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You know those people who always interject their voice and opinion?

Well, I’ve gotta be honest with you … that’s me!

Yup, I’m always offering unsolicited advice. I have to get the last word in, and I’m often disruptive in group settings (in person, on Zoom, even on the beach!).

Cringe! I’m a bit like Larry David.

And ugh, lately my Larry Davidness has gotten the best of me!

Each time I inject my voice or opinion into an unwelcome environment, I leave feeling energetically hungover, regretful and filled with shame.

I always vow never to do it again. But I keep falling back into the same pattern.🤐

So last week I decided to stop judging myself and become curious about what lived beneath the pattern.

I asked myself a series of questions:

What do I know about this pattern?

How long has it been around?

What does it want me to know?

Are there any thoughts or sensations connected to it?

As I became more and more curious, I was amazed by what was revealed.

I let this part of me speak up: I want to be seen and heard.

Whoa! In an instant I felt an energy of extreme compassion flood over me. I felt how young this part of me was and how long it had been around. 

It was like connecting to an inner child who desperately needed attention—from anyone. 

This curiosity and compassion allowed me to consider ways I could help this younger part of me.

Instead of trying to force myself to never act like that again, I committed to listening to this younger part of me and not overriding it.

The process of checking in with this part of me is the method I created for my forthcoming book, Self Help. It’s a compassionate inquiry that enables you to connect to the inner child parts of you.

When we choose to check in, we stop checking out with bad habits and behaviors. If you have a habit or behavior that you want to heal (we all do), then listen to my conversation with Dr. Richard Schwartz about Internal Family Systems and how this unique approach can give you the greatest mindset shift of your life.

listen now

The methods in my forthcoming book, Self Help, are the exact practices I use every day. They’ve offered me a new freedom and happiness, and I can’t wait to share them with you!

In this episode you’ll learn:

  • The origin story of Internal Family Systems (IFS) and how this innovative approach to therapy was developed
  • A simple guide to recognizing and connecting with your inner “parts” — the key to understanding your emotional landscape
  • Discover the 8 C’s of Self energy that unlock clarity, calm, and confidence in every area of your life
  • How IFS rewires your mindset, transforming how you see yourself and empowering you to feel more aligned, confident, and whole
listen now

Enhance your practice today with my

FREE MAGNETIC ENERGY MEDITATION

to supercharge your manifesting power

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Are you ready to unlock the greatest resource of your life?

My latest book is the ultimate self-help guide, offering a revolutionary practice to radically shift your core beliefs and connect you to an infallible inner guidance system: the energy of Self within you.

In this book, I demystify the power of Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy, taking its life-changing teachings out of the therapist’s office and into your everyday life. You’ll discover how extreme patterns like addiction, rage, pleasing, or constant self-judgment often develop as ways to suppress old feelings of inadequacy, shame, or fear.

Once you bring these patterns into the light and care for them, healing happens swiftly.

Order your copy now!

If you feel you need additional support, please consult this list of safety, recovery and mental health resources.

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 #227 Oct 07, 2024 emotional wellbeing

unlock the greatest resource of your life with internal family systems (ifs) therapy, big talk with dr. richard schwartz

[00:00:00] The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

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 to Dear Gabby. I have such a special treat for you today.

So as I for my next book, my third book, Tenth book, Self Help, This is Your Chance to Change Your Life. As I prepare to launch this book, I am introducing you guys again and again to the principles of internal family systems therapy, because IFS is what informed the self help model inside my new book. So, I wanted to bring you this interview with Dr.Richard Schwartz, and he's the founder and creator of Internal Family Systems Therapy, which is the therapy that I got [00:01:00] trained in, it's the therapy that changed my life, and it's the therapy that is infusing all of the methods inside my 10th book, Self Help, This is Your Chance to Change Your Life.

And as we prepare right now for this big event that I'm doing, I'm going to make sure you know about this, shouting it from the rooftops.

I'm doing a free live. It's an online event, a virtual event for anyone that pre orders Self Help. And the event is gonna take the messages from the book and bring them to life in real time. And it's on November 16th. It's a full day live online experience. You can come for all of it. You can come for part of it.

And all the details are at DearGabby.com/selfhelp. The reason I wanted to share this interview with Dick today on the show is because it'll be actually give you one step closer to understanding the principles behind the book, then take you through this beautiful live event, and then you'll have the book in your hands on New Year's Eve, which is the pub date.

