On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, I​'m exploring ​​what it means to “talk​ to younger you” ​- by ​l​ooking through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS) and “parts work”. (#notatherapist)

I also ​tell a story about a middle-of-the-night moment where I woke up ​heard myself say, “I’ve got you,” ​several times and how that ​sparked a deeper conversation about exiles, protectors (managers + firefighters), and our capital-S Self​!

I ​share a little bit about the 8 C’s of Self ​a​nd Self-Leadership (like curiosity, compassion, confidence, and calm)​ and why naming and befriending your parts can be ​f​un and healing​!

P​lus, I give you a couple of simple ways to start reassuring your nervous system​... from bedtime rituals to inner-child check-ins​, so you can move through the world with more self-awareness, tenderness, and love.

KAREN KENNEY BIO:

Karen Kenney is a writer, speaker, podcaster, certified spiritual mentor, and coach.

She’s known for her dynamic storytelling, her sense of humor, her Boston accent, and her no-bullshit approach to spirituality, self​-development, and transformational change work.

Karen helps people to navigate this whole “being human” experience using a variety of practical tools, personal stories, and universal principles.

She's been a yoga teacher for 25+ years, has been a Thai Yoga Massage practitioner since 2008.

She's also a Gateless Writing Instructor, the creator of WRITE CLUB , and the host of The Karen Kenney Show podcast.

She coaches clients individually in her 1-to-1 program: THE QUEST and in her HEART-TO-HEART DAYS using Voxer. She also leads a group program and community called THE NEST.

CONNECT WITH KAREN:

Website: http://karenkenney.com/

Podcast: https://www.karenkenney.com/podcast

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karenkenneylive/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenkenneylive/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KarenKenney

It's the Karen Kenney show. Hey, you guys!

Welcome to the Karen Kenney Show. I'm super duper excited to

be here with you today, and we're just gonna dive right into

this sucker, and we're gonna start off with a little a little

story. So, oh my God, you guys, I'm such a weird sleeper, right?

Like, I I don't know about you, right? But hello, hello,

menopause. But I wake up. I wake up often a couple of times a

night or whatever. At least at the bare minimum, I'm usually

awake twice a night. Sometimes it's because I have to pee, but

other times it's because I've been awoken by a sound or a hot

flash or like whatever the thing is, right? So the other night, I

wanted to share this with you because, in my hopes that you

are going to somehow find this helpful. I mean, that's the

whole point of this whole podcast. I don't just sit. I

mean, maybe I do, but I don't just sit up in my office here by

myself like a little weirdo talking to myself, I'm actually

talking to you, but like I'm alone right now while I'm doing

it for my own benefit, right? I do it because I really I use

this podcast to spread a little bit more love in the world. I

use this podcast as a little bit of like spiritual mentoring and

a little bit of coaching and a little bit encouragement, a

little bit of of of being able to move through the world,

right? Doing this whole being human experience that hopefully

maybe we can do it with a little more awareness and kindness and

care, and mercy and grace. You know, like that we can just like

just know that we're not alone, right? So this podcast, I have

many many things. I always say I either want to educate or

enlighten or entertain or elevate people, right? I always

always want to do that. So hopefully, something I'm sharing

today will either be helpful or beneficial, or you can apply

this shit to your own life. Okay, and we're back story time.

So you know, I was saying I kind of wake up in the middle of the

night, and sometimes I wake up in double amen hands. If you can

ever relate to this, for some of you it will be when you wake up

in the morning. For some of you it will be as you're going to

bed. But for me, a lot of times I wake up in the middle of the

night, and it doesn't take my brain a long time to like come

online, right? Like you know how some people in the morning, they

wake up in the morning and they're like, "Don't talk to me

until I've had my coffee, or they're really groggy or

whatever. So I kind of wake up, my brain goes like, "Blink! It

goes online. It starts to to think very quickly, and this is

what one of the reasons why I keep my I keep a little notebook

and pen right next to my bed because I sometimes get these

flashes of insights. I really do believe the little librarians,

as I call them, up in my head and the little library in my

head, that subconscious place where all the the philofaxes

are, the little cod catalog is right. The Dewey Decimal system

is going on up there all the time. So those little suckers

sometimes have stuff to say at three in the morning, four in

the morning. So I keep a little notebook by my bed to jot things

down because it's very active. So sometimes I wake up in the

middle of the night and there's a thought or a feeling that is

immediately there on the surface. And sometimes it's

because I've been having a weird dream. Like I don't know about

you, but I have incredibly vivid dreams, and they're usually not

super soothing. It's not like I have dreams, like oh, I'm

flying, or oh, I got a new puppy. You know, I feel like my

my brain is working out. It's doing like memory

reconsolidation. It's taking the little dramas of the day, my

feelings, my emotions, all those things, and it's doing stuff

with them, right? It's like it's like doing a little management

system.

All the little librarians are putting the books back on the

shelves and pulling others off and stuff. So, but the other

night in bed, finally here we are telling the story. The other

night in bed, I woke up, and the way that I sleep is I was like

sleeping on my side, and it hurts my shoulder. I used to be

able to sleep with my arm straight, but now I have to like

bend my elbow. And if you're not watching the show, right? If

you're listening to the show, I will describe what what what I'm

doing right now. So I was like, imagine I'm sleeping on my side.

