0:02

Welcome to Mindsurfer MD . I'm

0:13

your host , dr Liz Trainor , and my

0:15

mission is to normalize discussions about mental

0:18

health and provide resources to those of

0:20

us who are riding the waves . So let's

0:22

dive in .

0:26

Hey , the recording is working . Everybody , let's go

0:28

. Hi , welcome again to Mindsurfer

0:31

MD . I'm so delighted to have my IFS

0:33

coach , terry Boranski , joining me this morning

0:35

. I have been working

0:37

with him for the last three , four months and

0:40

boy , I wanted to quit so many times , but

0:42

he did trust the process . Trust

0:44

the process , and my friend Debbie

0:47

Blaney shout out to you . Debbie , who recommended

0:49

him , also said just trust the process , keep

0:52

at it . But welcome , terry

0:54

, thank you so much for being here today . I am

0:56

so delighted to introduce you to my listeners

0:59

.

1:00

Thank you , liz , such a pleasure .

1:01

Yeah . So how did you find IFS ? What

1:04

is IFS , and

1:08

tell us about your journey .

1:11

Yes , maybe I can start with a little IFS overview

1:13

, if that makes sense , sure oh

1:15

sure ?

1:16

Well , I think I want to

1:18

hear about who you are first , because I think stories are

1:20

really interesting , instead of starting to the data

1:22

, because that puts people to sleep . But who are you ? How

1:24

did you get into this ?

1:26

Yeah , yeah , so I ought to be enough . I worked

1:28

in IT for the

1:30

longest time and loved it for

1:32

a little while and

1:34

then , you know , slowly the passion started

1:37

to wane over the years . So

1:39

it ended up being about 15 years , which was a

1:41

good run and you

1:43

know , but very left-brained type of

1:45

activity which was all me at

1:47

the time , so it was perfect . But

1:50

then it , maybe five years or so

1:52

ago , I just kind of fell into developmental

1:54

trauma and developmental

1:56

psychology and how the mind works

1:59

, and it just came out of nowhere . It

2:01

wasn't I wasn't looking to get into it , but it

2:03

just , it , just it found me and

2:06

I just became fascinated with , because

2:08

it just explains so much that

2:10

otherwise it's very hard to explain

2:12

in terms of the way the world is going and the

2:15

way people behave , and

2:17

so it really resonated on that level , just in terms of making

2:20

sense and in providing explanations

2:22

for things . And then

2:24

I found IFS shortly thereafter

2:26

, which is a , you know , a specific way of

2:28

looking at the mind that we'll get into

2:30

in a healing approach as

2:33

well , and it just and it stands for internal

2:35

family systems right . Yes .

2:37

Internal family systems . Yeah .

2:39

Yeah .

2:41

So yeah , but yeah , keep going . This is good

2:43

stuff .

2:43

Yeah , so it just resonated with me so

2:45

well it's . It was one of those things where as soon as you see

2:48

something , it just lands like so

2:50

perfectly with you and

2:52

then I , so I ended up trying it myself as

2:54

a , as a client , and then at some point

2:56

in there it finally occurred to me it was a calling

2:58

for a new career which I hadn't seen coming

3:01

at all . And then

3:03

I started , you know , the training and all

3:05

kinds of courses and reading and and

3:07

stuff like that , and then slowly transitioned

3:10

over , which was

3:12

just beautiful , to have that flexibility , to not

3:14

like have to be in a rush and have to make all this stuff

3:16

happen . Now I was able to take my

3:18

time and just kind of slowly move at a pace

3:21

that that made sense . And

3:23

yeah , now here I am and it's it's

3:26

so rewarding . Like it's it's great to

3:28

have passion for work again and every

3:31

day . Just learning new stuff and seeing

3:33

you know the amazing results

3:35

of it is just so , so powerful

3:37

.

