Just Like Nana
Dive into the journey of Just Like Nana, a podcast passionately exploring ancestral trauma, generational healing, and the profound ways our family's past shapes our present mental and holistic health. Amie Penny Sayler shares captivating, research-based fiction stories of her grandmothers' lives and features insightful interviews with leading mental health and wellness practitioners.
Learn how to break cycles of trauma passed down through generations, understand family dynamics, and cultivate a regulated nervous system. Ground yourself in your history, honor your ancestors, and find your own path to trauma healing.
New episodes every Friday. Learn more at https://justlikenana.com/
Just Like Nana
Kenlee Valleskey
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Kenlee Valleskey discusses Internal Family Systems (IFS) as it relates to the weight of generational cycles and ancestral trauma. This work is so important in understanding how our internal world of wounded and protective parts is shaped by the experiences of our ancestors.
About Kenlee:
Kenlee Valleskey is a licensed professional counselor with extensive experience in Internal Family Systems (IFS). As a lover of questions and the intersections of our lives, she explores spaces that don't have neat, easy answers or a neat, easy arrival. From exploring the evolving terrain of grief and identity and deconstructing systemic narratives to learning what it means to love and trust ourselves in new ways, Kenlee has so much to teach us about accepting and working with all aspects of ourselves and our ancestors.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- Every one of us has a core self, characterized by qualities like compassion, clarity, and courage, that remains inherently whole and safe, regardless of the trauma experienced.
- We also consist of “exiled” wounded parts that carry burdens and “protectors” that keep us from feeling pain.
- Healing begins when a wound (whether our own or our ancestors’) is fully witnessed and acknowledged, rather than just managed.
Resources Mentioned
- No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz: https://a.co/d/08nxdmbU
- It Didn’t Start With You by Mark Wolynn: https://a.co/d/0gEpUOf7
- IFS Institute: https://ifs-institute.com/
- Dr. Gabor Maté: https://drgabormate.com/
- Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford: https://a.co/d/0cV34FW4
- What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo: https://a.co/d/00MvSpSW
- Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson: https://a.co/d/06J3NKyQ
- Decolonizing Therapy by Jennifer Mullan: https://a.co/d/0cNaMrxT
- Francis Weller: https://www.francisweller.net/
- Harriet Lerner: https://www.harrietlerner.com/
- Mark Nepo: https://www.marknepo.com/
Connect with Kenlee:
- Website: https://www.kenleevalleskey.com/
- The Grief Room, St. Paul, MN: https://www.thegriefroom.com/
- The Fallows: https://www.stayatfallows.com/
Connect with the Show
Do you have a story about the "Elizabeths" in your own family tree? We want to hear from you!
- Website: justlikenana.com
- Share Your Story: If you have a family story or trauma you’re exploring, reach out via our website for a chance to be interviewed.
Connect with Just Like Nana's Website.
A proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.
Theme music by Carter Penny.
Welcome to Just like Nana, so excited to have you here with us today. Thrilled to have Kenlee Valleskey as our guest today. Kenlee is a licensed professional counselor. She has extensive experience in internal family systems. She's a lover of questions and the intersections of our lives, she explores those both and spaces that don't have neat, easy answers or arrival. From exploring the evolving terrain of grief and identity, deconstructing systemic narratives, to learning what it means to love and trust ourselves in new ways Kenley has so much to teach us about accepting and working with all aspects of ourselves and our ancestors. Welcome, Kenlee. We're so excited to have you at Just Like Nana.
Kenlee Valleskey:Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Amie Penny Sayler:So excited to hear about IFS, how it relates to ancestral healing, all of it. So thank you so much. We like to start at Just Like Nana, because it's named after my Nana, do you have a favorite or powerful memory of one of your grandmas, and what did you call your grandma?