My lower arm is like usually sticking out straight, but

instead I had the elbow bent, so my own hand, right? My forearm

was coming across my chest, and my hand was ending up like on my

shoulder, and my fingers were like on my back, right? So just

imagine, it's like almost like a self hug, like a half of a self

hug, right? So I was laying like that. So I woke up. I had my arm

like that, and I must have felt like I wasn't very cognizant of

this, but I must have felt like a little anxiety rise up in me

or something. Because all of a sudden, I heard myself say, and

I was tapping myself on the back, and I said, "I've got you,

and I said it like three or four times. "I've got you, "I've got

you, and I'm patting myself on the back right as I'm saying

this. Well, it later occurred to me when I woke up the next day

because I remembered this that I was like, "Okay, this is a great

question to ask ourselves. I said, "I've got you. I got you.

I've got you, which obviously I was trying to soothe or calm my

nervous system, but I was also asking the question, "Well, who

was the you that the I in I've got you? Who was the you that

the I was talking to? And when I asked myself that, I was like,

Oh, it was clearly some younger part of myself that was feeling

anxious or scared or worried or whatever was bubbling up in like

my dream state, you know, whenever I woke up, and it was

so comforting and so nice when I was saying I've got you, and I

realized, oh, that's like 50-seven going on 50-eight year

old me talking to a younger part of me that was feeling whatever

it was feeling at the time, which for me I'm sure it was

anxious or worried or problem solving. It was doing whatever

it does, and I wanted so I wanted to talk to you about

this. So the the I, which I would call the self, right? The

I part of me, the true self. So, and and we're going to get into

this in a minute. Was talking to a youngest self, and I know that

I've talked on this podcast before. I have mentioned several

times about IFS, right? Internal Family Systems, IFS, commonly

known as Potswork, P-A-R-T-S. Pots. Like I have a part of me

that wants to go to the movie. I have a part of me that wants to

stay home, right? Like pots work. Now, before we get into

all of this, though, I have to make. I always say this. I say

this to my clients. I say to my mentoring clients, my coaching

clients, everybody. Whenever I'm kind of giving like any kind of

mentoring, coaching, whatever advice, or people are asking me

questions about my opinion, I always go hashtag not a

therapist. Hashtag not a therapist, right? So I don't

have a degree in mental health counseling. Da da da da. I have

been a spiritual mentor for a wicked long time, certified. I

did a training, a year long training, with a brilliant

brilliant person who was a therapist and went to divinity

school and was like you know, and still it still alive and

still brilliant and smart, and I have been certified, you know,

in a coaching program with another brilliant mind, Melissa

Tias. Right, so I've been doing this work for a long time, but

I'm still hashtag not a therapist. And I'm saying that

because if you're listening to this, I don't like there.

There are therapists out there that you can specifically go and

see to do IFS work, internal family systems work. You can go

to see them and to do pots work, like formally. Da da da da. The

stuff that I'm sharing with you today is going to be hopefully

helpful and stuff like that. But I want you to think of it as

like, as Linda Tai says, the brilliant Linda Tai says, like

sip sip. I'm just giving you a little sip, sip, a little taste.

It's a little taste. It's a little peaky. It's a little

gander, right? But I want you to like do your own homework.

That's wicked important to me. That if I give you a taste of

something and you're like, "Ooh, this really spoke to me, or

"Wow, I can see how that could be helpful, right? I want you to

do a little homework. So I got some books here that I will also

share with you, so and there's more to this. There's there's a

fun another fun part to this, but that's what kicked off this

whole thing. This is the the heartbeat of the inspiration of

this episode, right? Who is the you that the I was talking to?

So I'll just show it up so you can see. So this is this is like

oh my god, this book is so old. Look at Richard Schwartz when he

was wicked, wicked young. So I'm holding this up. This is the

Introduction to Internal Family Systems Model (IFS) model by

Dick Schwartz. Richard Schwartz. He was the one who kind of came

up with this. Now this one is from 2001. That's how long. This

is an old book. Okay. He's since then revamped. revamped it. It's

come out again. This one came out, I think, in yeah, 2023.

This one came out, same book. So I'm just holding up the two, the

two of them, so you can see the same Z's, but new cover. So the

one over here that I'm tapping with my finger, Introduction to

Internal Family Systems, or just watch, just has a new cover,

updated like you know, 20-two years later. So you got these

suckers right here, and these will hopefully be helpful. Okay,

so if you want to check out more on IFS, okay, here are the

books. Great. Okay, but let me just give you a little a little

snipsy of this whole thing and why I think it can be incredibly

helpful for us. So in IFS, in internal family systems, right?

And what I love about this is there is, to me at least,

there's a spiritual component to this. So, in spiritual work or

whatever, we often talk about the self. Like in yoga, we say

the Atman, right? In other traditions, we just say the self

with a capital S. Like to me, that means your true self. Then

that we sometimes will say the small s. Self, right. This is in

other things. I'm not talking about IFS yet. In other

traditions, we might say the small s, which is like the

personality and the ego and the patterns and the bullshit and

all your habits and stuff. Then there's your capital S self.

That's the divine self, the true self, the eternal, unchanging

self. That's the capital S self. Well, in internal family

systems, they also have the capital S self, which I would

say, and they call this the self. And the self, think of the

self. It's been described as many things. It's like the core

of who you are. It is the essence of who you are. It is

the captain of the ship. People have often. I was trying to see

if there was another description here. It doesn't matter. But

think about that. That the same thing. That capital S self is

the truth of you. To me, that is like the healed part of you.

