What is IFS and how can it HELP me?

Intro

What is IFS and how can it help me? Brandon, what’s going on, man? Not much.How’s summer going? It’s It’s going good. It’s crazy how fast it goes. Youknow, I was just thinking now that I bring that up. Today is a special day.Do you know why today is a special day? Oh, no. Um, I have no clue. It 48 years.That’s today. 48 years, man. Holy cow.They They made it. They beat all the odds. Yeah. Our parents Our parents have beenmarried for 48 years today. Yeah. Congrats, mom.Congratulations. We We There’s moments of bliss and moments of uh frustration.Somehow they got a marriage to survive the five years. It’s called Yeah, it’s called marriage. So, congrats to them.That’s huge. Yeah, they survived us, man. For 48 years.You know, you know what’s weird? They’ve been married 48 years. Aren’t you like 48 and a half years old?Wait, I think I I think I’m I’m I’m under the gun in terms of timing. Just barely.Oh, okay. But yeah. Okay. Just I I got to do the math.Yeah. Um, that’s a double life sentence. Yeah. What do you mean?Well, usually life sentence is about 25 years. So, they’re they’re almost there.

What Are Parts?

Oh, interesting. They double like That sounds so bad.We make marriage sound so fun. I know. I know. Especially for B2 guys who do marriage therapy all day.Yeah. So, but no, seriously, congrats to them. That’s awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Congrats, Mom and Dad. Welove you guys. And seriously, good job on getting through everything that we have put you through.So, all right, Tyler, should we dive in? We got a special guest. Yeah, let’s let’s go for it. Why don’tyou introduce our guest, Brandon? Um, yeah. So, we have Lauren Claus withus today. And And where do I even begin? Um, she’s actually I’ve podcasted withher a couple times already over on my show. Um, but I’ve worked with her foryears now and she’s just an incredible therapist and somebody who helps peoplea lot and she knows a lot about uh, a lot of things and one of those things isIFS. So, we wanted her to come on and talk about IFS. So, Lauren, welcome tothe show. Thanks for having me. Um, so IFS, it’slike we we have all these like acronyms, you know, DBT, IFS, ART, EMDR. It’s likeI think I think most people are like, what is that thing, that letter thing that you do? Um, and now IFS has gottenits letters. Um, but a lot of times it’s called parts work. Um, but I think thename internal family systems, that’s what IFS stands for, says a lot about what it actually is. But if if you couldjust back up a little bit and just tell us a little bit like what is parts work? What is IFS?Yeah. So, lots of acronyms of course. To put it simply, parts work is basicallyunderstanding and figuring out the emotions that you have and how they contribute to your actions, yourbehaviors, your thoughts, and how that formed as you’ve aged over time. So,like everyone has seen the typical movie Inside Out, Inside Out 2. That’s exactlylike IFS. I don’t know if Pixar like got the textbook of IFS and like made a movie about it cuz it literally was likespot-on to what it is. Um, but it’s figuring out your parts, figuring out your emotions and it sounds weird but itworks and you almost like befriend them and become more familiar with them, right? So like your angry, your sadpart, your joy, your disgust, your resentment, your guilt, your shame, allof it lives within your body and contributes to who you are. Um, but we also go throughout the day not reallyknowing what am I really feeling in this moment? Why am I thinking this way? Why am I showing up in this relationship ina way that doesn’t work for me? And that is all related to our parts and how they’re kind of working all together tokeep us essentially like able to survive.I think uh you know when people hear IFS or they hear the word parts work,

