Category Archives: IFS

In This Moment, Let This Go…

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and you’ll open yourself up to more ~

calm
clarity
confidence
compassion
creativity
connection
courage
happiness
patience

in your life and your relationships.

“Seriously?”

You think I’m pulling your leg.

Or writing one of those over-promise/under-deliver catchy titles.

You know the sort…

“Click here to see THE funniest home video” and you click and it’s just lame.

But I actually mean this.

I really want you to know that there is one thing you are probably holding onto in most – if not all – of your moments and that if you released this one idea, this one belief, everything would shift.

But because you don’t know about this one mind-trap you’re caught in you un-knowingly participate in undermining some really important relationships. Relationships that mean a huge amount to you because you want very much to enjoy your ~

partner
child
parent
friend
co-worker

but this way of thinking is distorting your view of them.

Before I share this one thing I’m inviting you to release, here’s a personal story about that moment when I first recognized it’s power.

In the mid 1980’s I volunteered for the King Country Crisis Clinic because I was terrified a complete suicidal stranger might randomly phone my number one night and shout:

I’ve got a loaded gun. It’s pointed at my head. Give me one good reason not to pull the trigger.

Sounds like an odd fear, but it was hearing a BBC news story about exactly this that triggered both my concern, and my decision to learn all I could about working with people “in-extremis”.

So, I approached the King Country Crisis Clinic because I figured they’d have to teach their volunteers to handle calls like that. Folks call a crisis line when they’re homeless; frightened of their abusive partner; lonesome; delusional; drunk; about to be evicted; contemplating an overdose and yes – in the midst of what was called “an active suicide.”

By way of learning, we potential crisis-desk-phone-bank volunteers role played practice calls about all sorts of things, and one night it happened. I picked up the phone and heard:

I’ve got a loaded gun. My wife just left and took the kids. I’m broke, alone and done. I’m going to pull this trigger unless you can think of one good reason I shouldn’t.

And I froze!

In the BBC story I write about, the woman responds simply with “Because I don’t want you to” and I was contemplating giving the same response. But time stood still and after a ridiculously long pause during which – had this been a real call – I’m sure I’d have heard gun shot, a trainer materialized by my side. I leapt up from my seat frantically gesturing that she should role-model how this ought to be done.

She settled in and calmly took the phone. Here’s how it went.

*SANDY ~ I’m so glad you’ve called. My name’s Sandy. What may I call you?

BRAD ~ Huh? Call me Brad – why do you care?

SANDY ~ Brad, I care very much. I really hear there’s a part of you in so much pain right now that you’re ready to pull trigger to end your suffering. And Brad, I also hear that there’s another part – a small part maybe but a part of you none-the-less – who picked up the phone just now to see if there might be one good reason not to pull the trigger. Can I speak with that part Brad? Can I speak to that part of you who wants to talk about reasons to live?

(* Confidentiality is important to have everyone feel safe. Real names do not need to be used.)

BINGO!

Sandy had not frozen in the face of the call because she had not seen Brad as 100% suicidal. And in truth, if he had been, he’d have pulled the trigger and not called the help line.

But that’s the magic folks.

Sandy had released her thought that what was coming out of Brad’s mouth, what Brad was saying to her right then, was “the all of Brad.”

She understood that there might be other parts of Brad who might want to speak up but – because we don’t have that Vulcan mind-meld thing quite down yet – we have to say things in a sequence over time.

While she heard that there was a sad, hopeless part of Brad who had teamed up with his take-action-to-end-the-pain part who held the gun, she also heard a different part. The part in fact who initiated the call because this part was holding on to a sliver of hope.

Dramatic as it may sound – this was one of those life-changing “Ah-Has” for me.

I have gone on to study the idea of multiplicity of the mind in greater depth with particular thanks to Richard Schwartz and his Internal Family Systems model. As a relationship therapist using this idea with my clients, it’s revolutionized not only how much more fun this inner work is, but also how quickly people can make changes that bring them happiness.

It’s an idea that makes all the difference, and I’ll show you why. But first I’ll remind you that you probably already think this way sometimes.

Your friends call to invite you to join them at the pub. You find yourself thinking,”Hum, part of me would love that, but part of me is content reading my book by the fire at home.“
Your boyfriend sometimes seems like two people. Home with you, out on dates, hanging with your family he’s gentle, funny, kind and thoughtful. But get him around his old college friends and he’s a knuckle-dragging-grunting-monosyllabic throw back.
Or do you remember as a kid, how you were terrified of Sister Francis (if you went to Catholic Boarding school like me), or of Mr. Mean (if you attended another school which hired monsters) and you absolutely knew this person thought of you as a delinquent imbecile permanently up to no good. Until one day you saw them with your parents – and suddenly they beamed sunlight, said kind things, looked at you tenderly and reassured your parents you held “promise.” Huh?

So why do I make the claim that when you let go of your belief that both you and the person you’re communicating with are totally of one mind you’ll open yourself up to more ~

calm
clarity
confidence
compassion
creativity
connection
courage
happiness
patience

in your life and your relationships?

Here are 3 reasons.

Because people are so rarely ever of one mind it’s a false and unhelpful assumption.
We’re all complex with layers of thinking we’re mostly oblivious to. I mean right now – what are you thinking? And what do you think about that thought? There – you’ve already found two parts: the one thinking a particular thought and the one with an opinion about that original thought. And that’s just the start!
Becoming aware of how your thoughts reveal an inner community of parts with a variety of feelings, needs and beliefs means you have options. You go from believing you can sing only one note to becoming aware of your 2 to 3 octave range. Now you can get creative with your responses. And once you start getting creative and flexible, guess what? The folks you’re talking to will feel more expansive and free as well.

Here are 2 examples of how this looks in practice.

WITH A CHILD

Your child is angry or sad, but definitely emoting.

Loudly.

Before you do anything, remember – think Parts!

And these 3 simple steps.

#1 Ask yourself – who am I right now? What parts of me are “up?”

This is important, because how you show up to your child will impact how she shows up.

What context are you in? This tends to impact who we are in any given moment.

If you’re feeling judged (in a supermarket; by your in-laws) you may notice that part of you who parents for the onlookers more than for your child. Maybe you’ll be tempted so hush your child, handle her a bit roughly to show them you mean business, or to get angry back at your judging audience.

If you are feeling supported (with your spouse or friends with kids) you may notice that part of you who is calm and able to prioritize your child’s needs.

Take a breath and notice, and do your best to choose which part you want to show up with. Calm is clearly preferable!

#2 Ask yourself – who is my child right now? What parts of her are “up?”

This is important, because who she is right now will determine who you need to be for her.

What context is she in? What just happened in her world?

What might she be feeling? Jealous? Hurt? Frightened? Lonely? Mad? Frustrated? Kids are complex, but their emotional range when upset tends to reflect one of these feelings. Then say to yourself, “OK, right now, my child is showing me that part of her who feels [pick one].”

Your job then is not to stop her feeling what she is feeling. Your job is to help her understand and name her experience and help her move on when she is ready. Which could be in 3 seconds, or 30 minutes.

#3 Acknowledge what you see with your child.

“Hummm, I see a little girl who’s got a big frustrated feeling going on right now.” [Guess…. she may even correct you if you’re wrong, depending upon her age and level of emotional understanding]

“Do you know what she needs?”

If you can separate the child from the feeling – as in you see a girl who is experiencing an emotion rather than a girl who is that emotion then she begins early on to recognize she is more than any one emotion. And, in fact, she can experience several different emotions at the same time.

Usually we say something closer to “I see you’re frustrated.” That’s not bad. It’s shorter and less cumbersome. But do you also see how it blurs the distinction and continues to reinforce that all-of-one-mind, less-helpful thinking?

WITH YOUR SPOUSE

Your sweetie comes home down-hearted and grumpy.

Typically this goes badly. You try and cheer him up. He gets more distant and you both end up grumpy.

Before you do anything, remember – think Parts!

And these 3 simple steps.

#1 Ask yourself – who am I right now? What parts of me are “up?”

This is important, because how you show up to your partner will impact how he shows up.

What mood are you in? Listen to your thoughts and feelings and see if you can identify – from the scripts running through your head and emotions running through your body – which parts need your attention right now.

If you notice parts who feel grumpy, drained, or in need of attention after a tough day, it may be hard to give attention because these parts really want to receive it.

If you’re noticing parts who are impatient or excited to get into your next event, it might be hard to listen to your partner because you’re a twitchy little ferret inside.

Take a breath and notice your choices. You could be honest and let your partner know you’re feeling a bit grumpy and needy too. You can let him know you want to be there for him, but need to go let off steam first and take a run. Or, maybe just noticing these parts will allow them to calm down, and you can listen with neither neediness nor resentment.

#2 Ask yourself – who is my sweetie right now? What parts of him are “up?”

Unlike dealing with a child (see above), your spouse can possibly tell you what’s going on. Or, you may know him so well that as soon as you hear him walk down the hall, you think: “Yup, here comes Grumpy!”

Take heart! Remember, he’s not 100% Grumpy. He’s only somewhat Grumpy. And that will make all the difference.

#3 Acknowledge what you see with your partner.

“So – I have this sense that Grumpy’s in. Tough day? I really want to listen to you and, I gotta say, I’ll be a whole lot nicer after a run. I was fit to be tied by lunch and still had to make nice to that irritating off-site manager and do most of Felicity’s work. Would you be up for a nice long de-brief over drinks in 45 minutes?

