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Dr. Richard Schwartz

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Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1031.626

So overwhelmed with anger at each other? Frustration. Frustration, yeah.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1151.315

Totally agree. Yeah. I had one of those with my wife a few days ago. Okay. All right. Well. And, yeah, very similar. Just caught that part and said, okay, let's just let it go for now and we'll talk later. So I could give you my take on what happened, but if you wanted to, we could just go in and do a little exploring.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1175.799

Okay. Should we start with the frustrated, angry part?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1183.386

Okay. So remember that feeling and then focus on it and find it in your body or around your body. Okay. Where do you find it?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1206.01

It's great. Both places. It's great you have such clarity about it. So as you focus there, how do you feel toward this part of you?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1222.665

Yeah. Which makes sense because it does, you know, sometimes escalate things with your friend and doesn't leave you feeling good. So I understand why you don't like it. But we're going to ask the parts that don't like it to give us the space to just get curious about it and see if that's possible. Okay. Okay. So how do you feel toward it now?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1277.617

So you do feel curious toward it? Yeah. All right. So go ahead and ask it what it wants you to know about itself. Silently? Up to you. Either way. Whichever is more comfortable.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1305.79

Yeah. And just wait for the answer. Don't think. I know you've got a big cognitive part, so we're going to ask that one to relax. And just whatever comes in terms of the answer, just wait for it.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

134.377

Thank you, Andrew. It's delightful to be with you.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1355.717

So it relaxed. It may not have dissipated in the way we think about that. It might have just relaxed more. But just keep asking it, what's it afraid would happen if in that context it didn't try to take over in the way that it did? Just ask that question.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1374.928

Yeah, what's it afraid would happen if it hadn't tried to take over? Oh. Just wait for the answer.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1402.184

Okay. So the truth is really important to this part of you.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1449.099

Okay, so just stay with this thing. Just stay with it.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1453.003

And let it know you get that, that having people misinterpret your motives is really, really hard for it. And ask it more about that. Just, again, don't think, but ask why that's so hard. Why does that bother it so much?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1501.36

So there's something about making sense or nothing making sense that it's really scared of. Is that right?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1569.987

Yeah. So speaking of protect, and so this is a protector part, right? Ask it if it's protecting other parts of you that are vulnerable and get hurt when someone misattunes to what your motive is. Just ask that question. Don't think.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1682.041

So what I'm hearing is this guy, this titanium guy, is keeping at bay another part that can be very judgmental of the other person.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

170.933

Well, originally I developed it as a form of psychotherapy, which is probably the way it's used most now, but it's also become a kind of life practice and just a paradigm for understanding the human mind and as an alternative to the culture's paradigm. So that's saying a lot, and it's been quite a journey.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1753.442

Well, there might be parts of you that do, but... I hate behaviors. Okay.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1775.034

But what I'm hearing, what we heard from this part, it's afraid if it doesn't do this... A part that judges the other probably in a not so nice way would be released. Does that sound right? Yeah. So there is that part in there. It's just that you've been able to kind of exile it.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1902.081

Let's pause for a second. I'll give you a little overview of where we are. So we started with this guy who came up with your friend and is trying to protect that relationship because if – you continue to be misunderstood in terms of your motives, it would have an impact. Does that sound right?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1927.012

Got it. Yeah. And in exploring this part, asking what it's afraid would happen if it didn't do that. Mm-hmm. So there's this other part that might come out that would be very judgmental of that family member.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1944.56

And really might have a bad influence on your relationship with that person. Does that sound right?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

1951.562

Okay. So we have these two – well, we have you who's noticing all this, which we should talk more about. And then we have these two parts that are sort of polarized, but one, the judgmental one, you really don't like. And so you really go to lengths to keep at bay and you're, you kind of admire this guy. Uh, and, and, but you also know that he can get in the way at times too.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2050.483

So let's go through that again. So first of all, I'm so grateful that you're willing to be this vulnerable and expose these parts. So this guy – actually, they're both probably what we call firefighters – and very reactive. There's maybe some other very vulnerable part that is involved here we haven't heard about.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2077.765

But if we continued to work together, I would work to get permission to go to the judgmental guy too. And what you would find is he's a protector too. He's not just a bunch of negative thoughts about people. As I was hearing earlier, you've spent a lot of time in your life trying to be fair to people and to not judge them and to see them.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2108.851

What they do is just their behaviors and not who they are, which is great. But in the process of doing that sometimes, we wind up having to push away the parts that we want to judge and want to hate and so on. What I find is if we can go there and get to know them, they're just protectors too, and they're young, and when they are able to unload the hate they might carry, the judgment,

