Managing Capacity

Bill: Welcome to the True You Podcast. My name is Bill Tierney. I am a compassionate results coach, trained in the internal family systems model. Uh, in fact, I'm certified in the internal family systems model and I'm with Dr. Martin Kettle Hut, who I call Marty. And, uh, wanna welcome you. Marty, and

Bill: thanks, thanks for

Marty: again.

Bill: co-hosting this with me. So, Marty's an author. He's, uh, you're currently working on a book about beauty. You wanna talk a little bit about that?

Marty: Well, could talk a lot a bit about it, but I'll just say that, um, I started to notice, uh. that the sort of, binary logic, the coding of our social world, um, the, you know, the is, um. Is preventing us from being able to really our values as real, like as real anchors or real direction givers. And yet it's nice that you might have certain values, but they don't seem to play a role in the, in the, you know, the. On offness of our daily decision making and, and the way that we are being algorithmize in our, in our, you know, online searches and everything. so that led me to look at values and how did they get, was, where did they come from, what holds them in place so that they can really support us. And then I started noticing that there's kind of a. This goes, this is going way into it, but ranking of values like there, the values around, um. Uh, like truth is a value like in reasoning. You wanna, you want to reason in such a way that you get to the truth so that that truth is a value of ours. so you could say that beauty is the all encompassing, this is what's, this is what I hope to put forward is beauty is the all encompas. So like a beautiful argument one that leads you to the truth, Like that.

Bill: Sounds good. Uh, that sounds really good. So as you, uh, as you continue to write that. book and, um, maybe have some insights and maybe could drop a, a few more of those insights with us along the way, would love to hear about it.

Marty: I would love to do that. Thank you for asking.

Bill: Sure. Sure. Uh, yeah. So today's, uh, to today's topic for discussion, I have asked that we talk about capacity and self capital S self is referred to in the internal family systems model. And capacity is something that, as you pointed out, we talked about in the Leadership coaching podcast. I dunno if there'll be any redundant redundancy here or not. The, the, the concept, the idea is certainly the same. And that is that we have each of us, my theory is that each of us have a limited amount of capacity that, that to be with whatever shows up throughout our day. And to be able to show up for whatever happens in our lives and for some of us that, uh, we could, we could look at what, what is my capacity for. Intimacy. What is my capacity for true connection?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: is my capacity for stressors? What is my capacity for abundance? What is my capacity for suffering? So in any given area of life,

Marty: An example just popped into my

Bill: yeah, let's do it. Let's do it.

Marty: I don't mean to get you off track,

Bill: No, this will actually take us where we wanna go. Go. I, I'm sure.

Marty: on Mondy Thursday, Jesus hit his capacity to be with all of the and persecution. He was like, look, I gotta go out and pray. Just leave me alone for a while. I gotta go out and pray.

Bill: Wow. So Jesus acknowledged that, that he, his capacity had been met or surpassed,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and his solution was to separate from. So from being in a social setting, from community, from all the talk.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: all the active, the input,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and then to go out and, and this is this referring to the time that he went out in the desert and prayed for 48, 40 days.

Marty: that was another time. This, he, he went into the garden here.

Bill: He went in The garden. Okay, I'll be right back. Just gonna go in The Garden

Marty: of Gethsemane. Mm-hmm.

Bill: He paused. He paused.

Marty: And, and connected with his father with capital H. And capital F.

Bill: Yeah. Right. Right. So that's part of what I wanna talk about today is that when we hit or exceed our capacity, first of all, how do we recognize that, uh, how do we con contextualize that and frame it in such a way where we are, where we can own and take responsibility for our experience of hitting or exceed. Capacity rather than getting mad at whatever it is that's, that's using up our capacity or that we're giving our attention to that uses it up.

Marty: Right.

Bill: And then what do we do to restore it again? So that's one, one area that I wanna talk about today. Another area I wanna talk about is that, what, what appears to be a fact, but, but I'll, I'll, I'll go ahead and just name that it's a theory of mine and that is that some of us wake up in the morning with less capacity than others.

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: When we start our days, lemme just say it this way, if my theory goes this way, if we took a hundred people and we fed them the same food for 30 days and we gave them, we had them exercise the same amount for, for 30 days and we gave them just as much connection for 30 days and we had 'em get just as much rest and sleep for 30 days. And in other words, all their needs are met for 30 days.

Marty: I see.

Bill: And they wake up then on day 31, and there's a way to measure how much available capacity they have for whatever comes their way that day. There's gonna be a group that has maybe 10% of re capacity remaining to work with, to use up for the rest of the day,

Marty: Uhhuh.

Bill: then there's gonna be people closer to maybe 90% of their capacity available to use.

Marty: So something happens during the night to our capacity or, or.

