What is the Self-Led Project?

 The Self-Led Project is a group coaching program that uses the IFS model to help participants develop Self-Leadership.

The program uses exercises inspired by my personal experience over the past 20 years as well as my experience with the IFS model since 2016..

Thanks to the Internal Family Systems model, the last six of those 20 years has helped me integrate all my transformative experiences into a program that is designed to help participants take that journey in a much shorter period of time and for a lot less money!

I’ve lost track of how much money I’ve spent in therapy, weekend workshops, trainings, coaching, books, and online courses. But every dime of it was money well spent because it all added up to a life that I love. That truth stands in stark contrast to the life I had learned to settle for previously.

20 years ago, I was reeling from the end of my marriage. My life felt out of control because it was, in fact, out of my control. I had been sober for 20 years already at that point. My addictions landed me in 12-step programs in 1982. I believed that abstinence would make everything better. Not drinking or using other mind-altering drugs definitely helped – it stopped the bleeding. But healing and growth are not an automatic byproduct of sobriety. Sobriety is just the beginning. Staying sober put me in the waiting room for recovery.

I didn’t really start transforming until I found a method that worked for me to change from the inside out. Until I discovered The Work of Byron Katie in 2002, all my efforts had been directed at identifying and implementing strategies that were designed to work from the outside in.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy very quickly helped me understand myself more compassionately and made so much more sense! For example, I thought I was the thinker of my thoughts. Byron Katie helped me to see that I wasn’t. She helped me to realize I had been believing everything I thought and reacting to those thoughts as if they reflected reality. But if I wasn’t thinking these thoughts, where did they come from? IFS answers that question for me.

I now understand that the majority of my thoughts, the emotions associated with them, and much of what I experience on a physical and energetic level are influenced by parts.

Because of the healing work I have done in IFS, I have developed the ability to recognize when my parts are activated and exercise conscious choice about whether or not to react from their influence. This ability has been developed over time as I have gotten to know my parts and have met them with compassion and understanding.

And that is what I designed the Self-Led Project to do for you. This program walks you through your own personal development journey, one exercise at a time in a group experience. Each of the exercises help you understand how automatic your reactions to life have been, why you think, feel, and react the way you do, and how to permanently change your experience of life.

The Self-Led Project is a 9-month program. At the end of the third and final module, you will know who you are and who you are not, develop compassionate regard for yourself, improve communication in all your relationships, have a more harmonized and balanced inner life, and will be well skilled in the art of Self-Leadership.

What Does it Mean to Unburden a Part?

 

Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi

This article may not make much sense to you if you aren’t already familiar with the Internal Family Systems model (IFS). If that is the case, go to IFS-Institute.com to learn more about this amazing modality that has such far ranging benefits from healing trauma to improving communication to becoming a better leader.

I LOVE how it feels as a Certified IFS practitioner to help the client explore and get to know their parts (also known in various modalities as subpersonalities). My client and I are both often surprised by what we learn from their parts. It feels like detective work. We work together to detect parts and then connect with them, one at a time.

Much like Richard Schwartz, the creator of the IFS model describes, I learn so much about the IFS model from my clients and their parts.

Together, we learn the history, intentions, frustrations, beliefs and hopes of the client’s parts. One part leads to another as concerned parts show up to defend and assert their conflicting agendas.

As we meet each part with curiosity and respect, they begin to relax. As we learn about a part, other parts seem to listen and learn along with me and the client. The system gradually relaxes over time as new relationships are developed between Self and parts. The system relaxes more as healing and understanding occurs between parts.

What seems to motivate burdened protectors is the pain of exiled, vulnerable parts. In what feels like a natural unfolding, protectors eventually relax enough to consider the possibility that Self can help with the exiles they have organized themselves around.

After protectors trust us enough, we connect with the exile by learning about their history. We learn about their pain. Self (the wise authentic Self, capable of healing and leading the internal family) might even voluntarily feel some of their pain to really get a sense of what the exile has been holding all this time.

Now the exile feels safe with Self. They feel seen and understood – perhaps for the first time since they were burdened with painful emotions and beliefs.

This is where ‘loving the process’ ends for me.

The entire time I have been working with the client and their parts, THE UNBURDENING PROCESS has been the ultimate destination, looming at some point in the future. But because the unburdening process (as I have been trained to facilitate) occurs to me (my parts) as made-up, hocus pocus, magic, imagined, not real, pretended, nonsensical, and ridiculous, I shift from being present, compassionate, and curious, into following a script that doesn’t feel right to me.