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

211.716

Yeah, so one basic assumption is that the mind isn't unitary, that actually we're all multiple personalities, not in the diagnostic sense. But we all have these what I call parts, other systems call subpersonalities, ego states, things like that, and that it's the natural state of the mind to be that way, that

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2143.206

They'll transform. So this is a model of transformation in that sense. And there are no bad parts. You go to everybody in there, regardless of how you think how bad they are, and you get curious about them, and you learn how they're trying to protect. And then we help them out of their protective roles and help them trust There's a you who you talked about with Martha who can run things.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2173.513

They don't have to do it because most of them are young. And get them to trust this you to handle your family member rather than they have to take over or try to take over in the way they did. Does this make any sense?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

237.418

We're born with them because they're all very valuable and have qualities and resources to help us survive and thrive. But trauma and what's called attachment injuries and the slings and arrows we suffer force these little naturally valuable parts into roles that can be destructive.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2404.811

So let me check in and just see how this has been to discuss and focus and so on. What's it been like to do this process?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2467.417

What I was saying earlier is if we were to pursue it, we could get to the point where the teddy bear guy could unload the feelings he carries that makes it so uncomfortable, and he would transform.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2484.868

So you would... focus on him again. We would explore more of what he's protecting. Either we would go to the guy he's trying to keep at bay that would ruin a relationship, or often these parts are protecting something much more vulnerable from your past. Some young part that's stuck somewhere in the past that has a big issue about being misunderstood in terms of motives or something.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2540.602

So that would be the part that we would go to that it protects, that has this fantasy of what a relationship should be or could be, who might be stuck somewhere in the past. And we would witness, you know, you talked with Martha about compassionate witness. We would witness where he's stuck and what was happening back then. And then I would have you go in and get him out of that time period.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2568.629

Then we'd have him unload the desire for that fantasy that keeps you getting hurt. And then I would have the teddy bear see it doesn't have to protect him anymore. And then we would help the teddy bear unload the feelings he carries. And then he could relax. And they would all start to trust you, which we should talk about a little bit now. Who is you who's separate from these others?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2614.682

But let me just elaborate on what I was just saying because when you separated from him and you found him here – And I asked you how you felt toward him, and you had an attitude about him at first, remember? And we got that to relax and got curious about him. Then you started to access more of what I call yourself with a capital S. So it comes through curiosity. Well, often starts with curiosity.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2645.836

Just to backtrack a little bit, so when I would have these clients in the early days starting to work with these parts, like the critic and so on, and once I got hip to the fact they weren't what they seemed, that they deserved to be listened to rather than fought with, so I would help the parts that hated them step out, and clients could do that pretty readily.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

265.385

Often they don't like it all, but because they're frozen often in time and during the trauma, and they live as if it's still happening, they're in these protective roles that can be quite extreme and interfere in your life. And yeah, so I just stumbled onto the phenomena 40, now I think it's 41 years ago. Mm-hmm. And it's been, you know, amazing ride.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2672.236

And then I would say, now how do you feel toward this critic? And spontaneously, people would say, I'm just curious about why it calls me names all day. Or even would say, I feel sorry for it that it has to do this. I want to help it. And when they were in that state, and I would ask, what part of you is that? That's great. Let's keep that around. They'd say, that's not a part like these others.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2696.25

That's me. That's my essence, or that's my self. So I came to call that the self with a capital S. 40 years later, thousands of people doing this all over the world. Turns out that that self is in everybody just beneath the surface of these parts so that when they open space, you can access it quickly. It has all these great qualities, what I call the eight Cs.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2721.689

So curious, but also calm, confident, compassionate. courageous, clear, creative, and connected. And that person knows how to heal these parts. So once I get somebody in a lot of what we call self, I'll just say, okay, what do you wanna say to this part? And how does it react? And now what do you wanna do with the part? I can kind of get out of the way.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2752.162

And one of the hallmarks of IFS as opposed to a lot of other therapies is that it's not so much about me becoming that, you know, good attachment figure to these hurting parts of you, these inner children. You become that. You become the good attachment figure yourself or the good inner parent or the good internal leader for these parts. And they come to trust you as a leader.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

2779.136

And then you get into it with your family member. And you just remind the partner, I can handle this. Just let me stay. And now when that happens with my wife, sometimes, not on a good day, I can stay in the C-word qualities and have a totally different conversation with her than if that protector took over.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

296.53

I actually have a PhD in marital and family therapy, so I was part of the movement in family therapy away from intra-psychic work. There was a polarization, and we thought we could reorganize families and heal all these symptoms just by doing that. We didn't have to muck around in the inner world.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3120.546