Might not be Grumpy’s first choice, but you’ve probably reminded your complicated sweetie that he is not 100% grumpy . Which means he might bump into a calmer inner part and be much better company when the two of you meet later.

So – now that you’ve heard my claim, which is that when you let go of your belief that both you and the person you’re communicating with are totally of one mind you’ll open yourself up to more ~

calm
clarity
confidence
compassion
creativity
connection
courage
happiness
patience

in your life and your relationships

What parts come up for you?

*** * * * * * * * * * ***

FIRST TIME HERE?

This is the latest article in a year-long series on the “12-most-important-relationship-skills-no-one-ever-taught-me-in-school-but-I-sure-wish-they-had.”

Click the box for the full list. →

If you’re interested in reading this blog in sequence, below are links to the series to date, beginning with the first posting at the top.

OVERVIEW

SKILLS FOR UNDERSTANDING

SKILL ONE ~ Recognize (and get to know) the many “yous.”

SKILL TWO ~ Learn how to be pro-active: choose how y’all show up.

SKILL THREE ~ Accept (and get curious about) other peoples’ complexity

SKILLS FOR CONNECTING

SKILL FOUR ~ Master the Art of Conversation

SKILL FIVE ~ Learn How To Listen With Your Whole Self

SKILL SIX ~ Crack The Empathy Nut

SKILL SEVEN ~ Practice Kindness

SKILL EIGHT ~ Negotiate with a Win-Win Mentality

SKILLS FOR RE-CONNECTING

SKILL NINE ~ Build (or rebuild) trust.

SKILL TEN ~ Apologize & “Do Over” When You’ve Blown It

SKILL ELEVEN ~ Forgive and Move On When They’ve Blown It

SKILL TWELVE ~ Let go. Relationships end. You’ll learn, grow and carry on.

Let go of the past
In This Moment, Let This Go

How To Trust Yourself

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In 1984, for reasons I will explain (and you will possibly consider idiotic) I brought our eighteen month honeymoon – traveling in a VW camper through Europe and the Middle East – to a halt because I wanted to nest in my own home and become an upholsterer.

Yes – we traded the charms of small French towns like Cassis

and adventures on an Israeli Kibbutz and the newly-returned-to Egypt vast Sinai Peninsula (which in 1983 was virtually unoccupied following the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979)

so I could pull the stuffing out of elderly sofas, become adept at tying internal springs in the classic 8-way-pattern for maximum holding and comfort

and tackle the occasional “Button Back” project.

An odd choice, and one I went on to regret.

What was I thinking?

I had persuaded myself that I was a contemplative craftsperson who needed to work quietly on my own with classical music and scented candles, carefully restoring gorgeous antiques for folks who liked such things. And I wasn’t interested in hearing anything to the contrary.

Until I did. And the contrary voice I heard was loud, insistent, and from within.

“I’m miserable! Here I am working away on my own, in the basement with things while what I really love and crave are people, sunlight and ideas!”

I had completely mis-read who I was and what I needed. Talk about undermining my trust in what I knew to be true about myself! I set aside my tools.

In 1980, for reasons I will explain (and you could possibly also consider idiotic) I brought my 2 year back-packing adventure around the USA to a halt

by moving in with a man three days after I met him at The Last Exit on Brooklyn, in Seattle.

Me! A convent-boarding-school-graduate-with-two-sisters-nuns-who-had-no-intention-of-getting-married-anyway. But, I made the lightening quick decision to stay with this warm, kind Seattleite.

For a while.

Another odd/out of character choice, and one I’m eternally grateful for.

What was I thinking?

Lots of things!

I really liked this man. He felt familiar and kind and I was an emotional kaleidoscope. Some days I’d feel loving and secure, others I’d panic about my future and our differences. Sometimes I’d feel content at the prospect of choosing “the one”, other times I let myself explore my options. [if you’re curious read this]. I had lengthy phone conversations with my aunts and sisters; I sobbed and laughed with girl friends; I sought counsel from wise folks; and Mark and I went about our lives getting to know one another ever more deeply.

700 days after we met (during which time Mark came to England to meet my family, and we sought a work visa for me) we said our “I dos” at the Burke Museum in Seattle at our pot-luck-home-spun wedding filled with the crazy chaotic kindnesses of friends and family (still grateful for that cake Stuart!).

So – how come the trust I placed in my decision to be a contemplative upholsterer was so misguided, while the trust I placed in my spontaneous decision to move in and ultimately spend the rest of my life with Mark, so spot on?

How can we get trust right?

In Can We Trust Too Much, I suggested the way forward lay in “helping a person learn how to nourish their own feedback systems so they can:

manage their natural inclination to be either more or less trusting, this Alphabet helps;
manage their attachment wounds, if present, so that the fear of abandonment or abuse is recognized and healed;
cultivate a clear-eyed, robust sense of self so they can wisely discern what level of trust this or that person or situation safely warrants.”

So, what is this feedback system and how come it’s trustworthy anyway?

Here’s what works for me, and increasingly, for my clients.

Our own infallible-once-we-know-how-to-use-it feedback system is ~

Available to us 24/7
Body-centered
Compassionate
Do-able
Effective
Fair
Growth-promoting
Honest
Individualized for our specific journey . . .

(OK – you get the point. I won’t go through the whole alphabet)

Maybe you can discern what it is as I review the ways I approached becoming an upholsterer versus the way I approached staying with Mark?

In the first instance I listened to only one inner voice. I listened exclusively to that Part of me who was absolutely of the opinion that I was, at my core, destined to be a contemplative upholsterer.

I had shut down the opposition. Any Part of me who might have had doubts about the plan was seen as a threat to my desire for certainty and the poster-child of certainty for me then was a life-long-dedication to the craft of upholstery.

But, in that tiny percentage of my attention I was ignoring, there were Parts gnawing at my gut, tightening in my upper back, and whispering in my heart ~

But I hate sewing;
Maybe I want to go back to Grad School;
Will I earn enough;
What if I get lonely?

Too bad for them! My contemplative-hold-tight-to-certainty Part monopolized all the attention in my inner Cabinet, drowning out dissent and shoving aside the President. Until she couldn’t. Until those ignored inner knowings erupted and I could no longer refuse to hear them and I cracked open with frustration, grief, and rage at my inauthenticity.

I was like a President who fills her cabinet with “yes people.” In trusting only one adviser, I was completely oblivious to the larger reality I’d been ignoring.

Enough of the broken chairs already!

With the Mark decision it was the opposite. Within my inner Cabinet I was certainly swayed by my Minister for Spontaneity who argued “Hey, you gotta seize the moment girl..tomorrow you move on. If you don’t spend time with this man now, this moment won’t ever come around again.”

But, this Part had lots of supporters~

This man feels safe and kind, this is a great decision;
His family is European, so it feels familiar;
I like that he has a career already sorted out;
Good job finding a man who sings so wonderfully!
He loves animals too – an excellent sign.

And lots of opposition too ~

What about my volunteer job with VSO in Indonesia – I want to see that through;
I’d be nuts to put my dreams aside for a man;
Do I even want to stay in America?
I’m still grieving the death of my mother, this is no time for love;
Our spirituality is way too different.

But the difference this time was that I welcomed information. I listened to all these Parts. I paid attention not only to my thoughts but to my body, which had plenty to say! I listened to depression, to a spasming back, to knee and ankle injuries, to headaches and to the gnawing in my gut. I worked the issues until I felt I understood what needed to be understood in that moment. I let reality be messy and complex.

Each Part held a piece of the truth. Each part wanted what was best for me, from her perspective. This idea of listening carefully to multiple competing views is hardly new, in psychology or politics. Fellow history enthusiasts might appreciate the analogy to Lincoln’s cabinet, beautifully described in Team of Rivals. Author Doris Kearns Goodwin explains (in an interview for National Archives)

At the same time, Lincoln was facing a Republican Party that was very young and whose members had come from a variety of other parties. They were former Whigs, former Democrats. By putting his rivals in his cabinet, he had access to a wide range of opinions, which he realized would sharpen his own thinking. It also gave him a way of keeping all those conflicting opinions together. If he didn’t have a unified group fighting against the South, the fight would be impossible to sustain. So having all those opinions in his cabinet not only helped him; it helped the country as well.

So, like President Lincoln, when it was time to make a decision, that decision arose from a deeply informed place. My own inner team of rivals was led by my inner President (what I usually call my Self) in a way that considered the views of all the Parts. My Self was curious and compassionate toward all the fears, all the stories, all the desires held by these Parts. My Self understood, for example, both how hard it would be to abandon my VSO position in Indonesia and how hard it would be to walk away from an extraordinary relationship.

Each Part of me, each distinct set of beliefs/fears/desires I held, was welcomed, attended to, appreciated for the specific perspective it brought, and considered or negotiated with. Until I realized that I knew what needed to happen. Until I recognized an upwelling of certainty that came from getting to know all the Parts. And, at some point there was no longer a question. I knew I wanted to be with Mark above everything else. And all the Parts felt good about it.

Don’t trust me on this one folks – try it for yourself!

Next time you need to trust yourself with a decision – whether about a relationship, office politics, a move, an issue with your child or parent – let yourself genuinely tune into all the Parts of you who have something to contribute. View them all as helpful. It’s the Parts of us we shove aside as irrelevant or discordant or irritating, or frightening in their implications, that have the most power to unravel whatever version of “trusting myself” you come up with.