Kenlee Valleskey:Oh, I love this question. What comes to mind is, I call both of them grandma. So nothing wild or excited, that's okay, but their energies, is what, like spoke to me. So, right, like my mom's grandma, grandma Alice, I should say like that was the designation. But one of my favorite memories with grandma Alice is like this personifies her, too. She would wear like cheetah muumuus. Yeah, she brought the fire. And when I think about like, in my own self, I have like earth energy, but I also have a fire, and I always attribute like that fire to Grandma Alice. So she would wear cheetah muumuus. She always had bugles on hand for us as grandkids. So we would do the bugle hands, if you know what I mean, yeah, fingers, fancy fingernails. And just like, I mean, everything from like, she was the one that taught me how to, like, gamble for pennies, and my mom taught, like, a smoking cessation class. And she'd be like, smoking on the patio, and she's like, don't tell your mom. But she just had this like fire about her. I love grandma Alice. I do too, right? And it's like, I feel like, when we would go visit grandma Alice, like, I give those vignettes, because that's what my body remembers her, just this, like fire and a little bit of that wild, yes, the cheetah muumuu. A nd then on the earth side, my dad's mom, very distinct energy from that, almost kind of like a 180 But grandma Alice was the fire, but grandma Audrey was my dad's mom, and she was the like Earth. So she was the one that when we would go to their house, they would just be sitting in chairs and say, come sit and tell us how you are. And growing up in a home where there was so much movement that was, like, revolutionary, and so with grandma Audrey, we would just sit so much, and I feel like that has dramatically impacted me too. Wow.
Amie Penny Sayler:I'm just kind of picking up on this and tell me if I've got this wrong, but yeah, with grandma Audrey, did you just feel seen?
Kenlee Valleskey:Seen in a different part of me. Like we'll get in parts? Yeah, Grandma Alice saw parts of me. She welcomed parts of me that grandma Audrey welcomed different parts. And so I think later in life, as I look back to like, wow, I have this passion, but I also have this need to just sit and be both of them, like all of our ancestors are, like, in us, right?
Amie Penny Sayler:Yeah, I love that, and that is a great segue that we didn't plan. But tell us about internal family systems, which is a huge question, I know.
Kenlee Valleskey:I'll take a deep breath, because I love this. I'm just like, well, this is such a feast, so internal family systems is more than just a therapy modality. So it was kind of coined by Dick Schwartz in the western but I think it also comes from like a very long history and lineage in different cultures and traditions. And what IFS is all about is the belief that every single human being contains a core self, and this core self is innately healing, okay, cannot be damaged. And then every single human being has wounded parts, often referred to as exiles, and then protective parts. And so I can, like, go way more into detail with that if you like. But I think one thing that's really important with ifs is it holds the belief that to be multiple is part of being human. Yeah, which I love. So, so the goal in ifs is never to, quote, get rid of parts of us or to get over them or beyond, because it's the belief that every single part, like that diversity, brings so many gifts. It's when parts are forced into extreme roles that we notice imbalance or even repeating some generational cycles of pain.
Amie Penny Sayler:Yeah, I'm sure we could talk for hours, days, months, but I would like to hear a little bit more about this core self that can never be damaged because part of Just Like Nana is talking about trauma, but obviously with the goal of then healing that ancestral trauma, breaking that cycle, you know, moving forward with our own lives. And sometimes, I'm not suggesting that by discussing it, we can get stuck in the in the trauma of it or the damage of it, because I think everything has its place and it's time and it's necessary, but I would love to hear more about this core self that really can't be damaged. And is, I'm going to use my word safe.
Kenlee Valleskey:It is that felt sense of safety the core self. I mean, it's kind of funny, because, like, therapists are obsessed with alliteration. So like, ifs, if you go on the institute, there's so many great resources, education to learn more, if this interests folks, but the core self that we talk about these eight qualities, and they all have, like C words, so like compassion, clarity, courage, connectedness. But when I think of the core self, it is truly the place where all parts of us not only belong, but where we have a relationship to our parts. And so what I think of is it's the place we don't have to split. Okay, I know this sounds kind of like a contradiction, because ifs it's like we all are multiple. You hear this out in the wild all the time, people being like, I want to go to go to that party, but I also just want to stay in and, you know, sit my pajamas or whatever, but it's the place that is in right relationship and wants to be with every single part of us. And so that core self, that's why calm or safety, to use your word, right? It just emanates that. And every single one of us has that. But the question is, depending on earlier in life or attachment or caregivers. Ideally, we are also being cared for by adults self. But as we know, many of the adults in our life are caregivers or systems. We're actually being parented by wounded parts or protective parts, and so, I mean, I could go in many different rooms with this, but I would say the core self, again, is the place that we don't have to split. It's what brings this care to every single part of us.
