160 - The Different Parts Of Me w/ Jenna Riemersma

You're listening to the Pure Desire Podcast, your safe place to find hope, healing, and freedom from sexual addiction, betrayal, and relationship issues. Hello. Hello, people. I'm your host, Trevor Windsor, and you are listening to episode 160 of the Pure Desire podcast. Here joining me as always, is my co host, Nick Stumbo.

Hakuna matata. What a wonderful phrase. Hakuna matata. Ain't no passing craze. It's a problem for you. How long are you gonna let me go here? Philosophy. Hakuna matata. Oh, it means no worries. That's the key. That's why I used it. We'll get into that.

Got it. Okay. All right. Yeah. For anybody who's not subscribed to Disney, do it now. You'll get a discount. I'm just kidding.

Our new partner.

Yeah, right? Oh, my gosh. Okay. So, yes, I know what that's from. I'm not even gonna say it because I don't need to. Everyone knows. But the accent was. That's where I was like, are you gonna go deep? Are you gonna. I just wasn't sure. Okay. We had a really, really powerful episode today. But before we get into those, a couple quick things. Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast. You can get these into your. Your phone, your inbox, everything. Just make sure that you have subscribed to it and if you write a review, it helps other people find. Find the podcast. Second, follow us on social media, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We are earedesirepdmi. Then you can search our YouTube channel, Pure Desire Ministries, and see some of this content up there as well. Last thing, we are getting closer and closer to the Pure Desire Summit coming this fall. Our first ever Pure Desire Summit. And, you know, screw you, COVID 19. But at the same time, we are. That's a little less direct than I'd like to be. But we just want to present this event and we're working right now to try to figure out, hey, virtual Online, Is it going to be in person? We're working, we're working. We're trying to figure this out, but we're still going to have this event and we're really excited about it.

Yes. Remember Friday, September 11th, National Take, Friday, off day. Tell your boss, just get it on your calendar because you're going to want to be a part of the live virtual presentation of this summit. The reality for most of our listeners, they're spread across the country. Maybe not able to, you know, take off and buy a plane ticket. For those that are, you know we'll love to have you, but for most people, their best option is be a part of watching it virtually. And if you can join us live the day of, we're going to have that capability, but it will also be available the rest of the month of September. So we want to encourage you to get your virtual ticket and as much of it as you can see live. I think they'll be able to enter in more fully to the fun we have, some of the banter, the speakers, I mean, just it's really going to be a great time. So we're looking forward to it and we're working hard on a great weekend and hope that people will go online right now to that events page and sign up to join us.

Yes. So registration is open right now both in person if you feel comfortable at the current time we're operating that that may happen. And then also virtual tickets are available. Register@puredesire.org PD Summit. Okay. We talked to Jenna Reimersma today, and Jenna is the founder and clinical director of the Atlanta center for Relational Healing. She's on the teaching faculty for the International Institute of Trauma and Addiction Professionals, which is ITAP for some of our listeners who may not know. That's where we have our clinical certification through for our clinical team. And we base all of our resources, everything around that. And then she also, this is, she's just impressive. She has a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University. No big deal. A master's degree. Oh, another one in professional counseling from Richmond Graduate University. Oh, and she's a licensed professional counselor and a certified sex addiction therapist supervisor. So what's really cool is even though she has all those things we sat down and talked with her about, really something she's an expert in is that internal family systems and it's a therapy model that she will unpack. But she did it in a way that was really, really simple. It's dynamic, but simple and a little easier to understand.

Yeah, I think as our good friend Rodney Wright says, sometimes it's good to get kicked in the paradigm. And this is really a paradigm shifting kind of concept that she's going to introduce to us. And our connection to this concept and episode really comes through our founder, Dr. Ted Roberts, because over the last couple years I've just heard him talk more and more about the power of understanding our internal family systems and the way that it works to fuel addiction, to fuel all the parts of us that lead into the negative behaviors or the things that we wish we knew how to Stop. And this is just a perspective on those that is very different, I think, than most of us have really considered. So I know at first, for some of our listeners, this is going to sound different or out there, but stay engaged, because I think as you connect the dots, it's like there's a lot of wow moments. And you and I had them in the podcast. I was like, wow, that. That's me. And so just be open to these concepts. And, you know, the Hakuna Matata idea is just really. I think what many of us want in life is to figure out how to live without worries in terms of the fear and the angst and the stress and the ono. And this episode is actually going to help you understand why you respond the way you do and get into those parts of you that are so fueled by stress and anxiety. So maybe today will help you take a deep breath, see yourself a little differently, and move towards healing in a new way.

And I'm not just saying this. This is probably my favorite episode we've ever done. And so this is gonna be really, really good. And if you need to listen to it a couple times, do it. Enjoy the episode. Jenna, thank you for joining us today.

Thanks for having me. I'm really glad to be here.

We are thankful for the opportunity to do an episode with you. When Nick told me about, hey, we should do this episode with J. Jenna Reimersma, which I just pronounced that correctly. All of the listeners should clap and applaud me. Cause that make me feel good. He was like, hey, we should do this, and we should have this conversation. And I didn't really know much about this topic. And I'm really excited to jump into really. It's a therapy model that is called Internal Family Systems, or ifs. And so you have written a book. You are on the itap, right? You're on the ITAP team. Staff, Speaking staff. And so you get to spend a lot of time with a lot of clinicians and counselors and training them on this. And so we really want to talk about it, and we're excited about it. But before we kind of get into it, will you just introduce yourself to our listeners? Maybe they don't know much about you. They know itap. They understand we have some of that. But just tell us a little bit about what you do.

Yeah, I'd love to. Well, I'm Jenna, as you said, and I'm a therapist. I'm the clinical director at the Atlanta center for Relational Healing. And we're a practice that is a Faith based practice that focuses on sex addiction and betrayal trauma. And I'm part of the teaching faculty for itap. So I train folks from all over the world how to treat addiction and betrayal issues. And I'm a wife of 25 years and a mom of two young adult kiddos, and I get to spend my days helping people, whether it's through counseling, through speaking, writing, or teaching. Experience the grace, the healing, and the self compassion that is offered in the pages of scripture through the model of ifs. And it is exciting.

