Non-Duality and IFS with Dr. Laura Patryas

Written By John Clarke

Non-Duality and IFS with Dr. Laura Patryas

In this episode of Going Inside: Healing Trauma From the Inside Out, I’m joined by Dr. Laura Patryas, an expert in the intersection of Internal Family Systems (IFS) and non-duality. Together, we explore how these two approaches can deepen our understanding of healing from the inside out. 

Below are the 8 F’s of Dr. Laura's Nondual IFS.

1. Feel—Tune into the bodily felt sense of your inner parts, energies, thoughts and emotions with tenderness. Naming them can help. Stay here as long as feels natural.

2. Feel-through—Inquire "Am I this part, thought, emotion, sensation?" Sense the presence that remains when each part is felt-through deeply. This helps uncover your true Self.

3. Field—Open to all parts from the spacious field of Self's awareness that underlies all experiences, thoughts, and sensations.

4. Friend—With unconditional friendship, attune to and embrace even extreme parts, listening to their stories and core beliefs.

5. Flow—Sense the Self harmonizing and flowing with different energies, allowing the paradox of individuality and oneness.

6. Fluid—Notice the fluid boundaries and lack of separation between Self and parts, inner and outer.

7. Freedom—As integration unfolds, feel the freedom of open, peaceful flow within the universal field.

8. Fulfilment/Fullness—Experience the richness of this present moment without craving any other state

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Interview Transcript:

[00:00:00] Dr. Laura: Carl Jung says that the greatest journey we'll ever take is from the mind to the heart. Not that far, right? We think we have to have to travel to some mountains or to some ash, ash ram. But it turns out we're only a few inches down. That intuitive self led way of being, bringing that into the body for me is how I lead.

[00:00:27] Dr. Laura: Or how self leads and the protocol is kind of just in the back background. It's a it's a tool It's a tool that I can pick up or let go of. 

[00:00:43] John: Before we get into today's episode, I want to take a moment to chat about our sponsor, Jane, a clinic management software and EMR. Your evenings and weekends should be spent with loved ones, not chasing down your patients and clients for payment.

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[00:01:36] John: All right, let's dive in. Laura Patryas, PhD is a psycho spiritual counselor and IFS practitioner. She utilizes the latest scientific insights alongside embodied non duality, offering a unique and universal path to healing. With over 20 years of research and personal exploration, Laura brings a deeply transform, transformative perspective to her [00:02:00] practice.

[00:02:00] John: Laura, thanks for being here. How are you doing today and what else should people know about who you are and how you got here? 

[00:02:07] Dr. Laura: Lovely. Thank you for that introduction. Yeah. So happy to be joining you and thank you for this work that you are doing really great. So that sounds about right. That sums me up very well.

[00:02:20] Dr. Laura: I'm Actually feeling quite accomplished. I've just tidied up my house and that feels like sacred work. I love cleanliness. I'm feeling happy. Very happy. 

[00:02:34] John: Great. That's a good place to start. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Since this is my first time meeting you, just a little bit more about, yeah, who you are and how you got here.

[00:02:49] John: It sounds like you've been doing this work for a long time, helping people. I know you also have a book that I'd love to hear about. I also have a few questions of my own around non [00:03:00] duality, non dual IFS and the non dual IFS protocol. If you're interested in talking about those things with us. But yeah, what else should people know as, as more background?

[00:03:11] Dr. Laura: Well I suppose what got me into this was, so my kind of first practice was an eye doctor. And I found that as I was kind of looking after people's eyes, I found that I actually wanted to know about their life more. And so I got chatting to them. And through that, I figured out that I was kind of more interested in people's history, people's story than their eyes.

[00:03:45] Dr. Laura: And so what, and obviously then I had a family break, so I had a child. And then during COVID time, I, Really wanted to retrain in psychotherapy. I wanted to [00:04:00] Take this a little bit further but of course the Spirituality side of things had always been by my side really ever since I was about three my father passed when I was three and That was such a portal into kind of getting curious about, ooh, what's life?

[00:04:23] Dr. Laura: What's death? What is this all about? And so I've always felt I suppose on some level, there was always this curiosity with What is this actually? Who am I? What am I doing here? And then obviously IFS. So I've been with the model probably for the past six or seven years. And as all of us, we all start out as clients.

