Marty: Welcome everyone to the leadership coaching podcast, formerly not your typical leadership coaching. And I'm here with. Pardon me, with Bill Tierney, IFS practitioner and results coach out of Washington state and my name is Martin Kettle hut and I have a new book out leadership is relation and I'm broadcasting from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Hi, Marty. Hi, so our topic today is getting back to self, which is something it seems like it ought to be the most easy and natural thing to be able to do, but we lose our way. And so, um, sometimes we don't even know what self, what would that even look like? We've lost even recollection of who we are in a sense.

Bill: Yes.

Marty: So, and we always want to be getting back to self every minute. The only way we want to spend our whole lives is ourselves. So, that's our topic for today. Now, how did this come up? If you don't mind just, um, encapsulating what you've been going through without specifics. So, yeah, yeah, sure.

Bill: Uh, well, you know, some days, some sessions and some weeks, uh, are easier than others to just be coaching from self and. And living my life as my true, authentic self is what, that's what I mean by, and, and I believe that's what you mean as well, is returning to self, I wanna return to my true, authentic self.

Marty: Mm-Hmm. .

Bill: And, um, sometimes I just notice when things happen in a particular way that parts of me step in. And begin running the conversation or making decisions for me or changing how I'm viewing, uh, whatever's happening out there. Well, uh, over the past week or so,

Marty: and I, sorry, I'm going to interrupt if I could delicately, um, just in case there, there are new people to the podcast. What is the difference between parts of your personality and your true authentic? So like, what's the difference? Yeah,

Bill: um, you know, thanks for asking that question because you give me an opportunity to answer in a different way than I've answered in the past. Okay. The reason I want to answer differently is because I'm now reading this book that I highly recommend called the wild edge of sorrow rituals of renewal and the sacred work of grief by Francis Weller. And Francis Weller is a student, he might say an apprentice of Carl Young, uh, Carl Young, and he mentions nowhere as far as I haven't finished the book yet, but nowhere in this book. Do I think he mentions the internal family systems model? He'll make reference to parts occasionally, but. The way he references parts is the way you would expect people in, in our world to reference parts that don't know anything about therapy. Uh, yeah, there's a part of me that wants to go to the ball game, but then there's a part of me that wants to stay home because I think the wife is gonna get mad if I go to the ball game. That's the way, if we say, If we say, if we use that terminology, that's what we normally would expect. And I've noticed, by the way, in movies and on TV shows, uh, and in everyday language, more and more people are speaking in that way. There's a couple of Disney movies out, um, Inside Out and Inside Out 2. Yes. Yes. Wonderful ways to understand what I mean by parts.

Marty: I really

Bill: do mean the same thing as Bad example, I just gave. I want to go to the ball. There's a part of me that wants to go to the ball game.

Marty: And

Bill: there's a part of me that wants to make sure I stay home so I can please the wife. We actually have parts. I, I am not just this mono mind. My mind, my psyche is made up of what Carl Jung, um, refers to as complexes. Well, potentially as complex as he defines a complex as a fragmentary bundle of concentrated emotional energy formed when we were confronted with an experience too intense for us to successfully digest. That's a mouthful. And if that sounds exactly what the IFS definition is of a part, it's a, it's a better definition than I've ever heard. Uh, and actually this, this, these fragmentary bundles would be complexes or, uh, what I refer to as constellations. I'm pointing over here to my whiteboard that I use with my coach coaching clients, sometimes constellations of parts that are organized around a common belief or a theme. So, um, so when I say that. I prefer to be an authentic self. The reason I prefer to be an authentic self is because authentic self is present and now. And it, it, when I'm in, in my authentic self, I have access to accesses to resources and qualities that I don't have access to when I am being hijacked by a part of myself that's still tethered to an incomplete, unresolved past. Hey.

