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Welcome to "Lessons from the Couch", where we invite you to pull up a seat and join Corina and Mariana—two marriage and family therapists based in Illinois—on a journey through therapy, life, and everything in between. In each episode, we have honest and engaging conversations with therapists and non-therapists alike, exploring their unique experiences in and around therapy. Whether it's the story of a therapist navigating early career challenges or a non-therapist sharing how therapy changed their life, our goal is to show just how accessible and transformative these conversations can be.
We also dive into the diverse career paths and personal journeys within the field of mental health, from seasoned professionals to those just starting out (like Corina and Mariana, who are at opposite timelines of their own therapy careers).
If you're curious about therapy, mental health, or simply enjoy meaningful conversations, "Lessons from the Couch" is for you. Get ready to think, reflect, and discover new perspectives one conversation at a time.
Follow Lessons from the Couch on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts to listen to new episodes.
Co-Hosted by Corina Teofilo Mattson and Mariana Reyes Daza. Show art by Jae Avilez. Music by Brandon Acosta.
If you're interested in therapy services, either in person or via telehealth, and reside in Illinois, visit www.liveoakchicago.com to learn more.
Self or our unconditional love is kind of like the sun. So when the skies are clear, you have full access to it. So you feel the warmth of it, you give the warmth of it, plants flourish, the sky looks blue. And our parts, they could be like clouds whenever we get blended or whenever we get hijacked by them or in Halloween when we get possessed by them, they just kind of block the sun. And it's not that the sun doesn't exist, it's just that we're losing access to it.
Corina:Hi, my name is Corina Teofilo Mattson.
Mariana:I'm Mariana Reyes Daza, and we are co hosts for Lessons from the Couch.
Corina:Throughout this podcast, you're going find us having intimate, deep conversations. We'll be talking to therapists and probably some non therapists, and we're going to bring you into the therapy room with us.
Chris Aguirre:I was able to pair my headphones, but then I was like, what's going on with this microphone? But hopefully I did it
Mariana:Yeah. It sounds great. I already hit recording, just so you know, but let me know if you would like me to pause for a moment for any reason. We do have some strange livestream going, but I'm keeping an eye on it and we have zero people watching. So I hope that brings peace of mind.
Mariana:Excited to chat with you, Chris.
Chris Aguirre:Yeah, same here. Are we like starting now or?
Corina:And go. I can start us off. I was telling Mariana that I'm really excited for you to come because this season, we're talking about expertise. And I have had the good fortune of witnessing you in this process with IFS and seeing you change along the way. So to start off, would you be willing to tell us about your journey into IFS?
Chris Aguirre:Oh, yeah, let's start hot and heavy, right? In terms of how I got introduced to it, I think this was in the making, like thirty years ago. So I've recently found out that I'm like a highly sensitive person. So there's a lot of superpowers that get associated with that, but I needed a specific type of attunement growing up. I had a good, lovely family.
Chris Aguirre:My mother and grandma were always there to give me emotional attunement. But one of the barriers of having a young mother is that sometimes the psychological pieces are not there. I'm someone that experienced a lot of like pain and suffering growing up, and I never really had the ability to make sense of things. So I think when I was like 10, my uncle had like a terminal illness that that really freaked me out. I grew up in the South Side Of Chicago, so there's always like violence and threats going on there.
Chris Aguirre:And one of the predispositions of being a highly sensitive person is that it could translate into being an anxious or depression person. And the first one is the one that really impacted me. So I suffered from a lot of anxiety. What I knew back then that I see differently now is I had OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder, and that really did a number in my relationships. But school wise, that was always really easy for me, but academically, but in my personal relationships, that's where I really struggled the most.
Chris Aguirre:So this is just some background as to how I was shaped. Through that, I guess I was always looking for support and ways of how to tend to that. And fortunately for me, I do have a really good thinking brain or thinking parts of the brain. And when I would go to get support or treatment for it, I didn't know what would be helpful, but have a really strong sensitive system that knows what is not helpful. And encountering a lot of therapists, a lot of books, none of it felt helpful.
