So what if those voices in your head, the ones that sometimes feel like they're battling with each other, weren't actually a problem to be fixed? but were rather a profound source of wisdom and healing.
And what if the path to feeling whole didn't require silencing or killing them off? but rather learning to listen to them in a very particular way.
These questions kind of stopped me in my tracks during a fascinating conversation Really transformed how I think about the relationship between our different inner parts and things like trauma, healing, and wholeness.
My guest today is Tamela Floyd. A psychotherapist and internal family systems lead trainer with over 25 years of experience, helping people understand and heal through parts work.
She received her master's degree in social work from the University of Southern California, and has taught at both the university of Phoenix and USC.
Her latest book, listening when parts speak offers a revolutionary framework for healing personal and generational trauma.
One of the things that fascinated me most was discovering how these different parts of ourselves actually show up in specific places in our bodies. and how understanding this connection can lead to profound healing.
Tamla shared her own powerful story of how her people-pleasing part was actually protecting a younger version of herself. who felt deeply rejected and how learning to build a relationship with this part it just changed everything.
The insights she shares about how our protective parts get exhausted from years of trying to keep us safe.
And what happens when we finally learn to unburden them are really powerful ideas.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.
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I feel like we're having this conversation at a Hearts are breaking, hearts are breaking open.
There's just profound uncertainty in so many different ways in so many places.
And at the same time, I feel like it's kind of part of the zeitgeist these days in coaching in psychotherapy.
It's like this emerging thing that, And this is something where you're in practice over 25 years at this point, you've taught, you've had clinical practice, you have just deep, deep wisdom about not just IFS, but also a specialty in healing and women's trauma, in ancestral trauma.
And bringing these worlds together, which is so interesting, especially at this moment in time, right?
For you, though, this isn't just a professional practice.
This is personal. It is personal, most definitely.
I see IFS as a way of... organizing my life, how I show up in the world, how I interact with other people.
Always aware, maybe not always, but working towards being aware of how my parts get activated and also learning. not to take how other people behave personally, because I also have an understanding that sometimes they're operating from their parts too.
So let's dive in. Let's do a little bit of defining here.
I think it would be helpful. Because a lot of people have probably heard these phrase parts are like internal family systems.
IFS worked around. Take me into what this actually is.
So yeah, so when we're talking about parts, it's a way of conceptualizing the mind.
So instead of the psyche being one whole, we know that the psyche is comprised of subpersonalities.
And in IFS, we call these subpersonalities parts.
So when you think about you are excited about something or you're feeling anxious or or you're angry, what we would say is there's a part of you that's experiencing anger or anxiety.
And the reason that we say apart is because, one, it's not that way all the time.
And you can be feeling angry and some excitement at the same time. who's holding the anger, who's holding the excitement.
You also might also be experiencing someone inside criticizing you. for getting angry.
So those are our parts. So one can be angry, another can be criticizing you for being angry, and another can be excited about something that's coming up in your life, all being experienced simultaneously.
So it's kind of like the real world version of that animated movie Inside Out. where you've got all the different people inside your head and they're all trying to sort of like reach for the levers to pull,
When we talk about parts, one of my curiosities around this has also always been, okay, so I get the idea.
Like there's a part of me that gets anxious.
So there's a part of me that, and we'll talk about some of the specific parts that commonly show up.
But more broadly, it's like the question that's always in my mind is, well, yes, but is there something bigger that's steering the ship?
Yes, there really is. And that is who we are.
And in IFS, we call that the self. So when my parts, I love that you use the inside out and the pulling of the levers, right?
So when my parts are not in the seat of consciousness, pulling the levers...
Once they unblend and separate from me, what's there is myself.
And the self is everything. me who has never been harmed by the things that have happened to me.
That's the intuitive, the part of me that is healed and whole.
So if all of our parts unblend, what's left is ourself.
Okay, so here's... I'm going to get a little meta early in the conversation.
If we existed in this space... where the parts weren't there, then what you're suggesting is there is still this other self which exists independent of them.
Completely. Absolutely. Yes. And often our parts, the reason that our parts are often coming into the seat of consciousness is because they either are don't have awareness that self is available, or they don't trust self, or they have never been in relationship.
Like they know it's there, but they don't have a relationship with self.
Got it. Let's dive into some of the parts here.
And maybe more broadly also, and this is something that you post fairly early in your new book, is this notion of how do we actually meet our parts?
Because I think... we're all walking around and it feels like there's just a soup, sometimes of warring voices in our head, sometimes of collaborating voices in our head.
But I feel like a lot of us really don't understand how to connect with any of those, how to identify them, how to see them, how to meet them.
I remember years ago interviewing Janine Roth.
She created a persona that, with what she called, I think it was like the mean aunt in the attic or something like that.
And- She literally like completely anthropomorphize this voice into a being, you know, like what they looked like, what they dressed like, what they sounded like.
And anytime there was a voice that came into her head that had this sort of like mean thing going on, attacking her, chastising her, It was this person inside of her that she had anthropomorphized inside of her that was doing the speaking.
Is that the functional equivalent of identifying a part?
It is. What that reminds me of is what we do often.
I'll have clients do what we call mapping.
So there's this awareness of, and sometimes it's a voice, sometimes it's a feeling. or a sensation, or an emotion, however the part is expressing itself, I'll ask my client to draw that. on the page, some representation of that part.
So I'll have them connect with it, So if you're doing this by yourself, like you know that there's a part that criticizes you say, or another part that's a people pleaser.
Connect with that part. Bring that part into existence in your body, however it shows up. welcoming it there, right?
So if it shows up as tightness in your stomach, How will we represent that tightness in my stomach on a sheet of paper?
And it might just be a scribbly, you know, whatever, the knots of the stomach.
And then that critical part, how might we represent that one? on the page.
