Internal Family Systems & Self Leadership (The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk)

On today's community call Amy discusses the internal family systems model.

Show Notes:

OK, good morning, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us for

this live call about a model of psychology that our team at Holistic Health

Educators has been really excited to learn more about.

There is a I want to see just by raise of hands,

how many of you have heard of the internal family systems

model of psychology or heard about self leadership.

And I'm going to explain what that is in a second.

But if you're like, I'm already an expert, Amy got my own certification.

It's going to be a nice overview for you

because we're going to start from the ground up with this explanation.

I'm going to open up the chat to science monitor what you guys are saying.

So I'm going to I'm going to start off with a really basic introduction

to this model in psychology and then share some examples and some stories.

And I would love to open it up for discussion after that. So

I was introduced to this model through the book,

The Body Keeps the Score, which actually is our our current book for the book club,

if you would like to join us for the book club.

The body keeps the score uncovers so many layers behind explaining

trauma in the human body and what actually works to reverse mood disorders

instead of just all the different ways that we mask it in today's society.

And so phenomenal in depth book about that.

But towards the end, around Chapter 17,

this model in psychology is introduced called the Internal Family Systems.

And when I first heard it, I was like, oh, that must mean

how you interact with your family members.

And then it talked about internal leadership.

I was like, that must be how you lead your internal family members.

You know how you lead other people.

But I was very quickly surprised.

This is a model that validates and gives a verbiage

to the many different parts inside of ourselves.

And so instead of

just looking at us like we're

one glob, we're one entity or one person.

We actually have sub personalities.

And a lot of us are like, yeah, of course, there's different parts of me.

But these personalities have their own set of values,

of fears, of hopes, of life purpose.

And instead of in the past,

I always thought like, oh, I can have different emotions.

But I didn't realize that a lot of these

emotions were actually the emotions of my sub personalities.

Now, I'm going to explain this with like a graphic here in just a minute

from the dissociative personality

disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder .

That is like the extreme case of something that we all have.

OK, so we we all have these so personalities.

Some people say like different voices in your heads

or different influences or different drive.

Sometimes they're in conflict with each other, sometimes are working together.

The extreme case of this would be dissociative personality disorder, where

where you show up as an entirely different person.

Like time, period of time, period, like a completely different person.

So if we look more as like how does this typically work with people?

And I'm going to pull up an image here that's really helpful, but

just to use my own words to explain it.

In response to different things that happen in our life,

these different parts of us way may develop and they may develop

because they feel like our internal our true self isn't

doing a good enough job of protecting us or our internal self can't protect us.

And so these these parts emerge to either be the.

To be a protector or to be a manager or to be a emergency responder.

They emerge out of us in in some form to protect us.

And then they tend to stay with us our whole life.

And sometimes instead of us ever having conversations with these parts

and like helping them understand that not all of their reactions to

things are merited at this point in our life,

like maybe that reaction was serving us when we were six years old

and our parents were screaming at us and we had to pretend

like we couldn't hear a thing as soon as someone starts to yell at us.

Maybe that served us when we're six years old.

But when when you're in your marriage and now your spouse wants to talk to you

and you instantly get this defense coming up of like,

it's not safe for me to listen to this person

that's not going to be serving you in your marriage.

So we can like, look at that internal protective part of us that

that used to protect us as a child by getting really defensive

or by shutting off whoever is has anything critical to say,

because at that point, it would have been really dangerous.

It would have been really, really, really hurtful as a child

to let every single negative thing their parent said in.

So learning how to block that was a defense mechanism

that really served that child.

But now that the child is an adult, it's time to learn how to peel back the layers

of of these defense mechanisms and learn how to have constructive conversations

without feeling like someone's

attacking you and instantly putting you in fight or flight mode.

Does that make sense so far?

OK. So for me, it really helps to hear this talked about like,

ah, different parts, because that is that's language we all use.

Like, oh, a part of me really wants to spontaneously fly to Turkey.

But another part of me is like, you're a horrible worker

if you're not working 24/7 and you don't have the money for that.

And so we have these different parts of us that are drawn.

And instead of us just looking at these parts is all good or all bad.

This model teaches us to look into ourselves.

And it really does help to have.

I ended up having two therapy sessions

with this model afterwards, which was so cool.

The model really like you look inside your body and all

I'm saying is sometimes it helps to have

someone who's trained in this modality to help you along this process.

But the concepts, some of these can be applied right away.

You look inside yourself, you can almost identify where

that sub part or that part of your body is, is living is in your guts.

Is it in your shoulders?

It is in your mind, like and have conversations.

And you can also tell that part of you to take a deep breath and relax.

So Richard G. Schwartz was the gentleman who developed this. He's a doctor.

He was a family psychologist.

And he called it the internal family systems

because he was a family practitioner and he would see how family members interact.

And he's like, that's interesting.

It's really similar to how our parts interact.

Sometimes they work together as a team.

At other times they are duking it out and they like hate each other.

But, you know, but at the end goal, they have one one goal,

and that's to like serve your inner self.

Oh, cannot wait to show you the visual for this because it's so cool.

They have one goal to serve and protect your inner self.

But sometimes they can be at odds with each other.

And I was going to mention that

Richard Schwartz was

explaining that in his practice when he would be talking to people about,

you know, maybe they would identify a part and want to start talking to that part .

Maybe it's the part of them that gets really critical

or maybe it's a part of them that gets really defensive,

or maybe it's the part of them

that gets that feels really scarce, whatever that part of them is.

Sometimes they would try to talk to that, but it would seem like

they would be judging that part of them so much that they couldn't

even have an honest conversation.

So what he would have to do is be like, hey, yo, can you please

ask the other parts of you that have a problem with with criticism

and have a problem with scarcity and who have a problem with with

with whatever it is, defensiveness?

Can you tell them

to just like step back for a minute so we can have an honest conversation

with this part of you?

Because they're like interrupting us right now

and just tell them it's safe, you know, just tell them to step back

or is kind of honest conversation with this part of us.

And you said after that it would be like a whole different person would emerge.

And the most interesting thing apart about that is after asking someone

to set these parts aside enough, there is this true self that remains.

And he has these eight C's that he's like, after you can have

these parts feel safe enough to step back of the true self,

eventually you're going to have just who this person is at the core.