It feels SO inauthentic. So detached from reality.

I was talking with Alison Dyer, who went through Level 1 with me and was finally able to sort all this out for myself. Here’s what makes a lot more sense to me.

 

I believe the unburdening process begins for me and my parts the moment I connect with a part.

Maybe even the moment I notice a part without the distorted lens of a burdened part. That unburdening gradually builds along with the relationship that is developed between Self and the part I am giving my attention to.

By the time I get to the exile, the protectors I have been in relationship with, who now trust me with the exile are partially unburdened. All that is left for them is to see that their exiles are free.

As I witness, retrieve, validate, and re-parent the exile (which can take some time), the exile gradually relaxes as they feel safer and safer. Part of the unburdening happens as the toxic and painful beliefs are updated.

Humans form beliefs to explain what needs to be explained. With burdened parts, those beliefs may have made sense in the context of the pain, fear, loss, and/or trauma that demanded an explanation. Once exiles feel seen, understood, appreciated, loved, and supported, they are open to updates that provide more accurate explanations for what happened to them.

For example, a 15-year old version of myself decided I wasn’t worth caring about when I got beat up and was blamed rather than comforted and cared for. What was unburdened for this part was the story (belief) he told about how much it hurt to come home and be blamed for being bullied. He believed he didn’t deserve to be cared for. Once I earned the trust of this exile by witnessing, comforting and caring for him, he could see that being blamed had nothing to do with him and everything to do with parents who were too overwhelmed by life to have the capacity to show care for me or my siblings.

None of that unburdening required bringing in the five elements or releasing balloons. But my therapist facilitated the unburdening in this manner, and it seemed to work.

The unburdening DID happen. But was it necessary to involve the five elements and have my exile use them to release its burden to the universe? Until yesterday, I didn’t think so.

After speaking at length with Alison, I realized that what has occurred to me as an unnecessary and fantastical process is actually very real and necessary.

I now understand that a ritual or ceremony helps integrate the unburdening that unfolded over the entire process of building trust between Self and the exile as well as every single part that was involved in the protection of the exile.

The lightness and spaciousness of the unburdened state is facilitated by the ritual that completes the unburdening process and makes the invitation of qualities possible and logical.

 

If you would like to learn more about what it would look like to work with me to unburden your system, read about me, my approach, and my philosophy at https://billtierneycoaching.com/my-coaching-approach/  

The Automatic Life

 Photo by Min An:

As children, when painful or scary things happened, we needed to understand why. If a reasonable explanation wasn’t provided, we made one up. Understanding why a painful thing happened can help us avoid or prevent it from happening again. It is common for children to make up a story about how they themselves caused the painful or scary experience. Armed with an explanation, children can feel empowered and hopeful. “Something about me caused this painful thing to happen. If I can change whatever I did or whoever I am that caused the painful event, I can avoid feeling that pain in the future.”

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“What,” the child may wonder, “did I do to cause this to happen?” If the child is being criticized or otherwise blamed, they may conclude that the logic behind the criticism or blame is accurate. “Because I am stupid, thoughtless, selfish, ugly, a bother, too demanding, not grateful enough, or ___, this thing happened, and it made me feel bad.”

“If I continue to be ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­____________, I will continue to feel bad. So, I need to keep the shameful truth about me a secret.  And maybe the best way to hide that secret is to act like I am the opposite of what I have decided I am.”

So, we learn to be actors. Kids are great at pretending. But there is pretending for play and there is pretending to survive.

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Entire parts of ourselves are devoted to hiding our secrets forever. They keep the charade going to keep us safe. They do whatever they can to make sure our secrets are not discovered.

Parts that the Internal Family Systems model (IFS) refers to as ‘Managers’ work hard to hide and to improve. Despite their devotion and work ethic, they eventually fail. When others seem to see past our act, we feel the pain of shame. Shame that others might have seen us for who we are afraid we are. ‘Firefighter’ parts quickly jump in with strategies to numb the pain and restore order and reputation.

Firefighters will override any other priority until they can relax, knowing that they have safely secured the secret.