Amie Penny Sayler:It sounds like there's not really judgment within the core self. Is that fair?
Kenlee Valleskey:Yeah, compassion, clarity. It literally exists to be with in my own terms. I always think about it with with myself and with my clients of the place that we don't have to split so anything that comes in the room instead of having to manage it, or instead of being afraid of it, I just want to be with it.
Amie Penny Sayler:I want to move on to how ancestral trauma, how you define it, and how it fits in with IFS. And I just want to kind of take a moment to make a marker or to have you sort of address this, you know, within your answer of, we always talk about at Just Like Nana, we're not blaming ancestors or looking for, well, you did this. And so now I have, you know, and sometimes it's complex, right? Things can be both and, and I love that's one of the things I'm hearing immediately in ifs is that there's room for all of it, instead of, sort of, there's this good and there's this evil and there's nothing in between, and kind of this dichotomy, which is a false dichotomy. So I'd love to just sort of kind of tease through that too. Because, yeah, we're all parented by imperfect people who I think, in your words, are maybe parenting from their wounds or their protective selves and not their core self. And so yeah, just to kind of tease through all of that as you address ancestral trauma and IFS again, yeah, no big deal. Just a question that would, you know, take years for us to talk through. So no pressure. Kenlee, let's just go through this portal.
Kenlee Valleskey:Amie, no, I love that. And what I will speak to as well is, I mean, like Dick Schwartz, one of his great starting places. His book is literally called No Bad Parts where there is no bad part there is problematic and impactful behavior. And so that's also how I think of how we get out of these binaries, yeah, how we get out of the like, shame, blame in the same way that we don't feel. Our parents' intentions, we feel their nervous system. One of the things that I always go back to is I'm a big fan of Mark Nepo. And to answer your question on ancestral trauma, he has this quote that I am just in love with, and I think about it honestly most days, but he says the pain was necessary to show the truth, but we don't have to keep the pain alive to keep the truth alive.
Amie Penny Sayler:That is profound and amazing. And I can see why you think about it.
Kenlee Valleskey:I think about it literally, like almost every day in my life or with clients, right? So again, in IFS, if I can break that down, we don't have to keep the pain alive to keep the truth alive. What does that mean for ancestral trauma? It's understanding that where were there wounded or protective parts of my parents or their parents, or generationally that have not been able to or had literally what they needed to be able to heal this. Yeah, wounded parts, protective parts. Did they even have the conditions? Did they even have the safety, depending on where our ancestors come from, or what they were experiencing? And so why that Mark Nepo quote speaks to me so much is I think of it with ancestral trauma as those wounded parts are often called in IFS storykeepers, they're the ones that hold the truth, that say this thing happened, yeah, this was not okay. And instead of needing to reenact or participate in the pain cycle, and a lot of us do that because we think that is the only way this truth of what happened or the pain in my family will be honored. Yeah, instead of having to repeat it, reenact it, I take on the same roles in family where I repeat the patterns, we can know the truth and honor those parts of ourself. So that's where the self relates to those parts that were wounded in a different way, ideally, generationally, a little bit more.
Amie Penny Sayler:I'm realizing that it would be helpful to me and our listeners, I'm sure to like, hear more about what is a wounded part and what is a protective part.
Kenlee Valleskey:Yeah, because we don't want to get just too heavy, right? What I'll start with is with that core self. We all have one, like I said, but this is where my existential, human and therapist comes out. To live is to also experience pain. You're not doing it wrong. You didn't like get the shit end of the deal, like we all experience it. And so in IFS we call when we experience pain, or for some of us, chronic trauma, wounded parts, also referred to as exiled parts, are the parts in the system that not only hold the reality of the pain, but typically, they took on burdens, what's called burdens in IFS so it wasn't just the pain, because, again, trauma is not just the event that happened to us, but it's the absence of what was there. So these are the parts that in the absence of what was there, maybe I didn't have protection by a caregiver, maybe I didn't have care. It's all the stories and beliefs and burdens that they hold. An example of a burden would be, I'm worthless. Nobody's safe, right? I can't trust anyone. Nobody loves me. I'm not enough, or I'm too much, or whatever it is. And that feeling is so painful and powerful that our nervous system and body does this amazing thing where protectors come in and swoop in and they say, I got to get you out of this feeling.
