I’ve now been studying Internal Family Systems (IFS) for a long time, and it’s taught me so much about myself that I decided to take an online course on it. But I don’t really want to learn more about IFS to know IFS. I want to learn more about IFS so I can use it for my own inner work. And so rather than mastering the theory of more aspects of IFS, I decided to instead really focus on applying what I learned to myself, and just do one exercise I found particularly helpful again and again—and it led to some surprising discoveries about myself.
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] SE: I saw an online course that Richard Schwartz has about ifs. On this therapists.com website, and it’s a whole like X part course, and you get even some bullshit certifications and real therapists are going through their course to learn ifs and of course I buy it, right. I’m saying, Hey, I want to learn more about this smaller bite. I’ll check it out. And then I watched the first module. It’s kind of interesting and cool. And in my mind, I make, I set a little goal for myself that in the next two weeks, I’m going to go through the course. And then I decided because I felt a little conflicted to do the one meditation that I really particularly liked in one of his books greater than the sum of your parts. And. It’s a 10 minute, 50 minute meditation. I went through it and that experience was so useful and helpful. It was the whole conflict about home and where should my home being the future that an idea popped up or an [00:01:00] insight bubbled up in me that went, if you just do that meditation every day. And instead of reading more about ifs and doing more courses and what you get more in, actually, which is all intellectual, very stimulating and interesting to me. Why don’t you just practice more like just practice everyday a little bit and study a little less. And that’s what I did almost every day.
[00:01:24] I would do one of these meditations that are on there for the past two weeks. And. Instantly. I thought this is how you get really good at things. You actually do them every day. And it’s so unsophisticated compared to there’s another seven books, random people have written about about ifs that have all downloaded.
[00:01:46] There could be reading. And there’s a course from the creator. That’s all this very reputable. I can’t speak, therapeutic or psychotherapist website that I could be going through and studying and practicing. But instead of doing [00:02:00] all that studying, I just work with a model every day. How about that?
[00:02:04] How I use the wattle everyday and really work with it within me. And it’s been very rewarding. Like I’ve definitely made significant. Progress. And it’s really been helping me and feeling better and understanding better. It’s been also more fun, honestly. Like it boils down to, it’s been actual fun to put away all the theory of which I know enough already.
[00:02:28] And to just do practice, just do it, just doing the work every day, not theorizing about it. Also, I stopped talking about it as much with other people and this is difficult for me, but oftentimes now I just go straight to the, this is a cool model. Here’s my two sentence summary. And here are two books.
[00:02:48] I’ll text you that are really great books to start with. If you’re interested, get those books, listen to the audio books, read the books. The books are good instead of, I could easily give an eight hour talk about this now. And so [00:03:00] speaking less about it with others recommending it, less studying, less learning less. Details and theory and just doing it more like actually doing the thing. And with that started also, I mean, my, my writing in the last two weeks has picked up significantly. And so as I’ve been writing more, I also started now daily doing a little kind of family council check-in session. And again,
[00:03:28] RA: check-in
[00:03:28] SE: an inner family check-in session where basically I open a, a, I have a, uh, a note document and write down the date, you know, Sunday, November 14th. And then sometimes it’s clear to me what is going on right now. Like, you know, it could be who is, who is currently driving. The wheel, like who’s currently embodied in me. It could be this morning. I’ll give you an example.
[00:03:55] I wake up and the second I wake up, I can tell I’m I’m like, [00:04:00] I have nervous energy. I want to get up as quickly as possible.
[00:04:01] I want to go grab coffee. I want to do things. I have this like, go, go, go, go, go energy. And I tried to calm it down a little bit and go, yeah, we’re going to go, go, go. But relax. It’s Sunday. Like it’s 8:00 AM. We don’t have to run. Like we could just go slowly, but that feeling persisted, I walked slowly, but the feeling in me was walking fast.