And he identified these eight attributes

that he kept finding that all these people's.

True self had and at first he's like he would see that they were really

compassionate, is one of the cities, for example, or really confident.

And he's like, I wonder what parent they inherited that from.

I wonder where they inherited it from. But he would ask, where did you know?

Who in your life modeled that well for you being compassionate, confident, caring,

calm, collected, being clicked, having clarity of thought.

So who modeled that?

And like in some cases, they felt they had no good models.

And that's when he felt like, oh, it's not that we inherit all these traits.

There are traits that are part of mankind's core identity.

And I was really cool here.

And he's like, these are the eight C's.

So I'm going to pull up a model.

And just to show you a picture, we have this inner self

that contains in harbors and manifest these eight these eight qualities.

But then we have different

so parts that emerged at one point or another in our life to serve and protect us.

Like you mentioned, sometimes they felt like the inner self wasn't

doing a good enough job or they felt like they needed

to stand up and do something or the pain was too much.

There was one quote that like knocked me over when I heard it.

He said, oh, this came from the body keeps the score.

It said. It is not.

It is safer for a child to hate themselves than to risk

losing their caretaker by expressing anger or standing up for themselves.

And so I'm going to repeat that again.

Sometimes it is easier.

It is often easier for a child to learn to hate themself

than it is for them to risk

losing their parent or their caretaker by standing up for themselves.

And what that made me realize is that these protectors

are not always more confident than our inner self.

They're not always like,

I'm here to protect my inner self, Amy, because she's not doing it.

Sometimes these protectors think it's safer for us to hate ourselves

or to turn in or to be submissive, because standing up is too risky.

And that is also such a fascinating concept, because I have a really,

really close person in my life who I explain this model to them.

And she was like, I don't really think I have a protector

because I was just walked on all the time

as a child. She had really narcissistic family members.

And I'm not I know narcissists.

The word gets used like a lot these days, but I think like clinically diagnosable,

like anyway, she just felt like she just always walked on and she's like,

I don't think my body ever developed to protect her.

But now that I'm like growing up and learning

how to be more confident, you know, I'm like I'm learning it for myself.

And I was like, no, your protector was submissive.

Your protester was masking your inner confidence

because as a child, it wasn't safe for you to have a voice.

You standing up for yourself all resulted in you getting more

yelled at, more punished, more invalidated.

And so your protector was not this like zoo standing up to defend you.

It was actually the submissive people pleasing, maybe even lying

sometimes like to just be like, oh, yeah, no, I didn't

I didn't know or like, oh, I swore I checked out 10, 20 times.

You know, it was that people pleasing that emerged.

And now that she's growing up, she can start letting go of that part

that used to protect her and stand more in her inner self.

Now, the part of this model that is just the I am just so in love with

is the amount of judgment it can help us take away

from our inner self, from these these parts of us.

Hold on one second.

In the past, maybe we would have negative reactions to things

and we would be like, wow, I'm such an angry person

or I'm such a manageable person, or like I can't even communicate or

I can't believe I lashed out or I'm so frivolous with my money.

I have no self-control or like name any of your negative thoughts, guys.

OK, name any of them.

And we typically look at that outcome like, oh, outcomes bad.

So that that's such a negative emotion or negative part of me.

But what this model teaches us is these subparts

developed out of their own sense of like a values of virtues, of purpose.

And and we should learn how to like

appreciate them and ask them enough questions and and dig

in, make them feel safe enough

that we can actually get to the root of why they are that way.

Now, if you're like Amy, you sound crazy, like multiple personalities, blah, blah.

This isn't the call for you because like I'm just talking about saying

how it is weird.

We have these parts of us and it's really liberating

to look into them and validate all these subparts

because it it can help us get to the root of things.

So I'm going to share this picture and then I'm going to go into

I'm going to give you some examples right after I show this.

So let me know if you can see this, OK?

I'm trying to make this bigger.

It might be like a pinch blurry, but it's still the the concept.

Can you guys see that?

OK, just give me a thumbs up in the chat if that's if that's.

If you're capable of seeing that.

OK, good system, thumbs up. Awesome.

So you see in the middle we have this inner self.

This is the deepest and essence or center of the person.

So one differentiated from these other subparts is called self energy.

And it acts as a wise, compassionate leader, able to tend and heal systems

and or heal the system of us.

So these are qualities of self energy, courage, compassion, connectedness,

creativity, confidence, curiosity,

calmness and clarity. OK. And then.

Oh, dear, I noticed that when I screenshot this, my thing was on.

OK, anyway, so that's part of the self.

You can find this model online if you just Google the internal family system.

And then sometimes this self starts to get masked by these other parts.

You have firefighters.

These are protectors that springing the action whenever pain

from other parts, especially the more wounded exile's

threatens to overwhelm firefighters, act powerfully and automatically to repress

emerging exile's release pressure, get out of danger fast,

they can overpower the managers efforts to control the system.

This is kind of like when all else fails.

Is there is I probably going to save that one

for last, actually, because that one is like when all else fails.

The common firefighter behaviors

and traits are so substance abuse, attempting suicide,

bingeing on food, having affairs, disassociating, distracting,

self-harm, things like that.

So those that's more like I probably should have ended with that,

because that's more like the last resort when these other parts of us are failing.

So the managers, these are the ones that we talk about the most.

These are the primary parts to keep the person feeling secure

by controlling people events and other parts.

They bear Hubert Hugh.

They bear huge burdens of responsibility for keeping the inner self

together and fear that

relinquishing control will lead to worse outcomes.

So they protect against vulnerability, pain, instability.

They have never again as their motto.

And so common manager behaviors are being controlling, analyzing, criticizing,

judging, caretaking, being pessimistic, being super planning and numbing.

Also, I definitely forgot

at the beginning of this call, I'm so sorry to give like a disclaimer

that we are talking about some really sensitive topics today.

So if at any point

this doesn't feel like emotionally safe for you to listen to, just.

No, it's totally OK if you disengage from a zoom call at any point.

And if you know people, you can you feel safe to talking

about these types of things.

Please contact them if you would like some references or referrals.

I definitely have friends who are therapists

trained in this type of thing who would love to continue talking about with you.

