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“There’s tightness and defensiveness in my stomach. My jaw is tight. She wants to get out.”

Yep, I went there. I had a live, on-air therapy session with Dr. Richard (Dick) Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems therapy. And you get to listen in.

This took a lot of vulnerability, even for me, who’s written 9 books pouring my heart out to you.

Dick is a friend, but more than that, he’s my hero. No exaggeration. His therapeutic model, Internal Family Systems, transformed my life, and I’m so grateful for him. We had an amazing conversation on my Dear Gabby Big Talk, but there was SO much to cover that we just kept talking, as we often do.

listen now

what is internal family systems therapy? 

I recognize that Internal Family Systems can be a little tricky to understand when you encounter it for the first time, and we decided the best way to help people get more comfortable with it was to do a demonstration.

I’m calling it a demo, but this wasn’t staged at all; it was incredibly real. I identified one of my protector parts, or a part of me that feels troubled and burdened. Dick took me through an Internal Family Systems therapy session, and it was as profound as these sessions always are for me.

in this bonus episode I’ll share:

  • An authentic example of an Internal Family Systems therapy session
  • How Dick and I determined what that exiled part of me needed to heal
  • The moment that made me cry
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what does it feel like to do internal family systems therapy?

During our on-air session, I was really intentional about sharing exactly what I felt in the moment.

“There’s tightness and defensiveness in my stomach.”

“My jaw is tight.”

“She wants to get out.”

(Yeah, that last part sounds terrifying if you don’t have the context. Trust me, it wasn’t scary at all; it was powerful and healing!)

By the end, I was in tears. 

Not tears of fear or exhaustion, but of relief and gratitude. My jaw relaxed. I literally yawned. I felt free, and more specifically, the former protector part of me felt free. I was filled with compassion and connection.

Can you really feel a difference after one session of Internal Family Systems therapy?

In a word, yes. To be clear, the full therapeutic process is ongoing. Dick says he continues to do work on himself to get and stay in alignment, unblending himself from his exiled parts and helping him step into his Self (the calm, connected, conscious, compassionate version of him).

And I definitely continue to do work with Internal Family Systems therapy for the same reason. But you don’t have to wait for weeks or months or years to feel a difference. You can make a major impact on a protector part of yourself in a single session, as I did during this bonus episode.

I started by saying, “I have a part that feels a little hopeless about wanting to feel seen and heard.”

I finished by saying:

These are my boundaries. Take it or leave it.

gabby

“OMG, that feels really good.” (That’s a direct quote.) 

You do not want to miss this episode! 

I practice Internal Family Systems therapy to take care of myself, but I did it on-air to take care of you. This is for you, and I want you to hear it so much. I hope it inspires you to take the steps you need to heal. You deserve it.

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  • Richard C. Schwartz, PhD, is the creator of Internal Family Systems therapy, a highly effective, evidence-based therapeutic model that de-pathologizes the multi-part personality. His IFS Institute offers training for professionals and the general public. He is currently on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, and has published five books, including No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Dick lives with his wife, Jeanne, near Chicago, close to his three daughters and his growing number of grandchildren.
disclaimer

This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I am not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from any psychological or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified health professional.

dear gabby #145 Jun 23, 2023 emotional wellbeing

a real IFS session- and I’m the client

Listen on:

The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

Hi there, Gabby here. This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I'm not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from a psychological or medical condition, please seek help from a qualified health professional.

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Hey there. Welcome to Dear Gabby. I'm your host, Gabby Bernstein, and if you landed here, it is absolutely no accident. It means that you're ready to feel good and manifest a life beyond your wildest dreams. Let's get started.

Welcome back, my friends. Welcome back. Welcome back. We had a really interesting start to the week here with Dear Gabby. We started our episode on Monday with Dick Schwartz, and I took you through this deep dive of Internal Family Systems therapy. We spoke candidly about what it is, what it means to me personally, my deep devotion to IFS and how much it has personally changed my life.

And at the end of the interview I got super selfish and I asked Dick, my mentor, my friend, the most amazing therapist in the world to do a demo on me where he could take me through a very real and very vulnerable session of Internal Family Systems therapy.

That was not planned. It was something that just came out of me. It is that part of me that loves doing these big talks because I get to really reap the benefits of these experts that I bring on the show. And it was a bit heavy, I'm not gonna lie, but it was really beautiful and it really allowed me to show you firsthand what Internal Family Systems Therapy is by experiencing it in my demo.

And it's a really, really, really cool episode today cause we're sharing that demo with you. If you enjoyed Monday's episode with my interview with Dick Schwartz and you wanna really see IFS in action, this is your episode. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. And I strongly encourage you to go back and listen to episode 143 for the full experience. And again, this is really near and dear to my heart, and I really hope that you love it as much as I did.