[00:04:53] Dr. Laura: I had my own IFS therapy and I really loved that. I had such a massive benefit from it. Actually, this is really funny. [00:05:00] How I came to it was I signed up for a workshop that I thought was family systems sorry, family constellations. So 

[00:05:09] John: I 

[00:05:10] Dr. Laura: turned up to this workshop kind of wanting to work with some family trauma to wanted to kind of process my father's passing.

[00:05:22] Dr. Laura: I thought, Oh, great. What a fantastic opportunity. It turns out to be IFS constellation. But like, what's I, IFS. And so I ended up working with these parts of myself and what was so powerful about this was that the person, so you have, you have three people or however many people who kind of act out your parts, your inner parts.

[00:05:50] Dr. Laura: And there was one person who was acting out my fear, another person that was acting out the part of my father, so on and so forth. And what [00:06:00] was amazing is that the person who took up My fearful part the moment they took it on I noticed this Energy shift in my body And I felt so grounded and so peaceful and I was like, this is a bit weird Whilst when I was watching this person who was embodying my fearful part They were absolutely frozen terrified they had fear written all over their face and After the workshop well, after the end of my session, the, the, the facilitator said, right, it's time for you to now reclaim your parts.

[00:06:47] Dr. Laura: And then I felt the fearful part kind of re enter my body, mind, my psyche, and I said, wow, this is powerful. And I walked out of there thinking, [00:07:00] wow, these parts really have a strong effect on us, huge effect. It was 

[00:07:06] John: amazing. It was amazing. 

[00:07:07] Dr. Laura: And so that's kind of when I got curious, that was about seven years ago.

[00:07:11] Dr. Laura: That was when I got curious about IFS off the back of that, I went and had my own therapy. Then I was kind of practicing IFS informed for a little while under an IFS level three supervisor. And then I thought it's time, Laura, it's time for you to do the level one. And it's just being beautiful. What a gorgeous family.

[00:07:39] Dr. Laura: To enter into, as you know, IFS, the community is beautiful. You, you, it's very self led, that's how it feels for me. So then, I kind of got chatting to, obviously with my spiritual background and my curiosity about [00:08:00] what is this thing, who am I, what is consciousness? I started to kind of talk to people who were also in the IFS world, but were also crossing over this kind of more non dual realm.

[00:08:15] Dr. Laura: And this colleague and myself set up an IFS non dual Facebook group. And, you know, we kind of just set it up thinking, no one's gonna join it, we're just gonna kind of go and explore this just on our own, just us two, it's perfect. And, It's just over a year on and it's got three and a half thousand people in this group, just like that.

[00:08:43] John: And we're like, oh, 

[00:08:45] Dr. Laura: people are wanting this. This is a thing. 

[00:08:48] John: Yeah. 

[00:08:49] Dr. Laura: Oh, yeah. So that's kind of what, and last year I, I never thought I was going to write, write a book. Obviously I've [00:09:00] published research papers on psychophysics. I've written journal articles and so on and so forth. And obviously my thesis was, you know, 300 pages long, but I never thought I was going to write a book.

[00:09:14] Dr. Laura: And last year, last year in May. Something, I'm sort of laughing because something sat me down and said, write, write a book. Okay. So off I went and typed up whatever was sort of wanting to pour out of me. And then when I finished it, I had a quick, I was kind of curious to know how long did this take? Cause it.

[00:09:45] Dr. Laura: I thought I was hostage to this thing. It's like, it wouldn't let me, I, I typically love to get up and do some yoga. I love to go for a jog. This thing wouldn't let me do anything other than sit down and write. [00:10:00] I was like, okay, so I'm going to write and and then I was curious to see how long was I in this?

[00:10:08] Dr. Laura: And when I looked, it's pretty much been exactly a year to the day that I first opened up this kind of draft, this kind of, what is this? What is wanting to come through? And so a year on, we have a book. I don't know who we is. We 

[00:10:29] John: don't know, 

[00:10:30] Dr. Laura: and there's an audio of it now, and it's fun. It's fun. So that's kind of where, where we are.

[00:10:43] John: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. I think speaking of Facebook, that's, I believe how I found you. I'm in a lot of these IFS Facebook groups and someone had asked the question of. What is non duality? And then I think in an IFS group, [00:11:00] perhaps yours or another one and you answered it. In some detail with a really compelling answer and thorough answer.

[00:11:09] John: And so I thought, yeah, I want to have her on the podcast. And so I'm wondering if we can actually kind of start there, you know, in our show, our audience is both you know, consumers of therapy and, you know, healing arts as well as practitioners. So at a very basic level, can you talk about what is non duality?

