121. Is There a Magic Word for Parts Work? | Coaching Call with Courtney (Part 1)

Is there a magic word that makes all your hidden parts just... show up?

In this episode of the Speak Honest Podcast, Jenn Noble takes listeners inside a live, unscripted coaching session with Courtney, a woman who came in asking exactly that question. Together, they move through the real, non-linear process of parts work and Internal Family Systems (IFS), exploring what it looks like to find the parts of yourself you've locked away, meet the protector parts still working overtime to keep you safe, and begin to understand the gap between knowing you're worthy and actually feeling it in your body. From somatic affirmations and the window of tolerance to the sensation of healing that can only be described as moving through molasses, this conversation is raw, honest, and full of moments that will make you whisper "wait… that's me."

You might want to listen if:

• You understand your patterns but still can't stop repeating them
• You've tried affirmations and they feel hollow or disconnected
• You struggle with worthiness or feeling deserving of love
• You've been told to "let go" and have no idea how to actually do that
• Your emotions feel physical: heavy, frozen, or hard to breathe through

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DISCLAIMER:  Speak Honest podcast content is informational, not professional or medical advice. Jenn is an ICF relationship coach, not a licensed therapist. Consult health professionals for specific concerns. Client opinions do not reflect Speak Honest’s stance. We aim for accuracy but are not liable f...

Transcript

Welcome And What To Expect

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello, and welcome to Speak Honest. I am your host and certified relationship coach, Jennifer Noble. It has been my passion for over a decade to help women like you heal. What's been holding you back from having the relationships you deserve? Are you struggling with a relationship where you can't seem to voice your emotions, needs, and boundaries without having it blow up in your face? Then you have found the right podcast, my friend. Get ready for practical tips, empowering truths, and honest conversations. Now, let's dive in. Hello, ladies, and welcome back to another episode of Speak Honest. I am Jen Noble, your go-to relationship coach and author of the best-selling book, Dance of Attachment. And on today's episode, whew, this is a real one, and I mean that in the best way possible. You are going to hear a coaching session with myself and my client Courtney, where we go deep, and I'm talking really deep into parts work, specifically the parts of ourselves that we've tucked away for so long, the ones we've locked behind doors or buried under bricks, whatever creative thing our nervous systems decided to do to keep us safe at the time. And what I love so much about this session is that you're going to witness someone doing the actual work in real time. We talk a lot about self-awareness, and most of us, we have plenty of it to be honest. We know our patterns, we can name them, we can explain them to our therapist in detail. But knowing something and actually feeling it in your body, like actually shifting it in the moment, that is a whole different conversation. And that's exactly what this episode is about. Now, some of the big themes that come up today is parts work, which is part of internal family systems, as well as somatic affirmations, worthiness, and those protector parts that have been doing so much over time to keep us safe and what it actually means to let go or not to let go. Because sometimes we're told to release things, and honestly, maybe we're not ready, and that's okay too. But the core insight I want you to hold on to as you listen is this there is such a real gap between what we know logically and what our body actually does with that information. You can know you're worthy, you can say the words, and your nervous system can still be like, yeah, no, okay, we're not actually doing that today. That gap. It's not really a flaw. It's just where the work begins. So what we're really working on here is learning how to have a relationship with the different parts of ourselves, getting curious with them instead of frustrating. I love to say, get curious, not furious. We don't want to force anything open before it's ready. Just get to know them over time as they let us. And if you're someone who gets it intellectually, but you still find yourself frozen or reacting in the same old ways or wondering why you can't just make yourself feel differently, then this one is definitely for you. And if you want support doing this kind of work in real time with live coaching, a community of women like Courtney who actually get it, and with the tools like the somatic affirmation process you're going to hear about today, that is exactly what we do inside of the Speak Honest Academy. It's not about having it all figured out, and it's not about doing a course you're never going to actually finish, or joining a room with someone just talking at you the entire time. It's about having somewhere to do the work with people and a coach who do it with you. And if that sounds like something you're interested in, then you can find all of the information at speakhonestacademy.com or you can scroll down to the show notes and click on the link there. And as you listen today, I want to invite you to notice what comes up for you. Where do you feel something in your body? What parts of yourself do you recognize in this conversation? You don't have to do anything with it right now. I want you to just notice. Now, let's dive in. Hi,

The Search For Hidden Parts

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Courtney. I'm so glad that you could come on here today. How can I help?

