Developing Meaning

#16: Jory Agate - Unitarian Minister and Internal Family Systems (IFS) Lead Trainer on Meaning, Kindness, and How IFS Heals Trauma.

• Dirk Winter • Episode 16

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The Internal Family Systems (IFS) Level I training is an experiential group learning process that teaches us how to identify and heal traumatized parts of ourselves and others.  In October 2023 I began this training after having recently received a prostate cancer diagnosis.  This episode begins a multi - part series in which I introduce you to fascinating healers I met during my Level I training, beginning with Jory Agate my Lead Trainer.

Jory is a minister, IFS lead trainer, a kind and gifted healer, and so much more.  In this episode she offers a compelling narrative of how IFS therapy reaches beyond conventional boundaries, touching the lives of clergy, trans and queer communities, and trauma survivors. Together, we explore connections between faith and therapeutic healing.  Join me as I begin my journey into the land of IFS and begin to transform into an IFS therapist myself.

Timestamps
00:17 Introducing Jory Agate.
07:30 What is IFS?
12:40 Spirituality and IFS.
15:00 How Jory became a healer.
21:00 How Jory found IFS and healed her trauma.
32:00 Jory describes her professional practice.
36:00 What does a session with Jory look like?
39:00 Connecting IFS, Meaning, and Healing.
47:00 Connecting through shared Exiles, and wrap up.

Theme music by the Thrashing Skumz!

This podcast is NOT MEDICAL ADVICE and is NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY INSTITUTIONS.

Dirk:

Hello, welcome back to Developing Meaning, the show where I, your host, dr Dirk Winter, adult and child psychiatrist, take you along as I travel through various different healing communities, learning different treatment modalities, different models of the mind, searching for a consilience, a coming together about meaning and how we create meaning, how we can build more meaning and purpose into our lives. And I do that by introducing you to interesting people that I've met along the way interesting healers, and today I have a really fascinating person, jory Agate, who is a minister and also a lead IFS Internal Family Systems Therap therapy trainer. And this is the beginning of a series that I think is really important and interesting on a type of treatment called internal family systems therapy, which has exploded in popularity and impact in the last years, and we will discuss why that is. We will discuss how this therapy came a little bit about how it came to be, how it works, and we're going to do that by getting to know Jory Agate and her story.

Dirk:

So, without further ado, I am going to introduce you to my lead trainer and brilliant group leader, a really warm and kind and generous person, jory Agate. So you and I are connected because you were my level one ifs teacher, which was kind of a wild experience for me. It was a great experience, but I also had been diagnosed with prostate cancer at that point and was kind of just trying to keep things together. And IFS is a sneaky I mean maybe that's not the right word, but it gets around a lot of my defenses. I'm very, I'll talk a lot, I'll think a lot, but so it was really a powerful experience and I am going to probably turn that into a separate podcast from this.

Jory:

Yeah, I was just curious, like what happened for you, having just gotten that news and going through the training, what did you notice?

Dirk:

I was scared for sure, and just to update, I have since had a prostate surgery and I've had a negative PSA. So I'm clear as far as things go now and I did talk about this I had done a ketamine training and before I released that episode I talked about the prostate cancer a bit. But yeah, I sort of maybe blocked out a lot of the feeling that was happening at the time, I think so I was the only MD at that training and I have a tendency to kind of be sort of on the periphery, watching, observing, not, you know, being the central person.

Jory:

So, um, that's interesting because that wasn't my experience of you oh, what was your experience? Just, you know, definitely there's people for whom they go through the training and I never know them like. They're so on the periphery and they're keeping everything inside. And you really participated. You were very present. I could feel your energy. I wouldn't have said you were on the periphery of that group.

Dirk:

Yes, I'm good at hiding, that. I can present differently and I care about the people that I met there. I connected and I feel like I'm going to continue relationships. I'm doing a really great drawing IFS drawing program with Susan Smith and I'm interviewing a bunch of the PAs and so I'm going to do a whole IFS series. But so I didn't answer your question about the. I feel like I just didn't want to like turn into a puddle and cry, and I did that a little bit in some of the small groups, but I wasn't going to volunteer to be one of the demo people, at least in that session.

Jory:

It's total sense.

Dirk:

So in this podcast I'm traveling between different groups of healers and hoping to make more connections between different groups, and I think it would be great to just start by hearing. So I want to ask you like, what kind of a therapist are you? But I'm just assuming that you're going to say IFS therapist. That's kind of what I want you to say.

