Developing Meaning
A podcast about healing trauma and finding meaning.
Have you ever wondered what your therapist has figured out about life's big questions?
Join psychiatrist Dr. Dirk Winter as he speaks with colleagues, therapists, and other healers about what they have learned from their clinical work about how to heal trauma and build more meaning and purpose into our lives.
Developing Meaning is NOT CLINICAL ADVICE and is NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY INSTITUTIONS. It is intended to play with ideas that are emerging, fringe, and outside of the mainstream in order to discover the meaning of life.
Produced by Dirk Winter and Violet Chernoff
Developing Meaning
#19: Margaret Conley - How We Heal Complex Trauma and Legacy Burdens with IFS.
Margaret Conley, LCSW, Minister, and IFS Assistant Trainer, joins me to explore how trauma is passed down through families, culture, and society —and how we can heal. Drawing from her own powerful story, Margaret explains the Internal Family Systems (IFS) concept of legacy burdens and how she helps clients release inherited patterns related to race, religion, gender, and family history. This episode is part of my IFS Level 1 training series and offers deep insight into how healing across generations is not only possible—but transforms how we create meaning.
Timestamps
00:19 – Welcome to Developing Meaning
04:50 – Meet Margaret Connolly: Healer and Minister
12:40 – Childhood Trauma to Professional Path
27:20 – Discovering Internal Family Systems
47:30 – Understanding Legacy Burdens
1:04:40 – Creating Meaning Through Curiosity
1:14:10 – The Art of Repairing Relationships
1:19:30 – Final Thoughts: Moving at Speed of Trust
Them music by The Thrashing Skumz.
This episode is produced by Dirk Winter, Fariha Fawziah and Caroline Hinton and brought to you by Consilient Mind LLC.
Developing Meaning is NOT MEDICAL ADVICE and NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY INSTITUTIONS.
Welcome to Developing Meaning, a podcast where we seek to understand mental health from a perspective of meaning rather than psychopathology. I'm your host, dr Dirk Winter, board-certified adult and child psychiatrist. I work in community mental health and in private practice in New York City and am on the psychiatry faculty at Columbia. I am a mainstream psychiatrist who has recently become fascinated with alternative healing approaches and want to take you along as I participate in experiential trainings, learn new models of the mind and interview fascinating healers I meet along the way about how they create meaning in their own lives and in the lives of their clients. This is a show for mental health professionals, clients and anyone seeking to build more meaning and purpose into our lives. This show is intended to explore serious topics in a fun and playful and informative manner but is not affiliated with any institutions and is not intended to be mental health advice.
Speaker 1:Mental health advice Hello, welcome back. Meaning Seekers. I am so excited today to introduce you to one of the most impressive healers that I know, margaret Connolly. She was a program assistant in my Level 1 IFS training. She has since been promoted to assistant trainer and is a rising star in the IFS teaching community, and she is a minister, social worker, sociologist and expert in a concept called legacy burdens. So what are legacy burdens? Burdens are extreme beliefs, extreme emotional reactions that our system, our parts, pick up, usually from things that we experience ourselves directly in our childhood, and legacy burdens are burdens that are passed on to us culturally through the ether beliefs that other people around us hold and that we then take on as our own beliefs and then become part of our own belief system. Things like racism, sexism, patterns that might run in our families, like drinking, or types of behavior. Lots of our values, attitudes and beliefs come to us in this way.
Speaker 1:So this is incredibly relevant in today's world where we seem to have become increasingly separated, divided, polarized by extreme beliefs. So IFS has a really cool and, I think, scientifically cool and I think scientifically logically founded way of healing ourselves from these patterns when they're counterproductive. And so you're going to learn about this from one of the real experts in this area. Margaret Connolly is a healer from Cartersville, georgia. She survived her own trauma. She became an expert in healing others. She brings in a perspective of growing up in a deeply religious African-American community in the South and she led one of the most powerful healing experiences that I have encountered in a segment of my Level 1 training. You're going to hear a bit about that. So this episode is part of a five-episode series that covers my Level 1 IFS training experience. That covers my level one IFS training experience In episode 16, I explain the IFS model.
Speaker 1:In 17, I introduce you to Jory Agate, my lead trainer. In episode 18 and now 19,. I introduce you to really fascinating assistant trainers and then the next episode will be an audio diary so you don't have to listen to the whole series. This is a fascinating standalone episode but if you like this, there's more where it came from. I am so happy now to be able to introduce you to a truly amazing person. Healer storyteller. You're in for a treat. Please enjoy my conversation with Margaret Connolly. Welcome, margaret. Hi, so happy to get to talk to you again. You were a PA in my level one training and I'm excited to see you again. Just to start, I want to ask you what kind of therapist or healer are you Paint a picture of your professional life right now and then I want to ask you sort of how you got to where you are now.
Speaker 2:Well, professionally, I'm a licensed clinical social worker. Well, professionally, I'm a licensed clinical social worker. So I work in the clinical aspect of social work practice where we focus in on the psychology, the sociology and anthropology of someone, and so we look at that in all of those realms. My school of thought is really focusing on not just the psychology, not just sociology, not just the physical, but also adding in the spiritual. And that comes from me being a divinity student.
Speaker 2:I have a master's of divinity as well, and so I guess, in the healing realm, looking at it from a clinical aspect of ministry and so using people's understanding of their spiritual base along with those clinical methods, so it's not just the science of it but also the human spaces of it. What is that? How does that look? How do we allow people to be in their humanity and move toward healing? So that is, I like, the question. I'm trying to find all my words to go with it, but that would really be it, I guess. Professionally I get paid as an LCSW, but in practice I see I'm looking at the biopsychosocial, spiritual and bringing clinical aspects to all of that piece of life, to someone's humanity, and that's how we work through healing.
Speaker 1:Wow, I'm so curious to hear more, and where are you located physically now?
Speaker 2:I'm physically located in Georgia.
Speaker 1:And is it a city? Is it a more rural setting?
Speaker 2:Rural setting, so Cartersville, georgia, right in the Northwest Corridor kind of tri-state area, so right at Alabama, tennessee, georgia line is where I live, and how many one-on-one clinical hours do you do in a week and how much teaching?
Speaker 2:I know it varies, but I used to do a lot, but maybe in a week now I might say about 15. But I used to do a lot, but maybe in a week now I might see about 15 clients and then I do more teaching. So probably in a week I do around 10 hours of teaching trying to balance that out. So it does vary, but learning to balance that out.
Speaker 1:And is it mostly online that you work?
Speaker 2:Mostly online. I do have about five clients that come in person, so I still have an office, which is rare Like the fiscal office nowadays. But they prefer to be in person and I try to honor that for them.
Speaker 1:And people find you with kind of a need in spiritual healing. Or is it just broad trauma, anxiety, depression, is it just a big mix or is there?
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of people come. A lot of my referrals now are word of mouth, so I have a website and whatnot. But they come because of the spiritual aspect of care and so they want the clinical and they want to also have their spiritual space respected. So what does that look like? And I end up getting clients because of that. But in most cases people seek me out for long-term issues with traumatic experiences Not really a lot of just I don't want to say day-to-day, but a lot of people just dealing with anxiety or depression because of a recent event. But most people are dealing with long-term trauma. Most cases they're dealing with some type of CPTSD that they didn't even realize they had until they decided to Google and see why can't I stop thinking about this, why can't this leave me, why can't this go away? And so we end up talking through that and they realize that they're dealing with a complex PTSD.
