Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: If you've ever tried to force yourself to change and it hasn't worked, you're trying to fight yourself, fight the ego, beat the ego.
And it hasn't actually led, led to change in any meaningful way, then, then you're in the right place. Because in this episode, we are talking about how can we can talk to ourselves in a loving, loving and compassionate way without beating ourselves up, without shaming ourselves, without attacking ourselves, and understand our patterns, our habits, our behaviors in a way that actually leads to transformation and feels healing.
Now, the reason why I'm doing this episode is because many spiritual teachings talk about, you know, there's the, the bad habits, there's the vices, there's negativity, the demons, the demonic energies. There's all kinds of words for this, right?
And you need to cut them down and kill them off and get rid of them.
And it's very aggressive language, you know, chop them out.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: You know, it does feels very violent,
[00:01:18] Speaker A: cancerous, you know, just like come and come, burn them all to death and like, it's all very violent.
And we're talking about parts of ourselves.
So, for example, let's say I have a bad habit. Let's say I'm eating too much food, or I'm spending too much time online, or I'm like, don't want to get up early or whatever it is, right? I could, oh, you shouldn't do that. How dare you. And start, you know, like, whipping myself and beating myself up.
And I've tried all kinds of things personally to try and force myself to do all these things that are good for me and stop doing all these other things. And there's been some degree of success, but then it falls back. And if you've ever felt that way, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. And when we're doing it, it doesn't feel good either. So first of all, it doesn't work. And secondly, it feels very violent.
So there's another option, and that's what we're getting into today.
So before we get into it, Shireen, have you ever beaten yourself up to
[00:02:18] Speaker B: try and force yourself to never, never,
[00:02:21] Speaker A: never, never force yourself to change? I'm gonna, I'm never gonna do it.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Even though I promised I would never not contradict you. I'm starting off contradicting now.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Never, Never done it. Never done it. I've never tried to force myself to change. I've never beaten myself up. I've never given myself a hard time. Oh, why the hell did you do that stupid thing? Yet again, yeah.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Unfortunately, I can't say never.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: You know, if it worked, then, you know, that's like, fair enough if it's unpleasant, but it works, you know, but if it doesn't work and it isn't pleasant, it doesn't work, then clearly something else needs to be done about it.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: What I've noticed, I don't mean to go on a tangent, but I think I'm going on a slight tangent is if I'm hard on myself, I tend to do worse things to soothe myself.
But to begin with, it's best not to do better. Be hard on the self.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: So the question we have to ask ourselves is, why do good people who mean well do bad things?
Why do we do stuff that isn't aligned with our intentions? Let's say I. I say I want to get up at this time, and I get up at that time. I want to go, go to bed at this time.
I don't want to eat this stuff, whatever it is.
How come it keeps happening Right now one answer to that is that there are evil forces trying to ruin our life.
Which sounds.
A lot of people believe that, but it. That sounds a little bit dangerous.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Not only dangerous, Right. It's a very particular religion kind of view on life because I was brought up a Hindu, and that's not the view I was brought up in, but I did notice a lot of Christians believe that because in Christianity the devil is outside.
And so there is a very different self talk that is going on because of the religious upbringing you have.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah, there's different Christians, different versions, you know, the devil on one shoulder, angel on the other shoulder, whether it's inside, outside.
Some people believe in black magic, some people believe in entities, and then this psychology, you know, wounded child issues. So this is a huge topic, what is going on inside of us. And one spiritual technique or understanding is that we have a mind which is basically our experience of everything is through the mind. Like this is a big screen of the mind and all the senses, all the experiences from the world come in the mind and there's thoughts in the mind. And our experience is like this big screen of the mind.
And then there's the intellect which is deciding, should I do this or should I do this? Should I pay attention to this or pay attention to that?
And then there is what's called the sanskaras, or the subconscious, which is all the patterns, the programs, the beliefs, the tendencies, the impulses that have come from creating habits over time. Right. We're simplifying these models.
And so you could say, why do I do the stuff I do? I do the stuff I do because there are habits or sanskaras, tendencies, energies that have been programmed into me over time so that, like, for example, when I get up in the morning, it's almost 100% certain I'm going to have some tea. A certain point, like, because I have a sanskar of drinking tea, the chances you could put money on whether or not Brother Michael's going to have tea is that It's. It's almost 100.