Jory:

On the one hand, definitely I'm an IFS therapist internal family systems that's my training, that's my orientation. It's also it's the. That's my training, that's my orientation. It's also it's the modality through which I found my own personal healing. But when you say what kind of therapist I am, I don't think IFS, you know. I like to think I'm connected, I'm kind, I'm compassionate, I'm accessible. I'm an individual therapist, I'm a family therapist, I'm a couples therapist, I'm a clinician that works with various communities, particularly deaf individual. I work a lot with clergy. I work a lot with trans and queer folks. I work around issues of sexuality. I work around, definitely, trauma orientation. So you ask what kind? That's where I go. But yes, my mindset, my treatment modality, is internal family system.

Dirk:

So that's great and I was going to joke that, well, I don't care about any of that other stuff, I just want to hear about IFS. No, that's not true. I'm excited to hear about the breadth of what you're describing, but maybe to begin, could you please tell me or explain to audience. Maybe I'm sort of imagining or hoping for a very simple explanation. I was going to say, oh, if there's like middle schoolers listening, like what is, I don't think there's any middle schoolers listening but, if there are welcome.

Dirk:

But what is IFS? Can you explain IFS?

Jory:

Let's see if I can channel my middle school version of internal family systems. You know, basically it recognizes that we all have different parts of ourselves, different inclinations, different mindsets, parts that might really want to be outgoing and join all the fun, and another part that says no, no, no, you're going to make a fool of yourself and what will people think of you, and it's safer to just stay home. And no, but I want to get involved. And we hear these different inclinations, if you will, or, in our lingo, we say, different parts of ourselves. And we all have these parts. And what we've realized is that they function inside in the same way of like a family system might function.

Jory:

You know how different people in the family have different roles and different things they do, be it different formal jobs, like it might be somebody in your family is more the cook and somebody is more the cleaner, or even it might be somebody in your family tends to drink a lot to excess, while the other person in the family kind of cleans up behind all the stuff.

Jory:

That happens, and sometimes we get stuck in certain roles, and the same can be true for these parts inside of ourselves. And what we found is, by getting to know them, getting to know why they do what they do. None of them are bad. They're all trying to help us for good reasons. Every part of ourself is really trying to help in kind of the only way they know how, even if it ends up the behavior they're doing actually doesn't help us in the long run. But once we get to know them and understand them and we can actually help them shift and be more successful at achieving the goals they really want to achieve for us, which is kind of healthy, happy, connected, a fulfilling life. So that would be my middle school version.

Dirk:

That's really a nice explanation, and on the one level it sounds simple, like, yes, we all have a part of me that wants this and a part that wants that. So it's kind of intuitive. But it's also, I feel like, really revolutionary in that you're using a systems approach on an individual and so you're making friends with all the different components. So this is one thing that makes it different than other kinds of therapy we're not picking sides and getting rid of the drinking part or the angry yelling part. We're getting to know the positive intention at each part.

Jory:

What are you hoping to achieve by yelling or by drinking? Because when we really get to the bottom of it, they all have a positive intent. They all have something good they're trying to do for us. So once we really try to understand that, and even how they learn to do that and what it's doing for them in terms of soothing or escaping, and we find that usually these parts are doing it to protect some vulnerability of us, of ourselves, a part that doesn't want to get left out or doesn't want to be shamed or doesn't want to get some message that they're bad or at fault or unloved.

Jory:

And unfortunately, most of us have gotten those messages somewhere along the way in our lives and we start to believe it and the whole system in our body is believing it. So I better do this so nobody will see that I'm just a big fake and I'm really this worthless, unlovable being at my core and we can help the parts of us that got those messages and internalize them. And because I believe and I came to this work after being a clergy person for 20 years, so for me you could say it's a spiritual calling that I see the good and the miracle of creation in every being, and so for me, part of the calling of my work as a therapist is helping my clients recognize that as well and release those parts of them that have been carrying those beliefs of being unlovable, worthless, no good, bad, etc. Bad, et cetera.

Dirk:

So I definitely want to hear your clergy story, but before that, just staying with the parts model a bit more. So there's two kinds of parts. There's these sort of pockets of pain and things that we want to avoid, which Dick Schwartz calls exiles, and then there's protector parts that help us not trigger the parts of ourselves that feel pain. And then there's self, which I guess gets to the spiritual component of the model.

