No Bad Parts (w/Tori Olds)

Do you know that you have NO bad parts? Not even that weird hair in your ear. In this episode, we'll tell you why when Brendan talks with the fantastic Tori Olds, PhD, psychologist, popular YouTuber and musician. 

The two dive into all kinds of parts like: 

• Breaking down IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy, what it means and how it will make you love yourself more. 
• Why it's actually OK to blame your parents. 
• The science behind the single MOST POWERFUL form of neuroplasticity. 
• The REAL reason why it's so hard to love ourselves. 
• Whether or not it's ok to only talk to the HOT part of ourselves?

RESOURCES
Tori Olds
Tori Olds YouTube
IFS Parts Work Therapy
The only real job in Austin

Transcript

Is there no better way to celebrate America than blowing shit up? Like, we could have a birthday cake. You know, maybe some sparklers. We're like, no, we need some C4 explosives to really kick this baby off. I guess we just have to see the 4th of July more like a big gender reveal for America. And if the fireworks are red, white, and blue, our democracy survives for another four years. 

This 4th of July, look for the fireworks to be black. Not sure if you saw the debate, uh, last Thursday, but if you didn't, just imagine if two of the last people you'd ever want to talk to at the nursing home were squaring off. And one just had his mouth open the whole [00:01:00] time? Like he saw something terrifying or he was just really begging for applesauce? 

And the other one you're like, don't let any women around this guy. But to tie this all together nicely, I want to say that 4th July is a day of liberation, of remembering what freedom feels like, whatever that might mean for you. And to me, the only freedom you ever need to be chasing is the freedom is the freedom of your own mind. 

So today, let's celebrate a different kind of Independence Day. And this episode is gonna get you going. I'm so excited you're here. Welcome to another brand new episode of Spiritual Asshole. We're about to send you on your way to some real Independence Day. Today's guest is the incredible, amazing Tori Olds. 

I love this episode so much. She is a psychologist. She has a wonderful YouTube channel that does great where she talks about all different kinds of therapy. And as you know, I love diving into these different modalities. One of the things she does is called IFS parts work. 

Shout out to my friend, Natasha. For doing this therapy and telling me about it, and I was like, guess what? I'm fucking in. You tell me a new kind of therapy, I want you [00:02:00] to shoot it in my eye. I don't give a shit, okay? I love it. Okay, I want to just say quickly what Parts Work is, break it down, because we just get right into it. 

So, I don't know if you remember a couple episodes ago, I talked about Michael Singer and how he had this great video where he said, You are no longer having primary experiences of your life as an adult, because you're seeing it all through your very specific lens of your experiences of the past. So it could be traumatic. 

It could be positive. Like for example, let's say you get in an accident where you blew through a stop sign when you were 23 for the rest of your life. Now stop signs have this like profound, energetic. impact on you. So a stop sign is not a stop sign. A stop sign is a car accident. 

Some people might feel that way about Taco Bell. That's a car accident for your intestines always. But if you see those things and then you see them not as neutral things, you see them as an energetic experience that you had sort of caught in your energy system. So this ties into parts work because what happens is then [00:03:00] from those experiences. 

So let's go back to the stop sign analogy. Someone had got an accident, they blew through a stop sign. So what happens a lot of times is your energetic system. literally will develop a self protecting mechanism in your own body to make sure that accident never happens again. 

 So this can be good, but a lot of times what happens is you develop what's called a part in yourself. I would call it like an energetic response. It's an imprint of your own energy system, developing a systematic and most importantly automatic response to certain things. Whether or not they actually are a threat it's fair to say that stop signs are not threats Right, they're more guideposts, or if you're in Texas on a dirt road, there's suggestions You just plow through them, but no so what I'm saying is it's like an automatic thing so What your system will do is every time that you see a stop sign, for example, you activate this part of you. 

That's like, I have to be [00:04:00] in high alert. I have to be super worried, super concerned about this stop sign. And. this is just one example. This can be like, this is literally what happens in, in a relationship when people talk about attachment styles, when people talk about overreacting to news from work, overreacting to a bad meeting, why people are scared of public speaking. 

Something went off in them at a young age that said, if I public speak, I'm going to be facing horrific danger. there's literally a part of you. I think, honestly, we talk about inside out in this. I think Inside Out is a great metaphor for this. There's a part of you, and I, I did parts work, and this is what happened to me. 

 And this is before the movie, or maybe I used it from the first one, but I don't even remember really watching the first one. I saw it, but. Literally a picture of a control panel. That's sitting at a control panel that's like, This is not safe. We have to do whatever we can to make sure you do not experience this pain again. 

 So. What has been a massive [00:05:00] breakthrough for me and why I love this episode so much is just understanding these parts of yourself, understanding why you react the way you do to certain things. And most importantly, understanding always that it's just there to protect you, that it actually has great intentions. 

I don't want to spoil the end of this episode for you, but it's some of the best five minutes of this podcast ever, the last five minutes of this. And it's important to not be scared of those parts or to judge them. Because they are just there to keep you safe, but like, no, if you have automatic responses, or if you have reactions to things like, Tori has a great moment in this where she is like, Oh, and I started realizing that, oh, I had a reaction to this. 

If somebody has road rage, if somebody gets super sensitive, my dad, insanely sensitive about his hair, and his fine tooth comb, if you have things that like, you know, Even the slightest hair trigger puts you into this crazed heightened [00:06:00] state. Know that that is a part of you. There's a part there that's like pressing the control panel every time those things happen. 

So you react in that way. But the good news is you could unblend from those parts and make them your best friend. How about that for the next Pixar movie? Remember when there was Pixar movies where it was just like, Hey, I'm a car. Now it's like, Hey, I'm a car that also has an avoided attachment style because my dad died when I was really young. 

And I'm like, dude, who the fuck is this for? Is this Pixar movies are now just for therapists? Alright, well I'm gonna keep this quick. It's the 4th of July. I hope you have the best holiday. She's incredible. Here she is, Tori Olds. . Welcome to a brand new episode of Spiritual Asshole. I'm so excited to be joined by Dr. Tori Olds. She's a PhD psychologist. She has a hit YouTube channel. She's a musician. How you doing? I'm doing great this morning. It's good to talk with you, Brendan. So good to talk to you. So you live in Austin and you practice psychology. 

