Hello IFS friends,

Internal Family Systems classifies consciousness into three separate parts: two types of protectors and one type of part they protect.

The protectors are managers and firefighters. Managers are proactive protectors. Firefighters are reactive protectors. The protected part is called an exile.

In IFS, most of what we experience as “thoughts” are parts.

The more wordy a part tends to be, the more likely it is to be a manager as opposed to a firefighter.

Firefighters are primarily behaviors: scrolling, eating, shopping, gambling, sex, drugs, partying, staying up late, etc. They are the parts that drive our addictions, and our addictions happen through action.

Managers are primarily thoughts—criticisms, judgments, interpretations, and directions.

So intrusive thoughts would usually be manager parts on overdrive.

Of course, they may be teaming up with firefighters, because sometimes there are groups of parts that get together to create a certain pattern—we can’t know for sure by hearing a description of what’s going on; we have to get curious about the individual parts.

How do managers and firefighters protect us?

When exile pain is triggered, it’s like the basement of our house is on fire.

Firefighters spring into action immediately to numb or distract us from that pain until the flames are out.

While you’re enjoying shoving cookies down your mouth, you also can’t necessarily be crying about something that happened when you were six.

Managers drown out feelings with thoughts. They minimize, criticize, deny, bargain, and do the theoretical end-runs around the raw reality of our emotions.

Intrusive thoughts may be managers who are hyper-concerned about emotions breaking through, and are doing everything they can to keep your focus on their thoughts and away from your feelings.

My advice for intrusive thoughts would be to start by approaching them as managers, and to begin to develop a Self-to-part relationship with them.

When a lot of other parts are annoyed by these parts, this can be challenging—in which case working with an IFS practitioner might be a good start, just to get unblended from all the other parts who are reacting to the intrusive thoughts.

Ultimately, these protectors have a reason why they are manufacturing these intrusive thoughts.

The goal is to develop our relationship with them and find out what purpose these thoughts are serving for them, and then to help meet that need in a different way.

If you enjoy understanding more about parts, I’ll be teaching more about them in a four-part series: “The Inner Life of Parts” in September and October.

Each Saturday from 11 AM – 1 PM central, we’ll look at one specific aspect of the IFS model: managers September 19, firefighters October 3, exiles on October 10, and Self October 24.

This is a different kind of class than my usual closed, intimate, unrecorded five-person groups.

It’s open to everyone, recorded so you can watch it afterwards, and focused on understanding the IFS model rather than on the small-group learning and practice that happens in my closed classes.

To learn more and sign up: radicalifs.com/innerlives

To connecting more deeply to our parts, day by day,
Melissa

Hello IFS friends!

One of the things I love about my IFS learning and practice groups is that my parts start thinking about the topic of the upcoming gathering once I schedule it.

In this way, my groups are a partnership between me and my parts, because they give me insider information that makes the classes more insightful.

This month’s Sunday class was “Zoning Out on Purpose: When Sleepy or Foggy Parts Take Over.” It was powerful!

Not only was the demo an amazing illustration of exactly how nuanced these parts can be, our discussion unearthed a lot of fascinating information about firefighters.

I shared how my main foggy firefighter, Koala, has gone through tremendous transformation in the lead-up to the class. I think it’s a combination of thinking about the topic beforehand and the impact of my car being totaled.

Firefighters love having a car because, in general, firefighters are the ones who drive. They like the freedom, spontaneity, and physicality.

So when I lost my car, my firefighters’ options were suddenly curtailed. They can’t go to the thrift store on a whim to distract our system for a few hours because it takes more effort to get there now.

Losing the car set off a chain reaction inside me. Not just the firefighters—every part was affected.

It led me into more contact with a very deep part called cobra, who carries survival terror.

Even though I’ve known about this part for over a decade, my system never felt resourced enough to stay in much contact with it.

As a result, it was known, yet not known. It lived all alone in a room with very little contact with anyone.

It’s a sad truth of IFS that, despite doing a tremendous amount of inner work—connecting with many parts and unburdening hundreds of times—there can still be parts that live in the deep shadow of our current capacities.

Finally rescuing cobra and bringing it out of solitary confinement created a huge shift.

Within a week of initial contact, cobra was able to unburden a very deep reservoir of worthlessness it had been carrying my entire life. Whoah!

Unburdenings often have intense consequences for protectors, because afterwards they don’t have as much to protect.

In this case, the last remaining substance my firefighters used to get me a little high—bubbly water—finally lost its appeal (due to the unburdening) and disappeared as a tool they could use as a distraction.

So my firefighter, Koala, was feeling the walls closing in.

No bubbly water? No car? No spur-of-the-moment thrift store jaunts?

That’s a lot of hits for a firefighter to take in a short time. In a profound encounter with all this change, Koala decided to give up its old role.

“I don’t want to do this job of being foggy and zoned out and dissociated anymore. I want to go to IFS rehab and re-skill for a new job: helping us to go to bed on time and stay on track with our schedule throughout the day, because that’s exactly the opposite of what I used to do.”

Wow.

That’s how an unburdening can lead to a major protector deciding to give up a longstanding pattern.

Cobra is no longer alone. Koala is re-training for a new job.

I’m amazed that something I initially experienced as a cataclysmic loss (my car being totaled) is creating so many positive changes!

My gratitude continues to deepen for the gifts that have come from losing my car. Koala and cobra are relieved, amazed and delighted!

To accepting the gifts of the universe, even when they don’t appear to be gifts at first, Melissa

Hello IFS Friends!

I have a part named the Farmer whose job is to research workshops, trainings, and other learning spaces to help me evolve.

Between 2002–2017, I invested over $125,000 in Internal Family Systems, coaching, and other somatic and psychology trainings, so this part was BUSY!

Self-transformation has stages.

After fifteen years of intensive study and practice of many, many different modalities—2,350 hours of IFS training and workshops, hundreds of hours of coaching training, authentic movement, and more—I finally moved beyond the stage where learning more was my primary way of growing and started deepening into the deliberate practice of methods that fit me best: IFS and authentic movement.

Others certainly inform my approach, but these two remain my ongoing practices.

To grow is to outgrow.

You can’t graduate from one stage without leaving it behind.

Learning means grieving.

As someone who can milk a training for all it’s worth—I took 2 Level 1, 5 Level 2, and 13 Level 3 IFS trainings—believe me when I say I don’t give up on squeezing the value out of a training.

But at some point, I can’t keep repeating something. I have to go deeper, or learn something new. I finally outgrew every training the IFS Institute had to offer.

I still take online courses in special topics occasionally, but that’s a radically different experience from an in-person, week-long IFS immersion.

Even though my last IFS training in person was in 2017, I still have parts who grieve.

Who miss going to Kripalu or Esalen, or taking a Level 3.

The Farmer has been hit hard by this grief lately.

Farmer: I know I’m not “retired” and that my research skills are being repurposed.

For instance, now I’m getting better at learning public transit to get us around without a car. It’s just hard to believe that inner work actually works so much you can outgrow even the most amazing learning environments that once felt like the Garden of Eden!

I used to feel like every training was the tree of knowledge and I could eat all the apples…But it is like graduating from elementary school.

Eventually, the information is too elementary, and there’s no one for me to practice with because I work too quickly.

I was once paired up with a stranger at Kripalu who cried after we traded sessions because she felt that “Melissa didn’t need any help.” Well…that was true. I can’t hide my capacity to work with myself to make someone else feel useful. After that, I opted out of being paired up when it was time to practice and just practiced with myself.