Chris Aguirre:Luckily, I've always been working with people. I've always liked studying human norms and psychology. So I decided to go to school and be like, let me see how these therapists are trained. I'm not one that takes things at face value. Went back to school, Northwestern, to study marriage and family therapy, and there was a lot of intellectual logic pieces there that my brains enjoyed, but I still couldn't feel what healing looked like until one of our workshops or classes.
Chris Aguirre:They're like, let's introduce you to this model. And the framework of it really made me feel like there was something that could be helpful for me. So that's just kind of like how I was introduced. I'll stop now just to kind of check-in and see if you have any questions, more for me.
Mariana:One thing I wonder if you can say a little bit more of for our listeners that may not be as familiar is tell us a little bit more about the framework of IFS and what it is and how maybe you've taken pieces of it into the way that you practice.
Chris Aguirre:I could give it an attempt. Usually when I would go places to find help or support, or even in how we're socialized, We try to like fight, resist, kind of challenge, coerce, minimize our emotions. And I think internal family system does not do that. It's a very non pathological approach where you literally lead with curiosity, compassion. There's these eight C words that encompass what this means.
Chris Aguirre:The way that I would articulate it, and this is a kid from the South Side Of Chicago telling you this, I think that internal family systems allows us to access unconditional love. And from that place, you could go into addressing any concern that you have. There's this thing called self, which is what I refer to as your unconditional love. And every time we experience pain, that's our vulnerabilities. This model knows it as like exiles.
Chris Aguirre:That's like very young, innocent attributes to us. Often we don't have an attuned figure to help us make sense out of it. We acquire defense mechanisms, protect the qualities that come in to step in to help us make sense out of the world in the best way that we can possible. So that framework alone allowed me to be like, oh man, it's still a great way to make sense of what I experienced earlier in terms of OCD. But now it's almost like, oh, if I look at it through a very trauma informed lens, I'm like, I just had a lot of pain, grief, anticipatory grief, fear of loss.
Chris Aguirre:And for a 10 year old boy's mind, I acquired unique ways of trying to alleviate myself from that pain. And then once I went to this amazing training last year, I was able to kind of make sense out of this stuff in a way that I never could before. So feeling and understanding this framework on a personal level really connected with me and really allowed me to heal some of the pain that I for a long time didn't think was possible.
Corina:Chris, would you be willing to share what you are noticing so far on the IFS path about how it's changing both you as a therapist and you as a person, a family member, etcetera?
Chris Aguirre:Yeah, I'll start with the second one. When I went there, I hope and the clients that I work with will have to share you more information, but I hope that I have the space to have a container where we explore things in a very curious place. But where I really have found the biggest impact for me through this modality, Internal Family Systems, is on a personal level. As I shared, it's really allowed me to see my pain in the past through a compassionate lens, has allowed me to kind of see myself more kindly, to unblend or separate myself from the way that I was viewing things. Literally, I went from being in survival mode for four decades to finally feeling safe, which really impacts the way that I connect with my family.
Chris Aguirre:I met my wife when I was 16, so I knew right away she was somebody that I really wanted to have in my life for the rest of my life. And just through my struggles, was able to kind of have a lot of misattunement with her. And IFS has allowed me to do a U-turn to refine myself and just really straighten that relationship. I have two boys. One's in college.
Chris Aguirre:He's a sophomore. He plays basketball. And then I have a fifteen year old. And they're both amazing kiddos, right? But I have more space for their protectors.
Chris Aguirre:And it allows me to connect in a much richer, deeper way.
Corina:And what do they say about the ways you've changed?
Chris Aguirre:Took them a while to be like, literally you just shifted from one day to the next. But I do think this internal family system model can be magical. I went from being a skeptic. To the training that we go there for a level one, it's like fourteen days, it's like ninety hours. The first four days I was challenging the trainers.
Chris Aguirre:I was like, don't want to like really necessarily be here, connect y'all, like F all y'all. And then once I started to feel the tenderness, the kindness, the richness of what that compassionate container did, I softened. So after the first week, I got home and in the middle of the night, I literally had like a little cry sesh just because I had a lot of compassion for the protectors that had been working so hard for me. And I remember waking up in the middle of the night, I go to my wife next to the bed and I'm like, Yo, I just gotta like share this with you. And I cried, she held me for a while.
