#38 Processing Bootcamp - Mapping 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 to our Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching Call. We have a lot left to cover, so we're excited for our content today. This is going to be an awesome, awesome session building off of what we've been doing so far. So we've been bringing a lot of content, a lot of actionable things. So make sure before you start to take action on what we talked about today, you review the sessions that we did All week here. So I'm going to let Brad do an intro here while we make sure everything is rocking and rolling, but then we'll get to it.

Sounds good. So welcome everybody. Great to see you bright and early as always. So throughout the week, we've been talking about the concept of protectors and hopefully you guys started having some conversations and you start connecting with some of your protectors. And today we're going to take that step further. So yesterday, again, we kind of walked you through the basic action steps of what you should be or how to separate from a protector, how to have a conversation with it and how to resolve Any problems that arise from that. And that is the basic foundation of protectors and the process of healing a protector. But today we're going to dive in a little bit deeper into some more advanced topics that will help you go deeper into this work, identify more problems, become more aware of things that you can do. But it's going to be an awesome session and a lot of learning. And this will likely open your eyes to so many different things that you're experiencing and going through. And even if you know protectors or if you're in Broken to Unbreakable, this is going to kind of take that knowledge to the next level. So it's going to be. Awesome. So today we are anticipating that this is going to be another long content session.

There's so much to cover when it comes to protectors. If you got the chance to practice last night, that's awesome. Great job. Let's keep that going. Let's make sure you make some time, not take some time, make some time for it this weekend. You know this tool, the only thing holding you back is actually doing it. Once you start to do it, you know, some questions will start to arise. We'll cover those. So make sure you get a good amount of time in this weekend. So we're going to jump in here today because we have a lot to cover. If this is your first session, it's great that you're here with us and that's awesome. Before you take action on any of this, 'cause none of this will make any sense, you make sure to watch the last 3 sessions we did this week or the previous 3 sessions. So make sure to spend the time to do that before you start to take action on this. And also understand these are skills that you build and you can go very far with that. And then once you start to get comfortable with that, you can kind of move to this next level. You can kind of start to bring these different things in. So it's gonna start to open your mind to some different ways of doing this. Some different ways of healing and some things you can think about when you're in there having those conversations with protectors, but everything builds off of what we've already covered.

So, so we kind of have a little bit of a diverse offering for you today, but we're going to go through it step by step and it's going to help just clarify a lot of things. So what you have learned so far has basically been the skill of separating from a single protector. We have talked about how you do have multiple protectors, but how to really separate from a single protector. And have a conversation with it in isolation. But protectors in your life and your emotions, it's not just one. It's never just one singular thing. And that protector doesn't just exist in a void. You have multiple protectors. And those protectors, just like we've talked about before, are basically like these individual beings with their own thoughts, their own beliefs, their own actions. And their own emotions, right? So if you can imagine this and you imagine them like individual beings or individual people, but they're all in a community together and they're all interacting with each other. So if you have that visual of like all of these beings, it's not just one, one person or one being. It's like you have multiple ones and they have relationships with each other and they have emotions about each other and they have conflicts with each other. And some of them are like maybe on different sides or on different teams. And maybe fighting. So basically what we're doing here with protectors is we want to go in and we want to solve individual protectors, but we also want to heal the whole. So we want to heal the individuals and also heal the relationships between them. So there's harmony within the protectors and therefore harmony within yourself. So this obviously can get a little complex, right? When you're thinking, oh, I have all these protectors, how do I manage it? So that's where like this first step is going to come in. Generally, you can, if you have one protector and you can talk to it and you can separate from all your other protectors and just focus clearly on that and have a conversation with your true self, you can 100% do that. But generally, if you want that complete kind of whole interconnectedness, inner harmony with yourself, you're going to want to map out all of the protectors that you are feeling and that you are aware of. In that moment, because like I said, it's not just one in isolation; there's many of them. And although you can heal one in isolation, if you want the inner harmony and if you want everything to be together, we have to address all of the protectors, right? And generally, the best way to go about this is you have one kind of issue or one trigger or one situation that you want to deal with, and then you have multiple protectors around that. So just for example, off the top of my head. Going through a lot of things in the past. We had a lot of fights, and that caused me a lot of pain. So that is like a singular kind of issue, a singular problem where I developed multiple protectors around that. So I developed protectors around our conversations, around our interactions, around home life, around just existing. You know, there's a lot of fear and there was a lot of anger, and then there was also love, and then there was guilt, and then there was shame for doing things. I was feeling all of these emotions, which all of you can relate to that. It's like we're not just One feeling. We're not just one emotion. It's like you have multiple emotions and all of those different emotions are different protectors. So what you want to do is you want to take whatever that one problem you're facing right now, and it's always best to focus on the biggest problem in your life, and then mapping out all the protectors that are related to that one problem. So isolating the one biggest problem or the biggest challenge you're facing in your life, and then mapping out all the different protectors. And it's best to do this on On a piece of paper so that you can see it visually. And when you map them all out, it takes this jumbled mess of emotions and thoughts and feelings and protectors and clearly defines them. So we're gonna take all like this jumbled mess and we're gonna start separating them from the whole. So basically what you can think about is in the beginning, like I was saying, you have this jumbled mess. So you have this like this mess of emotions. So when you first look at the problem, this is what you see. So From here, you want to go in there and start isolating the different emotions. So you go through the process that we talked about, which is the first step is to relax and start identifying protectors, right? So you want to relax your body, do a few deep breathing, relax your body, and then scan and be like, okay, what, what different emotions am I feeling? And I'll just start from the top, you know, whatever's obvious. So what I'm going to do is isolate out here and map out the different feelings. different protectors that I have. One here would be fear. Another one could be shame. And you could have multiple ones here, but generally, I'll go back a step. It's generally good to identify one and then map out its characteristics so that you learn about it. So I'm actually going to take away shame right here. So for now, I'm just going to label this one fear. And that is the name right now that I'm going to give it. In the future, you can talk to it and you can come up with different names.

