EDITED TRANSCRIPT: The following transcript may contain typographical errors or other mistakes due to inconsistencies in audio quality, background noise, or other factors. We cannot guarantee its precision or completeness. We encourage you to use this as a supplement to your own notes and recollection of the session.
Tami Simon: Hello friends. My name is Tami Simon and I’m the founder of Sounds True. And I want to welcome you to the Sounds True podcast, Insights at the Edge. I also want to take a moment to introduce you to Sounds True’s new membership community and digital platform. It’s called Sounds True One. Sounds True One features original premium transformational docuseries, community events, classes to start your day and relax in the evening, special weekly live shows including a video version of Insights at the Edge with an after-show community question-and-answer session with featured guests. I hope you’ll come join us, explore, come have fun with us and connect with others. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
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Welcome to a special episode of Insights at the Edge, a dialogue between Dick Schwartz and Gabby Bernstein on applying Internal Family Systems, IFS, to our intimate relationships. Dick Schwartz is the founder of IFS, a revolutionary approach to working with our many inner parts. Trained as a family therapist, Dick has written five books on IFS, including No Bad Parts and You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For, a book that applies the IFS approach to meeting the challenges in intimate relationships.
Dick is joined in this episode by number one New York Times bestselling author Gabrielle Bernstein. Gabby has written a new book. It’s called Self Help: This Is Your Chance to Change Your Life. She’s a big fan of IFS and has actually been trained at the first level of becoming an IFS facilitator. The Self she’s referring to in the title in her new book, Self Help, is the Self that’s at the core of the IFS model, a model that teaches people how we can become Self-led in all aspects of our lives.
And now, a special dialogue on applying Internal Family Systems to help us heal relationships, with Dick Schwartz and Gabby Bernstein. Dick and Gabby welcome.
Gabrielle Bernstein: Hi guys. So good to be with you guys.
Richard Schwartz: Two of my favorite people, so I’m on cloud nine with you guys.
GB: I kind of feel the same right now. I said to Tami before we started, this is one of the most selfish things I could do today is to talk to both of you, so it’s nice to be with you guys
TS: And here at the beginning just to bring everybody along with us. I know that some people who are joining us may be quite familiar with IFS, but some people may not be. This may be one of their early introductions to the IFS model. What our team has done is they’ve created a three minute brief introduction to the model, so we’re going to start there. For centuries, we humans have been asking some big questions about ourselves. Who am I? How did I get this way? How can I be the most real and fulfilled? Dr. Richard Schwartz has a powerful theory. It’s called Internal Family Systems, and it goes like this, just like a family has different people with different personalities playing different roles. Each of us has different parts inside each with its own unique traits playing its own distinct important role in who we are and how we behave.
RS: Most other forms of therapy are based on this mono mind idea that we just have one mind, which I believe is a myth. These parts have a lot to tell us. They actually have actually a strong desire to help us. And there aren’t any bad ones, it turns out.
TS: They’re all good parts, all with something inherently valuable to offer, but as we go through our lives, some parts get a bit beat up and stop serving us well.
RS: Many of them are frozen in the scene in which they got burdened, so they’re frozen in time, in these different trauma scenes.
TS: These parts can’t be wished away or forced away. Instead, they need to be seen and understood. Take, for example, overwhelming greed or anger.
RS: So, it turns out that greed and anger are just parts that are trying their best and they need compassion. And the more you attack them or the more you ignore them, the stronger they get and the more they try to take over.
TS: And that’s where the centerpiece of the IFS model comes in– what Dick Schwartz calls the Self, the steady true core of a person. The Self is pure presence, and it has these eight crucial traits necessary for leading a healthy, meaningful life.
RS: This is just inherent in us that it’s sort of our birthright and that in addition to those qualities, there’s a kind of wisdom about how to heal internally and externally. So Self-heal is a bumper sticker, something I’m going to print, because it’s really true.
TS: In IFS therapy, one goal is to make space for a client’s parts that are using extreme behaviors so those parts can be recognized and even appreciated by the Self.
RS: Often, as we help clients access that state and then begin to relate to these parts, they sort of take over the session and I just get out of the way. They really do know how to heal themselves. And it all sounds kind of woo-woo, kind of new-agey at first, but it actually does work.
TS: Dick Schwartz has detailed this evidence-based approach in a series of books and teachings available at Sounds True.
Alright. All right, Gabby, as we start, I think people are like, oh, I didn’t know Gabby was so passionate about IFS. Tell us a little bit about that. What drew you to the model?
