And don't think of the answer. Just wait and see what comes. And if nothing comes, that's okay. Just kind of be patient. What does it want you to know about why it does this to you? Why it makes you feel this way?

Three things are happening. One is the feeling in the pit of my stomach is slightly more intense. Good. Secondly is an idea that it provides me an excuse to hide. And third is the podcast host part of my brain going, does this make good audio for it to be quiet this long? But we're going to ask that part to step aside. You can always edit, yeah.

That's right. Okay. Okay, so something about an excuse to hide, did you say? Mm-hmm. Okay. So ask this part what it's afraid would happen if it didn't help you hide that way. I'd have to do things I don't want to do. You'd have to do things it doesn't want to do or that it thinks you things aren't good for you

okay the response i seem to get is i'm too tired okay so it's ask if it's keeping you tired or it thinks you're too tired to do these things i don't seem to be getting a clear answer on that question. Okay. Try this one then. What are the things it's afraid you would do if it didn't do this job? Can you repeat the question one more time? Yeah.

Just again, direct it right to the pit of your stomach. Mm-hmm. What's it afraid would happen in terms of the things you would wind up having to do if it didn't do this inside tell people how i feel okay so it's afraid that if you felt more then you'd have to tell people about those feelings is that right yes so it's keeping you flat so you don't feel, so you don't take the risk of talking to people about your feelings. Just trying to get this right.

Just ask if that's right. Yeah, I think so. It seems to be providing a little bit more information about the type of feeling, perhaps. Can you share that, or do you want to keep that private? That I'm angry with them and I don't like them. Okay. I wasn't afraid what happened if you did share that with somebody. Either they or I would get hurt.

Okay. So it's really trying to protect you and other people from being hurt by the angry part of you. Sounds like. I'm checking you. Sounds like. I'm checking that. Hang on. Just check, yeah. Yeah. So how do you feel toward it now, Eric, as you learn how it's trying to protect you and keep you safe that way?

I feel like that part is starting to take up more bandwidth. The angry one? Or this one? I think the protector part the flat guy yeah and how do you feel toward him though as you learn he's trying to protect you from being hurt I feel compassionate towards him and and now I might be using a term I know from reading the book blended, but because I also sort of feel like his arguments make sense. Yeah. Like, like, I'm like, well, okay, I get your point. That's a good point. So I don't know if I'm blended with that part or, but that's sort of what's coming up is like hey like we're wading into what feels like slightly dangerous ground here I understand so um you're blended with a

part that kind of agrees with him and relies on him and is also afraid of the anger. And that's fine. But for now, just extend some compassion and appreciation to the flat part and just see how it reacts to being understood and appreciated. I don't know what the part feels I just noticed my stomach sort of that that sensation sort of fade away a little bit yeah relaxed yeah yeah so that's typical and ask it and we you know we won't do it we don't have time but if at another time you could go to that angry part and help it so it wasn't so angry, would this guy have to work so hard to contain it? Just ask that question.

Maybe. That's fair. Yeah, and if it didn't have to work so hard at this job, let's suppose we could do that, and it was freed up, what might it like to do instead inside of you? Play baseball. Cool. And ask if it would be willing to let you do that at some point, or is it really still very, very frightened of the angry part?

Whether it would let me play baseball? No, whether it would let you go to the angry one and heal it. Oh, okay. Yes. Okay. Okay. And I don't know how long you've got, but does this feel like complete peace for now? Yeah, it's reminding me there's a batting cage right around the corner and I ought to go visit it. Yeah, I think this feels like a good spot. Well, just thank the part. Okay.

Thank the part for sharing so much. And when you're ready, come on back. Okay. Yeah, so how do you feel now? I mean, that's a slightly awkward thing to do in front of, you know, thousands and thousands of people, but okay, I feel okay. I felt something happening there, and I also sort of feel like, back to the point earlier, like i've done enough thinking about my psyche to

kind of recognize that i think i know that this this makeup makes intellectual sense to me so i'm not 100 sure that i wasn't kind of going where i think it would go but at the same time there were shifts in internal experience that felt real yeah and that's part of the way we can judge. Yeah. My sense was that was quite real. And I would encourage you to try and find somebody who can help you go to that anger. So it's not such a threat and you don't have to organize so much of your life around not feeling it. Yeah. It was interesting when we talked about managers. Like I said, I feel like my firefighters have kind of settled down. Although it's interesting that you talk about firefighters being very interested. These are not your exact words, but very interested in finding enlightenment, right? Right. It's that it's that like, get me

out of here. I recognize that. But the thing about managers is they are parentified inner children. They're usually very tired and stressed out. And I'm not much stressed out most of the time, but tiredness is more of a thing. Yeah. And I bet if we had stayed in there and asked that flat guy if he was tired of having to contain all this, he would say, yeah, he's very tired. Yeah, I believe that. When he has to expend that kind of energy to contain it, then he'll make you tired.