Inner Dialogue

everyone’s kind of watched enough movies or kind of pop media to think of like split personality disorder or they’reworried that they’re worried that that’s kind of what you’re doing is actually splitting off different like parts orpersonalities and that’s not necessarily right, Lauren. That’s that’s not what we’re actually going for when we call itparts work. No. And I I sometimes give like this discretion to my clients of like itdoesn’t mean that you have did. It doesn’t it’s not like the movie Split. Like that’s very different because thatmovie was like genuinely amazing but terrifying. Um it’s it’s very different.Like did from parts work. Even though they seem very similar, it’s entirelydifferent. It’s working more internal whereas I feel like dad did is like oneand the same with your own identity. Whereas parts work is meant to kind of sort through and figure out okay when doI feel angry in this moment and why do I feel that way rather than like your whole identity changing to being like adifferent like different personality. It’s almost opposite. I mean didit’s disassociating and parts work is getting just veryconscious very mindful. Yeah. very mindful and conscious of who you are and why you are the way you are.Um, it’s really cool. Like, we got to give Richard Schwarz credit. He’s theguy that came up with IFS and parts work and he his his his main book is calledNo Bad Parts. Um, but uh it’s RichardSchwarz or Michael Singer or Carl Jung, they all have this this thing that theydo that’s really really cool. And I think it’s kind of at the crux of parts work and it’s that you youbecome the observer and as you become the observer with nobias with no and that’s one of the part and we we’ll get into this Lauren one ofthe important parts of parts work is that you said it earlier like how how doI love my disgust? How do I love my guilt? How do I love my shame? Um oraccept my disgust or shame or guilt um and yet do it in a in a neutral waywhere you just observe it and you see it. Um am I making any sense?Yeah, you’re Yeah. I mean, why is this so important? I mean, it’s important because likeespecially when you’re going to therapy, right, and you’re coming in saying, “I am work. I feel really depressed. I’mstruggling with my anxiety or I got into a toxic relationship and I don’t know what I’m doing or, you know, I I have apoor relationship with my mom and I want it to be better. Like all of that involves understanding the way that youfeel in certain environments and how people are responding to your environment and then therefore howyou’re reacting. Right? So every single day we’re reacting with something that’s going on in our stimulus and in ourenvironment even like right now, right? We’re all reacting and absorbing information. And when we typically growup and we become accustomed to our environment, our mind and our body kindof stop becoming like one, right? So our thoughts are all up here and then our body is dealing with like the somaticphysical symptoms of what our environment is telling us. And it can feel really disregulating. It can causea lot of chaos. It can cause stress and we don’t feel regulated. And so we’remore reactionary, we’re more explosive, we’re more willing to shut down and isolate ourselves and therefore that

Negative Emotions

leads to negative and unhealthy coping. Um, and it can even lead towards likeaddiction and stuff like that. Um, but it’s important because when we want tobe one with ourselves and we want to grow every single day and we want to know like, okay, this is who I want tobe and this is how I want to respond in certain situations, you have to be aware about how your body is even taking ininformation and therefore how it’s now responding. Um, and it’s importantbecause that’s literally what we do every second of every single day. Mhm. So it’s us essentially.Yeah. Lauren, can you talk a little bit more about that process people are probably listening and going, “Okay, so you said the word somatic and that’skind of a a bigger word that people who are listening to podcasts are hearing now but probably don’t fully understand what that means.”Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about how that what the somatic word means and then howIFS accesses that with other parts of the treatment? Yeah. Yeah. So somatic simply means likephysical. So, let’s take a really basic example of me personally when I feel anxiety. I feel like this like if you’reon a roller coaster and then it drops that sensation in your stomach. That’s what I feel when I have anxiety, right?So, I’ve gotten to know my anxious part that whenever I feel that dropping sensation, something in my environmentis making me be like, whoa, something doesn’t feel right. Something’s off. What that person just said maybe bothersme. And then I’m ready to assess, okay, what is my body trying to tell me withthis physical sensation? Now, if I didn’t know that that’s what my anxietywas or what it was trying to tell me or warn me about, I’d be walking around having this like weird physicalsensation in my body and trying to figure out, oh my god, what does this mean? What is this? Why do I feel thisway? I don’t like feeling this way. um like I’d be all in my head trying tofigure out how do I get rid of feeling this rather than just simply acknowledging it. So if you think aboutlike the bottom up or top down processing that we all learn in like psychologybasically as your body is living as it is right now it’s taking all the stimulus and everything will hit yourbody physically at once and then very quickly will travel up to your brain for processing. So our body is always goingto respond physically to some way in our environment and then it’ll go towards our head to be like what is what’s goingon? How can I how can I figure out am I a threat in this situation? Am I you