GB: I, for many years was practicing IFS with my therapist and didn’t realize it, and I have been in my own trauma recovery for two decades now, and only about nine years of that time did I realize I was actually dealing with trauma. I actually had a dissociated trauma that I didn’t remember until I was 36, but all the while I was using IFS with my therapist who had the model in my system and working with me. And I also had a lot of resistance to it because at the time my protectors were really, really, really strong and it was around the time that I had remembered the trauma that I stumbled upon this YouTube video and it was an interview with Dick and as I was watching the video, I started screaming at the screen. I was like, that’s the therapy that I’ve been doing all this time.
And it had never been named, it had never been explained to me. It was something that just my therapist had been using. As soon as I heard Dick speaking about the model, it just all fell into place and it just lit this fire inside of me to want to know more because I felt that the more I knew, the more I could allow it to serve me. So I very quickly reached out to Dick’s team. It was right around the time that I’d started my podcast, had Dick on the show within a moment. As you know Tami, his self energy is so strong and so expansive that it comes through the screen. So within moments of us gathering on my podcast, I felt that self energy come through. I felt friendship, I felt connection. I felt that childlike energy that you have Dick and knew right away that not only was this man going to be my friend, but in many ways he showed up to really guide me and encouraged me to go on with the IFS practitioner training.
And I feel very blessed because I think I may have been one of the last people to really do the training that isn’t a therapist. And I believe that’s God’s work because for me to be able to have had that experience to be trained in this way without the intention of using it as a therapist, thank God I got in the way that I did and thank God I got trained the way that I did because now a big part of my mission is to help democratize this work and help give it to people who may not find their way into therapy and to do it in a very devotional way and to do it in a way that is blessed by dick and a safe way truly. But the biggest reason that I’m here is because the model changed my life and I’ve never been happier. I’ve never been happier. Let’s start there.
TS: Your book is called Self Help. And Dick, you said if you could have a bumper sticker, it would be Self heals. And you talked Gabby about how Dick has this Self energy that you can feel and I think for a lot of people who are hearing about this capital S for the first time, it can feel kind of vague. I think I know what they’re talking about. I’m not sure I know what they’re talking about. Do I know what they’re talking about? Dick, go ahead and introduce us to this capital S Self in a way that makes it really more tangible, if you will.
RS: Yeah, I’ll do my best. There is the centerpiece of the model, which is the capital S Self. And it’s not necessarily unique to IFS. It’s pretty unique to IFS in terms of therapy models, but most spiritual traditions have a word for it. And the Buddhist I think would call it—
GB: Buddha nature, maybe
RS: Buddha Nature, yeah, I’m sorry, but Hindus would call it Atman and Christians Christ consciousness, some version of that. But in most of those traditions, and this is something you guys are both experts in these areas, so if I’m not wrong, most of those traditions see it as a kind of state to attain and to try to live from, but to not be terribly active. It’s more of a witness consciousness, a mindfulness state. What I think is unique about IFS is how it’s that same state but in a very active role in terms of leadership inside. So I just stumbled onto it as I was working with clients and having them work with their parts. And when I got certain parts to open space inside or separate from my client, this other person would pop out with all those eight C word qualities you mentioned. And by the way, Gabby, there’s a big lobby now for a ninth C, which would be choice, but I’ve resisted because it’s not a quality like the others, it’s an action. So I’m thinking now about capacity for choice, how’s that as the knight C? So anyway,
GB: I have to agree with you on that. Yeah.
RS: That works. Okay. See that’s more of a quality. Coming back to it turns out that this is a inner essence that everybody has, it can’t be damaged and knows how to heal. Like we’re saying, once it’s accessed and is just beneath the surface of these parts such that when they open space even slightly, it pops out in everybody. Even in people who had horrible, horrible childhoods, I was working with that population and as I did the same process I was doing with less damaged people and the same self undamaged self popped out inside of these really severely abused clients, that’s when I started to think maybe this isn’t everybody. Maybe it can’t be damaged. Maybe in contrast to things like attachment theory, which would say that to have any of that you had, you had to get it from another person, you had to get it from a parent or later a therapist or it’s not in us, you have to build up that muscle. This was contradicting that because it was just popping out even in people that had horrible childhoods. And that’s when I started to look for other answers and looked towards spirituality. But that’s the big showcase piece of bios that is kind of miraculous in my mind.
GB: And Tami, you said it nicely in the video that it’s our presence reflecting on self as our presence. And those times when we’re aligned with self, we are in full integration with all of who we are and we’re not feeling separate, we’re not feeling overcome by a burden belief system or a feeling that’s keeping us stuck in a pattern. But we are in that moment present in a state that’s much more that is aligned with the truth of who we are. And the thing I can say just to speak to self is I think that sometimes we may not always have this full access to self, but by just starting to recognize even slightly that self is inside of us allows these extreme parts of ourselves to feel more settled because that for me, as I was saying earlier, they don’t feel alone. We don’t feel stuck or you don’t feel hopeless, that there’s no way out of these extreme patterns because you have had this sense that there is safety inside.
