What 25 Years as a THERAPIST Taught Me About Your Inner Critic?

I need to tell you a story about how the most transformative insights sometimes arrive disguised as routine continuing education. It was a typical busy week. I was behind on my continuing education credits. You know how it is. The deadline was approaching and I needed CEUs. So I did what many of us do. I scrolled through the available trainings, looking for something that would fit my schedule. Internal family systems, the listing said. I heard the name before. I knew it was something about parts. Honestly, I wasn't that excited about it. I just needed the credits. I clicked register. Let me tell you, there's a certain irony in the fact that I, a psychotherapist who teaches about being present and intentional, was basically CU shopping. Like I was scrolling through Netflix at 11pm looking for something to watch while folding my laundry. What I didn't know was that this credit checking exercise was about to expand my awareness of everything that I have been witnessing, feeling and teaching for 25 years. It was about to give me the language and framework for concepts I've been living but couldn't quite articulate. About 20 minutes into that training, I had one of those moments, you know the ones I'm talking about, when something you've been seeing suddenly has a name, when the implicit becomes explicit. The instructor was describing the IFS model and I felt this recognition in my body. Not in my head, in my body. This visceral sense of, oh, oh, this is what I've been observing all along. This is what I've been working with. I just didn't have the language for it. See, I've been a systems thinker since the beginning of my career. From my very first training as a social worker, I was drawn to the understanding of how systems work. Family systems, organizational systems, and cultural systems. I understood that you can't isolate one element without seeing how it connects to the whole. That change in one part of a system ripples through the entire structure. That symptoms aren't just individual problems. They're often systemic expressions. Here's what became clear in that training. I'd been observing internal system dynamics in my clients and in the leaders I coached for years. I was looking at families as systems, organizations as systems, culture as systems. And the person I've been noticing their internal complexity, their conflicting voices, their protective patterns. But I have been describing it in more general terms. What if the internal landscape has the same structural complexity as any family or organization with distinct roles, protective mechanisms, and leadership needs? Suddenly, everything I've been teaching for decades had a deeper architecture underneath it. Let me back up and show you why this expansion of awareness landed so powerfully for me. When I started my career in behavioral sciences, I was immediately drawn to the approaches that honored complexity. I couldn't subscribe to reductionist models that tried to simplify humans into diagnosis or discrete problems to fix. I studied identity science. I worked across four continents with leaders from vastly different cultural contexts. I specialize in understanding how identity, in all its intersecting complexity, shapes how people move through the world. What I learned again and again is this. Humans are not simple. Context matters. Everything is interconnected. In family systems therapy, you learn the identified patient, the person who shows up as the problem is often just expressing what's happening in the larger family system. You can't fix the individual without understanding the system they're a part of. In organizational consulting, you learn the leader who's the problem. The micromanager, the conflict avoider, the perfectionist is often responding to systemic pressures, cultural dynamics and structural issues. You can't transform leadership without understanding the organizational system. I've been living and breathing Systems thinking for 25 years. And in my work with leaders, I've been noticing patterns. How they describe being pulled in different directions, how they talk about parts of me want to do X while other parts resist. How certain triggers would activate completely different leadership responses. How they struggle with internal conflicts that showed up as external leadership challenges. I've been working with these dynamics, helping leaders understand these internal tensions, find integration and access their centered core. Yet I'd been explaining it in my own language, drawing from multiple frameworks, creating my own articulation. Then ifs gave me a formal structure for what I'd been observing to seeing parts with different perspectives, feelings and strategies. Protective mechanisms that developed for good reasons. Vulnerable parts carrying wounds and extreme beliefs. A core self that could lead the system when parts trusted it. This wasn't a revelation of something new. This was an expansion of awareness, a precise articulation of what I'd been witnessing and working with all along. Here's where my systems thinking background made the IFS model feel like coming home. I already knew systems needed leadership, not control. In family systems, you don't try to eliminate members. You help the family develop healthier patterns of relating. In organizations, you don't try to silent the dissonant. You create structures where different perspectives can coexist and contribute. And in the internal system, same principle, you don't try to eliminate your anxious part, or your perfectionist part, or your self critical part. You learn to lead them from what I've been calling your centered self, your essential core, your conscious Mind your leadership presence and what ifs formally names as self. There's another reason ifs expanded my awareness so powerfully. This is where I need to get personal about my clinical philosophy. From the very beginning of my practice, I've been committed to two foundational principles. Person centered. The person is the expert in their own experience. My role isn't to diagnose and fix. It's to create conditions where they can access their own wisdom. Strength based. I don't start with pathology. I start with capacity or what's already working. What strengths exist that we can build on. This isn't just philosophy. This is how I move through the world, how I practice therapy, how I consult with organizations, how I lead. So when I encountered ifs, I had this profound recognition. This articulates the assumptions I've been operating from my entire career. IFS starts with three premises that I've been teaching in my own words. 