Choice and Presence

Bill: Welcome to another episode of the True You podcast. My name is Bill Tierney. I am a compassionate results coach, and that means that I help people get results with a compassionate approach assisted by the internal family systems model, certified IFS practitioner. And I'm with my co-host, Dr. Martin Kettelhut, who is an author and ex, and an executive coach and a good friend.

Marty: I would say, if you're gonna say compassionate, I'm gonna say relational. Relational coach,

Bill: All right.

Marty: leadership coach, which is, you know, is an important distinction. Like, like compassionate is around results. Relational is a, is a different way of doing leadership than most of what I see out there.

Bill: I called you an executive coach. Your clients are not limited to executives. You work with anybody who sees themselves as a leader or wants to be and and you help them recognize the power of relationship of relationship in leadership.

Marty: Correct.

Bill: Great. Thanks for that distinction. That's helpful. And, and anybody that's been listening to the podcast probably knows all that already. We just put some words to it. Just be by the way that you respond to everything. Well, as usual, we, before hit, we hit record. We didn't already have, uh, a topic in the coffer. Sometimes we do, but most, most of the time we don't. And one of the things that happens on Fridays, and it's unusual that we're recording on a Friday. Typically we record on a Wednesday and I'm coming outta my Women's recovery group, um, uh, and one or two individual sessions. So I'm kind of inspired by what has happened in those sessions.

Marty: didn't know you were recovering from being a woman

Bill: I'm recovering from being anything but who I actually am.

Marty: you see in the news today. I, I promise not to take is too far afield, but, um, that, uh, manual my chrome, the.

Bill: French president.

Marty: French president and his wife are suing some podcaster in on the east coast of the United States of America for defaming, I think her name, uh, Giselle, or I forget her, the wife's name.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Um, there, this podcaster, for some reason is claiming that she's really a man,

Bill: And so they're getting sued.

Marty: I guess. The

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: podcaster. Yeah. Anyway, so

Bill: In this world where slander seems to be okay.

Marty: Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill: Uh, alright,

Marty: and transgender not to be. Okay. Like that's slanderous. Like that's one of the things that occurred to me, like, why Sue? You know, so what? It's

Bill: but yeah.

Marty: an insult.

Bill: Yeah, maybe, maybe to them. It, it is defamatory. Yeah. Um, okay.

Marty: Clearly it is. Yeah. Okay.

Bill: So what we, what we began to talk about just before we hit record and before we had a whole session discussed without recording, it was the mastermind group that we came out of this morning that meets every Friday we meet with other coaches. And one portion of our meeting each week is to offer support to any of the coaches that want to be supported in a challenge. In fact, one of the things that we do is we say, if I had a challenge, um, what, what, what would it be? And that's what we did this morning. And the person that brought up the challenge, uh, we had. Very lively round of support for him and I, and I love that. I love it. The challenge that I would have brought had I been the one getting support, was presence. And the challenge that you would've brought was getting focused on writing again. What's it take to get back to writing again?

Marty: Yes,

Bill: ' cause you just came back from, what was it, a week or 10 days?

Marty: it was about six days.

Bill: Six days. Yeah. And then since you've gotten back, you're not back into the, the, the momentum was broken and you're not back into the momentum and rhythm of that.

Marty: Right. It takes something to get into that space and, and I think that's probably what we're gonna find in, you know, with all, all of these, examples that we're gonna talk about, your presence, say when it is that put, that's a challenge. 'cause it's not always a challenge. When is