Jory:

It could be spiritual if you want to put a religious or spiritual lens on it, but I think it's also very true psychologically that we all have, yes, our inner core. Self is whole, is undamageable, is really a healing agent for ourselves if we can but tap into it. And many of us have lost the ability to tap into it. And many of us have lost the ability to tap into it. And I think when you look at children and just with their innocence and creativity, you know the kids, kids are naturally full of that kind of self-energy, as we call it, that just beautiful joy, creativity, sense of wonder. Until we start getting those messages that we're not okay or we have traumatic experiences or just shaming experiences, and start internalizing those things and we lose that sense of wonder and joy. And no, no, no, I better hide that, I better not be my true self. But in this modality we really at our core is this sense of wholeness that we call self, or true self, or highest self or whatever name you want to give it.

Dirk:

So yeah, so there's a healing model of connecting with these exiles, these early wounded parts, and those are often the same parts of ourselves that have this creative energy. And so the model of healing I also find really appealing of the therapist is not an expert, you're sort of a guide. You sort of get rid of all of the therapeutic anonymity and the hierarchy in the treatment relationship and then bring in spiritual components or spiritual perspective and also a body-based perspective. So it's very versatile.

Jory:

Um so, just to back up, I want to hear your story of how you became a healer. Starting with, my family dragged me kicking and screaming to Southern California, which I never really enjoyed, but I did the remainder of my growing up there in California.

Dirk:

And was there anything in your early environment or in your DNA that you feel sent you in the direction of becoming a healer?

Jory:

Yeah, I think trauma as many of us I think when you've experienced your own trauma, you start looking for ways to heal.

Jory:

So I had a lot of trauma in my earlier life and I will say I got involved in my church youth group in high school and that was one of the first places I got the message that I was accepted and I felt like, oh, wow, this is a great experience. Everybody should have this experience of this kind of acceptance. And so that was kind of the source of my call to ministry is really wanting to create and help sustain those kinds of communities of acceptance. I will say it wasn't exactly healing I think healing came much later but it was a home, at least for myself, a place where I got the message that I belonged, and so that kind of led me into ministry. And, of course, I do think ministry is also kind of a healing profession, if you will, in terms of creating spiritual healing as well as psychological and emotional, trying to create communities that can hold one another and create communities of connection and all which I think is a big part of healing.

Dirk:

And feel free to not answer this question, but Is there anything you could say about the type of trauma that you were carrying and then leading to the belonging, I guess, in the church group?

Jory:

And that kind of expanded beyond the home because he was one year ahead of me in school, so kind of then it became the school environment as well, so experienced not just the trauma in the home but then school became very traumatic and experienced a lot of bullying and just exclusion and never felt like I belonged.

Dirk:

And then you found a church group.

Jory:

Yeah, yeah. We were actually very involved in the church when I was a kid in Connecticut and I always loved it. And then when we moved to California when I was 12, we lost touch with, we didn't engage with that. And my senior year of high school, when my parents split up, my mom said what is it that you want to do that we just enjoy that we haven't been doing Because our lives have been focused around kind of the men in the family. And I said what I missed most was church. So we started going back to church and there I found a home and then decided I wanted to create that kind of home for others.

Dirk:

And so, then, that led you to become a minister. What's the story of becoming a minister from there?

Jory:

Yes, so that led me my calling to ministry. I was very active. I was very active with our youth programs in the church, first as a teenager, but then I went to seminary relatively young a teenager. But then I went to seminary relatively young and the average age in my seminary was 45, and I was 25. So my first job out of seminary was overseeing the youth movement for our denomination. So I was doing a lot of youth conferences and training people how to work with youth and helping to create a home in our churches for our young people and working I have developed our comprehensive sexuality curriculum that used router denomination.

Jory:

So I really enjoyed that work until my kids got to be old enough that they started complaining about me going away so much to do all these youth conferences. When they were young enough they came along with me and it was great having babies that you just pass around to teenagers. But once they got older and couldn't travel with me, they were like no, we don't want you traveling so much. So I ended up serving a local parish for 10 years and again focused more on creating a community. I didn't do as much as the Sunday preaching. I only did that like once a month. I did much more of the programs and the pastoral counseling and working with families and things like that.

Dirk:

So that just the timing of that. So where were you in college?

Jory:

I was in college in California. I went to.

Dirk:

Santa Cruz. And then where did you do that? Oh, santa Cruz, in California. I went to Santa Cruz, and then where did you do that?