So if you really want to track with me how to really [00:02:00] embody the methods from this forthcoming book, this is your practice. This is your plan. Pre order the book, go to DearGabby.com/selfhelp, listen to this episode and learn more about the internal family systems model and why it means so much to me.

So I'm going to take you on a journey that is going to change your life forever. So let's begin our self help journey right here. right now with learning more about the origins of internal family systems therapy and the origins of the model behind the method inside my 10th book, Self Help. This is your chance to change your life.

I'm going to just jump right in. I have a lot of questions, but I'm probably not even going to look at the doc because the last time I interviewed you, I was a super, I am still a super fan. I was a super fan and it was October 23rd, 2021. It's episode 19. You were in [00:03:00] the teens. Wow. You were on the 20 list of who I was going to bring on to this show.

And by the way, it was top five because I only had a handful of interviews before episode 20. So you're still number one, man. Okay. But what I find so beautiful about it, it really is. I want to acknowledge that episode 19, I bring you on. That was actually our first time communicating in person. I had been deeply touched.

My life had been changed by internal family systems therapy. I, at the time was kind of doing what I always do, which is just kind of coming out and shouting from the rooftops about the things that had served me. And that was our first encounter. Now, years later, I consider you to be one of my dear, dear friends.

Me as well a very close friendship. That is one that I cherish [00:04:00] And I feel like a 13 year old hanging out just like hanging out in the backyard That's how much I love you And it's a really interesting thing to have that experience of someone where you can have that level of connection so quickly and the only thing I can say is that that connection has been established because of your embodiment of what you call self energy, your clarity, your calm presence, your creativity, your ability to connect.

And as you say, self creates more self, self builds up more self in others. And so your presence of self, my friend has had the beautiful experience for me of establishing more self in your presence. And I'll, I want to start there. Yeah, well, like I said earlier, it's mutual. I feel that self to self [00:05:00] connection with you as well and consider you also one of my close friends and really, really grateful to have you as a friend.

Right back at you. And let me just say to everybody listening, to have this man on speed dial is probably one of the greatest gifts that a human could have. So thank you for that. Now, I got my gushing out of the way and I want to encourage my listeners to not only listen to this episode. But to also go back to episode 19, because that's where you begin the journey of sort of defining IFS.

And I'm going to ask you on this interview to do things a little differently. I want to get a little bit of input on how, if you're at a dinner party. Dick Schwartz is at dinner. And he's with a bunch of strangers that don't know anything about the therapy world. They have no idea who you are. They're in a whole other industry.

Let's say that you're at dinner with a whole bunch of aquatic people or something. I don't know, something totally out there. And you're at dinner and you're having some salmon and hanging out. And someone says, okay, well, what kind of work do you do? Tell me [00:06:00] about this thing that someone said you started this thing called IFS.

What does that mean to you? What is that? And, you know, I've been in that situation many times and. It's always kind of awkward because I don't want to go into a whole intro lecture, and if I just give a few lines, it sounds kind of pokey, so I tend to lean on or move toward the side of thing and it's a way of working with what I call parts of people and for a lot of people that seems weird and so I kind of leave it there.

I don't really talk much more. Do you let them do all the talking? Yeah, I interview them at that point. Well, cause that's your comfort zone. You like to interview people's parts. Uh, yeah, it might sound like humility, but it's more just, it's so awkward. Right. Try and describe it in a few sentences and have people change the subject right away.

That's been the experience frequently. Yeah. I think that's [00:07:00] an interesting concept because I think that when you start to talk about something that's totally the opposite of how we live, totally the opposite of the way we perceive ourselves, people's eyes can glaze over. They check out, they become protective, like, Oh, that feels like too much.

I don't know if I want to go there. Occasionally somebody will say, Oh, that sounds really interesting. Tell me more. Mm hmm. In which case I will, but most of the time it's what you just said. Yeah. Do you want to hear what I do now that I'm your publicist, your pro bono publicist? And really on a mission to try to demystify this massive body of work that is extraordinary and has been so wildly popular in the therapeutic settings.

I mean, people are laying down the doors and just lottery after lottery trying to get in. mainly therapists, right? So this is a hugely popular amongst therapists because it's a tool that works. It's a practice. It's a model that my therapist used with me for a decade and it works. Now, I want to introduce this to as many people as possible so that they too can find their way to an [00:08:00] IFS therapist or that they can start to identify these principles in their life, even casually, if possible.