Bill: To be present? No. Well, what I've noticed is that it's very challenging to be present when I'm doing something that I'm not choosing and it, that seems like a crazy thing to say. How would you ever do anything that you don't choose? But in fact, the choice is not as, not an honest, it's not an honest choice. For example, my li my wife loves to to Garden and she's a volunteer at the local community farm. And she's very proud of the work that she's done there, and just takes great joy in it as you do. You know, you showed us your pictures of, of the fruits of your labor this morning from your garden, and that's the way Kathy is too. She's, she's just got such a love for flowers and vegetables and, and studying and growing dahlias and, and I really enjoy looking at what she has done. I really do often. I'll just like, I'll walk outside for some reason, maybe to walk to the mailbox and I'll walk by the flowers and the, and the plants that she's been arranging and putting out in our yard, in our gardens and, and just have to stop and look. And sometimes I'll even take a picture and send it to her and say, thank you. This is beautiful. And, and so I have appreciation for what she's doing. And last night after we had gone to listen to a little bit of music in a park. She said, let's stop by the farm and let's see how things are doing. And I said, great. Let's go. Let's go do that. 'cause I hadn't seen her garden plot for a while. And I noticed while we were there looking at the, the cantaloupes and the watermelons and the okra and all the, the tomatoes and all the stuff that she's growing, I had a, a, a, an impatient part. That was saying, okay, we done yet. Gosh, I hope she doesn't wanna go look at the flowers now. 'cause I'm ready to be, I'm tired, I wanna go home, maybe watch a little tv, just do something. It's not like I had something really terribly important to do, but a part of me had a preference for doing something different than what I was doing, and that pulled me away from being able to just be present and fully in the moment.

Marty: And I would say that's very much, you know, I hate to admit it, but the implications we're gonna talk about, scare me a little bit about myself, but that, you know, like rather than actually choosing writing, I am choosing to let the festivities of summer distract me. And, um, and, but so I'm, I'm like at a picnic with people thinking, gosh, I can't wait to get home and work on my riding. So it's like you in the garden.

Bill: Yes. And, and so the choice to stay at the, at the party for you, the choice to stay at the garden for me was a disempowered choice because there was a voice inside expressing a concern or, and a preference for some doing something different that diminished the, my capacity for actually being present in that moment. And so I, I would characterize that as a disempowered choice, and maybe even in that, an unconscious choice that.

Marty: I would, I'm gonna go way out on the limb here and suggest that most people at this moment in the midst of a disempowered choice.

Bill: Hmm. In this moment, most people,

Marty: I would say. So,

Bill: yeah.

Marty: there, there.

Bill: If you're listening to this episode, turn us off because you, you'd rather, you'd rather be doing something else.

Marty: Right, right. Yeah. It's kind of like that. I mean, think about it, like there's always somewhere else

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: that, that we're trying, you know, whether it's that metaphorical somewhere else, like a bit, just a better, like some better life than the one I got.

Bill: Yep.

Marty: Right. Or something specific like. Well, yeah, I felt like I should listen to this episode, but I really would like to go take a nap or, you know, I'd really, I really, wanna do this other thing, but, you know, my son is asking me for some attention and I feel like I gotta give it to him and, but it's not fully there because I really need

Bill: Yep.

Marty: do, we're doing this,

Bill: Yep.

Marty: layers of this

Bill: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. And the, and the answer of, of course, the optimum, um, place to be for full presence would be self-leadership. You know, this is, this is powerfully what we're choosing right now. We, and so interesting, I think I've mentioned this in an episode before, that I, even, before I learned about IFS and that I had parts, I, I often thought, and I could hear my thoughts as we, we don't want this. And I, and, and I'd, every once in a while I'd hear that and, and, and, and wonder, am I, am I crazy? Is there something wrong with me? Why am I thinking in terms of we, who's this? We,

Marty: I do that too. That's so interesting. I do that too.

Bill: and it's, it's just, I'm, I'm eavesdropping in on my parts and I'm thinking it's my thoughts

Marty: Oh, I see. Okay. Uhhuh.

Bill: now. Makes sense. You know, I know that I'm not crazy. I know that, that, you know, the 8 billion people that are on the planet having a similar experience aren't crazy. By having a serious, a similar experience. I don't know how many people can relate to hearing thoughts that, that, that are thinking in terms of we, but every ev what I'm realizing now is that every thought, every emotion, every body sensation, every impulse, every choice, every behavior is influenced by my parts. The question about that is, are the parts that are influencing me in those ways? To the past through reacting to the present through a lens that's blurred by the past, or are they reacting through a clear lens that reflects accurately current reality?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: If, if the part that's in influencing me the most in the present moment is looking at current reality, then I have the opportunity to choose powerfully.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: But it, but it is a conscious. Intentional choice most of the time, unless I just happen to be doing what I love to do and I'm totally in the flow with.