So just being able to see what those parts look like outside of you, because the key is to IFS and working with our parks is coming into relationship.
So I love the example that you just gave and how she would represent and see what they look like, right?
This allows the separation between the part and self.
Because now I have a representation of this part, a drawing of this part, now self is can come into relationship with it because in a sense, it's now outside of me.
We've created that separation. So somebody's listening to this right now or maybe watching it, and they're kind of feeling like, okay.
So I get it. There's this mean part of me and there's this really happy-go-lucky part of me and there's this anxious part of me, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the notion that These are like separate beings within me rather than just, these are my own voices speaking to myself.
How do we make the argument that these really exist as separate parts within us?
And why is that actually important? Yeah.
So how we make the argument is through relationship.
Once you get to know your parts, like there is clearly... a distinction and a personality and a way of seeing the world that is different. between my critical part and my people-pleasing part.
So really how we learned that, Jonathan, is incoming into relationship with them.
These parts will let you know when they took on the role of becoming the people pleaser.
Like I know exactly when in time and space that part became the people pleaser because of what was happening in my childhood.
I also know when the critical voice came, but only because I've developed a relationship with them and they've told me.
When we look at the sweep of psychotherapy and even spiritual guidance, whether you're going to a pastor or a rabbi or... whoever it may be, like so often every tradition has its modalities.
They had their models of like, this is the way we process this thing that we're going through.
And often the rules. I'm curious, how does...
IFS start to take a seat at the table of healing?
Where does this come from? Because The way you're talking about it, parts have been with us time immortal.
You know, it's not like 30 years ago, all of a sudden we had parts.
Right. No. But this wasn't a part of the psychotherapeutic model at all.
How does this even become part of the conversation?
I love how this actually became part of the conversation.
It became part of the conversation because the founder of IFS, Dr. Dick Schwartz, started noticing that this is the way his clients were speaking. speaking, which was very different than the one mind model, right?
So instead of just saying, okay, well, this can't be right. we really have a one mind model, he got curious about, well, what is this? and he's just started, he's a PhD, so really started asking questions. not trying to make his client fit what we already knew, but getting curious about, well, this isn't like what we already know.
And so the more he engaged these parts, these subpersonalities, the more he learned.
And then it's like, okay, I see this with one client, he's noticing it with another.
And he's just asking the questions. And this is truly how the model developed, being curious about something that was different from what we already knew.
And let's be honest, that's the way new development, new ways of thinking are developed anyway.
We say, oh, this is different from what we know.
Let's get curious about it instead of trying to make it like what we already know.
I mean, it's so interesting, right, too, because so Dick Schwartz comes onto the scene and says, I'm seeing this in my clients, my patients. in a repeated basis, maybe there's something to this.
Let's expand and deepen into it. So in this world, approaches, models, they roll out very slowly and they develop over time.
And it takes a long time often for... the therapeutic community, the social work community, the supporting community to embrace them.
And they have to be proven. And oftentimes when they come out, the people who bring them forward are viewed as mavericks, sometimes even heretics in this space.
I'm curious, to your knowledge of the early days of IFS, of parts work, Was this also seen as a bit of heresy in the space or was this just embraced as like, oh, this is new and awesome and it solves so many problems?
Yeah. Unfortunately, it was not embraced.
It actually was seen as what we've called now woo-woo or, you know, it was new age.
It was too far outside of science is the way that It was saying that we're talking to ourselves.
There's people inside of us. What are we talking about?
And let's even think back, you know, 40, 50 years.
60 years ago, the way that we were looking at multiples was that that was dysfunctional, abnormal, and that we needed to bring these different multiples personalities that a person might have into one.
It was about integration. So now what we're saying is kind of the opposite. of what we understood the mind to be.
So no, it was not at all accepted. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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Okay, so I'm old enough where I came of age at a time where there was a movie called Sybil.
I knew you were going to, yes, me too. Right?
Okay. So, so like we, we get that reference for people who don't get the reference.
This was, it must've been the seventies maybe or eighties.
Right, where this was the hot movie and it showed this woman who had back then what was called, quote, split personality.
And then we've had all sorts of crime dramas and stuff like this.
Well, it was the other person who's in me who did the thing that was terrible.
Tease out the distinction here about what we're talking about then between what a DSM might call something like multiple personality disorder.
Yeah. and parts that exist within us. And now, just for folks listening, that multiple personality disorder, we now consider it dissociative identity disorder.
So we did change the name. And really, the way that we see parts is that the behaviors of parts are on a continuum.
And at the far reaches of that continuum is dissociative identity disorder.
So it's still about parts. It's just this is parts in their most extreme behavior where parts don't have... understanding, connection, or even knowledge about other parts and what those parts are doing when they're in the seat of consciousness.
Many of the parts have no connection whatsoever to self or they don't trust self because whenever Maybe as a child, this person showed any of the qualities of self, like their playfulness and interest in life and curiosity.
Perhaps they got punished, beat, harmed.
So being that way was not okay. It was not even safe.
So this is why these parts may have taken on these extreme roles.
We talk about parts being in extreme roles, but extreme roles are still on a continuum with the dissociative identity personality being at the far end.
So still parts just extremely separate from the whole.
What's lingering in my mind now then is, are we born with parts or do the parts emerge through some sort of happening?
I love this question. Thank you so much for this question.
We are born with our parts. And our parts have distinct roles within our system at birth that are going to develop even more over the course of our life. from their experiences.
However, the parts take on extreme roles in order to protect us.
So they change their roles. So that one... that became people pleaser within my system.
This part was born as one who really connected with people.
She was very playful. She was light. She loved being around others.
And she found that people liked her when she was this way.
She found that when she behaved in other ways, that was not acceptable.
So this part that was kind of connecting with people. eventually went to the extreme of being a people pleaser because she noticed that she was more acceptable as a people pleaser than when she did. something else.
