Speaker A: Welcome to Coaching for Latina Leaders, the only podcast dedicated to the advancement of Latinas at every level of life. With your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, a Latina with over 20 years of leadership experience, Harvard grad physician, and mother of two.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited to bring to you today Dr. Stella Evans, and we are going to do something a little different today. Dr. Stella Evans is a pediatrician. She's a biracial pediatrician that lives in Minnesota, currently residing on the Dakota land, and she loves to work with people in a few different ways. So she's still a pediatrician by practice, which means she gets to take care of the cutest, sweetest, most gentle parts of our population, our children. But she also works with clients as a life coach and a spiritual director.

The reason why I wanted to bring her onto the podcast is because she's specially trained in a few different techniques and different frameworks, which I think will really help all of you that are listening better understand how your feelings, your body, your emotions, and a lot of your past traumatic experience inform who you are today. So we're going to specifically, even though Dr. Stella Evans is incredibly wise and knowledgeable on a ton of different frameworks, today, we're going to focus on internal family systems. And for those of you that have been listening to the podcast for a while, you've heard me talk about something called the cognitive thought model. Go back a few episodes if you don't know what I'm referring to.

But the cognitive thought model essentially is a way to think about how our thoughts inform what we create in the world. And it's sort of something that's been around since like 300 BCE. Since the Stoics introduced it. And internal family systems is a different framework for us to better understand how our feelings and our emotions also fit into that cognitive thought model. So if you think about the cognitive thought model just for a review, for those of you that haven't listened to that last episode or just want to review, the cognitive thought model asserts that we have a thought in the world that is created by some sort of circumstance around us. We have a thought. And that thought causes us to feel something.

And from that feeling, it drives us to take an emotion. So if the feeling is motivated, we go out and we probably take actions. If the feeling is defeated, we probably cuddle up in a little ball and probably crawl back into bed. And from that feeling, we do or don't do a bunch of actions, and those actions cause our results in the world. So with that brief introduction to the cognitive thought model, I'm going to bring Dr. Stella Evans on now. I'll hover, introduce herself a little bit more. If there's anything else you'd like to say about yourself, Stella, and then we can talk about this concept of internal family systems, if that's okay.

Speaker B: That sounds perfect. And, Vanessa, that was such a wonderful introduction. I don't know that I have anything more to add. You made me sound so incredible.

Speaker A: That's what I see. Girlfriend. Absolutely.

Speaker B: That's what I see.

Speaker A: It's awesome for you to hear my reflection of you, right? Because we often don't acknowledge what other people see in us and the greatness people see in us. And so I love just to be honest, I mean, I'm just speaking truth.

Speaker B: I love that. So you know what happens when something occurs? So something happens in the world, and you have more than one feeling about it, right? If that happens, we might have more than one thought or more than one feeling. And when we have more than one feeling and more than one thought, that is going to happen. That is part of being human. We can get very conflicted. And in English, they might say, I'm torn.

Part of me wants to do something. It's like part of me is just really angry about this. And another part of me is almost happy it happened, almost relieved. And internal family systems is one way that you can explain why this happens. We know that you think hundreds of thoughts, thousands of thoughts a day, and you have thousands of feelings in a day because thoughts and feelings are linked. And the idea here is that we have little subunits of personality, most of which are in our subconscious mind, moving around down beneath the surface. We can only hold maybe five to seven things up in the conscious part of our mind. And as busy, professional women, a lot of those things are about work, sometimes about our kids or our pets, maybe about our spouse. But mostly during the workday, they're about work.

