Marty: Welcome to Not Your Typical Leadership Coaching. Again we have Bill Tierney and Martin Kettlehut and we're here to serve and on the topic today of identity. It seems so important to have an identity, a persona and we spend a lot of time in visioning sessions who are, who do you mean to be in, in this meeting coming up or in your career or in the world.

Marty: And then once we've got 1, all we do is suffer about it. We're either trying to. Defend it, this identity that we've created or we're trying to compensate for it because, I got the identity, let's say, of an intellectual and now I'm being challenged with these other men to be athletic and so on.

Marty: Compensating for the fact that, there's, so there's all these, and there are probably, a lot of different things that we can point to that we're struggling around. Why did we ever create this identity to begin with? That's our topic.

Bill: Great topic. All right. And as, just as you were introducing it there, I thought about a PowerPoint, really basic, simple PowerPoint that I had created about this very thing.

Bill: And that I shared in a new group that just started this morning of women in recovery. And once we had done all the introductions and once we had done all our group agreements then I shared this PowerPoint. PowerPoint, because we're going to be building from this idea throughout our work together in the group.

Bill: And the PowerPoint, if you can imagine a circle with the words true self in the middle of the circle. I can see that. Okay. As I show that slide, I say, I'm going to ask you to accept some assumptions just for the next few minutes and build on these ideas. And that assumption number 1 is that this circle and those words represent who you are.

Bill: Okay. Assumption number 2 is that who you are. Is who you were when you were born and who you are is who you will be when you die and I want to build on those assumptions. Now, who you are, who you were, who you will be all the same. is perfect, whole, and complete. And who you are hasn't been damaged by life.

Bill: Who you are is fully resourced and not in the least bit diminished by what's happened in life, no matter how hard it's been. The next slide shows a colored circle that says shame identity in it. And in parentheses, the word vulnerable. And at the bottom it says, who I am, afraid I am. And what I explain as I show this slide is, who we are is whole, perfect, and complete.

Bill: The moment something happens that has us consider the possibility that we're anything less than that, we have formed a shame identity. And a moment later, we realize we cannot show up in the world that way. Whatever it is that I now fear is true about me, I got to make sure I hide from the world. Next slide is a red circle that says false identity.

Bill: The false identity is there to hide the shame identity, and unfortunately, the false identity and the shame identity both hide the true self. We gradually over time begin to lose the sense of who we really are. We're not born with the concept, I am true selves. We are born, oops sorry for that noise, we are born as who we are and who we were and who we will be, but we lose sight of that because we're confused.

Bill: We make up that there's something wrong with this, and then we get busy hiding, improving, controlling, denying that.

Marty: It seems valuable right now to distinguish them, to give the listeners an experience. You could say you, you're exactly who you were born to be. And then there's this other shame identity and false.

Marty: Okay. How do they. How do they relate? Where do, where are they? How do I know? How do I access them?

Bill: How do you access your shame identity? How do you access your false identity and how do you access, yeah. Yeah. They show up in our lives anytime. So the shame identity shows up in our lives. Anytime we are defending who we are.

Bill: Or promoting who we are. And it's hard to see that. It's hard to see it because we've lost sight of who we are. But if there's some effort going into trying to be better, guaranteed, that effort belongs in the red circle called shame, or excuse me, false identity. So we're promoting or.

Bill: Defending who we think we are. I think who we're who we're trying to be. We're convinced that who we are needs to be hidden. So we are trying to be something else so that the world can accept this and not find out what's wrong. Is it only

Marty: when I'm defending or like the are there, am I back to being my true self if I'm not promoting or defending this

Marty: identity of mine.

Marty: Seems like really valuable to what we everybody's going to want to know. How do I get back to my true self? When am I doing that?

Bill: We in the internal family systems model refers to true self as self with a capital S. And if you're trying to distinguish, when am I in my true self and when am I in my false identity and when am I in my shame identity, you know that you're in your true self and IFS calls that self energy, that you're, that you are accessing self energy when you access the qualities and resources of self.

Bill: And a real relatively easy way to identify those qualities and resources is with the eight C's.

Bill: You've got a resource there to your right. What is it?

Marty: I'm looking for a book by John Wellwood that describes what you described earlier. That moment when we first thought that we were ashamed, yeah, created the other.

