EP 25 | Calm Confidence: Breaking Free from People-Pleasing with Internal Family Systems with Raina Garner

You can be the woman who “handles everything” and still feel like you’re quietly disappearing. That gap between looking confident and feeling drained is where people pleasing, perfectionism, and mom burnout love to hide and it’s exactly what we’re naming out loud today.

In this week's episode for The ROCKSTAR Mom podcast I’m joined by Raina Garner, an Internal Family Systems (IFS) practitioner and empowerment coach, to break down parts work in a way that’s clear and deeply human.

Raina connects IFS to boundaries in a way that changes everything! She explains why a boundary isn’t a request and doesn’t require anyone else to cooperate. It’s a commitment to what you will do to care for yourself. 

We also get real about the guilt spiral: setting the boundary, feeling terrible, then backtracking to keep the peace. Through self-compassion and reparenting, you can meet the tender parts underneath that guilt, release what they’re carrying, and build what Raina calls calm confidence, the grounded self-trust that holds steady even when other people don’t like your choices.

We wrap with a reminder for every recovering people pleaser: this work doesn’t click overnight, and constant consuming isn’t the same as healing. 

Pause, let it integrate, and keep choosing yourself. 

Subscribe for more conversations like this, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and share this with a friend who needs boundaries without guilt. What’s one boundary you’re ready to hold this week?

You can check out more of Raina's work here :

IG : https://www.instagram.com/raina_garner/

Website : https://www.rainagarner.com/

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Transcript

Welcome To Rockstar Mom

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You are listening to the Rockstar Mom, a podcast for high achievers who are ready to get off of autopilot and live a life with more intention, peace of mind, and happiness. This is a space to expand, dig deep, get clear, and take action towards living your most authentic, aligned life. I'm Megan Caldwell. As a mom of three, two-time burnout survivor, and empowerment coach and speaker, I've cracked the code on what it actually takes to thrive at work and home. Ditch perfectionism and people pleasing. Get your schedule under control, and live with more ease. So you've got more time and energy to do the things you love without the mom guilt. It's time to get out of your head and into action. Now is the time to live your most rockstar life. Let's go. Hi, friend. Welcome back to the Rockstar Mom. I am so glad that you are taking the time to be here with me today. And I have an amazing conversation I'd like to share with you with Raina Garner. Raina is an expert in IFS, Internal Family Systems. Now, if you are already versed in this space, awesome. We're gonna dive deep. And if this is a brand new concept to you, or maybe you know just a little bit about internal family systems, you are gonna love this. One of my absolute favorite things about the work that I do is meeting other individuals who share their expertise just so openly and so lovingly. And so in this conversation ahead, Raina not only breaks down internal family systems model and what it actually means and how you can use it to reduce guilt and self-doubt and perfectionism. She also gives us practical strategies to listen to our inner voice, to honor our own needs, and to build self-trust. We dive into this whole topic of kind of what I call, or what she calls rather, calm confidence. And we also talk about healthy boundary setting. There's a little bit of for some for everyone in this episode, and I hope that you enjoy it. Welcome back, my friends. I am super excited for this conversation today, as there is so much alignment in the work that Raina Gardner and I do, except she takes a very different approach. We're gonna be talking about IFS today. But before we get into that, I want to share a little bit about Raina. So, Raina, like many women, once looked confident on the outside, but felt drained inside, constantly meeting everyone else's needs while neglecting her own. The pattern of overgiving led her to discover to the healing power of Internal Family Systems, IFS, where she learned to understand and care for the parts of herself that drove people pleasing and perfectionism. Now, as an IFS practitioner, ICF certified empowerment coach, and creator of Me Time Movement app and Boundary Personality Quiz, Raina helps women stop abandoning themselves and start living with calm confidence. Through her signature programs, guided practices, and the insights revealed in the Boundary Personality Quiz, she blends IFS with powerful boundary work to help women reconnect with their inner voice, release guilt, and lead from self-trust instead of survival. Raina's mission is to help women remember who they are beneath the pressure to perform and reclaim their peace, presence, and joy that come from choosing themselves. Raina, welcome to the Rockstar Mom.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Yes, thank you for having me, Megan. I'm really happy to be here and have this opportunity to have this conversation with you and share more about some life-changing things that I've discovered throughout my journey.