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Yeah, thank you for having me. I kind of have an idea, but I'm not entirely sure. It's more focusing on our different parts and how those where I can find those parts that I've kind of packaged up and hidden away throughout life because at those points in time they weren't necessarily accepted, or I thought they weren't accepted. And is there like a way where you can just broadly kind of go over to find all those parts? Because I think as you go through life, you forget where you put them, and those parts are like part of ourselves. And I wonder, is there like a blanket statement where we can just kind of connect with them all and just have them all pop up?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

And because they're because those were Is there like a magic word where you could say abricadabra and all your parts go wee! That would be lovely. Exactly. Like if you're here, raise your hand. Okay, everyone, listen up. No, that's that's so much. Well, let's explore this a little bit. So when you're talking about parts work, right? We're talking about internal family systems, which was created by Richard Schwartz. And it's this idea that we all have different parts of ourselves. For anyone listening, that's like, what the heck is she talking about parts? Schizophrenia? No, it's not that. It's a it's an actual process that people use in in therapy and coaching to help people process through the different parts of themselves. Now, what I hear you asking is is there's a way for us to find all the parts of ourselves? Because I know you and I have been working together and you've been wanting to find those hidden away parts, right? Those exiled parts. Is that right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yeah. Yeah. Because, and and this is just like, you know, when you go through life, if you have those parts and those moments, like I know, so even though you were like a teenager or growing up when you were like a little kid, like you were in middle school and you you were having a challenging time, and maybe those areas or how your behavior wasn't accepted. And so you took that and you kind of wrapped it up and you you either hid it away or you blocked it in a bricks so it couldn't get out, or you closed it behind a door. Like there's so many different ways, uh, because we're pretty creative, I think, as humans, of where we can hide our parts.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

And so sometimes I don't think we even remember what those parts of ourselves that we have hide. And I think a lot of those come up as limited beliefs. And that I think is something that can make somatic reprocessing so much more difficult. I actually had a little bit of an epiphany today. Um tell me, yeah, please share. So I actually I what I did is I kind of went in a little bit and I was looking specifically for the parts that were associated with my limited belief. So one that I I feel like I'm working on a lot is worthiness, and so finding that part of me that had a wound specifically for worthiness, I found her, and so I kind of brought her back, but I'm also looking at her, and it was so much easier to do the somatic reprocessing because I could have, I I had, I don't know if it was I didn't even have a visual of her actually, because she was behind this, of course. Oftentimes the parts of ourselves are hidden behind like those dark spaces, those scary places that we ourselves don't want to go. And of course, that's where we are. So uh I found her, so I couldn't really even see her. She was basically under like a black veil, but wow, it's like I knew she was there, and so bringing her back, not only was I able to like when I it was like I was talking to her, essentially, when I was doing my somatic reprocessing, and that made it so I feel like I could actually really connect even more that way.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Well, that sounds amazing. Can we explore this a little bit? So, when you're talking about your somatic reprocessing, we're talking about our somatic affirmations. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Okay, great. So again, for anyone listening, somatic affirmations is a triangular modular process that I teach inside of the Speak Honest Academy that helps us rewire our nervous system from the inside out, essentially. So what Courtney is talking about here is being able to find your limited belief. So if I'm hearing correctly, yours is I am unworthy, right? Because you mentioned worthiness. So then we find our empowering belief. So yours is I am worthy. Well, like what does that mean, right? It's so hard for people because the next step, one of the hardest steps, is we have to find evidence. And people are like, well, how are we supposed to find evidence? I don't think I'm worthy. So how am I even supposed to find this kind of evidence? And so what I'm interested at is I know you and I have been working with each other for well, a year or more now. I yeah, a couple a year and a half or so. So that's great. And where were you finding your resistance to doing your somatic affirmations? This is again, right, with this practice, I mentioned this is an everyday process for us to be doing. This is like getting our drink, our water in. This is like being able to get our steps in for the day. And that's fine if we don't do it. We don't have to be perfect. But you mentioned you've been having a block. So talk me through that block.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Uh definitely. So I think it's more my block is actually more of getting yourself to feel those emotions. Cause like when you're doing somatic reprocessing, you're not only you're holding that part of yourself where you remember yourself feeling worthy. And sometimes our idea of what worthy is actually different than what we thought it was. So I for me, I think it was like a couple of things. Um, worthy for me was more like getting the feeling of what it feels like to be worthy. Because worthy is such a large statement. You can have it associated with so many different things. Because I know I also have another one of worthy of being loved. And then because it was interesting before, I know we were talking before about um reliable, feeling reliable. Me being a perfectionist, I felt that reliable meant that you had to go above and beyond. And that wasn't that's not a really realistic thing that a lot of people have for that feeling of what is reliable. Sometimes reliable is just showing up.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