And so everything else is down on that subconscious level, interacting with each other, having their thoughts and feelings, and causing us to act and react in ways that we may not even be aware of. And we may feel conflicted without knowing quite why we feel conflicted. And so this is one method for examining those feelings and thoughts and bringing them up from the subconscious mind in a more deliberate fashion so that we can examine what is going on and see why do we feel a certain way about something. What's the other feeling? What are these two things about what lies behind them? And then how can we move forward from them?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting. I love how you describe it by thinking about, very practically, when you have a torn emotion, that happens all the time. Right. Everyone can relate to that. We're sometimes torn all the time. Something got canceled. Like, I'm disappointed it got canceled, but, yeah, I'm excited that I get to rest. Yeah, I love how you frame it that way. And I always like to make sure that we give credit where credit is due. So internal family Systems is a framework that was recently developed, or at least in the last few years. But I will say that no idea is new. You know what I mean?

Everything has been in existence for centuries and centuries and centuries. And what we do as humans is we sort of take in what we see in the world, what we know, what we've learned from books and studies. We filter it through our own brain and then we reprocess and place it in frameworks that has made sense for us. And it's awesome because it will make sense for other people and it's a different way to think about something. But the person who invented or who created the concept of internal Family systems, I think it's a beautiful concept and a great way to think about it, which is why I wanted to bring you onto the podcast. But also to say that the idea of having this subconscious or multiple parts of who you are, the core self, the noncore self, or the inner critic, which is a common one that people talk about, that's been around forever, and so I guess I want the listener to take away here. I want you guys to take away that this is just one different framework for you to think about something.

So if it resonates with you, awesome, run with it. And if it doesn't resonate with you, you're probably going to see a lot of parallels here and different things that we've talked about.

Speaker B: To add some attributions here, the person that originated the name and this particular system, internal family systems, is Dr. Richard Schwartz Schwartz. And he has over 20 books that are published at the time of this podcast being released. And he is amazing. And he often does free webinars, so you can very easily access some of his material. His work is largely based on the work of Dr. Sandra Ingramman, I-N-G-E-R-M-A-N who has worked with traditional shamanic communities, as well as the work of CG. Young Jung.

And this all stacks, of course, on top of more and more wisdom, which goes back hundreds of years and then thousands of years. And of course, people have taken internal Family Systems and developed their own finessing points and have called it things like parts work, archetypal work. They have adapted to different types of dream work and other things. So again, just as you said, Vanessa, take what is resonating well for you. What works well for you out of this podcast? Please feel free to use it. Please feel free to visit Dr. Schwartz's website and it's Issinstitute.org, I believe, and read more about this particular approach to the subconscious, mind, and emotions.

Speaker A: Beautiful. Thank you for that. So let's talk more about ifs, however, you think would be the best way to sort of describe it to someone that doesn't know anything about it at all. How would you do that?

Speaker B: So we have the mind and we like to think of our mind as one unified thing. In reality, it's more like a boardroom with a bunch of really closely related individuals in it most of the time, the six or seven of them that are in the boardroom and awake kind of in agreement. And occasionally somebody who wakes up has something to say and people get into a disagreement. So we have these little sub-personalities or parts that have their own thoughts and feelings about the experiences that we have.

And when they have something that's very important that they want to communicate, they will move up and out of the subconscious, usually emotion first, to let us know something. Sometimes thought first, usually emotion first. And you may notice in yourself, ah, I have this thought that I just cannot shake. Why do I keep thinking this? Or, you know, I am always persistently frustrated. Why am I always frustrated in this situation? Logically, it doesn't make sense, but I'm always frustrated. That would be one of these people in the boardroom waking up, offering the contribution and then sitting back down and going back to sleep in their nice padded boardroom chair.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's hilarious. I love that. Just the visual. And it reminds me a lot of that movie, what's it called? Inside out.

Speaker B: Yes, exactly.

Speaker A: Yeah. And what I like about that is, and I want to remind all of you that if you think about the brain as a whole, let's say 100%, only 5% of it is conscious. So only 5% of what we do on a daily basis comes from conscious thought, feeling combinations, which means 95% of it is subconscious. So I love how you just said, like when something isn't sitting right, you start feeling something, and usually it's a feeling, which is why it's so important to know what your feelings feel like in your body. Right.