Speaker 1:So CPTSD is, as you just said, complex. And what makes a PTSD complex?
Speaker 2:So in the case of complex, it's multiple traumas, so you might have PTSD. A lot of people think of PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder in regards to wartime, and so they are dealing with the stress and the reoccurring thoughts, the reoccurring issues, Defining what trauma is. Let's do that first. They are dealing with the event that has happened that is now continually affecting their daily life. So they have this post-trauma. But what makes it complex and compound is that they have multiple traumas that are just sitting as these markers that are affecting their daily life or their daily function.
Speaker 2:So example just met with a guy recently. His complex traumas he had a car wreck or he was in a car wreck when he was nine years old. Family very traditional. They prayed him through the car wreck. He didn't die. So the thing is, you lived, you'll be all right, but he just witnessed someone die in a car wreck in the last six months. So now both images are running because he never got therapy around his car wreck. That happened when he was a child. So now we have a developmental space of trauma with this childhood trauma of this car wreck. And then six months ago he witnessed a friend pass away from a car wreck and he was in the car, so he did not die. So now we're dealing with this complicated situation that is complex and that he's dealing with some virus remorse, because I should have For him I beat death twice, but then he sat on it, and so the clinical definition of this six months is still bothering him, and now he has both images flipping back and forth which are now affecting his work.
Speaker 1:So you're an IFS teacher. Is that the main teaching that you do?
Speaker 2:That's the main. I'm an assistant trainer with the IFS Institute.
Speaker 1:Congratulations, you've been promoted.
Speaker 2:And so that is the main teaching that I do, and not necessarily with the Institute. I work with my friend, carmen him and his bride, and we provide like intros for IFS. We also do some things around working with externalizing parts, which we'll probably get into For me. I use a lot of Legos so I help people with that. But just talking about externalization of our internal system, and then I'm also a theologian so I do a lot of trainings around mental wellness and spirituality that are away from the internal family systems modality, but I believe that we're made apart so it always finds its way into everything that I do.
Speaker 1:And you taught an amazing training on legacy burdens. Do you still do that teaching Legacy burdens? Do you still do?
Speaker 2:that teaching. So a legacy burden. We're carrying over the burdens or the heaviness or the beliefs from our family, from our communities, from ancestors, all the things that we're carrying over from how we grew up. And so these beliefs we hold on to them. We didn't know they were bad, we didn't know they were good, we didn't know. We just know that in that they have now become a weight in our emotional system. And so, working with Legacy Burtons, we start to find out this isn't actually my material, this doesn't belong to me. This isn't my emotional material. I'm carrying a belief from someone else. I'm carrying the belief of a, my emotional material. I'm carrying a belief from someone else. I'm carrying the belief of a grandfather, grandmother, I'm carrying the belief of a family system altogether, and so I'm finding that this does not belong to me. And so what do I do with that?
Speaker 2:And when we do legacy unburdenings, what we find is that we can give that back to those in our bloodline. We can give that back to the source in which we got that from and pass that back to those in our bloodline. We can give that back to the source in which we got that from and pass that back. So I talk about that because that really is the other piece of what I do an offering that we can give that care. We can give that issue back to what came from, because in the legacy piece of it more than likely ancestrally, if it's something that's connected to family bloodline, that wasn't the intent for them to make it a burden. That wasn't the intent, and so we'll get into that a little bit deeper on why ancestrally they can take that back, because that wasn't the intention for you to be burdened with pieces of life, but they want you to have blessings in your life, to move forward want you to have blessings in your life to move forward.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to get into all of that. So now, maybe to back up and get your story of how did you become a healer? Starting from the very beginning, I'm always curious where were you born?
Speaker 2:I was born where I live. So I was born in Cartersville, georgia. At the time I want to say it was Cartersville Hospital. I don't know, maybe that in Cartersville, georgia, at the time I want to say it was Cartersville Hospital, I don't know, that's Cartersville Medical Center, I don't know. But I was born where I live, so right in Northwest Georgia, and I'm still proud to be from Cartersville. So most people would say Atlanta, because that seems to be much easier for people to know how to locate us, but right at the base, the Appalachian Mountains. So I live within the Kennesaw Mountain range of that. So really happy to be there, which I think adds a lot to what I think, the way that I do as well.
Speaker 2:So you're really connected to the roots of where you live. Except that I I had to accept that. I had to accept that I grew up in a very Baptist Southern environment. So you know feeling like a weirdo because I actually want to go outside and connect with the grass Like I want to go on a hike. I feel like something's in there for me. So that was strange, but then I realized I just accepted it as I became an adult. Like this is I'm happy to be here and connect with the land, connect with where I am and to feel the spirit of that. And what can it show me and what can it tell me?
Speaker 1:and was there anything in your early surroundings that influenced you or sort of any sort of internal genetic factors that kind of guided you towards healing, becoming a healer, or people in your surroundings Like what is your story of growing up?
Speaker 2:I want to give the whole story. I don't, you know, some people come on like this magical background of people encouraging them to do things. But I didn't, you know, I did not because I live in an area again, I live in the South, I live in rural Northwest Georgia. So anything regarding medicine that my people would have had it would not have been, it would not have been honored as medicine because it would have been seen as something demonic or not well, and so we wouldn't have called it that at the time. Right now there's a new kick into spirituality and honoring indigenous space and honoring African-centered principles and things like that. People are researching them. But when I was growing up that wasn't the case. You just knew that if somebody said they're going to pray for you, that meant something and you honored that. You didn't know what that meant around the prayer, but you just knew they were praying for you. And if they say, cast it to God, you knew that that meant something, and a physical representation of casting it to God was to stand at the altar with someone, hold hands and pray it away, or so you thought you know so and so what happened? My childhood is kind of what led me to this healing space.
Speaker 2:I grew up in a home where I was adopted by my father and raised by my. My birth mother home was very abusive, and so my adoptive father was a Vietnam veteran who never dealt with his mental health issues. So did he utilize the system in a way that he could act? He could get gain from it? Yeah, so like he would go check into the VA, he would do things, but never followed through on his treatment. In turn, the abuse landed on myself and my mother, and I wanted to know. I became I was a very curious kid, um, and I still remain curious as an adult, but I couldn't figure out why he couldn't be well for us. I could not figure that out. You took me on you didn't have to adopt me, but you wanted to, and you became my father. I don't know any other father, but then it became very abusive physical and mental abuse, and it lasted the rest of my childhood, and so I wanted to know why he could not be well. I wanted to know why my mother could not leave, because the more he abused us I mean it was attempts on our lives, things like that happened. I became curious around what caused her to stay In my curiosity, not understanding, as a kid, this is just literally setting up relational trauma, developmental trauma leading to relational trauma. I couldn't figure it out and I wanted to know.