I mean, it is just showing, but not sometimes. Like that's what reliable is, right? It's not about going above and beyond. So, so talk me back to worthy. So, where were you getting blocked in terms of doing your somatic affirmations? You said feeling it. So right now, you're trying to say, I am worthy. And in in this work we do together, it's like, tell me about a time when you felt that feeling inside of you where you were worthy. Now, I will also say I think I am worthy is one of the hardest ones to do.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

It is.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Because it's an inherent like sense of self.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Oh, okay, that explains it. And it's also that I feel like what does it feel to be worthy? Because you're in so many different parts of throughout life, or just throughout the day where you have emotions that are at different levels. So different levels of worthiness, different levels of feeling are, or is that feeling even worthiness?

Somatic Affirmations And Worthiness

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Like, what is that feeling that is worthiness?

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah, and that's where my question to you would be what does worthy mean to you?

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Honestly, that's a hard question to answer.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

And can I can I stop us down there? Yeah. If we can't answer what worthy means to us, then how do we know we are worthy? Exactly. We've put ourselves exactly, yeah. We've put ourselves, and this is a part of ourselves that does it, right? Speaking of parts work, we've put ourselves into this kind of unwinnable loop of, well, I'm not worthy. Great. Well, what does worthy mean? I don't know. Well, then how do you know you're not worthy? Like, how do you know you are worthy? How do you know this is part of those SMART goals we talk about, right? We want them to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. So, how do you measure worth?

SPEAKER_02 12:52

And you know what's interesting for me, what I was doing, it I at this point, I don't think I was necessarily even actually channeling the feeling. I'm intuitively more emotional. So, like I I intuit, I feel my emotions before I think logically. And so I think by having that other that visual of her as a part of me that I'm talking to, by telling them I'm worthy, I can get a better grasp of it. But I can all it's also not only am I like telling myself something that I probably wanted to hear a lot back then growing up, but it's also it's almost like it's intangible. And at the same time, I feel like worthy is acceptance. Worthy is acceptance. I love it. But it it's it's more like that. Not just an acceptance, it's like an acceptance of your existence to a degree.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

You are just worthy to exist. Yeah. By just existing, you are worthy.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

That's actually where I want to go. That's where I want to bring. Because I I feel like that's how it should be essentially. Like when babies are firstborn, like you are worthy just to exist by being who you are.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Yeah. Imagine if we just decided to choose which baby got gets help in a hospital and which one doesn't, based on their worthiness. Wait a second. No, when you look at babies, they are all innocent, they are all equal, right? Of course, yes, there's some social aspects to that, which you know are problems. But generally speaking, that's how that works.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

But I think a lot of it is also connection. Like some people, just like some people, like some babies or so, you're gonna have more of a connection with, and that like you're more attuned to them, too, is I think what I'm kind of going with. And I feel like with that attunement, you can understand them more. So I think it's also becoming more attuned with yourself.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Yeah. So let's let's dive into I am worthy. And let's look at sometimes with when we're dealing with I am worthy, we can look at trying to break it down into I am worthy of what? I am worthy of love, I am worthy of a job, I'm worthy of friends. What what comes up biggest for you?

SPEAKER_02 15:22

So what was interesting is I I want honestly, I was just excited because the fact that I was able to to find this part of me that doesn't feel worthy and to like to talk with her and basically say, like, you are worthy in all these areas of life. And then um, oh, I was yawning like crazy.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Oh, I love you're yawning. Oh, that's so good. That's such a somatic uh response to that.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Hugually, it's almost like every single one that I did, it was like yawning. And I wasn't able to do that before. I wasn't able to feel that connection, and so that's what I was having trouble with. That's what I think what the block was. Like I wasn't having that connection with myself. And so, but also what was interesting is that when I brought her back, like I could actually see her. There were parts of her that were missing, and even though she's a part of me, there were parts of her that were missing. Yeah. And so, and I know one of those parts, because like you have worthy in general, but you also have offshoots of worthy, like I am worthy of being loved. I know that was another part that was missing, so I found that part too while I was over there and I brought them together and I tried to put them back together. And so, but there's still other parts of her that are missing. Like I can see her eyes, her nose, but there's no mouth to speak of. And I have no idea what part that would be.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