1. Premise 1. You already have everything you need inside you. I'd always worked from the belief that people have their own wisdom, their own answers, and my job was helping them access it. IFS calls this self. I've been calling this various things, your core, your conscious mind, your essence, your leadership presence. Yet the principle is the same. The work isn't importing something from the outside in, it's accessing what's already there. Premise 2. Every protective pattern developed for a good reason. In my work with leaders, I always approach challenging behaviors with curiosity rather than judgment. The micromanaging, the people, pleasing, the perfectionism. I never see these as pathology. I see them as adaptive strategies that make sense given their experiences. These are parts with positive intentions, using strategies that worked in the past, but not necessarily today. Premise 3. The goal isn't elimination, it's integration. I don't attempt to help leaders get rid of aspects of themselves. I always work towards integration, helping them be in relationship with all of themselves while leading from their center. Ifs articulated this principle clearly. You're learning to lead multiplicity, to conduct a symphony rather than silence the instruments. So ifs didn't change my approach. It offers a language for what I'd always believed, but had been explaining through my own synthesis. People aren't broken. Systems are complex. And with the right kind of leadership, internal leadership transformation is not only possible, it's natural. So there I was in this training, getting my CEUs and experiencing profound expansion of awareness. Here's where it gets even more interesting. As the instructor kept talking, I started seeing how ifs illuminated my existing framework in completely new ways. I had Been teaching connected leadership for years. I developed the Receive, Perceive, respond method. I'd been working with leaders on accessing their centered presence, yet I'd been explaining them from one angle. IFS gave me another powerful lens, another way to articulate why my framework works and how the mechanics operate. Everything I've been teaching about leadership, the three pillars of connected leadership, the RPR method, the importance of self awareness as the foundation of organizational transformation, suddenly had an internal architecture that ifs made visible. This isn't replacing my work. It's illuminating the mechanisms underneath it, giving me additional language to explain what I'd been observing, expanding my awareness of the internal dynamics at play. Here's what I couldn't quite articulate initially, why my framework had been creating transformation even before I understood IFS language. What was the mechanism that was already operating? Then it hit me. About 40 minutes into that training, the instructor said something about the relationship between external leadership patterns and internal parts dynamics. I realized every single leadership challenge I've been working with for 25 years. The micromanaging, the people pleasing, the perfectionism, the burnout. I've been addressing these as internal system dynamics without having formal if language for it. The leaders who transformed most deeply through my framework, they were the ones who were somehow intuitively accessing what ifs calls self leaders who struggled. They were stuck in what ifs would call parts LED patterns, without the awareness that these were distinct protective strategies running their leadership. Here's what I need you to understand, and this is the foundation for everything we're about to explore. When I began mapping the three pillars of my framework for connected leadership into the IFS framework, ifs gave me an additional powerful way to explain what was happening in my work. Each pillar wasn't just addressing a leadership issue. Each pillar was working with a specific internal dynamic that I had been addressing intuitively, but now I could articulate it systemically. This expanded awareness explains why some leaders transform and others just cycle through the same patterns despite trying everything. The ones who transform, they're doing that internal work, whether they name it as ifs or not. They're shifting their relationship with their internal system. They're accessing what I call centered leadership and what ifs calls self leadership. The ones who keep cycling and cycling, they're trying to change behaviors without addressing the internal system dynamics driving those behaviors. I'm going to show you exactly how this illumination works. I'm going to reveal how ifs offers another way to understand and explain the internal dynamics underneath my three pillars. When you see this, when you Understand that recognizing value, embodying grace, and conquering control can be articulated through an ifs lens. You'll see why changing your leadership isn't about learning more strategies. It's about expanding your awareness of internal systems and learning to lead yourself differently. Stay with me. This is where multiple frameworks converge and create a deeper understanding. So you remember the question why some leaders were transforming through my framework for connected leadership, while others just kept cycling through the same patterns. The leaders who transformed were the ones who were naturally working with their internal system dynamics, shifting their relationship with different aspects of themselves, accessing their centered core, even without formal IFS language. Let me show you what I mean with a hypothetical scenario. Imagine a senior executive, brilliant strategist, completely exhausted. She comes in saying, I know I need to delegate more, but I can't seem to let go. I know I should trust my team, but I keep micromanaging. What's wrong with me? We work on the third pillar, conquering control. Understanding that the only control that she truly has is how she receives, perceives, and responds, and something shifts. Gradually, she starts delegating more, trusting more, letting go of external control. When I ask what changed, she might say something like, I realize I had this terrified aspect of myself that believed if I wasn't controlling everything, everything would fall apart and it would be my fault. Once I could see that part of me, once I could understand it, was trying to protect me from feeling responsible for catastrophe, I could work with it differently. I could thank it for trying to keep me safe and then show it that I handle things even when it got messy. She was working with her internal system without having ifs language for it. In ifs terms, she identified a manager part. Now, this part works proactively. And this was the controller. She had gotten curious about what it was protecting her from. This is what IFS calls an exile, carrying the responsibility of past failures. She had accessed enough centric presence. IFS calls self to lead that part differently. That's why the framework worked. Imagine another leader hearing about conquering control