Amie Penny Sayler:Yeah, I got you girl.
Kenlee Valleskey:I got you, right. Like, literally, protectors for so many of us, we want to start with respect and love for them, because they helped us through the moments that would have been absolutely flooding. So that's what protectors do. They care about, safety, security. But in extreme roles, they had to get us out of our feelings. They had to intercept for those parts. So anytime we work with protective parts, we're always looking at who they are protecting. Okay, what feelings in us?
Amie Penny Sayler:And I am by no means asking you to provide therapy to me right now, but I'm just kind of thinking through what you're saying in my own life. And so just to be vulnerable and kind of give an example, and you can tell me, yeah, I think you're tracking with a protector. I think of my protector role. So I would create rules like, if I do it kind of perfectionism. I mean, we can drop the kind of, perfectionism. If I do 123, then I'm whatever. Fill in the phrase here, good enough. Not too much. I'm controlling myself. I'm not, you know, being too needy, whatever the situation is, is that kind of an example of, yep, that's a protector coming in, sort of layering something on top so that I can focus on the rules and the fulfillment of like making sure I'm following them instead of, you know what? This kind of feels horrible.
Kenlee Valleskey:You're tracking exactly. What I would ask you, if I can is right? Like, perfectionism is one of the most common. Hmm. And what I would get curious with is in ifs what we would say is that protector at some point had to come in because the feeling of not having the rules or knowing what was happening, or if I didn't do it right, sounds so painful, and it is painful for so many millions of us. Yeah. So my question is to notice if that protector were to step back, if it weren't to do all the things right, get the rules. What do you notice comes up? Like, what's the fear there? What would Amy have to feel right? Like, that's, yeah, that's how we know.
Amie Penny Sayler:Right, exactly. And I won't totally answer that question.
Kenlee Valleskey:See, I knew I shouldn't have engaged. It's really fun to talk to a therapist.
Amie Penny Sayler:Yeah, no, it's fantastic. And that is a great question I'm going to think about afterward. I will say I am kind of I've become much more comfortable with this as I've gotten older. I'm a slow thinker. I used to think that, like, oh, people who just have the response and, you know, just know the answer right away. They're smarter. And people like that are great people that have those skills. Thank you, EMTs for having that skill. Love it. Want you to be able to think on your feet, but yeah, just kind of recognized I need to sort of let it ruminate. I call it pondering. My kids, you know, ponder.
Kenlee Valleskey:Well, it's, it's essentially like I hear, tell me if this is fair, but what I hear in that is you're finding ways to make it safer for you to be actually authentic. Yes. And again, authenticity is this dangerous buzzword. Authenticity doesn't mean shiny. It doesn't mean all these ways, but it means I am safe to move in the world as I need to. And so that's a way that, maybe unconsciously, like you already are doing, ifs where you are protecting that little one that maybe previously there was a vacuum or it was judged, or so, so you're right on track with the protector. It's we need parts again. Protectors are really helpful at like managing our day to day life, they're who helps us do our taxes. My parts helped me get in the car and get here today. But it's when they're in extreme roles. It is never safe. If I don't know what's coming, that's where we get in trouble, we'll
Amie Penny Sayler:See this is why it's great to talk to therapists, because I would have never phrased it that way, but that's absolutely and just a fantastic way of looking at it. This is just also a very broad question, but from your perspective, from an IFS perspective, how does trauma or the effects of trauma pass through generations? I mean, is that almost an energy that kind of stays within families until it's resolved. Or what's the mechanism for it? Which I'm sure, I want to be clear, I don't think there's one mechanism.