[00:11:30] Dr. Laura: That's a really great question. Well, there are 8 billion ways to phrase this. Yes, there are 8 billion labels for this thing, but the experience is one. So when we enter into that non dual presence, And we might call that self as a wave in the IFS model. The experience is one. So, [00:12:00] so what does that mean?

[00:12:02] Dr. Laura: It means that

[00:12:08] Dr. Laura: there's an essence that multiplies itself, or that appears to multiply itself into infinite little particles. For, as far as I can tell, there's an essence that For the sheer joy or, you know, something that we might call play or lila. So, what it means is that all of these apparent

[00:12:41] Dr. Laura: little facets are not separate from this kind of essence. And that essence we might call consciousness. And

[00:12:54] Dr. Laura: what's beautiful about that is that

[00:12:59] Dr. Laura: [00:13:00] it allows this creativity and this joy to come through and to play out. I S I suppose that's a very flowery way of putting it, but it's, it's, it's a very, it's a very tricky thing to put into words, something that can only be really felt, and this is why I said every, every person who will give, give, who, who sort of offers their own.

[00:13:26] Dr. Laura: Version of, of it is valid and it's perfect and it's true. It's like, oh, this is how it shows up for you. And yet, I don't know if you've done that IFS level one training, but in the trainings, when the demos play out, there's this silent palpable essence, this thread, this kind of golden thread that holds all of us.

[00:13:53] Dr. Laura: And it's that, it's that, it's, it's that. It's that sense of coming home, [00:14:00] that sense of knowing that, oh wait, it's all fine. It's all, it's okay. I don't have to really worry about this. There's something here that is holding me, that's keeping me safe. And Yes, there are many, many words for it. One of the more basic ways of saying is, people often say, well, how do parts play into this?

[00:14:28] Dr. Laura: Given that, that a diviter means, a diviter means not to. And now you're talking about these infinite parts. How does, how does that play in? What we're really talking about is that these, these waves in the ocean are not separate from each other. They're all made of water, and it's a little bit like all our inner and outer part, you and I, are not separate [00:15:00] from consciousness.

[00:15:01] Dr. Laura: So consciousness is like that body of water, that ocean, and each of us is that wave bobbing up and down. Sometimes people kind of Talk about this sky and the clouds. So the sky is that kind of open space that just allows things, you know, clouds come through where the patterns come through rain, wind, whatever, but all of that is held within that space and it's not.

[00:15:38] Dr. Laura: Often we think about it in terms of, we give it words like silence or presence, which might make you think that it's boring, but it's not. It's so rich. It's so rich. I [00:16:00] think that's some, that's some words, but really, really it's something that's unique to each one of one of us, and it can be felt, readily felt.

[00:16:18] John: Could you also help us define it by approaching it from the other side, which is what is duality? 

[00:16:28] Dr. Laura: Beautiful. That's a really beautiful question here. I suppose to go back to the ocean and the waves metaphor here, it's to notice that there are this ocean, this body of water has the ability to assume infinite shapes and patterns.

[00:16:47] Dr. Laura: Yes. And I suppose if we then take that Through that view that through the lens of conscious consciousness consciousness appears to localize itself [00:17:00] within each each one of us. So conscious consciousness is this infinite dimensionless space, for lack of a better word. But it's not a space, something that we can measure that exists in time.

[00:17:19] Dr. Laura: And then consciousness appears to localize itself in these finite minds. So we call that finite consciousness. That's you and I and 8 billion others. And however many, and all our parts. Yes. So, and then the moment we can perceive consciousness from this finite point of view, we can then contrast and we can compare things and go away.

[00:17:52] Dr. Laura: If I'm here, then you. That's you. And then that's you. So we can start to kind of figure out what is [00:18:00] this? What's going on here? How can it be that I'm here and you're there and yet somehow we're just one. And one of the best ways of getting that point across I guess is when you fall asleep at night, and maybe you have a dream about You and your friend go and travel in India for three months and have fantastic dreams.

[00:18:29] Dr. Laura: There's all sorts of elephants and colours and spices and sounds. You think, oh, that's great! From the point of view of the characters in the dream, It appears real. You can taste curries and all sorts of beautiful things, but then the moment, so, so there's a kind of a multiplicity going on. But when you, John, wake up, you know that [00:19:00] all of that was going on in your consciousness, in your mind.

[00:19:04] Dr. Laura: And that's a curious thing, because what's going on there then? 