Yeah.

But basically, in the beginning, I label it and you, it's helpful just to label it the emotion. So you know what it is, it's very obvious. And then you want to write down, what are you afraid of? So you want to have a, just a quick conversation, be like, separate from this protector, this fear protector, ask it, what are you afraid of? And why are you feeling that way? So then you would want to write down underneath it just a small, a short description of what that protector is feeling. So again, you kind of understand what's going on there. So let's say this fear is coming from, I'm scared of Kayleen yelling at me. And that's this specific protector sphere.

So what he's doing is he's going to start to basically make almost like a bio of each of these protectors, right? So he's going to go in and he's going to say, okay, here are all these things. Now, it could be one protector in a situation. You could have 6 or 7 of them. And so you can expand this process out. It's going to depend on the situation that you're dealing with. Sometimes it's a one and done. It's really that simple. It's that straightforward. And that's why we like to start with that because Because still you need to separate with one, have a small conversation, and then figure out if there's a larger dynamic at play. Now, sometimes there's gonna be a larger dynamic at play, and this could be as many as 6 or 7 or more protectors. And so again, what he's gonna do is he's going to separate what all these different protectors are. And in this case, we're just displaying 4, but again, it could be less, could be more. And he's gonna write a little bio for each of them. So he's gonna figure out why, what are they feeling, what are they, What's going on? What are they afraid of? Why is this worthlessness feeling? And then what he's gonna do, and I'm gonna explain this in a second, he's gonna go and figure out the relationship between them. Okay? So he has just all these individual pieces, right, in this jumbled mess, and he's saying, okay, well, there's fear, there's anger, there's worthlessness, there's shame, and there's guilt. And he's getting a little data on each of these protectors. And now he's able to look at it as a whole. And do the next step, which is figuring out their relationships with each other.