If you want some help here are five suggestions for moving forward

Read more about Parts work and Dr. Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems

Read Jay Earley’s book Self Therapy

Read There’s A Part of Me (or anything else that catches your attention) here:

See the first three articles in this series

Why bother?

Because every relationship is built on trust. So, what Part(s) of you are doing the trusting? Your ability to trust other people will grow to the extent you get to know which Parts of you are showing up as you decide whether or not to trust. Trust is a process. It ought not be given too quickly. So, the more your President (your Self ) learns how to distinguish and listen compassionately to all your inner Parts the greater the chance you will form a clear and informed assessment.

Before you can trust (or re-trust) someone else, you need to learn to trust yourself.

FIRST TIME HERE?

This is the latest article in a year-long series on the “12-most-important-relationship-skills-no-one-ever-taught-me-in-school-but-I-sure-wish-they-had.”

Click the box for the full list. →

If you’re interested in reading this blog in sequence, below are links to the series to date, beginning with the first posting at the top.

OVERVIEW

SKILLS FOR UNDERSTANDING

SKILL ONE ~ Recognize (and get to know) the many “yous.”

SKILL TWO ~ Learn how to be pro-active: choose how y’all show up.

SKILL THREE ~ Accept (and get curious about) other peoples’ complexity

SKILLS FOR CONNECTING

SKILL FOUR ~ Master the Art of Conversation

SKILL FIVE ~ Learn How To Listen With Your Whole Self

SKILL SIX ~ Crack The Empathy Nut

SKILL SEVEN ~ Practice Kindness

SKILL EIGHT ~ Negotiate with a Win-Win Mentality

SKILLS FOR RE-CONNECTING

SKILL NINE ~ Build (or rebuild) trust.

One Small Step Toward Self Compassion

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This one small step

when undertaken consciously

can transform your inner landscape from

the dark and narrow back-streets of anger, criticism, fear and judgment

into a bright and spacious landscape of compassionate curiosity.

What’s to loose, right?

So, please hear me through and give it a go before you decide either that ~

I’m a fruit loop (which just may be true!) or
That this is not for you (which I hope is not true).

Here’s the idea.

Every time you hear your own inner voice of anger, criticism, fear and judgment go off on you with variations of you’re ~

no good
stupid
a failure
cowardly
wrong
lazy
forever doomed to be alone
unlovable
unworthy
fundamentally a looser

Do this ~

Visualize the voice as coming from a small, frightened Part of you cowering in that dark alley. Turn toward this cowering Part, thank it, and let it know you’d like to understand it more fully.

Honestly!

Say, “Well hello! I hear that you’re angry, or worried that I’m no good or stupid or a failure. I know you are telling me this for a reason and I’d like to hear what you have to tell me.”

Even if this Part says this to you often, my guess is you usually do not give it the time of day.

My guess is you turn away from it.

My guess is that you meet your ~

angry Parts with anger
critical Parts with criticism
judgmental Parts with judgment
fearful Parts with fear.

Whatever the initial feeling your Part expresses, instead of listening to it, my guess is you compound it with more of the same.

As Thich Nhat Hanh said:

If we become angry at our anger, we will have two angers at the same time.

So, what to do?

Turn toward this frightened young Part, take it by the hand and lead it out of that narrow, confining, oppressive alley and into a sun-lit meadow. Sit down next to it and invite it to tell you what it needs you to hear. You are there to listen. You are there to listen to understand the concerns, not listen to agree.

The magic?

Once you turn toward your anger, criticism, judgment or fear and invite it to tell you more, you are no longer that Part. You are your Self listening to that Part. YOU have separated from IT.

You have opened up some space between YOU and this PART. Which invites “YOU” into the picture. The “YOU” who is way more than just a small young frightened Part .

This “YOU”, with the spaciousness of the bright meadow, sees so much more of who you are and how you might be actually dealing with whatever the issue was that triggered this young frightened outburst.

Maybe you also see Parts of you are are:

kind
bright
successful
brave
often right
hardworking
a good friend
lovable
worthy
fundamentally OK

These Parts are also YOU.

Here is Thich Nhat Hanh again:

We only have to observe it with love and attention. If we take care
of our anger this way, without trying to run away from it, it will transform itself.

OK that’s it!

Is there more one can do to cultivate Self-Compassion?

Yes – and if you’re interested, I highly recommend you allow Dr. Kristin Neff to be your guide.

But this one small step is key.

This one small step allows you to see the limits of the dark alley-way script which – when confined to the alley – felt like it was the only narrative. This one small step allows you to access so much more of who you are. This one small step allows you to bring compassion, gratitude and perspective to this Part.

And, if you’re interested in hearing more about working with these Parts of you – one place to begin is an earlier blog post, Part of Me Wants

NEXT MONTH?

I’m exploring what it looks like to get your needs met in healthy ways.

FIRST TIME HERE?

This is the latest article in a year-long series on the “12-most-important-relationship-skills-no-one-ever-taught-me-in-school-but-I-sure-wish-they-had.”

Click the box for the full list. →

If you’re interested in reading this blog in sequence, below are links to the series to date, beginning with the first posting at the top.

OVERVIEW

SKILLS FOR UNDERSTANDING

SKILL ONE ~ Recognize (and get to know) the many “yous.”

SKILL TWO ~ Learn how to be pro-active: choose how y’all show up.

SKILL THREE ~ Accept (and get curious about) other peoples’ complexity

SKILLS FOR CONNECTING

SKILL FOUR ~ Master the Art of Conversation

SKILL FIVE ~ Learn How To Listen With Your Whole Self

SKILL SIX ~ Crack The Empathy Nut

SKILL SEVEN ~ Practice Kindness

Kindness Is Key
Cultivating Kindness
Can We Ever Be Too Kind?
Independence, Co-dependence and Interdependence
One Small Step Toward Self-Compassion

Cultivating Kindness

23 Replies

It’s not hard to make the case for kindness.

People are yearning for it.

Personally, it’s the vital glue in my close relationships;
My article Kindness is Key got more “hits” than anything I’ve written for over a year;
Google reports that searches for “kindness quotes” and “acts of kindness” are rising rapidly.

It’s good for us.

The study of positive psychology has gathered persuasive hard evidence about the benefits of qualities like kindness, compassion and happiness, a small sampling of which can be enjoyed (and even studied) at The Positive Psychlopedia;
An Atlantic article is calling kindness and generosity the Masters of Love.

Humans are possibly hardwired for it.

There is mounting data affirming the research question Are Babies Born Good?

Primates do it.

Professor Franz De Waal has been studying emotions in primates, including cooperation, altruism and fairness, for over three decades, touching off a whole field of primate cognition that continues to inspire.
There are fresh new studies of pro-social behavior in primates which continue to reinforce the idea that our close animal relatives instinctively exhibit “altruistic” looking helping behaviors.

So – if kindness is yearned for, good for us, innate at birth and alive and well amongst certain primates, why does it become so hard to come by between people who love one another?

One clue to answering this might lie in the research of David Rand, assistant professor of psychology, economics, and management at Yale University, and the director of Yale University’s Human Cooperation Laboratory

In his paper spontaneous giving and calculated greed Dr. Rand discusses his findings that given a brief decision-making window, people will instinctively choose the pro-social (or kinder) option. But, give them time to think it over and they’ll be more selfish.

So, let’s slow that down.

Our first, innate instincts are pro-social and kind.

But once we get to thinking, we over-ride this instinct.

And we tend to over-ride this instinct a lot with the people we love:

in our long-term relationships where familiarity can breed discontent.

Right there in that pause between stimulus and response when your partner (to continue the examples from last week) ~

Looses the car keys – again
Trumps your punch line and finishes your story – again
Burns the fresh wild Alaskan King Salmon fillets – again
Forgets your birthday – again
Surfs the channels until you’re dizzy – again
Grunts at you over morning coffee – again

and you’re frustrated and disheartened because you’ve tried a thousand different ways to communicate that this behavior drives you nuts,

and right then you quell any instinctual kind response and instead go Hamlet and ask yourself a version of “To be (kind), or not to be (kind)?”

In that moment of thought, your natural kindness instinct is gone – Pooft!

And instead you feel an upsurge of anger and think to yourself,

“How the blazes do I play the kindness card when I’m frustrated and disheartened and my partner is unreasonable and forgetful?”

And in that moment of thought

a huge gulf opens up within you

and your heart divides.

On one side lurks the story you tell yourself about what has happened.

On the other side lies your ability to respond kindly.

As an IFS-trained couples counselor, I think David Rand is onto something important about what happens when we replace instinct with reason.

The moment we stop to think, we open our inner Pandora’s Box. And this box is always very full of opinions and judgments, the belief in which allows us not to feel what we feel. Particularly our thinking protects us from feeling the pain of ~

isolation
vulnerability
unworthiness
unlovability
shame.

See if any of these feel familiar.

THE GOLDEN SCRIPT IS THE ALL TOO FAMILIAR TRIGGERING INCIDENT

The blue script is the thought that interrupts your instinct to be kind
The red script is the feeling you may be trying not to feel.

*** * * * ***

LOST KEYS

My partner’s needs and chaos are interrupting me and my life far too much.
I feel overwhelmed by all the demands on my time.

STOLEN PUNCH LINE

Why does my partner have to steal my thunder all the time?
We get so competitive around others. I feel like I’m not interesting enough.

BURNT FISH

My partner can’t even focus and accomplish one thing for “us” at home.
I feel so alone when we can’t pull off a simple team effort like a meal .