3:38

Yeah , so cool . Yeah , as as physicians

3:41

, I feel that we are so blessed

3:43

to be doing something that is intrinsically valuable

3:45

and intrinsically , you know

3:47

, just feeds our souls . And I

3:49

think doing this work , you

3:52

know , as a practitioner , probably scratches

3:54

that edge . And

3:56

yeah , and Debbie

3:58

said that she used to be one of your free clients Sorry

4:00

, I'm chatting about Debbie again , but

4:04

but but she's like , yeah , it was worth it . I started

4:06

hanging in when you went pro so but

4:10

yeah , so I had never

4:12

heard of IFS , ifs until this

4:14

year and then I started hearing it from

4:16

multiple different sources and I'm in a women physicians

4:18

coaching group where one of the coaches is

4:21

IFS and trauma informed

4:23

also . And

4:25

you know , I never thought of myself as trauma

4:27

, trauma . It's like I don't have big T trauma but just

4:29

, you know , just the , you know the kind

4:31

of intellectual parents who weren't there

4:34

, emotional connection , little

4:36

T trauma kind of thing . But

4:38

. But even for a little T trauma I've

4:40

been finding it very , very helpful . But , like

4:43

I said , it took months because it's such a different

4:45

way of kind of doing therapy

4:47

, because it's more meditative and you have this great

4:49

late night DJ voice

4:52

that's so relaxing

4:54

. And for the several

4:56

months where I was like this is a waste of money , this is

4:58

not my thing . I

5:00

realized at one of the sessions that

5:02

the value of just intrinsically

5:05

relaxing while you were guiding

5:07

me on meditations , that had value

5:09

in itself . But then the real transformations

5:11

happened months later

5:14

, where I

5:16

, you know , because the concept with the IFS

5:18

is that there are all these different parts within us , right

5:21

, and I should stop talking and let you explain

5:23

it . But finding these little parts , because

5:25

for me it was like , okay , I got

5:27

this depressed part which I feel like swallows

5:29

me , but then there's the angry part

5:32

. That's angry that I spend half of my life

5:34

depressed . And then there's the questioning part

5:36

that's like , well , it's just neurochemistry , this

5:38

IFS stuff is bullshit and

5:40

you know . So that part kept coming in

5:43

and you would remind me to like

5:45

, okay , let's let that part go back and

5:47

just like , explore this other part

5:49

. So , anyway , so talk more about how

5:52

IFS works . And yeah

5:54

, yeah , too much .

