John Clarke is Interviewed by Mannah of Therapeutic Astrology Podcast (Part 2) | Going Inside x TAP
John Clarke is Interviewed by Mannah of Therapeutic Astrology Podcast (Part 2) | Going Inside x TAP
In this episode of Going Inside, I’m interviewed again on Mannah’s Therapeutic Astrology Podcast (TAP). Mannah, an Evolutionary Astrologer and Trauma Therapist, explores how astrology informs her therapeutic work, while I dive into Internal Family Systems (IFS) and parts work. We discuss how to compassionately connect with protective parts, create internal attachment repair, and navigate the challenges therapists face when maintaining compassion without an agenda. If you’re a therapist, coach, or anyone interested in trauma and self-discovery, I think you’ll find this episode both inspiring and practical.
Every part of us, even those with extreme behaviors, has a protective role rooted in past experiences or trauma.
Accessing self-energy with compassion and curiosity allows protective parts to feel safe and begin healing.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) fosters de-shaming and deeper healing by creating space for connection between self and parts.
Learn more about Mannah at:
https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/
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Interview Transcript:
[00:00:00] John: If I communicate, and this is really hard to do as a therapist, if I communicate verbally and non verbally to that part, and that part is seeing me, it knows I'm here. It also knows I'm probably trying to take its job away, which doesn't feel good. So if I go in completely authentically and let that part know I'm not here to take your job away, I'm not here to get you to drink less or to eat more or to stop binging or to stop purging.
[00:00:28] John: I'm just here to get to know you and hear your story and get to know how you got here. And slowly over time, I might help that part get to know self and that self has an invitation of if we create enough healing, if I learn to trust you enough, this part could Step down from the extreme place.
[00:00:54] John: Going Inside is a podcast on a mission to help people heal from trauma and reconnect with their [00:01:00] authentic self. Join me, trauma therapist, John Clarke for guest interviews, real life therapy sessions and soothing guided meditations. Whether you're navigating your own trauma, helping others heal from trauma, or simply yearning for a deeper understanding of yourself, going inside is your companion on the path to healing and self discovery.
[00:01:19] John: Download free guided meditations and apply to work with me one on one at johnClarketherapy.com. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in. Before we dive in today's episode. I want to thank our sponsor Jane. Jane is a clinic management software in EMR that helps you handle your clinic's daily admin tasks. So you can free up your evenings and weekends.
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[00:02:00] John: Once you have a template you like, you can choose to customize it further with charting tools, such as range scales, text fields, check boxes, and more. To see how Jane can help you spend more time doing what you love, head to the link in the show notes to book a personalized demo. Or if you're ready to get started, you can use the code John at the time of sign up for a one month grace period applied to your new account.
[00:02:24] John: Let's dive in.
[00:02:26] Mannah: All right, everyone. Welcome to tap in once again. So happy you're with us. And so happy to be with you again, John Clarke, welcome.
[00:02:35] John: Thank you for having me back, excited to be here.
[00:02:37] Mannah: Yeah, so last time we started our series here about IFS and diving a little bit deeper into it. And what we did last time was going from traditional therapy, traditional psychotherapy into IFS terms.
[00:02:53] Mannah: And today I was. Thinking, let's do the next thing on that [00:03:00] continuum. Now we are in parts work or IFS and we've been really excited about it. We, I have been really it is been really like I'm, have been exalted about this yeah. Doing to the multi mind and understanding myself in that way, non pathologizing and just having so many great experiences with it.
[00:03:20] Mannah: And then things get. to a serious place as well. And I come to a place where I have many questions around technical things. So I was hoping you could help us out with some of that.
[00:03:33] John: Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to start by saying, Number one, sometimes things get a little bit worse before they get better.
[00:03:42] John: And so sometimes when we're doing, on this journey of healing, when things get harder or worse or more intense, especially when we're working on core wounding and the wounding that parts of us hold it can be intense. It can feel like, oh my goodness, I'm actually feeling a bit worse. [00:04:00] On the way to getting better, right?
[00:04:01] John: So that I think that's really normal. I also, I was just wanting to do something that my IFS teacher, Derek Scott used to do, which is just to name my own parts right now. And you're welcome to do the same if you want. He would do this and just call, call attention and honor his parts before he would do a session, at least like a demo to show people that That's a really nice way just for our parts to be seen, right?
[00:04:28] John: So if I notice right now, for instance, I mentioned before we hit record, I've got a move coming up next week. So there's a part of me. Probably a busy manager. That's really focused on the move and the details and making sure we have everything in line. There's another part that's really excited to get there.
[00:04:49] John: There's, I can notice a part that's really excited to be with you again and to share about this model. There's another part that's hoping I don't share too much and overwhelm people cause I get really [00:05:00] excited about it. So I'm noticing all those parts right now, and I can also ask them to let me lead here a bit today in this interview and in our time together.
[00:05:11] John: And when I do that, things soften just a little bit. They're actually, my parts are relieved to, to receive that invitation.