Bill: No, I'm saying that even before day one of those 31 days that something is going on in their system that diminishes their available capacity

Marty: I see.

Bill: and that even getting all of our needs met doesn't increase that capacity.

Marty: I gotcha. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Bill: And this is a problem, this is a big problem be for, for several reasons. One of 'em is that if I'm one of those that wakes up with 10%, by the way, this isn't scientific, but, but I calculate that, that the amount of capacity that I have available on every morning is probably around 80%. 80% of of my capacity to be with whatever life has to hand me. Is it about 80% when I start, when I start every single day. It used to be 50, it used to be 30,

Marty: Uh huh.

Bill: and there's been a, so there's been a, a progression and a process that has in has increased my, my weight.

Marty: dying to hear what that process is. May I just ask a question in the interim?

Bill: Sure.

Marty: Um, does it ever get up to a hundred? Like if you wake up with 80, can you get it up to a hundred somehow?

Bill: I have not experienced that. No,

Marty: see. Okay.

Bill: no, no.

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: That's just, that's my experience. Now, maybe there's listeners out there, once we have this full conversation and they add their own thoughts to it might disagree and say, yeah, I think I wake up at at a hundred.

Marty: Well, I think, I think we're all gonna be better able to say once we understand what, you know, what it is that limits capacity.

Bill: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, yeah, let me just maybe talk about then my theory. Let's, let's, let me tell you more about it. This theory has been developed over time as I've become more and more aware of the fact that I experienced trauma when I was growing up.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: That came as a real surprise to me about, I think maybe 15 years ago when, when in a therapy session the therapist said, just kind of matter of factly, well, given the trauma that you've experienced, wait, wait, wait. What do you mean given the trauma? Vic, when did I, yeah, when did I experience trauma? And she helped me to, she reminded me, she said, well, you told me that you know, your, your parents used to physically discipline you. From your earliest age, you told me that you were forced to go to church when you didn't wanna go. You told me that you were shamed if you didn't show up in the way that you were expected to be, to show up, not just by your Par parents, not just at Home Bill. That is all trauma.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: and a part of me just said, oh no, everybody doesn't everybody experience that. And, and her and, and I must have said something like that out loud because her response to that was. It doesn't matter whether everybody experienced it or not. You experienced it and so, so what is trauma? Trauma is something that happens, or a series of events that occur that stays in me because it's too much for me to process and complete on. It's too much for me given the resources and support that I have to be able to fully result.

Marty: That also seems to suggest to me that it's by, by its nature, we're not aware of our trauma because. Right. It hides itself after that.

Bill: Well, it's, yeah, it gets help from other parts of us. Hi. Hiding it being, yes, absolutely. Yeah. The, the exile parts of us using IFS language, the exile parts of us that are holding that trauma, that are holding the unresolved energy and the emotions and the beliefs that are associated with that.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: They want nothing more than to be seen, heard, and known and understood and helped. And they want this resolved,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: those parts, but the parts of us that are managing it by hiding all of that pain, all that, all that's unresolved, they wanna hide it. They, so we have, we have a clash of agendas inside.

Marty: And they wanna hide it because it's painful. Right.

Bill: And they don't know a way. They don't know any other way. They don't know how to resolve it. It was unresolvable at the moment that the protector stepped in to, to manage it.

Marty: I get it. We just don't, that's why it, it, it just kind of gets stuck there is because you don't know what to do.

Bill: That's right. We have to, we don't have these young parts of us. The parts that are the aids that we were when we experienced the trauma were so under-resourced, and the circumstances at the time didn't provide additional resources like modeling of good parenting and modeling of love and compassion and understanding and, and, and you know, the arm around the shoulder that says, Hey, this isn't about you, buddy. This is about what happened. This is, this isn't you as the problem. This is the, what happened was a problem. You're okay.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: When we didn't get that then that, that, that same thing that we experienced as the kid next door had the, let's say we, the kid next door has the same experience, like gets bullied at school, for example. Let's say that's, and, and one kid goes home and says, I got bullied at school. And the response from the parents is, I hope you kicked his ass and, and. The other kid goes home and says, I got bullied. And the parents get involved and they call the school and they, they say, Hey, this isn't okay. I want my kid to be safe.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: They, they take a stand and they model how to. Take a stand for safety and, and love and demonstrate their love by being courageous and confronting the authorities, uh, about, about what's being allowed to happen in that school. Those are two completely different experiences and for the kid that got bullied at school, it's probably not sitting as trauma when the kid that has the parents that took a stand for him.

Marty: And is it, um, only trauma that decreases our capacity or are there other things as well that can. You know, fill up that capacity such that we're not really available.

Bill: That's a good question. I, I, I think there's two answers to that, that compliment each other. One answer is how I define trauma is that any, that, anything that stays in us because it's more than we can digest, process and complete on the moment.