But I do apologize if any of this is triggering.

And I did I did forget to mention at the beginning.

But I'm going to I'm going to continue now. I just hope, you know,

you have my support.

So then we have these exiles in these parts have been rejected or traumatized,

holding deep wounds and memories filled with terror, pain or shame.

Young and childlike, these are frozen in time, hiding for protection.

And they become increasingly desperate to share their story.

They leave the person feeling exposed and vulnerable,

something the protectors fear will destabilize the system.

But they're screaming, don't forget me.

And that's their motto.

And so common exile behaviors and traits are sensitivity, anger, dependency,

innocence, spontaneity and openness.

Wow. Is any of this starting to like be like,

wow, I really identify some of these behaviors

because if you look at like just look at yourself.

And I think sometimes we

we we feel the need to like either process things or or defend herself

in a way that's not necessarily true to who we are deep down.

But like for some reason, we just feel the need to do that.

Like, oh, I have to I have to do this. Right. I need to.

All right. And a lot of times we actually don't consciously recognize this.

Like, I would guess 19, over 99 percent of this actually happens subconsciously.

But after we become more aware of it, it's

really easy to see, like, wow, if I've met someone who who has been traumatized

and there's and but their story was like never validated,

that could either manifest in the need

for them to tell their story to everyone or for them to bury it deep down

and then feel like no one believes their story

and then address everyone else in their life with the attitude of

they're not going to believe anything I say, so I might as well be hyper defensive

or have this big

wall up or whatever, like it can manifest in different ways for different people.

But this is the general model.

And all of these

the point to get out is that all these sleeper cells

that emerge are all here to protect ourselves.

So when we have conversations with these sub personalities,

the end goal is to

help appease their fears, to address your so personality's inner

child, to address your so personality's values and belief systems.

So I'm going to get into a couple examples,

and then we will go ahead and start opening this up to discussion.

I've been talking for 20 minutes straight.

So if ever you guys are getting tired of this,

you only have a few more minutes to go.

And I need to close the shade.

And the sun is rising over the Makaha Valley Mountains.

Everyone, please give me one moment.

OK. Awesome. So I want to give a couple of examples of I hope you don't mind,

I'm going to give you

a couple examples of some things that came up in in my session

and then some things that other people mentioned,

just to give you an example of how to wrap your mind around.

So how many of you have ever experienced

this feeling where you have

like a deep you feel like you have a deep need to need to be working?

You're like, I need to be working right now

while simultaneously feeling extreme resistance towards

whatever that thing is that you need to do where you're like.

I need to clean my closet.

I need to be at my desk working,

I need to create that invoice and get it sent out

to make the estimate, whatever it is.

And then like at the same time, you're like, what do I have to do?

No, I have to make a fresh papaya salad.

You want to go hiking today? That I think I can fit that in.

And then like everything else comes up in your day

and you can like you can't address that thing.

So this was the very first thing that came up in my therapy session

was this duel, this duel push and pull related to work,

because at one point my job was it got me in fight or flight mode.

It was like a lion was chasing me. It was

for whatever causes.

I'm positive as it happened during the pandemic

when like all these variables change in the company and something happened,

the company that just got me in Firefly mode anytime I thought about working.

But on the other hand, I had this like deep part of me

that was like, I need to be working and I want to be working.

And I have so many things to do.

And so we get these parts that start duking it out,

because one part of you saying it's not safe to go to work

like it's not safe to do that task for whatever reason.

However, it gets you in fight or flight mode, you have this part

that's saying it's not safe

and it's trying to keep you safe by keeping you away from it

because it doesn't want you to get eaten by the tiger.

But then you have this other part, and this could even be like multiple parts.

You could have another part

that's like the responsibility, like, oh, I want to be like managing this.

We need to go to work and we need to get things done

because I like to be in control of everything.

So you have your manager.

That's like we really need to show up at work

and you probably have some of your inner

self that's like, yeah, I like being productive.

I like contributing to society.

I like being organized and confident and calm and clear.

I want to do these things.

But now a sudden you have this like hogwash and who's going to be dominating?

And a lot of times this is what causes this resistance is like

instead of us just being like, oh, gosh, I hate myself for

wanting to go to work and never doing it and resisting this task.

Now we can turn and look at that part of us that is severely resisting

that task and ask, why is this so scary?

What is this risking to you or to the stability of our inner child?

For some people, like with the Kósa analysts, a really common example.

Like what if the closet has things inside of it that that person just

doesn't even want to look at? They don't want to have to process that.

Whether it was related to a past relationship or a past life

or whatever it is, it's it doesn't feel safe to address that thing.

And so they feel like this intense like fight or flight

protection mode to avoid it.

So now it just opens up the door.

We can look at it and have this conversation.

And I was able to look at that part, that manager.

No, it was probably if I don't know what part of me that was,

most of them are managers. But

I was able to look

at that part of me that was so deeply resisting work

and have a conversation and say it's not do or die anymore.

Ladies and gentlemen, like we can breathe.

Like I realized how long I was living in fight or flight mode

after the initial, like the actual fight or flight period

where I really was feeling like I was going to be eaten by a tiger.

And it made me realize, like, how often do we get trapped in feelings of trauma

where we enter fight or flight mode, and then long after the threat is gone,

we have the same mental and physiological responses

to these triggers for as long be our whole life if it never gets addressed.

I mean, we see this like I'll give you another example for any of you.

This is like a more modern example because you guys weren't alive.

You didn't grow up like texting your boyfriends.

But being ghosted is like when someone just randomly disappears from your life

and is very traumatizing because it's like it's abandonment.

That's like one of the most scary emotions that humans can feel. And

after I was ghosted by this gentleman, I dated a couple of summers ago.

Every time my message was undelivered to someone, it could be my coworker,

my mom, my sister, a friend, an old roommate, whoever.

Anytime a message what I would watch them at any time it wasn't delivered.

My full body would get tense and I'd be like,

oh, my gosh, did I do something wrong? Do they hate me?

What did I do wrong? Message not being delivered.

They must have blocked me. That lasted for months.

Is that a real fear? Is that a grounded fear?

That's not a grounded fear. Like that is like one guy did this to me.