Marty: I mean, I find myself making bad choice quite often. You know, like at this picnic, so and so walks up to me and wants to talk, and so I'm, I'm at choice. Do I, do I let myself be in this conversation or not? You know? Or am I gonna be split minded like a stand here, but really be, you know, in Hawaii or something. You know, I, I find we we're a choice like this and that. When you said just now, as opposed to being self-led, the image I got of being self-led is just, it's like sort of like being the universe. Watching itself. You know, there's not, it's not, there's nowhere to go

Bill: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Marty: it's just a matter of choosing where you put your attention.

Bill: That's right. And if there's an argument inside about where to put that attention, that's where the suffering. Occurs. That's, that's what causes the suffering and the solution to that suffering is let's go somewhere else and do something else other than what we're doing right now. That's the solution of at least one of my parts in that moment that robs me of my ability to be present

Marty: Yeah. Right. And,

Bill: and.

Marty: and I noticed, like, use that real example from three days ago when I was at this picnic and this guy walked up and wanted to talk it, I struggled with it for a moment. Um, I, I have an aversion to him because of the way he behaves. And, um, and I was, I had to like, am I gonna stand here? Am I gonna be in this conversation or not? You know? And, and then I found myself actually listening and he said something funny and I laughed and it felt great. Like, okay, I'm here with him laughing at his joke.

Bill: Mm.

Marty: in that moment I recognized, okay, I've chosen, I'm laughing at his joke. Really? I was. And so that. This is, this is an, this is like constant, even like when you're taking a walk, what are you paying attention to? Right? Did you, why are you on the walk? What's your purpose? What did you want to, is that what your attention's on? Or is it on how uncomfortable you are? You can't wait to get home or, you know, um, think, you know, complaining about the way people are driving or the weather instead of just being in the walk. On the walk.

Bill: Right? Yeah. Each of these examples are. Could be looked at as opportunities, examples of opportunities to just notice what's happening inside. Which, by the way is, is something I'm training my training myself to do more and more, and more and more is that when I'm suffering, it's an opportunity to get curious about my suffering. To be be, and not just to indulge in the suffering,

Marty: Right,

Bill: but to understand it.

Marty: right.

Bill: To understand the mechanisms within me that respond to my suffering so that I don't have to do it anymore.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Whole life, just lifetimes are built around it, built around the management of suffering.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Which, if that's, if that is the, the primary goal of a human being, how is it possible to be present? Because in the present moment is are where the triggers show up that activate the suffering.

Marty: Well, there a couple of things I think we're discussing here. One is I think a lot of people don't think they have a choice. We've said it's a matter of choice, choosing. In that moment, wait to align with what you want, where, where you want to have your attention, rather than creating suffering by bifurcating your, you know, being here, but wanting that. Um, but I don't, I, I think most people don't realize they have that choice. They think, shoot, I've got to, you know, I can't get out of this. I've just gotta suffer.

Bill: Right. Well, I, I would argue on the side of that, they don't have a choice

Marty: Hmm

Bill: unless they put themselves in a position to have one.

Marty: mm-hmm. Well, what do you call that? Ability to put yourself in a different position.

Bill: I don't know that I have a, a term for that. I, I can tell you about the process for, for getting there.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So it is a process. It's kind of a journey

Marty: Yeah. Yeah.

Bill: and, and, um, it can be quite a process. It can be arduous at first, it can be difficult and challenging if at first what's happening is so dramatically different than what normally happens. So I.

Marty: I think a lot of things drive that um, not recognizing that ability, um, to, you know, create a choice for yourself. Um. Well, you know, like I have some clients, for example, the, they're, it's just ingrained in them that life is supposed to be hard.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: you are not experiencing hardship, you are, you are avoiding, you are fooling yourself. You're cheating. Like that's what they got in their heads from their childhood.

Bill: You're not trying hard enough.

Marty: That's right. You must not be trying hard enough.

Bill: If you're not struggling, you must not be trying hard enough.

Marty: That's right. I

Bill: Hmm.

Marty: I have a, a youngish client right now in the financial services industry, and it's, you know, like he just, he f. Apparently that it's supposed to be that way, you know? 'cause I've given him options. We, he's experienced break, you know, momentary breakthroughs. Like, oh, it didn't have to be so hard. Um, but then he, you know, it's like he just, he keeps piling it on like, like, that's the way you're supposed to do life.

