True You Podcast

Bill: Well, Marty, this is episode number one of the True You Podcast. Welcome. This is Dr. Martin Kettelhut, my co-host.

Marty: Welcome. Thanks. Glad to be here.

Bill: And I'm Bill Tierney, and I'm a results coach and certified IFS practitioner. Marty, introduce yourself please to our new listeners.

Marty: Um, my name is Martin. And, um, I have been coaching since 1998. Um, my coaching used to be mostly focused on business development, helping people start up and grow their businesses. And it's shifted now 'cause I wrote a book on, uh. Leadership. I'm attracting more people in leadership positions, and um, people who are looking at how to communicate in a way that they get the results they want, they get the engagement they want, um, the buy-in and the commitment. And they also rearranging their calendar, right? To do more strategic work, have time to enjoy being in the leadership position. Um, and those, so it's, there's a lot about changing your communication and your time um, so that's the kind of coaching that I'm doing right now.

Bill: And I am. Um, I just wanna comment too, you're in Mexico right now, um, which is something that you do, is it four months outta the year every year.

Marty: That's correct. Yeah.

Bill: And so we're, we're catching you as I look out my window in Liberty Lake, Washington here, and I see snow falling at the, at, at the last quarter of, or last third of, uh, February, 2025, and you're in Mexico. What's the weather doing there?

Marty: like 80 degrees

Bill: I,

Marty: There's not a cloud in the sky. The palm trees are gently waving.

Bill: which is why you're there and not here or in, in, uh, airy color area or boulder.

Marty: Longmont. Mm-hmm.

Bill: this time of the year. Yeah, I'm, I'm a little jealous by the way. So, as I said, during Liberty Lake, Washington, uh, I'm sitting at the desk that I use, looking at the screen that where I communicate with my coaching clients and I coach people that are recovering their true authentic selves. So let's provide a little bit of, uh, history. How did we arrive here in session or episode one of the True You podcast? Well, we started out with naming our podcast, the Not Your Typical Leadership Coaching podcast. And we started that about, I wanna say 14, 15 months ago. I don't, I haven't, I haven't actually researched that to know how accurate that is, but that feels about right.

Marty: feels about right.

Bill: Yeah, and it's the first time that you'd ever done a podcast. It's, I think it's the third attempt for me. Uh,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I, I wanted to work with people in recovery when I first became a coach in 2011, but had some concerns and fears that if I put myself out as a recovery coach, my 12 step community that I was still deeply steeped in would disapprove. And the reason I thought that is because they did, they, I, I'd heard around the tables lots of criticism of anybody who would step outside of the 12 step program and. Uh, identify as a recovery coach.

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: Uh, and, and I won't get into what all the different criticisms were, but, but for some reason it was a threat to the 12 step community. And for me, so much of my world and my life was centered around that, that very same 12 step community that I had relied on so heavily to recover. Um. So I, I kind of put the idea of being a recovery coach on the back burner for a while, and I used, and I just began to use a method that I had learned the work of Byron Katie to help my coaching clients. Um, you and I met each other, I wanna say in 2000. 16, 2017 after you had been coaching now for, I think at that time, for about 18 years, I'd only been coaching for, for about five years. And we met in the mastermind, uh, meeting that we still are part of that meets every Friday morning.

Marty: Yes.

Bill: And we found that while we, we certainly have our different approaches and our different points of view and perspectives, that our energy seems to dance pretty well together. By the time you and I got together and I proposed that we do this, not your typical leadership coaching podcast, I'd already made two attempts at a podcast. One was by interviewing people out in coffee shops that I knew to be in recovery to tell their recovery story. I. Uh, the, the sound quality was bad. I didn't have the tech technical know-how to know how to render or even record these sessions in such a way that would, that people could tolerate listening to for more than five minutes, and certainly didn't know how to, how to launch a, uh, podcast and, and have it go out on a, on a platform and, and be heard by other people. So it, it's in the archive somewhere. And then I got together with a, a, a client who was in, in radio and she knew how to do all the podcast things. And we did the podcast around the things that she was learning in, in coaching and that was interesting. But we never really got it launched either. So not your typical leadership coaching. After we had done a season of that, uh, uh, and I think about 40 episodes, we decided we wanted to change the music and we wanted to change the name of the podcast to the leadership coaching podcast. And then we recorded about 25 episodes of that, I think