Marty: I see. That is true by

Bill: If that's what trauma is and that that's everything that keeps us busy inside using up our capacity.

Marty: Okay.

Bill: lemme just say that very explicitly. So given all that's unresolved inside and we have parts of us that are using up, burning up our energy, trying to manage to keep it inside and, and in conflict with each other on the best way to do that. So when I say at one time, I only woke up in this, I, I woke up in the morning with no more than maybe 30% capacity. What I am saying is that 70% of my capacity was already being used up managing the past,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: not solving the past, managing it, and then when I began the healing process. Which I, I, I, I will say, began in 2002 for me, which is when I learned how to use Byron Katie to question my own thinking. That was the beginning of rearranging my internal world. It didn't do a lot of healing, I don't think, but it certainly rearranged my internal world and gave updates to parts of me that had assumed certain things about myself, given what had happened in the past. So, for example, I must be just worthless given the way that I was treated. Only people that are worthless deserve to be treated that way, so I must be worthless. And Katie helped me to realize that that's a story that my parts, well, she didn't, she doesn't talk in term my parts, but that's a story that I tell it. Uh, and when I believe that story, I suffer. And by questioning the story and recognizing that it's may, maybe not or maybe absolutely not true. That shifts and reorganizes the in internal world

Marty: Totally.

Bill: so in 2016, now when I'm introduced to IFS and I begin to recognize that beyond just that reorganization of my belief system and the impact that, that, that my beliefs have on me, now I can actually heal those parts of me that have been managing and holding the pain from the unresolved past. As that healing took place, I gradually increased. I mean, I couldn't look, I didn't have a, a way to measure that day to day to day. But I can tell you now, looking back, that I went from 30 up to what it feels like about 80, 80% capacity now.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Got it. Yeah. Um, and. Could I ask you like, I mean, I, uh, just so that we can all relate. Um, not that we can't, but, uh, just to make it explicit, I'm imagining like, like sometimes after a coaching call uh, I'm, I'm being coached. I'm the, I'm the, um.

Bill: Client.

Marty: Client. just like this lightness in my staff. Like I, something's been resolved and I just feel, you know, I have, uh, I am ready to, to take on the world. I'm in a good mood. I'm, I'm open to people. And Is that what you mean by

Bill: Yes.

Marty: the,

Bill: Yes.

Marty: we can see that in ourselves? Oh, I wasn't, I didn't have capacity. Now I do.

Bill: Right. So you're, you're talking about a great conversation that you have in a coaching call, which may or may not have had a healing element to it. But, but very likely what happens in a good coaching conversation is a recon contextual contextualizing of, of whatever was draining you of your capacity previously,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: made it difficult for you to show up the way that you wanted to show up or do what you wanted to do or be who, who you wanted to be.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: a, a good coach helps you ask these great questions. And, and you, you, you consider those those answers and that that rearranges and reorganizes the way that you're, you're looking and thinking about whatever that thing is, and that gives you now access to some resources inside that you didn't previously have. And from an IFS perspective, even if you're not doing an IFS session in a coaching session, the parts of you are getting new information.

Marty: right.

Bill: And what we know about our parts, especially those that are burdened and trying to protect us, is that they do what is the most, the smartest, most logical thing to do, given what they understand. If you give them new information or a new way to look at things, parts are adaptable too. They'll think, oh, well, given that, you know, they don't say this, they just change. Given that it makes more sense to do, to do what I do in a different way.

Marty: Uh mm-hmm.

Bill: So you're, you have a lightness of the, the, the parts relieved, like, wow, okay, we got a solution here. We got a different approach to this. And, and, and yes, your capacity increases, so let's use

Marty: First thing in the morning, you know, like there's some people. In, you see in, in movies, I mean, because you're not there to see every, you know, your neighbors wake up in the morning, but we've seen other people they, they wake up and they go, oh, here we go again.

Bill: Yes, yes.

Marty: capacity

Bill: Yes.

Marty: somebody who wakes up and, oh, look, the sun, it's gonna be a

Bill: Julie Andrews morning. Yes.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Right, exactly. So let's go with the person that's waking up saying, oh, well no, I'm not again,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I woke up again. Oh my God.

Marty: Here we go.

Bill: There we go. Okay, let's just put them at 50% capacity. They're waking up, they've got half of their capacity available to, to manage whatever comes their way

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Now. If they were to begin a new regimen, let's just say, and they began to work with Marty and Marty's gonna show them how to meditate and that first morning, they just hate it because it makes them do what they don't wanna do. Uh, but by week two, they're actually meditating and getting some benefit from it. And the benefit could be named according to adjectives and, and descriptions of what's happening inside and, and body sensations and emotions and senses of, of freedom. Or it could be measured by how much additional capacity do you have?

