Marty: Welcome back to the True You Podcast with Bill Tierney and Martin Kettelhut. We're both coaches. Bill's is focused around the IFS model, inner family systems. I. And, um, he's also very focused on producing results like real recovery and healing change lives. And I'm a bit a leadership coach. I have a recent book out called Leadership as Relation and um, so, um, my coaches is usually with executives. Um. people who are in leadership positions, but I'll tell you the honest truth, leadership is something we are all practicing it. You know, we lead our lives even if we're not managers of an, of a corporation, and we lead our families, whether we're the father or the son or the wife or the daughter, that we all have a chance to lead in our, in our classrooms, in our lives. So. Um, this podcast is focused on bringing out the true you, one who does lead his life or her life. Right? And, um, we've been having a number of guests, uh, who. Are very familiar with the IFS model and we've been talking, I think on a very high level, with them about, you know, the, their spiritual lives. And I'm thinking, bill, today it would be, um, I. A benefit for all to kind of bring it down to the ground for a second just like the real basics, um, for those of us who don't have a whole bunch of training in, in examining ourselves, what does it, how do I get in touch with that true me? Like I know I'm struggling against life and if I were being the true me, things would be easier, how do I identify what's in the way and get back on track?

Bill: Hmm. Great. I'm really glad that we're gonna be having this conversation today, uh, because as you say, many of the conversations that we've had with our guests recently have been beyond the realm of what most of us walking around on the ground and boots on the ground life as lived, uh, are familiar with and com and maybe even comfortable with. Yeah. So it'd be great if we could have some conversations, uh, about. What difference does it make? Why is it so important? Why are we talking about true self? I'm guessing that our listeners have some interest already in True. You. Who am I really? Uh, wouldn't it be cool if who I am really, uh, is okay?

Marty: Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Bill: and, and, and what's, what's scary? What, what's scary about just showing up as I truly am? So look what, maybe we can dive in there.

Marty: Something around like, what makes you think I'm not being myself? How

Bill: Right. Yeah. You saying I'm being phony?

Marty: well I, you know, I, I think that's, that's, that's a real good opener, in fact, because, um. Some of the signs. I mean, we all wanna be ourselves. We, we all think we're being ourselves, but we, we get diluted. Frankly, I've

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: times. You think you're being yourself, what's in, but you notice what you notice. That's the tip off that you're not, is that you're stressed. There's, there's some sort of stress with a person or with a task or a job, and that's the, that's your clue. Like, okay, I'm not being the true me.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Let's talk about that word stress. Seems like it got popularized, I wanna say around the seventies. Starting around the seventies. I've been on the planet long enough to remember that stress was not a word that was commonly used around my house, around my school.

Marty: I

Bill: Growing up until I was, uh, in my teenage years, 15, 16, 17 years old. And, uh, stress showed up with words like hassle,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: right on the heels of words like cool and groovy. And uh, uh, certainly those don't mean the same thing, but I would hear.

Marty: even at that age, it's so great you're tacking it down to that time because I remember around that age in, I was in high school, late seventies and you know, some kids had more, um, uh, acne in their face and my mom said, well, they must have more stressful lives.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Marty: I remember

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: the first times I heard the word.

Bill: Our, our mechanical engineers out there might have a good definition for stress. That might point us back to why would, why would that particular word be used to describe those kids that have extra acne on their face? Or more than, more than many, many others probably do if, and maybe there were even kids. I didn't know any that didn't have acne at all. But what I'm just gonna look up real quick, what is the mechanical, uh, definition of stress?

Marty: I mean, there's, there's mechanical stress, like, like when a car drives over the bridge, it puts stress on the bridge.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: That's, that's.

Bill: intensity. Here it is the intensity of internal forces with a body resulting from external loads expressed as force per unit area.

Marty: that,

Bill: That's the mechanical definition. Just like what you're talking about, the weight of a car on a bridge.

Marty: right. But that's that, that is not what's happening in our psychology when we feel

Bill: Oh, so why do we call it stress then?

Marty: Well, there's a similarity,

Bill: Okay.

Marty: right? You're there. You're struggling against What you're struggling against is your true nature yourself. That's why, that's what I'm saying. That's why we, it.

Bill: Struggle against and indicates that you've got two forces opposed.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Right. You wanna be yourself, you wanna be true to yourself, and there's some other influence that has you working against it.

