#36 Processing Bootcamp - Intro to Protectors | Recovery Secrets Series

Welcome to the Overcoming PTSD Podcast. My name is Brad Schipke, and this is the limited series called Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. Now, these were private sessions that I originally ran as a paid coaching program, but now for the first time ever, I'm making all 100+ sessions available for free for all of you podcast listeners. And this series is over 100 days of practical strategies that have helped thousands of trauma survivors fully heal. So make sure to subscribe because I'm dropping a new episode every single weekday until the archive is complete, and you definitely do not want to miss it. So without further ado, let's dive on in.

All right, we are live here. Welcome everyone to our Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching Session. It is so great to be here with each and every one of you in this Processing Bootcamp week. Yesterday we talked all about mindset. Today we're talking about the, really the introduction, the foundation to this tool, to this processing tool, Which is what we're calling Protectors. Now, for the rest of the week, we're doing a deep dive on this tool, on this processing tool called Protectors. So that's what we're focused on this week. It's all about processing. It's all about the 3rd pillar of recovery, right? So we have our 3 pillars of recovery. We have mindset, we have routines, and we have processing. So this week, it's our first ever processing bootcamp week where we're going to be just focusing on that processing. Now, Protectors, what I want everyone to do is go into this this content with an open mind. So for those of you who have never kind of done any work with this tool, never heard about this tool or tools similar, first, it can be a very abstract concept. And so I'm going to explain it so we get the, the foundation of what's going on here. And so we can bring it back to a logical— make it logical information. Because if you just hear about it and if you just kind of learn how to do it, sometimes that logic can be missing and that can be a roadblock for people. So this tool that we're calling Protectors, is all about how to conceptualize pain and emotions and feelings. So that's the baseline. It's all about how to conceptualize, right? How to make sense, basically, of something extremely complex that's going on inside our minds. So what we're going to be doing is we're going to be taking this stuff that's going inside our minds, what's going on there, and we're going to be simplifying it in a way Where we can understand it, right? We can digest it, and most importantly, we can heal it. Or if you want to use the word fix, you know, sometimes I'll use the word fix, the word heal. We can change it, basically. We can understand, most importantly, what's going on inside our mind. So we're taking this infinitely complex thing. You think about your mind, you think about what's going on inside there, right? Literally infinitely complex. And we're making it digestible. We're making it so that we can understand it, right? So my brother— Super smart guy. He's so smart, it's frustrating to have conversations with him because you don't know what's going on, right? But he's also a tutor, okay? And so he tutors kids for the SATs, he tutors math, he tutors all, you know, LSATs, all sorts of things, all sorts of tests, and physics, right? He was a physics major. And, you know, when I struggled in school, we would sit down, or really when I struggled in college more so than high school, we would sit down And now having a conversation with, with my brother is like sometimes so, so challenging cuz he's just up at this level and the rest of us are just down so many notches, right? So he just thinks at such a high level. Okay. And so he takes this infinitely complex idea, he takes this infinitely complex thing we call physics and he makes it digestible. Okay. And he simplifies it in a way and he gives examples in a way that makes sense. So that I can understand the basic. Okay, so step one to learning anything, right? My brother graduated from Columbia University with a degree in physics. He went through, you know, as a freshman or sophomore in high school, whatever it is, Physics 1, right? Intro to physics. So we start with a basic concept of something that is infinitely complex. I'm sure even now, even with all of his knowledge on this subject of physics, he could continue to grow. He could continue to learn. And And find new information and do all sorts of things. Okay. So what we're doing here is we're simplifying the concept and from there you can grow. Okay. So we're doing intro to protectors. We're doing intro to physics and we're going to keep it really simple. And then as you get better at this tool, you're going to level up and you're going to learn more and more naturally, actually just on your own. But as we progress in the week, we'll— talk about different things you can do basically to kind of up the complexity. So protectors, right? It's a concept for something infinitely complex that is going on inside our mind. Now what it isn't, and I want to go into what it isn't because when you, when we start to explain it more, people can come up with some common questions about protectors. It's not multiple personalities. Okay, that's important. It's not multiple personalities. It's not dangerous, you know, if you dissociate. That's something that commonly comes up. It's a really non-invasive process. 3 things I'm looking for as the foundation to this work. So let's do a little refresh there. What were those 3 things we talked about in mindset as the foundation of protectors specifically? Honesty, patience, and self-love. Okay, so that's what protector work is all about. That's going to be the base. The core of the protector work. And so what we're going to basically call that, and this will make more sense as we continue to teach here today, is your true self. So self-love, honesty, and patience. That's the foundation of this work. So we're building off of that. Now I'm gonna draw an analogy here. And so this is what we use to basically explain what protector— you just get a visual on protectors. Now we have 2 visuals that I am gonna go through today, but this is The beginning of understanding this concept. Okay, so I want you to think about this is what we're going to call your true self. Now, your true self—anyone actually have any input on true self? What do you think your true self is? Now, I've already given you a head start, right? Because I've already given you, and we've already prompted that honesty, patience, and self-love. So, what do you think your true self is? This is a castle. True self. So, your true self. is who you are basically without pain, without trauma. It's not without emotion, but it's the you that is at peace. It is the you that is pure. It is the you that is just love, basically. Okay. And so you can think about this. I know there's a lot of dog people out there. Your true self is what comes out when you see a dog. Okay. Or when you see an animal for the animal people, when, or when you see a baby for the baby people. Okay. When you melt, right, you are your true self. When you see that dog and you are just like filled with love and filled with joy and peace, and all you wanna do is express that love to that animal or to that baby. This weekend I went to a special event with my family. It was a wedding and a double baptism. My cousin had twins and they got married for the second time because they weren't officially married in the eyes of the church. And then we did a double baptism, so we called it a waptism.