That is the part of you that is like more. Maybe we would say

even beyond the adult or the mature, or the healed-right?

Those those words. But this is like again the part of you that

is grounded. I would say in love. It is the true essence of

who you are.

Before the world got its hands on you, before you had your

traumas and your dramas and the family stuff and all the

bullshit and all the wounds and the harm and all that stuff.

Before all of that, there is that true self, the core of who

you really are. Okay, now what we're trying to do when you're

doing Pat's work, ultimately, and this is another book I'll

hold up here because I want to I want to show you this. This is

another book by Dick Schwartz, Richard Schwartz, called "No Bad

Pots, No Bad Pots, and it's called "Healing Trauma and

Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model.

This is really thing, but here are the four basic goals of

internal family systems. This is straight from his mouth, from

his book, right? This is the goal, the four basic goals of

IFS. Number one, and we're going to get into these pots, right?

So remember when I go back to that story and I said, "Who was

the you that the I was talking to? Those you bits, those you

bits, what I would call the younger pots of me, right? We

call those pots, and we're going to get into that in a minute.

But the four basic goals of IFS is number one to liberate your

pots from the roles that they've been forced into, so that they

can be who they're designed to be. More on that later. One to

restore trust in the self, capital S self, and self

leadership. And we're going to get into self leadership too,

because the self and the self leadership was that I part of me

that was telling the younger part of me, "I've got you. Okay,

that was number two. Restore trust in the self and self

leadership. Number three is to reharmonize the inner system,

this inner system of the this kind of inner family that you

have of all these paths, okay, and then it's to become more

self-led. That self-leadership to be more capital S self-led in

all of your interactions in the world. These are really great

goals. They're very important, okay. So to get into this, think

about this. We have when we when you want to think about like

your pots, your pots in action, right? Like today, I went to the

gym this morning, and there might be a time like you wake up

and you're like, okay, well, one part of me wants to go to the

gym because a I want to keep my word to myself, I want to stay

in self integrity, I want to like grow my muscles, I want to

stay fit and healthy and strong and all of those things, but the

other part of me is like wants to stay home and relax, right?

So we say this all the time. Patchwork is not some kooky,

far-fetched whatever. We talk about the different parts of

ourselves all the time. One part of me, even though I ask for the

divorce, and you know, there's one part of me that wants the

divorce. There's one part of me that still loves them. There's

one part of me that's angry, but there's another part of me that

understands that they just had a tough childhood and da da da da.

So we have all these parts within ourselves. Now remember,

I'm keeping this like super light. I'm not going to go like

again. Hashtag not a therapist, but I do think that knowing

these things can be wicked helpful when we're trying to

understand ourselves, when we're trying to understand others, and

we're trying to-for me, I will say that Pat's work has been

really, really huge in my work with forgiveness. Me personally,

I'm not saying it should be for you. It has just been wicked

helpful for me. Okay, so then you basically have the self-that

is the captain of the ship. It's over here, and then we have

these parts. So the parts are broken down into a couple of

different categories. There's the protectors, and underneath

the protectors, there's two kinds, right? There's the

manages, and then there's the firefighters, and we're gonna

get into those. Okay, that's the next step. Those your pots, they

only exist now.

If you guys have ever heard me say on this show, like, oh, one

of my pots that I have named because I love to name my pots.

So one of my pots I call Vicky with 2k from Lawrence, and Vicky

is the one who kind of like she's a major protective man.

Like she's got something to say. She doesn't like it when there's

an injustice. She doesn't like it when somebody's mean to

animals or little kids or women or old people or anybody. She

doesn't like meanness. She doesn't like bullies. She

doesn't like injustices, right? Like, and she's like, "Give me

the mic. I got something to say. Right. So she's like this tough

part of me. She's still alive and well in there. And I always

say, like, I like to give Vicky with 2k from Lawrence, a job

every once in a while, but we cannot we cannot let her run the

show. She peeks up she peeks her head up every once in a while,

and I'll be like, "Hey, Vicky, what's happening? So we're gonna

get into that in a minute, okay? But so we have protectors. I'll

tell you a little bit more about the managers and a little bit

more about the firefighters in a moment, but they exist. I always

say it like this again. Hashtag not a therapist. This is just my

point of view. I look at the protectors. I always ask myself

Well, who are they protecting, right? So what

they're protecting, or who they're protecting, is what we

would call the exiles, and the exiles are like the wounded and

really vulnerable parts of your internal family system-I would

call them the younger parts of you-which is going back to when

I said, "I've got you. That you I was talking to was some

younger part of me that was feeling whatever it was feeling,

right? So that the wounded and vulnerable parts of

ourselves-they often carry the pain and the memories from our

childhood, from our past traumatic experiences, and a lot

of people do not like to think about those old experiences.

They don't want to talk about those old experiences. They

certainly don't want to revisit them and feel them. So what do

they do? And I'm doing this with my hands, you guys. They're up

by my face, and I'm pushing them down and out, right? They're

just like taking those parts of you, those younger, vulnerable

parts of you that might still be scared, or feel abandoned, or

lonely, or angry, right? Like, and they're just going, nope.