[00:05:21] Mannah: Yeah, it should be lit. Yeah, so I'm still in the process of saying a part or saying I, right? Cause, and that's what I want to talk about. What, when we, what do we do when we feel like this is me?
[00:05:36] Mannah: And In fact, it might be a part but just, I just want to say to you about the concern about maybe sharing too much because you get excited. I've had really great responses to the last one. And that's because people who follow here are usually already dressed for this kind of therapeutic conversations.
[00:05:58] Mannah: So it's really nice for [00:06:00] someone who has the experience that you do And have gone into some of the more nerdy parts of it as well to hear that more thorough work that you've done. Yeah. Yeah. And for the moving parts, yeah, I'm with you.
[00:06:18] John: Yeah.
[00:06:19] Mannah: Totally relate. Yeah.
[00:06:21] John: Sometimes it's just a matter of seeing how it feels to name parts and, it can feel excessive or even redundant, right?
[00:06:30] John: It's there's a part of me that's hungry right now. There's another part that's thirsty. It's are they really separate parts? Yeah. In our case and in the world of therapy, a lot of times it's helpful to name parts in the context of our suffering, right? Or especially the parts of us that we have a hard time with.
[00:06:49] John: And I think we probably talked about this last time around like a perfectionist part, an inner critic part, maybe a part that drinks a bit too much, and we naturally have [00:07:00] another part that feels some judgment toward these parts and doesn't like them. And that creates incoherence inside one's system.
[00:07:07] John: Part versus part. Yeah. And so the idea is that none of those parts are self, but also there's this idea that all parts have some self energy in them, which is an interesting idea. And you can see that when you really start to get behind this idea that all parts have good intention and are trying to work hard to preserve the system in the way that they see fit.
[00:07:31] John: It's just, they are radicalized. Or polarized in our system because of extreme life circumstances, extreme life experiences, or traumas, big T or little t and everything in between, right? So even this question of like when I use the word I,
[00:07:48] Mannah: right?
[00:07:49] John: Like I am something or what does it mean to be myself?
[00:07:53] John: I've always thought that's an interesting question and kind of a head scratcher. [00:08:00] IFS would say, my Self with a capital S is really the same as yourself with a capital S. And we're really talking about the soul or your core essence, basically the light in you, which is inherently good and inherently love basically.
[00:08:19] John: That's that, that, then that word, The more I try to teach people about this model, I end up landing on that word, even though that's not really a word in like the IFS manual or the book, it's the word love.
[00:08:32] Mannah: No. Yeah.
[00:08:36] Mannah: But then if we were only to speak, when we come from pure soul, love, universal love, unconditional love, and that gets complicated, but then. I have so many questions. I, you probably know them on some level because you've heard them before. You've had them because it's my, it's question for what we call self like parts, but then also the whole [00:09:00] phenomena, of parts, because of what I'm feeling you're saying, I'm interpreting this way that it's really important to not neglect them and to not say that they shouldn't be there or anything, because it's that's.
[00:09:14] Mannah: What else is there is like pure love. So that we need, it's like soul needing the ego, if you want to put it that's
[00:09:21] John: right.
[00:09:22] Mannah: And so we really need them, but that, but there's some confusion definitely from her, I am, and when I talk to other people around exactly what you're talking about, who am I, and When should I maybe try to separate from this part and when is it completely appropriate to be in this part?
[00:09:42] John: Well, IFS would say that we're always a little bit blended and that's not a bad thing because again parts aren't bad. If I think of my parts like a team and I'm part of that team, ideally the leader of that team or the captain of that team, right? So again my mentor Derek Scott would say [00:10:00] he has a teaching part.
[00:10:01] John: And this would come out during class. And I think I have a teaching part as well. And again, Partha gets really excited and could just go on and on for an hour about this stuff. In disseminating information. And everything I know and I'm so excited. And here's a case, study about someone that I treated and how it went.
[00:10:18] John: And just love that. That passion that comes out. You could say that's a part. There's self in that part, and also parts have agendas, self does not. So there could also be a part, that teaching part, that has an agenda of wanting to, for people to learn a lot. And even though that's a good agenda, and aligns with maybe what you're doing in a classroom, it's still a part, it's still an agenda.
[00:10:41] John: The whole thing is a dance. And so I know this again, there's a part of me right now that I'm aware of that also wants to prove that I know a lot,
[00:10:49] Mannah: right?
[00:10:49] John: I'm aware of that part. I'm aware of who it is. I'm aware of how old it is. I'm aware of its wounding and where that came from. We've been working together for a while.
[00:10:58] John: I've been working on it in my therapy for a [00:11:00] while, but I can still feel that part. It's a lurching forward and physically it feels like a lurching. So here's another example. Think about a moment recently that you've had with someone in your personal life. And so for your listeners to do this as well, in the middle of them talking, you feel a lurching feeling like a leaning in or a leaning back, right?
[00:11:26] John: And there's a part of you that wants to change something or influence this conversation, or a part of you that really wants to make sure that this person understands your perspective, right? I don't know why, but it's really important. That I'm understood, right? Let's say you're talking about politics or you stumbled into a conversation about politics, right?