Mm-hmm.

But there's a couple of babies in the family now, so there's twins. And then there's one other little baby, and the second they walk in the door, everyone just melts, right? Okay, that's your true self at peace, just full of love. There's nothing else but love. Okay, and you can use basically any words you want to describe your true self, and I'd encourage you to think about what is my true self? What does that feel like? Where are moments that I've felt that, right? But that's basically what it is when you're nothing else but full of love. The way that you approach a dog, the way that you approach a baby, the way that you approach an animal. Okay. That's your true self. Now protectors, and it's pretty obvious based on the name, right? Protectors, if you think about your true self is the castle, right? Protectors are the walls that we build around our castle. Okay. This is the most well-protected castle. In the land here. Okay. So protectors are the walls that we build. Now, we typically don't actively build these, but what happens is we experience some sort of pain. And what I'm describing here is what we call a protector being formed. So we experience some sort of pain. Okay. And then in an effort to protect ourselves in the future, we build a wall specific to that situation.

Right.

So we experience some sort of pain. And so Now, this wasn't the case for me, but this could be the case. If that was traumatic for you, big T or little t, what's gonna happen is you're gonna form a protector around that event. And so what might happen is because you felt that embarrassment, you might feel self-conscious talking to, we'll call 'em people of authority, right? And so because I was in that position and I felt in that moment really self-conscious of people in authority, I could have a protector form, right? So I could have a wall form around that. So, So now how that might present in the future is the next time, or in my, in the future, in my life, when I'm presented with a figure of authority, I might feel embarrassed, I might feel anxious, I might feel afraid. Okay? And so what's really interesting about this, and I'm, I'm kind of jumping ahead of myself, but these things are formed in order to protect you. But what happens when we build walls totally around the castle? Any ideas? What happens when we build a wall? So we have this castle, it's our true self. That's how we want to be out and be presented to the world. Okay? And then things happen and we build these walls. Now, they could be little things, they could be big things, right? But now what's interesting, and we'll explain this in one more second in detail, is these walls, we're going to visualize them as, and this is where protectors come into play. As basically a being, right? So you think about, you can have a knight in shining armor. For those of you who have seen Flubber, that's the way I would visualize these protectors. So each of these walls are protectors. Each protector, its job is to protect you from something specific. So when I'm in a situation, or when I was in a situation where, you know, someone touched my stuff, that protector came out, right? You know, it was like sleeping and it was like, okay, time to shine. It came out. Ready to protect me. Came out ready to protect me. And so what's going to be important in this process later on is visualizing that basically as a being, right? As a little— it could be a little you, it could be a little person, it could be a little character. For those of you who have seen Flubber, that's how I visualized all my protectors. Okay. And it could be energy too, right? But it comes out and you can think of it with its little sword, right? And it's ready to protect you. Now, just like a young kid. Imagine a kid 4 years old, 3 years old, sometimes tries to help but doesn't. That's what protectors do. They try to help. They're trying to protect you. It's trying to protect me from getting hurt again, from getting hurt like I got hurt in the past, right? Have you ever seen someone just flip, right? You strike a nerve with them. We call it my family, you know, we— I push the wrong button, right? And someone just flips. That protector comes out. Okay, if anyone, and yourself included, you— for the situation is irrationally emotional, there's a protector. There's a reason for that. There's a core to that. Okay, so you're this castle. We build all these walls around ourselves. What happens when we build these walls, right? Not only can we not let anything in, so it's going to be hard to let, you know, let love in, let people in, let experiences in, but we can't get out. Okay, so That true self, you know, and we didn't build a wall with doors. We built a wall around ourselves because our protectors want to make sure that we do not get hurt again at all costs. So we build this big, big wall, all these big, big walls, but then we can't get out. So that true self very often is not at play, is not out, right? Unless it's the moment you see the dog, that true self breaks through, right? But That true self is not out. Now, our, our goal with this protector work is to what we call, and I like this as the visual, we're going to deconstruct these walls. So one by one, we're going to deconstruct these walls. Okay. And what we're going to do is we're going to use the material in our visual here. We're going to use the material from those walls to build a bigger, stronger castle, a bigger, stronger true self. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