Yeah, I'm doing my PSAP training this year, which is a lot of fun and just tons of great stuff to learn be reminded of. And so I was introduced to internal family systems with Jenna not too long ago. And I do have to ask Jenna, did you ever consider calling it the Atlanta Relational center for Healing? So you could call it arch? Because the acronym just works. I'm trying to make an acronym here.

Thank you. Where were you when I was founding this center? I needed you on my marketing team.

Yeah, well, we'll work on that later. So in your new book, which we're excited to tell our listeners about, altogether, you, you focus on this topic of internal family systems. So I know this is probably something you get to do a lot, but give us the explanation, the overview of ifs, and then we'll walk into some of the details in the next questions.

I'd love to. So IFS is simple but enormously complex, and I think you'll understand that as we start to unpack it. But the idea behind IFS is. Is fairly revolutionary, and that is it proposes. And if you don't mind, I use some illustrations to make it easier to understand that we as human beings are not just one monolithic entity, but in fact, we are all created with many different parts.

In case you're listening on the podcast, Jenna is now holding up Russian nesting dolls and taking them apart, which is.

More of a reason to go subscribe to our YouTube channel right now.

Watch the YouTube because I use lots of tangible illustrations, but in my book Altogether you, I have taken the model of internal family systems and integrated it with our spiritual journey and our Christian faith to offer the transformational healing of IFS to readers of faith and to bring that to life in a very tangible way.

So in ifs, you're talking about these different parts that make up an individual, which I know for some of our listeners may sound kind of New Agey or like mystical. Like, I just, I think that there are some of our listeners that come from a Pretty traditional church background. And it's like, what Science. We don't talk about science. Like psychology. We don't talk about psychology. So let's kind of break it down a little bit for those parts maybe, so people can understand. So what are these different parts that we see that IFS tells us about?

Yes, I'd love to. And if I can just. Just say me too, on the group that thinks this sounds a little fruity to talk about having parts. When I was first exposed to it, I thought, what kind of psychobabble? Nonsense.

Yes.

But then I realized that we intrinsically understand this because without ever being exposed to ifs, we speak this way. So, for example, one of the principles of IFS is that at our core, we have a core self. In the book, I explain that as our core God image within, or the imago dei. But in the I'm looking down here for those who can see I have a little heart that I'm holding up. And it's as if that's at our core. It's the fingerprint of God that we're told about in Genesis 1, where we're created in the image of God. And sometimes we get up and we say, you know, I'm just not myself today. I just feel off. I'm not in that centered, core divine place. Or we might say, you know, I have this committee in my head. These parts are all talking to me. Or we might say something like, you know, a part of me wants to eat all the Oreo cookies, but another part of me really thinks I should just have one and then go to the gym. So we intuitively understand that we have parts. And as we. As we embrace that, it helps us to make much more sense of our own experience. But ifs, as I said, really articulates that at our core, we have this foundational self, which is the God image. And basically, that would be the part of us that carries the divine essence. This is our authentic spiritual connection with God. And it carries the Galatians 5, fruit of the Spirit, the qualities that Christ walked around exemplifying. And when we have those deep moments of connection with the divine or that mountaintop felt experience, we are fully in this God image and all of our other parts have stepped back. But I don't know if you're like me and you ever read the scripture where it said, well, if you just stay connected to the vine, you will overflow with this fruit of the Spirit. It will just poof right on out of you. And I always thought maybe it poofs out of you. But it doesn't just poof out of me. I have to work kind of hard for that. I don't just walk around overflowing with Galatians 5. And even Paul said that. Paul talked about warring parts. He said, oh, what a wretched man am I. I do not do what I want to do. I do what I don't want to do, and then I don't do what I do want to do. And ah, and that's kind of biblical ease for ifs. And in fact, when you look at the blueprint of our creation, we're made in the image of God, right? And we serve one God with three parts, and he placed us in one body with many parts. So it would make sense, if I'm created in the image of God, that I'm one human with many parts. And in fact, what we discover is, is that we have this core essence and many unique good parts that make up our unique personality. So one person may have a creative part and another person may have a humorous part, and a third person might have an organized part. And those are all good parts of us in good roles. When we need them, they take us over, they fulfill the need that we have, and then they step back. And that's kind of, if you will, what life was like in the Garden of Eden. But unfortunately, post evil in the world, our parts get burdened with pain and trauma because evil enters the world and bad stuff happens to us. It can be bad stuff like natural disasters or mass shootings or Covid or 9, 11. Or it could be sexual abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse, neglect, abandonment, enmeshment, bullying. There's all different ways that we become burdened with pain. And what happens is, at the time that we experience that pain, our parts become burdened and they get frozen in the time of that pain with the burden. And I'm holding up a skeleton of a little dinosaur to represent shame because this is a key exile. And we call these parts of us exiles for the obvious reason that we want to exile them. We don't like to feel them. And key exiles could be shame, like this dinosaur, or maybe loneliness, like this little plastic wolf who's all alone, howling at the moon, feeling like nobody's here with me. I'm just all alone. It may be I've got a little turtle here. I'm slow and I'm stupid and I don't do it right. I can't keep up. I'm not good enough. There's a lot of different exiles that we have and they get frozen in time at the age when that negative experience happens. We may have been bullied in middle school and have an exile that feels shame and alone. And we may now be a 45 or 50 year old human and we walk into a boardroom for a meeting of new colleagues that we don't know and that reminds us of that middle school playground and all of a sudden we get flooded with shame and not good enough feelings and we lose access to our core God self. Not because it's gone anywhere, but because our exiles have taken us over and we get flooded with their feelings and their emotions and we can't tolerate that for very long. So we develop the other two parts of us, the two types of parts. Those parts are in a category called protectors because their job is to protect us from pain. But they just have two different ways of going about doing it. One group of protectors that we call the managers are proactive, which means they try to prevent the pain of our exiles from happening. So those are things like doing it perfectly. I'm holding up a little sunshine for our listeners without video and I just am going to do everything perfectly and I'm going to be an over achiever and I'm just gonna have perfectionism or it could be something like denial. I have here a little happy guy with goofy hair. So I'm just not gonna acknowledge that those painful things exist so I don't have to feel them. Right. We're fine. Everything's fine. I like to give this the word plastic fantastic.

