How Internal Family Systems Turns Inner Chaos Into Calm

Your mind isn’t the enemy, even when it feels like it. We sit down with Gregg Bossen from Atlanta to unpack how Internal Family Systems (IFS) turned decades of inner chaos into something he can finally live with and lead. After years of therapy and a painful marriage ending that sent him into anxiety, insomnia, and a frightening spiral, Gregg found a different approach: stop fighting the voices and start listening to them.

Gregg breaks down IFS in clear, human terms: the exiled younger parts holding raw pain, the protector parts that built “one job” strategies to keep him safe, and the core Self that can reparent the whole system with calm and compassion. We talk about why cognitive counter-statements can become a mental tug-of-war, and why welcoming a part with “I love you, I hear you” can actually quiet the nervous system. He shares practical tools like asking “Who’s talking right now?” plus naming parts and even giving them images, including “George” the comparative voice and “Belle” the worrier.

We also go deeper into what healing really looks like over time: earning protectors’ trust, feeling safe without needing external validation, and facing shame tied to identity and worthiness in relationships. We end with a fascinating preview on using ChatGPT for journaling and reflection as a feedback tool while staying grounded in professional mental health support.

If this story gives you hope, subscribe, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find Relationship Blueprint. What inner “part” do you notice showing up most lately?

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome back, everybody, to the Relationship Blueprint, where you unlock your power of connection. And today I have with me someone named Greg Boston, and he's from Atlanta. And we met through a mutual friend, Dr. Wendy Palmer Patterson. And Wendy called me and said, You have to have Greg on your show because Greg has been with me a long time and has grown so much, but especially in the last few years, he's been doing IFS, which is internal family systems developed by Dr. Richard Swartz. And he's going to tell us more about that. But she was so excited about your journey. And so I would love to introduce you to everyone and thank you for being here, Greg. Greg Bosson.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Well, thank you very much. I appreciate you uh having me. I I didn't know she was a doctor. I didn't know Wendy was a doctor.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

She has been working on this doctoral program for about four years.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yes, she has a doctorate uh and in its specialty in emagotherapy, the first doctoral program in the world.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

And oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

It began in South Korea by a man named J O who started a university in California because he really wanted people to be highly credentialed to do the work. And so Wendy was one of the first graduates, and she's teaching there now, too.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Oh wow. Wow. Yeah. No, I've I when uh in my last couple of relationships, I I uh learned a lot about Imago from her and and another therapist that I saw. Wendy's the therapist's therapist, like other therapists go to Wendy. She's like, uh where I live in Atlanta, you know, she's like a goddess. Like everybody knows her. Everybody knows her.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Wendy is my therapist and my friend and my colleague, and I agree a hundred percent. She's the therapist therapist. And that's when people say to me, like, who do you recommend? And I just, it's

A Lifetime Of Seeking Healing

SPEAKER_00 2:00

really hard to find anybody like her.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah, it's actually hard to find a good therapist, to be completely honest with you. It's uh it's uh that I've probably been to I've probably been to at least 10 therapists over my life. I've been going to therapy for, I mean, I guess my first therapist was after my first relationship ended when I was 21 and I'm 61 now. Oh and so I've been going to therapy in one form or another for the last 40 years. I've also done any other modality that you could possibly think of. You know, I've been to spiritual healers, I've done Reiki, I've done uh I've done colonics. You know, I've been to psychologists, I've been to psychiatrists, uh, you know, spiritual healers. I mean, you just whatever modality you can think of. I've I've I've been there, yoga, just whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

But you know what? I I I love that you've done all that. I would call you a seeker, you know, and is seeking the journey is the journey is a big journey, and then not to seek seems a little confusing to me that people don't do what you've done.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Well, I agree. I mean, I do, I do, I do like the internal journey that at least I've needed to go on, you know, primarily because of stuff that happened to me uh when I was a child, that kind of I built a way of living in the world without actually healing the child, you know. And that way of living in the world has worked really, really well and given me uh, I guess externally, you know, I could present as a very successful person. But of course, as you know, if you don't, if you don't really get into the depths of the core issues, then those issues come out in other ways. They come out side sideways and they end up affecting you. And you end up with a lot of extremely successful people that are really, really unhappy.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

You're so right. I mean, how many, yeah, I mean, but when they say money doesn't buy happiness, I think it's an understatement because you're so right that we learn a lot of coping skills and adaptive behaviors that really serve us to survive childhood and they work and then they get reinforced in our society and in our in our prospective businesses. But if internally we're we're really dealing with that chronic unhappiness and unrest, it's really for for what reason. So I love that you've tried all these things, but you've said that in the last couple of years, you've really made amazing, remarkable recovery through IFS. And we're gonna say it again for our listeners. IFS is internal family systems. So tell us a little bit about how you found IFS, why IFS, you have Wendy, the therapist of the goddess of Atlanta and maybe the world, as far as I'm concerned, in as a therapist. Tell us how you uh came across IFS.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Sure. One thing I I do want to start with, and this is just kind of like my own sort of thing, you know, if anybody watches this, there's this idea of like uh when you hear somebody speak, they're like, oh, I've found the answer. So listen to me, and this is what the answer is. And it's like, so I guess I just want to preface this with a disclaimer of, you know, this is something that's working for for me. And uh, does it necessarily mean that it's the right answer for everybody? Not necessarily, probably not. So I just I like the idea of just kind of putting that out there at the beginning. This is what's worked for me. And to the extent that you can get something out of it, I think that would be amazing.