Yeah. So let me ask a few more questions, if that's okay, and then we'll wrap up here in a minute. So I want to turn a little bit towards trailheads. Tell me, what do you mean by the word trailhead? A trailhead is any thought pattern or emotion or impulse or sensation that if you were to focus on and stay with would lead you to the part from which it's emanating. with would lead you to the part from which it's emanating. So it's like if you're out hiking and you find the head of a trail, and if you follow the trail, it leads you to something like a waterfall or something important. So that's all I mean by that. So basically what we're saying is we're using our own experience of difficult thoughts, emotions,

tension, things along those lines as a thing to say, hey, something to look at here. Let's pause here and let's go in here a little further. Let's find the part that that's coming from and get to know it and help it. I have this program called Spiritual Habits and talk about triggers. Like, you know, we all have different triggers that remind us to do something and that the most powerful kind of trigger is sort of an emotional based trigger. It's when you recognize an emotional state and that actually gets you to pause and do something versus just being lost in it. Let's talk about spirituality and IFS. I'd like to explore this a little bit more because you said IFS is morphed over time

for being exclusively about psychotherapy to becoming a kind of spiritual practice. And I would love to know what that statement means to you and what the word spiritual means to you. Because I just mentioned I've got a program called Spiritual Habits. And I often am like, well, should I call it Spiritual Habits? Is it Philosophical Habits? Is it Psychological Habits? Like these things all just, there's such a blending and an overlapping of them. What do you mean when you say that IFS has morphed from psychology to more of a spiritual

practice? Well, people do it as a daily practice often. And as they do it, there are aspects of IFS that help you work with your parts, but then there are others that help your parts relax. And as your parts relax, and you feel more and more embodied in what I'm calling self, you feel like you're meditating. You feel like you're arriving at that place that people meditate to get to. And as you stay in that,

you feel a lot of the things that people meditate for, which is you feel like you're much more than this contained body and that you're part of something much bigger. And there's a sense of well-being and everything's okayness. And so it becomes that kind of a spiritual practice where you're accessing, from my point of view, more and more of the big self, what people call God, and you're bringing more of that in. And that is very soothing to your parts, to know that's who you are. You were talking earlier about how you don't feel that connected.

You feel very separate, even though you've done all this work. And that process of embodying the spacious sense of self, feeling the bigger self, makes you feel very, very much more connected, not only to that, but also to other people and to animals and to the earth. Yeah. So all of that becomes a spiritual practice. Yeah, yeah. There's a couple lines that you use that I thought I really liked, which is IFS helps people become bodhisattvas of their psyche. So for listeners who aren't familiar with that term bodhisattva, it is a primarily Mahayana Buddhist term, I believe. It's certainly emphasized heavily in Zen practice. A bodhisattva is someone who is basically trying to lead all beings to enlightenment. So I love that idea of, you know, we're becoming a bodhisattva of our inner parts. And you said, or through a Christian lens, IFS people end up doing what in the inner world, what Jesus did in the outer. They go to the exiles and enemies, love and heal them and bring them home. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

And just kind of getting those insights has been quite amazing on this journey as I got more and more how it's all parallel, how what a lot of these spiritual leaders were saying is true in the inner world as much as it is in the outer world. Yeah. Well, you say that in the book multiple times. You say a theme of the book is, you know, exploring how it's all parallel, how we relate in the inner world will be how we relate in the outer world. And that experience feels so true to me. You know, I don't know which led which, right? Is it learning to love the

