Latest / Trauma Meets Recovery Podcast / How to Feel Safer Within Yourself: Healing Is Possible | Dr. Alison Cook

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How to Feel Safer Within Yourself: Healing Is Possible | Dr. Alison Cook · Trauma Meets Recovery Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a paradox people don't realize that some of the most self-centered people are the people who carry the most shame inside that they've never looked at.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're taking all that inner shame and and then trying to control their environment in a self-centered way.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the more you are able to really kind of till the soil of your own soul, we are able to be that way for others.
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  SPEAKER_00: I I think of uh Jesus' famous words, you know, kind of the golden where we get the golden rule.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, love others as yourself.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's stating a correlation there.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: These two things go together.
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  SPEAKER_00: I know it to be true.
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  SPEAKER_00: I see it in myself, I see it in my clients.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: As I'm able to be more compassionate with myself, I have more reserves.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I understand what that's like.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Trauma Meets Recovery Podcast, where we share stories of resilience, recovery, and hope.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Join us as we sit down with survivors, authors, and leading experts to discuss their experiences and insights, exploring the path towards healing and the power of the human spirit.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: And now here's your host, Dr.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Mark McNear.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, and welcome to Trauma Meets Recovery Podcast.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Dr.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Mark McNear, and I am so pleased to be with you today.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I have another reason to be pleased, and that's because I have Dr.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Alison Cook with me.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Alison, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much for having me.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: You are welcome.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we were just talking about it's a busy week because you just released a book.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I did, yes.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: The Secure Soul.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're gonna get into that.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: But before that, wonder if you would introduce yourself to our audience.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'm a licensed therapist, uh, practiced as a therapist for a couple of decades.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also what's called a psychologist of religion.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I went on to get my PhD in psychology and religion.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Psychologists of religion sort of study the psychology of religious phenomena.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I look at sort of the psych psychological underpinnings of how people relate to the divine and the spiritual realm.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's a kind of a an area of expertise that I also bring into my clinical practice.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a podcast host.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: I have a podcast called The Best of You, where we explore the intersection of mental health and spirituality.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm an author.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've written a couple of books.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my specialty for those who are familiar with it, I'm a level two uh trained in internal family systems.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of my work centers on integrating that inner kind of, I zoom in on the inner healing.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and really I also zoom in on kind of the everyday wounds.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So trauma, big T trauma is a part of that.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I also, out of my own experience, and a lot of my work is kind of also just focusing on the everyday wounds that were tending uh through the course of life uh as well.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to start out, I want to definitely get into the book, but I want to start out with this.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna have it pulled up here.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: The social media post that I saw that was put up recently, and there was a picture of you, and the caption was I wrote this book for her.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Hope you just understand that post.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a picture of me, third or fourth grade, in my favorite rainbow shirt.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and you know, this is the part of me, the young one inside of me, the little girl inside of me, who learned very early on.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's taken me years to unpack this.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she learned to be invisible.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So she bears sort of the wound of invisibility, uh, if we think of kind of from a family systems lens and the roles we learn in our families.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my role as the youngest of a lot of big personalities was to be invisible.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And in my own story, as you no doubt know, and some of your listeners may be familiar, when you're doing kind of some of the healing work, there's there's the the wounds that come from abuse and violence and and overt actions.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And those are, you know, those are those big T traumas that are so painful and and and so need and deserve our healing attention.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are these wounds of absence, the absence of presence, right?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that was more my case, where it's almost like nothing overt happened, but there was this absence of presence.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so it took me years to kind of find her and understand who she was, that she did have a role, that she did have a place, that she does have a place, um, that she wasn't invisible.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of a little bit of what I mean when I say I wrote this book for her, because it's kind of my journey through looking.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is my more most personal book where I'm I'm looking into my own inner soul, into my own inner world in an effort to find her.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for that.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm wondering what it was like for you writing the book.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was at first terrifying because as a therapist, right, we're trained not to share our own stories.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that is not what I'm accustomed to doing.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a private person by nature.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have this invisible strategy.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: One of my strategies in life is invisibility.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's a very, it's a very helpful strategy in life to stay safe.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh I had a a friend and who also became my editor invite me and just say, what would it be like for you to step out from behind the expert role and write more personally?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And at first it was terrifying, but as I got into it, it was incredibly healing.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was incredibly healing to take some of this inner work that I've done and try to turn it into a story and a narrative that would be accessible to others.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was really healing to me.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think as it came time to publish the book, I felt a little more, I went back to feeling nervous again.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Cause again, I'm a therapist, you know, and I don't, I do not mostly I do public education now.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't really have a clinical practice anymore the past couple of years.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there still is that part of me that's like, am I allowed to do this?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not supposed to share my own my own stories.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the the process of writing it was actually incredibly healing.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: So you talk about in the book this issue of attachment.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I I wanna I want to get into that with you and that that idea of feeling secure when you're not so secure.