Jory:

Oh, santa Cruz, santa Cruz, yep. And then I went to graduate school in Berkeley for seminary.

Dirk:

Wow, so you really stayed in California for a while.

Jory:

I did. Northern California wasn't as bad as Southern California.

Jory:

And then that's where you had kids. Also, after seminary, my first job at a seminary was in Boston, and my then-girlfriend now the later wife ended up moving to Boston as well and we had our kids here. I gave birth to one and we adopted one. So we had kids here. And I will say just to continue my story, when my kids got to be the age that a lot of the worst trauma happened to me, I found myself reacting to them in ways that I knew wasn't about them. It was more about me and my history. So I ended up going back to therapy, which I hadn't done for a number of years, and, as luck would have it, I lucked in with a therapist who was an IFS therapist, and that was transformative, that was healing in a way.

Jory:

All my time in the church kind of hadn't shifted for me and I thought this is a really powerful thing, so I went and got IFS trained and I was still so, but just to Go ahead.

Dirk:

Slow you down there, because that sounds like a huge experience in your life. So you just happened into an IFS therapist.

Jory:

Actually, when I started with her, she wasn't IFS. She went to her first IFS workshop probably about six months after I started working with her, so she started, I think, experimenting with IFS on me and I took to it. So it was.

Dirk:

What year was that?

Jory:

That was probably early 2000s, I think.

Dirk:

And you said your kids were aged, that your trauma had happened. Is that teenage years?

Jory:

A little preteen.

Jory:

Preteen and can you say anything about what was helpful about that IFS experience or the therapeutic experience One of the most amazingly helpful things is just recognizing we have parts, just when we're feeling a feeling that's not all of us, that's only a part of us, and so recognizing their different parts. I think you could have easily diagnosed me with PTSD. I don't know. Actually, I think my therapist did, for insurance purposes, diagnose me with PTSD, but I had just extreme reactivity to things would fly into rages or things around. Again, experiencing it with my kids is what sent me back in therapy, but I realized how I could even do it with colleagues or situations that were happening and I just knew I needed some help. And so learning how they're just parts and not just parts, but that we have parts and I could actually unblend from them and not let the part take over my body, was a huge one. Or helping myself be in relationship with those parts of me so that they didn't take over my body would probably be a better way to word it.

Dirk:

And really yeah, I think that's for me also just so helpful. This, the whole idea of like, if it's intense, it's yours, in terms of sort of couple situations, and the idea of if something intense is happening in me it's not somebody else's fault, that I have to like-.

Jory:

Right, Whatever fight, Nobody made me feel that way. Somebody did something and I therefore had a feeling and wow, let me get curious about why I'm having this feeling. It's not their fault per se. It's something's happening in me that I'm having this reactivity. And once we're back in a place where we have perspective and are calm.

Dirk:

There's just so many more options. The problems are so much easier to solve in that state where there's a little more self in the picture, exactly where there's a little more self in the picture.

Jory:

Exactly, yeah. So helping myself not get hyper aroused was a big one and, of course, eventually being able to go to those vulnerable parts of me that were carrying those beliefs that nobody would really love me if they knew me and really healing that belief that I had and other ones as well.

Dirk:

Did you actually find those exiles and do the unburdening of those beliefs, or did it happen more sort of indirectly? Was it like how textbook? Was it your experience?

Jory:

You know, some things were textbooks, although one of the things I tell folks is when I'm teaching and training, because I think people think, oh, if they're not doing the unburdening, they're not healing. And I remember the first time I went off to a workshop with Dick Schwartz so this was before I got trained in IFS, but I'd been doing some reading and really curious, and I went off to this five-day retreat and my therapist was actually on staff at the retreat but Dick was teaching and he did a demo and there was an unburdening and I was like what on earth was that? I've been in therapy for years. I've never done that. And I pulled my therapist aside during a break and I'm like you know, I must be really messed up If I can't even unburden. I've never unburdened and what's so wrong? I must really be messed up and my therapist, of course, was just great with me.

Jory:

But the whole model is healing. You don't have to do a textbook unburdening to experience healing. Just unblending from parts is healing. Just identifying you have parts is healing. Just identifying you have parts is healing. Just bringing yourself in relationship with those parts is healing. So I like to remind people of that. But I've definitely had those textbook unburdenings as well, but I look back at my life Go ahead.