And so if you haven't yet listened to the episode how to feel your feelings, I do a whole thing. I think it's in the earlier episode, somewhere between episodes one and 20. It's called the ABCDs of feeling. But I walk you through how to acknowledge what you're feeling. And because that is so important, that is your first guide or your first step, right. To let you know something. My body, my intuition, something is trying to communicate something to me here.

Speaker B: Exactly. And that is always a good place to start if you find that there's a recurrent thought or recurrent emotion that doesn't quite seem to fit whatever situation you're in. Every time I get into the check-in line at a hotel, I am overcome with the urge to kick my suitcase across the lobby. Seems a little extreme, unsure why that's happening. But I get so angry at the line specifically in that situation, and I don't know why. Some piece of yourself is moving up from that subconscious mind and it is attempting to communicate something to you, and it's working really hard to do so.

And one way to tune in to what it has to say is to follow your physical sensations. So in that situation, where are you feeling physical sensation? Your head, your chest, your abdomen? What does it feel like? Is it pressure? Is it stabbing or crushing? Does it move anywhere? Is there a color or an image associated with it? A sound? A voice? If it's a voice, do you recognize whose voice it is? Is it located within your body or partially outside your body? Once you have all the qualities that you can possibly discover about that physical sensation, even if you're not sure what emotion it is exactly, it can be so easy to find out what emotion it is by simply saying, to yourself. When I let one word with a sensation, one emotion word, rise up from the back of my mind to the front of my mind, I wonder what that word will be. And generally, the first word that comes to mind is the correct emotion word. So finding the emotion by tracking the physical sensation in your body is the first step.
Speaker A: That was a beautiful way to explain that. And as you are talking us through that, I was actually processing, like, what am I feeling now? What does it feel like in my body? And I haven't done this work at this level in this framework before, but I just love the way you describe that because I think it can feel uncomfortable, especially if you identify as a man and you've been raised in a way where you're not supposed to feel or feelings are weakness. And I wasn't raised as a man. I've been raised as a woman, and socialized as a woman.

But even for me, I was raised in a house where sadness was a weakness or it was unproductive. Some emotions were just. And so I've done a lot of work to feel more comfortable feeling my feelings and sitting with things like sadness or disappointment or grief. Anyway, I just think it's beautiful that you walk us through it in that way. And I just want to give everyone listening permission to do this for themselves. When you're feeling that, just, like, take a second, it doesn't have to be forever. Sometimes it can take just like, two minutes to listen to your body.

Speaker B: And because listening to your body sometimes may feel somewhat physically intense, we don't often listen to our bodies. There are many other things asking for our attention. And that means that when we tune into our bodies, our bodies have a lot to tell us. They're like, hey, I got a laundry list of things tell you that you have been putting off listening to. So when you have that complete picture of whatever it is, that physical sensation that is most prominent for you, it can be easy to find the edges of that sensation.

And if you've ever seen someone separate the white of an egg from the yolk of an egg, or you've seen someone unblend the edge of a photograph, like on Microsoft Paint or in Photoshop, make something more distinct. Make it stand out. If you've ever used makeup to make a feature on your face pop, or you've watched a YouTube tutorial on that if you've ever used Zoom to do the Zoom Botox thing I know I certainly have. You can do the same thing. You can ask the sensation to separate itself out, to unblend itself, to take a step backward from you, because whatever it's trying to communicate to you will be easier for you to understand if it's a little separated from you. If I put my nose right up against my Zoom camera right now, all that poor Dr. Calderon is going to see are my notes. But if I have an appropriate distance and focal length, dr. Calderon will be saved from seeing my nose hairs and instead will get a really good view of the Zoom Botox.