And leave a review and let me know how this is for you. Let me know if you even have questions. We're gonna answer them sometimes on the show.

GABBY: You are the most masterful interviewer I've ever seen in my life when you're interviewing people's parts. So talk about that.

DICK: Thank you. Yeah. Well, part of why I'm so effective these days is cuz I've done a lot of work on myself, and the parts of me that I used to be blended with when I would do those interviews were parts that wanted to be impressive or wanted to have a big agenda about where we got to in the interview or…

So over time I learned that they were getting in the way and I worked on myself to the point where generally now when I'd go to do something like this or a demo kind of thing, I just can tell that I'm in. Self is embodied. And when that's the case, people can sense that safety. And so, when they sense that safety, their protectors start to relax a lot, and when their protectors relax a lot, their self emerges.

And that's a big invitation to these parts that have been locked away for so long to get some help. And so, that's why we can often go pretty deep, pretty quickly. And for some people, the protectors need a lot, a lot of convincing. So I become a kind of hope merchant to the protectors. I'm selling the possibility of changing their roles if they are willing to let us heal what they protect.

But I'm not pushing it. I’m in constant refrain, as in you're the boss. We're not going anywhere without your permission.

GABBY: Right.

DICK: Cuz many of these protectors have pretty good reasons to not wanna open that door. Especially to somebody, they're just meeting. So yeah, very respectful of the pace of protectors.

GABBY: For some reason, I feel like maybe if we did a brief demo. Sure. And there's a part of me that's like, Gabby like, but then there's this other part of me that's like, take advantage of every second you have with Dick. Because I've had the privilege of like late night conversations where you're like, well, I see you're feeling that way.

Do you wanna just talk to the part? And I'm like, okay, let's go. But just seeing the demo is a nice opportunity for people. That's how you teach really. You teach in the training. The way that you teach is by demonstrating the model. It actually is sometimes the clearest path in. So if I sit down with you right now and we're in our session, Hey Dick, how are you?

DICK: Gabby, I'm great. What do you wanna work on today?

GABBY: I have a part that feels a little hopeless about wanting to feel seen and heard.

DICK: Okay. It feels like it's not possible for you to feel seen and heard, is that what it's saying?

GABBY: Yeah. In this specific situation. Probably shows up in others too. Yeah.

DICK: In a particular relationship?

GABBY: Yeah. But it probably shows up elsewhere. Yep.

DICK: Okay. Yeah. And so you'd like to get to know it and help it? As you contemplate that, do you have any fear about going to that part?

GABBY: I might have a little fear just, I don't wanna be too explicit about the story cuz we're public, but yeah, that's really the only fear I can get there without being explicit.

DICK: Okay, so tell that part to relax a little. We’ve got that and then let's go to this one who feels that way. And see where you find it in your body or around your body.

GABBY: Well, it's in my stomach. There's serious tightness and defensiveness in my stomach. My jaw is tight. There's rumbling of outrage.

DICK: Mm-hmm.

GABBY: Just sort of like a frantic energy inside.

Just sort of like keep managing everything and just…

DICK: Yeah. So could be several different parts. So, Is there one of those places you wanna start?

GABBY: Maybe the feeling of like, I gotta keep managing everything and I have to deal with this. It's on me.

DICK: Yeah, that's it. That's in your face, would you say?

GABBY: My jaw and my stomach. My chest. Yeah.

DICK: And how do you feel toward that part as you notice it there?

GABBY: I'm frustrated by the fact that it still is, has to be there.

DICK: Mm-hmm. Okay.

GABBY: I'm not like mad at the part, I'm just frustrated that it's still in that role.

DICK: Yeah. All right. So given that, how do you feel toward the part then?

GABBY: I feel compassion for the part.

I also feel a little scared for it. Not afraid of it. Scared for it.

DICK: Scared. Like protective of it.

GABBY: Protective of it, yeah.

DICK: Yeah. So let it know that you have compassion for it and you feel protective and see how it reacts to that.

GABBY: I think it's weepy. It feels like it's weepy.

DICK: And how do you feel toward it as you see that, that it's really sad?

GABBY: I do feel like there’s part of me that wants to override that sadness. So we can ask that. That part can give it a break.

DICK: Yeah. That's right.

GABBY: So if that part moves away and steps aside, I think there's another part there that's annoyed by it. Oh, there's a lot of parts protecting against it.

DICK: Okay. All right. So let 'em all know that if they allow us, we can help it, but we're not gonna override their fears.

So, we wanna get explicit permission from them to go to this one and help it and see if they're willing to do that. To give us permission and to step back.

GABBY: Yeah. They're listening. They respect you.

DICK: Okay, good. Mm-hmm. And then, now can you go to this one with your compassion and let it know you care about it?