And that's kind of where your original question comes in of like, is there a magic word for us to add for cadabra, her parts to her face? And I love that. And obviously, you know, my answer is gonna be no, sorry, of course. But that being said, here's why: because we actually wouldn't want us, our bodies, to pull up every single part of ourselves that's been hidden away because that would be overwhelming, right? So in us out of our bodies, we have a thing called a window of tolerance, and that's where we want to be able to keep our healing in at all times. That's why oftentimes people go into certain types of healing modalities and it's just too much for them. And they get into these states of either hyper-arousal or hypo-arousal, which is basically just activated or deactivated, right? It's basically getting anxious or shutting down.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

That makes that makes sense. That actually, I think also goes into what you talked about about how when you have those different parts that you're working on yourself to do somatic reprocessing, you have different degrees of how intense certain limited beliefs are. And that I remember you telling me about how you it's important to be able to, if the belief is so big and so all-encompassing, to kind of work at it through little bits uh and kind of whittle it down to a smaller, more manageable one where you can do later on.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Exactly. Because oftentimes I like always visualizing a garden. So you might want to be able to get down to the biggest, deepest root that you want to pull out. But if you have all these other little weeds that are in your way, you need to get those first. And there's nothing, it's so funny because our brains will be like, oh, that's like useless or wasteless, or it's it's not efficient. It's like, no, it's actually incredibly efficient because it also builds up, let's look at it as calluses, right? It builds up our ability to pull weeds and then get our fingers dirty and then we get it better. Or another great analogy is running. You're not just gonna get up out of bed and go run a marathon, right? Your nipples will be chafing, you'll have blisters all over your feet. Like, this is not good, guys. We build, we build our stamina.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

And that's you would die by the end of it. You would probably not make it through it, and you would feel like you were hit by a truck afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

But

Healing Pace And Window Of Tolerance

SPEAKER_00 19:00

no, exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

And also going back to your garden analogy, maybe it's good too, because like the ones that you did work on previously, you give them a time to grow and to take root and to actually flourish. Versus if you pulled them all out, you would probably raise the entire garden bed.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Yeah, and then you would probably lose. I mean, you could. Some people would just decide to just completely, you know, bulldoze the entire garden, but you're gonna lose all the beautiful parts of yourself as well if you do that. And that's what, honestly, if I'm being very honest for some people, that's what medication kind of comes in and does. It'll just, and that's sometimes we have to, and that's okay. It's just they come in and they just bulldoze the whole thing away and they just lose themselves to self. Tell me more about that. There's certain, I'm I'm a proponent for medication. It has helped save my life in a lot of ways. I also can see how, as a medical society, we rely on it very heavily instead of working from the inside out. I often call call call medicine like a band-aid. It's a beautiful, wonderful band-aid. If you are in the middle of bleeding out, I'm not gonna sit there and say using a turtiquet with a belt is not a good idea. Of course it is. Like we have, we have to put gauze, we have to put bandages on anything that's bleeding out. We have to. That's if not, you die. Like that's what medication should be for. But if you've had this gauze on your, you know, wound for years and years and years and years, maybe we should look into actually maybe doing some surgery to clean it out. How could we heal it better? Right. Let's actually look at now what we can do. Once we get the triage done, which is often what medicine can be used for, we could do the rest. But when that comes in, we take the medication, maybe we take our SSRIs or we take our anti-anxiety beds or whatever else that we need. Sometimes people can lose a sense of themselves. They can lose their personality, they can lose what brings them joy. And so they take away the good, beautiful flowers along with the bad. It's uh it's like an antibiotic. I assume that you lose the good and the bad. If you are taking an antibiotic, even doctors nowadays are showing, oh, you should probably also take a probiotic, you know, within a couple hours after, or maybe after your session is done, to rebuild back up your good bacteria. Because an antibiotic comes in and just goes, whoosh yeah, wipes everything out essentially.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Take it all down, which is why you can actually develop other uh conditions like um canada albicins, which is basically a normal bacteria flora that you have, but because you wiped out pretty much everything that was keeping that one in check.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Exactly. So if those are key, and then think about this: if all of a sudden we just bring in medicine, we don't have any goals to replant beautiful flowers, and we just come in and we bulldoze, what do you think's gonna grow back up there again?