Speaker A: That is hilarious. You're so funny. I was muted that I was laughing out loud when you said that. But I think that that's so important. I just was teaching one of my students how to just introduce this concept of noticing. Like, I notice that I'm thinking, or I notice that I'm feeling to create that distance in perspective because then you are allowing yourself to notice what's going on in your body, in your mind, and I think it's just beautiful permission you're creating that space for yourself, you know, to process.

Okay, so we know that once we, our body sometimes are trying to tell us something, and it shows up as an emotion, usually an emotion, not always a thought, but an emotion in our body. And I know in the framework of ISS internal family systems, there are, I think, four components, right, for self excels, managers, firefighters. Can you talk a little bit more about that if you think that that would be in service to the listeners as to who's trying to tell you something and why and how that show up?

Speaker B: So generally, it is the parts that are attempting to tell you something. So these sub-personalities that are upset or triggered or are wanting something for you, and they definitely want your happiness, they want your safety, they want your self-development. But they are parts, and they are coming at things with an incomplete sense of the situation, an incomplete knowledge of how to handle things for those of you who may have children and who may have attempted to go through the process of getting your child to sleep in their own bed. And full disclosure, although I am a pediatrician, there were times when I went for interrupted and poor quality sleep with a toddler in my bed, rather than the high quality sleep later in the future.

After several days of my toddler screaming in their own bed sometimes, just like my youngest child during sleep training. Our parts will decide that a strategy that they've used in the past, like, for instance, screaming their guts out to get their own way will work for everything. They have a hammer. The screaming strategy. Everything looks like a nail. I want the blocks. Comments, screaming, I want dad to pick me up so I don't have to go down the stairs. Commence screaming. I want my brother's Legos that are a choking hazard. Commence screaming. I want to swing. Commenced screaming.

And our parts do this too. It's not that the strategy was a bad strategy. It certainly got my toddler what they wanted in the right context. It got them to hang out with mom and dad in bed. It just wasn't the right strategy for getting to be picked up and carried down the stairs or for getting brothers Legos or for any one of 100 other things. And so our parts will often do the same thing. They'll say, ah, this strategy. Anger worked. Anger's gonna work again. Frustration worked. That'll work again. Shame worked to keep you safe. The shame is going to work again.

Speaker A: Yeah. Interesting. So tell me if this is right. The way I understand it is, in internal family systems, there's your core self, right? That's like who you are without all the bullshit. When you're curious and you're compassionate and you feel psychologically safe to be who you are, it's like what I hope I'm creating for you right now, Stella, the psychological safety to be exactly who you are, you know, so that's your core self. And then you have the part of you that shows up and you got to get **** done. And I think that's called the manager, right? It's like sometimes that person is not necessarily your core self because it doesn't think that that's going to be the most effective.

It's like, no, my inner critic needs to show up because if I'm hard on myself, then I'll get more stuff done, right? It's like what you said about Shame or for me, I'll tell you, a big one for me was the workaholic. I thought for me that that's how I needed to be to succeed in life, was to work all the time. And so I think that falls under the manager. And then there are your exiles, right? Like your childhood self, afraid, angry. And then what's the last one? Firefighter, I think. Is that right?

Speaker B: Two types of managing parts. One type is long-term management, like a long-term protective part. Right. Let me start that over. You're right. There are four basic parts that you work with. There are other kinds of parts that don't need healing, they don't generally need working with. We don't bother with those in ifs informed systems because they don't really define they're functioning exactly as they should be either. They're sleeping on the floor in the metaphorical boardroom or they're doing their thing.

Speaker A: What's an example of one of those that we won't talk about?

Speaker B: Ideally, yeah. Maybe you have a subpersonality whose only job is to remind you to feed the dog at 05:00.

Speaker A: Okay, I see. Okay. So that could be a manager, but it would be a normal functioning part. That's like, not causing any drama, necessarily.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Okay. So when you think about the boardroom and the people sitting around it, do you think about it as those four components, the core self, the exile, the manager of the firefighter? Or do you think about the course self, the two parts of the exile, the three parts of the manager, the two parts of the firefighter.