Marriage Betrayal And Collapse

SPEAKER_01 5:33

I was in a relationship for uh 10 years with somebody who and uh I'm gay, and uh, this gentleman is a lot younger than me. And so we didn't get married for 10 years, primarily because I he was a lot younger than me, and I wanted to make sure that he was gonna be old enough to where he was actually ready to settle down.

unknown 5:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Uh and we uh we got married, and then uh four months after we got married, he told me that he wanted out of the relationship of the marriage. And I don't want to go into the details of the betrayal, which is shocking, but the point is that I fell apart again, uh, which throughout my life I've had periods where I have been uh I've fallen apart and I've sought therapy. A lot of it had to do with relationships, either wanting to be in one or being upset after getting out of one, which has to do with being alone and not feeling safe in the world, which which has to do with my childhood. And so uh the therapist that I was seeing at the time, his name is Ulester, and he sees Wendy as well. And uh he had discovered internal family systems, IFS, and so he began uh teaching me. So that was probably in we got married in October of 2023, in April of 2024 is when uh my marriage was gonna be over, but even before then I knew. So it really started in like December of 23, January of 24 is when I started. And here we are in June of 26. And uh the progress that I've made over 24, 25, and now halfway to 26 is I I I it's like 80 to 85 percent of this healing that has occurred in my life has occurred in just in the last two and a half years, as opposed to the previous 38 years of therapy. Wow, to be completely honest with you.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

So I so I learned it from I I started learning it from him. But internal family systems is uh you can high you can have a therapist that's an internal family systems therapist, but a lot of it is internal work and work you do on yourself. It's like being your own therapist in a way. And uh does that answer your question? Because without going into detail about it, it does.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

I and then what I love that you said that is really at the heart of the relationship blueprint is that my the core of this podcast is about that every problem, at the heart of every problem we have is a broken relationship, whether it's with ourselves or that doesn't exist. And it is such a personal discovery journey. So I love your story that you've been on this quest as a seeker for a really long time, but that when you were working with your therapist in Atlanta, who also sees Wendy, but this introduction to IFS was really a new beginning for you of really going deeper inside what was really getting in the way of you healing. And so when we talk about these lost parts, a Mago is also this is a a big tenet of the meta theory is our lost parts, the hidden self, the denied self, and the lost self. And so, you know, I'm very familiar with that work and actually doing I'm doing a 30-day challenge till I put it in chat. Tell me 30, tell me 10 brutal truths about myself that I do not know and don't sugarcoat it.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Yeah. Wow. And it created this 30-day journal entry, which has been a very deep dive, but it's the same kind of thing where you're I'm really looking at these lost parts and then also really reframing them, you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

So when you started this work, tell us about some of the examples. We talked briefly yesterday. What's one example that you would give that you would say, this is how I began this, this is how I saw things, and this is where I am now.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

All right. So, all right. So I'm gonna try and explain kind of, I guess what through this, I think I'll give you an explanation of it. This is my explanation

Finding Internal Family Systems

SPEAKER_01 9:45

of how of what IFS is, internal family systems, and how it differs from pretty much every other modality that I've looked at. In order to explain this, I guess I would have to say a little bit about myself. You know, we I have uh, I guess there are the two kind of main aspects of my, I guess, my uh my uh challenges growing up is one, I was very neglected as a child for a number of reasons. So I grew up feeling extremely unsafe and uh, you know, uh in the world because I was I was just kind of left alone as a very young child for I I really had no parenting whatsoever. It was almost as if I grew up an orphan. And I was extremely sensitive and scared as a child. And there were many situations where I just felt completely uh unsafe. And uh so that's kind of one aspect of of me. And as a result, I ended up like, I have to have somebody in order to feel safe. Sure. So but but when you're when you're uh a little kid, four years old, let's say, and you're literally physically left alone and you're crying for somebody to come to you and nobody comes to you, you don't really have the ability to to feel those feelings, and they're so incredibly painful that it would kill you almost to experience them at that young age. And so that initial pain inside, that's uh what IFS calls that is a is they call it an an exile, which I've never really liked that term, but it's it's your little it's your little one, it's the core, like a little one of who you are, uh, your little child. And uh that child, the pain is not feelable, it's too much. Right. And so then other, I'll call it, you could call it pieces of your personality. IFS calls it parts. I refer to them as really other little children that come on board and say, okay, I'm gonna protect this child and I'm gonna figure out a way to protect this child. But the they're protectors, but they essentially are little children. And so a prote a protector might say, Well, in order for you to feel not alone, you look around the little child, not the the protector child will look around and say, Well, okay, it looks like if you're with a group of people that are popular, then you're not alone and therefore you're valued, something like that. And so what I'm gonna do as a child is I'm gonna make sure that you're always with whatever is considered the popular group in the school yard or in elementary school or in high school or in college or at the gay bar or in a any kind of friend group. My point is that little child that's saying you have to go be there in order to feel valued, in order to feel safe. You have to be with that group. That child never, never goes away. That child is protecting that little one who was initially hurt. And that that that that protector kind of a his child doesn't really know how to parent, so he's kind of like a one-trick pony. And so, like, this is my thing, this is what I do. I make sure that you are like where the cool people are. And so, for a lot of my life, that child ran me. Now, the way that typical therapy would think about that child is they wouldn't think of it as a separate entity. What typically the child would be saying something like, You can't stay home tonight, you have to go to the gay bar because that's where the cool people are. And so if you don't do that, then you're not cool. Well, typical therapy for years would call that a negative voice. And so you would need to like, there's all kinds of, and and that negative, it's upsetting to you. It's like, I'm tired, I want to go out. I don't want to go out, but I feel like I have to. So I'm gonna go out to check the box to feel like I'm okay, and then I'll come home. And uh, and so, you know, but you're it's a it's a it's not a fun way to live. So you go to therapy, and then they say, okay, well, that's a negative voice, and let me give you some counters to that. That's a negative voice, let me