Kenlee Valleskey:One way of talking about it is what we know with epigenetics of right like generations up where pain is is held, but again, it doesn't have the conditions of support or care, and it is past so literally, like nervous systems, not just of our mom, but even when we're in utero, we're experiencing our grandmother, right? And generations up. So that's a great way of conceptualizing it. But again, in ifs speak, Gabor Mate has that line of ask, not why the addiction, ask why the pain. And so what I often am thinking about in my own life, but also when I'm working with clients, is we are experiencing not only that pass down again, of pain, but also of goodness, of like power and getting connected. So in parts, it's yeah, if we had generations up systems that were living out of survival, out of wounded parts, or survival parts that had to be there to survive again, that's a way that we think about ancestral trauma, is, has that pain been witnessed? Has it had different conditions to be supported and restored? And I think that's where even like the consciousness, collectively right now, is coming into that moment, more and more of like, whoa. We have way more language, way more tools around this that our grandparents certainly didn't even our parents had no clue about I think of it as absolutely its energy passed down. But Mark Wolynn talks about this a little bit in his work. It didn't start with you. It's where we are holding these memories that sometimes aren't even ours. So I think one of the most important things is, is this actually mine? Is this my fear of like the world is a threatening place? Or did I have generations up people that were my god, whether it's sexism, racism, you name it, forced out of their country, am I still holding on to a memory that, again, is critical to witness and grieve and honor, but it's not actually. Mine, so my body then has the choice to engage in restoring that, making it safer to live. That's another way to say it is ancestral trauma often is survival. Survival, survival, survival. We wake up in the survival story and healing shows survival a bigger way.
Amie Penny Sayler:Yeah, that's beautiful. You know, I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Peter Levine, which was amazing. Yeah, such a lovely person. Yeah, that's surprising to anyone, but
Kenlee Valleskey:yeah, and an unspoken voice. It's like one of those, yeah, exactly.
Amie Penny Sayler:And you know, one of the major themes in his work and and what we talked about was sort of just this acknowledgement. I mean, it's just pure acknowledgement of having someone, whether that's within yourself, someone or someone else, or whatever that looks like, of yes, this is happening.
Kenlee Valleskey:Yes, this is happening. Yes, this happened exactly, witnessing the wound. Yes, something you're reminding me of. And yeah, I draw from I think about it as, like, this circle of wisdom and supports, almost like adding to my own ancestors. But I'm a huge Francis Weller fan. He does a lot of soul work, and I think you're already speaking this so much in your podcast, but it's what was betrayed, what was really wounded or betrayed, therefore what needs to be witnessed. That's a huge part of ancestral not only pain, but healing, what needs to be witnessed, and therefore what can be restored, right? If I don't start with what was betrayed, generations will keep wrestling with it. And so that is the work of IFS, of somatic work of so many traditions that the role of witnessing to go back to what you said with Peter Levine, whether it's in ourself, whether it's in communities, whether it's your best friend being like, hold up, that's fucked up, right? It's those moments that say that's real in you. And now, how can we relate to it? Because if nobody's coming in and saying that was real, then we recreate and recreate and recreate in hopes that it will one day be real. It's crucial. It's crucial. And that's why any modality, or that's when I fell in love with ifs if so many models were about like managing, managing more, cognitively managing more. And I'm like, I can't get behind it. Are we going to manage or are we going to heal?
Amie Penny Sayler:Yeah. I mean, this is a loose analogy, but sort of what comes to my mind of what you're describing is like, the sort of just managing is kind of okay. Let's address the symptoms. Great. You're not tired anymore, but it's not addressing, like, Well, what was causing the fatigue? Exactly? It's root work. You know, not that this is the one answer. As you mentioned, there's somatic work there. There's so much. But this is one of the just pure joys of so this podcast was born out of me writing stories about my grandmas. I have like, 45 Elizabeth grandma, so I'm writing each one of their stories. So that's incredible. Thank you. It's really amazing. So the grandma that I'm writing about right now was my fourth great grandma, and there was just like, a little piece of her story that I couldn't quite put together. And so what I do is I research their actual lives, but then I just kind of lay, you know, my use, my intuition, my imagination, I try to be in communion with them, you know, just really feeling their what they want to say. And there was this point where that, that little piece of the story, kind of came together for me. So she just really briefly, she came from Bavaria to New Orleans, so she was married, she had one baby, and had a baby in the belly, and ends up going to St. Louis without her husband, and then ultimately ends up in Illinois. So anyway, so trying to figure out, like, what happened there? You know? I mean, it's 1853 you've got a one year old and and you're pregnant, and how are you ending up from New Orleans to St. Louis, right?
Kenlee Valleskey:Like, the actual, like, historical moment that we're in cultural moment.