So that's what we're going to do. We're going to go one by one. each protector, each wall, one at a time, right? Until we get to the point where there are no more walls, right? And you have this big, awesome true self castle that you've built, okay? And it's healthy and it includes boundaries and all sorts of stuff like that, right? So that's kind of just the basic visual, the basic example of what's going to be going on here. We have these walls. These walls are protectors. Those protectors are doing everything in their power to help us. However, they're typically acting in a way that hurts us. Okay. And I like to use this example. Now, if a young kid saw me put purple all over my shower, all over my sink, and they had purple paint, I would not blame them for taking that purple paint and putting it all over the walls and all over the couch and all over the sink. And all over everything, right? Because what they're thinking is, oh, purple stuff is gonna— that's what we're doing. We're doing that on purpose. We're doing that to clean, and that's good. Like, they want to help, right? But if your kid puts purple paint all over the walls and purple, you know, all over your hardwood floors and your carpet, it causes more damage than help, right? But the important thing is, if you can— if you can laugh at it and you can look at that kid and say, I see why they were doing that. And I see that they were acting with this pure good intention. They were acting with intent to help. They were trying to help me. They were trying to, you know, do something nice. They were trying to make me happy. They were, you know, they were just trying to contribute. But what happens when they put paint everywhere is it causes you a lot more work and it causes a lot more damage. Protectors are not all that different. Okay, they're trying to help. The intent is good, but it causes a lot more damage, right? So these protectors are not out to get us. They act with the purest intention, and that is an intention to help you. Okay, but almost always that gets misconstrued and it doesn't help. All right, so another visual I like to use with protectors is when we take them and from walls conceptually— again, we're working with a A conceptual framework here. When we take them from walls into beings— now, the way that you visualize your protectors is totally up to you, but basically what we're doing is we're going to work to identify those walls and then visualize them as a protector. So some people just like to visualize energy. It can be a younger version of yourself. There's no boundaries on how you want to do this. You can get creative with this, and they all might be a little bit different. Right? But this is a protector, right? And this is, in my mind, what a protector looks like. So what one of those walls actually looks like. And it's important to give it some sort of visual, because what we're actually going to be doing down the line here to actually heal these protectors is we're actually going to be having a conversation. The protector will kind of take over, which we'll talk about in one second. And then we, you know, we try to push it down, or we just kind of let it take control. What we need to do to heal is turn into this process. Identify what's going on and have a conversation in order to heal it, which we'll talk more about tomorrow. Right? So you have this protector. What's happening is your protector is how we draw a car here. This is a car. This is the car of your consciousness. Okay? That's the wheel of the car. This is your consciousness, and this is a car. So your consciousness is a car. So imagine you're driving along. You're driving the car, right? This is you driving along, happy, true self, driving the car, right? You're just. You're just having a good old time. You're just cleaning the house with your partner, right? And then all of a sudden your partner touches your stuff, or all of a sudden insert thing that activates a protector. One of two things happens. Either the protector gets in the car and starts to backseat drive. You ever been in a car with a backseat driver? Very annoying, but not the end of the world. Typically how it's gonna work is the protector's gonna get in the car with you. So you're in that car alone. That's the car of your consciousness. You're making decisions. You're driving along, right? And then something happens basically that Triggers you, okay? And that protector gets in the car, okay? Now they're in the backseat, and now they're starting to kind of talk to you, and they're starting to try to influence where you go, right? Just like a backseat driver. Now, there's a step further that happens. Typically, we're not aware that the protector is in the car. So what happens is the protector is going to do everything in its power to get behind the wheel, okay? It wants to drive the car. Now, when the protector gets behind the wheel, you're now in the back seat. Okay? And you, now you do have a say over it, but you're not going to be aware that you have a say over it. Okay? So now the protector is driving your consciousness. It has taken the wheel. Okay? If you've ever gotten into a situation and you just like lost it, and then you were done with the situation and you kind of were like, what, like, what made me feel that way? Like, what happened? A protector took the wheel. That's what happened. Okay, so