Dirk:

All right, I will go ahead. I'm sure some people don't know what we're talking about when I'm saying textbook unburdening, so could you maybe paint a picture of what that could look like or what it would look like in a textbook?

Jory:

Yeah, in our modality we work with the protective system. So all those parts that say I don't want you to see my vulnerability If you do, you will hate me, you'll never be my friend. Bad things will happen. Our protectors work really hard so that nobody will see what I believe. Is the quote real me?

Jory:

And once we get permission to be therapeutically with those ones that are carrying those beliefs of nobody will really like me if they know me or I always say my little one always used to say nobody would ever want to sit next to me in the lunchroom. That was my little one's belief, like who would want to be my friend. And once we get to know those ones and where they got those beliefs and what was happening to them in their life that they got those beliefs. I definitely got that message a lot as a kid from my brother, from peers, from ways my parents didn't protect me from that or send other messages that might have countered them, other messages that might have countered them. So once I was with those ones that had those experience, I'm really grieved, grieve the pain and the loss and the experiences, and even sometimes internally.

Jory:

You can give yourself different experience internally and that can be healing and once we've spent enough time with those ones doing that, they can actually let go of those beliefs that they've been carrying Like nobody would ever want to sit next to me in the lunchroom or be my friend, or if they really saw me they'd run in the other direction and we can release those beliefs we've been carrying. And it's a pretty magical feeling when you do it. I know for myself it felt like this and I hear the same words from my clients Sometimes it just feels like you're walking on air. Everything's lighter, the world is lighter, things feel just much more joyous. So I definitely had some of those kind of experiences of going all the way through in a session to be able to release those beliefs. But most sessions.

Dirk:

It's like an imaginary ceremony right Of you're giving it up in some symbolic way.

Jory:

Yep, it can be. I mean, we usually listen internally to those parts that have had those terrible experiences and ask them how they want to get rid of those beliefs and they can get very creative with how they want to get rid of them. And I know there's ways in which, when you describe it, people think, oh gosh, that just sounds too weird or too out there. But I will say, when you're really with somebody in their inner system, it's number one amazing how universal it is in terms of we all have these parts and these vulnerabilities and, yeah, they are willing to release them or let go of them if we take the time to really be with them and listen to their stories.

Dirk:

It's such a hopeful model right, Very hopeful. We don't always have to have this feeling and carry these beliefs. And so that's an exciting story. So then you had these experiences and you said, okay, I need to train in this. So you were at that time running youth groups for a church.

Jory:

At that point I was in a local parish when I started studying IFS.

Dirk:

Which denomination?

Jory:

I am a Unitarian Universalist minister.

Dirk:

Nice.

Jory:

So I actually ended up leaving the parish and going back to work at our denomination headquarters, which is here in Boston, and this time working with clergy and overseeing clergy's credentialing and continuing education. So it was really fun because I was helping clergy be better clergy. I was helping a lot of new clergy of how to kind of launch. But I was also working a lot with clergy who had misconducted or maybe kind of behaved not too well in their congregation that they had to be separated from the congregation and then I would work with them to figure out what was working for them and try to help them get better so they could go back to serving a congregation or perhaps leave working with congregations and help them figure that out.

Jory:

So I was working with them and often a lot of therapists, and I got fascinated with the therapeutic process and I had this tool of IFS. So I went and got formally trained in IFS and I found I was doing a lot of gatekeeping around ministers Could they serve or couldn't they serve. But I felt like I had these great therapeutic tools. But that wasn't my role with them. My role was to say, yes, you're okay to serve a church. No, you're not okay to serve a church.

Jory:

And that wasn't particularly satisfying to me, and so I ended up going back to school to get a counseling psych degree and started my practice and continued training in IFS and eventually became a trainer for the IFS Institute. So that's what I do mostly now.

Dirk:

Yeah, it's a beautiful story, right? So how long have you been a lead trainer?

Jory:

I've been a trainer probably about six or seven years now, I think. First you start as an assistant trainer and then you co-lead trainings with another trainer, and then you become a solo lead trainer. So that's what I'm doing now.

Dirk:

Okay, and what is your practice like? How many clients do you see?