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: Somebody that increases capacity by 10% of, of their baseline by meditating for example, might, might jump up to 55% and it's a notable difference. When I have 55% capacity rather than 50%, I'm, I am literally capable of more than I was before. So there's a lot of things that we can do. Even for me, I'm at 80%, let's just say maybe it's 70 to 80%, but let's just say I started 80% in the morning. That's, that's a great place to start and I might still have stuff on my mind.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I might still be feeling some, let's just say, some stress or tension about something that, that happened yesterday or that I'm anticipating might happen today.

Marty: So stuff on your mind that's not necessarily traumatic, but it is in

Bill: No, it's a stressor. It's, it's also burning calories. It's also using up my energy.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: for every bit of, uh, energy that I use up worrying about what's gonna happen or, or say ruminating about what has happened.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: That's, that's using up part of my capacity If I can somehow get to a place where I can get some resolution around that and just let it go and, and it could be just as simple as a really inexpensive tool called a Post-it note. Let me get this off my mind and put it on paper, and I now have more capacity for.

Marty: yeah.

Bill: That's a simple, simple example of it. But, so what is there to do with this? Have we, I wonder if we've talked about enough about this to kind of establish the premise of what I'm, what I wanna talk about here.

Marty: You mean in another episode?

Bill: Oh, no, no. Just now. Is it, is it, does this seem like a good time for us to shift now and so given. Let's, let's just assume that the listener, if they're still listening, buys into this premise and they agree. Yeah, we, I do have a limited amount of capacity and I'm really interested in knowing what can I do about it?

Marty: I think that's a fair assumption. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Yeah. So does that feel like a good time to move in that direction now?

Marty: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Oh, I just took one of my post-it notes and I started folding it up and I went, oh, lemme put it.

Marty: of that difference that you're talking about. Um, I walked into, sat song on Sunday morning and I had, I was ready to play the harmonium for the chant, and I was felt like in full capacity, and they said, oh, we changed the chant. We're not doing that one. Suddenly I was down to 30%, 20% capacity.

Bill: Uh.

Marty: And so, um, but then, then, you know, they, they comforted me and they said, look, we're, you know, we're, we're all gonna be kind of winging it and we'll, we'll have little, we have 10 minutes right now to kind of rehearse, gave me a little bit more capacity. Right? And, but like, if, if I. If I had gone straight from the, that shocking news to, to playing, I, I would've been absent-minded. I wouldn't have done a good job. So the, but being told it's okay, we're all dealing with this and we're gonna do a little rehearsal, it gave me more

Bill: Absolutely. Yeah. As you're describing that, I was thinking in terms of the old justice scale where whatever weight you put on the left side

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And vice versa. And so if, if we imagine that justice scale, or actually they used to use these, these in the meat departments too, in the old days, in, in butcher block.

Marty: counting, counting, way back, counting money even.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Exactly right. So, uh, let's just say we're, we're at breakeven between, between the stressors that would reduce capacity and, and the capacity itself for we're at breakeven.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And now we put on that, oh, we're, we're, we're changing. We're not gonna be doing what you plan to do today. So the the, the fear inside of you,

Marty: That's, that's right. Exactly. That's, that's what takes away from my capacity is that I'm, my head is now full of, oh shoot, I'm not prepared. I'm gonna make a fool of myself. This is gonna be bad.

Bill: right? The fear is I'm gonna make a fool on myself. And then. Other parts of you get busy. So what are we gonna do about that? Well, one part's doomsday it and saying we are, it's gonna be horrible. I am gonna make a fool outta myself.

Marty: part was point a finger at them for changing the

Bill: Yeah. Their fault. Blaming them. So that's, that's, that, that's burning up your capacity right there.

Marty: Yep.

Bill: Yeah. It's like having, um, having uh, an appliance plugged in that you don't need on right now it's using up electricity.

Marty: Or Yeah. And a program running on your computer that you're not using.

Bill: Exactly. Using up some of your bandwidth and, and yeah. So those, that's a, that's my theory. That's the way I'm thinking about this. And the theory gets tested. I, I use myself as an experiment every single day with this theory. What can I do to increase my capacity? And here's, here's the really cool thing to me about, about this, is that. You know, I, I, at 30% had as much capacity to work with in my life as I had. And at that point, I didn't know there was anything I could do about it. And I didn't know that I could have more capacity. I just compared myself to others and could see what they could accomplish in a single day and how they handled situations and realized, well, I was just a total piece of shit compared to them. I couldn't do what they could do. So there, there's just more, it more affirmed in me what I'd already believed, which is that I am not worthy, I, I don't deserve a good life. And I'm,

Marty: Sometimes we, sorry, I'm, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Bill: go ahead, go.