Meet Raina And Her Mission

SPEAKER_01 3:31

I love it. And I think anytime that we connect our work to our personal journey, it just allows our listeners to know like they are not alone. So many, so many speakers come to the work they do because of their own experience. So I'm excited to hear more about your journey as well as really dive into IFS. Now, before I actually ask my first question to you, one thing I want to share with our listeners. When I asked you on our warm-up call, what are you most passionate about right now in your business? It was connecting IFS to boundaries. And so I am just excited to get there. We'll get there in a minute because I know boundaries are something that so many high achievers struggle with. But first, I'd love to know just a little bit more. Could you share a little bit with us about why are you so passionate about this work that you do? What got you there?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Yeah, absolutely. So I've been coaching for 15 years in a lot of different realms. I owned a health clinic when I was younger. I coached families in the interim. And now I have the business that I have now. And over these years, I have realized through coaching other people, but also through my own journey and of my own healing that everything trickles down to boundaries. It doesn't matter how I turn the kaleidoscope in whatever someone is kind of inflicted with, like whether they're stuck in people pleasing, whether they're stuck in perfectionism, they're overwhelmed, a lot of it boils down to this one specific thing, boundaries. But what I found is that it's not enough to know what a boundary is. We can intellectualize about it and we can have the tools, but we also need to go deeper than that. And that's where ISS comes in. Because if we don't believe that we are worthy, whatever that boundary is, we will struggle with setting those boundaries. And I once wasn't a people pleaser.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

A recovering people pleaser.

Why Boundaries Are The Root

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah. And IFS was really the last key for me that just really helped everything click. Like I said, I ran a health clinic when I was younger. And everybody looked at me as this woman who had everything together, who was like, to use your word, a rock star. And I was like, oh my gosh, how do you do it all? And I'm like in the inside, just shaking. Like, I don't know. I'm just holding it together, like on the verge of burnout constantly. Had no idea who I was, had no idea what I wanted. I was just running on fumes and other people's expectation of me. And so this work is really a compilation of the last 15, 20 years of my own self-growth as well as helping others through very, very similar journeys.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing a little piece of your story. As I find it so inspiring and just knowing that those listeners right now that are like, oh my goodness, like I am the worst people pleaser. It is so hard to say no or set boundaries, or I keep pushing so hard because perfectionism tendencies are guiding me. Like, no, you are not alone. And know from Brena's example of her own story and who she coaches, my own, my story is similar in terms of living in that space of like everything looks together on the outside, but on the inside, I was just slowly drowning. Is really we're here to help women truly feel like rock stars, which means that the inside matches the external. And so let's dive in here to IFS. Can you remind us what IFS stands for and also what exactly is it?

Internal Family Systems Explained

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yes, absolutely. So a lot of people know IFS by the term ISS or parts work. Both of those are kind of trendy, but IFS actually stands for internal family systems. So it was developed by a family therapist, Dr. Dick Schwartz, and he took family therapy, external family therapy, and turned it internal into our internal system. I think the easiest way to understand it is we already intuitively have the language for this. We're trying to make a decision, and a part of us feels this way. And then there's a part of us that feels completely different. And there may even be a third part that's trying to get these two to get along and make a decision, or feels a completely different third way. And we even talk like this. Well, a part of me feels like this and a part of me feels like that. I just don't really know what to do. So intuitively, we already have the language for this. And what ISS does is we start to get to know those different parts that are having those arguments and those discussions inside of us. And instead of it being, for lack of a better term, this kind of like dysfunctional, fragmented family, we get to know all of them and we get to reparent them. A lot of times our parts are stuck at a very young age where something less than supportive happened. Yes, trauma with a big T and trauma with a little T, but also it can just be something that was less than supportive, where it hurt. There was pain, there was embarrassment, there was some very big emotion that was created. And our beautiful system, the way that we're set up, said, Oh, God, that didn't feel good. And we're little and we need to survive. And so there's a part of us that takes on a role of protection.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