Bill: Here's a definition again, this is, thank you, ai. The psychological definition of stress is a state of feeling, emotional strain or pressure often arising from a perceived threat or challenge. So fear comes in here. Fear might be one of the factors that would have two internal forces opposed.

Marty: Exactly. Like I fear that if I don't play baseball, my parents won't accept me because everybody in the family's great at baseball. So I'm stressed about going to baseball.

Bill: But I don't even like baseball.

Marty: Exactly. It's not.

Bill: I'm feeling the pressure to play baseball, but I'd rather play checkers or, or chess, or I'd rather be home, you know, drawing or painting or watching TV or playing a game.

Marty: Take it to the workplace. You know, I'm stressed about this presentation I have to give.

Bill: What's the stress? What are the two opposing forces there? That's a great question to ask here, isn't it? When there's stress, what are, there's gonna be at least two opposing forces, and what are those forces? So let's think of an example. What, what's been stressful just outside my door as we're recording this episode today. Uh, we've had a locksmith. Who we've just asked to rekey our, our locks, and we've been waiting for him for a day and a half. We didn't know when he was gonna show up, and he just happened to show up at the very same time that you and I. Decided to record a, had a pre-scheduled appointment to record this episode. Well, he's been enjoying the use of his drill quite a bit, just outside my door. It's been quite loud and, uh, and so I've experiencing some stress, but I one opposing one worry, concern, or fear that I had. Uh, and I would, I character this as, characterize this as, as con as a concern. I do wanna get the doors rekeyed for several different reasons. Another, uh, opposing concern is I would like to record this session and have the, the sound quality be good.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So, there's been a stress in me as I've listened for. Is he done? Is he done drilling? Is he gonna make more noise? Is this, is this gonna work? Uh, uh, is this going to compromise the integrity of this, of the audio quality for, for this episode, that's a form of stress.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: As time goes on, since he last drilled, which has been about 10 minutes now, I'm beginning to relax and calm down a little bit, but I'm still a little on edge waiting for that next drill to hit,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: hoping he's done right.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah.

Bill: So that's a form of stress.

Marty: Totally. Totally. Um, I mean, there, there are levels of stress too in any given instance, like going back to the. You the PowerPoint presentation network. Like there could be the opposing forces could be what I wanna say in this presentation, but versus what the company wants me to say.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: I have

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: find a way to save both, you know?

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: or I'm giving up my integrity, or I'm gonna get fired, like those are the opposing. Or it could be, you know, that I'm not good at putting together PowerPoint presentations and yet I have to do this.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: it's not my favorite thing to do, but I have to do it opposing forces, could be deeper and bigger like. I don't really belong in this job. I took it on because everybody in my family has, you know, my dad did it and my brother does it, but I don't really like this kind of job, and yet I have to do these things. And so there's a really deep, you know, career change on the horizon. Stress between what I wanna do with my life and what I accepted because that's what everybody else said I should do. Right.

Bill: As you're listing these examples, and they're all really great examples, I keep thinking in terms of values and priorities. Which I think can be values and priorities really do point to exactly the same thing there. There's something of value here that has me doing what I'm doing and choosing what I'm choosing and, and, and behaving as I am, and feeling as I am if I'm feeling and, and internal, stress from these two opposing concerns, worries, or fears. Uh, then it's because I have colliding values that, that don't align and in fact even oppose each other. And, and let's take one of the examples that you, you, you used. Uh, here I am in this career. I hate the career. I'm not talking about my career, but as the, as an example, someone hates the career and as you say, but they're in the career because everybody in the family's always done that. My, my grandfather was an accountant. My father was an accountant. I'm an accountant because it was, it's the family business, but I don't like it. I'm just doing it because that's what it was expected of me. It was kind of easy because it was handed to me. I make good money doing it, but I don't enjoy it. So the values are money and security. Uh, reputation and family expectation. Ease supposed to effort. And the other concerns that, that oppose that are would be, um, uh,

Marty: Self,

Bill: like,

Marty: expression.

Bill: yeah, and fulfillment. Finding something that I enjoy, something that I would love to do, uh, with or without concern for, for income and security.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Uh, those come, those collide with each other and they come into opposition. And really, even in this example, we can look at it, at it from the perspective of this is an argument between being who I think I should be, need to be, or I'm expected to be, or just being myself. And, and that, that gets confusing using.