[00:11:45] John: There's a part of me that really wants to figure them out and understand why they think that way or to challenge their beliefs. Maybe there's a part of me that really wants to be understood, right? It feels tense. That, there's a texture to it that feels like a part, and we know that parts beget parts. So if I'm in that conversation with a [00:12:00] buddy of mine and I'm in a part, right?
[00:12:02] John: It's more likely that he'll be in a part as a result. So what we try to do is imagine not having an agenda or as much of an agenda in our daily lives. Somatically, that feels very different just to be open. And if I'm sitting down and I'm looking at this buddy of mine and I'm just practicing And just trying to take him in and love him for who he is and not do anything other than just listen and be with him.
[00:12:27] John: There's a lot of self in that, right? But it's a fine line, right? Like we, we get into our parts so quickly, right? He says something I don't like. He says something that makes me think he doesn't really get me or he's misunderstanding me. And no. I think it's important. You understand this, right?
[00:12:41] John: There's a part. Or there's a fairness part of social justice part that begin wants to be understood. So a lot of people feel their part semantically myself included. So notice right even right before you go into a conversation or a hard conversation, if your body is starting to do things. [00:13:00] That's those are your parts speaking up, trying to get your attention.
[00:13:03] John: And they're saying, Hey, am I needed here? Are my services needed here? Do we need to protect, defend, deflect, shut down? Do I need to dissociate you for this conversation? Cause this conversation with your body reminds you a lot of. conversation with dad when you were eight and getting talked down to.
[00:13:21] Mannah: You have that part as well.
[00:13:25] John: Welcome to the club.
[00:13:26] Mannah: Yeah. I was just talking about that part in the last interview where I was talking about getting triggered from feeling mansplained too, but it doesn't have to be anyone. Cause that same, I feel it's the same energy around. I want to share that. I already know what you're talking about so that you know how intelligent I am.
[00:13:45] Mannah: Yeah. But. So how, where's the fine line with this? In terms of when, because that's fun. Like we just have sub personalities and they get into trouble sometimes. And, we can be playful about it, [00:14:00] but it's also serious if there's trauma and like you're talking about if they go to an extreme and they polarize and you're at war with yourself or something like that, or with other people can the paths just be.
[00:14:12] Mannah: Cool and creative and
[00:14:15] John: They can and when parts have been Sufficiently unburdened they tend to jump in less, right? so they allow me a little more space to do podcast interviews or to talk to my buddy about politics or to Visit family on the holidays and be more in self than in parts, but it takes time right for them to Trust you again because there was a time where something happened and a part didn't trust you and stepped in and went, if I don't step up or get really big and puff my chest out, then people take advantage of me.
[00:14:48] John: That happened. That is real. That's the truth of that part. And it has really good historical proof for why its services are needed in this way. The problem is. If all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail, [00:15:00] right? So then people walk through life like that. Like everyone is out to get me and is about to screw me over.
[00:15:06] John: And so that's the position I'm always in. And that's a part and that's a polarization and that's exhausting. And I'm a therapist. So eventually what I see is people come to therapy. When they're symptomatic, right? Or it's really getting in the way of their life. So that person who's always on edge, always feeling like someone's about to screw me over, they play that template out with their partner.
[00:15:30] John: And so they're fighting a lot and then they have an angry outburst and they punch a hole in the drywall and the partner says, you have to go to therapy. And there's parts that hold shame. There's exiles that are really activated. There's also managers, firefighters that are really activated.
[00:15:43] John: So they come to therapy and they go, John, I'm here to work on my anger. That's what's bringing me to therapy, right? Cause basically our managers are burning out. That's why people come to therapy or someone who goes, I've been trying for, 12 months to drink less or to stop drinking. And I can, [00:16:00] every time I, drink a little less, I go back the other way and drink twice as much, and then I feel bad about it.
[00:16:06] John: And so I drink some more. Can you help me drink less? So that's why they're coming. And what that part is saying is yeah, basically it's attempt to. create homeostasis in the system isn't working anymore. And there's not enough self energy present.
[00:16:23] Mannah: Yeah. So the key is more self energy being accessed from the paths the other way around.
[00:16:36] Mannah: Yeah.
[00:16:37] John: Think about it this way. If again, love is a big keyword in this whole model. The other one is compassion, right? And so if I have, if I go back to that conversation with my buddy and we're talking about politics and I intentionally try to access some compassion for him and his parts. What happens, right?
[00:16:57] John: His parts soften, [00:17:00]
[00:17:00] Mannah: right?
[00:17:01] John: And then paradoxically, we have a better conversation. We have a better agreement. I'm not trying to change him, right? I no longer have an agenda about how this conversation should go or whether he can fully understand my political views, because it doesn't really matter. We can still be friends.
[00:17:15] John: We can still love each other, right? So I bring that same compassion to my own parts. And so when I come in with this client who has the anger, and I say, I know this is weird, but what if you were to get to know this angry part and actually turn toward him and meet him and hear his story.