Chris Aguirre:The next day I just felt like a completely different person. There's a video of me like dancing in the living room, just being so open. And my kids are like, What the hell is going on with you, man? But since that day I started just to be different. I was more freeing.
Chris Aguirre:So it took them a while to kind of believe it, but hopefully trust this consistent behavior for a prolonged time. And it's been a couple of years since then. So now they're more receptive to it. And my young son, that's like the marker for me, the more open he is for me, I know that I'm doing something right.
Mariana:Well, some of the language from IFS that really resonates with me is that idea of the unburdening of the parts. And from what you're saying in that moment, it really seems like you were able to unburden that protector part and just let yourself be present, right? And let yourself be the leader. Within that, I'm curious, how do you think that the IFS model and this work either suits or does not suit the different people that come into our therapy spaces? Do you think that most people would find value in unburdening some of these parts and in doing the work of IFS?
Chris Aguirre:That's a deep one, right? So I'll just kind of start even a little bit off with me. So, you know, I thought I had read everything up to the point of going to the training in IFS. I did not know. It was completely different being in the experience.
Chris Aguirre:So there's a big piece of unblending and working with protectors. There's a whole framework or steps to do that. The unburdening piece is more of like the second half of it. When you really uncover a lot of the pain exiles in their terms And you witness it, you're there for it from your most loving place to like update it and heal it. That first week, I didn't even get to that level.
Chris Aguirre:The first week, I just was able to finally see the protector that was like a self like part for me, who was just always there and just me observing it and just having compassion for it, that alone was a game changer. And I'm trying to do my own work to kind of unburden some of the exiles who are in pain, but you could acquire a huge level of healing and goodness without even doing the full steps of it yet. It just oozes with so much richness. And then what you shared, it makes me think back to grad school. They always share every model could work 75% of the time, but then what about the remaining 25?
Chris Aguirre:And I guess one of the questions that I always had, and I would always ask my professors, I think I would always even ask Corina. I was like, Yo, I just want like the universal thing that grounds and ties all 8,000,000,000 people of us. In my view, I do see IFS as being the umbrella and everything just kind of fits underneath it. Because the framework of it, we just have pain, vulnerabilities, exiles, we have defense mechanisms, protectors, managers or firefighters, and then we all have a cell for our most unconditional love within us. I think that this is universal.
Chris Aguirre:I think it applies to all 8,000,000,000 people of us. This is just how I feel about it.
Corina:Chris, I like to tell the story when you and I got to know each other in the community program. So Chris, I remember you were in my group in the community program. And I don't even know what we were talking about or what we had been talking about. But I do remember that you kept being a little skeptical about participation, I think, which I thought was understandable. And you were offering the same critiques at the time and the same questions too, which is like, what's gonna get me to the essence of it all?
Corina:You know, what's gonna get me closer to the essence of it all and some uncertainty that the community program was gonna bring you there? And I don't remember, I was newer on my path toward being really direct with people about stuff, but something in you gave me the sense that you were open to it. And so I said, Hey, I wonder if the urgency sometimes gets in the way of getting the best of this experience, the stuff that you might be able to get otherwise. And something I remember about that time, and I've experienced ever since is that you've always been so here for it. So here for me and the people around you, to help you get closer to that goal.
Corina:And you've also always been actively looking for it, even if sometimes the protectors got in the way of getting closer. I've never known anybody who from the jump in grad school was so clear. I'm looking to heal humanity, and I want everything I'm doing on the way to get me closer to that. And that was you from the beginning. And I think your consistency is pretty cool.
Chris Aguirre:I might have very ambitious parts. I've been involved in like working with people and hopefully supporting them and helping them since I was 15 years old. There was this program, National Hispanic Institute Young Leaders Conference, where we would get inner city high school students and we would kind of like IFSE, like we would support them, encourage them, normalize things, and just empower them to just be critical thinkers and challenge their system. I didn't know it at the time, but we were creating a compassionate container that people felt safe. I could look back at it now to see what worked, but I guess what I learned growing up, working with people in this way is just always really meaningful to me.