Marty: I mean, sometimes we, we assume that, that the other people have less capacity than us rather than more, I remember, I. friend Simon, I said, uh, you know, he said, could you gimme a ride home from the men's group? And I was like, sure, no problem. And he said, well, I'll, I'll, I'll wait a few minutes so that you can clean the car up and give me room. I got plenty of room. My car is spick and spa. He just assumed that people have a lot of junk in their car and that I would need time to clear a space for him.

Bill: Uh huh Uhhuh. Yes. That assumption that those assumptions, yeah. So everybody else is struggling.

Marty: a literal example of capacity room in the car.

Bill: Yes. Yes. That's a great, great example. Yeah.

Marty: So anyway, back to what you were saying.

Bill: Yeah. Help me get back there again, I'm, I just was intrigued by your story.

Marty: Sorry, sorry. well you were, you were just explaining, you know, how.

Bill: Okay. Oh, I know. So let's go back to 2000, 2001. What's going on in my life is that I have just escaped my marriage. And I mean that literally, it feels like I, I, I escaped. I finally just declared jailbreak. I'm getting outta here, and, and I, and I got the hell out of there, and I'm so glad that I did that night as I'm driving from my family home that I've been imprisoned in for nine years. To, to my safe house, which is the Comfort Inn on Spokane Valley, just off I 90,

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: every moment, every inch that I drive further away from her, I'm feeling this freedom, this relief. My whole, my whole internal system is saying thank you, thank you, thank you. Finally, finally, finally, we don't ever have to do that again. So, you know, I get busy for the next few days getting an apartment. Rearranging my life in such a way so that I could have time with my daughter and at the same time, you know, get to work on time and have a place to rest other than my car at night and so on and so forth. And then finally, when things are in order and all the busyness of the transition settles down after a week or two, I'm, I'm stuck with me. And, um, I wake up in the morning one morning and I can't get myself even to get out of bed. And I finally forced myself to get out of bed and go brush my teeth and start getting ready for work. And I sit down on the couch and then I lay down on the couch and I just stayed there the rest of the day. I could not get myself to go to work.

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: I was hit with such a deep, deep depression and anxiety all combined at the same time. That just paralyzed me.

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: That's when I had 30%,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I had 30% capacity, which en enabled me to stay alive. Keep breathing. But not to, to walk down the stairs from my second floor apartment to the car to drive, to work, to have to have to interact with anybody.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: From that point, I became so desperate that I knew I needed some help, but I was not willing to do all the things that I'd ever done before. That had never worked. I wasn't willing to go back to talk therapy. I wasn't willing to take antidepressants. I wasn't willing to go to three more meetings a day. All of that stuff, all the things that I knew to do. I, I just, and maybe that was part of my depression, maybe it wasn't, but my sister was concerned about me. My sister, Cindy called me. What? I, I'll never forget this, and she, she said she was worried about me. She said, Billy, are you running? She. My sister, she knew me as Billy as a little kid. So now I'm Billy still to her. And, uh, I said, what do you mean? Am I, am I running? She said, are you still running? You used to run all the time. I said, oh no. How long has it been since you ran? Oh, I don't know, two or three years ago. Probably ever since my second wife got, uh, upset every time I left the house because I wasn't taking care of my daughter and she had to, and uh, she said, well, why don't you go running that's gonna make you feel better? I said, no, no. No, I don't need you to run my life for me. Thank you very much. She said, well, will you at least go walking? And, and I said, Cindy, no, no. I know you love me and you care about me and you mean well, but listen, just leave me alone. She said, I, I know I'm, but I'm worried. Would you just do this for me? I'm really worried about you. Would you just go walk for 15 minutes and then call me back? Will you leave me alone? If I do, yes, I'll, but just call me back and let me know that you went for that 15 minute walk. It was almost miraculous. I left the apartment pissed off that my sister was, was pestering me to go for a walk. Wouldn't she just leave me alone and quit running my life for me, and I'll be damned. 15 minutes later I wanted to keep walking and then 15 minutes after that I went back to the apartment and got my running shoes and I went for a run for the first time in three years. And I called her back. She was worried because I told her I was gonna call her after 15 minutes, and it was about two hours later, I called her back and I said, Cindy, I went running. You went running. How do you feel? And I said, I feel great. I feel great. I, so this, this is a story of me jumping from 30% capacity, maybe up all the way up to 50 just by getting out in fresh air, getting my body moving and running. So there's, it was temporary. I mean, the next morning I, I woke up with 30% capacity again, but I knew something I could do about it. So

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I started connecting with people again, and the more capacity that I had, the more I was able to do things that gave me more capacity.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Sometimes we need a little help. Cindy threw me a knee throat that day.