[00:17:33] John: And if we have this idea that all parts are good and they're protective, could you ask that part how he's trying to protect you? And that part will have a really, again, a really compelling story about how it got this job and how long it's been doing it and its fears around not doing it. Now. Even though the guy is 39 years old and has a wife and kids and things are seemingly fine.
[00:17:53] John: He's not 12 anymore, right? But the part doesn't know he's not 12. So we update, we [00:18:00] get to know the part, we befriend the part, we ask the part about its fears, what would happen if she didn't do this job anymore? Okay, that makes sense. And we just validate the heck out of it. And sometimes that's enough for change and for softening and for healing to happen, right?
[00:18:16] Mannah: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's the question as well. Are they always protecting an exile?
[00:18:25] John: Yeah, IFS would say, yeah, protectors always protect, protecting an exile. And and again, there's usually good historical reason for that, right? When exile was threatened or actually hurt back then, right?
[00:18:38] John: Either actually hurt or perceived hurt, perceived threat protectors got polarized. They stepped in and they did their job. And they've been doing it for decades now.
[00:18:50] Mannah: Yeah. I want to hold that perceived threat. I want to come back to that, but just this thread of exiles, what happens when so now this has been [00:19:00] healed and you've gone through the healing process.
[00:19:04] Mannah: This is exile still in the system.
[00:19:06] John: Yes. Yeah. Dick, there's no way to prove this, and it can feel very theoretical until you experience IFS. That's why experiencing it is the best way to learn it. As much as I love talking about it. Dick Schwartz believes you're born with your parts. You die with your parts.
[00:19:22] John: You're born with anywhere between 10 to 30 parts on average, but we usually only get to know a handful of the main players, right? Like in exile, it's like your main inner child, right? Like a perfectionist part that you're really aware of. That leads you to be, really scrutinize your own work and make sure an email you're about to send us.
[00:19:42] John: Perfect. We have a part of you that likes to drink and numb out. All right. We know that one. And this is why some degree of parts mapping is actually really important. And this was a question in your email of like, how do we make this work feel less theoretical, feel less there, spacey, or just was that all a [00:20:00] dream?
[00:20:01] Mannah: Because it is such a wonderful theory. And even just knowing about this, I feel has definitely participated in my healing has contributed to my healing, but then the actual work and. Connecting what is happening in the therapy sessions to the theory. There's something going on for me at least with when I get into some kind of fantasy, I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm seeing the color red and maybe have this whole fantasy therapy session.
[00:20:29] Mannah: And then afterwards I'm like, I don't know, does that have anything to do with me? Like just connecting the dots is. I'm away with that for myself, so I was curious how you make it substantial in your work.
[00:20:44] John: If it feels effortful, then you might just be imagining or speaking on behalf of your parts, right?
[00:20:51] John: Or sometimes clients will close their eyes, they'll go inside and they'll go, yeah, there's this little boy inside. Okay, can you get in touch with him? Yeah, I can. [00:21:00] Can you ask him how old he is? I think he's seven. Okay, do you think he's seven or are you talking to him right now and did he say I'm seven?
[00:21:08] John: Or did he say I'm fourteen or whatever? So establishing self to part connection is a prerequisite for this work, right? It has to be there in order for us to actually do parts work. And it's a different way of receiving information. And a lot of clients will just be making stuff up and imagining, or they're trying to please their therapist and just going, yeah, he's a little boy and he's seven.
[00:21:29] John: He's really hurt. And I'm giving him a hug. And I have a sense that's not really happening. And there's nothing wrong with that. And that might be doing something. I don't really know, but true insight work, which this is the IFS term for insight or going inside means I'm sitting there. I'm softening.
[00:21:47] John: I'm opening my posture and even just asking again, who's inside right now? Who's who, what parts are here during this podcast interview? And you just wait until you get an answer. [00:22:00] And it might feel like a voice or an image or a sensation or just almost like a download of a part that's yeah I'm worried that people aren't going to think we're smart.
[00:22:11] John: Okay. Yeah, I get that. And maybe I can just let this part know that I'm here as a starting point. I'm here. You're here. You're wanting to make sure people think we're smart, right? And knowing people are going to see this interview. That makes sense. And again, even just by doing that things soften just a little bit.
[00:22:33] John: And again, I have an idea of who the main players are. The obvious players in my system are, which, which helps. But you can discover new parts all the time. And again, a little bit of parts mapping goes a long way. So during or after every therapy session, or if you're doing self parts work on your own take a piece of paper.
[00:22:50] John: Or for me, I use like my iPad and the pen, and I just draw a circle. And I put a name or who the part is and what I know about them, maybe their age. [00:23:00] I put that circle on it and I just add it to the map. And then my job really is just to spend more time with these parts, right? To come back to them.
[00:23:09] John: The model is also about restoring internal attachment, right? So a lot of people come in and they go, Oh my gosh, I have anxious attachment or avoidant attachment. And it was with my mom and now my mom is gone, so I can't repair that attachment and I'm so screwed up and it's playing out with my partner.