Amie Penny Sayler:And so I'm not claiming that, oh, I got it. She told me exactly what happened. But I what I am claiming, because it's true. I'm acknowledging it is just, you know, this, this kind of piece of the story came together, and it was just so profound that I just started crying. And it did feel like this release or relief, or, yeah, I feel like, you know, even if I don't get the details right, the energy of it is right. And I feel like she we just, we had a moment Me and Oma Beth.
Kenlee Valleskey:Well it is energetic. It is inherently energetic, yeah, and even right, like how I describe or define, like spirituality, it's not bound to some religion. It's just connection. Yes, it's the place we don't have to split the. Place we don't have to split. And so it sounds like you had this moment where, again, it's not always in messaging, or when I'm working with clients, it's not verbal. Think about if I'm in utero, developmentally, that doesn't make sense. Like I wouldn't communicate through words and belief systems. It would be in my body, it would be a sensation. It'd be warm, cold, no, yes, right? Like, yeah. So I hear that of like that's profound with your grandma, of like to listen to your own self and be in connection. It's inherently energetic. It's inherently spiritual. In my belief,
Amie Penny Sayler:You know, we've sort of talked about the trauma, how it passes through generations, and we've, we've touched on this, but to just really kind of put it all together from your perspective, what is needed to heal that trauma? I hear acknowledgement, but I know there will be more, and I know you'll say it in an eloquent and beautiful way.
Kenlee Valleskey:Yeah, well, it's my, like, one of my favorite questions on earth. And again, I go back to what was betrayed, what needs to be witnessed in order to be restored. So to heal is bringing a connection back with that self in all of us to these parts. So individually, this is the work of ifs therapy on an individual level, to bring care, compassion, support, to witness these parts in ourself that hold these burdens, that hold these experiences, and to bring them into our present, to say, like, what was missing. Did you not have protection? Oh, what would that look like to bring protection in my life? Oh, did you not have permission to be yourself, to move at your own pace? Oh, let me bring that. Yeah, we heal, not through, like trying to trick ourselves out of this story, but bringing in new experiences. So that's what's embodied. We bring in new experiences that let these parts know, that let our ancestral trauma know, I'm safe for this now. So maybe it wasn't even safe to think about wanting for 200 years, right? But it actually is safe. I'm not selfish. I'm not bad. I can want, and every time I want or honor, I'm honoring Mom, Dad generations up. That's one way I think of it, is to not only find a way to split less within ourselves, to be in connection with parts. But this is also the role of community. This is also the role of we need ritual. I think part of one of the most painful things in more of a white western psychotherapy model is this lie of like, oh, we'll just go in these individual rooms. Well, if the wound was collective, if the wound is deeply relational, we're going to need relational spaces. So that's how I think of the healing is, we go to the wound and witness it, but we're also listening for what did it need? It's kind of like I think about parenting all the time. If I'm a parent that just goes, like, more passive and is like, Oh yeah, that was really hard. Parts are going to feel unseen. There's going to be another absence, but to say, like, what was needed, I can't change the past, right? Again, I'm going to bring in one of my favorite folks around my circle, Ashley Ford, and she says, right, letting go of the idea it was going to be different, letting parts know I can't change the past, letting go of the idea it was going to be different. But what do you need now from me, from community, in order to restore safety and healing? And so whether that is community, for many, it's actually the land, recovering relationship to the land. My God, for myself and for so many others, animals are huge. Yeah, they're healers, but those are just a few of infinite examples where we don't just stop at the wound and witness scene, but that's the restorative piece to say I can't change the past. That's actually a violation of my history. But what do I need to honor it that my parents or their parents couldn't bring and that's why, in my belief, like, ifs is so inherently justice based and systems based.
Amie Penny Sayler:Talk about that justice piece more.
Kenlee Valleskey:Well, if the wound was collective or in its systems. So I think about this with like, racism or gender based violence or right like no amount of me sitting in an individual room and just witnessing that is enough like to be a part of justice. I mean, what we're seeing even in this moment, in 2025 it's like, how do we honor the pain? I think that's a huge beautiful things that Justice brings is justice is not about control. Justice in its most genuine form, is relational? Yeah, it is saying, I see the pain. I care for you. It is relational. It is to say, what was othered, what was exiled, and how do I honor it? How do I bring it in connection? How do I mourn with it? That's why so many justice communities throughout the world mourn. I mean, our culture is real behind. Done this, but mourn. I know shocker, but that's the way that I think of justice. Is that Justice again, it's like it wants to honor those parts that were exiled or wounded in community, bringing relationship around it again. Why? Because typically relationship wasn't there.