TS: And we’re going to talk more about being self-led in relationships. But before we get there, Gabby, I think it’s so interesting that in your new book you offer this IFS informed approach to connecting with self kind of on the spot in all kinds of situations. And I wonder if you can share a bit about what that four step method is and how you came to it.
GB: And before I share about it, I just want to just acknowledge the courage that Dick had to support me in doing this because it’s a big deal to take this model that has such an impact in the therapy session and to provide it in a way that is in some ways simplifying it. And in some ways it’s an IFS informed model also, which is really important. This is not IFS therapy, but it’s informed by the principles of IFS. And so thank you Dick for trusting me. The model’s really leaning on the self qualities. So instead of coming at our inner parts from a place of judgment or attack or sort of avoiding or anesthetizing these extreme parts of ourselves, we can lean on the qualities of self to turn inward and begin to offer attention, focus and curiosity and compassionate connection to these parts of ourselves.
And so while the individual may not have full-blown self in that moment, they have these steps that are self-like steps that can lead them to a curious inner dialogue that can allow self to emerge naturally. So first step is choice. This is the C that we’re talking about here. And in order to follow the steps, we have to exercise choice. We have to recognize that we have a choice. And that’s why this book all throughout the book, it’s just consistently giving the model in a way where it’s reminding people that you do have a choice in any given moment where you may be acting out in extreme ways that we have a choice to turn inward. Look, we’re not always going to remember that choice, but in these brief encounters where we have enough space between that triggered response, the trigger and the response where that choice comes emerging is when we can practice.
And so that first step is to choose to check in. And as Dick teaches, parts of are like little children and I have a 6-year-old, so I can speak to this with full authority here. If I try to become curious with my son about how he’s feeling without his buy-in, he’s going to be no mommy, no mommy, leave me alone, mommy. It’s going to be chaos. So we have to check in, choose to check in and turn your attention inward and just get the buy-in that this is a process. We can do this right now. Let’s choose to check in step one. The second step is offering curiosity. So before I even go further, this is when you notice yourself, just give yourself any moment in life where you notice yourself, you’re a little bit triggered. For me it might be getting off a call with my team or in the middle of the call with the team, whatever it is that activates you.
And I would recognize that you want to practice this when it’s something that’s not so extreme for you. Maybe it’s like a tiff with your best friend or it’s work related or something that’s not too extreme and you notice that trigger. And then the first step is to choose to check in. The second step is to offer that extreme behavior, storyline feeling, whatever it might be, some curiosity, and to start to turn your attention inward and ask questions. Okay, so what do I know about this part of me and really leaning on the IFS model here. How long has this part of me been around? Does it have a shape or a color or does it have a sensation inside? Is there anything that this part of me wants me to know? Are there images or stories or words or visuals that it wants me to know?
And you could spend one minute, two minute, three minutes as long as you want with this part, but it can be done pretty quickly. And once you have a little bit of connection to that part and you start to see, okay, yeah, I can sense that it’s giving me some information, then you have that cue to move to the third step, which is to compassionately connect to the part. And that compassionate connection is just a very simple question. What do you need right now? What do you need? And we can then give some space to let that part of us say, I need to go for a walk. I need to speak my truth. I need to dance, I need to cry. Giving ourselves, when do we ask ourselves what we need? And then the fourth step is to just breathe with your hand on your heart and your hand on your belly and notice your inner world and notice if any of those seed qualities of self have emerged.
Do you feel a little bit more calm? Did you notice that curiosity genuinely set in? Did you feel a tinge of compassion? Do you feel a little bit more courageous? Has a connection to the part been established? Is there creative force moving through you and so on with the parts with the C qualities, if you even notice the slightest bit of curiosity, you can know that this four steps has done its job. If you notice the slightest bit of breath and your breath has slowed down, my cat’s talking to us as we talk about self and our breath has slowed down and we’re just relaxing a little bit more. The calmness has set in, we feel a little bit more connected and we’re not as extreme self is set in. So borrowing those qualities of self can choose to check in the curiosity, the compassionate connection.
We give ourselves the opportunity to stop overriding our experiences and instead check in with them and rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. The more we practice this four step inquiry, one minute here, few hours later, another minute here, few hours later, another minute here. The more access to self we have, the more self can emerge naturally. And as we have those fleeting moments, I always like to say that the miracle is that subtle shift in your perception as a course a miracle says. And so when we have that subtle shift, those miracle moments add up and the more that they add up, the more we live a miraculous life because we know that there’s safety inside, we know where to turn. And this four step inquiry, I started applying to myself having lived, worked in IFS therapy, having IFS therapy in my therapy. And my therapist had been away for a few months and I said, I’ve been doing really well. And she said, because you’ve been practicing this self-help.
