Healing Through Parts Work | Conversation #5

*This Conversation is a deeper dive on the Companion Meditation Episode!*

Why do we react the way we do—even when we know better?

In this conversation, Amy and Ryan explore the powerful concept of Parts Work and how every version of ourselves continues to influence the way we think, feel, and respond to life's challenges. Together, they unpack why shame keeps us stuck, why self-criticism rarely creates lasting change, and why genuine healing begins with compassion.

Building on Monday's guided meditation, this episode explains how our younger selves developed beliefs and protective strategies that once helped us survive but may now be limiting our relationships, confidence, and peace. Amy shares the framework she has developed through years of working with clients, offering a practical, accessible approach to understanding your inner world without judgment.

If you've ever wondered why you keep repeating the same patterns, struggle with negative self-talk, or find it difficult to extend compassion to yourself, this conversation will give you a new perspective—and practical tools—to begin creating lasting change.

Healing doesn't happen by fighting the parts of yourself you dislike. It happens when every part of you is finally understood.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why your brain developed different "parts" to protect you
• How childhood experiences continue to shape adult thoughts and behaviors
• Why shame and self-criticism keep us stuck
• How compassion creates deeper and more lasting change than punishment
• Practical ways to begin healing old wounds and strengthening self-worth

Whether you're new to parts work or have explored it before, this conversation will help you better understand yourself, deepen your self-compassion, and move toward greater peace.

*Subscribe to the Greater Peace Podcast for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.*

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Greater Peace Podcast. I'm Ryan Lindstrom, and I'm here today with everyone's favorite clinical mental health counselor, Amy Lindstrom, my wife.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Hello, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

So here's how it works. Every Monday we upload a uh upload slash post slash publish, whatever word you want to use. Every Monday we do that with a short meditation video, which introduces the week's topic, and Amy will guide you in a short meditation. And then on Wednesday, a longer conversations episode, which is what this is, is posted where uh we go a little deeper into whatever the topic of the week is. So that's what we're doing right now.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Yeah, we are.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

That's all I got.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

And unlike last week, this week you don't know what the topic is.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Oh, I don't. No. Yeah. No, I don't.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

So usually I just kind of introduce the topic to him here. So that's what we're doing. So this week we are talking about parts work.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

See, the trick that I have that you don't know is that earlier today you were like, look what I did on this computer to organize things for you. Look, here is the last podcast. And here is this one. And that's what it said. So I didn't say that I don't know what it is because I guess I kind of thought maybe I didn't know what it is.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Yes, yes. So let me explain a little bit about what parts work is. It's it's difficult. I kind of mentioned this in the meditation, but it's difficult to kind of break it down because sometimes we talk about parts work when we're talking about doing a specific skill, which is internal family systems created by Richard Schwartz. If you've read the book No Bad Parts, you're kind of aware of parts work. This is like but not the same in some senses. Um, and then if you've ever heard of inner child work, it's again another framework that is like but not the same. So kind of um what I did, and I I think every therapist kind of has their different perspective and view in the way that they work through things. But one of the things that I wanted to do was when I created my wellness course that I do here, I wanted to be able to teach people how to do parts work on their own where they don't need a therapist to lead them through. It's something that you can consistently be working on on your own. Um so that's that's kind of where this comes from.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

I will say, this should be a highly anticipated episode because every episode we've done, you've referenced parts probably 10 times. Yeah. And and so now we'll get to find out what the heck you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Yeah. Yeah. And I I think um it's hard because parts work. It's like it's it's like uh we could say that parts work is synonymous with doing work on the conditioned mind, all of the little thoughts you have and whatever else. But this is a way of getting about it in a way that actually really creates self-compassion, compassion for others, a deeper understanding where you can actually work on healing through compassion instead of the will power. Um, I think we have an obsession in our society with willpower. There's self-help books on it everywhere, and everybody is just like, you just need to grind, you just need to, whatever. But I think there are um neuropathways and stuff that that works against. But if you can understand both, then um or understand parts work, then it can be more effective because it doesn't set off a stress signal in your system. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Yeah, I will say, um, and I'm I'm not saying I I know everything about parts work, but I I know what it is, kinda. Um if if you if you're like me and you kind of gotta make sense of it somehow, uh parts work, the way that she explains it makes it very easy for me to connect to because it gives a good picture of exactly what you're talking about. And everyone has had experience that relates that will make them go, oh yeah, I totally know what you're talking about to some degree. So it's it's a lot easier for it's a complex topic, but it's a lot easier for me to absorb than a lot of the other stuff.

SPEAKER_03 4:40

Yeah, that's good. I think, I mean, because I know that you've learned it a lot in the courses and we practice with it, or I talk about it all the time. You also probably see me going, it's okay to myself all the time. Yeah, you know, um, different things like that. But I I think that okay, if you think of it in this way, let's say you are feeling a lot of anxiety, your guts churning, you just feel super overwhelmed, right? If it's like I have so much anxiety right now, that's you know, there's an energy to that. But if you can say a part of me is feeling a lot of anxiety right now, now what does that do?

SPEAKER_00 5:32

I guess it makes it a little more approachable because it's you're not entirely overcome. Yeah. It's just a part of you, not only.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Yes, because it's like the whole of you is not your truest self, your truest nature is at peace and is calm. But I think there's a quote um Eckhart totally said of course I can't.

unknown 6:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

I know.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

I I like totally screenshotted it, but it disappeared. So um dang, okay. Well, it's fine. Um But Eckhart totally like he he makes a comment about that where it's dang, it's totally like left my head because now I'm like, where did that go?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Well, I could just tell stories and while you look for it and find it if you want. That'd be fun, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_03 6:34

Yeah, anyway, we'll we'll find it. It's uh uh it it'll come to my mind at some point. But I think that the most important thing to realize in all of this is that it's like, you know, if you know that there that there is a part of the system, if i if your whole car is broken down, it's every system in the car is done. But if there is just a problem with you know, the transmission, then you know exactly where to go to get at the problem, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Yeah, and you don't I mean you might throw the car away if it's old enough, but but if the transmission has a problem, you don't give up on the car, you uh you you know, you know that like, well, I can just work on that, and guess what? Everything else is still good to go.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

Yeah, but it's also it's more overwhelming if the car is broken down and not running and you believe the whole thing, you know, is broken down, you don't really know how to get at finding the exact problem. But I think one of the things is is once you understand parts, if all that makes sense, but it's like if you understand parts, then you can say, okay, a part of me is feeling anxious right now. Um, and if a part of you is feeling anxious, then it's like, okay, what part is that? And I can, I'm gonna teach you like some skills to get at that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Great.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Cool. Um so I want to talk a little bit about. So last week we were talking about shame, and there was uh one thing that I wanted to bring up, but it actually works with this as well. So um, because it helps us kind of lead into what parts work is. So um I think I've mentioned before that I read a book, or maybe I did it in the meditation, but I read a book that was called Stop Shooting All Over Yourself. And so, and so it's kind of like should is so shaming. And after reading that book, I hear it all the time and I see it all the time, and I can see where it is.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

I should have done this, I should have done that, you know, or even I should not have, or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

But it's like when people are telling me that usually in my office, it is a spiral down, that's the shame. Like, I shouldn't have done that.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Well, because you can't recover from it. You can't fix it because it's already over.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

Yes, but the but the most important thing to realize is that in that moment when you are saying, I shouldn't have done that, you are saying that with the benefit of hindsight. Meaning you have now the knowledge and information that you did not have before because you moved in a direction. And so instead, we would like to shame the version of ourselves for not knowing what we know now because they had the courage to do something. Right? Taking all the information we have. If you can believe that at every moment in your life you have been doing the best you can in every given situation, even if it's just coping. Yeah, you can feel bad about decisions you've made, but in that moment, there was no other decision that you could make, or else you would have made a different one. And so if we can get to that, that's like radical acceptance, is to give up the need for a different reality, then we realize that this life is always just about learning through experiences, right? So we make a decision that we think is the best decision for us, and then we learn from the experience. And maybe the decision that we made led to some unforeseeable outcome that now we have a lot of regret over. Or maybe we didn't even weigh out the decision, but we reacted in a way that our nervous system needed us to react, but now we wish that we would have slowed down. But even just that, it's just at that moment you were moving, doing the best thing that you possibly could in order to move forward. And the reality is that we get we learn way more by getting it wrong than by getting it right.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:53

You know, I think that the whole difference, if we look at the full scope with all of this skills, all of this way of understanding that we are creating in all of this, is that ultimately it gets you to a point when you are true to who you want to be in this world, it doesn't mean you have all the answers. It doesn't mean that you won't come up against a decision that you have to make, that you don't know which one is the best way to move forward. But you will trust yourself to make the best possible conscious decision that you can make. And you will know that whatever the outcome, you will be able to learn from it and adapt and then uh move forward. If there needs to be repair, you know you can do it. You know?