The room where the IFS workshop is held at Kripalu is three stories high; it was once a chapel. I feel like the doors are now barred to me by Seraphim and Cherubim.

I’ve been exiled from that Garden of Eden, and I guess I’m feeling it now because this is right around the time of the yearly Kripalu IFS workshop.

So I’m sad and grieving. I know it’s a normal part of growth. Like you said, to grow is to outgrow.

I have to take off my old shoes that are pinching and start wearing the new ones.

Goodbye, Kripalu!

As I grow, I outgrow.

One of the reasons I offer such extremely small IFS groups for just 3 or 5 people is so that people who are committed to doing IFS work in safe, resonant spaces have the perfect, intimate place to do it.

My groups are for folks who may be relatively new to IFS, but who have already done a fair amount of inner work in other modalities.

They’re also for intermediate to advanced IFS folks who are interested in the practice of IFS and are sincerely committed to their own self-transformation.

Having done over 8,000 hours of IFS on myself, I have explored—and continue to explore—the frontier of what is possible with parts work.

It’s my mission to bring the power of IFS to those who are truly excited to bring IFS alive in their lives.

If this is you, I invite you to schedule a free conversation to see if my groups are the right fit.

And if you’ve been thinking about getting some IFS support, and you’ve already joined a group in the past, reach out to join an upcoming one!

With delight to be on the IFS journey with you,
Melissa

Hello IFS Friends!

When you silence the small voices of the parts within you, you silence your true brilliance as well.

Listening to the small brilliance of your inner voices is the key to success in inner work—yet it’s not always easy, as anyone can attest!

Entering your inner landscape can be daunting: it’s abstract and invisible. Why not use finger puppets to represent the voices or parts inside you? Make the invisible visible!

Actually seeing the inner parts of yourself can transform how you relate to them. Cloth puppets have a tactile warmth that elicits compassion, and their colors, designs, expressions and ability to move around all enhance creativity.

I love doing parts work with puppets! The visual and tactile aspects they introduce to inner work help me deepen the relationships I have with my parts. Their playful nature also adds a lightness to the process, which helps me put things into perspective and make space. —Radical IFS student

Finger puppets help adults access a sense of curiosity and play, making self-transformation easier and more rewarding.

I’ve been using finger puppets to externalize my parts for over two decades, and they REVOLUTIONIZED my capacity to do IFS with myself, which is why I’m extremely passionate about sharing this specialized IFS approach in my new, monthly IFS + Finger puppets practice group.

“Melissa’s…work with finger puppets is a great innovation! It is an easy, simple method for... work[ing] with parts in a concrete way that brings the process to life.”

—Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., Founder of IFS

If you’d like to experiment with using finger puppets to unblend and externalize your parts, I invite you to learn more— join the monthly IFS + Finger Puppets group, or schedule a free conversation with me if you haven’t joined a Radical IFS group before!

To connecting with your parts as creatively as possible!
Melissa

ps: Want to see a full-length video of an IFS couples session using finger puppets? https://www.athousandpaths.com/video

Hello IFS Friends!

On Friday, my car was totaled.

I spent seven hours dealing with the aftermath.

By the time it was over, I was fried. I scrolled aimlessly, wandered around in shock, posted about it, called my brother, talked with friends, and tried to adjust to my new reality.

Saturday morning, I spent an hour and a half doing IFS about what happened, which shifted my perspective dramatically toward acceptance.

I was able to function a little better, but I was still conserving energy after such a huge hit.

I took a very slow walk, then laid in the sun for about an hour and a half. I needed to recharge.

Supportive messages buoyed my spirits. A friend I often see on my walks talked with me about what happened. He shared that, as a Muslim, he sees experiences like this as fate. Because I was already moving toward acceptance, I found myself open to that perspective.

Later, I walked to the UPS Store to return a few Amazon items and mail some books to my brother.

I forgot to bring a box for one return, even though I had just printed a label for it at the library.

When I got to the counter, I explained, “My car got totaled, so I’m pretty out of it.”

He was intrigued and wanted to hear details!

I happily provided the tale of a too-large Chicago water maintenance truck crushing the entire right side of my car frame, suspension, tire, wheel and engine into itself. Why a humongous truck with a trailer was trying to turn from an extremely small one-way street onto another with absolutely no turning radius to do so is beyond me, but here we are.

The UPS guy commiserated for a while and I felt validated. At the end, he said, “Well, God wanted it to happen.“

In the past, I would have felt irritated by the “toxic positivity” of that comment.

But because of where I’m at in my journey of acceptance, what he said describes how I feel: at peace.

Immediately afterward, one of my parts was bargaining: “If I had only parked in a different spot, I’d be living in a different timeline.”

Now another perspective has emerged:

“Out of all the cars parked on those two streets, mine was the one that was completely destroyed. I can be okay with this.”

For me, acceptance isn’t resignation.

It’s an active appreciation that something larger than my immediate understanding may be unfolding—and I can meet it with curiosity instead of resistance.

It feels like grace.

While I’m still grieving the loss of my car, I’m also taking care of myself. I’m resting. I’m letting people support me. I’m trusting my own pace.

Most of all, I’m struck by how differently I moved through this experience than I would have years ago.

I credit that to IFS.

Developing a strong, compassionate Self doesn’t prevent catastrophes, but it definitely prepares us to meet them head on.

Here’s to being prepared for the worst by developing a strong sense of Self to lead you through disasters,
Melissa

Hello IFS friends!

In Internal Family Systems, one of the most profound phases of healing is called unburdening—an energy-based process where parts let go of the painful beliefs or emotions they’ve been carrying.

Parts can place their burdens into anything that feels right, which is often the elements: earth, water, wind, fire, or light.

Healing unfolds in waves. Material gets stirred up and worked with until it’s ready to be released. When the time comes, it’s not unusual for several unburdenings to happen over the course of a day, a week, or a particularly active season.

For instance, one of my clients experienced three unburdenings last week!

I had three unburdenings myself over the weekend, and another a few days later.

Each one felt different. Some were tough, some were emotional, but afterward I could feel my whole system reorganizing around a new center.

When you heal at the root, your entire system has to restructure. This can be very destabilizing.

As I integrate these profound, radical transformations at my core, life gets mildly chaotic.

Sleep disruptions, more scrolling than usual, difficulty staying on track in time…

I need to rest and allow the aftershocks to settle because integration is a normal part of healing.

Just as a field lies fallow between growing seasons, we sometimes need periods of rest between phases of rapid inner transformation.

I invite you to give yourself permission to flow with the rhythm of your inner work. To rest when you need to rest. To get help when it feels like something inside is ready to shift.

If you’re looking for specific support for your own personal IFS practice, I’m offering a group for exactly that — Stuck Points in Your Personal IFS Practice.

Everyone will have an opportunity to receive targeted feedback about what’s making their solo IFS work feel challenging right now.

I think you’ll leave with new ideas for deepening your relationship with your parts—not only from having your own questions explored, but also from hearing everyone else’s.

I invite you to join us next Tuesday, July 28 from 3–5 pm central!

That’s my awesome firefighter, Koala, in the middle of the flyer — shout out to one of my main protectors!

To appreciating our parts more, day by day,
Melissa

Hello IFS Friends!

This week I’m thinking about how we handle our parts in daily life, because inner conflict doesn’t wait for therapy or an IFS support group.