Compassion Over Shame

know not feeling safe at this time? So your body is giving you informationconstantly throughout the day in very physical ways which is the word somatic.Um and IFS helps you figure out and connect that physical sensation to theemotion that you’re feeling. And so it can help you have more emotional identification and then also emotionalregulation. you said, “There’s my anxious part.” AndI think it’s it’s interesting because that’s kind of where the magic happens is when you have that sematic response.Um, and instead of fight or flight, you’re actually going up into your like frontallobe and you’re like, “Oh, interesting. Huh.” You’re like curious andcompassionate with yourself of like, huh, I wonder where that’s coming from or why that’s that that part is hereright now. Hello part. Love you. Let’s give you a hug. See you like right.And then then you can choose like where do you go from there? You you see youranxious part. Then what do you do? And so yeah, once you you feel it and you can acknowledge it and say, “Okay,I’m feeling anxious in this time. That’s weird. I don’t see anything maybe around in my environment that would make mefeel anxious. Like I don’t have direct evidence that I should be anxious inthis moment. Right? Sometimes our body just picks up things and would rather like us be warned than it actually betrue. Um and so then I typically would respond and be like, “Okay, I canacknowledge that I’m feeling anxious. I don’t have any evidence of why I should be anxious at this time. I canacknowledge my part, see if it kind of goes away.” Because typically with parts work, the magical thing is when youacknowledge your emotion, it actually can subside because you’re listening to it, right? You’re listening to yourbody. The part’s job is done. Its job is to warn you and to give you information. And therefore, since you’ve had theinformation, you can now decide, okay, if I don’t feel a little bit more atease, maybe in 5 minutes, maybe I should pick a coping skill that works for me. So maybe I want to go talk to a friend.Maybe I want to go outside. Maybe I want to go for a walk. Maybe I want to go exercise. Maybe I need to just sit downand watch some TV and be with myself. Right? So it really looks likeacknowledging what your body’s trying to tell you. What part of you is present? Seeing if that kind of like eases awayand then picking a coping skill. Or if we’re talking in the sense where my anxious part is present and I’m able tounderstand, oh, I’m really anxious because I can see that this person’s talking and they’re kind of looking atme and so maybe I’m nervous that they’re talking about me, right? I can see that there’s evidence of something I would beanxious about. And so therefore, I can take that in and then I’m going to talk to that part of me. And that’s where it

Addiction as Protector

sounds weird is that we’re talking to ourselves, but realistically, you’re doing it all internally, right? So maybeI would need to talk to the part of me that’s anxious that they’re talking about me and say, “Well, what evidencedo you have about that? If they’re talking about you, is that really about you or is it more about them? Like, isthere anything you need in this moment?” Right? Like, I’m going to cope and talk with that part of me a little bit more if I’m able to see that there’ssomething directly in my environment that’s going to make me feel anxious.I’m kind of getting this picture in my mind of, you know, a bunch of different parts sitting around a campfire andsomething comes up and one part’s like, “Oh my gosh, the thing’s going to burn down the forest and there’s another part that’s like, well, I can see why you’reworried. Is there something really legitimate there?” And then that part’s kind of like almost coaching the other part and they’re kind of doing this likeeventually you have a bunch of parts that are kind of doing this dance together. Yeah. To live life according to, oh no, we’rejust sitting around a campfire right now and that’s okay. just come and enjoy it here. I think there’s two words thatkind of are coming up as you’re talking and you I think you mentioned these already. When people think about thisidea of dealing with their parts, we’ve kind of been conditioned that any of the parts that elicit a negative response oremotion are bad. Um they we try to get rid of them. We try to kill them. We don’t like to feel those things. And Ithink one of the places where it seems that some of the magic happens in IFS is that you learn to actually instead oftrying to kill it or avoid those negative like emotions or parts, you actually learn to meet those withcuriosity and compassion and mindfulness. And in a sense, what you’retrying to do is actually integrate those parts more fully into your whole beingrather than trying to avoid or run from or kill, you know, be be angry at those parts. Mhm. Yeah.Can I give an example of this? I mean, I think it’s and it it sounds extreme, butwe do this in our work a lot, Tyler, with, you know, the addiction partwhere, you know, people come into addiction recovery and they fight against their addiction andthey hate their addiction. Yeah. And their addiction will fight back. It will come back. They’ll feelmore shame. They’ll feel more out of control because they’re fighting that addiction. And if we stop for a minute,you know, and we just say, “G, like what?” Like, this this addiction part isdoing a a really good job at finding ways to soothe myself. Um, it’s doing areally good job at helping me feel okay when I feel intense emotions. Um, now itcauses me all kinds of consequences I don’t want in my life. But look at this addiction part work. like this is astrong part that steps up for me quickly. Um, and it’s what we call afirefighter part. Um, so so you can see like the difference infighting against it versus thank you for being here and you can thank it and thenunburden it and call up another part and or or or or respond differently in thesesituations because you don’t want the consequences of that part anymore. Um, I was wondering, Lauren, if we could break