SPEAKER_00 11:42

So it's not like yeah, it's not like it's a it's a goal that you work on and you achieve it, and you're done, and you're on top of the mountain and you've and nothing ever goes wrong again. Yeah, it's just uh an arrival at a realization about you about how you live, about how life works, I guess. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 11:59

Yeah, and I mean how much of our peace is taken by uh the fear of getting something wrong.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Where if you know your worth and your value is absolute, being wrong has nothing to do with your worth and your value. It's just you were wrong. That you made the best decision you could possibly make and you got it wrong, but now you got a whole bunch of information out of it so you can move forward. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Oh yeah, I'm the king of gathering all the information and then and then not making a choice, but it's like you plan something for a month to make sure you get it all right, like a trip or whatever, and then you execute and you start, and after your first choice you realize, oh, well, I you just learned some new information, and now the plan's gonna change. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

It's like you you learn so much more by just acting than trying to anticipate what is going to happen forever and a day, you know?

SPEAKER_03 13:07

And I think we had talked about that when we were talking about shame, that it's like you have this like need, like a fear of getting it wrong or the need to make sure that you get it right. Right. And so there's fear that drives that, like some meaning about you. But then there are so many things that are outside of your control. Like one example that I would give is um, I think it was last year or the year before when we went with Jake and Bailey on that trip down to Beaver Mountain, and we were gonna go do the side by sides and camp overnight, but we got there and all the roads were closed because there was a fire.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Why are you bringing this up? What are you doing with this?

SPEAKER_03 13:47

You we were just like, okay, well, cool. Where else can we go? You were undone.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

I was so mad.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

You were so mad. And the thing is, is that there was no control that you had over this situation. And also, um, but it's the pressure that you had, maybe because Jake and Bailey were going with us for the first time, you felt the responsibility of making it a good trip for everybody, you know, and so it's like you put so much time and effort into planning those and everything, so that when it goes wrong, it's like something that you did. When it wasn't and we had a total blast, we just changed it up. But it took you a while.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Well, okay, so here's the reason. So, all right, so so we like to go on these trips in our little 50-inch side-by-sides, we pack all of our gear and go for three or four days or whatever and just camp on the trail as we go. You do a couple hundred miles and it's a lot of fun. So the thing is, when I plan those, there's uh there's alternate routes all the way along. I plan, here's the route we're taking. Yeah. And then I'm like, but if we get here and decide we want to go this different way, there's options. So it's like there's not a lot of stress. Yeah. Well, this route just happened to be the route that takes forever to get to the start of the route, and then there's no arounds.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

You gotta go all the way back. So when that trail was closed, and anyway, we're not gonna get into it. It actually wasn't closed, but the sign said it was anyway. So I was just there was no there, I didn't have a backup plan, right? There were no options. Like, what do we do?

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

We we gotta have a tent set up in three hours, or we're in the dark, and I have no option. So but the reality is, you know, we took what five minutes and pulled up the map and found a workaround, and it was awesome. But I was just living in the case. Yeah, we'll because I had spent so much time planning this, it's like, oh great, we're not even out of the gate, and I'm and it's it's all out the window.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

Well, and the reason why you're taking so much time to plan it is because you have the responsibility to make this good for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

But then then me, Jake, and Bailey are going, hey, it's okay. We're good. We'll just find something else. And you could not, you could not be brought back down. I mean, you just like the energy, it just takes a minute. But I think that that is a really good example of showing that it's like there is something unconscious and deep about things not going the way that you plan, your expectations not being met.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Yeah, because I'm invested. Yeah. I got, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Yeah, and and there's other things that may be involved, other parts of you that it's like it means something if it if you can have it go well for everybody that would fit with you because you, your responsibility, like it's like when we were talking last time, it's like I can't find, you know, it's like, okay, well, I'm not gonna be happy. So my job, my fulfillment, my purpose, because I can't live according to mine because of these responsibilities that I have, then becomes to give them happiness and make sure that they have fulfillment and joy and whatever. And so then there's this pressure that you have to provide, but you get anxiously attached to this is the way to provide it. But then there are things that are outside of our control. Where if you are more in a place of where you're at now, you would totally be like, All right, let's pull open the map. I guess we're winging it, let's figure it out. It's like, um Oh, I'd be mad.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

I just you just wouldn't know it.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

I actually probably wouldn't be mad. No, you wouldn't. Because I'm getting better.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

That is right. That is right.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Saying that out loud.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Yeah. Um, so okay. So it's it's kind of like pointing to it that there is a part of you. Now it's okay, the conscious, then the negative cognitions, the conditioned mind, all the filters that we see life through. Now let's see them as parts of us. Let's see it as um, okay, uh, if we use the example that we all know, when my parents were gonna get divorced, and I was like trying to save their marriage and then realized I was not good enough.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

You were how old?

SPEAKER_03 18:10

I was five.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

Then when I was five, there was this idea in my mind that I was the reason why they got divorced, right? There was a part of me moving forward from that point that had found evidence uh that I was not good enough. Right. And so that part now let's think about learning how to ride a bike when we talked about that. Right? So you're learning how to ride a bike, and your brain is uh like your brain is trying to learn how to balance on it. So it's recording a program, it's programming your brain to be able to do this new skill, how to handle it, but it's programming it through the lens of you have to be safe, right? And that's when I'm five, my brain is trying to figure out how to make me safe. It doesn't make sense that it would feel more safe if I know that I'm not good enough, except that if there's a belief that I am not good enough, then I won't try to, like I will become more shy, I will become more reserved, I will not overextend myself, I will try to prevent people from knowing that about me. Now, what is the trigger to riding a bike? You touch a bike, it goes, let's run this program. For me as a five-year-old, a boyfriend breaks up with me. No, I wasn't five and had a boyfriend. For my five-year-old part, hold on. Some punctuation in there something. Jeez. No, but it's like when I'm in high school later, and it's like I feel this like loss and like something is wrong, and I'm hurt and sad. My brain goes, Oh, it's probably my fault. I'm not good enough.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Because remember when we were five.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

Yeah. Yeah. But it doesn't even, it just is like, oh, let's run this. So our brain is extremely efficient. Remember, 95% of the day, our brain is trying to run unconscious programs so that we are all and so that we are always safe. And that's um like our brain is kind of trying to keep us safe in the world and and all of that, and then but it's like safe in the world as in belonging, you know, having power and having the things that you need. So if you understand it as that, then you realize I have a part, my five-year-old self that feels not good enough. When there's loss or there's hurt, it's my fault. Right? And so when there's an experience that triggers that feeling in me, my little five-year-old wants to take over.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

You know? So it's it's just like parts is a way of going, okay, well, how do I hear that he healed this good enough thing? I can go do EMDR, but when I'm doing EMDR, I'm going to remember that event. I'm going to remember many others, and I'm going to go, oh my gosh, I can see how all of this connects, right? Um, I can do um, I can do willpower where I'm just gonna white knuckle, go, okay, no, I'm good enough. I'm I can do affirmations, which can be helpful, but but sometimes if you're not doing the deeper work, it's just there's some part of you naturally that will reject. What you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

That program's pretty strong.

SPEAKER_03 22:02

Yeah, it's very strong. So if you see it as that, that's a part, there's a part of me. Now, is it the only? No. Not at all. You know?

SPEAKER_00 22:13

It's like there are no you got your seven-year-old part that was sad because your dad yelled at you, and you got your 11 year old part.

SPEAKER_03 22:19

No, my seven-year-old part. I have an inner critic. We all have an inner critic. My inner critic is my seven-year-old.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Is like a seven-year-old part. Now, how do I find out the age? So let me, I'll tell you this. Um, it's like well, I think we talked about it a little bit, but I can do it with you. But um it's like when you find a sensation that you have in your body, let's say you feel anxiety churning in your stomach, right? If you can take a second with that feeling, just get very conscious of it, think about a time when you felt that before, but you can ask yourself or after you react, let's say, let's use that because that's easier. Let's use the Beaver Mountain trip.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Oh, good.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Okay. And I don't know, because this is a harder concept for you to get to. So if you can't, it's okay. Um, but just kind of intuitively, if you think of that moment, the upset, you're just mad, um things aren't are falling apart, whatever, we drove all this way, all of that. But if you feel that in your body and you think about it, you feel connected to it. Can you?

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Um sure.

SPEAKER_03 23:49

Okay. So then just intuitively, like if we're doing word association, like I say blue, what's the first word that cop pops into your mind? Blue.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Uh that's it. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

Can you do you do word association? If I say sandwich, what's the first thing that pops in your head?

SPEAKER_00 24:17

The first word?

SPEAKER_03 24:18

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

I just picture a sandwich. I don't have like some word I gotta think of.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

I wonder, I actually wonder if the part of you that feels like you need to have the right answer and do things right all the time will not let you intuitively respond because what if it's wrong? And I don't know, that's something to look at.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Well you say sandwich. How could there be one word?

SPEAKER_03 24:48

It's just whatever it's not, there's not a right or wrong, babe. You could say grass. It's whatever word, it doesn't have to be associated with it. But if I say uh if I say ocean, what's the first word that pops in your head?

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Frank Ocean. I don't even know who that is. Perfect. But I just heard that.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

On a show yesterday.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

That's amazing. Yes, it's just that. It's just the very first thing that pops in. Okay. That's kind of like when I'm working with somebody intuitively. You don't want your thinking mind involved.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

That's funny because I was just thinking, oh, so you just want an answer. You don't want an intelligent answer.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

Right. That's so okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Considering Ryan has a part that needs to find the right answer. You don't want an actual answer. You just want me to whatever shows. Whatever, just say something.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Well, what I'm actually trying to do in the exercise is we're trying to bypass your thinking answer.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Exactly, which is what I mean by you don't you don't want an intelligent answer because then I've I've thought it through. You just want whatever is actually below the whatever.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

Yeah. So we want to get a little bit deeper. Your thinking mind wants to believe it has all the answers. But we want to go deeper than the thinking mind. So if I say to you, um, when you're feeling that angry and you're connected to it, tell me what is the first thing that pops into your mind when I ask you, how old did you feel?