So the parts have their natural roles at birth, but because of how they interact with the family, the community, what happens to them in school or with friends, that causes parts to feel like, ooh, That wasn't good.
I need to now protect this person from having that negative experience again.
If I people please, unlikable, people are happy with me, and...
Tamela, because the part is saying Tamela doesn't have to experience the pain that she experienced in the past.
Let's stay with the people pleaser part and dive into this a little bit, right?
Because this is also personal for you. So you can share from lived experience, right?
Yeah. In your mind, in the work that you've done, before the people pleaser part in you picked up the mantle of, if I do this more, then I'm more welcome by more people.
And that's like something that I want. Before he picked up the mantle of having that job, what was the people pleaser part and what was its job?
Yeah, so all she was was someone that was happy, connecting, lovable, playful. interested in life, these were the qualities that I would ascribe to her before she was burdened.
So even though it was a way in which she connected with people, it wasn't about pleasing them.
It was just her being carefree and lovely and playful and connecting with folks.
But it wasn't about some type of approval. from others at that point yeah so at some point then it sounds like we all have these different parts in us yeah They all play positive roles and they're all fairly organic to us.
But often the part has a realization or maybe something higher. happens externally, maybe there's a circumstance.
So the part C is okay, if I kind of amplify the way I'm doing it, or I add an intention or a goal or an outcome to it. it's going to serve this person, like the bigger person in a way that maybe keeps them safe for whatever the outcome may be.
And it kind of takes on this almost extreme version of the original pure intention.
Does that land? That definitely lands. Absolutely.
I love the way that you said that. Yeah. that it becomes more extreme.
It's not as pure as it was. There is a job now.
That's the other distinction. When I had this kind of carefree connecting with folks, there was no job in that.
That was just me being me. But when I became a people pleaser, this part took on that people pleasing role.
That was a job. Like I have to people please in order to be accepted.
This is how I get love. This is how I'm accepted.
This is how I'm okay. And most important to the parts in the system, this is how we keep Tamla from feeling vulnerable. hurt, unlovable, unworthy, whatever that sensitivity, that vulnerability under that is.
So this is kind of the moment when a part tips from, and again, correct me if this isn't the right language, but in my mind, it sounds like this is when a part tips from healthy and functional to unhealthy and dysfunctional.
Yeah, so, but I would- Right, you're kind of like ish, not quite.
Not quite, we're close. Yeah, so tell me what's more right.
And I think that that's the way most people would understand that.
I do want to say that first. the things that I love about IFS is that it's non-pathologizing.
So we wouldn't say dysfunctional. What we would say is that this is what the part needed to do to keep us safe.
Like it's all of the parts roles, no matter how extreme, no matter how we would call it dysfunctional, when we understand that. how and why they took on the roles that they did, it makes perfect sense.
It makes perfect sense why they're doing what they're doing.
My people pleaser wanted to feel love. And one of the messages she received as a child is that you are valuable as long as you're making good grades in school.
And when you make a grade that isn't a good grade, you are not lovable.
No one said that to me. No one said that to me.
The behaviors is how this part interpreted the behavior.
And the behavior was my father saying to me, after bringing home a C, no child of mine is average.
My part... translated that to then I'm not a child of his.
I mean, I'm a kid, right? I'm not a child of his or he doesn't love me unless I do.
So that's what became the people pleaser. oh, if I do what people want, expect of me, then I'm lovable, I'm worthy, I'm valuable.
I'm connected to them. So it's these things that as a child, we interpret.
And that clearly was not his meaning, but that's how the part interpreted it.
Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting, right?
So it's like oftentimes then maybe these Shifts and rolls.
It sounds like I would imagine for a lot of people, the switch gets flipped early in childhood.
If there's a moment or an unfolding that happens and it's like, oh.
And then what you're saying, if I understand it right, is that-
This is not viewed as dysfunction. This is viewed as there's this part of you says, oh, okay, so love is important to me.
I just heard this thing from my dad and for me to be his child, to keep under the umbrella of his love.
I need to make good grades on a consistent basis.
I need to please. He didn't mean that, that wasn't, but that's what your part thought and said.
So at that point, it's actually, it's acting on what it believes is good intention.
Yeah. So I see why it's like we don't label that as dysfunction because- No, it's adapting.
Right. In its eyes, it's like, oh, this is the thing that I want.
This is the thing that's good. Like- And here's the way that I would behave in order to keep it as part of my experience of life.
I'm loving the way that you're phrasing this.
That's perfect. Let's zoom the lens out a little bit.
So you have had within you this part, this people pleaser part. in the canon of IFS from what I understand, and you write about a number of different parts, so let's talk about some of them.
I guess there are parts that are commonly occurring across large numbers of people.
You referenced the people-pleaser part as having a job in part as protection, but I've also heard the phrase protector-parts.
Yes. What are we talking about when we're talking about protector parts?
Right. So our protector parts are protecting what we call in IFS our exiles, and those are our vulnerable parts.
And the reason they want to protect the exile is they're protecting them from experiencing whatever harm they experienced earlier.
So in the case of my people pleaser, a part of me got exiled.
And what got exiled was this carefree, light, connecting, loving part of me.
That got exile because that got in the way of me being perfect.
You know, the way in which I thought this part thought my parent, my dad particularly wanted me to show up.
So parts of us get exiled, pushed away. What the protector is doing is saying, okay, I don't want that one person. that was really hurt when she heard, no child of mine gets a C or is average.
I don't want her to experience that pain again.
So we're going to tuck her away and instead I will show up. as the people pleaser to make sure this one doesn't get hurt again.
And we have two types of protectors. We have managers, and that's what the people pleaser is doing.
Managers are preemptive. They are doing all they can.
I think about them as like the hamster on the wheel.
They're doing all they can to make sure that one doesn't get hurt again.