Very, very occasionally I might miss a T, but because it's Sunscar. So other people, they don't drink tea in the morning, right? They. They don't have tea. Maybe they have coffee.
Maybe they prefer Red Bull. I don't know what people like, right? But our samskaras basically drive almost everything we do.
And another way of understanding these samskaras, these habits, is a method called internal family systems, or ifs, which I'm sure some of you watching this probably know about. And I personally found that very interesting in relation to these methods, because in that, in that understanding these different sanskaras, all these different parts of us are. You can personify them.
So like, like the, the tea drinking part of me, right, it wants to drink tea.
That is, you could say, what is it? It's an energy, it's a vibration, it's a thought pattern, it's a impulse.
So there's an impulse to. To drink tea. There's often a part of me that wants to go out and go for a walk. And there's another part of me that wants to stay in and do work.
There's one part of me wants to talk to somebody and one part of me that doesn't want to talk to somebody, right? There's one part of me that wants to do exercise. One part of me doesn't want to do exercise, right? We actually talk about these different things in our language. Like, part of me wants to do this, part of me wants to do this.
In ifs, they have actually summarized this as these parts, you can see them as actual, like little people, not actual people. There's not. Like if you were to cut open someone's head, you're not going to find lots of little people in there, right? That's, that's not just to be clear.
Oh my God, there's hundreds of little people in there, right?
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Maybe in Michael's bed, little people just
[00:08:06] Speaker A: running around like this, you know? But like anyone who has had any self reflection has noticed there's different parts One part wants to eat more food and the other part says, no, I shouldn't do it.
One part wants to get up and do this practice. One part wants to do this other thing. So there's, there's a conflict going on, right? And if you look at your astrology and I've seen this in my astrology chart, there's. In my chart, there's all these planets on one side and there's opposing planets on the other side.
Anyone who's read my charts, like, that's very weird chart you've got there because it's like they're at war with each other. So I've felt like I've had this continuous, like battle going on in here. There's this one wants to do this stuff and this one wants to do this stuff. And it's very disturbing for me to try and manage these warring parties inside my being.
So ifs is something I discovered recently.
And what you do in that practice, and I found this very helpful, is that you talk to them as if they're people, right? As if they're like Personas. So, for example, there's a part of me that likes to work or like all the time, likes to create all the time, right?
So I can talk to that part. And I've. I call that part the mad creator. Now, the mad creator doesn't like being called the mad creator. He prefers to be called just the creator, right? I mean, he's like, what are you talking about?
I'm the mad creator. So, so, and, and so I could talk to the, to the mad creator. And I'm like, why are you working all the time? What are you doing?
And the reason he wants to work all the time is because he's protecting something else, right? So in ifs, there are these protector parts, which is the first layer, and behind them are these what are called exile parts or wounded parts or like wounded children.
And, and, and basically the reason they're protecting the wounded part is because the wounded part is in pain. And the protector is kind of like, if this is the wounded part over here, it has pain coming out of it. It's stressed out, it's worried, it's anxious.
The protector is doing all these things so that we don't see this, we don't see the pain behind, right?
So, so for example, let's say I'm feeling lonely or I'm feeling anxious, right?
The protector is trying to stop me feeling anxious and lonely by working all the time because the protectors, the creators, worried if he gets out the way, then I'll have to deal with this distress.
And our psyche is designed around avoiding distress, right? It's the same thing with addiction, right? If I'm feeling stressed out or lonely or irritated or whatever it is, I might eat something because that's on. That's disturbing. That's. That feeling is disturbing. Let me eat some food and it'll go away, right?
So from ifs point of view, there's no. There's no bad parts. It's just that when the protector, the method that it has, is actually wrecking our lives, then we have a serious problem on our hands.
So. So for example, addictions. Let's say someone is. Has become an alcoholic, right? Why is someone an alcoholic? The deeper reasons, because there's pain, there's unresolved pain. There something, some negative feelings. And alcohol gets rid of the feeling of pain, right? Anyone who's drunk alcohol or become an alcoholic knows that alcohol makes them feel better. Otherwise they wouldn't do it. And if it's not alcohol, it could be media, it could be cocaine, it could be heroin, it could be relationships, could be gambling, shopping, could be anything.
And so with. With ifs, we're saying, let me look at these, these parts of me.
And instead of shaming them and saying, how dare you drink, how dare you eat this food, how dare you do. Which doesn't help, right? Because they're not going to appreciate that.
