Bonus Episode | Inner Child, Inner Healing – An Intro to Parts Work with Therapist Megan Irwin

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Intro

One of the best things I ever did for myself was to register for the DNA Surprise Retreat last year.

It was shortly after I found out about my DNA surprise and my ethnicity shift.

The retreat was a place of community and friendship and understanding and learning that I was not alone.

I learned skills to manage the shock and I was learning to begin to heal.

I was so surprised that many people were going through the very same thing or similar circumstances.

I was surprised by the empathy and the care that I received.

I was surprised in a lot of other good ways.

Is there any way you can go to the retreat this year?

I can highly recommend it in every way.

Let your story begin.

Let your healing begin.

Speaker 2

Whether you just uncovered your DNA surprise or you've been on this journey for a while, the DNA Surprise Retreat is for you.

Registration is open now.

Join us from September 19th through the 22nd, 2024 just outside of Phoenix, AZ.

You can reserve your space at dnasurpriseretreat.com.

I'll see you there.

Hi, everyone.

Thanks for joining me for a special episode of DNA Surprises.

Today.

I am joined by Megan Irwin, who has been on the podcast previously.

She was a facilitator at the 2023 DNA Surprise Surprise Retreat, and she is going to facilitate again in 2024.

She is one of my absolute best friends and an amazing therapist, and I'm so happy to have her join us again at the retreat.

For those of you who don't know Megan, she is a licensed therapist specializing in grief and loss, trauma, PTSD, and associated challenges.

She serves as a compassionate witness and guide for her clients healing and personal growth.

And this year, Megan is going to facilitate a session on parts work where we'll learn how traumas like DNA surprises affect us throughout our lives.

During our session, we'll discover how to tap into our younger selves and different parts of ourselves to foster emotional healing and growth.

Thanks so much for being here, Megan.

Speaker 3

Thanks for having me.

It's always so fun to get to come and talk to you and talk to your community.

So really looking forward to our conversation today and really looking forward to the retreat in September.

Megan kicked us off with the first session at the 2023 retreat, and she's going to kick us off again for 2024.

And the feedback that we got about your session consistently was that it was such a good beginning.

You have such a calming presence and such a great way of just bringing everyone together and creating a safe space.

And I'm just so excited to to have you again.

So for people who don't know you, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you came to do this work?

How Megan got into parts work

Sure.

So as you mentioned, I'm a licensed therapist.

I'm a licensed clinical social worker and I've been in practice now for five years, postmaster's degree seven years if you count my time as an intern.

I'm licensed in Oregon and California.

So those are the only places that I'm licensed to see and treat clients.

Our work at the retreat will not be a psychotherapy session.

It'll really be just a conversation about parts work and healing.

Just an important disclaimer, I came into this work, I think for a couple of reasons.

I used to work in public policy, and my interest in doing work one-on-one with people was really born out of a curiosity about how people actually recover from traumatic events.

When I worked for the government, every place I turned, I felt like the challenges that we were trying to solve through legislation were really reflections of trauma and people's responses to interpersonal and cultural trauma.

And I didn't see a way that we could legislate out of that and became really curious about like, can people actually recover?

How is it possible?

How does it work?

And so that was kind of an external drive.

And then I have a little bit of a trauma history myself.

And so I think I also had parts of me who had that curiosity because the question those parts were asking is, can I heal?

Can I recover?

What does that look like?

Is it possible for me?

So that's how I found my way into the work.

And I did one year in addictions recovery, of course, lots of exposure to trauma there.

And then really turned my specialty toward working with people who had experienced trauma, starting with sexual and interpersonal violence.

And now in my private practice, I, I work with pretty much anything and everything that a person might have experienced as a traumatic experience, which I guess I'll define for you just 'cause we, and I will say folks can go back and listen to our last conversation about this where we did much more.

Like what does the word trauma even mean?

And is it overused, etcetera, etcetera.

The way I think about trauma and the way it is like defined in the field more and more is that it's anything that overwhelms a person's ability to cope.

Sometimes it can be a traumatic event or something that happened to you or a series of events.

And sometimes a trauma can develop or a trauma response can develop from something that didn't happen that should have.

So that's where we see things like complex PTSD that's been out of neglect and lack of emotional care when you were young.