Jory:

seven trainings a year and each training is 88 hours. So you know it's a lot of time I'm spending doing trainings and so I've let my practice shrink by natural attrition. So when I started out I was seeing a good you know 25 client hours a week and now I'm probably down to about 10. So most of my clients have been with me quite some time. But I tend to see. I see both individuals and couples. I see a number of clergy, I see some deaf folks. I see because I have a child with major mental illness and I've done a lot of work with the National Alliance on Mental Illness. I often get referred parents with folks of young adults with major mental illness and so I have a number of clients in that population. And again, over the years I've collected a number of clients because they really want to see or work with somebody who does IFS.

Dirk:

You mentioned that IFS has become hugely popular and there's so many people who want to do trainings and trainings have been expanded, but there's still this big demand. What do you think is the reason that it exploded in popularity like it has?

Jory:

Well, I think one huge reason is because it is so effective when you try it, just like me, it was so transformative in my life. It led me to start doing it and working in it. But I also think there are a number of things in terms of you know, it started out very small with Dick Schwartz who developed the model, just kind of spreading it among his colleagues and doing workshops with the folks he knew, and so I think it originally mostly grew kind of word of mouth or places he was doing a workshop and people got exposed to it. And back when I got trained, it was very easy to get into a training. It's still usually filled up, but usually not till the very end.

Jory:

But they started doing different continuing education programs like PESI, which does a lot of continuing education. I was one of the PESI speakers and there were a number of us who travel around the country doing just these one-day intros. So more people were getting exposed to it and I think a huge impact happened. Actually, just before the pandemic they developed an online kind of orientation program and that just had even a broader reach. So I think as you get a taste of it, you want more. And then, when the pandemic hit, people started accessing the online programs and then it just really exploded and there's been thousands on the waiting list since my kid really is a social worker and really wanted to get into the training and they gave me no preferential treatment, even though I was leading the trainings, and you know it took my kid two and a half years before they could get into a training, and so that's just not unusual.

Dirk:

Yeah, it took me more than a year and I was on a waiting list and then I had to scramble. And yeah it was exciting to be able to do it. So what does a session look like? Somebody comes in and they want to do an IFS session.

Jory:

Well, somebody comes in, whether they're looking for IFS or not, they come in and I listen to their story. I listen to what they're wrestling with, what's currently happening in their life and that they're struggling with. And I start listening for parts really worried that their sweetie is going to leave them and so is always doing things to make their sweetie happy so they won't leave them. And the other part that then feels resentful that what about me? What about why aren't you taking care of me sometimes? And so they describe to me what's happening in their life. And I start to hear it as different parts.

Jory:

So, yeah, I hear a part of you just really is worried your sweetie's going to leave you, so does everything. Really tries to predict what they're going to want so you can do it, so they won't leave. And that other part that then says but what about me? Don't want you to notice me and take care of me? And so we then start getting curious about those parts and maybe even notice where did it learn how to take care of everybody's needs? And did that just start with your sweetie or did that start even longer ago? And what is afraid would happen if it didn't take care of the needs and what would it mean or say about you and who you are? And of course then my client would see, then it'd be proof I'm unlovable. And so I hear the vulnerable one is that one that really believes they're unlovable, and so the one that has to keep their sweetie happy so they get that affirmation that they are. But then, wait, I'm not getting seen, I'm not getting taken care of. See, I am unlovable.

Dirk:

We can hear all the parts and how they're related them as part of you wants this, a part of you, wants that, and then you start from there and then you go one by one. You have them, pick a part to start with and then go from there.

Jory:

We get curious about the part and why it does what it does and we learn its positive intent and ideally, we learn about the vulnerability it's protecting and, if it gives us permission, we stick with that vulnerability. So I'm going to hang out with my client that got the message somewhere in their life that they're unlovable. And we hang out and we bring it compassion, we grieve what happened in their life, that it got that belief. We help them reorient that not unlovable in my eyes, you know, is it unlovable in your eyes? No, you know and kind of update it to the context of their life now and ideally get them to the point where they can even release that belief they've been carrying, that see, I'm unlovable belief they've been carrying that, see, I'm unlovable, so that when they're back in relationship with their sweetie they can say and maybe even speak for the fact I get worried when you do that, that you're maybe losing interest in me and going to leave me.

Jory:

And their sweetie can respond in the way they're going to respond, as opposed to my client always doing things so that you won't leave and then them feeling like, oh my gosh, they're like I can't stand how much they're kind of all over me all the time and can't you give me some space? And if I'm working with a couple, I'm going to help them start to see that dynamic that they get into with each other.