5:56

No , it's beautiful to hear your experience

5:59

and it's so important , so I'll do a little

6:01

elevator speech and stop

6:03

me if it doesn't make sense or anything

6:05

. But when we think about the mind , we

6:07

typically think of it as one thing , right

6:09

, we say I , we say me , as

6:12

if we're referring to a single thing . That

6:14

is , that is us . But

6:16

we also know on some level that we often

6:18

hold contradictory thoughts on

6:20

things and opinions on things

6:22

. If we're weighing a big decision , we're

6:25

often wavering back and forth on it

6:27

. Moments , a moment like second to second

6:29

In a lot of cases , like we'll just have these

6:31

completely different perspectives , like come swooping

6:33

in and swooping out

6:36

. We also know that we'll often

6:38

say one thing quite sincerely

6:40

and then do another Right

6:43

, and we see this with ourselves , with everybody

6:45

. Like that , we will genuinely say I'm going

6:47

to do X and then we'll do Y , and

6:50

so clearly there are conflicting

6:52

processes at work here in

6:54

the mind when that happens . Other

6:57

times will be even more explicit and we'll say , oh , part

6:59

of me wants to do this , but a part of me wants to do

7:01

that , and this is common language

7:03

that people use and there's an implicit

7:05

recognition there of what we're

7:08

talking about when it comes

7:10

to parts . So the contention is

7:12

that all of these things are reflective

7:14

of something very fundamental about

7:16

how the mind actually works . That's

7:18

just not necessarily explicitly obvious day

7:21

to day , especially in this culture

7:23

. Where we're kind of ingrained in this culture

7:25

is what we call mono mind viewpoint

7:28

, which is the mind is one thing . So

7:30

it takes a lot for , I think , us to

7:33

question that a lot of times , because it's just

7:35

an assumption of this is this is how

7:37

the mind works . So

7:39

when we say the mind is made of parts , so

7:42

quick 101 on parts . So what do

7:44

we mean by parts ? Right ? Well

7:46

, the place I like to start is that the body

7:48

is made of parts . They

7:51

are , you know , we have shoulders and arms and

7:53

they are separate from each other , but

7:55

they're part of a larger system and

7:58

the sum is greater than

8:00

the parts . So we have this amazing body

8:03

that can do amazing

8:05

things . So that's one good way of

8:07

thinking about it up front . Another

8:09

analogy is an orchestra , which I love

8:11

. So you have everyone in the orchestra who has

8:13

a role , so to speak , and

8:16

again the sum of what's produced is far

8:18

, far greater than the individual

8:20

instruments being played

8:22

. So a

8:25

couple keys here . So parts of the mind are

8:27

completely normal . Number one we're born

8:29

with them and that's a good thing in

8:31

this approach . So they're not created by trauma

8:34

, as is often believed in parts of psychology

8:36

, like with multiple personality disorder . The

8:39

belief is that most of us are one mind

8:41

, but then some people are so traumatized that they

8:43

end up with these parts . And that's

8:45

not how we look at it . We all

8:48

the evidence suggests that we're born that way and

8:50

multiple personality disorders just a more

8:52

extreme manifestation as

8:54

a result of extreme trauma

8:56

. But

8:59

our parts are impacted

9:01

by trauma , often substantially

9:04

, so they often get stuck

9:06

in the past , we find at young

9:08

ages . So there's this notion of an inner child

9:10

that's pretty popular these days

9:12

. That refers to that . Like

9:14

we have this inner child . But in IFS we have

9:17

inner children because there's always more

9:19

than one , so we don't stop

9:21

with just the one . There's always

9:23

. Again , depending on our history and all of this , there's

9:25

some number of them in there . It is

9:27

finite , but it's not . There's no specific

9:30

number , it just varies for

9:33

each person and these parts can get

9:35

pretty intense when they're traumatized

9:37

again , depending on a person's

9:39

history . Another

9:42

point is that they're all individual sub-personalities

9:44

, so they're more than just

9:46

emotions , even though we'll often refer

9:49

to them that way . Up front we'll say , oh , I have a

9:51

sad part , I have an angry one . But

9:53

what we find is that they really are sub-personalities

9:56

in there and they have their own ways

9:58

of thinking and their own ways

10:00

of seeing the world , which is just so

10:02

, so fascinating . The more and more I started

10:04

digging into this . Like they really get

10:07

, they are intricate in

10:09

there and we have to account for that when we're

10:11

working with them . The

10:14

final point is that they interact with each other too

10:16

. So it's a system . So some

10:18

of them cooperate with each

10:20

other , others fight each other when

10:22

they disagree on what's best

10:25

for the person . So

10:27

there's this whole interactive system at

10:30

work in there and it , you know , as IFS

10:32

, was being discovered organically in the 80s

10:35

by Richard Schwartz , the

10:37

more he learned about it , the more intricate it got

10:39

. You know , it was just

10:41

so fascinating how he came

10:43

to that which we can get into perhaps

10:45

, but and

10:47

this also goes back over a century this

10:50

, this notion of the mind , psychology literature

10:52

. So this , this is nothing new , it just other

10:55

than certain niches in those

10:57

two fields it's not not

10:59

very well known at all . So that's a little bit

11:01

of the backdrop of it and

11:04

I'll pause there and maybe I can give just an

11:06

example of this from the reflect on .