Bill: Yeah, you're reminding me and, and we're digressing here. Uh, so I'm hoping we can come back to the question of, what do you call that?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Putting yourself in the position of being able to make choice,

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: but just listening to what you just now said, I'm relating to your young client

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: in the grocery business. I was taught exactly how to be in the gross business and what it is that I needed to do, what my job was, and how to do each one of those jobs. And, um, I was under the impression that I was being watched and evaluated according to how well I took the actions and the steps that I was told to take. In order to accomplish the the outcome.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Get the truck unloaded, get it out onto the shelves, order the next truck, eight hours. Boom. I'm done it. It occurred to me one day when I was running out of time and it didn't look like I was going to get everything done, that I could take some shortcuts, but there was a voice inside that was saying, can't take shortcuts. You have to do it the way you were shown. Well, we're gonna have to take shortcuts today because otherwise it's just not gonna get done. So that second voice won over, let's go ahead and take those shortcuts, and it really worked well. And I stepped back and I saw that the shortcut CR produced the same result without negative consequences as the long way around that I'd been taught. And I realized that I was able to figure out different ways to accomplish exactly the same thing.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: I had to break my own rules though in.

Marty: yeah. I mean, I think like this, this guy that I'm talking about that it sounds similar, like, um, it, I show him. For example, this is just about your attention in a meeting. Like, or, uh, planning your day, uh, you know, so that you get those things that are most important to you done. And, and he's like, oh, that's great. And he uses it one day and then it seems like he'll come back and say something along. He'll come back and say something along his like, but there's still so much to do. Like, okay, that felt great to, you know, to have that. Relief, you know, of combining things or, or doing 'em in a new way or, or being practicing mindfulness exercise while I'm doing my work so that I'm not bogged down by the thinking, you know? And he'll, he'll acknowledge like, that was really good, but you see there's still so much to do. Like, I can't do that all the time.

Bill: Yep. Yeah,

Marty: that he has the ability to put it to, to put himself in a choosing place.

Bill: Let me give you a, a scenario of a, of a coaching session with a client that, that really illustrates this, what we're talking about here and what, and let me name what I think we're talking about. We're naming an internal belief that runs someone's life. If you're not trying hard enough. If, if, if you're not struggling, you're not trying hard enough. Under, under that would be maybe a belief of the, the values in the work that I do and how much of it I do not in the outcome that I produce. Maybe something like that.

Marty: Would be the

Bill: The another, another value, another rule, another belief. I think they all fit into the same category. In fact, I would say fears fall into there too. I'm afraid that if this happens, then that's gonna happen. That's a belief.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: It's, you could just as easily say, I believe that if this happens, that's gonna happen. It

Marty: Right.

Bill: and then that elicits an emotion that we call fear. So if we can challenge those beliefs, then our lives can act, our lives can actually transform. Because I, even long before I discovered IFSI, I learned and then taught my clients that the outcomes that I accomplish are, are a direct result with a few steps in between, but still a direct result from what it is that I believe. Given what I believe, I think my thoughts, I'm not gonna think thoughts that argue with my beliefs, given my thoughts. I'm, I feel how I feel because I think this thought, I have an, uh, an emotional reaction to it given how I feel. I do what I do so as to not feel that anymore. I to feel more of it. Given what I do, I get the results and the outcome that I get. If the beliefs can change, my thoughts will change, my emotions will change. What I do will change and my results will change. Alright, so now IFS comes in and what, what I've learned is that that same formula, let's call it, that, is still true, but now I understand more of why it's true. It is because those parts of me that got frozen in the past based on unresolved, painful, scary, hurtful situations that overwhelmed us was, were more than we knew how to digest that, that, that we didn't have the support to get all the way through and process completely. They got stuck in us and the parts of us that are holding that energy and, and they have beliefs that keep that energy, that hurt, that pain and that fear locked inside.

Marty: Right.