[00:04:22] Like it was a, it didn’t slow down because of me and I drank my coffee. I did some talking and I come back and I sit down to do my inner family council session, just opening the notebook. And I wrote Sunday, November 14th. And I asked, what is that? What do you want us to know? What’s that nervous feeling about right?
[00:04:45] Who is that nervous feeling? What does he want to tell us? Like it’s clearly. It wants to tell me something, what is it? Because I’m not quite getting it. Like I’m getting that. We want to do things, but I don’t quite get why it is so urgent right now. And then [00:05:00] what came out was let’s just for, for simplicity sake, let’s just say what came up was the part in me that wanted to work and prepare for the week. And I’d actually counseled with that part on Friday, because on Friday at 2:00 PM, I’ve had a pretty good productive first part of my day. And I felt like not working for the rest of the day. I felt like not doing all my goals, running, swimming, reading. I just felt like chilling and just going slow for the rest of Friday.
[00:05:39] I sat down and I wrote, is it Okay.
[00:05:43] For the part of me that wants to kick ass and work. If we just chill this weekend and that part responded and said, no, it’s not okay. It’s totally okay if we chill Friday and said it, but it’s not okay to chill Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and then start Monday behind [00:06:00] on the week and having to catch up.
[00:06:01] It’s just going to be so stressful. That is not okay. I’m going to leave you alone and let all of us chill Friday and Saturday. But on Sunday we need to get these three things done. And then I wrote I that’s the deal. That’s what we’re going to do on Sunday morning. When I sat down to write about I’d forgotten about the river’s part.
[00:06:24] And to be honest, when I had coffee on Sunday, I was contemplating the back of my mind. Fuck it. It’s such a beautiful day. It’s sunny. You only live once. Let’s just chill today. Why all these
[00:06:38] RA: part isn’t real. Anyway. So the agreement is not binding.
[00:06:41] SE: I wasn’t, I wasn’t actually thinking about that yet.
[00:06:45] RA: And I’m kidding.
[00:06:45] SE: yeah, but I was, I was including into this, any sort of ambition for the day, even the ones that are fun and private, like, you know, I always have too many plans. Like, I’m like, I’m going to write for two hours, I’m going to do yoga. I’m going to go to the gym.
[00:06:59] I’m [00:07:00] going to go walk around the lake. I’m going to, there’s a lot of fucking things to do. And so while I was drinking coffee and was looking outside, it’s beautiful and sunny day, I was thinking, can I just like be today and just, I do what I do, but I don’t have to do 13 things. And so I had that kind of a vibe that temptation in my mind, I says, I sit down to write and ask where’s that nervousness coming from that part comes up and says, well, we agreed.
[00:07:28] We would work today. Please. Please please. And this was surprising. I thought that I expected more of an angry critic type voice. That’s like motherfucker, get your shit together and do this. But it was more of a pleading voice that said, please, can you please not break your word with me please? On Friday we made an agreement.
[00:07:59] I [00:08:00] held my part. I allowed you. And this is true. I was able to be incredibly relaxed Friday and Saturday. And we’ve talked about this on the podcast about me never being able to fully relax. Even when I do relaxing things, having some tension in me, that’s that part. And the part was saying, I kept my side, please don’t break the, your word don’t don’t break the agreement.
[00:08:24] Please don’t do this to me. And that was a very different experience. Then what I expected when I sat down to write and I instantly went, oh yeah, no, I’m not going to break the agreement like it’s done and It’s not even work anymore now. Like I’m going to do it. And I’m going to be grateful to be doing it because the truth is that I had an incredible weekend with very little tension, was very relaxed, very free.
[00:08:55] It was very
[00:08:56] RA: That is dope.
[00:08:57] SE: um, and I’m, Hey, I, it [00:09:00] felt, it felt like talking to a very good friend and realizing, oh wow. There’s something that is really, really, really important to this person. That’s really, really important to me and I can do it and I wasn’t fully realizing this dynamic, but now that I see it, nothing will stop me and I will love it.