Exiles And Protectors Explained

SPEAKER_01 13:55

give you some counters. And a counter would be like, oh, well, you know, you're you know, that's you know, it's actually okay if you stay home tonight, you know, and those aren't actually cool people, you know. It's you know, and so you you kind of have a counterstatement to the negative voice.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

So what you're saying is like the protector that that has developed as a way to protect that terrified child being alone has decided that being cool, being with the cool kids is the way to cope, the one trick pony you described.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

And then typical therapy is gonna give you these counter messages. You don't have to go out, you're tired, they're not that cool. And it's very logical. It's what you're describing sounds very logical, like statements that are affirmative and and I guess anyone would say probably true, however, you're telling me it's in work.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Well, it it doesn't work, it didn't work for me because part of it is because I have a very overactive mind. So what I would do is I would like there would be an I I literally wrote this down. I remember I still have the charts, like a tree where I would say, okay, if you don't go out, you know, you you know, like I was single at the time. Well then you're not gonna meet somebody, you know, because you have to be out at the gay bar. And then that, well, then there would be a positive, well, a counter, like, no, that's not necessarily the case just because you don't go out tonight. Well, then the neg then that negative voice would be like, well, but you don't know. This might be the night that you would meet somebody and you stayed home. Then the and and and so it ended up with this these voices fighting with each other. There's the negative voice, and then there's this trying to come up with a positive uh uh counter. And and there's all this theory behind it. I think it's part of cognitive behavioral therapy where yeah, where you're like you look at the statement, you say, well, this statement is catastrophizing, or this statement is this or that. And uh and I remember I went to a therapist once because it because it it never stopped. It just the tree went on and on and on and on and on. And I remember, and it literally I had it on giant poster boards, multiple poster boards, and I brought it to a psychiatrist that I was seeing at the time, and he was like, This is like a textbook example of obsessive thinking, like I want to put this in a in a book. But anyway, the point is that that's a lot of what a lot of therapy is, at least as it relates to what people consider negative voices. But what Lester explained to me and what IFS does is it's completely the opposite. Because the idea is that if you're looking at this as a negative voice and you're trying to counter it, you're basically fighting it. You're fighting yourself, all right? You're fighting yourself. And what IFS says is this is part of you, and this is a child part of you that came on board years ago to try to protect you. And that was what he or she knew. And this child, first of all, has been doing this for many, many years and successfully, I might add, because it protected you from feeling that pain. And now you are coming at this child and expect the child, you're fighting the child. It's like, okay, the child feels not valued. Uh, the child feels like you're trying to come in here, you're gonna take over. I don't think so. Uh, what you really want to do is you want to do the opposite. You want to love the child, you want to listen to the child, you want to hear the child and and ultimately not be scared of what the child is saying, like to make space for the child, much like you would your own child. That's why it's called internal family systems, right? Instead of it's like a family inside of you. And one of the members of the family is the little one that was ultimately. Then there's all these protectors, okay? And then there is IFS has this core belief that there's an adult, there's an ultimate core source of you that is an adult that is unheardable. This is your source, it's that internal voice that when you're really, really still and you listen and it's telling you something, you're like, yeah, this is the right answer. Some people experience this as God, you know, it's your connection to the all, or you know, uh, this is Jesus talking to me, you know, but this is like your core. And that core has is calm, is knows the right answer, is is is compassionate, is caring. They there's these eight C's that comprise like this core person. And uh that core person can parent the entire system, can parent all of the little ones that are creating all of the voices in your head that keep you from really moving forward in your life. And so when I hear a voice that uh is one of these little kids, I don't try and shut it down anymore. I don't try and counter it. What IFS says is no, no, no, you're like, hey, how are you? Welcome. I love you. Because what happened when uh he left uh and the relationship ended, I had a lot of these voices and they were very loud, and there was a lot of different voices doing different things. I have a voice that's a comparison voice that compares me to whatever's happening in somebody else's world. I did it with you yesterday, which I'll tell you. I have a critical voice, I have a superstitious voice, I have anyway. But when these voices come on board, then another voice starts to worry that I can't do what I was doing in my life to feel good in the world because I'm being overcome with these voices. I stopped being able to sleep after he left because I was anxious. And and and the voices, there's an anxious voice that prevents me from sleeping. And then there's a worrier that gets worried that I can't sleep because now I don't look good. So therefore I won't be able to find another partner, or I'll get sick, or I can't function anymore. And you and the anxiety gets worse and worse and worse to where you can't really function in the world anymore. And that's where I got. And it got to the point in 20, he left in June of 24, in the middle of 20, by I guess July of 24, I became suicidal. I I I was I because I couldn't function anymore. I'd stopped working, I'd stopped being able to sleep, and I couldn't be around anybody else because I couldn't do anything except think and talk about all of these voices in my head, and I would be being anxious about being anxious. Yeah. And it it got to the point where I can't do this anymore. I want to, I want I'm just I guess I just I don't want to die, but I can't this is too painful.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