Speaker 2:So my studies began in sociology because I wanted to know why in the world could he not stop? What community was he a part of that okayed this and what community did we live in that would not stop it? He didn't try to hide the abuse. This wasn't a closeted abuse. I mean, it was wide open. The community knew. I mean it made the newspaper, but it was again. We're going to pray for you, we're going to hold you at the altar, we're going to speak blessings over your life.
Speaker 2:And so I couldn't figure out why that did not mesh, why it did not add up and really became invested in, why we wanted to make something so open a secret because it was open.
Speaker 2:But we kept covering it up with spiritual cliches, spiritual statements, which led me to study sociologies, led me to study the groups and communities, because I could not figure out why this particular black community in Cartersville, georgia, did not want to deal with abusive patterns inside of homes. And as I looked I realized it wasn't just my home, I realized a lot of my friends lived inside of abusive situations. Everybody just kept praying it away, kept being quiet about it, and so that led me further to say, hey, maybe this is a clinical issue, and it led me into social work. So that's how I ended up becoming a social worker and getting my MSW from Clark Atlanta University, because it's the only way you can work with it. You got to become a clinician, but what was it that I could do? To take all the modalities I was learning in social theory and apply those modalities to a way that I could help my community in a healing way, and so that led me to become a therapist.
Speaker 1:So you had this curiosity. I mean, this is really a powerful story that you just told in a few minutes, but it was in the newspaper.
Speaker 2:Take a breath. Yeah, just sort of acknowledge, I mean because in practice know you can survive, because you have to repeat it as a trauma survivor, like you have to tell the story over and over again to get help over and over again for people to know if you one, like me, it took me forever to find the therapist. So how to retell this story. So eventually I ended up with a numbness that was like let's just tell the story and get it over with to where it's like it's unbelievable anyway.
Speaker 2:So let's just tell the story and get it over with To where it was like it's unbelievable anyway, so let's just knock it out. And so I learned over time, even through my own personal therapy, what would it look like to slow it down, what would it look like for you to actually hear those pieces of story, so even as those who are listening hear what I said and see how it resonated and what comes up. I had, you know, I've learned how to do it much faster now, but my father is deceased and me still telling that story, I still felt like I needed permission to give the information out. So you know like what I had to add some pauses in my own speech because you know what does that look like, how does that happen?
Speaker 1:And that's when I say you know what does that look like, and then bringing that to you and you growing up with that and in a social context where people didn't want to look at it, they wanted to pray it away, cast it to God, and it didn't really get you out of that situation at that time. And still you came back to sort of curiosity and like I want to understand this, I want to understand this, and so these are seeds and I'm sure you know they're very active now in terms of your ability to help people. But you went to college and studied sociology or like how did this all?
Speaker 2:I told my parents when I was a kid. I said I want a job I can't lose. And so I said so that's all. You can only be a Supreme Court justice for that. When I was a kid, that's all I knew. It was like you want a job, they can't lose their jobs, right, that's what I thought. So I really thought I was going to study law or study medicine, something like that. You know, this is my profile.
Speaker 2:So started as a biology major. But biology is what led me to sociology, because I wanted to know. Hey, we started talking about cell regeneration and we started talking about you know, what does it look like in ecosystems? And I just thought I said well, do we do this in humanity? Like, what's the ecology of Cartersville? Like that's what I was thinking. And so somebody said you sound like a social major, you need to go across the street. This isn't for you, you know. And so that really led me to, because I wanted to study the ecosystems of people Like you know. What does this look like and why?
Speaker 2:Why was it that this Black man from the South? It was permitted to bring harm to his family and Bible verses were put on top of it. He was celebrated as a veteran, not a war hero, because he was Vietnam, but he was celebrated as a veteran. And he was celebrated as a black man taking care of his household, because if you spare the rod, you spoil your child. If your house isn't in order, then you're not right with God, and so order looked like physical abuse to my mom. So I wanted to know what was the ecology of this? Why in the world is this okay that he gets to bring harm in order for him to be approved by this particular piece of society? Who made that rule up?
Speaker 1:So what'd you figure out?
Speaker 2:So what I figured out in my research literally my undergrad work was around Vietnam veterans and the passing of trauma to their children. So I was like, okay. So I discovered absolutely there's a vicarious trauma that's being passed Later on've now discovered that people actually just have trauma from that. It's not just, uh, secondary, but this is actually firsthand trauma. They're experiencing their hits, they're experiencing the pain, um, because he hit me, he like it wasn't his, him recalling and I I watched it. But I was a part of the recall story because when he would flash back, I I would become whatever he was seeing. So he was protecting himself from what he thought I was in the moment. So it didn't matter what he hit like, as long as he saved his life, right. So that's what I discovered in that particular study, and I had a lot of compassion for my father at that moment. Wow, we didn't really have a good relationship after I moved out, before I even went to college.
Speaker 1:How old were you when you moved out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I moved out. I don't want to keep having attempts on my life in any way, and you won't go get help, so I'm leaving.
Speaker 2:This was before high school ended. This was before high school ended Because I said this doesn't make sense for me that nobody is stepping up, and at the time you know 17-year-old mine, nobody's stepping up for me, that's not true. I couldn't see them People working behind the scenes, but I couldn't figure out why they couldn't be in the front. Like why didn't you just say, hey, we're trying to get you out of there. So I, we're trying to get you out of there um, but I, so I I got myself out prematurely, before they could make things happen.
Speaker 2:Because where'd you go? I went to my grandmother's home. Uh, it's uh. The funny story about that is when I finished undergrad I came back and worked for our uh, what we call it department of family and children services at the time, but our a division of Family and Children's Services in Georgia and one of my childhood mentors. She said hey, don't type your name in the system. So I said well, of course that led me to type my name in the system. And here's this record where there were investigations when nobody said anything, so nobody got me out, right Like they were investigating it. And so it wasn't enough to get me out as a child. The home was stable enough for me to stay and I wasn't supposed to see that record, but I did, because I lost my job over that, because I breached my own confidentiality, breaking through my record.
Speaker 2:But that led me again that work from undergrad, that compassion I had for him, because I wanted to know, hey, okay, if Vietnam messed him up this bad, was it Vietnam? So I started questioning that and it led me to go back. I'm so glad you asked me around legacy burdens. It led me to go back. Start asking my aunts. I said, hey, what happened to him? You know so, for my father, his mother died when he was 12, but before she died she was abusive to him, um, because she was making him a man. So this is that toxic masculinity that a woman embodied because she was a single mother of 12 kids, so I mean of seven kids, I'm sorry, single mother of seven kids. He died, he, she died when he was 12, and so, um, and I have three sons and I have five daughters, and so I got to make these boys men, and so, like a spanking, was him actually getting like burned with a poker iron or something to get his attention, to make him stand up. And so that was never resolved because she died when he was 12 and he was ejected out of his living situation and moved in with her sister. So that went from them being a family of eight, including my grandmother, to them becoming a family of 15, because her sister had seven kids too.
Speaker 2:And so now, you know, I got to compete with being a boy here that's growing into a man, still being raised by, you know, a single Black female in the South. And then what does this look like? Because I have to now continue to make you a man. Like you know, and that making of a man looked like abusive tactics. And even in my continued research of this and just studying, you know, black people and African-Americans in this particular context of the Southeast of America, this is all they knew in mindset is this is how you make someone, this is how they become.