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When shame gets in, the shameful ‘truth’ about us has been exposed. A belief is a thought that is held as true. A belief doesn’t have to be true, it only has to be believed. When we believe that something is wrong or deficient about us, and when it seems others might see our deficiency, we shame ourselves.

If what I have written here rings true, you may be ready for change. What if your autonomous and automatic survival behaviors could be updated? What if you parts knew that the ‘secret’ was never true in the first place? What if you could drop all the effort and energy required to hide and perform?

Return to the Route

 Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

Trusting Your Internal Guidance System

There was a time, before GPS, smart phones, and the internet, when navigation required prudent planning, a good map, and a passenger capable of reading the map and giving timely directions.

I’m old enough to remember that time very well. I started driving in 1971. So, I really appreciate how nice it is to enter my destination in the map app on my phone and have the voice of the app tell me when to turn, how much traffic there is, the best route, when there is an accident or speed trap ahead, and my estimated time of arrival.

Wonderful!

However, despite my appreciation for the technology, it can get a little irritating when the map app doesn’t read my mind or when it hasn’t been updated with the latest detours and traffic signal changes.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had this technology built right in? Imagine having an on-board guidance system programmed with your life’s purpose, your deepest passions, and your true values as desired destinations. Imagine this technology could also provide the guidance you need to arrive at these destinations.

I believe that we do, in fact have this innate wisdom. We don’t have a sweet and sappy voice giving us directions every few minutes to help us to the life we want. Instead, we have thoughts, feelings and impulses that influence our choices and automatic reactions to life.

While we were born with an uncorrupted version of the ‘software’ that informs our internal guidance system, over time, as life unfolds, we corrupt the programming with erroneous beliefs and misconceptions that interfere with the clear guidance that comes from our original equipment.

I believe that, as we lose the clear sense of who we are, we also lose access to our true inner guidance. As we develop beliefs and survival strategies, there is an increasing amount of static and noise that makes it difficult to know where to turn or what to do when faced with the decisions that life demands.

When considering our options, we listen to our thoughts and notice that they rarely agree with each other.  If we follow one train of thought, another will pop up to argue with it. Continue to follow the first thought and the second one will hit you with anxiety, impatience, anger, or fear. If it gets painful enough, a third thought (or voice) may set a new destination for relief. That voice will get louder and louder until we just give in and agree to a few drinks after work, smoking a little weed during the week, eating one of the donuts in the breakroom, or bingeing on Netflix all night.

Life can feel like being on a train that goes in circles and never stops. It can feel out of control. It’s easy to believe you have no choices.

You may find yourself scrolling the inspirational and motivational posts on Social Media. You read philosophical quotes with beautiful images as backgrounds. You scroll past ads for weight loss, cool clothing, gadgets, and transformation. You find yourself drawn to posts that agree with your opinions and preferences and scroll past the rest. And you wonder, who are these people who are trying to convince me that life can be good? Who are they trying to fool by  suggesting things can be better, should be better?

Life just chugs on as you fall further and further into the illusion of who you have decided you are and what you have decided is and isn’t possible for you.

When you attempt to get off the train, you hear/sense/feel, “Return to the route.” The destination has been decided for you. You feel resigned to the life you must settle for. Nothing else seems possible for you.

What if these doldrums, these toxic cycles of existence feel so bad because you have a purpose that wants your attention? What if feeling resigned and cynical are symptoms of disconnection from your purpose?

And what if there were a way to discover that purpose?

What if, deep under the layers of settling there is a hot fire of passion?

And what if there were a way to let that passion catch you on fire?

What if living a life that doesn’t match what is important to you is supposed to feel bad?

And what if there were a way to align with those values?

What would be possible?

What if you could have a life you LOVED!?

One more “what if”.

What if the only way to find your purpose, your passion, and your values was to

STOP DOING WHAT YOU DON’T WANT TO DO!

You may think I don’t understand. “But I have to live this life! I have no choice!”

Wait, isn’t that the same voice that is saying, “Return to the route?”

You’re not alone. Most people don’t know they have a choice.

What if I told you that you are already doing what you want to do?

What are you doing that you don’t want to do?

“I’m working this crappy job and I hate it.”

Why are you doing that?

“Because I need this crappy job to survive.”

So, you are doing what you want to do. You are surviving and this is the strategy you have chosen.

“It’s not a strategy! I don’t have a choice!”

Really? If you did have a choice, what would you be doing differently?

“I wouldn’t have this crappy job.”