Marty: So for those people listening, you want to look inside as we're talking here and notice those parts that are, they came into existence. To protect or, um, serve some other purpose, but that there, that there's a deeper you, there's a deeper well that you can go to that sources you resources you in a fuller way to be who you really

Bill: are. We're actually doing an exercise tonight in parts work practice. So parts work practice is a free group. That you can attend if you're interested in learning about the IAFS model.

Marty: Mm hmm.

Bill: And my, um, my co leader, Allison Dyer, and I have been running this free group for over three and a half years. We meet four times a month, the second and fourth Wednesdays, and the first and third Sundays of every month. And you can learn more at PartsWorkPractice. com if you're interested in this. But we're going to be doing a group tonight, and in that group, we're going to be doing an exercise. PartsWorkPractice. com I'm going to pull it up real quick. That answers the question, what is self? And what is your concept of self? So you asked. You know, why is what brought this up for me this week, and I told you, I'm, I've been struggling. And when I'm struggling, I know that my parts have taken over and they are, they are reluctant to relinquish control of the way I see things and the way I react to things. And so I've been defensive. I've been scared. I've been feeling like I want to have more control. These are all symptoms of parts that are trying, as you say, trying to protect me from something happening now, like what used to, what has happened in the past.

Marty: So that's good because those energies, um, say those three again, there was, uh, the, the emotions that, that you, that you were feeling that were a tip off. Like, this is not my true self. I see. Yeah. I want to be in more control.

Bill: I want, I want more control. Want to be in control. I'm scared. Scared. I'm noticing that I have fear. That's a part. Yeah, authentic self doesn't feel fear unless there's a bear wanting to chop my head off. It's appropriate, but if I'm, if I'm afraid and it's just this generalized fear and I, and I'm looking around and there's nothing to, to, to point out and say, this is what's scaring me,, that's a part guaranteed. It's from the past. Okay. I've been irritated. I've been impatient. Um, yeah, I mean, I could go on and

Marty: on and describe it. Right. I just want people to have a sense of, you know, like, well, how do I know? Like, maybe that part that wants to please the wife is my true self. How do I know

Bill: it's a part? Yeah. And that's another, that's another way to, so what I've been describing here is suffering. However, um, I want to please the wife feels like, oh, isn't that, isn't that great? Yeah. You want to please the wife, but but if I want to please the wife so that she doesn't buy my head off like the bear would then there's

Marty: there's there's fear running the show. That's right. That's right. So, maybe I don't, I don't want to interrupt the flow of your thought, but maybe it would help the listener to know. Okay. So then what if fear and struggle and all of that is characteristic of these parts, then. What's characteristic of the cell, my authentic self. Yeah.

Bill: And so internal family systems does, I think, a really good job of providing an easy way to, uh, think about it. Um, for example, I'm going to read off a list of 8 words that start with the letter C. These are referred to in IFS as the 8 C's and these are qualities. That point to the possibility that you're more in your authentic self than you are in a part.

Marty: Uh huh

Bill: curiosity confidence compassion courage clarity creativity calm and connected So if I'm experiencing any of those I have some degree of self authentic self going on I can have a degree of self going on and at the same time have a degree of fear going on a part, a part that's still kind of blending with me. So I'm feeling, I'm still feeling connected with you, but I've got some fear here. So I'm feeling kind of cautious and that that isn't that's in a degree. It's not going to be especially black and white.

Marty: Some,

Bill: some authentic self, some part influence other here's five P's that represent qualities and resources of self presence. Patience, persistence, perspective, and

Marty: playfulness.