I believe the best ways to practice IFS on our own, between therapy or group sessions, are both proactive and reactive.

Proactively, developing times of the day when we check in with our parts can build Self-energy slowly through repetition and contact with our inner world. Of course, this sounds good on paper but can be MUCH more difficult to put into practice in real life.

I’ve been incorporating IFS into my daily rhythms for over two decades, so I have a LOT of ideas to share about it! One thing I know is that you rarely build deep trust with your parts during a crisis. You build trust before the crisis—so when things get hot, your parts already know you’re there.

I invite you to join me in a small, 5-person IFS practice and learning group on Tuesday, July 28 to explore “Stuck Points in Your Personal IFS Practice” from 3-5 pm Central on Zoom. Whether your stuck point is STARTING your personal practice, maintaining it, deepening it, or something else that gets in your way when you work with yourself, I have confidence this is going to be a practical gathering that improves how you do IFS on your own.

Reactively, we’ve all had experiences where someone triggered the living daylights out of us. A knot of parts react—bouncing off the walls of our mind like way too many pinballs in a pinball game. When we’re overwhelmed by parts, using IFS techniques on paper to simply start the untangling process can be extremely helpful. Some of the classics are: The Conference Table, Parts Mapping, and Parts Scribbling.

Another classic IFS technique for unblending a pile of parts is The Room Technique, where you put the triggering person in a room and then allow each part that’s reacting to that person to appear outside the room. This technique is usually a verbal technique, but I like to teach it as an exercise on paper, so that’s what we’ll be exploring and practicing this Saturday, July 18 from 11-1 pm Central time on Zoom.

As always, reach out if you’d like to join!

And if those dates/times don’t work for you, I do have some on-demand teaching videos about all the techniques I mentioned above which you can find here: athousandpaths.com/anytime

While they’re not the same as the experiential groups where you can practice and get your questions answered in real time, they’re still a way to learn the techniques and start using them on your own.

In whatever ways you connect to your parts, proactively or reactively, I wish you the ongoing joy of deep contact with who you are inside.

To cultivating more Self-energy, day by day,
Melissa

Hello IFS friends!

One of the top causes of human distress is other people.

We’re often on the receiving end of patterns that friends, partners, and sundry folks impose upon us—intentionally or unintentionally. Then their patterns activate our patterns, and off to the races we go.

Many therapy and coaching sessions are dedicated to unraveling what happened in a particular interaction.

After the incident, we find ourselves carrying leftover, unprocessed emotions.

IFS is outstanding at helping us unravel these experiences because we can identify the parts of ourselves that got triggered, and we can also make educated guesses about the parts of the other person that were involved. By separating the experience into parts, we gain greater clarity about what unfolded.

One classic IFS technique for doing this is the Room Technique. You put the person—or the part of the person—that triggered you in a room, letting your parts know they’re safe from that person. You can imagine the room with soundproof walls, invisible glass, or whatever helps your parts feel protected.

Once you’re situated, you notice what parts arise in response to the person in the room. One at a time, you get a sense of everything this person triggers in you. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by a big knot of multiple parts all reacting in different directions, you end up with an orderly arrangement of individual parts, each carrying its own reaction.

If you’d like to learn—or deepen your understanding of—this classic IFS technique for working with parts that are triggered by other people or situations (world events, for instance), I invite you to join the Room Technique workshop next Saturday, July 18, from 11 -1 pm CT.

IFS to the rescue! Melissa

Hello IFS friends!

As excited as I usually am about parts work, hold your hat! I’m even more excited today!

This weekend I offered an IFS skills class about using finger puppets to externalize parts. It was AMAZING because finger puppets TRANSFORM IFS. Everyone in the group noticed that connecting with their parts was faster, more natural, and more playful when they could see their parts in front of them as plushies, stickers, or finger puppets.

Puppets make unblending easier because all techniques for externalizing parts make unblending easier. The difference is: finger puppets are soft, cute, and embodied—so they help us go beneath protective managers to access deeper, smaller parts.

Finger puppets, unlike externalization techniques on paper, help pull us out of our heads and into a direct, somatic relationship with our inner world.

Also, their cuteness naturally increases compassion. It’s much easier to feel warmth toward a little fox or bunny than toward an abstract idea.

Also, because many puppets are animals, they bring surprising extra qualities—this eagle manager “flies above,” this jellyfish firefighter “floats in the sea”—which also adds new dimensions to the work.

I’ve known that finger puppets radically turbocharge IFS work because they did exactly that for me over 20 years ago!

I’m so convinced that finger puppets are one of the most powerful ways to support IFS work, I’m going to offer a monthly drop-in IFS + Finger Puppets Practice Group.

You don’t need experience with puppets (or even any puppets at home)—use plushies, stickers, or other objects (there’s a full list at ifsfingerpuppets.com).

The first group is Saturday, August 8, 11 am–1 pm CT.

HOWEVER! If this idea is as exciting to you as it is to me, please reach out and I will schedule one in July!! I’m not sure I can wait until August to start!!

With great exuberance,
Melissa

Decluttering is on my mind—and even inside my mind.

I’ve been thinking about how IFS is a form of mental decluttering.

Many of us are weighed down by the excess baggage of unresolved emotional hurts we’ve been carrying since childhood.

I’ve been doing a lot of vibe coding lately: I approach it exactly like my house and my consciousness: no stray code left behind. After every session, I prune everything that isn’t needed.

I can feel how satisfying it is to have lean, organized coding projects. In the same way, I feel relief when I go to bed at night and nothing in my house is staring at me saying, “Aw, you didn’t get to me today, huh?”

The more lightly we travel—with our schedules, possessions, projects, and psychological baggage—the lighter life becomes. Things are more fun, peaceful, and nourishing when we’re not dragging excess stuff behind us like a flock of ragged albatrosses.

IFS isn’t just for trauma and old wounds, although the unburdening process helps clear them out better than anything else I know.

IFS can also help us transform our daily lives by working with protectors who hold on to what no longer serves us.

If you’re curious about how IFS can help you streamline your schedule, home, or projects, I invite you to join me for the next class in the IFS in Daily Life series: Why Can’t I Let Things Go? on Tuesday, June 30, from 3–5 PM Central.

We’ll let go of June—and maybe a few other things, too.

Because less is more,
Melissa

This year, I had a RADICAL adventure with my parts.

A wave of energy to declutter my house came over me in late December, so I started the pruning process as I usually do, going through areas, culling a bit here and there.

Some time in early January, a part named Rumpelstiltskin appeared—a little man with a fiery attitude. He was INCENSED at our decluttering ineptitude. “This is NOT enough. You don’t know what you’re doing! This will take a million years. We need to cut, cut, cut! Not nip and trim!” My other parts, not used to being insulted and bossed around, did NOT appreciate his approach. He got MADDER.

“It all needs to GO!” He shouted, stomping his foot down so hard it went right through the floor.

“Oh great, I just broke my leg. I need to go to the parts hospital!” he exclaimed.

My parts have been expressing themselves through symbolic injuries for years, which is why the parts hospital (Hogwarts’ infirmary) is in demand. So off he went to the magical hospital.

Everyone sent flowers.

Things were quiet on the decluttering front for a few weeks while he was recovering.

Then he reappeared, leg healed, with ENORMOUS energy. “Now that everyone had a chance to adjust to my energy, we can WORK!”

I became a whirling dervish of radical reduction. It was ASTONISHING. Even though I’ve been minimizing for years (and I’ve taken some pretty deep dives into letting go of things), this was next level.

