Some of us have pretty deep pain but even we are more than our wounds.
There is simply more there, most notably our deeper capacities.
And when our deepest capacities, like for care and compassion, can touch our deepest
pains, profound healing occurs.
This is why there is always reason for hope.
Now in the last video we talked about the science behind what we might think of as our
wounded parts or hurt inner child.
We talked about how only when these wounded places are willing to not flood us but rather
step back and allow us to connect, how that opens the doorway for tremendous change and
healing.
Why?
Because when our adult self is finally present with the child states that live inside us
or the places that are most scared and hurt, a deep security and safety is fostered.
If you're familiar with attachment theory, you can think of this moment as attachment
taken inward, at least that is the way it is described by Dick Schwartz who developed a
form of therapy called IFS, which this series is all about.
The ultimate mission of IFS or Internal Family Systems is to pave the way for this inner
relationship between what IFS would call our "big S self" and our exile.
But you also might think of it as our adult self or a child self so that one can heal
the other.
That is the deepest and most profound moment in the whole therapeutic journey and it is
what this video is about.
Now interestingly, the most difficult work we can do is not what I'm about to describe,
where our deepest love is given to the part of us that most deeply needs it.
That part is actually easy and natural.
The hard work comes in setting up that moment to occur.
And the process of paving the way for that moment is really what the last two videos
were about.
Those two videos covered the two major ways this healing relationship can be blocked.
In other words, two ways we can be blended, and how to deal with those blocks.
And to just pull it all together for a second let me summarize it again in one image.
Basically, when we are psychologically suffering or stuck, we can exist in either one of two
sort of stuck places.
Either the exile or our pain is too far away, because we're overcome with a protector part
or our defense that is not allowing us to observe it at all, or it is too close, in
other words, our exile or wound is taking up all the inner space.
And what we need for healing is for our pain to be situated about here.
Not so far away that we can't support it or know it and not so close that it is overwhelming
all our capacities.
Incidentally, all experiential therapies, including just mindfulness in general, is
about establishing this distance, this position, which is a stance of true relationship where
healing can happen.
In the last video we talked about this motion, how to lovingly ask our wounded places to
step back and let us breathe so we can effectively be with them and in the video before we talked
about how to move from here to here more awareness of our exile.
Now the point of this video is how to help our heart to heal.
So I just want to pull all the things we've talked about so far because they're part of
this whole picture and while there are moments like the one we described in the last video,
where you need to pivot from feeling overwhelmed, so it's coming from here to here so we can
actually support our places and their pain, more often than not, the shift that needs
to happen to step into healing is from here to here.
In other words, most of the time we're in our defenses or blended with our protectors.
So if you are wanting to heal your old wounds, the most likely place to start is to suss
out your protectors by noticing your neurotic or less than ideal behaviors, like criticizing
yourself internally for instance.
Start with that, assume it's a protector and begin the steps of unblending from a protector.
After you spent some time connecting with that protector, ask it what it fears would
happen if it stopped criticizing you, for instance.
Once you've really listened to its fears, you can then ask "who are you protecting?"
And in all likelihood it will show you.
Now the defense or protector may not in that moment be willing to step aside, to allow
you to actually bring the exile or the pain into focus.
So what do you do then?
Ask more deeply about its fears.
Ask what it fears would happen if you were allowed to speak to the exile and then address
those fears.
Make a plan.
For instance, if the protector says "oh no, if I let you feel that pain we will become
flooded and overwhelmed."
Then tell it, "okay look, the exile just wants to be seen.
Would you allow me to get an agreement with the wounded part not to flood us?"
I'll explain to it that "if it takes over then I, the loving adult, disappears and I'd
like to actually be present in order to support it.
If I'm able to get its agreement ahead of time not to flood us, then will you back off
just a bit and allow me to step up and be with the exile?"
Now I use that as an example because in IFS that agreement is actually made all the time
because the fear of being overwhelmed is so common and amazingly when an exiled part makes
that agreement, it keeps it.
That's why there's so little need for breathing and grounding and emotional regulation
work in IFS because it's kind of baked into the dynamics of what is unfolding.
Which by the way, makes IFS a very gentle and non-threatening process.
Why?
Because we aren't pushing past any of our defenses.
We are slowing down and really hearing out their fears.
We're negotiating and listening and only moving forward when our defenses or protectors are
ready.
And remember our defenses or protectors are just children in themselves in a way.
They never asked for the job they took on.
It's just that no one else around was protecting our heart so they had to jump in.
But once they feel like a larger, more wise and loving presence, that is being patient
and listening to all its fears, trust is earned.