That's my mission. Here's what I might say, Dick, so I'm at dinner with you and I might say to you, Dick Schwartz, you have no idea what IFS is. You know those times when you say, well, there's a part of me that's really frustrated whenever my husband speaks in a certain tone, or there's a part of me that gets super, super activated at work when my boss tells me I'm wrong.

That's true. Us speaking for these different parts of who we are and inside of us we have all these different Reactive ways of being and protection mechanisms. We might think of them as protection mechanisms and in ifs Dick schwartz calls these protector parts And what are these protector parts doing?

They're protecting us from feeling really young experiences really Really difficult young experiences, like maybe when we've experienced any kind of child abuse or neglect or had a traumatic event [00:09:00] that wasn't resolved properly, and we didn't have the resources to process those experiences at that young age, very quickly, we build up all these protection mechanisms.

So if you felt like you were stupid in sixth grade, you started to show everybody how smart you are, and now you're this massive overachiever. And a part of you that wants to prove yourself to the world. And so we just got these little parts inside of us. And those parts are running our show. They're running our show.

They're quite active. And so, then Dick Schwartz is at the dinner table. And I might say to Dick Schwartz, Well, what can we do with these parts, Dick? Now that we're engaged in our conversation. with our audience here. Oh, okay. Well, first of all, that's a much better elevator speech than I have, and I'll have to fly you into the next dinner party I have.

You know that I love a dinner party with you. I will throw as many dinner parties for you as I can in my lifetime. Okay, so we're at dinner and I'm like, okay, that's the parts, but how do we help these parts of us that are so triggered and activated all the time? [00:10:00] Yeah, well, part of why they are so triggered is because generally they're living in times in the past.

They're frozen in trauma scenes or places where you got bad parenting and they live as if you're still five years old. They still think you're very young and they need to protect you in the way they did back then. And so one way to help them is to learn about where they're stuck and then help them leave that time so they can live with you in the present.

For And usually at which point they're willing to unload the feelings and beliefs they got back in those times, a process we call unburdening. So Dick, how would you begin the process of getting to know these parts of you first, right? Because we live in this place that you refer to as blended, right?

Tell me if this is how you would say it, but become the part in these different scenarios. So we become so blended with that part of us that. We're not able to see in the moment that, I'll just speak for myself, that my 10 [00:11:00] year old part is running my business in moments that I get really flooded and out of control.

So until later, maybe I'm living with a lot of awareness and I practice IFS, but maybe for years before this, I just would defend that and be like, well, that's how I am. So is that what you refer to as being blended with the part? Yeah. Especially these protectors feel like they do have to take over and so yeah, they blend with what we call the self.

So. Confession, and so on. There are eight of them, and That all gets obscured and you get triggered, like in your case, the part that feels like she has to run your business because that's her job. It obscures all those C word qualities and you're seeing the world through her eyes and through her eyes, everybody's incompetent and she's got to do it for every, I don't, I'm, I don't know if this is the belief that, Oh yeah, you're nailing it, babe.

You know, her, we've talked to her before. You've [00:12:00] met her before. You've met her before. You've helped her out. Yes, and yeah, so she has to labor and labor and correct people and make sure they do their jobs and make sure you do your job. And, and so it's a big strain because she's really not equipped for that level of responsibility.

She's generally these parts are themselves quite young. They're like in family therapy, we call them parentified children. They're like children who had to become the parent in the family because the parents had abdicated somehow. And they're in over their heads, but they feel like they have to do it. So it's a big relief of those kinds of parts to find that there is somebody else who can handle things in a better way and that you aren't five years old, that you actually are an adult and can handle people much better than these parts.[00:13:00]

Hello, my friends. I am not sure you are aware of this, but October is ADHD awareness month and I am grateful for this because I am someone with ADHD. And so I wanted to share a little bit about this amazing non profit organization you should really check out. It's called understood. org and they are all about supporting kids who, well, think differently.

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They help the teachers and [00:14:00] educators, and especially for the adults who themselves learn and think differently, like me. And these tools are essential for people with learning and thinking differences.

And I want to speak to this firsthand because as a kid, no one knew. that I had ADHD. No one knew how to help me. So I really fell behind in my education. And as an adult, I've had to relearn so much. It's important that we have these tools. So give today to join a community dedicated to empowering people who learn and think differently at understood.org/give.