TS: Now, one of the things I’m curious, and Dick, I’m curious when you hear this and this focus on bringing more self energy in through the sea qualities, what in that it clearly works. It clearly works. What I’ve found though is it works to a certain degree and then it doesn’t. And that’s meaning if I make the list, I have my list right here and if I remember and choose to check in and focus on these qualities, I feel better immediately. It’s immediate medicine. But then whatever else has been kind of pushed down and I’m not attending to, it’s almost like a self swipe across, this is my experience and this is why you’re saying it’s not the deep work of IFS therapy. It’s something else. So I’m curious, Dick, if you could help us understand the whole of it
GB: Before Dick answered that, I left it on an important point in this book and with this four step method, there is no intention of connecting to exiles. I’m not trying to guide people to even work with firefighters, those extreme, extreme protectors. It’s really just starting to connect inward with the managers that are with us on a day-to-day basis that are just kind of running our lives and kind of creating some drama and to start to just get into the habit and the practice. And as you’ll notice all throughout the book, almost every four pages I say, if you want to go further, please go to the IFS institute and find an IFS therapist because I am not a therapist and I’m not trying to guide people to exiles or even to those extreme firefighters. So I just wanted to preface it with that. And my intention is to help people get to know their parts, get to know their managers, and experience a glimmer of self. There we are.
RS: Yeah. So I’m so grateful to you, Gabby, for the book and the four step process. We’ve been wondering how do we bring this to the public in a safe way? And what you’ve done is really solid one version of that that is going to help a lot of people. And as you’re saying Tami, and well both of you’re saying it’s not going to do the kind of deep healing that we do in therapy, but just the practice of getting to know these parts and letting them know that they’re not alone because yourself is there with them can be very restorative and becomes like you’re saying, a life practice that allows you to bring more of those C word qualities to your relationships, which is the topic for today and to whatever endeavors you’re doing in the outside world. And to go back to your question, Tami, the reason it doesn’t necessarily last without a whole lot of practice is because it doesn’t go to these exiled parts that still are suffering.
And if you have a lot of exiles in your body and your life in general, you’re still going to have these protective parts are still going to need to do their jobs and they’ll kind of snap back into that role. The big advance though is now you know them and you’re not fighting with them or you’re not trying to ignore them. You’re just saying, I get it. You feel like you have to blend with me again and take over. That’s okay until I have a breath and I can separate again and do the four step process. And so you’re much easier on your parts now and reassuring of them, but they can totally transform out of their extreme roles once you have the space and with a good I therapist to heal the parts they’ve been protecting all this time. And once that’s true, then you don’t have to do the four step process as much nearly as much because they’re trusting you already and they don’t carry these, what we call burdens, extreme beliefs and emotions. That’s all been unloaded inside. So the actual four step work is easier.
GB: And I think it’s interesting too, Dick, because I think that if I think back to when I first started IFS therapy, had I had this self-help informed IFS approach with a little bit of that awareness of the fact that there were parts of me inside, I actually think it might’ve in some ways for me, this isn’t for everyone, but for me it might’ve been actually easier to dive more quickly into the model because I would’ve had that awareness, oh, that’s a part of me. I would’ve had maybe a little bit more compassion for those parts, more connection for sure to the fact that these are parts of me that’s not, and I would’ve been a little less blended with those managers. And so I think that one of my hopes too is that as people read this work and they find their way to IFS therapy, if that is the path that they choose, that it helps them go deeper faster with the work and have an even more accelerated experience of IFS with that information. That is a devotional practice that has taken some time and has taken a real commitment to IFS and it’s probably the thing I’m most proud of in my life.
TS: Dick, one of the points you make very clearly in your book on IFS and relationships, You’re the One You’ve Been Waiting For, is that a big shift can happen in our intimate relationships when we become the primary caretaker of our exiles instead of our partner asking our partner to do that for us, they become a secondary caretaker, but we’re the primary caretaker. And you’ve referenced these exiles and I’ve heard you refer to them as sort of the basement children, and I wonder if you can speak more about what that means to be the primary caretaker of our exiles and how that shifts relationships.