4 Types of Parts

down um the different types of parts. So, the the firefighter, the manager, theexile, and then the true self energy as well. Yeah. Um, could we talk about that a littlebit? Yeah. So, kind of like what you just mentioned, there’s four basic parts, and they all kind of work together and theyall have their own roles. So, obviously protectors, right? Think of them as kind of like the first linemen. They’re thereto like really protect when there’s a threat. Um, so they’re going to beresponsive. They’re going to be reactive. Um, they’re going to shut things down, right? Their whole theirwhole purpose is to make sure that nothing happens bad. Like nothing gets upset. We don’t experience stress.Everything is good. Then behind that, right, you kind of have So, so hang on, Lauren. So, like theaddiction is a protective part. Oh, 100%. because it’s helping me not feel bad,right? It’s like Yeah. So, it’s a protective part. Yeah. And then kind of behind that,right? So, like the second linemen is kind of like your managers and I think of them as literally people with likeclipboards being like, “Okay, we’re doing this, we’re doing this.” Like checking things off the list. They’re very organized, very structured. Theylike to keep things intact. Nothing out of sorts. It’s like keeping control kind of.Yeah. Keep it controlled. Um, and then kind of like behind that is you haveyour firefighters. And so if we think about the movie Inside Out, the angry part who like gets riled up and thenexplodes, he’s kind of like a firefighter. He keeps everything bottledup. He fights all the fires out. But when things get too big too fast and wecan’t handle it, we have to explode in some way to relieve the stress, thetension, the emotions that we’re feeling. And typically that will show up as like reaction or quote unquote likenegative emotions like shutting down, anger, resentment, um, guilt and shame.And their whole purpose is to not let an exile show up. And so that leads us to ourlast, right, the exiles. And those are our most of the time they’re like ourchild parts, but they’re the ones that have been traumatized and have been through a lot of hard things and they’vekind of been stuffed aside and put in a dark corner and told don’t come outbecause you’re scary. You’re not okay. We can handle it from here. And whenit’s like your deepest darkest shame, the deepest wounds, deepest wounds that you have,um the trauma, the experiences that you’ve been in, they’re attached to your core beliefs, right? So, I’m not goodenough. I’m not worthy. I’m unlovable. Um and it typically will go back to like events that have happened in yourchildhood where you’re first learning things about the world and about yourself. And the body’s whole purposewith parts is to make sure that our exiles do not leave that corner. Cuz if the exile leaves the corner, we have noidea what’s going to happen. We’re going to get hurt worse. Yeah. We’re going to hurt. We mightlike, you know, end up in a scary situation. The world’s going to end. Like it’s very like big deal energy ofthis can’t happen because we have no idea how the body is going to respond and we’re not willing to risk that. Umand contrary to that, right, our body is so nervous about these exiles steppingforward that parts like addiction parts will be formed and will show up in ourlife and still contribute to negative consequences unknowing that they’reactually really causing any harm, right? Their purpose is to keep you safe and to make sure that you don’t feel discomfortor feel shame or feel uncomfortable, but really the consequences still can

Childhood Example

negatively affect us and cause us pain too. Okay. So, so if just to kind of maybe gowith an example here, we could pick either side of say being betrayed or having an addiction or somethingtheoretically with what you just said down at the core is some set of exiles.Let’s say my need like maybe I got made fun of for failing my spelling testsevery single week in grade school and so I feel like I’m stupid. So then that’s that’s an exile part.Yeah. That then learns to be protected by a part that acts like they know it all all the time and has to have all theanswers. Manager. That’s a manager. Um or might be some kind of a a protector that kind of keepspeople at arms length. Mhm. And then if somebody starts to challenge you that says, “Hey, Tyler, like I don’tthink you actually know your facts on that.” Um, then I might have a firefighter come up that’s like wants toargue with them or fight with them or make a distraction so that I don’t get put on the spot. And almost it’s almost worth it to makea scene rather than be shown that I’m actually stupid. 100%.And so that’s the firefighter part. Yeah. Let me get another example. I I like examples because that was really good,

Managers & Firefighters

Tyler. like you could you could see it there. Um, so let’s take betrayal,something we see all the time. Somebody’s been hurt, they’ve been betrayed, and so they start like tryingto be loved and seen and they have a lot of sex with their partner and they just like want them to want them. Um, thatright there would be a firefighter, right? But they also go off and theystart managing things. they start trying to um lose a lot of weight or dress acertain way or look a certain way so they manage the situation. Check the history or whatever, right?And deep deep down, you know, dad cheated on mom when they were six years old and left the family and they’reterrified of rejection and abandonment. And so there’s the exile part. So youcan see the the firefighters, the pro all the protect. So firefighters and managers are protective parts.You can see them all just going all around to not get close to that littlegirl who is so terrified of abandonment and rejection. Um and and we all livethis way. Like we all live this way in so many different ways. You know, it’s like sometimes subconsciously, Brandon, a lotsubconsciously. Yeah. you know, your your spouse gives you the wrong look and you shut down.You’re subconsciously managing that situation with your shutdown part. Hi,shut down part. Thank you for taking care of me. Right. Um or you’re scaredthat your spouse is going to not love you, so you’re complying all the time and showing them what a good person youare. Hi, manager part. Right. So, you can see it everywhere and we all do itall the time, right, Lauren? Yeah, all the time. And really, I mean, Tyler, youkind of just said it is we do it subconsciously. And honestly, we do it all the time. Like 90% of us do itsubconsciously, myself included. Um, and the whole point of IFS is to bring itfrom subconscious to more conscious. So that on the times when we’ve been subconscious, 90% of the time, maybewe’ll be 50% subconscious and then 40 and then 30, right? I think since we’realways growing as humans, like we’re always going to be developing our parts and we’re always going to be growing. So, I don’t think you’ll be 100% likeself-actualized. I don’t think that’s realistic. But the whole point is to get as close as you possibly can that feelscomfortable and feels loving and feels that self-growth and I am the personthat I am in this moment and I’m okay with that and I’ll be happy with the person that I am tomorrow as well.