Marty: Yeah. Well, I noticed one of the comments that people make in, uh, step group meetings. It is like, oh, it was just really good to be here today. I feel like I, I can take on, you know, it didn't diminish any of the stuff I gotta deal with, but I hear often people, and I feel myself like, oh, I just, you know, I just have a little bit more capacity now to go tackle all this.

Bill: So if we're making a list of what we can do to increase capacity, put Connection. on the list too, then.

Marty: Connection.

Bill: Yeah. Now Jesus had to go pray he had too much connection, or at least not enough connection with his father and, and too much connection,

Marty: of connect, right?

Bill: right?

Marty: Yeah. The go back to the source.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Right, right. Exactly. Uh, so we got connection. We got, um, you know, physical exercise, proper nutrition. Um, you know, sometimes for me, going to a a, a funny movie will increase capacity.

Marty: Yeah, that's very true. That's very true.

Bill: Um, by the way, I'm gonna go see good, what's it called? Uh, Keanu Re Reeves newest movie. It's, it's supposed to be kind of silly, but funny too. He's, he's an angel or something and Yeah.

Marty: really?

Bill: Yeah. Good. I'll have to think of the movie. We'll put it in show notes. Maybe we'll wait to put it in show notes until I go to the movie and tell you how it is.

Marty: Meditating would go on this list too, you know,

Bill: Oh, yes.

Marty: you're, you're literally, you know, a relaxing, all of that activity that is decreasing your capacities. And so that, that's another

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: another so to speak.

Bill: Even if the meditation is, is two or three minutes, where, where you stop what you're doing and you focus on anything that's happening in the present moment right now.

Marty: It, it's just to get off on a tangent, but the effectiveness of meditation has no, nothing, well, has less to do with the length of it than on your focus.

Bill: Hmm. You know, we really need to do an episode on meditation because you are, uh, an amazing teacher of meditation and I think that you need to let me interview about, interview you about that.

Marty: Okay.

Bill: I, I just made a note of it. One of these times. Very soon we'll be, we'll be talking about meditation and that relates back to capacities. So we've been talking about one level of what there is to do about capacity, and that is. What can I do right now to increase my capacity? Uh, the other level of it is what can I, do long term that's that's sustainable and lasting where I don't have to continue to invest?

Marty: I, I know another one before, before we answer that.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Um, you will, you remember where we're at?

Bill: Yes, I will.

Marty: Um, if you restore integrity.

Bill: Ooh.

Marty: Restore integrity. That's a really big one. You know, like a lot of times, you know, I'll coach somebody in business they're doing all the right things, but it's not, they're not growing and, and then I will do a, an integrity check. I did everything I'm supposed to. I called all those people and I left all those messages and I, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do in business, but I'm also sleeping with somebody who's not my wife. Well, that might have on your mind, causing you less capacity to see the openings for your business. Right. Uh, though, so anyway, that's, that's kind of a creepy example, but I know it definitely works for me. Like if I'm working hard and I'm not getting the results. And this could be in a conversation, in one conversation that I want something to accomplish something, uh, you know, but I'm out of integrity with that very person. Like, I am late for the call or, um, you know, I was supposed to have, know, done this three days ago or something. I apologize and get clean and come back in integrity, then, we both have a lot more capacity.

Bill: Such a great point, and, and as you share that I, I wanna just acknowledge that any really good coaching session or any any valuable coaching session. Is and, uh, is good and valuable because it helps the client increase capacity.

Marty: Right. Yeah.

Bill: And, and many of the conversations are about integrity, not from a moral perspective,

Marty: No, no.

Bill: from from the perspective of when something is misaligned, getting aligned when something's missing, filling in that gap

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: when, when something is, is, has been committed to and hasn't been followed through on. When there's rupture, we do repairs.

Marty: Right,

Bill: You know, this is basic 1 0 1 in that some of the stuff that I learned, basic 1 0 1 and 12 step in 1982 was when I make a mess, I need to acknowledge it and clean it up.

Marty: There you go. Okay. I just, that was an important one I thought we should have on the list.

Bill: I am really glad you mentioned that. Uh, so where I was gonna go next was so, so all of that. Handles what has been building up inside or a need that's been going unmet all, everything that we've been talking about. It acknowledges, see that are an unmet need

Marty: I.

Bill: or something that we have been ignoring or neglecting inside that needs to be addressed.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Another so that that's gonna take us from. What, whatever the baseline is, let's, let's just use 50%. Now, let's just say that you were a 50% person. In other words, you wake up in the morning with 50% capacity because your system's real busy managing the past and using up 50% already.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So maybe you can get yourself to 60% if you're exercising, if you're, if you're. Cleaning up your integrity if you rec, if you're doing, if you're staying on top of things in a way that uses capacity, but there's a nice return on the investment.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: So if I, if I, let's just say use one percentage of my capacity to go have that hard conversation with somebody and it cleans it up and gives me a reset and we have repair now and I gain 5%, then that's a pretty good return on investment.