Speaker B: So in the boardroom, I generally think about the parts being in the boardroom. And the core self is the illumination. Sometimes the light is on and everybody in the room is like, I can see everything so clearly. Oh, my goodness. And sometimes the light is off and they're trying to conduct their work in the dark and they can't really see each other very well, and it makes it very difficult to understand. So the course self is who you are. When you get out of your own way, when you're without doubt, when guilt and shame aren't really hindering you, when nothing is stopping you from understanding who you truly are and when you can connect to, identify with and love all of who you are, understanding that each piece of yourself is worthy of compassion and does what it does for very good reasons.

Speaker A: I love thinking about the core self also as the core, because it's who your spirit was the second it was breathed into existence. Right. And I think about it the way I sort of visualize it in my head is like everything I've been gifted, everything of who I am was something that my ancestors, spirits, whatever gave to me the second that I was breathing to existence. And I had those I've had those characteristics. For me, I think about it as like, courage, compassion, resilience, wisdom, power.

I've had that from the moment that I was born. So that's your core self. And along the way, ***** happened and you forgotten who that core self was or you felt like you needed to dim yourself, or you felt like it wasn't safe. And then as you continue to transform and let go of all that bullshit around you, you realize, like, holy smokes, like, I've had this all along. You know, it's like when we say, like, yes, if you think about you always being whole, this is always who you have been, which is why it's so important for all of you listening to understand that who you are right now is so perfect at so whole, because that's always who you have been. There's been bullshit that's gotten in the way and has.

But I love to just remind people that, like, if we were to, for example, remind you that you are perfectly whole, exactly how you are. You were born this way. From the second that your spirit was breathed into existence, that is your core self. How would you feel about yourself, right? Energetic, proud, in love with myself. How would you feel about yourself? So just as an aside, because I think it's just so important to remind everybody that we call it the core because it's the core of who you are. And core comes from the word, the Latin word from the heart, right? It's like who you are at your core. That's where the word courage comes from and other things. Anyway, just as an aside for your.

Speaker B: Core self, and this is why we say, and it sounds so transgressive that you are perfect, that actually is a truth. And in that model, it is what you would say is a circumstance. So in that boardroom, metaphor, the core cell, it's the whole light system. Without it, these parts don't understand each other, can't really see and understand each other, can't really communicate well with each other, can't really figure out how they're hurting, how to move forward, how to do new work.

And there are two categories. One category of parts is category called the exile. And these parts, they have voluntarily taken on burdens of emotion that are uncomfortable emotions, anger and shame and grief and guilt and then hidden themselves away in the subconscious. And these burdens of emotion are related to they can be normal everyday events. They don't have to be anything special. It might be a passing remark by somebody at the end apart might say, oh my gosh, am I overweight? Does that person not like me? Boom. Burden, exile. The other category is the protective part.

And these protective parts come in two flavors. One of them is a long-term protective part called a manager. And what they do is organize things and they just like things to go exactly like the schedule says they should go. And we've got to get things done exactly like the schedule says they should be done. And we've got to do them exactly right. Because if we don't do them exactly right, the world could end, and we might die. And they are very perfectionistic parts. And the other kind of part manages acute issues. They manage crises. They're called firefighter parts. And those parts tended to distract from emotional crises by blowing up, by seeking to feel better overeating shopping till you hit your credit limits. I'm sure that you can think of a dozen other ways that human beings find to feel better about things.

Speaker A: It's interesting. The firefighter looks like they either go into extreme action or dissociate, right? It's like extreme action shopping, yelling, screaming, or dissociating. Like drinking drugs, netflix.

Speaker B: Yes. Or they do anything they can to separate from whatever it is that is causing the discomfort at the moment. And so we have these two very protective parts. And what they're attempting to do is they're not protecting the true salt. They're protecting the exile. They're like, this part is too burdened, too weak to take care of itself. If anybody gets near it, it might get hurt more. So we're going to have to use all of these great strategies to protect it.