[00:09:17] And I’d be like, grateful for doing it. I wanna be, I wanna be great to you. Okay. that.
[00:09:25] vulnerability and that almost this, please don’t break the word. Like you’re going to crush me. If you break the word, we’re back to square one where I can never trust you. Like where I always have to push you when you relax.
[00:09:38] I always have to nag you and put, please we made a deal. I kept mind don’t do this to me today. I was like, oh my heart in thousand pieces. I’m like, okay.
[00:09:49] And I sat down and I wrote down the plan of like, you know, w when I’m going to do what you know, and it was clear to me, there was no hesitation, no doubt.
[00:09:57] I know I’m going to do this. I’m going to keep my word [00:10:00] now that I’ve got my head straight. And then I went out to the park and I had a picnic, and I had a good friend call post MTMA therapy and talk to me. And through the entire time I was, I was checking in on myself and I was like, wow, I’m so relaxed. I have no inner pressure that nervous is from the morning has gone.
[00:10:23] We just all back to trusting and knowing, Hey, we’re going to keep our word right to ourself. We’re going to keep the word. And that was such a beautiful little experience. This is a delightful thing about practicing ifs. Is that quite consistently? I mean, there’s no silver bullet. It doesn’t solve all your problems.
[00:10:44] It doesn’t magically and it’s not instant. It requires a lot of patience, right? Because it requires actually a lot of time to really get to know you yourself, to actually start trusting yourself in all your different parts and have them really trust you, like, which is like you trusting yourself that takes [00:11:00] time and patience and real awareness and presence.
[00:11:03] But one of the most delightful things about practicing the model for me has been these incredibly surprising moments. These moments that shock me because I can feel how. It is what I’m just experiencing, but I would have never been able to think my way to that answer. Never
[00:11:25] remember the elliptical session where my inner critic, after a week of talking and trying to get access to it.
[00:11:33] And that part ignoring me and not wanting to talk to me saying you’re such an arrogant asshole. And he was like a shocking I’m like out of all the options I could have imagined of what my inner critic that doesn’t want to relate to me anymore, what that part would be thinking about me elegant was not on the list of things I even considered. And then when he, he explained it [00:12:00] to me and it was like, you think, you know everything better than me, no matter when I whisper into your ear, we should be doing more of this. We should be doing that. Your response is always shut the fuck up. I know. So I know we should be, we should be this. We should be that.
[00:12:13] I know. And this is true. This is my endodontic. When I get like this critical neck, I go, I already know this, shut the fuck up. And so that part was like, well, I can, I cannot say anything because you already know everything and all I should do shut the fuck up. And like having that sensation of that part of me feeling now that I’m like feeling better than it and arrogant toward it as if it has nothing to offer. I totally unintuitive to be. But when I was experiencing it, it totally clicked. I was like, oh yeah.
[00:12:46] that does make sense. It absolutely makes perfect sense, but I would have never been able to think my way to this conclusion. Those are the moments that I find delightful in life. It’s also today when I sat down and I knew it’s probably my [00:13:00] critic, that’s like nagging me is like, go, go, go let’s work.
[00:13:02] Let’s do things. I didn’t expect such a vulnerable message. Like it just was totally not, not how I was feeling, not what I was thinking. And then when it came out, it was so. Powerful. I was like, oh shit. Okay. Okay buddy. You’re right. I’m not gonna break my word. Um, that was really, those moments are really special, uh, that I’ve had with our vest where it’s like, wow, this shit is dope and feels very, very, um, beautiful when it happens, when it happens, because it feels also very authentic.
[00:13:36] Like something is happening through you and bubbles up within you. It’s not something you have figured out up there analyze cognitively, you know, work your way to that result of that conclusion. And it’s a very different kind of experience. I, I really like it.