SPEAKER_02 21:42

I see. You have to have those little moments of discomfort and pain where you find those limited beliefs in order to find them and to see what you need to work on versus if you numb out your entire feelings and what you're going through, you're not gonna ever really grow with that. No.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

But then and then And that's that part is so important. And also, I don't want to go too much because then people are like, I gotta go hard. I gotta go do D and D R right now. I uh, you know, I gotta, I gotta heal through this. I gotta pull the band-aid off. And it's like also not a good idea all the time. Sometimes we need to take it slow. That's what the window of tolerance is all about. So looking at the window of tolerance and then talking about your parts, I would get to a place where you're more at ease with allowing your parts to come up when they're ready. So let's say you're taking a moment to talk to a part of yourself and you're like, maybe this worthy part of you, this this little girl inside of you that felt unworthy. Is that little girl a right terminology, or is there something that she's actually she's kind of like? I noticed your face when I said that. I was like, wait a second. She's not a little girl. She's kind of young, young woman?

SPEAKER_02 22:52

Yeah, I would go for that even.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Okay. This is so this young woman inside of you, and she feels unworthy, and you're helping her, and there's parts, and you could just say, Oh, okay, well, I noticed there's still parts of you that are missing. When you're ready, I would love to get to know them. Or maybe I can help you find them. Which one sounds more right for you? Does she know they're missing?

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Oh, that's good. Like have that simple conversation. Like, do you think that's a good idea?

SPEAKER_00 23:13

I love how you said simple conversation. It is, it's so simple, but it's so difficult at the same time, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 23:18

I mean, you wouldn't even necessarily think to ask, like, hey, um, you're missing your mouth.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Um, can we can we talk about like like does she know she's missing her mouth right now, right? But then how can you communicate with someone if they're missing their mouth? Uh lots of ways. We've got signal, sign language, written word, maybe telepath. Like it's this is your person. So maybe telepathy.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Oh, damn. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

We do she can talk to us in the clouds. The fun part about visualization and creativity. And you have a very vivid imagination, which makes this work very fun, personally, for I think sometimes both of us. But so if anyone else is sitting out there right now and they're like, oh my God, her words are so beautiful. Trust me, I get it. Courtney has a very vivid imagination. It's beautiful, it's wonderful. If yours is not that way, you are not broken or wrong, everyone has to learn their own way of healing, which is why we work through this.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

That's very kind of you. That's also kind of why it's so challenging to find those different parts. Yeah, so speak of cons. You're very creative and I don't know, even know how to get through find the parts that I've vaporized myself.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

I do love, I know that is true. Sometimes those creative parts of us that there's a part of you that is creative and visual, but also, yeah, sometimes she gets a little bit too into the weeds of like, oh, but this has to be this way or something.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

But not only that, you also have those parts the with yourself and you're like, I want to find those parts. Like, I want to do it.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

And then your body or your other parts are telling you, like, yeah, no, we're we're gonna we're gonna stay right here. Can I can I stop us down there?

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Tell me about that part that wants to find them.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Oh, so that's a part of myself as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

The fixer, the if we can find them, if we can see them, we can we can save them and we can save ourselves. Save them and then we can save ourselves. Because I think there's a little bit of guilt there that I have taken these parts of myself and because other people didn't find them convenient at the time. Or I ended up getting trouble in trouble because of them and being in pain because of that. I I took those parts and I hid them away.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

But I also find what is fascinating is that even those parts, it's like your body remembers. Because even those parts that I have put away when I was like in high school and middle school, and it's been a long time since then. Like, I actually don't necessarily remember the form that I put them away in. But I still remember that one time where we had that one session where we talked about and it actually came back in exactly the form that I put it in that I forgot about. I'm like, oh my god, like I remember this. It was like in the form of baseball. Oh wow. And I was like, what the hell? I don't even like baseball. Yeah. Why? And so it's like your body remembers those parts exactly almost how they were when you first put them away.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Let me I want to challenge one thing that I'm hearing you say. I keep hearing you

Medication As Relief And Numbing

SPEAKER_00 26:30

say, I put them away. I'm sensing a part of you put them away. Can we explore if we can unblend you away from that part?

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Okay, that would be.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Our true self, our soul, would never hide anything away, right? So there was a part of you that was trying to protect you.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

And if it hid these parts of you away, then you could stay safer. Does that sound right?

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Oh, that does sound. Yeah. Because I because I was standing up for myself.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Was considered um shot down from that.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

God forbid a girl stand up for herself, right? Yeah. And this part of you, she's smart. She was like, no, no, no, we can't have this. We can't have Courtney defending herself like this. We need to shut this down. We are going to lock them away right now. Can we ask that part? If I wanna I want to ask you a genuine question right now. This part that wants to find them and and help them, is this the same or a different part than the one who hid them away? Different. Great. Okay, so we've got these two parts. One that wants to find them and save them. Now the other part that wants to keep like already locked them away, just do they still are they fighting this? Do they still want to keep them locked away? Or is she understanding it's time for them to come out?