[00:23:26] John: What do I do? And attachment is pitched as like a life sentence for some reason. I don't know why that's a lot of the current ideas about attachment. And it's just not true. It's just not the whole picture. So the good news is we can and do restore and repair internal attachments between me and this little boy, between me and this inner critic, between me and this part that looks like my dad.
[00:23:49] John: And attachment offers the question of, will you be here for me when I need you the most?
[00:23:56] Mannah: Yeah.
[00:23:57] John: So little kid, little six year old out on the [00:24:00] playground, falls down, scrapes his knee, is in a world of pain, and he looks up for his caregiver, right? And he looks over, and mom is there, and she's attuned, she runs right up to him, she sees the boo, right?
[00:24:14] John: She validates how bad that hurts. It's okay. I'm here. You can cry. I'm going to take care of you. And then she does that. 90 percent of the time she's in self. She's not lost in her own emotions or overwhelmed by it, right? She consistently attunes that little kid and his parts, right? On the other hand, same scenario falls down, looks up mom is distracted or overwhelmed, or she's annoyed that he's hurt, right?
[00:24:41] John: She can't handle the fact that he's hurt. Oh, you're fine. You're fine. Get up here. It's fine. That's nothing. You're fine. Stop crying. Don't be ridiculous. Or maybe sometimes she is warm and attuned, but then sometimes she's dismissive, or annoyed, or angry, or drunk. So parts of that little boy are picking up.
[00:24:59] John: [00:25:00] beliefs around how much do I matter and are people there for me when I really need them, right? And sure enough, these patterns play out with this little boy, 20 years later, when he's married and has kids and is trying to form this healthy connection with his partner, right? Or his spouse or whatever.
[00:25:19] Mannah: And so you're saying it's important to get to know these paths. In order to be the good mother.
[00:25:24] John: Yes. It's like reparenting ourselves, right? And because the truth is, and the painful truth is, We can't rely on anyone else. And a lot of times as a therapist, I'm working with one client. So I'm working with this guy and he's right.
[00:25:40] John: An adult or he's 30 years old. Again, mom's maybe still in the picture or she's not in the picture. Maybe she's passed away. So what do we do, right? How do we help this guy heal, right? How do we help him heal his own inner child? We go in and we go, I can't promise that mom is always going to be there.
[00:25:57] John: Even if she's now like mostly solid [00:26:00] and consistent, maybe she isn't sometimes. And so a lot of people, and this is huge, a lot of adults are out there still waiting for their parents to come in and heal them, for their parents to come back and reparent them and say, I'm so sorry. I was so distracted, on that playground, or I drank too much, or I had an anger issue.
[00:26:21] John: Parts of us just crave hearing that.
[00:26:24] Mannah: But for a lot
[00:26:24] John: of people, it's not coming.
[00:26:26] Mannah: No. Yeah. Okay. But when it becomes a problem is when the parts perceive threat. Is that correct? As holding that from before, perceiving threat. Yeah. Is that when trouble happens with the path?
[00:26:43] John: They perceive a threat, but then something happens that in real life affects the person's life, right?
[00:26:52] John: So they're fighting with their partner more because there's a part of them that's scared or wondering, are you my mom on the playground? Are you going to be here for me [00:27:00] or not? Cause sometimes their partner is consistent and warm and attuning. Sometimes their partner is dismissive or drunk or angry or whatever, right?
[00:27:09] John: So they're coming because the symptom is I'm fighting. Or we're not connected, right? Or she's telling me to be more vulnerable and I can't, or I just don't want to be. So we can approach all that from a part's perspective. But again, people come to therapy when their parts are they're exhausted, they're burnt out.
[00:27:28] John: What their usual way of doing things is not working. That's usually when people come to therapy,
[00:27:33] Mannah: maybe they've never quite worked, but now there's just some kind of focus on it for some reason. Yeah. So I'm thinking about the self like parts as well, the feeling, that because you were giving this good invitation to go inside and making the terrain, like finding who's in there.
[00:27:55] Mannah: But then what I'm like, but this is really me. I know this [00:28:00] is me, but it's not, Unconditional love. So yeah, what, can you say something about self like parts?
[00:28:08] John: Self like parts can be really sneaky. And again, it's not to say that they're bad. So for instance, a lot of therapists, myself included, we have self like parts that are helper parts, fixer parts, rescuer parts.
[00:28:23] John: So let me give you an example. If I have a client and this happened recently where I had a client who was in a really bad place recently, like really in a major low. And naturally, I had parts that wanted to rescue them, that wanted to save them from that, that wanted to protect them from that, right? And again, a lot of therapists are being led.
[00:28:46] John: hand over fist by their self like parts that have an agenda, right? So if I have a part that needs my client to get out of this funk or to be out of this dark place, I have a, if I have a part that needs this [00:29:00] client to not cut themselves anymore, that's a part, right? And again, the agenda is self like could be a good thing objectively for this client to not cut themselves or to cut themselves less or whatever, right?
