Sarah Baldwin The Fully Expressed Life

[Speaker 2] (0:00 - 2:32) Everybody, welcome back to the Here for the Truth podcast. So good to be here with you all. Thank you for tuning in. I'm Joel Rafiti. I've got my co-host Jurasmus with me as always. And you know, I hate to say it, but we rarely miss here at Here for the Truth. I love this. I love this conversation. We have another absolute banger for you today. Like the level of value provided through this conversation is absolutely mind-blowing for anyone on this journey of self-development, of healing, of being more integrated, being more whole. You know, like what Sarah Baldwin offers in this conversation is, you know, you could honestly, like people can go down certain trajectories, paying for years of a certain type of therapy and not get the nuggets that are available in this free conversation right here. Like, I genuinely believe that as a fact. Diving into so many directions, Sarah's profound personal hero's journey that's led her through a trajectory. Diving into the integration, her personal integration of nervous system and parts or internal family systems, self-esteem, how the nervous system relates to self-sabotage, success. It's just so, so, so powerful. Right before we bring Sarah on, I just want to highlight that this is the final opportunity that you have to pre-register for Rise Above The Herd, our 10-week program, which includes five nervous system optimization workshops and brand new modules, including a module focused on parts and connecting and integrating and even just having a basic understanding of the architecture of your own psyche. So by pre-registering, you'll be first invited to claim one of the 15 spots available for our program. And also you'll unlock early bird benefits, such as a special creator circle call with myself and Yerasmos, where we get to connect and have a conversation. And you can begin your Rise Above The Herd journey even before the course starts on July 29th. So this all is designed to give you the opportunity to join the program before we open doors to the public. Again, maximum 15 spots. We like to keep these containers intimate because we feel our students ultimately get the most benefit that way. So the link is in the bio, or you can head to riseabovetheherd.co. And if you do so, you'll hear from us and have the opportunity to join the program. Please enjoy this episode. [Speaker 3] (2:33 - 2:40) You are now listening to the Here For The Truth podcast, hosted by Joel Rafiti and Yerasmos. [Speaker 2] (2:43 - 3:15) Sarah Baldwin is a somatic experiencing practitioner and expert in the field of trauma resolution. She's a member of the world-renowned Polyvagal Theory training team and has trained clinicians around the world in nervous system interventions. Through the use of holistic, somatic trauma healing, she helps people get unstuck and step into the lives they desire. She incorporates nervous system regulation, attachment work, and parts and in the child into her courses and programs, which serve thousands of people from all over the world. Sarah, welcome to Here For The Truth. [Speaker 1] (3:15 - 3:19) Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here with you both. [Speaker 2] (3:19 - 3:33) Thank you. We're excited to have you here. One way we always like to kick this off with first-time guests is we want to dive a little bit deeper into your personal hero's journey. So like, what are kind of the major catalyzing, I guess, rites of passage in your life that led you down this path? [Speaker 1] (3:35 - 7:40) Yeah, so many. I mean, I think like a lot of people in the healing professions, we come to the work because we understand the work on a personal level. So I grew up with pretty extreme trauma history as a child. So really adverse childhood experiences and experienced sexual abuse inside my home as a kid for a very long time and pretty severe neglect and didn't have any safety inside of my home. And the result of that was I was extremely dysregulated. I learned as a kid, if I can just not be in this house, then I might be able to be safe. So that meant overachieving at school and trying to earn love from teachers. And I just think it's so brilliant how before we can even like ride a bike, we can find ways to adapt to survive, you know? And that is something that always amazes me about human beings. So that's the origin of where I came from. I was also from an affair. So the way that we come into this world is really impactful and important for each of us. And we're all supposed to come into the world in a holding container where the people around us are waiting and say, not many of us got this, but I'm so glad you're here. And as you are is exactly right. I don't want you to be like me. I want you to be you. And you are a part of this tribe that we are in. And because of my origin story, that wasn't the case. So I felt unchosen. And I had a lot of older siblings who, because of me being the product of their parents splitting up and my mother being a narcissist and not being able to take ownership, just took that out on me. So it was even with my siblings, a lot of messaging. We don't want you and nobody wants you. And so that was the blueprint for the first very significant part of my life. And I dissociated and disconnected from most of that. So I had inklings of knowing that I was abused, feeling like, oh, I think I was. And I was told, no, everyone feels that way. It's really normal. Feel that way, obviously it's not. But this is just deep levels of dissociation, which saves our lives, meaning we can leave our bodies so we don't have to be present to what we can't stop. For me, I know it's the only reason I'm here that I found that as a kid. And then I went off to college and I grew up in poverty. So one of eight children, my mother had kids with four men, but lots of kids and had to pay for it myself. And my stepfather stole all my college loans. And then I was almost homeless for a while. Anyway, there's a lot to this long story. And I got to a place in my life where the options were either not be here or heal. And in a lot of ways now, 15 years into this healing journey, I see that as a real gift in my life because I think a lot of folks who maybe had what's therapeutically called like good enough childhoods, good enough parents, you don't have to heal. You could cruise along the way you are and maybe it's not perfect or great, but you're not at a crossroads like I was where the options are not be here or do this. And so I see that as a real now something I'm grateful for because it's allowed me to live a fully expressed life and be fully me in the world beyond what I think a lot of people without histories like mine are doing. And I think that's because it can feel less like a necessity sometimes to do this work. But I found my way to somatic healing and it saved my life and for sure is the only reason that I'm here and living a life that's really embodied. [Speaker 2] (7:41 - 8:28) Wow. Yeah. It's amazing to observe the trajectory of one's life from their story. And for me, it's always like on some level, these things have to be written for you to be here to give you a gift in this way. And that being hinged on you having those childhood experiences and early life experiences that you had, it's just there's a level of divinity within that that is like beyond words as I hear it. Yeah, it's amazing because you have to think like how many other people have gone through similar, obviously not the same, similar situations and don't end up where you are. So it's like, what is that? What is that thing within an individual that unique spark that only you have because it's you and it's your life? You know, it's pretty amazing. So thank you for that. [Speaker 1] (8:28 - 9:06) Yeah, of course. Thank you for asking the question. And that's something I think about a lot, resiliency. There's research on resiliency, but also I don't know what that is that some like my siblings are mostly just repeated the patterns. What is that? And the only thing that I can make of it is that I'm here. I must do something to help the world to have this. I guess if I got this gift to be able to persevere through that, that I have to give it to the world. [Speaker 2] (9:06 - 9:24) Yeah, what was the just to get a little bit more backstory, like I'm sure there was like a rock bottom moment where you made a choice and then like you didn't find somatic healing right away. Was there like a like what was a little bit of that lead up to then going, oh, wow, this is a whole new piece to this healing process that includes the body. [Speaker 1] (9:25 - 14:32) Yeah, I remember I've been in LA 16 years and I moved when I first moved here. I was far enough away where I grew up in New Hampshire and so brilliant how our neuroceptive response works are basically that's our threat detector for people that don't know what that is. And our psyche works where I was far enough away that I was in a relative safety enough that all the stuff could start coming to the surface. So I wasn't just hyper mobilizing and like doing, doing, doing like I was before. And now I was like really shut down. Everything was intense and I didn't have any money. So I went to like, oh, you know, a sliding scale clinic, which is like people that just finished grad school and you pay five dollars and you get therapy. And so, you know, they're not equipped for somebody with a history like mine. And so I actually feel kind of bad for this woman. But I remember she must have been 23 and I walked in the office and like 101 of therapeutic work is don't dig with something that's not ready to come up because that's someone's system. It will come up when it's ready. If we open up boxes that aren't ready to be open, it overwhelms someone's nervous system in their capacity. So anyway, she clearly tell there was a lot going on. I didn't have connection to a lot of it. And she started doing that and could sense probably sexual abuse me and started digging and it all surfaced. And I like threw up in the office. She ran out of the office. It's not funny. But in retrospect, it kind of is because I just can't believe something like this would happen. And then it all just came to the surface for me. And and then and then it was so overwhelming my body. I'm like, I have I have to do something. So I started with talk therapy because that's the thing that most people when they think of getting therapy, that's what you think of. And the thing that that frustrates me about our field is when you think of the medical field, they're specialists like you could see an optometrist for an eye issue, cardiologist for heart issue, you know, and so on and so forth. You get the idea. So, you know, you go to a specific specialist when you have a specific problem. And it would be really weird if I needed cataract surgery to go to the best cardiologist. And let's say go to the best cardiologist. They do the best heart surgery. And they're like, oh, your eyes are still not great. And I'm like, oh, damn, it must be me. I'm the problem. So the thing in mental health is there's a lot of different modalities that we need. And there are actually two specific areas, cognitive work and somatic work. Nobody, the average human does not know this and certainly doesn't know about all the modalities. So if you go on to your insurance provider or psychology today, the number one thing you're going to get is talk therapy or psychodynamic therapy. And sometimes I'm like, man, I sound like I'm bashing cognitive work. I'm not at all. It has a very important place in healing, but it's not the whole thing. So we want to address our nervous system, trauma, our attachments, everything happening in your relationships. You want to get kind of unstuck in your life. If you want to adjust your parts, you have to do interweave somatic work. So I spent like seven years doing talk therapy. And the way that it