David Stern: The Art of Clinical Hypnosis and Meaningful Change (Internal Family Systems, IFS)

In this episode of AWAKEN with Ryan DeJonghe, Ryan talks with David Stern, a master at Internal Family Systems (IFS) who has spent his career helping people navigate complex behavioral changes. David shares his journey into the field and his philosophy on what makes conversations with the parts of us such a powerful tool for lasting transformation.

The conversation explores David’s approach to clinical work, emphasizing the importance of rapport and the client-practitioner relationship as the foundation for success. David explains his transition from other modalities into hypnosis and why he believes the subconscious mind is the key to unlocking potential that traditional talk therapy often misses.

Ryan and David dive into the specifics of "meaningful change," discussing how to move past surface-level symptoms to address the root causes of anxiety, habits, and self-doubt. This episode offers deep insights into the ethics of the practice and David’s commitment to providing clients with the tools they need to take control of their own mental well-being.

Key Takeaways & Meaningful Quotes

• Hypnosis isn't about me doing something to you; it's about us working together to help you discover what you're already capable of.
• When you can reach the subconscious, you aren't just talking about change—you're actually experiencing it. That is where the real work happens.
• The goal is to make myself unnecessary. I want to give my clients the skills, so they don't need to come back to see me forever.

How to Connect and Work with Us

Connect with David Stern:

Learn more about David Stern’s clinical work and how to schedule a session with him.

Website: ABOUT

Work with Ryan DeJonghe:

Ready to explore your own transformation through hypnosis?

Website: trancewell.help

Email: ryan@trancewell.help

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

All right, welcome everyone. We have a very special guest here, Mr. David Stern. Welcome, David.

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Thanks, Ryan. Good to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

And as a little background for everyone, uh, the reason I ran into David was because I put out feelers into uh the internal family systems. And uh the one recommendation that kept coming back to me was David Stern. So here we are.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

Very flattering and nice to hear. Strange and good.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Strange is good. Yeah, the more I start exploring, the stranger it gets, it seems. Yeah. And it's funny how the universe works like that because we're virtual neighbors. I'm in Connecticut, you're there in Rhode Island, and the source I got your name was came from Thailand. So it's like all around the world.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

So right, right. Good friend.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yeah. Yeah. So tell us a little bit uh if you is that your primary thing that you feel like you've been working on with clients lately is internal family systems, or is something else kind of bubbled up recently?

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Um so uh let me just say real quick, I'll give my my uh background, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Um so uh student of philosophy, mystical theology in college. I had a mentor. I literally took every class he offered for the entire time I was in college, and then three years after. So um he was best man at my wedding. So but that was sort of um, it was a bit heady, but it was very spiritual. Um and um and then I realized that I was uh in need of some therapy, uh, which I began uh at the end of college and realized that I was kind of stuck in my head. Um and so uh uh not too many years after that, I realized I probably uh oh wait, no, well, I need to change that. I'm sort of forgetting my own history. I was a musician then. Um the therapy was making a dent, the music was driving me crazy. Um and I decided to become a therapist. Um, and so my training was sort of fairly traditional psychodynamic therapy. People didn't understand a word that I was saying because I was a big philosophy guy and I was kind of in my head. So it took me a long time to sort of uh get a little bit more out of my head um and start uh learning more about my emotions. Um, and I didn't know what to do with sort of all those philosophical knowings. Um, and then because the whole healthcare industry was changing and long-term therapy was being sort of assaulted by um what do you call it? Um managed care at the time. That's the language they were using. I started studying hypnosis actually. And I'm a lousy hypnotherapist, it's it's just not my bag. Um, but I got introduced to a teacher, um Steve Gilligan, who was um so you know Steve Gilligan is?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Yeah, I studied with him for eight years. Um, but it wasn't so much his hypnosis work, although everything he does is sort of naturalistic hypnotic processes. It was what he called self-relations at the time. So a bunch of colleagues and I hosted an annual retreat with Steve for about eight years. Um and uh that helped me sort of connect, you know, uh brain and body, head and heart. Um uh and I sort of reached the end of what I felt I could learn from Steve at the time. Um and uh I developed sort of my own sort of relational mindfulness practice.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