And I ended up having to actually go away to a place for a couple of months, and it was the most expensive place in the country, and it didn't help me at all. Okay. I'm sorry. But no, it I needed that because the only person that could have really helped me was me. And when I came back from that place, temporarily I was gonna go back, but I got back home and I was like, this isn't helping me. I'm still not sleeping, I still can't function, I still not eating, I've lost all this weight, I look horrible, I'm freaked out. And then I just finally made a decision. I don't want to die, so I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna so I I I I guess that's when I really started. I had been working internal family systems where I was listening to the voices, but they were scaring me. Yeah. And I and and and it was making me anxious because the core part of me, that source, was just being overrun by those little kids. And uh I guess, I guess I don't know how clear I am with all this explanation, but the point is I had all of these little voices that were scaring me and freaking me out. And I needed a way of dealing with them. And fighting them wasn't gonna help. So I decided to love them. And so as soon as I, the very first step was to be okay with what the voices were saying. So if I if I can't sleep, and a voice was like, oh my God, you can't sleep, I'm like, I love you and I appreciate you saying that. And I have room for you to be worried that we're not gonna sleep, and I'm okay with not sleeping, like me, the source, and I'm okay, and but I love you and I appreciate you saying that. And then the little kid was like, I can freak out about this, and you're still gonna be like solid, like you're gonna be okay with me freaking out, and I said, Yeah. And then the kid's like, okay, somebody's here. So then the kid calms just a little bit, and I don't have to run from that voice, I don't have to be afraid of that voice, I don't have to counter that voice. I love the voice and it integrates and becomes a part of me. So that was kind of the start, and I still have continued to do it. I'll give you an example of what happened yesterday. So right now I'm single and I have a part that's a comparative judgmental part. So this is a part that, you know, wants to be valued in the world, wants to feel like I'm worthy. So without any parenting, I kind of looked around in society. I'm like, well, what are you supposed to do? Well, you're supposed to get a great job, you're supposed to have a good career, you're supposed to get married, you know, you're supposed to find a partner. And so if you don't have one, that means you're bad, you're weird, you're failing, you're a loser. And so yesterday, when you said to me, you know, you we were talking and you said that your husband, you have a really wonderful husband now, the comparative came on board. And um, his name is George. I gave him a name, and I even have a picture of him. I w I I went online and found little pictures that would represent each one of these little parts. And the comparative was like, well, she has somebody you don't. And so then he means well. What he's trying to do is he's trying to push me to get a partner so that I'll be valuable too, so that I'll be okay. He doesn't know that I'm okay anyway, because he's trying to parent somebody who's but he's five, you know, he doesn't know, or maybe eight. And so

Why Fighting Thoughts Backfires

SPEAKER_01 24:35

uh I'm like, hey, how are you? I love you, I appreciate you. I'm not because before I would get scared that I was feeling that way because I was afraid it would start me down a path to where I would end up not being able to function. And that's another part. There's a worry part. Her name is Belle, and she starts worrying about this comparative and what this comparative said, and it's gonna freak me out. And I'm like, oh hi, Belle, how are you? And I hear see that you're worried now, and I'm okay. You can worry, and you can compare and you can worry, and I love you and thank you for doing this, and I'm still here, and I it's almost like I expand so that I have space in my psyche to make room for both of these parts. I don't fight them, I love them, and then everybody just calms down, and then I'm like, okay, and then I can say, yeah, I it's okay that I'm single right now, you know, it's fine, you know. I'm gonna be okay, you know. So uh I don't know. I'll shut up now for a second because I've talked about it.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Take a breath, it's so powerful what you're sharing, and I think it's profound your your explanation of IFS. I mean, I've heard Dick Schwartz speak, and I don't think I've ever understood it so deeply until I just heard you.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Wow, okay. Well, that that feels that feels great. And I mean, I didn't really even read the whole IFS book. I read just a little bit, and then I was like, I think I know because I certainly have a lot of voices in my head. So let me, you know, and and this some of this is not groundbreaking. You know, I heard years ago, you know, you're driven by these voices in your head. Well, some people aren't even aware of them, they're just on autopilot. Some people, I was aware of them, but they were scaring the can I cuss?