They're just like, nope. So the exiles, those younger parts of

us who didn't have a voice, didn't get a say. Didn't matter

what we wanted. Didn't matter what we felt. weren't asked to

have an opinion. Didn't care. Didn't matter. Suck it up. Stuff

it down. Those exiles literally got sucked up and stuffed down

and sent off to Siberia. Right. So they they have been quote

unquote exiled. So the exile, and I'm reading this from exiles

are often hidden by protectors and managers to prevent the

individual from experiencing the intense emotions that are

associated with the past wounds, that's the role of the exiles.

And the goal is to keep those very vulnerable pots protected,

which hence we have right the protectors, we have the manages,

and we have the firefighters. So, what the managers do in

Double A men hands, man, I can highly and easily recognize

these pots within myself. So maybe and hopefully, fingers

crossed, like you can too. So, the firefighters. So, what?

First of all, number one, the managers try to keep us safe by

controlling other paths or people or situations. So what

the managers often do is they're proactive protectives, right? So

they try to avoid and prevent and control against perceived

threats. They're like, okay, something's going to go down, so

I'm going to be wicked hyper vigilant, wicked hyper

responsible, and I'm going to plan, and I'm going to organize,

and I'm going to control. And they work alongside, right? The

other protectors. What they want to do is they want to maintain

order, and they want to prevent the individual. In this case,

I'll just say me from feeling overwhelmed, right? So managers

try to prevent the vulnerable feelings from emerging. They're

proactive. They're like type A. They get shit done. Right.

They're controlling.

They can be nitpicky. They're quick to criticize. Right. Like

those are those parts of you. The perfectionist. Right. They

try to prevent the vulnerable feelings from emerging by

staying in control and avoiding potential triggers, you know

when you say, "Oh my God, that triggered me! I got so

triggered! Right? They're trying to avoid that, and they're very

much, you guys, associated with a sense of responsibility or

duty. I have to do this, right? Not so great, maybe at

delegating, right? Like I've got to do it. I've got to take care

of it. I got to stay on top of it. They're literally being

proactive and trying to prevent bad shit from happening. Those

are the managers who are the protectors. Okay. So the

protectors again. Remember the overall job of the protectors,

both the managers and the firefighters, is to shield the

individual from pain and vulnerability, so they can take

on roles. Being critical, perfectionist, controlling, and

sometimes even aloof, aloof, aloof, aloof, aloof. It's aloof.

Okay, so that's what they do. They they try to guard against

pain. They guard against emotions that are attached to or

associated with past experiences, that especially the

traumatic ones. So they use all these different strategies to

kind of maintain control. That's really it is. They're looking

for safety, just how like how your nervous system's number one

question is always: Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe?

So also your protectors are trying to maintain safety and

control. That's what they do. The managers do it in a very

proactive way. The firefighters, this other group of protectors,

they do it in a reactive way. So the firefighters are kind of

like think of them as like emergency responders, like first

responders, right? I was just working the other day. I did

Thai yoga massage, Thai yoga body work on a firefighter the

other day, and I was just thinking about how like they're

the ones that rush in, right? The firefighters, there's a

perceived threat, like something is going on. There's a fire.

There's an alarm going off. There's an accident. They go

rushing in, and that's what our firefighters do, right? In the

internal family systems model, is they are there to be

emergency responders, so when your system starts to feel

overwhelmed, or some younger part of you, remember the

managers and the firefighters are protecting the exiles. So

when one of your exiles, those younger parts, gets triggered,

or scared, or worried, or anxious, or whatever, right?

They come right in. They are the reactive ones. The managers are

proactive, right? The managers are like, "Oh shit, the house is

on fire. We got to do something now, right? There's a big

feeling coming up. There's a big situation, right? And some part

of us is like freaking out. The alarm is sounding, right? The

anxiety is firing. Whatever it is, so the firefighters tend to,

though they respond more impulsively. Anybody here a

little impulsive sometimes? Raise your hands. Right? I'm not

so much anymore, but I used to be more impulsive. And you're

not even aware that you're being impulsive because it happens.

The decision in your mind to protect and put out the fire

happens so quickly, but I'm way more aware of it now. So they

respond impulsively to like overwhelming big emotions, stuff

like that. Okay, so they often engage though. Here's how they

show up, right? Where the where the managers are a little bit

more critical, perfectionist, controlling, or aloof, right?

The firefighters are more like they engage in behaviors like

substance abuse, or self harm, or other kind of like impulsive

actions. That their job is to try to distract you or to numb

you, like those intense feelings when they're flaring up, when

they're coming up. They just want to put out that fire, so

they will react and do whatever they can. Sometimes we can see

it as compulsive behaviors like over-exercising, like anything

where you're basically trying to, you know, like I said,

substance abuse. Not everybody. I'm just saying this is why I

said hashtag not a therapist. Do your own homework. I'm just

saying this is the general understanding that is kind of

out there, and firefighters often come into play when

protectors and managers are unable to contain the emotional

distress.