who tries to behaviorally force themselves to delegate more. I just make myself let go, and it doesn't stick because they're trying to control their controlling pattern, which just creates more internal tension. This expanded awareness shifted things for me. My framework works when it facilitates internal system work. It struggles when it stays purely behavior. Ifs gave me another powerful way to explain and teach this dynamic. So let me show you exactly how each pillar can be understood through an IFS lens. Not replacing how I explain it, but offering an Additional framework for a deeper understanding. For the past decade, I've been teaching a framework that I call Connected Leadership. The core premise is you have to connect to yourself so that you can elevate and expand for those you lead. Notice the order here. It's not lead others better so you feel better about yourself. It's not fix yourself so that you can finally be good enough to lead. It's connect to yourself first. Then from that connection you can genuinely elevate and expand for others. This is based on three pillars. Recognizing value. Understanding that your worth and others worth is intrinsic. It's not conditional on performance or approval. Embodying grace. Holding space for both excellence and humanity. For both high standards and deep compassion. Conquering control. Releasing the illusion of external control and focusing on the only control you truly have. How you receive, perceive and respond. Now, I'd been teaching these three pillars for years. Leaders would come to me exhausted from trying to do it all, control it all, prove themselves kind constantly. And these three pillars would create shifts. Real, lasting shifts. Here's what I noticed. The leaders who transformed the most deeply were the ones who were doing the internal work, connecting with different aspects of themselves, accessing their centered core. When I encountered ifs, I suddenly had another powerful lens for explaining why this internal connection was so essential in how it operated. Because each of these three pillars isn't just a leadership strategy. Through an IFS lens, each one can be understood as working with specific internal system dynamics. Let me show you what I mean. Recognizing value. The belief that your worth is intrinsic. I've been teaching this for years as one of my core principles. And here's what I've been observing in leaders and honestly, in myself. Picture this. You achieve something extraordinary. The promotion, the award, the revenue target. And for about 24 hours, you feel good. Then that voice kicks in, okay, but what's next? That was just luck. Now you have to prove that you can do it again. Sound familiar? Because it sure does to me. I'd explore with leaders what would happen if you stopped achieving at this pace. The answers were remarkably consistent. And I'm going to be honest, some of these have been my own internal dialogue. I'd lose my value. People would see that I'm not actually capable. I'd be exposed as inadequate. Can we just pause and acknowledge the irony Here I am Dr. Kara, with degrees, certifications, and 25 years of experience. Yet still there's a part of me that occasionally whispers, but what if they find out you're just winging it? I'd been working with leaders and myself on recognizing that worth is intrinsic, not performance based. When the work went deep, when we explored what these fears were protecting, when we connected with the younger, more vulnerable aspects carrying these beliefs, transformation happened. Then ifs gave me another way to articulate exactly what was happening. These beliefs, the ifs calls exile beliefs, deeply held convictions formed in childhood about worth being conditional and the development of what ifs calls manager parts, specifically achiever parts, perfectionist parts whose entire role was preventing these exiles from being exposed or validated the manager's preventative logic. If I achieve enough, if I protect enough, if I prove my value constantly, then no one will ever discover the underlying belief of inadequacy. So the manager works relentlessly, driving achievement, never satisfied, never able to rest. Let me tell you, when I learned this, I had a moment of recognition about my own achiever manager. This part that had me working across four continents, building a practice, writing a book, creating programs. All absolutely meaningful work, but also some of it was proving something I've been helping leaders connect with these protective patterns, understand their positive intention, explore what they were guarding against, access their centered core to lead those patterns differently. You can't cognitively override beliefs about conditional worth. You have to work with the internal system organized around these beliefs. The process I'd been facilitating, recognize the achieving performing pattern. Ifs identify manager parts, understand what it's protecting against. Ifs understand the manager's protective role, connect to the underlying wound. Ifs work with the exiles. Lead from your centered core, lead from self. Ifs didn't change my approach. When leaders do this work, whether they use ifs language or not, recognizing value shifts from a concept to lived reality. They can finally rest. They can finally receive appreciation. They can value themselves and others for being not just doing. And yes, I'm still practicing this one daily, sometimes hourly, because that's the work. This is how ifs illuminates the pillar embodying grace. This is the capacity to hold both excellence and humanity simultaneously. I've been teaching this as the leadership tightrope. Here's what I'd been observing. Leaders oscillate between extremes, either demanding perfectionism, harsh, no room for humanity or vulnerability. The overly accommodating, unable to maintain standards, afraid of being too demanding. Can I just tell you, I've done both, sometimes in the same meeting. I remember once, and this is a moment of radical honesty here I was leading a team project. My perfectionists came out full force. I gave feedback that was technically accurate but emotionally brutal. I watched this person's Face just fall. My inner compassionate part activated with vengeance. Oh, my goodness. You just crushed them. You are a terrible leader. Quick, fix it. And I swung into the other extreme, backing off everything I'd said, softening it to the point where the feedback became meaningless. The person left that conversation confused. I left exhausted. Neither of us knew what had actually happened. This is the oscillation. Excellence or humanity? Standards or compassion? Never both. Simultaneously. I'd been working with leaders and myself to access what I call centered leadership. The quality of presence that can hold complexity, that can be both strong and tender, both clear and