Is it hard being the [00:07:00] only person in Austin with a real job? Well, I don't know if you know that my whole family, And everybody I know. I grew up with two psychologists. My husband's a psychologist. My sister's a, you know, my sister. Literally the whole family are shrinks. So, if you call, if you call that a real job, then yes. Like, I, that was all I knew growing up was therapy talk. 

Wow, so I would think that you'd want to rebel against that, no? No, I loved it. I, it, I wanted more. I was almost mad when my parents wouldn't therapize me. Like, I'm like, What the heck? You guys have skills here. Why are you being like? So, yeah, I've always loved it. That's actually an interesting jumping off point. 

I wasn't gonna ask you about this, but I now I have to. I do feel like we're in this very interesting era now where everybody's going to therapy. So now everybody has kind of started, especially in LA. Cause you use the word like everybody out here is [00:08:00] therapizing everything. What do you think about this trend? 

Because now everybody's a narcissist. I know that is true. I know everyone in the world is a textbook narcissist. I'm like, Oh, that can't be true. But keep telling that lie to yourself. It is really true. We have these like really funny, popular, you know, trending diagnoses that are actually But, you know, I don't give a lot of weight to diagnoses anyway, but I mean, narcissism, not that narcissism isn't a thing, but, I just don't think diagnostically. 

I don't diagnose my clients. It's not like, you know, when they run the DSM through like statistics, those clusters don't fall together in any meaningful way. They're literally just a random, most of them. I mean, bipolar, there are things that are like probably going on in the brain and like are a real thing, but like, Depression. 

I mean, it's it. Those categories are somewhat arbitrary, and I don't find them useful myself anyway. But, but that actually brings us into parts work, even as well. I mean, that will become clear. Why, as we talk more, probably. But, [00:09:00] but yes, I, you know, I love I love the new awareness of psychology. 

Anything's always going to be a little goofy, like because we're super goofy. Like I love IFS. We might be talking about parts work and people can be goofy about it. They can take it and be kind of like, they want to make things into like, um, they get excited about it and then almost like make it into like religion, you know? 

And like, you know, and so I think we always are a little bit funny with anything we get excited about, but you know. That's what, yeah, that's what I think is kind of what's going on. So yeah, let's get into it. So you practice a lot of different kinds of therapy. Is it fun watching patients come up with so many different ways to blame their parents? 

Actually, what's more fun is how many ways they come up to not blame their parents. Wow. That is much more of a, of a difficulty psychologically. We have a huge attachment need to hold our parents, the image of our parents intact. So starting from very young, we want to say, no, no, they, they were okay. It was normal. 

It was my fault. And that, and, and even people who intellectually maybe could say something else on a heart level, they're [00:10:00] probably protecting their parents and blame. And that's a huge reason we tend to blame ourselves. See, I'm like so far at the other end of this, where like, I'm, I've like held off even having kids so far. 

Cause I'm like, I can't, I can't mess them up. I can't do anything to them. I know how powerful I am. What do you think about that? You have kids yourself. Let's yeah, let's talk about it, you know, I mean, the fact you are worried about that is probably a good sign. You know, it's the it's the parents that are like, I am perfect. 

I will be wonderful. Who cares about that? And you know, it's like, again, narcissism, right? But you know, I think the fact you're thinking like, Oh, like I care about I realize it's a thing where I could pass down my issues to my child and I might want to be mindful of that. Like, probably that already puts you in like the top some percent of, you know, hilarious. 

Yeah. So do you think that in your work with all these different kinds of therapies that you do. Is it crazy that it all just comes back to childhood? Has that pretty much been your conclusion? Because I've now talked to a lot of people, a lot of people, and I'm like, that's [00:11:00] kind of always the answer. Well, that's right. 

I mean, it's complicated. I actually, um, study forms of therapy. What I like about them, especially coherence therapy, which is a little different than a lot of therapies, that we come in with no assumption about what the symptom is based on. It could be childhood, what we might think of as attachment issues, but it could be, a later trauma, it could be educational trauma or racism or medical trauma or, so we kind of like come in with a like, we don't know, we're just going to like really, really stay open and listen and, and see if we can figure out what's underneath. 

That being said. We all have wounded child parts, I mean, you know, like, and, and, and a lot of them will always come back to mom and dad or whoever it was our parents, parent figures, because they're human and they messed up and, and we are very hurt by that. I think when we're young, our brains are just sponges for learning because we're having to figure out how to survive and be human and adapt and so any learning that's like we're young. 

It was very [00:12:00] painful or and or had to do with other people. Those are like learnings that our brainers like really like other people. Okay. That was really painful. I want to learn about how never have that pain happen again. Certainly when we're young, you know, so I think that collection like means childhood is like open to like a lot of vulnerability wounding, you know? 

Yeah. I saw Bruce Lipton and he said that from the ages zero to seven, you're actually in such a deep brain state, theta state that you're actually being hypnotized. And I was like, oh my god, because that's how spongy you actually are. You're very spongy. You're such a sponge. Okay, so, let's talk about why you don't like or do diagnosis. 

So why is that the case? I mean, okay, so, It's funny, I was just watching a Daniel Siegel talk before this, if you know his work. Um, he's a, has a wonderful psychiatrist and brain researcher that has a field called interpersonal neurobiology. That's amazing. And, you know, he was talking about how, one time he just realized like of all of these [00:13:00] diagnoses, like it's really what they represent more like scientifically is just, you know, a tendency to either go toward chaos or rigidity or both. 

It's like everything can like either be like too much defendedness and rigidity and control or like chaos where there's like too much emotion flowing and and streaming of hard stuff from our subcortical brain and and like that kind of that works for me diagnostically like okay so either they're kind of like stuck in like rigid systems of protection or they're like don't know what to do and are like flooded but even that I mean I love his work but even that I've been really leaning more into the coherence therapy. 

My mentor is a guy named Bruce Ecker. Oh yeah. I watched your video. Yeah. He's, he's so brilliant. Anyone really wants to understand the mind, his book, unlocking the emotional brain is probably the best site, like psychology, but I mean, Daniel Segal's mindsight is wonderful too. There's other great books, but, but unlocking the emotional brain really talks about both why we get stuck and [00:14:00] how, what they're the science of therapeutic breakthroughs, which there hasn't been a science like that. 

of that until recently that we understood. We always had a more developmental frame, which is like slowly and steadily, you can grow up, you can develop, you can mature, you can gain skills. That's also a great frame and we should keep it. But there is these, these things that happen in, in life and hopefully in therapy occasionally where it's a breakthrough. 