[00:29:13] John: But. That protector who's doing the cutting is doing a job for a very specific reason. And if I bypass that, if I just go in and say, stop the cutting, right? You're hurting my client. Then I then we get this thing called protector backlash, right? It generally doesn't work, right?
[00:29:29] John: It's the same reason why interventions for addiction don't work. We come in and we shame protectors, right? Who are trying to do their job. And we come in and we call these firefighters out and go, you're drinking is killing me and it's ruining the family. You can't kill yourself. You can't do this anymore.
[00:29:47] John: And the part literally knows no other way. So it usually goes screw you. And then doubles down and people relapse twice as hard or they die, because of the intervention.
[00:29:56] Mannah: Can you name it in a situation though? I thought about that. Could I [00:30:00] name it and say, I have. There is part of me who's really yeah, I'm concerned for you and I'm worried it's going to happen again.
[00:30:09] Mannah: Can I name that? Or is that, cause I do have a gender then. Yeah.
[00:30:14] John: You do. It is. It's a, see it's a subtle agenda, right? So the way we go into it again, which is so different, and Dick Schwartz discovered this whole thing by working with clients with eating disorders, right? Most eating disorder treatment focuses on managing the eating and getting those clients to eat again, right?
[00:30:36] John: And so instead Dick went in and said, if we imagine these parts that are driving the bus for these clients are trying to do something good here, And we go in and get to know them and go, what could be good about not eating today, right? What could be good about not eating for four days or seven days?
[00:30:56] John: And that protector has, again, a really [00:31:00] compelling historical reason when it started, why I started doing it, why it made a hell of a lot of sense at that moment and why I'm still doing it. And if we just honor that, send compassion to that makes so much sense that's what you do. And that's how you help others.
[00:31:16] John: And if I communicate, and this is really hard to do as a therapist, if I communicate verbally and non verbally to that part, and that part is seeing me and knows I'm here. It also knows I'm probably trying to take its job away, which doesn't feel good. So if I go in completely authentically to And let that part know, I'm not here to take your job away, I'm not here to get you to drink less, or to eat more, or to stop binging, or to stop purging, right?
[00:31:43] John: I'm just here to get to know you, and hear your story, and get to know how you got here. And slowly over time, I might help you. That part get to know self and that self has an invitation of if we create enough healing, if I learn [00:32:00] to trust you enough, this part could step down from that extreme place, right?
[00:32:08] John: And the binging might not happen. It might not see a need to binge as much. If more of self comes through, we create this internal repair.
[00:32:15] Mannah: Okay. So it's like a deep trust. that one's mind is connected or experiences more access to the self, then it's going to happen on its own.
[00:32:24] John: Yes.
[00:32:25] Mannah: Just in, in practical life, I'm also a social worker.
[00:32:29] Mannah: And so that's really hard when you get relationships, you have relationships with people who keep hurting themselves. It's really hard not to go into a little bit of a parental role and say, please don't do it again. You
[00:32:41] John: have to in a lot of settings. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:32:45] Mannah: No, yeah, you're right. It's because of the setting that I feel I do need to what kind of parent would say, do whatever you want.
[00:32:53] John: Yeah, keep cutting. Yeah,
[00:32:54] Mannah: keep
[00:32:55] John: cutting. Keep drinking. Your job and a lot of providers out there, their [00:33:00] job is to reduce the symptoms and their success and their paycheck depends on reducing the symptoms, right? Which I'm here to do that as well. I have. that goal as well, right? That hope for the client, but we're doing it.
[00:33:15] John: So the top, a top down approach to that would be coming in and managing the symptoms, right? So we come in from a top down approach, which a lot of therapies are. We come in and we go, okay, so we're going to notice and make a list of the triggers and things that trigger your drinking or your cutting.
[00:33:31] John: And you write down seven things that trigger my cutting. Okay. When I feel lonely or sad, or I see something on social media about my ex. Or when I'm bored. Okay. Got it. Great. So we got those right now, write down seven things you can do instead of cutting. I can slap a rubber band on my wrist.
[00:33:48] John: I can put an ice cube on my wrist. I can do deep breathing, can take a walk. I can call a friend, all good things. But that's not healing. No healing has happened there, [00:34:00] right? We just, we're just mitigating the symptoms down a little bit. And it usually doesn't stick, right? So in, in second order change, or in a bottom up process, which is what IFS offers, is, again, we go in order to eventually uproot this thing.
[00:34:15] John: We see that behavior serves a very important function, a protective function, from a protector part. Who is polarized, probably has to do with trauma. And we have to go in with compassion and love and hear the story of that part and invite it eventually out of that extreme role, which means doing its job less if it wants.
[00:34:34] John: But that's not my, that's not my goal is to get you to stop cutting or drinking or whatever. And that is such a radical shift, right? And it's why a lot of people love this model. Cause it's just so inherently de shaming.
[00:34:45] Mannah: My question is just what to do with the part of me who is feeling so sad for the person.