Like let's say a part of you was being really proactive and

trying to do everything to keep you safe, and then that whatever

strategy that was failed, and that's when the firefighters

come on because they try to do a quick escape. They're like,

"We're out of here. So whether it's smoking cigarettes or doing

drugs or drinking or shopping, distraction, distraction, numb,

numb, numb. The firefighters are like, "Let's go! Like, make

yourself go run. And this is why we see a lot of times people

just kind of switch tactics, right? So maybe, and again, I'm

just using whatever examples. They kind of go from one extreme

to another. They might stop, you know, using a substance, but

then they start doing like hardcore Ironmans, or they, you

know, they they just go from one extreme like to another. They

stop doing this, and then they're like rock climbing the

hottest peak, you know, whatever it is. So it's like knowing

ourselves, and this is one of the things I love about IFS

work. The thing that I have found most fascinating about Pat

stuff is really. It helps me to become more self-aware. It helps

me to know myself better. It helps me to know like how I'm

reacting, how I'm responding, why I am, and when I can

understand my own internal story and what's going on inside of

me, what exile is trying to speak, which exile is having the

panic attack or the anxiety or the worry or the fear or

whatever is going on? I think of the capital S self as love. Like

to me, that's the that's the love, right? And all these pots,

the protectors who are the managers and the firefighters,

and then the exiles that they're protecting. These pots are all

the pots of me. Sometimes that have forgotten that they're

actually a capital S self. They feel fragmented. They feel

alone. They feel very afraid because they're out in the wild

trying to defend themselves and protect themselves and survive

because they've forgotten that who they really are is the

capital self s, the capital S self and the the the core of you

that love and that self energy we're going to talk about we're

going to come back to that like because there's great qualities

in the self and that will help us to identify when we're more

in that self energy but let's kind of tap into the exiles now

so you know about the protectors, the managers, and

the firefighters, and then there's also the exiles. This is

also a great book. I'm going to show you this one as well. This

one is called "We All Have Pots, and this is an illustrated guide

to healing trauma with internal family systems. This is by

Colleen West, and I love it because it's like a little

picture book, and you can see. Like I'll just flip it open to

the little exiles page because I think it's so cute, and it

talks. Okay, like this is this is a great picture. So this one,

what I'm describing is right in the middle of the page. There's

a big sun, and that's how I like to think of the self too. It's

like that bright, true light that you are-the love, the true

self. That's in the middle of the page, and then on the left

are the managers, and the managers are like the type A

executive, the caretaker, oh, the people pleaser, the one that

does everything. That's one of the managers as well, and then

like the hash critic. That's how your managers can show up in

these different ways, and then on the on the right over here

you have the firefighters, and they have like compulsive

drinker, compulsive eater, compulsive exercises, right? So

those are the very reactive. The managers proactive, and then

down here you have the exiles, and there's pictures of

different people, and the exiles they they gave them. Colleen

gave them these great names. There's the terrified toddler,

the hungry baby, the hostile and lonely teen, the confused and

angry kindergartner, the ashamed preteen, and the neglected

infant.

And when you see those little exiles like personified as like

little cartoons, for me it just really gave me so much

compassion for them, for me, and then for everybody else, kind of

in the world, where we're all just trying to to help, you

know, these exiled parts of ourselves that are kind of

having I say conniption fits, right? They're kind of having

little tantrums, you know, and this is what I'm talking about.

When people often say to me, "Oh, it's too bad that you don't

work with children. You don't work with kids. They could

probably really use this stuff. And I said, "Well, technically,

I work with adults, but I'm really just working with little

kids and adult bodies. You know what I mean? We all have these

younger parts of us, and the thing is, is when there's trauma

in our life, when there's these earlier wounds, these things

that happen to us when we're younger, I think of it as like

our exiles kind of get they they carry the memories of our

childhood, the exiles, and for me, anyways, I feel like those

parts of us that whatever age we were at when those traumas

happened, parts of us get frozen in that time. It's like they did

not get the note, they did not get the memo, they did not get

the system update. Like, hey, I'm 57 now. We made it. We're

still alive. We're happy. We have an awesome sweetie, right?

My husband's amazing. I have, I have, I have a good little group

of core friends, right? I have furry kids that I'm crazy with.

I have a job I love. Whatever we don't realize, and so one of the

questions I always tell my clients is when they're having

some big reaction, when they're having a big emotion, when

they're having a big trigger, is one of the questions we can ask

ourselves is how old am I right now? Right, that part of me,

like when you're just responding in a way where you even surprise

yourself. Sometimes you're like, I don't know why I'm even

crying. I don't even know why I'm angry. I just know blah blah

blah. I'm like, well, some part of you knows why you're angry.

Some part of you knows why you're crying. Maybe we can like

reach out and make a connection. Maybe we can have a little

conversation with that younger part of you, right? And so I'll

ask myself, "How old are you right now? What age am I right

now? Because that helps me to get in touch. Like, oh yeah, I

remember first feeling like this when I was six, or I remember

the first time I, you know, whatever a sibling stole a toy,

and I was like, "Mine, or you know, I didn't want to share, or

I was really embarrassed, or whatever is coming up within me,

it's like, oh yeah. So if we can kind of tap into what younger

part, what little exile, right? Is it the toddler? Is it the

pre? You know, the preteen? Is it the teen? Like, how old are

you when this? Um, were you that you know? What age do you think

you're reacting? Right, what exile is trying to let you know

that they're scared or there's an issue, and it comes back to

that. Like when I was in bed and I was patting myself, I was

self-soothing, right, as we say, and I was saying, "I've got you,

I've got you, I've got you. I was kind of trying, like

updating. I was updating whatever that young exile is to

number one, you're not alone. Number two, I feel you. I

can feel you having whatever experience you're having, and

I'm not going to abandon you. We don't abandon anymore. I just

did a whole episode on this about you know stop abandoning

yourself. So I don't abandon those parts of me anymore. You

know, there are many years where like maybe I'm like, nope, we do

not have time for your trauma and your drama and your dead

mother and your your bullshit, right? It wasn't bullshit. Those

were the hurt parts of me. But for a long time, I was just in

survival mode. I had to survive my life. There was not a lot of

time to go back and do like wound care.