That's good.

We do this a lot in church where you have had a fight in the car and you pull up and people say, oh, how are you? And you say, I am fine. We are fine. We are so fine. How are you? You're fine. That's great. Bless you. Romans 8:28. Let's go. Okay. It might be intellectualizing. If I just can understand everything and get that information. I'm going to listen to that podcast, I'm going to understand nutrition and then I'll lose weight or if I can just figure out sex addiction, then I won't struggle. Maybe it's controlled. I've got a pair of binoculars. If I'm just going to get up in your business and know what you're doing in control, that way you can't hurt me and nothing will surprise me. And those of us who spend a lot of time in church. This is a very high tech visual prop. I've put two little pens together to make a cross. We get spiritualizer parts. And this is really an important distinction. I talk a lot about our spiritualizer parts in the book because they masquerade as the real deal.

Yes.

And they do it very effectively. And I think this right here is where we get sideways in our healing many times. Because the spiritualizer part, remember, it's not our core self. It is a burdened part trying to keep us away from pain. And so it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but it is not a duck. It is not our authentic core connection to the divine. It says all the scripture verses, it volunteers, it serves in the nursery and teaches vbs and evangelizes and all of the things. But its goal is to never feel those messy feelings. So if I should have the feeling of fear, let's say this part will jump up and say, you know, perfect love casts out all fear. And if you would just get a little closer to perfect love, which is Jesus, and he's over there. You just get through that pile of sin over to Jesus, you won't feel that fear. Yeah, okay. Now that's because it's not because this is a bad part. It's because it's working very hard with God language, keep me away from pain, which is the reverse of what the core divine within me does. Because if you'll remember, Jesus came into the world and moved toward the pain. And that's what our core divine does. It moves toward it to heal it. Our burdened parts move against. That is a key difference. And you know it when you're sitting across from it. You know the difference between sitting across from someone who is going to move against your real struggle with spiritual language versus someone who is going to move towards you with compassion and with curiosity and with grace.

Jenna, can I ask a question on that? So, because I think that it's easy to. For me, I'm seeing, I've seen that or experienced that externally that people use that language. But then also that happens in me internally where I do this spiritual bypass or I do this Jesus juke or what people call it, like I over spiritualize it to then avoid the pain and suffering is one of those ones where it's like, oh, God just must be training me or developing me. Another one is I'm not married yet because God hasn't grown me to the place that I need to get before. I like those kind of messages that I don't know if anyone has ever straight up said those to me, but yet I still say those to myself. And Internalize those. So it can. Am I right? It can both happen externally and internally.

Exactly. Because these parts speak not only to our other parts, they also speak to other people.

Wow.

And so we're going to talk about a little bit later, once we understand the model, how knowing that can really help us be much more effective. Instead of speaking from these parts, we can actually speak for them. And it's a much more transformative experience. So, yes, that's a key one. We'll come back to that. The last manager I want to talk about is a big one. It's the internal critic. And it likes to jump up and boink us over the head and yell at us with how bad we are and why didn't we do it better? And you're so fat and dumb and ugly and what? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So now when the strategies of those manager parts don't work and we do wind up feeling the pain. So for example, if my perfectionist people pleasing part drops the ball and makes a mistake, or I please you so much that now you're just taking advantage of me, and now I again feel the aloneness and the unseen ness that started the behavior of that part. Then our reactive protectors come in and we call those guys the firefighters. These are the ones everybody hates. And they're the ones that come into my office all the time. And I love these parts because the key insight of IFS is that there are no bad parts. Let me say that again. A key insight of IFS is that there are no bad parts, only good parts stuck in bad roles because of trauma. And that's why I can work with addiction, suicidal ideation, self harm, eating all day long, because I understand that these are good parts stuck in bad roles. So what happens is if I get flooded with shame or a feeling of being all alone and unchosen or stupid and broken, I may have a firefighter that jumps up, that is sex addiction, and it goes and looks at porn or acts out with prostitutes or has an affair to try to heal that pain in me, to make me feel better. And notice an important insight about these protector parts is that at 100% of the time, they do make the pain better at first and 100% of the time they make it worse later on. And that is a huge insight because that's also true of my spiritualizer as well as my sex addiction. And so that's a key piece. Another firefighter is rage. And I've got this little angry, spiky guy here, Rage, blame shifting, gaslighting, this would be the part that jumps up. Let's say the spouse has discovered the porn and now the person acting out is flooded with shame, and they get a rage part that jumps up and says, you know, this is all your fault. If you were more beautiful or sexual or if you didn't nag me so much, I wouldn't have to. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, now this is a good, sweet, wonderful part. It's stuck in a bad role, but it's trying to scare away the thing that is activating its shame, which in the moment is the spouse. Okay. It's not helpful. Right. But it may get the spouse to go away for a minute, and so it is successful, and it will keep doing that. Okay, Another firefighter is eating. Okay. Either overeating under eating, self harm. So this also could be suicidal ideation. Cutting. I got a little shark here. Homicidal ideation, which lots of our partners have. Passive homicidal ideation. Or how about this one? Dissociation. I'm gonna go numb and blank. I'm gonna check out on Facebook or Netflix for, like, days or sleep all day long. I'm just gonna. Or I just. I like. My thinking brain goes offline.

Yeah.