And they're protecting that little one that felt all of that hurt and all of that pain. That little tender one inside of us. And so their job is to make sure that we never encounter that situation ever again. Enter perfectionism. If I'm just filling the blank enough, that hurtful thing will never, ever happen to me again. And so that part or those group of parts take on the role of making sure that it never, ever, ever happens again. We either shape shift into a different person that feels safer, whatever it happens to be. So our system kind of gets set up this way. We also have another group of parts that, if that protector manager part fails, says, Don't worry, I'll jump in and I'll numb the system or I'll distract. We'll eat or we'll drink, or we'll go have like crazy fun, something to just really distract from that little one that holds all of that tender pain and heartache from whatever the situation was that was less than supportive growing up.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Okay. Okay. And I have a question for you before you go on, just because I am curious. Is so it sounds like many of these parts are developed, if you will, like in our early childhood. Is that correct? Or do different parts continue to come up? I have a two-fold question. Like when different parts do they grow and evolve? And then are there kind of standard parts that you see across most people? Like, are there different roles? I heard you say protector manager and like numbing. So if you could talk to me a little bit more in depth about like the timing of this, if they shift and evolve, and are there similarities across people, or does everybody have their own parts? I have part buddy rabbit. No, I don't know. Just kidding.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah, yeah. Those are really good questions. So we tend to have three sets of parts. Okay. Usually that like really tender one that holds all of the emotional pain, the one that's like the protective manager, and then the one that's like the protective distractor.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

And we we're born with our brain this way. Our brain just functions this way naturally. So it's not that the parts are developed as these less than supportive situations happen. It's that the parts are already there, primed. Okay. That when pain enters our system, anything emotionally painful enters, that they take on these extreme roles. It's our way of surviving, really. So the reason that you've gotten this far in your life, Megan, and you're this successful is in part because of your parts.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Okay.

How Parts Protect And Trigger

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Because of the roles that they take on. So we're talking about people pleasing, and a lot of us at this stage and age in our life are realizing that it's actually not serving us and it might be creating a lot more stress and pain. But in the beginning, it actually helped us survive. It helped us get through our family structure. It helped us create some sort of belonging in our family structure. So we're born with the parts and they take on these roles as events start happening. And I I think your other part of your question is like throughout your life, do they develop more? And so they are let's put it this way everybody knows the term trigger. And everybody knows what it feels like to be triggered. When we're triggered, it's those parts that hold all that pain that are triggered. And then their protectors come rushing in. And so it's like we get completely taken over and we're offline and we might feel like we're five years old again, and we just don't understand. Like I'm in my 30s, and then my 40s, and then my 50s, and I don't understand why I feel like I'm 10 again or five again. It's because those parts have completely taken over our system.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Okay. I love this. And I think that like even just like bringing it to the forefront to recognize like these are pieces of who we are. They're not good nor bad. It's just part of how we are made. We can give ourselves a little bit of compassion and give ourselves permission to know, like, we can actually work through this versus like again, we've almost like we've put up these walls or these blocks, or I guess the protectors, I think is what you call them. Like, whether when it comes to people pleasing or perfectionism, these in a sense have been tools that we've actually developed. And again, they're not necessarily good or bad, except that for many women, we've gotten to the point where we realize they actually no longer serve us. They did for a certain season, and now we're ready to release and let those go.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Exactly. Yeah. They served us when we were young, and now they might actually be creating what they're trying to avoid.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Yeah. And so why do people who people please or overgive or strive for perfection? Which if I could ask the audience to raise their hand right now, I'm sure almost every single arm would go up, right? These are high achiever tendencies. These are people that want to do good and better. Why do people who hold these tendencies really have a hard time then with boundaries?

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Yes. So, like I said in the beginning, it's not just as easy as knowing what a boundary is, but that might be a really good place to start because a lot of us think that we're setting boundaries. Or a lot of us say we're setting boundaries and other people aren't holding those boundaries. And that right there is a huge red flag that we don't really know what a boundary is. And so there is a little bit of knowledge to kind of go over, and then I'll kind of go into that.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

How do you actually define a boundary? Like what does it look like in your world?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yes. So a boundary is not a request, which is usually what happens when people say, I set boundaries and no one holds them. It usually means that you're making a request. That means that someone can comply or not comply to that boundary. A boundary actually says what I will do, and it requires no one else to do anything at all.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Okay, I want to pause there for a second and let that sink in because this I am so much in the work that I do with women about helping women take their power back and empower them and really come to terms with like what is within your control here. And this is something I've said before to clients is like a boundary is for us. It's not for other people. And so what I just heard you say is we have to claim it and own it and uphold it, which can be challenging.