external world more, which led me to love the internal world? Is it the internal world leads to the external? Like, like you said, they're sort of parallel. I think improvements in one, for me anyway, has always led to improvements in the other. That's right. But it's hard to improve in the inner world if you think of these things in the traditional way we do, which is the other wolf. You know, I once had an audience with the Dalai Lama, and my big line was because he talks about, similarly, he talks about there are negative emotions, and there are positive emotions. And you need to build these antidotes to the negative ones and focus on the positive ones all the time. Very much the same as the wolf story. And I said, you know, it's ironic

to me that you teach us to go with compassion to our outer enemies, but not our inner enemies. And he didn't really have a good answer to that, from my point of view. Yeah. Well, I think it's an interesting question, because I think about this often, and what I see a lot of in spirituality, and I see it in various forms of psychotherapy, although not so much IFS. What I see is two basic approaches for working with things of difficulty. One is I would say you get in there and you mess with it and you try and change. So cognitive behavioral therapy. I'm having thoughts that are difficult.

I go in, I examine those thoughts. I look at them. I look for truth. You know, I orient towards the positive. I get in there and do something with it. And the other is more broadly speaking, what I'd say would be more of acceptance right? You're certainly allowing the parts to be there, the negative emotions to be there, and you're encouraging them to change and transform. And so the part of Buddhism that I've often heard that sounds very similar to me that would align with IFS is this idea of, I'm not going to think of the right quote right now, but it's basically the jewel is in the lotus, right? No mud, no lotus, right? To use Thich Nhat Hanh. I think he's the regenerator of that phrase. Yeah. Of all the Buddhist leaders, Thich Nhat Hanh, his philosophy is the closest to him. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in terms of your anger,

he said, take your anger and cradle it like a little baby. Yeah. Yeah. He's as close as you can come. So within all of this though, do you find a time or a place or a point where it is useful and there are times where it is useful to say, orient your mind towards the positive? No, no. And that would be that you feel like anytime there's any sort of negative thought or thinking going on that it's coming from a burdened part? Yeah, it's a part that needs your attention. And if all you're doing is thinking about the positive, you're going to ignore it. You know, there are times where, say you're on a date date and you just want to have fun and some part is reminding you that your dog died three years ago you you might want to say okay i'll talk to you later yeah yeah

but i hate the power of positive thinking i hate positive psychology i hate all of that the dalai lama i don't hate him, but I hate his philosophy. We're leading this episode off with that quote, Chris. Make sure you capture that. Just morph it so we get Richard saying he hates the Dalai Lama. Right. That'll help my career enormously. But just this whole attitude about if you just look on the bright side and think positively,

your life's going to be good. It leads toward exiling. And I'm a big crusader against exiling anything. So, yes, I mean, certainly there are times where I'll say to these parts, look, don't harass me now. I'll talk to you later. But it's with a lot of kindness, like you would if a kid comes running in and you're trying to do something else. You know, let me be, but I'm not going to forget about you. Not bad for wanting attention, but now's not the time. That's right. My personal beliefs are there are times that we want to adjust where our attention is.

You know, you always want to do it with kindness and you don't want to do it in the extent that it becomes denial. The example I often use is like, if I walk into a hotel room, there's going to be like three things I really love about the hotel room and a couple of things that aren't so good. And I feel like there's a benefit in going, you know what, I'm going to try and give the attention to the parts of it I like and let the parts that I don't like about it, you know, sort of go. It's not denying anything. It's just saying, you know, where do I want to orient attention in this case? But I think that's something that's relatively surface. I think when we're talking about inner pain, at least to me, it's always made sense to pay attention to it. Like, what's here? Why?

What's going on? Yeah, to go with it with initially curiosity, but ultimately with love. Yeah. But it isn't just the pain. I mean, again, you've got the wolves of, I forget the three you started with, but greed, I think. Greed, hatred, and anger or envy. Fear probably might have been in there. Anger, yeah. All of those things that many Buddhist traditions see as negative emotions.

Those are just hurting parts. They're parts that need your attention and love as well, as much as these exiles. So the more you think of them as negative emotions, the less you're going to feed them and the stronger they're going to get. Yeah. Well, I think that's a great place for us to end. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate the chance to talk with you, to share IFS with others. We'll have links in the show notes to your book, to your website where people can find you. And thanks for doing a little

parts work with me. Yeah. And thanks for being a good sport and allowing that and for being so vulnerable with your audience. I'm sure that part of the reason you have a big audience is because you're very honest about your own experience. So it was a pleasure to be with you. Thank you so much. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any

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