Um, sort of drawing from uh EMDR, from the work with Steve. Um uh and it was it was basically a way to deal with you know being authentic. Like, you know, I noticed like I I sort of had this foundational belief, knowledge, whatever, that everything I used to say is a flower in God's garden, everything. Um, and you know, I'd have clients who'd come in, like this one gal, um, dear woman, profoundly depressed, and she could take whatever mood that I I was in and turn it into shit within minutes. Um, and uh and it took me a minute, you know, to realize wait a minute, that's powerful, you know, and it was sort of like a shift from in that moment between who's the salesperson and what they're selling. So what they're selling was really impactful, it made me depressed. And then I was like, wait a minute, who what are you up to here? Um, and the moment I sort of shifted my focus to realize that there was a powerful being here who could impact my state of consciousness in minutes. When I started relating to who she was and not what she was doing, the whole room like shifted. It was a pretty psychedelic moment.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Uh so that's sort of where I my whole relational mindfulness practice developed. Um, and then um uh my office got rented out from under me, and I moved into a new office. Um, and the building was owned by a woman who's a uh uh you know a lead trainer. She's not a lead trainer, she's an assistant trainer in IFS, and she's really expert at uh at couples work, she's wonderful. Um her name is Mona Barbera, and uh and she and I started chatting, and I was like, wow, IFS is very much like what I already do, but leaner and meaner. Um, and so you know, I did all the trainings from that moment on. It was about 20 years ago. So, you know, I did level one, level two, level three. I'm a certified IFS consultant. Um, and then I started teaching IFS about six years ago. I probably taught two or three hundred students from around the world. Um I started IFS Healers with a colleague, which is an online community of practice. I recently stepped back from that, um, but it's a rich resource. Um and um Yeah, let me just say a couple more things and I'll stop blathering. But um I I I think the thing I like about IFS, um it's a psycho-spiritual practice. Um it's exquisitely practical. It doesn't require you to believe anything.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

But it helps you access um, I would say, the eternal through the here and now. Um and not as a a way to sort of step back and melt into the eternal, though that happens, but to discover how you are of the eternal and how the world calls you to be present to it in such a way that the dance of the eternal and the temporal, the eternal and the everyday, the eternal and my internal mess become really um loving dance partners.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

What did you just call it? The dance of the eternal and what?

SPEAKER_03 7:36

The temporal or the eternal, yeah. Yeah, the eternal and just the local, you know, yeah, the mess that's here. Yeah, anyway. I love that. That was a bit long-winded, but yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Well, there's a lot of rich detail in there, and off the bat, I'm curious what happened to the woman who influenced you.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

So I would say uh she won or protective system won. Okay. Um we had an incredible, I mean we had an incredible relationship. Um she shared many, many gifts, but um I couldn't help her release or let go of uh that entrenched commitment to what she was up to.

unknown 8:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Do you feel that if you could go back in time with what you know in IFS that would the outcome would have been different?

SPEAKER_03 8:43

I'd like to think so.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

I was a young therapist then. That was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

And what makes IFS so magical for you?

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Um it treats everything um as as um having its own wisdom and integrity. Um it treats everything with respect. It invites us um to wake up to to answer the call of life reality uh with curiosity and compassion. Um and if we remember to do that, whatever we encounter, we cannot help but shift or relax.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yeah, that's beautiful. And it feels like there's your years of we'll call it a spiritual journey. And it's interesting how you said you were on this, in my words, a spiritual journey. And then you're like, it's all therapy. I feel like mine was a little bit. I mean, I yeah, I started as a preacher, but then I left the church because that didn't serve me. It was just you look around and it's nothing's happening. And what compels me is the voice of Jesus saying, These works and greater shall you do. And I'm looking around and I'm like, Where are the works? And then yeah. And then so when I had that near death experience and I saw the eternal, as you call it, I'm like, oh, we're all connected, you know, there's some kind of cool divine fabric that we're all woven into here. And then that's what chased, you know. I just of course with NDE, I was doing therapy and I just felt stuck with the therapy. And it was the spiritual elements that kind of like pulled me out and stabilized me.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Can you say more, just a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Sure. Yeah, so in the in the near-death experience when I was gone in this other place, whether you want to call it neurons firing, but it's I know it's more than that. Because while I was in that place, I felt that I was nobody and everyone all at once. That was nowhere and everywhere. In fact, I felt an energy coming from India. And I couldn't explain. It just felt like a loving, healing energy after I was revised. So they revived me and put me into a medical induced coma after all of that. Then I heard the story that my dad a prayer chain where people pray for something going on, and then went to the prayer chain spread to a church in India that was gathered. And there's something about when people gather together and focus their intention. Jesus even said, where two or three are gathered together in my name. You know, so it's like it's something about that focused attention. And I felt that. So you could dismiss my experience as well, just neurons firing, but how did I feel the energy and know that it was coming from India?