FORGOTTEN BIRTHDAY

I make a big fuss over everyone’s birthday in this family, so why can’t they do the same for me?
I feel invisible, unlovable & too vulnerable to remind folks when my birthday is coming.

CHANNEL SURFING

He’s so twitchy and uncentered. Why can’t he just settle on a program?
I feel ashamed that I waste time like this but can’t find anything more interesting to do for myself.

NO COMMUNICATION OVER MORNING COFFEE

I have to make all the decisions around here – my partner’s non-functional every morning.
I feel so isolated when I can’t connect with my partner before we both leave for work.

So now you’ve got ~

A behavior in your beloved that you once found endearing and met with kindness – you used to help find the keys, and you used to find it reassuring when your beloved knew your stories so well they could finish them

is now immune to your original kindness response – because your story about this behavior interrupts your initial pro-social instinct

and instead your story about this incident triggers your core vulnerabilities – and the accompanying not-so-great-feelings inside of you

and you lash out, tilting at the windmills outside of you, when actually the pain is all internal.

Because your cup is empty. Because you are not happy. Because you have not been kind enough to YOU.

WHAT TO DO?

My new friend and Buddhist teacher Kathleen Rose of the Boise Institute for Buddhist Studies connected me with a wonderful teaching I’d love to share briefly here, with a link to a fuller article.

In the face of inner overwhelm when you are underwhelmed by kindness for yourself or others, remember the RAIN of Self-Compassion. I quote briefly from this article here, or click that title link for the whole piece.

“The acronym RAIN, first coined about 20 years ago by Michele McDonald, is an easy-to-remember tool for practicing mindfulness. It has four steps:

Recognize what is going on;
Allow the experience to be there, just as it is;
Investigate with kindness;
Natural awareness, which comes from Not identifying
with the experience. Or, more simply Non-attachment.”

To cross that enormous gulf of pain that opens up when thinking interrupts your instinct and separates you from your original pro-social drive, you only have to eliminate the story!

You already have everything you need to be kind.

You are an innately kind person who has lost touch with your instinctual ability to be kind because you’re drained. You’ve exhausted yourself by first creating these inner protective beliefs and then by believing these tales you tell.

SO TO CULTIVATE KINDNESS

in yourself and others, the next time someone in your life does what they do that you normally find so irritating, try 3 things:

Recognize anything other than a kind instinct within as a self-diagnosis of inner overwhelm. All is not well if you are separated from your naturally compassionate self.
Remember RAIN of Self-Compassion.
Turn toward this person with a refreshed heart and remember what you used to do that was instinctively kind. You’ll know. If not, simply say “You know, here we are again – with you doing this and me on the verge of reacting. But I’m done reacting negatively. I’m sorry I’ve been so grumpy. I’ve been running on empty but I’m taking better care of myself. What do you need right now?”

See what happens.

I’d love to hear about it!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

FIRST TIME HERE?

This is the latest article in a year-long series on the “12-most-important-relationship-skills-no-one-ever-taught-me-in-school-but-I-sure-wish-they-had.”

Click the box for the full list. →

If you’re interested in reading this blog in sequence, below are links to the series to date, beginning with the first posting at the top.

OVERVIEW

SKILLS FOR UNDERSTANDING

SKILL ONE ~ Recognize (and get to know) the many “yous.”

SKILL TWO ~ Learn how to be pro-active: choose how y’all show up.

SKILL THREE ~ Accept (and get curious about) other peoples’ complexity

SKILLS FOR CONNECTING

SKILL FOUR ~ Master the Art of Conversation

SKILL FIVE ~ Learn How To Listen With Your Whole Self

SKILL SIX ~ Crack The Empathy Nut

SKILL SEVEN ~ Practice Kindness

Kindness Is Key
Cultivating Kindness

Who’s Listening?

30 Replies

Ever considered what an astonishingly powerful tool deep listening really is?

The summer holidays are coming.

David turns to his wife Judith over breakfast and sighs;

“I’m dreading summer this year!”

See if you can hear how Judith responds differently to David depending upon what Part of her is doing the listening. Or, to put it another way, depending upon who Judith is as she listens.

Judith has a Part of her who likes to keep things light and fluffy…a sort of “Don’t rock the boat” Part. This Part says:

“Oh heavens – what are you saying? You love the heat and going to the lake house.”

And, Judith has a Part of herself who is hyper attuned to what-is-fair between her and her partner. This Part senses the balance may be off and from there Judith responds:

“Look whose talking! It’s a pain for me with both kids home all summer, you gone all day, me trying to get work done and no routine!”

And, Judith has a Part who gets easily triggered by guilt and this Part smells a guilt trip coming so she says:

“ OK, OK… we agreed I’d go part-time and have some flexibility to be with the kids in the summer, and now you complain….You love your job, right?”

And Judith has a Part finely honed in response to her high-achieving-but-distant-and-grumpy-Father whose expectations for year-round hard work cast a shadow on Judith’s childhood desires for fun. This Part comes out as a snarky “don’t tell me not to have fun!” teenager so when this Part hears just those 5 words from David she quips:

“You’re just like my father! It drives me nuts when you pour cold water on the kids’ summertime fun. Stop being such a grouch!”

So three questions immediately arise here.

What might Judith’s responses trigger in David?
What did David really mean?
Instead of this, is it possible for people to listen in a way that fosters ~
- understanding and love for oneself?
- understanding and love for others?
- more relationship satisfaction and closeness?

What might Judith’s responses trigger in David?

Since I see variations of this theme in my offices pretty frequently I can tell you how David is most likely to respond.

When someone initiates a conversation with a partner hoping for some solace, and that partner listens only through the narrow prism of his or her needs, fears and ghosts, and responds from those places, the speaker will not feel heard at all.

In fact, they’ll feel ~

dismissed (answer #1)
attacked (answer #2)
manipulated (answer #3)
unreasonably accused (answer #4)

And when a person feels any of these emotions, they are likely to respond with some combination of

frustration
counter attack
anger
defensiveness.

Not helpful – right?

What did David really mean?

Do we know?

All he said was “I’m dreading summer this year!”

Without being curious with David about what he meant, we have no idea what’s going on for him.

How can we ever know what someone really means?

Which brings us to the last question:

Is it possible for people to listen in a way that fosters ~

i) understanding and love for oneself?

Yes yes, self first!

Going back to Judith, she’s not wrong for having being triggered. This is the magic of relationship! Being in this relationship with David allows Judith to discern these Parts of her. They all have a role to play. To grasp this point more fully if “Parts language” is new to you, you might find this post helpful.

The work – for yes, coming to understand and love yourself does take effort – is to cultivate a relationship with these Parts of you so that you can:

a) know what triggers this pattern of feelings, fears and beliefs (what I call a Part of you),

For Judith, can she become aware of situations that get interpreted by this Part of her as “Potential for some upsetting boat-rocking here.” ?

b) understand why this Part is concerned since all Parts are trying to help and protect you;

For Judith, can she hear that this Part is on high alert because it vividly remembers a time she was disobedient as a child and her mother yelled at her saying “Can’t you see how tough things are for me? How dare you rock the boat! Your father and I are at breaking point!” ?

c) listen for the deeper beliefs which fuel this Part’s protective triggers

For Judith, can she allow herself to connect the dots between her belief that emotional instability leads directly to overwhelming pain and chaos and that it’s all her fault? That she has a belief if she does not keep things calm, bad things happen?

d) and might she be interested in releasing these long-held but unhelpful beliefs?

For Judith, can she witness this inner pain and let go of the belief that emotional pain is dangerous and it’s up to her to never let it be expressed?

This is the gift of relationship: it offers opportunities for us to understand, love and unburden (or de-trigger) ourselves.

ii) understanding and love for others

To the extent we allow this gift of relationship to help us understand, love and unburden (or de-trigger) ourselves, we can offer the gift back.

If we can be clear about how we get triggered, and bring compassion to our own inner Parts so we can stay clear, present and untriggered as we listen to those we love, we can help others come to understand, love and unburden (or de-trigger) themselves.

Let’s see what that looks like for Judith and David.

Here’s their “do-over.”

The summer holidays are coming.

David turns to his wife Judith over breakfast and sighs;

“I’m dreading summer this year!”

Judith’s been doing some emotional homework.

She’s immediately aware of a bunch of feelings which bubble up inside of her.

She notices a pang from her “Don’t rock-the-boat Part” which she quickly calms with a warm inner hug and a reminder to this younger Part of her that she is safe in her adult relationship and not vulnerable to her parents’ volatility;

She has a momentary pang from her Part who worries David might be saying he is working harder than her and reassures this Part that she and David check in each week with how each is feeling in their respective worlds and both are mature enough to take responsibility for getting their needs met;

Her guilt-detector runs a quick scan but knows David doesn’t do guilt-trips, and she’s been working to liberate herself from the grips of this bad-boy for a while now;

And that Part who got so triggered by adults preventing kids from having summertime fun also gets a warm inner hug of acknowledgment.

Now Judith feels clear. She is centered in a calm and curious inner space from which she can say, with warmth and genuineness:

“I’m sorry you’re dreading the summer David. Do you want to talk about it? What’s going on for you?”

David might need to test the waters a bit to see if he really does have permission to be curious; to be sure Judith is not going to pounce on him if he is not coming up with what she needs to hear.