Yeah. Once you have the whole here, I'm going to erase this middle part here because that was just a visual representation of what you're doing. You're taking it from this jumbled mess of emotions and you're bringing clarity to the situation. So basically you now have these protectors and this is what you can do. Just on a quick side note, something that you can do also is you can draw a little picture next to these if you want, because each one of these Emotions are different protectors. They're different beings inside of you. That's the way you want to visualize it and you want to see it. And so you want to treat them like a human being. You want to, you want to treat them with respect. And part of that is getting to know them. So you're going to be developing a relationship with yourself, with each one of these protectors, and also facilitating the relationship with other ones. And it can be helpful to distinguish, like none of us are just want to be labeled as just like a number, right? If someone cares about you, they're going to know your name. They're going to know what you look like. They're going to know what you care about. And like all those things, you're not, they're not going to just be like, this is person A, this is person B, this is person C, this is person D. So it can be helpful to have a visual in your mind of what that protector looks like, or at least a visual reminder on paper of what that protector can look like. And I've done this in the past and it's very helpful when I started doing this. Because it helps me see and remember each one of the protectors and it helps me build a deeper relationship with them. So I would draw just a simple stick figure with different emotions on it next to it to help me distinguish it further and really focus on it. So that was a little side note, but after you go through, you identify the different protectors. You can just do it simply like this with circles, or you can draw a picture next to it if you want and you write the little bios. You can start painting the picture of how those protectors are interacting with each other. And generally, once you're discovering this and you're separating from all these protectors and you're kind of mapping them out and you're getting a lay of the land, while you're having those conversations, you start to learn the relationship just by talking with them. A lot of times they'll say, I'm scared of this judgmental protector. You'll find that this guilt protector is afraid of the anger protector. You'll find out there's this connection here where the guilt protector Is feeling guilty because of the anger, right? So there's a connection there that you want to make and that you want to be aware of. And because that is a relationship that you're going to have to work on. So anger in this case does not like guilt and they're pushing away from each other and guilt does not like anger. Guilt is very afraid of anger. But what we need to eventually do is heal them individually and then also show guilt, the guilt protector, the guilt guy, that anger actually is trying to do something positive. And anger's intention, you know, after you learn what anger's intentions are, is to actually help everybody. Like, they want to help everybody. And the best way to kind of facilitate that relationship between them is by showing them the true intentions of the other protector. So then you want to be aware of and kind of map out. You can draw lines between them and write another description of being like, okay, guilt is pushing away from anger or whatever it is, so that you can then heal the relationship. It's more of something you want to be aware of. Doing the work, because like I said, it comes up as you're talking with them and then it's much easier to heal it right then and there. So if like you're talking to the guilt protector and they say, I'm scared of the anger protector, and be like, okay, that's fine. Let me go talk to anger and see what's going on and see if I can help them. Then you just have a conversation with them. You learn their intentions and you start to show them that, hey, guilt is not that bad. And it's not someone that you should be afraid of or pushing away from. And then you bring them together and you literally introduce them to each other and then they can have a conversation. With each other, just a simple one. It usually happens pretty naturally and intuitively, and then those two parts of you realize that neither one is bad. Neither one is trying to hurt the other one. They both they both have the same goal, and they're both trying to do the best they can. So then you're able to heal that relationship between the protectors. But like I said, it's more of something you want to be aware of and just facilitate it. Once you're aware of it, you can start to solve the problem of like okay. You're afraid of this one and this one's pushing you away because it doesn't wanna deal with you or whatever it is. Now you can start to fix it.

So you can see how we take this from one protector to many protectors to the relationships between. Now, sometimes, like, and I wanna reiterate this, sometimes it's gonna be very straightforward. It's gonna be just, you're dealing with one protector. Sometimes what's gonna happen is you're gonna have this domino effect where you find there, there's a couple protectors and there's a relationship between them all, but you get to the presenting protector, we call it. Sometimes you're gonna be dealing with a protector and And another one steps in, and then another one steps in, and you kind of want to keep saying, okay, like, let me kind of work with this one that's right here that's kind of stepping in front of me having this conversation. And then sometimes what can happen is this domino effect where guilt is kind of the presenting protector that is almost what we would call is protecting all the other protectors. So like fear is being protected by shame, shame is being protected by anger, anger is being protected by worthlessness, and worthlessness is being protected by guilt.

Right.

For example. So then the guilt is going to be, you know, you're trying to work with fear, but then shame steps in. Okay, so then you're trying to work with shame, but then anger steps in. And it could be multiple things, or it could just be one. But sometimes what happens is you deal with the presenting protector and the others fall like dominoes, and these things can naturally fall into place. And other times you're going to be— this is where Brad said the word intuitive, and I thought that was a really good word to bring into this conversation. Other times, sometimes it's going to be the domino. You're going to be dealing with one. Sometimes it's gonna be one stepping in front of the other. You're gonna see these, you're gonna see the relationships still, you're gonna have the domino effect. Other times you're gonna see the relationships, you're gonna wanna talk to them together. You can start to what I would call get creative, but listen to yourself and listen to the protectors and what they need in this situation. Because what you might need to do or what you might wanna think about doing, so again, this process can be very dynamic, is having a conversation with all of these at once. So individually identifying them. And then now we've had people in Broken to Unbreakable call that, you know, I'm calling a meeting of my protectors, right? And so they would visualize all these protectors at like a little round conference table and just have a conversation with all of them and heal basically all of them at once by having that conversation. Okay. And other times you want to focus on specific relationships, anger and guilt. Let's focus on that. Now, sometimes when you heal that relationship, all the other ones go away. Other times.

Mm-hmm.

When you're focused on that relationship, you're going to need to focus on another relationship after that. So you can see where this gets dynamic and where you do A, B, C, D, and then E sort of process. So you need to kind of go in there and you need to explore and you need to be curious and you need to listen. And then you also need to drop any walls that you're trying to— walls might not be a good word here— any, any boxes that you're trying to keep yourself in with this process. Allow it to flow. Allow yourself to be intuitive, be creative, and say, what could I do? Ask yourself, well, well.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I have all these protectors. Guilt is upset at anger and whatever's going on here. What could I do to heal this? Maybe it's talking to them all at once. So again, it can get very, very dynamic.