Acting from Self

That’s awesome. So, so, so there’s another part that we haven’t really got to yet that I think is where you’restarting to move towards as it relates to I guess I’m wondering that idea of expanding mindfulness, awareness,consciousness, compassion, curiosity. What that’s really doing is developing I think this other last part.And can you talk a little bit more about the the self as it relates to like IFS? Yes, the self. And I can give like anexample. Um, so I was kind of taught by some other therapists that like selfenergy, right, is at the core and the key of IFS. That’s what we want to achieve and touch upon throughout theday as much as possible. Self- energy. There’s like the eight C’s of when youhave like self love and self- energy. And it’s calmness, curiosity, clarity,compassion, confidence, courage, creativity, and connectedness. I cannotremember those all at once. Me neither. It’s too much. I I’ll admit I just Googled it, but Iknew it was eight C’s. It’s always C’s, you know? C’s have great words.It’s great. So, like in the moment, if you filled all eight of those, right, you would have self energy. And so, they

The 8 C’s

kind of explained it as yourself is born. And this can be correlated to whatever your belief is, but I’ll justgive the example of like self energy is like your soul. It’s a bright light when you’re born. And then throughout yourlife, clouds, kind of like if you were the sun, get in the way because ofthings that you’ve been learning and teaching and taught about yourself. Andsome of the clouds can be really, really dark and some can just be gray. But we develop and we age as adults andsometimes we don’t really feel like any sunlight is shining through or maybe there’s like a few rays, but they’rereally blocked by the clouds. And so parts work is working through like knowing what clouds are what. Making itfeel safe for them to move aside so that more self- energy, more light, moresunshine can shine through. And that’s when you feel like the most you at yourdeepest core where your core beliefs aren’t present, where there’s no negative self-t talk or thoughts. Youare simply you. And it can be a re it’s a really beautiful feeling. And Brandon,I remember we got trained by um Dick Scott and like I remember when he wasdoing it with one of our therapists and he was like give me like 5 seconds to like get into self- energy and you couldliterally like see it. I don’t know how to explain it but it was like he just hejust embodied it like he just looked calm and at peace and was just like happy to be here and you could justtell. So, it’s almost like an energy shift as well that I feel like peoplecan notice. And I think that’s it’s nice. It’s nice to see.I think as you’re talking, it’s like confusing what you’re talking about and yet everybody knows what you’re talkingabout. Yeah. Um do you know what I mean? It’s like it’s it’s groundedness. You’re centered.

Sun & Clouds Analogy

Um you’re in your integrity. Um and you’re you’re ultimately you’re not letting your ego run the show.You’re stepping into your power and and your unique beautiful power with who you are as yourself.So you’re not operating in a state of survival where fear isn’t running the show, but love is. And and so you canshow up curious, compassionate, calm, clear, courageous, confident, creative,and connected. I mean, I love those C’s because they really drive home whatthat’s like. And when somebody is in that like in that energy, it’s uh it’ssafe and it’s it feels good. Um and soyeah, the the goal is to get conscious of your protective parts and not fight against them,but learn how to unbburden them so that you can call up that self energy and step into it more consistently. Um andand step into your power. It’s it seems that in some ways the work ofintegrating all of those protective parts is essential for self- energy because sometimes the self- energy willneed to act from one of those parts places when it when it knows that that’s theright thing for the right situation. Right? So if I have that anxious part and I’m walking, you know, on the traillast week and I almost stepped on a rattlesnake and my body goes boom, like that part should be in the driver’s seatin that moment, right? And I shouldn’t be like have my foot right over the rattlesnake’s head and be like firefighter. Well, do we what do we what’s going onright now? Should we step down on that snake’s head or not? Like no. Like that part is actually the anxious part is theone that’s like no get get the hell away from that and then we’ll calm ourselves down and then we’ll we’ll move into adifferent part that’s going to be in the driver’s seat for the time being. And in order to do that, you and I’m picturinglike Inside Out as you reference that when Joy is dragging sadness and she’s like tinking like every single memorylike tink tink tink tink tink tink. They’re all turning blue and then she turns around she’s like panicked and yet what really needed to happen for that