I made pass after pass after pass, particularly in my kitchen. Initially I had open shelving on one wall with seven thin, three-foot long, 4” shelves, and a main cabinet of all my glassware with five shelves. By the end, I’d let go of so many bottles, bowls, and glasses I dismantled the open shelves and sold them to a nonprofit that helps immigrants in my neighborhood, AND I took two of the five shelves out of the main cabinet. THIS is what Rumpelstiltskin meant: RADICAL decluttering. Paring down to only what I actually use and nothing held “in reserve” “because I might need it.”

This same tornado of “out!” hit every area of my house: clothes, books, papers, hardware, computer cords, you name it.

I got rid of my STOVE! I use Instant Pots instead, so I replaced the range with a chest freezer.

This EXTREME declutter lasted around five months, January-May. On the other side, I’m still finding things to let go of but I live in a totally different house. It’s easier to clean. It’s calm. It’s relaxing. It radiates peace! I had no idea that when you own less, your entire nervous system can relax, and there’s less hanging over your head that feels like it needs to be done.

I’ve always been an organizing genius, but Tetris-ing your way to a house that ‘works’ isn’t the same thing as having an ultra-functional home where everything has a place and a lot of space around that place—where cabinets and closets and drawers are EASY to use because they’re only 1/2 or 2/3 full.

This last Rumpelstiltskin-led pass at minimizing has certainly been the most powerful, but it’s built on over a decade of deep decluttering. I’ve used a TON of techniques to achieve the essentialism I now embody, from The Minimal Mom Podcast, the Nourishing Minimalism Facebook group, Marie Kondo’s books and Netflix series, and much more.

But above all, I used IFS to work with my parts to let go of things. And on the other side of this journey, I’m inspired to offer an IFS workshop on the last day of June: “Why Can’t I Let Things Go?” We’ll befriend the parts who need things “just in case,” explore the impact of clutter on our capacity to be Self-led, and discover what we truly need to create more spaciousness in our homes and lives—because decluttering isn’t just for things, it’s also for old relationships and events we may need to prune or pare back as well.

To spaciousness in your life, inside and out,

Melissa

I feel like life is living through us. Our body/being is the vessel for unfoldings that come from deep springs within.

It feels so much better than living from our head, deciding, choosing, determining, and “making things happen.” Life is coming from the bottom, not the top. It’s flowing through. We’re becoming more invisible all the time.

Today we’re joyfully, calmly bringing forth what is within us — out flows the website www.deepmagicgroup.com. I had to edit the last sentence to articulate the feeling of how it rises up and manifests itself without effort. I started writing, “As we work on,” but that wasn’t accurate. There’s no “working” or “doing,” it’s — unfolding. Discovering and allowing to arise.

I feel patient and spacious, not rushed or stressed. I feel supported by life.

I feel deeply committed to following this feeling, allowing it to deepen, and forming an alliance with it. This energy IS Self-energy. It’s the Tao, the universe unfolding as and through us.

I feel more sure of myself. I feel that this way has its own inner confirmation of rightness — it FEELS right. It FEELS.

As Daemonic on Twitter recently posted, it is a “felt shift” in my body that confirms I am in alignment with myself and the universe.

I feel the antenna of my consciousness growing stronger, able to hold more resonance, able to reach out and connect to those who are on the same frequency, and also more lovingly clear that MY specific resonance, this energy, is NOT a match for everyone and that’s okay!

I feel more at peace with simply being as I am, with the faith that those who resonate are my people, and those who do not resonate are the people of other tribes, other communities, in a world of literally millions upon millions of communities.

We are all doing our best to find our way home, to discover deep within ourselves OUR frequency, and then to stop seeking, stop looking, STOP, and simply receive the gift of who we are.

As we settle into a deep, rich self-acceptance and self-knowing, all the striving to be Cinderella’s step-sisters who cram big toes into a glass shoe that doesn’t fit — all that effort to FIT in, instead of FINDING out where we deeply belong — all that misguided contortion and self-betrayal can magically dissolve away.

Beech trees rise tall in forests of other papery-barked beeches; maples gurgle and flow with sugar inside, among the rich sap of their brethren maples; pines soar up, up, up goaded on by their peers, merrily throwing off pine-cones for hundreds of yards around. Every tree has its tree-brothers and sisters, and an oak is not diminished because it can’t ‘fit in’ with the elms.

May we all be deeply nourished by the knowledge of who we are.

May we give ourselves permission to know the difference between where we merely fit in, and where we truly belong.

May we move from love to love, from belonging to belonging, into arms that welcome and celebrate us as we move throughout our days.

—p, 1/21/23

Like many managers who keep doing their jobs using old techniques that aren’t adjusted to our current lives, the Farmer is in need of updating.

Twenty-five years ago, I was at the tail end of hanging out with actors, musicians, and artists while sometimes performing as a storyteller; I was enrolled in a Master’s program in Performance Studies at Northwestern.

But I was transitioning to a more meditative, inward, spiritual life—I took a summer class on Tibetan Buddhism as part of my Master’s and started a very intense Korean Taoist meditation practice with the Dahn Center, which culminated in completely letting go of my former lifestyle and personality, including dropping out of grad school to go to Energy Healer school. Which was a great decision!

Twenty-five years ago, ANY environment that offered a way to go inward was the right direction. Kirtan, sound healing, yoga, Rolfing, acupuncture, process work, Alexander Technique—everything was new, everything was a step up. It was an exciting time of tremendous growth and novelty. I look back on it with delight.

I also started going to every IFS training I could find—and there weren’t many, back in the day. I eventually spent fifteen years taking 2 Level 1s, 5 Level 2s, 13 Level 3s, and dozens of additional IFS trainings. I went all in on IFS, and I have no regrets!

In the beginning, the Farmer’s job was easy: find an alternative event or modality, then go and try it!

As I grew, I gradually retained only the methods I got the most out of. I committed deeply to the Discipline of Authentic Movement and IFS. I let a lot of others go, including meditation, because I find IFS more effective for me personally.

The Farmer hasn’t had as much to do since I stopped taking IFS trainings after a good run from 2002–2017. But when I’m in a phase of deeper transformation like I currently am, the Farmer gets activated. He can feel the system trying to level up and wants to contribute. Can he find a teacher, class, or method that could bring us more energy than we can cultivate on our own?

The answer is less often than it once was, because after doing 10,000 hours of IFS training and personal practice, I can drop into my exiles immediately and move through witnessing and unburdening with tremendous ease. IFS gives you the power, in the long run, to be your own witness. That’s part of its magic.

This means that the more the Farmer researches and thinks and gathers information online to find events and classes, the more other parts feel annoyed and distracted by his searching. His findings look good on paper, but energetically--the teachers aren’t compatible with where we are now, or the containers are leaky, or the groups aren’t curated enough.

As we evolve, EVERYTHING in our life evolves. Who we can accept as teachers, as friends, as partners, as students. Self-transformation doesn’t care what it dissolves: old patterns, old relationships, it’s all the same material. Evolution entails loss. There’s no way around it.

But we gain as we lose. Less really is more. Our schedules and lives become clearer and easier. Our managers have less to manage! This allows them to relax and make space for Self-energy.

If you’d like to explore how helping managers transform can help your entire system shift, I invite you to join the monthly IFS Sunday class on June 14: From Inner Critics to Inner Coaches. We always meet once a month on Sunday from 2:30-4:30 pm CT. There are two spaces available.