Mm-hmm.

And I wanna bring it back to you. Just start with one at a time. You find one, then find the other. Just follow the stepping stones here. And eventually the stepping stones, if and when they need to lead you here, will lead you to a place like this in certain situations. And then continue to just take one step at a time. Because looking at this, if you haven't done protector work yet. You're going to look at this and you're gonna be like, oh my goodness, this is so complicated. But it's just one, literally one piece at a time. So a lot of things that can happen here.

That's what I was going to say next, was that once you map it out, it gets confusing because you're like, oh, I have all these protectors now, what do I do? So what you want to do is you just want to pick one. And a good one to pick usually is the one that is most prominent or most has the most pain or whatever it is, the one that's most front and center. So let's say in this case, again, it's the guilt. So what you wanna do is you wanna focus down on that. So that's gonna be your first focus. And then maybe what we were saying before, you get to a certain point with solving the problem of guilt and they're like, I can't heal any further because I'm too scared of anger. So then you've learned that you can't heal guilt until you heal the relationship with anger. And that's when I first discovered it's not just a singular protector. It's a protector that is involved in— there's multiple protectors and they have relationships. And if you don't solve the relationships, this individual protector won't get healed. In some cases, that doesn't happen with every protector, but you will encounter some protectors where they're like, I can't heal until this protector, because I have this problem with this protector and this protector keeps getting angry and that scares me. So then it'll tell you that you learn of that relationship and then you stop focusing on this because you can't go any further with this protector until you deal with the anger protector. So then from there, you can focus on the anger protector, heal the anger protector. And because that's a dependency, you can't heal guilt until you work with anger and heal that relationship. So you need to shift your focus to that so that you can go further with this. But the goal is always to focus on one and try to lock it in as fully recovered before you move on to the next one. So you want to work on it. And sometimes there are those relationships, those dependencies where you do have to shift your focus from the one you're working on to another one to actually fully heal. This one. So once you do that, you lock it in. That one's good. And then the next logical one is just to check in with this one, the anger one, since you were already working with that and lock that one in fully. And there might be more relationships that you have to heal, but let's say you lock that one in and then you just keep going through and you want to check with all of them to make sure. And usually what happens, it is kind of like a domino effect. Once you heal the biggest one, generally the process gets easier and it goes a little bit faster. So then maybe you want to focus on shame. And that process goes even faster and you heal that. And then you check in with fear and they're like, yeah, things are good. I see everybody's fine. So like, I'm good. Like, I'm not scared anymore. And you go through one by one and lock them all in. And then from there, once you go through and you check with each one of these, that's when you get that internal harmony because each part of you has been checked in. You've built a relationship with it. You've talked with it. You've solved their problems. You've solved the relationships. And now they're basically like a big family. They love each other, right? So that is the goal of mapping it out is you map it out, right? You focus on one, you heal the relationship, and you check in with everyone to make sure that every one of them is healed and good to go. And that's the deepest way to do this. You definitely don't need to take it to this degree, but that's the deepest. If you want to make sure that you're basically crossing all your T's, dotting all your I's, this is how you do that. You map out all the protectors and you make sure every one of them is addressed. You don't necessarily have to go that deep, but if you want to make sure everything is fully done, that, that's kind of the process to do that. Yeah.

And if you're ever feeling like there's a lot at play, this is what you're gonna wanna kind of do to do this map and figure this out. And then sometimes it's gonna be straightforward. So this can be helpful to get a visual on what's going on, and it's not always necessary. Just doing the mapping will give you enough of a look into the situation To, to heal whatever it is that you were working with in the first place. So if you're ever finding yourself where you're like, ah, I feel like there's a lot going on, take the time to do this mapping. It's gonna be more helpful when it comes to more complex things, something that happens maybe over a sustained period of time or something that's ongoing, or rather than just kind of a one-off thing. Now, there are more complex things that rather like Things that happen over a longer period of time that can be healed with just kind of a one-off thing. But again, so you're gonna build this skill. The more you practice this, the more you're gonna understand, okay, when is it time to map? When is it, this is just one protector? When is it, oh, another protector has stepped in front of the protector that I was trying to work with, so now there's kind of 2 at play. You're gonna get better at figuring that out.

Mm-hmm.

So really when you're going into this process, I would just encourage you to go in with an open mind and just don't put yourself in any sort of box. Don't even put yourself in that box. Go in to explore. On Monday, we talked about the foundation of this work. We talked about 3 things, the foundation of this work. If you go in with these 3 things, you're not going to go wrong. You're going to figure this out. Okay? So those 3 things. But if you go in with that foundation that we talked about, you're not gonna go wrong. So I don't want there to be any fear in this process of just like, hey, let's explore. Let's figure out what's going on. And then we'll figure it out. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I love that expression because so often we try to solve problems that we're not having yet. Okay. We're not having those yet. Let's go in and figure out what's going on. Let's see if we can start to talk with a protector. Let's see if we can separate and then we'll go from there. And that's what this will be that like you'll get here. You'll get where you need to go if it's a bridge you need to cross. So, and I love what's going on in the chat box here.