helped was it helped me to first understand things. But and also it created a secure attachment for the first time with my therapist. Like I didn't have a secure attachment with another person. But there was no amount of learning that was going to make me not feel shame. Like I can go round and round and round and round. And that's what I did. And then I was like, this isn't this is not it. And and I was almost like healing became a full time job. I think for some people, it ends up being that. And I just was voraciously reading and researching. And I was like, holy shit, there's this thing about your body. Like, oh, my God, we it's all here. And and then found somatic work. And it it not so slowly began to change my life. That's the thing with somatic work that I think people don't generally know. I equate it to like. Cognitive work versus somatic work. If we were to take a course on pineapples, let's say, and you learn that a cognitive course on pineapples, that's like researching about a pineapple and learning the origin of it. And where did it where do they grow and what are the conditions they need? So it's all the cognitive understanding. A somatic course would be you cut the pineapple up and you eat it and you have an embodied experience right now. Like today. Oh, I feel more full. It's sweet. That's nice. There's different recipes. You could make things that you're enjoying. You're smelling it. So when people think of somatic work, sometimes they'll be like, well, when will the results happen? And I'll say now, like right now. And those results build on each other when you're doing this work rather quickly. And and then it snowballed. And I started to feel alive again and present in my body and and found all the different modalities that I then was like, I need to do like change my whole career. I was an actor before this and went back to school and all of that. And yeah, and that's what led me to do it professionally. [Speaker 2] (14:33 - 14:43) Yeah, it's I find it's got to be difficult to do talk therapy with a lot of the preverbal stuff, too. You know, I mean, how do you or the real early childhood stuff? [Speaker 1] (14:43 - 14:55) Yeah, we're talking about like attachment at age one or two. There's no verbal component to that. So it has to be it has to be addressed in our body. [Speaker 2] (14:55 - 15:15) Yeah, I think one of the primary, I guess, chasms or gaps in the collective understanding is that when we think of the unconscious, we think of it mentally. We think about it purely like psychologically, you know, and we don't really connect the dots until we come into the information or someone teaches us that, you know, the body is the unconscious. [Speaker 1] (15:17 - 16:38) Yeah, completely. Mm hmm. And I think that, yeah, most people don't understand how that works or how how traumatic memory works. Like it's as simple as, I don't know, let's say someone had a angry parent that when they came home from work, it was not going to be good. And so if that is a storage memory, let's say when the door opened, their system said, oh, the bad person's here. Something's going to happen to me. So, you know, 40 years later, 20 years later, you're in your house and halfway around the world and you hear a similar door open and your body goes, why is it doing that? That's traumatic memory. You don't have to even remember the exact moment. That's how our body remembers. And it's all in that felt sense or something as simple as like somebody that has a boss who sends them an email that says, hey, we need to talk. And it doesn't have punctuation involved, so no context. And all of a sudden that person's heart rate increases, not because maybe their boss is loving and wonderful, but maybe they had teachers or parents that were, you know, withheld love when they got things wrong. So all of a sudden their body's saying, oh no, it's happening again. And these are things that we need to address using the language of the body, which is not a verbal one. [Speaker 2] (16:38 - 17:58) Yeah, it's actually interesting you bring that up because I actually had an experience yesterday. Fortunately, I've done some work on it and have some awareness around it. But I was at, I was at jujitsu yesterday and the teacher was using me to try something on me and we were doing an arm bar. And so he had his leg over kind of my neck, but his like gi and his leg went over my neck, went over my face. And like in a moment, I just had the thought of, oh my God, I remember in somatic experiencing, you know, during the training, we were doing an exercise and I had these memories come up from, you know, early surgical trauma. I had a lot of surgeries on my ear when I was like a child, like between five and seven years old. And they used, you know, the gas mask. And so I had, I remember like during the training, like these, these memories became more vivid. And I remember like them putting the mask and like, and working through slowly having it come towards my face and like what was coming up. And, and so last night I was like, whoa, like, obviously I didn't get like dysregulated, but I just had the moment of, oh my goodness, this is also why for so long, the idea of someone covering my face or putting something or like feeling claustrophobic, I was not a fan of. So it was just interesting that like even last night in that moment, I just had like the little spark of awareness of like, okay, all right, now I know why that, that kind of, that thought came in, in that moment. So yeah, it's, it's fascinating. [Speaker 1] (17:59 - 18:38) Yeah. So much of our present life is informed by the past. And the more we can understand that and then do things to change it, the more we have control over our lives. But I would say most people, because we don't understand that and don't, aren't in control of this, our nervous system that's guiding the whole process. It means that we, a lot of the choices we're making or behaviors that we are having or the things we're inhibiting are, might not actually be in our highest truth or what our highest self or soul self actually wants. It might be because that's what our system thinks it needs to do because it doesn't know that the past is not here anymore. [Speaker 2] (18:42 - 18:46) Um, so it's almost like this affects this whole concept of free will as well, right? [Speaker 1] (18:48 - 21:41) Yeah. I mean, so our nervous system affects, I'm like a kind of an annoying broken record, but I say a lot, it's the foundation of all healing. And the reason I say that is because our nervous system, we have six states within the nervous system. So think of a state, like an experience, a total experience you can have. Sometimes I liken it to like putting lenses on like glasses. It could be like a purple lens or a clear lens or a red lens. And when you have that lens on, it affects your whole experience. So there's six different states that create six different experiences. And so that means our nervous system at any given moment affects every single feeling we have. So every feeling you have is the result of what's happening in your nervous system. Every sensation you have. So whether we feel at peace, solid, open, expanded, here, anchored, or we feel tension in our body, racing hard, we feel numb, disconnected. All of that is a result of your nervous system. Feelings, just go back to that. Things like feeling connected, joyful, alive. That's what we want. Or apathetic, hopeless, disconnected, anxious, frustrated, scared, angry, all a result of what's happening. It affects every thought we have. And this is really important to understand. So our state creates our story, meaning it's the fuel for the thoughts we have. When we're in regulation, our thoughts are all gonna be about, usually we actually don't have a lot of thoughts present, but the ones we have are gonna be about how we are capable and we're able. Things are gonna be okay, even if they're challenging. If we're dysregulated, the thoughts will differ depending on the state we are in in our nervous system. So it literally affects everything. Actually, just to give this example, a client of mine and I got permission years ago, and she was a woman in her mid-60s, was married for 40 years. And we were going through this so she could understand how her state created the story. And when she was in something called her dorsal vagal complex, that's our state of shutdown. You could think of it like a barren hibernation. This is where apathy, hopelessness, depression, disconnection all live. So energy conservation. When she was here, and the overarching experience about our thoughts is, I can't, I'm not capable, I'm not able. So when she was in that state, she realized that when it came to her husband, her thought was, I married the wrong person and it's too late for me. She was married for 40 years, they had children, grandchildren. That is such a dorsal thought because it's all about lacking agency. There's nothing I can do. I'm 65, 40 years, I can't go back. And all that makes you wanna do is crawl under the covers, right? That's not even my story. And I can feel the heaviness of it. Now, when she was in what's called her sympathetic nervous system, this is often called fight or flight, but it's really just mobilizing. So think of it like running from a lion, lots of energy in our body. This is a woman I'm about to swear, apologize for anyone who doesn't like that, but this is her thought. [Speaker 2] (21:41 - 21:43) I curse all the time, so don't worry. People are used to it. [Speaker 1] (21:43 - 22:52) This is a woman who, which is really funny in her vernacular, she doesn't swear in her regular life. She didn't even realize she was doing this. So when it came to Frank, when she was in fight or flight or sympathetic, her thought was, and she was so appalled when she said this out loud. She goes, Sarah, I can't believe it. My thought is, fuck Frank. And she's like, that's what I do. When we're in a fight and I'm mad at him because he forgot about the plan that we had. I say, fuck Frank, fuck that guy. I raised the kids and the grandkids and this piece of shit guy. And he's just, she was like, and she was like, and all of a sudden I'm throwing the laundry basket and I'm getting more worked up. And I was like, that's right because your state creates the story. And when you listen to those thoughts, it increases your dysregulation. So just notice they're already really different, right? When she shut down, it's just defeated. When she's in that sympathetic, she mobilizes and it's more of a fight response that she has, not even the language she normally uses. And then when she's in regulation and this is what is so wild. When she realized when she was in regulation, the thought was, it's not easy, but I'm so glad to be going through life with Frank. I love him. And it's hard, it's hard, but I'm really glad to be doing with him. [Speaker 2] (22:52 - 22:54) Oh no, go, go. [Speaker 1] (22:55 - 23:07) But my, what I want to say is, if she was listening to those thoughts as if they were her actual truth, which is what most people are doing, then she might've divorced him. And that isn't actually even her truth based in today. [Speaker 2] (23:08 - 23:59) Yeah, well, this is, I think is a perfect segue into diving into and exploring parts work. Cause when I'm hearing you talk, I'm just seeing like different parts that are triggered into behaving. So there's one part that's like, I would never curse, that's not proper. And another part that's like, fuck you, Frank. And then another part that's like, I just want to call it the covers. So it's, it's so interesting. Cause that's been my foundation of understanding that, I guess you would say the architecture of the psyche to some degree. And, and like for people that don't understand that, they just think, Oh me, me, me, this is me. This is all me. And it's like, Oh, well this cluster of thoughts, what's happening. You