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: And you also talk, you also talk about parts work, but but let's start out with this whole idea of attachment.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Help us to understand or help listeners to understand this whole idea of attachment and what that looks like and and what awareness to that and bringing awareness to that looks like.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so attachment theory um is just a powerful way of understanding the wounds we carry with us into adulthood.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And essentially it just helped us understand the role of that primary caregiver in a young child's life.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think for a lot of us this is intuitive.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the science of it is really incredible that that young, you know, when there's that secure base, right?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: That secure base in a caregiver, any sort of parent, even a grandparent, a stepparent, any sort of parent where there's that secure base, but usually it's that first person, you know, the first person who's who's with the child in those early years.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: A child uh shows security because in a way they know they can go out and explore, because there will always, there's always that safe space, safe person to come back to, right?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so secure children are actually more open to exploration, they're more able to go out, even as little toddlers and explore, um, because there's that secure base they always know they can come back to.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: If they, if if a if a little child stumbles or falls or gets hurt and they cry, they know someone will be there for them, right?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's that secure base that a parent in an ideal world provides.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so when a parent, for whatever reason, due to their own trauma, due to their own mental illness, due to their own just limits on capacity, due to their own um their own wounds, you know, for whatever reason, a parent is not able to create on some level, right?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's no perfection, but on some level, that secure base.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so this child learns, man, when I cry, no one, no one is there.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: When I fall, no one sees me.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so these children tend to actually um cling more.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they ask louder because they're they're not sure that that person will be there, or they tend to just be very detached from the parent.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh psychologists began to observe this in children, the importance of that secure base and the key ingredient, it's not about uh just getting food on the table.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about, you know, having a house over your roof over your head, although those things are important, obviously.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: The biggest component there is what we call attunement, which is this presence.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's am I present to this child?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Am I aware?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is my whole body oriented toward even, you know, you think about as kids get older, they they come home from school and maybe they're not saying anything, but a parent notices, you seem down today, right?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's that attunement, right?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Again, no parent does this perfectly.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's a research on the fact that, you know, literally we're not going to do this all the time, nor can you do it all the time, nor should you do it all the time.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: But enough, a good enough parent.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so the reality is most of us, even with in the best families, have those moments where someone isn't there, you know, to some degree or another.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a spectrum, you know, we talk about insecure attachment and disorganized, all these different kinds of attachment.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: My goal really was just to simplify it and kind of speak to the reality, what whether it was, you know, big T trauma, whether it was big neglect or abuse, whether it was just these small everyday misses.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: We all pick up these wounds from those moments when something painful happened and no one was there to help us make sense of it.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: No one was there to see it.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Gabor Matei talks about how trauma is just unwitnessed pain.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because a child who's alone with pain tends to create a self-shaming message.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what do we do with that when we arrive with adulthood?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because these wounds travel with us into adulthood.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's kind of the quick overview.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was trying to write into the space of internal attachment.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: We can get into that, but that that's kind of how I see attachment.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, help us help us to understand that because I I think for people who whether they have like trauma or have complex trauma or what wherever it is on the continuum, they have a very hard time with the internal, you know, security.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, to be able to um sit with themselves.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: And even be comfortable.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Could you help us with that?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we tend, and and when we think about attachment, we tend to focus on the role of parents, but then we also tend to focus on, well, now I bring that into a marriage or into an intimate relationship.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of emphasis on healing those attachment wounds within the context of relationships.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's all really important.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is that no one human being can ever fully.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I love the work here of Yalum, of Irv Yalam, the brilliant existential psychotherapist who talked about isolation as one of the ultimate concerns that every human faces.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he defines that as the reality that no one other human can fully know my inner life.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not possible.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's always to some degree a little bit of my inner life that can't, no one person can fully know.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's just the reality of being human.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so in my work, I try to zoom in on, but I can know, I can know my inner world.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then also in my faith language and my faith background, God can know, right?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's a divine presence, love, you know, incarnate can know.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's that spiritual component.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I can know.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's that inner component.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can know what I'm feeling, even when my my dear husband can't fully understand what's happening and is trying really hard.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes some of the pressure off these relationships.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in in my way of understanding the soul and in my my background of faith, God can know, right?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so it kind of eases some of that ache, that inner attachment.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think of us as having three primary relationships.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, again, my my faith background, there's there's a relationship with the divine, there's a there's a spiritual relationship, there's a relationship we have with others, and then there's this relationship we have with ourselves that we often don't fully understand beyond just basic self-care.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's I'm talking about that inner knowing, that inner ability to attune to the parts of your own self.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: So would you say that if we have not had good attachment, you know, with people outside of us, it's gonna be hard for us to attach to ourselves.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, because we internalize those shots shaming messages, those self-critical messages.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: So what tends to happen as an adult is, you know, I notice, oh, I get I feel triggered or I feel left out or rejected or unseen.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then I have an internalized voice that's like, well, you're stupid.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you feel that way?