Yeah, yeah. So for a long time, I resisted trying to take this directly to the public because... I learned the hard way that some systems, particularly people with huge amounts of trauma, are quite delicate.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3135.53

And if you start going to these, you know, the part we talked about that's vulnerable inside, that has this view of relationships, this kind of idealized view of relationships of yours, would be what I call an exile, that if we were to go to it, And we won't today because it requires a lot of vulnerability.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

315.935

I went to prove that, and this was about 1983, by getting a group of bulimic kids together and their families. tried to reorganize the family, just the way the book said to, and failed. The kids didn't realize they'd been cured, and they kept binging and purging. So out of frustration, I began asking why, and they started talking this language of parts.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3161.17

But if we were to, a lot of extreme protectors might come out and then people start to get scared. So it took a long time to figure out how we might bring it to the public in a safer way. And so we just put out a workbook for people.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3182.009

And it doesn't involve necessarily going to those places, but there's a huge amount you can do just by working the way we started to with these protectors and getting to know them and know that they're not you. They're just a part trying their best. And no, it's not anything negative.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3198.158

That judgmental part you've got such an attitude about or fear of, if you were just to begin getting curious about it and getting to know it a bit, you'd find out that it's a very valuable part that has a lot of discernment, like you said, and wants desperately to keep you from getting in these relationships where you get hurt and get so judgmental because you don't listen to it.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

341.625

And they would say some version of, when something bad happens in my life, it triggers this critic who's calling me all kinds of names inside, and that goes right to the heart of a part that feels empty and alone and worthless. And that's so distressing to feel that the binge part comes in and takes me out, takes me away from all that pain. But the critic comes in and attacks me for the binge.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3429.666

And what I'm hearing is that when you're looking at a person or a political party or issue in the world, you'll hear from these conflicted parts. They each have – perspective, just like our country now hears from these conflicted parts. But you don't have a lot of access to what I'm calling self in those contexts. Because one of the C words is clarity.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3455.895

So again, as I was listening to you and Martha, you were talking about how there are times where you just have this sense in your body of what's right or what's true. That's what I'm calling self. Self has that clarity. And self sees injustice and self, some of those C words are courage, confidence, and clarity. So there's an impulse also to act to correct imbalance, to correct injustice too.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3489.306

So self isn't a kind of passive witness as it is in a lot of spiritual traditions in IFS. It's an active inner leader. It's an active external leader. And Too often, our actions are driven by these protective parts, and that's true in our politics now too. So one of my goals is to try to bring more self-leadership to the world, to all these conflicts. But to do that, people have to unburden.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3522.335

They have to release these extreme beliefs and emotions they got from their traumas in the past. We have a concept we call legacy burdens. So many people have inherited these extreme beliefs and emotions that came down through their ancestors and drive their parts, drive their extremes. And many conflicts in the world are driven by these legacy burdens.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3549.887

And we've gotten good at helping people unload these things. Yeah, we've seen this in the Middle East recently. Totally. And we're doing a lot of work in the Middle East. So we have training programs there. And one of my visions is to have large-scale legacy unburdenings where large groups of people come together and we help them unload the Holocaust legacy burdens on the one side and the

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3577.358

1941 legacy burdens on the Palestinian side and have more self accessible to each side. And when, like when we do couples therapy, we do other kinds of negotiated conflict. If people's parts start getting into it, we'll just say time out. You sort of did this on your own with your family member. Just say time out. I want both of you to go inside. Find the parts that have been doing the speaking.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3605.381

Don't come back until you can speak for them but not from them. And come back in these C-word qualities, in that state of self. If we can hold people in that, it's really easy to get out of the conflict. If their protectors are going at it all the time, conflicts never change.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

366.854

And then the criticism goes right to the heart of that worthless part. So to me as a family therapist, this sounded like what I'd been studying in external families. these circular sequences of interaction. And so I just got curious and just started to explore.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3675.326

Yeah, that happened several times when we were working together. Like I would have you stay with something and then the narrator part would kick in. Yeah. And then I would try to refocus you. But, you know, I lived in Boston for 10 years. So I worked with lots of cognitive people who didn't know their bodies, who had, you know, just were in that rat race to try and get tenure and so on.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3711.997

But just to answer your question, they can do it, but we first have to start with that thinking part and get it on board and get it to step out and to stay out long enough that they can feel their bodies. So, yeah, you know, it lends itself to anybody, but with people like that, it takes a while for that thinking part to trust. that it's safe to let them into their bodies.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3767.118

Because if they find it in their body and they direct the question there and they wait for the answer to come from there, they're less likely to be in their head. So it sort of short circuits that thinking part. And so many people come to therapy and that thinking part thinks it's supposed to do the therapy. It's, you know, CBT or whatever.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3788.374