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I'm going to give a breakdown of the parts, okay, and I'm going to just demystify this a bit. So these traumatic moments in childhood create what's called exiled parts. And these experiences, I'm going to let you riff on each one. So we'll start with the exiles, the exiles have had these traumatic events, whether they be big T or small T trauma, it doesn't have to be a child abuse to be an exiled experience, right?

Can you riff a little bit about the exile and then I'll go to the rest of the parts. Okay. Yeah, and when you say create them, they exist. All these parts come into the world with us because they're all valuable. And my take is the way our minds are instructed is to have these parts so they can help us in life.

But when you said the exile is created in the sense that the part who before it got hurt was this playful, happy, loving, [00:17:00] creative inner child, now is the most sensitive part. So it gets hurt the most by these slings and arrows. And now it carries the burden of worthlessness or terror or emotional pain.

And now if it blends with you, you feel all that you felt back when it happened, and it's hard to function when that part blends. So most of us try to lock it away, thinking we're just moving on from the memories and emotions of the experience, not realizing we're exiling parts of us simply because they got hurt.

And now we don't have access to any of that joy and freedom and love and creativity. And we also feel a lot more delicate because so many things could trigger it. And if that part gets triggered, it'll blend again and would be awash in the pain or the shame, or for me, the better metaphor is these flames of exiled emotion threatened to consume us.

So then other parts are forced out of their [00:18:00] naturally valuable states to become protectors. And that's what we're dealing with. To keep those triggering events from happening, or to get us away from the fire if an exile does get triggered. Okay, so just one point of clarification for me is, so we're born and we're in this child like state, but we have the other parts that are there, kind of ready if we need them?

Is that how you would say it, or? Yeah, sort of. It's more like infant researchers like Barry Brazelton talk about five discrete states that infants rotate through. And it may be that those are the parts that are online when you're born and the others are dormant until their time comes. So when you have kids, you notice that you put to bed a compliant little two year old and overnight.

That two year old, this part comes out that says no to everything, and, and then that, you know, different stages, different parts, if you haven't been traumatized, come out on time and they [00:19:00] start to do their jobs. So it's more like that for me. It's developmental, these parts. Yeah. Now, nevertheless, these children are supposed to have these experiences that are joyful and free, and that's where we would want to be, but life and parenting and attachment breach and all the experiences that we have as children, rupture that presence of joy, that essence of love within us.

And just to clarify, is an exile established? Has it been created? Just to be super clear. No, the, the role has been created, but the part itself pre existed, then got hurt, then got exiled. So the innocent child part pre existed, it got hurt, didn't have the processing of that hurt and became exiled.

Got it. Okay, here we are. Carry on. Now, We've got these flames from these exiled parts. Now, thank you so much for just going so into this with me. And I know that it's a different way of communicating this, but it's important for me to make [00:20:00] sure that my audience is tracking this. So, so we've got the experience where this part has been hurt.

Now it's exiled because it doesn't want to feel that hurt anymore. And it now, these other parts start to show up to put out the flames of that exiled experience. and these other protector parts you refer to as managers and firefighters. Yeah. So some of them try to preempt the triggering of the exiles.

So those we call the managers. So they're what other systems might call the ego. They're the parts that run your daily life. They're good at certain kinds of things and they Remind you of things you have to do during the day. And they like your little one, maybe take over and actually run your company and so on, but they're doing it in an effort to control the outside world.

So you don't get triggered and also to please [00:21:00] people so that you don't get triggered, they have the goal of making you look perfect, maybe, or perform at a high level counter the worthlessness or. Keep people at a certain distance so nobody gets close enough to trigger you. All their protective efforts are preemptive.

They're just trying to keep those exiles contained. Doesn't always work. The world breaks through those defenses, you get triggered, and now it's a big emergency. Because parts of you think you're going to die if you stay in that pain again. And you're pulled back into those scenes of the past. So, this other set of parts has been standing by, waiting for that event of the exile flames, and immediately goes into action to douse the flames with some substance, or hit you higher than them, distract you until they burn themselves out.

And in contrast to the managers, these parts, again, because they come in at a different point in the sequence, managers are [00:22:00] preemptive, firefighters react after the exile's been triggered. or hit you And so they tend to be very impulsive and they don't care about the collateral damage to your body or to your relationships.