This is a firefighter that is. And this is one that is powerful. It takes me out of my body, and it. This is a really resilient firefighter because these firefighters usually develop when we're very, very young and something dangerous or scary is happening and we don't have the power to leave. And so these resourceful firefighters, these parts become burdened with dissociation, which basically rescues me. It takes me out of my body when my body can't flee. And dissociation is a powerful firefighter, and it works, but it, of course, like all of our protectors, it helps in the short run and hurts in the long run. So that's a really quick overview of the parts. Like I said, it's simple. We have a core self or the divine image within us. We have exiles that carry our pain and protectors that try to stop the pain. It's just really three things to understand. But our burdened parts function in many different ways. And that knowing that who we are is the God image within us, that is always there 100% of the time, that we are not our burdened parts. Those are good parts of us, some stuck in bad roles. And rather than moving against them, which is what we do in so many faith communities, families, therapy settings, pastoral settings, we actually want to allow that God image within us to Move toward them to be able to heal them. That is a radical game changer. It turns everything upside down on its head, which, last time I checked, is exactly what Jesus did when he showed up on the scene.

Yeah.

Seriously, this is so good, Jenna. You need to write a book on this.

Yeah.

Oh, wait, she did. Yeah. I just find, like, I did when I heard it at psap. Like, I feel like I could listen to this all day because there are so many connection points just going, oh, oh, oh, yeah, that guy. Okay, I know him.

Yeah. Like, every single one of the mana and firefighters you brought up. I'm like, me, me, me. Can we just go back to the shark? I want to talk about the shark for a minute. No, let's go back to the eraser. Let's like.

And by the way, after this, you also need to host a webinar on how to choose really great toys and props to illustrate your talk.

You are an expert.

That's awesome.

This is the Walmart 10 for $10 special.

There you go.

Highly recommend it. I really invested in my props.

That master class is coming to you very soon.

Yeah. So I know, like us, for a lot of our listeners, they're probably starting to think through their history, the way they respond to pain, and they're trying to identify their parts. So talk about that a little bit. How can someone go about identifying the parts that make up their internal family system? And is this something they can enter into on their own? Or should it only be done, like, with a counselor who's trained deeply in this subject matter?

Well, great news. You do not have to wait for a counselor to do this work. And that's part of the reason I wrote the book. Because while those of us that are trained as IFS therapists can be extremely helpful to your journey.

Absolutely.

If you have a lot of childhood trauma, and many of us do, you really will want to connect with a therapist to help you with that at some point. And ifs is a powerful way to take do that healing trauma work, but there are not enough of us to go around. And so part of why I wrote the book was because so many people were coming and needing ifs therapy. I wanted to create a way that people of faith could access this content and begin to utilize it without having to do anything more than purchase a book. And in the book, I have interactive exercises, worksheets. On my website, I have free downloadables. I have free videos for how this works with sex addiction and betrayal trauma. I want to do what I can do to help bring this to people as effectively and quickly as possible so that people can use it today, right this minute, in their own lives. And it's so powerful.

Gosh, I like. This is so good. This is so good. Okay, so let's keep going. How can. And like, we're right now coming out of. Some of our states, are coming out of the pandemic at the time of this recording. And by the time that this gets released, we may actually be in, you know, everyone in phase three, or however many phases there are going to be.

Or headed backwards.

Yeah.

Or headed backwards. Who knows? But. But how can knowledge, which I definitely see how this would help. But how can the knowledge of ifs help us in the middle of stressful, uncertain times, like a pandemic, like the racial injustice and everything that's going on in our culture? How can understanding ifs help us manage those?

Oh, it's a great question because. And I will say, just as a caveat, there's a huge difference, and I think we all know this. This is true in our faith journey, and it's also true with ifs. There's a huge difference between knowing about God or knowing about our parts and experiencing God and experiencing our parts. And so there's a. It is important to know about our parts, but it is a completely different thing to experience them. So I will say that for today, we're going to be knowing about our parts, but I would really invite you to experience it interactively because it's a game changer. But maybe to illustrate, let me give an example. So we have our core God image that's present in us all the time and is undamaged and is always filled with the fruit of the spirit. And when we experience something like pandemic or race riots or racial trauma and injustice, things that are incredibly traumatic and that create a fight, flight, or freeze response. So, for example, in Covid, we are faced with something against which we are largely powerless.

Yeah.

And we are stuck in a freeze response because we're on lockdown, essentially, currently with COVID And so that is very similar to what happens to us in most of our trauma. Let's say that someone is a child growing up in a home with addiction or abuse or neglect. That is a powerlessness in which they are frozen. Right. So this is going to activate all of our exiles that feel powerless, that feel alone, that feel helpless and broken. And so when our exiles are activated, if we don't know how to use our core self to heal them, we will have managers and firefighters jump up and so what we're seeing in Covid is that a lot of porn use is escalating. People are acting out sexually like crazy. Well, of course they are, because they're trying to help their exiles. People are eating. Just saying, hypothetically that some people might.

Oh, gosh, I'd have to raise my hand for that one too. 100%, yes.

Not that I know anything about this personally, but I'm just Saying the quarantine 15 is a real thing. Okay, so we're eating to try to numb that pain. Lots and lots of people, I don't have any alcohol, but I got a water bottle are drinking. Right. And so when we do that, the next day, what do we tend to do after this acting out part settles down? We tend to show up with either our internal critic or our spiritualizer or both. And we do this. What the heck were you thinking? How could you do that again? What's the matter with you? You need to repent and nail it to the cross. That is, I can't imagine. What do you mean? You had a blackout? Your kids are seeing this. Are you kidding me? You ate the whole bag of Oreos. And we start shaming ourselves and criticizing ourselves, and all we're doing is engaging in a war of parts, right? And so these parts are spiritualizing parts, or our internal criticism, they take over and they say, you need to repent. What we're going to do now is we're going to take these scriptures to the bathroom mirror and we're going to repeat the name of Jesus. And the internal critic says, I am only eating lettuce for the next six months because you're horrible at fat slob. Right? And so then that lasts for however long, three hours or three days, three minutes, it's just keeping it real. And then here comes the porn and the alcohol and you know how this goes. And then we feel despair, which is in exile. And now the pain of the exile is worse. And when the pain of the exile is worse, the behavior of the protectors escalates. And so we're trapped in this hopeless cycle of more pain, more acting out, more shame. More acting out, more shame.