know what I mean? So it's just like, maybe I would love for you to maybe talk about, or get into talking about parts work. I know there's different schools of thought around it. People in the past have brought it up in ways, but then I know IFS has made it a little bit more popular. So however you want to, you know, take it from here, please do. [Speaker 1] (24:00 - 32:52) I combine parts coming from a lens of IFS, but I bring in the nervous system, which you have, I think you have to do. Otherwise we're just cognitively talking to parts and that's not helpful. I don't, I don't think to the same degree. So just to, just a quick overview for anyone who's unfamiliar with parts, I think of it like, if you can't see my hand or I'm making a fist and imagine this is like our whole self. We come into the world. I believe in the moment of coming into the world, if in utero, our caregiver was able to meet our needs of predominant regulation, I think of it like predominantly whole. And then what happens is none of us go through life unscathed by trauma. It's not possible. It's just a part of the lived experience. And so what happens is when we experience a trauma of some kind, I think of it almost like a part of us fragments off and that part. So let me give an example. Let's say when I am five years old, I have to, it's kindergarten and I'm going to, and I feel really anxious about going to kindergarten and my caregivers don't know how to meet my emotional needs. So to a five-year-old, they're egocentric. That is a really big deal for them. It's the whole deal. There's nothing bigger than that. So that's like me feeling like, oh my God, my whole company is going to fall apart. The bigness of that is what it would be like for the child feeling like I have to go to kindergarten today. And if a caregiver can't meet that need, that child's nervous system becomes very overwhelmed and they don't have the capacity to regulate on their own. So that part becomes fragmented off, let's say, and disconnected from the whole. They're still connected by a rope though. So I don't want us to think we have DID or what used to be called multiple personality. Like they're separate parts, separate us. They're all connected to us via this rope, but they're just fragmented off. And then that part is stuck at that numeric age. And whenever that part is reminded of anything from the past, anything in our present life that reminds it of this similar thing in the past, that part shows up in our body. So just to give more examples, let's say that I was bullied in school and othered when I was 12. Okay, we have another fragmented part there. That part's stuck at 12 years old. Maybe we have another part where I was made to be the, I was the achiever in the family system. I got attention and love just from achieving. That part's fragmented off at three or five, whatever. So we have all these different ages of parts that are fragmented off. Now we have something in our nervous system called neuroception. It's a term coined by Stephen Porges and that's essentially a threat detector. It lives in our brainstem. And every millisecond of our lives, it looks out into the world and it says, is that safe, dangerous, or life-threatening? Is that safe, dangerous, or life-threatening? Every millisecond, it's been doing it our whole lives. So if anyone here thinks they're lazy, you are not lazy. You are an incredibly well-working human earth suit, as one of my intuitive friends calls their bodies. So the way that it decides if we're safe or not is by looking to a resourcing, what I think of as an internal database. This is in our brain. So it has every lived experience we've ever had inside of it. You don't have to remember the lived experiences. They're all in there. Now, the way the threat detector works is it doesn't look for identical matches. It looks for flavorings of similarities. So for example, let's say that I look at this tree in my front yard. And for me, I immediately smile. Why? Because my threat detector looked to the tree. It looked to the database and says, what information do we have on trees and nature? My house was really dangerous as a kid, but nature was my safe place because I grew up in the woods. So I would go live a magical life in the woods. In a millisecond, it remembers that. And it says, oh, trees must be safe based on this. And sometimes when I'm in nature, I become really childlike and playful. Not childish, but childlike. It brings out the wonder in me. Why is that? Because it's reminded, let's say, of, oh my gosh, that time when I was seven and I went into the woods and made this beautiful in the fall. It's fall somewhere and I'm in the fall. And I made this beautiful like fort or whatever. So all of a sudden, I'm still adult me, but it's as if the seven-year-old me comes back online and is in my body with me. And so now I'm getting to re-experience with that seven-year-old part all of the wonder and joy. And you would notice if you're with me, like, oh, this isn't like work Sarah. Now this is like a really fun, silly, playful Sarah. And that's because that threat detector brought the part online. Now, in terms of being activated, give another example. Let's say I'm in relationship with someone, romantic partnership, and I'm telling them, my partner, hey, I have something really exciting to tell you that happened at work today. Can't wait to tell you after. And they say, great, I'm super excited too. Now in my database, the information that I have on relationships, for example, that are imprinted from earliest childhood experiences for me were unsafe and a lot of neglect. Like I had to go to loan, teach myself to read. There was nobody. So it's very vulnerable to say, oh, I wanna share this thing with you. Now this would happen sometimes. My partner, because we have these devices that have the whole planet on them. If his phone was not on do not disturb accidentally and he's still not fully decompressed from work, a couple of times where his phone would vibrate. So I'm starting to share something very vulnerable. And then his phone vibrates and he looks down at the phone. Here's what the threat detector does. It says, whoa, he just disengaged. Remember, it does not look for identical matches. It looks for similarities. And here's the thing. There's the most similarities between, for our threat detector with earliest childhood experiences and romantic partnerships. That's where it sees the most similarities because romantic partnerships are supposed to be your most important person, where you feel home, safety, belonging, connection. So the way that the threat detector works, it says, well, what information do we have on home, safety, belonging, connection, love, et cetera, childhood. And so it says, what did I get as a child when it came to all of those things? That must be what I can expect in relational dynamics today. So here's how it works. He looks at his phone. My threat detector looks to the database. It looks to my mother who was neglectful and never there and disconnected from me. And it doesn't see this loving, amazing man. It sees my mother who was severely neglectful. And so in that millisecond, it reminds me of being in third grade, making my diorama by myself, and then having no parent to say, wow, that's really great. And that was so painful, that part that fragmented, that in this moment of him looking away, it's like that third grader is now in my body and I'm re-experiencing what I experienced when I was in third grade. And my nervous system takes over and it says, okay, what did we need to do when you were in third grade to be safe? That's what we're gonna do right now. So this is all on autopilot. So then that millisecond, I would shut down, become like a steel wall. Steel wall goes up. I am no longer available. You cannot hurt me. I will not let you near me. And then the thoughts all follow. Thoughts like, I didn't need your help. I was fine doing it by myself. And then I would say, he would say, oh, so sorry. And I would say, no, it's fine, it's fine. I don't wanna, no, I don't wanna talk to you about it. I don't need you to talk to you about it. And now I'm actually in third grade. I'm not Sarah here in 2024. This is how our parts get activated and why they get activated. And then what usually happens in romantic relationship and all relationship is, now I'm a steel wall. His threat detector says, whoa, she is emotionally disconnected from me. And his system goes to his childhood. And it might be reminded of his father who was never emotionally available. And now his system says, what did I need to do then? Oh, I had to earn his love. So he gets anxious and comes towards me and tries to fix it. Like, well, let's just talk about it. And can we fix it? And now he's a fifth grader. So we have a third grader and a fifth grader in this relational rupture, thinking that the past is still happening all the while because we are in these adult bodies. We just think it's adult us and it is not adult us. And we are literally with swords out, reliving our childhood experience, trying to repair this rupture, having most people no idea that that's actually going on. [Speaker 2] (32:53 - 33:08) Okay. You go first and then I want to go. So to recreate this scene in a way in which it can be facilitated and helped, like what actions would need to take place? Like what awarenesses would need, you know? [Speaker 1] (33:09 - 41:32) Yeah. So a few. The first is we need to begin feeling in our bodies what is it like when adult me is here? What does it feel like in my body when I am anchored in adult me? Now I want to name, we all have the way parts work is, works works, is we all have the most, we have very young vulnerable parts. I think of those as the most vulnerable that we're not protected. And then we all developed, if they weren't protected, we developed what are even called protectors. And these protective parts, their whole job is to make sure the little one is safe. Now protective parts are really good at, most of them are parentified. They are really good at playing adult. And a lot of times, most people think that their protector is actually their adult self. There are people who have built giant companies, all from a 16 year old protector, not from their adult self. So I say adult self, it's when we are regulated. So we are feeling present, here, safe, anchored, powerful. We're at peace. We feel connected to all things, even if things are challenging, we know they're gonna be okay. So what I invite people to do is we need to practice noticing and bringing into our awareness when we have moments of that, even if it lasts one minute, what does that feel like in my body? Really notice what that feels like. We can also evoke this. One of my mentors, Deb Dana, does this through something called sifting. This is almost like, essentially it's bringing a positive past experience to life. So you reimagine it using sensation, image, feeling, and thought. So I recall that moment in nature, I bring it back to life in my body, feel it in my body so that I can relive this experience of being in a high ventral moment. You can also do other things like, for me, nature is a powerful way. Trees, for example, are a powerful way to feel into your adult self. We all have mirror neurons. So nervous systems read each other and even the system of a tree can affect yours. So if I connect to a tree and let it affect me, I feel like my body actually gets bigger. I feel more anchored and powerful in here. So anyway, first, we must know what adult us feels like. And that's our anchor point. So if I'm in an argument, let's say, we want to check and see, is that version of me present or not? If not, that means you're in a part. And in order to resolve what's happening in our relationships, we need to get adult us back. That's the person who can do the resolving, which also helps the young part. So you can also ask yourself, am