Marty: Yeah. And then just to mention the opposite, you know, if day after day I keep accumulating these out, integrities and the, you know, not dealing with unfinished business, um, emotional stress, if I just keep going, you know, just then my capacity is gonna get lower and lower and lower.

Bill: That's, that's right. So in that way, there again, this is not exactly scientific, but in that way, the swing could be, let's just say 10 to, let's say 10, 15%. Either way, if 50% is the baseline, I could drag all the way down to 35% if I'm not taking care of business. And the harder it gets, the harder it gets to come back again.

Marty: Yep.

Bill: Yeah. The opposite is true as well. If I'm willing to do the hard thing now, then it's gonna get easier to do the hard thing later.

Marty: I like that. I like that thinking, that way of thinking very much.

Bill: Mm-hmm. If anybody wants to dive further into that kind of thinking, I wanna recommend The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. It is a great read, easy rig, slight, the slight Edge. I used to hand that book out to my clients all the time. So the second approach here and, and what I recommend to all my coaching clients is that they do all the things that we're talking about doing. Pay attention to self-care. Uh, keep your integrity, integrity, uh, in, in, uh, in place repair ruptures. Take care of business, do the hard thing. Do it with compassion for yourself as much as you possibly can, is to do the healing work. Help those parts of you that have been dealing with the unresolved past out, they've been working tirelessly for often decades to try to resolve. What's the unresolvable. And the reason I say it's unresolvable is because it happened in the past and the past no longer exists. These parts are still preoccupied and organized around the unresolved past.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: How do we help them out? We, we invite them into the present moment. That's part of it. We help them to kind of flesh out what, what they walk, what they, what they held onto from that unresolved experience,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and we help them to release what they're hanging onto when they recognize that it has no value anymore. Or that it was never valued, valid in the first place. Like, like beliefs, like I'm not worthy. That's not a valid belief. We are, we're all worthy, but at some point for a human being to, to draw the conclusion that they aren't worthy. While, while we can see from the outside that that's not a valid explanation ever. It's, it's a, it's an explanation that many of us had to take on just so that we have had a sense of power that if I'm not worthy, maybe I can work, work hard on having some worth, maybe I can do things to be worthy.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: It's a sense of hope in, in, in an otherwise powerless or hopeless situation,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: so that it served us in that way at, at one time. But these parts are still stuck back there. So if we can help them, and I, I don't know a better way to do this than the internal family systems model. To unhealed, unburden and release what's unresolved from the past. Then that's how I got from 30 to 80%.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So it's two approaches at the same time.

Marty: I have a of side question. Um, you said these, these parts are stuck in the past.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Do they ever, and, and I imagine you said invite them into the present. Like do they, like, I imagine like in a period movie, you know, they show up in 19th century clothing or something,

Bill: Yeah. Right.

Marty: but do they ever have trauma? Coming into the present, like, whoa, I'm, I'm so used to dealing with this, you know, world in which I am worthless, and now you're telling me I, I have all this worth. And it's just like, I can't quite,

Bill: Well, so the premise of your question is, is, is off a bit.

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: let's correct the question just a little bit. If we could. In the IFS model, we don't offer positive affirmations. We're not reassuring parts that they're okay when they don't think they are. What we are. What we're doing instead is we're, we're trying to understand how they drew that conclusion in the first place.

Marty: Uh

Bill: And then if and when they're ready to, we offer, uh, a way for them to, uh, let go of that explanation and consider others

Marty: mm-hmm.

Bill: instead of that other things might be true. Here's a good example of that. Let's just say that you have an alcoholic parent. And as you're growing up, your alcoholic parent just cannot be there for you

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: the, their addiction has taken them. They, they don't have the cap, they don't have the capacity to be, to be a good parent to you.

Marty: Right.

Bill: Uh, a child growing up in a family like that, and anybody from that's involved in the adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families program will get this, uh, then, then that need needs go unmet. And we naturally draw the conclusion that, that if I was a better kid, maybe dad wouldn't drink. Or if, if, if I wasn't just a bad person, I would never have landed in this family in the first place. Or if I was courageous enough, I would confront dad and get him to stop drinking and stop hitting mom. Whatever we make it about ourselves, we blame ourselves. So those. By blaming ourselves that gives us something we can work on. Well then maybe if I'm more courageous, you know, maybe if I'm a better kid, maybe if I, if I try to be good instead of bad, then he won't drink so much and maybe he'll, he'll then be available to me. Um, that of course never works. And, and those, but those beliefs stay stuck in us. They stay stuck in us. So now we, we are the adult, we are the parent, and we still have this belief, I have no worth, I'm not worth loving, I'm not worth respecting, I'm not worth spending spending time with. And if, if that's our belief that the parts of us that believe that and organize themselves around that painful belief have us so preoccupied that we're just as drunk as our parents were, but we're drunk on our trauma rather than drunk on the alcohol. And in some cases, we're drunk on the alcohol too.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So we have diminished capacity because of what's unresolved from the past. Now, when we invite those parts of us that, that were hurt and, and suffered as a result of, of dad not being there because he was drunk, uh, and never available into the present moment. They absolutely are bringing their trauma, but, but they're bringing their trauma out of the past where they've been kept and isolated alone with that trauma into the present. To be with a much more fully resourced version of ourselves that can actually give them a different experience. Maybe even the, the experience that that, that we needed back then that we didn't get to have