RS: So most of us had screwed up families and either we had to lock away certain parts of us because they weren’t acceptable in our families or because our families hurt us in a big way. And once a part gets hurt or terrified or feels worthless, picks up what I call the burden of worthlessness, then it’s hard to function in life if you’re still with those parts. And so we have a kind of natural impulse to lock them in, like you said, an inner basement or something so we can function. The downside to that is several things. First that makes these young parts who before they were hurt were lovely because they gave us all kinds of wonderful qualities like playfulness and creativity and they know how to love in a deep way. Now you don’t have access to any of that and they’re suffering. They’re in this constant state of suffering and sense of being abandoned by you.
So you come out of your family with a bunch of those and they’re looking through your eyes for someone who can take care of them, who might even resemble one of your parents because they’re still frozen in time back when they desperately wanted that from a parent. And so when you see somebody who fits the description, what we call falling in love a lot of the time or infatuation is these exiles saying, finally, now I’m going to get that love from this person that I’ve been looking for all this time where I’m going to get protected in a way that my parents didn’t. And so that’s the huge explosion a lot of the time. And then you connect with that person who resembles one of your parents and everything is blissful until it turns out they do resemble your parent and they do something as hurtful.
And when that happens, because all your exiles have been attaching to your partner, there’s a big explosion inside. And I talk about these four or five projects that your protective parts go into to try to deal with this big emergency, but it turns out the person you thought was your redeemer and one of the projects is to find the real person who’s your redeemer and they’re out there and let go of this one or to try and change yourself so that the designated redeemer changes back to who they were supposed to be or go leave the relationship or give up on relationships because you’ve been hurt too many times this way. And so as long as we have these parts that are so wanting so much to depend on and attach to this external person, it’s really, really hard to have a decent relationship. And so IFS and the phrase you’re the one you’ve been waiting for is about you going to these exiles and you letting ’em know you can take care of them even if this person acts up or leaves, that they could still have you and they’re not alone that way.
And that then gives your partner a lot more space because if they do something hurtful, your protectors don’t go have to go after them in such a big way because your exiles know you’re still there and they feel solid with you. So there’s a very different approach to understanding relationships and actually being in one in a healthy way.
GB: I can actually speak to the miracle of that too because my husband and I practice have a IFS couple therapist who was referred actually to us by Dick and she’s extraordinary. And in our sessions a lot of parts come out just like extreme stuff. And we’ve been doing therapy for so many years that we’re not afraid of letting these parts out, which I think is a good sign even though it can be alarming to the therapist. But these parts come out and I left a session where I had a part that deeply really it was an exile that felt like she doesn’t get seen and heard. And so the session shifted and it was really about what my husband needed to have seen and heard and not my part. And I left the session really irate, really blended with that extreme emotion of I wasn’t seen, I wasn’t heard.
And so typically had I not had IFS in my system or the four step method or the experience of this therapy, I might’ve just really blamed him, really lashed out on him, really projected it all onto him because it was such an extreme feeling of I’m not being heard. And instead I had enough awareness to say, I need some space. And I did the check-in process with myself and I checked in with the part. And within a five minute period I was able to notice that this part was very, very young. And when I got through all the steps and I asked the part what it needed in buckets of tears and deep emotion, the part said, I need a mother. And it just was just, I need to be heard, I need to be seen, I need to be taken care of. And instead of going and trying to make my husband my mother, I sat there and I hugged myself.
I just held myself, I held my cat, I put myself into this energy of safety and I allowed that self energy to emerge to show up for me in that moment. And I processed the experience and I gave myself the attention that that part needed. And then an hour later I had a really lovely dinner with my husband. So when we recognize that we have access to that internal parent inside of us, then we really let our partner off the hook. And then what we really have the gift of is being able to speak for those parts, not as those parts as Dick says. And so at dinner I was able to say, I feel safe now and I need you to know that I have a part of me that really didn’t feel heard. And it would be really my request would be that maybe you could be a little bit more curious with me in these conversations. And I mean, that’s the miracle to me.
TS: Dick, I wonder, would you be willing to share an example of an exiled part in you that you job doubt to your partner for a period of time, but then you took over being the primary caretaker?
RS: Sure, yeah. I’m one of those that came out of my family, which is why I can write about it with a lot of worthlessness and largely a, well actually due to interactions with both my parents. And so when I finally got the courage to actually interact with a woman, which was basically not until college because I was very shy and self-conscious until then and an attractive woman was interested in me, that sealed the deal. That’s all it took was just to have somebody who other people valued value me would counter that worthless part. But again, it was temporary because the part hadn’t been healed. It was still stuck back in times with both my parents. And so when this would be my first wife, when she would get really angry with me and she would actually sound like my father in terms of how she would scold me and shame me, then this exile would pull me back into those scenes where I am back being yelled at by my father, which was horrible.