Inside Out Example

little girl was to be allowed to have some griefin the midst of these core emotions that are still so amazing. And she needed that part of sadness to be integratedinto self. so that sadness could do her part, right? And that’s and that’s to me whatI think is the most powerful part of IFS is I’m going to embrace all of those and then myself is going to learn how to usewhich one in the driver’s seat at the right times. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. It’s it’s meantto so that it doesn’t feel chaotic. It’s not stressed. You have no idea what’s going on. Right. Like if you think aboutin the movie Inside Out, like there’s so many times when they’re all at the control panel trying to touch different buttons and Joyy’s like, “Oh my god,what is going on?” like why are we what are you doing? And she’s so confused and she feels at this loss of control,right? So, she gets reactive herself and then she goes into this whole tizzy of like I can’t have Riley feel anythingbut joy. Like she can’t feel sadness, she can’t feel fear, that’s not okay. Um, and then when you jump to the secondmovie, and for those that are listening, if you haven’t seen that, you really should. You get the whole anxious partand at the end of the movie, this is a spoiler, so so sorry. um the she says,”I was just trying to like help Riley. I just wanted to keep her safe. I really love her.” And right and that’s thewhole embodiment of IFS is the parts when they’re in the driver’s seat, when they’re in the passenger, their wholepurpose, regardless of how they’re showing up is to keep you safe because they love you. They want you to survive.They want you to thrive. They want you to feel all the amazing things in life that we all want to. And so when you’reable to kind of like put your ego aside and know that I’m reacting this way because my body really loves me and itwants me to feel seen. It wants me to feel heard. It wants me to feel loved. I don’t like how it’s showing up right nowand that’s okay. But I understand that the intention of it is only pure.That self-compassion will lead you miles and give you so much growth than you caneven imagine. It sounds so simple and yet when you do it and you practice it, it it’s mind-blowing.

Rattlesnake Analogy

I think it it also goes against what we’re taught in many ways. We’re taught to we’re taught that it’s good to fightagainst ourselves. We’re taught that it’s good to self-reject. Like I shouldn’t be angry. I shouldn’t be toosexual. I shouldn’t be, you know, all these shoulds that tell us what we the box that we should fit in. um alls we’redoing is rejecting all these parts which keeps us unconscious of those parts anddoesn’t allow us to unbburden them and and do what what you were talking about Tyler really harnessing when we want tobring them in or not because we’re we’re we’re in this unconscious state of self-rejection instead and that thatcomes from a lot of these shoods that that we live in.You know, I that that idea of self-rejection, Brandon, I’m I’m I’m going to go back to therattlesnake for a minute because that actually did happen. And when I got my foot over the top of it before I looked down and saw it, the rattlesnake, itdidn’t actually rattle. It should have. It didn’t. And my foot was coming down on it and it curled and coiled itselfall up. And that’s what made me see it is the little bit of movement that was there. And then like what is thatrattlesnake going to do if that’s a part of me? And then I look at it and I go,”You’re evil. You almost killed me.” Like, I’ve got to kill you now. What’s that rattlesnake going to do?It’s going to bite. It’s going to fight for its life almost maybe even to taking me out to killingme. Whereas, if I back off and walk around the rattlesnake and acknowledgethat it’s there, what’s it going to do? That’s That’s a great analogy.

Why Parts Act Out

It’s going to uncoil. It’s going to slither itself off the trail under a rock somewhere and it’s going to go andcontinue to move on with its life. And and a lot of times when we go straight up trying to kill those parts,we’re actually activating the survival instinct inside the part that then makes us mad at them for doing what anybodywould do when they’re threatened and feel like they’re going to be taken out. Right. Um and so those parts when they’reacting out a lot of times it’s because they’re not being seen and they think they’re being left behind.Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great point. Um, but by the way, I would have killed therattlesnake with my bare hands. I was told, I don’t know if this is true or not. I was told that the rattlesnakesare getting like naturally selected differently now where the the non-rattling ones are the ones who arethe most dangerous because they don’t warn you anymore. So, you’re supposed to kill the non-rattling ones and you’re supposed to leave the rattling ones.Oh, that’s interesting. But, I don’t know if that’s true or not. So anyway, that’s a total side note, but but let’s come back to your pointcuz I I actually love that point is if you acknowledge it and you see it andyou understand what it is, then it will calm itself down and it will step away.And isn’t it’s such a good analogy for our parts. It’s like think think about it like if I got really angry in anargument or something and the other person keeps saying things that are triggering that anger and just like