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Yeah, you can cuss.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

They were scaring the shit out of me. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Running the show and freaking me out and making me break out in cold sweats, you know. But they say, you know, I remember somebody years ago, listen to what listen to what these voices are saying, hear them, but don't believe them. Yes, you know, and I heard that many, many years ago, but I didn't really have a method or a modality. And so this idea of parsing these different voices out, giving them names, giving them pictures, gave me this ability to kind of see what was going on in my head in a way that I never could before.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

They're thinking schizophrenic, like people think all kinds of things. However, if everyone who's listening to this, if you could just sit with yourself for a minute and when you hear, I didn't know the backyard, or I forgot to make lunch, or I don't want to call my mother because there's gonna be another fight. Any of those things happen to you, you have voices in your head. What you described is like, I don't want to feel this thing. I don't, I don't want to feel it. So then when we fight it, we're really giving it a lot of energy. It's like, don't think about the pink elephant, right? All you think about is the white elephant. So I think it's just really important for our listeners to hear your experiences so profound. And the fact that you've named these parts is so beautiful, like Belle, the warrior, because then there's some, there's a part of us that we can actually talk to and say, you know, really it's reparenting. I have a friend named Nedra, a friend of Wendy's too in Philadelphia, an a mogotherapist, and she did a podcast with me about a similar thing. She does not do IFS, but she used the uses the metaphor of the of the car. And that's so the adult, the core person is your the core self, the higher self. The some people, like you said, may tie that to like your your higher consciousness, your higher power, but you're the best e version of you, the wise you, right? Right that that person's driving, but these little children are in the backseat and that they appear, some of them five at a time, and they're all talking to us and they're telling us she didn't call you back. That means she's done with you, or you know, you're never gonna have a partner. All these messages and what you're what you're saying is by making friends and loving those parts of you, you've really been able to find like that peace. That even the way you just did this with your hands, our listeners can't see you maybe, but there was something about what you did that just showed me like I'm grounding, I'm I'm feeling calmer because I have talked to them and I'm telling them I'm here. I got you.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Yeah, they they they I was my hands were high, and then I kind of lowered my hands because every everything just calms, the entire system calms, the family calms, the little voices calm because they feel heard. I guess when I was in the

Loving Parts To Regain Control

SPEAKER_01 29:36

worst, worst of it, and uh I was afraid like I'm going to I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm never gonna be able to sleep again. We'll just use that. You know, because it is it's like a cycle when you like, I've got to sleep. Well, that puts a pressure on being able to sleep, and then you don't sleep. So you uh, but you're just you're just freaked out that you can't sleep. So you'll talk to like I'll talk to somebody who well, I can't sleep. I'm really freaked out, I'm really freaked out. Well, what IFS says is you ask yourself, who's talking right now? Who's freaked out that you can't sleep? And then what that does is it helps you when you ask that question, you're asking the question as not the person who's freaked out that they can't sleep. You're asking the question as somebody else. Like I am, if you if you well, who's talking? Well, that has to be another person, right? Right. So that other person is is that source, that that higher power, like, hey, like because down in there, the body's gonna sleep. Like, we know the body sleeps. I mean, you can look up evidence after X amount of time, the body sleeps. So you will sleep, you know, eventually. And but anyway, the point is that as soon as you ask that question, who's talking, you're immediately not in, you're you're there's something separate from that voice. And so some people years ago you'd call it the observer, right? You get out of what's that that panicked feeling and you become the observer. But it's it's it's separate and it gets you, it starts to move you towards your source. And then it it then the the you realize that the voice is not you, it's a piece of you, it's not all of you. You're not of the voice. You the voice is part of the system, and so then you can be, I can, I can, I'm separate from the voice. And and what I used to do was I would go to therapists as the voice. I'm freaked out, I can't sleep. And so then the therapist becomes the person who is gonna be my source, and I'm gonna the therapist is gonna say the things that are gonna calm me, but it's not me, it's the therapist. And then the little one who's freaked out said, Well, wait a second, you don't know that I'm gonna sleep at some point. You actually don't know that. I could probably find somebody who died from not sleeping, you know, you don't really know, you know, and so then you're fighting again with the therapist because you're trying to get the therapist to be part of your system and you only can see the therapist for an hour or an hour and a half once a week, and it costs like $300. I'm with myself 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So, like that's why I think this is such a they view this kind of as work you do on yourself. You could become your own therapist in a way.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Yeah. Well, who else can really heal us but ourselves, right? We we heal with one another. I mean, I do believe that relationships hold the mirror many times for like if I'm unaware that I'm sounding like the teacher, okay, in my relationship. And then my my partner or a friend says to me, hey, that sounds a little bit condescending or bossy pants or whatever, then I can have a mirror about who I am and how I'm impacting anyway, not who I am, but my impact. So that's helpful. But in the end, you know, I have to decide how I sound and how I'm impacting others. And what you're saying is so profound because you're right, you're in therapy for an hour, an hour and a half tops, and then you go home and and then you're you're living with the all the little family inside you that's still talking and still still begging to be heard and seen and valued. How is that little guy doing right now, that little four-year-old who I can barely picture him?