That means a whole neural network. That's like a, We can talk about what I mean by neural network, but it's like a firing pattern, like a pattern of emotion behavior, you know, neural firing pattern can actually totally rewire two to three seconds. if things are set up correctly. And that's when people have the like, the aha, like the, not just the aha insight, but like an actual breakthrough where, where they're like, oh my God, I just suddenly don't have the compulsion to eat or, you know. 

And so I, I'm interested in that science. I like leaning toward creating as many breakthroughs as possible, even though it's not, you know, like a magic trick or something, it takes work. But, that is the science that Bruce Ecker leans into. It's called memory reconsolidation. it's pretty new. I mean, it's [00:15:00] 20 years. 

The research around the two early 2000s is when the brain research came out, but still most therapists aren't aware of it. It's like, I'm trying to get the word out. He's trying to get the word out. Um, so more and more you hear people talking about it, but it's also a very interesting science. Yeah. See, like, I guess what I, why I like what you do so much and why I, I, on this podcast have said, like, sometimes I don't think talk therapy is actually helpful is transitioning from getting out of the victim state into A thriving state. 

Like you had that video, how to go from survive to thrive. And I think that a lot of times diagnosis will keep you stuck in a survival state because it's the known place that your brain has been. Yeah. So I would love to know more about, well, what you think about how we can go from surviving to thriving and like, yeah, like the whole like blaming your parents. 

I'm like, cool. Now that you know that, but like now what, who cares? No, but then you [00:16:00] grieve. That's the next one. Oh, really? So what does that look like? Pound cake? I mean, yeah, we could talk a lot about what grief is. You know, I think, I think the bottom line thing is, mental health is being able to be present with reality as it is as closely as we can. 

Mhm. And I don't mean like philosophical reality, like there's a lot of things we don't know about reality, or you could have one perspective and I could have another, I just mean like basic reality, like I could be in touch with the reality that my mom died when I was young and that really hurt me, or I can be in touch with the reality that you are actually coming close to me and you don't, you know, I could just be in the present moment and sort of like generally here and willing to face life as it is. 

And most of us, that's really hard to just face life as it is face, our feelings face, you know, not just the hard stuff, but actually the good stuff to like really find the beautiful things we hold, but just like really be in reality because of attachment stuff, because the role of the parent is to support the child. 

And being [00:17:00] able to witness reality and it not breaking them or causing them really good way of saying that. That's all. Yeah. Yeah. Or causing them to do to become rigid to become boundary, you know, defended and need to turn away from it. or ignore it or go into avoidance, which we are all so living from avoidance. 

It's interesting. So that's what I've so, so, so, okay. So you come into reality with like, look, my parents really hurt me. It's not a blame. In fact, often after people process their feelings about that, there's so much compassion now finally is when they can be in compassion. Yeah. That's a great point. 

That's how I kind of feel now. Yeah, yeah. But you, but when you're avoiding it and you're kind of like half noticing it, maybe you talk about it intellectually, but don't really tap into it and you're on a heart, body, embodied level, you can get into narratives and complaints. But like when you really slow down and say that actually really hurt me, I might have to process through anger. 

That's That's usually a step. I might have to process through my pain, my sadness, not might, I will, once I actually move through those healthy feelings and [00:18:00] metabolize them and deal with this reality of what actually happened to me, then I'm much more in a soft place to be forgiving. If I need to be, I mean. 

I don't push my client, my clients to forgive their parents, but it just naturally is like, Oh, I think they were trying their best. Or like, it's just brings on a more, a deeper wisdom. I don't know how to say it. State often comes after emotional processing, but so yeah. Is that how, is that what grieving looks like to you? 

Just sitting with it or yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How can we, how can we integrate it? into, allow it to be real, but at the same time, finding the resources to hold us through that moment, you know, so that there's something it's like, it's not only the bad, it's like, okay, there's, there's this hard thing that was hard. 

And I'm feeling supported right now. And I feel, you know, this lovely cup of tea, my friend gave me like, there's love still. So I can just kind of like hold the both. And like, I think I think it's really helpful when we have maps of reality that are both, and you can hide the good and the bad kind of coexist. 

And that's a great segue into parts work. [00:19:00] Uh, I actually, I just saw inside out too. And I was thinking like, this is kind of like parts work, the idea. Are you familiar with this movie? Yeah, well, I haven't seen the second one yet. So don't spoil it for me. But the first one, no, it's the same, you know, same idea, like you have all these emotions and to not see them as bad, like we're so quick to label. 

Anger, fear, sadness as bad, or at least I am. So the idea of parts work, well, let's talk about it. How do you think I mean, emotion? I think we're used to talking about feelings. We finally kind of got used to talk about feelings. I mean, inside out actually helped with that. I thought they did a brilliant job of getting us, you know, kids and everything talking about feelings. 

So parts are something a little more complex than feelings. Yeah, that's true. Although I will say joy in the first inside out was acting like a part. She wasn't acting like joy. She was acting like a part because she wasn't just happiness when it's authentic to be happiness. She was it. happiness with a learning on top. 

I have to be happy or else [00:20:00] mom and dad will feel stressed. They're already stressed enough. So now it's my role or job to make sure what's the girl's name. Uh, I can't remember. Yeah. No, make sure she's always happy because that's the only except that's actually a part. So maybe that's a good way to, to, to distinguish. 

I guess my analogy is that. Similar to this, between the feelings and emotions with Inside Out and Parts Work, is the idea that all of these things are actually there trying to help you. Emotion, yes. Exactly. Well, all of it's adaptive. Even parts are adaptive. So, parts are just a little more complex. So, emotion would just be, um, I think of emotion as like, my deeper mind saying, pay attention to something. 

Yeah. Something cued us as maybe important. Maybe it's a possibility, maybe it's a danger, maybe it's a loss, and we have to like, deal with that and figure out how we're gonna, and be okay and reach out for help or whatever, or problem solve. So it's there to cue us and be like, Hey, you probably, hey, conscious neocortex. 