Why Boundaries Feel So Hard

SPEAKER_00 15:56

It can be very challenging, especially because the focus of people pleasing and perfectionism isn't on ourselves, it's on the external world. It's on your wants and your needs and what everyone else expects from us. And in order for us to actually hold a boundary, there has to be self-care involved. But in order to self-care, to actually do self-care for us for ourselves, we need to know what our wants and needs are. But if we're constantly focused on the external world and everyone else's wants and needs, we have no idea what our wants and needs are. So can you see how this goes so much deeper than just knowing the definition of what a boundary is?

SPEAKER_01 16:44

100%. And I think one of my favorite questions when I was gonna say when I meet new women, maybe coming into my work, but even just asking to friends and family is like, what is it that you want? Right. And like that question alone is so powerful. And I think something that so many of us don't take the time to actually pause and reflect on and give ourselves permission to say, these are the things I truly desire. Because oftentimes we have these other voices, maybe these are other parts, right? Like other voices in our head that are saying, no, that's not safe, or what's so-and-so gonna think, or what happens then, versus there's a saying or a quote where it's like, I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to say it, but it's like, you can want what you want just because you want it. Like there doesn't need to be an explanation behind it, but I 100% agree, Raina. Like until we as women truly know what we want, what we desire, what we need, we can't actually set the boundaries, right? Like if we don't have clarity on that, then how do we move forward? So before we dive more into this boundary stuff, and I think that this goes along with it, is do you have any tips or thoughts in terms of the woman who's like, I just don't even know what I want? Like I've spent the last decade in mom mode or busting my butt at my career, and I'm just stuck in these cycles. What would be your recommendation to the woman who's like ready to find some clarity in terms of their own desires?

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yeah, I believe that it starts with recognizing where people pleasing and perfectionism really began and the real reason why you're doing it. Because people pleasing and perfectionism started in childhood, right? We're still talking about ISS and parts and the hurt and the pain that happens. We had unstable caregivers, we had emotionally immature caregivers, we had to take on the emotional responsibility of the family. There was probably high conflict, there was probably a lot of criticism that was happening. And in order to stay safe, we had to learn how to shape shift into a version of ourselves that was accepted in our family. And so some of it is reflecting on what that shape shifting has been over the years, and some of it is finding out what your core values are.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

And some of us are like, okay, I kind of know what my core values are, but really digging deep and assessing if they're your core values or they're your family's core values or they're society's core values. Where are you getting your value from? Are you getting your value from doing constantly for others, which is usually the case with people pleasers? Are you getting your value from always looking like you have it together? So it goes much, much deeper. And then beyond that, those little tender parts of us that never felt connected or seen or were able to really be themselves. It was all, you know, the I'm too much, I'm not enough. If only I could be fill in the blank, I would be lovable.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Yeah.

Figuring Out What You Want

SPEAKER_00 19:56

So there's multiple layers on figuring out who you are, what you want, and what you need. But it first starts with pausing and slowing things down and creating the awareness around why you're actually doing what you're doing. Because people pleasing has nothing to do with making someone else happy, and everything to do with those parts of you being so scared. It's it's completely from fear. Fear of not being loved, fear of being rejected, fear of someone not liking you, fear of getting criticized.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

That that's really what's fueling people pleasing and perfectionism. And when we can slow down enough and start to realize that in that we're self-abandoning, which for a lot of us is the core wound. We were abandoned in one way or another when we were growing up. But like I said in the beginning, sometimes our parts now are creating the exact thing that they were trying to avoid growing up. We're self-abandoning. Okay the number one person that means the most to us in the world, the one person that we're gonna spend the rest of our life with, the one person whose opinion matters most more than anybody is ourselves.