[00:34:52] Mannah: I don't want you to kill yourself. I don't want you to go lose everything once again.
[00:34:59] John: This is going [00:35:00] to sound extreme again, but a part of me that doesn't want you to kill yourself is also an agenda.
[00:35:07] Mannah: I
[00:35:09] John: need you to not kill yourself. I need you to not be so unwell because I couldn't handle that.
[00:35:16] John: If as your provider, your social worker, your therapist, if I came in and tried to help you, and then seven sessions later you killed yourself, that would trigger my exiles in an unbearable way. That's what our parts think, right? So I need you to not kill yourself so that my system doesn't get flooded for a lot of people.
[00:35:36] John: That's what that is. That's also why a lot of therapists don't want to work with addiction because it's so risky or eating disorders, right? Because it's so risky. It is so risky, right? And if it doesn't go well, And the client relapses or kills themselves or cuts themselves or ends up hospitalized again.
[00:35:51] John: It's about shame for the provider, right? And this is so unconscious. I couldn't handle the shame of having a client relapse or kill themselves or whatever. [00:36:00] And so all our protectors come in and go, I'm here to get you to not kill yourself. And the clients and their parts feel that right away. And they shut down and they close off.
[00:36:08] Mannah: I'd say it's not only seeming. I can see it from that point of view, but it's also caring. What about that? Care about you. And I see your potential. I see everything you could do in the world. What about that? It's not about me because I know it's not in my control. I know that,
[00:36:25] John: but I think I could offer that I can offer that might be true.
[00:36:29] John: And you have to decide you're the only one that knows if that would be really coming from self or not. So if I go back to my client, who's in a valley right now, who's really in a rut, And I send compassion from my heart, right? From self to this client, but I'm honoring our separateness and that they're on their own journey.
[00:36:50] John: And I'm just a small part of their journey for 45 minutes a week or whatever. One time. So my 84 year old therapist, one of the most therapeutic things he ever said to me when I was [00:37:00] in. a pit and really in a bad place and really falling apart in the session and hoping he would fix me or rescue me or tell me it was going to be okay or help me find a solution.
[00:37:10] John: I looked up, And his eyes were watering and he just put his hand on his chest and he said, John, my heart goes out to you. That's all he said.
[00:37:23] John: He wasn't lurching forward. He wasn't, again, he wasn't rescuing me. He didn't need me to get better. He wasn't worried about whether or not I'm going to be okay. So there's a way for you to communicate what you're seeing right here in a way that still honors your separateness, right?
[00:37:37] John: I see you in such a dark place right now. I see you down in this hole, and I'm here at the at the top of the hole looking down and saying, I, I see you down there and I see you and I honor how, How stuck you are and how bad it is to feel down there, but I'm also not going to get in that hole with you.
[00:37:54] John: I'm not going to drown with you. And that'll feel weird. That'll feel like a betrayal for a lot of us who [00:38:00] became a therapist because your role in the family was to rescue and fix and jump into that hole with people.
[00:38:07] Mannah: Definitely. There's something there. Absolutely. But it's also a challenge to my values, I feel, but it's a good challenge.
[00:38:15] Mannah: I like it. I like It's just the other day someone was The one, one of the clients I'm working with was saying something like, you just want to convince me about this. And I was like no, it was, it was just inspiration, about the interviews I'm doing. It's just inspiration. And but then he was, yeah, but you want to convince me not to commit burglary again or something like that, like doing something against the law again.
[00:38:40] Mannah: And then I was like, yeah, actually I don't want to convince you about that because that's ethics. That's different. That's against the law.
[00:38:47] John: Again, it's is my job, am I a parole officer? Am I a probation officer? Is my job as your therapist to get you to not be a criminal or not steal stuff?
[00:38:59] John: [00:39:00] No, my job is really to help you find self and figure out if stealing stuff is working for you or not.
[00:39:06] Mannah: But what about as a human being? There's something.
[00:39:09] John: Same thing, right? Is my job with my buddy to try to help him believe what I believe politically? Absolutely. Because I think he's on the quote, wrong path, right?
[00:39:18] John: Or if some, if I go to church and someone else goes to church, right? Again, this is a values piece. Is it my job to convince you to go to church? These are probably getting into deeper waters or big philosophical questions around what do I owe other people? What is my job here? But again, as a therapist, as a healer, as a coach, whoever you are, People are, if you're listening, you have to ask yourself every single day, what do I owe my client?
[00:39:42] John: What am I really doing here? What are they hiring me for? Are they hiring me so that I prevent them from relapsing?
[00:39:52] Mannah: And even if they are, then what you're saying is. And what the model is saying is the better way to avoid relapsing is [00:40:00] to connect to self anyway.
[00:40:02] John: It's, it might happen that I, that our work helps you avoid relapsing or relapse less or drink 20 percent less, but it's not my goal. It's not my agenda.
[00:40:11] John: And then again, paradoxically, the client drinks less. They relapse less. They steal less. They work less. Whatever.