Amie Penny Sayler:So that's what was needed. That's what was needed. That's what was needed, and we can bring it now.
Kenlee Valleskey:Exactly. Every part will tell us this. Every single part is a blueprint to what was needed. If we listen, and that's the problem with managing it, if we try to manage ourselves, we never get to hear the story. That's why I love what you're doing with your grandmother's right, like you're listening to their story and you're responding, versus just trying to figure it out, right? It's gonna create really different things.
Amie Penny Sayler:It's just so cool to think about. They're so so far for us to go. And I know sometimes it's it can be easy to feel full of despair, you know, but there truly is just so much goodness and so so much momentum and movement in a really positive way.
Kenlee Valleskey:Oh, exactly I mean, I think that's why it always sounds strange to the year when I say like I fell in love with grief. Work doesn't mean I love pain. Doesn't mean I want myself or clients or humans. I love to suffer, but it is the truth teller, and if we step back and listen to it. It's gonna always tell us the blueprint be like, This is what happened. This is what I need you to get, and this is what I need help with. It's so hopeful. Yeah, it's so hopeful to think about how we heal, but it will require connection and relationship instead of management. You
Amie Penny Sayler:let's talk about resources. What resources do you recommend for a listener? I guess, so many things. One, interested in IFS. Two, interested in kind of the intersection between IFS and ancestral healing, and just three, just more broadly, as something you think, you know this is, this is an amazing resource that you should check out. There's so many good things out there.
Kenlee Valleskey:Yeah, so I'll speak directly to your listeners parts for a moment. Of, yeah. If there's any like manager parts that are like, Oh my god, I get, got to get this all down. Amie is going to link them. You don't need to worry. But I brought some of those because I think it is important to have guides. And that's the beauty is, like, we don't have to know this right away, but I think there is a knowing so finding those guides is important. A great starting place for parts work is the IFS Institute, online, packed with information, podcasts, resources. If people are like, whoa. I didn't know this existed. This could be helpful. There's a whole directory of ifs therapists, but starting with the book, no bad parts to be like, What the hell is this thing? Yeah, right, the most common questions people talk about like, Does this mean I have split personality or it's not a break of reality, but it's understanding that multiple self so for ifs, I think that's a really good starting place in terms of complex like ancestral trauma. Somebody's daughter, Ashley Ford changed my life. Talks about the complexity of relationship with caregivers where there's been abuse, yeah. Stephanie Foo What My Bones Know, profound memoir. It didn't start with you. Mark Wolynn, if you're familiar with that one. And then she's getting more and more notoriety, but Lindsay Gibson is famous for the Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. Yeah. How I think of it as adult children of parents who are parenting from wounded younger self or protective parts. So I think of Harriet Lerner's voice about mothers and daughters and all her work around generational healing. I think of Lindsay Gibson in some of this generational healing as well, and then broader spaces to honor that part of your question. I love the work of Jennifer Mullan. I hope I'm saying her last name correctly, but she does the work of decolonizing therapy, and so she brings us into again, this reminder, just like Francis Weller does. Of it goes far beyond the personal and generational. It also goes into the land, the relationship we have with all living things, yes, and so beyond just books or memoirs or really solid resources. I my clients all know this at this point, but like, I am obsessed with, like, poetry for this reason, oh, places, because poetry is like such a witness, where we don't have to split. My therapy practice is currently full, but I house my practice in the Grief Room in St. Paul, and this is an amazing resource where there's resources and events and rituals around tending our grief, aka tending these wounded parts together. Yeah. Yeah. So that brings us again, out of the individual into the collective. Those are a few that come to mind,
Amie Penny Sayler:Just a few. That's amazing.
Kenlee Valleskey:You got to have your circle of support, yeah?
Amie Penny Sayler:Absolutely. Where can listeners find you?
Kenlee Valleskey:They can find me at kenleevalleskey.com and again, I house my practice at the Grief Room, and so I'm a partner there, and I would really encourage folks to check out that site. They're doing some amazing things, and they're expanding this coming year too.