compassionate. Then ifs gave me another framework for understanding exactly why this oscillation happens and how to work with it. When what ifs calls a perfectionist, manager runs leadership. It operates from high standards of keep me safe. Excellence equals protection from criticism. But underneath, usually what ifs calls an exile, which is a younger part. Karen. Experiences of being shamed for imperfection, criticized harshly, rejected, made to feel humanity was unacceptable. The perfectionist protects against ever feeling that shame again. Then we try to maintain those harsh standards. Another protective aspect may activate what ifs might call a compassionate protector or a people pleaser. Saying, this is cruel. We're recreating the harm done to us. We need to be gentler. So we swing into the opposite extreme. Grace isn't about choosing between standards and compassion. It's about leading from what I call centered presence, what ifs calls self, which naturally holds both. I have been helping leaders access this centered presence and practicing it myself with varying degrees of success. I. I should add that quality that emerges when protective patterns can relax, when they trust their core capacity to handle complexity. When you're in self, you can have clarity about excellence without perfectionism, hold people accountable without shaming them, be vulnerable without losing authority, and maintain standards while honoring humanity. Self isn't identified with perfectionist or the accommodator. Self is that centered core. It can hold the complexity that protective patterns can't. Let me tell you, when I finally learned to access this in that team situation I mentioned, the next conversation went completely different. I could say, here's the standard I'm holding, and I can see you're working very hard. Let's figure this out together. How can we bridge this gap? Both things. Excellence in humanity at the same time. Hell, true, it's still a practice. But now at least I know what I'm practicing and when I'm practicing it. Embodying grace requires not just deciding to hold both, not just cognitive understanding, but working with your internal system. Helping protective Patterns trust that your centered core can lead, can hold what they're afraid of. Conquering control. This is understanding that the only control you have is how you receive, perceive and respond. This is where ifs and my existing framework converge most powerfully. Here's what I've been observing in leaders for over 25 years and what I definitely experienced myself. The attempt to control everything externally exhausts everyone. Leaders trying to control outcomes control team members, control how they're perceived, control all the variables. And can I say I wrote the whole book beyond Control. You know why? Because I needed to learn this lesson myself. You don't write a book about something that you've already mastered. You write it because you're trying to figure it out. There have been times. Okay, let's be real. There are still times when I catch myself trying to control things that are completely uncontrollable. The weather during an outdoor event, how people will react to content that I create, whether someone will like me. And it is exhausting. I'd been working with leaders and myself on understanding a fundamental truth. External control is largely an illusion. The only genuine control is internal. How you receive situations, how you perceive the meaning, and how you respond from your values. When leaders can shift their focus from external control to what I call internal leadership. From trying to control outcomes, leading their own responses, Transformation happens. What's happening. What ifs calls manager. Parts operate from a belief system. Control equals safety. If I manage all variables, I can prevent pain. These patterns learned often early that chaos is dangerous, unpredictability means threat. Controlling externals creates safety. So they work relentlessly to control everything outside of themselves. Here's the paradox I've been teaching and living. The more they try to control externally, the more out of control they feel internally. Because you can't actually control how people respond, what challenges emerge, what outcomes manifest the narrative that others create in their mind about you. You know, what you can control, how fast you scroll through your email at 11pm which is to say not much. But you can control whether you're checking email at 11pm in the first place. That's an internal leadership decision. You can only truly control your internal system, how you lead yourself. When leaders shift from trying to control externally to leading their internal system from self, their need for external controls drops dramatically. Now they trust whatever happens externally, I can handle internally. My centered core can lead my internal responses. I don't need to control the outside world to feel safe inside. Fest articulated it as lead your parts from self rather than trying to control the external world from Protective parts, different language, same transformation, same ongoing practice. For me, this is conquering control. And ifs gives me another powerful way to explain the internal dynamics at play. This is the next level of expanded awareness. There's probably an aspect of yourself that's been running your leadership for a long time, probably your entire career. For some of you, it's what ifs calls perfectionist manager. The pattern believes leadership means never making mistakes, always having the answers and being beyond criticism. For others, it's a people pleasing pattern. That aspect believes leadership means making everyone happy, avoiding conflict, being universally liked. For others, it's a controlling pattern. That part believes leadership means managing every detail, preventing all risk, and maintaining total oversight. And these patterns have been doing their best. They've gotten you results, they've kept you safe according to their definition, yet they're exhausted. And if you're honest, so are you. Because these protective patterns weren't designed to lead you your whole life. They were designed to protect you in specific situations. Yet they've been operating as the primary leader of your internal system, and they are overwhelmed. What they need, what your entire system needs, is a different kind of leadership. What I've been calling centered presence or essential core what ifs formally names as self. Here's the challenge. Most leaders don't have clear awareness of what the centered presence actually is or how to access it reliably under pressure. They've heard words like authenticity and presence and groundedness, but they don't know how to consciously shift into that state. So I'm introducing you to self what ifs offers as another way to understand and articulate it. The