SPEAKER_00 26:20

I've already waited too long to give you the right answer, right? Because I had to think for like three seconds, like how old did I feel?

SPEAKER_03 26:29

Yeah, your thinking brain is is very powerful. It's fine.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Oh, thanks. Not ashamed of that.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

You should be. No, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Well, because you say how old do you feel? And immediately I'm like, okay, what? Um Yeah. Let's see.

SPEAKER_03 26:43

Okay, let's just let's just for one second talk about because in the power of now, Eckhart Tolle talks a lot about this. Um, the power of now, I think there's other ones, other people talk about it, but it's like this side lesson, this is what happens more to men than girls. Because when we have little girls and they cry and throw fit, it's so cute. How cute are they?

SPEAKER_01 27:11

That's not cute.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

No, but when they're just like sad and emotional, girls are supposed to be that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

But what do we do with boys? We shut it down. Yeah, we reward the thinking brain and we punish or diminish the emotional brain. Um, it's like there's I we should one of these times, and maybe even like Jennifer Finlays and Fife will come and talk to us, but uh I'll have to reach out to her. But I think that it's like talking about um masculine and feminine, right? And it's so loaded in the United States. So if we talk about it as yin and yang energy, that it's like in order to receive to ex to have balance, that there's qualities in both the yin and the yang, or the masculine and the feminine, that if you want to be a whole person, it's to embrace both. The emotional mind is more connected to the spiritual. But when you shut down the emotions and the intuition, and you're reliant more on the thinking brain, then your life is runned by the conditioned mind.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

You know? So that's a side quest.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

But so I guess I got a ways to go on that one.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

No, I mean, no, but it's it's I mean Well, like I think about it.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

What might help me get to what you're looking for more? Um, instead of like how old did you feel? It would be like what did what what other time did you feel the same way?

SPEAKER_03 28:49

I really, really love that your brain just told me how to make your brain be able to come up with the right answer.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

You're welcome. A thinking brain, it'll get you somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 29:01

Your thinking brain's like, you know how you could do this more right. It's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

This is like you telling me the other day that you were in AI doing working on something, uh huh, and it just and it wouldn't do it. And somehow, I think this is you that was telling me this. AI told you, well, if you prompt me with this, uh huh, then I can do it.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

It's like, here's how to get around the gate.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

That's a thinking computer, though.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

It's not thinking.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Well, it feels thinking.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

No, no. It feels yeah, it does feel thinking.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Anyway, okay. That's not a good thing. Well, it's it's certainly.

SPEAKER_03 29:40

It's certainly not emoting.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Whatever that is.

SPEAKER_03 29:43

Emotion.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Yeah. Nope, nope, it's not.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

All right, back to Okay.

SPEAKER_03 29:47

So if you think in that, okay, let's if you cannot, if your brain, like some people, when I talk to them and I ask them that, they'll go, 11 came to mind first. That's weird why. It's like, I don't know. But your brain knows, so your brain brought it to you, right? But did you feel like when you were blended with that kind of energy and you just could not be calmed down? It's not your true self because in the moment you were, I mean, you're not mean to any of us. You just get quiet and you have a hard time shifting. And that was probably the word that I'm like, babe, you just gotta shift and you were like, I have a hard time shifting.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

I used to have a really hard time.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

Yeah, and so so when did you used to have a really hard time?

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Shifting?

SPEAKER_03 30:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

My entire life? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

I've never I don't remember a time when I was like some trade, you know, sent me off, and then I was like, oh well, I'm gonna choose to be happy.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Well, that sounds a lot to me like a program that runs.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_03 31:01

You said that throughout your life you've had a really hard time shifting, like your whole life. That sounds like a program that runs.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Oh, yeah, yeah. Probably so.

SPEAKER_03 31:09

But it's a it's an intolerance of disappointment or um things not going the way that you you expect them to go. You know, anxiety can make it that way a little bit. Like we need it to go a specific way because we need the world to be predictable so we can feel safe.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Well, I think more for me, what it what it it was was that i if I did something and it just sent me over because it went bad, I needed to stay in that anger so that I knew it needed to go better next time. So it's not okay for it to go that way. And if I just flip around and be happy in five seconds, then that does not support me. It doesn't add enough weight to the lesson that I'm actually gonna take it forward in my life. So if I'm if I'm mad about it for longer and I'm miserable about it for longer, then it will motivate me to not ever do that again. Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 32:16

Well, okay, now now it's flashing into my mind. I don't know if this one is connected, but you forgetting your shoes when you went hunting as a kid.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

You know? Yeah, I mean I I see the connection that you're making. I don't I don't I don't know. I'm not aware of the thing.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

Yeah, we don't we don't know that that's for sure it sometimes people land straight on it, but can you see how even a scenario like that, you forgot your shoes, what happened is Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

We were we I I grew up, we just we went hunting all the time. That was that was my dad's thing. So we uh we we drove out there, whatever, hour and a half out to the mountain, drove up on top of the mountain, took an hour to do that, the snow's two feet deep, and we got all the way up there and parked and got out to hike, and I didn't bring any shoes, apparently.

SPEAKER_03 33:04

And so then what happened?

SPEAKER_00 33:06

So it was like, uh what you didn't bring shoes? And so I I can't remember, but I think I sat in the truck for a while. I don't really know.

SPEAKER_03 33:13

Well, that okay, if it is that, and I don't know like what came out of that. But you sitting in the truck.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

How did I forget my shoes? I mean I need shoes.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

Yeah, so then if you sit in the truck while everybody else goes, or if you sit in the truck and because you forgot your shoes, everybody has to stay and everybody has to miss out.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Yeah, I screwed it up for everybody. I remember feeling that.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

Yeah, and maybe it's everybody bringing it up. Oh, Ryan, why'd you do that? You know, maybe your dad, maybe whatever. It's just like uh which is totally normal, a normal situation. There's disappointment going on and whatever, but how does it get internalized in you? Which is, you know, maybe it is that that is just like I can never, ever, ever have this happen again. Because when you're a little like that and everybody's upset at you. And the way you guys would go about hunting, it's like going hunting with your dad is a big deal. Going out there, it's it's a huge thing, and you guys look forward to it all the time, and you messed it up for everybody, right? Can you see how that? I'm I'm not like assigning this one to it for sure, but it's it gives an example of um perhaps that could be a place where this started, where where the weight of disappointing and messing everything up for everybody is so uh heavy that you you you need to avoid it. And then your brain, it's like you need to ruminate on things.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Well, more than that, I think I felt that, oh my gosh, I am so dumb. How did I forget shoes? So it was self-deprecating.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

And which could totally feed into maybe 10 years ago, I'm like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe I did that. I'm gonna be pissed about that for a week because I cannot do that again, because that is so stupid. How can I even do that?

SPEAKER_03 35:14

Which just goes back to exactly what we were talking about in shame.

unknown 35:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

That it is this hardwired in us um feeling that in order to make sure that we don't do something again, we must suffer.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

You gotta punish yourself.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

Yeah, you've got to be punished. And so you are holding on to the punishment for yourself, which then is actually then creating a negative vibe on the trip. The one you were trying to avoid.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:45

But but you know, hold on to it because it's like some. Can you see that it's like in your rational mind, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to hold on to it to punish you to make sure it never happens again.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

You know, to hold on to it to punish yourself to make sure that the roads are never closed because there's a fire all of a sudden that nobody had put on the internet and you weren't aware of. But can you see how it's an automatic, it has to be an automatic program because it's not rational.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Yep. So what are you saying?

SPEAKER_03 36:23

Okay, so now what I'm saying is this this gives us the perfect opportunity to do this. So if you if anybody can find that, it's like you can sit with when you know what is this feeling that you have? How old do you feel? Can even if the only answer you can come up with is, well, I felt younger than I am now.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Well, and this has to be a thing that a lot of people out there can connect with because you tell me all the time. You're like everybody that I talk to immediately is like, um six. Yeah. Wait, why did I say six?

SPEAKER_03 36:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

So yeah, I think it's abnormal that I can't connect it.

SPEAKER_03 37:01

No, it's not super abnormal because uh it just depends. The the super thinking mind people, the super analytical people have a really hard time with this because you are so uh because that's also a part is this idea that your brain, you need to rely on your intellect, which makes it more difficult to connect to and trust intuition fully.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Yep, yeah, I see that.