You know what I mean? There was no, there was nobody, no man

left behind. I was leaving parts of me behind all the time, and

now I'm just like, yeah, no, they get a voice. I don't let

them run the show, but I can tell when I'm having a reaction

from those younger parts of myself, you know. And I try to

meet them with really, I try to meet them with self energy. I

try to meet them with loving care, and I always laugh because

I remember when these concepts like first came up. I remember

living in California, like back in the day when I lived in LA

and stuff. And you know, back then is when these concepts of

like shadow work or the inner child or IFS, these things

started like coming up. And I remember I used to always like

roll my eyes. I used to find the idea of like inner child work.

I'd be like, like, come on, right? Vicky with 2k from

Lawrence was like not into it, right? Some other part of me

that was like, no, we're not doing that, and I laugh because

I found this sticker. I bought this sticker so long ago, but

this sticka is so funny, and because everybody would be like,

"Just be kind to yourself, just love yourself, like listen to

your inner child, and I'd be like, "Yeah, but you don't

understand. My inner child is like not nice, right? And then I

found this sticka. Look at this; it's so great. It says, "My

inner child is a mean little fucker. That that about summed

it up. My inner child is a mean little fuck up, but since then,

all those younger parts, you know, within me, we've had some

conversations over the years, and so I really do try to first

of all acknowledge those parts of myself, like tell them that I

see them. I ask them, you know, what is it that they need me to

know? What are they trying to tell me? What what's going on?

Right. I try to really listen. Now, this signs like for some

people, they're like, "This is kooky monkeys. I'm not talking

to myself that way, or I I I'm not doing that, you know. And I

say, "Hey, if you saw a little kid, like a little little kid,

right? Distressed somewhere, right? At the store, at a county

fair, on the street, whatever. I don't think most of the people

that I know, right, would walk by a distressed child and not

bend down and get at eye level and say, sweetheart, are you

okay? What's going on? Where's your mom? Where's your dad?

What's happening? Right? You would you would pay attention.

And I'm like, if we would do that for strangers, if we would

do that for a little kid outside of us, why would we ignore the

little kid inside of me? And here's a little trick that you

might find useful too. If you find all of this a little like,

like eye rolling or weird, or you don't like it, IFS isn't for

everybody. Maybe I'm not saying you have to do it or even

whatever, but these are just interesting things to consider.

But I found when I was first, you know, trying to have these

conversations with the younger parts of me that it was like

somebody once said to me, "Well, try to picture yourself when you

were like three. Try to picture yourself when you were two or

three or four, a young kid, and you know, imagine them. And I'm

like, "Okay. And they're like, "Well, would you pull them into

your lap? Would you hug them? And I felt this is just this is

years ago, but I honestly felt resistance. I was like, I don't

want to do that. Like, I don't know how to do that. Like, I

could easily do it with little humans outside of my own body.

But for myself, I had this resistance, and so all of a

sudden, I blurted out. I said, "Can I make it an animal?

Because I knew, I knew there was no way animal outside of me or

inside of me. If it needed my attention, if it needed my care,

if it needed my compassion, my tenderness, my love, I would not

ignore it.

I just knew, and the person I was speaking to at the it was a

therapist, but we were doing we were doing work for. IBS. We

were doing work for my my my gut issues. We weren't. It wasn't

even like, oh, we're going to psychoanalyze you and like that.

But it was part of this this thing working on my IBS, and I

these pots just kind of came up. I said, can I make it a little

animal? And she said, sure. If that's you know, yeah, if that

works for you. She's like, "What is it? And I said, "Oh, it's the

little bunny. And she's like, "Okay, so there's a frightened

little bunny. What are we gonna do? I said, "Oh my God, I'm

gonna like pick it up. I'm gonna hold it close to me. I'm gonna

talk to it sweetly. I'm gonna, I'm gonna like pet it. I'm gonna

reassure it. I'm gonna say, 'I've got you. I'm here. I love

you. You're okay. And I was like, "Oh, duh, right? Like like

oh, this is probably how I want to be talking to the younger

parts of me. Right, talking to the younger self. It's like oh,

younger you. Right, who's the you? I'm like oh, it's younger

me. Like yes, and how do I want to talk to this? How do I want

to meet this younger part of myself? Well, I want to meet it

in self energy, right? The protectors have been trying to

do their job. The protectors have been running around trying

to put out fires, trying to control everything, trying to

make sure the the younger parts of me didn't get help, didn't

get hurt again. But what happens is all those parts of me become

burdened. They become overwhelmed and burdened.

They've been given jobs that they shouldn't have been given

at ages that they shouldn't have been given because there should

have been adults outside of me protecting me, caring me, seeing

me, listening. Right? All those things, teaching me these things

that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't abandoned, that I was

allowed to have feelings, blah blah blah blah blah, right?