What about surviving?

“I guess I’d get a better job.”

Why aren’t you doing that?

“I’m scared my boss will find out I’m looking for another job and he would and fire me. And what if I try to get a better job and nobody wants to hire me?”

Yes, what if that happens?

“I’d rather just stay where I am.”

So, you are doing what you want to do.

“I guess so”

What would you be doing if what you were doing was the reason you were doing it?

“What do you mean?”

You are working your crappy job to survive. If you could do something that you enjoyed doing, what would that be?

“I don’t know. I’ve never given that any thought.”

Think about it now. What would you love to do?

“I would…I would be a teacher.”

What kind of teacher?

“I love little kids. Kindergarten or maybe first or second grade.”

Traditional school?

“No, a Waldorf school.”

If you were doing that, how do you imagine that would feel?

“It would feel amazing!”

How do you feel right now as you think about being a teacher as a possibility?

“It feels amazing. And it feels scary.”

What feels scary?

“I wouldn’t even know where to start. I don’t have enough education. College is expensive. What if I’m not smart enough? What if it’s too hard? What if I go into so much debt for student loans that I would never be able to pay it off? What if nobody wants to hire me? How am I supposed to support myself and my family while I go to school? No, it’s not possible, it could never happen.”

So, because you believe it’s not possible, you keep your crappy job and don’t try. Do I get it?

“Ya, man. You get it.”

Isn’t this what we do? Talk ourselves out of having the life we really want because we can’t imagine a path to that life. We don’t believe we can have it. We don’t want to try because we might fail. We don’t want to take risks.

But what if the fact that we want that life is part of what will help us have that life? What if the life we want points us in the direction of our purpose? What if finding our true purpose is built right in?

I Only Do What I Want to Do

Here’s what I think happens. We forget who we are when we think we need to be someone we aren’t. We put so much energy into becoming who we need to be that forget who we really are.

Once we lose track of who we are, our inner GPS gets corrupted. We forget that we are the ones that determine the desired destination. Instead, who we hope we aren’t and who we try to be to hide who we hope we aren’t set conflicting destinations. This puts us on the train that goes in circles and never stops. We need to get back on track – back on the right track.

My clients and many of the people who know me well have probably heard me say, “I only do what I want to do.” This is a principle I have tried to live by for over 10 years. I developed this idea after over 55 years of doing what I thought I should do and what I thought everyone else wanted me to do. I ended up resentful, discontented, unhappy, and unfulfilled.

It’s true that I only do what I want to do. But some days I forget that I have chosen what I am doing or that my unconscious, automatic programming chooses it. Either way, nobody else is doing it to me. If anything, I’m doing it to myself when I find that I’m not enjoying what I do.

Most of what I do and how I react to life happens because of my programming – what I have accepted as the truth. My programming is made up of my beliefs which are stored in my unconscious. So even if I find myself involved in something that doesn’t align with my interests, values, passion, or purpose, I know that at some level, I chose to be involved.

A good example of this is my participation in an international business networking club a few years back. I paid five or six hundred dollars a year, met weekly and paid for lunch, gave up about two hours of my time each week for years. I did this because I believed that by doing so, I would get business referrals. I almost always dreaded going. But I made myself do it because I believed it was the way to build my business. Interestingly, once I arrived at the meeting, I usually enjoyed it. There was dreading and then there was enjoying. But the enjoying only lasted about 90 minutes a week. The rest of the time I was dreading the next meeting.

If, at that time, you had asked me if I was doing what I wanted to do, I would have said, yes. I wanted to build my business and believed that participation in the meetings would accomplish that. So, I attend the meetings. Of course, it was also true that I didn’t want to do to it. Both were true.

Acknowledging that there is at least a part of me that chooses to be engaged in an activity that other parts of me would rather not be doing puts me back in a position of empowerment.

But I’ve noticed that when I believe the story I tell myself about having to do things I don’t want to do, the enjoying disappears from my life, leaving only the dreading.

I’d rather enjoy more and dread less.

Being in a state of enjoyment provides me with the perspective needed to more accurately discern my passion, my values, and my purpose.

“Return to the route” can be a command from an unevolved and possibly wounded part of myself. Following this command will definitely not get me to my passion, values, or purpose.

“Return to the route” can also be a gentle nudge to follow the empowering and joyful guidance of my true, authentic self.