SPEAKER_03 37:29

You know, and so then you're really good at following integrity and doing exactly what everybody needs you to do, which then is goodness, or it kind of it's like you you get the boxes checked, but it's it's more why you end up feeling like like when you were talking a few weeks ago about um you just made up your mind that you're always going to do what you're supposed to do. And so in the end, you just always feel like, well, I have to, because I've already decided. So you feel stuck even by your moral choices, yeah. Like choiceless, you know? And so that is also a part, but that's just your brain trying to figure out how to navigate the world safely because for a long time I mean we're taught not to trust our feelings.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

So so let me ask you this. So, okay, so everyone out there is thinking of an ex a time they felt something, and you ask, how old did you feel? And whatever comes up immediately, you say it kind your your brain knows. Does that come from your brain or from your It's like intuition authentic self. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 38:44

So it's like intuition. It's like you you are intuitively knowing it. That's why if I ask people what is it, then their brain is going, um, well, I think that there was this, but then I think there was this. It's like we are not looking for the answer to the other.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Yeah, which is why I can never come up with it because I'm always thinking about what it is. So it has to bypass the brain and come from somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 39:05

Which is why word association is a is a good way to get there, because if you can feel that just, you know, it's like weird. Like, I love the ocean, you know. It's like we've been to Hawaii a couple times in the last year. It's like if I say ocean, the first thing you're like, Frank Ocean, because last night on a TV show somebody said Frank Ocean and you don't even know who it is. But it's like, but it doesn't matter because it's not, it doesn't matter. It's just the practice of that, your brain just, you know, or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

Which it adds another layer of difficulty for me because words annoy me to death. Because you can say a word to 10 people and they'll have 14 different definitions for what you just said. Yeah. And so I'm I'm I'm careful about words. And so for you to say what word comes to your mind, it's like, okay, this is not a simple question.

SPEAKER_03 39:56

Do you know why you're careful about words? Why? Because you need to be right. You don't need to be right in like discussions with you and me. But you are like, it's not the same kind of muscle of I need to be right over you.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

I want to communicate accurately what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

Yeah. It's like you need to make the right choices, you need to, you know, say the right thing. You have low tolerance for getting it wrong. So you spend an insane amount of time researching everything until it becomes impossible to make a decision.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Yeah, I'm not very good at um learning by experience.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

That's I guess that's not really what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

But I very rarely do I just go just off the cuff, just go do something. It's like, I'm gonna look it up first. And I'm gonna, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

And so what happens is I don't learn nearly as much as someone who's just like, I'm gonna act. I'm gonna just gonna try stuff and see what happens, you know?

SPEAKER_03 41:08

Yeah, I remember when you were taking some classes at UVU and you were talking about how much you loved math, because there's one answer. So when there's two answers, it's like, well, then how do I know which one is the right one? You would have died on the NCE and the NCMHCE, the tests that I had to take, where it's like, hey, four of these answers could be right. We need you to choose the most right.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

Yeah, this is why you are the counselor and I'm the counselor.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

It's just ridiculous. Those tests are ridiculous. But I think that that is the it's like understanding that. And there is this awareness that even just talking about it right now, that now it's going to become more, you're going to be more consciously aware of that uh pull that you have toward that. You're gonna start seeing all the places that it shows up. That's the beginning of the end. Oh, self-awareness is tricky because it makes you feel it's like it's the way to freedom, if you, you know, but but we don't want to see it and we don't know how to do anything else different. That's why I really, really love in Buddhist practice. It is um, it is like you don't do anything. It's like you just be your truest nature is intuition, is like the multi-sense. You're just trying to connect to it. So it's just be aware that you are doing the thing and see if there's anything else that you, you know, or like if like if you're spiraling down a thing of research, it's like, you know what, this looks like a great option. I'm just gonna pull the trigger and do it. You know?

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:51

So, okay. Um now, what I would do, like when I'm working with somebody and I say to them, what age do you feel? If they get an age, or even if they don't, it's like if they get an age, I'll say, Well, what happened around then? And I want the first memory that just popped into your mind. And almost always people are like, Well, it's it's kind of like a stupid little one. I don't even know why or what it has to do with it, but if that's the one you want, and then they tell me, and we absolutely find the connection. Because as they're talking about it, and then they're like, This memory pops into my head all the time, just randomly. And it's like, yeah, because it's it's like very active in your life in the way that this part or this framework around how to respond to things or um react to things or whatever is working. So, but if somebody says, I feel younger, it's like, well, what does it feel like, or whatever? If I can get people down there, then I will just say, What is the first time? Do you remember another time in your life where you felt this way? Or where this applies, and then we can usually get down to something similar because even if it's not the first time, then your brain will bring up the worst time that you experienced that or felt that, and that helps. Now, this is where parts work works, and this is this is the great part. So now I could do this with you in a meditation, but I would ask you if you were on that mountain, how old were you when you left your shoes?

SPEAKER_00 44:33

I don't even know.

SPEAKER_03 44:35

Well, could you go hunting with your dad before you were eight?

SPEAKER_00 44:39

But I don't feel like I was eight. I felt like I was like four, but that's kind of maybe because I just don't want to think my eight-year-old self would be dumb enough to forget his shoes. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 44:49

I mean, one, we're gonna lose the negative self-talk stuff about him.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

I know.

SPEAKER_03 44:58

Okay. I want you to think about it's like think about yourself feeling the way that you did. Just that.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

Just I mostly remember just crying.

SPEAKER_03 45:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

Like I was a mess.

SPEAKER_03 45:09

Yeah. Like so upset and hurt, right? Hurt, upset. Um, you could feel the disappointment of everybody else. There's something else, and maybe the reason why you've always felt four, because I always picture you as four too when you tell that. And I don't know if it's because you've said four, but maybe it's because this actually, this part actually started before that, but four is a little early for us to show you.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

I was eight, but my four-year-old self was upset.

SPEAKER_03 45:36

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Something, but it's like inception, it's a whole other level of it.

SPEAKER_03 45:41

I don't, but it's okay, because it doesn't really matter anyone. It's like there's always, always benefit in this. So if you could right now, if you were the dad of that little you, just totally devastated, what would you do? What did he need?

SPEAKER_00 46:07

I don't know. He needed shoes.

SPEAKER_03 46:10

Oh, good gracious.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

I'm saying how do you feel it's like, it's okay, buddy. Pat him on the back. Well, what does that do? I I don't know. It makes him I don't it makes him feel better, but I but I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

Well, because the devastation is.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

What do you do?

SPEAKER_03 46:29

Right, but it isn't about the shoes. The emotional response that you are having at that age isn't about the shoes. So the emotional response you are having about what it means that you have ruined the trip for everybody, that people are upset at you, that you screwed up. That's that's the emotions that you're feeling.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Well, what can you do? Comfort the kid.

SPEAKER_03 46:52

What would you do?

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Tell him, you know what, I forgot my shoes once. I mean, tell you, I don't know. Try to comfort him. I don't know what else to do.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

You are and like you are such a good dad. If it was Jake, what would you do? And you just saw him totally devastated.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

I'd say, All right, nobody's wearing shoes today. Everybody took every shoes, we're going hiking in the snow. I don't know what I would do.

SPEAKER_03 47:21

Well, I know what you'd do. It's like you would say, Hey bud, it's okay. It's all right. We're not disappointed. These things happen. You didn't mean to leave your shoes. That's clear. That's obvious. But it's like, you know, do you turn around and drive about down the mountain? It it just doesn't matter. When you're doing parts work, what you're trying to do is address the emotion. All you needed in that moment was for somebody in that situation to scoop you up and say, it's all right, bud. These things happen, it's okay. Like I know you're disappointed.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:58

You know? So parts work is doing that, is going back and saying it's okay. And and sometimes it's um it's not trying to fix the situation that was.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

Yeah, that's what I was, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:15

It's not about that. It's about there is something being written about who Ryan is in this world and to everybody else in that moment because there's such intense emotion. And that new written pathway in your brain is just devastating.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

And so, how do you correct that? It's just all you really needed was somebody to say, it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:47

It's all right.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

Probably, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:49

Well it's alright. Let's just road hunt today. We're just gonna road hunt. That's fun. We all love doing that. And then when we get out and we want to go sit on the edge of a hill and look with our binoculars, I'm just gonna put you on my back. Everything's gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 49:06

You know? Do you see how what do you think about that little boy you at that time when you remove the need to solve the situation, but also you can see the emotional devastation that you were feeling. What do you feel about it?

SPEAKER_00 49:29

I don't know, because I don't really remember, you know. I don't know. I don't know if I was all upset because I ruined everybody's day or because I I mean I hated the cold and the snow and the winter and all of it. So it's like I I wasn't bummed that I didn't get to go out and go hiking. Yeah. You know, I don't I don't know. I don't I don't this is the thing. I don't I don't recall. And I know the answer isn't that we're trying to recall things. I'm just d fighting against the flow of the river in my brain for my life, which is I'm thinking.

SPEAKER_03 50:05

Yeah. Yeah. So it's in your brain is still trying to reconcile the situation, but instead it's like if you when you think back to yourself and the way that you felt in that moment. Situation aside, let's remove your little eight-year-old self from that situation. He has shoes on and he's sitting in a room feeling the way that he did. How do you feel toward him?

SPEAKER_00 50:35

Just I I Okay. I don't know what words.

SPEAKER_03 50:38

I know you don't. It's harder. Well, it's maybe hard, and so let's try it a different way. If it was Jake.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

I don't like this shoes thing.

SPEAKER_03 50:52

I know.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

Because I don't get it. I can't.