And so the protector that would try to protect me from him would come out at her and would sort of scream back at times or shut down. But in the shutdown, it’s amazing. These parts have so much power. When I looked at her, she looked far less attractive, even kind of ugly, seeing through the eyes of these protective parts, they can totally change your perception. And this part started lobbying for me to get away from her and maybe find somebody else. And that was the tension for a long time because the idea of not having her, I still had so much worthlessness that the idea of being on my own again and having to feel that loneliness and that sense of I’m not being a valuable person that she had gotten me away from was terrifying in itself. So even though parts were lobbying to get away, I didn’t. And we repeated those patterns over and over, but I don’t know if that’s clear enough in description.
TS: How did you become the primary caretaker for that worthless sort of deficient part of you?
RS: Well, it took a while, and as I discovered the model and actually started to use it on myself first, I went to that rageful part that was protecting me from her rageful part. I rarely would initiate things, but if she started to shame me, it really could take over either way. I mean actually two different parts. But as I got to know that these are parts and I started to interact with them, they pointed to this part that felt so worthless and needed so much affirmation and validation. And so it took a while to negotiate permission from them to go to that such a vulnerable place in me. At the time, I didn’t have a therapist to do this with because I know anybody actually who I trusted enough who I thought knew the model well enough to actually work with me. So I kind of did versions of that four step process with myself.
And then I finally got up the courage to find somebody who was actually a woman named Susan McConnell, who’s one of our lead trainers and did a book called Somatic IFS, who actually helped me go to that exile. And I’m different from most people in that I don’t see anything inside me, so I have to do the process in a different way. And I had to do it in a much more somatic, and I can hear the voice of the part, but it’s like I’m doing it with the lights out in there. I have something called a Fantasia, which about three or 4% of us have. But Susan was the perfect person because she was a body worker and she could actually bring that worthless part to the fore so I could actually help it unburden.
TS: And then I think this is another point that isn’t necessarily clear when people hear it and aren’t that familiar with IFS, this notion that exile can unburden and the unburdening is part of the healing. And maybe Gabby, we could go to you and you could talk about being the primary caretaker for an exiled part of you and the unburdening process and how that happened and changed you in relationship.
GB: The little girl for me who experienced sexual abuse as a child, and that was so extreme, that built up a protector that dissociated from it. So I left my body and I left that memory and I didn’t remember it until I was 36. So the dissociation was a protector, very extreme protector. And in my IFS practice, and even in some one-on-ones with Dick, I have had multiple experiences of unburdening this part. And I actually wonder if that’s a thing, Dick, really, because there’s been multiple processes throughout my journey where it could have been in therapy, it could have been in a one-on-one with Dick, actually even most recently in my new therapy with another seasoned IFS therapist who Dick and Gene have referred me to. I feel very blessed where I’m having these unburdening moments where I’m going back into the childhood home, the presence of self is with I am with the little girl and helping her.
And we’re getting out, we’re packing the bags, we’re saying leave everything, and we’re getting in my car and we’re driving back to my home and we’re in my new adult home and she’s playing with my son and she knows that I’m there and she’s feeling that safety experiences with the model where I’ve, we’ve alchemized the burden, we’ve burned it. I like the vision of burning the flame, bringing flames to the burden, and really coming through with a physical and somatic experience of freedom. And then most recently I’ve had this, and this is still the same exile that I keep coming back to, and I think it’s important that there can be these experiences of unburdening, and then there’s a little bit more and then there’s a little bit more. And most recently we went back to the childhood home and she was just totally not attached to the family members.
And she really trusted me and she was like, yeah, we’re done here and we’re getting out. And she just sort of locked the door and went out the back window and we just left. And it was one of those moments where there was a release of shame and just a connection to the little girl I felt connected to her. I felt calm with her. There was no shame, there was no feeling of needing to hold on because of somebody else’s needs. It was just clear and very calm and very connected. And that’s when I knew, oh yeah, yeah, she’s good with me. She’s got self, she trusts self. And so I think that the real gift of unburdening is that the part trusts self. And I know for myself, it doesn’t mean that the part might not get activated again. It doesn’t mean that yes, your life changes.
Yes, I am far less extreme, yes, but there’s moments when I get a little activated or here, but I know where to go. The part knows where to go, the part’s not living in fear. The part has self. And then one of the beauties of IS is that when that part has self, that part can do the childlike things that it always wanted to do. And so when I came on today and I was like, you guys, I’m just so happy and I get to go and sing with my son this morning at the morning circle at his school, and I can go and work out with my girlfriends and just dance around and play, and then I can come here and be with you guys. And the two of you have such self energy that’s like being little kids on a playground. That’s how I feel with people like you. And I can just have fun in life and I can be in that joy and I can be more creative. And God, it’s just such a good feeling. So if you want to talk about unburdening, it looks like this. It feels like this. It feels free and creative and easy. And does that mean I don’t have triggers? Does that mean No, but I know where to go
TS: Now. Gabby, you said something interesting. You said you liked the flame and the image I had as you were talking was bringing all of the dark suffering, if you will, into the flame and that releases the energy. I’m wondering, Dick, for someone like you, when you say your inner process is such a feeling based practice, how did you experience the unburdening of this? I mean, worthlessness just feels like such a heavy blo of nothing. How do you unburden that? What did it feel like for you?