So folks can go back and do a deep dive on like what is trauma?

But it's probably helpful to know that that's kind of my working definition and how I conceptualize it.

And the same event can happen to a person, to two different people, and they can have two totally different reactions to it.

So what might feel really traumatizing and life altering to one person may not be experienced the same way by another.

And that's another piece that I hold in this work, I think.

Thank you for for touching on that.

And definitely if you're curious about trauma and what it means and some resources to kind of start to process and work through some of that, the episode that we recorded last year is a a great resource and I'll be sure to link it in the show notes.

So this year your session is focused on parts work.

What is Parts Work?

I've kind of heard, well, some of it from you and just in our conversations.

But for people who don't know or aren't familiar, what is parts work?

I should say I'm trained at in the internal family systems model of working with parts.

There's parts work has become, I think, part of the zeitgeist more and more.

So people may have heard of it or may have been starting to hear of it.

And the way that the model of therapy works is that at least in IFS, which again is the core approach to this way of thinking and being with ourselves that I'm trained in, the idea is based on, or the, the model is based on the idea that we all have a core self and that self embodies our essence and all of our finest or best qualities, right?

Like compassion, wisdom, playfulness, creativity.

I think of the self as you, when you're at your most natural, when you, when you're at your most connected.

We're born with this.

Everybody has a self.

Everybody has those qualities somewhere within them.

You may not feel like you always have access to them, but they're there.

And we're also born with parts that help us relate to the world.

Some of those parts take on the role of protectors.

And our protectors are there to keep us safe from being overwhelmed, from feeling pain, from experiencing harm.

I think there's a tendency to always think to to think of protectors as having negative behaviors only.

And I want to say first of all, every part underneath it all, even if they hold really extreme beliefs or have really extreme reactions, has a positive intention for you.

And also some protective responses can be really, really helpful or at least be helpful in kind of an outwardly positive way.

I'll use an example for myself.

As a little kid, I had a part that developed that was really afraid of being embarrassed or looking stupid and really afraid of letting people down.

And that part actually helped me a lot because she developed the ability to be a really good girl, to be a really diligent student, to do well in school, to help me do things that had a benefit and that paid off externally.

That part also sometimes can feel really anxious and can cause me to doubt myself.

Like I was just telling you before logging into this call, I was.

That part was the one that had me pulling all of my IFS books off the shelf and like flipping through them and freaking out that maybe I don't know enough to be having this conversation.

So it's just an example of how a protective part can show up and be both useful and also cause challenges sometimes because it it doesn't quite trust the self.

Other parts develop within us that we call exiles.

These are the parts that tend to show up and have really extreme beliefs, especially if we've been through trauma and can have really big reactions that can overwhelm the system.

And often we find that protectors are kind of organizing themselves around trying to prevent the exile from coming out and overwhelming the system.

So in internal family systems, we do work to get to know who are all of these parts that make up you, who are all of these sub personalities if that's an easier way to think about it.

What is their role?

What is their intention for you?

And how do we help those parts build a relationship with you and your core self to the extent that they can relax and allow you to be more self LED versus parts LED or reactive to the world?

I'll stop there and see if that makes sense because I could like go on and on talking about this stuff and it can get kind of jargony, but it's really just like everybody's multiple.

We all have parts, they do things on our behalf.

Some of those things are good, some of those things get in our way sometimes.

I like the framing of the protector and the exile.

It does kind of help me understand it more.

And I just need to say that Megan did share that part of herself.

I was really nervous for this conversation and wanted to make sure she was like extra prepared.

And then I asked her a question about her session and she just went on with like all of this expertise and wisdom.

And I was like, yeah, no, you're good.

But that's a really good point though, of like how sometimes that shows up in a protective way because then you instantly were like, I'm gonna make sure I'm extra prepared for this conversation and my session and all of those things.

So now that totally makes sense.

And sometimes, sometimes people get are a little bit like what do you mean parts like are you saying that I have multiple personality just like what are you talking about?

And I just want to kind of invite folks to set aside any idea about this being a diagnosis, because it's not.

And really just think about like how you show up as you go through your day-to-day life.

And it can be as simple as like, have you ever been invited to a party where you weren't going to know very many people?