Self-Rejection

coming at me versus if I stopped and said, “Whoa, Brandon, you’re reallyangry. That’s interesting. You’re really getting amped up now. I’m acknowledgingthat thing, that part right there, and I can disarm it.” Um, and it’s it when youlearn that you can do this, it changes your life. Like it it gives you yourpower back. Think about doing that in relationships, like in therapy. All three of us have probably had this happen where you got aclient who’s just coming at you really hard. And if you close up and your jaw sets and you get defensive, then itblows up even further. But what happens when you actually soften your face muscles, open your posture, and be like,”Wow, sounds like this and this and this must be going on for you.” They they almost want to stay mad and they can’tbecause because an emotion that is validated automatically crests itselfand starts to decrease. Yeah. And that’s the cool thing with partswork, right, is when you become self-aware enough to where you feel comfortable to speak out about it with people around you like, right, you cantell. I kind of like call it like the emotional thermometer, right? It’s kind of like the buildup of like your emotions of like, okay, I feel like I’mgoing to explode or I need to leave the conversation or, you know, we need to stop talking right now because I’m notgoing to be kind. Um, like doing this gives you way more ability to know,okay, I’m going from 0 to 10 to 20 to 30 to 40. And then be able to speak to your partner or your friend and say, “Hey,

Final Thoughts

this conversation is really bothering me right now. I feel like I need a little bit of space to go cool down, figure outwhat I need to talk about. like can we come back in an hour and reconvene or hey that really hurt me in the momentlike I’m feeling really hurt right now and I want to be able to talk about it. That increases your ability tocommunicate which one serves you better because most of the time we’re going tocouples therapy or therapy not just for emotional regulation but learn how to communicate to people that hey this iswhat I’m feeling and not make it a a fighting scenario or an attack on one another. It’s I’m simply trying toconvey like this is what I’m experiencing in this moment. I need you to see me so that we can work through this and so that I can see you. So whenyou’re more self-aware and you can give yourself compassion and you practice that, your ability to be able to do itto others increases by so much. And that’s really where you gain that safety and that trust and that compassion andwhere you work through the tension and the uncomfortableness of conversations or fights. And it doesn’t mean it’s likean all or nothing, make it or break it type of scenario anymore. It means we can simply have a conversation and knowwe both can see each other. We can both be heard and we can come to a compromise or we can at least like, you know,decrease the tension enough to come back to it at another time.Yes. Love it. It’s it’s uh it’s about validating it to see it to disarm it andyou can do it right in the moment with other people. Um it’s amazing. Um I Iwant to say we’re running low on time and in Tyler in my when I run thehealing journey um there’s a section in there that we we focus on parts bigtime. Um we we do parts mapping where the the people in my group get veryaware of these different parts. Um different little um attributes of the part like wherewhere sematically where they feel in their body. What parts is this part friends with? What parts does this parthate? You know that parts will not like each other. Um what are common emotionspresent when that part comes? What are common thoughts that I have when that part is present? Like we get we get inthe weeds with this parts work and we do the the masks which is the same thing.That’s protective parts. Yeah. Or the shame screens or whatever we want to call them. It’s all the samething. Um so it’s a it’s an important part of of healing trauma is gettingconscious so that you can get down to those exiles and do that exile work. And a lot of the exile work that we do isvery experential and sematic. Um, but uh I just I just want to saylike Lauren’s awesome and she uh she’s one of my first therapists at TherapyCo. and she is for a reason because she’s great and uh if you want to findher to work with her, you can go to therapy co.org. Um and then what what’syour Tik Tok Lauren? Oh god. Yeah, you got to you got to talk about that. I do. Okay. Yes, I have a I have a TikTok. It’s a little bit more humanistic. Sure. Um it’s called NormalizingTherapy. Um I also have an Instagram. They’re the same exact handle handle, but it’s normalizing therapy, and youcan follow me on there. Um it’s a little bit more me. It’s so professional, but Ialso love the idea that like humans are therapists and that’s the work thatwhat we’re I know we’re Tyler’s a human. Therapists are human. Crazy.But yeah, feel free to follow me on that and interact with my page and all those fun things and hopefully you find itrelatable. Yeah. And come come do therapy with Lauren. Yeah. Lauren, I want to just maybe ask you onemore question. Um, just thinking about this, there’s probably several people who are listening to this and maybeintrigued by IFS or what we’ve talked about today. There’s probably still a lot of questions that are coming up, so they can contact you in those ways. I’mjust wondering, you’ve been doing this work for quite a while doing IFS, and I’m wondering if you’d be willing toshare some kind of anecdote or story of a client of yours and the changes thatactually, you know, why why do the work and how does that translate to the day-to-day?Yeah. Okay. Okay, I have one client that comes to