Speaker 2:And so, in that becoming, here's all that generational trauma, here's all that intergenerational trauma, here's all the legacy that's coming and how to make someone. Because even in that moment not you know, just looking at the timeframe Black people were still defining their humanity. So what does that look like to make someone? And my father carried all of that, and so he used what he had and I now know that's not me making an excuse, as we lean into that. That's the legacy that he had to raise a kid is I have to be this way on top of having, because he too had, you know, cptsd. I'm at CPTSD because he had childhood trauma, then he had war trauma, and then you get to bring this home and you deliver this to your family because you don't realize the stigma around mental health is so big in the 80s and 90s, like I can't do that, because that looks like being overmedicated, it looks like being mismanaged, it looks like being mishandled.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it looks like being mishandled, so yeah, what was that like for you to do that research into your family and the cultural surroundings and get to a place of compassion for him? That sounds. It was strange. I felt like I found the space of compassion for my father before I found the space of compassion for me, for my father, before I found the space of compassion for me. I was able to see him and say you know what? You got a lot of stuff. But I couldn't look back at myself and say, hey, margaret, you got a lot of stuff too and you need to be made well. And so, though I could see him with these eyes of compassion. It was like an agenda of compassion. I still need you to be a dad, so if I show up in any way that I can, maybe that'll make you care for me and my humanity. And that's not how that works. I know, as I've grown as a clinician, that's not how that works, and it took me a while to realize I had to find self-compassion.
Speaker 1:So tell me that story. Yeah, how did you?
Speaker 2:I was probably in my early 30s when I realized, you know, the relationship between my father and I wouldn't be, it just wasn't, it wouldn't be made well. And so, no matter what I did, no matter how many degrees I got, no matter, he didn't recognize that and it would not be made well. Because of that, you know, I had to find my own therapy. I had to go sit with someone and say, hey, I need help around this, which led me not to IFS, it led me to EMDR. And so which is why I started doing EMDR therapy, to work through the stuff with my dad. And so, you know, I realized in that what really belonged to me and I started to look at not knowing that's what I was looking at, but started to look at what does it look like to heal up this ancestral space? I'm now adopted into this family.
Speaker 1:So I'm really curious about that. So, so you're doing your undergrad, you're getting your degrees, and at what point do you find therapy for yourself and at what point do you find an EMDR therapist?
Speaker 2:seriously. When I was getting my master's degree, we had to have a therapist because that was the requirement of the program. So I went and I glossed over stuff. We learned the technique. That's how I saw it. Really big protection. They don't need to know my business as long as I turn in my paper that I'm going to therapy every week and get my credit. So yeah. So how are you doing today? I'm doing great, so really faking it. So, yeah. So you know the how you doing today? I'm doing great, so really faking it.
Speaker 1:That's a master's in social work now. Yeah master's in social work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, master's in social work. You know so, but my grandmother passed away December of 2010. I was 29 years old and I just this is the person that had become, the person that rescued me from all the stuff, and so I I didn't know how I was going to live life at the time. I was partnered and my partner was really good, like really showed up for me. I mean, we ended up getting married we're now divorced, but really showed up, but still wasn't.
Speaker 2:My grandmother, like this is the person that protects me. She's taking me out of every dangerous situation. She clothed me and housed me. Like this is. I revere her. And so what do you do? You know, in the case, what do you do when God dies, because God isn't supposed to die, and, for those who are listening, you know what do you do when the person that has done everything dies. Like, who picks that up? Is there somebody else that can do it? And so I needed a therapist. At this point, it wasn't. You know, out of practicality and to get a degree, I need to sit with someone, which led me, um, it took me. It took me about a year to find a good therapist.
Speaker 1:So you tried a bunch of different ones.
Speaker 2:I tried different ones. Uh, of course, at the time I knew modalities, right, uh, so and um, I couldn't sit with who I was sitting with. Uh, I know, in school they said you know, you want to get a therapist that looks like you? And they would really tell us like and so for me I was like, okay, a black female. And later on I realized a therapist that looks like me is someone who not only holds particular identities but holds ideals, holds values, and they can hold the space when we do have differences. And so, because I really value people and I value diversity, that looks like me. And so, about a year in of trying to find, I found the therapist. I'm still with that same therapist and so we started to work through I thought we were going to be working through the loss of my grandmother, but we ended up working through the lack of access I had to my father, who was still living at the time.
Speaker 1:And this was through EMDR.
Speaker 2:It was through EMDR.
Speaker 1:And just maybe just say very briefly what EMDR is. Some people might not know.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, I can't. So EMDR is eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing, yeah, and so the eight steps of EMDR. I always remember that part, but the eight steps of EMDR as we move through I, really using EMDR, I got stuck. I got stuck at just the negative cognition, which made me do more work on myself, because I believe those negative cognitions were who I built myself to be. And so, even when we were looking for the target points, we were looking for the pieces of star. It took my therapist a while for me to move from the negative cognition to even say what did I want my positive cognition to be. So when you're doing EMDR, this is what you're trying to, you know, switch the thought and so moving from negative to positive, with an understanding of you know what's the validity of you believing that positive, and then what's the stress level and how do we reduce it. So increase the belief, the positive belief, and decrease the stress that's connected to the negative one. We couldn't get me past like an eight or about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so just to sort of imagine this, this is, you know, it's a great idea that a normal memory is the idea of it, but when it's complicated it's not so smooth.
Speaker 2:Not so smooth. So what I love about trainings is that we make everything look smooth right, like, oh, you just come in and do it. No, it wasn't smooth at all. It took six months for my SUDS level. For those who know, you know the stress.
Speaker 1:Subjective units of distress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's like how? How much distress does the memory hold? Yeah, it took six months for me to go from 10 to 8. Because it's like my whole body was fighting that. Because in it we discovered not only are you asking me to reprocess this and flip a belief and flip my you know cognition, but you're asking me, in the way you're doing it, to give up some of my belief, not and I give up the facts of what happened but to give up that my dad is actually a wonderful, great man. He didn't mean it and so it has to be my fault that he did this and I held that, because it wasn't just legacy from some paternal adoptive line, it wasn't just legacy from maternal material, it's also cultural for Black women. You had to do something to make him angry, and so that journey has led me to open up around working with burdens. Because it took us six months to go down on a scale of zero to 10. It took me six months to get to an eight.
Speaker 1:Now I'm still in the high area, and this is so common for our people with trauma that we work with that trauma happens and then some part of us flips it around and it had to be our fault. It had to be.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And that's a powerful, deeply felt belief.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my therapist is good. She told me at the time she said this is going to cause more issue once we start. So she gave me all the spiel, and it did because I didn't know how to release anything around the belief like I, yeah, I want, I really wanted to believe, I really believe, you know, like my, the validity of my cognition, that I wanted to believe that I was an amazing daughter. That was what I said. I did these grand moments, yeah, it was like a six, like it was high, you know, but I mm-mm, but that distress because I was really not realizing at the time not am I asking to flip a cognition, but I'm asking, you're asking me to give up stuff to see that these facts might also change what I see him to be. And I never not saw him as my dad who took me in when he did not have to, and that's what I felt like was happening.