They just know they've got to get you higher than those flames or away from them or you're going to die, they think. So we call those firefighters. So larger rubric is protectors. One set are managers, the other set are firefighters. And again, I want to emphasize, this isn't the nature of the parts.

They're young, Even though the big time managers are pretty young, but they get forced into these roles because of trauma. That's right. Okay. So the managers are with us day to day and they're managing our feelings, they're managing the hurt so that the hurt doesn't come out from the exile.

When that hurt does come out because of something super triggering, something that's super activating, The feelings [00:23:00] from the hurt from the childhood exile are so extreme that we go into firefighter parts, often known as addictive parts, right?

Often the drug addicts, the cocaine addicts. It's funny, I would use your exact language. When I suffered, I've been in multiple forms of addiction throughout my life. Cocaine addiction, alcoholism, food addiction, but my first drug was love. And my extreme fear of being single, aka being alone, I would describe it to my therapist as, if I'm not in a relationship, I think I'll die.

Yeah. So that was a codependent addiction, firefighter. Yeah. I had a version of that too, was more, I don't, can't take care of myself, so I need somebody to take care of me. And that belief that you're going to die if you don't get that person or that substance or whatever it is, is really common among these firefighters.

They really believe. [00:24:00] They're saving your life. It's sort of like real firefighters in the outside world will destroy the house to save it, you know? So I was going to say in contrast to many addiction treatment programs. That, in a sense, pits you against the addiction. We tend to honor the addictive parts for their service and their attempts to save your life, and then help them see they don't have to do that anymore because we can go to these exiles they're reacting to and heal them.

I have to say from my first hand experience working with my exiles and working with my parts in general and doing IFS therapy, I can now see my cocaine addict part. my codependent part, my food addict part with not only compassion and love, but also with gratitude because I can see how hard those parts were working to keep me safe from, in my case, [00:25:00] memories that had been so extreme that I forgot them, that I dissociated from them.

That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing all that. Thank you for creating the model. Once you get to those memories, the parts that are stuck with them and heal those parts, then these firefighters can relax. Right. And I guess the message here is about safely getting to those memories. And that's where IFS comes in, because in a typical IFS session, you or IFS therapist will interview the parts that are up in the moment, right?

Whoever's in the room and through, and I'm going to let you talk about that, but through curiosity and through a, the presence of a calm connection. Hopefully in this, in a safe therapeutic environment, these parts can start to reveal more information. Feel seen, feel heard. It's not dissimilar to how I have been [00:26:00] lately communicating with my four year old.

Exactly. He's been activated by an experience that he then deflects by saying, I hate this person. I hate this person. I hate this person. And so when we're together in stillness and a calm place. Just become curious and my slight curiosity, he just starts spilling it, man. He just spills it, spills it, spills it.

And he'll say, you said this, and then this one did this, and I hate that person. And I'll just say, I see you and I totally hear you. And when you're ready, I'm here to learn more about it. How can I support you? What might you need? But not everybody grows up with Gabby Bernstein as their mom. Right. And most of us relate to our kids when they act like our parts, the way we relate to those parts.

Yes. So if our kid is angry and we don't like our own anger or we're afraid of our own anger, then we're going to try and get [00:27:00] them to cut it out right away instead of staying in self like you did and getting curious and listening. Yeah. So that's a big part of the work is helping people as they go with compassion to these inner parts.

They can do that to people who resemble those parts. Yeah, I've lived that. I've really lived that firsthand because the more I can care for the child parts within me, the easier it is for me to just be in that self energy for my son.

I think it's pretty fair to say that most of us enjoy eating bread, whether that is really yummy dinner rolls or fresh baked bread for a sandwich. But if you're like me, I stop myself because I live a low carb lifestyle. And friends, today I'm here to tell you about something that's going to blow your low carb mind.

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Wanna learn more? Head over to Addyi's website addyi.com to see if Addyi is right for you. That's addyi.com. Addyi or Banin is for premenopausal Women with acquired generalized hypoactive sexual desire Disorder HSDD, who have not had problems with low sexual desire in the past, who have low sexual desire, no matter the type of sexual activity, the situation or the sexual partner, the low sexual desire is troubling to them and is not due to a medical or a mental health problem.

Problems in the relationship or medicine or other drug use. Addyi is not for use in men or to enhance sexual performance. Your risk of severe low blood pressure and fainting is increased if you drink 1 2 standard alcoholic drinks close in time to your Addyi dose. Wait at least [00:32:00] 2 hours after drinking, before taking Addyi at bedtime.