And now I'm looking at every single text message I ever sent,

like this person about to block me.

And I like I went to therapy for that because I was like,

I don't want to spend the rest of my life with this fear that everyone's

going to turn their back on me.

And so it wasn't till I addressed that. I was like, this isn't necessary.

People aren't going to abandon you.

Amy, this is just one scenario thing.

All of a sudden, it was safe for that manager to step back

and to not instantly be like thinking that this is what was going to be happening.

So that was my first example with work, is I was able to look at that

that part of me, that manager or I can't remember if you called it

a manager or what, but that part of me that resisted work

and have an honest conversation and assure it that I was not.

Are being actively chased by a tiger, and it was OK for me to for me

to feel no resistance towards my job, and that was a game changer for me.

So much more joy came back into my work.

And like what I'm not just I wasn't joyful, but seriously,

some of these like residual emotions can just unnecessarily burden us.

That's why it's called the burdened internal family system,

because or this burden parts

because they carry burdens that they don't always carry.

So that's my first example.

My second example is kind of funny. And then.

Yeah, and then we'll we'll open up because I would love to hear your questions.

I have a feeling like there's something that still needs to be said

about that last topic of resistance. First drive.

I guess what I would say is.

It's in my experience

with the therapies, I'm like usually wrong,

like ninety five percent of the time when I guess why something is the way it is.

I don't mean to be invalidating myself.

I shouldn't say 95 percent of the time, but like it really helps sometimes to have

someone help you

through this process of identifying what your core beliefs even are.

Because a lot of them we don't want to admit.

Like a lot of times, we a lot of times we don't want to admit them

because even admitting them feels like frightening.

But like it really takes

the shame away from from having, like,

limiting belief systems and like opens up the door to like

owning them and working with them and then and then ultimately appeasing them.

So, yeah, I'm not trying to say we can never do therapy

successfully on ourselves, because we absolutely can.

That's like very empowering.

But really, like if you know anyone who does like emotion code

or internal family systems or dialectical behavior therapy or whoever

your friends are who practice therapy and shamanism,

all that, sometimes it can really help

to have someone else guide you through this process.

I guess that's all I'll say.

OK, let me move on now.

But if you can't figure it out, know that's awesome.

I'm just saying is really helpful sometimes to have other people like help

identify things that are running in your subconscious mind

that you might not ever get to the bottom of your life,

because I've been really surprised at what's come up with me.

So, OK, the other.

My next example I want to give is it's really funny to me, but

I like so I start off this therapy session with this guy,

and I thought I knew what this session was going to be about.

But he also practices emotion code.

So he asked my body, what's the most important thing to release at the time?

Apparently, what was on my agenda was not on my body's agenda.

So he's like, well, he's like,

can you go ahead and ask your analytical mind for me?

Like if there's anything it wants to talk about?

I was like, I usually don't adjust

my analytical side, but sure, I like sit in space.

And it just came up that like there was some conflict between

this may be another thing. Raise your hand if you've ever gone through this.

Some conflict between

how I envisioned me executing my financial and budgeting plan

and how I was actually executing my financial and budgeting plan.

And I was like, yeah, there's some incongruence there that my body

probably wants, you know, that I want to talk about, you know.

And so we started getting into it and I joked with him that I have this like

rare genetic trait inherited from my parents that causes me to deeply believe

any time me or my parents go into a farmer's market

that we're like single handedly responsible

for keeping the farmers market economies in every community we live in afloat .

It's like I love supporting farmers markets.

And like I just told her, I was like, there's a part of me

that is just spending, you know, like I was like, I don't know.

It's something we should look into.

And he's like, OK, so you have a spending.

He's like, let's look into it. And so.

I forget what questions you'll ask, but it came up like one thing was like

he was getting that my spending is was was actually part of a defense mechanism,

and he asked another question about what is it, what is it?

Or it could be a front of me trying to not be something.

And I was like I said, oh, it just came out of me.

It was like, I hate tightwads, you know, he's like, what are you trying to not be?

And I was like, I hate tightwads.

And it was really I was surprised they said that, because like

I don't really feel like a lot of hatred in my Day-To-Day life.

But something in me just had this like strong feeling against tightwads.

He's like, OK, let's look into let's look into this. Tightwad

the feelings you have towards tightwads.

And for those you don't know, a tightwad means it's like people

who are really, really tight with their money. And

and when it came time to look into it,

I actually had a problem with tightwads for two different reasons.

I had my like altruistic side of me

that was like believes in I love the chat,

like support small businesses, validate other people's efforts.

And also it just makes you so happy. Like these are great products.

And so there's like this part of me that just like loves community

business and loves

supporting other people and loves getting what I get in return from it.

And there was a part of me that judge, that tightwad for like,

how can you not get the bigger picture

and step outside your own little bubble, buddy?

Like, come on, this is a community like support like that,

wanted this altruistic side of him to not be so tight.

But I had all other part of me that was responsible,

that hated the tightwad out of jealousy, that they felt that much self-control.

So I have like one part of me that's like deeply jealous

of their ability to to just control their money.

And then this other part of me that's like, could you loosen up

or do you like the shows now?

You know, like just hoping that they would like

get the bigger picture and participate in society. And so

we further looked into this and into like the spending part of it.

And he's like, what's the personality type?

Like, where does a spending this part live in your body?

What do they talk like? What's the voice like?

And of course, at first I picture this like this like fabulous shopper

with all these bags.

But then I kind of kept looking at it and there was some inner

child to that spend or it was almost like a defense mechanism.

And so I'm not going to get into everything about it. Some stuff.

I mean, I like to get everything about it.

Well, all of a sudden it removed this.

It just it made it more complex in a good way for me.

It remove this judgment I had towards my inner spending self of just being like any

or just you're so spending and you have just no self-control.

And all of a sudden

I started asking these parts of me like, why do you feel the need now?

Farmers markets are one thing.

I'm never going to stop spending money as a farmer's market.

Like that's like do or die.

Bury me in a bed of of charred and and.

The little chemo bites I see you on here, culinary fitness model,

your on your chemo bites like the best thing on planet Earth,

and so like just bury me in a farmer's market

basket full of goods from the local area and I'll be super happy.

But there's another part of me that like really needed

to learn that it was actually safe for me.