We probably need to attend to this. Cause otherwise our intellectual brain is very distractible and could look somewhere else and not realize that something big and important is going on. [00:21:00] But parts are, um, uh, one more step complex than that. Parts are neural networks that hold, I guess the simple, simplest way to really start is saying they're learned. 

responses. Yes. There are predictions about what things mean, like what's safe, what's dangerous. If this danger comes based on trial and error or whatever, however this got ingrained in me, I learned this response to protect myself. At least it's this way. And do you feel like they're also forward looking, that they're also looking out for future? 

They're, well, okay, yes. Okay. So, I don't know if that's getting too, too in the weeds. There's a couple of different kinds of parts and there is one that is forward looking, so we can get into that. Yes. But, um, Okay. But the main idea of a part is that the reason we even talk about parts is because a lot of the time when we're moving through life, we don't realize that we're not really using our full adult intelligence with how we're showing up in this moment. 

We're leaning into memory [00:22:00] and, and like these ingrained patterns of expectation, what something means and how I'm supposed to respond. And those are kind of automated and, and they just kind of take over our system and we don't realize like. Like the, you know, we don't even pause to notice it. It just like colors, our full consciousness. 

It's kind of like in the inside out when like the different characters like take over that dashboard. Yeah. We call it like the seat of consciousness. It's like our seat of consciousness can be like taken over by like a part. And then, but we're re but then our whole perception of reality in that moment and how our impulses for how we're supposed to respond and all that are really colored by what a singular neural network has learned and had imprinted. 

And when that kind of neural network takes over and is like, No, this is dangerous, or you're bad, or they're bad, or blah blah, and starts to kind of It's like a narrative, but it also has like, action tendencies, like, I want to defend, or I need to blame myself, or I need to procrastinate. When one of those learned responses takes over, , I don't know that we are [00:23:00] trained to really realize. 

That's why I'm so glad we're starting to talk about parts, is because, yeah, we had emotion language. But we didn't really have a language that's be like, okay, we have these like tracks we can go down neurologically, and they can feel very sticky, they're very powerful, and they keep us from using our full wisdom and intelligence. 

So I'll give a specific because so I just did parts work for the first time two months ago. I had two sessions I'll give a specific thing from my session. Yeah to tell you so I'm in the entertainment industry. So i've writing acting all that stuff. So i've faced a lot of rejection I've also had a lot of jobs that were like You're hired. 

And then two weeks later, they're like, job fell through or sorry. So my energy system started to like, feel and I've also had people not pay me. So heightened. And so like, I have to be on the highest alert at all times. And if I get it, if I have a job interview, This is scary because you want this really [00:24:00] bad, but you have to make sure they're not going to basically screw you over. 

That's really like it. So I literally saw a part when I did this. So basically you, you go into a meditative state, I saw a part and I literally saw like a dude at a control panel being like, it's like goblin figure being like, no, I have to be here. I cannot leave this place to take care of you. That's right. 

Yeah. So is that something that you've experienced sort of similar? Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, some people are more visual. Some people feel it more somatically. There's not like a right way to do it. Um, some people more here like just get a knowing. but like often parts to show is like an image. 

Like I had a part also recently that was like, This kind of like wild like girl playing in the mud and like very like, you know, animal like and I'm like, okay, so like, and then you just stay curious, like, what are you showing me through that? And then I just learned like, oh, I learned that society will take over my Fierceness or my authenticity or my you know, and so I have a part that's like really trying to cling to that Like like don't [00:25:00] don't like let them kill you, you know, it's like a learning about it, you know like and by the way, none of that's bad. 

None of that's crazy. None of it's neurotic I love that's great that you have a little like gobliny person. That's like I don't know if you like got to the point where you're like, how are you protecting me or what's your job? Yeah, no for sure. I can talk about that. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you learn from that part? 

So basically I kept talking to it and I told him that it was okay to chill out. And it was funny because in both sessions, I kept putting all these parts on a very specific scene in the beach. Giving them like relaxation, like I'd put one person on a hammock. I put another person like in the water. And they're like, really? 

I was like, yeah, it's totally fine. Like I got this. Okay. Good. Okay. So, I can, I don't know if you want me to kind of analyze that a little bit. Yeah, please. Yes., okay, so the first step with parts is unblending. So that's just saying, Hey, I'm not this part. Yeah. 

That's hard if it's like a, if it's like a shame voice or critical voice or, uh, whatever, to be able to say, okay, like I just have a part of me. I have a learning. This is a learned thing. It's not who I [00:26:00] am. I just have this inner critic. Okay. And, and then like to be able to get a, when we kind of, that's called unblending, it just means being mindful of it, getting a little observing distance saying like, okay, so I, I get that you're there, this part, I'm, I'm able to be in awareness with you. 

One of the first steps of that, however, which is especially with something like an inner critic can be tricky, is we really want to bring, um, our, again, our adult's present capacity to it, not having another part that's like, I shouldn't criticize myself, or you're bad for criticizing me, or I'm scared of you, or just like, okay, I'm just going to bring you my curiosity. 

Yeah. Okay. I kind of hate that you're around inner critic. I mean, it's been a pain, but for right now, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. And I'm just going to get curious, and I'm just going to relate to you. I'm not going to try to push you away or manage you or, or to be taken over by you. 

I'm just like, I'm curious about you. Tell me, like, why does it feel so important to criticize Tori? Like, why is that important? Where did you learn that that's an adaptive response? You know, [00:27:00] and then that might part might be able to tell me like, well, like, dad was really harsh. And like, so if I didn't criticize myself first, like, He would, so I'd be vigilant against that, you know, and you start, and you can like actually start to learn why like anything that seems bad on the surface or frustrating or difficult, like has a good intention. 

Like, okay, that's valid. Yeah. Sometimes in that work, other parts that are like concerned about what's going on, like do like ultimately the idea is to really get to know and, and like heal our parts. In the meantime, sometimes when we're just needing to go on with life. It's okay to kind of put them in like a nice safe space or like, you know, on the hammock or on the beach. 

But that's not like the final goal. Oh, what's the final goal? I was like, okay, they're good. That's like, no, no, yeah, that doesn't permanently. I'm sorry. Honestly, it's felt really good though. It, well, that is a step one to, to be able to unblend from your parts is so empowering. Yeah. It feels great. That, you know, it's to say, look, like, like [00:28:00] I see you're there. 

You don't need to control me. And and I want to go to this interview as my adult self or my current self, not just with this like screaming neural network that's like danger and alarm and we should do this and like, I just kind of want to say look, I got this. I love Dick Schwartz who invented it off and he'll tell us parts when when they're asking to step back like, We got this, you know, like it's okay, like everything's okay right now. 