Bill: Those would be indications also. If I'm feeling light and playful and, and I'm not being shaming or hurtful in any way with that playfulness, there's a pretty good chance I'm in self. But if I'm, if it appears that I'm light and playful, but I'm being shaming, let's say, and I'm, uh, ignoring boundaries that you've set up, then that's probably a part. It's sometimes it's, it's a little bit hard to distinguish. But we can feel it. We can feel it on the on the sending end of it. And we can also feel it on the receiving end of it. Marty being in his true authentic self. I can feel it. I have a I have a

Marty: question.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Um, because, uh, I I listen, and I do want to, you know, also leave time where we can just address this. How do we get back to that? Right? That's our, that's our proposed theme. And I want to fulfill that promise my question, because I'm a spiritual person. I practice two different traditions, actually, simultaneously. And in in those traditions, I, we say that the self is the all. Like the whole shebang God, his universe or her universe, right? That all perspective and and so to be in self is is. Is not is to have that broader perspective. Like, I can be curious because I'm not worried about my persona surviving. Right? I can be compassionate because I know I'm going to be. Okay. Like, that's sort of how it goes. And so when, when I think of, you know, self, I think of, well, how is it the Lord is right? The Lord is all those B words. And all of those C words. And so that helps me because I know that there are stories of how the Lord has shown himself. Right. And there are those ways that you just named those E's and those P's. And now here's my question. So, if this point of view is good, then it, then it follows that actually even parts are part of self. But they're just places in self where there's a snag or a hang up or, you know, an encrustation that just needs to get into the flow. Yes. Would you agree with that

Bill: assessment that way of looking at it? Absolutely. Let's go back to what Carl Young says about these complexes. These are fragmentary bundles of concentrated emotional energy formed when we were confronted with an experience too intense for us to successfully digest. Our psyche, Jung discovered, has the ability to split off portions of our psyche so that we can keep, move on and survive when intense, undigestible events occur in our lives. Yes. So, so when, before those events occurred, we were whole and perfect. Let's just say a vent occurred and it was overwhelming. It was too much. And in order to survive that event without understanding what just happened or how to survive it or prevent myself from experiencing it again, psyche splits it off, kind of helps me do things like dissociate. So continue to move through life. And stay alive. So, yes, they're part of the self, but they're parts that have been, have exiled themselves away for the survival of the host of me, my psyche, yes.

Marty: And

Bill: what there is to do, and this is what IFS is designed to do, is to help reintegrate those energies back into the system at a time when we have the resources to do so.

Marty: Okay. Ben.

Bill: So when we talk about getting back into our authentic self, it would require some sort of sort of a process that reintegrates those parts that have been split off and exiled banished out of the system.

Marty: Right? Right. So that we can get back to. Essentially a thoughtless state because those are all thoughts and they do need to be attended to and processed and all of that. But ultimately what we want to get back. It sounds to me is a thoughtless state where we're just connected. That was 1 of the C words. We just are connection. We're connected to everything. We observe everything that we all the people that we run again. So we come from connection. In those relationships is to come from self as to pose as opposed to come from a prejudice or, you know, um, you know, a bad experience we had with them 10 years ago or something like that.

Bill: I don't know that I've ever experienced a thoughtless state as long as I had consciousness, I believe it's possible. I've heard you talk about it and I know that Michael singer wrote about it and there's a lot of a lot of people that have talked about a thoughtless state and how desirable that would be. I, I hold it as very desirable as well. But, but when I'm in self, I still have thinking going on. It's just that the thinking is not disempowering. It's not, it doesn't create suffering. It's not associated with painful or suffering that that has gone unresolved. And now is something that somehow being played out in this current circumstance.

Marty: Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, I mean, just to to bring it, bring it down to earth a little bit. Um, think of the, think of the movie, the last samurai where, you know, he's sort of settling in. He's starting to learn to fight the way they do. And, um, he gets beat and, and the, the trainer says too many, too many minds. Yes. You got a mind on the girl that's watching you fight. You got a girl. You got a mind on the guy's sword. You got a mind on how he's dressed. You got a mind on yourself and how you look. There are too many minds here. Yeah, that's not working. If you can just be in like, fully in the battle without all those thoughts that separate you from the moment, you'll fight much better. And he does. He learns to do that. Beautiful example.