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: before we decided let's, let's switch again. Now, the reason we wanted to call it the leadership coaching podcast is that we both coach leaders whether explicitly or implicitly we're coaching people who are influencing other people in the world. And whether they know it or not, they're leaders. You have a little different take on that, and I want you to talk about that. You were writing your book when we first started the podcast, hand it off to you and give a little bit of history from your perspective now.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Yes. Well, you know, it's become not only for me and my career, but also for us historically more, more relevant to really look at leadership and what it is, what, how it works, um, how it can be improved, are the stumbling blocks to great leaders. Um, you know, what prevents us from stepping into our leaderships, that sort of thing. And, um, so I began research and, you know, collecting information. 'cause I wanted to put, I wanted to, you know, put something into the mix that would be helpful to people. Um, um, what I found is that overwhelmingly. Like 99.99% of the workshops out there to do on leadership and the books to read on leadership, it's all about one person, the leader. And yet for leadership to exist, there has to be not only leadership, but but followers. There has to be a relationship. Works for leadership to work, and so I thought, my gosh, we're missing half. and if you consider the overlap between leaders and followers, we're missing a, part of the story. The relationship between what works for. As leading and, and the, the people being led. And, and I discovered furthermore that there's a third element in the relationship between the, besides the leader and the follower, they need to be united on a future. They need to agree like, this is the direction we're going. I mean, if, if not, then you, you're not leaving anybody. And if nobody's, you know, you, if you're a follower and you don't have somebody directing, well then there's, so this future became the third element. And so I realized this is, this is not only a relational. Thing leadership, but it's a tdic relation. And so I, I, that got me into this book and, um. So the, that's the history behind that. And so I'm, you know, right now I'm developing that. I'm using that with the, the leaders that I've already been coaching and also attracting, um, new leaders into my practice who, who want to learn how to take advantage of the perspective that that gives us. The, there's a lot that we can learn about. these, you know, binaries of, well, I'm the leader, you must follow. Or, I'm the follower. You must tell me where to go. Why sometimes that hasn't worked.

Bill: So you ended up, uh, publishing this book. Uh, when was, when did it come out?

Marty: It came out in May of 2024. I.

Bill: So that timing around us doing the podcast, uh, with you writing the book, bringing topics to the podcast episodes. The, the people that we invited as guests, it was all around leadership. And, um, so it, what I noticed was that many, many, many of our conversations in the Leadership coaching podcast and the not your typical leadership coaching podcast were around the idea of the difference it makes to be showing up authentically and showing up as a false identity or a facade.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So that that evolved into conversations that you and I just recently began to have about switching over to a brand new podcast. And very quickly we agreed on the name of the podcast, the True You Podcast. So for those listeners that are joining us now from the Leadership Coaching Podcast, welcome and thank you for listening. I think you're gonna find a lot of similarities in this podcast. The, the biggest difference is gonna be that our main focus is not gonna be that we're, it's gonna be, that we're not gonna be customizing our conversations so much specifically around leadership. It's gonna be focused and customized around the idea of what does it take and what does it even mean to be your true you, to be your true, authentic self? And why would you wanna put any, any kind of effort at, at all into pursuing that? So that's the focus of our podcast and I kind of think that that brings us up to date in terms of the history and how we arrived here.

Marty: Yeah, that felt good to do so.