• 14:05
  unknown: Right?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's the matter with you?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what's wrong with you?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Grow up, be an adult, right?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and then I most of us have some kind of internalized inner critic, whether we, you know, whether our parents said those things to us or whether just kind of in the absence of presence, that's the part of us that developed to try to get us to grow up, you know?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not super helpful because we have this feeling that's real, and then we shame ourselves for feeling that way.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that leads to more inner tension.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I'm trying to teach people how to do is we have that gift of metacognition, that gift of awareness.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: We can know what we feel, which is so unique to being human.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can notice, I'm feeling really rejected right now.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I wish I didn't, but I do.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I can notice that with curiosity.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then instead of going right to that inner critic or that shaming voice, I'm trying to teach people how to in that moment bring self-compassion in.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: I call it a return.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: So recognize, recognition, and return.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the return is to love, loving presence, right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I can be that safe person for myself, right?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I can recognize, ouch, I'm hurt here.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then the return is, and I'm love, I mean I'm loved even here.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: I can become that safe place that honors, yeah, that hurt.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that still has nothing to do with the other person.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a whole different process of figuring out now what do I do about that.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: But that inner work is so important.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I just go from, you know, what happens is I say, I feel rejected, I feel hurt, oh, I shouldn't feel that way.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a jerk, or, you know, I should just grow up, so I bury it, and then I have all this inner tension, and then I'm, you know, and then I'm I'm my nervous system is hijacked and I try to willpower it down.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then I see that person who hurt me, and I either over please them or I it comes out sideways and I'm sarcastic.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not helpful, right?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: As opposed to the truth, which is ouch, that hurt.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: I can be with myself in that hurt.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I can be the safe person that I need right now.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then our nervous system calms down.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's more, we have such great research on self-thenfits of self-compassion.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then I have a better place from which to approach that other person.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that inner secure base piece I want people to find, to be able to be that inner safe base for yourself that you never had.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's just so powerful when you can do that.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: So help us to understand how parts work.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: And you had mentioned, you know, the that you have training in that, but also the work that you have done.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: Help us to understand what that looks like.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I Dick, Dick Schwartz, the founder of the internal family systems model.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think the best depiction of it is the for for the folks who for whom this is new is the the Pixar movies, Inside Out.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it just shows that we're multifaceted.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: We have different things going on inside of us.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what I was alluding to.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So part of me is like, ouch, that hurts.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And another part of me is like, I don't want to be a bother.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't want to make anybody feel bad.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I just got to get over it, you know.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, a part of you is like, I'm, you know, that hurt.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And another part of you is like, I'm angry and I'm gonna go destroy that person, you know.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: These are different parts of us.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're different kind of inner movements within that we're just complex as human beings.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're multifaceted.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: We have these inner tensions.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And our job is to become the the parent of these different parts of us.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: So no one part of us is leading, right?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the part of us that's hurt doesn't, isn't the only part of us, and the part of us that's angry or the part of us that wants us to get over it isn't the only presence.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: That that there's a me at the center of it that can say, I'm hurt and I'm angry.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you know, what's the wise move here?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: What's the wise self through both of those things?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so in the book, I I talk about the controller, which is the part of us that wants to figure out a way to control to prevent pain.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that takes different forms in different people, and the shadow, which is the part of us that harbors the emotions and sometimes the strategies that we'd we'd rather not face, but is a very real part of us that gives us very real information.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and kind of getting to know these different aspects of ourself is is kind of heart of inner parts work.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the real quick summary of it.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: So what help us to understand, you know, when when we're talking about this controller part or or or this shadow part, what might what might both of those look like?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: And and how do we deal with both of them when they seem maybe juxtaposed?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I share kind of in, I think we all have a go-to um strategy uh for trying to prevent pain, for trying to put our best foot forward.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for me, it tends to be uh work harder, you know, do more overfunction.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then the other one for me is pleasing, right?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of my invisibility cloak, right?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just work really, really hard and make everybody happy.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then that that's the controller in me.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not bad, right?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: The the controller part of us, you know, for some people, it's um perfect, make myself perfect, um, you know, or or uh be the perfect problem solver or be the be the one who um never lets anybody in, you know, who's always at one step ahead of everybody.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Comes out in different ways in different people.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: But and again, it's not bad.