I regulated or not? And if I'm not regulated, I need to go get adult me to regulate in order to repair. So if I'm working with couples or I'm just myself in a relationship, because this happens to every human, it's not always easy at first, but it's pausing and saying, okay, wait a minute. Is this actually adult me? And by the way, the thoughts are going to say, they're going to say, yes, this is adult you. And you are exactly right about this situation and blah, blah, blah, blah. But we want to check and see, is this actually adult me? And the hope is we can have the communication or language with our partner that we can both speak in this way and say, we have to time out if we don't both have our adult selves here, because then we're just going to corkscrew into a bigger problem. That's what will occur. So the pausing and noticing. Then what we want to do is we want to turn towards regulation. So anything that we can do, co-regulation and self-regulation. In my work, I give people therapeutic tools, but literally anything that registers as good for you, that supports you to feel more present in here. So we pause the conversation and we want both of us to go do that. Now, an advanced version of this is to check in and notice what sensations you're feeling in your body. In a very easy way that I've shown you I find to contact what part is present is by let's say I noticed, oh, it feels like there's a weight or a rock on my heart. So what I want to do is I connect to that rock and without overthinking it, ask it if it could say something, what would it say? That's actually going to clue you that the part's going to talk now. It's going to clue you into the part that's actually present. And if it's something like, no one cares about me. Oh, interesting. No one cares about me. I already have information from this part. Then I might want to ask, how old is this? Whatever number comes to you first is right. And a lot of times when people do, because we're connecting to this subconsciously, so you might say like six. I don't even know what that means. Six years old. Well, that means it's likely this six-year-old part that is here and that they're saying, nobody cares about me. And then what we can begin doing is a process that I call internal co-regulation. So co-regulation is connecting nervous system to nervous system with another person. Internal co-regulation is the reparenting process. So I have adult me in my body because I've regulated more, regulated my nervous system more. I went for the walk. I did some breathing, tapping, maybe bilateral movement. There's a lot of things you can do. And then I connected to this part. And then my job in any romantic relationship is I'm the primary parent to my parts and my partner is the secondary parent. That's how I see relationships. They're the primary parent to their parts and I'm the secondary. So my job is to turn towards that part and listen to them, attune to them, hear them and help them regulate with me. Now, after I've done that, I have a lot of information here from this part. And now I can come back to my partner because my part would likely say to me, oh, this reminds me of making that diorama. And how did that feel? It felt so painful to go to share it and someone to say that's stupid or not care. And connect to that part. Now, now that I'm more regulated, I am coming to speak on my behalf and the parts behalf to my partner. And his job is to do the same thing. So we come back together when we're more regulated. And something I love Harville and Helen Hendricks say is that we wanna wave a green flag. So we wanna start by saying something, a ventral cue to them. So something positive, anything at all. I so appreciate when you do X and Y. I love this about you. There's nobody else I'd rather be with, whatever. And obviously make sure that that's really rooted in authenticity. And that clues to their system. Oh, this is safe. And what I'd wanna do is from my adult self saying, when this happened, when you looked at your phones, now I'm advocating for the young part. When you looked at your phone, I realized it reminded me of when I was seven. And it reminded me of this time when I had this project and all the parents showed up at school and no one was there for me. And it felt in that moment, like I was unchosen and I wasn't loved and I was so unimportant. And I realized you looking at your phone poked at that. And that's what I was feeling in the moment. And that's why I pulled away. And what I realized I actually need and my part needs is when we have sharing time, can we put phones away? Because it's still tender for me and I need to have the conditions necessary to make this go well. Now I literally, I let him behind the curtain. I'd helped that part get their need met and I've communicated for my adult self. And now it's his turn to do the same thing. And he would likely say, when that steel wall went up, it reminded me of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And can we try to do this differently? Now we not only have successfully repaired, but we've successfully reparented our parts. And this is why I think romantic relationships, like Hollywood makes it seem like it's just supposed to be about just whatever life. You know what I mean? It's like dumb in love thing that has a chemical release last for three months. That's not what it's about. It's actually about us helping each other to become fully expressed and to heal together and become better together. And that's what we can do through that process. [Speaker 2] (41:33 - 42:23) Yeah, I just love how you explain that. Yeah, it's so beautiful. And I love how you explain that. And I think what's important to, for people to understand and share your thoughts on this, please, is that, you know, it's not about avoiding conflict. No. You know, like, it's not like, oh, well, we never fight. Our relationship is great because then you can bring in like the repression and spiritual bypass and all these other things that play into that. But it's about having the experience, like having these parts be present in whatever capacity because of a trigger or because of whatever, then having the self-awareness to do everything you talked about and then be able to come back together. And like you said, repair. And then I find after these moments of repair, the bond grows deeper. It keeps growing deeper. It goes deeper. Like, wow. And then I feel like there's this part that develops from that. That's like, we can get through anything. [Speaker 1] (42:23 - 42:24) Anything. [Speaker 2] (42:24 - 42:28) You know what I mean? We got this. So, yeah, it's really, really, really cool. [Speaker 1] (42:29 - 43:39) I get bothered by, well, a lot of, I mean, a lot of my company is run on social media, but I get bothered. I have a love hate for it. And one of the things that really troubles me about it is the presentation of life that we get. You know, people are presenting the best version, the best moments. And so what we see is whether we're aware of it or not, subconsciously the messaging is like, oh, everybody is just so happy and in love. And that's one snapshot of the whole picture. No, that's not true. And a healthy relationship has many ruptures. It should have many ruptures. It repairs quickly. We learn how to repair together. This is how we heal the past in our relationship. And sometimes people are like, they will say to me, oh my God, this partner might be so wrong for me because it seems like we are both poking at these really hard things. And I'm like, no, that's exactly right. We want that because you're both bringing the thing to the surface that needs to be healed. And when you can do it together and repair your parts together, like I've got you and you've got me, it creates, like you said, an incredibly strong bond. [Speaker 2] (43:40 - 43:45) And to be heard. Like a relationship is a catalyst for wholeness, really. [Speaker 1] (43:45 - 43:46) Totally. Yes. [Speaker 2] (43:47 - 46:54) Yeah. I mean, I've said this so often, like, again, with understanding part words to the degree that I do at least, like relationship and being in relationship, you know, with Sophie and even, you know, previous partners, like the amount of growth. And me, neighbor. Well, you too. And it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be like a more intimate, like, you know, primary partnership, like a work relationship, like, cause we're all, you know, we're carrying this own parts for each other very often in partnership. And a lot of times, you know, our partners are reflecting back to us, maybe things that we need to integrate, you know? Cause I think that's what happens with the whole opposites attract thing. That intense chemistry is that like someone is holding parts that you either haven't developed or you don't have access to. And it's like, oh my God. And so all that stuff is so great and cute in the beginning. And then after a while, it's like, that shit annoys me, you know? When you realize like that part is your medicine. If you can just understand, wow, like I have this or it was a repress because my mom or dad or teacher or priest or whatever, like, you know, they didn't approve of that behavior or it wasn't just there in my culture, whatever the case may be, you know? And so it's just like, yeah, relationship as a teacher, healer and guide, you know, that's the way I look at it. And it's been so beneficial in my relationship with Sophie where it's like, yeah, we get into stuff, but I don't, I mean, I'm going to be honest. Like, I don't know when something has lasted more than like an hour. Like, cause it's like when you do enough work and like you have, they could get heated, but then I walk away cause I tend to shut off. I tend to get a little bit more like. Avoid them. Yeah, more avoidant, you know, Sophie can be a little bit more anxious. So I get avoidant and then I go into like, I need to reflect, okay, what happened? What was going on? What parts were present? What does she do? What did I do? And then very often one of us or both of us, we come together and like, we take responsibility. I'm like, oh, I'm sorry I was a dick. I was a dick in that moment, you know? And like, oh, you know, I'm sorry. I was trying to control you, you know, whatever it is. And then it's like, okay, cool. Like we repair and we move on and we have more capacity to be with one another and be with ourselves. And like, that's why that's why it's so cool. Understanding parts or because something happens and then this part of you takes over your psyche, just takes over the cards, driving the car. And like, you think that's life. Like, that's who I am. This is it. I need to end the relationship. I need to quit my job. I need to punch this person in the face, whatever the case may be. But it's just like, just chill. Just like, if you can't have the capacity, just like step away and maybe don't say the thing that that part wants you to say, because a lot of times you can't take back what that part wants you to say. And again, the more capacity you build within your nervous system, I think allows you to hold some of this discomfort or hold these parts before they completely take over and very often can like ruin your life. Because just think of like a lot of these young kids that like grew up in like broken homes and then like they get angry and they have a gun on them and they shoot someone. Like, it's just like this part just completely takes over. It's like, are they 100% horrible people and horrible human beings? Like, no. I mean, there's so much more nuance to that. And so anyways, that's what I wanted to add into the mix. [Speaker 1] (46:55 - 49:27) Yeah. You know, it's, if, first of all, most people don't know that there are parts. And so, but what they will say is this, I hear people say this a lot and people listening, you might relate to this. There's an area of your life where you feel really an