Speaker 1:That was a really important picture to hold on to. Is all the good side of him. Does this connect to IFS now? Like I feel like that's sort of like that.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 1:This is like yeah, yeah, I'm so curious Like how did this progress Of?
Speaker 2:course, the history of my dad, typical history of veterans, you know. They found something to self-soothe, so you, so drugs were involved, things like this which led me again, like I said, I went to school to figure it out what's wrong with my community, what's wrong with my family? And so my MSW led me, the clinical space, led me to working with individuals who are incarcerated because my father had some bids in prison and jail. So this led to me looking like, okay, how did this affect him? Again, this rabbit hole of trying to fix my daddy. So working inside of these environments and working within forensic space. So forensic space is working within drug and alcohol, working within prison systems, working within systems of safety around incarceration and wellness. And so this is what recovery unit, so that they wouldn't have to go to jail for possession or something like that. And I'm working with 12 men.
Speaker 2:The history of these 12 men constant recidivism to this program. I mean, they knew the guy who owned the program. The guy who owned the program was in recovery himself and was a staple in the community. He, he was like my daddy. If my dad had actually lived a life of recovery like oh, he's, he is the the picture of you go to church now and everybody loves you. And, oh, you overcame drug abuse. You overcome abuse. You're vietnam. He was to a vietnam vet. So I'm like, okay, this is great. So I'm working for like the picture I want of my dad, um, but we had the same 12 guys.
Speaker 2:So I was there for three months. These guys would go use. They would blow the placement, they would go to jail because that would be the stipulations. They would go serve their time and then they would come back. We just let them come back in. So I said, well, this is ridiculous. I was like what are we doing? So one of the individuals who worked there I'm still friends with all of the people I work with, by the way so he said why are you caring so much? I was like because we keep taking care of the same 12 people.
Speaker 2:At this point. These are like my cases. So he was like well, if you can find something that works outside of CBT and DBT, you go find it.
Speaker 1:So he was being funny.
Speaker 2:He didn't know my brain. So I was like I am going to go find it. So I went on a deep dive to find something that appeared to work and it had long standing work. And so I never heard of internal family systems. They didn't teach us this at school, they didn't teach us this at seminary. I never heard of it. So I Googled and I said I think my Google search was something that can change a person internally, around drugs. I think that's what I Googled at the time and it came up with C-Cites article around addictions in internal family systems. And I read this article. I laughed. I said no way in hell, are you telling me if I look inward and build a relationship with myself, this will work? I laughed. I was like, okay, whatever.
Speaker 1:Do you remember that article? I'm curious your internal reaction. It's now part of her book.
Speaker 2:It was just an article, but if you go get the book on addiction so uh, internal family systems addictions it's really the book like, and of course she's expanded on it. But the article has now become the premise of the book.
Speaker 2:So this is the first that you hear about ifs and we have all these little beings inside of us that are holding trauma and trying to push it away and struggle to stop using drugs. But could not. He would come. He would do 90 days, he would go use a substance. I mean, he's been doing this for years but he's like it's just my life now. So I asked him. I said could you give me a chance to work with you on something? I just learned it? I said would you like to try it? He was like yeah, anything. He said because I just wish my kids could know how much I love them. I don't know how to show it to them. So we started using internal family systems the best way. I knew how I hadn't had a level one.
Speaker 1:You just read this article, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1:And you had Google, yeah and I Googled.
Speaker 2:So I did the steps the best way I knew them at the time and he just starts crying. When I asked him, could he see what was making him want to use drugs? That's how I asked it. He was like yeah. He said I started using drugs when my mom died. And I was like, oh so this is like a 50 year old guy in front of me with two grown children and I was like well, when did your mom die? Because I didn't know how to ask the questions right. He was like she died when I was 18. I was like, oh so, wow. He was like why are you asking me this? He said you're supposed to be helping me good with my kids. I was like, yeah, I'm trying. I said I just felt like that question was important.
Speaker 2:So we went through and I got down to the feel toward question and I said how do you feel toward that? And he said that doesn't make sense to me. So I said well, what's the emotions coming up around your mom dying? He said, well, that has nothing to do with me getting back with my kids. So here was the fight and he said I want to cry. He said I want to end the session. I'm not going to cry in front of you. So we ended the session and I was like what magic was this? You know? Because now I hear black man from the South is like really looking like an 18 year old in front of me and I didn't know how to process it. I was like whoa, he really went to like inner child kid so he took two weeks off from seeing me. He saw the other therapist because he's like you did something to me. And then he came back. He said I can't get rid of that image of me watching my mom die. He said is there something to get rid of the image? And I said yeah, let's work through the image image. So I came back to the modality and I said I wonder, would it be okay if you saw that 18 year old and just talked to him and spent like 45 minutes with him just crying and saying I'm sorry, man, that's all because I'm sorry, and so, um, he went and he said I feel better. Uh, I never told myself I was sorry, so I'm gonna take that. We kept seeing each other.
Speaker 2:He made it through the whole six months of the program. In that six months we kept working with the 18 year old that was that became this massive protector now that I know what that means and also a, and once we were able to do that, he was able to make build relationships with his daughters again. He actually made it to his youngest daughter's college graduation. He was like she invited me to her graduation. He got to meet his grandkids. He stayed clean, he started working for the program. I thought it was crazy and they were like what did you do to him? And he said it's that ass shit. That's what he said. He said I feel like myself again. And so he found out like in his youth he had missed like inheritance, like physical, like he owned land, he had money, but he had been on the street. So you know, he's like yeah, my mom left me a lot of stuff and I didn't know and his sisters had been holding his inheritance.
Speaker 2:So, this had been like almost, I mean, 30 years of him going in and out, you know, doing stuff. And when he did that he told the guys that he had influence in the program. He said, hey, go. He said go to miss connelly. He said, and see, can she do the the self stuff, you too? And so, um, out of those 12, six of them remained clean for six months and finished the program. Six did not. The six did, and those six men rebuilt relationships with their kids. They built relationships with their ex-partners where they could do stuff, and two of them ended up getting married and they had successful lives.
Speaker 1:So what do you think it was about IFS that was so dramatically different than these other approaches? And I agree with you, it is dramatically different. And now you're a trainer in this and maybe just start with very basic like what's your short description of what is IFS?
Speaker 2:The short description IFS is a modality that literally introduces you to your internal family, all of those pieces of you that have been running the show or taking care of all your wounds. You finally get to meet them and you get to spend time and build a relationship with them. And that's the most simple answer, because I watched these men do it. It made me want to do it with everybody. Yeah, because their internal was well, which means they could externally connect back with people that they never thought they had a relationship again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a way of healing and creating internal peace.
Speaker 2:And it was a real peace, like it wasn't. Like, oh, I feel good. Which leads me back to the beginning of our talk, where what I learned was you go to the altar, you pray about it, you give it to God, you'll be okay. In this particular instance, I didn't. We never invite, I never invited any of those guys to give it to God. I asked them to look at it and they were like what I was? Like no, don't, don't give it away. Like see what it's doing. And that's what internal family systems invited them to do. Like can you, can we slow down enough for you to see it and see what it's doing for you? Like why, why does this part of you need to go smoke crack? Oh, because it keeps the memory of my loss away. Oh, oh, okay, versus bypassing it and spiritually bypassing it and acting like it didn't happen, it activates the part that's like well, we got to smoke crack to do that, right?