Wow.

That's a move against cycle. And when people finally become desperate enough, they will reach out. And often what happens is they call someone for help who may not understand this internal battle of the parts and in a very well intentioned way is going to align with their internal manager. You really need to stop it, okay? Stop it. Stop acting out. Stop looking at that. Stop drinking that wine. You need to Go on a diet, right? And we align with this battle. And meanwhile, these parts are like, hey, I don't think you understand what I'm trying to do here. There's a lot of pain that's unaddressed, and I have to do this. And they may go underground for a while, and then they'll come bursting back out when the pain gets too great because we're ignoring their positive intent. And so rather than move against like I promised, I'm gonna flip the world upside down. Jesus comes in and says, my ways are not your ways, and our ways as humans is move against. And Jesus says, no, no, no, no. How about if we move toward. How about. Let's pick one? How about the porn one? Jesus says, hold on there, critic. Hold on there, spiritualizer. Do you mind? Just. Let's give a minute. And we get a little bit of access to this curious, compassionate, connected core self. And we might get curious with this part and say, hey, bud. Okay, Part of me that wants to use porn when I'm in pain or shame. Wow. Okay. Thanks for trying to help me. Where did you learn to help me like this? And now instantly, we may get a memory of when I was 5 years old and mom and dad were screaming, and the only thing that could bring me comfort was touching myself. Oh, so you've been trying to help me avoid pain since I was five years old, Is that right? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Now I have compassion for this part of me and how hard it's trying to work. And the beautiful thing that I've learned after doing this for years is that these burden parts never want to be doing the job that they're doing. Wow. They feel like they have to because they feel like they're all alone and trying to help the person survive pain. And when we ask these parts, literally, if you didn't have to worry about the pain, what would you rather be doing instead? The part will almost always give us the impression of something like the reverse of what it's doing. So a part that's acting out with porn when it is unburdened or when we do that trauma work oftentimes would much rather be working on intimacy in the marriage and bringing intimate sensuality to the primary relationship. And so the beautiful thing that I get to say and know when someone comes to work with me is that, hey, this is not who you are. This is a really good part of you. And if we could free that part from its trauma, it actually is here to help you in way some in beautiful ways. So we Want to move toward it, not against.

Yeah, yeah, there are. There are no bad parts. I remember for me in my journey, I feel like a major turning point. And I was actually working with a counselor here at Pure Desire and doing an exercise lesson out of one of the Karns, you know, workbooks and writing about my addicted teenage self. And it was all, you know, against shame and what was wrong with me, and how could you do that again? And shame on you. You knew better. And as I read that response, my counselor just kind of paused and said, you know, Nick, have you ever thought that that teenage part of you was trying to help you and was doing something for you? And I mean, really at that time, this is 10 years ago, I had never considered that there was a healthy part of me underneath that negative behavior that was actually just trying to figure out how to feel something, how to feel like I was valued, that I was special, that I was worthwhile. And so it ran to pornography. And it helped and I survived. But he even went as far to say, have you ever thought about thanking that part of you for the work it did in helping you? But then saying, we're finding better ways now to manage that pain, so thank you for your help, but I don't think we're going to need that. And just that idea of moving towards myself and in compassion was like that. It initially felt so weird, but. But was so healing in my journey as well.

Well, and I, like, right now, I can. I can tell you that with everything that going on with COVID me and my wife just had our second son and we've got a three year old in the house. Anger or rage is something that happens. And I can, like, I'm gonna try to not get emotional, but, like, I get so angry and then immediately feel so much shame, like, what are you doing? He's a three year old. He's acting like a three year old. Of course he wants to play the Nintendo WWII for the 18th time today, even though you want to sit down and just watch something. Of course. But that idea of. And that's what I'm just. What I'm hearing right now, is that I need to start asking that part of me questions. I need to start having a relationship with that part instead of just really, it's spiritualizing is what I'm doing, or getting super critical. And we had a conversation in a previous podcast where you try to not be your parents, and in trying to not be your parents, you become them. I had parents that were critical at some seasons in My life, and I don't want to be that. And then I get upset at my kid, and then I spiritualize it, and I end up being critical on myself, which then leads to me being more critical on my kid. My life's going to be different after this episode. We could end right now. This would be awesome.

So, Jen, you raise a really good point, Trevor, and I love that because a lot of these parts, like spiritualizing parts, angry, raging parts, we have an inherited burden. These are burdened parts that we have inherited generationally. They're not bad parts. These are parts that are trying really hard to help us with pain. And they have learned how to do that somewhere. And usually they learn how to do that pretty early. And it can be especially touchy to work with our spiritualizing part. We can be very defended against that because many of us come from homes and faith communities where this is how what we learned faith was. And so it can be really scary to look at that and look at the difference between a spiritualizing shaming move against part and the actual divine image within.

So, Jenna, let's go back to that aspect of your book, because you said a lot of your book is applying internal family systems to our faith journey and following Christ. And so I can maybe hear a question some of our listeners are trying to wrestle with, like, well, how does this work within a fallen world, original sin? Like, how do you incorporate that into this model? So talk through that aspect a little bit.