Chris Aguirre:Always, being a highly sensitive person, you could really think systemically and just try to see what the universal things that tie humans together. So I've always had that curiosity. I've always worked towards being unapologetically me. The thing is that when I met you, Corina, you saw one of my strongest protectors. I learned early on that playing offense is like the best defense.
Chris Aguirre:So sometimes when I would go to learning spaces, I never really take things at face value. I would challenge people. I would ask them things. Because if I feel that you knew things in a very profound way, now I could articulate it that I'm like, Oh, I could feel safe around you. I could trust you.
Chris Aguirre:And if the way that you responded to me was like, you're just repeating things without really knowing, then I would not feel safe around you. I think the context, even before you asked that question, you had gotten on my radar. How you treated people, your selflessness, your like modesty, your giving. I didn't even know that you had your own practice. So all of this being a highly sensitive person, I would notice that without having articulated.
Chris Aguirre:So by that time I had already been like, yeah, this person is on the unique side. They just don't talk about it. They embody the principles of therapy. And as soon as I felt that presence from you, then I was like, yeah, this is somebody that I could drop some of the guard down to really learn this, which is what I've always wanted. It was just hard reading which people I could let my guard down to do that with or not.
Chris Aguirre:So when you were bringing this up, this is just some of the things that I was just kind of processing.
Corina:I appreciate it. I'm always working on the protective parts of me that make it hard for me to integrate feedback. It's usually like a reflective retrospective exercise for me. But I believe you, and I have experienced you giving me that feedback along the way. Something you've said a lot is that you have looked for people who will be about it and show the thing that they care about.
Corina:And I think you making explicit to me, it's been a reciprocal learning between the two of us, because it's helped me kind of clarify my own model, which isn't just for being a therapist, it's also for being a leader, hopefully for my family, I think you're actually better at bringing it back home than I am, but of trying to do the thing that I want people to learn from me. And so you making that explicit for me, helped me understand what I was trying to do in relation to other people and especially colleagues and peers and clients.
Mariana:Live Oak Chicago is a primarily queer, trauma informed therapy practice located on the North Side Of Chicago, offering both in person and virtual therapy, consultation and workshops. We are committed to the practice of becoming a model of a community of diversely identified humans working together to transform the emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being of individuals, families and communities, beginning with ourselves. To access therapy, training, or consultation, please visit www.liveoakchicago.com.
Mariana:It's interesting how in the exploration of IFS that you're sharing, the keyword that you keep coming back to is compassion and how much that has been a part of the ways that both of you have existed as therapists. Like, I think it ideally, as therapists, it's because we are wanting to connect with people and offer compassion. And that in some ways, we as humans have an easier time offering compassion to others, but not to ourselves. And I just think that it's so important that IFS kind of preaches that return of compassion inwards. And I'm curious if that's something you all have experienced.
Mariana:Do you think that it has been easier to offer compassion outwards rather than to yourselves?
Chris Aguirre:I've been fortunate in so many ways, right? I'm first generation Latino. I grew up in a house full of women, my grandmother and my mom being the mother of my make people, and I've always felt loved by them. You will not see me lack confidence. You will not see me be apologetically me.
Chris Aguirre:I own that. I think me, I've always been kind, compassionate towards myself. I'm sure I've struggled. I'm not perfect by any means. I'm a work in progress.
Chris Aguirre:But some of the things that stand out as I was hearing your question. Like, I really want to know this in my bones. And for a while, I thought that I could like think my way out of things or get logic. But there's a line that comes through me. One of our level one trainer PAs did like curiosity allows you to see the pain behind the behavior.
Chris Aguirre:And that always sticks with me because early on some of the statements that I said, and I could be kind of embarrassed about it now, but I was like, I'm not trying to be no IFS disciple here. I don't like to be a follower. I always like to kind of understand things deeply. If it aligns with me, I'll connect with you. So growing up, I knew, in my view, what a core thing as to why problems occurred.