It was actually safe for me to like be financially responsible.

And it was safe for me to to know that I'm still going to be taken care of

if I execute my budget, how I want to.

Like there was the part of me that was being suspended was wasn't

because I was just being stupid and frivolous.

There was a part of me that almost looked at it

like it wasn't safe for me to do that.

And like I said, I'm not going to get in there now,

but this is how I want you to start

looking at your inner parts, is instead of judging them, ask

why do they feel unsafe to comply with your goals?

Why is that threatening?

Like, why does that make what what feels unsafe about that?

And from that place

of realizing this inner part of you is there to serve you and protect you.

We can all a sudden start to get to the bottom of things

without just calling that whole part of you good or bad.

Oh, OK. Knows a lot who is like in this so far?

Who is who is thinking this is interesting and you're like getting something

valuable out of it, whether for yourself or for your clients?

I hope so. This I can't believe how fast this came up in my work with clients

because they started like they the sole self-hatred thing, man.

Like we get into that so fast and.

I was working with one friend

who was also experiencing this, like ducking out of these

different inner parts, and she just felt so much conflict

and I was able to give her verbiage to her inner conflict.

I was like, hey,

you're feeling inner conflict because you have these sub parts of you

that are actually fighting right now.

So it's not just that you're going crazy, like you have one part of you

that has this value and belief system in another part of you

that has these values and belief systems.

And then you have your inner self.

And all three of them could be in in either in cahoots

with each other or fighting each other.

And so all of a sudden, having that language for it

is it's so much more productive than just being mad at us for like feeling.

The conflict or feeling incongruent

or feeling like you make decisions that conflict each other sometimes.

Oh, OK, good. I love seeing those chairs.

People are feeling it. Very interesting. Good explains a lot.

Well, thank you so much for joining me from my explanation of this model.

I cannot wait to continue studying it because.

Is this the biggest fear that keeps coming up, is it

so like validating and so nonjudgmental of how we look at ourselves?

Like, I really want you to think

like all of these behaviors about yourself that you love and hate,

even the ones that you hate about yourself or you're frustrated about yourself.

That part existed at one point or another or emerge

at one point or another to serve you, to serve you and to love you.

And that part of you has its own front and its own inner child.

It has its own defense mechanisms.

And sometimes it won't even listen to you trying to be critical because it's

so scared of being critical that it is.

It's going to take a while for it to soften up to your inner voice.

So just like address these things with grace and with gratitude

and with compassion because they emerge to help you.

I want to read what Lamont said.

Any modality that helps us use a language to unravel our maps

of thinking that holds us back excites me to no end is awesome.

Lamont is a phenomenal practitioner of neurolinguistic programing.

Lamont thought you were the first person who ever introduced me to thought

patterns, putting us in fight or flight or

thrive and rest and digest and exhilaration.

And that training you provided like was a such a game changer for me.

I started noticing what what your my decisions were made out of a place

of fear and trying to avoid something and avoid a tiger and fight or flight

or even avoiding guilt and shame like these can be small

things can be small decisions like, oh, I don't

I shouldn't I shouldn't stay at home and turn down the party

because I don't want to be the bad the bad auntie or the bad grandma stuff.

That's a decision that's made on Firefly, that's not made out of love.

Thrive, rest and digest.

So Lamont was the first one ever introduced me to start paying attention

to where my thought my decisions were coming from.

Are they coming because I want something?

I feel exhilarated.

I want to participate,

or they come in because I'm trying to run away from something.

And like I mean,

this can go both ways on every level, like wanting to leave a relationship

or to stay in a relationship, wanting to spend money and not spend money.

Those can be from total joy and forward movement or total fear mode.

So thank you lot for tripping up and for joining us today,

because I love what you practice, what you do.

So thank you again for your work.

OK, so Debbie, Jade, Nadia,

anyone who's on here right now, do you have any good questions

for discussions or anything you would like to share?

About what's been presented so far.

And if it actually can be, it actually can be anyone.

It does not need to just be with people that I call them.

But concern you?

Oh, OK. Gail talked a little bit,

she said you talked a little bit about procrastination. Any more ideas?

Wow, that's a great topic. This is a great

this is a great conversation topic. So.

Procrastination.

I'm going to put this in like two categories, because A.

I do think there is such thing as just like they call them frogs.

I forget what that stands for.

But like frogs are things that we just like are deeply avoiding

because it's going to be uncomfortable in some way or another. And

and I don't know if there's any amount of therapy that can completely

remove the discomfort that's just associated with certain tasks.

So at some point, we just have to wake up and eat the frog.

That's what they call it.

Someone tell me where

I got that idea from it and all these business

books about waking up and eating the frog, like just like take the task you're

you're putting off and stop waiting for it to get comfortable one day

and just like do it.

So that's one that's one

line of that's one level of why we might be procrastinating something.

The other one is as much deeper than that.

We're talking about where you have deep resistance towards something

that is causing your body to like

really deeply believe it's it's not safe for you to participate in that yet.

And I don't care if like I

don't care how small the task it is, because like I'm

sometimes we think that things just need to be like so obviously

horrifically traumatizing in us for us to understand why we might have

a physiological response to it. But these can these can be little things.

And so I'm evaluating

and I would love other people to perk up here, too.

But when it comes to looking at what we're deeply putting off, having that.

Conversation about it, there was one thing that I heard

from a pastor on time, he said that.

What what like the largest

source of pain is in the events that happened to us.

It's the way that those events threaten the way we want to see ourselves.

That's what's the most deeply scary thing to us.

He gave the example of a breakup.

He's like, know, sometimes we look at a breakup like it's just so.

Crushing and it feels horrible,

and we either really don't want it to happen or it happens

and then we get sucked right back into the same relationship.

And he's like a lot of times the pain isn't losing that person

like you. You probably broke up because it was a good idea to break up

and your life paths aren't compatible. And it's great.

You can be grateful for what happened.

Great. Yeah, I learned a lot for Julia and it's time to split ways.

So a lot of times that pain of breaking up isn't just that you're like

mortified that you're like that, that you're not going to be able to live

without this person.

And they're the most important person in your entire life.

And they're meant to be your your soulmate forever and ever.