“I’m not sure. It’s odd – I usually love the summer but lately I’ve been feeling this sense of gloom and dread. Are you sure you want me to talk about it?”

Judith can reassure him with a compassionate nudge.

“Yes absolutely. Tell me more. You’re right, it’s odd. You do normally love the heat and the lake. What do you think is going on for you?”

Now Judith is listening.

She’s created a deep pool of space, permission, curiosity and compassion for David to explore what is going on for him.

In that place of quiet permission, David can explore.

“Well, now that you ask, I think there’s a mix of issues.

I DO love the summer, and time with you and the kids up at the lake. It’s one of my favorite places. And, I feel good about my work right now. I’m getting ahead and doing well. I guess one of the issues is I feel so pulled. I want to be with you, and yet I’m needed more at work to cover when others are on vacation. And then I feel bad – whichever I choose, I’m letting the other one down. I think that’s what it is.”

What a difference – right?

iii) more relationship satisfaction and closeness?

Need I say more?

When one partner can bring self-awareness and self-compassion to his or her listening, it’s a game changer.

How much more deeply satisfying is an exchange like this, than the Parts-triggered and Parts-led alternative?

Hence my question at the top of the page: “Who’s Listening?”

If you want to build great relationships, do your best to clear the decks and show up with curiosity and compassion. For the both of you.

FIRST TIME HERE?

This is the latest article in a year-long series on the “12-most-important-relationship-skills-no-one-ever-taught-me-in-school-but-I-sure-wish-they-had.”

Click the box for the full list.

If you are interested in reading this blog in sequence, below are links to the series to date, beginning with the first posting at the top.

OVERVIEW

SKILLS FOR UNDERSTANDING

SKILL ONE ~ Recognize (and get to know) the many “yous.”

SKILL TWO ~ Learn how to be pro-active: choose how y’all show up.

SKILL THREE ~ Accept (and get curious about) other peoples’ complexity

SKILLS FOR CONNECTING

SKILL FOUR ~ Master the Art of Conversation

SKILL FIVE ~ Learn How To Listen With Your Whole Self

Listening to Yourself

32 Replies

When you tune into your self talk, who’s doing all the talking?

Seriously.

Who’s in there behind your eyes making all that noise?

Do you ever really tune in and listen to your own inner chatter as if what was going on in there was worth listening to?

And, if and when you do tune-in, do you find you get caught up in the content?

Maybe you hear a belief “You’re a mess!”
Which gets trumped by a judgment “At your age you really ought to have your act together.”
Which is met with a comparison “In fact, look at X. She’s gone and really made something of her life.”
Which elicits a hopelessness “Go on then, just finish the cookies, get yourself into something baggy and just show up and sit at the back.”
Which generates some anger “Damn it – you said you’d have this eating habit fixed after last year’s reunion and here you are again – what is with you?”
Which evokes some pity “Yea well, you’ve had it tough. Not everyone had to deal with everything you went through this last year so lighten up already”
Which engenders some sadness and the “conversation” moves from all this head chatter and suddenly your body feels heavy, deeply exhausted and deflated.

Sure, you can focus on the content, but where does that get you?

You probably get a bit lulled into the status quo of the familiar scripts and figure it’s just how folks talk to themselves. No big deal…nothing to be done.

But what if you could listen to yourself in such a way that you’d:

Recognize and get to know distinct inner Parts of yourself
Understand and appreciate how your Parts drive your behavior
Harness your judgment and criticism of others to transform your relationship with yourself
Release negative beliefs and cultivate self-compassion

Would you be interested?

OK – here’s how.

Recognize and get to know distinct inner Parts of yourself

Going back to the sample self-talk above, a simple shift in how you listen to yourself will deliver dramatically different results.

Instead of focusing on the content alone, note the content but say to yourself:

“I have a Part who . . .

Believes I’m a mess
Judges me for not having my act together
Compares me with others
Notices a hopelessness and just wants me to eat the cookies already
Gets angry that I don’t keep my promises to myself
Feels sorry for me, and reminds me it’s been one hell of a year
Drops into sadness so my whole body feels heavy, deeply exhausted and deflated.

Why?

Because it’s a divide and conquer thing.

If you tune into your inner chatter and back away from the static concluding it’s “just my old familiar monolithic negative self with a touch of self-pity and sadness” you’ll see no reason to grow from this. It’s too big and there’s no entry point.

If however, you decide to listen as if each of these Parts had a message for you, you can get curious and learn from the message.

There are 3 important rules for listening and learning from inner parts though.

All Parts are trying to help. Their message might feel negative as in “You’re a mess”, but the intent behind this could be, “Life’s tough when you’re a mess. I want to keep reminding you of this so you’ll be motivated to be a Not Mess.”
The best attitude to have as you tune in to yourself is CURIOSITY. As soon as you detect something other than curiosity, you’re probably hearing from another Part…you’re not listening with an open heart any more.
It helps to try and find out when this Part took on this message or belief. See if you can be present enough to that Part and his or her message and see what age you were when this Part first started talking to you.

OK – now you’re cultivating a relationship with Parts of you. This is way cool!

Understand and appreciate how your Parts drive your behavior

Building on the work you’ve done in the step above…once you’ve met a Part and come to get a feel for what it’s worried about and how old or young it is, you’ll probably start recognizing it in other areas of your life.

Take the hopeless Part in the above example.

I can relate!

I have a Part who gives up easily. She’s pretty quickly prone to hopelessness and she can drive my behavior if I’m not careful.

In fact, a trip to IKEA can bring her right out.

I stand looking at a wonderful cupboard with shelves and doors.

As soon as I see “Tools and instructions included” my hopeless Part pops right up with ~

“You’ll never make this! You’ll screw the wrong x into the wrong Y, break it and throw a tantrum. Move on!”

What’s just happened?

I’ve let a young hopeless Part drive my decision-making!

But I know this Part now. I can be the one who watches the inner drama unfold. I can love up my young hopeless one and let her know I can call a friend, I can slow down, I’m no longer 8 years old facing an incomprehensible math test (which is where my hopeless one got started). So, she does not have to drive my IKEA purchases any more!

Harness your judgment and criticism of others to transform your relationship with yourself

This is terrific – but it’s a heavy lifter and takes a degree of self-knowledge and a ton of self-compassion.

You tune in and you notice for example, you have a Part who feels super critical toward someone you know. Listen in. What all does this Part say?

In my case, I felt very judgmental about someone I did not know very well. Here’s the gist

She’s so uptight
She won’t let me get close to her
She’s not doing any of her own emotional homework
And so on.

OK now the heavy lifting.

I looked at one judgment at a time and asked myself ~

To what extent do I get uptight?
To what extent do I not let people get close to me?
To what extent do I avoid my own emotional homework?

WOW!

If you let yourself sit with the enormity of how this “You spot it you got it” paradox, a powerful self-awareness and self/other compassion can burst through. Now those very people we most dislike can become helpful mirrors toward our own emotional and spiritual development.

Release negative beliefs and cultivate self-compassion

The key to all this inner listening is that with the recognition and witnessing can blossom loving self-acceptance.

These steps build one upon the other.

First, you simply listen for Parts,
Then, appreciate how they are powerful enough to drive behavior
And also insightful enough to prod our journey of self-development
So, we can get to the place were we can maybe invite some Parts to let go of negative beliefs and behaviors.

Have a go.

If this is working for you, I’m thrilled, and would love to hear about it.

If you get bogged down or stuck, that’s a good time for a little help. IFS therapists are particularly ready and equipped to help you.

OK – until next week.

FIRST TIME HERE? This is the latest article in a year-long series on the “12-most-important-relationship-skills-no-one-ever-taught-me-in-school-but-I-sure-wish-they-had.

Click the box for the full list. →

If you are interested in reading this blog in sequence, below are links to the series to date, beginning with the first posting at the top.

OVERVIEW

SKILLS FOR UNDERSTANDING

SKILL ONE ~ Recognize (and get to know) the many “yous.”

SKILL TWO ~ Learn how to be pro-active: choose how y’all show up.

SKILL THREE ~ Accept (and get curious about) other peoples’ complexity

SKILLS FOR CONNECTING

SKILL FOUR ~ Master the Art of Conversation

SKILL FIVE ~ Learn How To Listen With Your Whole Self

5 Ways To Be A Better Listener

Self Leadership

43 Replies

You’re poised, hand on the doorknob, about to enter a challenging situation.

Inside are people whose words, deeds, whispers and decisions will impact you.

Your heart’s racing, your head’s throbbing, your jaw is clenched, your shoulders tense. Your face is a shifting map of anxiety.

Right then, do you wish you’d made time for some emotional preparedness, or are you fine with that same old charge-in-and-deal-with-the consequences mode?

Some of us go through our whole lives charging about and dealing with the emotional fall-out. But sometimes, after one emotional blitzkrieg too many, it occurs to us that maybe there’s another way.

We left Holly right here last week as she was about to attend a niece’s birthday. There, at yet another family gathering with her four married siblings and their flock of offspring, she would typically experience herself as being pitied and gossiped about. All traces of her strong, professional and capable self would be replaced by a self-doubting, fumbling and emotionally labile alter-ego. It could have felt, yet again, like a no-win situation.

This time however, things were very different.

Holly had had enough of the cross-her-fingers-drink-too-much-and-hope-things-won’t-be-too-awful approach to relationships with her family.