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Well, you know, it's interesting. The way that the way that this works is it takes time to really start healing that pain. And so there's there's more than one little one, by the way, because there's one that relates to feeling unsafe in the world. That one is is feeling much, much better, but it takes time because all of the little protectors are not gonna let you get to the little one to heal them until they trust you. And so you start really by working with the protectors and helping them feel heard and understood. You're no longer scared of them, you make room for them, you love them, and over time you get permission to work with the originator of the original pain. And uh so that little, that little one that's feeling unsafe or had felt unsafe, that one for the first time in my life, and I'm not being hyperbolic, I feel safe, I feel whole, I feel loved in this world. Not because I ran and was with the cool group, you know, not at all. I don't need that anymore because I've got somebody now, and that person is me, it's my adult self, and I'm good. So he is thrilled and joyful most of the time. You know, there's still pain there. There's a part of me that's the perfectionist part of me that's like, well, wait a second, it has to be perfect. No, you know, well, you don't want to say no, you want to say thank you. I appreciate my perfectionist part has really helped my career be incredible. But anyway, so that part is good. There's a there's another part that I'm uncovering now that I haven't really I'm I'm working towards it, and it has to do with the fact that I was gay, I am gay, and I had no parenting at all, and I never really came to terms with that. There's a lot of like shame around it because of what society tells you. And so that's affected me feeling worthy of a healthy relationship or feeling like I can be chosen uh because I feel like I'm not good enough. And so that part is what is next on deck, and I'm I'm working through that now. So I'm really kind of at the precipice of being able to feel the original pain of that, you know, presently. Does that answer your question?

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Yeah, it does. And I think that you, you know, I I mean, I'm in recovery from alcohol and I'm thinking about how that recovery went and how in some ways it's a parallel process to what you're describing, that when something came up, say in the first month or two that I was able to face that felt impossible, right, without my wine, you know, then and and then and then I did. And then with that next year something happened and and then I did handle it. And then five years into sobriety, we lost a grandson at 88 days old. He was smothered, killed in his father's bed and from alcohol. And I was okay. Not not that I it was easy, but that I didn't drink over it, I guess is what I'm saying. And so what I'm connecting with you on here is how what a what a brilliant divine being we

Anxiety Spirals Sleep And Suicidality

SPEAKER_00 36:55

are, because we can only handle so much at one time. And that when we let it unfold at its own pace and trust our process, which you have a beautiful process now, you know, to to recover. And that it's uh that that what could have happened if that had happened at day 10 of sobriety, would that have looked the way it did? I don't know. I'll never know. I don't need to know, but that everything doesn't all unfold at once. And I think that's really reasonable right.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

You you you you have to have patience. And and what I would what I would add to that is that's when like I would say to the little one, like, I couldn't have handled that pain early on. I couldn't have handled, I couldn't have handled the pain two years ago, you know? And I certainly couldn't have handled a lot of the pain that I was needing to feel or or did or was in my life when I was young. And thank you to these little ones that came on board to kind of say, okay, well, this is what we're gonna do to kind of get you through. It's like it worked, thank you. You know, I I I want to come back, just I wanted to say something about what you said, just because I had this thought, like, this is an example of I guess how I would kind of use internal family systems. Like when you said to me that you were talking about how people, relationships can be a mirror because they hold up to you parts of yourself that maybe you didn't see. So somebody might say to you, you know, well, you see seem more like a teacher right now, you know. Yeah, you you said that. So I would imagine that there was a part of you that initially was like, like what like I feel hurt by that or defensive, maybe like a defensiveness would have come on board initially. Yeah. And so, like a person who is not internal facing and not aware would just get defensive and get mad and leave and come up with some excuses to why that's bullshit or something. But but then like, but then like, but but like what I do at this point is like even before, even before I can get to listening to what the person says, there's a defensive person that came on board. So it's like, well, let me start there, because that's the initial feeling that I had. So who is that? Oh, I'm mad. They shouldn't have said that. And then you're like, oh my God, hey, how are you? I love you. Like, cool, good for you. And then the kid's like, but I'm still mad. You're like, yeah, I love you. It's like the kid's like, okay, there's an adult here. Maybe I don't have to take this. And there's a hurt person behind it. Oh, well, hey, how are you? What are you hurt about? You know, and you kind of work through the layers, and then eventually you can get to a part where it's like the person who was the teacher, like, well, it might be a little kid too. Like, well, this is all I know. Well, thank you. I love you, you know, and and that's kind of what I thought I would deal with because I get that too. You know, I don't always do it perfectly, but I don't know. Does that I don't know?

SPEAKER_00 39:53

No, it makes sense, you know, and how uh, you know, being a teacher, what I think it might have been Wendy who taught me people spend the most time where they feel the most competent. So teaching is such a a a place of comfort for me, and I can be in charge, right? I can be in control. And uh so being the teacher feels pretty safe.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

And yeah, I think I did the same thing when I was in college in high school in particular. I was a student council president, I was, you know, ran this, I ran that. And it's like when you sit in a group of people, if you're the one who's got the microphone or you're the one that's in front of the room talking, well, then this is my role. I'm immediately valued. I'm everyone's looking at me, I have attention paid to me. Whereas if you're just just one in a group of people, then it's like, I don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Who am I? I'm a weirdo. Yeah. I love it. I love it. I loved our conversation. And I wanted to say how wonderful. I'm sorry you went to the most expensive place in the country, but I'm also really happy they kept you safe.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Well, that was the one thing, that's the one thing that they did because I knew that I wasn't going to, they weren't going to allow me to do anything to kill myself while I

Feeling Safe Again And Next Wounds

SPEAKER_01 41:05

was there. But uh, this is a little bit of an aside, but I will tell you that uh there's not really a lot out there for people that are like really anxious and considering suicide because they're miserable. Basically, uh addiction facilities, even the nicest ones. So basically, you go to 12-step meetings, you pee in a cup, and there's a side of therapy, right? Right. And the good ones have good sides of therapy. But uh, and this one did. I mean, there were famous people there. It was crazy. But uh they didn't know what they were doing any more than anybody else. There just really isn't anybody there. But can I share my screen?