Speaker A: I just have so much compassion for that part of me, that firefighter part of me. Because I see how there have been times where I've been, especially as a kid, terrified or felt alone or felt ashamed. And if I haven't healed all of those little parts of me, like, when that **** comes up again, or I might feel that might trigger me feeling ashamed, and that might trigger something else. Like, I can see why my firefighters would do what they're doing. I just have so much compassion for them trying to be helpful. And I know, like, it's not the most helpful. It usually isn't, right?

Speaker B: And that's the thing that's all they want, is they want to be helpful. And nobody can heal, and nobody can move forward. None of these parts can heal. The exile can't put that burden down. The managers and the firefighters can't learn new strategies. Nothing moves forward without the core cell.

Speaker A: Interesting. So you're saying in the Ifs model, the way through is through elimination. The way through is, like, to strengthen your core self, to trust your core self, to let your core self shine. Wow, that is fascinating. So when your firefighter shows up, it's just like, hey, have your course self-check in. Like, hey, what's up? What are you afraid of? What do you think is going to happen? Wow, that's really beautiful. So that example you started with earlier where you're at the line of the hotel, and every time you get in line of a hotel, something gets triggered inside of you. So we assume that that's like a firefighter wanting to kick the suitcase down, but it probably came from something else, right? Like a fear of the exile or.

Speaker B: Something, I'm assuming, and wanting to protect an exile of some sort. And so once you have gone through that first step, what does it feel like in your body where it's edges, and then ask it to separate so that rather than sitting in it, you're sitting next to it.

Speaker A: So when you think about I was just thinking of a recent example for me, like, when have I felt triggered or something has happened and how have I reacted to it? It might be helpful for all of you listening for Stella to use these tools on me right now. I'm wondering. So I'll give you an example. You tell me what you think. So yesterday I gave a presentation to a large group of physician leaders. And I can stand in a room of physicians and to teach a lot of these concepts that we're talking about. And. Stand fully in my core self. And something happened yesterday when I was in that room.

I realized that I was nervous. Like, my heart was beating a little faster than normal, and I felt that, and I felt my stomach feel a little uncomfortable. And I was like, oh, wow. I noticed that I'm feeling this, and I have the tools to know what I'm feeling. But I didn't spend time to process why I've done this so many times. Like, why in this space am I feeling like this? You know? And so I later thought about it more, and I'm like, why did I feel so nervous? And I was like, okay, well, who was in the room? What was I afraid of? Right. Clearly there's something there that I was afraid of. So using internal family systems, how would I have processed that or how can I process that?

Speaker B: So I think the first thing to do is make sure that you're physically comfortable. Are you comfortable? Where are you sitting, Vanessa?

Speaker A: Right now? Yeah, I'm comfortable. I'm a little cold. I'm going to grab a blanket.

Speaker B: Yeah, please do.

Speaker A: Now I'm super comfortable.

Speaker B: Perfect. And so, as you recall yesterday, and standing in front of physician leaders, giving your presentation that moment where your heart rate elevated, where were you feeling physical sensation in your body?

Speaker A: In the pit of my stomach. It felt really uncomfortable.

Speaker B: Uncomfortable in the pit of your stomach. How large was that area of sensation?

Speaker A: It probably went from my navel all the way up to my sternum, and I felt my heart beating fast, so I felt palpitations.

Speaker B: Is there any motion to that sensation? Was it moving counterclockwise? Was it going up and down something else?

Speaker A: No, it just felt really deep.

Speaker B: Was there a shape to that sensation?

Speaker A: It was round and hollow.

Speaker B: Round and hollow. Any color to that sensation is like deep, dark blue. This dark blue, hollow sensation, are there any sounds or voices attached to it?

Speaker A: Yeah, same. There's a voice saying, don't say that.

Speaker B: Do you recognize the voice?