Bill: Too many minds. Love it. When I have part, I woke up at 3 30 this morning, got up, went to the bathroom, went back to bed and I could tell boy, my mind was at like 5, 000 RPM and it was just cranking and I wanted to go back to sleep. So I laid there and I said, okay, all right, can I, can we talk about this in the morning to my mind? Yeah. And, uh, my mind said it is morning. And, and so I think I dozed into sleep a little bit, but, but I was finally up by kind of, kind of gave up the effort to get any more sleep by five, five 30

Marty: in the

Bill: morning and sometimes the mind just goes and it needs to be tended to.

Marty: Um,

Bill: so the way in I F S there, there is to tend to it is to get curious about the part of me that is influencing me to have the thoughts I have. Right. Right. And even that can be difficult to get to if I have other parts that are saying, shut up to the part that wants me to know something.

Marty: Yeah, I, I sit to work in front of. Three big, beautiful cottonwood trees. That's what I'm looking at as I look through them as long as peak, right? And I noticed I watched the animals crawling around and jumping from branch to branch in these trees and clearly they're not, they don't have parts. They don't have parts because the part would say, Oh, my God, that's too far. Don't jump. You know, I can't believe you're up so high. This branch is really flimsy. All that stuff is not occurring to that squirrel. He's at one with. The universe and just, just lives life without having to go through that. What, you know, what the, the psychology that we go through.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. That's a beautiful example. That's so that's how to know we're an authentic self is when we're in the flow. When we're present, you

Marty: know,

Bill: one of the things that I'll do at the beginning of the coaching session, sometimes with individuals, but most of the time in is I'll walk them through an internal, what I call an internal check in. We only take about three or four minutes for this. But I'll have my clients, and I'll do it as I'm actually narrating what I'm doing and asking my clients to join me. I'll, I'll just go inside, and when I say go inside, what I, what I actually do is I close my eyes and I go into an inner space.

Marty: Um,

Bill: that I have actually cultivated and designed, um, that feels safe and, and warm and comfortable and inviting.

Marty: So I

Bill: go in there and then I bring my attention to some physicality, something that's happening physically.

Marty: Uh huh.

Bill: My breath. Uh, sometimes I'll, I'll just say, okay, I'm just going to watch my breath for three rounds here. I'm not going to change it. I'm just going to notice it now, you know, and I'll just be quiet for 30 seconds or so. Now I'm going to just do a pretty quick body scan going from the tips of my toes up to the crown of my head. And what I'm looking for as I do that scan is what's tense, what's relaxed, what else is there to notice about what's happening as I move up, bring my conscious attention and move it up my body. And. What's really powerful and even magical about that to me is that it seems that the conscious attention, when focused, when pointed and focused, has an effect on how much power my parts have to influence me with thoughts, feelings, and behavior. If I'm present,

Marty: My

Bill: conscious attention on what's happening now, whether it's the beauty of the plants outside my window, there's a couple of hanging plants outside my window, the windows, the wind is blowing them right now. There's, I can see the flowers kind of bouncing. So I'm present as I'm looking at that. And as I'm having this conversation with you, but I'm having this If, if I, if I lose presence, then my mind can begin to travel back to last week or yesterday morning when that thing happened, or what's going to happen next week. And now I'm no longer here. My body's physically here, but my mind is no longer in the present moment.

Marty: Even if you were just to say, oh, the flowers are bouncing, that means it's going to be already. It means something. Then you're, you're,

Bill: you're out of the present. Meaning making of it. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So these are ways now that we're talking about. How do I get back into my authentic

Marty: self? This reminds me of, um, when I was first learning to meditate, a very simple but profound exercise that the teacher led us through was we closed our eyes and we spent a few moments similar to what you just described. First, just getting very aware, present to the body. What exactly is the body feeling right now? Feeling, you know, even your shirt as it lays on your chest or the very subtle movement of air about the face right now in addition to like you said It's becoming present to the whole body. First. That's the first thing you write. Take 5 minutes to really feel every inch, every nook of the body and become aware of the body. And then you ask yourself, well, what is it that's aware of the because you're sitting here with your eyes closed. Right? What is it that is aware of the body? Gosh, I'm not even sure. Then you go to the mind and you do a body scan of the mind. Look at all the, oh yeah, there's worry about tomorrow and I'm upset about what that lady said this morning. And I've, I've got work to do as soon as this is done that's on my mind. Like just con, like you did with the body, scan the mind and then ask the same question. What is it that is observing the mind now? The body can't see the body. The mind can't see the mind. Boom. There we are in the space of the self and it's the self that can see them both. That's right.