Even a lot of the more, not experiential, but a lot of the more psychodynamic therapies, the thinking part is really trying to explain why they feel stuff.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3799.838

So this is getting them out of that and getting them to actually listen inside into what they think is their body, but it's really these parts that live down there that They haven't had access to because the thinking part is running things so much.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3833.49

Yeah, it's not even you're trying to reveal. It's just that you're asking these questions and the answers start coming.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3864.935

Yeah, in fact – Two days ago, we just completed an IFS and ketamine retreat. Oh, wow. And we're doing it more and more. Like I said, I'm trying to bring this more out of the psychotherapy world. So we invited 32 leaders to come of various kinds and had three days where they do ketamine and then do IFS.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3889.677

The nice thing about psychedelics is it puts those manager parts to sleep somehow a lot of the time.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

3996.011

That's why... These academy and clinics where they just hand them the drugs and the medicine and just leave them on their own are scary to me. I'm proud to say that IFS has been adopted as one of the primary models for psychedelics now.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4012.125

Because it's a really nice fit. And as I was saying earlier, what I see happening often, not always, is these manager parts go offline. And that releases a lot of self. So you start to just feel those C-word qualities emerging. And that's a big invitation to all these exiled parts to come and get attention. And so as people come out of the ketamine experience,

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4042.887

I can work with them for 15 minutes and do something that would take maybe five sessions because they can get access to parts that they couldn't get or it would take a long time to convince their protectors to let us go to. And we can unburden those exiles and then bring back their protectors. And so I love it. And ketamine is the legal one, so that's why we do it.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4068.516

And the other nice thing, and I don't know as a scientist how much you would go with this, Ketamine, again, because it opens the door with these protectors, you can also taste what I call the big self. You taste this, what they call, non-dual state that can be quite blissful. And some people go, God. And

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

409.928

Some of both. So most people are aware they're a critic, but other times you're not aware of these parts we call exiles that you've locked away because you didn't want to feel their feelings. They're stuck in these bad trauma scenes. And to survive in your life, you had to push them away.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4096.877

Then as you come back, you have this sense of I'm much more than this little body and this little ego, that there is something much bigger. And that's why they're using it with End of Life and why it and psilocybin has such a big impact on depression because it sort of lifts you out of this little box your protectors have you in to know that there's something much more. Yeah.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

432.134

And so with those parts, a lot of people aren't really consciously aware of them until these protector parts give space and open the door to the exiles.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4339.17

Like when you go to sleep, your managers go to sleep, and then you have these weird dreams, and that's because your exiles have access to your mind now. And they're trying to give you signals about what they want. The other thing I'll say about psychedelics and the breathing too is

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4355.973

is that as your managers go to sleep and your exiles start coming in, it can seem really terrifying because these parts are stuck in horrible places often with a lot of terror. And so what's called bad trips is them trying to get attention. So they'll come in and they'll totally take over and you'll look like you're having a panic attack.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4381.462

But what we've learned, and this happened a few times last week, is instead of thinking of it as a panic attack or a bad trip, to welcome it. Here's a part that needs a lot of attention. It's taken over entirely. But if I were to say, okay, Andrew, I see you're really scared, but how do you feel toward this really scared part that's here now? And I could get you to say, I feel sorry for it.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4412.406

Then I would have you start to get to know it and work with it and comfort it rather than have a panic attack. You would access calm and those C words, and then it becomes a hugely useful healing of something that's in you that's stuck in a terrified place.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4579.474

Because- Let me wrap up on that for a second.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4583.755

Just as an example, like I've done workshops where I have people work with their racism. You're speaking of something very shameful. And a lot of people say, I'm not a racist. I don't have any racism. But if I really convince them to look inside and check...

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4605.64

they'll find there's a little part in there that does spout racist things when they meet somebody of a different skin color, has these white supremacy beliefs, and they're really ashamed of it.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4617.547

So if I were to have you focus on that racist voice in there, you would have to get a lot of the parts that are ashamed of it to step out, and then I would have you get curious about it rather than ashamed of it, and ask it about where it picked up these beliefs. And it could tell you, And then I would ask, do you like having to carry this racist stuff? Usually they'll say no.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4644.572

If it's ready to unload it, we can just unload it. So one of the key things to know is these parts are not the burdens they carry. They're all good. The little guy who's got the racist rant is a part that got stuck with his beliefs. But when he releases those beliefs, he transforms into being a good.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4668.404

And the mistake our culture makes, the mistake that most psychotherapies make, is to assume that he is that racist rant and to try to exile him. But it's a different way of understanding even very seemingly evil people, that they're dominated by these protectors. and they're so afraid of their exiles. And they relate inside in the same way they relate outside.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4697.145