Marty: What has a beautiful and he also quotes this poem by Emily Dickinson that so beautifully describes that moment. Oh, I'd love to hear that poem. Yeah, I was looking off screen. I beg your pardon for doing okay.

Bill: While you're looking for that, I'll read the eight season. I'm going to throw in another 1 or 2 C's that could typify what we might be able to experience as qualities, resources, states of being.

Bill: When we are accessing who we really are, our true self. So they are, according to the IFS model, compassion, curiosity, courage, clarity, creativity. You notice me looking down because I don't have a memorized connect, connection, confidence. Calm. I've heard choice is a nice other C to throw in there.

Marty: I've gotten myself called in like when, like I was in a conversation with a client at the beginning of the week, Monday morning, and I was praising him for his curiosity, his inquisitiveness.

Marty: And I said, that's a divine quality. That's a quality of the self. There it is. Thought, wait a minute, does that mean God is curious? When was God curious? Show me an example of God being curious. I don't mean to get us off track, but that's what you just reminded me of. Those seeds they're all divine qualities.

Bill: Couple more that have shown up a lot are choice and companioning, which I really like that. See, companioning being able to have .

Marty: It's very helpful to know look, these are the qualities that are of your true self and that's what you want to get back to. So that's very helpful. And then whenever.

Marty: You're caught in, trying to puff up or hide this identity that you've developed since that moment. Another source that Wellwood book is called Love and Awakening and must be on my shelf downstairs. It's not up there. But another book on that topic is by Sidra and I forget.

Marty: His name stone, their last name is stone. It's called your internal critic. And they describe exactly the same moment. Like I couldn't believe it when I first read these two books, like they're describing this moment when the soft, supple, innocent child, something happens and suddenly the child makes up that there's something wrong Yes, there's that identity is born that is both different from the surroundings and something's wrong with it.

Marty: It's got to be, you got to either compensate for it. So nobody finds out or, somebody will threaten it and you'll have to defend it. And so that's where it all gets started. And before the age of about five and a half, you don't even have this issue because your brain hasn't matured enough.

Marty: To distinguish between yourself and the world. You just are one. You're one with the world. And so those this identity versus what, everybody else or everything else isn't even there yet. I

Bill: think this even happens on a physical biological level before language. And before the brain develops to be able to entertain concepts, such as I'm separate from the world, or I'm part of the world on a physical level, if you go into a dysfunctional family, one of my clients is a social worker, and she goes into these domestic violence situations where kids, babies, are being raised and their caretakers are, Practically incapacitated by violence and or drug use or something going on.

Bill: There's domestic violence in the home. It's clear and obvious even with these babies that don't know how to speak yet that their bodies their physiology, their psychology has already been deeply impacted by what's going on around them. They don't feel safe. And it shows up physically and how they interact with others with their parents with adults and with their siblings.

Bill: At some level, somehow the human psyche somehow figures out there must be something about me that I have some power or control over that makes it possible for me to escape. Escape. Having to experience what I just experienced that had me decide that I was less perfect, less than perfect, whole and complete.

Marty: This goes also back to a number of different schools point out that when I forget which character is, Ask God, God to identify himself.

Marty: And God says, I am that. I am.

Marty: And there you've got no identifying with, I'm curious or I'm male, or I'm old, or it's just, I'm

Bill: father, I'm mother,

Marty: brother.

Bill: I am, pardon me. Yeah. I'm any of those roles. I am the, I am a brother, I am a father, I'm a husband.

Marty: I'm drunk. I'm sober. It's just pure being. And that's who we are when we're born.

Marty: That's also helpful for getting back to it. To recognize none of these things that I'm attributing to myself, that I'm single, that I'm 62 years old, that I live in this part of the world.

Marty: All none of that is relevant to your

Bill: true self. Exactly. So how do we find our way back? And why do we need to do that? These are the questions that I'm imagining the listener of this podcast might be thinking right now. Okay. If I'm not my true authentic self, how do I find my way back there?

Bill: And it might be helpful to talk about one or two examples of the problems that it causes to, to have that distance of understanding between who we actually are and who we are afraid we are, and who we try to be. Who I actually am, who I'm afraid I am, and who I try to be. So to do that, one of the things that I do with my clients is that I walk them through an exercise, and I just simply ask them, Who is it that you're afraid you are?