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Right. I I I have I've I've stories of a friend of mine who has had similar different different contacts with similar experiences.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

Like he saw somebody in this meditation and then got off a bus in India and met that man. And they actually talked, and you know, yeah, you know, my friend said, like, what were you doing in my meditation? And the other guy said, Well, what were you doing in my meditation? Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

So Yeah, and there's something about that, and that's what's driving me, because when I was studying out as a preacher and looking around and seeing the church, and there's nothing was fulfilling what Jesus was talking about. And then I I just studied after that near-death experience, and after seeing what I saw and feeling what I felt, I started studying all the different spiritual practices of the world and doing different healing practices, whether it be I studied shamanism, and then I I even got a certificate for being a common, which I find hilarious, and then did Reiki and then now hypnosis. And I look at like hypnosis conferences and they're talking about these what appear to be miraculous things of healing. Like you mentioned, the just the ability, like you say, to dance in the eternal and the temporal at the same time. To me, that's a miracle. Because what it does is it unleashes your board of possibilities. And then in that moment is when you can flip. And I feel that so many people are caught in the past, where they think their possibilities are limited down to what their choices were in the past. But so anyhow, that's that's weird how we flipped because it's it's we're here to talk about you. But here we here we go. And yeah, it's one of those.

SPEAKER_03 14:18

But yeah, hearing hearing about you just gives it does give me a little context for uh what I might share, though. So that's that's helpful.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Yeah, yeah. It's just interesting how you started again, I'll call it the spiritual journey, and you yet you felt stuck.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

And it's it's it's rare that I hear someone saying they were on a spiritual journey and were stuck in their spiritual journey. And then they went to a therapist to get unstuck.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

Well, I'm gonna say I'm still not uh as unstuck as I'm coming to be. Yeah. Um and I I would say um uh you can be spiritually adept, you can be completely identified with the eternal, you can enjoy bliss and so forth, and not be able to function in an intimate relationship. Um, I mean, if you look at so many of the great masters, Swami Mukdananda, did some pretty fucked up stuff. Um Chogyam Chungpa Rimpache uh you know died a chronic alcoholic. I mean, he was a genius, created amazing things, transformed people's lives, and uh, I don't think he ever overcame his own trauma, uh, you know, from his flight from uh I guess Tibet, I think it was. Um and uh so the past calls to us because it needs tending, um, but it needs tending from a ground of presence that is um remembers itself as what it is, which is um free, which is pure awareness, which is self. Um, you know, you hear the sound of your anxiety or your depression or your panic and you turn towards it. Who or what is turning towards it, right? To whom does the symptom call? It calls to awareness, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 16:33

So if you you could sort of shift and say, all right, I'm gonna become aware of awareness, you know, uh Ramana Maharshi, like, who am I? What is this? And but something calls, and we go like, oh, ouch. And then we turn towards it. Who or what is turning towards it? Presence, awareness, self, the eternal. Um, and it's the eternal from the you know, just the sea, the ocean of awareness. Something, there's a perturbation in the field that calls, we pay attention to it, and it awakens in us, like, huh, what's going on here? We're like, oh now, if we stay in that dance effectively, skillfully, this starts to unwind, it just does, it can't help it. Shiva Shakti, this is Shakti, it's like everything. It's like, and then it's like, oh, of course you believed that. Of course, you know, that's how did you make sense of that awful situation? How did your nervous system deal with uh the fact that your mother was a Holocaust survivor? Um, and that when you were just this wide open presence, took in that, and um that needs to be metabolized. Um so we can't escape our psychology because our psychology is where we do relationships, where we do uh friendship, where we do intimacy, sexuality, uh where we get to be human beings.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Um I I love that that analogy and goes back to what you're saying about that that dance. Yeah, I love it. And where does all that past live? Is it in our body? Is it in the subconscious, or is the subconscious in our body the same?