[00:19:08] John: Yeah. I know in your book even in the, the title of your book, you referenced Carl Jung. And so in Carl Jung's idea of the the collective unconscious, how does that play into this, this idea of non duality or are they like quite parallel?

[00:19:28] Dr. Laura: Yes. So collective unconscious is all of the finite minds put into one. If you can imagine that let's have a blank A4 sheet of paper and on that paper you put a dot that marks you, John, and a dot that marks me, yes? Now put some more dots. [00:20:00] And then you can draw a circle around all of the 8 billion dots, and that's the co collective unconscious conscious.

[00:20:10] Dr. Laura: But the whole of the PA paper is infinite conscious consciousness. So col collective unconscious is the the finite minds. which are still within the infinite mind or in infinite consciousness. I don't feel that Jung went quite as far as opening it up further. I think he was, he was more focused on the, on the personal finite mind, and the collective finite mind.

[00:20:48] Dr. Laura: And when Jung says the unconscious, he doesn't mean something that lacks consciousness. It's a very, you know, that's we often think [00:21:00] the unconscious is this kind of primitive savage mind, you know, the cause of all our woes in, in, in the world. And The Unconscious is really rich and beautiful and full of archetypes.

[00:21:19] Dr. Laura: One of which is, of course, the shadow, as Jung calls it. But Jung himself says, you know, 90 percent of the so called shadow is pure gold. Now, what is he talking about? He's talking about self energy there.

[00:21:40] John: This is actually a question I was going to ask you and a question I thought I should ask all my guests this, which is kind of what is your definition of self energy? Because the more I ask that question, the more I find really interesting answers that become quite personal to the practitioner, the person who has spent a lot of [00:22:00] time thinking about it, working with it, with their own self energy, helping others access self energy.

[00:22:05] John: So I do want to ask you that. And then I also want to get even more practical here as to like how these concepts work. influence healing and what they actually look like in the therapy room and with IFS. 

[00:22:20] Dr. Laura: Yeah. So let's dive into self energy. This, can you see what my body's doing? When I think about just that sheer moment of dropping the seed of self energy.

[00:22:34] Dr. Laura: So it's I suppose it's the, the embodiment of self. Yeah, so self seems to be this kind of esoteric kind of, you know, we don't really know what self is, where is self, what is self, but the moment we start to tune into self energy, it becomes real, it becomes our lived experience. [00:23:00] So for me, self energy is the embodiment of self, and some people talk about it, you know, it's similar to chi or to prana and you can feel it, you can feel it, you can notice that kind of subtle tingling in the body opening up, you know, you notice the chest open up, Notice this, you know, there's, there's a kind of a simultaneous letting go and kind of like a vitality, a kind of a burst, burst of energy.

[00:23:36] Dr. Laura: Yes,

[00:23:41] John: felt 

[00:23:43] Dr. Laura: sense of self, 

[00:23:44] John: the felt sense of self. Yeah. I, I read I'm pulling a quote from your website where you talk about non dual IFS. We talk a lot about IFS on the show. In, on your website you said, though the mind perceives multiplicity, [00:24:00] our essence is an indivisible wholeness. I thought that was a really wonderful quote.

[00:24:06] John: So just to extract on that a little bit even this idea of the mind perceiving multiplicity versus we talk a lot about, like we are multiplicity and a lot of the work is relationally working with our parts, doing a lot of on blending, which means separation from our parts. I also read later in your website where you have this this non dual IFS protocol You actually talk about more of almost like togetherness with our parts are almost more fluidity in that.

[00:24:37] John: Whereas IFS seems to talk a lot about, we focus a lot about that separation, right? Like self and then part, but you had kind of a different take on it. So I'm curious to have you expand on, on all that. 

[00:24:50] Dr. Laura: Yeah, great. When, when people go inside for the first time, what they [00:25:00] often find is that. It's kind of like a soup.

[00:25:05] Dr. Laura: There's so many parts all at all at once.

[00:25:15] Dr. Laura: And for me, that's not a problem for self. Self can not be overwhelmed by parts. What can be overwhelmed by parts? Self like parts. These are the guys that come in and they try and control things, manage things. So maybe for self like parts, It's important maybe that we sep, separate out this soup a little bit, you know, maybe.

[00:25:50] Dr. Laura: But for, self doesn't have a cue, yes? Self doesn't say, right parts, let's form an orderly cue here and I'll see one of you one by one. [00:26:00] At least that's not how it plays out here. Yeah. 

[00:26:05] John: Yeah. 