And Can you imagine yourself feeling like, I kind of want to go, but I kind of don't.

There's a part of me that that wants to go because I really like the girl that invited me and this might be interesting and fun.

And there's a part of me that's feeling really insecure and and scared and worried about meeting new people.

Like that is such a normal, natural human experience.

And that it's just, I think if when people sit down and start thinking about it, you notice.

Yeah, like there's lots of parts of you popping up and talking to you all day long.

We just don't have a lot of language, like formal language around like the idea that we might all be sort of multiple in the in our culture, but it's there and it's pretty, it's pretty natural.

Yeah, that's a really good example that part of me wants to do this and part of me doesn't totally in terms of parts work.

The inner child

What I have heard most like in the cultural lexicon is the inner child.

We talk a lot about our inner child, our inner children.

Who is our inner child?

Is there more than one inner child?

And why is it important to acknowledge them, especially for somebody that's had like adna surprise?

I think that the concept, the concept of the inner child is really interesting and I'll share thoughts on that in a second.

I think it's really interesting to me that the young inner child part is the part that our culture has been able to grab onto and make some sense of.

And I think it speaks to how wounded so many of us were in childhood that we feel this longing to reconnect to and nurture and re parent a childlike part of ours that we just kind of have an intuitive sense maybe wasn't cared for or nurtured in the way that we wish that they were.

So I just, it's interesting to me that if all of the parts that could exist in a person, that there is this longing culturally for a connection to that childlike part.

You don't often hear people talking about like, I really need to get in touch with my inner teenager, although I personally love my teenage parts a lot and they're really tough, you know, but it's just, I don't know quite what to make of that.

But I just was thinking like, it says something about the culture.

It says something about a longing for nurturance.

Yeah.

That the child like part is the one that we sort of that people publish like journals to help you get in touch with.

Right.

Like I think, you know, the conversations that I have with people on the podcast, often they are reflecting on their childhood, even if they had no idea and their surprise happened in their 30s or 40s or 50s.

A lot of the conversations that I end up having, we spend a lot of time reflecting on what their childhood was like.

And so, yeah, to your point, it is maybe that reflection and sort of tapping into, oh, there was something off when I was a kid and I didn't know and I was treated differently and I didn't get what I needed.

And we're kind of able to go back through and process that as adults.

So to your question like absolutely yes, there are inner, there are child parts and they exist inside of you.

So you can call them your inner child if you want, if that language works for you.

And everyone's system is different, but there usually is more than one child, sometimes an inner child, sometimes a child part or a childlike part can be one who's playing a protective role.

So I gave you the example a few minutes ago of my good girl part.

She's young.

She's probably about six years old when I, like really have gotten to know that part of me and she is playing a protective role on behalf of an exiled child like part who was really wounded by some things that happened that made me feel not good enough.

So I have an exiled child part and I have one at the good girl part, child part who's protecting her.

It can get really sort of complex when you start to like really dig into your system.

But yes, you got an inner child.

There's that part in there somewhere.

You may have more than one.

It's doing something on your behalf if it's a protector and it's really wounded and holding a burden or a unprocessed feeling about a trauma if it's an exile.

How do these parts form?

Like you mentioned that your inner child is around six years old.

So does that mean that at six years old something happened where you really tapped into like being a good girl, so to speak, and then that part kind of stayed with you?

Or how do how do they come up?

The idea, at least in IFS, is that we're all born actually again with that core self, and then we're also all born with with different parts.

It the the roles, responsibilities and burdens that they take on is in response to your external environment.

So I would have had, I am sure, just like sort of knowing my SO I would have had a managerial part of me that wants to do well in school and was ambitious and had has strong ideas about where we're going in life.

Anyway, the way that that one shaped and sort of the anxieties and fears that she held on to and the tendency for overwork and sort of taking that inherent quality of like being a hard worker to the extreme formed in reaction to something in my external environment that was very painful.

And so that one kind of took on the role of we're going to work really, really hard.

So we don't feel the pain of that because that pain is overwhelming and we can't do anything about it or it feels like we can't do anything about it.

There's no way to access support for this in my external environment as a young child, so better just make sure that we don't feel it.

OK, thank you for explaining that and thank you for sharing your personal story with with parts.