Speaker 1:so, boom, literally eliminated that, and then the relationship was built internally you're appreciate approaching that part with compassion and and understanding and getting its story and making peace and friendship and realizing behind it, even before the peace, realizing the courage to even look at it Again.
Speaker 2:The guy walked out of my office and he said what does my mother dying have to do with me? Getting connected to my kids? That's what he said, boom, a lot has everything to do with me getting connected to my kids. That's what he said, boom, a lot has everything to do with you getting connected to your kids. But slowing his system down enough for him to see why that was very important.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So then you started learning and getting trained. I want to jump to our level one training where you were the leader of our group and it was really memorable having you as our PA, and so I went there. I'm the only MD in the group, I'm 53 and had prostate cancer. I didn't want to tell anybody about that. I wanted to kind of like sort of keep a low profile.
Speaker 1:It's mostly women, it's mostly social workers, very mixed from all over the country, which I love about IFS, and somehow there were there weren't that many men, but three old white guys ended up as a group and so as a four-person group, you're the teacher and it's the three of us, and so you're a younger African-American female and I remember walking into the room and seeing the box of tissues on the floor and I almost made a joke of like, oh, we're not going to need these. And I'm glad I didn't because we did need those tissues. And like every single one of us, like you know you go into those trainings you don't want to like necessarily open up. You know you go into those trainings you don't want to like necessarily open up. But yeah, I'm curious how was that experience for you and what do you remember being our teacher? I remember just to give you some time to think I remember I was. I think I was a therapist for the first set, like I didn't want to be the client at first, but I'm like, okay, well, I've done a lot of therapy stuff so I could be a therapist. And you're sort of over my shoulder, like the little birdie in my ear and giving me feedback about how best to respond to the other person.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to say his name, I know his name, but there was one part that he kept sort of talking about but I wasn't really attending to it and you're like you need to ask about this part. And then I didn't because I had my reasons for not. And then you kind of jumped in and you did and it like opened up this emotional. Yeah. I was like, wow, that was, that was something. So what do you remember about that?
Speaker 2:What I remember, I don't you know I had to sit with us. I walked over to your group because it was PAs selected and I think it was like two groups left and I said, okay, I'm up for it. Because I said okay, I'm up for it because I mean, I could see, you know, three white guys. So I'm like, well for me. I was like well, it's three, it's three systems, that's all. So I was like, so let's see how this goes.
Speaker 2:And then, when we sat down and did these introductions you know what happens in the room with a doctor, a therapist and a pastor. Well, that was what happened. This is what got in the room. So I'm like, okay, this is going to be interesting. And the first round was you. And when you know the model, like you know, I also did that technique, again not knowing how to use the model with the guy. So it was kind of like that. He was like cut the session, no, I don't know what to do. And he became angry, right. So you know, I'm watching us dance and I'm watching this dance and all I could really think was okay, something for both of these individuals is saying we're not going here and we don't even want to bring it up. Individuals are saying we're not going here and we don't even want to bring it up.
Speaker 2:I think when we're doing systems work, your system is joining with somebody's system. Whether you want it to or not, you're building relationship externally. Whether you want to or not, you're sharing space, if anything, you're sharing breath, and so here's the join in, and so in my mind I'm thinking like, okay, you, you, either you either see it and you don't want to touch it in this guy, or you really don't want to read the sheet that's saying hey, ask this question. So, um, because I don't. I don't think anybody in that room, including myself, were we ready all to open up, you know, like because the box of tissue was there in the center of the room. So, okay, are you going to tell me I'm crying? Absolutely, have protectors, like I'm not going to cry. It's going to be a waste of time and a waste of the Kleenex, but it wasn't, because then we get to really see in that moment what self-energy and the care around self-energy look like.
Speaker 2:Here's this compassionate ask of this individual, and when we did that, that was a share, it was like a dose of compassion that hit this part like oh, this is you genuinely want to know about me? There's what ifs is different than any other model. Yeah, people can argue me down, but it's different than any other model because I really have to be what we call self-led. I have to have a critical mass of self. I have to have these C components, this energy. I have to have enough compassion, courage, curiosity. I have to have enough positive energy coming forth to really ask someone hey, how do you feel toward that? And do it in a way that doesn't sound like an agenda or sound like judgment.
Speaker 2:And when that happened, boom, it's like oh, because now they have an internal connection. And how beautiful is that? Because that's what happened. And then you are able to flow and move. How beautiful is that? Because that's what happened. And then you are able to flow and move and all three of you, by the end of this training, ended up speaking around things that you were holding Because you know burdens, say, hey, as a man, I got to hold that. I can't tell anybody I'm sick, like I just got to come into this training and knock it out. They don't need to know about that. Versus built a community of people that cared Like I just got to come into this training and knock it out, they don't need to know about that.
Speaker 2:Versus built a community of people that cared Like they wanted to make sure Dirk was okay. They were concerned, you know. Built a community of people that wanted to know because the internal spaces were taken care of, and started to realize Dirk is there. Dirk is there, dirk is present and now we can trust Dirk with giving out this information and sharing and built beautiful relationships internally and externally.
Speaker 1:And that's what I remember around that first time, because I was like, okay, he either doesn't want to right, Like something cultural, is saying they can't Well, and I remember you, it was three nights in a row that we worked together for three days in a row and after that first day, I feel like you, you were feeling sort of nervous, like I think you came in that next day Like I'm not sure that was you know the right move there, and we were all like, yes, it was the right move, thank you, yeah, and can I say nervousness around what I'm saying. You know the right move there and we were all like, yes, it was the right move, thank you, yeah and, can I say, nervousness around what I'm saying, like did I just do something?
Speaker 2:because, culturally, I think what I've learned is that we don't. We don't give people enough space to work with these burdens um, because they're in front of them, of course, right. So I'm like, did I just make the right move here? Like this was literally addressing something that has told you in society. I even talked with another PA around it. I said what does that feel like for you when somebody does that? He was a white male. He was like oh yeah, like you make me face my stuff, you know like it's crazy. My stuff, you know like it's crazy.
Speaker 2:And society has told me I don't need to deal with that because I sit in a state of privilege. I'm a man. I just need to work hard, make sure I'm provide, and that's all I'm supposed to really be doing. Whether it's taking care of my health, that's irrelevant. Did I provide for someone you know? So we had to talk about that and so you know, did I make the right move, though, with pushing through that? And he's like absolutely, because that's not the only thing that we're here for in our bodies. We're here as humans, to be loved and cared for as men and we don't get that. And I said, oh, he said, yeah, he said, and to have two men working together, that is really a big display of compassion and they both could get that. Unspoken is what he said he said.
Speaker 2:He said it was unspoken. I promise it was. I said it was, it was just it was just felt yeah, it was felt and he said, yeah, because, guess what? They shared that commonality of we're men in the world and we can't feel.