You sit down and you say, tell me about you yourself. So they have this expression, are you willing to step back a little bit? Right? Because if we become blended with the part.
So let's say there's the mad creator, wants to create, create, create, got all these crazy ideas. Then I have blended with the mad creator. Like I've taken on that Persona, that reality.
But to say, can it step back so it becomes a separate thing and I'm watching it, then I can have a dialogue with it and say, what are you doing? What do you need?
What's your role?
Right. And what I personally found is that by listening to my parts, they actually have a lot of wisdom and they have a lot of good ideas.
And by listening to them, they stop causing trouble.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Right?
[00:13:25] Speaker A: Makes sense, you know, and then the mind goes quiet. I had this experience recently where I did all these different conversations, these different parts, the part and then the exile behind it, who needs to be healed and given love and blessings and release the burdens.
And. And then I remember waking up in the morning and I was just thinking, hang on a minute. After a while I realized I wasn't thinking, like my mind had gone almost completely quiet.
And I was like, this is quite fascinating because the parts had been listened to so they didn't have to keep going on and on and on and on and on.
It was a very fascinating experience, actually.
And, and I've noticed this in meditation that when, when I'm doing meditation, often at the beginning of a session, I'd say is, is there anything I need my mind wants to tell me, because if it is, I'll write it down so that I'm not having to think about it afterwards when I'm trying to do meditation.
I didn't realize when I was doing that that I was talking to my parts because I had. Didn't have that language.
But it's the same thing. Like they, all these parts, they're trying to protect our, our being.
And if they get listened to, then they basically go quiet.
And that's a much more compassionate healing way of dealing with our habits. And since Gara's tendencies than trying to ignore them or trying to just say, oh, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: Michael, is there in something been beneath the wounded child?
[00:15:05] Speaker A: In ifs they got. There's three levels. There's the self, which is the soul, the consciousness, right? Like we talk about Raja Yoga, there's a soul, then there's the part.
And the part is protect. The protector is protecting the wounded child.
And the wounded child doesn't have to remain wounded.
Like when, when we find out.
So the, so how it works is you talk to the protector because the protector is the one who's much more obvious, right?
And say what's going on and what do you need and what are you worried about? And what do you. What are you afraid of? And then it calms down because it's being listened to. And then you say, can I talk to the thing you're protecting? And it goes, goes out of the way. And then behind is like the wounded child.
And the wounded child is normally like some stunted situation from younger years.
And then when we talk to that part and know that we love it and we're here to help it and we. He doesn't have to do everything on its own anymore.
Then, then it can feel relaxed and healed and it can give up its burden. Basically the wounded part is carrying a burden. It's carrying some pain. And when we listen to can drop its pain, its burden.
And then it doesn't need to be in suffering anymore because it's, because it was holding pain. And it, you can. And it can, it has the, it has a safe space to release the pain and then it, and then it comes back to the self, you know, basically. So these are.
Because there's a whole bunch of stuff going on. And, and the reason it's called internal family system is because there's. There's a family, right? There's like the work part, there's a relationship part, there's the meditation part. There's this. And they're, they're often in conflict with each other. So if they get listened to, then they start to work as a team rather than workers. Like opposing forces.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: I'm wondering about this.
Remember in the beginning you asked if I ever, you know, was hard on myself? This, that.
What I've noticed is in Raj yoga, we talk about, let's say we talk about the ego or anger or something.
We talk about them as sanskaras that don't belong to us.
Like, so.
So when anger comes, or mostly like annoyance or something, when it comes, I just separate myself and see this doesn't belong to me. It's not me. I'm not angry, right? That this is an external force that is happening on the soul. There's the original nature of the soul as love and peace and purity, and that's me. And then this is the external force that's happening. And I don't take ownership of it. Even just watching it as a detached observer, not taking ownership, seeing it like I'm the diamond and it's the mud and I'm not that mud, it really helps. So how would you translate something like that in the IFS system?
[00:18:39] Speaker A: Yes, it's the same sort of thing, right? So let's say, let's say if I'm feeling angry, right, I'm actually angry myself, then that means that the angry part has become blended with me. Now I'm feeling angry. So that's why the first part is, is to step back.
So you see the part which could be an angry part, like there's like warrior parts, there's angry parts, there's ego parts. That a lot of the parts are in one way or another related to these different five vices or however many vices there are lazy parts.
And.