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Uh she's still kind of there's like definitely some like resistance.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Beautiful. But it's interesting too. It's like um, it more like it just feels so much more heavy. Talk me through that. It's almost like they're saying like they need to be locked away. They need to be locked away.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Why? Can I talk to that part of you? Would that be okay? Does she feel comfortable speaking with me right now? Sure. Okay. Why do they need to be locked away?

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Because they're bad. They were kind of conforming.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Yeah. You're right. You know what? I'd like to say this part of you. Thank you for keeping Courtney safe. Thank you for all the work that you did in helping these parts be somewhere that wouldn't affect Courtney in that moment. But it's not helping Courtney anymore. Would it be okay when you're ready to start maybe letting a couple of these out? You could maybe help us find them.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

It almost like she feels like she doesn't have control over that anymore. Like she doesn't necessarily have control about she's like, this is out of my jurisdiction, guys. It's like she doesn't have control about like letting go or anything. Okay. Actually, which is really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

No, that's good to know. Is there any way that she would like to help us, or is she just I think she's the one who needs help? Okay. Yeah, what kind of help does she want? How do I let go? How do you let go? Let go of what, sweetheart?

SPEAKER_02 29:40

I guess the word that comes up is everything.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Let go of everything.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

That's a big, big and I think I I I hear that a lot too. Um I I think I'm often being kind of like told you need to learn to let things go. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Yeah, so it's easier for other people if you don't hold them accountable, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Yeah. Or it's like you focus on something.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

What if I want to encourage this part of you to hold on as tight as you can? Would she be okay with that?

SPEAKER_02 30:17

She's kind of surprised. Like, what?

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Baby girl, you don't have to let go of anything you don't want to let go of.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

She's like, what am I supposed to do with this?

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Oh, she's sassy. I like what am I supposed to do with this then? I mean, if your whole life has existed to try to let go, and I just told you you didn't have to anymore, then girl, go to the sun, go to the beach, go get go see a sunset, enjoy your life. You don't have to do anything. What do you want to do?

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Oh, interesting. It's like it feels kind of like hard and heavy, and it's almost like you're going through molasses. Like slow, it's like everything is kind of just you're trying to push yourself through this heavy feel that kind of almost hard to breathe through.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

How are you feeling right now?

SPEAKER_02 31:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Okay. This molasses feeling is a part of you going through it right now or is your whole body going through it right now?

SPEAKER_02 31:38

This is a part. Which part that same part. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

No. What does she need right now? Just as we're kind of wrapping up for today, I just want to know like, is there a safe space she could be put into right now where she doesn't have to stay in molasses? Or does she want the molasses? I want to double check that she gets what she wants.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

I think she wants to try and get out of the molasses. She she wants to try and get through this solid, but then how can you have a same part of yourself with all these different things in one part?

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Yeah, that's a good question. I let's answer that after we find a safe space for this part of yourself. So, where does she want to? Can I like reach out a hand and help her out of the molasses and maybe put her onto like a stone

Protector Parts And The Fixer

SPEAKER_00 32:30

on the side? What does she need?

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Interesting. She was thinking, like, is that possible?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

So that she doesn't necessarily have to be in that molasses.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

She can go back in if she wants to, but we can also help her out right now.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

She would rather get out. Okay. It's almost like I think what that is, I think what that molasses is actually is the whole concept of letting go. Or like to how to because she's like, how do I let things go? It's like I don't understand how. And so I think she's kind of stuck in that.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Well, and the truth of the matter is she might have to get back into the molasses, and she might have to work through whatever it is that needs to be worked through to get to the other end of her path, and that's okay. But for right now, she can take a break if she wants to. If she wants to. If she wants to stay in the molasses, that's okay. But if she'd like to come out, sit on the side, rest a little bit, we'll get her some water. The next time we go back in, we'll come back into the molasses and we'll finish her journey. I I pulled her out already.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

She's got her collapsed on the ground.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Let's put a little blanket around her. Let's give her some water. Make sure she feels safe, and then we'll kind of come back up to the surface and wrap up and answer any last-minute questions.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Yeah, I think she feels at fault and she feels blame, and that's probably why.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Oh, sweetheart, I get that so much. It's okay. She was doing the best she could with the information she had at the time. She protected you in so many ways. She is your biggest protector and supporter. She is at no fault right now. She's worked her ass off to keep you safe. And I'm so, so happy that you have her.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Interesting, a part of me kind of went up and was like, no, she's not. I mean, like, no, I'm not happy.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