SPEAKER_03 50:56

Well, because you can though. It's like just for a second, it's like there have been times where you have seen Jake upset, sad, devastated, feeling like he did something wrong because I swear to you I cloned you.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Here's the thing. So problem this part of this is probably like, okay, so going back to exactly my program for my whole life, I'm thinking, I I don't anything that I say that I would do to comfort the little boy and make everything better in some ways I view as a slight on maybe my dad because he didn't do that, or maybe that's not what he did. And I'm not you know what I mean? So I feel like I'm in j not that I am in judgment, that it could be seen as being me being in judgment because my dad didn't do for me what I would do for me. You know what I mean? And that's not the case.

SPEAKER_03 51:50

No, it's not the case, and and so then I mean, this is this that's a really great thing to bring up because it's like that's not what this is. Because what this actually does is gives you the ability to see, it's like, okay, well, why didn't your dad do that? He has a bunch of other kids with him and whatever else, he's super young and well he may have, and I didn't just didn't remember it.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 52:14

Yeah, and so I think that it's like it's the really difficult thing for every single one of us is that we're born to humans, you know, and humans have their own stuff that they are unconscious to, ways that they respond. Maybe your dad is, you know, it just doesn't even matter. You know, it isn't even about that.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Yeah, that's what I mean. It's not about my dad, but no, it's not.

SPEAKER_03 52:37

But what it is about is that in a moment you were not getting what you need. And so what this does is give you the ability to go back and give yourself what you need. What does that do? Well, there's a bunch of research on it actually physically changes the the um electrical pathways in your brain. There is a pathway in there that is still functioning that you cannot disappoint other people, that you can't um like don't forget something, or that you need to be punished so you never do anything wrong again because it's it disappoints people, or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:22

But it's like there's that pathway that is still running. Now, if you are able to go back and see that version of yourself, give yourself the love and comfort that you needed at the time, make it right. The pathway never would have been written at the time, but it's like that aside, it's like if you can go back and do that, the pathway changes in your brain. There are really physical long-term changes that happen in your brain. We do memory rewrites, we do all these different things. But it's like in parts work when you go back and you satisfy that thing, it allows your brain to adjust to how you view the world now with your current brain development.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

Yeah, so so my six, eight, whatever year old self, um it's like an open loop. Like something is something was wrong. Yeah. I did something bad, whatever it is. And so however you felt at that time, if that's never resolved and it just goes away and disappears in the background, it's still there, which is why when you're 40 and I have that same feeling come up, my four-year-old self is saying, Hey, this, you know, I know I here's what we should do with this, because I've had to do this when I was ho, you know, whatever. And so what you're doing is you're you're providing that four-year-old self the opportunity, you're closing the loop. You're going back and saying, Hey, buddy, let me give you what you need in the moment so that that part of you can have the loop closed. Yeah. It's satisfied, it's happy again, or at least not anxious that it needs to help solve problems today in your life.

SPEAKER_03 55:02

It's safe again.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

And it's quiet again and it's it's happy.

SPEAKER_03 55:06

Yeah. Yeah. It's uh it's like everything it does is because it's not safe. It's doing it out of survival. So you're just going back and doing that. It's like imagine uh another thing with parts work, it's like after you have a conversation, you just feel love, you just like uh, you know, sometimes it helps to see it as your kid because it it just hits different. Or um, you know, if you can't at in the beginning, until you can see your little self and know that all of this weight that you've been carrying that is so hard that has kept you from doing what you want to do, is totally written by little Ryan who was trying to figure out this world with limited understanding and limited resources and thinking that he was the problem all along. And now your now self knows that that's not true, but damn the weight of that.

SPEAKER_00 56:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:07

You know, and it's like, dang, you know, we look at the picture. There's that little picture of you in grade school that the little picture that you said, well, I just found the picture that represents how I feel all the time. And it's just you, little kids sitting in school, just kind of like, like, oh like it's yeah, it's you know, just stress, but I just think that it's like every time I see that picture, I'm like, oh, I just want to scoop him up, you know, and just like, but it's okay. Let me show you what life is going to be like. It's okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:45

So so going back to your that version of yourself, it doesn't change what happened or how you felt about it, but it can change how you feel about it going forward.

SPEAKER_03 56:56

So the way that we say it is that it's like it cannot change your factual memory or the factual experience of it, but it will change your emotional response that was created because of that.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

Because that emotional response is still active.

SPEAKER_03 57:10

Yeah, and totally. And that is what parts are is the parts are just still activated old thought processes that are still trying to react and resolve, uh, react to and resolve uh an extreme stressor that you faced.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

Aaron Powell It's like you were saying a few episodes ago, it's like your 13-year-old self trying to deal with a marriage.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

It's it's it's that part of yourself trying to trying to live your life today, which is a completely different scenario.

SPEAKER_03 57:43

Yeah. And part parts were like explaining it as a part and understanding where it originated from as in this way helps build compassion. I can tell you all the science-y stuff about neuropathways and synapses and all that kind of stuff, and electrical connections that are happening and thoughts and all that kind of stuff. But if you understand it as parts and in everything that I've done with working with parts, there is with myself, with everybody else, it shifts everything towards compassion. And then real change happens. It's like all the change, you know, I've been working on myself for a very long time, but all the most impactful, radical change that has happened in my life is when I am up against something, like when I um release my group for the first time, right? And it was like immediately as soon as I blasted it out on email and said, Hey, we're gonna do this, I started having panic attacks. I was freaking out, and I just could like was like, what is this? And I'd sit with it going, okay, what's going on? What am I feeling? Well, it's 11-year-old me going, What have you done? Like we're not good enough, and nobody's gonna, nobody's gonna show up because nobody cares, you know, or whatever. And it was like you totally expose us by this, and she was freaking out. And so it was like the best thing in that is just like wrapping her up and saying, Girl, let me show you our life right now. And then what you can do on the other side of it is that maybe it's you visualize yourself in different situations. Asking your little self, um, there's been many times where it's just like, Hey, do you want to come live at my house? You know, and you just imagine yourself taking them out of that situation. It depends on what it is. But it's like, I've seen my high school self down by my old locker before and said, Girl, do you want to get out of here? You know, and it's like, yeah, I do. It's like, all right, come on. And just visualize taking her out of that space, freeing her from there, because she's been stuck there. There's a part of my mind that has been stuck by that locker and the feelings that I had there for so long. One of the ways I think about parts is if you imagine you're going throughout life, and every time you feel a really impactful, uh like difficult situation, it is as if you like a part of you splintered off and stayed there in that space, holding the energy of that space so you could keep moving forward. But now I'm 49 and my 11-year-old self is still convinced that she's facing the same stressors that we did at that time in our lives, you know, and still reacting according to them. And I just need to go get that girl and say, come live our life, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:55

Yeah, because the night before you're like, This is great. I'm gonna I'm gonna do the class. I'm I'm sending out, I'm sending out notices and invitations and ads, you know, or whatever it is. Yeah. And then you wake up in the morning and it's it's it's yeah, it's it's like it's not the same person that just put up the ads last night. It's like, what have I done?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:17

But to know, to have the knowledge that where that comes from, that's a part of me. That's not it's not like all of a sudden I decided I'm wrong and this should not happen. Yeah. A little part of me is afraid about what might happen. And so she's overcoming, she's trying to push herself to the surface and run the show because she's scared to death.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

Yeah, because her job is to keep us safe by not ever exposing ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:44

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:44

Like that. And maybe it was because around eleven I was in a play and tried out for another one or whatever, you know, and it's just like, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

You know, from that experience, she learned this is how we protect ourselves. Yeah, it's we just don't know. Because it's got a mission.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:02

Yeah. It has a job and it's trying to do it. It's picking up the bike.

unknown 1:02:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:06

Picking up the bike, run the program. This is the program. But it's like, yes, she's just desperately trying to protect me because she's stuck in a place of fear. Now, closing the loop is the perfect way to explain it. And that is actually the way um that I explain it when I do uh ART. So ART is accelerated resolution therapy. It's like EMDR, but we do it memory specific. So when somebody experiences a traumatic event, our brain will dump three different chemicals. It's like norepinephrine, our body's natural uh um uh opioids and whatever. And so it dumps these three chemicals into our brain, which is great to make us feel better in the moment, which is great, except that it's toxic to the hippocampus. Now the hippocampus cannot timestamp this memory as something that happened in the past. So if it can't timestamp it as past, the loop stays open. There's no close. So there's a part of you that gets stuck in this place, bracing yourself for the thing. It's been stuck back there waiting for this thing to happen. Um, an example of that would be when there was the uh the kid that pranked the um high school when Mallory was there. Um he pranked the high school, said that he was gonna, you know, come and shoot up at the school or whatever. And so they have this lockdown. Well, Mallory's texting you for an hour and a half, and and she is huddled in the corner of a room. Sure, her mat her brain is in total trauma. She is sure her friends are being killed in other parts of the school and that she's next. And she's just bracing for it. And then they come in and say, Oh, false calls, you can go home. And so everybody thinks it's like, oh, it wasn't real, it's fine. Except that for an hour and a half, there were kids in that school that were sure that they were about to die. And some kids can resolve and be okay and process through, but others cannot. And then everybody else is like, it was it wasn't even real. It's okay. It wasn't even real. Just move on because we don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

That's true, totally. But we don't have any of this. So, hey, let's just keep going.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:32