Your risk of severe low blood pressure and fainting is also increased if you take certain prescriptions, over the counter or herbal medications, or have liver problems. Low blood pressure and fainting can happen when you take Addyi, even if you don't drink alcohol or take other medicines. Do not take if you are allergic to any of the ingredients in Addiy.

Allergic reactions may include hives, itching, or trouble breathing. Sleepiness, sometimes serious, can occur. Common side effects include dizziness, nausea, tiredness, difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, and dry mouth. See full PI and medication guide, including boxed warning, at addyi.com/PI, or call 844 PINK PILL.Addyi. That's addyi.com

This is the hope moment, everybody. So we've talked about all this chaos that's happening inside. extreme patterns, lots of fear, and we all have within us what you call self and tell us about it. Tell us about self, what it can self do to help us. Yeah, well, that was the big shocking [00:33:00] discovery I made. This is the 40 year anniversary of the model.

So long time ago, simply because I brought the systems family therapy framework to the center world. And as I was trying to help parts as once I got hip to the fact parts aren't what they seem and they deserve to be listened to. I was trying to get people to actually have dialogues inside with these parts and respect them in the way you described with your son.

And I found that clients would have trouble doing that because they might suddenly get angry at the part or get afraid of it. And it reminded me of family sessions where I'm trying to have two family members talk to each other and a third member would interfere constantly. And so I began asking clients, could you find the one who's so afraid of this critic or is angry at the critic?

Maybe if we're working with a critic and ask it to just give us a little space so we can get to know it and clients would say, okay, they did. [00:34:00] And now how do you feel toward it? And it would be completely different answer. That would be great. It would be, I'm just kind of curious about why it calls me names or I even, I feel sorry for it.

And in that state, The critic would relax and would share its secret history of how it got into that role and how it's desperate to protect you. And my client's compassion would grow and we could learn about the parts it protected and heal those. And it was like in that state, my client sort of knew how to do all that.

Yeah. Just like when you're in self, you know how to relate in a healing way to your son. Yes. And when I would do it with other clients that just that process of asking these interfering parts to give us a little room, just give us a little space, like the same person would pop out with those same C word qualities of calm and curiosity and confidence and compassion.

Then there are four others, clarity and creativity and [00:35:00] connectedness and courage. So those are what we call the eight C's of self leadership, that's held up pretty well. Creativity, yeah. As the primary set of qualities for healing itself has. And it turns out, 40 years later, thousands of people doing this now, turns out that self is in everybody, can't be damaged just beneath the surface of these people such that the part's open space and it pops out spontaneously, and knows how to heal.

And that's, that's the problem. It's a big deal about IFS. I want to just read a quote that you said about the spontaneous connection to self. This is one of my favorite Dick Schwartz quotes, I've got many of them in my toolbox. We all know about those luminous moments of clarity and balance in our lives, and in those of our clients, which come briefly now and again.

However we get there, we suddenly encounter a feeling of inner plentitude and open heartedness to the world that wasn't there the moment before. The [00:36:00] incessant nasty chatter inside our heads ceases. We have a sense of calm spaciousness, as if our minds and hearts and souls have expanded and brightened.

Sometimes these evanescent experiences come in a bright glow of peaceful certainty that everything in the universe is truly okay, and that includes us, you, and me individually, in all our poor, struggling, imperfect humanity. At other times, we may experience a wave of joyful connection with others that washes away irritation, distrust, and boredom.

We feel that, for once, we truly are ourselves. our real selves, free of the inner cacophony that usually assaults us. Oh, I wrote that. You know, those moments where you're like, who said that? Well, you and your guides. Yes, my guides had a big hand in that. All of the energy that pours through you. But yes, my [00:37:00] friend, you wrote that.

And I remember reading that and being just, Taken aback because you defined in words what that means to me, the open heartedness of being in self. So to go back to what we were saying before, when we're not blended in a part and we're not taken over by that need to manage or the extreme need to put out the fire, we're not activated in an exiled trigger.

We're in self. Yes. Now, would you say that most of the time people are not in self? Yes, most people are mostly blended with parts and think that that's their self. They think that's who they really are. As we get those parts to open space, sometimes it's a big identity crisis. People are shocked to learn that that's not who they are.