centered leadership presence. I'm going to show you the specific qualities that define self leadership. I'm going to teach you a practice I use with every single leader I work with and with myself pretty much daily. A practice I call the text message metaphor that will help you access this centered presence in real time. Because understanding that you have an internal system with different patterns is valuable. Yet learning to lead from that system, from your centered core, that's transformation. All right, so I left you with this idea that there's probably a protective pattern that's been running your leadership, your perfectionism, your people pleasing, your controlling. And I said these patterns need a different kind of leadership, what I call centered presence. But ifs names as self. Here's the deal. This centered presence is already in you. You don't have to create it, develop it, earn it, or become worthy of it. It's not something you achieve after enough therapy or meditation or leadership Training. This is your essential nature. It's there when protective patterns relax. Here's what I realized when ifs expanded my awareness. Every moment in my leadership, when I'd felt truly present, truly clear, truly grounded, that was what ifs calls self. Every moment where I could hold complexity without getting reactive. Every moment where I could receive hard feedback without defensiveness, which, let me be honest, is still a work in progress some days. Every moment where I could lead both with strength and compassion. I'd been accessing this centered presence my whole career. I'd been helping leaders access it. I just had various ways of describing it. In ifs, self is not a part or a pattern. Self is your core essence, the you beneath all the protective strategies, beneath all the wounds, beneath all the adaptive behaviors. And self has qualities that naturally emerge when protective patterns relax and step back. Ifs identifies what they call the eight C's of self. Leadership. Calmness. This is a settled nervous system, even in intensity. Clarity, the ability to see without distortion. Curiosity, genuine interest rather than judgment. Compassion, warmth towards yourself and others. Confidence, a grounded sense of capability. Courage, willingness to face what's difficult. Creativity, access to new possibilities. Connectedness, a sense of belonging to something larger. When I first encountered these eight Cs in that training, I literally wrote in my notes, this is what I've been trying to teach. Because I've been teaching leaders about presence, about groundedness, about the qualities of transformational leadership, just using different frameworks and language. And here was ifs giving me another precise map. These qualities aren't things you develop through effort. They're what emerges when you're in the centered core of what ifs calls self. Let me translate this into leadership language. Think about that moment when you've been your absolute best as a leader. Not performing, not trying, just present and effective. Maybe it was a difficult conversation that went surprisingly well, or a crisis where you felt completely grounded despite the chaos, or a moment giving feedback that was both honest and kind. In that moment, you probably weren't thinking, okay, now I need to activate my calmness. Let me deploy some curiosity. Time to be compassionate. No, these qualities just emerge naturally. That is self. I can tell you from my own experience, when I'm in self, leadership feels completely different. There's a quality of flow, of groundedness, of, I've got this. Even though I don't know exactly what's going to happen next when I'm not in self, when my perfectionist is running the show or my people pleaser has hijacked me, leadership feels effortful, anxious, and quite frankly, exhausting. So the question becomes, how do you access this centered presence when protective patterns are activated? How do you know to shift to self when you're in crisis, conflict, or in high pressure moments? This is where most leadership trainings fail. They tell you to be present or stay grounded. Which is about as helpful as telling someone who's drowning to just swim better. I'm going to teach you the practice that transformed how I work with leaders and how I work with myself. I call this the text message metaphor. And here's how I help leaders and myself access centered presence in real time. Imagine your internal system like a phone. And throughout your day, different aspects of yourself are sending you messages. Your perfectionist pattern. We need to redo that presentation. It's not good enough. Your anxious aspect. What if they think we're incompetent? Your people pleasing pattern. I hope they're not disappointed in us. You're exhausted. Part I can't keep doing this. Your wounded younger self, see, will never be enough. Here's what I realized about my own pattern. I can go an entire Day with 47 unread text messages from my internal system. I'm making decisions, leading meetings, giving feedback, all while basically having my internal phone on. Do not disturb. Then I wonder why I'm exhausted, why I keep getting activated, why I reacted in that meeting instead of responded. Oh, right, because I had 47 unread messages that I was ignoring. Here's what checking your internal text messages look like. Step one. Pause. Take a beat. Even for 10 seconds, even for three seconds. Just pause. I know, I know. Revolutionary advice. Just pause. You're thinking. Thanks, Dr. Cara. Next time you'll tell me to breathe. But here is the thing. We don't pause. Something happens, we react instantly. The pause creates the gap where centered presence can emerge. Step two. Notice a name. What Messages are coming through right now. Notice them. Specifically not. I feel bad, but there's a message from my perfectionist pattern. There's a message from my anxious aspect. Use somatic awareness. This is something I've always taught in practice. For example, right now, as I'm recording this, I'm noticing a slight tension in my shoulders. And that's my perfectionist sending a message. Are you explaining this clearly enough? What if people don't get it? See? Even talking about checking messages. There's a message. It's the messages all the way down. Name what you're noticing. Ah, there's my perfectionist. There's my controller. There's my people pleaser. This simple act of Noticing and naming creates separation. You're not the pattern. You're noticing the pattern. That separation allows centered presence to emerge. It allows you to move from being the subject to holding what you're experiencing as an object. Step 4. 