RS: Again, for me, it’s all much more energetic or somatic. So once I got, I wouldn’t say it’s imagery, I couldn’t see it, but I kind of had an image of a little boy who was stuck in a scene where my father was really saying things that you’re good for nothing and things like that, not in that tone of voice. And once I got him out of there and with Susan then went to help him unload that sense of worthlessness, I just felt this energy leaving my body just going. I asked him what he wanted to give it up to, and he said light. So I had the sense of a light coming into me. I didn’t see it per se, but I could feel the warmth of it and then I could sense that worthless energy just going off into the light. And since then, like Gabby was saying, my second wife Jean can still trigger him to some degree, but it’s nothing like what it used to be. Also, like Gabby was saying, Jean and I now know when we get into it, one of us will call time out and we’ll do what we call a U-turn in our focus, and both of us will go away and find the parts that we’re doing the talking. And if that little guy that I mentioned was one of the parts triggered, I’ll just hold him a little bit inside and see what, as Gabby said, what he wants me to say to Jean for him rather than having my protectors take over to speak for him. And we can get out of these loops that we used to be in for days in a matter of minutes now.
TS: Yeah. I want to ask another question. You both referenced this notion of speaking about our parts instead of from our parts. Let’s say you’re having some conflict and it’s clear that you’re getting ready to say something from a apart. I mean, I’m this critical person right now. I feel you’ve attacked me and I’m going to attack back. Is that a time to just call a timeout? I can’t really move into the clarity and calmness and speak about the part I’m speaking from, or should I just let myself speak from the part and I can apologize later? What the heck?
GB: I love the idea of calling a timeout. I think also the more you practice this, the easier it is to be the witness of the part emerging. And it’s not always going to happen. I mean, Dick’s been doing this a lot longer than I have, but I will say that I was driving in the car a week ago and my husband said something that is a traditional dialogue that we’ll get into where it was sort of just like a statement like, oh, well, we’ll just do that. And my part takes on this story of, well, that means that I have to do everything. And instead of going into the typical dynamic of my part fighting his part, his part fighting my part and our kids screaming in the back, it’s terrible for everybody. I said to him, I had enough awareness in that moment that I did my own inner time out.
And I said, I feel that when that came to me in that way, there’s a part of me that feels really activated right now. I just want to speak for it because I don’t want to act out with it. And he still got a little activated, but I kept teasing it out with him a little bit. I just kept saying, but I stayed steady. I stayed in self. I stayed in the resourced part where the resourced energy where I could just keep saying repeatedly, I’m not starting a fight here. I’m not attacking you. I’m speaking for a part of me that gets upset in these moments. This isn’t about you, it’s about a part of me. I’m just wanting to take care of it right now. And just stayed steady and stayed steady and stayed steady. And so I think that your self energy, I know this and this is what Dick says, that self begets more self. So as I stayed steady in that self energy, his protectors could relax and we could come back to self. And I’ve seen so much self emerge in my husband as a result of my, but being able to acquire more and more self inside,
TS: It seems that in order to talk about what our parts are experiencing, we have to have some level of self energy present even just to do that. So committing to wait until we can speak, when we’re going to reference what a part felt means that we have some self-energy available to us. Is that true?
GB: Yeah. And I think something that you just said was so interesting, and I never thought about it this way, but in order to be able to talk about the part in many ways, we need to be able to talk to the part ourselves. So we need to be able to have a dialogue with these parts in order to speak for them. And so the witnessing the inquiry, the curiosity, however you’re using the model, whether it’s with your therapist, whether it’s four steps, whether it’s just even considering that this is a part of you and not who you are, all of that starts to give you the space between the blendedness of you and the part. So as you start to tease that out, you can speak for it more because you’ve had more dialogue with it.
TS: Okay, I want to directly address here as we come to a close courage and what the courage is that’s required to have courageous love. Obviously there’s courage involved in taking care of our banished children inside those hurt parts of us. But what about the interpersonal courage? And I wonder if you could each speak to that.