Bill: Yeah. So how do you know if you're being your true you or if you're not, Marty, you wanna talk about that a little bit and get us, get us started.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Sure. Well, um, one of the first things that you notice is that there's power, like authentic power, not force. Not willfulness, but just like it moves, things like, it really moves things without effort when you're being your, the true you. Um, and, uh, so there's, there's that, that power that isn't from using your muscles or, or forcing things conversationally. I would say the reason for that is because there's a fit between what's nature, what's natural, what's meant to be your being, your true you. And so. I think, and furthermore, one of the reasons why we drift away from there is because we, we think that, oh, I can't be myself, that I'll never be able to get what I want if I'm being myself. And so we adopt, and this happens very early in life, and, and it just, there's more and more of this. Drift the older we get and, and it becomes more imperative to practice getting back to it. Now, I've said a couple things more than what you asked for There.

Bill: I am glad you did. Yeah, I immediately, you talked about it's power. One of the ways to know that you are being your true you is that you have no, you have more power, not power, because you are willfully forcing yourself upon the circumstances of your life. But because you are, you have shifted into being who you actually are and, and possibly away from being who you think you need to be.

Marty: Right, and so that that lightning, it's like being a lightning rod, you know? Like there's this sudden alignment and energy there that comes when you're being the true you. And you can see the effect of it because people perk up.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: People align with it, like they feel the truth of it.

Bill: They recognize that they, and they, they respond to it with their own power.

Marty: that's right. Mm-hmm.

Bill: David Hawkins, David R. Hawkins wrote a book called Power versus Force, and it talks about this. Highly recommend the book. Have you read it?

Marty: I have not.

Bill: Oh, I, I, I certainly do recommend it. Um, he. Yeah, he really makes a nice distinction between power versus force and, and, and he also draws into that same distinction, the difference between truth and untruth. So that brings us even closer, I believe, to what we're talking about here, is that, that when, when we're being our true, authentic selves, which is not a black or white thing, to me, it's more on a gradient.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Like I am being more authentically myself in this moment than I was, let's just say an hour ago when I was trying to people please someone. Maybe that's, let's get in a little bit to that too. What does it look like to not be in your true, authentic self?

Marty: Just be,

Bill: I,

Marty: before we do that, I just

Bill: yeah.

Marty: say that we also, when, when we're in our truth, we can also, you mentioned other people up in their true self, like you can bring that out in somebody. Like in an instant, like by just mirroring back to them what you hear them saying it, it brings them into like they recognize, oh wait, wait, did I just like insult you? Gosh, I didn't mean to do that. Like, you know, like if you, if you focus, if you, you know, mirror somebody's like, well, what I heard you say was this, or how I that sounded was this, or, what I think you're getting at is this, and it isn't what they meant. they, they true themselves up. No, no, no. Let me, let, let me get square with myself here and say what, so we have this power to bring each other into the truth constantly.

Bill: Yes, which, which is feels like a very courageous thing to do often.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah.

Bill: Uh,

Marty: And yet, and yet it's really simple. It, you know, like you don't, because you don't have an, you are not coming from some other, you. You're just coming from, well, here's what I heard you say. Is that what you meant to say? You know?

Bill: or this is how what you just said landed for me over here. Uh, this is what I made it mean. This is what I'm imagining you intended by that. What did you intend? What did you mean by it?

Marty: Right, right.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: you know, that's. Okay, so I just wanted to put that in the mix, like it, I wanna keep us, myself, I should say, making this into some mysterious thing that, what are we talking about? I hope I could someday get there. It's available all the time.

Bill: Right now, no matter where you come from, no matter how clear you are about the difference between the true you and the false you, I.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Right?

Bill: Uh, even probably within the last 24 hours, you can, we can probably all think of a moment when we were present. And that's one of the keys too. So you said power. Let's go to another P word presence. That when I'm present there, that's an in indication that I'm being my true self. That, that the true you is showing up. Um, and the reason I say that with such confidence is that I've watched this closely and it requires that I, that I true myself. I like, I like how you made that into a verb I true myself so that I can become present and, and it, and it's, and it works the other way around too. If I will set an intention to be present and then apply whatever strategies or tools I know to use to, to get present. Then I find that I'm back into my true self.

Marty: I would also mention another P word that. That is characteristic of, and we're still not getting to your question of like, what, what gets us off of

Bill: That's.