Bill: Who is it? And so to answer that question, here's another one. What is it you don't want people to think about you? What's the worst thing somebody could think about you? And here's an example. Let's just say the client says that I'm a liar. I wouldn't want people to think that I'm a liar. So that answer points back to the shame identity.

Bill: I'm afraid that I'm a liar. Otherwise, why would I care whether somebody thought I was a liar or not?

Marty: Exactly,

Bill: right? I'm afraid people think, are going to think that I'm stingy. That goes back, points directly back to the shame identity. I must be stingy. I must be selfish. I was talking to a prospect

Marty: yesterday.

Marty: And we're talking about he wants to change His position, he's gotten too much into one part of the company rather be over here and and I said, okay let's start envisioning the, who you want to be and what identity, basically, let's create that. And he said what if what we're imagining is over my head?

Marty: And I was like, okay, there we go. There it is. Bingo. Somebody probably when he was six years old said, Oh, to that you're in over your head or something like that. And

Bill: for your britches and yeah,

Marty: stuck. Yeah,

Bill: exactly. So I don't want what if it's over my head points directly back to the shame identity. I am something that can't handle things that are over my head and there are things that are over my head.

Bill: I'm in incapable. I'm incompetent. I'm inadequate. Shame.

Marty: And I don't want you to know it. So I'm going to cover it up and create distractions so that you don't see that and try and impress you so that you think that I can handle things even though I don't inside.

Marty: Right.

Bill: I had for a while I was associated with with an associate, I'll say who began many of his responses to questions with to be honest with you. So let's assume that he had at his core of, excuse me, that he had in his shame identity. The belief that he was a liar that he was untruthful His fear was that would be found out would it wouldn't it make sense that in his false identity?

Bill: He'd want to promote the fact that he's honest by saying can I be honest with you?

Bill: But that's the next set of questions that i'm going to ask is now that we've identified what it is that you're afraid is true About you because based on what it is. You don't want people to think about you What it is, what is it that you do to make sure that nobody ever thinks that about you?

Bill: Very good

Marty: question. I was talking to a client who just completed with me actually two weeks ago and an incompletion. She was saying this was the hardest concept for me to get this thing that I am ashamed of. And I don't want people to know that I've compensated. She said it took me forever to get what you were talking about.

Marty: But once I did, it was everywhere. Like everything I do, the clothes that I choose in the morning to go to work and the where I choose to live, the husband that I chose to live, to accompany me through life, the job that I, where I want my desk at the office, all these things were chosen by this part of me.

Marty: That's ashamed.

Bill: Yes.

Bill: Yes. Yes.

Bill: Now let's stick with that example. So this client of yours, who Had identified is it okay to say what it was she was ashamed of? Or is that too much information?

Marty: We didn't, nobody will know who we're talking about. She was ashamed that she had disappointed her father.

Marty: And so now she, all of her choices are made. So as not to disappoint anybody. And in that shame

Bill: is a belief. I'm ashamed that I disappointed my father. So what? So you disappointed your father. What is shameful about that? And that's where the belief is. It is shameful to disappoint your father. That could be the belief of daughters don't disappoint their fathers.

Bill: That's shameful to do or it could also be, A belief that if I disappoint the people that I want to love me, they won't. Yeah. So if I'm a disappointment, then I'm unlovable as a shame core, that's going to require a lot of protection, a lot of hiding, a lot of smokescreen, a lot of distracting, a lot of reacting.

Marty: In her case, what it has amounted, she's an overachiever.

Bill: There it is. So that is the compensation. So if we look at that red circle again, that says false identity and protection is it in the parentheses overachiever is there to hide that I am a disappointment. That's right. Now it'd be interesting to ask for this.

Bill: You'll

Marty: never notice what a disappointment I feel that I am because I've got this degree and that honors and

Bill: plaques on the wall. And yeah, exactly. Look at what I've accomplished. Look at how much I can do. Look at how much I don't need help. How could anybody possibly be disappointed in me besides me and dad?

Bill: And so then there's another aspect of the protection too. So there's prevention. There are in IFS, we call those managers that are future focused and they're saying never again, we're never going to let anybody ever see what a disappointment we are again in the future. Those are managers. It's that painful.