Love.

So self-love, patience. Honesty. So if you go into this process with love and patience and honesty— now, love for your protectors is by proxy self-love. If you go into this process with that, you are not going to go wrong. Okay? And one more thing I might add to that would be curiosity. Okay? But if you go in with patience, love, and honesty, so just go in to explore, to, to be patient, to be honest, to love, to figure out what's going on.

Mm-hmm.

And we talked about just, you wanna ask the question. You walk into a room and you're like, what is going on? Why is it going on? And then you're like, what are we gonna do about it? If it's something that's wrong, it's very straightforward. So cross those bridges when you get to them.

And to implement, like if you can get in today, implement this and map out all your protectors, that's a huge win. And start having the conversation, solving the problem, becoming aware of the relationship and bringing them together. That's a huge step. Forward.

So we're gonna do one more session. We're gonna take this to another level. If you find yourself at that bridge, that's what we're preparing you for. If you find yourself at this bridge, now you have the information to take action on it. If you find yourself at that bridge, you're gonna know how to take out, how to cross that bridge basically. And so that's what we're gonna do, because if you just go step by step and piece by piece, you can kind of stumble upon this. But what we're doing is expanding your mind so that you can look at different routes that you can take. Right now you know that, okay, this is an option. You know, when you're feeling like there's kind of a few things going on here, this is an option, kind of option. You feel a certain way or a certain thing when actually doing this work. So I encourage you highly to take action on everything that we've talked about. Really put some time into this. You can absorb the information and have something to apply it to. You need something, you need background information, you need background knowledge on certain things in order to have something to apply this information to. So I really wanna make sure that you have that. By starting to apply, even if you don't do what we talked about today, do what we talked about yesterday. Start to have conversations with those protectors.

I'm glad this is making sense. This is a huge step forward in your understanding in protectors and will help tremendously. So actually, I wanna teach 2 more things. Remember when I was describing this before, we started with guilt and we basically solved guilt first, and I wrote the check mark and say, hey, it's good. That means you built a relationship with that protector. You love it. It loves you. You guys are in harmony. And what you can do moving forward is like now that guilt guy is no longer the guilt guy, but is on your team. And you can actually bring that protector, that part of you forward in the healing of future protectors. So now you have that relationship. It's like your buddy next to you, your friend, your family member who loves you and can also show the next protector that, hey, I don't just love you. Like your true self doesn't just love this new, this protector you're trying to work with. This other protector is here and this protector is also showing love. And this is showing the other part that it's not alone. So you can actually bring that forward. And then once you lock it in with what's in this case, anger, you now have 2, 2 guys on your team and you can bring that forward. And that can be very helpful because then you're developing this family, this team who's on your side, who loves you. And then you bring that love forward to more and more parts. You build that momentum and you kind of get that compound effect or that moment, the domino effect where It gets easier and easier because you have more and more love, more and more supporters, more and more people helping you on this journey, more and more parts of you helping you. So that was one concept. So sometimes before you even get to mapping out all of your protectors, there's one protector that prevents you from accessing any other protector. And this is a protector that we call the gatekeeper. That's just a name we call it. It's just another protector, but this is a very common one that comes up in a lot of people. You might not necessarily have this. But generally when people start doing this, they have some sort of gate protector that prevents you from accessing any emotion or any protector because it's too scared to talk to any of the parts. It's too afraid of what's going to go on. So that is generally the first one that a lot of people have to deal with. You don't necessarily have to do that, but I've heard that time and time again. I've had it myself, but I've heard it a lot in our community. So it's definitely one to keep out for. You might not necessarily run into it, but it's a game changer if you don't know it's there. So basically you have— I'm going to draw a stop sign.

Okay.

You have a guy holding a stop sign here, preventing you from accessing any of these other ones. So you're going to have to deal with this one before you can even access these, if you have that one. So this is more of, you just want to be aware of, hey, is there a protector preventing me from going deeper into this healing? And if there is, you have to work with that one first. You have to talk with it. You have to solve its problems. You have to make sure it feels safe. You have to make sure that it feels in control, that you're not pushing it to do something That doesn't want to do. And a lot of people, when they're first getting started, they just wanna blast past this first protector and start doing the work. But that's a surefire way to not build a relationship. You're not respecting this part of you, and that protector's just gonna close it down even more. It's gonna make it even harder to access things cuz it's not going to trust you. So you have to build that trust. You have to say, it's okay, I'll let you step in anytime you feel like we're losing control, and I'm not gonna make you do anything you're not ready to do. So you always want that air of love, acceptance with all of your parts, and you never want to make your parts do anything they're not ready to do. And that's part of moving forward with love. Like, you don't force someone you love to do something they don't want to do.