You can relax a little bit. That being said, any part that you actually want to fully, what's called unburden, that means like actually change its learning. So it really can be free. You, you want to not just talk to it and say, Hey, it's okay. And things are okay. You want to hear from it. Really? What did you learn? 

Like, why are you doing this role? What's going on? What did you learn? Um, And then, this part may be a little different than the one you're talking about because it came on as an adult, but often our protector parts are actually protecting a more wounded part underneath. Yeah. And so, and again, this may be a little different because it's like an adult thing for you, but like, but maybe not, maybe it touches on like why it was so [00:29:00] painful to get rejection was because you're, you know, you had rejection when you were 10 that was painful that never got resolved, you know, you never know, so, so when you, when you're asking protector parts to soften back, ultimately the real question is who are you protecting inside? 

Mm. And then you have to get their permission and it takes some steps of like, does it feel safe? I know your job has to have been to make sure Tori never looks at that pain. That's your job. It never happens again and she never looks at it and she's okay. But, but now we actually have an adult to bring some like healing energy to, not just managing energy, which is actually not healing energy, you know, but real healing energy too. 

Do you mind softening back? And you can go to the beach if you want to do that. But now let's, let's look at an actual wounded part underneath. Mm. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And then that's where things really flow in a very deep and beautiful way because, and it sounds scary, but once all the protector parts have actually been like, okay, no, it's actually, it's okay to look at this. 

And we're talking about, that's like the goals, like, can we look at this without like all the voices like, no, I can't, I'll overwhelm me, I'll be, you know, it's like, okay, all that softens back. Actually, when we get [00:30:00] in touch, when we see our like young child in the scene of them getting hurt, you know, like, Usually we have tons of compassion and that, and we can just go to that child and say, tell me what that was like for you. 

I'm really ready now to actually metabolize that and look at it, which is, you could also think as a type of grief work too. But, then they say, this was really, really hard when dad would criticize me like that and da da da. And then, and tell me about it. What did you learn? I learned that I was bad. I learned that I'm just bound to be a fuck up. 

Like I'm learning, you know, okay, wow, you learned all that. Okay. I'm here now because I'm an adult now. Yeah, I wasn't around when this happened. So I couldn't have done this for you then, but I'm here now and I can tell you, you are very valuable and that was not your fault. You know, and then you can like work with, and then would you like to go to the beach? 

You know, then that part has to get to the beach. It's just not enough to send them on vacation. You can't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's okay. You're just getting started. You'll have the deeper levels. Hopefully. Yeah. Like, is it a long process? Like this, is it a lot of sessions and is there an end to the parts? 

No, it doesn't have to be that long. And yeah, there's an end. Oh really? [00:31:00] You think so? Okay. I mean, you know, I mean, it really just depends on how you think about it. Like, there's a probably finite number of main themes in our life and fears. And like, I think sometimes our mental health is like, Something we became phobic of that doesn't need to be, we don't need, it's not helpful to have a phobic reaction to, you know, like, whether that be our feelings or setting boundaries or letting people close or like saying no or like being, you know, it's like something became phobicized and we're just wanting to undo that fear conditioning, you know, and so we probably like a limited number of like core themes, but it could be 10 or 20 or, you know, it could be like, You do have to work on and they can like interlace and it can get complicated, but it's not like endlessly forever. 

I mean, that being said, I've done it's now been 25 years since I went to my first experiential therapy training. So I've been doing inner work for a long time. 

I love it. You're like, yeah, it's not that long. It's 25 years. And I had a pretty good childhood too. So it's really funny. But like, And I've [00:32:00] had like just loads of therapy. I, you know, when I was 20, I was meditating like hours a day, and so I've done like a crazy amount of personal growth work, and still I'll like hit up against a weird reaction and be like, okay, there's a little learning in there that I. 

A little association, something that came on either as a child or maybe even as an adult that is, is making me have this kind of funny, problematic reaction, like I'm putting too much pressure on my teaching or I'm putting this and, and, and then so, and often even I need help to slow down and say like, okay, like, this is why I actually just recently been working with an IFS. 

One of the IFS faculty member has been doing sessions with me. It's great. It's great. It's like, okay, yeah, there's that part. Like, huh. So I don't know if it's a different part or it's another layer of work with it. Or like, I think we can sometimes over reify these things to like make them a little more real than they are. 

In other words, like the mind is like constantly changing and emerging and it's complex. And like, so, but so it's kind of a both and like on the one hand, like it's not like endless work and you can get like pretty far in just a number of sessions, you know, five to [00:33:00] 10 sessions with something like IFS, like, you know, And that's what's so amazing about it. 

And it's always never like it's not black and white, you know, it's like you can grow and find things and bump into things like literally your whole life, you know? Yeah. And I think what's beautiful, the main beautiful takeaway is there are no bad parts, but have you ever met anyone from Boston? There's a lot of bad parts. 

So many bad parts. So many bad parts. I know. Yeah. It's just, it's really beautiful to And I've started seeing this recently. I've also started seeing it as just like, actually, the things you don't like about your emotional energy system is actually only there to keep you safe. , that's it. 

And if you start seeing it like that, you stop thinking that something's wrong with you. And that's something that I've literally thought for a long time. And I think sometimes in the self help world, it can make you feel that way because everyone's going on telling these stories like, you know, And then I had positive affirmations and I made 10, 000 and you're like, God, [00:34:00] yes, I hate that stuff. 

Oh my Lord. Don't go. Why? Why do you hate it? There's just no, to me, there's just no way that becoming a more superficial person is the way to have a deep and beautiful life. Like to me, like death, that's a beautiful thing that you just said. Holy cow. Yeah. Life is deep. It's rich. We are deep. We have, we're incredibly complex, we can either turn towards that and grapple with it. 

And that is the only way I feel like this life doesn't eat you alive. So you think like, oh, positive affirmations. Well, I had this guy, Pinosh Desai, said this great thing on my podcast once. He said, why would I want to 10, everyone's like 10x your life. He's like, why would I want to 10x my suffering? If my life sucks right now and I take everything to the next level, I'm just going to next level my suffering. 