SPEAKER_03 18:28

Um you probably would say there's it's definitely in the body. Um autonomic nervous system probably distributed throughout the body. You know, contractions in the heart, the belly, um, just our our whole nervous system deployed to regulate uh from some past injury. Um but of course that's nested in this physical body with its local experience uh of wounding. You know, it's important. It's there's the local wounding that happens with our parents that's nested in a uh community and a culture and so forth that's in our culture is pretty uh chronically micro, macro violent. So all of that is impacting, and then we have you know the polycrisis, um the great simplification that we're in the midst of, you know, climate, political, all of that. So all of that, our system is part of that. So there's local and there's that, but then there's also uh when you talk about uh awareness and awareness are consciousness interaction with the body, there are all these fields of information. Um there's you know uh it's hard, it gets complicated. You were talking about unconscious. What we can be locally aware of, you know, is dwarfed by the informational field in which we live. Um and you know, so but there's also past life stuff, and again, I don't know how to understand it explicitly, but I relate to it as a phenomenon. Um but um, you know, so for example, I um I worked with a a very long conversation some other time, um, a Jewish shaman, a friend of mine introduced me to her to him. And um uh I don't want to go on this road. Uh all I'll say is I ended up going on a on a trip with him. He's he went to Europe because all of the shamanic masters were murdered basically in Europe during during uh World War II. There's all this trauma to the earth, apparently, and all these souls that weren't able that are still trapped. Whatever I don't understand any of this shit. I'm just saying it. But I went with him. Yeah, I spent you know 10 days with him and his students going from one Holocaust site to the other, and we did all these weird practices. It was not a tourist thing, it was just weird as fuck. But when I came back, it was as though like a bunch of furniture had been removed from my brain body. Interesting. So I I did feel lighter, right? Um, but it didn't eradicate some of the other dimensions of my wounding, which are are more uh attachment based, you know, in the intimate relation with my mom, um, and then how my personality developed from there. Yes. So that stuff we can call that legacy stuff, and I have that's we call it legacy burdens. You know, in the shamanic tradition, you know, they have all these practices where you may do a healing, but it's not in. Complete and then you have to go back down the line to um various uh you know ancestors and so forth. Uh so there's healing down that dimension. Um in IFS also in in almost every culture, there's there are possessions as well, like people get possessed. So when you're when you're uh this is porous. Uh and when we're extremely vulnerable in trauma or if there's um sexual assault or abuse we become vulnerable to things that are floating in the field that can take root in us. So when you're talking about sort of body and unconscious, I'm just sort of speaking to all the different dimensions of stuff that sort of floats and can sort of latch on or be part of our psychobiological field. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

That's fascinating. And the the question that is inside of me, because this is pretty pretty deep. But so we have it's like our own record, but then that's and then we have what the Hindus call the Acotic record.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

And when we hear that small voice, some people will call it a download, some people will call it a quiet voice versus the loud voice. And I wonder where that quiet voice comes from. And we could use the word in intuition or spirit or guide, but it feels different from this voice that's whispering in my ear versus that that inner voice that is based off of my past experiences. So here's the voice that has all experience and is everything, versus the loud voice that's coming from my belly. That's my intuition that could be wrong or it could be right because of past experience. So I'm wondering where that quiet voice comes from and how can we attune to it.

SPEAKER_03 24:13

Yeah, I you know, I'm sort of here I I I would want to know a little more about I haven't heard those parti I've heard things like those expressions, but um see how this lines up with what you're saying. So there is a knowing in me. You know, if I shift a little bit. It's kind of always already there. I I have a sense that it's you know, the eye that's always been there. So what I'm describing, how does that correlate with either the quiet voice or intuition that you were talking about?