The exile doesn't get hurt again. So if I people please, she won't get hurt.
The other type of protectors we term firefighters.
So they're the ones that are So if that unworthiness, because that's really what my little one felt, she felt unworthy and maybe even unlovable.
If something in my life triggers or activates that feeling of repression, rejection, unlovable, unworthy.
And I start to feel that in my body and The firefighters come in and they do what firefighters do.
They douse whatever is happening. Right.
So I'm feeling unworthy. Something's happened in my life.
The firefighter comes in. One of my firefighters is eating sugar.
She comes in and I've got to go for the sugar, right?
So that I don't have to feel the unlovable or the unworthy that got activated.
So managers, add preemptively, keep us from filling it in the first place. firefighters at reactively once we start to feel some of that pain.
And then the exile is the part of you that the protector is basically protecting from death. being hurt, but it's doing it by effectively vanishing it.
Absolutely. From how you show up. So there's a part of you that that exile part will the word exile, right?
It's basically, it's been exiled. So it's no longer going to be in your everyday experience.
And, You know, as you describe it in your case, if this is the joyful, the playful, the carefree.
The curious. Right. I mean, how tragic. Yeah.
Yeah, right, right. So I became very serious.
I was like, this is the way in which, you know, or if it wasn't serious, it's weird.
What are the adults looking for? You know, what do they whether, you know, Teachers might want different things from me than my Girl Scout leader, than my mom versus my dad.
You know, what are the adults looking for?
So the exile also, the way you describe it, would be a part that has significant vulnerability.
Tell me more about that. What makes the exiles vulnerable is that they have learned that their natural way of being in the world is unacceptable.
That's the message that the exiles get. That's the vulnerability.
Like, I can't be me. That's why that ends up getting pushed away.
And I do want to share that exiles are not only exiled by God, the protector parts who want to push them away and keep them safe, they too may decide to shrink.
Like, ooh, this isn't okay. So they may, in and of themselves, choose to hide.
So they are hidden and may choose to hide.
Right, so it's like the protector takes on this role of protecting that part, and the exile itself says, okay, so part of the role that I'm going to take on now is to back away, to shrink, using your words.
Absolutely. It's so interesting, right? Because the way that you're describing this, too, And I wonder if this comes up in conversation or in practice.
It feels like I would imagine people listening to this and saying, well, I can immediately tell you the part of me that takes out.
Now that I sort of have a sense of this, I can tell you exactly who, if I think back to when I was a kid, Like there was a moment where I was happy, I was carefree, I was goofy, I was dorky, I was like nerdy, whatever it is.
And something, maybe it was social situation made me feel like, oh, it's not okay to be this way.
And like that part got tucked away. This is the part though, or maybe the parts where I'll talk from my own experience.
Like I think of that part as the quote, well, that's the real me. rather than a part, like that's the essential me, like the part that, you know, when sixth grade, like I got a nickname that made me like before being a dork,
I didn't show that for decades, right? So it's interesting to me that you described that as, well, that's not the whole you.
That was just a part of you, whereas I kind I'm like, that's the essence of me though.
Talk me through this a little bit. So what you're describing too is, now I'm going to talk about kind of the fractal experience.
Okay. Okay, so you have a part that might be the dorky, goofy part of you.
And it feels very much like you, you know, but parts also have self in them.
So there's the self of you as a human, Jonathan's self, energy, the self.
But we have all these parts that we're made up of, but each part also can be self-led. it can also have qualities of self.
Like I talked about that young part of me being curious about the world.
And so curiosity is one of the qualities of ourself.
And our parts can have these qualities too.
I think I'm wrapping my head around that.
Yeah. Right. I know we went to the deep end of the pool there a little bit.
We did go to the deep end. But even this basic idea, okay, so that we have these parts of ourselves that oftentimes early in life, Something happens where we gain the feeling that it's not acceptable to sort of like be that part in an observable and a public way.
So that part becomes... exiled and it sometimes intentionally shrinks itself and then we have this other part which kind of takes on the role of the protector Like I'm going to make sure that you're still okay.
So I'm going to then... And it kind of makes sense because if one part is shrinking...
And another part doesn't expand. There's going to be a void.
Right. Right. Exactly. That makes sense.
Yeah. And I love the notion that we have. like especially in the protective part, if we're talking about like, there's these two different types, the manager who's sort of like there every day.
And then the firefighters like, Ooh, something bad's happening.
Let me like, Four alarms, let's go and let's take care of this.
I want to get back to the self a little bit more here also.
So if I think about this from almost like an Eastern philosophical lens, like a Buddhist lens, I think... a lot of eastern philosophy is much more comfortable talking about this idea and if we talk about in the context of meditation you know where if if you meditate And you are not your thoughts.
There is a self within you, a capital S self that is observing all of these different things.
I guess what I'd love your take on, and we talked about this a little bit already, is like, who is that person really?
So if it's not actually just an amalgam of the parts.
Help me here. It is what you're describing.
It's that essence. It's our core. It's our humanness. and described in many different philosophies and traditions.
And it is slightly undescribable, right?
It's difficult to describe when you're talking about the essence of someone or their core.
One of the ways... we can describe it as talk about its qualities.
That's what we do in IFS is we talk about the qualities of And I think other traditions do the same because it really is something difficult to describe.
So some of the qualities of self, there are eight of them, all starting with C, and I'm always going to forget one, but here we go.
So there's curiosity, clarity, calm, courage, creativity.
And anyway, here we go. But there are eight of them.
And when we think about accessing these qualities of self...
These are the qualities that we come into relationship with our parts with.
Like many of my parts did not experience kind of that connection connection about me being this carefree, just really connecting with that's who I am and allowing me to be that. being curious about why our parts are behaving the way that they do.