And I think that's really cool. Yeah. I mean, Oh my gosh, our culture. Yeah. I mean just the, we're so phobic of. Complexity. We're so phobic of pain, grief, for sure, anger, even [00:35:00] anger. I know it seems like we're like, oh, but no, we're like so scared of ourselves. there are full forms of therapy that for years have been just designed on that particular fear. 

Remember I said mental health is like, problems come, we learn to fear something that's actually healthy. Analytic therapy, psychodynamic, like a lot of therapies like for years have been based on the core idea that we are afraid of ourselves. Or something in our inner mind, a memory, emotion, a need. 

Something that's authentic to us, some, you could say part of us, I guess, but, or just not even a part, just like a natural process, like, and, I just, so it is a little scary to go inside. I think the two fears are, I'll get overwhelmed or I'll find something bad. Yeah. And, and, and that's why something like parts work is helpful because the, the unblending process helps it be less overwhelming. 

You know, everything stays organized. It's not chaos in there. It's like, okay, just this part and that part. Like, oh, that makes sense. And I can, if that part wants to talk first, I can send the other to the beach. So it's not everyone talking to me at once. And it [00:36:00] just kind of like organizes things and slows it down. 

So it's less overwhelming. And then two, there is no bad. It is impossible to find something bad inside. That's great. Yeah, and there can be bad experiences we've had, bad things happen to us that should never have happened to us. That's for sure. I mean, obviously. And we can have memories of those that are very painful. 

So I don't mean like every memory is a good memory or is, you know, experience was good. But us, like in terms of finding ourself, every part of our mind and brain is there trying to help us have a good life. So even if we're doing something that's seemingly self sabotaging, or immoral, I mean, you know, um, I love immorality, I'm into it. 

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it's really true. There are even things like you could be a rageaholic and, and again, I'm not saying that's okay behavior, like, but we could try to shame that behavior into changing all day long. It's just not going to work. If we slow down and say, what, who is this in me that's raging? 

Like, what? And build a [00:37:00] relationship with that part, like really tell me, again, you don't have to do it through parts of imagery, you could just say, huh, I have a learning inside, and in coherence therapy, we should call it a schema, some neural network that knows something, predicts something. I have somewhere I learn inside, it's essential and urgent that I rage, or it's essential and urgent that I procrastinate. 

Or I judge myself, or I feel better than others, or whatever the thing is, and like, if we can actually slow down and say, okay, can I just learn about what that's based on rather than trying to control it? And I can actually map out like, oh, okay, so it's like, I better blank because if I don't blank, and you can really like begin to put language to it and make it conscious and say, okay, that actually makes sense, or it doesn't. 

But like. It, it, it made sense at some point, like maybe, maybe we learned some kind of rules of the game, like in, in my abusive family, you absolutely have to like always stick up for yourself, or you absolutely have to always submit, or you absolutely, and, and that was true for that context. And now we just moved into a different context where the rules can be different, and, [00:38:00] and, but our rules haven't updated, you know, like we're still living as if we're back in the old context. 

Okay, that's why these things seem kind of crazy or problematic, or we feel like, yes, we do want to update. These learnings and patterns to our current context. Cause they're not always productive anymore. so I had this thought when you're like, why are people so scared to go inward? And I just asked myself that question. 

And I think it's because a lot of us feel like we're not good enough and that we're scared if we go inward and look, we will confirm that that will be like, I'm a piece of shit and I'm scared that whatever's going on deep inside of me will only confirm that even more. Exactly. That's why having a really clear, even just, I mean, probably as a starting place, just learning about it philosophically and scientifically is helpful to give a little more faith and trust in the process. 

And then having a therapist is helpful because they can help you go slow and, and, but there's no way that you, if you turn in and truly understand any facet of your mind, you will have compassion for it. Yeah. Especially like you said, when we realized that [00:39:00] it's only, they're literally doing a job to keep you alive. 

Yeah. And so what, what I like what you do is it's basically to me how I see it is like you're changing the energetic imprint of how you respond to the world. And I want people to know that it doesn't have to be autopilot and the way you respond to the world right now can change that quickly. If you change your response system, however you want to call that, you can call it. 

Yes. You know what I mean? Like however you see it. Yeah. And, and my preference, there's many wonderful ways to change. So I don't want to tell anyone how to change. But I think we lean too much into I'm going to change my response by just trying to change my behaviors. Yes. Or, or just try to change my inner monologue, like replace a negative thought with a positive thought or, and I think the bit deepest way to change is through building relationship. 

So don't, like if I sat down with you and be like, Okay, let's sit down so I can tell you why you're wrong and stupid and you should change and I'll just tell you what to do. Like, you'd be like, I don't feel related to, you know what I mean? Like, why am I going to reveal myself to you and like actually be open to what you have to [00:40:00] say until you've heard me, you know? 

Like, we have to feel listened to before we are open to listening, right? And the same is with our mind. Like, if we don't go into our mind first saying, you tell me how this makes sense. I'm not trying to override you. I'm not trying to put a better thought in there. I'm not trying to convince myself I have value. 

I'm just like, can you tell me why it was important and protective at some point to make it my fault? And that part might say, well, I had to, I had to convince you it was your fault because if not, you might've put your head up and targeted more abuse or, you know, whatever the thing is. And then you go like, okay, I get that. 

I get that. and then , you've earned that part's open. I mean, this is a metaphorical way of talking about it. Like if we went into like the biology of it, it, it, it either leads like so far metaphorical, like it's, you've earned its trust and then it can open to you. But like, literally in my mind, I'm like, okay, that neural, you have electricity running down that neural network, which has to happen for memory consolidation. 

Like there's a very technical way we could talk about it, which is the same thing. It's just technical talk takes us out of the wrong, puts us in the wrong part of our brain. For this [00:41:00] kind of work. So it's nice to use more like imagery and like metaphor and stuff. But doesn't the subconscious mind operate in symbols and imagery anyways? 

Like exactly. It's like, that's why we lean into, like, we could say you have a subcortical, you know, limbic Now you generally call subcortical like neural network imprinted an implicit memory that knows to predict danger. If you, you know, had a moment of pride that you're going to get then for slapped in the face because that's not okay and then therefore knows this thing. 

And like we could say that's like a whole neurofiring pattern and like, For memory consolidation, you have to have, like, the firing pattern activated while at the same time it's making that prediction sees evidence that disconfirms the prediction, what the neuroscientists call a mismatch experience, that's wonderful, but what's cool about IFS is like, you don't have to understand that science, but the the experience itself creates that in the brain. 