Marty: um, and that p word is passion. There's a, a compassion for others because you are not worried about them taking your space. You are being you nobody else can be you. And so there's this love or charity. That is automatically there when, when you are the true you, because you, you're trying to be them and they're in, you know, for that space. You, when you're the true you, you, there's just love for the, for

Bill: Passion, pa you use these words, passion, love, and charity. And, uh, and you, you, you use those words in relation, in, in terms of how, when we are actually in our true selves, we relate to others or potentially. And, and all three of those are elements of connection, passion, love, and charity and which is why people perk up when you step in as your true, you

Marty: Mm-hmm. That's right. That's right. Yeah. They, they feel that they have their True. You has its place in the world too. I,

Bill: lack of power. Now we can begin to talk about how, how do you recognize that you're not being in your, being your true you, you feel, you feel a lack of power and you feel powerless,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: maybe even all the way to hopeless. But let's just start with powerless. I have a, I have a, a shortage of power here. I feel like this circumstance or this person, or this challenge that I'm facing right now is more powerful than I am.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Therefore, I need to become more than I believe. I, I am capable of more than I, than I see myself as being. How do I do that? Maybe I puff out my chest.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I speak a little louder. Maybe I try to be a little funnier

Marty: Right.

Bill: what? Whatever I believe is gonna be required a little nicer, I'll be a little nicer.

Marty: I criticize the, the other people there to make myself seem better.

Bill: And the, and the strategies are endless. The, the, the strategies to try to, to do a coverup, the, the coverup of what it is I'm, I'm afraid is true about me. And this, this kind of gets back to you, you said this goes back to childhood and then, and then. Uh, I, I don't remember exactly the phrases, the, the, the language that you used, but as we get older, it gets legs, it gets, it, it, it just seems to grow its own life. So when I'm younger, I'll just talk personally about myself. I'm not gonna talk about, about, uh, generalities. I'm gonna get very specific. I was raised in a very violent alcoholic home, my parents and, and, and it was a Catholic home. Nothing against capital Catholicism, but I'm 69 years old. And so in the, in the fifties and the sixties, uh, Latin mass didn't matter that we couldn't understand what the priest was saying. We were just to be there and, and, you know, nod our heads and kneel and stand and sit down when we were supposed to. And, and that's what I was raised into. Uh, it didn't matter what I thought about any of that, whether I needed to believe and I needed to have faith. Um. In that very violent alcoholic Catholic, in other words, very structured and rigid family home. I got the message that I didn't matter unless I performed in a particular way.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I couldn't be a burden to my parents. In other words, I couldn't have any needs. I couldn't have emotions that would make them feel uncomfortable. 'cause that was really inconvenient for them. I had to go to church. I had to go to Catholic school. I didn't have any choice. And so I concluded pretty logically that I don't matter much that that what I have to say and what I prefer, and what I need is of no consequence whatsoever, unless I happen to express it, any of it. And then there's grave consequence. It's dangerous for me to express what it is that I really want, what I need, what I feel to ask questions of any kind.

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: So from that place, I found it out. It was way too dangerous to be authentically myself, and it wasn't like I'm sitting around as a two, three, 4-year-old kid thinking, Hmm, it's just not safe for me to be me. No, I was just surviving my, my psyche had the ability to split off. From all the tra trauma, from all the fear, from all the hurt, from all the shocking things that happened and, and manage itself in such a way that I could stay functional and survive and endure and tolerate it. And I would have to say that probably explains the first, at, at least 14 or 15 years of my life, endure, tolerate, and survive you. I could not afford to be my true, authentic self.

Marty: It wasn't, yeah, I wasn't even like, uh, this, this option wasn't even present.

Bill: No, no,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I, I've learned since then that children really need, in order to develop as their true, authentic self, they, they, they need to develop in environments where they're encouraged to do so. That means it's okay to have your full. Uh, range of emotions. It's okay for you to want something. It's okay for you to be dissatisfied and, and, and, and not happy. It's okay to learn how to be in environments like this. It's, uh, children are taught to be responsible for their emotions, but that not taught to be shamed, but for having them.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And, and so I didn't get that and most of my clients didn't get that. These are the clients that I'm working with are, are clients who, like me, didn't get modeled to them or provided for them that which they needed in order to grow up into being fully integrated, healthy, whole authentic natural cells.