Yes. So we talk to Mallory and whatever else, but we start noticing over months that she is literally like leaving the house and going outside at night because she thinks that the house is going to catch on fire. Because what has happened is her brain is stuck in a loop that something bad is about to happen. And so her processing, her top-down processing is like, okay, well, or the bottom-up processing is saying, um, it is uh it must be a fire because she can smell the neighbor's wood-burning fireplace outside. So the house is going to catch on fire. So she has this paranoia for that, that this is gonna happen. So then I go and do ART with her, it closes the loop and she's never once had that problem again. So what ART does is you go in and you see the memory all the way through. And when you complete it, then it timestamps the memory. It timestamps it as this is in the past. Your time, your hippocampus timestamps it. When veterans, like we, that's the most common one, the one that we know, which is um veterans coming home and and being at fireworks, and all of a sudden their brain is convinced and can even see as if they are in the war and people are shooting at them when they're hearing the fireworks. It's because that loop is open, and so the brain is constantly scanning. Everything to find risk so that it can make itself safe. And it's just, you know, maybe a stressful day or whatever else. It makes the window of tolerance, which we can talk about, but like a little bit more narrow, which just sets everything off. And really in their brain, they're there. They're in the middle of it. So closing the loop is in parts work in ART, but in parts work to go back and resolve that for your little boy self. Now that program is no longer needed to run because it was decided upon by your eight-year-old self. And the fact of the matter is you just forgot your shoes. You're a busybody kid running around playing with everybody. And it's like everybody jump in the truck. You run out and jump in the truck. You you were just a kid. You know, you you didn't have the list that you have now. But the thing that I know though is that it runs deep in your family because you also have brothers that are the mega list makers that need to make sure that they get everything. And maybe some of them are doing that because they watched your experience of forgetting shoes, you know, and that enough was enough for them that they were like, I never want to do that. So we have siblings, we have our own experience, we have all these things that our brain is trying to process. Maybe in your family, like you are a super, super rule keeper, anxiously so. Um, and you you are constantly trying to make your parents feel better and you're doing everything for them. Why do you do that? Did you ever get in trouble? It's like, no, but I did have a sibling that was always in trouble. It's like, okay, well, maybe you saw your parents' reaction to them and you never wanted that in your direction. You know?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:47

It's a little secondhand trauma for totally.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:49

I mean, uh it's it's human. We're born to humans in human families. So it's it's going to happen. It's just, it is the way that it is. There is nobody who doesn't have this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:05

Which means that nothing's going wrong. Nothing's going wrong.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:09

Yeah, nothing's going wrong. And it is actually having the skills and the abilities to go back and do this. Now, you will build more self-compassion. I can tell you, okay, you need to stop yourself from negative self-talk. Okay, okay, every time you talk negative about yourself, just count it. And then every day try for one less. It's like that's behavioral. It's super surface, but you want to stop it immediately, then, or like change your relationship with it, do parts work and realize that every time you were like, it's so dumb, it was my dumb shoes and whatever else, you know, that it's even like for me, there's so many times I would be like, Oh my gosh, I'm so stupid, why did I do that? And now you my family's heard me a million times say, I'm so stupid, why did I do that? And then I would stop and go, I am not stupid, I'm actually really smart. It was just a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:06

Yeah, so so that's a good point. Um, you can go through the process of how do you feel? How old did you feel when you remember feeling that way? Um, okay, let's find what experience may have caused those feelings. And then you can even go back and and go to yourself at that time and give them what they needed so that they're happy and they're fine and they're not scanning for risk all the time anymore. But you can close that loop and then the next day the same feeling might come up. But like you said, so it doesn't like close the chapter and you never have that to deal with again. It's just when it comes up again, you can quickly say, Hey buddy, remember we got this, we're good. Here's a tootsie pop, you know, whatever it is. And then he's and then that calms down a lot faster. And eventually over time, maybe it never comes up again.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:03

But Right. Well, I would say sometimes, you know, sometimes it's like if you think of, okay, let's say that we think of your eight-year-old self sitting in that truck crying, and that there is a portion of your mind, or that that version of you has been in that truck all this time, trying to prevent the same mistake from ever happening again.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:26

One tootsie pop ain't gonna make him.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:28

No, you just want to take him out of the he just needs to go home.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:33

You know, it's like he can get out of that space. And sometimes when I'm doing like communicating with myself, I'll say, like, um, it's like, is it okay? Like I will like sometimes say to my younger self, and you know, I have conversations with my younger self all the time, but it's just like, is it okay if I show you what our life looks like now?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:57

So that you can see that everything's okay. You can see everything's okay. There's no reason to be alarmed about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:02

Yeah. Especially if you experienced trauma and emotional abuse or anything like that. It's like to rescue that part of you and say, we're safe, we're good. And then every time I notice the energy of something is just off, um, I would say doing this podcast, definitely starting that. But I, but the social media aspect is also part of that. It's like you're like mostly the anxiety for me, it's not anxiety, it's just like, I just want to be able to help anybody who wants it. But I feel a little bit stifled by the algorithms. Uh, and like I've got to somehow figure out the algorithms to be able to get through so that I can help people. Um, but that requires me to do specific things that they want me to do and spend way more time on social media. And I just don't want to do that. So then I feel like I'm failing or whatever else. You know, there's all those kind of things that are coming up, or the fear of anytime you put yourself out there, anytime I put myself out there, it's like this, I'm not good enough. But what I noticed that's different is the very first time I put the the course out there. Um, I mean, it was so funny because I was panicking, just like, oh my gosh, nobody's gonna come. And then it was like, I wanted it to sell out the first day, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:34

Oh, the first hour. I wanted it to be like I just said this out and nobody signed up yet, and it's been 10 minutes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:45

And so then I used that the second time it was just like, hey, it's gonna take time, it's totally fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:51

Yeah, so you're building experiences along with your parts that it's okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:56

It just doesn't overtake me like it did then. Yeah. Like she, that version of me totally overtook me, total panic attack, freaking out, and whatever else. But it just gives you a tool to build on compassion. If I'm gonna beat up myself and and shame myself and negative self-talk and all of that, I have to realize that what I'm doing is I'm beating up on all these past little versions of myself that were hurt and terrified and didn't have what they need and were literally doing the best they could. And so I'm just like, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:32

And you're going back and telling them that they're an idiot and why they do that. And that was yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:36

Yeah. And instead, for me, it's just like, no. Like I am, my job is to be the protect or to be like the woman that my younger self would have gone to for protection or for help or for clarity. Not because our parents always fall short or anything like that, but just because this is human life. And sometimes you don't even know what's going on on the inside, let alone your parents, you know, and they can try, but well, that whole process has got to bring about greater peace, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:14

Just because you're just because you're all the splintered parts of who you are are kind of coming together. There's the schism is is less in your person. And so you're more centered and unified.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:34

Now all of a sudden it's um when you go back to be perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect, it's like change that, it's teleos is the Greek word, and it's like be whole, you know, and it's like God or the universe or the source of all life, whatever it is that anybody believes in would be wholeness. And that's our job, is just to learn how to be more whole. When we're splintered, that's why that's such a good word for it, because we really literally are. But every time you rescue one little part, or instead of reacting to the feeling that you have or being overtaken by them, you turn towards yourself and say, I've got you. It's okay. It's all right. Like I'm gonna hold your hand, but but like step back a little bit so that I can figure out what we need to do next. And then acting according to who you want to be consciously. It's like every time you do that, you become more whole.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:43

Yeah, I think it's interesting because you um Yeah, you said be therefore perfect, and you said it's not perfect, it's it's be more whole. But what you said was learn how to be more whole.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:54

Uh because it's real hard to be more whole without first learning how to do it. Yeah. And I think that's where all of this is so good because it it it I don't know, for me, it just breaks it down. It's like, guess what? There's steps and skills, you know, you don't just gotta wing it and hope something works.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:12

Yeah. If you are in a place where you have a lot of self-judgment, you are going to want to go into this space and tell your younger self what they did wrong and how they could do it right. Don't do that. Don't do that. Chances are they were already getting enough of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:31

Yeah, we had a class and and I think we were trying to work through this exercise of someone, and they said, What would you say to your younger self? I'd say, You're an idiot. Why did you do that?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:42

Yeah, that happens a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:44

And so what what does that mean? Because I know there's people out there that are gonna think that uh sometimes. They're gonna look at what what they did and what how they felt, and they're gonna go, Well, yeah, that was stupid. Why did I do that?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:54

Aaron Powell Well, that's where like Peter Crohn um he says what happened happened. It couldn't have happened any other way because it didn't. All of our problems lie in our unreconciled history. Past hurt informs future fear. Meaning our brains are wired to try to predict and protect and avoid the very things that hurt us. It's human, but it also means that you are constantly trying to avoid history that's actually over. We are literally nailing our foot to the floor and our own uh of our own history and desperately trying to get away from it. And I think the way that that applies is that it's just like if you could have made any other decision at that point, you would have. If you could have, you would have.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:45

I think some people don't believe that.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:48

Well, then what good does that do?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:51

To not believe it. Well, it's that is the root continue to spiral.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:55