I recently met someone at a conference who told me that they tried to do some inner child work and they were not able to access their inner child.

How to access your inner child

How does that happen and how do we overcome that?

When that comes up in sessions or when that comes up in conversation, I think what that tells me is that there's not enough safety in that person's system to go to what would be an exiled childlike part to find out what it needs.

So this is a person who has protective parts that are standing between them and that inner child and that.

Can make a lot of sense sometimes the burdens and the emotions of that exiled part, in this case we'll call it that person's inner child, are so overwhelming that there's an army of protective parts standing in between.

And until you can work to understand the ones that are doing the protector and what the the protecting and what their role is and what their intention is and what their fears are, it's going to be really hard to tap right into that inner child.

And so the way through that is to work with the protective parts of the system and understand how they got that job and what ideas they have about the the exile and what would they need in order to give permission to to get to that younger one and find out what she needs.

But it that's work that can take a while in a system that's been really traumatized and has a lot of protection in place.

That makes a lot of sense.

So this work seems like it can get really deep and potentially bring up a lot for people.

What to consider before exploring parts work

What are some things that people should maybe consider before they start exploring parts work?

It can get deep and it can bring up a lot.

But what I really like about this approach to self discovery and what I really like about IFS as an intervention is that because as you get to know your system, you're, you're kind of inherently building a relationship with yourself and your parts.

It doesn't cause the client.

And I'll speak just like in a therapeutic, like in a therapy session.

It doesn't cause clients to get as overwhelmed as they do when we're doing something like EMVR, which is still a great intervention and work can work really well.

But we're going at the pace of the client's system and we're really with no agenda at all, coming from a place of curiosity and interest in the true role of these different parts and giving them a place to speak without trying to do anything with it at first besides just learning about it.

And so that tends to prevent the kind of like total, like flashback overwhelm that can come from other kinds of, from other kinds of interventions.

So yes, it can get deep.

It can get really serious.

And I have found as I've been practicing it more and more that people just kind of autocorrect internally for what they need when we're due, when we're getting to know a part, Like a part will tell you this is too much.

Like I'm actually not letting you go any further.

And then, you know, that's the point I need to stop at to understand why is it so scary for this one to think about softening or moving aside or letting us get closer to an exile?

And you just stop and work, right?

You work right there without trying to push back.

I like that 'cause you know, I think it can sound, it can sound heavy when you think about your inner child, especially for people that have had trauma in growing up and things like that.

And a big part of this approach is working to help the client tap into that self energy, to tap into that sense of connectedness, that sense of compassion, that sense of creativity, and be able to extend it toward the protective and exiled parts of themselves.

So a lot of what we're doing really early on is helping a client get enough space from protective parts to be able to feel that within themselves.

By the time when you're moving toward an inner child part, you have enough of that sense of self on board that you're able and you're able to extend it to the part that is so terrified.

And that is what can also prevent that overwhelm.

So you're really building a, a connection to self 1st and then a, a connection between the self and the part.

And it's really beautiful when you see it all unfold.

And it is different than other therapies where we'll say like pull up the, the, an image that represents the worst part of this memory.

And we go right to it, right?

That's what we do in EMDR.

It has validity too.

But it, you know, it needs to be in a really, really like safely constructed container.

Whereas ifs, it's like, I'm gonna just work with you at first to help some of these protectors get out of the way so you can experience yourself for the first time.

And when we, when we start to move toward that inner child, you've got so much self to extend to it that it feels more like coming home than re experiencing a horrifying thing.

It still can be really intensely emotional.

It is, but it's not so much of the kind of like really emotionally overwhelming re experiencing that we can get in other interventions.

That's a really good explanation again, and I'm an EMDR fan.

It has helped me process my DNA submit.

Too.

I love it I.

But I like that kind of softer approach.

And you know, not everything is for everyone.

Like I say that all the time.

So if jumping right in like that is something that does not appeal to you, then maybe something like this could work.

Or maybe they work together.

They can go hand in hand really nicely.

I as a therapist, I am often combining the two and I'll even say as a client I had about four years ago a really intense acute traumatic event and I did a lot of EMDR at first on it and I am glad that I did because the intrusive symptoms from the PTSDI had really reduced.