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Yeah, please do.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Okay, I'm gonna show you. Um, I'm gonna show you. Okay, I'm gonna show you. Do you see?

SPEAKER_00 41:53

I do.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

So this is this is uh George. He's the comparative judgmental part.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

Hey George, good to see you.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

So you see how he so this was actually really a fun exercise to connect a picture to the voice, you know. And honestly, I mean, I have a lot of them.

SPEAKER_00 42:11

I love this. Now they don't want this. I love them all. But you know, it's so funny when you look at George, you know, I'm just thinking about uh Kristen Neff's work about compassion. I don't know if you're familiar with her, but she does a lot of work with self-compassion and the comparative judgment is such a painful place and that ev I think if people are very honest with themselves, we're all doing this one. And it is uh it is really damaging because we I did my mother was a challenge, uh my mother had a lot of emotional and and uh and uh psychological issues. But one thing she did give me was this message, which was there will be always be someone prettier, there will always be someone not as pretty, there will always be someone smarter, there will always be somebody not as smart, and that whole messaging. And so you can live in that or you can just be you. And not that I stay there, but that was one of her pieces of gold that she shared with me that it stayed with me because this is when I fall into this one. It's a it's a painful place. So I get Greg. I get Greg. Well, George, George, because Greg, you're Greg, that's George, I'm Greg, that's George.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Yeah, I do think a lot of people, I do think a lot of people, a lot of people do this, of course. And you know, you might, you know, it might make you again, somebody who's unaware is just going to not realize that what they'll experience is they'll experience something that doesn't feel good after they hear that you have a partner and I, you know, and they they just don't even all they know is that at 5 30, I I don't feel good right now. Maybe they don't even know that. Maybe they just start drinking. Maybe you know, but like, but like if you you know, oh, there's a feeling there, you know. Yeah, you can't attach it to anything. So then you become more we oh, it was attached to what she said. It's like, oh my God, that's what that is, you know. And then you might tell somebody and they might go, Well, just don't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Yeah, right. Stop the screen share so we could see you. I want to see you right now.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

Okay. But so I can show us No, no, no, no. Okay. So then so then IFS says, Oh, you know, now that I've identified that I had this feeling because she said that, and it's this comparative thing. Now what do I do? Well, you love that thing. You you love that little one and thank him. And then the kid's like, I can do this, and it's okay. Yeah, it's okay. I'm not scared, I'm okay. And then and then it just calms. And that's what they they, I don't know. It's just been magical. I don't have to run anymore or shut down voices. You know, I don't have to shut them down. I don't have to be like, you'll find people, oh, we all have those negative voices. You just ignore them. They, you know, I don't have to do that anymore. They're just a part of me. And I grow with them and beyond and not beyond them, but around them. And so I feel so much more integrated. And I feel there's a when you don't have to run from a voice, it's it's freeing the freedom that I have to move about the world and make choices, is it's it's just groundbreaking. And that's that's been my experience. And that's why I just have really leaned into this. I do the exact opposite of what other people say. Oh, don't, don't, don't think about that. No, no, no, no, no. I I want to listen to that little one. I actually I've had moments where I have been crying, hurting, but also feeling joyful at the same time because the little one is is being heard, like and is being met. It's it's like the coolest things that are happening in my life are happening right in here, not out, not out there. Now, cool things happen out there, but that's only because of what's happened in here.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Yeah. So and people, if if you if you're listening to this, you need to watch Greg and this episode on YouTube because if you could see Greg's face, it tells the story, the smile, the eyes, you have such twinkly eyes that they're laughing with joy. And it reminds me of like a rebirth, you know, that we get to like I'm seeing this this space of Greg filling up with uh, you know, as you said, you're expanding, but like that the wise one is getting bigger and bigger, but making room for all the little protectors and that that Yeah, you just make room, you just make room, and it's it's it's radical.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

It's a radical departure from what you'll hear people tell you that are even trying to address the issue, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Yeah, and I think there's a lot of well-meaning people out there who they tell us don't think about that or that's not rational, or just don't do that. I mean, just stop. You need to distract yourself. And I think they're not really comfortable with uh either their own feelings about it or they don't know how to help you. So they say things that I think are well intended.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

They're but they're really not helpful because it only invalidates the whole experience you're having of having the thoughts. And it's invalidating, which is the very beginning of the story of the four-year-old little boy who needed to be seen, he needed to be heard, and he needed to be valued. And so that kind of stop thinking about it, do this instead, I'm only imagining made it all worse.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Exactly, exactly, because the the kid doesn't feel it's a re wounding in a way.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Oh, it is a re wounding.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Yeah, yeah. So, but I mean, this is why I say, and I guess I'll end with this, and maybe this isn't for everybody, you know, maybe it's, you know, but uh for me, it's groundbreaking and incredible and not easy, but it's so worth it. And I I long to connect with other people that uh are on this journey, you know. And and you know, I just feel compelled to share the story.