Yeah, maybe that's why at the dinner party people are like, no dick, I don't want to talk about these parts of me because Don't bring any attention to them. That's not bringing any attention inward. [00:38:00] And, yeah, and, and the idea that there are these little entities in us is very countercultural. It's a sort of mono Mayan culture.

That's challenging too. Yeah, and I think these days people are more aware or conscious or open to their traumatic experiences from their past, particularly those events that are therapeutically or spiritually inclined. So there's a deeper awareness, which is definitely helping the cause and helping IFS and the language so much. Very much. Very much.

Nevertheless, some people could say, Oh yeah, I remember that thing that happened to me and that's created this behavior that's made me be like this. And anyone listening or anyone still listening to the end of this is definitely getting that. Nevertheless, I think that these managers and protectors have worked so hard to maintain their control that it's not easy to unblend from them.

And that's where that curiosity and that inquiry. Comes in and you are the most masterful interviewer I've ever seen in my life [00:39:00] when you're interviewing people's parts. So talk to you about that.

Yeah. Well, part of why I'm so effective these days is because 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 Over time, I learned that they were getting in the way and I worked on myself to the point where generally now when I go to do something like this or demo kind of thing, I just can tell that 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. 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 [00:40:00] help. So that's why we can often go pretty deep pretty quickly.

And for some people, their 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. And I'm constantly refrained is, and you're the boss.

We're not going anywhere without your permission. There's many of these protections have pretty good reasons to not want to open that door, especially to somebody they're just meeting. So yeah, very respectful of the pace of protectors. I'm really proud of you for making the commitment in this lifetime to show up in this way, to be the vessel 40 years ago to say, yes, okay, there has to be a better way.

Which is, I believe, an unconscious prayer that came from God. Possibly through you and then to be the humble receptive channel to receive this information and to show [00:41:00] up for it and to be committed to it and to be devoted to it and to continue to develop it, share it, train it. And you were awarded Dick the lifetime achievement award at the Psychotherapy Network Symposium.

And you will go down in history as someone who changed the world. And I love you so much. And I'm very emotional right now because it's a really big deal for me to have someone I trust as much. So thank you so much for being a presence in so many people's lives. That is your presence alone has the power to heal and people just witnessing you or hearing you will experience that energy coming through.

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. There were lots of lonely years where people at your level didn't get it at all. And I was lucky to have some people along the way that have still around, but yeah, just a thrill for me to have our relationship.

Yeah. [00:42:00] And I think that we're in a season when people need it more than ever, and where the openness to this way of living is much more possible than ever before. And so I want to really encourage the listeners, people that are still listening and touched by this conversation to not only go out and read the books, right, go and read, you are the one you've been waiting for the introduction to internal family systems therapy, 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 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 if there's one message that you'd leave people with, they've never heard about IFS, they're here for the first time, what can they do next?

Of course, I want you to go read the books, but what would be one thing that they could start to do for their own inner system right now? [00:43:00] Yeah, I think the main thing is to start to reexamine their relationship with some of these parts that they've been fighting with all the time, because fighting with them really backfires.

And if you just get curious, it's pretty simple, actually. They'll reveal their protective intention, and you can start a new compassionate relationship with them. Yeah, check in with your parts and become curious about them, and compassionate connection can start to set in. Yeah, they're not what you've been taught that they are.

They actually deserve a lot of appreciation and respect. You say there's no bad parts and all parts are welcome. It's a beautiful way to live. And I can't wait to continue our conversations for many, many years to come. And I am so behind you, my friend, that support that you always looked for. You're starting to feel now coming effortlessly to you.

I know that that's the case because you're in self. And so that [00:44:00] support is here. And I could keep gushing, so we should probably stop now.

Everybody, you should head over to the ifs institute. com, but right now go and give yourself the gift of really listening to the introduction to internal family systems. And then this new version of you are the one you've been waiting for. It's 40 years of transformational work and you've revisited the texts and you've brought more to it now that you have all this information.

And I'm excited for everybody to start their IFS journey now. 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 want to get more Gabby, tune in every Monday for a new episode. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of the guidance or special bonus episodes. Your experience at this [00:45:00] show means a lot to me, so I really want to welcome you to leave an honest review.

And you can follow me on social media at Gabby Bernstein. And if you want to get in on the action, sign up for a chance to be Dear Gabby'd live at DearGabby.com. See you next week.

Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode. 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.