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a bad part of us, but it can get extreme when we're not balanced, when we're not imbalance, when we're working to get love, right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm overfunctioning to avoid feeling something that I actually need to feel, or when I'm pleasing somebody to, because I'm scared that if I don't please them, they'll be mad at me.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so those, when those become default strategies, that's when it gets, they get to be problematic.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm leading this controller part of me, I'm able to kind of help myself discern, I'm working really hard here.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Am I overworking to avoid something?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or am I working really hard because this matters to me and I'm I'm connected and I'm integrated, and it's about stewardship, right?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can begin to discern your own motivations and behaviors better.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the controller can show up as perfectionism, as people pleasing, as um being overly protective and guarded, um, as there's so many different ways.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: It can show up as chronic worrying and anticipating, you're overthinking, overanalyzing to try to prevent anything bad from happening.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and each of us has to kind of have a sense of that go-to strategy because we have to kind of monitor ourselves on that sense.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: I I like what you said about the parts not being bad.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: Could you tell us more about that?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I love that with internal family systems.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's so important, especially for people who are looking at different parts of them and just want to get rid of that part.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: It never works to push it away.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm such a people pleaser, I just need to stop.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh no, no, wait a minute.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: The the part of you has taken on some extreme strategies that aren't always helpful.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: But underneath, I will tell you, there is a genuinely, you know, especially with like something like people pleasing, there's a genuine sensitivity to the needs of other people that's Beautiful.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we want to reclaim.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I talk a lot in book about reclaiming the original essence of what's good about that part so that I can be kind.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And also another part of me reminds me when I can also have boundaries.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: I can also say no when it's the right thing to do, right?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't want to get rid of the people-pleasing part of me.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to recognize when I'm pleasing out of fear versus when I'm genuinely extending kindness.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the same part.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: That part has a really good, um, there's a good heart underneath it, right?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's learned the strategy to keep me safe, which is I always have to please every single human on the planet, right?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: These that's an extreme role or overfunctioning parts of us.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've I just always got to work harder versus I'm a hard worker.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good part of me.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful for that part of me that's diligent, that's responsible.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to be careful because that part of me can get extreme and doesn't know its limits.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also the shadowy parts of us.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: People really struggle to, you know, internal family systems calls that these firefighter parts.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've kind of I've kind of taken my own hybrid kind of from um spiritual uh writers and depth psychology to call it the shadow.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the reason it's called the shadow is because it's it's kind of sitting at the edge of kind of the pain that we feel and a longing for relief.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes the shadow does things that we do not like.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: The shadow is the part of us that's like, you know, I'm overfunctioning over here and I'm exhausted at night.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm downing, you know, way more two bottles of wine, or I'm I'm binge watching Netflix, or I'm downing two bags of cookie hiding in the closet because I'm so exhausted and I'm actually mad at these very people I'm trying to help, but I can't face that.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just numbing it.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so people think that's a bad part.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's a bad part of me.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: I need to get rid of that part of me.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: That, and even that part of you, it's like, wait a minute.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: The intent under there is to provide relief.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Strategy is not great.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: We need to change the strategy, but you've learned that this is how I can get a hit of relief, right?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so we need to help that part of you.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: What are some healthy ways to get relief?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: What are some healthy ways?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that might mean bringing reigning that overfunctioner in to create that space to go, man, I need a day off.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I got to set some boundaries.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, I'm I'm downing this bag of cookies.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: What get curious about that?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on that I'm trying to avoid?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm thinking about Alison, that that whole idea.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: I had a friend who who would say, you know, that he would, it was donuts for him.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: And he would get a whole bunch of donuts, and he would eat the donuts and he would feel relief, and then he would shame himself horribly, and then he would say to himself, no more donuts.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then he would like resist, resist, resist, resist.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then go go out and get, you know, a dozen don't good donuts and and eat as many as he could.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I think that that's that idea too that, you know, when we go to those extremes, yeah, and then we move to extremes to correct it, it doesn't work.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: You just described that polarization, right?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's that I'm downing a bag of donuts and then I'm beating myself up, which leads to more pressure inside, versus that self-compassion that says, what's going on here?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Getting curious, which calms the nervous system, which gives us more perspective, which brings more of our prefrontal cortex online, where we can make a wiser decision and we can make some changes.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, with the book, what was your hope with the book?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: I know you talked about being challenged to write it, you know, and and about your own journey.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: But even as it's been out for a couple of days now, and and by the time this episode is out, maybe a couple of weeks.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: What is your hope that people will do when they begin to read it?