[00:26:07] Dr. Laura: So how does,

[00:26:11] Dr. Laura: you know, it sort of goes back to that notion of the, of the ocean and the waves. Yeah. What would the purpose be of separate, separating waves out and saying, Hey, I just want, I want this way. This is the way that I'm going to focus on. So, and it's, it's a very helpful thing. If you have parts that kind of feel at a distance.

[00:26:37] Dr. Laura: A little bit rejected when they are asked to kind of unblend and what are they unblending from? Are they unblending from self like part or from self? I'm kind of curious about

[00:26:59] Dr. Laura: [00:27:00] how, how can it be that within self there's space for all these parts just to be here and sure maybe one's a little bit closer and maybe that can be a target part. But I'm not necessarily I'm not necessarily

[00:27:21] Dr. Laura: each IFS session has its own unique blend of things of what the practitioner's bringing in and what the client's bringing in. And sometimes you might find that you pendulate in between, Oh, here it feels like we can unblend a little bit, whatever that means. Here it looks like, It's actually good to have a few more parts and deal with three or four or maybe a cluster of parts all at the same, same time.

[00:27:51] Dr. Laura: There are 8 billion ways of doing IFS. Yes. So what's beautiful about [00:28:00] IFS is that it gives us a really fantastic framework and a really beautiful protocol. That's like Steps that we can always come back to if we're a bit lost, but the intuitive aspect of it, the self leadership, does self follow IFS?

[00:28:22] Dr. Laura: Who thought up of IF, IFS? You know, so my feeling is that it's, it's so beautiful to be able to pendulate in between both and go, Oh, I feel I feel a little bit, a little bit lost here. What do I need to do now? Oh, okay. Yeah. Let me, let me see if I can ask client to do this or that, but you're always working with that intuitive.

[00:28:50] Dr. Laura: What's, what's present here now? And what would be the most useful, useful thing. So, [00:29:00] yes, and of course body, the body knows, yes. Bringing body into this is always going to be, because we can often get very stuck with these intellectual thinking parts. And they can kind of run the entire session for us. Yes.

[00:29:19] Dr. Laura: And it means that, you know, Carl, Carl Jung says that the greatest journey we'll ever take is from the mind to the heart. Not that far, right? We think we have to have to travel to some mountains or to some ash, ash ram, but it turns out we're only a few inches down. That's as far as, as, as we go. So to that, that intuitive.

[00:29:48] Dr. Laura: Self led way of being, bringing that into the body for me is how I lead [00:30:00] or how self leads. And the protocol is kind of just in the back, background. It's a, it's a tool. It's a tool that I can pick up or let go of whatever fits in. 

[00:30:16] John: Yeah, and I suppose that the separation piece. Or the unblending piece straight from IFS is really just a means to an end to create some separateness so that we can then work with our parts and bring them into more wholeness, bring them into more self or more love, or really to help clients access more self.

[00:30:38] John: So that separateness is by no means the goal. The goal is more like. integration or yeah, bringing parts into the, the, the love that self has to readily offer to our parts. And so in that regard, wholeness makes a lot more sense. Can you say more about this non [00:31:00] dual IFS? Protocol. What, what is it? Where did it come from?

[00:31:05] John: Is this something, is this part of your work or is it coming from, from somewhere else? And then how is it different from like the Institute protocol?

[00:31:17] Dr. Laura: So like Dick, I love playing around with, you know, the AFs, the, the eight Cs, the five Ps. It's just fun. It's just pretty fun. So the AFs made a lot of sense to me Where does it come from? Where does anything come, come from?

[00:31:46] Dr. Laura: It, it comes from self, it feels like. I cannot answer that. I, I haven't read it previously. I, I haven't sort of seen, [00:32:00] I haven't seen it previous, previously. And it made sense. It made sense for me that So it's the eight Fs. What do the AFS mean really?

[00:32:20] Dr. Laura: So the AFS is a blend of IFS, somatic experiencing and non-dual teachings. That's a little bit of Dan Sal in there as well. Just, just in terms of feeling and naming and being with. So yes, the, the first, the first thing that we do is we feel it, and that's, that's the hardest. People often find that the hardest thing because we're not really good at feeling what is what is here or being [00:33:00] with so when I when we actually This is quite a curious thing because we actually get close closer in rather than i'm blending from We get closer in Now that feels a little bit counter intuitive to the IFS protocol here.

[00:33:20] Dr. Laura: But we simply feel, it's like, oh, let me feel what is here. How does the body feel?