Speaker A: I think it's my grandmother.

Speaker B: No one wants to walk around feeling uncomfortable with the dark blue, hollow, egg shaped sensation and a voice in their head. They don't say that. And yet it's as if peace of yourself is offering communication. If you feel comfortable placing a hand over the place where that sensation feels the most intense, inviting that sensation just a unblend self to separate, like the egg yolk might be separated from the white. Take a hot step backward so that you can better see, hear, or feel whatever it is that needs to be communicated today. How are you feeling emotionally toward this blue Allen-shaped piece?

Speaker A: I'm feeling a lot of love and compassion.

Speaker B: I'm so curious. How old does this case feel? What age does it feel like it is?

Speaker A: Seven, maybe.

Speaker B: How old does it think that you are?

Speaker A: Seven.

Speaker B: Go ahead and let it know how old you are?

Speaker A: I'm 42.

Speaker B: What does it think?

Speaker A: Oh, wow. Wow. I think you could probably make your own decisions. I don't think you need me anymore.

Speaker B: This peace, what was it afraid of, I wonder?

Speaker A: Shame is afraid of shame in judgment.

Speaker B: And if it did exactly what it was told, it didn't say something. What emotion was it able to feel while safe?

Speaker A: Loved. Perfection. Acceptance.

Speaker B: This love and acceptance, this little seven-year-old piece, this little dark blue nervous because all it wants is love and acceptance. Now saying, you don't need me anymore, what would you like to tell this part of yourself?

Speaker A: I'd like to tell them that they're safe and that it's not my grandmother's fault. And I'd like to tell her that people are going to keep telling her a bunch of bullshit.

Speaker B: And she doesn't.

Speaker A: Have to believe any of it.

Speaker B: All she wants is love. Yeah.

Speaker A: And I mean, yeah, I want to tell her that she can look in the mirror and see how energetic and powerful she is.

Speaker B: And.

Speaker A: You know, it's interesting. I think had I done this exercise a few years ago, I would have said, I want to tell her that I love her. But now it's so obvious how much I love her. I don't feel like I need to say that out loud, you know, like, now I just want her to know that, like yeah, I understand. I understand why you thought that. I understand why you were so afraid.

Speaker B: How's that piece of yourself feeling?

Speaker A: Full. Like, it was feeling hollow earlier. Now it's feeling really full. And now, like, that hollow piece that was there, it's like, now feels expansive. And that's ifs wow if we could have introduced ifs any other way or, like, shown people how to use it, that was really powerful. Stella, I hope everyone I hope all you listening just really felt that. That was really interesting. That was really helpful for me.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's a matter of just it's a matter of seeing where old strategies and old burdens are and loving yourself.

Speaker A: Yeah. I really love how we started and this is sort of how I know I want to be a couple of your time, although I can talk to you for days and days and days about this, I really love so much for all of you listening, I really love how spells started with comfort. Do you feel safe? Do you feel comfortable where you are?

Okay, now that you feel safe and comfortable, go back to that place. What were you feeling? Where did you feel it? What did it feel like? And once you got a good sense of what that was, what it would feel like, then Stella asked about the voice. Is there a voice associated with it? Maybe there won't be. Maybe there will be, you know, and if there is a voice, what is that voice? Can you hear it? Can you put, like, you said this earlier, like, is the voice inside of you or outside of you? Whose voice is it? What's the voice trying to tell you? And for me, it was so illuminating.

Oh, it was trying to tell me not to say that, like, not to be who I am, to be careful to put these walls up because you don't want to be judged, you don't want to say the wrong thing. Don't bring shame upon yourself. And I have so much compassion for my grandmother as I'm seeing, like, she was always so afraid, you know, and she was socialized to believe she had to do and say and be a certain way and fit this. Mold of like what? A that being a female grandmother always in service to everybody else besides yourself. Supposed to be, you know, never self-actualized. And of course, that's what she taught me. That's all she knew.