Bill: The process of IFS helps us very systematically to go through, build trust-based relationships with the protectors of that energy and the part that are, that's holding those, that energy

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: so that we can get to it and understand what it is that it believes and what it is that it experienced, and then help it if and when it's ready, if the belief itself is not valid, to see that the belief's not valid. And the moment this exiled part. Recognizes and realizes that what they've been holding is no longer relevant and what they believed about it, that had them holding that it was never true in that moment, they're ready to let go of it, and in that moment the belief can change and they no longer from that point on have a, an influence or an impact on the current moment.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: love that. So a client believes I'm not lovable. If we can get to the part that actually holds that belief as a truth and that's holding all the pain associated with the, the event that happened, that that cemented that in them, we can help them to, to absolutely release the belief and the pain associated with it so that it no longer becomes activated in the, in the present moment. So if we go all the way back to the original topic, which is choice. As long as that what IFS calls exiled. Part that's holding that belief in that unresolved past is, is unhealed, in other words, still segregated from the rest of the system.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Then we don't have a choice. And that's the process that I just described to you. That's the process for putting ourselves in a position where we have a choice, where we're no longer so influenced by parts that are protecting the past. That we now are able to be present where, which is the only place we can choose.

Marty: there's a part of me that's saying, well. I get that. Um, I think that some of my beliefs got changed because I was thrown into a situation that challenged them. I mean, I didn't, I didn't go in and examine the beliefs, uh, that the parts were holding and have conversations with them and update them. And before it was, it was like, oh my gosh, I'm in the pool swimming. I guess I. That belief that I would drown. I guess that's not true because of the experience that I was having and that I think I've been working a little bit that way with this young client, like giving him these experiences of, you know, like doing, you know, practice for 10 minutes while I watch

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: this task

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: You know, like feeling it, smelling it, touching it, and, and, and then comes back and says, wow, that was a great experience. And I think, well, you've had an experience that defies your belief that work has to be un, you know, hard. But it doesn't, it doesn't stick. Like my realizing I could swim in the middle of the pool, like the, the, so sometimes the experience. Defies the belief and, and we, we go, wow, I guess I'm not, my belief was false. But then, you know, you wanna bring it to a coach and, and say, have this, you know, to examine and, and get up under and heal it forevermore.

Bill: Coach or a therapist. Or a practitioner. Yeah. And certainly IFS is not the only way to bring about that result you just described. Another way. I have an experience in reality and reality's a great teacher if we can tolerate it. But we, but we tend to argue with it, as Byron Katie would say, we tend to live life in an argument with reality. And in that, that is what actually causes our suffering, when in fact we're blind to that cause we think that it's life that's causing the suffering. It's our argument with reality that that causes it.

Marty: Yeah, that this is really good. This, this gets back to that thing that I mentioned, uh, 10 minutes ago. Like, people just think, well, life is this way. Like this is, you know, what, what do you think you're supposed to be able to, everything's supposed to be smooth and easy,

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. That's just lazy. That's lazy thinking.

Marty: right?

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Yeah. That's, I think a lot of people believe that.

Bill: Don't just do nothing, sit there, but no, that, that's not the way it went. Don't just do something, sit there, which is the opposite of the what we're trained. Don't just sit there, do something.

Marty: Right.

Bill: Yeah. Can't sit. Still. Gotta, and, and that's really still deeply, deeply ingrained in me. And I have gotten lots of updates and done a lot of healing and unburdened, a lot of my exiles. And still that's in me. It, it's, it's driving me. It's not incapacitating me and it's not hurting me as much as it used to, but it's still there for sure.

Marty: So talk for a second about the in the moment adjustment.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: standing in the garden. You realize you're antsy and what do you do,

Bill: Let's ask, let's ask Viktor Frankl what he would do.

Marty: okay?

Bill: What would, what would he say? He would say between stimulus I'm in the garden,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: which is where at least one part of my doesn't wanna be

Marty: Right?

Bill: stimulus and response is a space. So pausing rather than just reacting to the stimulus and, and what happens inside. That's, that's the most critical first step that I think in the moment that one can take. The pause doesn't mean I'll be back in five minutes. It means just pause long enough to notice that there's some discomfort. There's some suffering happening in there

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and it's trying to be managed by this thought that we, we'd be, be, we'd be happier or better somewhere else than we are right now. So Victor Frankl would say in in between stimulus and response is a space. And then that space is our is, and I'm not quoting you exactly, but essentially it's the opportunity to choose.

Marty: Got it. Respond.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Respond in alignment with your, with your authentic choosing.