really, anytime that you get triggered, you can— again, this is a concept to understand what's going on in our minds— you can think of it as a protector has taken the wheel. Okay, you are no longer in control of this car. You are just going. You're doing whatever the protector is wanting you to do. You're lashing out. You could be isolating. You're no longer in control. Now, our goal is to Get in control, make sure we stay in control. And then for our analogy here, stop the car, have a conversation with the protector, and heal the protector, which again, we'll talk more about later in the week when we talk about actually how to do this healing process. And we'll give you kind of a step-by-step guide for that. But that's what's going on here. So anytime you find yourself as anything other than your true self, so anytime you're triggered, anytime you're not at peace, You're not calm, you're not relaxed, you're not filled with love, a protector is there. So you might be thinking, wow, that's a lot of times that I feel like that. Typically we have a lot of protectors. We have a lot of walls that we built over a lifetime. Some of them are big, big walls. They're like big T trauma stuff. And then some of them are, are very, very small, right? Now, if you can guess how we're actually going to do the healing with protectors, It's one word. It's a 4-letter word. How are we actually going to heal these protectors? How are we going to heal these protectors? We're going to heal these protectors with love. The basis of this work is what? It's self-love, it's patience, and it's honesty. Okay, 3 things there: self-love, patience, honesty. That's how we're going to heal these protectors, and we're going to give you a process to do it, a framework to do it. But I wanted to start to help you conceptualize What's going on here? Okay, and so what we talk about when we take it from our castle wall analogy into seeing those walls as as protectors, as little flubbers, or however you choose to see them, what we have and what we call them, we call those parts. So we have different parts that are hurt from different things. Okay, so you know, for for example, for me, right, I had that. This is what I called it: touch my stuff. Protector, right? I had a guilt protector, a couple of guilt protectors for different things that I experienced. Okay, so we have a lot of these protectors, and the way that we describe it is, is sometimes you'll hear us calling, calling them parts, right? So you have a part of yourself, a piece of yourself that was hurt. Okay, and so the way that you can kind of conceptualize this— I'm trying to give you a bunch of ways to conceptualize this to get a basic understanding. And typically with this work When you actually go to take action on it, it's all gonna fall into place a lot better, right? So another way to kind of conceptualize it is to think about, okay, this protector is you that got hurt in the past, that got frozen kind of in time from that moment, right? So it's that you that got hurt. So you got hurt, you know, someone threw out your stuff and a protector formed. Okay. And that protector is kind of you in that moment. That's like, okay, we're gonna make sure this doesn't happen again. But goes about it with fear and anxiety and, and, and doesn't know how to go about it in a healthy way. So when it comes up in the future, it's still acting in that state, in that fear and anxiety and, and that state of when it got hurt the first time. So again, there's all sorts of ways to conceptualize this practice, understanding that these protectors are a part of you, a part of you, right? And so you are your true self, and we're working to deconstruct those walls. And build up that true self. So we're looking to kind of absorb these protectors in a way. And again, there's all sorts of ways you can conceptualize this to make ourselves bigger and stronger and healthier. Okay, so the once we heal, we kind of absorb this protector. That protector goes away, right? Because it no longer needs to protect you because you can you can set boundaries for yourself and you're healthier self. You absorb that and you become stronger. And in our case of a cast analogy. bigger, right? Okay, so a lot of different ways to conceptualize this process. Now, that's kind of where I want to leave it for today. But I want to, I want to talk about one more thing, which is how to kind of identify these protectors. So protector is anything other than your true self, anything other than your true self. So anytime you get triggered, angry, lash out, that's a protector. You're gonna be able to see protectors in yourself, you're gonna be able to see them in other people, right? Every now and then you just sit, you just say something, and it's, you know, it surprises you that someone else reacts that way. Or maybe see in yourself, like, wow, I am way overreacting to this. Those are all protectors. Okay? Everybody has protectors. So in regard to identifying protectors, there's a bunch of kind of things that we can do. We typically like to start, and this is where we start, and then we're going to get more complex as we continue throughout the week here, with emotions. So protectors are, they're housed in your body, right? And so our body and our emotions are linked. There's a link between those 2 things. So when you feel stress, you feel it in