Speaker 1:I said, oh God, so yeah, and then you taught that whole hour lecture on legacy burdens and I feel like that ties in again, right, because what are legacy burdens? It's, you know, it's not as you you said, it's not like our own trauma from when I was six the dog bit me or whatever it was. It's somehow. There's this cultural energy of racism or racial expectations or sexual sex, yeah, and so there's all these sort of internalized beliefs that our systems have sort of picked up that we're walking in to a shared space together. And then here's you, who's sort of an expert in healing legacy burdens, guiding this exercise.
Speaker 2:Is it okay if we break down the burdens of coordination?
Speaker 1:Please yes.
Speaker 2:So IFS is going to talk about, I say, four different burdens, the way they spell it out. So your personal burden, like you just said, like I flipped over my bike at six and now I'm afraid to ride a bike, that's a burden because I believe that every time I ride a bike I'm going to flip over it. That keeps me safe. So that's personal burden. And then here comes this cultural burden. This cultural burden is connected to what society, what culture said, which is probably why I really went to that off the state university and started studying.
Speaker 2:My family, like here's this I want to know why you just can't say our family's jacked up because my father has to be strong black man who raises Bible. So here's this cultural burden, the saying, especially from men in the United States of America, that you can't feel like. That's what I've heard. The Venus versus Mars stuff. Yeah, you don't get to have emotions. That doesn't make sense to me, never has, and IFS absolutely solidified that for me. Yes, you can have that. And then you carry what we call legacy burdens. This is stuff that's material, that is passed down through family, through your lineage, through those who raised you, and that burden is legacy. It's probably eight people behind you that carried that and gave this to you. However it landed, they never took care of it.
Speaker 1:What's an example of this type of?
Speaker 2:The most recent one I've seen. That was an individual, and this was actually Dick Swartz, himself working with her. She had this legacy burden of illness, and so she was able to recall it. She was like every woman that I can remember in my family, from my great-grandmother to now. Around a certain age we stay ill and so when we worked through it the women in her family they were abused by their husbands. So when they got married is when the illness kicked in and it protected them from husbands. So here is this legacy she's carrying around illness, chronic illness, and she's set with that. And as she did the work she was like oh wow, she's like it was protective. So she's carrying that.
Speaker 2:I'm going to get sick. I can't remember how old she was. She's like I knew. I told my husband at a certain age I'm going to get sick and I believed I was supposed to, and he was like that's crazy, that doesn't make sense. And who guesses that? She said but at that age I did get sick. She said but I didn't die, I'm well. She said like I'm in remission. She had cancer. She said I'm in remission. She said so that was the thing that threw me off. Is I'm still living. She said, like everybody passed away, but I didn't, but I did get sick.
Speaker 2:So this and that's an extreme piece of legacy burden which you might have. Legacy burden, I know. Being a black female, you know this legacy burden of I have to work 10 times harder in order to just be seen. That's a legacy burden. And so I got to have three to five jobs to make sure that I'm seen, I'm valued and my value is in my work and in what I produce. That's a legacy burden. Working through that I know. You know, working with white males they said it like legacy burden is.
Speaker 2:I have one guy right now working through his toxic masculinity, very religious at one point in his life, moving toward working within ministry, and he hated the toxicity of being a man in his church. He was like we literally stay at church all day, our wives take care of kids and they do everything, and then we come home and kind of like pass out after we've done the work of church and I'm like I could at least help her cook dinner. My dad was like you never do that, that's a woman's job. He's like no, but I like to cook, I mean. So he had to really deal with that. But toxic masculinity was something that he said. I don't know a man in my family that isn't toxic in their masculinity, except for me. And then I get picked on, I get called names when I'm absolutely in love with my wife.
Speaker 2:I get accused of things that are not true, and so then you have the cultural legacy burden.
Speaker 2:Cultural legacy burden is not only coming from family in this passing down, but society tells you the same thing, and so my cultural legacy burden that I experienced came from our church environment, along with my family, and my mother really believed like she couldn't leave my dad, no matter how abusive he was, until she had proof that he had broke the marriage vow.
Speaker 2:So she needed to find proof that he had a girlfriend. But this comes from the biblical text the way she understood it, because they couldn't get a divorce unless he was unfaithful and had lusted with somebody else. And our church is like, yeah, you know he hasn't lusted after anybody else. So you, you divorcing him. That's going to be on you and my mom stuck with that, trying to honor our faith tradition, um, and also honor what you know what. What the legacy is is like we don't do divorces, so not what was safe for her and her daughter and that she stuck with that until they got a divorce. So those are the components of burden, the IFSCs, and I work a lot with around all of them, but I definitely work a lot with the legacy and cultural legacy burdens in my practice, in my practice Shifting towards meaning, which is also related.
Speaker 1:I guess I started this podcast because I was meaning crisis. I'm in my 50s and, like you know, I'm not like on my way up necessarily. You know what matters, what's important, and also when I'm treating people, how much of it is some kind of mental illness or is it just sort of like their system saying I don't have meaning, that's why my mood is low, that's why maybe there's something inside that people just need to listen to make a life change towards more meaningful life? So I was just curious around meaning and what therapists have figured out about meaning and how people think about meaning.
Speaker 2:I first heard this from Ann Cinco, who is a solo lead, senior lead I don't know how they're phrasing it now. She's my mentor. I first heard her say this in a training we are meaning-making machines. She did not create that quote. That quote is like old I can't remember the theorist who actually said it first but we are meaning-making machines. We want to find meaning for everything.
Speaker 2:I started out by saying you asked me how'd you get into this career? It was because I needed to make meaning. Why did I grow up in an abusive household? My dad, in my mind, was supposed to be this great giant of greatness. He got succumbed by his own trauma, and so we're consistently trying to make meaning and what I can offer around that is to remain curious. And so, instead of making it mean something, I wonder what does that mean for me in my growth, in my movement, and how does that open up more of my path? We often think we're where we are and that's just what it can be, versus I wonder how much more of my path do I get to travel and walk, and what will come along? How much more of me do I get to meet? And so, because people I picked up on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your curiosity really kicked in strong and early and is still very present. And I love that answer. Yeah, because curiosity it's about understanding connections, understanding how we relate, how we impact each other, understanding how we relate how we impact each other. The opposite of meaning is being disconnected, having things just be random, not make sense. Yes, and so when things make sense, when we're connected, when we impact each other, that feels good, that feels meaningful.
Speaker 2:And I think when we get to that meaning making and we realize that, you know, we slow down on taking a moral inventory of everything that we've done, because we're trying to make meaning around morality like who, somebody said it had to be this way Versus what if I slow down and just say, I wonder how it showed up this way, what is it doing for me?
Speaker 2:Down and just say, huh, I wonder how it showed up this way, what is it doing for me? It may want to do something different which really kind of takes away. It has to line up in this ball of morality that somebody one day said was right. I really get to meet myself and when I can get to do that, then I have the courage to be, and that is something that I think is such an amazing gift in our humanness when we get the courage and we have enough energy around courage to just be ourselves, and then we get to see meaning behind things versus trying to make it mean something, trying to make it be something we actually just get to be, or trying to make it be something we actually just get to be.