Bill: Even if I choose to go with the part of me that's too uncomfortable to be here now,

Marty: All right.

Bill: we had a, an experience, again, back to the mastermind group where we have agreements about how we go about supporting each other for my internal family nervous system, there's, um. The capacity to be in a situation of chaos is, is more limited than maybe some other people in the group.

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: And so to accommodate that, I have asked the group to agree to some things that that helps my system feel more calm and stay more present. And uh, so we have agreements about that. And yet, a couple of weeks ago, those agreements weren't honored. And I noticed my system starting to bubble up in with, with a higher and higher and higher level of anxiety, worry, concern, fear, discomfort, um, maybe a little anger. And so with five minutes left in the session, the, the therapist called this the doorknob comment. Where the client says something on the way out of their session that, that really needed to get addressed in the, in the session. I just heard that term for the first time today, a doorknob comment. I said, I just need to say that my, I experienced a lot of anxiety today and, and I, I think it was because you guys just kept piling on the person that was getting the, the support for their challenge. And, and, and it really, uh, it's a, it's opposed to our agreements, and I just wish you guys would keep your agreements and then. Little bit of ruffle fluffle and everybody had to go. And now two weeks pass and we meet again today and one of the other members brought it up again today and reminded me of it. I'd forgotten all about it. And um, I think that too is a really great example of how different systems. Operate at different levels. And I, I mean, I've done a ton of work over a lot of years and I still have this internal system that automatically goes to the state, a state of anxiety if conditions out there aren't just exactly right. And in that mo, in that experience, that 30 minute experience two weeks ago, it didn't occur to me that I could choose, I could choose differently by going inside and pausing and getting curious about what's, what's happening in here.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: that's, that really is the key.

Marty: That's great. That's great. Yeah. I think growing up had me develop a very high tolerance for chaos.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: You know, when, when I should start pausing and responding differently, much sooner. I tolerate high, de, very high degrees of, of chaos around me and just, and just, you know, just try and stay present with it. Um, but I think that I could, I could choose otherwise much sooner in my life.

Bill: Yeah. Um, would you characterize your experience as suffering what you just described to me? Tolerance for chaos,

Marty: a degree, there's a degree of suffering going on in those moments, for sure.

Bill: but, but it's your, your ability to tolerate that suffering is within your capacity to do so and stay present at the same time.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah,

Bill: Wow, that's impressive.

Marty: yeah, yeah. It is. I, I think it's also. I don't want to get into netter difficult territory here, but I think it's also why I have a higher tolerance for alcohol or or weed than most people I know because I'm very practiced at being with that, that other place, you know, that state and, and staying present with myself drunk. You know, where other people just go into the drunkenness.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: I've gotten very practice at, you know, feeling that, understanding that, seeing that and staying present with it. And that's probably not a good thing, but it's true.

Bill: Yeah, if we take, if we stay out of evaluation and just stay with curiosity, I think that's a really interesting thing that you just said. Really interesting. And also I'm curious about what felt dangerous about that to you.

Marty: About what?

Bill: Well, you prefaced before, before you described what you described about your experience with alcohol and pot, you said, I, I kind of wanna stay out of what I interpreted as you saying I wanna stay out of this what dangerous place or something like that.

Marty: Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess this. The fear was that if I admit that I have a high tolerance, that I can stay present to a higher, to a, a greater degree than most people I know under the influence of something like that, that then people will think that I'm a drunk or I'm a addict. I'm, you know, I'm never present. Right.

Bill: Right.

Marty: which isn't true, but I think that one of the, so that was the fear. I think that the meditation practice has a, is a big factor here. You know, because there you are practicing being with this mind that's doing these, you know, having these beliefs, paying attention to other things, worried, you know, guilty, all that's going on, and yet you, you, you developed in meditation, the ability to be quiet while that's going on. You never stop it. never stops. But to find a place of tranquility next to, you, know, adjacent to that going on in you. That's, I think it's that practice that I apply when I'm at a party and people are starting to get sloppy I recognize like, okay, this is happening and now we, we need to start drinking water. We need to pay attention, walk, you know, carefully watch what you say. Like all of that goes on.