your body, but it's stress in your mind. So stress in your mind causes stress in your body. And stress in your body causes stress in your mind, right? And that's kind of the basic link there. So how we typically work to identify protectors at first is to figure out what's going on in our body. And we talked about progressive muscle relaxation to start to identify, okay, like, where am I holding tension? Where am I holding stress? So anywhere you find you're holding tension, you're holding stress, we want to look into that as a protector. Now, it could be a headache. Could be you hold tension in your jaw, right? And this is where, again, we're stepping out and moving this, this concept into something a little bit more abstract, right? But we're taking something complex and we're trying to simplify it so that we can understand it, right? So it could be tension in your jaw, it could be tension in your chest. Now there's going to be multiple protectors at play, right? But what you want to do is kind of identify where you're holding that tension. Just to give you a basic overview, what we're actually going to teach you how to do is separate From that tension, so that and you can visualize it like this: that tension, that protector is kind of just just floating out in front of you. So if you imagine you're holding it in your chest, and then we're going to go through a process of actually asking that protector to separate, you're going to be able to get that separation, and you're going to be able to have a conversation with this protector again. Understand this is a conceptual framework to understand what's going on in your mind, right? And so once we separate, we won't feel. That specific tension, and we'll be able to have a conversation. We'll be able to heal the protector. We'll be able to figure out why it's there, what it is, what's going on. Now, you might be aware of a handful of protectors already without even realizing it. So typically we start in the body and then we separate from the protector, and then we have a conversation. And in the conversation, we do what we call learning and discovery. But in that conversation, we'll typically figure out what that protector is, what that protector's trying to protect you from. Okay, and then from there we can actually name the protector. Some of you might be aware of protectors. You might know kind of your triggers. Oh, like I have a I have a don't touch my stuff trigger. Okay, that's going to be a don't touch my stuff protector, and you can name them anything that you want. You know, I I had a couple like a guilt protector, and and again, you can get creative with this process, right? So my Kind of challenge for you today is to start to think about times in the past where you've had protectors be active and see if you can actually do some introspection, which we talked a couple of weeks back. We talked about that a couple weeks back, but see if you can just think about why do you think that protector came up. Now it's really not going to have to do a whole lot with the moment, but how the moment cued something, triggered something from the past. So be aware of protectors today when they come up, when you're not acting as your true self. Maybe when you're emotional, when you lash out, when you find yourself kind of being unreasonable or, or getting that tension, right? Start to be aware of those protectors. And if you can even start to name them and identify them. But again, start to be aware of holding these protectors when they're kind of taking the wheel and driving you somewhere that you don't wanna go. Lashing out, getting emotional, all sorts of stuff like that. But you can start to kind of stumble upon this. You can start to identify and say, wait, I think that's protector. I think that's protector. And what I would challenge you to do is actually jot that down, right? You can draw them. Maybe you have an angry protector. You can draw them. You could draw kind of their emotions. And if you know anything about that situation, right? So like, oh, I know where this comes from already. This comes from this. You can jot that down as well, because that's going to help you later on. So, you know, I'm describing the process as like castle walls. Those protectors are those walls and deconstructing that to make yourself bigger and stronger, to make your true self bigger and stronger. And so that's the way I like to think about it, because we're kind of, you know, I'm putting a face to it. I'm calling it something. You're going to be having a conversation with this part of you. And so because they kind of have a face, I'm not like, okay, you're done. You know, you're fired. It's not like you're fired, go away. It's like, okay, the protector's going to morph into something different. It's going to, again, as a concept, absorb into you. 'Cause you're gonna gather all of that data, you're gonna do that healing. So it's gonna go from a protector to just, uh, it's gonna make you more whole is a way that you can think about it. So if you think about yourself as a puzzle and each protector that you have is a piece that's kind of off to the side that's causing problems because you can't complete the puzzle, we are going to be having a conversation, healing that protector and putting that piece in its place so that we can be whole basically at the end of this process, which is—