When we talk about earlier, like the part that is super critical or angry, One of the ways we help that part is instead of judging it, because often raging, critical, angry parts get judged. internally and in the world.
So now they get to come into relationship with self and self is just curious.
I just want to know about the anchor. Tell me what that feels like.
Tell me what's happening. Instead of don't be angry.
That's unacceptable. Well, that's only going to cause that part to act out or get bigger in that anger and rage.
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Terms apply. I would imagine a lot of times, even if we just start to recognize these parts within ourselves, our first response is, that's not okay.
Maybe it came to us in the beginning and it's not okay to behave this way.
It's not okay to be this way. So I need to kill this part of myself.
I need to extinguish it. because I see that it's causing me harm.
I see that I go into a meeting and I start to behave this way.
And I can actively see that it's causing outcomes that I don't want in my life.
So I need to figure out how to extinguish this part.
That doesn't work, does it? It doesn't work, but... our parts think it's the only choice that they have in order to make sure that we don't get into trouble when we're in the the meeting at work, right?
Is that if I just cut that part off, then I can be present, not the self, another part.
I can be present to make sure that Jonathan doesn't lose his job, that Jonathan doesn't say the wrong thing in that meeting.
So why doesn't this work? Why doesn't trying to like extinguish that part work? because eventually the energy of that part that's been exiled It's to keep the ball under the water in the pool.
You know, eventually it's going to pop up, right?
So it's just not foolproof. There are times when that energy is going to be present.
And that's why it's more important and it works better to come into relationship, to be with the part. to understand the part, to let the part know.
Because another thing that these parts really believe is that they're alone.
They also believe they have no choice. So two things that self helps the part appreciate is one, you're not alone.
You have Jonathan. And two, there are other ways. you do have choice.
And the key to IFS and parts work working is is that those protectors are not going to give up their jobs, the managers and the firefighters, until we heal the one they protect.
A lot of other therapies were treating the angry part, the critical part, the overeating parts, you know, the parts that are affecting the client's life.
But we're not getting to the one underneath that got exile that called these parts exiles. to their jobs and to their duties to begin with.
So that's the goal is we need that part of me that got exiled first. because she was so carefree, we have to heal her.
And how she got healed is we came into relationship with the parts that were protecting her. in my case, the people pleaser, realizes the one that got hurt that felt rejected when dad said, don't have children that are average.
And so we dealt with and healed that rejection because that was the vulnerability.
And that's what would get triggered when a breakup would happen in my life.
I felt rejected. I'd feel the deep pain of that one that had been put aside.
I wanna make sure I'm understanding this too, that oftentimes, What we do, instead of trying to heal the hurt part, is we look at the parts that step forward, often the protector part, Or we try and elicit that stepping forward.
We're like, okay, so you were in a place where you were insulted or felt really uncomfortable or you were bullied. for being who you were.
You pulled back that part of you, whatever it was that you felt was sort of like the thing that, the way that you were showing up, the part that ended up quote, attracting bullying.
Of course, we know that that's not the way it works, but in your mind, you're probably like, tell ourselves that story.
We tuck that away. And then what you're describing, I guess, is instead of trying to figure out what is that part, who is that part and how do we heal it?
Often what we do is we say, okay, how are you going to be braver?
How are you going to be more confident? How are you going to go learn how to fight?
And these serve a purpose, right? Because maybe for a moment in time, they keep us safe, right?
They allow us to step back into some sort of social context.
They allow us to kind of like breathe again for a moment and But what you're saying is that part that's been exiled, that truly hurt part, as long as that stay is exiled, there's going to be an ache that never heals inside of us, no matter how brave or how competent or how... fortified and armored those other protector parts get.
Is that right? That is perfect. But that's what we do so often.
That's how we go about, quote, fixing the problem.
Fixing the problem. I want to be the opposite of what hurt me.
If what hurt me was being weak, then I need to be strong.
If what hurt me was being meek and quiet, then I need to be loud and boisterous and out there.
So yeah, so whatever it was that hurt us, some part is going to step into the role, take on the job of protecting us in a way.
One of the things that you said that I think is really important, or at Parts are going to, like, they can't stop doing this job.
And at one time it worked. Right. That strategy worked.
The reason I see people in therapy is because those strategies are broken down. they don't work anymore.
And so they're like, hey, I've done everything I can.
I've tried this and this and this. It's not working anymore.
I'm still feeling this rejection. I need to work with this.
That's where the strategies have broken down.
But the thing, and this is why we like not to call them a dysfunction, because they did serve a purpose.
They worked. Otherwise, the parts wouldn't have kept doing them.
Me people-pleasing worked for a long time until it did.
And I guess it's when it stops working, that's often when people are like, oh, I thought I was okay.
Right. And I'm like, I'm doing everything I've always done and that everything, it always worked.
It always worked. And for some reason it's not working.
That must be so confounding when somebody comes to you and they're like, literally I've been showing up this way for 20 years.
And it's gotten me where I am. I have a really good life and I don't get wounded easily and stuff like this.
And now it's kind of, I'm doing, I'm showing up as the same person, but it's not working anymore.
There must be such an incredibly frustrating moment for folks.
It is. It really is. And I get curious about what's the breakdown?
What's not working? What's changed? Right.
You know, because that's where we can step into the healing.
You know that, yes, you've done it for 20 years and it's worked, but now it's not.
And why not? Yeah. Do you see patterns there as well?
Are there certainly common reasons why things eventually, like that original way of being breaks down?
Yeah, the main pattern that I see why it breaks down across all different types of parts and situations is the parts get tired.
Hmm. They get exhausted. My people pleaser was exhausted.
She just didn't want to do what other people wanted her to do anymore.
Because they're not in their natural role.
So just think about anything that you do unnaturally for a long period of time, at some point, you're not going to want to do that anymore.
And that's what happens. The parts just get exhausted.
I mean, I would imagine this shows up people in work context all the time too.