And patience, right?

Patience. Yeah.

And so I'm going to tell a quick story. One night I was cat sitting for a friend, and he has outdoor cats, and that drives me crazy because I think about them all day long. And sometimes it's hard to get them in, right? And I went to visit Now his house is about 20 minutes away from where we live. So I went like 3, 4 in the afternoon to let the cat in. Can't find the cat. I'm like, ah, I'm gonna have to come back later. I'm hemming and hawing at it. I'm like, all right, I'll come back later. So I drive back, do whatever I need to do in my day. I go back, it's probably like 7 o'clock. The cat's there. I'm like, oh, thank goodness. Great. I get the cat in the house.

Check.

All right. Now it's raining, right? It's stormy. It's cold, right? It's like late November. And I'm driving back and I'm on this really dark woody road that, you know, this friend of ours lives in the woods and I'm on this really dark And all of a sudden I see this little white, like, flash just run in front of my car. So I slow down, I look, and it was a dog. So I turn around and to kind of go back to see the dog and the dogs just run all over and there's cars all over the place. And I'm like, oh my goodness. And so finally this dog runs into a bush. Now I'm out of the car at this point. Shiloh's in the car. This dog runs into a bush and he's deep in this bush. And so I pull my car, I put my headlights on and I approach as close as I feel like I can get without scaring him. Which was pretty far away, right? So I felt like I could get a certain distance. It was like 15 feet. Now that's not close enough to grab the dog. So I crouch down, I'm in the headlights, I'm on the side of the road because I don't want him to run out on the road, right? And get scared. And so I wait. And as the minutes go by, I'm just, I'm talking to him very gently, very nicely. He finally starts to soften up and see, and that only happened because I was patient. And then finally he came to me. And he got within arm's reach. I picked him up, put him in the car with Shiloh, actually took him to a friend's house, gave him a bath with a bunch of older women that I hang out with, and took all the burrs off him. He was great friends with Shiloh. He slept in our bed that night and got him returned home the next day. Now that's what your gatekeeper's gonna be like. Like you're approaching a, a scared animal, a scared kid. You get too close, they're gonna bolt. So you wanna get a respectable distance and then you wanna wait. You wanna be gentle. Okay. And then you wanna slowly close that distance as you build that trust. And then you have to wait for them to do the final thing, which is come to you. Okay. And then you can have this great relationship. And from then on, that dog was not scared. That dog was in our bed all night.

Yeah.

In our laps, like in a totally different dog. And I was like, I can't believe this dog just, 'cause it was scared, just ran away from me and I had cookies and it was just so scared. So that's what your gatekeeper's going to be like. And that's what some protectors can be like too. So that's why that patience, that honesty, that love is so important. You have to just wait sometimes. You have to wait it out. You can't barge down the door.

Yeah. And that's common with the gatekeeper and a lot of other protectors. You want to have that air of like, you come to me, I'm here. I want to help. I love you. I can wait. I'm patient. You can come to me when you are ready. I'm not going to pressure you to come forward and talk to me. Like, you'd come talk to me when you're ready to talk to me. And that's when you're able to show that it's a safe place. They won't be judged. They won't be pressured. They won't be forced into doing anything they don't want to do or they're not ready to do. It's a safe place. And that is kind of the environment you need to build within yourself to be able to bring those most hurt— you have to think about this. These are the most hurt parts of yourself. All of those emotions, the most painful emotions that you felt, the most scared emotions, it's a part of you. It's a protector that is scared. And that's where you show that love and you can see it. And then when you can see your protector in that way that it deserves that love, you can give it. And then it's so much more willing to come forward.

And then when it does come forward, you feel the sense of accomplishment and wholeness. And you feel the sense of peace and security and love. Because it's like, oh, good. We're safe now. Like the danger is over now. We've got it. We're good. It's like you just, a big hug. It's like a relief. So there's a lot that comes after that and it's worth the patience. I got to tell you, I like to think about like, it's how my brain works. I'm like, hey, the faster you can be patient, the faster it's going to happen.

Yeah.

Okay. But you can't rush it. So just be patient.