unknown 21:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Yet we continual, we continue this cycle of self-abandon men. And it's not our fault, right? This is how we were primed growing up. This is how we learned how to survive. Right. And this is where we begin by really taking a look at ourselves in the mirror and assessing why it is that we are people pleasing, why it is that we are so desperate to be perfect. Why do we believe that if like when we achieve this thing, we'll be good enough, we'll be lovable. Where did that come from? So that's where it begins, is really getting curious about where it started for us.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

I think that makes a lot of sense. Sense and on my own journey, I didn't really dive into my own self-development journey until I was 35. And it's when I went and saw a therapist for the first time and actually began to explore and examine some of these deeper pieces to recognize because I think for so long we are just masked to make ourselves believe that something's wrong with us. It must be me. It must be what I did. Like we get criticism or we take stuff too too seriously, right? And it's like, no, it's actually, I love that you just called out here like the most important relationship that any of us have in the entire world is with ourselves. And I loved your phrasing of like, it is the person that you are going to be with the longest, and that you are gonna be with always. And I think the cool thing that we're starting to allude here to, which I know that our listeners truly believe because they are here learning and listening, is that we do have the power to change. We can make progress forward. And it sounds like IFS's approach is we have to really get in tune with those very vulnerable, intimate part parts of ourselves. So we can, my guess is start to release and move through it.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yes, absolutely. It's an incredible window into those vulnerable parts, but it's also an incredible window into the parts that are protecting at all costs, right? The ones that make us the perfectionists, the one that makes and that make us the people pleaser, because those are all tactics to make sure that we never ever feel that pain, abandonment, unlovability, all of that under the surface. Yeah. And the really cool thing that happens, everybody who comes to me always says, I want calm confidence.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

I love that term. Calm confidence, show of hands. Who else wants that? All the hands are up, right? Yes, calm confidence.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Yeah. Yeah. But what does it really take to have calm confidence? Right? To like what you said in the beginning, Megan, you having your outside match your inside.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

To be the calm in the eye of that storm, no matter what the storm is, to know that you have your back, regardless of what's going on around you, to know that you're gonna show up for you, even if no one else shows up for you.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

To not believe the person that walks in the room and looks you up and down and goes, and be like, okay, well, something must be going on for them right now, for them to look at me and think that, because I know who I am, I know what I stand for, I know what I need, I know what I want, I know what my values are. It's this really grounded calm confidence that requires you to trust yourself. Requires you to trust yourself to show up for you. But where the disconnect happens and where ISS comes in, when I say that to people, they're like, okay, but I do show up for me. I do love myself. Well, then why do you talk so badly about yourself on the inside? Right. Why do you constantly beat yourself up? That's not love.

unknown 25:15

Right.

Building Calm Confidence

SPEAKER_00 25:15

And then they're like, okay, but but then how do I do that? I don't understand. How do you go? Do I just repeat these mantras and like do this talk and all of that? Which was huge a few years ago, and then we all realized we were just gaslighting ourselves. Right, right, right. But where IFS comes in and those parts come in, is there's actually someone there to turn to with compassion and curiosity and say, I love you just the way you are. You believe that you're broken and you believe that no one is ever going to love you just the way you are. But guess what? I do. And we're in this together. And no matter what, I'm always gonna be here for you. Because I see you.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

We could go on a whole tangent, I'm sure, about self-compassion. I'm being drawn back to a client call that I had just a couple hours ago, where it really led to this space is like in order for ourselves to better trust ourselves and to have that sense of peace and calm, we have to practice giving ourselves so much compassion.

unknown 26:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

And it sounds like as you get to know the very different pieces of yourself, like that that has to be part of it, right? Like otherwise, the old story repeats over and over again, which is us beating ourselves up for not being enough or not being da-da-da-da-da-da-da. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

And a really easy way to say that or to start doing that is when you hear the critical voice in your head, or when you hear the like, I'm not good enough, or no one loves me, or I'm not important, see, look, they're on their phone again. That means I'm not important.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Pause and actually have a conversation with that part of you. In the beginning, you might not get something back from the conversation, but if you can get curious about that little voice that just happened in your head, because we all have them.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

And instead of believing it and saying, Yeah, you know what, we're not important, and then that part taking over, we can say, Hey, I see what's going on. Yeah. And I know that that person might be in their own little world right now, but you're important to me.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