A lot of times the pain of a breakup is that you want to believe

you were attractive and beautiful and valued.

And now that breakup is threatening those things.

It's threatening how wanted want to bowl, how beautiful, how attractive,

how intelligent your inner core is threatening those things.

I've definitely seen this lately

with some friends going through relationship, things like,

holy cow, people, after I've started learning, learning

more about mental health, I can tell you within like five seconds

whether I think someone should be in a relationship

or not, depending on how they talk about their relationship

and how they talk about the breakup. I was just talking to St.

Louis, one guy, he's like, well, like you're still deaner.

She's like he's like,

yeah, we're having like our evaluation at like our yormark, you know?

And I'm like, so like how you feel about things.

He's like I mean, it's good.

He's like, I just can't imagine what it would be like to be single again, though.

And I'm like, bro, you are like, are you in a relationship right now?

Because you would rather not be single than be with this girl?

Because that's what it sounds like.

You know, it's like hearing for him the the threat of like being single

and navigating that whole thing was like too scary for him

that like he would rather be in a relationship that was like

less fulfilling than he then he may want or that he can have.

It was like less scary for him to be in a potentially like imperfect.

Yeah. All of our relationships are going to be imperfect bohlig

in a potentially like not right relationship just because he didn't

want to feel whatever being single threatens to him.

So this concept is revolutionary because it really like flips

things and makes us look at ourselves.

And what are the things that feel threatening to us?

Not just is it scary

because it's going to be painful to do it or because I'm going to lose something.

Is it scary because of what it could mean about me and I'm avoiding it?

Just looking in my closet mean that I am

a disorganized person who runs away from my past

and tries to keep everything hidden deep down, you know?

Is it that cleaning up

the class is going to be boring and tedious and make you look at old bills

from twenty five years ago?

Or is it that it's going to uncover some things and that's going to threaten

your core identity?

So anyway, that could be totally.

Offline or what you're looking at here, but that's just what came to mind for me

is like looking at how things

alter the way we view ourselves, and then from that place of like asking like,

why does this feel threatening and are those fears validated?

Lamont said, I've often helped

them give each of these personalities a name to make it fun and memorable.

I'll call Jan Julee, Mark, Frank, Tarzan.

This also helps them talk it through themselves later. Yes.

That's awesome. Oh, my gosh, Lamont, I forgot.

Half of my presentation today does not have.

But internal leadership or self leadership is the act of your inner self

leading and managing these sub personalities and talking to them

and like literally being a man and like leading them, just like managing them.

So happy you mentioned that, Lamont, because after you like understand them

better, then when it's time for self leadership,

which is like, holy cow, I never, ever thought

there was such a thing as leading your inner parts of yourself.

But that totally makes sense.

Next time I'm like speaking at a business conference

and they're like, Amy, will you guys speak at a business conference?

I'll talk about self leadership or internal leadership.

And they're going to think I'm talking

about like internal like corporate panel leadership

and be like you guys all have such personalities.

They're manifesting in your life in unfulfilling ways.

And we're going to talk about how to lead them.

OK, that's really what is going to be about. I'm so excited.

But it is is internal leadership of how well do you address your managers

and like validate them, be like, hey, buddy,

I really appreciate you stepping up to that right now.

But actually, things are not as dangerous as they appear.

We don't need to be freaking out, you know, or like whatever

it is addressing these internal parts was having conversations.

And this is what Karen's on the call.

She really wanted to be on the call because after she heard about this model,

after she had already started practicing some of that because she couldn't fall

asleep at night, she had really, really, really bad restlessness.

And she said that

she just started talking to herself and being like self like, it's OK.

And she would just like talk to these parts of her mind

and just put them at ease and be like, we can go to bed now. We really can.

We can just go to bed. It's all OK.

So she was practicing self leadership, talking to herself.

We've all heard that concept like talk to yourself, but really like

put these people's fears at ease and lead your inner self and help.

The best part about this, you guys, is that little graph

I was showing you with these.

These parts that emerge, the best part about

this is the more those shrink, the bigger the self becomes.

Do you see that?

Do you see how the more these firefighters and managers and exiles,

the more that they get less center stage?

Not that they're bad, but they don't always need to be.

They don't need to be in the leadership position.

Our self needs to be in a leadership position.

So the more that those can step aside and realize, like, oh,

they don't need to be leading right now, the more that inner self emerges.

And that's what therapy is all about, is like putting your inner self back

in the driver's seat of your relationships,

of your decisions, of your thought patterns throughout the day,

until eventually, like your inner self that's calm and courageous and collected

and confident is now making the majority of your decisions and and reaction.

So I just think that's such a beautiful.

Hold on a second.

I just think that it's such a beautiful way to look at it.

So I was going to read this real quick.

Oh, OK, awesome.

So another thing about procrastination, Nadia said sometimes it has

to do with our perfectionism, low self-esteem or negative self belief.

Now, I would actually love it if you felt so inclined to perk up about that.

Don't mean to put you on the spot.

Yeah, I just find I do a motion

code and body code, and I find that

all of those are pretty big components

to sometimes procrastinating, printing things off.

What's another one?

Creative insecurity is like a huge one.

It's funny. Even people who are super creative,

sometimes they don't attack other parts that are not as creative because of that.

So just so how do you help them manage or personally manage that part of you

that has perfectionism and doesn't want to address this task

because it's never going to be good enough, or who has low self-esteem

and doesn't feel like you have the confidence to do it

or whatever these beliefs is?

How do you go about is validating that that's simply enough?

Or do you have like conversations or how what's that process usually like?

It's interesting because when will I muscle test

for people on the emotional code and as soon as I say something.

I'd say 90 percent of the time something pops in their mind

and they're like,

oh my gosh, like I never thought of that, like when I was in sixth grade,

you know, like some weird thing, like how did that even happen?

And so but what the emotion could you just kind of

you say it and you release it?

So it's not really talk therapy, but I do find if I'm working with someone

in person and I say it, they're like, oh, my gosh, that totally makes sense.

And then they it just something pops right in their head. Yes.

Honestly, like I feel like even just like identifying

it is like the majority of what causes

this like behavior change, which is like, oh, that's what was causing that.