Chris Aguirre:One of them is that we as humans, we're very singular with things. We just get one perspective or one viewpoint, and then it creates a polarization or we fight with somebody else. This model knows it as like being blended. So every time if somebody talked about problems and did not address that piece, I wouldn't trust them. I'm like, you must just be reading something off the book and you don't really know where like problems come off.
Chris Aguirre:So any of the isms, any arguments in relationships, any social problems is tied down to this rigidity that humans have. And when I saw that IFS talked about it, I'm like, you get it. You understand what I've noticed and what I've seen or known to be true. And then they took it deeper because I was always looking for logic to solve problems, but what they made me feel in training was what my grandmother and my mom and my aunts and my family would make me feel growing up. So I was like, what the hell is this?
Chris Aguirre:You're asking me to bring personal things in me to like really be with people? And then I was like, well, what softened me. That's what softened me from Corina. That's what the mentors, the people that are in my life embody these principles. So I think IFS is aligned with how I view the world and it growing me to unlock healing power.
Chris Aguirre:And it gives me permission to do it more consistently, not only to myself, but to my family, to my clients that I work with. And I'm hoping to do this even further than that to the society as a whole as much as I can. But that's just my initial reactions. And I'll just kind of pause there.
Corina:My memory is not so strong. So it's hard for me to say when this transition happened for me, because I definitely was raised to be in some self criticalness. Being raised Catholic, there was certainly some sense of like, you're not getting it quite right. That being said, my present day self doesn't feel burdened by that. And so it's a little hard for me to track back exactly how that change happened.
Corina:I'm not saying never, but pretty rarely am I really mean to myself. And I know that's a thing a lot of people struggle with. So like you said, Chris, I feel very lucky about that. I could go into a bunch of stories that are hypotheses I have about that. But that's actually a part of me this part that goes up to my thinking qualities.
Corina:So what I'll add is that I'm very motivated by being ways that help other people transform. So that's like very motivating for me, I think about it as my own special interest, my own particular neurodiversity is like, this is what gets me going. And so as a therapist, I have a lot of influence. As a supervisor, I have a lot of influence. As the boss of the company, have a lot of influence.
Corina:And as a mom in particular, I have a lot of influence. And so what I've learned over time, and I really think this is something you and I have in common, Chris, is like we notice things about what works and doesn't work. And so I noticed that parents, colleagues, peers, supervisors, saying things can like help a small subset of the population. But my perception is that most people are much more influenced by their experience. And so for example, I noticed that like being hard on ourselves is not like effective at systematic change, I've learned that if I want to make that feel credible to the people around me, then I got to live into it.
Corina:Have to practice it and try it and do it. I wish I could better tell you how I got there exactly. But I just know that it's not that hard for me. So generally, when I make a mistake, it's not that hard for me. I'm sure it helps that I am my own boss, because I'm no longer worried or burdened by the idea that somebody an observer is going to impact my job in some way.
Corina:And so that definitely helps because being an employee of other people, a lot of my hyper performance parts come out and take over and makes it hard for me to stay grounded. But my hope is that by living into that with the people in my life that it feels credible that we all get to make mistakes and that it's okay and that there's like something to learn from that thing. And I think that is something I can't say my family, but I can say that supervisees, especially when I work with students, often they'll say that they trust that whatever mistake happened that I will tell them that it's going to be okay. That's what I'm going for. So I'm glad that it comes through.
Corina:So I'm sure IFS has helped with this, but I don't think it's the only thing.
Mariana:As you were sharing that I'm thinking about the ways in which I feel like I've become kinder and more gentle with myself in the past three years of going to therapy school and being a therapist, because so much of the time, if I find myself not being kind to myself, I try to think, what would I be telling one of my clients right now? And how would I be telling themselves to do self care in terms of the ways that they talk to themselves? And I think that that has been a really healing part for me noticing, oh, I'm preaching all these things. How can I actually start practicing them in my own life? And one of those being showing myself kindness when there's things that in the past I would have criticized myself for.