Again, hashtag not a therapist, just saying. But so we create

these internal pots, these internal think about even the

words. There's an internal family in there, and there were

parts of us that didn't get parenting, that didn't get what

they needed, right? And so the firefighters and and the

managers are like running around trying to do all this work to

protect. And the thing is, is sometimes we just have to have

some conversations with those younger selves. And it's like

you know when you do like a system update, whether you're an

Apple user, a Mac user, or you're you know somebody who

uses Windows and Microsoft, whatever. There's system

updates. We have to start downloading the updates and

letting those younger parts of us know that we made it. We're

still here. Yeah, we still have some work to do. Yeah, we're not

perfect. All that stuff, but we are older. We're wiser. We're

more self-aware. We have more self-compassion. We have more

tools. Hopefully, you guys. Hopefully. Now I know some of

you are thinking about maybe your parents or some people in

your life, and like, well, they clearly had do not have the

tools. But we can't control what other people are doing, so let's

keep the focus on ourselves. But we can gather the tools, right,

to be more helpful to ourselves. But when those younger pats,

when we're going to Engage with when we're going to engage with

those younger parts. I want to be coming to them from a place

of not only love but from my true self, the self, self, the

capital S self. I want that part of me to be leading the show,

right? To be running the show, and there's these eight

qualities, the 8c's right? The 8c in internal family systems

that they're called, and these are like the qualities that we

want to show up with, that describe the core qualities that

emerge as we do this work of unburdening, right? Unburdening

and healing our parts. As we do this, we start to realize that

these 8c already exist within us. They've just been.

It's like when a cloud comes in front of the sun and the sun

gets blocked, and it can be really easy to think like, oh,

right, that that that that is not there anymore. The love

isn't there anymore. But you can never extinguish the sun, and

you can never extinguish yourself, your true self. So

these eight qualities of the self, right? They're curiosity

and clarity, compassion, confidence, courage, creativity,

connectedness, and calm. All right, I'll say them again.

There's curiosity, this clarity, compassion, confidence, courage,

creativity, that connected, that connectedness, and calm. And the

thing that's great about knowing these, and why I said them

twice, is so that maybe you hear them, they start to sink in.

Because the more we're familiar with these qualities, the more

you'll be able to tell when you're in your self energy and

leading from yourself self leadership versus when you're

not. So when you're panicking, when you're anxious, when you're

angry, when you're upset, all those emotions. Are welcome, but

we don't want to be living and making like decisions from that

place. We want to be able to tap into these 8c's and when we

recognize the feeling of these, of staying in curiosity, meeting

ourselves with curiosity instead of judgment, having clarity in

that awareness, showing up with compassion for those younger

parts of ourselves showing up in the confidence, like, hey, I'm

this age now. I made it. I have more tools. I have people who

love me. I have a roof over my head. Right. I got food in the

fridge now. Having courage, having creativity, problem

solving. Right. Using your imagination and stuff like that.

Feeling a state of being a part of something greater than you.

Feeling connected and doing it from a place of calm, that you

can find safety, that you can have serenity, regardless of the

insanity going on. Right? We don't have time to dive into all

the 8c's but the more you're familiar with these, the more

you'll recognize when you're in alignment with those 8c's and

you're living from that place, and you're loving and talking

and whatever, choosing from that place, from love instead of fear

of a lot of the managing and the protecting and the exiles, and

that's a really important thing, you know. And so I just wanted

to share these concepts and ideas with you. And like I said,

if you're curious, please like rewind and look at the books

again that I held up and showed you, right? There's a treasure

trove here of learning more about Pat's work, internal

family systems. You know that Dick Schwartz, you know, came up

with. Although some people say somebody before him came up with

some ideas, and on and on. And that's true. Do your homework.

Credit the original sources. Know where things come from.

Okay. So the last thing I wanted to say about all of this, and

this also is like a bedtime story. Is there was a an old

little cartoon or meme? It came out in like I think the first I

tried to do the research. The earliest version of it I could

find came from 2022 from a video creator or whatever. The name I

had the name written down. I can't find it now, but it has

since been morphed a million times. So tons of people have

taken what's the word, made it their own, and they say that

they created it. So I'm not even going to name all those people,

but here's the gist of it. There's this little cartoon of a

little person in bed, and this is that pot, like these younger

pots of us that need our attention. And I'm telling you

this is because I say this to myself at night now. So there's

a couple of things I do in my nighttime ritual. Whatever, I'm

not going to share them all with you because my nighttime ritual

isn't your nighttime ritual. Maybe you have a bedtime ritual,

nighttime ritual. Maybe you don't. But I also say this to

If I wake up in the middle of the night to put

myself back to sleep, right? So this idea of like tucking

yourself in, right? So when I was a little kid, right, my mom

would always like tuck us in. When she would, you know, she

was out at night.

When she came home, she'd come into our rooms, make sure we

were tucked in. But when we were little, she would like tuck us

in at night a lot of times, right? And I loved, like I

loved. Maybe you're like me, I don't know, but I loved getting

tucked in at night. And I remember being in my 20s, and

one night I slept at my boyfriend's house, and he still

at the time lived at home, and I loved his parents. They were

wicked cool, and we were like going to bed, and she came in,

and she's like, "I'm gonna tuck you in, like kind of joking. And

I was like, "Yes, like do it. I was so excited to have a mom

tuck me into bed because look, I didn't get enough. For me, I was

like, didn't get enough of it, and I'm sure I would have

outgrown it at some point. But I was still young enough at the

time that I kind of loved getting tucked in when I was a

kid. Okay, so imagine this little little character, right?