She’d recognized how she could be strong-yet-compassionate in most places, yet weak and whiny around her family. Hummm… so there was more than one version of herself.
She’d seen how these weak and whiny Parts of her seemed to show up in familiar ways, and how she’d behave as if she was being run by a much younger vulnerable and reckless version of herself.
She’d learned how to notice these shifts – to be both the one with the emotions and the one noticing herself emoting.
And she’d had some experiences lately where she was able to notice the younger, emotional Parts of herself and interview them as if they were separate people. She could attend to those Parts and find out what they believed and feared.
And, most important for today’s post, she’d learned how to bring compassionate leadership to these inner Parts.

She’d started down the life-long path toward Self-leadership.

************

We left off last week wondering about Self-leadership.

SELF ~ I described Self as that which remains once all the chatter of your inner Parts quiets down.

If you meditate, this might be a familiar concept.

Meditation, like encountering your Self, brings perspective and freedom. The moment you notice your mind as it thinks, chatters, forms and shares opinions, fosters fears and tells tales – then you are not your mind. You are your mind + an observer. So, who is the observer?

“You” – some separate “You” – is noticing the drama, which means that you are not the drama.

There are loads of advantages to spending time connecting to this centered place (here are 20-scientific-reasons-to-start-meditating)

But inviting this centered “You” to be a Leader for your inner world expands upon the benefits of normal meditating in an astonishingly helpful way.

The WHAT ~ SELF-LEADERSHIP describes a state where your inner, loving, wise Self brings a healing combination of genuine curiosity and loving compassion to all your inner Parts such that they can tell their story, feel heard, release their extreme positions and let go of untrue limiting beliefs so they can trust You, your Self, to lead the way. It really is a leadership thing.

Huh?

I’ll break this down using Holly’s situation. (See here is you missed meeting Holly last week).

Remember, Holly is already practicing 4 important things:

She recognizes there’s not just one Holly; that she has a variety of inner Parts;
She notices how these Parts interact and have a purposeful relationship with one another;
She is so aware of her rich inner family of Parts that she can actually speak FOR these different Parts; e.g., “Part of me is dreading this family gathering, as usual. But another Part’s excited to try something different.”
And, she is finally coming to believe she doesn’t have to be a victim of her moods and frightened young Parts. She is ready to cultivate ~

The HOW ~ SELF-LEADERSHIP

To teach something, I think it helps to break it into clear steps. However, over time this way of bringing your full compassionate Self into any given moment can happen instantly.

Know too that initially it helps to put some time and effort into this sort of self-reflection, before you encounter a tough situation. Holly chose to work with me for a few sessions to make sure she was on the right path. But this work can be done alone – which is why I am excited to share it with you here.

Here’s the process ~

1. ROLL CALL ~ Identify the Parts who might get triggered by a specific event.*

It helps to get an image in your mind’s eye and treat each Part as an intact person, with feelings and needs. Here are the five Parts Holly identified.

Her inner recluse
Her no-nonsense task-master
Her vulnerable, not-good-enough-because-I’m-not-married
Her devil-may-care
Her yearning-to-connect

* This can be hard so don’t beat yourself up if you are only aware of 1 or 2 Parts of you. If you are interested in getting better at this visit here for an IFS therapist in your area. A couple of sessions with a professional who is trained in helping you discover these Parts can make a big difference. Or drop me a line (gemma@gemmautting.com) and I’ll give you some pointers.

2. CHECK-IN ~ One at a time, check in with each Part.

Keep it simple. Just ask ~

What are you afraid will happen?
What do you need from me to make sure that doesn’t happen?

Here’s Holly and her Recluse demonstrating.

Holly So I hear you’re worried about an upcoming family birthday. I’d love to know what you’re worried about.

Recluse I’m worried it’s going to be so noisy and chaotic and I’ll feel trapped in there with everyone thinking I’m going to freak out!

Holly Yes, I know that feeling and it sucks! What do you need this time to feel less trapped?

Recluse Well, I guess I’d feel better if I could give myself permission to take a break when things get too loud. Maybe I could just let Sally know I’m going to take the dog around the block for 20 minutes, which might help a lot.

3. MAKE A PLAN ~ Take each fear seriously, and make a plan.

Stay compassionate with all these Parts of yourself. Chances are they are young and they need you to take their concerns seriously. Imagine a little fellow in his footie PJs is frightened the under-the-bed monster is back. He just needs you to take a peek and let him know if it’s all clear. Then he can feel safe. Would you do that for him? Same difference here.

Does this seem too simple?

Here’s what is going under this simple façade ~

1. You’ve gathered great data. By focusing not only on what’s “out there” in the external world of people, you’ve also focused “in here”, on your internal family of Parts.

2. You’ve taken stock, assessed potential dangers and identified potential allies. You’re forewarned.

3. You’ve taken charge. When you feel a situation is heading south (which you can do easily now since you’re in communication with those Parts of you on the emotional front lines) you are in a position to check-in with all the Parts who are triggered; weigh their possibly conflicting needs; review the pre-planned solutions; make a decision and lead your inner family of Parts in a way that is as good as possible for the all of you.

Remember how it was before you knew this stuff?

Remember that doorknob?

You were poised, about to enter a challenging situation. Inside were people whose words, deeds, whispers and decisions would impact you.

Your heart was racing, your head throbbing, your jaw clenched, your shoulders tense. Your face was a shifting map of anxiety.

You had no control over anything. Talk about a vulnerable place to be!

And, now that you have some skills?

Same challenging situation behind those doors.

Same possibility that the words, deeds, whispers and decisions of the people inside might impact you.

But this time, you’re not alone.

You’ve invited your wise Self along.

Your younger Parts have been encouraged to share their concerns. They feel much less anxious now they’ve been heard.

You’ve got a plan.

Your Self has your back.

That’s Self Leadership.

FIRST TIME HERE?

This is the seventh article in a year-long series about the “12-most-important-relationship-skills-no-one-ever-taught-me-in-school-but-I-sure-wish-they-did.”

Click the box for the full list → → →

If you are interested in reading this blog in sequence, here are links to previous articles, with #1 being the first and #6 the article before this.

Join me for the whole series. You can sign up at the top of this page, on the right.

NEXT WEEK?

My friend Hannah and I love to swap good quotes. One of her favorites is from Eeyore, who comments to Pooh one day

“Not all of us can. And some of us don’t.”

That is of course true for lots of things, including this sort of inner work. Sometimes, try as we might, we can’t bring our Self to have enough authority to lead our pack of inner Parts.

Try as we might, we get triggered by things our partner, boss, child, in-laws or friends say to us. Next week I’m gong to talk about what you can do then, when you feel you’ll be forever held hostage by your highly emotional Parts. Because, I suppose, the opposite of Eeyore’s statement would be ~

“Not all of us can’t, and some of us do.”

WANT MORE?

The Brain’s Ability to Look Within: A Secret to Self-Mastery

The author makes a great case for the benefits of tuning into our inner selves.

Happy Families?

44 Replies

Imagine your family is oblivious to your feelings and needs, but still demands your loyalty, presence and engagement with family events. The “Lady Edith” dilemma. This is also Holly’s (whom you’ll meet in a minute) predicament.

Is there anything either of them can do to improve this situation?

Maybe this isn’t your problem, but perhaps you have other relationships which leave you feeling bruised, frustrated and yearning to change?

Welcome! This is a place to explore what it means to cultivate great relationships with partners, family, friends, kids, neighbors, work mates. With people you love deeply, and with people you’re tempted to dislike, or even write off.

In January I made the case that step one in creating great relationships is to get to know yourself in a whole new way. In brief:

Recognize there’s not just one “you”. Notice how different people elicit a different version of you. We have distinct inner Parts. See here.
Your Parts exist in relationship to one another. Tune into your inner chatter and you’ll hear one Part persuading, critiquing, judging, dismissing, ignoring or protecting another Part. See here.
This is not random. Your Parts each behave purposefully in one of three ways: to proactively manage your day to day, to exile your deepest vulnerabilities or to dowse your inner pain when it is triggered. See here.

This month I’m exploring how – in the midst of this community of Parts – we can become proactive and choose how we show up.

************

Meet Holly (with the tough family). Her story is an amalgam of several prior client situations. She’d love to improve her relationship with her family and we meet her now as she anticipates attending a family birthday.

Holly’s one of five kids and the only one not yet popping out the grand-babies for her folks who have morphed from stern, judgmental, distant parents into indulgent and fawning grandparents.

It’s yet another birthday for a niece or nephew, and Holly’s been summoned to attend since, as her mother says every year and for every birthday “How could you miss! Don’t you want to celebrate with your family?”

Holly is already familiar with her variety of Parts who get triggered by these events:

Her inner recluse starts screaming and a feeling of suffocation begins to overwhelm her at the thought of the noise and chaos that happens when 20 people gather to eat sugar and offer too many gifts to a small child;

Her no-nonsense task-master starts trying to plan how to entertain the younger kids so there will be some planned cohesion to the afternoon’s chaos;

Her vulnerable, not-good-enough-because-I’m-not-married Part swoops in and she finds herself alternately sobbing and raging at her parents’ agenda for her in the days leading up to the event;

Her devil-may-care Part makes sure she brings several additional bottles of Prosecco so she can always pour another glass when the going gets too tough;

And her yearning-to-connect Part braces for the disappointment that usually follows when Holly tries to have a meaningful conversation with her favorite sister Sally at family gatherings.

Holly has done some terrific emotional homework.