Mariana:And it's still an ever growing thing for me, but I guess I appreciate hearing that part from both of you of like, it has felt integral to yourselves to be kind and compassionate towards self. And I think I have that within myself, but the past few years have reminded me to listen to that part that wants to be compassionate instead of let the critical parts win.
Chris Aguirre:The way just hearing you all talk and the questions you all are making is just making my brain race with like, goodness. This is the stuff that I enjoy being around. Even you, Mariana, when you were talking, that statement of curiosity allows me to see the pain behind the behavior. It's like an odd thing to say, right? But thank goodness for your critic.
Chris Aguirre:The behavior is that it does it in a way that is not socially acceptable, but I know it is just trying really hard to try to protect you. It has the right intention to be in service of you. And I like when you have curiosity, you'll be able to kind of understand it better and see what that is and get in relationship with it. And then something else that you shared for me was the previous question, right, too. I think maybe growing up, I've always really invited or valued the tear repair reflect model.
Chris Aguirre:Couldn't articulate that back then. But I know it's not if I'm going to mess up, it's when I'm going to mess up and how often I'm going to mess up. Like I've known this, but it's not a bad thing as long as I utilize time to reflect and repair when I do that. So that always gave me confidence and grace to not be afraid to make mistakes. But then the line that really comes up for me, shout out to like Ann Cinco right now, I don't know if she'll hear this right, but she's like the management style that she would like to grab is to be the most loving person in the room.
Chris Aguirre:Now, I have not embodied that yet. Even just talking to you right now, I'm a talker, I'm very intellectual. But there is a difference when I go in felt sense. And this model is very experiential. You got to feel it to heal it.
Chris Aguirre:And that's the work that I'm trying to go in on. I have to have appreciation for my talker, my narrative parts, my intellectual parts, but it's a completely different place in my body where it comes from when I have calmness, when I have this loving presence, not only for me, but for the people that I care about. And I hope to stumble lots of times. That's the aspiration that I would try to get to, right? So that's just kind of where my mind went.
Mariana:I appreciate the reminder to also care for my critical parts, and how much we think about all our parts as having some value, even if maybe their initial appearance feels negative, that ultimately there is good in what they're trying to do. And so I really appreciate that reminder of the ways that maybe that critical part for me has grounded me in some places and in some moments.
Chris Aguirre:And this could just be more of my kick too. I did this PA training a couple of weeks back and that was a takeaway that I had. And this is more professionally. It just hit me one day. Every defense mechanism, every behavior that we, I, human has is a learned survival strategy that we've acquired.
Chris Aguirre:However it shows up is just to try to make us feel safe or protect us. We've learned to do that, sometimes out of necessity. And just me, dang, like that hits me. So it has the good intention which aligns with IFS. And then can I be curious as to what is it that it services or what is it that it protects?
Chris Aguirre:So it's something that I've never was reared or educated on doing. So once I made that connection, it really softens me, but it also changes the way that I interact with the person in front of me. It's not about the behavior or the defense mechanism. It's what's the intention and what does it protect?
Corina:Chris, that resonates with me. When I came to Live Oak, 1 of the things that I was taught as part of the trauma informed model here is a version of the vulnerability cycle that Jeff, the co founder here, adapted from one put together by Mary Jo Barrett, I believe, because they had collaborated for some time. And it's super straightforward. But it was just like, what's the behavior? What's the emotion that that behavior leads to in somebody else?
Corina:What's the behavior that that person does to deal with that emotion? So in a cycle, I think that that was one of the first times that I downloaded this idea that you're getting at right now. So it was probably like thirteen years ago. It was the beginning of a downloading of all of us are just responding to the outputs around us or to the inputs around us. To your question, Mariana, I'm sure that that was a part of having way more compassion for myself and others to be like, Oh, it's the best guess that we could make without more information.
Corina:Our survival strategies are the best guess that we could make without more knowledge and that the knowledge can go so far. And to your point, Chris, I have learned the same thing. Experience is way more critical for me than even knowledge because I can talk a good game until I've experienced it. And once I've experienced it, then I know how hard it is. And then I can have more compassion working with my peers or clients or whoever by talking with integrity about the challenge of living into the thing.