That is a much more gentle and caring way to treat ourselves and to move toward growth
compared to just pushing ourselves toward it, like forcing ourselves to open up emotionally
or stop drinking or whatever.
Instead, we slow down and listen to the fears that drive the behavior.
So now we've talked about two directions from which we can approach this position, either
we're asking our exile to step back, which we do when we're emotionally overwhelmed or
we're asking our protector to step back so that the exile can actually step forward.
But no matter which direction we've come in from, ultimately we end up here, where we
can truly see who inside most needs our attention.
In other words, the part that is holding the pain.
And then, we simply be with them.
In the previous video we gave the example of seeing ourself as a child, sitting in our
bedroom feeling isolated and alone.
Perhaps we imagine going into that bedroom, very slowly and only when we can sense the
child feels safe with us there.
We allow the part to really feel us, enter its world.
A world where we didn't exist before.
Because we literally weren't there when the memory was formed, not in our adult form.
Then we asked it to tell us about its experience, to help us understand how it suffered.
Why?
Because remember, listening is the deepest act of love and the deepest way to foster
a sense of safety.
We really want to spend time with this moment, really listening, really showing our care
and compassion.
Perhaps we visualize that part of us that was five years old and alone and imagined
taking him or her onto our lap, really allowing the love and compassion to flow.
This is what some part of us has always been waiting for.
What our pain has always been waiting for.
For connection, support, love, gosh simply acknowledgement. These are qualities of care
we can actually give to ourself.
There's no reason we can't be that wonderful adult that can finally locate and care about
our child self.
It's like the saying it's never too late to have a healthy childhood because we can go
back and redo that memory or at least how that memory is stored in our mind, because
we can enter that file, that neural net, where the memory exists and bring in experiences
that are about connection, right?
The undoing of aloneness and the creation of safety.
In fact, perhaps we go beyond just imagining holding the child and maybe visualize taking
them to a safe space like a tree house or cave or cabin in the woods, as a client of
mine visualized this week.
When the child can really feel it's no longer in the same place and it's no longer alone,
it's like we've changed that neural net forever.
So for those of you who have watched my memory reconsolidation video and just want me to
quickly connect the dots really quick, from the science perspective, you could say in
this process you're activating the old neural net destabilizing it with information that
disconfirms its predictions so that when the memory is reconsolidated, it is updated with
present day information around safety.
That would be the sciency way of saying it.
But I'd rather end this video series with a more poetic way of pulling it all together,
and that's to say, when our inner hurt child lives in a safe place in our heart, where
it finally is being cared for and no longer has to feel scared and alone, it can at that
moment finally be at peace and let go of its pain.
Again, this is not just imagery for the sake of imagery, it's reality.
Like, "hey I'm safe now.
I'm no longer in the trauma scene.
That's true.
I'm heard.
I'm loved.
That's also true, right, because we can hear and love ourselves.
I never have to experience that again, at least not as a five-year-old."
Like none of that is wishful thinking, it's all very real and truth-based.
And before we close I want to make one final point and that is that once our wounded parts
or exiles are brought out of exile and actually healed, then let's appreciate what that does
for our protector parts as well.
The ones that have been trying our whole lives to protect our wound, not really knowing how
to heal it but feeling burdened with a task of keeping it safe.
Well, once those parts feel that the parts we are protecting are safe now, well then,
they themselves are free.
Which means, no more compulsion to drink or to cling to others or reject others or to
be perfect.
All those exhausting ways of protecting ourselves can finally relax, not just in a moment but
forever.
In an earlier video, we talked about how the true self, that part that isn't a part, how
when we are with that self, our brain is finally free.
We're talking about this moment of freedom that happens in the moment of unblending.
But once we have done the deeper healing work, what was first a moment of freedom becomes
a lifetime of freedom.
Why?
Because when our inner adult takes on full responsibility of caring for us and our pain,
then our protectors have no more need or desire to take over.
Because they now know there is a greater resource available.
When our parts feel safe our true self can become the leader of first our inner and then
our outer world.
Welcome friend, come inside.
You've come to me
with your heart so soft and wide.
Let's begin.
Maybe there is something sacred that you need
like someone to listen.
I'm Dr. Tori Olds and I so appreciate you joining me on this journey through the human
mind through the lens of Internal Family Systems.
I wish you well.
So we sit in the quiet of evening, till the night
and into the quiet we're reaching for the words
and the words bring along the meaning of this life
when they come to be heard.
Thank you for watching.
I hope you found this video helpful and if you did, you can help me out by liking and
subscribing or if you're a therapist who would like to train with me while earning CEUs,
you can visit my website at toriolds.com
Let's take our time.