Marty: Right?

Bill: gotta find our way back there again. Many people, I don't know how many people in the world already show up in the world as their true, authentic self with without a whole lot of effort. But I've had to kind of dig, dig in, dig down and find myself. I've had to figure out who is this true, authentic self? Do I even have one? I.

Marty: And the same thing comes up around leadership. You know, I'm, I work mostly with guys and between 35 and 40, or between 55 and 60. Those are like major transition growing periods in business and, um, approximately, you know, um, but. You know, they, they're like, well, I don't know how to, I don't know how to get the team on board without being some sort of obnoxious demander, you know, or, or, you know, I, I've been, I'm trying to be nice to these people and they're just walking all over me. You know, like

Bill: Right.

Marty: like, true self is nowhere to be, it's all trying to be something other than just true.

Bill: Because it's not safe to be true. Your true self. It's too vulnerable. It's, it's not gonna be supported, applauded, encouraged, embraced, and loved.

Marty: That's what it feels like. Yes.

Bill: Yes. Yeah. And for many of us, I mean, that's the way it was. And when I say later on, as we get older, it gets legs. What, I mean my, what I mean by that is that even though circumstances, uh, if we're fortunate, like I am. Uh, to have gotten, found my way to some recovery and healing, even though my life has just improved dramatically. I mean, I'm, I'm completely safe. I'm, I'm in a loving relationship with my wife. Um, I don't worry about security. Uh, good friends. And despite how good life is for me, I get to do what I love doing. I get to be a, a results coach, a, a certified IFS practitioner, despite how good life is. I still, my parts still after all this time, after all this therapy. After all, even with all of this IFS that I've been deeply engaged in for now, five, almost six years, I still have parts to get activated by life. And so we're gonna be talking a lot about that in this podcast. We're gonna, from my perspective, we're gonna be talking about the internal family systems model a lot. That means that we're gonna be talking about parts that, that we are multiple in our internal personalities that influences to think, act, and behave in particular ways. And we're gonna be talking about how to use that IFS model, not, not only to understand that, but also to unify reunify, reintegrate. Uh, all those parts that have had to separate out so that we could continue to function and survive to bring them back together and, and make that whole person again.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: What else do we wanna say about this? I, I, I've had so many thoughts that, that.

Marty: Well, one thing, I just wanna kind of go back to two things that we've said and tie them together here. Um, power and how it feels when you're not. I. Your true self. Um, so, that is that when, like, when you're being yourself, maybe think of a time when you're with, you know, people who just love you for who you are and you're not trying at all and it's relaxed. Um, conjure up that moment and feel what that feels like in your body and in your mind. Notice that you, you have that powers and one of the ways it expresses itself is that you have courage to say stuff. That you don't, when you're trying to be something else, like you, you know, like you might, you, you, you find ways like you might, you might, you know, preface it or something like, I'm not sure I what I think about this, but I'm getting this notion that, and, but you find ways to say, to be very courageous. Let me try something out here. Uh, you know. So there's a, there's a bravery, a courage and self encouragement that's there. Um, that's an expression of this power we've been talking about as you pointed out, it seems. Like nowhere to be found when you're not being your true self. That's one of the ways you know, is that you, you get timid, you get shy, and you might compensate for it, know, but maybe more aggressive than is your true self, but like just genuine courage in the true self. You don't, you, you say what needs to be said. You speak your truth that, and so I didn't wanna just leave it like, yeah, it, it always feels like you can't be your truth when you are in that, when you are in alignment with your truth, you have courage. You do, you do say that might go against the grain, but you say them courageously.

Bill: That's right.

Marty: way that you can tell.