Particularly if you’re looking for support with your own IFS work, with some IFS teaching in the mix, I invite you to consider this monthly group as a way to connect with your parts and continue to grow in your personal IFS practice.

To endless self-transformation!
Melissa

Hello IFS Friends!

This is an example of my usual Substack article—a live exploration of IFS work in dialogue form.

If you love real-time, unfolding IFS and want to see it in practice, this is one of the best places on the internet for that! I have over 10,000 hours of personal IFS practice and training, and that’s why my inquiries hit the ground running and often cover a lot of territory. To learn more about this Radical IFS substack, read the “about” here.

I have two newsletters on Substack:

Radical IFS Newsletter -- My every Tuesday newsletter with a short IFS story + all upcoming workshops.

Radical IFS -- On Fridays (but not all Fridays). Longer, live IFS work in dialogue form with my parts.

If you ONLY want to receive one of these instead of both, you can click “unsubscribe” at the bottom of this email, and under “notifications” choose the buttons for what you want. Blue = you get it, grey = you don’t get it.

My wish is my IFS explorations support yours!

With delight,
Melissa

Interrogating the Arc of Desire

Elel (Exile): Lately, I’ve been interrogating how desire arises in my consciousness.

I’m not using difficult issues; the meta-position of noticing the architecture of my desire is challenging enough!

I often take a close look at my desire while taking a walk. I start out kicky. I want to kick! But I don’t kick. It’s too boring. A, you make a kick a boring proposition.

A (Self-energy): I’ll take that as a compliment.

Elel: I say, “I’ll kick you.” Then you reply, “Be my guest.” BORING! If I can’t get a rise out of you, why kick!

A: Fair point.

Elel: Exactly. But I digress on kicking. I start out kicky, but I get over it since you don’t pander.

Then I look into the belly button of my desire and I find out shocking things! I find out I don’t even desire what I tell myself I desire, what I FEEL I desire, what I THINK I desire! It’s turtles all the way down, things are not what they seem!

I see desire as a bell curve. On the left side I take it as a given: I want that. But as I climb up the rollercoaster hill of the arc, I come to a precipice where new information about the object of desire can be seen.

Now, suddenly, what was once a one-dimensional, often received, marketed, status-quo-based idea of what I “should” desire — or more accurately, an internalized cultural or received idea of what is desirable that I was seduced into believing — this breaks apart and reveals new vistas of information.

From the top of the bell curve I see PAST and BEYOND the received ideas, to a land of other information that, as I engage with it, begins to dissolve or fracture the monolithic narrative of the desirable thing.

Suddenly it’s not one-dimensional; it’s three-dimensional with costs, responsibilities, and context. And when I see the ‘desired object’ IMBRICATED in its nexus of dependencies, from maintenance to storage—not just the immediate dopamine hit of buying it, and how it looks or fits into a marketing story—then the whole structure of desire starts to fall apart.

Often, I begin a descent on the other side of the bell curve into rejection or repulsion away from the object I started out desiring! I see all the things I don’t like, that don’t serve my values, that wouldn’t be fun AT ALL, and often, I finish up my walk on the very far right side of the bell curve, absolutely REJECTING the thing I first started discussing as something I was ATTRACTED to and wanted!

A shocking turn of events!

All Doors to the Inner World Are Valid, Even Pot Lids

Elel (Exile): On one walk, I looked into my desire to buy either one glass lid for one Instant Pot, or maybe even TWO glass lids for BOTH my Instant Pots.

To be fully honest, although it pains me now, I will admit I was thinking of buying two. I know that because what I thought about at the top of the bell curve was: “These lids don’t even stack and they’re going to be a HUGE GLASS PAIN IN MY KEISTER to store.” Yeah, I was thinking of buying two. Now that seems odd and weird, but at the start of the walk it seemed normal.

A (Self-energy): What shifted?

Elel: No, forget that question. What I’m interested in is WHY did it seem normal at the left side of the curve? Because once I got over the top of the bell curve and took a good long look around at the ENTIRE infrastructure and meaning and context of the lids, I slid down the other side as fast as Sir Ernest Shackleton sliding down the cliff at South Georgia Island toward rescue at long last!

I was rescued from my desire by the process of going up and over and then down the arc in my mind. I didn’t have to act it out in real life and buy the lids, find out I hate the lids, and then return the lids. Learning IRL is not as efficient as learning in IFS.

A: That’s true. These inner excursions save real time in real life.

Elel: Yeah, despite the fact the managers think, “Oh, if you’re not working on your TRAUMA it’s not REAL inner work.”

Inner work my ass! Who defines inner work? I define inner work.

If I’m going through the maddening trouble to parse through my desire for a pot lid, let me tell you, it’s a workout!

It may not be TRAUMA, but meta-consciousness requires holding both your desire, and the interrogation of your desire, at the same time. It’s not easy! It’s work, so those managers who belittle my efforts can go blow!

And if someone is reading this and thinks, “What a load of navel gazing, who cares if you buy a pot lid or not!” Well then don’t read this, because it’s not for you! I’m here to nerd out and go all in and deep on the structures of consciousness, and you can do that with any entry point, including pot lids!

A: I agree, Elel. All doors to the inner world are valid.

The Instant Pot Glass Lids—Why?

Elel (Exile): Okay, so back to my question: why did I want the Instant Pot lids?

I found out there were two things driving my desire:

VISUAL—They would look better than putting metal trays randomly on top of the pots, which worked perfectly fine the last time I rendered tallow.

MARKETING-based “specific item” belief—The idea that you’re ‘supposed to’ have the specific item that matches your item, instead of a Macgyvered ‘janky’ ‘workaround.’

So I had this deep capitalist consumer idea in my mind that I ‘need’ the ‘match’ to my item (the specific glass lid for the Instant Pot) to ‘complete the set’ and make it ‘look right visually.’

As if I’m rendering tallow in my kitchen on an Architectural Digest photo shoot! Hello I’m not, I just need a mild cover for the pot that catches some steam and keeps it hot enough to render.

Once I realized why I desired the lids, I was close to the top of the bell curve. At that vantage point, I was able to break through the visual/marketing conditioning of my desire to see other aspects of the pot lids that had been obscured by my rose-colored glasses of visual/marketing desire:

• Large, unwieldy lids would take up a lot of space in the kitchen, for an activity I only do once or twice a month.
• The lids can’t stack, making them even harder to store.
• They’re LARGE glass lids, so they’re not only unwieldy, but delicate and require special handling as well.

I started to think about how much I hate lids. I kinda forgot…I hate lids!

I always store lids ON the pot (upside down for safety and stability), but I wouldn’t be able to do this with my Instant Pots because I use them almost daily for pressure cooking, so they’re stored with their pressure cooking lids.

I realized: WTF am I doing, desiring these glass Instant Pot lids? They make no sense in the context and infrastructure of my kitchen, they would be hard to store and use, and other than being visually appealing and in accordance with some stupid marketing concepts about what ‘matches,’ they would do NOTHING to make my life easier or my cooking better.

So by the end of my inquiry, I DID NOT WANT the glass pot lids—in fact, I actively HATED the idea of them and could barely remember WHY I had ever desired them in the first place!

Whiplash! In one 43 minute walk, I went from enthusiasm to find these lids at the Unique Thrift Store and maybe buy them on Amazon if I couldn’t find them, to utterly dissolving the desire for them at the root.

A powerful experience of the arc of desire in real time about real objects.