You don't have to for you, it's a lot for me. At looking inward, I can see how just passionate she was to protect you.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Interesting that I can't see that as much.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

It's okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

It's hard. You have a lot going on in your head. You it's a lot. But it's like I remember the passion for when it was actually she still is, probably showing a lot of passion and trying to keep and hold on to that.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

It's really hard to see when people are trying to help us. Hell, like, I don't want my personal trainer yelling at me to like go faster. And I'm like telling him to shut up. But I know he's doing it for my best. But I still want him to shut the hell up. Like, you know, like that that's it's that. But as we come back up to the surface, I just want you to check in with your body. Just check in with your with your soma right now, like your external physical, physiological body. Just does anything need any uh attention? Just make sure you feel safe to come back up and be more intellectual again.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

I wonder if that was the part that it just feels exhausted. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Could be. Oh, that makes so much sense. Do you have such an exhaustive part, remember?

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

Yeah. Can imagine trying to just walk through molasses at all times. It's just like it's it's both infuriating and like I can feel this, like not just that.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Yeah, and not just that, but like if you are and yourself trying to work through these parts and to heal these parts and to talk with them, and it's unearthing them, you're going against what that protective part is doing.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

And so that exhaustion may be just them um trying to hold on, and you're telling them to let go, and they're like, I have no idea how to let go.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

The fun part about getting to know our parts, it's a bit like um, it's a bit like running a management or like corporate. Everyone's gonna have a lot of ideas about how things should be run. And eventually we're gonna have to just be the big CEO of our bodies and say, guys, this is what we're working on today. So as I say that, I actually would like to know, Courtney, what would you like to work on this week? This week. Like what's your homework going to be after this conversation so we can keep implementing this?

SPEAKER_02 37:06

I think my what I'm going to do actually is to have more conversations with myself and the different parts of me and just kind of get to know to understand.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Get to know and to get to understand them. Beautiful. Not to rush them, not to pull them out if they're not ready, not to put them away, if they're not ready, not to release anything, just to get to know them and to understand them. So the next time we talk, maybe we can talk to a couple more parts of you that have come up throughout this process. How does that sound?

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Yeah, that sounds good. And I'm I'm gonna admit I probably will try and talk to them. Like, let's do this.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Oh no, I'm an absolute, because you're not perfect. Yes, exactly. Like that's trust me. Sometimes I still talk to my parts, and I'm like, you just shit down there and you should shut the fuck up right now. We don't have time for you right now, part. Oh my gosh, I love you. And then I'm about to go back and be like, I'm so sorry I talked to you that way. It's like I'm talking to my own son. It's like, I'm so sorry I talked to you that way. That was unprofessional and uncalled for. Please need to be apologize to my parts.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

Yes, apologizing to yourselves. Yeah, absolutely. That's huge. We're we're not perfect. And we we focus so much on apologizing to other people that we forget to apologize to ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

You forget to, oh, what a beautiful way to wrap us up. Apologize to yourselves today. That's beautiful. All right, Courtney. I'll wrap us up there. Is this a good place for us to wrap up right now? Beautiful. All right, well, I will speak with you next week. Take care.