adult you. Maybe let's say your work. You're like, I got this, I'm capable. Everything's going pretty well. And you're like, I think I'm gonna start dating again. And then you start dating. You're like, holy shit, what's happening? I thought I was in control and now I'm sweating and having diarrhea and anxious and so confused and doing weird stuff. Like, why did I say that thing? I didn't even mean that. Why did I do that? And that's because it wasn't you. It was a part showing up. And these parts are literally, their whole MO is make sure that we are safe. And at all costs. And I had a part that said, multiple parts were on the same bandwagon that they never wanted me to be in a family again. Because being in a family was dangerous. So their job is to be like ninjas to keep me out of a family. And they were really good at it. And they seem really logical of all the reasons why this person's not right. Because that thing they do. And instead, what was actually happening was those parts were trying to keep me from my life. And we wouldn't want, I wouldn't want a 10-year-old running an adult life, right? Like or 14-year-old running an adult life. And so our job, it's not that the parts are just gonna disappear. The goal is they become more and more integrated with us that we notice when they show up. They're not as strong when they show up anymore. And that I had the full awareness. That's who's here right now. And I'm not gonna let them drive the ship of sabotaging this. I'd hear you. You want to do that? We are not gonna do that though. And get online as my adult self and then make a choice. Now, the more from that place and the more that we do that, the parts in our nervous system start to see like, well, maybe it can be different. I didn't think it could because we have all this database of like 20 years not being that way. But maybe it can be. Those are called disconfirming experiences. Every experience where it's different. And then eventually they're like, maybe this is safe to, you know, not shut down as much. I'm very avoidant. And now I noticed that come up and I can say, oh, there's that impulse to want to be like, you know, or not have the conversation right away and can do it, like you said, within an hour instead of pulling away for three days. And that's what happens when we do the work. [Speaker 2] (49:27 - 49:35) Yeah. I have a question. Like, what do you call the eye that is like, oh, the part, like, oh, this part of me, what do you call that? [Speaker 1] (49:36 - 49:41) I call it, I mean, it depends. Personally, I call it my soul self. [Speaker 2] (49:41 - 49:52) Okay. Well, that's what I was going to ask. You've been saying adult self, et cetera. But like, from your perspective, is that not a part? Is that like the center and it's not a part? Or is it like a part? [Speaker 1] (49:53 - 50:57) I don't think that it's a part. I think that it is, it's our essence. So essence, soul, I guess we could call it adult self too. It's the me that I am that is this body, but also not this body. It's me that I am that knows that I am all things and all things are me. That to me, despite everything, it'll be okay. So to me, that is not identity like I am Sarah. It's not even that, because that's identity. Or I have blonde hair or I'm Polish, you know, those, it's not really who I am. Who I am is much deeper than that. And when I think of self, which we want to guide our lives and always knows, I think knows what's already going to happen. That's maybe for another day. But that intuition, that is what I think it is. So I call it essence, soul, self, adult self. [Speaker 2] (50:57 - 51:25) Yeah, I agree with you that there's an essence and like a unique state of consciousness. But like when we talk about the adult self, like there's still like facets to it, right? There's like a comedic facet. There's like a rational facet. There's like a, you know, focused. Responsible, like the responsible person or the financially literate part. You know what I mean? Like there's still parts, but yeah, it's interesting. You know, I feel like we've had this conversation multiple times with different people. Like what is the ego? What is the I? What is the self? Small self, big self. [Speaker 1] (51:26 - 52:54) Well, I would say, you know, we are social beings. So some of there's conditioning that's come in, right? Well, a lot of us have. Like if we've grown up in capitalism, there's conditioning there that affects our adult self for sure. And, you know, to get into the real nuance of it, I would say the highest form of self is our solar essence. That's the thing we want guiding the way. And that our humanness, we wanted to like, to get into the break apart, the nuance of this. The humanness that comes in has a lot to do with our conditioning. And so, but our essence, soul self, like, you know, some people are these like magical aliens. You know, I love magical alien people. They're just like so strange and beautiful and amazing. And then there are some people who are like, their essence is more serious. And that's just who, that's their essence as a being. They came into the world that way. And then we have these other things that are maybe more conditioned, like financial responsibility. But I will say financial responsibility from our adult self, how we create experience finances, we have to be like, really notice the nuance of a protective part. Because we might have a protective part. This stuff is really, really nuanced. [Speaker 2] (52:55 - 52:56) It's real subtle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [Speaker 1] (52:56 - 53:27) You might have a protective part that because of our childhood, where maybe we didn't have a lot, that this protective part is really methodical, not been over the top way to controlling, but, you know, looks at the bank account a lot. Or it's just like, no, it's by the Tom's to the base, even though you're like, no, the other one's only 30 cents more. And I like that one better. It's better at all natural. No, no, no, this one. And that might not be our adult self. That might be a little controlling part, if that makes sense. [Speaker 2] (53:28 - 53:32) Yeah, yeah, it does. It's real subtle. I mean, I get it. I like observing it within myself. [Speaker 1] (53:33 - 53:33) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (53:34 - 53:47) I guess to get a little bit esoteric. So would you say that parts only exist because of trauma? And is no, okay. [Speaker 1] (53:48 - 53:49) Well, sorry. No, no. [Speaker 2] (53:49 - 54:12) What is the natural state of the psyche? And then again, trauma is a fundamental aspect of reality. There's no avoiding it. You know, so I'm just curious, like, is there? And then again, it's like, is this just part of the earthly experience where we come home, we get broken apart, then the journey is to reintegrate and become even more fortified within our own being, you know? Yeah. [Speaker 1] (54:14 - 55:42) I'll give you an example. Let's say, okay, I eat very clean and healthy. I'm very, I only get food from farmer's market. Usually that's just, that's important to me. It's just a way of my living. And I want to know who grew my food and stuff. That's my adult self. When I was a kid, my aunt and uncle, sometimes in the summer would take me to this carnival and I would get funnel cake. And I didn't have food as a kid. Like there was no food in my house. So getting funnel, that was like a really big deal. And when I got it, it was like the most incredible thing that I ever had in my life. I just thought they were buying me an entire country. I was like, oh my God. And I would eat the whole thing. And it was like the best moment. So there are times where if I, I'm not usually at a carnival, but let's say I was at a fair and I see funnel cake, I will suddenly like, I'm just cruising along, you know, whatever. And I see it. And then I feel like this little kid again, all of the sudden, but not from a traumatized way. I feel this excitement and joy. And I'm like, I have to go get this funnel cake. And I get like giddy even. And if someone's with me, they're like, what the fuck is happening that you're so excited on this funnel cake. And then I go get it and I eat it. And I'm back in being that, in that beautiful childlike wonder. So no, parts are constantly developing, not just bad and from bad experiences, good ones too. [Speaker 2] (55:42 - 56:29) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a flexibility, I think, and a fluidity with that. And, you know, even the nutrition thing, like you can go to the farmer's market all the time and then be like really hardcore and really controlling. So like, how natural is that? Because a person who's like, hey, I have a part that's like, and I think this is where the nervous system piece comes in with the part. Cause it's like, if you're like, oh my God, like what do you, how do you wash your vegetables? And like, you're freaking out with the farmer and you're talking to him. It's like, okay, like chill, you know, that's a different kind of part. Whereas I feel like the part that I guess is holding a little bit more ventral vagal, you know, on some level, you know, is the way it's communicating, the way it's relating to these foods, these things is different in that regard. [Speaker 1] (56:30 - 59:35) And it's not rigid, meaning it's not a place that I need to control to feel safe. Something I want to name is when I bring parts work in with the nervous system, what I realized was every part has its own vagal tone. Vagal tone everyone that's listening is essentially the shape of your nervous system. So right now we all have a shape of our nervous system and that means a state in the nervous system we hang out in and also the level of intensity of it, meaning your most baseline place that you experience. We move around in our nervous system all day long, but we all have kind of what's called our vagal tone or baseline. Some of us are more, let's say, I have a low grade anxiety a lot. So I would say you're at a three sympathetic if there's one to 10 or a shutdown. I feel in a funk a lot. So that might be like a two dorsal that you hang out in. Freeze, I feel kind of like I have to, I can't, I have to, I can't feel frozen a lot. Maybe that's a four freeze or I hang out in ventral. So let's say my adult self, when I'm regulated, I hang out at a four ventral. That's my baseline go-to. Now every single part has their own autonomic tone, meaning the shape of their nervous system. It's really fascinating. So when a part gets triggered, their nervous system inhabits mine, meaning the shape of my nervous system immediately changes back to what it was when they were that age. And then at that moment, again, it's like it's no longer my adult's nervous system, it's theirs and it's reshaped to be the shape that it was then. And so the cool thing I think about parts work is if we can start also understanding what's happening in the nervous system, what's happening in this part's nervous system, and then how do I help that part's nervous system to come out of that place of dysregulation and into regulation? That's really key. And if we're not regulated, this is, I guess, is one of the most important things to name. If you're not regulated, but you are in safety, so you're safe in your present moment, there's nothing dangerous about what's happening right now. If you're in a safety and you're dysregulated, that means a part is present. Because you're only dysregulated, we ideally only wanna be dysregulated when we're not in safety. So let's say there's somebody kind of walking really closely, like fast, feel like they're chasing me down my street, I wanna get dysregulated, that's real danger. And so my system goes into sympathetic, I'm still an adult me in that moment, I'm responding to something happening right now. And we're perceiving danger, meaning our nervous system is saying, this isn't safe, like the