[00:13:55] RA: that’s done. Yeah. It’s kind of like a, you know, like a night without [00:14:00] the armor and the weapon. Right. Just coming to you in the neck. Come on. We got it, please.
[00:14:07] SE: Please don’t do this to me. Like this huge, this part that you would see. Huge like scary, you know, with a big sword and then it comes there and it’s like, all four of us, like, come on, man. Don’t again, break your word to me. And you’re like, oh shit,
[00:14:24] RA: I don’t want it. I don’t want to go back to putting on my armor I’m I suppose, than always going berserk. We don’t, we, we all were this, come on. We both.
[00:14:31] SE: yeah. You said I should be peaceful.
[00:14:34] And I was, could you please also do your part of the bargain? You’re like, oh, okay.
[00:14:40] RA: Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. I love that
[00:14:43] SE: really, nothing. Nothing I can say other than you’re absolutely right. Thank you for telling me this nicely,
[00:14:51] part of how you start relating to yourself in more loving ways and more open ways [00:15:00] is as you show up for yourself more often, As I do this work more consistently as I basically show up to feel myself, to hear myself to sense myself, to allow all the different parts of my mind and my soul to speak up these parts, calm down these parts, get start trusting.
[00:15:28] They start connecting. They start relating, and it’s not this wild war where everybody’s fighting everybody for a little bit of, uh, a little time on the throne to make the decisions in that moment. But all of a sudden, everybody realizes that, all right. Yeah. This is who I am. This is how I feel. These are the different things that are part of me and within me, and they all have good intentions
[00:15:56] even the ones that do really harmful things at [00:16:00] times, they don’t just do even this. Big bat warrior with a sword that has been tormenting me the past maybe has been tormenting because he’s tormented by me, you know, you know, because he’s ignored because he’s alone, you know, it’s not just like, uh, this and I think in the past I’ve I said this a number of times, I always thought all my weaknesses were enemies that I needed to destroy within me. And then I realized that all my weaknesses are children within me that I need to raise. And that was even before I started learning ifs. And this is a very powerful way of describing ifs because I’ve S has this very beautiful approach and philosophy where there is no part that’s bad and needs to be killed or get rid of it. There’s only parts that [00:17:00] need to be understood. Right. And that need to be helped to do their job or protect the way they’ve tried in another way, right. To heal the, the other things they are trying to protect or whatever it is that’s going on. And that’s such a beautiful, kind of a very spiritual approach to things because all of a sudden, most other therapeutic approaches, most other philosophies of the mind of like how to fix oneself, have a sort of judgmental system of good and bad, and we’ve got to get rid of the bad and we’re going to amplify the good, and then you’re going to be fine.
[00:17:39] It’s like, ah, I really want to like stop being so lazy. And like, I hate the lazy version of me and it’s like, I want to destroy it. I want to get rid of it. Or
[00:17:48] RA: cut out the appendix of laziness.
[00:17:50] SE: Or even, even though really beautiful. meditation. Buddhistic traditions sometimes have this, like [00:18:00] the ego, this, the ego, the ego is the source of all evil, the Eagles everything’s bad.
[00:18:05] And we just have to like, get, push the demon of the ego into how back into hell. And then there’s going to be the rise of the soulful heaven within us. And there’s something to it. But it’s also, again, very black and white. Something’s good, some things bad. And I love, and I find a lot more wisdom within me.
[00:18:25] Something resonates much stronger as this seems truly more wise is this approach of there is no bad parts. There’s no there’s only hurt and traumatized parts. There’s only parts that need help need more attention, need more understanding. Um, you know, it doesn’t mean that. If you’re doing terrible things to other people, it’s like all about, like, this also sounds very like new age, like in the outer world, sometimes I’d be judgmental at this approach and go, yeah.
[00:18:55] You know, people that kill lots and lots of other people, all they need is we should [00:19:00] look at their childhood trauma and then like allow them in the world. I do believe that these people, that people that are tormenting other people, I do believe are tormented, hurt people hurt, but we’ve got to set some boundaries at some point, you know, and some people just need to be in a box because they’re just too hurt and not easily fixed.