So if they hate parts of themselves, they'll hate people who resemble those parts of them. They'll try to dominate those people. Do you follow what I'm saying?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4719.522

And for me, that isn't always true, but that's sometimes true.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4757.941

But a lot of the time. So if you can come to have compassion for that judgmental part of you and not be embattled with it and actually see it as desperately trying to help you be more discerning and help it unburden and get out of this role that it's in. Because in the role that it's in, it can be destructive.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4778.115

We're not trying to minimize that or say, you know, when I say all parts are, there are no bad parts, there are no bad parts, but they can get into very destructive roles. And they can carry these burdens from the past that can drive them to be harmful. But part of my work is to help all that change. And so if you were to start a new relationship with that judgmental part of you,

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4806.084

then you would see past the judgmental parts of other people, and you could see the exiles that drive those protectors, and you would have compassion for them. It wouldn't mean you wouldn't stop them or stand up to them, but you would do it with compassion rather than from these hateful protectors.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4865.216

The opposite is actually true because these protectors will generate often what they fear. So by being so protective, they'll create protectors in the other that will attack, whereas if they could stay in self, self can be very protective with those C-word qualities, very forceful, sometimes pierce.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4961.348

Okay, so I did a book called You're the One You've Been Waiting For. And in it, I talked about this whole issue. And so for a lot of people, you get hurt by your parent. And there are parts that want to protect you from your parent. But there are other parts who took on the worthlessness from being rejected by your parent and are desperate for redemption. Do you follow this?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

4992.402

And so as you leave and you're looking for a partner, that part from a subconscious place can influence your decision to find somebody who resembles that parent in their effort to be redeemed again.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5022.668

That's a version of what I'm talking about. And so you find somebody who does resemble that person, that parent. And unfortunately, they do resemble that parent. And so they'll hurt you in the same way. And then your protectors go into one of four modes. They'll say, I've got to change that person back into who they're supposed to be. So they'll try to change the person's behavior.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5048.609

Or they'll say, I've got to change myself so they'll be who they're supposed to be. Or they'll say, oh, this wasn't the Redeemer after all, and they'll go looking for the real Redeemer who's still out there.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5064.227

And, yeah, that's what I try to do is to help them see that that Redeemer is inside of them itself. And if we can go to that exile who's got this thing for this parent-like person and help it connect to self and help it unburdened, that whole repetition compulsion disappears because now they can take care of themselves. They trust self to do it.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5091.377

They don't need that from some other person like that. And so when we're working with couples, and you always find some version of that in couples, if we can get each of them to become their own good attachment figure, good caretaker inside,

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5109.571

That frees up the partner because when this exile is leading the relationship, your partner feels a lot of sort of demands or feels a lot like your partner has to take care of that young part of you and can't, can't fully do it. So there's always this sense of a burden. You know what I'm saying?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5173.57

25%, 30%? I really can't say because my sample is very skewed. I'm working with psychotherapy patients who always have a lot of trauma. So I really can't say. I mean, I'm very biased.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5289.693

Yeah, I mean, like I was saying, there's a lot you can do with working with your protectors and helping them get to know self. Like, we didn't do it, but had you asked that titanium teddy bear how old it thought you were and just really waited for the answer... Most people will get a single digit. It still thinks you're very young.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5317.01

And it still thinks it has to protect you the way it did when you were very young. And just even updating it. creates a huge amount of relief with these protectors. So there's a lot that can be done just by working with protectors, introducing them to self, helping them see they don't have to keep doing this all the time.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5338.654

Some protectors, it's very hard for them to totally drop their weapons until what they protect has been healed. So that's where the therapist comes in. So, you know, there are coaches doing this work, for example. They'll work with some executive and they'll do great and then they'll get to an exile. And then they'll have the person see an IFS therapist for a couple sessions to heal the exile.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5368.615

and then come back because, um, you know, coaches aren't trained as therapists and right. So yeah, there's still need for therapists, but, um, yeah, but you can do a lot on your own.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5444.02

Yeah, exactly. And that's why I'm so grateful to you that you were willing to try it and, Because it's true, as I describe it to people, they don't really get it until they actually feel it, experience it. And it is very different from many other therapies, which are much more cognitively based, because we're trying to bypass that and actually get to this raw stuff in here.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5516.244

Yeah, and let me lead by saying, please don't do this if you have fear about doing it. But if you're interested in some inner exploration, then I'll lead you through some of the steps. As you've been listening to our conversation, I'm speaking to the listeners, you may be thinking about some of your own parts, particularly your own protectors.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5547.028