Mm-hmm.

Maybe a better analogy for understanding that kind of absorption. We'll talk about assigning them basically a different role. So we're not necessarily getting rid of them, but we're healing them so they no longer cause havoc. They're no longer going to— you're no longer going to be triggered by these things. You're no longer going to be losing control. They're no longer even going to be backseat driver is the ultimate goal. Judy asked me, can you have a protector that comes up when you feel bad for other people? Absolutely. Absolutely. So again, this is a— we're taking something infinitely complex and trying to simplify it, right? But you'll learn as you start to practice with protectors, you'll learn that basically anything and everything can be a protector. So anytime you're not your true self, you're not full of love, you're not full of compassion, joy, you're not at peace, there's a protector at play. So feeling bad for other people, you know, if you're still feeling whole, if you're still feeling like your true self and you're kind of expressing love in that, you know, feeling bad for other people can mean a lot of different emotions, then you're acting as your true self. If you're feeling other things, if you're feeling maybe guilt, if you're feeling maybe could be resentment, it could be feeling bad for other people, it could be you're taking on those emotions that maybe they're experiencing You're having emotions that are for their experience and not for your experience. So you're starting to carry some of their emotions. That absolutely all can be protectors and all can be healed with protector work, which is really, really cool. And so you notice in this process, we're having a conversation, and this is why it's so non-invasive, because what we're actually going to be doing is we're going to be going into this work, we're going to be identifying the protectors, separating from them, and then we're going to be— Basically inquiring on what's going on, it's why it's going on, and then how we can help. Okay, so as you get further into this process, instead of fully separating, what you might choose to do is kind of a half separation, or you might choose to let some emotions into the mix to release emotions. So there's all sorts of things that can happen as you get better and better with this process, but very non-invasive as a baseline. Right? Because you're just inquiring. You're figuring out what's going on. Why is this going on? Mimi, uh, sharing, spent so many years on the backseat 100% of the time. Reclaiming my control. Yes, absolutely. We've, a lot of us have been off the rails for a very long time. So we wanna make sure we heal those protectors, show them love. Now, some people can get kind of angry with their protectors, right? Which we'll talk about later. It can actually be another protector, right? But you wanna show them love. You wanna think about, this is the kid that put purple paint all over your house. And while that's really annoying and probably gonna cost you a lot of money and a lot of time to clean it up, You understand that they were and are trying to help, right? And you cannot fault them for their lack of understanding. Bonnie sharing, I had several different protectors for different experiences, kinds of fear. I had to name them by number. So that can happen too, right? Some people get really creative with their names and then some people keep it really simple. So like I said, I had multiple guilt protectors, right? And I would name them as guilt from blank. This is my guilt from blank protector. This is my guilt from blank protector. You can do numbers, you can do whatever you want here. There's a lot of room. For creativity, and there's also a lot of room for simplicity if you choose to do that as well. Helene asking, can flight be a protector? Absolutely. Absolutely. Running from something, running from a situation, right? Instead of maybe having a conversation, the fear of, uh, or isolation can be a protector. And again, this is where you can do so much with this work. This is an amazing tool because you can do so much with it, right? And I want you to just start to see what's going on here today. Ask yourself, what's going on here today? Because there's so many protectors at play that, you know, we can kind of be like, wow, like I have all these protectors that I have to work with. So my challenge for you today is think about what has shown up today, what is active today, or, you know, maybe yesterday if you're not having a lot of activity today. And you can think back on that, but try not to be like, oh my goodness, I have so many protectors. It's okay. We're gonna get there. We're going to get to each of them. And sometimes what happens to go a little bit further Is we kind of have a domino situation. So we heal one protector and that protector is actually related to other protectors. And so by proxy, we actually heal those other protectors. Bonnie sharing, my bully protector would come up when I saw others being bullied. I noticed this even watching TV shows with bullies in them. So that's an amazing example, right? And so that, what that's going to kind of present as if you don't understand protectors is it might be very subtle, but a trigger. Some sort of trigger where, you know, you start feeling a certain way and then you see something and then you're, you're a little bit worked up, right? You're a little bit on edge. There's something going on there. There's a protector in the car or trying to get in the car or at the wheel there. That's a great example. So Isabella, as a single mom, I have, I'm assuming, a protector around my kids getting hurt and freak out when they do dangerous things. I feel it comes from when my sister was little and had many things happen, right? So that's You're on the exact right track. And so what you've been able to do is notice and then also be able to figure out, oh, well, I'm, this is where I'm thinking it comes from this. Now, you're not going to identify every protector day one. And some protectors, you're going to be able to be like, oh, that's a don't touch my stuff protector and it comes from this. Right? And you're going to be able to make that connection. And sometimes you're not. And that's okay. Because you're going to learn that connection later on if it needs to be learned. So that's an amazing example. So I encourage you to lean a little bit on our framework and our process and how we do things at First, and then once you get your feet under you, you can, the possibilities for this work are kind of truly endless, endless in regard to how, you know, mapping protectors and relationships between protectors. It gets, it gets more and more complex, but we're in Physics 1 here. So we're just kind of, we're just kind of getting the concept. We're just starting to understand this. We're just starting to kind of inquire, wait, is this a protector? Is this a protector? Is this a protector? Right? And starting to get an understanding of what's going on.