[00:19:17] We don’t have a way to reliably fix them. So, you know, this is the best we can do, um, within us. Um, I find that even like, even parts that are really tormenting us, like when you really look long enough and you listen carefully enough, you’ll find oftentimes a surprising and potentially good reason from their perspective.
[00:19:44] The vantage point of that part in us, this all makes sense. Um, but we just never want to look. I think that’s the toughest thing. I think this is really, it doesn’t matter what model you use, the one of the core issues and challenges we don’t [00:20:00] want to look. We don’t want to really like, look, really, get to know like good to get a good look at ourselves and get it daily, long, patiently, openly, curiously, just look and go.
[00:20:15] Let me see what I see. tough. It’s very, very uncomfortable that the level at which Ixinity is peaking at that thought tells you a lot about what is going on in your life, right? If there’s a little anxiety, but also. some curiosity, you’re probably in a pretty good spot in your life when it’s just excit it terror.
[00:20:39] You’re probably running away from.
[00:20:42] RA: Yeah. Also how much you even able to really look at yourself, right? I mean, you can, you can be like, sit at your, whatever on your chair and think about yourself and imagine to look at yourself. Right. But then when you an actual real life, sometimes you might act in ways that you even not [00:21:00] aware of, right.
[00:21:00] Where the impact you have on somebody else is completely different from what the story you’re telling yourself in your mind, but that’s the real version. Right. And you have the, the decorated nice version that fits your own narrative. Right. And then even having the awareness to say, wait a second, this is, uh, not, not, uh, not really matching what I’m thinking about myself and then digging in there.
[00:21:26] That’s that’s also another, another challenge.
[00:21:29] SE: it takes a lot of courage to know thyself or to attempt to get to know thyself. It takes a lot of courage. That’s really, it, it takes a lot of courage because we all have. To look. So you have to like walk through the fire and look right. You have to dare to look. And then when you see a demon, when you see ugliness, when you see weakness, we, you see shame when you see the Thiess things that terrorize you can, you have the courage [00:22:00] to not look away immediately to keep looking, right?
[00:22:03] And then even the courage to try to find love for that. And that that’s then very transformative, but it’s not that complicated. It’s one of the hardest things to the hardest things for human beings to do once in that life, not like daily. Uh, but that’s the name of the game, you know? Um, there’s something cool that, uh, Gabo Mata said, um, that are hit the other day where it was talking about. Uh, the Buddha and some of the Buddhist teachings. And he said, you know, it’s very inspiring to read some of the Buddhist teachings. So transcriptions of his teachings and sings, because these are like many thousands of years old, but he seemed to have been one of the best first, like psychologists to have exist.
[00:22:52] Like really understanding the human psyche so powerfully in ways that we’re still catching up with that. We’re still like we’re discovering signs [00:23:00] that prove the thing that he said, just, you know, back then. Um, but he said, but gabber, Martha said like, there’s this one quote where the Buddha said, you know, something along the lines of whatever your mind creates it, project like the mind first creates.
[00:23:15] And then it projects and creates the outer world like the inner world. Uh, whatever the mind thinks basically creates in the outer world. Then gobble Mata was saying, that’s absolutely true. But what is also true is that first, the outer world is creating your mind. And then your mind is creating the outer world.
[00:23:34] So he was referring to the first, you know, two years, the, like the, the, from birth in the wound, growing as a baby, being born in the first two years, the environmental influences the, you know, anxiety, people will have the anger the way they will relate to you, the attachment relationships you’re going to have with mother and father and all that.
[00:23:57] That’s going to drastically [00:24:00] alter your mind development, your brain development, you know, your body chemistry. And then that kind of a mind that has been developed in those early years, that then create the kind of thoughts that sees a certain world and acts in a certain way, and then makes that world real.