[00:40:19] Mannah: So I guess what I'm taking from what you're saying is that sentence about my heart goes out to you because that's really important that I'm not just. Not caring, because that's, I think that's where my association is, who doesn't care.
[00:40:33] Mannah: Just do whatever. I'm just going to sit here. I'm getting my paycheck anyway, so I want to signal that I care.
[00:40:41] John: Empathy is, I'm feeling what you're feeling. And almost taking it on as my own, right? Therapists are highly empathic, highly sensitive people like myself, right? Empathy is pretty easy for most folks in this industry.
[00:40:55] John: Compassion is I am here in my [00:41:00] separateness and honoring your separateness and your suffering. And I'm bearing witness to it without taking it on as my own.
[00:41:08] Mannah: Clients
[00:41:08] John: actually prefer compassion than empathy.
[00:41:11] Mannah: Yeah.
[00:41:11] John: But it's way harder to do.
[00:41:15] Mannah: Yeah. We know it from the other side as clients. We just have to, yeah.
[00:41:21] John: Yeah. It's something to practice. It's something if you're, if you are a practitioner and you're listening to think about how that feels, empathy versus compassion. This is huge. And self would say that compassion fatigue doesn't exist because self has an abundant and infinite well of compassion.
[00:41:39] John: Self is compassion, right? So my therapist who just said, my heart goes out to you. And I could tell it didn't cost him anything. He could do that for nine hours a day, even at 84 years old, doesn't cost him anything. I don't think he's worrying about me or losing sleep that night over me or really needs me to get better.
[00:41:55] John: I can feel that, but I can feel again, that compassion, that love, that sense of [00:42:00] I'm witnessing your suffering and I'm walking alongside you.
[00:42:04] Mannah: And so burnout and being tired and yeah.
[00:42:11] John: Burnout is your manager's burning out. Burnout is those manager parts that need clients to get better and need them to be fixed and need my, my, my boss to know that I'm helping people drink less.
[00:42:21] John: That's where the burnout comes.
[00:42:24] Mannah: So parts of us can burn out.
[00:42:26] John: Parts burn out. Self can never burn out.
[00:42:32] Mannah: So it's a good way to check as well around the self like pad.
[00:42:38] John: That's right. Great way to check. Yeah.
[00:42:42] Mannah: So I am realizing we have around five minutes left
[00:42:47] Mannah: Somehow managed to really quickly again. I really hope you want to come back cause I feel like around anxiety, it's probably going to need a little bit more than a few minutes.
[00:42:59] Mannah: Sure. Thank you so much. [00:43:00] So I hope we can maybe go to that next time. And so I just want to open the mic for you, whatever you feel like could be good in the end.
[00:43:11] John: I just really appreciate the time. Some, I've been a therapist for a while now, but only Around 2016, I really got serious about treating trauma and became a trauma specialist.
[00:43:22] John: And then a couple of years ago, IFS changed my life personally, and it actually saved me from burnout and saved my career. I was almost not a therapist because that's how burnt out I was. And now I just love. Working with trauma. I love IFS. There's other models I do. I love working somatically. I do EMDR.
[00:43:41] John: I teach, I run a training practice in San Francisco for therapists that are in training and residency. And then I have my own podcast called going inside that is a trauma podcast. And probably 90 percent of the guests are IFS people, but. It's a really great show. It's been really helping me fulfill my personal mission.
[00:43:58] John: If people are interested in [00:44:00] that, look for Going Inside with John Clarke on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, anywhere. And then I do therapy and I also do consulting for providers at JohnClarkeTherapy. com. That's what I've got for now. And I've got more things coming on the horizon in terms of offerings and, More ways to help people.
[00:44:17] Mannah: Wonderful, looking forward to that. And I just want to mention the last one you have up around religious trauma. That's that's completely to to my situation. So thank you for doing that. Definitely. Really interesting. Yeah. I need to really listen to it. Cause there's a lot that there's a lot in there.
[00:44:39] John: Yeah, there was. Yeah.
[00:44:43] Mannah: So thank you for coming. Thank you
[00:44:45] John: again.
[00:44:45] Mannah: All the work and I hope that your move, I know that your move is going to go very well. You have a lot of good managers as a Capricorn, right?
[00:44:54] John: That's right. Lots of busy managers.
[00:44:56] Mannah: Yes.
[00:44:57] John: Yes. My Capricorn is [00:45:00] coming out in full force to help this happen and be.
[00:45:02] John: practical, be unemotional about things to a toxic degree.
[00:45:07] Mannah: They'll forgive you afterwards.
[00:45:09] John: Exactly. After. Yeah. My wife can ask me how I'm feeling about it all after it
[00:45:14] Mannah: is done. Okay. Thank you, John.
[00:45:18] John: Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to another episode of Going Inside.
[00:45:23] John: If you enjoyed this episode, please and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching and share your favorite episode with a friend. You can follow me on Instagram, @JohnClarkeTherapy and apply to work with me one on one at JohnClarkeTherapy.com. See you next time.