Absolutely. So we talked already about how this is the image, the core of who we are is the image of God within us. And that before the fall or before sin entered the world, that we had all parts, we all have many different parts, and they were all unburdened. So this is a key theological point because this is where the fundamental depravity of man comes in. And not to get too hermeneutical and theological, but I think that many of us have a very simplistic understanding of that. We have this monolithic understanding. I am one large person. And so if I'm fundamentally depraved, that means I, as a singular entity am bad. I'm bad to the bone. And God is just barely putting up with me because Jesus was really great, but really I'm just a horrible, awful person at my core. Okay, ifs is pretty revolutionary because when I believe that I can't access self compassion, all I can access is shame and a sense of brokenness, which is us trying to make our ways God's ways in many ways, because that's A very human coping style. But the reality is, if this is truly the image of God at our core, it cannot be broken or flawed. It is the reflection of the divine. So by its definition it is untarnished. The parts of us that carry the burden of sin are the parts that we see emerging in the garden story immediately when sin entered the picture. So let's go back. Whether you interpret that story literally or metaphorically, immediately parts became burdened. We had shame, we had not good enough. We had alone and we had protectors that jumped up, hiding, blame shifting. When me, it was her. When me, it was him, it was that snake God, it was you, you gave me that one. That's pretty bad. When my first burden part starts to blame God for what I did wrong, like this is hardcore blame shifting stuff. And immediately we see that the burden of sin burdened our parts. It did not burden the God image within us. That's why we can know from the pages of scripture what can separate me from the love of God. Neither height, nor depth, nor angels, nor demons, nor nada lalala. It's because it's hardwired in me. It's at my core like an apple core. It's not like God's gonna leave and go out and get a sandwich. This is who I am. And my parts carry the burden of sin. And as a result, they do separate me from God. The God image inside of me, they take me over and lock me down. So we have a very different conceptualization of it. We tend to think God's over there and I'm over here and I'm really, really bad, bad to the bone and God's really, really good. And it's my job to kind of get on over there through my pile of sin over to get under the shadow of his wings so that I can somehow like, you know, connect to the divine. It's the reverse. God isn't over there. God's in here, in me and in you, and in everyone that we encounter. And the separating from God is not something between me and him outside. It's my burdened parts that don't trust the God image in me and are taking over, trying to run the show on his behalf. So the answer is, is not striving. Although that's what my spiritualizing part thinks. Answer is surrender. It is compassion for those parts. So they relax and as they surrender, all of a sudden I get access to the God image within me. And it's not an efforting process at all. This is where the scripture that if you Remain in the vine. It will poof flow out of you. That's how the poof happens.

Through surrender. Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that.

And I mean, I'm loving how this is flowing because I think that so many. I'll just speak for me. I know it's true for so many, but I know for me, grow up in the church and if you want to solve a problem, you read the Bible more. You memorize scripture like you said. You put verses up on the mirror or you, you know, listen to podcasts on your way to work, whatever it may be. This whole pray away, love Jesus more. Read your Bible more approach. Nick has been using this language a lot too. That it's spiritual bypass is what's happening. So how can we avoid that approach but still embrace the healing work of Christ through ifs?

That is such an important question and one of the main reasons I wrote the book, because that distinction is so important and we don't have. At least I've never experienced in any of the faith communities I've been in any tools to differentiate between a spiritualizing part that is saying good things and that core divine where those good things actually take root and I can experience their healing power. So there is nothing wrong or bad about praying the name of Jesus or quoting scripture or connecting to the word of God? Absolutely not. But there's a huge difference. And you know it and I know it internally. When we're in this place, that core imago dei, it feels like this. And for our listeners who can't see me. Have you ever been in a worship setting where you're just like this, like your hands in the air? And I think this is the reason that we often start with music, because all of our parts relax. There's nothing threatening in the music. So our parts relax and we have more ability to connect with this. And that's why we raise our hands and there's this sense of flow. It is a wordless, energetic connection to the God image. And we feel peaceful, we feel energized, we feel loving, we feel seen. We do not feel shame, rejection, not good enough, broken, any of that. And so out of that place, we gravitate with love toward the healing power of God, the healing powerful words of scripture, the name of Jesus as an overflow. Same things coming from my spiritualizer have the opposite effect. Okay, so remember, my spiritualizer is a really good part. It's trying so hard to make me pleasing to God so that I won't go to hell or get zapped by A lightning bolt, which is what most of us, many of us who have spiritualizing parts, we fear that we would never say that, but that's what this part really believes. If I don't do it right, God's going to be going to sully my testimony. Or like I'm going to make God's name bad if I screw it up, which we're all doing all the time. If you're anything like me, the spiritualizing part has a reverse energy and this is how we can know the difference. This part, which is a burdened part, trying to avoid pain and get me closer to God by efforting. It's going to have an agenda, it's going to have a judgment, it's going to have shame. It's going to say things like, you should. I should. It's going to. It's going to have a move against feeling. And the minute I feel move against, my exiles get activated and I get defended, right? Or I go into my shame spiral. You know what this energy is internally or when you're sitting across from it in another person and it's deadly. And this is why Jesus says, hey guys, let me just tell you this whole honkin niv study Bible thing that you carry around and could probably kill somebody with. I can boil this down. Cliff Notes. One word, one word love. And if you ask most secular people what is your impression of Christians, the one word that they give is hate. How do we understand that? Because in my divine God image, I cannot help but overflow with love. It is not a choice. It simply occurs because it's a reflection of who God is in me. My spiritualizer part is saying the same words and trying to effort through the same action and it's going to have the reverse effect. And so if you're across from my spiritualizer, you will feel shame, you will feel judged, and you will feel hated. And your instinct is going to be to cover up and either put on the plastic fantastic and hide all of the parts of you that are doing things that my spiritualizer won't approve of. Or, or you're going to buck up against it and attack me. But this is the reverse of the energy of Christ. That's the difference between a Pharisee and Jesus. That's why my pastor says people who were nothing like Jesus liked Jesus because there's none of that shaming move against energy in him. He moves towards the woman in adultery and says, oh sweet one, like, I get it. I understand why this part of you is there. You're trying to find you're trying to be chosen and find significance and worth. I don't condemn you, sweet one. No, I love you. I see you. This encounter with me is healing now, sweet one, go and sin no more. I love you. It's a move toward energy. It conveys love. My spiritualizer conveys hate.