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Yes. And sometimes awareness is pulls in a direction. It feels like it's it's not pushing me, it's pulling me down the path. I'll use a description of something Alan Watts said about how water flows with gravity. It's easy. It naturally doesn't think, it just moves. And as it moves, it builds incredible strength. And then so I'm wondering, do I just allow myself to be and the universe will guide me? Or do I have a choice in it? And I think so many people get wrapped up in intellectualizing the choice. What if I make the wrong choice? And so they're like, okay, I'll listen to my gut, I'll listen to God, or you know, I'll let the Holy Spirit guide me, however they want to phrase it. But it feels like there's in those old cartoons, you have the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. So who are those voices, and how do we know we're always listening to the angel?

SPEAKER_03 27:11

So I think awareness is um and um when it's yeah. Um it's kind of a little bit what I was saying earlier. Um it's why we have to do our healing work. Uh so that whatever noise is coming in. You know, in the IFS tradition, I would say there are no devils. Um there are things that don't belong in our system that don't actually intend good for us, like so something can enter our, you know, like possession or something like that. Again, Dick Schwartz has been hesitant about it, but it was a phenomenon he bumped into often or often enough. Uh, and he used to call them critters, then he switched to calling them unattached burdens. Um, but occasionally you'll bump into just things that don't belong. Um and they're not hard to get rid of. Right. Um but that's that's um more an outlier. The more prime basically anything you encounter within your system, if you spend time with it, um, it'll begin to relax. It can be the gnarliest voice that says you're a stupid fucking piece of shit. And it's there every day yelling at you. Um in the IFS tradition, uh we trust that unless it's one of these outlier things like an unattached burden, it's there for a reason. So, all right, dude, why the fuck are you calling me a stupid piece of shit every day? Right. Well, because you were a stupid piece of shit, and you put yourself in these situations and you got beaten. So anytime any of that shows up, I'm gonna sit on your ass and make sure you don't do anything. So, whatever. So, uh, in terms of what do you follow? So, if you listen to anything, remembering that your job as Shiva, as awareness, as witness is to listen with an open heart and mind, whatever's yelling at you will begin to shift. And as it's it because it can't help it. Because the reason it's yelling is because it's wanting to be heard. When you start hearing it, it doesn't need to yell. And then as it softens, it's like, oh, like, oh, tell me more, tell me more. And then it starts to relax. And it it's now being held uh in the arms of awareness and awareness now when it says, Oh, you're afraid that this vulnerable guy is gonna go do the same thing he did a million times and get in the same stupid relationship where he gets beaten up or whatever. So now I got to deal with that other part that you've been trying to protect by sitting on it. So it's about listening, listening, listening. It's hard to do it alone. So, like I I get triggered, you know, I've been married for 40 years. Um and intimacy is scary. I mean, it's wonderful, scary. So when I get triggered, I'm not myself. I'm really sort of blended with some very young state of consciousness, and I need someone else to help me hold space so I can be with this. Because for me to have a relationship with it, it's hard to do it alone. Somebody's gonna be there saying, like, Dave, I know this asshole part of you is precious, and I know you hate on it right now, and so I need help like holding space to sit with it's basically like where two or more are gathered. Like, we can't do this alone, we're not meant to. The brain is a relational organ. Um, in answer to the question, like what path do I follow? You know, the weird thing is, and I've had lots of clients say the same thing. If I look at my journals over the many years, it's the same fucking thing that I'm saying again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Yes, it's it's that's my wheel. That's that's my pattern that I'm here to learn to love and to live. And it softens over time, but it's the same fucking pattern. You know, I often say about you know, couples, they only have one argument, a theme in a million variations, right? They're they're a pattern, and that's the dance they're here to learn and love. Um, but it becomes refined. Um, I I you know, yeah. Heidegger said, you know, like he you have one thought to think. Uh and uh it's there. You know, if you take the sort of aggregate of all these voices inside of you and you listen, listen, listen, you boil it down, they're all orbiting around the same thing. Some people have immense clarity about that thing and they live it easily. Um, many of us, maybe most of us, because of the slings and arrows of our world, the more flowy directionality of our being is often obscured and gets tangled and tortured. Because if I am my true self, you know, then I'm gonna be, you know, crucified, you know. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

And you mentioned Heideker said one thought to think. Did he specify what that thought was?