Dirk:

Nice, that's a nice explanation, and so I'm thinking about how this connects to meaning and for me as a psychiatrist and a child psychiatrist, I started just sort of wondering, when people come in, where is the psychiatric disorder and where is just our system, feeling like our life is lacking in something. And I like Viktor Frankl's model of meaning as being the central human driving force, and I feel like I went into psychiatry and therapy very much to sort of figure out my own existential struggles and see, well, how do other people think in their moment of crisis, and you know what's really going on inside people. And so I wonder and you are a minister trained in theology and the spiritual aspects of our human experience. So I'm curious about how you think about meaning and what you've learned from your therapy work with your clients and any way you want to sort of take that meaning question.

Jory:

I do think, as a clergy person and a religious person, I see each being as being holy and sacred and a miracle in and of themselves. Experiences that in some way gave them the message that they were not lovable, that they're not okay, that they're not sacred. Holy, miracle. And of course, when a bad thing happens to a kid, you know we're meaning-making beings. They're always trying to make meaning. So if something bad has happened mom and dad are getting divorced it must be about me and I must be bad.

Jory:

And of course, developmentally it makes sense. That's where kids' brains are. They don't understand the complex dynamics of family systems or anything else. Everything's kind of about them. So when you're little and something bad happens or a message gets given to you, don't cry, you'll be a baby. You internalize it and so, oh, I guess my feelings aren't okay or I'm not okay or whatever it might be. So I guess again, for me it is a spiritual calling to help release the burdens of those meanings that people made from the trauma they experienced or the loss or the oppression that they experienced early in their life, throughout their life, that in some way had them make meaning that they were not a holy, sacred being meaning that they made which was I'm bad or some powerful thing that disconnects them with their spiritual wonderfulness.

Dirk:

To me, their true sacred essence, yes, so that work aligns nicely with the IFS model. So if I come to you and I say my life doesn't feel like I don't feel like I have meaning, I'm just like this speck of dust and the time is so big and the universe is so big and I just feel like lots of terrible things are happening and I'm powerless, or some version of that, how do you start?

Jory:

Well, the first thing I'd want to do is kind of validate it. It's true, the universe is just really big and we are just specks, and there are many ways we are powerless, and so I would definitely want to validate that part. But I'd also get curious around what meaning that the client is making because of that, because the world is so big and so much is happening and we're just one little speck. What's happening for you because of that? And if they have a part that says so, why even try? So why should I be alive, or whatever? I'd want to get curious about that one that just you know their option is to I don't know to give up or to stop, or to, you know there's some strategy. What would happen if you did live in the face of all that powerlessness? And again, I'd get curious around where that started and what is its hope by giving up and et cetera, by giving up and et cetera.

Jory:

So just really make an empathic connection and then get curious and really flesh out that I mean so much of IFS is being with being with these parts of us that are going through whatever they're going through, Not trying to make it go away, not trying to pretend it's not happening, but really being with and accepting. You know, we say in IFS there's no bad parts, and I really live into that and so I want to get to know them all and be with and not try to pretend that what's ever happening for my client and these parts of them isn't true, knowing that another part might be having a very different experience which is also true and helping them hold that complexity.

Dirk:

Yeah, I think that's very helpful, just making space for whatever that unbearable seeming thought or feeling is.

Jory:

I think so many of our parts, you know we have a bad experience maybe and we feel pain, we feel grief, we feel whatever and our systems get oriented to I have to do something. So Jory never feels that again and often to those things they start doing might be helpful or give some relief in some small ways, but they don't really heal the pain. And we know how you heal the pain is actually going towards it and being with it, and oftentimes our parts don't like that. No, I don't want to feel that. Why should I know?

Jory:

But it's actually being with the parts of us that have had those terrible feelings, that had the terrible experiences, that have the feelings about them that we let them know. Yes, I see you, I see you, I see what you went through. That was awful. Tell me more. I'm here for you with whatever you want to share the really being with and not denying it or trying to hide it or trying to work so hard so that that same thing never happens again. We really just need to be with the parts of us that have had those experiences.

Dirk:

Yeah, I like that and I also I don't know which podcast this was. I think maybe this was a podcast you recommended about exiles and how we all can connect through our exiles as well. By really being open to our biggest fears, we see that we all, they're the same in all of us.

Jory:

It's universal yep.

Dirk:

We all have them and we need to be with them and not deny them. So I want to just to sort of wind down this conversation. This may be a little silly. Just to sort of wind down this conversation. This may be a little silly but, just to give you some rapid fire sentence completion questions. If it doesn't work out, I'll take the blame.

