IFS and Recovery

Listen as I read and talk about this article.

Imagine that this is a highway and this is the highway that I traveled down for the first 40 years of my life. Notice that I've got one direction to go. Notice that there's no intersections. Notice that there's no exit ramps. Life would happen and I just kept moving according to what was happening to me in my life.

I'm in a marriage counseling session with a psychologist and my second wife. And my second wife says to the psychologist, “Hey, John, don't you think Bill could use some antidepressants?  I thought, F you, you think I'm the problem?”

I've had just about enough of this. So she and John have this conversation about what's wrong with Bill and how antidepressants might help. And finally, John turns to me and says, what do you think, Bill? And I said, F no. No, I am not. I don't do drugs. And his body language told me that, okay, I've heard this before.

This is, this is how I respond to this. He said, I know you're in recovery and I really respect that you are. Uh, however. I am a doctor, and I can prescribe antidepressants or anti anxieties for people that I think need it. You may or may not need it, but here's the nice thing about antidepressants.

You'll know within about three weeks whether you need it or not. If it helps and makes a difference for you, awesome, you needed it. If it doesn't, we'll just wean you back off again. Now, I felt like I had a little bit of power and choice in the conversation, so I said, okay, I'll give it a try. I still didn't like giving that to my second wife.

Like, she, she won there. It felt like I conceded, oh yeah, you're right, I'm the one that's effed up here. So, I took the antidepressants and within a week, An intersection showed up inside. I was no longer on that one-lane highway going in one direction. Now I had choices. Something would happen, stimulus and response.

There was a space now between the stimulus, what happened in the world, and how I responded to it. I found myself at an intersection. It was almost like I was literally sitting in my car at an intersection, looking left. Where did that come from? When did that show up? Right? Forward. Now, there are two lanes, not just one.

I could turn around. I could do a little u ey there if I want to and go back the other direction. Or I can just sit here as long as I want to. I don't have to do anything. I had a choice. What had been unconsciously running my life automatically, now I had choice about because it had come to my conscious awareness that I had choice.

That's what we're doing here. We're trying to create that intersection and practice using it. How are we doing that? The parts of us that are influencing us in our lives. I just wrote an article this morning that I'm calling Under the Influence. I want to read you a couple of paragraphs from it if I could.

I believed I was failing because I felt like such a mess inside. I'm referring to being 20 years sober. And yet, I felt like I was failing because I felt like such a mess inside. And that, I believe, is the true measure of recovery. I want to recover from feeling like such a mess inside. I don't want to react to life as if I'm an 8-year-old child.

In an adult body and in an adult life, I don't want to feel overwhelmed. I don't want to feel overly sensitive. I don't want to feel insecure and needy. I don't want to worry about what you think about me. I don't want to feel disconnected, misunderstood, taken advantage of, unappreciated, needy, and alone. I don't want to have fear, anxiety, and depression to be my normal.

The same don't want list that you just heard converts to an inspiring want list. I want to trust myself. I want to feel confident that I can tell the difference between a story that I fabricated and the facts. I want to have ample capacity to feel any emotions that arise in any moment. I want to feel confident that I can find my way to clarity when confused.

That I can discern between people who are toxic users and gaslighters and people who I can trust, I want to live a life beyond protection and survival. I want to thrive. I want to hang out with the people I enjoy and love. I want to give because I want to give and not because I feel like I have to give or else.

I want a true, authentic, honest connection with people, and I want to be happy with my own company when my people aren't around. I want to do what I want to do. I want to always remember and know that I always do what I want to do. Those are the two paragraphs I wanted to share with you. And if you'd like, I can share a link to the entire article.

But that's why I'm doing IFS. Because I want recovery, what is it that I want to recover? I want to recover my true authentic self. What is it I want to recover from? Let me read you the last paragraph. Recovery for me means restoring my true authentic self. Recovery is a gradual process marked by the development of trust-based relationships with my parts, updating them with the facts of my life and providing them with fully resourced leadership so I can operate my life as my wise adult self.

That's the goal.