And then I went back a couple years later and worked with an IFS therapist to work more with the parts of me that we're still thinking and feeling a lot about that experience and was able to actually like pretty much completely resolve it that way.

But I needed both.

And so there's so many therapies out there that you can choose from.

Pick the one that works for you.

And and often these treatments can overlap or intersect in ways that are really helpful.

Can you talk more about what the goals of IFS and parts work are and maybe what the benefits are?

What are the goals of IFS and parts work?

What are what are we really aiming to do when we do parts work?

Yes, we are aiming to liberate our parts from their extreme roles.

So to liberate that protector from who works really hard, from the belief that she has to do that because there's something inherently bad about me or disappointing about me, and let that one just work hard in a way that feels fun and good for her, right?

So to liberate parts from their extreme roles so that they are less constrained and less rigid in the role that they perform to restore trust in self leadership.

So parts are never going to go away.

The idea isn't to be, you know, some person that never has any reactions to the external world and just sits there in a perfect moment of Zen all the time.

Like literally that's impossible.

No, I think, I think it sounds horribly boring, actually, that's true.

So I, so I like to think of it as we're working to restore a relationship and restore trust with yourself so that you can be a person who is self LED rather than parts LED.

So you don't have to be a perfect self all the time, but to be able to approach life from a place of self leadership where you trust your instincts and intuition, You trust your ability to cope with and handle whatever is coming at you from from the outside.

And then a third goal is to just kind of achieve a sense of balance and harmony and like wholeness with yourself.

So really knowing these different parts of you and understanding that it's all all of them make up a whole system and teaching yourself how to get along internally with less conflict.

What will the IFS retreat look like?

Yeah, those are great goals.

Can you tell us a little bit more about what your session will look like at the retreat this year?

Yes, I'm super excited about this session.

So we had originally conceptualized it as an inner child session.

And the more I thought about it and the more we talked about it, I was like, I don't know how to do a whole session about just one part of a very complex system, right?

Like just one little slice on inner child.

And I also was thinking about people who can't access their inner child or who do and become very emotionally overwhelmed.

And I've seen both of those things happen with with my clients.

And I would bet that there will be people in the room where both of those things are true.

And so I, I thought, why not do a session where we introduce the concept of being multiple, introduce the concept of parts, help people understand there's a core self and then you've got protectors, you've got exiles.

It's a whole bunch of complication in there and help folks figure out a part that they want to get to know and learn more about.

So in the session, instead of keeping it really focused on inner child, we're going to learn about the ideas behind IFS, learn more about the model.

And then we'll do an exercise and do some work to turn inward and just start to notice what parts of you are showing up.

And we'll work to find one part of you that you would like to flesh out, get to know more about, start to build a relationship with.

And then I'll have folks leave with some prompts.

Some ideas about how they can keep flushing out and getting to know that part and build a relationship with it, and that'll pretty much be the session.

So if you have an inner child part that you want to work with, fantastic.

They'll probably show up and I'll be able to help guide you toward getting to know that one better.

But if you have an inner teenager part that wants to show up or any other part of you that wants to show up, all are welcome.

It's always so curious to me what pops up and how people conceptualize their parts.

And so we'll just be doing some learning and some mapping of.

That I love that and it's so beautifully ties into the session that follows, which is all around betrayal trauma and kind of addressing the parts of us that have experienced that betrayal.

So I'm, I'm so excited.

Do you have any like favorite books or resources or websites or anything that you would maybe want to point people to if they are interested in learning a little bit more about parts work or IFS?

Resources for learning more about parts work and IFS

Yes, The person who is credited for creating internal family systems, his name is Richard Schwartz, Dick Schwartz.

There were a couple other women that were part of developing it with him, but he's the face of of the model at this point.

He has a book out called No Bad Parts that is written from a perspective of a layperson.

So it's not super clinical.

He wrote it so that anybody could pick it up and kind of start to play around with and get to know this.

The foreword of that book is written by Alanis Morissette, which the 90s teenage part of me really loves.

I think that it's a really good book, is kind of an introduction.

There's also a woman named Jenina Fisher, who I think her work on working with traumatized parts is excellent.

She's not an IFS person, but you don't have to like you don't have to be to talk about parts and her.