Bill: That's right.

Marty: And then once you're there, you can see that. Okay. Anything that comes in, that's a sensation. Okay. That's not, that's not so any thought that would come through like, gosh, this is taking a long time. Not the self. Everything else is the self.

Bill: And these, these others that are not self. Are not to be exiled. As you said earlier, they're part of your experience. They're part of self, but they're being observed by self and eventually led by self as well. So a part can be either led by a burden or a past unresolved event. Led by self. And our goal in IFS is to help our parts be self led so that they have full potential, full access to all the potential they have. Every part of me has the potential of all of the same resources of self. The, the eight C's, the five P's and so many more words that aren't included and sure. Sure. Starting with the same letters like love. Um, yeah, so many, so many words that so many qualities, so many different resources that we have access to. And the key here is that when parts are cannot be present. Because they're so worried about what's going to happen in the present that might look a lot like what happened in the past. When our parts are that that are burdened are, um, operating and influencing us in the present moment, we lose access to those qualities of self when self returns, we gain access to those qualities and we just show up as the best and the highest version of ourself when that happens. Many of us, there's a lot of healing to do and, and over the past week or so, uh, the amount of remaining healing there is for me to do has been made very evident. I've still got a ton of work to do. And it's during this past weeks, like the one I've just experienced that I am really tasked. It's really a challenge for me to show up as the best and highest version of myself. And interestingly, Marty, My best moments this past week or so have been when I acknowledge to myself, and especially when I acknowledge to the people I'm interacting with, I'm not at 100 percent here. I have parts of me that are really wanting to run the show, and it's my intention to be as present as I possibly can be. Please bear with me and please tell me if anything that that's happening from my parts is getting on you that I don't recognize. It seems like all my parts just relax. They've been acknowledged and the people around me relax because when my parts are running the show, their parts starting getting start getting involved to parts, activate parts, but then the good news is that self activate self as well.

Marty: I think that that's another sign to me that I'm, I'm not coming from self when, when I'm constantly seeing what's wrong with them or, you know, there's that love isn't just a basic human compassion is absent. That's, that's a definite sign. Okay. I need to get out of my head.

Bill: Now, some people, especially new to these concepts and ideas might say, the last thing I want to do is show up as my true, true and authentic self. Why would

Marty: they say that?

Bill: Because who they believe they are is, is something less than whole and perfect. Because who they think they are is they're ashamed of, and they've been working their whole lives to hide and to manage and to be better than. So I don't dare show up as my authentic self. And I want to just suggest that. That's a misunderstanding

Marty: that

Bill: somewhere along the way, when, when I picked up on the, on any kind of an idea that, that inferred that who I am is less than perfect and whole,

Marty: then I

Bill: began to identify as that shameful thing. That's who I

Marty: am.

Bill: And that was the moment that these parts took on extreme roles and began to fragment away from my psyche, trying to, trying to be somebody. My parts were trying to be who they thought I needed to be in order to be acceptable in the world, because they, they came to believe that I was less than acceptable.

Marty: You remind me of one of the ways that I've been able to get back to self in the past, which is, Um, to remind myself the way of being that I'm that I created when I was in self that I'm committed to be, it could be just, you know, way of being in one conversation. Like, before I got on the phone today, I said an intention of being at peace. Right? So, if I got hooked by something you said. And I remind myself, wait, the way of being that we chose from self was to be at peace. That helps me see, okay, the way to resolution here is not through a harangue about what he said. It's through peace. And that could also be for the day, you know, people said intentions for the day or for the year, you know, and if when you feel I can't be coming from self because I'm struggling here, then go back to that intention, assuming it came from self, right? That will, that will point the way that will point the way out of the struggle.