SPEAKER_03 32:56

No, it's just you, whatever grips you, whatever grips you grips you. And it, you know, his you know, his notions of what thinking is is different than it's not analytic thought.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

It's this fertile. Um man, I've I've had this, I've been on this, you know, hobby horse for a very long time, and I may be ready to, you know, to manifest it more clearly now, but it's taking me a long time, 56.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

And I wonder, I know we have just a short amount, speaking of time left here. You mentioned metabolizing wounding, and I wonder if you're safe to share how you've metabolized the wound that you felt with your mother being a Holocaust survivor. Like And the reason I ask why you ponder that question and feel it is there's two schools of thought that are pulling at me. One is there's that global wounding, war, for instance, atrocities. And it feels like it almost is a big bonfire. And the more attention I pay to it, the more I'm fueling that bonfire. Versus if I focus my attention on just being present in the moment. Because I'm not at that bonfire, I'm here now. And it feels like I'm being healed by being here now versus paying attention to the bonfire and fueling it. And yeah, yeah, that's history within us. That's the more we pay attention to it, yeah, the more it's like fucked up. It's horrible. So I'm just curious how you heal from that.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, this is Heidegger uh who said the now is the gatheredness of what has been with the not yet. The gatheredness of what has been with the not yet. You know, all that has been. But even my pure now, I mean, we're bombing fucking Iran. Um that bonfire is burning now. Um But the sun's shining, my dog needs to go for a walk. Um wants his belly scratched. Um I've got some good veggies in the fridge. I'm gonna make an omelet later on, right? Um my now when I when I'm in uh proximity with my wife, let's say um because of the the particular dance with my mom. That intimacy right now stirs in me uh panic. Um not always, of course. But that panic uh is um uh the infant in some other ages experiencing uh this natural open longing for connection, bumping into something much more complicated and overwhelming, contracting, pulling away, closing down, um you know, so there's like three or four stations in that little movement. Um but if I want to enjoy the most foundational need for connection, which is the most raw hmm, you know, my dog does it so impeccably, just like when they come home, he's just like this urgency, like can I connect everything else? Like that lives in all of us, our version of that. And if I want to enjoy both that the unfettered, what is it, the cry of the dog for its master is the connection, Rumi. Um, if I want to be that, which is this unbearable longing for connection, I'm going to have to deal with the ways my body still remembers the terror of disconnection, of not being able to access my mom's heart because it was guarded. Um, she was a really she's a fine, fine person, but there's certain things she just couldn't do because of her own wounding. So um, you know, I have to meditate. So I'm here. I have to walk my dog, I do all kinds of things. Um play music, uh, make love that help me be in a more free here now. Um but within that field, this thing calls. Uh it's my bonfire. And if I can as I am more and more able to be with that terrified little being, first of all, anytime there's terror in the field, I won't contract as quickly. I'll be able to stay open and loving. My goal is to be a complete and total mess, to be okay with it, and somehow be awake in the midst and ride the waves of that mess, which will sometimes be just a desperation for connection. Sometimes it'll be simply just tenderhearted and present to horror, to beauty, to all of it. Um that shamanic guy I I spent a year working with uh and when we were in uh Poland, you know, he basically said, you know, you sort of he his thing was to sort of use whatever tools you have to connect with icons, anything that will remind you of the eternal, help you stay rooted in that, so that uh when everything things move through you, you don't contract. So pain or suffering is not the problem. It's that we contract and then get stuck. So can we stay supple and open? Can we grieve? Can we howl? Can we sing? Can we just let the river move through us? And sometimes it's falling off a fucking cliff, sometimes it's flowing quietly through a mossy forest, sometimes it's you know, uh, but we are the river and the banks. Um, and will we let ourselves be all of that? We need to be the banks of the river because we are that. Uh and the river will flow where it flows.

unknown 40:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

And if we are the banks, then can we shift how the river flows?

SPEAKER_03 40:26

Um, I don't think that's our job. Uh I don't think Shiva has any agenda. Well, I mean, when you say shift how it flows, like, well, let's ask for an example. Like, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 40:45

Choice, for instance. Let's say here, I'm starting a business. So I made a choice to start a business.