Speaker 1:It just emerges once we drop the judgment and show up with curiosity. Yeah, I want to be mindful of your time and I'd like to ask sort of rapid fire sentence completion questions. So first one is according to me, margaret Anle, the meaning of life is oh God, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you get to edit. According to me, life is ever expanding. The more capital S self gets to be present, the more these ego states, or these parts, as Dick calls them, that they get to transform and become and we get to work together. So I get to start seeing things in a different light. The more I heal, the more I release burdens, and the more I heal around lineage and the more I heal around society, that I get to participate in society and life differently. And that's not saying that I don't have protections. It's not saying that I don't have protections, it's not saying that I don't use common sense, but it is saying that I get to experience life different.
Speaker 2:Even living in little bitty Cartersville, it's not the same as if I'm a six-year-old. I get to experience these spaces different. I've hiked the same mountain I don't know how, many times in Cartersville, georgia. I just like it, but each time I get to experience a different way. On that hike a new limb has fallen, the leaves have changed and the seasons have changed. In the different hikes, the little stream that flows through some of it. It has eroded enough to where it now looks like a creek. It's the same space, but the landscape of it changes and I get to experience it different each time. And that is what life looks like for me Just that expansion and being curious to experience it different each and every time I love it.
Speaker 2:The most meaningful thing that I did yesterday was I got some sleep. I've been traveling a lot. That was literally the most meaningful thing. I was trying to go work out and close my rings but my body said how about we snore.
Speaker 1:So that was actually the most meaningful thing yesterday was I got rest.
Speaker 2:Nice. If I come to you with sort of an existential, I lack meaning, I'm feeling like I don't matter. Can you help me? What would be your sort of first next step, my first step, if I heard someone in the example you gave say I don't matter, I will ask them to look and see what does and they will probably see I've done this with clients before that they do matter because when they look around, they realize they're connected to all the matter that they think is important. They look around, they realize they're connected to all the matter that they think is important and it would change it if they were not there. And we started to talk about how they make that matter. And so people come with those, those crises. When they're sitting in those, you know, I ask them, I say, well, what does matter? And when they start listing it, they start realizing man, I connect to each one of the things I listed. Yeah, so what would happen if you didn't exist? And what matters?
Speaker 1:And I've asked or consumed in the last week Could be music, could be a TV or a movie or book or painting or anything sort of art type of thing that you came across in the last week.
Speaker 2:The most beautiful piece of art that I came across was a photo and I had the honor of repairing with a former professor that I love. I love this guy, but we had a rupture and it lasted a long time and someone took a picture of us and I'm standing behind him working with him and he allowed me to do that and we repaired our rupture. I hadn't done a lot of stuff for him in almost a decade so I almost wanted to cry, but the photo itself spoke, and that piece of art from that photographer who didn't know who we were. He was a paid photographer for an event. He has no idea how much that meant when he handed us that photo. It's to see that work and that repair happen to where we could be healers together.
Speaker 1:And that just happened in this past week.
Speaker 2:Just happened in this past week. Beautiful photo of me just standing behind assisting him at an event he's a healer too and how people were healed in the moment. The picture is worth a thousand words, I guess.
Speaker 1:I'm curious, I wonder curious about this story. But we don't have to, we don't have to go into this story, but my interest is piqued, but if you want to you can keep it and cut it off.
Speaker 2:He was one of my professors in seminary and I'm a baby social worker. But you know, baby social workers think they know everything because we read all the books. So now I get to tell you, you know, and um, my words were correct. My behavior was wrong and so he was teaching out of an old DSM and I was angry because I had just learned the new DSM. I learned the DSM-4TR. Like I mean, no, you can't teach out of DSM-3. That's irrelevant. And in front of the entire class I said why are you teaching us this? Because this is irrelevant. And he said who are you? I missed his question. I said I'm Margaret Conley. I'm a social worker. Wrong answer, but I missed it because I was a 30-year-old who thought I knew everything. So I was like no, now I'm 43. And he was like oh, so he keeps teaching. I said why are you still teaching us this? I said this is wrong. So I proceed to try to out-teach him in his class.
Speaker 2:How inappropriate is that. And after class he says you come here. He said hey, don't you ever do that again. You could have talked to me after class. Don't embarrass me in front of the students, Don't undermine my power. I am like no, I know what I'm doing and I missed it.
Speaker 2:And we didn't talk for like 10 years and I really looked up to this guy.
Speaker 2:He was over my program so I still had to, like in the case of, he had to sign my paperwork as I graduate and that's all the interaction we had. And even when people would ask that he know me, me, he'd be like I don't know her and I was like, oh my god, like you do know me, I was literally the out of the 10 people in programming. I was one of the 10, like it wouldn't be 10 people in our class, so you know, and I and I couldn't get it. Then finally we did speak and this was set up by another professor who had us do engagement and I was like I don't know how to work with this guy, Like he can't even stand me. And over time and IFS has helped too I realized that nerdy intellectual piece that wanted to be a perfectionist was absolutely protecting me but was out of order Because I really could have pulled him over to the side and said, hey, they updated everything Because he's been teaching this for years. Like he's 30 years older than me, I think.
Speaker 1:So he's been teaching this for a really long time. So what was it that healed this rupture?
Speaker 2:You know, it was this spontaneous unburdening for him that led to him turning around to me and I asked him. I said what do you need from me after the moment? Because I did my part that he had asked me to do. And I said do you need anything from me Because he's going to go to the airport? And he was like no, he said yes, I do. He said I need you to stay yourself and I need you to keep doing it.
Speaker 2:From a compassionate and curious way, because he had been watching my work and I was like what she said? She had been watching my work and I was like what? So I'm just booing at this point. He said I've seen you, he said, and I was hurt too. And he said this experience was restorative for me.
Speaker 2:He said because in that moment, when we had a rupture, I held on to an inadequacy that you had no clue about and I had been working through that since then and I said, wow, he was like he said you're pointing out, push me in. And I know you didn't mean that. He said, but I've watched you transform over the last 10 years and you went from being like smart ass, wise ass, to like you pause now. And you see, he said don't stop doing that whatever that is he said, because that, too, brought healing to me as well. This is very brilliant man Just was in the wrong DSM. Extremely brilliant guy and he said this experience showed me who I am and all of our work was around the self within a Black church context.
Speaker 2:So the whole three days was around self and the remembering of you to self, and so this work kind of just took over with about a hundred people and the regathering of who we are, which for IFS purposes, would be how do we build self-depart relationship. But that was the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a beautiful story and I could keep talking about many different things, but I really appreciate this conversation. Is there anything else that you want to just say before we finish? Any big messages you want to share or just final thoughts?
Speaker 2:things I didn't would hope that everyone who listens can find space to move at the speed of trust and that's a Stephen Covey book talking about how businesses grow with trust and time. But I take that in turn on. And what does it look like over time for you just to trust you and be in gratitude to all the things that you've had to do, to just be present, to all the things that you've had to do to just be present? And I hope people can gather that and be with it after listening to your podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Margaret. That's beautiful. I really appreciate you and our conversation and I look forward to just keeping in touch.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, I'm so excited, very excited, very excited, I'm out.