Yeah. So interesting to see that when we're not in touch with that, the image of God, you know, that. That true, unburdened self. The very things we're attempting to do get. Get flipped around and really have the opposite effect. I think almost what you're describing, like in an attempt to protect and love our family, we may end up in anger and rage because we don't see that it's the same message, that we're just driving against it rather than moving towards it. And I think you're really opening some eyes here, Jenna, and so thank you for that. A lot of our listeners are in a group of. Of some kind, whether with pure desire or someone else. They're in a healing journey. They're processing this with other people. So most of what we've talked about so far with IFS is kind of my internal parts and dialogue and figuring it out, what does this look like to do in community, and what impact would ifs have in my relationship with others or in my journey of going through a group, like a pure desire group?

Oh, that's so good. I'm so glad you asked, because it has a huge impact, not only on my relationship with myself, but our relationship with each other and then our relationship with God, of course. And then in the book at the end, I talk about how this also affects us, group to group. There's nothing that IFS doesn't transform, because isn't that true of the love of God? There's nothing that it doesn't transform. So in a group setting, there's a couple of ways that this can be super effective, more than a couple. But for the sake of the time that we have, number one, I would say one of the primary takeaways that we can invite people to, whether on their own or in a group setting, is principle number one of IFS is take a U turn. Okay? Take a U turn. What does that mean? That means when that person over there does something wonky that's getting on my nerves, or that person over there starts crying and I start needing to rescue them, instead of directing my energy at what, let's say my beloved is doing, that's. That's really driving me crazy. Or that group member is Doing that, I feel like I need to caretake or rescue or give advice to or whatever rather than letting that part take me over and start acting from it. I take a U turn and I ask the magic question, what's coming up in me? Okay, so maybe there's a group member who starts crying. And when I was a little kid, let's say I grew up in, let's say, an alcoholic home. So I have a lot of fear around big emotions. And so I'm trying to find a part here that could be a rescuer part. Let's pretend this is my rescuer, okay? So the minute somebody starts to have a big emotion, I get flooded with fear. My fear exile. And my rescuer jumps in. Because let's say when I was a kid, I learned to jump in and make mom feel better so she wouldn't drink, and then I wouldn't be in danger. Now I want to do that to you, and so I'm going to hand you a Kleenex, pat you on the thing, and offer you a platitude or some advice. Okay, that now makes the group a very unsafe place, doesn't it? Because now you're being judged and your pain is not welcome. So how this can be transformational is that in every interaction, if we all in the group take a U turn and get curious about the parts of us that are getting activated in the conversation, now I've got something to work with. Now I can get curious about the part of me that learned how to rescue other people rather than focusing on my own pain. And if I do that and that part steps back, maybe I can even connect with my fear and I can bring some compassion to why I'm so afraid when big emotions jump up. So take a U turn is number one. The second principle that can be transformational anywhere, but especially in groups, is speak for not from. Speak for not from. What do I mean by that? Okay, let's take the same example. Group member starts crying. My fear exile gets flooded. My rescuer jumps up. If I speak from my rescuer, I'm going to say, oh, Susie Q, you know what? At least your husband is only looking at pornography. Or, you know what? Praise Jesus. God will only give you as much as you can handle. That's a different one. God is only going to give you as much as you can handle, so he must think you're really super strong. Okay, that's me speaking from this part. It's like this part has taken me over and it is speaking through my mouth. Notice how different it is if I have this much awareness to simply say, oh, my goodness, Susie, I am becoming aware that when you started crying, a part of me that feels fear around big emotions jumped up. Because when my mom would start crying, that would start the drinking. And then I have this other part of me that wants to jump up and spiritualize your struggle because that could help me avoid feeling my fear. Now I've just spoken for my parts or on behalf of those parts from myself, and now I can represent them well and they calm down. It also helps everyone to connect with my felt experience. But I'm not getting offline, giving you advice or trying to shut you down from your pain. You're allowed to have your pain and I can have mine. Notice how powerful that is. Notice in a marital conflict how powerful that would be, Sweetheart, A part of me, when I see you shut your laptop quickly when I walk in the room, feels terrified because in the past, that has meant you were acting out again. One part of me wants to just ignore it and walk away and pretend like I never saw it. And another part of me wants to hit you. Right.

Yeah.

And so would you be willing to share with me what parts are coming up in you? Okay. Whoo. Transformational, right?

Speak for not so good.

I've been. I love that because I've been saying that for years now. My experience in ministry, I learning kind of jumping into suffering and our attempts as really, as loving Christians who genuinely want to help, we mess up the coming alongside and helping and really just being present with people because it actually makes us uncomfortable. Like, if you could just hurry up and get over what you're going through, then I don't have to feel like I'm carrying that burden too. So if you could just hurry up and get better, that'd be awesome. And that's why we jump in and minimize or moralize so often. And so what I love about this is that you're actually giving really good language and a system that helps us think through that. And so that's just. That's so good. That's so good. Okay, so I'm gonna go buy a copy of your book. I mean, I have one of the, you know, pre read versions, but I'm definitely going to go buy one. But why don't you tell our listeners more about the book? What inspired you to write it?

Yes, that's a funny story, actually. So three years ago, I have a tendency, I get up pretty early, before or five o' clock most mornings, and I. Because the world is quiet And I get my Bible and my dog and my coffee in the fire, and I sit with the Lord. And about three years ago one morning, I did that. And there was this strong, like, physical pull in my gut. And I don't often have supernatural encounters with the Lord, but you know, on the occasion when that happens and you're like, that's God. And it was clear to me this was God pulling me, calling me to do something. So I thought, oh good, I'll Samuel this. So I'm like, speak, Lord, your servant is listening. And I got nothing, zippo, nada. And I'm like, well, that's frustrating. So I came back the next day, same pull. Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. Nothing. Goose egg. So I did this every day for a year. And I was getting pretty aggravated with God at this point, so I got out a notepad and I started. I decided I was going to help God out. And I would just write down all the ideas that I had about what he might be calling me to and then do a pro con list and then he could choose from among that list. And so I had about 10 or 15 pages, most of which were business related because I have a background. And on the very last page, for some reason, I wrote down the word Martina Luther, like, ha ha ha, like the female version of Martin Luther bringing a revolutionary message to the church. And I put a big X on it. And I said, God, that's the one thing I will not do. And right after that, I was introduced to internal family systems, and it was very clear. God was asking me to write a book. And he and I have this awesome, scrappy relationship. I said, no, I am not an author. And he said, I don't care. I said, I am not. I don't even know people who are authors. And he said, I don't care. I said, I wasn't even an English major, God. And he said, I don't care. So I wrote the book and here we are.