GABBY: Yeah. I saw a little part, not that little. It's sort of like teenage maybe. And then I saw myself now as an adult, this is actually a lot of times what happens for me. Like this is a visual of my mother self, like my maternal, it's a visual that I get where I've like put my hand on that, that girl. On her shoulder.

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DICK: Gabby, this time let's try it a little differently. So the image, you have the maternal part, ask that one to just let you be there with the young one. So you don't see yourself, you're just there.

GABBY: Present.

DICK: Yeah, present with it. Maternal part can hang around, but it's good to let you have a relationship too with that teenager.

GABBY: Yeah.

DICK: You're there with it?

GABBY: Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm there with it. Yeah.

DICK: And how are you being with that one?

GABBY: I am kind of guiding that part of me a bit and saying that it's okay to still be in this, it's kay to still have this coming up. You don't have to be above it. It's just what's happening still. And it's okay.

DICK: How's it reacting to your acceptance?

GABBY: It's relaxing.

DICK: Good and just see what else it wants you to know about itself.

GABBY: It really wants to feel free. It's expecting the outside world to show up for it, and it does want that. It really does genuinely want that and feels like it deserves that. It can hold the boundaries for that, but you know, knows that it has to happen internally first.

DICK: Okay, so ask more about what it's afraid would happen if it, if it really did just become more free and didn't do this job all the time.

GABBY: Well, I think that what would happen is there's a little fear that if I took my eye off the ball, that it would fall apart.

DICK: So ask the part if that's right. Cuz you said, I think so.

Just ask if you got that right.

GABBY: Yeah. That fear is there, but then there's also a very strong inner knowing. And the inner knowing is like, take your hands off the wheel. Stay clear about what you want, be unapologetic about what you want and what you need and that that's okay.

DICK: Yeah. So, but let's go back to the fear about things falling apart.

GABBY: Maybe it's the difference between if I wasn't in control, that's actually doesn't mean that I wouldn't be showing up for myself, just means I wouldn't be doing it in such an extreme way.

DICK: Yeah, that's true. But ask this part where it got this fear of things falling apart in the past.

GABBY: Well, yeah. I mean, I had to take care of everything as a kid.

I had to take care of managing all my emotions and my feelings and my experiences and everything.

DICK: Okay, so the part is showing you that?

GABBY: Mm-hmm.

DICK: So let it know it's had this role for a long time. And it must be very tired.

GABBY: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's tired. It doesn't wanna be in that role anymore. Doesn't wanna try to keep making everything right for everybody else anymore.

Just wants to like, just be free.

DICK: Yeah. And ask if, if she's stuck in a particular place in the past, or is it a whole time period?

GABBY: It's kinda just my whole, the whole thing.

DICK: Yeah. Does she feel like you get how bad all that was for her?

GABBY: Yeah. Yeah. She knows I get it.

DICK: Okay. So Gabby, I want you to be with her in that time period, in the way she needed somebody back then, not with the motherly part.

I want you to be there so you don't see yourself.

GABBY: Yeah, that's a good differentiation. Thanks.

DICK: So you're there with her in the past. How are you being with her?

GABBY: Kind of like packing up her bags and getting her out?

DICK: Let's see if she wants to leave. If she's ready.

GABBY: Oh yeah, she wants to get out.

She's like, leave my s**t, I don't care.

DICK: Okay. Alright.

GABBY: I want all new clothes. Let's go shopping.

DICK: Good. So does she wanna come to you there in the present or does she wanna go to a fantasy place of her choice?

GABBY: I think that she wants to come here. She likes you. She feels safe here. She likes the cats.

DICK: So bring her here. Tell me when she is here.

GABBY: She's sitting on my lap.

DICK: Great. Yeah. Let her know she doesn't have to go back there anymore and that you're gonna be taking care of her, the way you do your son.

GABBY: She totally believes that and she's, I've taken her out of there a bunch of times and now she's kinda like, I'm ready to always come out.

Like, just get me out. I'm out.

DICK: Okay, good, good.

GABBY: It's not hard for her to, she's not resisting that. She wants out.

DICK: Good. And ask if she wants to unload more of the feelings and beliefs she got back there now, now that she's with you again.

GABBY: Okay. She's saying like whatever it takes.

DICK: Yeah. Where does she carry all that?

In her body or on her body?

GABBY: In her stomach and her jaw.

DICK: What would she like to give it to? Light, water, fire?

GABBY: Fire, man, fire. Burn it up.

DICK: Set up a fire for her and tell her to just let it all go into the fire and let the fire take care of it.

GABBY: We're outside, there's a fire pit and she's just dropping it in.

Like each piece of paper is kind of like the old beliefs.

DICK: Perfect.

GABBY: I actually feel my jaw relaxing.

DICK: Good. Yeah. So just tell me when that's complete. Good. And how does she seem now without all that?