[00:24:15] So it’s sort of a circle and not just that, we’re all born with these fresh, pristine, new mind. And then it’s just about how well do you use it to create a world that’s really fresh and pristine and happy, but in the beginning that mind is being coded by our environment and then it’s running scripts and creating, creating outputs.
[00:24:38] There’s something through that for sure. Um, that’s very, very true.
[00:24:46] RA: yeah, I ha I had recently like a moment with. Um, somewhat of, didn’t say, you, you look really upset like today I’m like, I’m not upset. Right. And then I’m like [00:25:00] late, you know, time, day goes on and then later again, here. Yeah. Today I, okay. You look upset and like, I’m not, no, I’m not upset. And I’m like, I’m then I’m waiting, slowing down.
[00:25:10] Maybe wait a sec. If I would be upset about something today, what would I be excited about? What would that be? Right. And then I look okay. Okay. And then I realized the key, that was something that actually like, uh, was, was getting to me. And I was kind of doing the arts, not a big deal thing. Right. And, uh, sort of the home care, paid more attention to that.
[00:25:31] And look here, I want to address that.
[00:25:34] SE: I find that, um, one of the things, the people in our lives, especially our children, our intimate partners, our parents, siblings are really close friends, people that are very close to us, so they can, they see us and feel us more closely. They really are [00:26:00] the most important mirrors of our lives and the way we feel and act around them is really who we are. Everything we do when we’re alone and everything we do when we’re with. Nice new people at a party, or like whatever setting is like, kind of very gentle and far away from, you know, really hitting your, your heart and soul. That’s not who we really are. That’s who we are when we can control all our shit and hide all our shit.
[00:26:31] And we obviously oftentimes like that version. Well, and then we’re like, I never get upset. I never screamed. You make me go crazy. I it’s your fault. You’re driving me nuts. I’m never screaming with you. I’m always screaming when we’re arguing. It’s not a, you’re never like this. That’s that. worst version of you, that’s you?
[00:26:49] That is you when you can’t hold back. That is you. When all the mascot off you don’t like that version of you, but it’s not necessarily the other person’s fault. The other person is [00:27:00] only forcing you to unmask. It’s not making, it’s not painting your face. That’s what your face looks like. Right? It’s when you.
[00:27:09] Strangers with other people where you can wear comfortably a mask, you find attractive and they will pretend it’s real that you go, Y this is how I really want to feel. Right. I don’t want to feel like that. But the feeling like that let’s take the screaming of being really angry. Of course, somebody can make you upset on.
[00:27:28] Of course you can sit alone and not be upset, but oftentimes that upsetness, that anger was in you before the argument that the material was in you, there was a bomb in you. And then maybe they are the, the, the spark. But if you spark a stone, nothing will happen. No matter how many sparks you throw, the stones are going to explode. I believe you sparked some fucking 10. It’s going to be a mess. And what was that T and T [00:28:00] and you now, you don’t feel It when you’re around people that are very watery and nice, you know, in airy. But when you are with that person that can spark you because they are very close to your heart and you explode, you think they threw a bomb at you, but they really often didn’t the bomb was within you.
[00:28:15] It was not them, right. They would just, they were just provided that little spark. They just show you that really ugly mirror. That’s actually the only mirror that’s not distorted, right? Any fucking person that sees you outside looks at you with a strong distortion, they just see your clothing. They make up some kind of a feeling of who you are and what you are, what you feel like people that know you for a little bit, or know you at work.
[00:28:40] They make up some very distorted image of like, this is professional Romina, and they’re projected into your entire life in the yard. This is how he is always in how he feels and what kind of a life you live. All these people are totally wrong and how could they be? Right. Because they know. So little of you they’d get such a little look at it, but you know, [00:29:00] your partner, your child, your best friends, they have a very different picture of you.