vegetable thing, like how many times have you washed these vegetables? Whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm getting dysregulated and sympathetic, and there's nothing dangerous about this farmer's market right now. I'm also not gonna die if whatever, they didn't wash the grapes a third time, it'll be okay. But if I'm dysregulated in that moment, it's a clue that my system is perceiving danger where there's not danger. And that means that there's a part present, like I've traveled time back to that part. [Speaker 2] (59:36 - 1:00:12) I just wanna highlight something just to get some more clarity. You gave the example of like, let's say you're on a dark alley and someone's chasing like, or like someone that looks dangerous is there. Like, would you call that dysregulation because it's an appropriate response to that situation? And then now if you stayed in that afterwards for like two weeks, yes. But let's say the threat was no longer there, and then you kind of came back down to like a baseline. Like, so would you say that's like, oh, I got dysregulated because someone, you know, showed up in the dark alley. Well, you're regulated to the moment and it's reality, right? Still. I'm curious just to eliminate that. [Speaker 1] (1:00:13 - 1:01:07) I actually rarely use the word dysregulated in my work. I call it active self-protection. That's what dysregulation really is. It's active self-protection of the nervous system. So it is active self-protection. So if I'm in danger, like I'm in the woods, there's a grizzly bear. Like, oh, there's a grizzly bear. I got to get out of here. My system will need to actively self-protect me. So I do become dysregulated. But this dysregulation is healthy and appropriate. People generally think like, oh, the goal is to be regulated all the time. You think about how terrible that would be if the three of us were in Alaska on a hike and I decided I'm going to be regulated all the time. And I'm like, there's a grizzly bear. And I'm like, oh my gosh, do you guys want to meditate? Look how beautiful the trees are. Should we hug this tree? You'd be like, Sarah has had a lobotomy and she's going to die and we're going to run away. At least the bear will eat Sarah and it will be a deterrent. [Speaker 2] (1:01:07 - 1:01:13) See, I don't call that dysregulation though. Your behavior, like I wouldn't call it regulation. You're like, this is not appropriate. [Speaker 1] (1:01:14 - 1:01:14) Yeah, yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:01:15 - 1:01:17) Anyways, I'm just curious because different languaging, you know? [Speaker 1] (1:01:18 - 1:01:55) Right. Well, it wouldn't be adaptive. By the way, it's not physiologically possible at all. You cannot be regulated when there is present danger. Your system literally won't let you. What you could be is dysregulated and so disconnected that you're like, oh, this is fine. I don't even sense danger, but that's actually dysregulation. For sure. What I'm saying is like, to actually be really in bed, you cannot, your system, our systems won't let us. So it's adaptive to get dysregulated, but the moment we leave danger, our nervous system, ideally, we want it to come right back into regulation. [Speaker 2] (1:01:56 - 1:02:38) Yeah, got it. Yeah, interesting. I've kind of been playing with this correlation with like this whole concept, you know, of self-esteem, you know, and like symptoms of high self-esteem or healthy self-esteem, you know, confidence, comfort with intimacy, independence, resilience, assertiveness, positive outlook, self-respect, like things of that nature. And like, when I think about regulation or even from the perspective of parts, like being in the adult self, like this speaks to like healthy self-esteem to me, you know, and it's like, is regulation or the nervous, like, is this just self-esteem, like for the body? Like, what are your thoughts on that conversation? [Speaker 1] (1:02:39 - 1:08:19) Self-esteem, we must do parts work around self-esteem. So something that I say a lot, like, especially for people who are new to parts work, it can feel really weird. And like, what are we doing? But these parts are actually, think about them like they're people, they're versions of you, they're not adult you. And so an example I use a lot is imagine that, you know, on each of your doorsteps, I dropped a beautiful foster child. So these two little boys, and you got their whole case file and there's nowhere else from the go, you gotta take them. And so you look at their case history and you're like, wow, this is a lot like my case history. And you look it over and you're like, wow, and let's say that one of these little boys had a low self-esteem and you read it over and you're like, oh, he had, you know, when his parents got divorced, his mother was not really in the picture much. And she was preoccupied with other stuff and she wasn't really around. And then the father worked all the time. And then this kid had challenges learning because he was dysregulated because if a child can't, they're not regulated, they won't learn. And if the parents can't regulate them, they won't be regulated at school. So now also not doing well in school because of it, okay? So we see this kid, kid got a low self-esteem. That kid is you. You are the adult version of this child. Now, how do we help this kid? Well, this is the process that I call internal co-regulation, which is the relationship building with our parts. Now what wouldn't work, and this is something I see problematic with IFS or some types of parts work, is if you just talk to the kid and you said to him, hey, you're really worthy of love. And he'd be like, uh, no, but okay. That's all verbal, right? I'm just verbally saying things to him. That's not really what he needs. He needs attunement and connection to you. Now, attunement is not just what we say. Attunement is connecting autonomically with someone. So feeling into what they feel and then supporting their nervous system to come out of it. So for example, like imagine if you were feeling shut down, you're like, oh, I feel pretty out of it. And I don't know, I just feel kind of hopeless about it. And then I said to you, mirrored you and I said, okay, so I hear that you're feeling really hopeless. Did I get that right? That's mirroring. You'd be like, that feels terrible because I wasn't autonomically attuning. Autonomic attunement would be me meeting you there. So I feel it in my own nervous system and you notice my voice change. And I would say, oh, I can really sense that's a lot. That is a lot. And I hear you. And what do you think about us? What do you think I could do to help? You know, I could give you a hug. We could go for a walk, blah, blah, blah. So now I'm helping you to regulate out of it. With our parts, it's the same process. So what we'd want to be doing with this young part is beginning first. The first thing is you have to differentiate from him because if you don't know that you're different from your part, you can't help him. So I have to see him as separate from me. Very simple tool I have people use as an as-if tool. Imagine you saw an eight-year-old boy who is feeling this way. What is the impulse in your body to do? How do you feel? So now we've differentiated and now we're helping you to create empathy and compassion for this part. Now in seeing him separate, you can actually start to love this part and see him as worthy and good and enough on an autonomic level. And now we do the relationship building. So parts work isn't just about coming to the part's aid when he's having low self-esteem. It's about continuing to come to his aid and build a relationship. Like with the foster kid, what would maybe happen the first month you have him is he'd go to his room and close the door. And you might be like super excited, like, hey, I'm here to help you. And he'd be like, he wouldn't respond behind the door. Not because he didn't want to, but because he's not used to it and he doesn't know if he deserves it. And also if you might go away. So the more that you consistently come to him and knock at the door and say, hey, how's it going? Eventually he would say something back like, it's okay. Now what he's doing is he's reaching out to you because of the consistent safety you created with him. Eventually he'd say like, probably like, yeah, you can come in if you want. And then he'd be like, okay, that's enough. Like after five minutes and hopefully you leave the room and I'd probably cry on the other side of the door. Like he's letting me in. And then eventually he'd say like, can you, do you mind if I read this short story out loud to you? Remember, low self-esteem kid, that's scary to do because he's got low self-esteem. And you say, yeah, of course. And he reads it to you and you're like, wow, this part was so good. I love this about it. Oh my God, this was amazing. And he'd be like, yeah, cool. Cause it'd be hard to take it in. And eventually he gets to the place where he's starting to actually feel and believe what you're giving him. And now you have literally reparent him, reparented him. The result of that is he's becomes more integrated with you. And now when I'm in the world, I don't have a low self-esteem or feel like, oh, everyone's so much better at this than me because I've literally given that part of new childhood as somebody now who has a higher self-esteem. But we can't just get a higher self-esteem or tell ourselves that we should have a higher self-esteem. This really comes back to the reparenting work. [Speaker 2] (1:08:20 - 1:08:37) Well said. Oh, are you muted Joel? Yeah, I'm muted. That was beautiful. I love it. Like the ease of access that you have between like, you know, the parent and then like being that little boy and being in that place, you know, it speaks to, I guess, the breadth of or the scope of the work that you've done in this arena. [Speaker 1] (1:08:38 - 1:08:39) Yeah, thank you. [Speaker 2] (1:08:39 - 1:09:03) Can we talk about nervous system and then like personal success and like, you know, people have like these parts of people like I'm going to do this and I want this for my life and I want this, but then the reality is maybe they don't have the capacity for it, you know? So can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. And even touching specifically on how, you know, the relationship between nervous system and how one perceives money. [Speaker 1] (1:09:05 - 1:16:12) Every single human being right now on a planet has the life that their nervous system has the capacity to hold. Every single one of us, all of us and none of us, including everyone that like we think is really cool, like Oprah doesn't have the capacity to hold the life that she's going to have in five years. And I don't and the three of us don't and everyone listening here does not. Meaning where I'm headed, I, if I had it today, it would be too much for my nervous system because the good things in life actually have energetic charge and our nervous systems like what they know. And so something that our nervous system does not yet know and has a lot of energetic charge for us, if it's too much for our nervous system today to carry and what we'll do is self-sabotage or push it away. And so I just wanna say that to everybody because I think our world, man, it tends to make us feel like we're behind. Like we're never doing enough. You set a bar and then you get to that bar and there's somebody else who's ahead of that bar and it's just this constant place of feeling like we're behind. And none of us are, first of all, no one else is on anyone else's road. Like there's, I'm on my own road. There's nobody else that could take that road because it's the only one on it. And there's things that each of us are here to do that only we can do in a way that we can do it. There's nobody could duplicate that. And the pace that I walk that road is always right because it's the