11:08

Right and I think the

11:10

the way it was , you know , revealed

11:13

in the 80s . I think you were telling me that he was working

11:15

with bipolar patients . Is that right ? Or bulimic

11:17

patients patients right , where

11:20

it's like a part of me wants to

11:22

or eat and disappear and part

11:24

of me is like this is really stupid , I shouldn't do

11:26

this right , or something like that

11:29

. So I found that really

11:31

interesting and I had heard

11:34

that IFS was supposed to be particularly

11:36

helpful with people who have bipolar

11:38

brains like mine . So that was

11:40

another reason I was like , ok , I got to give this stuff a

11:42

try and

11:45

there were some exercises in particular that

11:47

you did with me that I found very

11:49

, very helpful . And you alluded to one of one

11:51

of them where you know when somebody's , when

11:53

we're making a decision and we can't decide , you

11:56

know , like I was really struggling with whether to sell

11:58

my parents' house or not Like we had this round

12:00

table exercise . Can you talk about how that

12:02

works ? That was really powerful

12:04

.

12:05

Yeah , so that's we refer to as a polarization

12:08

, when , when parts disagree on

12:11

something , either what to do or what not to do

12:13

, and so one of the things and sometimes

12:15

there's one part on each side of the argument , and

12:17

sometimes there's multiple , and for you it

12:19

was multiple , you know that's often the case , and

12:22

so what would help ? So much is just like

12:24

you would do with humans , and this is what I mean by . They are

12:26

sub personalities , it's OK . What would you do with a

12:28

big group of people who are

12:30

split on an issue ? And

12:32

we know people , people just want to be heard . Well

12:35

, we invite them to a conference table internally

12:38

, and the self with a capital S , which

12:40

we'll talk about , sits at the head of the table and

12:43

moderates a discussion . And

12:45

all the parts you know , and a lot of times we'll do it , ok

12:47

, the parts who want to do this and

12:49

on this side of the table , the parts who disagree

12:51

, sit on the other side . And is

12:54

bizarre as that may sound , you know , to

12:57

someone who's never done this before right , when

12:59

the parts hear each other and when

13:01

they know they're being listened to , and listened to by

13:03

the self , like everything shifts

13:06

, because what had normally been

13:08

going on . Before that was just fighting

13:10

and yelling , and it's just . It's

13:12

like a classroom for kids and the teacher is not there

13:14

, or the teacher can't , you know , has no control

13:16

over the classroom , and they can't hear

13:19

each other and it just escalates , gets

13:21

louder and louder and louder and

13:23

the result is it's very difficult to make . You know , the

13:25

self has to eventually make a decision and

13:27

you can't do it because it's chaos in

13:30

there , whereas as soon as we hear them

13:32

, it immediately lowers the energy

13:34

in there . And now not

13:36

only is self hearing , all these perspectives which

13:38

maybe we're getting drowned out by

13:41

all the noise , but the parts themselves are recognizing

13:43

that they're being heard and that lowers the consternation

13:46

. And so now there's more room

13:48

, just energetically

13:50

, for self-eventually

13:52

to make a decision , which I think is what you

13:54

know , that no lines with your experience you

13:56

can share , that that's normally what happens .