She’s discovered her ~

Managers – the recluse & her no-nonsense-Parts

Exiles – her vulnerable-not-good-enough-because-I’m-not-married, & yearning-to-connect Parts

Firefighters – her devil-may-care Part

(see this Post if you are not familiar with these terms)

And she knows how these Parts tag-team to keep her functioning at these family events. Her Managers keep her alternately seeming like a one-woman island unto herself, or chivvying everyone like a kindergarten teacher, both of which are acceptable to her family and serve to minimize her need to connect at any meaningful level with them. Alternating aloof with busy has the added advantage of minimizing her exiled emotional pain which is easily triggered by her family’s judgment and distance. And, as soon as the pain is tapped into, it’s “fire-fighters-to-the-rescue” and somehow her glass is constantly re-filled with the highly effective “lets-numb-out-on-booze” response.

But she wants to do this differently. These behaviors only reinforce her family’s dim view of her mental stability and life choices. She wishes she could be with them as she is in other contexts, where she experiences herself as strong, interesting and capable.

Holly knows no one in the family (with the possible exception of Sally) has the desire or ability to change how they all relate, so it’s up to her.

With me, as well as working to understand the variety of ways she shows up and how they can trip her up, Holly is also learning to speak FOR her Parts, not FROM them. This means (with reference to the upcoming birthday party) that rather than act out her feelings of frustration with her family by huffing, sighing, rolling her eyes and snapping at them, she can say (even if only to herself to start with) “You know, Part of me gets frustrated by these high-stress family gatherings, but there’s also a Part of me who’s happy to be invited and wants to continue to try and connect with my siblings.” See here to learn more about this idea.

So – what should Holly do?

Below are 4 options for Holly. You choose ~

_____a. Cross her fingers and just go.

Pros: no effort needed in prior planning and you never know! The family might be attentive, kind and finally interested in her life; the kids might be calm and the cake tasty.
Cons: This never happens! Last birthday ended up with her leaving early, drunk, and in tears after screaming at Sally.

_____b. Decline the invitation and avoid the whole thing.

Pros: She would not get hurt that day.
Cons: She’d pay for it for years to come in guilt trips from the family.

_____c. Just pick one Part and stick with it. Right now she’s totally blended with the imagined security of her no-nonsense Part. That’s the one!

Pros: If she could do this, it might work. She’d organize the smaller relatives, stay busy, avoid talking with anyone else, and leave early.
Cons: Zero buy-in from the other Parts pretty much guarantees that they’ll show up. And then we’re back to option a.

_____d. Practice some pre-emptive self-leadership so she is aware of her inner dynamics and can trust her Self to finesse whatever happens.

Pros: Knowing she can keep her Parts attended to, Holly is free to enjoy the Party. She can risk having conversations with family members because even if they can’t control how they are with her, she can handle what is going on for her. As she masters her ability to be compassionate and present with her internal community of Parts, she notices she is able to feel acceptance and compassion toward her external community of people.
Cons: Getting to this stage takes a strong desire, a willingness to be honest, and a level of compassion toward oneself that takes time to cultivate.

OK – if Holly’s goal is to improve her relationships with her family, which of the above scenarios would you pick for her?

Most folks choose options a, b or c and those are good if your goal is to simply cope, or get through something. But improving things takes a different approach.

If Holly is committed to improving her relationships, then it’s up to her to BE someone else, and DO something different, which makes (d) a compelling option.

What’s this pre-emptive self-leadership Holly needs before she can enjoy herself at the party?

Self-leadership describes a state where your best self, or maybe your true self, becomes the wise, loving adult to all your younger inner Parts.

This true Self (which I’ll now refer to as Self) is the you which remains once all the chatter of your inner Parts quiets down.

Self is present when your heart melts into compassion for these young Parts, instead of the usual judgment, criticism, and impatience.

You’ve met this Self before.

It’s the still point at your center when you meditate.

It’s where music and art can take you.

Or the particular beauty of earth ~

Or the vast, unknowable majesty of space ~

Self is the still-point amidst all the hubbub.

NEXT WEEK

Discover how to connect to your Self, and learn how to bring this Self into a loving relationship with your Parts. This is the key to that pre-emptive Self-Leadership Holly will need (we all need) if we are to connect deeply with others. And it begins when we connect with our Self.

FIRST TIME HERE?

This is the sixth article in a year-long series about the “12-most-important-relationship-skills-no-one-ever-taught-me-in-school-but-I-sure-wish-they-did.”

Click the box for the full list → → →

If you are interested in reading this blog in sequence, here are links to previous articles, with #1 being the first and #5 the article before this.

Join me for the whole series. You can sign up at the top of this page, on the right.

Report The News – Don’t Act It Out

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Welcome!

This is the fifth article in a year-long series about the “12-most-important-relationship-skills-no-one-ever-taught-me-in-school-but-I-sure-wish-they-did.”

Click the box for the full list → → →

January’s tip was to Recognize (and get to know) the many “yous.”

See January 7th, 14^th, 21^st & 28^th).

The next important skill I wish I’d learned builds upon these ideas: I wish I’d learned how to be pro-active and choose how I show up in my relationships.

Put another way, who is really in charge of all these inner parts? Do they duke it out and the Part with the meanest emotions gets to win? It can certainly feel like that. What happens when I swear up and down I’m going to be ~

A calm good listener when my teenager has a melt down – but I end up screaming too;
Trusting as my spouse goes through job interviews – but I end up offering advice and we fight;
Open to feedback at my annual review – but I’m defensive and whiny;
Patient with my aged parents – but frustration totally takes over.

Not that I’m comparing or anything, but it seems to me that some folks can actually stay on script. If they decide to be good listeners, or trusting or open minded or patient – astonishingly they are. They have “a decider” and they listen to him or her.

They seem to have some on-board leadership.

This month I’ll help you discover and strengthen your own self-leadership.

************

WHAT DOES SELF-LEADERSHIP LOOK LIKE?

Being self-led is in the same area of self-mastery as ~

self-control
being conscious
having the lights on in the attic
being awake
being enlightened.

They are big ideas and can seem too grand or unattainable.

But, when you bite off one small ability at a time, this is a very do-able skill. Brings to mind my motto for this year which is on my favorite mug .The goal (or “aim” since this is not a goal-oriented journey) of self-leadership is that you become increasingly aware of what you ~

Feel
Think
Believe
Say
Do

This idea underpins every self-improvement journey – emotional, cognitive, spiritual, narrative & behavioral – that you undertake. What we are looking for here is a way to take a meta position in our day to day experience. This means we are able to cultivate a little distance between the ~

one who feels, and the one who notices that you have certain feelings
one who thinks, and the one who notices that you have certain thoughts
one who believes, and the one who notices that you have certain beliefs
one who speaks, and the one who notices that you are saying certain things
one who acts, and the one who notices that you are acting in a certain way.

Do you see it?

You are already more than one person. You are the one feeling, thinking, believing, speaking and acting, as well as the one who notices your self doing all of this.

Of all the 12 relationship skills I’m exploring this year, getting your heart and mind around this one point will probably pay the biggest dividends.

The best metaphor I can come up with today is . . . the weather report.

Yup – the weather report on TV. It’s not meant to be entertaining. It’s meant to give you useful news-you-can-use as you go about your day. It’s usually delivered in a similar format you come to count on, and it’s not too hyped up or prone to exaggeration.

Here’s one from the BBC describing the weather expected on June 12, 2011. You don’t need to watch much to get the idea. The reporter calmly observes what is happening and what might soon be happening. There’s not too much drama and this allows you to take it all in.

Now watch the one below and notice the difference.

The second one is goofy and fun, I know. But here’s how to use this contrast to think about the first step in becoming more conscious about your own emotional, Parts-driven process.

There is a BIG difference between reporting the weather with some perspective of the big picture, and reporting the weather by acting out each possible meteorological event. The first method gives a reassuring sense that the BBC and its reporters will prevail – no matter what the weather. The second one has us feeling buffeted and concerned that the studios themselves will be knocked off-kilter by the storms they are reporting on.

Same for how you report on your inner Parts. If you can cultivate that bit of distance from their emotional content, and report on them from a distance, the listener will have the sense that there is someone in charge. But if you get pulled into any particular Parts storm (screaming, crying, arguing, playing victim, etc) the listener gets buffeted about and will be reacting to just that Part. Instead, you want them to be in relationship to you. The all of you. When that one who notices does the reporting, he or she can see the big picture and take the lead.

Here is what it looks like to report FOR your Parts versus FROM your Parts.

A) FOR YOUR PARTS – “You know, Part of me feels a bit skeptical about this explanation and another Part is frustrated since finding just the right metaphor is tough. But I gotta tell you this is playful and fun and there are Parts of me really hoping you like this.”

Versus

B) FROM YOUR PARTS – “You might hate this and I’m having a really hard time figuring out how to describe my main point. But I really hope you like it.”

What do you notice about your reaction to these two ways I’ve just communicated with you?

What I notice is that when I speak FOR my parts (example A), I am able to hold my ideas and agenda more lightly. I’m able to see which Parts of me are showing up. Noticing and reporting lets me slow things down. And as I name the Parts I don’t feel so overtaken by them. In fact, just the act of reporting on them give me some perspective and distance.

When I speak FROM my parts, I feel less resourceful, more wedded to an agenda (that you like my work) and somehow I feel more needy. Like my happiness is dependent upon your response to me. Yuk!