Her book's the first one about any of this I ever read and she's got great materials out there for clinicians and lay people alike.

So I would look her up too.

And then because this is becoming more and more popular, I'm sure if you just like throw into Google like internal family systems podcast, like you'll be able to find find that.

And I think that there's a few where Dick has done like demonstrations with people.

So you can kind of get a sense of what it looks like.

There's a ton out there because interest in this concept is really growing.

Awesome, thank you.

And I will link those in the show notes for anyone who's interested in learning more.

I was thinking a bit about the DNA Surprise community specifically and how disorienting the experience appears to be.

The DNA Surprise community

And just like from watching your journey, how confusing it was and still is.

And I feel like there's something really special in the structure of parts work for the DNA Surprise community because the model invites every reaction that you've had to the table.

So there may be parts of you that are really angry and then parts that feel really guilty about that anger.

There may be parts that feel really excited and curious about the family you've found and parts that worry about letting down the family that you were raised with.

And all of those are welcome in this model.

And all of those have a positive intention for you in a job that they're trying to do.

And you can explore each of them and kind of help through doing that exploration, help bring them back into like harmony and connection with yourself.

A lot of times there can be the tendency to be like, get over that, move that one to the side.

You shouldn't feel that way.

But anytime we're in a really disorienting experience, it's going to, there's going to be like a whole squad of parts showing up, reacting to it.

And I just feel like this is such an A nice model to invite all of them to the table for healing.

I don't know if that makes sense, but I've just been thinking about that for your community a lot.

Yeah, no, it thank you for saying that.

It really resonates.

Just even during this conversation, I'm, I was reflecting on some of those parts that you mentioned, parts, you know, like my inner teenager and those kinds of things.

I think I need to invite her to the retreat because that's not one that I've really tapped into.

But all of these different parts really do play such a big role in our experience.

And that's why I'm so excited to have you at the retreat because you have a lot of compassion and empathy having seen me go through this experience.

I mean, it's also just who you are as a person as well.

But I I appreciate that insight.

Well, and so much of what I've heard you talk about is the is shame and also the traumas that come from being lied to, but the shame that creates the lie.

Shame and the Lie

And I kind of think about like protectors use the rules of shame to pass protective strategies on generationally.

So like some of what you are working on specifically in your community, and we'll probably talk about this in the session, but you are working with internal burdens that come from the reaction to what happened and also legacy burdens that are being passed down through your family line, right?

And so IFS also we have a way of working with parts that are burdened by a burden that's not even theirs.

It's a legacy that was handed to them.

It just creates such spaciousness around exploring that.

And when we're working with shame, like we always just need more room around it.

And I, so I'm really excited to get into more of that at with the group and we'll do it in a peaceful, calm, contained way.

And I'll be available afterwards if anything huge comes up for people and they need extra support.

But I think for your community specifically, this is an approach to untangling something that is just like so internally and generationally complicated.

You need a model where all of that complexity is allowed to be.

Absolutely.

And yes, spot on with the shame piece.

That's really my mission.

And I think a lot of the community, right, we want to reduce that shame, reduce the stigma that even leads to our situations.

But ultimately these things do happen and it's great to have tools to help process and, and work through that.

But let's just normalize being human, right?

And that's, that's what this is.

How can people find you if they'd like to work with you or learn more or anything like that?

Sure, I have a website.

You can put it in the show notes.

It's Megan irwincounseling.com.

Super creative naming.

Structure.

But on my yeah, so Megan irwincounseling.com and there's a web form that you can get in touch if you're looking for therapy.

I am taking new clients in California only at the moment, but I am licensed in Oregon and so live in Oregon.

And you're you're thinking, you are looking, you are curious about potentially working together.

You can shoot me a note.

I just don't have any organ based openings right now, but might by the end of summer.

Megan, thank you so much for chatting with me today.

I appreciate you taking the time and again I'm just so excited to have you facilitate at the retreat again.

If anyone has heard this and is interested in learning more or registering for the retreat, you can do that at dnasurpriseretreat.com.

Will be September 19th through the 22nd just outside of Phoenix, AZ and we're going to get into the parts work and so much more.

Thank you Megan, I love you.

Thanks Alexis.

I love you too.