Marty: I and it points to a great boots on the ground exercise. I'm just making this up, but look at your values like. that stressful situation, look at what are my values me and start to prioritize. This happened to me very recently. Um, I was stressing about putting time into my writing versus time into my coaching practice. Mostly in the, in the way of, you know, drumming up business. Right. I,

Bill: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Marty: the sessions. I'm, I, you know, I could do that all day, all week, but it was about spending time and so I. Um, I started to ask myself, and this is, this is fun. This is enlightening. This brings joy when you do it, to just start to look at, well, why, what's for and against each of these sides, right? And I started to see that what's really important to me is my creativity. It's one of my top values that I want. I wanna be the author of my life. And so that became the overarching value under which I was then able to, prioritize the writing and the, and the, the business, right? They're both authored. I'm authoring a business, I'm creating it. I'm, I'm the generator of it. Same thing with my writing. And, but it, you know, that, that I got to see like, oh, that, what's most important, the top value here that organizes all of this and took all the stress out once I identified it was I'm, I wanna create, I wanna author my own life.

Bill: You heard me say earlier a couple of times that, that before I landed on the word values. I, I said there are concerns, worries, and fears that come into o that collide with each other

Marty: Yes.

Bill: in opposition. You're now, now we're, we're talking about values of creativity and authority. Uh, you wanna be the author of your life. That's what I'm calling authority. Those, and, and you, you recognize that those need to be the values that everything else is decided after. You didn't say it exactly that way, but does, does that work?

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: What were those other.

Marty: instead of authority, but that's

Bill: Authorship. Okay, good. Personally, I like authority for myself. I, personal authority is a, is a big value of mine. I wanna be the, I love how you said that I wanna be the author of my life and I call that authority. Um, I wanna be the authority in my life. I, not that I wouldn't bend to other authorities that I respect who have been further down the road as mentors, but. Ultimately, I recognize I'm the author of my life,

Marty: Right?

Bill: regardless of where I've gotten resourced outside of myself.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So what my question for you, in the same, same example then as you're trying to sort out how much time do I spend writing and how much time do I spend pursuing business for coaching, and how much time do I spend actually coaching? That's, is that what what you're describing?

Marty: So the tension, I think is what you're asking about. What were the opposing, so.

Bill: Yes.

Marty: It was about how much money do I really need

Bill: So money.

Marty: versus let's just call it having fun.

Bill: Money versus.

Marty: And so, know, I got, I really got to see, and I'm very satisfied with choosing fun over money. Like I've got enough to live on. I was by notions that I picked up in my life about how much money I should be earning. That was on the one side, and then there was the what, but what do I want to, what do I really want my heart wants to do with my time? Right. I, I, and I discovered by putting authorship at the top or authority that, you know, as I've got enough to live on, I don't need, I don't, that doesn't need to be a priority to be drumming up new business.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: So

Bill: So the.

Marty: that went below writing. So now, right, I, I, I prioritize writing. As long as I'm making enough money to live on.

Bill: Yes. So that's how you sorted that out. You chose fun over money because you have enough money.

Marty: And because the true me the author of his own life, not a Slave to making money.

Bill: Earlier today in my women's recovery group, um, my clients, my participants in the group heard me use this phrase, what is so, uh, during a piece of work that I was doing was one of the clients, uh, I, I use this phrase in this way, uh, by looking at what is so, and what was so. We can begin to distinguish between the parts of us that are influencing us to, to respond to the present moment from the past or from the present. And if we can defer to the present, we're gonna notice that we're gonna have a lot more power. We, when we defer to the past and even distinguishing that, that what is so is not the same as what was so, is extremely powerful.

Marty: very powerful. Yes. Yes. That's great. I, I talk about the same thing in my forgiveness article on Substack and in my newsletter recently too. you know, I. We need to forgive ourselves is the point for, yeah. At one time this was important. I, I needed to get my career up and running. I needed to devote a lot of time to that and get that, and, and I'm at a different stage of life now so that I can, I can reprioritize and forgive myself for the fact that I was being run by an old pattern.

Bill: I, let me see what I, what I think I heard you just now say it wasn't a pattern. Until maybe now or recently. Right. I don't need to be right about this, but I, I think what you're saying was that at one point in your life, money needed to be the priority you needed to get your business up and running was, it wasn't a pattern though, until you got in the habit of making it a value rather than consciously choosing, is it still needed?

Marty: correct.

Bill: And recently you, you asked yourself that question, am do I still need to be pushing for money? As an override, uh, as a, a value that's greater than fun

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and, and, and self-expression, and you chose, given that you have enough money. Now what is so now is I have enough money. What was so previously was that I didn't

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: given those, given the, that that change in reality, current reality reflects that I have enough money, therefore I've got room to have fun.