pace that my nervous system has the capacity to be in. So what I see people often get stuck in and like kind of like toxic spirituality or manifestation work is we're here on this side of the road and we feel into the future, the thing that I want a lot. And oftentimes what happens is we could visualize the thing that you want and feel into the thing that you want. And, but here's the problem. I'm here, it's here. And it's like, there's no bridge in the middle. And now we're just left with like, I want that thing. I'm here, I'm stuck. I don't know how to get there. And if I try to have this thing today, my nervous system is saying, whoa, that thing is way too big. So when I sat down and I've been doing this work a long time and this still happened to me. I had a book publisher come to me a few years ago with a pretty, a very big, one of the biggest book publishers in the world. And it was a really wonderful, amazing opportunity. And I was like, I wanna write this book in six months. They wanted it fast. They get set me up with this amazing agent, all this stuff. And I do this professionally and I've been doing it personally for 15 years. And that's the thing that I'd wanted for a very long time. And it fell right into my lap. I didn't have to do anything. And my nervous system said, that is way too big right now. And what I tried to do is say, no, I can do this right now. I can do this within six months. But this book, what it represents is way bigger exposure in the world. There's a difference between me verbally talking about all of my work and having a podcast, all of that stuff versus a book that someone can pick up and have and they can interpret how they want to. They don't hear my voice and I can't take it back. It's out in the world. So anyway, for many reasons, how will colleagues feel about it? All kinds of stuff. So my nervous system said, that's too big. What I tried to do was battle my nervous system. This is where we get into problems. And my nervous system was saying, no, too big, too fast. And I was like, no, we must do this now. We're gonna lose this opportunity. And that created dysregulation. And what I had to do, and I'm still doing over the almost done now, two and a half years later, is I had to slow the process down because our nervous systems are stronger than us. Doesn't matter how stubborn or strong-willed you are like me, you cannot battle it. So I had to say, okay, my parts were freaking out. It's all about our parts that are like, no way, no way, too much, too much. And so what I had to do is say, okay, number one, I choose my parts over this book. I choose my parts over helping the world. And I will go at a rate that's tolerable for you. And that means taking tolerable steps. When I say tolerable steps, I think it has two distinct features. Number one, it doesn't feel good. That is super important for people to know because I think sometimes people are like, I'll do that thing when it feels really great. It won't feel really great until you do the thing. So yes, it's gonna be dysregulating, but the goal is that it's small enough of a step that I can complete the step. If you can't complete it, it's not tolerable. Or if you get engulfed, too dysregulated, it's not tolerable. So that meant for me breaking down the steps instead of writing and feeling like there's a million people reading every sentence I wrote. I couldn't write a book that way. I broke it down to say like, I'm not even writing a book. I'm gonna write one page today. And in fact, this isn't even going into the world until I'm ready for it too. And it's not even gonna be a good, well-written page. Or I was writing on paper. I couldn't, it was too much to write on a computer. So I broke this down into very tolerable steps. I'd go into nature and then I'd write one paragraph. Like literally that's it. And that is what showed my nervous system. So to go fast, we have to go slower in this way. And I think it's important for people to know that. Oh, and one other thing I wanna say. I had a one-on-one practice for a very long time. And then I felt my soul, the universe saying like, no, you're meant to do this other thing and affect change with bigger audience. So I remember I did an Instagram. I wasn't even on Instagram. I did a Facebook Live, I think, years ago. I didn't like social media. I was like, I don't even on it. I did an Instagram Live and I went to dorsal and dissociated. And after I was like, I don't even know what I said. I was like, I'm so dysregulated. I needed to nap for five hours. It was like really. And I was like, how am I ever gonna do this? And through consistently doing this, and people often say like, I know that this is the feeling because I had it. Like, wow, that person has this big community, whatever, 100,000 people. What? If I'd had that, those years ago, if they showed up overnight, I would have run away to an island somewhere and dug a hole. It would have been too much for my nervous system. But instead through consistently doing that, now when I am feeling dysregulated, I actually do an Instagram Live because it makes me feel more connected. And that's the consistent neural exercises, the tolerable steps. And lastly, I just wanna name that every time we decide to live a bigger life up level, like you can cruise along when you get to a place, you're like, I could cruise along here at the capacity for it. But if you wanna keep expanding and growing, you can guarantee that every level of that, there's gonna be parts that say, I don't know about this. And there's gonna be more dysregulation. This is the name of the game in the human experience. And it's making friends with that process. [Speaker 2] (1:16:12 - 1:18:06) You gotta push the edge a little bit, you know, just in a healthy way and keep building a little bit more capacity, a little bit more resilience. You know, I love that you brought up like Instagram Live because the story that was in my head was I remember when I got invited, I don't know, several years ago to do my first Facebook Live talking about whatever, body work, somatic work, somatic or whatever else, whatever I was doing at that time or human design. And like, I was so nervous. I was sweating, sweating. Now, I, you know, I think I did okay. But when I was done, I was exhausted. But there was this like, wow, I didn't die. I didn't like just make a fool of myself. And so every single time, like, for instance, let's say for some reason, Joe Rogan found me seven years ago and was like, you're awesome. I'm friends with your friend. You should come to Joe Rogan show. I mean, like back then, like I wouldn't, I probably would have froze. I would have freaked out, you know? But now we are several years later and it's like, you know, I don't have nerves before I jump on Zoom to have a podcast. You feel like you're ready for Joe Rogan, huh? You know what? Listen, I really feel confident that if I were to get an email tomorrow or we were to say, hey, listen, we found out about your podcast. We'd love to have you come on to talk about truth, the inner journey, the external journey. I feel good about it. But three years ago, four years ago, five years ago, my parts, my nervous system would be like, F no. Yeah, I want to ask you this, Sarah, in terms of like we're talking about, you know, the capacity that one has for success. How does this work in relationship? Like when people are trying to, you know, move towards success in union or in partnership, say one person, you know, has more capacity, wants to move in a certain direction. Another person, you know, like is there some kind of hybrid thing that comes out of that? [Speaker 1] (1:18:08 - 1:18:14) I think if I'm not following your question, just say, Sarah, that's not what I would say. [Speaker 2] (1:18:14 - 1:18:14) Sure, sure. [Speaker 1] (1:18:14 - 1:18:20) I'm not sure I'm following totally, but the capacity building for what I'd say. [Speaker 2] (1:18:20 - 1:18:34) Say one person is like stuck in deeper self-sabotage, you know, that there's like, you know, things that keep them from success. They're scared of what comes with that and say the other person is moving forward, wants to grow, wants to expand. Like, how does that work? [Speaker 1] (1:18:36 - 1:22:19) Both people just have to be willing to walk the road. Now, what generally happens is usually, not usually, always, we both come into a relationship with this unwritten script or contract rather. And from our own family system, we both have, I think of it like a play, like a theatrical play. And you were born into a play. Let's say Midsummer Night's Dream. Okay? You're given a role. You're going to play the role of P. Botham. You didn't choose that. It was given to you. That's actually the role of the scapegoat. Okay? Everything's your fault. Or actually, I'm going to give a different role. You're the role of the caretaker. You have no needs. You take care of everybody else. Okay? Now, in order for the play to work, you say your lines when you need to, everyone else say their lines when they need to, and then the play will function. Now I have this other person. Their role was being helpless. You are helpless. In order for you to receive attention, everything is centered around you, and you have to be helpless, and then we meet your needs. I meet your needs. That's your role. Great. Play your role. You'll be fabulous. They have their play. Now we grow up to be adults. We go out into the room like, I'm going to date. I've got this play. Now I have the role of no needs. I'm looking for someone to fill the role of all needs. So I'm out in the world and dating, and I'm like, oh, somebody who wants to meet my needs. You're not attractive. You're kind of even gross to me because I don't do that. I'm the role of having no needs. I'm not attracted to that person, but then I find the person who has all the needs, and I'm like, oh, you feel like home, and I've known you for one week. Oh my God, I love you so much. I'm so attracted to you. Wow. And then they're like, oh my gosh, this person has no needs, and will do everything I need. You are what I've been looking for. You're just like my mother. I love you. I love you. And we come together and we're like, do you want to make our own play? Yes. Okay, read the lines. Maybe we have a baby, and we bring them in. Anyway, so now we have this play. We're each have this role. Usually what occurs is one person, let's say the person's out their needs, and they reach a time where they're like, I don't know if I like this. I'm not sure I like this play. And they're like, I think I'm going to try to go to get some healing work. And they go and they start, they're like, hey, it's not fine. I'm actually pissed off. I've never been pissed off in my life. I actually feel pissed. And then they go to their partner, and they're like, that bothers me. You never ask me how I'm doing. And the partner's like, what's happening to you? You're getting worse. I thought you were getting, I thought healing was good. But no, it's actually making it worse. Because what they're doing is they're saying, we have to change this play. I'm changing my role, and you have to change your role. So I call this the rocky road that happens in a relationship. And it doesn't mean the relationship has to end, but it does mean it's always going to get rocky because we're renegotiating our contract. And usually there's one person that's ahead, meaning that's chugging this along. And they're doing a little bit more work. And what we need the other person to do is get on board. Now, if they don't get on board, and they're like, I'm not willing to do that. I don't want to do it. The relationship cannot work if you decide to heal. Cannot. But what I will say is, more often than not, the person might be available to come around to it after they're first scared and trying to make you not do this work. And then they say, okay, okay. And they might be chugging behind