But what we're doing is we're saying we're not just disowning it straight out of the bat. We're saying, what are you trying to get out of being angry? Like, what are you angry about? What's your reason for anger?
Right? And, and it might be saying for example, like, like anger oftentimes is a protection mechanism, right? Like if I get, if I'm irritated
[00:19:38] Speaker B: could be just a habit also.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: No, it's a habit, but it's a, it's a habit that's, that's there. So instead of saying, oh, it's just a habit, but then it didn't go away necessarily, I can say this is, why is this anger here? What is it trying to do and what's it trying to protect?
So let's say that I'm irritated about this thing and then I find a why am I irritated? What's behind the irritation?
There's some wound there that it's trying to protect, which is I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'll be weak, I'm afraid I'll be taking advantage of, etc. Etc. Etc.
If I can allow that to be surrendered, then the angry part doesn't need to be angry anymore because it's not protecting anything behind it.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: What I've noticed is, let's say I notice something like this.
The only way that really helps is for me to even sublimate the annoyance is to really have that very deep connection with the Supreme Soul.
Otherwise I just like pushing it, right? I'm like pushing it forward.
And this is my personal experience I'm talking about.
Whether it's I'm noticing ego or I'm noticing anger or I'm noticing other things, is that the only way they seem to really subside or go or any of those is if I feel that connection with the Supreme Soul and I'm just giving it, and I'm just remembering I'm a soul and connecting with the Supreme Soul. And that yoga makes it go away.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, how I personally have used IFS with Raj Yoga is like, let's say I'm feeling angry, right? Then I can say, let, let me separate myself from the anger because it's not me, it's a part.
Then I can say what's going on here? Because if this has been going on again and again and again and again, it's worth talking to it because it's less time to talk to it than it is to try and avoid it because it might come back again and come back again. So I consider it a very valuable use of my time to do this conversation.
Find out what it's going on about. Don't shame it. Find it out. Find out what it's, what it's actually protecting.
And then what I do is I get the wounded part to offer its burden to God because it's the wounded part that is holding this pain and then, and that can give it to God and God can take it away. And then it doesn't hold the pain anymore and then the, it doesn't need the anger anymore.
So it's, it's the same thing as surrendering to God. It's just slightly more refined and it's been a bit more sophisticated, it's been more specific, it's a bit more nuanced, you know, and I found that extremely powerful. Actually. I've had some very healing experiences doing it. Because, because it's, there's a wounded thing in there that's holding some stress, some burdensome worries and that part can, in a safe space, give it to God. And then the anger isn't needed or the ego isn't needed because I've tried just trying, no, no, no, you shouldn't do this. And it didn't work.
And, and also try. What I find is that trying to dislike.
Give it away too quickly without really understanding what's, what's going on.
I'm trying to rush through. It has it's take because I've been doing spiritual work from nearly 30 years. I feel like because I've tried to rush through my inner world in some, to some degree, it's taken longer than if I'd had a better look at it in more detail.
So, so I'm finding that taking the time to talk to the parts, find out what's going on and then let, then surrender it to God seems to be more effective. And what I can say is that consistently I've only been doing this for about a month or maybe less.
But consistently, if I have any anxiety, stress, worries or whatever it is, if I talk to my parts, it, it genuinely goes away. Like it's cleared.
I'm not, I'm not saying it's permanently cleared on every level forever and ever.
But, but a lot of like I've tried methods where I've tried to avoid these things. It just gets to the point and it's taken longer and might just come back. So I'm. So that's why, that's why I'm.
That's why I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan. So it's, it's basically talking to, talking to these different vices. You call them vices, but instead of saying they're evil, they're trying to do something, you know, like greed or attachment. Right? Greed. You can say greed's terrible. I shouldn't be Greedy. I shouldn't be greedy. But we're trying to stay safe. We're trying to have enough, you know, we're trying to make sure we're okay. This is not just, just totally toxic.
There's just a wounded thing that thinks it needs more stuff to feel better.
And until that part feels secure, the greed's going to keep coming back. So I, I consider it. Basically it's the same thing as sanskaras, except it's a slightly more nuanced and I find it actually easier because I can't talk to my samskaras directly because they're abstract. You know, like, what, what is, what is the sanskara of tea drinking? I mean, what am I supposed to do?