3. Receive. Receive these messages without acting on them immediately. You're not suppressing them. I shouldn't feel bad this way. Bad perfectionist. Go away. You're not indulging them. You're right. This is terrible. Everything is terrible. Let's panic. You're receiving them. I'm getting a message from my perfectionist pattern. I hear it. I'm receiving that. It's present. This is what I've always taught about the first component of my RPR method. Receiving what it is without immediately controlling or fixing. Step four. Ask key questions. How do I feel towards this pattern? This question checks, are you in centered presence or are you blended with another particular protective pattern? So when my perfectionist sends the message about this video and I check, how do I feel towards my perfectionist? If I notice irritation, There you go again. Never satisfied. That's my inner critic responding. That's another pattern. If I notice fear. Oh no. What if the perfectionist is right? That's probably an anxious pattern responding. But if I can access even a shred of curiosity. Huh? I wonder what my perfectionist is worried about. That's closer to self. So you ask that critical, scared, annoyed pattern. Would you be willing to just step back just a little so I can be curious about this other pattern? Step 5. When patterns Step back, center presence emerges. When protective patterns step back even slightly, your centered presence self is just there. You don't need to create it. You don't need to be comment. It emerges when patterns make space. From this centered presence, you can actually read the message. What is this platform trying to tell me? What is it protecting me from? When I ask my perfectionist this, I often get, I'm trying to protect you from looking incompetent, from being criticized from that feeling when you were younger and got harsh feedback. And then I can respond from myself. Thank you for trying to protect me. I appreciate that. And I've got this. We can do good work without being perfect. This is checking your internal text messages. This is accessing centered presence where ifs call self influence in real time. This practice is how RPR operates from self rather than from protective patterns. Let me show you what this looks like in actual leadership moments using a hypothetical scenario, receiving critical feedback. Picture this. You're in a meeting. Your boss says, I'm concerned about your leadership Approach. I'm hearing feedback that your style is creating problems with team morale. Internal messages might activate your perfectionist. Your perfectionist. Oh, my goodness. I'm failing. I should have known this. How did I miss it? Your defensive response. That's not fair. They don't understand the pressure I'm under. You're a people pleaser. They're so disappointed in me. I've let them down. You're a vulnerable core. See? I'm not good enough. I knew I wasn't cut out for this. If you're not checking messages, if you're just letting protective patterns drive you, you might get defensive immediately collapse into self criticism over, apologize and accommodate, disassociate or shut down. I've done all of these, sometimes in the same conversation. It's like a defensive pattern world tour. But if you check your internal text messages. Okay, multiple patterns just activated. I feel heat in my face. That's probably my defensive response. There's that sinking feeling. That's my vulnerable core getting triggered. There's the voice saying, I should have known. That's my perfectionist. How do I feel towards these patterns? Notice I feel frustrated with them for activating so strongly. Okay, that's another pattern. Probably my inner critic. Can that critic step back so I can be curious about these other patterns? Centered presence then emerges from this centered core. You can receive the feedback without collapsing or defending. You can perceive what's valid in feedback without making it mean you're worthless. And respond with openness. Thank you for letting me know. I want to understand more about what you're hearing. This is important feedback. Notice the difference. Protective pattern led Reactive. Defensive. Escalating centered presence. Led Self. Led Present. Open. Generative. This feedback is the same. The outcome is completely different. And let me be clear, this doesn't mean that you're going to always get it right. Sometimes I still get defensive. Sometimes my perfectionist still hijacks the conversation. But however, now I at least know what's happening. I can notice it faster. I can recover more quickly. This is what ifs helped me articulate more precisely. The difference between parts LED and self LED responses. Or what I've been teaching as protective pattern driven versus centered presence driven leadership. So now you know about self, about centered presence and about how to access it using the text message. Practice. Here's what I haven't fully explained yet. And this expanded awareness is critical. Your centered presence self can lead, but protective patterns won't automatically step back just because you understand this concept. Trust me on this. I've been working on this for years. And my perfectionist still sometimes acts like I've never heard of ifs or created my framework for connected leadership. Because these patterns have been doing their jobs for years, maybe decades. They have deeply held beliefs about what keeps you safe. And they're not going to trust your centered core to lead until they understand what their protective role has been, why they took on that role, what they're guarding against, that your centered presence can actually handle, what they're afraid of. This is where you need to understand your specific patterns, not just conceptually, but intimately. You need to recognize your proactive protectors. But ifs calls managers, the patterns that work preventatively to manage image control outcomes and ensure safety. You need to meet your reactive responders, what ifs calls firefighters. The patterns that activate when preventative strategies fail. The ones that reach for distraction, that snap in anger and that numb out. And you need to connect with your vulnerable core, what ifs calls exiles. The younger wounded aspects carrying beliefs that your protective patterns have been guarding against. Because here's the expanded awareness that ifs pratt me with. Your leadership challenges aren't just behavior problems. They're internal system dynamics. A manager leader who micromanages everything, is that a behavior problem that needs correcting? Or is it a protective pattern with ifs calls manager trying to prevent pain connected to the vulnerable aspect exiles that carries responsibility for failure. Imagine a leader who can't have a difficult conversation. Is that a skills gap? Or is it a protective pattern preventing pain connected to rejection and abandonment? Imagine a leader. Okay, let's be honest. Imagine me at certain points in my career working 80 hour weeks. Is that a time management issue? Or is it a protective pattern protecting