And I don't even know how it happened so fast, but I've talked to people

who were like, I'm not ready for therapy because I know I'm not ready to like

try to make goals and change and like blah, blah.

And I'm like, therapy is like the most effortless

form of behavior change you could ever go through

because it's going to shift your core belief, your your core identity

and behavior changes like basically effortless after that,

because now all of a sudden

this belief system shifted and then all of a sudden it's just like

way easier to be incongruent with that.

So I love that. Yeah, just you mentioned just sometimes,

just like identifying it is enough and just like realizing. Like what?

Like connecting the dots for them. That's so cool.

Thank you, Nadia. Anything else you want to share about that?

And so I loved your talk.

Oh, cool, thank you.

We thank you for breaking up. That was awesome.

There was one comment up here really quick.

So simply talking it out with yourself is a suggested solution.

Amanda, that is a suggestion solution.

Is self leadership like learning how to talk to these different parts of yourself?

Because sometimes those managers

or firefighters or exiles start to take front and center stage.

And like are you mentioned at some point in your life

that probably was serving you, but if it's not serving you anymore,

it's time to address those parts and and and be the leader.

So that is one method, Amanda.

But you're asking the wrong person, because like my life causes

to get everyone in front of a therapist. So

you're asking the wrong phrasings.

I'm always going to be like, do you know anyone who practices emotion

care or any type of emotional therapy because she go work with them?

Self talk is a huge part of it.

So that'll help a lot. OK, awesome.

Yes. Awesome. So Lanita said I have names

for the other parts of me and we talk often.

Yeah. It's just good to identify it.

So thanks. I need it for your comment. That was great.

OK, anything else on the

related to procrastination or limiting belief systems,

I don't know, Flama, you want to perk up at all or anyone else

who who has anything to mention for how you've helped clients or yourself overcome

that resistance or procrastination?

I'd be happy to tune in.

Thank you lot. Well, so

procrastinations an interesting thing

because I guess I'll turn my video on to.

It's an interesting thing because.

Did we really procrastinate something?

Or did we just in the moment reorganize our priorities?

So if we did something different,

if we did something different than what we had planned or what we had expected.

Then aren't we still just kind of stuck in accusing ourselves

and thinking that we're victim to our own selves, more

so than we actually procrastinated anything like?

Because if we get after ourselves, because that's just a method

that we're going to use against ourselves,

is feeling like, oh, no, I didn't get these things done.

I didn't I procrastinated right for that.

But that concept of procrastination is really just like

a victimizing of yourself.

That you but really you just chose something different.

And now you're just getting after yourself for that choice.

They're like, oh, I'm upset with myself because I'm pregnant, instead of finding

congruency between what you decided and why you decided it

within yourself so that you could choose if you want to change it or not.

Which that's also we're talking about removing judgment.

You know, that's like that's like, oh, yeah, I re prioritize

like that doesn't make remembers and like I probably prioritize for a reason.

Yeah, but we're oversimplifying know.

One of the biggest cons of I really emphasize over and over and over

is our tendency to oversimplify so that we can stay in our old pattern.

Really? I get upset with ourselves.

Be disappointed.

Think that. Because really, it's just a method, this this concept

that we use against ourselves, where we say we procrastinated

is just a method to stick with our addiction,

that we are unsuccessful or not capable, or

if it's just a big oversimplification

that we're that we're using as a method to fix it.

So as a method, we're saying,

oh, I did it again, I procrastinate. Darn it.

That's that's our version of trying to change it.

But it tends to not work very well

because we're really just getting

after ourselves for something that we chose something else

instead of focusing on the thing we chose and going, hey, I got that.

Yeah, we got that out of today. I got that out of life.

I got, you know, as a as a father, if I spend my time

doing all these different things and I have all these plans

when something comes up

and maybe it's with my kids or my wife and and I want to spend some time with that.

And I spend that time with them.

And then today, I look at my list and I didn't do it.

And I had I procrastinated instead of saying, man,

I did all these things, I had those priorities

in the way that I did and look at all the things I did do.

Yeah, suerte. I'm so glad I procrastinated.

I'm on fire. I'm going after tomorrow and get those those kind of,

you know, what we call

our negative feelings out of the way so that we're just excited

the next day to go after the things we didn't get done. Oh,

right. That's so awesome. I love that.

Yeah, I love this stuff. It's so fun.

I love this this conversation and stuff you're bringing up about

these different parts of us, because,

you know, sometimes I use it as an actual personality.

So, you know, kind of a person out here or sometimes I just say it's a part of you.

Yeah, part of you. This people say, no, I don't.

I don't that. And I said, that doesn't part of you do that, huh?

Oh, actually, actually, yeah.

Maybe a part of me does still do that

because we come to these completely hard conclusions about ourselves.

They just hold us back. It's just not helping us.

And so when people give me these hard

conclusions, these hard conclusions, I find ways to to challenge that.

I say now. Now, maybe there's a part of you still do this.

There's a part of you still think and I guess part of me does.

And then if you can give it more detail around that part,

you know, and start

to create the personality or some personality that they call it,

then then they can start using that just to get out of that stuck part of

just thinking things are a certain way and it's oversimplified.

It's super, super simple. And that's so interesting.

I was just telling someone about like about one of the biggest things I got from

from learning about your program

was how we get addicted to our our thoughts.

And we always hear about sugar addictions and like addictions or other things.

But we get addicted to

certain thought patterns and not because they're always good

and result in dopamine and high self-esteem.

Sometimes they can result in

in a negative concoction of like neurotransmitters and emotions.

But we still get addicted

to those chemical reactions and to that that brain map and that neural pathway.

And I was experience.

I was like, you know, you can get addicted to negative thought patterns

and it can like why are your brain to frame everything in a negative way?

And that's like how

that's totally what you're talking about right now is like, OK, so I wake up,

I re prioritize because like alcohol, my friends go to town or whatever it is.

What if for whatever reason, we prioritize and that would be like a

totally normal thing. And now I'm like choosing a judge myself.

So, yeah, I love that.

I use the example of where I did something

that I would consider to be still a good thing.

Right. In my definition a good thing.

But there's also things that we

we decide to do that we later decide was not a good thing.

We binge watch Netflix or whatever.