Corina:It's both challenging and essential. I wonder what you find to be a part that's hard to tolerate in other people. And I can start with myself. What I notice is that because modeling is so important to me and because it's the thing my brain is oriented towards, I notice that I struggle with compassion. So clearly this is a part when I see other adults having expectations of children that they don't have for themselves.
Corina:So when I perceive an adult saying like, stop yelling to a child when they are yelling at a child, that just really pokes at my part that has attunement to what feels just or unjust. I wonder, do you two notice having a hard time with parts that you see in other people?
Mariana:Probably the parts in me that I have a harder time with. When I notice them in others, I can probably have more criticism or be less compassionate towards them because there's probably some work I need to do for myself of accepting them within me. Because as soon as you asked that question, I thought, Oh, when people are controlling? Then I was like, There's a part of me that I really haven't come to terms with that's one's control. It just goes back to that idea of the role of IFS in making us be aware of how valuable this all is and how we just need to be more conscious of how to invite our different parts into different scenarios is continued work that I want to be doing that I think is some of the value of this that we can probably offer more care and love to others after we've come to understand those difficult parts within ourselves.
Mariana:So that's what I was thinking of with with that.
Corina:I definitely relate to the struggle of having compassion for control in others, and then remembering that I have some very controlling parts as well.
Chris Aguirre:I think we're always triggered is just that we have the awareness to name it. One analogy that I heard a few days ago that I liked in terms of like how you reference IFS, the trainer was talking about, and I like this because of the warmthness of it. Self or truest self or our unconditional love is kind of like the sun. So when the skies are clear, you have full access to it. So you feel the warmth of it, you give the warmth of it, plants flourish, the sky looks blue.
Chris Aguirre:And our parts, they could be like clouds whenever we get blended or whenever we get hijacked by them or in Halloween when we get possessed by them, they just kind of block the sun. And it's not that the sun doesn't exist, it's just that we're losing access to it. I would say as I'm bringing my awareness and I'm moving away from survival strategy and I'm having more of a space to learn more about myself, I think I was more reactionary than I would have given myself credit for. And the interesting part is that usually the behaviors that I call out or that trigger me, I embarrassingly call out the person in the same way that they do it. So major U turns have to be done there.
Chris Aguirre:But it's for me, the important things are whenever I see somebody be stubborn or rigid, I could be the same way, right? Being polarized and then I'll call them out for doing something like that. Then they're like, can you do a U-turn? And I'm like, yeah, guess the way I'm being stubborn in the same way I'm just presenting it for you. Unfairness activates me.
Chris Aguirre:Justice activates me. And I feel things intensely. So there's a lot of things that get activated with me. The beautiful thing about this model, oh, there's a cloud there. Let me see if I could look at it from this place of my son to get to know it.
Chris Aguirre:And I would have to say I'm a rookie so far in doing this work, but I've really enjoyed this past year and a half in the journey of befriending, getting to know cause it works. I'm telling you, the more I can name when my little kid triggers me, what is that about? And then I focus on it. I listen to it. I allow it to speak to me.
Chris Aguirre:And then I realize all the things that it wants from me. And we know that sometimes when we speak to our managers, we invite the opposite to kind of happen. And my CEO or my self energy recognizes that and it's like, hey, let's see if there's another way of honoring your intention in a way that I could provide that you can. And that's exciting. It's like magical.
Chris Aguirre:It's enlightening. And I'm a rookie at this, but I'm enjoying kind of cultivating that each day.
Corina:For any listeners who are super interested in IFS, they could also listen to our first episode with Misty, where we weren't talking as directly about IFS, but she was talking about her relationship with her parts. And Misty is someone who's got a lot of practice relating with her parts. It's been a great model for me.
Mariana:For people that are early career therapists and exploring IFS, what are some advice or some thoughts you would give around the journey of integrating IFS into their practice?
Chris Aguirre:There's purity, there's essence in form in IFS. I think humans and therapists, we have access to the purity of it. We tend to be and I'll always give the benefit of the doubt. I think we do have access to caring, compassion. We have all of these wonderful emotions.