It's like You have an offer for a job. You're like, this isn't quite me, but I really want it.
And maybe... Maybe economically, you're like, I really need this.
Like security is a big value to me and like this is important to me.
So I'm going to kind of shape shift a little bit.
I'm going to push this part forward. and almost lead with it, even though I know that it takes a lot of energy to do that.
And you do that and you get the job and you grow in the job and you have all this.
It's got to be incredibly, like take that example, right?
You rise up a ladder that you aspire to rise up.
It's 15 years later, you've been showing up with this parts configuration for so many years and it's gotten you check, check, check, check, check, check, check.
And now you have people relying on you to sustain a family or extended family or friends, whatever it may be, causes you care about.
And then the parts are just like done. Like the way that I'm showing up, like me being pushed to the front like this, No more.
Like I'm exhausted. I can't do it anymore.
It's gotta be a moment where like, even if you know what's going on, It's like you've built the artifice of a life around your parts showing up in a particular way.
And even if you sit down with a therapist, with someone like you who's really steeped into this, and you're like, oh, well, this is what's happening.
At the same time, you're like, But I've built a life around this and I don't want to dismantle that life.
That has got to be just a tough moment. That is a really tough moment.
And one of the things you're also touching on is that part, that personality becomes us.
And the way that we start to believe this high-achieving person who's... promote it to, you know, senior VP of something and something else that that's me.
But it's not because we've been living it for 15, 20 years.
And so we get disconnected from the true self.
And in IFS, we call these self-like parts.
And one of the experiences that I had around that is...
Definitely connected to the people pleaser because in addition to being a people pleaser, what I also came to realize, and my parts did, it's that being smart paid off.
Like you need to be the smart one. So that also came from that C experience, right?
So I became... an intellectualizer. Now, I didn't know this.
I didn't know I had a part that was intellectualizing.
I remember, and I'm going to get back to how this can really shake you.
I remember being in therapy in, I don't know, probably my 30s, late 30s.
And the therapist saying... you truly are an intellectualizer.
That's how you move through life. And I was like, what do you mean I'm an intellectualizer?
And that's like you're intellectualized.
Like, no, I'm not. Let's argue this out.
Right. Because you're so steep in that identity.
And so I thought... I was just a smart person.
Like, that's just how I moved through the world.
I'm smart. I figured things out. I've worked through things.
I have all these degrees. That's right. What? oh, that's a part that's not me.
And I learned that, no, the self-like parts are not, they're so close to who you are.
The veil is very thin. It feels like you, but it's not all of you.
How do we start to use the word to, to, I think you use the phrase build a relationship or be back in relationship with your partner.
Once we start to realize, oh, this is what's happening here, there's been some kind of breakdown in some way, which I think is probably how most of us awaken to the fact that, oh, something's not working for me anymore.
And maybe they get exposed to the notion of parts and parts work and like, oh, I'm starting to get this.
I'm starting to see this part is taking the lead or this part is really shrunk back or being exiled.
And tell me if this is the right language.
Rebuild the relationship with the parts in a way that works for us.
Or I think you actually used the phrase unburdening.
So the one thing, the first thing is the getting in relationship with.
That's the first thing. And who you're getting into relationship with are your protectors, my intellectualizer, the one who's getting angry, the critical one, the people pleaser, because those are the ones that are protecting the exile.
And we don't get to heal or unburden. Who gets unburdened is the exile, typically.
But we don't get there unless we develop a relationship with the ones who protect it.
So you think about a family, as we call this internal family systems therapy, you don't get access typically to people's children unless you have a relationship with the parents.
So the protectors are who we have to come into relationship with before.
So when I was saying being in relationship, like using the example of drawing the parts.
But externalizing our parts are a really good way to come into relationship with them instead of just kind of trying to figure them out in our head automatically. or come into relationship with them in our head by ourself.
So if we're working by ourself, one of the great ways is to either have something that represents the part like a shell or a small miniature.
If you have children, one of your children's toys can represent your various parts, right?
And then... asking the parts, coming into relationship with what I've drawn on the page or these parts that I've externalized with my kids' toys or to talk to, to understand what is it that is causing the anger.
What is your job in my, how do you help me?
What is your job in my system? How did you take on this job?
How long have you been doing it? This helps us get to the ones that these parts protect when we can take ourselves back to childhood, which is typically where this has occurred, but sometimes it can be a little later.
But take us back to the origin of when this part felt it had to protect us this way. then eventually we want to get to who it's protecting.
So when I get to my part that felt rejected, who People Pleaser is protecting, That's the one I'm going to unburden because the rejected part took on some beliefs about itself.
Like, I'm not good enough. So I need to, you know, that felt the rejection because I'm not good enough.
And this is why I'm shrinking, because I'm not good enough.
So that's the one we're going to heal or unburden.
So we start out with the protector part.
It's almost like we call for the protector part.
And I guess we step into this conversation with the protector part. with the intention of benevolence.
Assuming that the part had the intention of benevolence, not saying like, hey, evil part, come here. like you're causing a breakdown in my life.
We need to figure out how to just like set you down.
You're like, no, no, let's, I want to know you.
Let's go back and understand how you've been really good and helped me so much until this moment and honor and acknowledge that.
And it sounds like that then gives you, I love the description of like, if you want to talk to a kid, like you start by, building relationship with the parent because the parent has access to the child.
And then that helps you then gain access to the exile part of And that's where the deeper unburdening work starts to happen.
That's right. Okay. So talk to me about the process of unburdening now.
Once our protectors give us access to the identify that it's the rejected one that I'm protecting.
And I would say, if I could go to that rejected one and help it, would you be open to that?
And remember, by the time I'm seeing these clients, these parts are exhausted.
Like, okay, if you think you can help. Certainly some parts are skeptical, but ultimately the parts, once they give us permission to be with that young one, that exile.