Jory:

You're going to make me feel like I'm back from that school psychologist.

Dirk:

Yes. So to begin with, according to me, Jory Agate, the meaning of life is Finding connection.

Jory:

I feel like lots of people have that answer, and I think that that is the answer, but can you elaborate a little bit? Well, I think we're meant to be connected in relationship with each other and with ourselves, and we're not meant to be an island. We're not meant to be connected in relationship with each other and with ourselves, and we're not meant to be an island. We're not meant to be alone.

Dirk:

And so, yeah, for me a lot of what life is is those connections we create with each other, with ourselves, that generate wholeness, that generate yeah, it's through those relationships, I think, we find meaning purpose.

Jory:

Next question the most meaningful thing that I did yesterday was Well, I did a training yesterday. It was a training in Australia but of course I was here in Cambridge, so I definitely I find a huge amount of meaning or satisfaction in sharing kind of the gift of this model with others and seeing how it inspires them and their connections with their clients and their relationships. So that probably had the most meaning for me.

Dirk:

Yeah, you're really giving people a gift that they can then enrich themselves and it can keep spreading. So I guess that gets back to the question of why is this getting so popular? It's really powerful, it works. Question of why is this getting so popular? Is it it? Um, it's really powerful, it works. And uh, and there's sort of this exponential effect where people take it on and then they spread it and yeah, you're, you're doing a lot of that. So that's that's great, most meaningful work of art that I've seen in the last week or consumed Could be music, could be movie, could be theater, anything.

Jory:

Probably those photos of the Aurora Borealis that were flying across my text screen from people who'd seen it all over the country and the globe. Some of my participants from my training in Australia and New Zealand sent some pictures too, and I'm so bummed because I've never seen it and I've always wanted to see it, and I went outside this weekend to try to see it because everybody else was and still didn't see it.

Dirk:

Yeah, I don't even really know what it is. It's like Northern Lights, or what is it. Another name for it is the Northern Lights, and of course, I don't even really know what it is it's like Northern Lights or what is it?

Jory:

Another name for it is the Northern Lights, and of course I don't understand the whole physics of it, but it has to do with solar flares and then it's how the sky at night looks, particularly near the poles, and usually you have to be way far north or south to see it. But this was it was. They said it was the biggest solar flares in 20 years and so it was seen much farther south than it usually is, and I had folks all over the globe were seeing it in Europe and such it was fun seeing people's photos of it.

Dirk:

Cool. Another question if there was a big message that you could somehow get out to the world, share with the massive audience of this podcast, is there something that you know?

Jory:

I'd love to find a way to just lead with more kindness. I think it would be all better for everybody. As I see people getting more and more polarized, I think we need kindness for ourselves and kindness for others, and that would probably be a message I wanted to spread or work on is a big deal, maybe the biggest in terms of sort of an orientation that's missing too much.

Dirk:

So is there anything you want to share or promote that you're doing, or anything that we didn't get to that I should be asking you about? I?

Jory:

don't think so. I have some workshops coming up, but they're out there, I don't need to promote them.

Dirk:

And they're overfilled. They have waiting lists already.

Jory:

The trainings do, the additional workshops I do you can usually find or participate in.

Dirk:

You have a website participate in, but you have a website.

Jory:

You know I don't. I haven't felt a need yet, so I haven't created a website. I enjoy. There's a way in which I enjoy working for others. You know, just you can hire me and I'll show up and teach. So you know, different organizations will hire me to do various things. Great.

Dirk:

All right, well, thank you so much for making the time to talk with me. I really appreciate you my pleasure.

Jory:

It's been nice connecting with you again, Dirk, and always good to see you.

Dirk:

All right. Well, there you have it. That was Jory Agate, my level one IFS trainer. I love her. What a warm, kind, smart person. I hope you liked this episode and if so, please leave me a nice rating, hit, subscribe, share it with a friend. I will greatly appreciate that and be thankful. Next time I will present to you a conversation with my level one program assistant Ridgehouse, and you will hear about how he got his unique name and learn about IFS and adoption. So stay tuned Till next time. I hope you have a meaningful and meaning-filled month and if you figure out the meaning of life, let me know. ¶¶ to kill the people who provide their church desire. And what should you do? She says as she turns on the campus, maybe to give a tone of voice. So on and on and on. They spun no turn of the world. Thank you.