13:58

Yeah , yeah , and , and , and

14:00

I love how you define the self

14:03

as all the sees . They're all the good sees , like

14:05

you know , confident and clear and creative

14:07

and curious and compassionate

14:10

, and Did I say courageous already

14:12

, and there are a couple others

14:14

but , but , but

14:16

, but that's that's how I feel when I

14:19

am , you know , in

14:21

my Like

14:24

, I like to say my happy self , my

14:26

energetic self , and so that , so

14:28

that , but having that , that

14:31

that true self , that that is all those good

14:34

, juicy things that we like to

14:37

identify with , and Giving

14:39

, having that perspective of kind of being above

14:42

all these different arguing Factions

14:46

, and listening to each one with

14:48

creativity or with curiosity

14:50

, rather , and and compassion , and hearing them out

14:52

and honoring them Was

14:56

, was very hopeful . And

14:58

then there was another really powerful exercise

15:00

that we did just a couple weeks ago . Can

15:03

you , can you talk about that ? I

15:05

don't know if you know the one I'm thinking of . Okay

15:08

, so it's , it's , and , and , and I don't know if I'm

15:10

gonna be stealing your thunder because it was so powerful , because

15:12

you had it as a surprise for me . Okay

15:15

, good , but it's where you

15:18

invited me to visualize my children

15:20

handing their trauma that I've inflicted

15:22

on them because , right , having a bipolar parent , it's gonna

15:24

be really traumatic . But imagining them

15:26

handing that trauma back to

15:28

me and then I get to hand the trauma

15:30

that my parents gave me back

15:33

to them and then they get to hand that

15:35

trauma back to their parents because

15:37

we all suck

15:39

as parents . We do the best we can . We're all

15:42

gonna cause some trauma in our

15:44

kids and I know

15:46

that my parents had even colder

15:48

parents than I experienced

15:50

as a child and to be able

15:52

to Visualize . For

15:55

me that was like imagining like balls of yarn

15:57

just unwinding over the centuries and

16:00

rolling faster and faster downhill on either

16:02

side of my family tree . It was really a very

16:05

powerful my image

16:07

for me . Yeah , yeah

16:09

, yeah , what do you call that exercise

16:12

?

16:12

or so

16:15

that's a great aspect

16:18

of this , where we there's In

16:20

IFS , we have the site notion of burdens , which

16:22

is the trauma baggage that our

16:24

parts Are carrying , and there's

16:26

essentially two types of them . There's one

16:28

that , when we are traumatized

16:31

directly , those are just

16:33

called burdens , like standard burdens

16:35

. But there's also trauma that is passed down generationally

16:38

and this is , you

16:40

know , epigenetics is all over the it's

16:44

real like that had something

16:46

going for him .

16:47

He's , you know the guy that we all like made fun

16:49

of an EP buy out 30 40 years ago

16:51

, but now it's like actually . Yeah

16:55

yeah , the epigenetics is so fascinating .

16:58

And so we see that here , where , there , there

17:00

, there's a lot of cultural stuff that

17:02

is an ancestral stuff that

17:05

comes down , and and when , when someone

17:07

and it's hard to draw the line

17:09

between the two sometimes , but when , some , when

17:11

, when an entire family , for Generations

17:14

and generations , is full of people pleasers

17:16

, for example , there's always a component

17:18

coming down generationally

17:20

, and so those types

17:23

of burdens which are called legacy burdens

17:25

and and IFS . There's this . They're

17:27

easier to deal with , not that

17:29

the other stuff is hard , but it is that there's a bit more

17:32

steps in the process . But with legacy

17:34

burdens , because they're not yours , we

17:36

pass them back . So we

17:39

invite all the ancestors to

17:41

come to the you know the area and

17:43

inside , and

17:45

you pass it to your parents , they

17:47

pass it to their parents and the ancestors

17:50

. This is so , so powerful . For

17:52

you know , in this culture we're so disconnected

17:54

from our ancestors compared to others

17:56

. You know , especially out east

17:58

and Indigenous cultures

18:01

like the . They do stuff like this all day right

18:03

, and we're so , in the West , disconnected from it . So

18:05

when it resonates , as it did

18:07

for you , like it's , it's beautiful

18:10

to see , because we're literally just handing stuff

18:12

back and then it goes all the way back to the

18:14

beginning and then they we have

18:16

them give it up to one of the elements or to light

18:18

, like there's a , there's a process at the end

18:20

there and then we pass good stuff

18:22

back down to kind of fill

18:24

up all that space from

18:27

all that stuff that was just pulled out of

18:29

everyone in the line . And

18:32

again , unless this sound just like some imaginary

18:34

exercise which when we're talking about

18:36

it it's difficult to make it sound like more than that

18:38

. But this is real , like this is not . You

18:41

know , this is not what is just imagining something

18:43

. And then it seems like it's like this stuff

18:46

is so powerful and if you haven't

18:48

done it I get that it may be hard to fully

18:50

grasp that , but take it from me , who does

18:52

it every day , and for Liz , who did it

18:54

for the first time a couple weeks ago like this

18:56

stuff is real and that's where the power

18:59

of it is .