And if you can't think of any, most people have a kind of critic inside or part that makes them work too hard or a part that takes care of too many people. So I'm going to invite you to pick a protective part to try to get to know for a few minutes. And just notice that inner voice or that emotion, that thought pattern, that sensation. Just focus on it exclusively for a second. And as you do that,

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5588.317

Notice where it seems to be located in your body or around your body. And just take a second with that. And some people don't find a location. Some people, they still sense it, but it's not clear where it seems to be located. But if you do find it in or around your body, just focus on it there. And as you focus on it, notice how you feel toward it.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5629.395

And by that I mean, do you dislike it and want to get rid of it? Are you afraid of it? Do you resent how it dominates? Do you depend on it? So you have a relationship with this part of you. And if you feel anything except a kind of openness or curiosity or willingness to get to know it, then that's coming from other parts that have been trying to deal with it.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5677.543

We're just going to ask those other parts of you to relax back for just a few minutes so you can get to know it. We're not going to have it take over more. We're just going to get to know it better. So see if they're willing to let you open your mind to it. And if they're not, then we're not going to pursue this.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5705.305

And you can just get to know their fear about letting you get to know this target part. But if you do get to that point of just being curious about it without an agenda, then ask it what it wants you to know about itself. It's that kind of nice open-ended question. And don't think of the answer. Just wait and see what comes from that place in your body. And don't judge what comes.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5740.612

Just whatever comes, we'll go with it. What does it want you to know about itself? And what's it afraid would happen if it didn't do this inside of you? And if you got an answer to that question about the fear, then it was telling you something about how it's been trying to protect you.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5776.844

And if that's true, then extend some appreciation to it for at least trying to keep you safe, even if it backfires or it doesn't work. Let it know you appreciate that it's trying to protect you. And see how it reacts to your appreciation. And then ask if you could go to what it protects and heal or change that so it didn't need to protect you so much.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5817.829

What might it like to do instead inside of you if it was released from this role? And I'll repeat that. If you could go to what it protects and heal or change that so it was liberated from this protective role, what might it like to do instead inside of you? And then ask it this kind of odd question. How old does this part think you are? Not how old is it, but how old does it think you are?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5859.87

And again, don't think. Just wait and see what comes. And if it got your age wrong, then go ahead and update it and see how it reacts. And the last question for this part is, what does it need from you going forward? What does it need from you? And again, just wait for the answer. And when the time feels right, thank your parts for whatever they let you do in this.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5939.298

And then begin to shift your focus back outside and maybe take some deep breaths as you do that.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

5982.179

Yeah, so it's great to do the work session or this exercise, but ideally it's the beginning of a new relationship with this part. And that takes work on your own. So what I advise people is as you get that ball rolling in that good direction, it'll reverse if you don't stay with it for a while.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6008.985

So every day, like you were saying, you wake up, rather than what am I going to do today or what problems do I have in my life, how's that part of me doing that I've been starting to work with? What does it need from me today? What does it want me to know? Is it still feeling better? Do I still have compassion for it or appreciation for it?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6033.875

So this, like I said earlier, this kind of becomes a life practice. So I do that every morning. Every morning?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6061.733

Exactly right. So yeah, I'll check in. not with all my parts because I've met many, many, but the ones I've been working with just to see how they're doing. And as I go through the day, I'll notice, am I in those C word qualities? Is my heart open? Is my mind curious? Do I have a big agenda? Anything, any departures from that is a protector usually.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6092.14

And I'll just have a little internal board meeting and say, I get, you feel like, Like in preparing to come and be on this podcast, I had to work with the parts that were nervous. My father was a big scientist, a big endocrinology researcher.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6112.708

Great field. My brother is a big shot endocrinology researcher. So I have some... some issues, put it that way.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6124.8

Well, that was my part's worries coming in. And so I worked on it and said, okay, but just I get it. I get you're scared. I could feel them in my hands when I was taking a drink earlier. Interesting. But I just kept, okay, I get that. I get you're scared, but just trust me. Just step back. Just relax. And then I feel this shift, a literal shift.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6149.781

And then I feel those C words flooding. And then we have a much different kind of conversation. So it's a life practice in that sense.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6195.869

Yes. So, yeah, the big distinction is between parts that by dint of simply being hurt or terrified or made to feel shamed and worthless. And usually those are our most sensitive parts. They're the young inner children. They get stuck with those burdens of worthlessness, terror, and emotional pain. And then we don't want anything to do with them because they can overwhelm us.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

620.868

Yeah, the why question I can't totally answer, but it definitely is. And for me, traumas aren't necessarily traumatizing. So something bad happens to you, and if you can access what you and Martha Beck were calling the self, capital S, and you go to the part of you that got hurt by what happened,