[00:33:33] Dr. Laura: So it's not really so much noticing parts, trying to label or name parts. It's like we're just naming the experience that is here. It's either in the, in the thoughts, in the mind, or in, in the body. And then at some point, what I found is that clients often almost pop out the other side. [00:34:00] They kind of get closer, closer, closer.

[00:34:01] Dr. Laura: There's some feelings, there's some feelings. Oh wait, when I let these feelings be as they are, I almost come out the other side and there's self. So we're not asking them, we're not asking feelings or paths or anything to unblend. We're actually getting closer and it's like, what's on the other side of this?

[00:34:22] Dr. Laura: So, so the second part is to feel through. And that's a sort of a, what I often find is that people naturally feel through, if they're able to feel. Sometimes if they're uncertain, you can ask something like, who or what is aware of this? So with like a little bit of gentle self, self inquiry here, then that kind of tends to get people thinking about, Oh wait, [00:35:00] if, if I'm feeling this or something, then who is watching what's, what's actually going, going on here.

[00:35:11] Dr. Laura: And then from that moment on, We start to play around with it, so we can pendulate, we can oscillate in between this kind of more spacious open field, and this part, and the feeling of a part. And we can go back and forth. And sometimes if there's, if a client will say, Oh, there's some tension in my neck.

[00:35:38] Dr. Laura: Let's, let's say, okay, hold on to that tension there. Now find a a feeling in a part of your body that's quite open and quite calm and travel there. And they can travel there. And just by the sheer fact of noticing, wait, there's a, there's a dual feeling here. I'm not just one thing [00:36:00] here. There's multiple things that I can notice at once.

[00:36:03] Dr. Laura: I seem to be honed in on this, but at the same time, there's infinite things that I can notice that are unfolding at the same time. And we can pendulate in between this or that. And then each time, We pend, pendulate back and forth. What clients find is they can bring in that piece from one part of the body into the other.

[00:36:26] Dr. Laura: So it's a, it's,

[00:36:34] Dr. Laura: there's a lot of play in it.

[00:36:39] Dr. Laura: So we're, we're sort of bringing in play, playfulness, I suppose, at a much earlier point than what might happen in a sort of an IFS. session. And, and it's not always the case. Sometimes, sometimes people can't even, you know, they can't [00:37:00] even just feel. Now, if we can't feel, what you'll probably find is that following the, the IIFS protocol, where we attempt to one blend might actually work better.

[00:37:14] Dr. Laura: So it depends what kind of a state of mind you're in. The actual client is if they're in an open spacious place We can follow this protocol, the AFs. If it looks like this, there's not able to really feel we might need to just slow things down a little bit.

[00:37:41] John: Great. We've got only 10 or 12 minutes left, I guess. Yeah, let me know where you want to go from here, whether it's more about these AFs of the non dual Protocol or anything else that you just feel compelled to, to kind of share with us today in the realm of [00:38:00] this, these ideas, your work of course the show is primarily about healing trauma.

[00:38:05] John: So anything you want to note on that in that regard, but I'll follow your lead. 

[00:38:14] Dr. Laura: Yes.

[00:38:18] Dr. Laura: What I find more and more is that

[00:38:27] Dr. Laura: we almost need healing from healing. Now that's a curious thing to say, yes? We've just come to this big thing, we're kind of lifting the rug on trauma, something that's been sort of hidden in plain sight for a hundred years plus. And we're just lifting this rug and suddenly, and we've, what I'm noticing is that people have become a little bit addicted to their own healing journey.

[00:38:59] Dr. Laura: [00:39:00] So,

[00:39:04] Dr. Laura: and, That has a root cause and shame. I'm not good enough now. So I need to go and have piles and piles and piles of healing. And maybe at some point at the end of that journey, I will be healed. I'll be good enough. What I actually love and value about the IFS model is that At least the therapist is not some kind of a hero or healer, that everything is based on the client's self.

[00:39:36] Dr. Laura: So what we're really saying is that actually, it's you. You're the one you've been looking for. You're, you're the one you've been waiting for. Because previously the kind of, the traditional psychotherapeutic paradigm was that you'll come to a therapist, they'll tell you what's best for you, and off you go, yes?

[00:39:59] Dr. Laura: And [00:40:00] nothing gets healed. Nothing, nothing changes because that is really the healing can only come from, from the inside out.