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I've started it, and I just want to say for people listening, it is a wonderful book, and I don't always say that, but it really is this unique and wonderful book that people need to go pick up.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll have information about that.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: But Elson, what is your hope when people pick it up?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: What where they will go with it?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for saying that.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: I two things.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: One, I try to show versus teach in this book.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm showing what it's like to revisit these younger versions of yourself.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: So what I hope people pick up, what I wanted to show was the power of loving presence.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because we hear that.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: We hear I should be compassionate for myself or I should be kind to myself.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: But it can feel like one more thing on the to-do list that I'm not doing good at.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted to show.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: I want people to kind of get a feeling of, oh, that's what that feels like.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I want, I wanted to give people an experience, not another to-do.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, this feels different.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's one thing.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a an experience of what that loving presence feels like.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and I think the second thing that I want people to recognize is that a soul, a self, is worth tending.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: We we talk a lot about tending our relationships, and they're so important.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't always zoom in very well on understanding the murky inner life of our own selves.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I use a metaphor of a mountain, you know, that that the soul is complex.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of different terrain.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's parts of it that seem, I don't want to go there, I don't want to look there, but that your inner life is worth tending, it's worth knowing.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think those are the two things.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Your inner life is worth knowing.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's sort of a contemplative um feel to this book, as well as just what it feels like to be with oneself in this more compassionate way.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: So if someone, so if somebody's listening and and they say to themselves, and I I hear this all time all the time in clinical work, you know, I don't want to be self-centered, I don't want it to be self-absorbed.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: What would you say?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's such, and I know you know this to be true, it's such a paradox that some of the most self-centered people are the people who are the most disconnected from themselves.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's such a paradox, people don't realize it.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the most self-centered people are the people who carry the most shame inside that they've never looked at.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're taking all that inner shame and and then trying to control their environment in a self-centered way.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the more you are able to really kind of till the soil of your own soul, we are able to be that way for others.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think of uh Jesus' famous words, you know, kind of the golden where we get the golden rule.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, love others as yourself.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I often think of that as he's he's stating a correlation there.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: These two things go together.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: The degree to which you can love others flows from the degree to which you are with your own self.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I know it to be true.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: I see it in myself, I see it in my clients, I see it in as I'm able to be more compassionate with myself.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: I have more reserves.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: I understand what that's like.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I can therefore be more compassionate with other people.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a skill.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm honing as I can be more compassionate.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, what's that?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what that's like to extend compassion.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like we train ourselves, and that's suddenly I have more of that for my kids, for my spouse, for my friends, right?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: That that's out of the reservoir of the heart is what shows up in our external relationship.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a little bit of a paradox.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: It can feel like, oh, this is self-centered.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not to indulge, and I say that very clearly.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't about indulging every part of us, indulging every emotion.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is about recognizing, showing compassion, and actually, paradoxically, that gives us more perspective on how to show up in our lives with other people.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: And and and so you're also talking about like slowing down and becoming aware.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Presence, being present with oneself.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that self-awareness leads to other awareness, right?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not self-focus, it's self-awareness, noticing, being with.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very much a similar skill that we try to do with our own children, where we try to notice them, we try to be with them, we try to pick up on their cues, we try to not indulge everything, but be present to what's happening so that we can guide.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's the very same process that's happening inside of us.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: And as you have gone through this healing journey and you have um experienced a lot of things, and I love that because it's not a book where it's just prefrontal cortex of learning all kinds of things, but it's also about doing and experiencing.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you turned to that little girl, you said that you wrote the book too.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: What would you share with her?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: What do you know?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it always comes to mind with her is you matter too.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: She knows other people matter.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: She never knew that she mattered too.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: Alison, I I I want to thank you for this time.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: This has been wonderful, and and also want to thank you for getting together on such a busy week as this to be able to spend time with us looking forward to sharing more about the book.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if people want to find out more about you, how would they do that?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, and thanks for having me.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and thanks for your work.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's the Secure Soul, and probably the easiest way to find it is the Securesoulbook.com or my website, which is just my name, dralisoncook.com.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: Great, and we'll put that up on the screen.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: Allison again, thank you.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.