pain connected to worthlessness without productivity? Until you understand these patterns, until you can be in relationship with your internal system, your centered presence, self leadership remains theoretical. Next, I'm introducing you more intimately to your internal patterns. The three types IFS identifies managers, firefighters and exiles. I'm going to show you exactly how they show up in your leadership using hypothetical scenarios you'll recognize immediately, maybe a few self reflective moments from my own journey. And because once you can see them, you can name them. Once you name them, you can understand what they're trying to do. Your protective patterns can finally stop working so hard and your centered presence can lead. I promise to show you how every leadership challenge can be understood as an internal system dynamic. Here's the expanded awareness that transformed my work. Consider a leader exhausted from micromanaging. She. She has a controlling pattern, what ifs calls a controller. Manager that believes if she's not managing every detail, everything will fall apart. Underneath a younger, vulnerable aspect what ifs calls an exile, carrying wounds about being blamed when things went wrong. Imagine a leader who couldn't have difficult conversations. He has a people pleasing pattern. What ifs calls people pleaser. Manager that believes conflict means abandonment. Underneath a vulnerable aspect, carrying terror from experiences where expressing needs lead to withdrawals of love. Picture a leader working 80 hours a week. She has an achieving pattern, what ifs calls an achiever manager that equates to productivity with worth. Underneath a vulnerable core carrying the belief of being valuable only when producing, not when simply being. I'd been observing these dynamics and working with them for years and living some of them myself. Ifs gave me precise language to articulate what I'd been seeing and experiencing. Every single pattern was an internal system dynamic. When we could work with these patterns, when we could help protective strategies understand what they're guarding. Help reactive responses know what they didn't have to rescue so urgently. Help vulnerable aspects heal the wounds they carried. Leadership patterns shifted naturally, not through willpower, but through internal awareness and relationship. Ifs gave me another framework for explaining what I've been facilitating and practicing in my own life. Let me show you each of the patterns through this ifs lens. Managers are proactive protective patterns you probably recognize most immediately in leadership. They're patterns that can keep you working late to make everything perfect. Have you checking email constantly, drive you to prepare obsessively, push you to achieve relentlessly, make you people please to ensure harmony, keep you controlling details to prevent chaos. I've been working with these patterns my whole career. Ifs research shows managers develop early in childhood. When a child learns that behaviors earn safety, love or approval, they form as adaptive responses to a caregiver's expectations and environmental demands. So imagine a child that learns. Perfect performance equals parental approval. That manager pattern develops. If I'm flawless, I'm safe. Or picture a child in an environment where needs feel burdensome. That people pleasing pattern forms. If everyone likes me, I won't be abandoned. Or consider a child experiencing chaos or unpredictability. That controlling pattern emerges. If I manage everything, I can prevent catastrophe. These strategies work. They protected you in environments where you needed protection. The challenge. They're still operating with the same strategies. And let me tell you about my own perfectionist pattern. Oh, she's been a committed worker. Been on the job since I was about seven years old, I think. I remember being that kid who would erase and rewrite homework until I thought it was perfect. Who would practice presentations until every word was full? Flawless. Who believed that good enough was just a euphemism for lazy? Here's the thing. This pattern got me results. A PhD, a private practice, speaking engagements, high level positions. The list goes on. So why would my perfectionist retire? She got evidence that her strategy works and leadership. When these protective patterns run unchecked, they create perfectionism that exhausts you and your team. People pleasing that erodes clear boundaries. Micromanagement that disempowers others. Achievement addiction that makes rest impossible. Criticism that creates shame based cultures. Picture a leader preparing for a big presentation. The perfectionist pattern is activated. They revise the slides 15 times. They practice until 2am they're exhausted before they even walk into the room. And their team. They've learned that nothing will be good enough without multiple revisions. So they disengage. They do minimum work knowing their leader. They're going to redo it anyway. Now imagine that same leader checking their internal text messages before the presentation. Oh, there's my perfectionist. It's sending a strong message. This has to be flawless or they'll see you as a fraud. How do I feel towards my perfectionist? Okay, that's my inner critic. Can you step back so I can be curious about my perfectionist from self? What are you afraid will happen if this presentation isn't perfect? And the perfectionist might show an image or feeling from childhood or in your younger years. Maybe being criticized, maybe being rejected or judged. Perhaps this could look like criticism from a teacher being compared to a sibling. Maybe learning that mistakes mean disapproval. Thank you for trying to protect me from that feeling. I appreciate how hard you've been working all these years. And I want you to know I'm an adult now. I can handle feedback differently. We can do excellent work without it needing to be perfect. Something shifts. The perfectionist doesn't disappear, but it relaxes just a little. The presentation goes well, not perfectly. And that's enough. This is the work. Not eliminating the protective patterns, but understanding them, appreciating them and updating their role. What ifs calls, firefighters. These are reactive protective patterns. They show up as checking your phone, compulsively Explosive anger when triggered, Numbing behaviors, emotional shutdown, creating drama, escaping into distraction. Leaders often judge themselves harshly for these patterns. Why can't I control this? What's wrong with me? And can I just say, I have been there. I have been a firefighter that reaches for my phone when things get emotionally tense. I have been in a difficult conversation and suddenly I Have this overwhelming urge to just check this one email real quick. Spoiler alert. It's not about the email. It's about