I love it. You named two things that I preach so often. One is just this power of pause. It's one of the rock star practices in the framework that I teach is like in a world that is just constantly on go, go, go and hustle, like the power of truly being able to check in with yourself regularly, not just at the end of the day to do a gratitude journal, but like in every moment, right? And the second piece, I often describe this as what I call a pattern interrupt, is like we have to acknowledge when the thought that we're having or the feeling we're having is not serving us. And exactly like you said, Raina, is like stop it. And I love the way you described it. It's not just stop it and like push it away or like stop it and just replace it. It's like stop it and get curious as to what is actually going. So, so cool. I'd love to tie back to this whole like boundary piece within this. Now that we've gotten kind of deep here in terms of the IFS and how it all works, is how does IFS work tie into being able to set and hold healthy boundaries?

SPEAKER_00 28:36

So, like I said, I've been doing this work with clients and with myself for years and years and years. And I was setting boundaries, like real legitimate boundaries where they had self-care. I wasn't asking anyone else to do anything. It was all about what I was gonna do when this less than supportive thing happens, how I'm gonna take care of myself. I was doing that, and then the immense amount of guilt that would come in afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

And I just couldn't figure out like, how do you get rid of that guilt? How do you, how do you set boundaries and you know, not feel really guilty and then 10 minutes later come back and be like, okay, I'm sorry, I actually didn't need to take time for myself. You can continue yelling at me in this conversation and not listening to what I'm saying because I can't, I can't go do that for myself, right? Like, and I'm not making fun. That was literally me.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Yeah, no, no, I'm sure and I'm sure so many listeners can relate to that. Is like, so we practice setting the boundaries and then we feel this guilt, and then we find ourselves feeling so guilty and feeling so crubby about it that we go back into our own ways. So you're not alone either, Raina. No, you're not alone.

IFS For Boundaries Without Guilt

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Excellent. And so it wasn't until I found IFS that it really, really clicked. And now I love myself and respect myself and honor myself so deeply that that self-care component is a must. Like there is not a person in the world that's gonna stop me from doing that because I will not abandon those little parts that were abandoned when I was a kid because I've met those tender parts and I have felt their tears and their pain, and I have walked with them hand in hand, and I've told them that I'm gonna be here for you, right? This is the ultimate reparenting of ourselves.

unknown 30:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

I told them I'm gonna be there for you. I'm the adult, I'm gonna take care of you. I'm gonna stand between you and the rest of the scary world because there was no one to stand between you and the rest of the scary world when you were young. That's the commitment that I've made to those parts, but it's only because I've met them. I've met them.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

They're decided they're they don't need to be suppressed anymore. Yeah, you've let them come out and be and evolve.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Yes, yes. And they're to touch on something that you said earlier, it's not like we're pushing them away. We're actually embracing them. We want to know who we are, we want to know what our wants and our needs are, and we want that calm confidence. This is where it begins. Because once you meet those little tender parts of you and you can give them compassion and you can be curious, and you can really see and they can show you what happened, right? It's not that we have to relive all of these experiences again, but we actually get to release them. The burdens they're carrying, we get to release them and get rid of them so that they never ever are something that we're carrying around as our baggage ever again. Right. I often say in my sessions with clients that someone walks up with a lighter and lights it, if there's fuel there, it'll explode, right? Right. That's the right stuff when we get triggered. If someone walks up with a lighter and lights it and there's no fuel there, okay. Well, I see your flame, I see your fire, and we're good. You're not gonna burn me up. Yeah. That's exactly what IFS does, is it starts to clear out everything that those little tender parts are holding so that there isn't the guilt when we try to set a boundary and that we can stand in that calm considence because we've met those parts of us that feel guilty. We understand why they feel guilty, and we've helped them walk through that guilt and that pain and that abandonment. And now we embrace them and we're not going to create that for them ever again. And we're not going to be with people who treat us that way. And we're going to set the standard for the kind of quality that we want in our life.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