But instead of looking back and going, oh, man, I shouldn't have done that, that

was such a mess.

Look back and say, how fun was that?

Yeah. Oh, how incredible was that?

I got I just based my brain and someone else's story and life and everything.

And I just loved it. And I didn't get all these other things done.

But I did do that.

And that's that that was a blast.

That was super fun.

We get off of the downside of everything getting after ourselves in the patterns

that we get in, that there's trying to solve some our brains.

Always trying to solve some.

Always. Every action it takes is to solve something.

And so whenever we question our behavior,

we think, well, what am I trying to solve?

What is my brain trying to solve in this way of addressing it?

To look back and go, oh, I procrastinate so much.

I'm always procrastinating. I'm a procrastinator.

I don't get it done.

No, you're not. You're a self sabotaging

person who's trying to solve

through feeling down and and negative and bad about yourself or whatever.

And oversimplifying your situation and your thing in this moment,

in that moment when you're watching Netflix, you're having a blast,

you're having fun, you're enjoying it, you're absorbing whatever it was.

But then you then

when you put yourself in that place, you can start to really analyze.

Did it lead me to things I truly wanted?

What what was I?

And I can be okay with having that conversation with myself

and figuring it out, because I'm not it's not detrimental either way.

It's going to work out.

Yeah, we're going to get there. Yeah,

it was a part of them.

A part of them may have like really wanted the relief or the enjoyment.

Just the breadth of it is like watching a show

and like living in someone else's world for a minute, you know, and then

and then there could be another part that was resisting things.

But I just love what you say is just like

it doesn't have to be so like what's wrong with me all the time.

It can be more like

what happened like that was enjoyable.

Like what I want to do now that's going to lead me towards what I actually want.

But I'm not going to do that because that was a good time, you know?

Yeah, I like this.

I think we're all we all think like mechanics.

My my father is a mechanic. I've learned mechanics.

I mean, someone you look at a problem in a car, you're always

focused on the problem.

It's like you have to figure out, is it the brakes, is it the solenoid?

Is whatever. What you're you're always focused on the problem.

But in our brain, it does not benefit us.

Always be focus on the problem.

Yeah. What if you had a hard pill to swallow?

What if you had a mechanic, the pop your hood in there like you

radiator is like totally working right now, like

you're shifting without a problem, Rick. That's awesome.

You know, it was like I love that analogy because we do tend to have that mechanic

without firing properly when there could be like nine hundred

things that are firing properly.

And we're just like hyper focused on like what's going wrong, so.

Yeah. Oh, I love that.

We were constantly in danger of living, losing our life.

And yeah, that's what we want to do.

That's that's what would work.

But we're we're not you're never are.

Almost never. It's not fun.

I love this story. And this is awesome.

Thank you, ma'am. I'm so glad you perked up.

That was awesome. Oh, yeah.

I love I love everything you teach. So thank you so much.

You're very welcome.

I really appreciate it.

Also, I don't know who can't just like laugh with laughs.

She laughs. And I was like, I was want to laugh.

I'm like, yeah, it's like this like way less stressful than I think it is.

So thank you. Thank you, Lamont, for that.

But yay, awesome. I'm loving these comments.

Just so it's making or making so much sense. So good.

Hear others explaining what you're always trying to understand within yourself.

Totally. That's totally how I feel.

So I'm really happy to hear there's been a good response to to to this topic today.

It's so relevant to all of us.

So we are here at the hour long, Mark.

So I'll just open this up one last time for questions or comments

or contributions, and then we will we'll wrap up today's call.

OK, so someone asked about tapping.

Yes, I am happy to talk about tapping.

If there's someone else who is like.

Has a little corner market on tabbing,

please go ahead and chat here, but

tappings been really successful in my family.

My little sisters use it for anxiety.

I've used it to rewire mental patterns that I noticed weren't serving me anymore

and just walk myself through things. I love the deep breathing.

There is a form of tapping.

Or if you're trying to reduce a traumatic response

and you don't actually like

want to talk through the trauma, because that would just traumatize you.

You can tap without having to even talk to yourself.

And that's that's not called emotional freedom technique.

That's called the.

Everyone is calling, but I'm saying there's a phone tapping where you

you don't need to be talking, but I do typically talk

and I just tap on these meridian points

in the body and breathe deep and just talk myself through things.

And that would be a great way to talk to those inner parts of you. But

really awesome way to like re rewire those mental thought patterns. So.

If you want to look more into that, look at the emotional freedom technique,

there's a lot of great

like short videos and charts about it, but I feel calmer already.

Well, we are tapping is a phenomenal, phenomenal tool to have in your toolbox.

That is something you can do from home or from anywhere.

Super congruent with everything we've talked about, so. Great question.

All right, any last things

I just have so much gratitude for everyone who joined us today.

This has been such a beautiful and fulfilling call,

and it's really exciting to see what we're learning about, of our psychology

and about neuroscience and about childhood development.

And we're learning so much about how the brain's wired and how it affects us.

We're just going to keep on going to keep on learning.

But it's a really exciting time to be alive.

Really exciting time to be alive. So.

Thank you. And thank you, Melissa,

and everyone who joined us today, and ILAs, I'm just throwing it out there

one last time, if anyone any last thing or if w if you want to say a word or two.

Yeah, thank you, Colleen.

I always say I'm so happy I haven't had formal

training in psychology because I've gotten to experience like

probably 30 different forms of therapy as the patient, not as the professional.

So I just like I really can't wait to spend more time.

I want to do like a little educational program

on all the different types of therapy that are out there, just so people know

what's out there, because like a lot of this has been out of my own curiosity.

And then also it's been out of like, wow, I could probably really benefit from that

is just so exciting experience.

These things from the other side of like not being the the the client

or the typing, the coach, the professional

being on the receiving end of being like, that's how my brain works.

Like this is what's

subconscious programmings been running 24/7 in the back of my mind.

It's very liberating to to get to the bottom of that. So

anyway, so thank you so much, everyone, for joining us.

Awesome. Awesome.

Please join us for our book club discussion this month.

It'll be this month or next month. The body keeps the score.

You can use the same community calling because you're using right now.

It'll be every other Monday night.

So you can sign up for that, I think, on our website. Awesome.

Thank you, everyone.