This little cartoon character is like tucked into bed. Okay, and

you've probably seen this or heard this, but this is what

this little character says to themselves. They say this,

right? Here's a little video. It goes, "Good night to me. I love

myself so much. I mean the world to me. And then this little

character kisses its own palm, and then it touches its own

forehead, giving himself, itself, herself a little

forehead kiss. When I saw this, I was like, "Oh my God! Like one

of my exiles just got like so happy. Some little part of me

was like, "I love that. So I say that now to myself. Good night

to me. I love myself so much. I mean the world to me. And I kiss

my hand, and then I tap my forehead. Right. I give myself a

forehead kiss. I know it sounds kooky. It sounds weird.

Whatever. My sweetie knows who we married. He doesn't care, but

I do this, and I say it to myself. Good night to me. I love

myself so much. I mean the world to me. So I'm reassuring those

younger parts of me that didn't get enough tenderness, didn't

get enough mercy, didn't get enough. What's the word I'm

looking for? Compassion, maybe right, and. Remind myself,

right? I tell those younger parts of me, like I've got you,

capital S self, 50-seven year old me, right? We're still here.

I got some tools in my toolkit. I got a lot of love in my life,

and I've got you now. You don't have to be so afraid. And

there's so many processes, right? So many, what's the word

I'm looking for? Different strategies and ways that

different therapists can approach this IFS stuff and how

they how they do it. But this is again like a sip sip for you to

know that there's ways for us to kind of like I always say we

can't go back in time, right? You can't build a better past,

as they say in a lot of recovery programs. But what we can do is

we can let the younger parts of us know about the present now

and the self that is leading, right? That self leadership, and

we want to lead from those 8c's We want to lead from that place

of love, right? Because all of these broken off pots, these

exile pots, the pots of us that are running around trying to

avoid and prevent and control and react to any perceived

threats. That is so exhausting. It is so much on our nervous

systems, and that's part of what we're trying to do here. Is

we're trying to help the nervous system to experience more

safety. So, I hope this has been helpful to you in some way,

right? Maybe you'll use these talking to your youngest self,

things you know, like I've got you and reassuring yourself, or

good night to you. I love myself so much. I mean the world to me.

Give yourself a little kiss. Teach these to your children. I

don't know. However, hopefully it's going to be helpful to you

in some way. But just thank you so much, you guys, for tuning

in.

And like this is the kind of stuff I talk about in the Nest

all the time. So I have a a spiritual mentoring group

program and community, the Nest. It's a small little community of

brilliant and lovely and wonderful human beings, and it's

always open. It's like 50 bucks a month. You come in. We have

two calls a month over Zoom on Wednesday nights, by bi monthly,

bi weekly. You know, so every other week. It's a fantastic

group. I've been running it since 2020, so it's been around

for like six years. So, if you want to find out about any of

the ways that I work with people in coaching, in mentoring, group

or individual one to one, you want to find out about Thai yoga

massage, right? Thai yoga body work, the things that I do,

right? My yoga class is always sold out. That's why I don't

even promote it because the same people just keep coming back. So

that little community is amazing and awesome too. But you can

just find everything on Karen kenney.com Just go up to the

heada. You'll see everything. You'll see Write Club. You'll

see Thai Yoga Body Work. Excuse me. You'll see the podcast,

yoga, whatever. That's how you can find me. So just thank you

so much for tuning in. I think this has been a long one. I did

not mean for this to be a long one, but here we are. And I just

hope you have a fantastic rest of your day. Thank you for

spending a little bit of your time with me, me and all my

pots. We see you and recognize all your pots. And the last

thing I'll say too is, it can be really fun to name your parts. I

sometimes will jokingly say, if I have a friend who I I play

this game with my friends where we like name some of their

parts. So if I know the name of some of your parts, sometimes

I'll jokingly say like, hey, jokingly I'll say hey, whatever

the name of the pot is. Let's just say if I was doing it to

myself, I'd be like, "Hey, Vicky, you know, when you see

Karen, tell her I want to talk to her because I can tell that I

have been overtaken by one of the one of my protective paths,

you know. And I'm like, "Hey, what's really going on in there?

And I talk to myself, and there's a whole process for

doing this. There's a whole process for talking to your

youngest self, how to meet your younger self, some questions you

might ask, right? But just really think of it very simply.

If you were meeting a frightened child or a frightened animal,

how would you approach them? My sense is you would be gentle,

you would be kind and compassionate, you'd be curious,

you'd ask questions, you'd listen deeply, you'd reassure

them, you'd love them, you'd let them know they're not alone,

etc. etc. You know how to love people, right? Most of us know

how to do it. It's just we have to be willing to put in the time

and the energy to do it well. Okay, you guys, I love you.

Wherever you go, may you leave the people, the animals, the

other pots you meet, the planet, and the environment better than

how you found it. Wherever you go, may you and your energy and

your attitude and your presence and your love and your capital S

self be a blessing. Bye. Hey, thanks so much for listening to

the show. I really love spending some time together. Now, if you

dig the show or know someone that could benefit from this

episode, please share it with them and help me to spread the

good word and the love. And if you want to be in the know about

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karenkenney.com/signup and join my list. It'll be wicked fun to

see. Stay in touch. Bye.