you. And then what sometimes happens is maybe they get ahead. And then the other person gets ahead. And sometimes we're at the exact same place, but usually in different areas of life, like purpose, one might be a little further ahead. And then in parts, the other person might be further ahead. And all we're looking for is that we're both willing to walk the road. That's it. And when that happens, there's so much possibility for our own growth and for helping each other in that. [Speaker 2] (1:22:20 - 1:23:06) Like travel there. It's so beautiful. Yeah. I've said this many times, but I just love M. Scott Peck's definition of love, which I think you've spoken into as well through this. And he says, love is being interested in another person's spiritual development. You know, it's that willingness to walk that road with them. And I think that's what you kind of surmised just there as well. Yeah. I have a final question for you. We see the rise of AI happening all around us. More humans are talking to AIs than ever before in human history. You know, this seems like it just happened overnight kind of thing. We're seeing the rise of AI therapists, AI this, AI that, et cetera, et cetera. Can people attune to AI? Can they become regulated through building a connection with AI? Pros and cons. [Speaker 1] (1:23:07 - 1:24:29) I think it's nuanced. I think there's a lot of benefit to what AI can do in certain arenas for our world. I think there's areas that it can be very helpful for. And I think that there's areas that personally, you know, I don't know what's going to happen in the future. I haven't seen it, but that I have concern about. And one of the areas that I do have some concern about is in healing. And because trauma is relational. It happens with other living beings. And there are things about a human, including the soul of a human, which I think we're all trying to come back to wholeness of our essence and soul, that AI cannot do. And so my concern about it is that it could create problems for people or be dangerous in some ways because it could misattune with people. For example, there's a lot of apps being developed right now that are basically a conglomeration of a bunch of practitioners and therapists coming together, giving all of their knowledge, and then people can buy it. And you talk to it. It's literally like the Joaquin Phoenix movie, where it's like, and now you have a new friend on your phone. [Speaker 2] (1:24:31 - 1:24:32) Now, they've even copied the same voice. [Speaker 1] (1:24:33 - 1:25:49) Now, in some ways, there's some things that I think, okay, positive in that. I grew up in a rural part of New Hampshire in poverty. I had no access. So to me, accessibility is the most important thing. So that's gonna make things quite accessible, right? The problem is that is not a human being. And so now when we're dealing with the human psyche and this really tender stuff, there isn't room for mistakes that can't be repaired. So in my opinion, there's gonna be mistakes that happen in a human dynamic that we can repair because we can work through it together. But if this AI bot spits out something to me, that isn't entirely attuned when I'm feeling suicidal, let's say, or I'm really struggling in a big way, and now they misattuned with me and there's nobody there to actually help support me in the coming back in a connection, that concerns me. So I think as somebody who just feels really protective of people's parts, really feel protective of people's parts, that's my concern. And the same time when I said it's nuanced, I think accessibility is really profound what it's gonna bring to people. [Speaker 2] (1:25:50 - 1:26:53) Thank you. Yeah, I think a lot of the AI stuff feeds the cognitive element that we were talking about before. Like Joel and I, I think it was the other day, as an exercise, we went on ChatGPT and we were like, pretend you're a somatic experiencing practitioner. And yeah, and we're dealing with this problem, let us know your thoughts. And like some of the information it gave was like really spot on, in terms of like what to look into, what to think about. So I think from the accessibility standpoint, I think people can utilize it to just create some more awareness and understanding education. But like they're trying to create these AI robots to give you a massage, like you're not going to recreate how my hand feels, skin to skin contact, you just can't. And so that relational component, you're not going to be able to recreate it. So yeah, I agree with you. There's nuance. I think there's some benefits. So you just have to be careful that you utilize things in a way where it's balanced, as opposed to just getting sucked into the AI world. [Speaker 1] (1:26:54 - 1:27:18) I agree. That's the nuance of it. And my concern for people is that they, you know, I feel protective of people in that. Not everybody knows that to say like, oh, I'll use it for this, but I won't use it for that other thing because I really need a human being for that. My hope is that the companies creating these things will hopefully give that. [Speaker 2] (1:27:20 - 1:27:26) And probably won't. Like disclaimer, like a disclaimer, like, hey, this is great. And, you know, you'll sit with someone. [Speaker 1] (1:27:26 - 1:27:28) Here's what to use it for. Here's what to not use it for. [Speaker 2] (1:27:29 - 1:27:47) Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much. This was a great conversation, really. I'm so happy that we had a chance to explore these subjects and just appreciate you. I'm so happy we connected. I mean, just the fact that we connected online with technology during a somatic experiencing course, like however many years ago, it was really cool. [Speaker 1] (1:27:48 - 1:27:56) Thank you so much, both of you, for having me on this. It's always like a real honor, especially when it's people that I admire a lot. So thank you. [Speaker 2] (1:27:56 - 1:28:08) No, thank you. Thank you so much. I think people are going to get absolutely incredible value from this episode. Like, it's absolutely insane. Just to close, how can people connect with you, contact you, support your work? All the things. [Speaker 1] (1:28:09 - 1:28:23) You can find me at SarahBaldwinCoaching.com and all my offerings there. And also at SarahBeeCoaching on Instagram. And I do give lots of free resources and do a lot of teaching on there, too. Better. That's totally free. [Speaker 2] (1:28:23 - 1:33:36) Amazing. Once again, thank you so much. Everyone else, thank you for listening. Man, that was such a powerful and important episode, like these conversations and this knowledge and this level of integration across these modalities, which are all profound on their own. Like, it's just immensely valuable. Yeah, I loved it, man. Obviously, a lot of this stuff's, you know, part of my journey, you know, getting involved in the parts work, you know, it's probably like my first foray into personal consciousness work with Drs. Hal and Sidra's work, voice dialogue, the psychology itself, and the aware ego, you know, and then getting into body work and somatics and the nervous system work. It's just, I just think it's really, really important. And then like, just to see Sarah, like weave things together and communicate things so clearly and with the storytelling. You know, I just, I love the episode. I love the conversation. And yeah, I just think this stuff is so important. Like I, like I said, man, I loved it. I think, I think the audience is going to get a lot of value out of it. And also like, let us know, like, let us know your thoughts, like, you know, comment on our website, you know, or comment if you can, if you're listening on Spotify or Apple, you know, send us an email. We'd love to hear from our listeners. And, you know, you know, what you're getting out of these, these episodes and the guests that we're bringing on. Yeah, for sure. And it's like these, these modalities and, you know, this way of communicating this knowledge is like kind of brand new. If you consider like, you know, the entire scope of the healing therapeutic fields and industries and the way seeing it evolve is really, really profound for me, man, because I can only imagine like, you know, the level of depth of healing and the accessibility, you know, to healing that people are going to have like going forward as well. You know, in a world full of doom and gloom and black pill conversations and everything regressing, etc, etc. It's like there is amazing opportunity and, you know, things are right for people to continue to grow and become more whole and evolve psychologically, you know? Oh, yeah, totally, man. And again, that's the thing, too, is like, sure, there could be stuff going on in the external world. But like, what do you control? Like, you can control your experience now and your life and what you want to continue to build and create. And like, if you're like, hey, I need to do some parts work. I need to do some nervous system work. I need to heal some more. Like, you know, the time is right, you know? And it's actually like a perfect segue, you know, into Rise Above the Herd, which is, you know, it's our 10 week. It's 10 week program now. It was an eight week program. And, you know, these are subjects that we cover in this program. We have Sophie Fletcher, you know, my wife, who is leading five individual nervous system optimization workshops. And then, you know, we have our nine modules. We have an extra module. We're going to be getting into parts work as well. And so, you know, if you're listening to this on the Sunday and on the 23rd, you know, there's one more day left to pre-register to receive exclusive benefits and to be the first one invited because we're going to be opening this up to the public on July 3rd. Yeah, absolutely. You know, what can I say? This is a program that we try to make more holistic every single time that we run it. So if you're down, you know, submit a form, pre-register, and there's special bonuses available for those that pre-register that ultimately enroll as well, such as a creator circle call with Yerasimos myself, or you can even start the journey before the course start date. Guys, we love what we do for a living. We love the fact that we get to have these conversations, speak to incredible minds from around the world and provide this level of value and knowledge through the vessel of this conversational style, which I just love so much. And a big thanks to you for being part of this and for allowing this, you know, for making this happen on some degree for us as well. You know, so, yeah. Yeah, and just being open to this stuff and what we're putting out there. And like, you know, this is I love this stuff. You know, I want to continue my life and be surrounded by individuals that care about these things that, you know, they care about wanting to become more whole and integrated and take a deep look internally. We say it all the time. It's not just about the external world and everything that's going on there. There's so many distractions there. You know, now is such a beautiful time. Like, you know, do that inner work, you know, become, you know, the best versions of yourself and expand your nervous system capacity so you can hold what it is that you want for yourself. And I want to highlight that one thing. I love what you said about that. This isn't the compare and contrast game. You're on your own journey. This is you. OK, you have your unique seat of consciousness, your unique upbringing, your unique traumas, you know, your unique goals and dreams. Like, just own that. You don't need to be me. You don't need to be Joel. You need to be your brother, your sister. Like, this miracle of life is yours, you know, and like, that's exciting. Yeah. Well said, man. Guys, thanks again. Take care. And somebody set the alarms because they be too busy snoozing. I'm in a DeLorean. Fast forward and never.