Yeah. The root of suffering. The root of suffering is the refusal to accept what is. What forgiveness actually is, is forgiveness is to give up the need for a different reality. Forgiveness isn't about making something wrong right. Forgiveness is to accept it and move on. Um, Edith Eager, so Dr. Edith Eager, she was, I think she was 90 when she published her first book. Um, she survived Auschwitz. So we all, the man search for meaning, Victor Frankel. Uh, a lot of people know about him, but she is, I mean, her book, The Choice, is so fantastic. But one of the things she talked about, her experience was horrific. Like they found her mostly dead body with broken bones all over, under buried under a pile of dead bodies and rescued her. And um yeah, her story is is really intense. But what she said on, she held on to anger for a really long time. She came to the United States, she didn't want to talk about it, she was angry, she didn't want anybody to know where she came from, she didn't want anybody to talk about it. And then she found Viktor Frankel and he became a mentor to her and helping her. And then she was asked to come back to um Poland, I think it was, to speak about forgiveness. And she said that she went back there. Um, she said that she was standing, I think it was near, it's been a little bit since I've read it, but it's like it was near um Hitler's home or something like that. And she said she just felt this insane relief of just forgiveness, letting it go. And she said, revenge does not make you free. Forgiving him had nothing to do with Hitler. It was something I did for me. I was letting go, releasing the part of myself that had spent most of my life exerting mental and spiritual energy to keep Hitler in chains. As long as I was holding on to that rage, I was in chains with him, locked in the damaging past, locked in my grief. To forgive is to grieve for what happened and for what did not happen, and to give up the need for a different past, to accept life as it was and as it is. I do not, of course, mean that it was acceptable for Hitler to murder six million people, just that it happened. And I do not want that fact to destroy the life that I clung to and fought for against all odds. So she went back to school and she's a psychologist. And as far as I know, she's still practicing because she fought for this life. And so she's 90, probably about 93, I would think about now. And she's a trauma therapist because she wants to live every day with purpose because she survived what she did. But exactly what she's saying there is uh if you can think of the people maybe that you harbor resentment toward, but also, but also for yourself, the ways that we suck at forgiving ourselves, it's a harder to do. Everybody else can forgive us, but we don't want to let go. Why? Well, because if we keep holding on to it, then we won't repeat it or whatever, because shame, because there's a fear of we kind of think that forgiveness means making something that was wrong right in a sense. Like it's tricky with forgiveness, the way that we talk about it. It it feels like it's justifying, okay, it's okay that you did that. It is not that at all. Forgiveness is something that you do for yourself. It's letting go, it's releasing the part of yourself that had spent some most of your life exerting mental and spiritual energy to keep yourself or somebody else in chains. As long as I was holding on to that rage, I was in chains with them, locked in that damaging past, locked in my grief. To forgive is to grieve for what happened, for what didn't happen, and to give up the need for a different past.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:11

I think that's the bottom line of all of our misery is giving up the need for a different reality.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:17

It's like you you just you you're miserable or you don't feel right or whatever because you want it to be different than it is.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:24

Yeah, it's so hard to it okay, a lot like what you were saying, like you feel like you have to, you have to be miserable to punish yourself for a while so you won't mess up again, which is totally on brand for you because there's many times when it's like you would say, We're not good at this, and we're not, and I'm like, what are you talking? We're getting better. But it's like you felt like to acknowledge any progress in anything was to settle, which meant that you wouldn't progress anymore, that you would be okay with it just staying as it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:59

Yeah, I felt like to say, yeah, but we're doing so good here was to say That's enough. I'm good, we're fine. Um and and that would be settling, and that would be um not the desired result.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:13

But that's just driven by a part of you that feels like you need misery to get out of misery.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:18

Well, yeah, but to close the loop. Like last episode, I was saying there was just a while ago when in one of our episodes you said something about how I did something, I said, Yeah, but I'm getting better. And then last episode it just hit me. It's like, yeah, just saying that out loud, I'm getting better. Totally it's like that is way more powerful than continuing to punish myself for a month so that I don't forget. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:47

That's the emotional.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:48

It's the acknowledgement of the positive that opens up. It's like you it's everything's brand new. It's like you you don't have to it's not that acknowledging that you're getting better is a step in the right direction or it's a you know, eventually you'll get there. It's immediately I felt the positive.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:12

And that is way more motivating than I'm gonna hold myself down long enough that I won't do this ever again.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:20

Yes, this is such a good thing because it's like because it it's and like I can see that you can feel it, right? It just brings up a lot of emotion in you, and I think that it's because you're being freed from this idea that you have to be miserable in order to get out of misery.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:39

I mean, that doesn't make sense anyway, but it does I it doesn't when you say it out loud, but it made it But over 40 years it comes to make sense. It was the most sensible thing that your mind could understand. Now it also helps with because when if I am saying um, like I say, I think maybe I've said before too that it's like, you know, that it's like you have to be like Jesus saying, you have to be baptized by water and then by fire. Um it's just words and concepts. It's just words and concepts, is the water, but it's the fire, is the burning, is the phoenix dying and then rising from the ashes. That is hard. That's experience with it. And so then what's happened is that it's like I have, I mean, I think I've told you forever, baby, you just gotta be happy, which was horrible of me to do. Like, you just gotta see it the way that I see it, and then you'll be fine. Um, and and now I understand like how how different that is. It's like that's pushing against such a deep programming that you nor I at the time even had any concept of, you know. Uh, we just think it's just willpower and change your mind, and we read all the self-help books that are just like just do it, you know. But but it's like something happened in the experience of when you said, I'm getting better. It was the first time, maybe in your life, that you have tried on a different perspective and it was so freeing for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:25

Yeah, I'm not used to acknowledging progress.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:29

Yeah. Because you have a part of you that feels like to acknowledge it means that you will be stuck.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:36

It means if I acknowledge progress on this topic, then that completely negates the the experience.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:48

Which is just it's dumb. But that's the thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:51

It's not dumb.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:52

Is we're we we all have all this stuff in us and you don't know where it comes from until until you work on it, until you start to like you said, get curious. Like, why you know what I mean? Why, when that person said that did I instantly feel rage?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:16

You know what I mean? They don't know me, they don't know anything about me. Why did that you know what I mean? So just things like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:23

I think that there are people who will live their entire lives feeling a sense of safety by holding on to all of their beliefs and resentments and their behaviors. Self-awareness is absolutely terrifying because then they would have to shed or let go of these things that their brain is convinced is the only reason, the only thing that keeps them safe in the world. Um, but I think that the reason why people usually wake up is one, I mean, that's why, you know, I'll do faith crisis all the time. It's like all of a sudden the entire world and everything that you know is completely rattled. Through the process of recovering from addiction or trauma. And maybe because the way that I work with addiction is it isn't behavioral only. We talk very little about, like especially like when it's unwanted sexual behavior, porn, whatever. We visit it to use it as a tool, but it is not our focus at all. It's understanding what is it's a symptom. Yeah, it's a symptom. We're trying to understand what is, you know, what it's a symptom of. Like where how can we heal that? And so yeah, I mean, I just and that's hard because you have to gain more awareness, but but then it's trickle everything. Everything, there's this kind of rattling waking up to, okay, who do I want to be in the world then? And maybe there's these ideas that I've been given, you know, and and all of this, but that feels like following something that makes me feel more safe, but I'm starting to trust my intuition and I believe in my own ability to navigate or figure out, you know, what I want to do or who I want to be, or whatever. But it like your relationship with literally everything changes when you start to wake up to things, you know, where it's like, I don't know, you just get more compassionate with yourself and with other people. We communicate with each other differently. I mean, we've never been mean to each other, you know, but it's like, but we'll be, it's more like uh if something feels off in in energy, it's like I will self-confront and then come back and say, hey, like I was totally off base with this, you know, and own my stuff and then we work through it. We'll we'll do relationship stuff in a future point. But I think one of the most uh helpful analogies is um the way they train elephants. So when they train an elephant, little baby elephant, they tie a rope around its neck and stake it to the ground. And the elephant will pull against it and pull against it and pull against it over and over and over, trying to get away. But it can't. And so eventually, over time, it gives up. But the elephant grows and grows and grows. They put that rope over their neck, they don't even have to stake it down to anymore, and the elephant will not move because it's convinced that what was true in the past is still true. And that's what we do all the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:37

That younger part that had that experience is calling the shots so they don't even try.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:42

It's just their brain, their brain decides like it's like, hey, I don't like this. I don't want to be here, I want to be able to roam free. And then it just gets tied down. And all it had to do, yes, conditioned, all it had to do is one time just pull, but its brain is so convinced and will not try to pull it again.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:04

Yeah. So that's where I think with all this stuff, anything you can do or even think about any of this stuff is beneficial because it's awareness to some degree.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:21

And once you're aware I mean the more aware you become, the harder it is to stuff it down and keep running the old programs. I'm sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:31

And even if you don't have awareness around what's going on, but you're starting to feel yourself start to react to something and you feel like this, you know, rage boil up or something's coming up or whatever. All you have to do in that moment, really just even being able to pause long enough to say a part of me is feeling this way. What does the rest of me feel? You know what I mean? It's just a part of me, but it's man, it feels like all of it, but it doesn't, but it's not.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:01

It's that same thing. The key is that one second, you just stop, put the brakes on, yeah, and and question for a second.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:10