19:00

Yeah , yeah , it's really cool and

19:04

like one of the I

19:06

just wanted to mention , like a couple of the other breakthroughs

19:08

, it's like every session there's usually some

19:10

little insight that

19:13

comes like and

19:16

you know , and

19:18

it's something that's that

19:20

may even seem obvious , but like . The

19:22

first one was when

19:25

I was so profoundly

19:27

depressed and you said , okay , can you just dial her

19:29

back 50% ? And I'm like no

19:31

, it's all of me . And then

19:33

I said , okay , well , maybe I can dial her back

19:36

5% , and just that

19:38

5% , if I can dial the depression

19:40

back , even 5% . That's recognizing

19:42

that there's this true self that's separate

19:45

from that depressed self , and that for

19:47

me that was that was money

19:49

, that was like okay

19:52

, so that was , that was very powerful . And then

19:54

the other thing was just last

19:56

week , when we

19:59

were talking about there's

20:01

no light to me as a child , and

20:03

when I was banished my room

20:05

. You know , as children

20:08

sometimes do , we all get timeouts , but and

20:12

and just realizing I'm the best mother

20:14

for myself , I am

20:16

the one who gets me as a little

20:18

girl , and I think that's

20:20

what our journeys are as adults

20:23

is realizing that we become our own parent

20:25

, we become our own best

20:27

advocate , and so

20:31

that that was also just another

20:33

great , great

20:35

insight for me just last

20:37

week . So , anyway , so

20:39

that's a little bit about IFS . Everybody

20:41

parts work and if you want to

20:44

find out more healing , the self net

20:47

is Terry's website

20:49

, right , and and also , terry

20:51

, you're going to be speaking at the Interfusion

20:53

Festival , which is basically how

20:55

I found you . The Interfusion

20:57

Festival , guys , is so cool . It's where

20:59

I learned how to do acro yoga . It's basically

21:02

doing partner yoga , where you're balancing

21:04

. It's like if you've ever done an airplane with your kids

21:06

, that's like partner acro

21:08

yoga is airplane on steroids . It's so fun

21:10

. And and they

21:12

also have all sorts of workshops

21:14

on psychedelics and a cocoa

21:17

ceremony and dance

21:19

workshops that go till 5am , but I

21:22

go to bed at nine , so that's not my thing

21:24

, but , but Terry's

21:26

going to be speaking there too about IFS

21:29

and that's the Interfusion

21:31

Festival . So just go to interfusioncom

21:33

and you can find out more about it . But it's

21:35

over Martin Luther King weekend

21:38

and it's in Washington DC and the beauty

21:40

is , even though Terry's in DC , zoom

21:42

obviously makes everything possible all around

21:44

the world . So

21:47

I met somebody at a psychedelic workshop

21:49

who had has

21:53

become a great friend , and she's the one who told me about

21:55

Terry . So , yeah

21:58

, and any anything else that we should

22:00

know . Besides that , you love chocolate

22:03

truffles and your daughter

22:05

loves Peppa the pig , which I think is

22:07

so cute . Not even know who Peppa the pig is , I have to look

22:09

her up . But but yeah

22:11

, is there anything else you want to add ?

22:15

Terry . No , I think we've covered a lot , so thank you so

22:17

much and thank you for getting the helping get the

22:19

word out and introducing your audience to

22:22

this . I think it's really really powerful practice

22:24

and I look forward to seeing

22:26

you in that Interfusion in a couple months .

22:30

Oh , I love that . Ifs is

22:32

something that , yeah , I

22:34

just think it's such . It's another tool

22:36

in our momentarium and I

22:39

am just delighted that I can

22:41

help spread the word . So

22:45

, love all your parts . People have a

22:47

great day . Thank you so much , Terry HealingTheSelfnet

22:50

is where to find them so thanks so much

22:52

, Liz .

22:55

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23:02

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23:04

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23:09

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23:11

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