Then we want to come into relationship with the exile and understand, just like we did with the protector, really understanding its role.
Why is it hiding? What has happened? How long have you felt this way?
What are you holding? I really want to understand what caused you to step back.
And so one of the things that I often do is I'll ask God, The exile, ask the client to ask their exile part to show them, show the client what hurt this part so much.
What was this part's struggle? So in my case, and I'll say maybe show it like a movie, you know, just kind of just showing you the pictures of the movie of that time.
So what came up for my rejected part was when she brought that C in science home in the fifth grade or whenever.
And so she shows that scene and you see the hurt and the dejection and the rejection that this part felt. when she heard that this isn't a child of her father's, right?
How would that cause you to interact with that part, Jonathan, if this part is sharing?
I just felt like I was unlovable. Like I was just being thrown away.
How would you respond to that little one?
You want to give him a hug? Yeah, right.
So connection, right? Yeah. Somehow we want to connect with this part.
And once the parts see that, oh, this is a safe big person.
This is someone who is really curious and cares about me.
The part may come closer. I've had my part sit in my lap. to come close.
So we want to learn more and let the part know it's okay for you to share your experience.
And we call that witnessing in IFS. We're witnessing the experience that this heart part had in the past.
After the witnessing is complete, we can find out, you know, sometimes our parts are stuck in the past, like kind of frozen in the past.
We might wanna bring them out of that scene Sometimes they come on their own.
If a part comes, it gets closer to you, it sits in your lap, it's already left that trauma scenes present with you, right?
So after we witness, we're going to invite these parts into releasing any beliefs or thoughts or feelings that they took on as a result of that burden that they're holding in their bodies.
We help them to unburden that. And typically unburdening is to one of the elements like fire, earth, wind.
So we have them unburdened. that release it, say, to the air or on water.
And then the part had some... innate qualities that it was born with, right?
But clearly while it's been exiled, it hasn't been expressing those qualities. it gets to invite back in those qualities that it had exiled or that it didn't get to express.
It brings those qualities in. We call that the in-between burden, the burdens.
We're inviting in the qualities this part will need moving forward now that it will no longer be hidden.
And then we do what we call integration.
We invite back in those parts that were protecting this part.
So we would invite back in my people pleaser part, to see how this little one now is no longer burdened and has these qualities now to move forward.
And the reason we do that is it lets the protector know this part doesn't need protecting anymore.
She is strong. He is strong. They are strong.
They are healthy. And so now you get to, protector, take on a new role because now you don't have to protect.
You can be something else in the system.
And that exhaustion that you described, like having to carry that burden of protection for so long, it's like, okay.
Yeah. So now I see that the part that I've been protecting for so long.
The world has changed, circumstances have changed.
It's safe for them to now actually come out and show up. as they did in quote before times.
And they are, now they're ready. They're willing.
They see that. So I can drop, I can let down the mantle and the exhaustion that has come along with it for so many years.
Is that right? Absolutely. And then this part gets to choose how it wants to be in the system.
It may not want... Whatever it was doing before, it doesn't have to do that anymore because this other one doesn't require the protection.
And of course, that relieves them of the exhaustion too.
When you're working with somebody in a therapeutic context, having the types of conversations that you just described, who are you talking to in the conversation?
What's happening is I'm talking to my client's self.
Not a part. I am talking to their self. And there's things we do earlier to make sure that the self is who's in the seat of consciousness and not another part.
So once that's clear, who's being in relationship with the client's part is the client's self.
So those qualities of the curiosity and the calm and the connection, that's coming from the client's self to the part.
Got it. So when you ask the client, well, play the movie of that moment.
It's the self that's playing the movie. Or it's asking the part to sort of like tell the story in the form of the movie.
Yes. Yeah. So self-ask that question. Okay.
And then the exile is... showing us their pains right exile is playing the movie so it's like almost like you're prompting the self to prompt the parts exactly And when a person has enough self-energy, oh, so glad you said that I'm prompting the self to prompt the parts.
There's a point in IFS therapy where I don't have to do that anymore.
Basically, I'm sitting with my client in my own self-energy, so I have to make sure my parts step back. in my own self-energy, holding the process.
Because the other quality is not AC quality, but we know that it exists, is that the self is also intuitive.
Like, I don't have to keep prompting. At some point, the self is going to move closer to the little ones.
Just like I asked you, like, how would you respond?
The self is going to know this little one is being vulnerable and it's unprotected.
I'm going to go over there. or ask, invite that one to come close to me and hold it if it wants to be held, right?
So at some point, I'm saying things like, so what's happening now?
I'm not having to prop. It's like, well, she's coming to my lap.
I'm hugging her. She's sharing more of my story.
Okay, let her share as much of her story as she wants to.
Just know that I'm here if you need any type of support.
So now they have their own relationship, which is what we want because the therapist, one, it's not going to be in your life forever and ever.
And we want the parts to have their own connection to the client self.
Yeah, and I guess to you as a therapist also, that must be a really... an important signal to you like, oh, okay.
Like we've just sort of crossed a threshold here where there's like a level of self-advocacy that's starting to emerge and awareness. that this person can probably start to internalize this and notice a lot of these things and then figure out like how to appropriately. rebalance or unburden without as much or as frequent or in-depth intervention from somebody in the outside.
Absolutely, yeah. You use a phrase embodied a number of times during our conversation also, especially in the context of trauma.
And I know that's a part of the work that you do also, I think.
And what's interesting to me about the work also is that, yes, you use IFS, I know, as a sort of a central modality. you also take a very somatic, like more broadly, somatic approach with the working assumption that trauma is experience, I guess, not just in this reallocation of the way that the parts show up, but it's like in the physical body itself.
It's embodied, and we see the work of Bessel van der Kolk and so many others who've come after, How does this notion inform the work of unburdening, of getting back to yourself, of integrating trauma?