I love that. That's so beautiful, Raina. And the thing that's coming to mind for me as you share all of this is really what I refer to as this thing called the ripple effect, where it's like as we heal ourselves and take care of ourselves, it ripples into how we show up for our children and our families and in our workplace and our businesses and as a community member and all of these spaces. But like the world actually can't get the best of us until we know ourselves best. And so I love, love, love that you have shared so deeply about how IFS has one impacted you, how you're now using it to support other women and just like the powerful tool and practice it can be to help women get to know themselves best. Because that, I believe, is when we have the power to change the world, is when we know ourselves on the deepest, deepest level. So thank you. Thank you for all of this.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yeah, absolutely. And yes, you named it really well, Megan. When we are people pleasing and we go to stop people pleasing, we often think, well, I'm going to be selfish. We don't realize that people pleasing is actually the most selfish thing that we could possibly do because we are managing other people's emotions for themselves. So they don't get the chance to grow. They don't get to, they don't get the chance to be able to manage their own emotions and learn and grow and know how to do that because we're doing it for them. We're constantly setting up an environment for everyone else to thrive in. It's doing them a disservice. And the reason it's selfish is because we're doing it so that we feel safe. We're not doing it for their benefit. We're doing it for our benefit so we feel safe and secure when we're in the presence of other people.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

What a perspective shift there. And that people pleasing is actually the most selfish thing that we can do because we're doing it to keep ourselves safe versus wanting to appease the other.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Yes. So when we stop people pleasing and we allow other people to be who they are, and we recognize who we are, and we fill our cup, we fill ourselves up with all of the things that we love to do, all of our wants and needs are met, and we give, we're actually genuinely giving. We're giving from our overflow. We don't expect anything in return. There's no resentment. It's easy and effortless. We don't we no longer feel like, well, if we don't do it, we're no one else is gonna do it. And you know, all those things that go through our mind when we're constantly giving and no one sees how much we're constantly giving. We don't care about that anymore because it's effortless giving, because we're full, we're good. Yeah, that is actually being selfless.

The Surprising Truth About People Pleasing

SPEAKER_01 35:29

I love it. And that allows us then deeper connection with those around us that so many of us desire and crave. So this is awesome. Rita, thank you so much for all your wisdom and your insight. Before we sign off today, any final closing thoughts for our listeners?

Go Gently And Let It Integrate

SPEAKER_00 35:44

I think a lot of people who are people pleasers and perfectionists sometimes hear a lot of what I talk about. And then they'd go and they try to do this work, whether it's with someone and they have support or not with someone, and they're just kind of, you know, reading IFS books and learning about boundaries on their own. Both are great. But they expect themselves to read a few things and then wake up the next day and have it all like zipped up, understood. I intellectually get it, and I'm like, I have the tools, therefore I should be able to do all of this. And I just want to remind everyone, because we're talking about people who users and perfectionists, which I say into those recovering, right? Yes, likewise, me too. Yes, and so it doesn't happen overnight. And to just be really, really gentle with yourself. Be really, really gentle with yourself because this is about getting to know yourself. This is about rewriting the last however many years of your life, however old you are. And that yes, you can get results quickly and it takes time. It takes time to really get to know who you are. It takes time and it takes support, not only from working with a practitioner like you, Megan, or me or someone else, but from people who are around you too. Yeah, having that space to be able to really create that awareness is really, really important. And for as much as people strive to fix themselves and work, the relaxation, the not doing, the turning off all of the self-help everything for a week and just letting yourself be is really where the magic happens when you are constantly consuming content. The magic happens when we pause and let it integrate and then pick back up later, but pause and let it integrate.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Amen. Such a great reminder that this is it's a journey, one step forward at a time, and we don't have to be doing it ourselves. Raina, thank you so much for being part of the Rockstar Mom.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Thank you so much for having me, Megan. I really appreciate being here.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Thank you so much for tuning into the Rockstar Mom podcast. If today's episode resonated with you, here's how we can keep this momentum going. First, be sure to subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. Next, I'd be so grateful if you took a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Your feedback helps us reach even more women who are ready to live more intentional, fun-filled lives. Lastly, please share your insights on social media and be sure to tag me at Megan Caldwell PDX so we can connect and inspire other rock stars to live their best lives too. Again, I am so glad that you are here, and I'll see you next time.