Naming Parts Like George And Belle

SPEAKER_01 48:10

I'm not even sure what the effect will be out on the world. It's not why I'm wanting to tell people, it's more just because um I just have to, you know. But my friends and the people that have known me for so many years are just blown away at the shift. Blown away, blown away. One of the things that she said to me a couple of years ago when we would, I don't see her that often, but I'd seen her and she was telling me, because you know, Wendy's honest and direct, you know, she doesn't fuck, she doesn't fuck around. Okay. So anyway, so like but she told me that there's an energy with you. She was talking about, I guess she was, well, she said there's an energy with you sometimes that feels very kind of like grabby, like, and it can it can have people kind of give me like like kind of back up. And she did this and she made that with her, like she gritted her teeth and back up like she was like, This is a lot, this is a lot from this person. And so we didn't really get into the specifics of what that meant, but that was a couple of years ago. And when I saw her a couple months ago, it had been a long time, but I went and saw her and I said, I wanted to, I want to talk about that because in my mind, I think it had to do with that that incredible need I had to have somebody in a certain way so that I could feel safe in the world. I was like grabby for it almost, and it and it's off-putting. And so um, I wanted to kind of ask her, like, is that what maybe that was about? And I wanted to hear about it. And she looks at me and she's like, Well, first thing I want to say is it's gone. That's what she said. So she goes, let's just start with that, is what she said. And I'm like, I thought it was gone. Like, but anyway, the shift has been just a miracle. It's just been a miracle because now I'm it's all I'm good. I got, I got, I got me. I'm good, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Got you. I love it. And Greg, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. I am absolutely sure that somebody listening is gonna say, wow, and maybe they pick up the book and maybe they just look at YouTube and learn a little bit more about IFS and some of the exercises that they can do. And and if anything, like if you're at home and you have that feeling like, I don't want to die, but I don't want to live, that's absolutely not an abnormal thought, but it is one that's signaling, hey, there's some, there's something that needs to be done and that you need help. And so let's get you some help because it's out there. And I think that the the really fun things, not fun, they're fun to me because I love this work, but there's so many new cutting edge modalities out there. I just had a woman on that talked about ketamine for couples that were treatment resistant and that they're using ketamine for people in recovery and PTSD. You know, the the the solutions are out there for people. Like you started this with not this may not be for you, but it has been for Greg Boston. And it makes total sense to Coco Coal 100%, because I really do believe that this IFS is cutting-edge stuff that's really helping millions of people. So thanks for being with us, Greg. Really enjoyed. I get hope I get to meet you in

ChatGPT As A Reflection Tool

SPEAKER_00 51:30

Atlanta someday. I have a daughter there.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

Okay. Yeah. Well, and I I do want to, I wanted to tell you you had mentioned Chat GPT. Uh-huh. I'd love to have another discussion about using Chat GPT for therapy. It's it's really been incredible. A lot of the therapists are very like, I don't know about this, but uh, it's wild.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

Well, you know, I like to think of it this this journal entry thing because I also don't I don't think it should be our therapist. I know you're not I know you're seeing other professionals, so I'm not worried about it, but I do think it's great for feedback. I think if we could look at it as a tool for feedback, that that we if we're having uh some really psychological, emotional challenges. We really need to be overseen by a professional, right? I mean, I don't just do my exercises at home for my PT. I go to my PT about how to do the exercises, and I have that that uh professional eye on me. But I do think it's powerful for feedback and love to do another podcast with you about that. That'd be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

It's really, it's very good at mirroring. It like you can basically throw up into the if you use your your uh microphone, you can just throw up all of your thoughts or feelings or freak outs or whatever, and it can put it back to you in a way that's like, oh, now I see what's happening. Because it's subjective, you know, and it can it's really good at at like stating what it is you just said in a way that like you see, oh, okay, like give it a go. Whereas people, that's a skill, you know. And people, everybody filters what they hear from you through their own lens. I can't tell you how many times I'll tell somebody something about something, oh, I have that exact same thing. And then when you start listening, it's like, no, that's not exact at all.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

It's just listening is not our superpower in our country. Talking might be, but it's not listening. Not for not for truly and I think we have the desire to connect. I think when people do that, it's a desire to connect, but I don't think it's listening. And so well, I am so excited we got

Listener Thanks And Closing

SPEAKER_00 53:40

to be together today. And I want to thank our listeners for being with us. Thank you for being with us. We're in over uh 800 cities now, 70 countries. And it's because people are going, they're sharing the episodes with their friends, their family. Therapists are sharing uh the episodes with their clients. And I want to thank everybody for listening and for also commenting and uh giving us feedback, rating us. It really just improves our viewership, which is what this is all about is getting this word out in the world. If one person hear Greg's story today, then maybe we've saved a life. Who knows? So thanks everybody, and we'll see you next time on the Relationship Blueprint.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

Thanks, Coco.