GABBY: She's wants to take a rest. She's feeling pretty free and relaxed and comfortable here.

DICK: That's great. And tell her if she wants to, now she can invite qualities into her body that she'd like to have.

GABBY: Mm.

DICK: And just see what comes into her.

GABBY: Courage. Lots of courage just came in.

DICK: Mm-hmm. Great.

GABBY: And creativity.

DICK: Mm-hmm. And so, see what she'd like to do now in your system.

GABBY: She wants to write a list of her non-negotiables and just be really courageous about them.

In a non-aggressive way, have the clarity.

DICK: Mm-hmm. And how does that sound to you?

GABBY: Very good.

DICK: So you're willing to help her with that?

GABBY: Yeah, definitely.

DICK: Okay, great. And then before we stop, just check and see, you know, she had all these protectors that were willing to let us do this and just have them come in and check her out and see how they react.

GABBY: I don't think that they feel that they have, they have to be there right now or I don't, I mean at, at this time at all. Because they see how willing she is to just be unburdened by this.

DICK: Yeah. So they can relax about her.

GABBY: They're just witnessing it.

DICK: Yeah. They can relax about her and think about new roles too.

GABBY: Yeah.

DICK: Okay. Welcome back.

GABBY: I wanna describe how I feel for the listener. I feel this new kind of level of like another level of confidence about, it's interesting cuz it is still about being, taking care of myself, but in a way that's so it's like, it's not like, so this is actually kind of beautiful because it's not that we don't, that we stop taking care of ourselves.

But it's boundaried, it's it's relaxed. It's clear. Unapologetic. It's not defensive. No knives out. You know, it's just kind of like, yeah, these are my boundaries. Take it or leave it.

DICK: That's right.

GABBY: Take it or leave it. Yeah. Oh my god.

DICK: You know, a lot of people think self is all soft and mushy and loving all the time, but there is that fierceness the courage, clarity, and confidence that can allow you to set boundaries from that place with compassion. Yeah. Without, you know, animosity, but just clarity.

GABBY: It's just kind of matter of fact.

This is what I want. Thank you. You wanna show up for the party. That's gonna be nice.

DICK: That's what’s required.

GABBY: Wow. I feel so much relief. My jaw is relaxed and it just continues to get better and better. I think that's another message for folks is that like anything, the more you practice and get more and more comfortable in connection, in relationship to these parts, the more self-energy can come in.

DICK: Exactly. That's right. And it, you know, it takes a while. I'm still working on parts of me that get triggered. And, uh, I've been at this 40 years, so, but I'm a totally different person than I was some years ago, so.

GABBY: Yeah. I'm so grateful that we met in these resourced parts of who we are today.

Of course, we're still working on ourselves. You know, it's funny, this is the first relationship where I have, where it almost feels like this, there's this message from A Course in Miracles about these great rays of light, and it's when the body and the pretenses disappear. And you're really left.

I'm gonna cry, but like you're left with the essence of who that person is. Like in that experience of that relationship, you're in the presence of that essence, not the story or the figure, or the image or the, and it's really just pure light.

It's purely essence. It's so moving to me. I pray for everyone to have that kind of experience of someone in their lifetime.

DICK: Me too. Yeah. And it makes it a little hard to, to be around people that can't do that or that are dominated by protectors.

GABBY: Yeah. I mean, I think that, like anyone, I think that it's an interesting opportunity for the listener to hear, like the more you develop that connection to self inside of you, the more that's the type of energy you'll attract into your life.

DICK: That's really true.

GABBY: And it's something I've been saying for decades. What we are will be reflected back to us. Our intentions, our commitment, our energy, our beliefs. And so the promise of being in this inquiry, this internal exploration, and this awakening of that presence that's always been there.

The promise of that is joy. Connection. Confidence. Calm energy. The courage to show up. And a deepening of your relationships in a major way.

DICK: Totally.

GABBY: Yeah. So thank you so much for being a presence in so many people's lives. That is that your presence alone has the power to heal, and people just witnessing you or hearing this 20 years from now will experience that energy coming through.

DICK: Well, thank you so much for those beautiful words, Gabby. I love you too, and I'm so glad to have you on this journey with me.

GABBY: And so I wanna really encourage the listeners, the people that are still listening and touched by this conversation, to not only go out and. Read the books and to give yourself the privilege and the opportunity to get to know this work more, to even go further and go to the IFS Institute and seek out a therapist, an IFS therapist, to educate yourself, but also to share the conversation we've had here today because this is a beautiful opportunity for people to open up to, a new way of thinking and a new way of living.

And I'm excited for everybody to start their IFS journey now.

DICK: Thank you, Gabby. Always, always a pleasure.

If you made it to the end of this episode, that means you're truly committed to miracles. I'm really proud of you. If you wanna get more Gabby, tune in every Monday for a new episode.

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