It creates that mismatch where like on the one hand, one neural firing pattern network is firing, which is the part because it's talking to you. So it has to be having electricity running down that neural network because it's literally [00:42:00] telling you, I believe this, this is what I predict. So you have that prediction activated. 

And then the adult self, because you've unblended can say like, wait, actually, now that I'm looking at again, I don't think that actually was your fault that mom left when you were eight, you know what I mean? And then it's kind of like, and then that's a new knowing, a different, it's like a, what they call disconfirmation. 

And then that, that literal mismatch between one prediction and the new evidence unlocks the proteins in the brain that holds those patterns together so they can reorganize. Like it, that's amazing. Is that neuroplasticity then? It's a, it's the most powerful form of neuroplasticity we know of which is almost never talked about. 

Usually the neurons that fire together, that wire together, Hebb's law is the one that we talk about in a lot of pop psychology and just a lot of psychology. But there's a less known and much more powerful version of neuroplasticity called memory reconsolidation where you can rewire whole neural networks in two, two to three seconds, like I said. 

but again, it's not, it takes, it takes some work to set that up. It's hard to have a, a fear based neural network activated without getting dysregulated. And that's always the dance of therapy, is [00:43:00] like, how can we activate it enough that that neural network is online, but keep you regulated so you can have the mismatch experience and have new data come in. 

And, and there's a million ways. It's not just parts way work that you could do. You could do through somatic tracking, you could do it through the relationship between the therapist and client, like, creating safety that way, and like, so there's, there's many different ways of, of opening to the old knowing while having a new experience that proves it wrong, basically. 

yeah, if this worked in a way that would change my neural network, I'd be down to be activated highly and then I'll just go eat a box of cookies and it's going to be fine. You know, again, it's not about, some people are like, do like, I'm okay with, Big emotion. It's just that your brain has to not be feeling that it's in danger, because if it feels it's in danger, your mismatch detection system goes offline, some memory consolidation can't happen, blah, blah, blah. 

There's a lot of reasons this doesn't just like naturally happen in real life, even though we have disconfirming experiences all the time. We might be predicting, oh my god, if I make a mistake, my wife will like, judge me horribly and like, hate me and leave me, and then we do, and she doesn't. And like, so that could be very healing if it happens to land as a mismatch, but there's all sorts of reasons that like, There's usually not enough awareness, it's not [00:44:00] slow enough, we don't feel safe enough to let the whole thing change us. 

So that's why therapy is kind of there to create these moments where it's like, okay, look, can we bring online in a felt way? We can't talk about it because that doesn't activate the actual neural network. Can we bring online in a felt way what felt true? What you got imprinted, that neural network knows. 

Because we have to have electricity running down it. Can we tap into it? Can we listen to it? And then at the same time witness some other truth. So, how would you describe parts work different from coherence therapy? Because we keep talking about coherence therapy, we haven't fully delved into it. Yeah, coherence therapy is very similar, it's just they don't use parts language for it. 

So they would just say, you have learned, like I wouldn't say like, oh, a part of you learned to fear. They're saying, okay, so I mean, they might like lightly say you a part of you like, okay, some corner of your mind or some part of you, they might use that word, but But, or they might just say, okay, so on some level you feel this. 

so we lean a lot more into language in coherence therapy. We, so we make like the statement of the schema. Okay, so I better, you know, keep myself from ever trying, uh, taking a risk because, or feeling [00:45:00] this, you know, because if I do, I'll be, I don't know, rageaholic like my father. 

So I should, you know, so I better shut it down through drinking. And we really kind of like map out what the learning is, what that, that prediction and the, you know, um, and you can do all that without ever using the word part. It's not like, that's like an essential, element. It's just that parts language is user friendly and, um, opens up to the kind of space that we're trying to create in therapy where now we can be relating to something. 

And we can have compassion. And, you know, it's a, it's a lovely way up the mountain, but it's not like the only way up the mountain. Hmm. Okay, cool. So you said this great thing. You said you had a video called, why it's so hard to love yourself. Isn't it because we fucking suck?  

I'm always just going to keep saying the opposite of what you're saying, but yes, no, it is because we're so amazing, but no, I mean, it was true. yes, you know, there's so many different reasons why we can be [00:46:00] attached to our, where our shame can be, for like serve a functional purpose for the system that makes it feel safe. 

when kids, again, a lot of it comes down to like what we started, they do not want to blame their parents. They do not want to see their parents are effing it up. One, that could be too terrifying for a kid. And then they would put them in a brain state where they can't learn and develop and go to school and make friends. 

So they have to, it's just organize this thing. Say like, Oh, it's probably my fault. It gives them a little bit more sense of power if they make it their fault. And they're the bad one. it makes the universe feel more just, which is existentially easier to swallow. it buries grief because it's not so sad. 

Really, if I deserve it, it's the whole thing is not so sad. It's just how I deserve to be treated. It's just normal. And we don't have to tag it. It's like, actually, it's really tragic. So there's a lot of, like, psychological protective things it does to blame ourself when we're kids. Um, that's why it's really, when, I love Kristen Neff's work with self compassion and, uh, you know, I love self compassion practices. 

But I think sometimes we don't realize, like, at the same time you have to slow down, if you really want to deepen all the way through it [00:47:00] and get curious about, like, is this scary for me to love myself? Like, what, does it bump existentially difficult, because now I have to realize what I endured was abuse? 

And that's terrifying and very sad, and if I also happen to have a learning that says sadness is dangerous and will, is weak or something, or will break me, then I better not do, like, just keep everything status quo, just keep how I am, you know, don't rock the boat. there's a lot of, you know, I think that's why, it's nice to have a therapist that can hold this kind of nuance. 

I will say there's not a ton of therapists that know how to do that. Yes, you know. Yeah. and I think that's why I often try to lean into IFS when I'm making videos and things isn't because, I mean, I think it's a really wonderful form of therapy, but I think it just is more amenable than other forms of therapy to self help. 

And even though I, I, I really prefer everyone do this in therapy. There's just not enough therapists, like, you know, and like doing this, like it was hard for me to actually define an IFS therapist. Yep. Yep. It's very in demand. Yeah. So what do you [00:48:00] personally do for self love that's worked for you? Well, again, it's been a long journey, but I was very spiritual in my young 20s, through my 20s. 