Bill: Yeah, well see. That's the sort of thing that never ever happened for me. Before I stopped drinking altogether because I, I didn't seem to, would I, I wonder would I be able to develop that now given the healing that I've done? I'll never find out. 'cause I'm very committed to not drinking anymore, given what has happened in the past and how much I enjoy being a sober man. But what you just described, I've never heard in an alcoholics Anonymous meaning described

Marty: That's, that's why I hesitate to say it, because I know it wouldn't go over.

Bill: well. It may not go over. My point is that you, you probably then wouldn't belong in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. If, if that's the experience that you're having, you're not having the experience that I was having and that, that everybody else in that room, from what I could see, was having like no choice.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: art of me that wanted to drink, drank enough that I, I passed that point of awareness of control

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and self-regulation, and then found myself. Into drunkenness and as you point out, giving into the drunkenness. And that creates so much problems that, that created so much problems for me that I found my bottom. Thankfully, very early in life, I was 27 years old and, um, will forever be grateful for the support that I got through the fellowship of I. I think in, in past episodes, I've been careful about naming aa. I don't consider myself to be a member of AA anymore. Uh, so I'm not sure that, that I'm breaking any traditions, and I don't mean any disrespect by mentioning it directly, but I just wanna finish this thought to say, we'll, always, we'll forever be grateful for having my life saved by having a room to go to where people understood the way that I thought, thought, and the way that I was living.

Marty: I. Amen. I I am right there with you in the gratitude for that. But, so it occurs to me like maybe some of these exercises that we did. And when I was first learning meditation, um, would be useful to pass on. Like one of them really simple is meditate or, know, it could be mindful in the midst of something, like in the while sitting on a park bench where there's people around playing baseball and walking their dogs and, and just be quiet. Just observe. Just let your mind be taken with the obs observing mode. Rather than judging and assessing and planning and all of that stuff. That's, and that, that was one of our assignments was go out and meditate on a park bench where there're gonna be people and stay in meditation. Don't get taken out of it. Right.

Bill: What would you do when the judgements and the evaluations would come up as you sit there?

Marty: go, go back. To, back to focus on the breath or on the mantra.

Bill: I see. I see.

Marty: just it go. Like you let go of a hot potato. You don't, there's no trouble letting it go. Don't you just let go of the thought and go back to your, your whatever your focus is on for the meditation.

Bill: And, and this actually happens in IFS sessions too, where a value

Marty: that. I beg your pardon. That creates the pause when you're back at choice.

Bill: I believe choice happens the moment we unblend from the parts of us that are suffering.

Marty: Yes.

Bill: Evaluating parts, the parts that are protecting those parts that are protecting or suffering. The parts that are protecting are also trying to manage parts that are suffering even more. So the moment we can detach enough from those evaluating, protecting, and hurting parts, not detach like, you don't exist and I'm not, and I'm opposing you, and I'm not gonna, I'm, I'm not gonna have any more of this. It's more like detaching and noticing, oh, here's an evaluation, here's a judgment, here's some hurting. Look at, look at this stuff that's happening in me. Rather than, look, look at what's happening to me.

Marty: Which is to no longer identify with it,

Bill: Yes,

Marty: identify it as something other than me.

Bill: yes.

Marty: Yeah. Another assignment we had, uh, we would get checked the, this had such a, it really advanced my ability to focus. To to be present was once a month we would be checked on our meditation. The teacher would, we'd go in a small room and we'd sit knee. A knee, and the teacher would say, okay, meditate. Right in front of him. And of course, you know, I'm like, I'm all about performance and doing it right and getting an A and so I had to, I had to detach from dis-identify with all of those kinds of thoughts order to drop into meditation while the teacher was watching me do it.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: But that the focus that it took. Like that. That was building a meditation muscle for me. That now, now I can, you know, I could be in a plane and meditate, like really drop into meditation even though I'm crowded and there's all this other stuff going on, can do it 'cause I built that muscle.

Bill: Nice. Yeah. Very great. What a great conversation we need to wrap up.

Marty: Okay.

Bill: I've noticed that I have been like Uber present in this conversation. Super present. I really have enjoyed it and I I appreciate that you were willing to reschedule your. And find an hour here that we could have this conversation and make sure that we stay on the once a week release of these True You podcast episodes.

Marty: My pleasure.

Bill: Till next time.