Bill: That's right. Alternatively, if the fear has taken over. Then you're probably not. You're probably, well, you're at the very best. You're at a choice point when the fear shows up.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Right?

Bill: Your choice being, do I now employ strategies to manage this fear, or do I address it directly as my true self and look at it to see is the fear valid?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Is there something I can do about it right now? And what action will I take given the, the act, the present real danger. If there, if, if it is real, that from self is a wonderful use and great timing to be able to be in true self. Whereas when there is actually a threat that, that there is to deal with, if the fear takes over and the parts that have been developed within the psyche to manage fear, show up. Gonna, not gonna have full access to the, the, the toolbox of self,

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: of the resources of self. So it's gonna look like running manipulation, it's gonna be look like lying. And, uh, it's gonna be, look, look, look, look like people pleasing, just any number of things that are, that are gonna tap dance around the threat rather than move directly into it. I am thinking right now of, of this commercial, I haven't seen it for five or six years that the US Army used to do this commercial. I believe it was the US Army where uh, maybe a 32nd commercial where there's explosions, people screaming and, and on the camera you see people running towards the camera running away from these explosions and, and the, and then you see the army running toward it. And, and that, that's kind of. What it might look like to be in self, although it also might be a part of you that deals with fear in that way. Like I'm, I'm gonna ignore this, this fear in the very real danger and run, run headlong right into it. A good example that would be a dysfunctional relationship that I see the red flags and I go running, charging toward it anyhow. Where or. A, a better, a good example of true self would be a, a dysfunctional relationship that begins to form and you, you head right into it and say, this is not gonna work for me. This is not what I want.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I, I see some redeemable qualities in the in and potential in this relationship. However, I, I just need you to know that what the, what just now happened that can't happen anymore. If we're gonna continue to connect.

Marty: Oh my God, you're so describing exactly what happened to me, uh, recently.

Bill: Oh.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, I wanna tell this story succinctly though. the, so I got into a political discussion over dinner with some friends and, um, it got very heated, very fast, and, um. Uh, I, at first, I, I was just like, okay, I'm leaving. Like, we we're not having this, this is not

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: and my friend called me back. He's like, wait a minute. Don't, don't just go. I was shaking. I was literally shaking. And I went and I stood right beside my friend. 'cause it was mostly he and I who were. in that group were kind of it in. And I stood right next to him and I heard him say, know, his personal experience with this issue that was, had him so riled up politically right. And I was riled up politically on the other side of the issue, he was sharing his personal experience. So, you know, I'm still shaking, he's still yelling. finally I, you know, I was like, okay. I, I hear you. I recognize the importance and the truth in your experience with this. And I, I, I literally hugged him. He was a little resistant, but I put my arms around him and I said, I respect you and I don't wanna have, I don't want to conduct ourselves in this way. I. We sat down and we had dessert.

Bill: Nice.

Marty: That's how that went.

Bill: Nice. Wow, I, it is easy to imagine being in that situation and hard to imagine being able to handle it with such grace the way that you did, despite the fact of your obvious fear.

Marty: Exactly. I was scared. I was, you know, 'cause he's, he's bigger. I know that sounds weird, but you know, we were just having a conversation. But, you know, little guys get scared of big guys just

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: size

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: and he's older and he's louder. I was scared. I

Bill: Mm-hmm. And you were on your way out, it sounds like,

Marty: I was about to leave. Yes.

Bill: and, and you had done something that indicated that you were, did you get up and leave and go grab your coat or something? But how did this, how did they know you were leaving?

Marty: I, I got up and I made for the door. I

Bill: I see.

Marty: reaching for the handle on the door.

Bill: And it sounds like this, the, the person that you were in conflict with recognized that you were leaving

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and didn't want you to,

Marty: right.

Bill: and in fact, it sounds like maybe they were a little bit surprised

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: had you left. How do you suppose you would feel about that situation now? I.

Marty: Like a ninny, like, like, you know, like I, I didn't represent the point of view. Mm-hmm. I gave, I caved. I, you know, I didn't, I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't, I was weak. I was not my true self.