[00:29:04] They have more information their mirror when they look at you as much less distorted, maybe it is but much less so. And so, um, Yeah, the people in our lives, even when they say things like, hi, you seem, it’s something wrong with you. And we go, no, there is real wisdom and pausing and asking. Huh? I wonder what made that person say that? Let me go inside and ask myself, am I really okay right now? Especially if it’s somebody that’s close to you, they’re probably more right than yourself, for sure. Right? They see it written on your face while you’re so busy and dizzy in your mind, you don’t see your face. And you don’t feel your feelings, so you just go, no, I’m totally okay.
[00:29:54] I’m thinking about this and this and was no problem. I was like, huh, but I do feel weird around you right [00:30:00] now. Uh, how come? Um, and especially somebody who knows you really intubate it really vain. Like this is part of, um, the beauty of being a life in the world and sharing it with other humans is that it’s impossible to actually know ourselves and experience ourselves without other people.
[00:30:23] It will be impossible to get an honest, full look of who we are without the world. Right. And so the people in our lives, they’re not just some external force. They’re also the only vehicle we have to really look at us from the outside to get a good look of ourselves. You cannot heal what you cannot see.
[00:30:44] Like you cannot fix something. If you can’t see it, you can. Without light, you can’t really orient and know and feel and grasp and move. And that light the light to our [00:31:00] inner world. Other people in our lives. Like they are the ones that amplify and shine lights on us. Um, it’s not some kind of meditation.
[00:31:09] It’s not some kind of book these things, which are all practice, help us to accept the light. That’s shine on us to be open to those mirrors and what we see that. But even with all the meditation, the universe, if you didn’t have people, if you were just completely alone in the, in the woods, your entire life, it’d be very hard to have any kind of understanding who you are.
[00:31:35] You would have nobody to relate to, um, and place yourself in, in have any context around. So, um, the people in our lives are really, really a powerful. Part of our inner work, one of the most powerful parts, right. And this is something I really like. I picked up by Richard Schwartz. He said it once and he kind [00:32:00] of stayed with me and now I see it in so many other areas of life as well, but it actually Sophia and also set this, but in a very different way to a very different time when Richard Schwartz works with somebody and does like a little, uh, ifs session, let’s say with you, I heard him do an ifs session with Tim Ferris right on his podcast.
[00:32:22] And I heard him now just a couple of days ago, do one with Aubrey Marcus on his podcast. I actually found the Abra Marcus session. Very interesting. Just to really see how Richard Schwartz approaches it. And what questions are you asking? I find. Enlightening. I F I thought it was a very, very cool 30 minutes of seeing him do therapy.
[00:32:46] And Aubrey Marcus seemed much more open to me. He went much further than Tim Ferriss. Tim Ferriss was very kind of a cop very in his own mind and very controlled. So it was not as fruitful in my listening experience, but Aubrey Marcus was more [00:33:00] open and so they could do more. And I thought it was interesting to see some of the ways that he double checked on something or he phrased the question I found masterful, I thought, oh Yeah.
[00:33:13] you can tell this somebody who’s done this and worked so much with people.
[00:33:17] He just has a really nice way, very calm way of knowing what to, how to phrase a question, how to ask something. I enjoyed it. But anyways, both times I heard Richard Schwartz say to these people that he did ifs with on their podcast, but thank you by the way for doing this. You’re not just doing it for yourself.
[00:33:36] You’re also doing it for me and everybody else was listening. Like when we do this inner work, we’re not just doing it for ourselves, we’re doing it for the world too.
[00:33:45] RA: yeah,
[00:33:47] SE: Right. As we heal, we become more healing to others. We become less injuring to other people. And also as we then share our healing and our experience, everything I say on this [00:34:00] podcast, every in part of, in a work that I’ve done, I mean, most intimately you’ve been affected by this, all the work I’ve done, I’ve done for me and you to some degree, right.
[00:34:08] Because you’re hearing it all and you just, I affected by it.
[00:34:13] RA: Yeah.