[00:40:14] Dr. Laura: So I really value that about IFS in itself, but a lot of clients get almost addicted to the healing journey and it's a never ending, it's that seeking, you know, this is what happens a lot in this space. spiritual circles. People seek and seek and seek and they, it's a never ending journey in that way. And on some level that is true.

[00:40:41] Dr. Laura: We're never finished because the non dual nature is such that everything's always now. Yes. Everything's always unfolding in this present now.

[00:40:56] Dr. Laura: But can this now? Be [00:41:00] filled with joy and love and bliss. Now that sounds like a tall order, but in non dual presence, that is how it truly is. When we simply focus on the experience itself, Oh, I seem to be talking right now to John. And this is a really lovely thing, yes? And I'm thankful and grateful for it.

[00:41:32] Dr. Laura: So how do we, how do we heal from healing? How do we, when do we know when we've reached some level of I'm healed now, now enough to go back into the world, to go back into my family into my work and practice this.

[00:41:59] Dr. Laura: So I suppose [00:42:00] this is a very rich area for me now. And

[00:42:02] Dr. Laura: and perhaps it's a little bit premature. Yes. Cause we've only just figured out that, Oh my God, we're all dealing with these powers of trauma. 

[00:42:12] John: So 

[00:42:12] Dr. Laura: perhaps it's a little bit premature to say, Hey, there's this thing and we're all healing, but let's stop healing. Now. So I'm not sure. I'm noticing that at some point, when does one know I'm healed enough now?

[00:42:32] Dr. Laura: And I, and I want to, I want to walk on my own legs now. And I want to try this thing called life with these tools that I've got.

[00:42:42] Dr. Laura: That's kind of, yeah. 

[00:42:46] John: Yeah, I'm right there with you on, on one hand. I'm hopeful that this paradigm shift that IFS talks a lot about, self is enough, that within us is this [00:43:00] infinite well of knowing and Love. I basically, the more I learn the model, use it, apply it to myself and help others. I'm like, the model is basically that love.

[00:43:13] John: And that accessing that inside is more than enough. So on one hand, I have a lot of hope for where therapy could go. On the other hand, I feel like we have a long way to go knowing that it wasn't that long ago that the I don't even want to call them founders or people like Freud that said, you feel bad because you have these unconscious drives to hurt people and have sex with people.

[00:43:41] John: And you need to go to some epic, you know, wise white, Therapist who sits behind you and can eventually tell you what's really wrong with you, not to mention therapists are still practicing this model and a lot of branches off of this model, right? One of which I came from, which is psychodynamic, which, [00:44:00] you know, people suffer because they have faulty templates and.

[00:44:03] John: Hopefully they spend nine months with me to play out that template with me as their attachment figure. And I can create some Epic corrective emotional experience by becoming their attachment figure and then doing something different than what they expected. And hopefully they internalize that and go out there in the world and then try it on again with real people, right?

[00:44:23] John: Or people in their life. So For me, it's, it's kind of both, you know, it's both shedding these old ways of thinking that I see it really quite damaging in a way to clients and, and really ripping agency away from people. And also really hopeful for this stance that we can take now that there's actually no such thing as a healer, meaning someone that has something that you need.

[00:44:47] John: Right. And I, but even still clients come to me thinking that's what this is. That I have something that, that I can hand them. Right. That it ultimately just, we start off on this power [00:45:00] differential of, I must have something that they need and they're paying me to give it to them better yet. That when I give that, give it to them, it's going to cost me something.

[00:45:09] John: Right. And for a lot of therapists, it does. And that burnout and that exhaustion, that depletion is very real when it feels like this energetic like taking it, I mean, we could spend hours on this more globally, our culture, especially for me, Coming from the U. S. The culture perpetuates that of taking and efficiency and commoditizing therapy or commoditizing healing and getting people faster results, you know, and guaranteed results or your money back.

[00:45:39] John: So Yeah, I mean, you're hearing me go off a little bit here, but all that is to say, yeah, I'm both acknowledging where we've come from and hopeful to where we can go with more ideas like this. It also, I think it takes a great deal of humility to, to lean into this idea of non duality again, especially coming from the U S in such a high degree of [00:46:00] individualism.

[00:46:01] John: We are raised to think I am important. I'm special. I can do lots of things if I work hard and I'm really smart and I beat the competition, right? Like these are the values that a lot of us are kind of standing on. And also the very values that I realize are kind of making us sick after all. Yeah, I'll stop there before I just completely take over.

[00:46:25] John: And we only have a few minutes left, so your turn. 