Amie Penny Sayler:Oh, wow. I know also, you have a new project, yeah, with a healing space. Will you talk a bit about that?
Kenlee Valleskey:Yes, I'm so glad you named that, yeah. So you can also find, I am co founder of The Fallows up in Crosby, Minnesota. So you can find it at stayatfallows.com currently, or if you're on social media, The Fallows. And this is part of a passion project where, again, it's parts tending. It's creating a physical space I should back up. It's a rental space in one form up in Crosby, Minnesota. It's a gorgeous cabin that my dear friend and colleague and I created together Bri Dunbar, and it's a space where people can literally rest. And the whole idea of laying fallow is an agricultural term that says you rest and you intentionally don't work, you let the nutrients of rest restore you, so that you can come back into your life, your community, etc, more nourished. So The Fallows, it's housed in a cabin in Crosby, Minnesota. But how we talk about it is like The Fallows is more than a building. It's like a movement. It is like a belief and a way of being that tends these parts of us that are burned out, exhausted, that need soul space. Yeah, so that's kind of my passion project that's coming into being this year, and our doors are open, but you can find us at The Fallows.
Amie Penny Sayler:Some listeners might be able to take advantage of that. Some might not geographically. But I wanted you to talk about it because, just again, the concept of it, and how that sort of appreciating that total rest is part of I'm going to use a very American capitalist term right now, productivity. Yeah, I mean, there's, there's all these feelings around, you know, rest being, quote, bad or somehow not contributing to a greater good. And it is integral.
Kenlee Valleskey:It's integral. And I'm so glad you said that too, because it reminds me of, like, part of why I say The Fallows is this both and it's housed in a physical, stunning cabin that we renovated. But it is a movement Bri and I were dreaming of, how do we take therapy beyond the therapy room? How do we create environments and that hold people? But to your point, like the fallows is also built on a community care model. So we realize that, you know, to get there, there implies a certain degree of access, of transport. But we also do fallows at Community Care, meaning pay what you can, yeah, so if what pay, what you can is is nothing, or 100 bucks, or friends go in on this, we want to create ways where people can be participating in this that is accessible. So I think that's something really important to note. Is, like, even the model of The Fallows, it's not a quick getaway, yeah, the shortest day is three nights, four days, and it is intentionally here to disrupt. So spoiler alert, the fallows is going to be putting out a series about this. Like, like, ooh, it's inconvenient. Yep, that that's different than a two day getaway. Yep, like, it's intentionally meant to disrupt because, again, we can't change by doing it the same ways. Yeah, and that's our deepest hope. Yeah.
Amie Penny Sayler:Thank you for creating that and for being so intentional about creating it in a way that everyone can access.
Kenlee Valleskey:Yes, oh, it's it's been so healing to do with Bri it's been profound.
Amie Penny Sayler:What is one takeaway? I There are so many, but what's a takeaway you'd want a listener to leave with today.
Kenlee Valleskey:I'm going to say it this way, the especially on the topic of ancestral pain and trauma. The pain was never the enemy. The pain of it, it's the blueprint. It's the pathway back to what longs and needs to be witnessed in order to be healed, to not dismiss the pain, to not dismiss the severity of it. But it is literally the blueprint, if we have these ways to connect with it right? And that is why I just like endlessly, owe so much credit to the clients I work with, the humans I work with my own eye. Of us journey, because it transforms literally the way we live. We orient, we need, we need these models.
Amie Penny Sayler:Yeah, you know. And I just want to acknowledge, because sometimes we don't talk about this enough, how intuitive using that blueprint can be.
Kenlee Valleskey:Yes, exactly. It's like it is the blueprint based on connection and believing. And again, I get to listen to the blueprint. When I have a self that can come to these parts, if I'm merged with those parts, I'm reliving the pain. Yeah, and so that's why having, I mean, there can be so many models of it, but that's like the hugest takeaway is, yeah, is yeah, the pain does point to what's true, but we don't have to keep recreating the pain to keep the truth alive. Back to that Mark Nepo.
Amie Penny Sayler:Kenlee, thank you so much.
Kenlee Valleskey:Thank you, Amie, this was absolutely this is a feast for the soul.
Amie Penny Sayler:Well, thank you so much.
Kenlee Valleskey:Likewise, I appreciate what you're doing. This is so important.