Speaker B: And that was love too, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: The best she had.

Speaker A: Yeah. What I felt was really helpful, too, with that experience we just went through was you walked me through that. You allowed me to see, you allowed me to communicate with that part of me, to give them what it is they needed. Like, what is Vanessa actually needed when she was seven? Being told not to say that she needed someone there to hold her and say, hey, it's safe to be who you are. It's safe to ask the question that you want to ask. It's safe to speak out loud. And yeah, some people are going to feel uncomfortable when you do it, but that's okay. Like, it's safe to be you.

Speaker B: Yes. And I would say any ifs informed coach who is not willing to let you work with your own parts, that would be concerning.

Speaker A: Yeah. Interesting.

Speaker B: You always know what to say to your own parts when you're in your corso.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know what you need better than anyone else in the world.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Never let someone else's knowledge override your own. No way.

Speaker A: That's beautiful. For those of you listening, if you want to try this for yourself, I'd recommend doing that process that Stylists did for me, making sure you feel like you're in a safe place before you start and just really be in tune with what your body's trying to tell you and communicate with yourself. Like, how old was I at that time? What is it that I needed? How can I give myself that now at this moment? What is it that I can tell myself? And just so you know, it's going to obviously take a little bit of practice to even start the feelings part and the emotions part and to feel safe walking yourself through that.

But come back to this episode over again. Like, do have style. Listen to Stella's voice pause when she's asking those questions and answer them for yourself. Because I do really think that when you're able to do this for yourself and create that safety for me. What I've realized is there is no part of you that is wrong. There is no part of you that should ever be pathologized. 0% of the time when guilt shows up when shame shows up, is showing up for a reason. Let's listen to, let's listen and see why is it showing up when jealousy shows up. Same thing. There's no we should never pathology should. There's no need to ever pathologize who we are. We are perfectly whole all of the time and sometimes scared parts of us show up, and nervous parts of us show up. Parts of us that think we need to be in control show up. Parts of us that think that we need to society show up. And none of that is wrong. It's just part of our human experience. And the way we learn from that is by being in tune with what that part of us is trying to tell us.

Speaker B: We're going to have uncomfortable emotions. That's simply part of the way that we're wired and we're wired to pay attention to those uncomfortable emotions. We don't have to make it mean that we are bad, lawed, or broken. It just means that we have something to pay attention to. Right?

Speaker A: So beautiful. Yeah, that's a great way to end this. Nothing means you're bad, nothing means you're broken. There's nothing wrong with you. You are perfectly whole as you are. And there's just something that we're trying to learn at that moment. That's beautiful, Stella. This was so awesome and healing. For me to go out and do that exercise with you for the very first time, I've never done that before. That was awesome. Any last words you'd love? Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh, yes. Any last words? And by the way, for those of you that are interested in ifs or want to learn more about this or would love to work with Stella who clearly is very gifted at this work, I'm going to put all her information in the show notes. But Stella, is there anything you want to share or a quick way people can get a hold of you or find you?

Speaker B: You can find me on Facebook at Stellak Evansmd. They can find my very out-of-date website at www.stellacinsmd.com and they can email me at [email protected]. And I do offer a free session for just about anyone. This matters, this works. And I believe that you are perfect and worthy just as you are. That's so beautiful.

Speaker A: Thank you so much. Stella, what a gift you are to everyone and everyone that gets to work with you. And for me, just having you in my inner circle has been a gift. So thank you so much for sharing your gifts with us today.

Speaker B: You are so welcome. Have a wonderful day.

Speaker A: Yeah. Alright, we will talk again next week, everyone. Adiosala. Proxima. Hey, if you love what you're learning then you've got to check out my free Ultimate Guide to Stop People, where I teach you a simple five step process to stop saying yes. When you really want to say no, you'll be so glad that you did. There's a link to the guide in the show notes. I'll see you next time.