Elel’s Final Thoughts on the Arc of Desire

What I learned: desire is a narrowing of perception that strips an object out of its context, manipulating you to ‘want’ it based on apparent merits alone. Those merits are often marketed to you by people who want your money or a culture that wants your compliance.

When you deconstruct your desire, you peel away what NARROWS your perception and rise up from the cloying lower levels of attraction into a larger space, where your vision opens up.

When you rise out of the confusing, seducing, narrow fixation on the object itself and access a higher level—the CONTEXT the object will arrive into—you break free from the narrowness of your previous desire.

When you’re able to see how it will fit in your life, how it will require tending, storage, maintenance, and upkeep, and when you see EXACTLY how using it will unfold in real time, you have access to MUCH MORE INFORMATION. And often, this information unravels your initial desire.

Boiling it down into very simple terms: what causes this shift at the top of the arc?
Often, adding context to the desired object dissolves the desire that created it.

This doesn’t just apply to pot lids. This arc applies to any desire or limerence, including attachments to potential romantic partners.

Which is why interrogating desire for simple things like pot lids is never just about those things—it’s about the actual structure of your consciousness.

Which is always worthy of exploration!!

I rest my case!

Ways to go deeper on your IFS journey
Personal IFS Coaching with Melissa: Zoom, phone or in Chicago —
Currently accepting new 1:1 and couples clients. Let’s talk if you’re interested!

Upcoming Classes: www.athousandpaths.com. Intimate, experiential, transformative.

I used to go to a few IFS workshops every year for around a decade—Esalen, Mexico and Kripalu. They were the highlights of my year—five or seven days dedicated to just doing IFS and being with my parts as fully as I could.

One year, the first day at Kripalu, I had to announce a finger puppets workshop I was going to offer later that week.

Before standing up in front of ~50 people, I checked in with my parts and reassured them that all we had to do was talk about the workshop clearly. Otherwise, it was a low stakes moment—I had confidence we could talk for 30 seconds without too much stress.

I did a perfectly adequate job explaining the workshop, but afterwards one of my stronger managers—the green crocodile—told me I had failed. It handed me a report with a big fat F.

This was puzzling, because I did not fail at all. I explained the workshop coherently and was reasonably well received.

This led me to spend the rest of that week working intensely with the green crocodile. I learned a lot about how inner critics work. I saw up close the distortions they experience in perceiving reality and how powerfully they often miscommunicate.

It ended up being “the Green Crocodile Retreat.”

I went into that week with a very strong inner critic.

I walked out with a very strong inner coach.

The green crocodile transformed from a part that menaced and frightened my other parts into one of the most supportive, encouraging, and loving managers in my system.

My managers all have enormous confidence in their capacity to transform because of how the green crocodile led the way.

And I have enormous confidence in the capacity of managers to transform, because I’ve experienced it so many times inside myself.

If you struggle with inner critics and want to explore their capacity for transformation, I invite you to join “Befriending Our Inner Critics” on Sunday, June 14 from 2:30-4:30 pm central.

If you want to learn more about the exact details of what the Green Crocodile was doing when it gave us an ‘F’ and how it transformed to an ‘A,’ you can read my very first Substack about it here.

Melissa at Kripalu, 2007

To befriending inner enemies and finding beloved new friends,
Melissa

I’m thinking about inner conflicts around getting things done in preparation for this Wednesday’s class on Working with Protectors in Daily Life.

The more IFS I do, the less inner stress I experience. What were once wars have resolved into battles, then skirmishes, and now diplomatic conversations in friendly settings.

Despite not being heated, there are still the same polarizations in my system that I hear in most people – they’re just at a low simmer instead of a rolling boil.

Managers who feel disappointed and impatient with “not getting enough done.”

Firefighters who say, “We need time to rest and recuperate!” If I don’t relax enough, they generally steal low-quality entertainment time at night through watching TV or scrolling instead of going to bed on time.

Before IFS, I was a private tutor, and this was the top stalemate undermining my struggling students. Smart, great kids who couldn’t focus on schoolwork because their firefighters needed a break, but their managers kept pushing past empty.

I think a lot of us are caught in this spiral because the world outside us has become more demanding while few of us have found sustainable ways to reduce overwhelm.

The process of bringing deeper peace to this conflict isn’t something that can be solved in a workshop; it’s something to start living into through new lenses and by identifying IFS trailheads to walk down with the parts in your system.

I know some of the solutions are decluttering, inner peace talks, and maintaining an ongoing IFS practice.

If you’re looking for more techniques to work with your protectors on your own, I’m offering one of my foundational IFS Four Techniques workshops this Saturday from 11 AM–1 PM Central: Parts Mapping! It’s one of the most accessible and easy-to-use written techniques in classical IFS.

There are more technique classes coming up, including Parts Art and Using Finger Puppets or Other Objects.

A follow-up to this week’s class on polarization around getting things done will be a decluttering class in June.

My goal is to be of support, wherever you are on your IFS journey!

Melissa 2007

To more inner peace through parts work,

Melissa

The “Genius” Toaster Oven Solution

Today was supposed to be my relaxing day off. I thought it couldn’t hurt to make a little Aldi run in the morning.

I thought wrong.

I made the ill-advised decision to use my windshield wipers to “wipe off” frost on my windshield in the freezing cold.

That was a lack of domain knowledge that will never happen again!

The fact that I didn’t burn out the motor of my windshield wipers is due to ChatGPT. It’s a strange tale, but here goes:

I was recently describing my super janky broken toaster oven solution (which I find genius) to ChatGPT.

My toaster oven door broke, so I put it inside my oven, which I don’t use. I used the oven door to close the toaster oven door. Who could say I’m not a genius?

ChatGPT! They blew a gasket and said nothing about my setup was safe!

Apparently, friends, toaster oven glass doors cannot be bungee corded (I asked) or even propped up against something because the glass is delicate and heat differentials can cause thermal stress to crack the glass.

AND it is absolutely unacceptable to put a toaster oven inside an oven, because it needs far more ventilation. Over time, seals, circuits, and wiring can break due to heat stress and burn my house down. No biggie.

All this to say – the conversation about what I thought was my genius toaster oven solution (and ChatGPT’s horror) left an impression on me.

The Little Wipers that Couldn’t (and Shouldn’t be Turned on in 5° Dry Weather)

So today, when I turned the windshield wipers on, they got stuck halfway through their up-wipe.

I could see them sometimes skipping a little and trying to get further up but they were the little wipers that couldn’t. They were super stuck. It was 5° out in Chicago.

I wondered if the pressure of the wipers on the windshield was something like the pressure of my oven door on my toaster oven door. So I asked ChatGPT.

They said, no, windshields are designed for the pressure of the windshield wiper blades—but since the blades are stuck in their up arc, trying valiantly without success to finish a wipe, if that continues, you will burn out the motor of your windshield wipers.

Say what?? In one million years that would’ve never occurred to me, people!

They told me I needed to pull over immediately to stop the windshield wiper motor from pushing the blades.

I did, but when I turned the car back on, the blades kept trying.

No amount of stopping the car, taking the keys out of the ignition or even opening the door would reset the initial impulse for the wipers to continue a wipe until they came back into their little resting spot.

ChatGPT being Ridiculous

ChatGPT told me not to force them, and that if I couldn’t get them to stop trying, the best solution would be to pull out the yellow fuse in the windshield wiper box. Oh God!

I was parked by the side of a major four-lane road—Irving Park—at 8:45 AM on a weekday with cars whizzing by me.