Or like Angus, it's too. If it's this kind of general vibe thing, I can't relate to it. But if it becomes a personified and it doesn't have to be a person, it might be like a creature, it might be like a spider or something, you know, so we're trying to understand.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: Wow, that would totally activate a phobia in me. A spider in my head.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Exactly. I, I, I. There was a part of me that had a massive spider stuck to his head, one of these exiles, huge spider, which really freaked me out. But luckily it was separated and thank God for that.
But, you know, there's a lot going on inside of us. Right. And it's just, I think it's fascinating to find out what's going on.
What on earth is going on here?
[00:26:41] Speaker B: Right, Fabulous. Do you want to lead us into a small practice?
[00:26:48] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do a practice. So just think of something that some, some part of you that is a little bit too active, a little bit too stressed out. It could be worrying about something, angry about something, resentful about something.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: What if you're worried about someone?
[00:27:11] Speaker A: Yeah, same thing. You could be worried about like a child. Yeah, you can be worried about someone else.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: There's, that's like, if you're worried about your child,
[00:27:21] Speaker A: your physical child, it's like
[00:27:23] Speaker B: a mother worried about her child, not my physical child. I'm talking for someone recently could be worried about something. What if they're worried about their child?
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Yeah, anything that is.
Before we do this, I'll just explain one more thing. That the parts often are doing good things in the background and we don't, we don't even need to talk to them because they're highly effective.
It's the ones where they've got out of hand.
Like, like if you're someone's worrying about their child all the time and it's totally stressing them out. That's an overactive part, which is worth talking to.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: No, but something is going on with the child.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't. Whatever it is, there's a reason that they're having because remember, there's no bad parts. There's nothing wrong with anything. It's just so. It's just that if somebody feels that this particular thing is going on at an extreme level and it's causing them stress, then it's worth looking at.
So you start with whatever is coming up the most in your life.
So let's just take a moment, just think about something that has been severely bothering you.
Could be. Could be anything. And just.
And now let's just say could we talk to the part. Could you see the part that is having this problem, that is worried about this thing or having this issue?
Is that part willing to give you some space, to step back, to get a bit of space so you can see it separate from you. You're the soul and this is the part inside you.
And just notice what you see, what you feel. It could be a.
Could be an image of something. It could be a person, could be a creature, it could be an energy.
And is it willing to give you some space so you can have a good connection with it?
And then you can ask, what is it worried about?
Or what does it need? What does it want?
What's it worried is going to happen?
If it didn't worry about this or do this thing, whatever it's doing, what would it, what's it worried about?
What's it concerned about?
And if you can just hear what it's got to say, just listen to what it has to say, what is it doing? What is it interested in? Why is it here just listening to that part of you. It can be very healing. Just, just so you know what's going on with it, what's it worried about?
And then this is. This normally takes longer than this. But just give you a sense of how this works.
Once you get. Gain its trust and you find out what it is and it relaxes. Because if you listen to your part, it will relax. You'll go, ah, someone's listening to me. Thank goodness.
So it, it stops being such a problem when you listen to it. And then you can say, would you let, can you show me what your. What you're protecting?
Would you move out of the way? And then behind it is normally some other wounded younger part, some. Something that happened when you were younger and then you can talk to that and figure out what its burden is. This can't really be done in a guided meditation quite as quickly as this, but that's the process and then you help it release its burden and then everyone calms down and all is well in the inner kingdom.
So this is a very, very short introduction to this. I highly recommend an app called IFS Guide, which is an I AI app, which basically you can do this yourself with it and if you do this alongside Raj Yoga and like surrendering it to God and because what. What Raj Yoga has that's very useful for this work is that there's a clear idea of who you are as a soul and there's a clear idea who God is of how to give up your burdens to God. The parts work is just trying to figure out what it is that's going on that you can give up and who you are.
So that's a quick guide. Hopefully that's been helpful. It's been very healing for me and I hope you find some benefit.
All right, let's have a blessing from Shereen.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: This is God's blessing for you.
Bravery.
You hold firm to your faith, unshaken by challenges.
You trust God's guidance to carry you through hardship and remain calm.
Your resilience proves the power of love and faith in God's plan for all.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: Well, well, well. So thank you, Shereen, and thank you for listening. And hopefully you find some benefit to this so you don't have to be so harsh to yourself.
You can listen to these different parts of you, give them love and blessings, and then they will relax.
Have a beautiful rest of your week and if you have any comments, questions, let us know in the comments below.
Talk to you soon.