SPEAKER_03 40:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

And yet then I'm reading the Tao Ti Qing yesterday talking about no desire. So there's a part of me that desires a successful business.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

Then then there's okay, I would go slow. Um so uh what is the purpose of a successful business? What are you hoping for? Like food, shelter, vacation?

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Two things. One, healing, healing of my clients. And it's interesting because the more I'm healing my clients, the more I find I'm healing myself. So there's a symbiotic relationship of healing is a successful business to me. The other part of it is I want to travel the world. I would love to go to like Cambodia and have the money to do that and set up a thing and study Anger Wat. And then also study the killing fields, which is right next door. You have the most holy of places, a blend of religions, right next to a pile of human skulls and blood on the walls of a school, right next to each other. And I would like to have the wherewithal to go explore that. So to me, that's successful. And yet the Tao tells me just lie in the river and go wherever it flows.

SPEAKER_03 42:04

So to me, at the same time, I mean, he uh Lotsa had to eat. You know, Lotsa had to go to the bathroom, Lotsa had to have shelter over his head.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

So um uh and yet did he have a desire to build a library? Did he have a desire to you know produce? I feel like there's there's something within me that wants to produce things, and yet how do I produce if I'm just being yeah, well, so again, I mean this is I have my own version of this conundrum you're describing.

SPEAKER_03 42:43

Um so from whence comes the desire to produce, right? Um, it arises in you and you go like, huh. Um how do I think about what you're saying here?

SPEAKER_00 43:06

It's like a choice. Today, for instance, I have a choice. I can either write some emails and build up my website, or I could just go meditate on the couch for five hours. So I have a choice, and which choice is riding the river?

SPEAKER_03 43:26

Um, well, uh again, if there's a part of you that actually wants to sit on the couch for five minutes five hours, it'd be worth sitting with that part of you and going and really understanding what it's hoping for and doing that. Like, what is that impulse? Um, there is an impulse to do that, but there's another impulse is like I should spend that five hours working my so you focus on that. They're competing impulses. Those impulses are streams. Um And when you listen, it's like you have a boardroom. That's very much IFS, right? You listen to all the voices. Um and you understand what they're up to, what their mission is. And then you arrive at consensus. So the choice is to listen and then to arrive at a sense of what feels ecological.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:33

Um I have my own, I'm yeah. And then to notice, are there dead spots? Are there parts of you that um like I have I have parts that really make it very hard for me to think about money. I'm pretty good at making it. I'm not good at saving it or getting my hands around it. And I know that there are parts there that's like, you know, if there are rooms in your house that you can't go into, the ecology of the house will be off. Um so I have certain places where I reliably have I uh I have to and and it creates um perturbations in the ecology of my life. And so those perturbations, like uh, but it's hard to look at them because my brain shuts off, so I may need some help with that. Um, you know, again, this is from an IFS point of view, and I think it's yeah, it just to me it's like physics. If you just listen to everything, you get skillful at listening so things start to relax, uh, you begin to get a sort of a sense of your own ecology and it evolves. But it's just the here now is listening, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:57

Right. I like the analogy to the house when there's certain rooms, and like once you know you're able to go in any room you want, that certain rooms are no longer blocked up, being in that present moment, you could be like, I'll allow all rooms are equal, I'll allow the water to take me to whichever room I want.

SPEAKER_03 46:16

Uh yes, well, you are the house. I mean, and all the things are the rooms in your house. Or you are the the the circle, and all the pr all the energies in that circle um call to you. And again, it's about ecology. Um yeah, and uh on the whole, you are what you are. Um there may be really big perturbations that make it hard for you to be who you are, and those will need tending, like people with severe trauma. Although even there, you can see how they manage to be who they are, even though there are these huge things that make their lives almost unbearable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

Fascinating. I know I want to respect our time here, and in a moment, you had mentioned uh you'd be willing to give a guided meditation for our listeners and viewers. Uh, before we do that, is there anything in particular that's in your heart right at this moment that you would like the whole world to know?

SPEAKER_03 47:32

Wow. That question makes me a little shy. Um I guess maybe just an invitation. Yeah, just for all of us to pay attention to what's going on around us and inside of us and to tend our wounds so we can have more freedom to be part of making the world a better place. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

Thank you. Yeah, sure. All right, and then uh whoever is listening or watching, um I encourage you to find a comfortable place to maybe pause it so you can be undisturbed just for a few moments as David leads us to a little guided meditation.