[00:46:29] Dr. Laura: Oh, no, that's beautiful. It's perfect. I couldn't have put it any, any better myself. When we go to a healer, we're acting from shame, and that's not going to heal that shame, because The only place really, and I mean, it's, it's only recently and I feel that it's IFS that's changed this in, in attachment theory, there's this theory that say, well, if you didn't get [00:47:00] it from your parents, then you're broken.

[00:47:02] Dr. Laura: That's it. You know, Oh, that's, that's a heavy burden. That's a massive cross to bear. Right. I mean, I have first the message of hope, you know, this is what it means to be a hope much merchant as Dick puts, but it's, it's to say, actually, I have some brilliant news for you. You have a self and it's not done.

[00:47:25] Dr. Laura: It's perfect. It's there for you. And And you're the one, you know, often clients come and they says, gosh, when I was little, I really, I had these hopes that one day someone would break in the middle of the night and take me out of there. And that saved me and take me to a really beautiful, safe place.

[00:47:47] Dr. Laura: And I say, guess who's going to do that. You, you're going to do that. You're going to come back for yourself. And that's like, you can see their eyes. [00:48:00] They're both kind of like. Really? And then they go, Oh yes, no, it's, Oh, of course it makes sense. It is 

[00:48:08] John: scary and exciting. Yeah. 

[00:48:10] Dr. Laura: Right. Right. And I think that's how we heal shame.

[00:48:16] Dr. Laura: That's how we actually heal shame. And I think one of the first things that I write in the book is there's nothing to learn from this book, yes? And in fact, the highest form of learning is unlearning. It's unlearning the, this notion that I need to hand myself over to someone else to fix me, yes? And this is what IFS is fantastic.

[00:48:43] Dr. Laura: It's, oh, yes. I feel joy when I talk about how amazing this module 

[00:48:51] John: is. 

[00:48:53] Dr. Laura: Because it really is the first model that really at the root of shame, it really [00:49:00] undoes that thread of shame and says, no, it's you. Always be you, and it will only ever be you. And of course from that sense of self leadership, because of course that's a tall order, isn't it?

[00:49:13] Dr. Laura: To say to a person that's never seen their own self, to say, well it's you. You just get on with it, you know, it's like wait wait, don't I get a little bit of a help? Like do you want to hold my hand for a bit? But I think ifs does the both and Very very very well And of course We make a U turn, but then we keep going round and we come back to the world.

[00:49:41] John: Yeah. So 

[00:49:42] Dr. Laura: a U turn isn't a one way. It doesn't end just there. It's like, let me turn around and see where work needs to be done on the inside, where self can heal, but then I'm going to rotate around and come back into the world. And this is what self [00:50:00] leadership is. Yes. We U turn. Into the world from from that place.

[00:50:06] John: Yeah, 

[00:50:07] Dr. Laura: the both and ah, 

[00:50:10] John: it's huge. Yeah, it's 

[00:50:12] Dr. Laura: huge. 

[00:50:12] John: Yeah. Laura, this is this has been great. I just want to Thank you for so readily saying yes to doing this for sharing with our audience today. And I'd love to hear just as we wrap up maybe things just like how people can find out more about you, how people can actually work with you, like what you actually offer.

[00:50:33] John: And then of course we'll put links to everything in the description and show notes.

[00:50:40] Dr. Laura: Yes. Well, there's a book that is some YouTube channel. There's some meditation on that. And then there's the IFS. Non dual Facebook group. And the group is the, is the healing. Yes. To be part of this [00:51:00] family, we're all walking each other home. And when I say we're walking home here to there, yes. That's, that's where we're walking.

[00:51:09] Dr. Laura: So we're walking in consciousness. It appears to be a journey, but really it's on some level we are there now. And so if he can, don't find me, find group. Yes. So the group is where it's, where it's at. 

[00:51:29] John: Beautiful. Laura, thank you again for, for doing this. And Yeah. I'd love to have you back sometime to go even further with this and expand on this, this conversation or just see where it might take us.

[00:51:41] John: So yeah, thank you again for being here and for your work and yeah, until, until next time. 

[00:51:48] Dr. Laura: Lovely. Thanks. Thank you, John. 

[00:51:51] John: Thanks for listening to another episode of Going Inside. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching and share your favorite episode with a friend.[00:52:00] 

[00:52:00] John: You can follow me on Instagram, @JohnClarkeTherapy and apply to work with me one on one at JohnClarkeTherapy. com. See you next time.

John Clarke
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