Yeah.

But again, you can do a lot with how you visualize them. It could be energy, it could be light, it could be flubber, it could be, I mean, it could be emojis. I mean, it could be a young version of yourself. It can be anything. I mean, it really can be anything. And then you can name them how you want. Okay. And then those conversations, I cannot wait for those of you who haven't done this process yet, for you to learn the process and start having those conversations with protectors because they are very, very wholesome. Conversations, and you leave the conversation in a, just such a beautiful, beautiful state. And again, it's so non-invasive. It's such a beautiful tool to, to use to make high impact on your healing. Okay. So Judy asking, when you see this in others, so when you see a protector get active in someone else, is there a way to help them if you're not really, if they're not really wanting to see it, maybe changing the conversation or something? So protectors are healed.

How?

With love, right? So that's how we're going to heal our protectors, and that's how we can help others as well if the situation kind of allows for it. And depending on your relationship with that person, you can either have a conversation and say, hey, like, it seems like, you know, we're a little elevated for this. Why don't we take a step back and like bring some compassion? You can have a conversation about, you know, why you think maybe that's happening with them depending on your relationship. But bring love. I noticed like a protector come up in someone else is I would just kind of back off a little bit and just bring compassion, you know, and just bring love and not, not fight that protector because that protector is going to do anything. And when you, when you understand that that protector is trying to protect them from something, they got hurt by something related to this, you know, we can just slow down and just bring love, bring compassion. And depending on your kind of relationship, you can have a conversation. Because the more love you bring, the more compassion you bring, you can almost think of it like once a protector comes up in a conversation with another person, you're not talking to them anymore. You're talking to that protector. And so when we're talking to protectors, I mean, it's not always going to be like this, but you can think about it like you're talking to this, this 4-year-old kid, right? And so you're not going to be up at this level and be trying to maybe debate them or trying to challenge them. You're going to kind of bring it down to love and compassion and understanding. And you're going to inquire about what's going on. So the more you inquire and say like, oh, that's interesting, can you share more about that? The more they kind of allow themselves to de-escalate, and the more you can actually grow closer in that relationship. Maybe sharing with my dad, I would make a joke to de-escalate. So we call that a pattern interrupt, right? And if you know the person, and we had a client share once, her husband and her and like 3 or 4 boys, and she said, I hate this, but You know, I, I use a whoopee cushion or like fart sounds on my phone and, you know, everybody laughs and it like releases kind of the tension, right? So if you know the person and de-escalation can be a great thing, pattern interrupts can be a great thing just to settle back. So Nancy's sharing, I have a protector that has been angry and blaming towards my true self, thinking it was she that was the cause of my childhood trauma. Of course, it was not her fault, but it had been very challenging to get this angry blaming part that hated and blamed myself. and get the protector to relax a bit. So some protectors are going to be like super, super easy to have that conversation with, and the healing is going to happen very, very quickly. And other protectors are going to take more conversation. And so this is the way I kind of describe it. You know, when you're gonna be having a conversation with a protector, think about you are walking up, uh, on the street. There's a coffee shop, actually not anymore, but there was a coffee shop across the street here, right? And imagine I just walked across the street and I saw a stranger and I was like, hey, let's sit down and have a cup of coffee. And I want you to tell me all your deepest darkest secrets. Tell me all of your pain, right? Typically, you're not gonna get a great response, right? You need to warm up to someone. You need to cultivate a relationship. So if you go into a relationship cold, you typically, you're not gonna be able to make a ton of progress. Now, some protectors, it's like I said, it's super easy to have that conversation. You can build that relationship and do the healing kind of all in one, all in one go there. Other protectors that are bigger can take a little while, a couple of conversations. To actually start to kind of build that trust until you get to the point where you can kind of, can create that environment where they can have that vulnerability and stuff like that. So some of them are gonna take a little while and that's okay. And it's good that you're aware of it cuz you're gonna know what to kind of work on with this process, Nancy. That's awesome.

Yeah.