OK, let’s go back to the 4 examples at the start of this bog written in blue type. These are examples of how I want to behave in one way, but end up behaving quite differently. Here’s how these situations could be transformed by this one skill: The skill of Reporting FOR instead of speaking FROM your Parts.

READY?

You want to be ~

1) A calm good listener when your teenager has a melt down, but you end up screaming too;

Think S.O.S.
STOP and take a deep breath.
OBSERVE your impulses. What Parts are up?
SPEAK UP Report on your inner Parts situation, like the weather person does.

e.g.; “Oh boy Molly. When you end up screaming at me, Part of me wants to scream right back at you. I’m a whole mix of emotions. Part is just plain mad for sure. But Part of me is frightened – I always worry when you are out in the car late. Part of me is disappointed since I thought we’d been through this last week and made a plan. And Part of me totally empathizes with you. I did things like this when I was your age.”

2) Trusting, as your spouse goes through job interviews, but you end up offering advice and having a fight;

Think S.O.S.
STOP and take a deep breath.
OBSERVE your impulses. What Parts are up?
SPEAK UP Report on your inner Parts situation, like the weather person does.

e.g., “You know Bill, when you tell me about your interviews I have all these mixed responses. Part of me wants to help by giving advice but I know that bugs you and makes you think I don’t trust you. Part of me feels so proud of you – that you keep on going even after several rejections. Part of me wants to rescue you and say to give up – it’s too hard! What do you need from me right now?”

For the above examples, you could give your Parts report out loud.

These next two are more subtle because you’ll be better off giving yourself your own inner Parts Report before you say anything. You want to be ~

3) Open to feedback in your annual review – but you are defensive and whiny

Think S.O.S.
STOP and take a deep breath.
OBSERVE your impulses. What Parts are up?
SPEAK UP Report to yourself on what is happening for you.

e.g., “Humm I can feel my cheeks reddening and I’m mad this guy hasn’t noticed all the great things I’ve done. I want to defend myself but don’t want to come off as defensive and whiny. Let me think of what to say that keeps me respectful but powerful.”

4) Patient with your aged parents – but frustration totally takes over.

Think S.O.S.
STOP and take a deep breath.
OBSERVE your impulses. What Parts are up?
SPEAK UP Report to yourself on what is happening for you.

e.g., “Ok deep breath time. I know Dad is lonesome and loves to tell his tales. But I’ve heard that story what — 1,000 times now? Part of me is about to hit the walls and another Part wants to interrupt and head him off at the pass. Can I think of a story that I might actually enjoy hearing again?”

WANT TO TRY SOMETHING?

See if you can report on your inner Parts – like the BBC reporter. You can try saying what you notice out loud to someone “You know, Part of me wants to go to that movie with you, and Part of me really wants to stay home with a good book.”

NEXT

Once you know how to notice and report on your inner Parts activity, you’ll be ready to know how to make decisions, based upon this information. Like the “go-to-movie-or-stay-home” dilemma above. Now you notice the varying points of view, how does your decider decide?

HINT – it has a great deal to do with the wisdom of your inner “one who notices.”

FEATURED IMAGE

Prince Charles reading the Scottish weather forecast on the BBC, back on May 10th 2012.

The Purpose-Driven Life . . .

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. . . OF OUR PARTS.

Welcome!

This is the fourth article in a year-long series about the “12-most-important-relationship-skills-no-one-ever-taught-me-in-school-but-I-sure-wish-they-did.”

Click the box for the full list → → →

January’s tip I’m guessing no one taught you in school is the idea that there’s not just one you. And in fact it really helps to recognize (and get to know) the many “yous.”

So far I’ve presented 2 of the 3 main ideas ~

Each of us has a variety of ways of showing up. We have distinct inner Parts. See this post;
Parts exist in relationship to one another. Tune into your inner chatter and you’ll hear one Part persuading or critiquing or judging or dismissing or ignoring or protecting another Part. See here:

This week?

3. How and Why do our Parts relate?

Plus ~

How on earth does any of this help my relationships?
And, who’s really in charge of all these Parts?

************

HOW AND WHY DO OUR PARTS RELATE?

It can feel random when we first tune into our inner chatter and hear loads of contradictory messages, but each Part is absolutely acting purposefully, and when we come to see what their purpose is, everything shifts.

In any given moment our Parts are relating to one another, brokering how we show up. When things are going along reasonably well and there’s not too much external stress we can show up with access to our good feelings and (we hope) with the lid tightly shut on our bad feelings. Most of us walk a fine line between happiness and despair, or between confidence and embarrassment. We never know if something will trigger all those nasty feelings we’ve shoved away deep within, under the carpet of our inner basements.

Indeed, the purpose of our Parts has as much to do with managing our pain & shame as it does with the pursuit of happiness.

I’m going to paraphrase a bit here from Richard Schwartz (the founder IFS), and you’ll find much more about this in his book Internal Family Systems. We manage or inner system by organizing our Parts into three groups.
MANAGERS – This group’s purpose is to be highly protective, strategic, and interested in controlling the environment to keep things safe. When things go well, these are the Parts we become most familiar with as important aspects of our personality. These are the “front men & women” who manage how we go through our days – learning, growing, adapting, relating and scanning for danger. Freud would call these parts our Ego. Our managers can be balanced and kind, or forced by context and circumstances to be strict bullies within us.

EXILES – These are our shadow sides, exiled out of consciousness and out of the public eye because they’ve been tasked with holding onto (and burying deeply away) our pain, trauma, ugly beliefs, shame, unlovability, unworthiness, and not-good-enough-ness. Their purpose is to protect us from experiencing the emotional pain that has been inflicted upon us. When perfect little babies are born into an imperfect world, Exiles exist. Some of us have so much pain and suffering these highly vulnerable Parts can’t stay locked away and the person finds they have to relate to the world from a place of shame – which, paradoxically can be liberating and freeing (think AA meetings which begin with acknowledging something which, when hidden, we are ashamed of, but when shared, can be healed: “Hello, my name is X and I’m’ an alcoholic.”

FIREFIGHTERS – This third group behaves like, well, firefighters! They are our first responders when there’s danger that an exile’s pain might be coming up. Their job is to react powerfully and automatically to stifle or sooth our shadow feelings. So – if we’re jilted by a lover and it triggers our deeply exiled sense of “not good-enough-ness” that we took on from critical or abusive parents, our firefighters step in and douse the feeling with highly distracting and often very damaging and extreme alternative behaviors – like over drinking, over eating, obliterating the conscious mind with drugs, accessing blind rage, disassociating and more.

OK – you’ve got the 3 main ideas for January and the first of ~

My Top 12 Relationship Skills

#1 Recognize (and get to know) the many “yous.”

Each of us has a variety of ways of showing up. We have distinct inner Parts. See this post;
Parts exist in relationship to one another. Tune into your inner chatter and you’ll hear one Part persuading or critiquing or judging or dismissing or ignoring or protecting another Part. See here:
This is not random. Our Parts each behave purposefully in one of three ways: to proactively manage our day to day, to exile our deepest vulnerabilities or to dowse our inner pain when it is triggered.

Want to play with this?

Watch movies and see if you can distinguish what parts are coming up for the characters. Here’s a fun one for you to get started. Below is a scene from Woody Allen’s movie Blue Jasmine. It’s the story of a wealthy financier’s wife who tumbles down through the social strata as she looses touch with reality (inner and outer) as her anger, shame and drinking increasingly unhinge her.

In this scene, you may be able to detect her ~

MANAGERS – struggling to proactively maintain appearances with dignified work and options;
EXILES – the bursts of shame and unworthiness that pop out
FIREFIGHTERS – look for the background drinking and struggle to manage the shame

HOW DOES KNOWING THIS HELP MY RELATIONSHIPS?

I’m answering this first of all with the wonderful Brene Brown quote at the top of this article:

If you think dealing with issues like worthiness and authenticity and vulnerability are not worthwhile because there are more pressing issues, like the bottom line or attendance or standardized test scores, you are sadly, sadly mistaken. It underpins everything.

Until you become aware of the rich complexity of your own inner system it’s as if you’re flying blind in the dark, with no instruments.

As long as you are not hitting another plane and you’re not being buffeted too violently, you can get away with blind flight. But as soon as you hit turbulence and your wings tip, or you go into a spin, or you want to avoid what might be an obstacle ahead and you start randomly punching at buttons on your instrument panel, your progress, your impact, your position and your recovery are totally random!

If you want to be a competent pilot in all weather conditions, you need to learn everything you can about your airplane. What are all the moving parts of your airplane, how do they interact and which instruments communicate with them and how. What are the emergency safety features and do any parts need to be repaired or updated?

If you want to be competent in relationships through good times and bad, you need to learn everything you can about your self. What are all your moving Parts? How do they interact and how do you impact their behavior? What are the emergency safety features and do any parts need to be repaired or updated?

Hope that metaphor works for you. We’ll keep exploring and deepening this answer .

WHO IS REALLY IN CHARGE OF ALL THESE PARTS, WHERE’S THE LEADERSHIP?

Great question. Come back in February when I’ll be exploring this issue each Wednesday.

WANT TO TRY SOMETHING?

If you’ve not encountered Brene Brown and her work on Shame, you might enjoy either of these two TED talks she gave:

1. The Power of Vulnerability

2. Listening To Shame

PHOTO CREDITS

The MANAGER image is Meryl Streep playing Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada.
The EXILE image is of Golum, from The Lord of The Rings
The FIREFIGHTER image is from Wikipedia