Bill: Nobody can ever see this. That's exactly right. It was so painful that we decided we were less perfect, less than perfect, whole and complete. We cut ourselves off from the resources that are built right in, haven't gone anywhere. They're still there. The question is how do we get back to them? And we've got about four minutes to discuss that before I have to go.

Marty: Okay,

Bill: so by we've already begun to do it. So if you're following along and you're listening to this conversation and you want to answer the question for yourself, how do I get back to my true authentic self? Start with who you aren't. Start with who it is. You're afraid. You are. Start with the questions like what I'm asking.

Bill: What is it? You want to make sure nobody ever finds out about you. What are you afraid is true about you? Those kinds of questions.

Marty: Had you make certain important life choices? I wanted to get away from this, or I wanted to get closer to that. Those are all based in the same identity

Bill: issue. Exactly, because we make those choices based on either a way we want to feel, or a way we don't want to feel. It's all about emotions, about how I feel.

Bill: If I'm feeling too uncomfortable, I'm going to make a change. If I'm missing comfort, I'm going to make a change. Those changes are identified, those changes are done under the influence of protective parts that are either trying to prevent something bad from happening that they see coming down the road, or to get away from something bad that just happened, or that is happening now.

Bill: By the way, those are called firefighters, those parts that are right now focused, and are, that show up at the fire truck, and the fire extinguisher, and the fire hose, and putting out the fires, like drinking. opioids, food, overworking, over shopping, a million things.

Marty: Isolating.

Bill: Yep. All the way up to and including suicidality.

Bill: Those are firefighters. So that's our false identity that's trying to manage the shame identity. And the busyness of all that loses the true identity, the true self. So to get back to the true self, spend some time with who you're not and how that shows up and manifests in your life. And I want to highly recommend that one way to get help and support in doing that is by hiring an IFS trained practitioner or therapist.

Bill: There's that's not certainly not the only modality in the world that can help address this, these challenges. But it's the one that I found in the 14 years that I've been coaching, that is by far the most effective thing that I can do to help my clients.

Marty: I would also just add. That's great. It's a huge resource for many for, everyone should have made themselves up.

Marty: And I would also just say let's say that you're experiencing this in the next 24 hours you recognize Oh, my God, there's that pain. It's making me not want my husband to know that I feel screwed something up because I don't think I'm stupid or what, whatever it might be, close your eyes and breathe and just feel what that's and keep feeling it until it subsides and you're back to your true self.

Bill: What's powerful about that and what makes that work is that in order to really be with what you're experiencing now, you have to be present in this moment. The thing that makes us suffer. Are the thoughts that would have us thinking about an hour from now when the husband gets home or when the wife get the wife finds out or so on, whatever the situation might be, it's future projection, a story about what's going to happen.

Bill: The suffering in this present moment doesn't actually exist in most cases.

Marty: But if you be with it, if you let yourself experience that same pain that happened way back when and you stay with it, like not trying to avoid it or do something about it till you get to the other side of it, you will be resourced again by your true self and all of those C words.

Bill: You're absolutely right. So there's, let's let this be this last thing, if you don't mind, because I do have to get ready for another session. All right. And we might return to this topic next time. And I'll have the Dickinson poem. Great. And it's a rich topic. What I tell my IFS clients. is that I'm going to help them travel two paths in their recovery from the loss of their true self.

Bill: One path is tending to the parts of themselves that suffer in their life as they live it. We tend to those and you gave a great example just now of how to do that, how to tend to the parts. When my parts become activated because of what's happening in my life right now, how do I tend to those parts so that they can soften and relax and allow the qualities and resources of self to emerge?

Bill: That's one path. The other path that doesn't have to happen, but it sure makes all of that a lot less work, is the healing path. Also with the IFS model, understanding, witnessing, even to the point of appreciating the dilemmas and what's at stake for those parts, and then helping them to, to a healing. So that they can permanently be healed and restored from the, from what's incomplete into the past and welcomed into the present moment and form alliances with us.

Bill: And now those parts that were handicapped by the past can be absolute assets in the present moment and help us to live the lives that we want to live. Great conversation, Marty. I could use another half an hour of this.

Marty: We'll take it up again next time.

Bill: We say this often. Let's do a part two.

Bill: We did actually pull that off with adult children. We did a part one and a part two. Maybe we will do identity part two. Okay. Thanks, Marty.