So that's the thing with pattern interrupts. You have to know the person. You have to be able to read the situation, right? It really, really depends. And other times where I do that same pattern interrupt and it has just, you know, just took things up another couple of notches. So you have to read your situation there. So today we gave an actual intro to protectors, right? And so you can understand that this is a pretty big concept. Again, we're taking something infinitely complex that's going on inside our minds and we're trying to simplify it so that we can understand it, so that we can work with it, so that we can heal it. All right. Now we're going to be actually working on the process to how to start to have these conversations With these protectors and actually do some healing work. My challenge for you is to start to identify some of your own protectors when they either come up throughout the day, or you can look back on maybe the past week when those things have come up. So times you've been triggered, times you've been not acting as your true self, or times you leave a conversation and you're like, who was that having that conversation? Because that was not me. Sometimes I'll make a joke. I just learned to golf fairly recently in the past year and a half. Right? And so sometimes I show up to the golf course and I just, oh, I crush it. Like, I do excellent for a beginner golfer, right? Not LPGA. But then other times I show up to the golf course and I'm like, who is golfing today? This is not the person that was here last week. Okay? So I'll make a joke like that. But before I understood this concept, you know, I would, after a situation would deescalate, I would sit down and be like, I don't know what happened. That was not me. That's not who I am. And without realizing it, I was stumbling upon this concept of I'm my true self and something has kind of taken me over. It's taken the wheel there. All right. And so we're also going to learn what to do when a protector takes the wheel and how to kind of work with that so that it's not like once the protector takes the wheel, like you're out of the car and it's off to the races, right? We do have some control in that area. And so actually in regard to final words today, right? So if you find yourself in a situation where you're Triggered, imagine your protector has taken the wheel and see if you can just kind of slow down. See if you can just slow down the situation. If you can just get yourself to stop, pause, if you can stop that car, and if you can stop that car for long enough by doing a recovery tool, by doing a relief tool, by going for a walk, by just pausing, if that car stops, the protector is going to get in the backseat and then it's going to get out. It's going to go be dormant again. All right. So if you can pause a situation long enough. Now, this isn't healing the protector, but you can stop the car and politely ask the protector to get out so that you can kind of be back in control. And that's kind of what the Recovery Toolbox tools do as well. So Joe sharing, some would call protector the inner child. I had an experience that I did a twin flame work and they would ask what that child needed. Then they would say, then would say that true self would help provide the needed item. For me, I, I would find some more research how to provide the needed item. So again, that's going to be like parallel to what we're talking about here. So except we're going to be talking about multiple, not like one inner child, but multiple. So we're going to be breaking that up even further. But again, parallel, because what we're doing is we're taking a concept and we're simplifying it, right? And so we're conceptualizing this thing that's going on. There's different ways to conceptualize that. So Nancy's sharing. It's hard to realize that some protectors were trying to help us, but all these tests, they have been causing so much pain. Okay. So if you're finding yourself in a situation where you're kind of feeling this, where you're feeling like, like, I get it in theory that they're trying to help us, but it's, but you're not actually feeling that love, what that's going to be, Nancy, if this is an expression of how you're feeling, if I'm kind of reading this right, that in and of itself. Is a protector. Okay, so if you're not feeling that love, that true self, even about your protectors, that in and of itself is going to be a protector. I love that, Ella. Just a digression: may the heart be kind, may the mind be fierce, and may the spirit be brave. It's awesome. Helene asking, is walking in nature a pattern interrupt from fear and anxiety? You can think of it that way. A pattern interrupt as we are kind of using it here Is more so like you're in an escalated situation. Typically, this is gonna happen with someone else. So you're kind of having a fight or something, and then something happens to interrupt what's going on right there. So it could be, it could be a joke, it could be someone knocks on the door. But typically when we're using that, we're talking about like a more of like a spur of the moment. Like a spur of the moment thing where like you're having a conversation and then there, you know, someone tells a joke or does a fart sound or something silly like that. And you're like, wait, what? Right? Something like that. So that's what we're specifically talking about. But you can pattern interrupt yourself by doing— you can, by, you could do silly things by yourself, right? You could be feeling like super down and super anxious and then decide like you're gonna go outside and you're gonna do a handstand and you're gonna put your shoes on your hands and you're just gonna run in circles. Right? And make yourself laugh and be like, wow, that was wild and unexpected. That, that could be a pattern for yourself. Awesome. All right, we're gonna wrap up here. Amazing, amazing job with this content. Stick around because we're going to be talking about actually how to get in and do some healing. So you can really look forward to that. Y'all have done an amazing job so far. I'm excited for what we have in store for the rest of the week. Let's keep it up. Let's keep rocking and rolling. I love you. I believe in you. And I'll see you bright and early. Bye, everyone.

Hey, everybody, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you want to learn more about how you can coach with me directly, there's a link in the description you can check out. There's absolutely no pressure. The main thing is I wanted you to get value from this episode here, but I hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you in the next one.