I was gonna say until having kids, then you stop believing in God, but no, literally I stopped. Like there is no God, exactly right. So when I was, 20, I was doing spiritual retreats and feeling one with like, it just, you know, I wasn't doing parts work at that time, but I was like, I was doing something a little bit more. 

than just typical meditation. I was like feeling into my heart. Cause it was like through Sufism, which is like very mystical and feeling into my heart and finding the hurt places and then like connecting to the universe, the divine and like chanting and meditating and all this wonderful things. And I just think anytime you're going inward. 

It is really hard not to fall in love with yourself. Ah, that's so, it's so beautiful. It is true. I feel like so many people don't feel that way. They almost [00:49:00] never gone in. It is so easy to judge someone you don't see. And we keep so many of our parts in the car. Yeah. Yo, can you please repeat that? Well, it's really true, isn't it? 

When we have parts of us, we're not even wanting to look and turn to because we're afraid of them. Then we. aren't actually seeing ourselves. And it's easy to judge all day unless you look in somebody's eyes. And that somebody is you. And that somebody is you, or some part of you, or you're young you, or whatever. 

And when you bring your own kind of pain out of the closet, you're like, holy shit, okay, I get it, oh my god, I get it, oh man, I've been doing my best this whole time. It's like, it's, and I've never not seen that happen, ever. Like, I've never seen someone look more clearly at themself and go into more judgment. 

You know, like, like if they, it's always because they're not looking that they're in judgment, but if they slow down and say, okay, get the, for a moment, I forget the judgments out of the way and just be like, have an open mind. If I look at myself, which does mean having to look at my pain, that's the whole reason we don't do it because we don't want to see the pain. 

But then when we avoid the pain, [00:50:00] that means we avoid searly, seriously, like sincerely looking at our story and what we experienced and why and, you know, And then it's easy to be like, just make up a narrative. We just make up a bullshit narrative. Like, well, I wasn't trying hard enough, or I'm just innately lazy or like, and it's just like total bullshit. 

I guess like what? Just make something up to explain it. You know, that's exactly what we do. And then it's, and then it's so funny. And then we're like, well, that's just the truth. It's like, is it, you just made, you're just pulling this up. No one else feels this way. You are the only one. I had this great person on my podcast say, the only person who's judging you is you. 

And I, I just, I love that. It, we, we judge ourselves so harshly and, and weirdly enough, it's out of love for ourself. Ultimately. It's like even that judging part came in because it thought it had to, to save her ass, you know, it just gets a little bit then that it just gets layered and we get, but further and further away from really looking at. 

really consciously looking at the whole thing. Wow. I just love that you say that. Okay. I like to close. This has been [00:51:00] amazing by playing a game called spiritual or asshole, where I say some things and you tell me if it's spiritual or also, are you down? Spiritual or asshole doing parts work therapy and saying, Hey, I only want to talk to the hot part of me. 

Asshole. Unless it's a joke and then it's just funny. Spiritual or asshole requiring that every time you do therapy, your parents have to zoom in so you can say to them, look at what you did to me. Okay. Asshole. Um, spiritual or asshole cold plunges. Oh, you know, I don't know spiritual. I don't know much about it, but because you're a musician, this is a, for you spiritual or also wearing the t shirt of the band that you're going to see in concert to the concert. 

Oh, spiritual, spiritual or also wearing a t shirt that has a picture of your own brain at a brain conference. You know, I just realized I should be saying spiritual for everyone. I mean, given our past There's no sheds. It's fine. No ass. There's no [00:52:00] asshole. So it depends on what level you're talking about. 

Asshole on the surface, spiritual underneath. This is a good one. Instead of taking notes during a session with a client, you're taking, you're secretly taking a quiz called what kind of Harry Potter therapist would you be on Buzzfeed? Okay, that one was that, that's too clear asshole that I'll just, uh, unname that. 

That's great. Spiritual or asshole? Uh, treating, breaking up with your therapist like a breakup with a romantic partner where you just look your therapist in the eye and be like, it's not you, it's me. Not you, it's me. Clearly me. It's clearly me. Spiritual. Spiritual Astro is saying, It's cool, I don't need therapy. 

I'll just go to an open mic and tell everyone. Spiritual. Wonderful. Alright, last question I ask everybody. If you could tell people one thing to tell themselves all day long, what would it be? Actually, I would say, Stop telling yourself anything and just listen. Wow, you're the first person to say that. 

Holy shit, that's great. Okay, well you want to tell everybody where they can [00:53:00] find you? I mean, YouTube, Tori Olds, uh, if you're a therapist, I have courses and online courses and stuff, toriolds. com, but probably on Instagram. I couldn't really find you. Nope. I, I, I'm old. Didn't you know I'm old? You're not old. 

Whoever you, whoever your age is, is going to be younger than me. And then it's going to make me feel old as well. And then I said old, well, I'm in my mid forties, but no, I'm not, I'm not, all right. So YouTube, I can do YouTube. I haven't figured out TikTok. 

That's also too young for me, but YouTube is kind of okay. It's a good age for me. It's a good thing for me. It's a good age. It's fantastic. And, um, and my website, if you, you know, are a therapist and want some online CU trainings and stuff. All right. Well, this has been amazing. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. 

It's great to talk to you, man. Can you imagine Ryan Gosling doing parts work? He's just like, yeah, I went and looked at this part and it turns out it was just cool as fuck. 

And then there was this other [00:54:00] part. It was this guy who was like, surfing and he just looked at me and he goes, Hi, I'm cool as fuck. And you're like, Ryan. Nothing? You got nothing, dude? Just awesome being hot. Keep it going for Tori Olds, that was incredible. Look her up on YouTube, it's Tori Olds, O L D S. I love this episode, and the big takeaway for y'alls is exactly what she said at the end, it's so incredible. 

You cannot judge anything that you can see, right? So turn to yourself, know that when you do look in there, have massive compassion for yourself, cause you're just basically running a system that's trying to protect you from danger. And if that isn't good enough for you, just go out on this 4th of July and just get blacked out drunk. 

The way our founding fathers intended. By the way, all of them were like 32. They looked like 90. I hope today you have massive compassion for yourself. I hope you love every part of you and I believe all your dreams can come true. I believe there's infinite love for you from you. I believe every part of you is worth getting to know and every part of you loves you in its own [00:55:00] unique way. 

Happy 4th of July! don't blow shit up. You're the best.