Bill: You caved to what?

Marty: To fear

Bill: Yeah, you, you would've came to your fear. Uh, so when he called you back that reset that situation, why, what happened? What, what was it about that that had you willing to come back? Despite shaking and being scared, I.

Marty: commitment to the truth. The commitment to not running away from it, but meeting the moment.

Bill: Can, is it okay for me to keep pushing and challenging a little bit here?

Marty: Sure.

Bill: It's not my intention to challenge, but it might feel challenging to you. I don't intend to challenge you. It's just that you were on your way, you had your handle on hand, on the door of the, the handle of the door to leave, and you, it sounds like would have continued with that momentum. Had he not stopped you and said, no, don't leave.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Is that accurate?

Marty: That's accurate. I mean, I could tell you a little bit more. I mean, he, he said, you are not listening.

Bill: Oh, that's helpful.

Marty: Don't leave. You're not listening. Those are the two things he

Bill: Wow. Wow. So don't leave. That message could have been landed as a threat.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Like I'm being instructed to do the opposite of what I wanna do.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: You're not listening could have landed as a criticism,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: something about both of those had you stay.

Marty: Right.

Bill: How did you perceive those two statements? First of all, don't leave. Do you, as you look back on it now, and the,

Marty: the part where I recognized I was being scaredy-cat.

Bill: okay, and you're committed to not being a scaredy cat

Marty: Right.

Bill: and you're not listening, how did you respond? How did what? How did that get processed in.

Marty: I mean, I've like, that's the last thing I wanna be accused of, given my reputation. My whole career is about being a good listener. know, I wanted him to know that I was willing to hear him.

Bill: Would you say I'm a good listener? Is a true reflection of your true you or is it, or would you say it's a a false identity? So it's the, it's the former. It is who you are and it's who you are and the way you wanna be, be perceived.

Marty: exactly. Both. Exactly. So, so that, you know, like I wanted, I wanted him to see the true me.

Bill: So his two statements, maybe there was more to it, but those, those are the main two statements that came out of it. Don't leave and you're not listening, served as challenges to your values.

Marty: Yes.

Bill: I don't wanna be scaredy Kat, and I want, I, I don't wanna be seen as a, as a listener. So I'm gonna turn around despite my fear, despite the fact that he can see that my body's shaking, despite the fact that he's bigger than I am, and I'm gonna go back into his space and I'm gonna reset this situation.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: What happened? How were you able to do that? How were you able to go back into that space and state to him that you preferred to have a different kind of relationship with him?

Marty: Well, I just kept, I just kept, I'm not sure.

Bill: Something must, something had to happen. You were on your way out the door, something internally

Marty: I, I really, I planted myself for one thing. Like I gr I consciously grounded myself. I could feel, I felt, I remember feeling my toes and my heels the floor.

Bill: you were present.

Marty: Yeah. I mean, I had to get present 'cause I was in a flurry in my head. So I pr

Bill: Yep.

Marty: stood right next to him rather than going back to the other side of the table where I had been sitting. stood right next to him. You know, I, I wanted to be right in the men, right in, in the present, what was going on. And I stood there and I could feel my leg shaking, even though, even though I was standing there and I, and I tried to tighten my, my, um, quadriceps to steady myself.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: so I got, yeah. So there's this physical thing that I did to,

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: myself, to stand there next to him. Mm-hmm.

Bill: for Yeah, thanks for looking at that and finding, finding. So you did, I, I suspected there must have been something that you did for a reset. And often what I'll do with my, with myself and, and then what I recommend my clients is that when I find that my parts, my young, scared hurt parts that are trying to manage pain or fear or hurt. Uh, get activated. Um, and I recognize that, that they have taken control and I'm, and I'm shifting back into automatic, um, um, self-protection,

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: uh, pause that I pause and sometimes I, I just, I have to leave the room. And, and for example, I might just go in the bathroom and go look in the mirror and breathe for a while. Just look in my own eyes and breathe for a while. And then what I might ha what might happen inside is I'll say to those parts of myself that are upset, you don't need to handle this. I, I got it. If this is not on you, I got it. Um. I'll address your concerns later, and then I'll, I'll put myself back into the situation and I'll go out and, and let's let the wisdom of the true, authentic self

Marty: Yes.