One last thing, honesty. We talked about love, talking about patience. We talked about honesty. Honesty means the way that we were saying it is you're honest with yourself. You don't lie to yourself. And to take it into protectors, you allow your protectors to be honest with you because they will feel things. They will want to say things that are completely irrational, but they are valid because it's the truth. It's the truth about how they feel. It may not be the ultimate rational truth, but is the truth about how they have interpreted whatever situation it is. And if you want to fully heal your protectors, you need to allow them to honestly express how they truly feel, because that's how they truly feel. And you can't solve the problem. You can't help them make that transition from this old belief to the new belief if they don't, if you're not allowing them to be honest and tell you what they truly believe. Like they need to be able to tell you and feel safe telling you. What they truly believe, so that you can help them and show them that isn't true, and that they don't have to feel that way, that they're not unloved, that they're not unworthy. They don't have to be scared anymore. Whatever they're feeling, you have to know what it is to fix the problem. If you're not allowing them to be honest with how they truly feel, if you're not going to allow them to reveal the problem to you, so you're not aware of the problem, you can't fix it. So you need to allow them to say what they need to say without judgment. By the way, if judgment comes in, that's another protector. So that's where this awareness comes in. It's like any emotion or thing that isn't you, like your true self grounded in self-love. Like if you're not approaching this situation with self-love, it means there's another protector jumbled up in you that you haven't separated from. But honesty is central, essential, and allowing your protector to be honest. That is the last thing there. We will dive into the Q&A. Joe asked, should we ask if they have a name? That's a great thing that you can ask. Sometimes they won't have a name or they'll just say. You can just call me fear, anxiety, whatever it is. But sometimes they will give you a name and that's always a great thing. And again, when in doubt, treat them like they're their own person, their own being. And so that's what you would ask a normal person. So I think that's a great question. Joe says the 5 W's, what are they afraid of? When did you start to help me, et cetera? Oh, I see. Who, what, when, where, why, how. Throw that in. Those are all great things to ask. That comes in with like introspective healing too, like where we talk about identifying the problem. Finding the root of the problem and then just drilling it from all angles using the 5 Why technique, or just going through who, what, when, where, why, how, and, you know, seeing what questions you can come up with to learn more about their situation. Because the more you learn about their situation, the more, or the higher likelihood you are going to be able to solve it.

So Larry's sharing, I'm kind of afraid to open a bigger can of worms than I can handle, like approaching the Grand Canyon. So Larry, I'm glad that you expressed that because that can be common. It can be just Common in general to be afraid of healing, of like afraid I'm gonna bring all this stuff up. And something that really used to help me was thinking about like, my life is pretty hard anyway. Even if I bring stuff up, at the very least, I'm doing it in a more productive way because it's coming up anyway. I'm getting triggered all the time. I'm lashing out. I'm feeling guilty. I'm feeling ashamed. I'm engaging in addictions. So I might as well attempt to bring them up in A more controlled environment where I can actually make progress and do something positive with these things. Now, what I want you to understand is this could be kind of a gatekeeper situation. So it can be kind of a gatekeeper situation. And I also want you to just see and trust, like, this is not the big bad wolf. You're not gonna be able to talk to that gatekeeper, open the gate, and then have like hundreds of protectors kind of flood at you here.

Mm-hmm.

These, the most of them are gonna be dormant. Most of the time, and what you're going to have to do is go step by step and follow this train. Follow this this process of almost investigating and say, okay, what is this? And starting to have that conversation. So I want you to see that this is a very gentle process, and it can feel overwhelming to heal. It can feel like I'm going to open that gate and things are going to just like bust out. That's not how it's going to be at all. Healing is not the big bad wolf. It's super straightforward. It's super simple. There's it's there's going to be emotions. Going to be. Challenging at times, but it's straightforward and you can do it. Okay. And the way that I like would encourage people to think about this, this is content I would teach to elementary school kids in a different way, but it would be this tool that I teach to elementary school kids to help them work through whatever was ailing them. It would be this tool. That's how non-invasive this is. I'm not going to put a kid in jeopardy. I'm not going to put a kid in a situation where I feel like once they open this door, Monsters are going to come out. Absolutely not. Not even close. And that's why I would choose this tool because it's so gentle. Because that found the foundation, love, patience, honesty, and you're just going in with an air of curiosity. So just some things to chew on.

Yeah. And once you start this process, you'll realize that none of these parts, like they're nothing to be afraid of. All they want, they're trying to do what's best and they want love and they want to give love. And you'll learn that more and more, that even the scariest parts of you are not that scary. Like when you understand they're trying to do something that's good and they do actually care about you, they do actually love you, they do actually want what's best for you, and all they want is love and they wanna make things better. And once you realize that and you see that for yourself, that all of your parts have that, it becomes much less scary, including some of the most, like the scariest things and the things that you think are the most negative. In my opinion, like suicidal thoughts or suicide, one of the most seemingly negative parts that you could have, or the scariest even, actually wants what's best for you. It's trying to do something that's good, is trying to love you. So even the darkest part of you, once you start this process, you learn there's nothing to be afraid of.