Molasses Feeling And Gentle Wrap-Up

SPEAKER_00 38:42

That was such a beautiful session with Courtney. Just wow. And I just want to take a moment to acknowledge what she actually did in there because she came in with a question that a lot of us have. Is there a magic word? Is there some kind of Avricadabra that can make all of your hidden parts just whoop magically show up? And instead of getting the answer that she wanted, because there isn't one, right? She stayed in the conversation anyway. She went looking for a part of herself that felt unworthy. And she found her. She couldn't even fully see her. She was under this dark veil, but she knew she was there and she stayed with her. And that is the work. That is what counts. And it wasn't neat and tidy. And there was a moment where Courtney was trying to describe, you know, what she was feeling. And the only word she had for it was molasses. Like she was trying to move through something thick and heavy and hard to breathe through. And that right there, that is her nervous system talking. And she stayed with it. She let that part of herself be pulled out of the molasses, wrapped in a blanket, and given some water. I just love that visualization so much. Because this is what healing actually looks like: tending to the parts of yourself that are exhausted from holding on for that long, showing up even when the path forward feels slow and heavy. Now, one of the things I really want to highlight is this idea of noticing and staying present. Because Courtney had this really honest moment where she realized she couldn't even define what worthy meant to her. And we got more curious about it together because when you can start to define what worthy actually feels like for you, you begin to recognize it when it shows up. And now that pause right there, that willingness to look at it, whew, that right there is where everything started to open up. Because your emotions are giving you something to work with. They are information. And when Courtney felt that heaviness, that molasses feeling, that was her nervous system communicating to her. That protective part was saying, I don't know how to let go. I've never been shown how. She felt resistance to bringing her parts back out, and that was also meaningful too, because that part had been keeping her safe for years. She needed to be met with patience and with curiosity and with care. It's so different than meeting it with exhaustion and impatience and hurry, hurry, hurry, get it over with. And even the exhaustion that came up near the end, that was her body telling her something important. That this is what it feels like when one part of you is reaching towards healing and another part is holding on with everything she's got. All of it was worth listening to, and all of it was pointing somewhere, and that's really the core of what we worked through today. Things started to shift for her when she got genuinely curious about that part that was stuck and extended some compassion to that part of her instead of judgment or shame. And that is the beautiful part. Now, for those of you that are listening, who are coaches, or maybe you're just paying extra attention to how this conversation unfolded, I want to talk to you for a second. Now, you might have noticed that a few moments came up where I slowed things down. Like when Courtney kept saying, I put them away. I kind of stopped her there, didn't I? Because finding that distinction, that a protective part of her did what she thought was what she had to do to keep Courtney safe, that reframe carries a lot of weight. It shifts the whole conversation she has with that part. Do you guys kind of see how that worked? Another part I want to bring up is when I asked her whether the part that wanted to find and save everything was the same part or a different one than the one who hid them. Now, this part is important in parts work because getting specific like that really matters. We also don't want to assume. I could have assumed they were the same part. I could have assumed they were two different parts, but it's not about me. It's not about me as the coach or as the facilitator who is helping this client through this moment. We want to keep getting curious and keep asking questions. Is this the same part? Is it a different part? Are there three parts? Are there four parts? It doesn't matter because what we want to do is we want to actually meet each part individually and try not to collapse in together if we're not able to. And then also, there was a moment near the end where I told that exhaustive protective part, you don't have to let go of everything you don't want to let go of. Now, I think this part was really important because oftentimes, as coaches and practitioners, it's almost like our goal to get our clients to let go of stuff as quickly as possible so they can heal and move on and everything is better. But sometimes the most healing thing that we can offer as someone holding space for our clients is the permission to stop fighting so hard. I think that part is so important. So the goal is to help someone build a genuinely different relationship with themselves inside the moment. And that just takes time and patience as a coach. And I know it takes a whole lot of trust in the process. So I'm glad that I got to talk to you through all of this right now. Now, if you are listening and you are thinking, oh my God, I know exactly what that molasses feeling is. I know what it's like to have a partner. Of me that's just exhausted from holding on and doesn't know how to stop. I just want you to know that you're not behind and you're definitely not broken. You are someone whose protective parts did a really, really good job for a really long time, and I'm so proud of those parts. And the thing is, is now we're gently starting to let them rest. And that's exactly what we work on inside of the Speak Honest Academy. We do real time, real coaching. You get a community of women who are sitting in the thick of it with you together, just like Courtney did today, moving through the patterns, building new responses, and having support while you do it. Now, if you've ever been thinking about joining, you can head over to speakhonestacademy.com or you can scroll down and click on the link in the show notes. I would love to see you in there. Now, for your takeaway for this week, think about one part of yourself that you've been a little impatient with lately. We all have one. I can think right now, and myself another one that I have. Maybe she keeps overreacting. Maybe this part of you shuts down, or maybe she feels stuck in molasses. I just want you to try asking her what she needs. Even if she can't answer yet, that's okay. Even if she's still under that dark veil, just let her know you see her. And as Courtney so beautifully said at the end, apologize to yourself today. We spend so much time apologizing to other people, and we forget to turn that same grace inward. Let's start there. That one shift alone can change everything. All right, ladies, I'll speak with you all next week. Take care. As we wrap up today's conversation, always remember that healing is a journey, not a destination. And it is an honor to be a part of your healing journey. If you want to dig deeper into the topics we cover today, be sure to head over to our show notes where you can find all of the valuable information mentioned in today's episode right there. And please remember to rate, review, and subscribe if you enjoyed today's podcast. Your feedback means the world to us and helps others discover our podcast. Until next time, remember to speak up and speak honest.