Chris Aguirre:We have the gift or desire to unlock it. And that is invaluable. A lot of the way of how it gets done are like the milestones to uncover it. I think IFS allows us to do it more consistently and more effectively. But what really felt special for me in this training, if you've ever read a book that was created like 100 ago, there's no way that that author could know what's in your mind, okay?
Chris Aguirre:Until you read it, it feels, and I got this from Instagram, like it feels like a hand pierced through that book and it grabs your soul. And it's truth. When I went to this training, that's what it felt like to me. I was like, the way that you're helping me understand my exiles, my managers, my self-, it just feels like that. And then for me, I'm like, this is the book of health.
Chris Aguirre:This is how we should be socialized from where five or ten, twelve. So for me, IFS really touches the purity. It makes sense to me. It's truthful. For me, I don't have to know the logistical pieces of it, but it's just accessing that purity of it, that warmthness of the sun that really matters.
Chris Aguirre:A lot of what we do in training is experiential. So I would almost take the time off. I wouldn't even go through the whole steps of doing IFS. I would just stick with the first two or three and do the whole practice session and it would just shift the way that I would relate to the client. So my advice would be, you don't have to take my word for it, follow whatever modality hits you.
Chris Aguirre:I do have a humanistic approach, but I would say strongly you would be doing yourself a disservice. And I'm not pitching this. I'm not trying to plug it. If you don't at least attempt to learn some of this stuff experientially and do a level one training, because I think it ties into the core thing of what healing power is. However that landed, that was off the cuff.
Mariana:Well, you're definitely selling it to me. I'm like, wow, it's the IFS training institutes. They should be paying you for this episode.
Chris Aguirre:I'm hooked on this. I'm not ever going to let this modality. The people that I've met, I'm one of the most guarded people that you would have met early on. I went in there, I ain't trying to meet nobody. Just give me what I want and I could dip.
Chris Aguirre:And after the fourth day, I was like, Who are these wonderful people? Maintaining friendships with them. I'm not going anywhere with this, but I would say this unapologetically. You don't even have to do IFS, but if you don't grab this unconditional love, this humanistic approach, and you're trying to help people, there's a big space that needs to be filled. And whatever it takes, find ways to access that and fill it.
Chris Aguirre:Because thinking, logic, books, it ain't enough. Trust me. It didn't heal the pain that I had growing up.
Mariana:We are so, so grateful that you would honor us with an hour of your time on this busy day. And I feel like I learned so much from you today. So thank you, Chris.
Corina:Yeah, thank you. I agree. And I actually welcome the tired Chris, because I think there's something valuable about the vulnerable truth telling that comes when we don't have quite as much energy.
Chris Aguirre:Yeah, I'll always keep it straight with you, right? With people that I care about or that I respect, then I'll always keep it straight. I was like, I hope I'm not incoherent. Hopefully what I shared made sense.
Corina:Yes, totally.
Mariana:And as Corina always shares, part of the way our brain works is that we're floating from different places and hopefully the listeners that enjoy our podcast is because they are welcoming of going lots of different places in a few minutes.
Chris Aguirre:And I knew coming in here, I don't got to be perfect. I just got to embrace what I could bring. And a lot of what I said, I didn't create it. It is flowing through me. Corina, other therapists that I've known, I didn't come up with half of this stuff.
Chris Aguirre:When it's good, you best believe I hoard that.
Corina:Yeah. Well, thank you both. Mariana, Chris, have a good weekend. Chris, I'll talk to you soon.
Mariana:Thank you.
Corina:Bye.
Mariana:Next time on lessons from the couch.
Nancy Tartt:We're here to give, and we're here to receive. That goes back to my attachment theory that I embrace. And so I've tried over the years really tap into and listen to what I'm knowing about myself. I think I have a gift of being able to listen to people. I think I have a gift of being able to give people feedback in a way in which they could receive.
Nancy Tartt:I paid attention to this person asked me for this advice and they listened and they listened. Well, maybe I'm on to something here.