I pulled the hood latch, got out of the car, and tried to open the hood to get at the fuse box.

Nope! The hood was frozen shut on the right side!

Are you kidding me right now?!

I told ChatGPT the hood was frozen.

They told me to let it go, leave the car and come back later.

I said, “Have you lost your mind? I’m 15 minutes away from home on a busy road. I can’t just leave my car here, dude.”

Claude Saves the Day

I decided to ask Claude instead. I told them everything.

Claude said to manually push the wipers back into their little resting spot. If that doesn’t work, leave the car running, then gently guide the wipers up and back down into the resting spot—simply help them complete the movement.

For the love of all things holy, I could not move the windshield wiper blades when the car was off.

But when I turned it on, I was able to lovingly, gently help them finish the movement they were so valiantly trying to finish by themselves. Hallelujah!

They came to rest in their happy little resting spot, and the windshield wiper motor turned off.

Friends, please do not use your windshield wipers when there is no moisture to help them do what they are profoundly and perhaps infinitely committed to doing.

If you run into trouble on the road, use AI—it truly is a roadside lifesaver.

And if one AI doesn’t work, switch to another!

All the IFS best,
Melissa

It can be helpful to see the phases of our relationship to stillness in three phases: normal, escalating, and activated. Or you could describe them as neutral, watchful and tipped over into threat activation.

Phase 1 — Chosen / Neutral Stillness

Stillness is voluntary

• Micro-movement is possible

• Breath varies

• Time feels linear and present

• No effort required to “stay”

Here, stillness feels responsive.

Phase 2 — Watchful Stillness

• Stillness begins requiring effort

• Subtle bracing or holding appears

• Attention is trending vigilant

• Time starts to feel thick or slow

• You start wondering “how long”

Here, stillness starts to loom. Choices are narrowing.

Phase 3 — Threat / Timing Injury Activation

• Stillness feels heavy or ominous

• Urgent need to move or escape

• Panic, dread, or a sense of suffocation arises

• Time feels endless or unreal

• Endings feel unreliable

Here, you’ve crossed over into activation of time injury. You feel trapped by time.

Literally moving your body at Phase 3 is accurate self-protection. Movement is the way out.

Listening at Phase 2 prevents re-enactment; it’s the phase where your nervous system is escalating, and it’s the best place to use language to get untrapped.

Early warning signs that Phase 2 (Watchful Stillness) has begun

• You start wondering how long this will last

• You feel an urge to check the time

• “Just a few more minutes” feels like you want to grit your teeth

• Time begins to feel stuck, not flowing

Simply put: time stop feeling friendly.

Quiet Body signals

• Subtle bracing: jaw, neck, or abdomen

• Holding a position longer than natural

• Breath actually stops between in or out— it’s paused between cycles

• You have small fidget impulses you try to resist

What all these signs have in common is suppression of micro-movement.

Attention signals

• Attention narrows

• You feel “on watch”

• Part of you is tracking exits or escape options

• You’re present, but not resting

You are in a state of vigilance.

Emotions

• Not fear — unease

• A sense of “this is starting to be too much”

• Irritation at nothing in particular

• A quiet internal NO without a clear reason.

This is the threshold.

Phase 2 begins when:

Stillness requires effort to maintain.

When you are in phase 2, your system is asking for choice. It does not want you to keep enduring. It wants a restoration of agency.

Managers will tell you to “tough it out.”

Self-leadership It about giving yourself permission to be a human being in a body that cannot handle the escalating time injury being triggered.

How do you give yourself permission? As we were taught in kindergarten, “Use your words.”

Language you can use with other people so they don’t push you past the threshold into phase three.

This language is not about disclosing trauma.

It’s about simple boundaries that others can respect.

Simple options

• “I need to move for a minute.”

• “I’m going to shift positions.”

• “I need a pause.”

• “I need to wrap up in five minutes.”

• “I can stay if I know how long.”

You do not have to say more.

Language that names time

• “I do better when things have a clear stopping point.”

• “I’m good with continuing this for a few minutes, not indefinitely.”

Language that protects stillness without rejecting it

• “Stillness works for me when it’s chosen.”

• “I’m okay being here if I can move a bit.”

This preserves connection while maintaining agency.

What to say when someone pushes

People may say things like: “Just relax / stay / sit with it.”

You can say:

• “That doesn’t work for my nervous system.”

• “I’m already listening to my body.”

• “I’m taking care of myself — I’ll rejoin after.”

Being still is not some special state you need to achieve for moral superiority purposes!

Whether it’s in a yoga class or workshop or with a coach or therapist, you have agency over your movement and what you will or will not “sit with.”

A critical distinction

You are not asking for special treatment.

You are preventing re-enactment.

Phase 2 signals are not a problem to overcome, they are advance notice and if you listen to them, you will not tip over into phase 3.

Listening at Phase 2 is how you avoid Phase 3.

“My appendix flew out the window”

Elpe (Exile): So much change. Who can even metabolize it? Iy yi yi!
Sharky (Firefighter): Like what change, Elpe?
Elpe: First, my appendix flew out the window. That’s a lot of change!
Sharky: (Laughing) Okay, that’s one way to put it. I’m sorry we lost our appendix on the road.
Elpe: It flew out the window, landed in the road, and now it’s in the rear-view mirror. See ya, sucker! I hate that appendix.
Sharky: Understandably. I’m sorry it decided to break up with us. Or get clogged up so it couldn’t function anymore.
Elpe: I’m not here to have compassion for that organ. It went rogue. I’m mad at it!
Sharky: You have a right to be.
Elpe: Look what happened to my belly button! It has a big rainbow-shaped scar on top where the knife lady pulled it out of me in a bag!
Sharky: It’s nice she explained they put it in a bag, moved it over to the belly button, and pulled it out the incision, which is why it’s the biggest scar.

Never trust the hospital to listen to anything you say, ever

Elpe (Exile): What I mind is the hospital people don’t listen to shit you say about what you’re allergic to, and that’s annoying!

I may as well have been speaking Swahili when I said, “I’m allergic to polyethylene glycol” but otherwise, we made it through the apocalypse pretty well.
Sharky (Firefighter): Elpe, I’m sorry we didn’t protect you from all the crap they gave us in the hospital.
Elpe: But why should YOU feel bad when they’re the idiots? We were reeling from peritonitis, IV antibiotics every four hours which included morphine we asked them NOT to give us, and we told every nurse and doctor we are specifically allergic to polyethylene glycol.

So hey— what did they do? Gave us novocaine patches which have propylene glycol in them. Gave us colace which has polyethylene glycol in it. Give us gabapentin which has polyethylene glycol (PEG) in it. You’d think there was a PEG sale and they wanted to make sure I got every F thing with PEG in it they could think of!!! I’m not blaming you, Sharky.

Sharky: I’m disappointed we didn’t push back harder and distrust the doctors enough. I guess we were so beaten down by surgery and a lack of food and general pain and weakness it was hard to distrust everyone every minute of the day, but that is what’s required when you’re in a hospital.

Elpe: Hopefully there will be no next time, but next time we’ll read our chart online in the portal EVERY DAY to see how they’re lying to us (I read in my chart my IV contained morphine which I explicitly requested not to receive). I also had to look up all the ingredients in all the drugs they gave us and find out I was allergic to not one, not two, but three things they gave us. Fun times!