mind. Um, so she act she actually initially cameto me to only do ART, which is accelerated resolution therapy, very similar to EMDR. And after meeting her,I was like, I can totally do that and I also do this modality. And she’s like, nope, I just want to do art. And I waslike, okay. So, we start doing it and we’ve done art probably like five or six sessions and she’s seen movements, she’sseen changes. And then at one point it kind of just like comes to a plateau.And she’s like, “Well, why isn’t this working?” And I was like, “Honestly, I think maybe we should like shift gears. Like sometimes doing too much in a rowis a little bit much for your body. It needs to to switch. Would you be willing to try IFS?” And she was like, “Iguess.” She was a little hesitant, but I was like, “It’ll be great, and if you hate it, then we can go back to art.”Um, and immediately, literally after the first session, she was like emailing mewith like all these like revelations and talking about it. She read, of course, the No Bad Parts book, and she resonatedwith it so much cuz she realized that a lot of the trauma that she was wanting to work through with art was connectedall to her exile parts that she became very fond of, very familiar with. Andshe was really loving the compassion piece. A lot of her trauma and a lot ofthe way that she was showing up in relationships was very self-rejection, very wanting to manage, needing to likeknow everything that’s going on. And then the times when she would feel upset and she was wanting to be vulnerable butdidn’t know how to be vulnerable with her partner, she would self like reject and selfisolate and close herself off.And so that was leading to a lot of like shame and guilt and resentment towards herself of well why can’t I bevulnerable with my partner? Why can’t I connect on an emotional level with my kids? Like I want to do that and I seeit but it feels so far away. And so parts work allowed her to really startdoing the internal work and having that self-compassion and be able to understand like oh I respond this waybecause this is how my mom responded to me. I see that now. Okay. How can I have compassion for that child part of methat didn’t get her needs met? How does that correlate now to my kids showing up and how can I be there for them the waythat I wanted my mom to be there for me? And so it just does like it does it verydifferently, but I think a lot of people connect with IFS a little bit more than EMDR art like right away because it’seasier to see which is one thing like able to see your parts and it it feelsyou can get deeper faster. I don’t know how to explain it and I’m probably doing an awful job at explaining it, but it’salmost like the shell of who you are just kind of like opens up very nice and very casually. And as a therapist, I doit very like nonchalant casually like just like how I’m talking right now cuz I feel like that creates some safety andtrust easier. Um, and they kind of just like melt into themselves. Whereas artand EMDR, it’s so effective and so amazing, but it’s a lot all at once. it really does like rattle your cage a bitto get results. And so I think sometimes like starting this way just easesyourself up into that healing into that vulnerability that a lot of people when they’re coming to therapy don’t reallyknow how to do. They don’t know how to be vulnerable. It’s an uncomfortable emotion and so that kind of like easesthem into the work. I don’t know if I answered your question. I you did you did actually. You did a great job with it, Lauren. And I and Iwould maybe just add that it’s been my experience that at least the way that mybrain works with therapy is is that EMDR or ART paired up with IFS is a afabulous combination. Yeah. Where a lot of times the EMDR and ART will move move and then you hit thatwall and then IS will kind of like it’s almost like breathing. You’re like kicking unburden. you you you hit thewall and then you take your breath your out breath again and then you’re like, “Oh man, I things have moved now againbecause of IFS.” And now I can now I’m seeing new things that EMDR could also help with with that sematic part of it.And um yeah, I I that’s been my experience that those work really well together.And if you’re looking for a therapist, someone who can do both of those things is a great combination. That’s me. I do that.It’s very effective. And I think it’s like if you can get your clients on board to try and be willing to do both,which most are. It’s just scary and vulnerable, so the trust is key. You’ll you’ll get the healing thatyou’re looking for. Yeah. Well, it makes sense when you’re going to the deep trauma with EMDR, art, thatyou know, as you’re as you’re moving that the protective parts are going to try to shut that down because you’regetting too close to the exiles. And so if you’re able to integrate parts workin during that process with EMDR art, yeah, I mean it’s it’s it’s an awesomecombination. I wish there was more research trials done and a bit more structure to how to implement IFS withART or EMDR. We might be speaking another language right now. I I recognize that.Um I’ll just say this. when we talk about trauma work and we talk about rootwork healing um these modalities actually get you there and so you shouldjust come do it. I think everybody should do it. Um I don’t think there’s any harm in it and uh it it only doesgood. So Lauren, thank you for coming on. Really appreciate you. Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, if thisis helpful to anybody listening, please or you know somebody who would be benefit from it, please share it, like,subscribe. That’s how we’re able to reach and help people. And until next time, keep on keeping on.