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6225.072

And so we lock them away. And everybody tells us to do that. So those are the exiles. And when you have a lot of exiles, these other parts are forced to become protectors. So there are two classes of protectors. One are the managers we've been talking about. and the other are the firefighters. So, you know, we mentioned a number of manager common roles, but there's just lots and lots of them.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6256.959

Firefighter common roles include, you know, addictions, excuse me, dissociating, the kind of judgmental, rageful parts, I could go on, but anything that is reactive, impulsive, and is designed to protect those vulnerable parts, but in an impulsive way, as opposed to the managers who are all about control and pleasing, these firefighters are all about

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6301.135

If I don't get you away from these feelings right now, you're gonna die. A lot of them believe that. And some of them, it's true. So there's often a kind of hierarchy of firefighter activities. If the first one doesn't work, you go to the next one. If that doesn't work, the top of the hierarchy for most people is suicide. If things get painful enough, There's this exit strategy.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6332.67

It's actually very comforting to lots of people. And here we come along and get really scared of these suicidal parts. So this is, again, it's one of the hallmarks of the difference with IFS. If you were to say you've got a suicidal part, say, let's go get to know it. I would have you find it and, you know, all the steps. What are you afraid would happen if you didn't kill Andrew?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6358.364

What do you think the answer to that is most of the time?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6375.247

So my response to that part is if we could unload the pain that you're so afraid would overwhelm, would you have to kill him?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6397.194

Okay. So because we can prove to you that we can unload that pain. And if we could do that, what would you like to do instead of being the suicidal part?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

643.058

instead of pushing it away and locking it up, and you embrace it and you bring it closer to you, which means going to your suffering, which is counter to what most of us try to do. But if you were to do that and you could help it unload the feelings it got from the trauma, then you're not traumatized. What's traumatizing is something bad happens

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6461.314

So that... Suicidal part often transforms into part that wants to help you live, actually. They're often in the role that's opposite of who they really are. So as you can hear, this is a totally different approach to suicide, for example. And we do the same with addictive firefighters. Find that part that makes you so high. How do you feel toward it? I hate it. I want to be in recovery.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6489.574

I want to lock it up. Let's get all that to step out and just get curious about it and ask it what it's afraid would happen if it didn't get you high all the time. Same answer. If we could heal all that pain or that shame, would you have to get them high all the time? No, but I don't think you can do that. Would you give us a chance to prove we can?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6514.533

Totally different approach to all these problems.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6628.31

What are you afraid would happen if you didn't do this to them?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

669.011

These more vulnerable parts of us, the most sensitive parts of us, get hurt or feel worthless because of what happened or get terrified. And then we lock them away because we don't want to feel that feeling anymore. And everybody around us tells us to just let it go, just move on, don't look back. And so we wind up exiling our most sensitive parts simply because they got hurt.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6772.604

Well, you remember what I was saying earlier when we talked to these addict parts. What are you afraid would happen if you didn't make them high? He would die. So that's a really common answer. And basically what you just described is you were doing IFS without knowing it. Asking those questions, what are you really afraid of? What are you really afraid of? Did you get to the key answer?

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6799.205

And then I don't know how you helped that part that feared death, but somehow you helped it relax more.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6940.01

Yeah, so all these little machines we have and all the ways we have of never spending any time by ourselves or alone or thinking just feed these protective parts, these distractors, and leave in the dust more and more these exiled parts.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

696.556

And then when you have a lot of exiles, you feel more delicate. The world seems more dangerous because anything could trigger that. And when they get triggered, they'll blow up. They'll take over. So it's like these flames of raw emotion come popping out. So other parts are forced into these manager roles or these protective roles.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6960.816

So a lot of people's fear of not having something to do is because when they don't, or if they're not working in your case, then these exiled parts start to come forward. They're not being distracted from. In my case, I mentioned my father, I'm the oldest of six boys. Oh, wow.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

6984.584

I was supposed to be a physician like him and a researcher, and I was spared that fate because I had undiagnosed ADD and wasn't a good student. And three of my brothers were physician research types. But I was the oldest, so he was really hard on me in terms of lazy and worthless and so on. So I came out of my family with a lot of worthlessness.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7015.105

And actually the model wouldn't exist if I didn't have that because I had this part that had to prove him wrong and drive me, not to the extent you're talking about or sleeping in the office or anything, but it would drive me to find this model and then take it in the face of a lot of attack to where it is now.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7042.242

And if I wasn't working on it, if I wasn't getting the accolades, then that worthlessness would crop up. And then I'd have other firefighters to try and deal with that. And, you know, I had not only the workaholic part, but I had a part that could close my heart and make me not care what people think because I was attacked by traditional psychiatry and so on.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7072.818