SPEAKER_03 48:33

Yeah, how long would you like it to be?

SPEAKER_00 48:35

Uh five or ten minutes, whatever's in your heart.

unknown 48:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 48:41

All righty. So I like to begin. Uh let me just say you can do this with your eyes open or closed. Uh if my words serve, yay. Uh and if they don't, I trust you to go your own way. Um so I like to begin with remembrance, remembering who and what you always already are effortlessly. So to become awake to who and what you are. So who or what is aware of the sound of my voice? Not through any effort, but simply because you are always already here. Who or what is there to hear the sound of a dog barking in the street? Who or what is the place where trees find a home where the wind blowing the leaves on the trees finds a home space for the sun and the moon just remembering or noticing that you are the house of being. You are a wide open field of being where all of reality finds a home. Not by virtue of anything you do requires no effort we're just beginning by noticing by remembering that you are that So perhaps just resting in and as somewhat more awake awareness. Let's maybe take a moment to notice our breath breath which has been breathing us, breath of life. Kind of bridge between our being as wide open space as pure awareness, and our more local body-mind space. Maybe just for a few moments, just kind of riding the waves of your breath. I'm not trying to change the breath, it could be shallow and choppy, could be slow and deep. But just riding the waves, whatever the weather is in there. The in breath, the out breath. Just maybe saying hello to the breath, offering it just an acknowledgement, like fuck breath of life. I'm alive t you are t essential to my being alive. So just enjoying the in-breath and the outbreath for a few moments. Just kind of riding the waves of the breath and letting it take you to your inner space. Sort of like you're coming home to your body-mind space. And just noticing who's home What's home? What rises up to meet you as you begin to pay attention? Your body-mind? Are there unfinished arguments that are lingering? Is there a large to-do list dugging at you? Are there sensations of tension or fluttering, constriction or some energetic movement in you? Whatever you encounter, just say hello. Don't try to change or fix it. That would be rude. What to the part of you that has a big to-do list? What if you could just let it feel your acknowledging presence? With a little hint of curiosity. Now you could remind it, we just have a few more minutes of meditation. Would it be okay to relax back and I'll get to you when we're done? The lingering argument or some other relational challenge. Say hello. That is challenging. You could just spend time with a different part or part of you that's preoccupied with that difficulty. Just offer acknowledgement, compassion, and curiosity. If it's a noisy mess in there and you're angry at the noisy mess, take a moment to acknowledge the anger. Oh yeah. The noisy mess can be so frustrating. Maybe we can pay attention to that noisy mess. Like stormy clouds on a windy, stormy day. Or for the ADD mind among us, the thoughts that are bouncing around like uh starling murmurations. Or maybe there's space stillness. Whatever you encounter perhaps what is most prominent, let it feel your acknowledging presence. It too carries the light of the divine. You don't have to believe me. Just notice how it responds to presence. And as it responds, let it feel your response to its response. Just spend a little time there. We're just taking a moment to see who's home being with letting whatever's here feel acknowledged. Maybe there are things in there that really want more attention. Perhaps you can make a commitment to do so. Well maybe just take another moment or so. Just to notice how your inner space is doing. Notice what it's like to be with it in this way. Take a moment to notice the aliveness of each and everything that you encounter. Distinct flavors of energy of intensity of life. Maybe you can ask inside what might be needed or wanted just to bring right closure to this meditation. And what might be wanted going forward. And then when you're ready finding your way back to a more I don't know, a little more awake to the present. You may want to wiggle your fingers and hands, stretch a little bit. And when you're ready, come on back.

SPEAKER_00 58:18

Sir David. I believe you're a better hypnotist than you think you are.

SPEAKER_03 58:26

Yeah, it'll be interesting if we do this again to talk about the overlap.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

Yeah, definitely want to do this again. Thank you so much for spending your time with us today.

SPEAKER_03 58:36

Yeah, it's really a pleasure, Ryan. Uh I enjoyed it. And uh yeah, be well. Yeah.