Marty: Now take our accountant, our, our hypothetical accountant who went into it

Bill: Yes.

Marty: the family business.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: nothing in his circumstances have changed. Except that he's feeling the stress, the, the, you know, like, uh, this really, it's, I've been doing it because, you know, that I, I I prioritized conformity over right? And nothing about that has changed.

Bill: Conformity over agency. Yeah. Yeah. And nothing about that has changed therefore, but, but Okay. Has, has what? Something's changed. If, if the, if this accountant, if this third generation accountant is now challenging that in his own, in himself or herself, then what has changed? That's what I thought you meant. What in the world did you just say

Marty: In German, it's a, he is got his nose full or his, his shn full he's had enough of it. He's had enough of it.

Bill: he's had enough? It's time to blow his nose. Yeah. It's time to look at what he really wants to do.

Marty: Yeah,

Bill: He's recognizing the pain of compromising agency for conformity.

Marty: that's right. Yeah.

Bill: And now let's, let's bring it full circle. By the way, I've got a hard stop in about six minutes so that I can get ready for my men's recovery group. How does this apply to True Self? And that earlier I said the argument I believe will almost always boil down to am I being who I think I should be, who I'm expected to be, who I believe that I have to be? Or am I being who I really am

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: with this decision, with this behavior, with with the choices that I make in my life?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So I'm wondering how this conversation can be applied for our listener. And it occurs to me that we're faced with choices every single day. And if we're not already in a new pattern of recognizing and honoring the current values, then we may find it difficult to, um. I guess be honest enough with ourselves to choose from true self. Not that that there would be a deliberate and intentional dishonesty, but that, but it's not accurate. That'd be a better way to say it. It's not accurate to choose from what was so, especially when we haven't slowed down long enough to see if what was so is still so,

Marty: All right.

Bill: and maybe that's all there is to do here. If there's anything to do at all is to pause, step back when feeling this internal, internal stress this, these two opposing values, and ask ourselves, does this value value A, does it reflect what is so?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Or does it reflect what was so? It might even reflect what I'm afraid might be. So,

Marty: Exactly. Yes. That.

Bill: and then look at value B. Does it reflect, go ahead.

Marty: think it's something that we need to do regularly because things do change and, uh, whether internally or externally. And so we need to revisit this question time to time in life. And I mean, if you have a, a daily practice that's great. Or maybe weekly when you're sitting in church and, you know, coming to. know, to yourself again in, uh, the eyes of God, right? Tho those kind of practices are there for a reason. They have us ask this question, am I still aligned with my values and being my true self?

Bill: Uh, are my, are my values still true?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Would be another way to say, I, I think to ask the same question.

Marty: Yes.

Bill: Yeah. Well, what a fun conversation. This was, this, although it was brief. Uh, it's the first time that you and I have had a chance now to speak one-on-one without having a guest, uh, involved as well in, uh, gosh, a long time. Four or five, six weeks maybe. Uh, and so because this is so valuable to us, here's a value, uh, that Marty and I get to spend at least one session per month in the True You Podcast. Just having conversations like this spontaneously generated from. Practically nothing. Uh, and so that we can kind of hit the reset button and be refreshed and ready for the next few guests that we're gonna see. I wonder if it'd be useful to talk about who's coming up, that might be kind of fun, huh? Before we say goodbye. So who is coming up? Well, uh, we're recording this, uh, on. April 23rd, 2025. Lori Chancey, who was a guest in the Leadership Coaching podcast, one of our first guests in that, uh, podcast will be joining us again next week. Uh, Powell and Alex are gonna join us from Europe, uh, to talk about the way they use IFS and, um, something that they do three or four times a year called the Unconference. Really looking forward to them as guest. And then my writing coach Jerry Waxler will show up the, the following, actually, it's gonna be that very same week. He's gonna be here with us on the 7th of May. And, and Powell and Alex will be with us on the 5th of May. Of course, those episodes will be released something like four or five weeks later. But, uh, as you're listening to this podcast and that's, and, and this episode and it's been released, you can expect, uh, those guests to show up in that order in the following weeks.

Marty: Sounds good.

Bill: Sounds great, and then you and I again in about five weeks.

Marty: Sounds good.

Bill: Okay.

Marty: Thank

Bill: All right, Marty, I, I'm off to my men's group. Nice to see you. Take care. Bye.