RS: Well, Gabby just described a version of that where you have the courage to, in a sense discipline, but not in any harsh way. These parts that are so habitually have been taking over in your life, and you have the courage to stay with an open heart in the face of some extreme protectors of your husband, and you have the courage to speak for these parts rather than from them. All of that takes a lot of courage. And courage is one of the eight C words that self just naturally has. So if you can get your parts to stay separated enough, we call it the critical mass of self, you are rarely going to be fully in self. But if you can be separated enough as Gabby’s saying, to know it’s a part to know that it doesn’t help to let it take over and to reassure it of that and to ask it to let you handle the situation and then speak in a courageous way, but also vulnerable, it takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable, to speak about your vulnerability to a partner when they’re potentially in these, they’re in the parts that could hurt you.
So there are many, many elements of this that take a lot of courage. And I can’t remember what more I wrote about in the book, but go ahead, Gabby. If you want to add to that,
GB: I would say that even picking up a book like You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For or reading or listening to, any work that sounds true has put into the world or sticking around to the end of this conversation is a sign that there’s courage inside. Because those of us who have the curiosity and the courage to open our minds or flip the page or listen a little longer to this type of dialogue, to a conversation related to turning inward and addressing the parts of us that takes a tremendous amount of courage. There are millions and millions of people in this world disembodied, completely blended with parts that looking at a book that says Self Help or You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For. Any Sounds True cover would run the other way because it’s too terrifying to consider that there’s anything to look at inside. And so I believe that anyone listening right now, anyone that touches this type of work in any way, shape or form has courage emerging to just keep listening.
TS: Okay. And I’m going to add in here one final point because I found it so helpful in engaging in IFS in the context of relationships is this notion reminding myself we’re not one mono mind dick, as you call it. The mind is not monolithic. We have all of these parts. When I feel annoyed at something my partner’s doing, it’s like, oh, that’s just this part of her. Or when I’m annoyed at something that I’m doing actually and I’m like, oh God, there’s that. That’s just a part of me and how it creates so much acceptance and space in our intimate relationships. And I wonder if you can just each comment on that and how you’ve seen that manifest in your love.
RS: Yeah. I can do an exercise with a group where I would, along the lines of this conversation, have you imagine your partner at their worst and put them in a contained room with a window. So you’re looking at them when they’re doing what gets to you so badly, but you’re not as vulnerable to them. But notice when they do this thing, what happens in your body? What protector comes to your defense? And notice the impact it has on your body, including your eyes. So whenever people do this, they see their partner very differently. It looks more monstrous or more threatening or something like that. And then in the exercise I’ll say, you’re not going to interact with that partner. You’re not going into that room. So it’s safe for this protector to stand down and separate more. And the simple act of just getting that part to separate and people will feel the shift in their bodies.
I’ll say, now, how do you feel in your body? My muscles aren’t tense now mine is pretty clear and I’m breathing in a totally different way. I can sense my heart is back open. And when people access self again in their body and then look at their partner through the window, through these eyes, not only do they see it’s just a protector in their partner, but it’s like you have x-ray vision and you can see past that protector to the exile that’s driving that protector. And you can actually have compassion for your partner even though this part of them is so hurtful. So that’s part of the magic of the work self has that C word clarity that allows you to see what’s going on behind the scenes.
GB: I’ll echo that in the sense of the more I have tended to my own parts, the more compassion I have for my parts. And that compassion for my parts has allowed me to have even more capacity for compassion for my husband’s parts. And so it’s not my job to unburden his parts, but it does. I do have the ability now to witness him in a part and witness him in his. And oftentimes I can even see his innocence. I can see him as the child in that moment. And for me to have that awareness of him in that way and that ability to see him through that lens does allow my protectors to soften as well.
And so I think that it’s sort of like a ripple effect. The more you have that connection inside, the easier it is to see it in others. Again, it’s not our job to point out other people’s parts or to try to analyze people’s parts, but it is a different way of living to witness somebody who is acting out or being extreme or seems so judgmental or is being rude on the call or whatever it might be. And to just be able to say, oh, hey, that’s a part that’s that’s here right now and it’s not my job to fix it. And then tend to the part of you that’s activated by that other part. I think that the greatest gift to any relationship is your individual IFS therapy and the work that you can do with your partner using IFS. It’s the most transformational gift you could give yourself and your relationship, period.
TS: Courageous love here with Gabby Bernstein. She’s the author of a forthcoming book coming out on New Year’s Eve called Self Help, an IFS-informed approach. And Dick Schwartz, who’s the man who wrote the book on IFS in relationships, You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For. Thank you both so much. So helpful. Thank you.
GB: Thank you both. I love you guys.
RS: Thank you both.
GB: Yeah, beautiful.
TS: Lot of Self energy released here. Thank you.
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