And what's cool about this is you can start small. You can go step by step.

Yeah. You don't dive right on into the deepest, darkest thing.

So for those of you who have done this work and have been doing this work since you've learned it, amazing job. And I wanna commend you for that. Feel free to share in the community, you know, when you have wins with this work and kind of what that feels like. And it's such a relief. It's so amazing. I know I've seen a few shares here, so I encourage you to do that as well. Judy asking, can confusion be a protector itself? Or when you feel confusion, is it usually the conglomeration of all of them together? This is a great question. Could it be a protector itself? Yes. Could it be the conglomeration of all of them together? Yes. And so this is where you're gonna have to just kind of sit and say, okay, is this a protector or is this a bunch of things, a bunch of protectors kind of coming together that it's just hard to get to pick out what's going on? So you're gonna have to kind of ask yourself that and listen and kind of figure that out for yourself. If this is a specific protector or if this is a handful of protectors. That's making a little bit of chaos there.

So the best way to know is to ask it. Ask yourself, is this a protector? And generally with confusion for people, there's other emotions attached to it. So there could be pressure, there could be anxiety, there could be shame. I shouldn't be confused about this. Like that one thing could expand out into multiple protectors. You won't know until you get there. And we will never know because until you tell us and until you do it, like it all starts from you. And best and only way is to Get in there and ask and start doing the work.

For all of us, like what we're saying, like step by step, piece by piece. That's how you want to approach this. That's how you want to go forward. Just to start and just be curious. Go with love, go with patience, go with honesty, and go with curiosity. And you're going to figure it out. You have the bare bones and then some. If you go in with that, You are going to figure out what needs to be done or even what questions need to be asked. You're gonna figure that all out. It's gonna be revealed to you because you're gonna discover it. Yep. When you go in there with that curiosity, that patience, that self-love, and that honesty. All right. Any final words before we wrap up here?

Yeah. Larry said, yep, a jumbled mess of emotions coming through right now considering this gushing. And that's good. If you're like me or, and most people who've gone through trauma, you Hold it all in for so long. So the sign that some emotions are coming out, that's good. You're getting in touch with those parts of you and you're going to start healing them. And processing, there's 2 parts, the release of emotion and the change of belief. And part of that change of belief comes from the releasing of emotion. And when you start getting in touch with those emotions, it's good. So it can be challenging, but you're gonna learn that when you release those emotions, you're going to feel so much better. So. You're starting the process and it's a beautiful thing and I'm excited for you. There's nothing to be afraid of moving into this. It's going to get better. Sometimes things get raw in the beginning, right? Because you're opening things up that, you know, you've been pushing down for so long, but you know that pushing things down does not help.

We know where that leads.

We know what happens, like, and you know what happens when you push things down. You know that. So we know that that is not the path to take. If we keep pushing things down, we know exactly what we're going to get. It's been a long time that releasing those emotions is going to make you feel so much better, so much better, but it can be raw. And like when you first started releasing emotions, it can feel raw for a while, but that's also good. That's also progress. And you just keep trusting the process, keep showing up, keep leaning into it, and you're going to get better. You're going to see the results. And then once you start to see like the first result, you're going to want to keep doing. Want to keep pushing yourself further. And I say pushing in a good way, in a positive way. So you're doing awesome, Larry. Like you, we see you every day. You're putting this stuff into action and you're seeing the results. And this is progress. I want you to see it as progress. It can be scary when you start to feel emotions, but it's progress.

It's different. Think about that. It's different.

That means you're doing the hard work that a lot of people simply aren't willing to do for one reason or another, but you're doing it and you're making progress and progress looks different. At different steps in the journey, right? So sometimes it doesn't seem like progress. That's why I want to say is because you may not see this as progress, but it's progress. You're moving towards that goal of full recovery, and every step you take, you're just getting closer.

Okay, we're going to talk about something that will expand this work even further, and I want you to have that background knowledge to apply it to because it will make so much more sense when you've had some of these conversations with your protector. So go in. Do this. Cross these bridges when you get to them. You might get to them, you might not, but start putting the time in, start putting the work in, and you're going to start seeing the results. The work can happen very quickly.

Okay?

So you're gonna feel yourself change and the relationships change. So do that. Share wins when you have 'em in the community.

I love you.

I believe in you. Amazing job.

One last thing. You have everything. It's up to you on what you do with it. Are you going to put in the time?

Time to shine.

So crush it.

All right. Bye everyone.

See ya. 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.