[00:34:14] SE: And, um, there’s something beautiful about the way. Relating to inner work because in the work oftentimes feels so personal. it’s, like, I’m just trying to make myself better. It feels also it’s very, self-centered right. You’re just very much with what can I do to change myself to a better myself?
[00:34:31] Why do I not feel this way? Why do I feel this that way? It’s very like me, me, me, me, me, me, me. But if you flip that client and you understand that everything I heal and improve within me, I do for humanity. I do for my family. I do for my children.
[00:34:47] RA: it’s the, it’s that code. Like everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to change themselves. Right. And this is the exact, I want to change myself, right?
[00:34:56] SE: And it’s good to [00:35:00] remember that as I am changing myself, I am changing the world. Like I’m doing this work for me, but this work is being done for others. Like in parallel, as I do this work for me, I also help others.
[00:35:13] RA: Yeah. I, so I totally get it. I also think it’s funny because like, I remember a while back, we were talking about like the people who are like vibrating and they are raising their vibrational energy to save their world. And now we are like, we’re doing the it’ll work Tuesday, but it’s true.
[00:35:28] SE: It’s true, Now the
[00:35:30] RA: Yeah, I get
[00:35:31] SE: saying is that there’s going to be a tipping point where we’ve done so much inner work healing that the whole universe becomes like the whole world becomes a heaven.
[00:35:39] RA: Yep.
[00:35:40] SE: besides that, yeah, I think also I was talking to somebody the other day and you know, some of the, a lot of our history is family history and it’s not just our family’s history.
[00:35:58] Is there, like it’s the. [00:36:00] You know, your parents, parents, parents, parents, parents, parents, where something started, some problems started, some type of trauma happened. And then it was expressed in the way they lived. And then it was internalized. And when, when the next generation was born, it was expressed the same way.
[00:36:20] And then it was internalized with the new generation that grows up. And so it goes, passed down from generation
[00:36:25] RA: and it shaped, uh,
[00:36:26] SE: Yes. And some of these burdens of very, very deep, because we felt them so strongly and there were such universal loss because they had been, been handed down by 20 generations.
[00:36:41] It’s like that. You know, painting in the room, that’s been 10 generation old, you’ll have a different feeling for it. You can tell everybody’s acting differently. This is a very special painting than all the other paintings that are hanging around there. You can tell this is, uh, in similar ways as children, we pick up that this is a special kind of thing.
[00:36:58] That’s a very, very special to our [00:37:00] family because it’s been handed down for so many generations realizing that when you, like, they often say like stop the cycle or something, right? Like you heal that trauma, that generational trauma, and then it stops you don’t give you won’t give it to your children the way that your parents gave it to you. When you do that, I mean, you should an only can do that selfishly. So it stops for you. But when you do it, a really powerful and beautiful thought is that it’s not just not going to be handed down to your particular children, but not their children. And then their child. Hundreds and hundreds of people, tens and tens of generations of a pain that stopped because you did the work, right?
[00:37:50] Just like when you create trauma, it’s not just your pain and your children’s pain, it could be painful, you know, hundreds of years, generations over generations of, of people in your [00:38:00] bloodline that are carrying that burden and that pain because they’re being born and raised with it. And when you stop it, it stops for, it could stop for not just one personal one little family could stop for many, many, many, many, many families afterwards, um, which is a beautiful thought again, like putting our own life in the context of something greater than just us.
[00:38:23] I think, you know, it adds something to, I think the the beauty of the experience or the potential, the, you shouldn’t be doing it for the 10th generation. You have to do it for yourself in this very life, but it’s beautiful to. Consider that this little thing that you cleared or cleaned or this thing that was very personal to you, that you worked on and healed will not just affect you, right.
[00:38:49] Will affect lots of humans. and it’s impossible to say to what degree this will influence, you know, the.
[00:38:56] world in smaller, big ways. there’s something poetic and [00:39:00] beautiful about that.