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: of being loved, of being seen, known one, heard, understood, and appreciated.

Marty: Okay.

Bill: And the more that that can happen. Here's another thing that, you know, as I talk about this, especially with people that are new to IFS, uh, sometimes I unintentionally give the impression that this is something that can happen quickly. It, it doesn't, it doesn't happen quickly.

Marty: Mm.

Bill: It's incredible how quickly it does happen, but it's in, it's in degrees and, and, and, uh, and it takes, but it's a process and it takes a long, long time. I didn't discover IFS until 2016. Nine years ago, so I was 61 years old before I discovered a, a modality that helped me to heal my past. My past started at age 61 and worked backwards. So in other words, for 61 years I lived in such a way that all of the things that I included about myself were lived as if they were true. For 61 years. And the, those beliefs and the behaviors that came from those beliefs created their, each of created stacks and stacks and mountains and mountains of problems and disconnections and, and, and confirmations, that I was right about myself. That, that I was worthless.

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: Now I've been doing IFS, and I'm, I haven't been the best student of IFS. I love it. I use it. I use it often, but I don't use it like. Like a lot of people that I know who, who are every single day doing IFS work on the, on themselves and getting to know their parts. But for nine years I've been doing as much as I've been doing, and I've made the progress that I've made in these past nine years, and there's a ton more to do. I won't live long enough to heal all the parts of me that, that, that experience trauma and that we're wounded in the past,

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: but I'm happy with the progress. 30 to 80 is pretty damn good.

Marty: Yeah, sure. Mm-hmm. How do you know that you won't heal at all before you?

Bill: I, I don't know that I, but, but if I'm pretty good at math in 61 years of living with a belief, belief system

Marty: Well, it's not gonna take the same amount of time necessarily to unpack all that as it did to pack it.

Bill: No, you're right. And, and as much progress as I've been making, uh. I have a lot of faith and a lot of confidence that, you know, what would what, what would it be like to live at 85% capacity,

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: given That 80 is what I'm at now? I'm looking forward to that.

Marty: Because some these things are kind of like hooked together, and if you heal one, it loosens the others and they

Bill: right. You're absolutely right about that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, in fact, Dick Schwartz wrote a book and he, he talks about that, and I think the name of the book is greater than the Sum of Our Parts. Yeah. And it talks about the exponential healing that can happen. It's not just a one-to-one trade off.

Marty: That's right. So, you know, exp if it works exp and I suppose, you know, that would, you'd have to be really focused on it, but, um, you could, you, there's a great movie stories like that too. You know, somebody's lived and under certain. Idea of themselves, and then something happens and they have, you know, ev capacity in a short amount of time, shorter than it took to get in that rut. They, they heal and, and shine.

Bill: You're, you're absolutely right. There's stories like that. Uh, I'm thinking the first person I think of is Byron Katie, who

Marty: Great example.

Bill: is a self-described, she was workaholic, I wanna say. I don't know. She, but her life was a mess, let's just say that.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And she had a lot of of pain in her past. She went to bed one night as that woman and woke up the next morning completely released from all of that suffering

Marty: Mm-hmm. It's amazing

Bill: overnight.

Marty: is probably another example of

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: on the fast track.

Bill: Yeah. And, and there are people who, who, uh, are truly enlightened. There are people that are trying to get there and, and interestingly, those that try don't seem to ever find it. But the, those that wake up one morning and realize, oh, I'm not who I used to be.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Um, I'm not that anymore. We call them enlightened and most of them say, I don't know what that means.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Right.

Bill: Enlightened, yeah.

Marty: but, but we can tell because they've got such enormous capacity.

Bill: Exactly they can be with whatever comes their way. And they seem to be nonplused

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: of the time, most of the time.

Marty: Right, right.

Bill: Well, Marty, we need to begin to wrap up here. It's been, again, a very enjoyable conversation as usual,

Marty: Yes, it has.

Bill: Well Thank you. uh, next week. will either talk to you about meditation or this other topic that you mentioned before we hit record, which is the idea of selfish and selfless.

Marty: Right.

Bill: So more topics on cue. We'll, we'll, thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.