So because we know that trauma actually gets stuck in the body, it shows up in the body, parts do too.
You know, there are parts that might show up in our head or in our gut or in our throat, right? and where the burdens are showing up.
So it's really important. One of the first things we do when we're working with the client say working with that angry part, right?
I would say, where do you notice that in your body?
Where does that part live in your body? And sometimes our parts are just outside of our body.
So I might say in or around your body. Sometimes it's just outside of our body. body somewhere, right?
The reason that's so important is when we get to the point of unburdening a part, we really want the client to be able to release that part from wherever it shows up in the body.
So that part of me that felt rejected, where did rejection show up in my body?
It showed up in my heart. It also showed up in my solar plexus.
So that's where we want to release it from because it literally is taking up space in the client's body in those locations.
So that's why it's really important. And also, it helps us to know which parts are present, like I know the difference between anxiety in my gut and rejection in my gut.
They show up differently. It's not the exact same heat or movement or sensation in the body.
So you also know, oh, Okay. I see that that is that anxiety part.
It's not the part that they'll reject it, right?
So that also helps us to know who's present, who's here with us right now.
I mean, so it's really interesting that there's this relationship between the parts, the burdens they take on, the process of unburdening the part, but also then it sounds like the process of almost like dissociating the part from the physical part of the body in which it resides.
Yes, absolutely. And not only do we want to release the burden from the body in the way that it shows up.
Again, just for clarification, because I might not have been clear.
We're not releasing the part. Like, we're not getting rid of the part.
Right, right, right. What I'm releasing is whatever burden my parts are holding, right?
So that rejection. But someone's holding the rejections.
I want to keep the someone and just unburden the rejection that they were holding.
The other part about embodiment is when we invite in the gifts, we're inviting our client to take those gifts into their body.
So if I want to take in the gift of I am valuable and lovable, I want to feel that within my body, within my system to actually really bring that in.
So that's the other piece of the embodiment too.
Hmm. So it's like if there's a part that lives in your heart and it's, you know, and this is a loving, generous, kind part and it's, it's been tucked away, like it's been exiled.
That part is still going to be there. And then when you sort of like... when it unburdens itself.
It's like that part allows to expand in that same area also.
And it's like, I'm like, I have this visual now.
It's very weird visual just popped into my head.
Like the, like old game operation where you're like little tweezers and a buzzer and like you're trying to remove like this, this, this, this.
And I'm just like, okay, so like a map of my body with like the different parts located in different places in my body.
And yeah. If I'm anxious, I feel it often in my gut.
So maybe there's something happening there.
And if you could unburden that, like maybe the somatic response to that is the gut just feels relaxed and okay.
Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing that I like about knowing where my parts show up, like I do have a part that holds anxiety.
She shows up in my gut. She's been unburdened, but she still, what this part holds is, I want you to do a good job.
And one of the ways she lets me know she's here and wants me to do a good job, she makes my stomach a little nervous, right?
And so I'll put my hand on my stomach before I'm getting ready to do something that might cause her.
Now, she used to take me out. Now it's just a little, I just want you to know, I want you to do a good job.
And I can let her know. Yeah. I hear you and I'm good.
I'm really good. Thank you. And if you want to just go relax, you can because We know already that when you relax, I really can do a good job.
She's like, yeah, that's right. I remember that, you know, so that's the benefit of coming into relationship with the parts.
So instead of her taking me out, making me stutter, oh, I can't remember what I was going to talk about, which is what she used to do before she was unburdened, Just a little reminder that I'm just really here because I really want you to show up well.
Yeah, it's like, hey, this matters, remember, but you're going to be okay.
Right, I'm not going to die. Yeah. And I think that brings us to the final thing.
And this is actually how you wrap your book.
Yeah. With this notion of... This is not a one and done.
This is a conversation that we keep revisiting and keeps unfolding until our final breath.
Absolutely. We want to continue to be in relationship with our parts however we can.
The more work we do with parts, we may uncover other parts.
Like for some parts, it's not safe to come out first.
Right. They've kind of us in the background.
Let me see about this IFS and see if it really is, you know, what what the person thinks it is.
Right. But once they see some of our parts get some healing, they too will come up to the fore.
And that's another reason why it's not a one and done.
Now, I have clients who say, how many parts do I have?
How many parts are going to need healing?
I say, I don't know. But this is a good thing because they are trusting you.
They're trusting yourself to be there for them. when they come up for healing.
So yeah, and to be unburdened. I guess you could also, you could sort of like reframe that and say like, you're like, oh dear God, how many parts do I have?
Like, are they going to keep coming out of the woodwork and say like, how incredible, right? that I have so many parts that can become unburdened and become like beautiful allies. in the way that I want to show up in the world and how I want to be and do and become.
And that it's not like I actually have this incredible, a community around me that I can tap into.
Tell a little bit of a different story about them, right?
Absolutely. I just love the way that you reframe a lot of things. the concepts of IFS.
I mean, it's just so beautifully spoken, really.
I'm just trying to simplify it for me so I can wrap my head around it.
It's beautiful. You have a poetic way of speaking that I'm really enjoying.
Appreciate that. Appreciate that. I love learning from you as well.
It feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation.
So in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?
To live a good life, know that you are whole, well, healthy, and wise.
Thank you. You're welcome. You're very welcome.
Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, say that you'll also love the conversation we had with Tara Brock about using mindfulness and compassion to free ourselves from suffering.
You can find a link to that episode in the show notes.
This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields.
Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young.
Christopher Carter crafted our theme music.
And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and...
Follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too.
If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, Chances are you did because you're still listening here.
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Share it with just one person. I mean, if you want to share it with more, that's awesome too, but just one person even, then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered. to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter, because that's how we all come alive together.
Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.
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