Bill: Actually, that's really

Marty: great.

Bill: Um, so set an intention of who you want to be Today or in this conversation or with this person and or in this situation This is who I want to be. I want to be I want to be loving I want to be connected. I want to be present and I want to be powerful Now if i'm anything other than that I'm going to ask my parts to help me notice. That I'm other than that, and, and when now I need a plan too, though. I'm gonna go beyond your, your suggestion of setting an intention and, and that is to have a plan. What will I do when I recognize Right. Not empower when I'm not, and I don't mean power over, but when I'm not feeling empowered, when I'm not feeling, you know, loving. Uh, and present and connected. What will I do? Well, I'll pause And i'll do any number of things that I know to do to get present again Maybe that's simply I don't need to announce. Hey, i'm going to pause right now I can just pause internally and take a nice deep breath and just really enjoy how delicious that is And now that i'm present again That is like a reset. That's like hitting the reset button and it's all, it can be almost instant. There are other times though that I do need to say, Oh man, I don't know what's happened here for sure. All I know is that I was present and now I'm not. I really am committed to being present. I think I might just need to walk around, um, the house. I'll be right back.

Marty: I'll go back

Bill: and say, okay, let's give this a try again. None of that was you, it was all me. Something you said triggered something inside of me, but I think I'm good again. Let's see if we can, let's see if we can do this.

Marty: Yeah, yeah, I just witnessed an example over the weekend. I was visiting friends and a call came in. It was the husband of the family's father, who's a troublesome character. And I could see, you know, my friend, his son go into the, you know, all kinds of triggers around the dad calling. And he, he had the wherewithal my friend to say, okay, there's a lot we need to discuss here. Can I call you back in a half an hour? Okay, great. So they hung up the phone and he went downstairs to his little gym in the basement. This was the way he got back to self and he just did physical work. For a half an hour, right? Totally out of his head in in the physical presence of his body, right? And I saw him go back, get back on the phone with that. He had all these solutions. Well, we could do this. We could do that. What do you think about this? I know you need this. And I'm happy to provide that. He was a totally different person.

Bill: My that what a great example of that. I think it's a good point, a good place for us to end. How can we, let's see if we can summarize our conversation today. Do you want to give it a shot or shall I? Please. All right, so our topic today was how to return to self, and what we're talking about is true authentic self. We've been borrowing a lot from the internal family systems, uh, model in this conversation and using some of that terminology. Burdens, and parts, and, and unburdening, I don't know if I actually said that or not, but, but presence, now that's not exclusive, of course, to IFS, but, But that is one of the keys. Presence. Connection. These qualities and these resources of self are actually the way to get back to self. If I recognize that I'm not experiencing one of these 8 C's or one of these 5 P's or any other word that would describe these higher resource qualities that, that show me that I am, um, showing up as the best and highest version of myself, then it's time to pause. And it's time to reset. And, and ask myself, who is it that I want to be in this situation, and what is required in order for me to be that? Your friend, who went down to the basement when he recognized that, that he was, that something was happening that, that, where he wasn't able to have the conversation that, that he wanted to have with his dad. That's a great example. Looking at the flowers out my window, looking at the trees and the animals that are jumping from branch to branch and noticing how they are in the flow. They are, they don't have parts running the show. These are all ways to return to self. And why would we want to do that? So that we can show up as the highest and best version of ourselves, not only for ourselves, but for the people around us. And because Innately installed are these resources that we're giving given as a gift to be able to manifest in the world to make to make the difference. We're here to make

Marty: very well said very well said, let's put an exclamation point there and we'll look forward to being with you next time. On the leadership

Bill: coaching podcast and the next, the next episode will be with a fellow coach, Nora Edelstein, and it's a project design part two. So be sure and look for that. It's going to be a great conversation. Bye.