That's awesome.

Well, if, if the book contains even a fragment of what we're hearing today, I know it'll be valuable to people. And it. So in, in addition to everything you've already shared, are there any other, you know, as people think about, well, why would I read the book? Are there other, you know, major teachings or takeaways that you think someone will get that we haven't had a chance to talk about yet today that you would say, hey, here's something you're really going to be able to see or experience and why it's something they need to check out?

Oh, absolutely. And I wish we had all day. There's so much. But I've done some other podcasts, so you can look on my website if you're interested in those topics.

It's very good, by the way, like.

Race relations or political issues. Because the beautiful truth of internal family systems is that not only do we have internal family systems within ourselves, so knowing this helps us us to relate to ourselves more effectively and to God more effectively, but knowing this exists in other people transforms our interpersonal relationships, marriages, sibling relationships, parenting, boss, everything. It's totally transformational in interpersonal relationships, but it also, these systems work in groups. So, for example, we have racial exiles that an entire race carries from slavery. And as a result, we have burdened parts that are protectors of denial, of aggression in our culture, in our political parties, because our systems, our groups, have the same parts that we do. And so if we want to understand how to better engage in race relations, how to work with our parts that have denial, if we're part of white privilege or that want to avoid, that's a burdened part. We have to look at the shame behind those and not move against it. Because when we do that, we tend to get in the conversation just as long as it's in the headlines, and then we drop off again. But to actually have compassion for our avoidance, denial, and shame so that we can access the God image within us, that the God image within us is always in connection. So it's never me against you or us against them. It's always we. And so I enter in best to my political discourse, to my pta, to my race relations, when I'm in self and not in a burdened part. So literally, and in the book, I take you through each of these, there is no aspect of life or living anywhere that ifs does not radically transform.

Yeah, I mean, that's. Then there's the sales pitch. Go get the book and dive into ifs. Change your life.

Well, it just occurs to me that, you know, that's so much of the message at Pure Desire is, you know, we're not just looking to change behavior. We're really looking to change the way we do life. Because the behavior is a byproduct of the deeper stuff going on in our life. And if we can be a healthier version of us in our marriages, in our families, in our community communities, like, that's the greatest gift we bring isn't just, oh, I stopped looking at pornography. Like, that doesn't have a huge impact on my marriage or community, it's that I'm in, I'm self aware, I'm in touch with what's going on. I'm aware of what creates rage or shame or anger. And rather than bringing those parts and just kind of letting them wreak havoc in my life and community, I more often than not try to come in with that God image. Just like I don't have anything to defend here. I'm just trying to look how I can move towards and that's not easy to do. I'm not saying I've mastered that or even come close, but it's that perspective of wow, I can see how my journey of health and recovery now is going to make an impact everywhere I go because the person I'm bringing into the room is changing. And that's ultimately what we want. We don't just want one less bad behavior on our list. We want a transformation of life. And as you've said so well today, Jenna, that's what you Jesus came to do, not just stop our bad behaviors. He came to transform our lives and our communities. And we all want to be a part of that.

And I just, it's something that I think so many people want transformation and want change, but don't really know where to start. And so when we have a system or a model that puts handles on that for us, those things become invaluable because now I can better understand, yes, myself, but how God views me and then how he views everyone else and how I should be viewing them. And so I think that there's just so much power and I'm so glad we had this, this episode because I just, I see even more. I assumed there was tons of, you know, credibility and value to it, don't get me wrong. But I just see how personally it can, it can be really helpful for me. And so I'm really excited for our listeners and for people who are going to really press in. So Jenna, if people want more information about your work or want to grab a copy of your book, where should we send them?

Oh, that's kind of you to ask. So the book is called Altogether you Experiencing Personal and Spiritual Transformation with Internal Family Systems Therapy. It's available on Amazon and I'm excited to say it's in paperback and Kindle form. It was the number one bestseller in spirituality and self help, which is kind of hilarious when you consider that I'm not an author and wasn't an English major. So God really must be up to something altogether you and you can always go to my website, which is hard to spell because of my last name, but maybe you can put it in the show notes.

We will.

Jennarimersma.com and there's a link to the book. I've got free videos, free downloadable worksheets, free podcast interviews, Lots of things to help you really take in the information and use it to change your life today.

Yes. So there's so much value in better understanding about ourselves. And this stuff is revolutionary, fascinating, and really, again, can be something that we can put our hands around and actually use as tools in our life to bring about change. And so go grab a copy of Jenna's book. We will definitely have a link to her website and a link to Amazon to buy the book. I know I'm gonna go do that for sure. I'm not gonna ask Jenna for a free copy, even though I'm tired, tempted to do it in this moment right now. I'm gonna go buy it for sure. And just. I appreciate that. I'm still gonna make sure you get some of that money. But we are just thankful again, for something that's just expanding our view and expanding our lens when it comes to understanding not only our unwanted behaviors, but just who we are and how to live this life. So, Jenna, thank you so much for your time.

Yes, thank you so much for having me. It's been such a delicate delight to be here.

And wherever you're at on your journey, pure desire is here to help give you the road map of healing. If you or someone you know is looking for help, go to PureDesire.org and start your healing journey today. And if you haven't subscribed to the podcast, do it. It's free. Share it with your friends and family. Write a review. It will help others find the podcast. And lastly, never stop being healthy.