Yeah. I was humiliated at Grand Rounds a couple times. I was in the Department of Psychiatry.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7081.744

That's a good question. So point being that I was dominated as I developed this by these protectors, and it got me through all that, but it didn't serve me as a leader of a community. And I was lucky to have some students who would confront my parts and would just say, you can't keep going on like this if you're going to be any use to us.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7107.811

And I listened, and I went and worked with that worthlessness. And now I don't have it. I don't have to work. I don't, you know, it's just I feel free because I'm not so afraid of that bubbling up if I'm not distracted. And now we have more distractions than ever, as we're saying,

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7154.69

Yeah, there are some good psychiatrists.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

721.25

And some of them are trying to manage your life so that you don't get triggered anymore, so that For example, nobody gets close enough to you to trigger any of that or so you look really good so you don't get rejected or perform at a really high level to counter the worthlessness.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7234.023

I agree with you entirely. And I'm, you know, I tried to stay in psychiatry and just kept hitting the brick wall, and so I went grassroots for 30 years, and now it's starting to come around into psychiatry, so it feels good that way.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7364.7

That's true. And I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that Department of Psychiatry to invite me back.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

740.28

Many of those become the critics because in their effort to try to get you to look good, they're yelling at you to try and behave and do what they want so you look better. And then there are other what we call manager protectors that are – for some people, particularly women, have these massive caretaking parts that don't let them take care of themselves and take care of everybody else.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7487.298

Yeah, well, that's what I've been working on the last several years. And what I can say is, for example, I spent 20 years, like, you know, I worked with bulimia, like I said, and I thought, okay, this really works with that population.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7510.811

And then... I thought, okay, well, let's see if no bad parts is really true. And so I went to the toughest populations I could find. And so for 20 years, I worked with DID and I worked with— DID, sorry. Dissociative identity disorder, like multiple personality disorder. Mm-hmm. And I worked with what's called borderline personality clients.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7544.567

It's because people fight with the symptoms. They try to get rid of the symptoms instead of listening to the part that's making them binge about what that's about.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7573.42

And, you know, there's in the activist world, there's always been a kind of you're wasting your time, but There's been a polarization between being in the activist mindset of really trying to change things in the outside world versus sitting around and just focusing inside and not being an activist. But I'm working with a lot of the people you would recognize in terms of activists.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7609.514

And when they came to me, they were doing their activism from the sort of righteous, judgmental part. And if we can get that one to step back and have them do their activism from self, they have a totally different impact. People are willing to listen to them, whereas when they're in that righteous place, nobody wants to listen to the shaming that does. It needs to be both.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7635.495

People need to do their work access self, and then start to try to change the outside world. Or not one before the other, but at least simultaneously.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

764.882

So I could go on and on. There's a lot of common – manager roles. And I want to make clear as I'm talking about this, that these are not the essence of the parts. And that's a big mistake that most of the field has made is to assume the critic is just a internalized critical parent voice instead of listening to it and hearing that it's desperately trying to protect you.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7663.785

I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

7795.02

Me too. Oh, my God. My little nervous parts were giving me a lot of trouble. But once we got going, I just felt connected and I felt your appreciation and interest. And so we could have this kind of self-to-self exchange, which I love. I just love spending time in that energy. Yeah, likewise. And, you know, you're a great interviewer too.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

788.075

So none of these are what they seem. That's the role they've been forced into. And the analogy, again, is to an external family. Like kids in dysfunctional families are forced into these extreme roles that aren't who they are. It's the role they got forced into by the dynamics of the family. So the same is true with this internal family. So most of us have a lot of what we call managers.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

815.059

They got us here. They help us in our careers. And other systems would call them the defenses or the ego. And, you know, in spirituality they get vilified too. But their whole M.O. is keep everything under control, please everybody, and you'll survive. The world has a way of breaking through those defenses, triggering an exile. When that happens, it's a big emergency.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

845.22

Because again, these flames of raw emotion are going to overwhelm you and make you have trouble functioning or even getting out of bed. So there are other parts that immediately go into action to deal with that emergency. And in contrast to these managers, They're impulsive, reactive, damn the torpedoes. I don't care about the collateral damage to your body, to your relationships.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

872.458

I just got to get you higher than those flames or douse them with some substance or distract you till they burn themselves out. So we call those firefighters. And again, these are just the roles. When released from these roles, they'll transform into being something very valuable.

Huberman Lab

How to Achieve Inner Peace & Healing | Dr. Richard Schwartz

911.531

Jung had all this a long time ago.