getting away from the feeling. These aren't moral failures. They're emergency response patterns. Firefighters activate when exiles are triggered or managers fail to maintain control. And their job is to extinguish intense pain by any means necessary. Here's how this works. Picture a leader in a meeting. Someone challenges their decision publicly. This triggers a vulnerable aspect. What ifs calls an exile. See, I'm not good enough. Everyone's gonna see I'm incompetent. Preventative patterns. This is what we are trying to prevent. And before conscious processing, a reactive pattern deploys. Maybe anger. How dare they question me in front of everyone. Maybe phone grabbing, the urgent need to check an email. Anything to escape that feeling. Maybe shut down. Emotional disconnection, going blank. The reactive patterns job get us away from this pain. Now it works temporarily and the pain is deflected. But the cost in the anger response. You just damaged relationships and lost credibility. With the phone grab, you signal disengagement with the shutdown, you checked out of every conversation you needed to be present for. Here's what I've learned from my own firefighters. They're not trying to sabotage me. They're actually trying to save me. When that urge to grab my phone hits, my firefighter genuinely believes if we feel this feeling fully, it will destroy us. We need to get out now. I've been working with this dynamic for years. In leadership, unexamined reactive patterns create vitality that creates walking on eggshell cultures, reactivity that damages trust, avoidance of necessary conversations, addiction patterns, work achievement, substances, distraction, drama that destabilizes teams. Imagine a leader whose firefighter is anger. When they're triggered, they explode. Later, they feel terrible, they apologize profusely, they promise it won't happen again. But it does. Because the firefighter hasn't been worked with. It's just been judged. And now it's been suppressed. Now imagine that same leader learning to notice the firefighter. Activating the physical sensation. The heat rising, the earth energy surge. The urge to snap. Ah, there's my firefighter wanting to activate. What vulnerability is it trying to protect me from? Often there's a younger, wounded part underneath. The feeling inadequate, exposed, ashamed. Thank you, firefighter, for trying to protect me from what I'm feeling. And I want you to know I can be with this discomfort. I can handle this feeling without needing to escape or discharge it. We are safe. The firefighter can start to relax. Trust builds the reactive Pattern doesn't need to work so hard. What ifs calls exiles. These are the vulnerable aspects most leaders do not want to look at. These are the vulnerable aspects I didn't want to look at for a really long time. They hold deep inadequacy feelings, rejection or abandonment experiences. Shame about who you are, terror about being exposed. Beliefs like I'm not enough, I'm unlovable, I don't matter. Ifs calls them exiles because the system has locked them away. Your protective patterns have been working for years to ensure that these vulnerable aspects never surface. I'd been working with these vulnerable aspects my entire career and have faced my own. Here's what I can tell you from personal experience. These vulnerable aspects leak. They leak when feedback touches an old wound. When success doesn't fill the expected void. Achievement doesn't create the anticipated wholeness. Certain situations echo childhood experiences. I'll give you an example from my own life. Early in my career, I worked incredibly hard building my friends practice. I achieved significant milestones, credentials, clients, the recognition. I remember this moment of profound emptiness after a major achievement. I had gotten something I had been working toward for years. Instead of feeling whole and validated, I felt nothing. Just empty. That's an exile leaking through. Whispering See, even this isn't enough to make you worthy. This is why leadership challenges are often connected to those vulnerable aspects. Consider a leader who micromanages everything probably has a vulnerable aspect, believing if I'm not in control, everything fails and falls apart and it's my fault. Imagine a leader who can't delegate probably has a vulnerable aspect. Learned I can only rely on me. Others will definitely let me down. Or picture a leader who works relentlessly probably has a vulnerable aspect that they're carrying. Such as my value is conditional on productivity. Your protective patterns have been guarding these vulnerable aspects. But that protection kept them frozen in time. Still believing these extreme things are true. The transformational work is helping these vulnerable aspects know they're not alone anymore. They they're safe. What happened then, it's not happening now. They're valuable not because of what they do, but because of who they are. This is unburdening. I've been calling it healing, integration, reconnection. Ifs calls it unburdening. I can tell you from my own ongoing work with my exiles. This is deep, tender and profound work. It's the work of connecting with the 7 year old who learned that love felt conditional on performance. Of letting her know she's valuable for just being of showing her that adult doctor Kira can protect herself. Now she doesn't have to protect herself anymore. Different language, same profound transformation. When vulnerable aspects are healed, protective patterns can relax. Reactive patterns can rest. Centered presence can lead. This is the deepest level of truth transformation. And trust me, I'm still practicing and working on this in my own life. So here you have it. The complete map through an IFS lens Managers proactive protective patterns Firefighters reactive protective patterns Exiles vulnerable aspects carrying wounds Self your centered presence which is capable of leaving all of them and you understand how each can show up in your leadership. And in mine. I discovered how IFS offers another powerful lens for understanding and explaining my receive perceive respond method. And I need you to know RPR isn't just another leadership method. It's how you practice Centered presence, leadership, self leadership and actual moments were protective patterns are activated. It's the practice that integrates everything. It helps you lead yourself so you can lead others. Internal awareness is critical for external impact. This is where multiple frameworks can converge and create a practical transformation. I'm bringing 25 years of practice, lived experience with my own ongoing internal work and sharing IFS language to come together so that you have something immediately to use. I hope this is helpful and I look forward to providing you more support as we navigate the way forward with connected leadership.