Protector sad they failed to protect

Sharky (Firefighter): I think we also looked so much up in the beginning, like the CT scan contrast and the IV antibiotic, and they were actually acceptable (the contrast was iodine, not some other insane heavy metal for instance). Because of that, we may have been lulled into a false sense of trust.

Elpe (Exile): That makes sense! I’m not mad at you, I’m really not, Sharky.

Sharky: I know, but I’m disappointed in myself as a protector. I failed at my job. When we were the most vulnerable, I trusted other people WHO I KNOW NOT TO TRUST and I, of course, was lied to and treated with disregard.

No nurse or doctor could be bothered to even show me the lidocaine patch and say, “Are these ingredients okay with you?” I mean, I get they don’t have time to look them up themselves…they have to hang out when they’re not on call talking about vacations they’ll be taking and sharing online images of villas in Europe, god forbid they take 10 seconds to look up the ingredients in the crap they’re giving me…

Elpe: I’m sorry they let you down like that, Sharky.

Sharky: Well, I’m just sorry I let you down! We were in the hospital five days. Part of why were there was our digestion wouldn’t start up after surgery (they called that “ileus”). We TOLD THESE IDIOTS polyethylene glycol constipates me. Besides the IV antibiotics for peritonitis, one GOAL of me being there was to help my digestion start working. So why give me not one, not two, but three medications that were LITERALLY DOING EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what they said their goal was??? It’s maddening. I could pull my hair out if I had hair. For the love of God, it’s so stupid.

Elpe: Hospitals are good at cookie-cutter protocols, and if you fit into them, they can save your life, but if you don’t, you’re fucked! We mostly fit into their protocol so we mostly did okay. But the fact we’re one of the 20% that’s allergic to PEG, a favorite nasty allopathic ingredient, made things worse.

Further adventures in undesired medications: Tylenol

Sharky (Firefighter): Speaking of this, I’m sorry I didn’t work harder to protect you from Tylenol.

Elpe (Exile): Again, I don’t blame you. That was ONE MEAN NURSE. She was hell bent on forcing us to take it. Our fever was only a few degrees but she was in a lather! She was NASTY. It’s hard when you’re weak and dependent, all by yourself, and then the person your care depends on gets frosty and vicious about how you “have to” take something. Even though you technically don’t, it’s very hard to say, “I’d like to give it the night to see if the fever comes down on its own” when she’s so intense and insistent. I don’t blame you.

Sharky: I blame me. I had a shock today about it.
Elpe: What happened?
Sharky: Oh, I read about a SIDS case where two twins, Dallas and Tyson Shaw, were vaccine injured. Kinda reminded me of us — the mom told the pediatrician that people in their family have bad reactions to flu shots.

The pediatrician didn’t care! Just like the nurses and doctors DID NOT CARE when I said I HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM with polyethylene glycol. These folks DON’T CARE because “allergies” to their cookie-cutter protocols don’t register…not in their weirdo online portals, not in their brains.

A nurse told me “our system didn’t flag any of your medications because the search term the system uses is PEG-100 and you said polyethylene glycol, which didn’t match.” YES BUT a 10 second search online gave me the words “polyethylene glycol” or “propylene glycol” for all three medications. So what if your STUPID system didn’t flag it? It took literally 30 seconds to look up all three medications and see they would HARM not HELP me. No one could be bothered to do that!

Also, where the F is the informed consent? I told at least three people I did NOT want morphine. I can read! I’m literate! It says in my chart notes that morphine was in my IV. Where’s my F-ing informed consent on that?? Apparently saying, “I do not want morphine” has no effect since it was in my IV’s! God forbid I can get two cavities filled without anesthesia but I can’t be given the CHOICE to request morphine IF NEEDED. They thought I needed it, so they put it in the IV. No consent.

But I digress. The kids’ pediatrician didn’t listen to the mom, and gave the twins flu shots. They started to turn blue the next day and looked super sick, so they went to the hospital, where they were given Tylenol, which is pretty much a death warrant in those cases. The LAST thing anyone in an immune crisis needs is glutathione-reducing, fever-suppressing Tylenol. The kids died. I know 250,000 people die every year in the US medical system from ‘medical error,’ so I know it’s a drop in the bucket… but because I know this, I feel terrible at how much they got away with on MY WATCH at the hospital. I failed to protect! It’s my job. I’m tearing my hair out about it.

I feel devastated I let that nasty nurse FORCE Tylenol on us. I mean, if I couldn’t even protect US from an overbearing nurse forcing it on us, what hope do parents have of protecting their kids from it? People think it’s safe. It’s NOT!! 56,000 people go to the ER every year because of Tylenol and around 400 people DIE of Tylenol overdoses. I don’t trust it and I did NOT want to take it.

I’m mad about it because I tend to have low glutathione levels. So the last thing I need is a medication that reduces them further, particularly when I’m trying to heal. Glutathione (GSH) is a major antioxidant! Tylenol annihilates it. This is stupid! You also need GSH for airway health, and I had collapsed lower lungs (bibasilar atelectasis). All the more reason NOT to take Tylenol FFS! Oh I’m annoyed.

Exiles reassure Protectors the important outcome was achieved, even if we ingested things we didn’t want to

Elpe (Exile): I’m sorry we had such a rough go on so many levels, first, by having our appendix decide to disintegrate, and second, by being caught in an allopathic, cookie-cutter medical system that’s 17 years behind the time when it comes to the impact of Tylenol on glutathione status and the reality that 20% of people are HURT not helped by polyethylene glycol.

Sharky (Firefighter): Ugh, ugh. I’m glad to hear my failures are MINE to handle, and that you’re not holding them against me.

Elpe: I’m not! I’m aware of what a monolithic and archaic institution we were up against, and all things considered I think we escaped it well and were able to benefit from surgery that saved our life.

Obviously they gave us stupid medications that delayed our healing, and we also had to wait 11 hours in the ER to get care in the first place which delayed our healing, so on the front and back ends, our contact with the hospital was terrible and bad, but still worth it to have the surgery save our life!

Sharky: I appreciate the reminder that the cost-to-benefit ratio is in our favor.

Survival is what matters! We’ll take it!

Elpe (Exile): Someone on Substack commented that before penicillin, peritonitis was 100% fatal. And look! We had peritonitis and survived. So I’ll take it, Sharky.

Sharky (Firefighter): All right, I guess that makes me feel better. It’s dangerous to have a medical crisis, and the medical system is also dangerous, but all things considered, I didn’t do a great job — I’d give myself a B-. But I didn’t die, and that’s really the outcome that’s the most important.

Elpe: Now you’re talking!

Sharky: “Acute perforated appendicitis with peritonitis.” I was up against a great foe. I guess I’ll cut myself some slack and be satisfied with a B minus.

Elpe: I rejoice! Way to go on the B-, Sharky. I’m proud of you!

Sharky: Oh for fuck’s sake, you’re cheering me up despite my best efforts to feel annoyed and gloomy about my inability to stand up to the nasty nurse on the fever night when she forced Tylenol on us, and my aggravation it didn’t occur to me to check the portal DAILY to read my chart notes and find out I was being morphined against my will, and my frustration that I was too out of it to look up EVERY SINGLE medication they gave me.

If there’s a next time, I’ll do better, but hopefully there won’t be. And meanwhile, I started out this conversation at about an 8 of self-flagellation, and it’s at about a 4 now. So I feel a lot better. I thought I was jumping in here to help you process this experience, but you ended up helping me, Elpe.

Elpe: What are friends for? ❤️