Bill: inform what happens next.

Marty: That

Bill: And.

Marty: the next, that, that thing with the eyes, that's the next thing that happened when I came over to stand there and grounded myself in my body and in the room. then I, I, I, you know, I was standing right there. So he looked up at me and I fixed in on his eyes. I was like, we, I recognized we needed to see each other. And as he continued, I could see that even though I was looking him straight in the eye that he wasn't there. I. He is, you know, you could see in his eyes that he was not there. He was in the past. Reliving some horrible thing that had happened to him that he was, that's where he was coming from. I could

Bill: Right.

Marty: before he said it, he's not here. Like I'm, you know, like if I was looking in the eyes of a dead man or something, like, and there's just no presence there.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: And, and, and that's part, part of what prompted the hug was like, I need to get him to know I am here, we are here now.

Bill: And he resisted. You said, did he soften to it? Uh,

Marty: to it? Yes. Mm-hmm.

Bill: interesting. Yeah. Yeah. What a great story. And, uh, it just, as you can tell, just really activated a lot of curiosity for me because I'm very interested in the mechanics. What's happening? What's that?

Marty: Oh, I'm just reliving the, the energy of it. Like right

Bill: Oh yeah.

Marty: I didn't sleep well that night.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: Well thanks for helping me break it down.

Bill: Well, yeah, and thanks for, thanks for being so vulnerable and transparent about your experience. Um.

Marty: describing it to the T I'm like, oh my God. Does he know what happened?

Bill: Well, as I was describing it, I wasn't in the energy of it and I wasn't, you know, remembering a particular thing that happened where I had to overcome my parts in order to say the thing that, that would reset the relationship. You know, I was listening to just a short clip that our friend Jeff shared with us. I don't know if you saw it or not, but it's the woman that's talking about boundaries. Did you, did you happen to.

Marty: that. I haven't heard it.

Bill: I encourage you to, to hear it and I'll try to find it and have Ari put it in show notes 'cause it's, it's wonderful. It's very, very good. But essentially what she's saying is that mental health has evolved to being, how to avoid situations that activate the intense feelings that we're uncomfortable with feeling. And that's not mental health. What, what, what that is, is avoidance. And, and she says, so a lot of times the conversations that are happening in therapy rooms are around setting boundaries and cutting people outta your life so that you can, so that you can feel safe. The real work, she says, has to do with getting curious about and interested in what's happening inside that you don't feel safe and, and doing that work. And I think that's what I really wanna.

Marty: you grow, you become able to deal with those situations in the, in the future, you're a bigger, you

Bill: That's right.

Marty: who can inhabit those spaces.

Bill: You expand your capacity by doing that work. The, the internal work, not managing what's happening out here. Although of course we have to do some of that, but have the majority of our work being not even managing what's happening in here, but getting interested and curious about it will begin to, to expand capacity for what's happening out there.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So that's the journey that we wanna go on here. This is the, the conversa, the kind of conversation that you and I had today. I hoped that we can have that conversation with multiple guests. If you're listening and you think that you'd like to be part of this conversation with us. That's really all that we, uh, are asking for as a guest. And re my virtual assistant is gonna put a, a link to a form in show notes that, and that, that you can fill out and let us know why you think you'd be a great guest on our podcast. And please do that. If you think it, you'd like to be on our podcast and you think you'd be a good fit for this conversation. We're not looking to argue with anybody. We're not, we're also not looking for people that see it exactly our way. It doesn't have to be a conversation about IFS from your perspective. It doesn't have to be a conversation from any particular point of view. Uh, it's just are you interested in talking about the, the challenges of just showing up in the world as the true you

Marty: Amen.

Bill: Great first episode. I'm glad we got started in this way. Thank you, Marty. Till next week.

Marty: See you then.