Yeah. And the other thing, another tool that you can use with that is you can go, okay, a part of me is feeling something right now. I don't know what it is all the way. But it's like, hey, I hear you. Can you pull back just a little bit so I can figure out how to help us in this situation? You know, and sometimes, you know, it's like I'll have overwhelming feelings of anxiety that um that are just like, well, they're totally overtaking me. But if if I just say, hey, can you, I can feel you. Thank you for making yourself known, but can you pull back a little bit so I can figure out what to do? And then I'll be in there to help you. So that is one that I will often do. Um, like a lot of times when I'm working in my therapy office with people, and especially if I have a couple that's escalated uh where one or the other is like yelling, it's very um there like the yelling reminds me a lot of it's just my own stuff from when I was younger. And my younger self feels like I need to make this stop. I need to, you know, whatever. It's like panicking. And it's and it's just like, I hear you, I got you, we're okay. Um, if you can pull back a little bit, then I can help them and then I'll come in and help you, you know. And then afterwards, I just will come into my office, take a few deep breaths, and and then it's fine. I'm fine. Work through it. Are you okay? You know. But that's trigger, right? Yelling, trigger. She's we need to, we need to react to this. We need to, we need to stop this. And I'm just like, nah, it's okay. I know it feels the same, it's not the same. We're okay, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:58

Be the calming voice in your body, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:01

Yeah, and so ultimately what happens when you start practicing that and doing that often with yourself, when you start slowing down and doing that, you'll start to see that your parts stop trying to overtake you. You can feel them, but they they come to you instead of overtaking you. I don't know how to explain that, but it's just to conceptualize what that feels like. But it was just, it's like being in a moment that I normally would have been super reactive to and feeling internally, being aware of rising panic, but I also had a very grounded, clear feeling at the moment. And so it was like I could feel the panic almost like my little self is going, What do I do? What do I do? It's like, I got you. You're all right. And I just stay in the grounded and clear. I become aware of my own breath. I just like inhale and exhale, and it's just like I'm right here and I'm okay. Everything's fine. I have all the choices to make in this situation. And I know now, when I was young, I didn't know how to get myself to safety. You know, that's not really something that you understand. But now for myself, it's like, I know boundaries, I know, you know, how to remove myself from a situation, I know how to take care of myself. So I'm gonna be okay. But when that part tries to take over, they don't know. They think they have to solve the problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:31

Which is why 13-year-old trying to solve your marital problems is never gonna be great.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:37

You know, your 13-year-old self. But, you know, um, so doing that work, I'm looking through. Let me just see if there's um I did write some things down, so I'm like, I just wanna make sure that I hit. Oh, there's Abraham Maslow says, in any given moment, we have two options to step forward into growth or to step back into safety, which is takes us all the way back to when we were talking about um Gary Zukoff in the Seed of Soul talking about the gift of temptation, that temptation is your last moment of awareness before you choose either physical power, which is to go back to the old pattern, or true power. But if you choose true power, growth healing happens. If you choose physical power, it's it's okay, you'll get it next time. Or the next time. Or the next time, but you'll get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:49

It's an opportunity.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:50

It's an opportunity. Every time the temptation provides us opportunities. I'm sure there's so many people that are like, oh, that's like so against everything I've ever been taught. And it was for me too, but uh now seeing it, it's like I really love the idea of that because it's really like because if you understand, like if you can conceptualize I'm being tempted to do this thing that I don't want to do, or that is, you know, uh like addiction or anything, reaction or you know, reacting to somebody or whatever. If I understand I'm being tempted to do something, and now I have this, it's like, oh, what is temptation? Oh, it's my last chance to choose between true power, which is being true to who I want to be in this world, which is integrity and peace, which builds virtue, or it's physical power, which just means up and out of the suffering as quick as possible. And if I can label those, then I can go, okay, well, what is the thing that I'm trying to get physical power over of what would represent physical power? What would represent true power? By the time you've done that, you're so in your conscious mind that it doesn't seem like a big decision anymore. It's just there's like clarity in it.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:08

But um, I think the other thing that is important to note that it's like if we all understand, like we all feel like we're in the pursuit of happiness all the time, but we are not hardwired uh to seek happiness. We are hardwired to seek comfort. So even if we are miserable and living in misery, we will still choose that misery. We will repeat those patterns over and over because it is the misery that we know. So we're more comfortable in it. Everything that is outside of that is unknown and therefore a threat.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:46

Even as miserable as you are. That's why, you know, uh like in domestic violence, why people will return and return and return. They don't do it consciously. Unconsciously, their brain will seek it out. And if they somehow get away from one person who is abusive and cruel, they will find another one that has the exact same patterns and red flags because they don't and walk right back into it because they don't have a program for a situation that is not that. No, they just have an unconscious pattern that says, I feel more safe here, which isn't safety at all. Just because it's known. It's just what you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:25

Yeah. But that's why it's like in those situations dealing dealing with the parts. You know, when I'm I work a lot with um narcissistic abuse, and it's um it's so hard because we have to break down uh shame and all of those things first, but also we have to figure out what parts are at play. Because almost always in narcissistic abuse, without knowing it, it's like without whoever is doing the abuse knowing it, they can track instinctively the way to be able to get this person to do what they need them to do so that they can feel the control or power that they need in their lives. And so you have to find those parts and start working on those parts to try to get them back online so that they can start to see, hey, wait a minute, you know, because otherwise it's like if if you are in that situation and you have this, you know, if you are a people pleaser, if you are um uh insecure about things, if you had a difficult childhood and you're afraid that you're unlovable, all those things, it's like those things will be like the only way I will ever get it is if I can just work it out in this person, but you you never will. You know, it's I don't know, it's it's a complex thing. Very, very um, and I think that lastly, what I would say is um there is a book called Um The Manuscript at Acra by uh Paulo Koilo. And in it they have this story of just before um Babylon destroys Jerusalem and and all of that. They um they they know they're gonna die the next day, or they're having this big battle, and this wise person comes and is sitting with all of them and they're asking life's questions. Um and one of them said, tell us, I think it was like, tell us how to deal with defeat.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:43

And you put on the shoes and the socks.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:46

Oh my.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:48

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:52

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:52

That was uncalled for.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:56

You're so funny.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:58

That was complete impulse there. Yeah, that's good. That's right. That's that's true, Ryan. Come on, not. Okay. So it's like, how do you deal with defeat? And the wise person responded and said, There is no victory or defeat. There is only movement. And he talked about how you don't, it's like we see defeat as negative and and victory as the positive, but all there's movement in all of it that we learn in every experience, because nothing is more fierce than standing across the battlefield from a warrior who's covered in scars. Because you know that through his losing, he has learned how to win. You can you can win, but it's like you learn more in losing than in winning, so it's all just movement.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:52

Yeah, it's funny. I mean, it's it seems like um the thing in life that will bring peace is not trying to get somewhere, it's just trying to be where you are.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:12

There's not it's not about a destination, it's not about somewhere different than where you are right now, it's being where you are right now, yeah, and not judging it as right or as wrong or as not good enough or as too slow or as any of those things. It's just this is the experience you're having because this is what you need for your soul right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:38

Yeah. I mean, we can look back, I can look back at all of the experiences that I had growing up that were really hard. I wouldn't trade a single one of them. And that's saying something, you know, but it's like I wouldn't trade any of it if I didn't end up being who I am right now. And and it's not to say that I am perfect because perfect is stupid and not real, but it's like it's because I know my worth and my value, and I know that I'm flawed, but I also have all of the skills and I know that I can come to a point of awareness when I recognize where I'm flawed and that I can continue to grow and evolve and learn. But I think that it must have required um the experiences of my life before this for me to get here because I'm here. And that was my experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:32

You know, and so it's sometimes it can be hard because you can feel like because really difficult things happened in your life, you feel like you just got, you know, a raw shot. Yeah, you're like a man, and because this happened to me and whatever. And and and I just wish that I could start over because it's like all that I could have been as a person was ruined by this person who did this thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:58

And it's like if only things were different, yeah, then they wouldn't be like they are now. Well, obviously they wouldn't be like they are now if they were different.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:07

And that's resistance to what is, which is the root of all suffering. If you resist what is, then how in the world do you find a solution to it? How do you move forward if you won't even acknowledge it as reality? So if you accept what is, it's like this is the situation that I am in and what I am facing now. Let me figure out what I'm gonna do about it. You know, which I think is uh some like of what the let them theory is. Because a lot of people hear the let them theory and they're like, yeah, but it's like, no, but you have to read the book so you understand that the second part of that is okay, let them do what they're going to do. Now, instead of me resisting what they're doing, if I just accept this is what the situation is, now let me figure out what I'm gonna do about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:57

React, don't respond don't react, yeah, respond.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:02

It's just a conscious decision. Like this is the situation that I am in. Now what am I gonna do? Where we spend so much time resisting, not wanting the reality that we have to be. And so we stay unconscious. So anyway, that is parts 101. Essentially, just if you have a memory that any memory that ever pops in your mind, if you would like to, you could every day go and visit um a version of yourself in a memory or whatever, and that you knew was a hard moment or whatever, and whether it's a thing that is creating problems or not, it's like just bring them home with you. Bring them home from there and say, just come with me, come live with me. You know, and when you play with your kids, play with your kids as that little version of yourself that didn't get to play so much. Oh man, didn't get to play freely, just be present, play with your kids, play with whatever, you know. It's like just be free in your body and in your heart. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:12

All right, okay. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:14

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:15

Thanks, everybody.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:16

Yes, maybe be well, be happy, and be peaceful, and we'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:22

Sounds good.