86. All the Parts of You

0:00 Hey, what’s up everyone, it’s Jennie Dildine, the LDS mission coach and you are listening to the LDS mission Podcast, episode number 86. All the parts of you. I’m Jennie, the LDS mission coach. And whether you’re preparing to serve a mission, currently serving a returned missionary or a missionary mama like me, I created this podcast just for you. Are you searching for epic confidence? Ready to love yourself and to learn the how of doing hard things? Then let’s go. I will help you step powerfully into your potential and never question your purpose. Again. It’s time to embrace yourself. Embrace your mission, embrace your life, and embrace what’s next. Hey, everyone, welcome to the podcast. I’m glad you’re here, where we get to talk about the mental and emotional well being of missionaries. One time I had someone say to me, you know, once they get home from the mission, they’re not missionaries anymore. And I was like, well, that’s technically true. And there’s a lot of unique challenges that come with serving for two years or 18 months or seven weeks, however long you serve, and then coming home. So I kind of feel like even the RMS need these tools, and I love the work that we can do here. One of the things I wanted to see if you would be willing to do if you’re feeling up for it and want to is to go leave a review on Apple podcasts. It’s been super fun for me to share the podcast on Google Drive with tons of missionaries. If you want the podcast for your missionary or for yourself on just a Google Drive. You can go ahead and send an email to podcast at Jennie dildine.com. And remember, Jenny is spelled with an IE and dill dine is like a dill pickle, dine out dill, no, but just one L Dill dine.com. And we will get you access to that podcast I wanted to read to you one of the things that I got from a currently serving missionary. Well, actually, this was just last week, a missionary who reached out and I love hearing from missionaries. She said, Hey, I just started my mission. And I listened to your podcast before I left and I love it. I’m not able to access it anymore. Is there any way to get it while I’m on my mission? And so I said absolutely. Yep, let’s get you the podcast. I’m grateful to this missionary for her sending this email and sharing with me that it helped her and that she loves it. If you guys feel so inclined and are feeling the desire to help spread the word about this podcast. One of the ways the easiest ways to do that is to just leave a review on Apple podcasts, you can rate the podcast and leave a review. As always, those of you who are doing that I just saw appreciate it. And I know that people who find it, they’re so grateful. And the more ratings and reviews that we have, the easier it is to find. For people to find and to start using utilizing the tools that I that I share here. So thanks for doing that. And I would love it. If you could head on over to Apple and leave a review, we can get more help out to more people. Today we’re going to be talking about all of the parts of you, which I actually this concept or this particular tool has really transformed the way I see myself lately. And it has really helped a lot of my clients. So I wanted to be able to share it here with you today. And I can’t claim this tool as my own. I actually have recently been in a trauma informed certification, which has come in super handy for working with missionaries, actually, I am getting certified, almost done being certified in a trauma informed coaching certification, I should say. And so one of the things that I learn in that certification, it’s Lindsey Pullman, by the way, is the person that I’m taking this course from the certification from. One of the things that I learned in there is they had a therapist come in and talk about internal family systems. Now, I actually, if you’ve listened to the podcast at all you kind of know that I talk a lot about kind of the higher brain and the lower brain. And how we can become the compassionate watcher of that lower brain, the one that likes to seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy. And the more that we can accept that part of us and love that part of us and integrate that part of us into our lives, without like hating on it, and that we can just accept it, actually, the more free we become, because what tends to happen, right is, we have sort of like a lower brain reaction to something. And what I’ve seen, especially on the mission is we think there’s something wrong with us for having that lower brain reaction, whether that’s anxiety or fear, or doubt, or overwhelm or stress. But there’s actually nothing wrong, your brain is working exactly as it should, if you have fear overwhelmed with anxiety or stress, it’s actually a sign that your brain is working perfectly well. That’s what your brain is designed to do. But what I loved about learning about this internal family systems, is that it gave me even more context and deeper understanding about sort of this lower brain part of us. And it just kind of fleshed it out even more for me, and gave me even more context for how I could learn to love all of the parts of me, I had sort of scheduled to have this podcast come out a couple of weeks ago, but I thought, No, I want this for Valentine’s Day, really close to Valentine’s Day, because what we’re going to be talking about today is having love and compassion for all of the parts of you. Let me start with telling you the idea, generally speaking of internal family systems, which is an idea created by Richard C, Schwartz, and it’s kind of a methodology that you will see in counseling, and in therapy, and kind of the main or general idea about this internal family systems is this. Richard C. Schwartz, PhD started to notice how when he was in counseling and therapy sessions with people, he started to notice how many of the people there would start to talk about, and use this kind of verbiage, it might sound like this, well, there’s this part of me that really is excited to go home from the mission. Or, but there’s also this part of me, that feels bad and guilty, that I’m excited to go home. And there’s also this part of me that really doesn’t want to leave at all, I wish that I could stay on my mission for the rest of my life. And as Dr. Schwartz started doing more research, and after, I can’t remember the number I started reading his book is called No Bad parts. He said that he’d been doing it for 20 years or 30 years, I can’t remember the number of clients that he’s seen, he started to notice this pattern of people talking about themselves with different parts. So the idea is that the same way that we have relationships with people in our families, like, you know, Dad takes care of this, and mom shows up this way. And brother kind of shows this way. And there’s this part of the family that looks like this. And there’s this part of the family that looks like this, that all of that same sort of interaction can tend to happen within our cells, just like with the example I showed you, there’s this part of me, that feels guilty. But there’s this part of me that’s really excited. And there’s this part of me that wants to stay on the mission forever. Okay. And sometimes what happens is that we get sort of in what I tend to think of as like a war or a tug of war or a battle with these parts. And instead of bringing all of those kind of into harmony and loving all of them. We, we we think it has to be all or nothing. I’m either get feeling guilty or excited or focused. We tend to see it as all or nothing when instead we can integrate and accept all of the parts of us.

9:38 I decided that I’m going to share a few of the parts of me as I was preparing this podcast and this is kind of vulnerable for me. But what I have done over the last little while and really since I started becoming a coach is learning how How to accept, understand and make space for all of these parts. So some of these parts like to kind of rear their head, I noticed especially they come up when I’m about to do something big like, or what seems big to my brain, something that pushes me out of my comfort zone. And so I noticed these parts start to kind of talk a little louder, okay, during these moments where I’m going to be pushed a little bit out of my comfort zone. So let me share a few of these with you. So there is a part of me that worries, I’ll never be who I want to be. This does that sound familiar to any of you. Like, I’ll never be able to be what I want to be in the future. There’s a part of me, that feels fundamentally flawed. Sound familiar to anybody else. There’s a part of me that believes this, like, seasonal affective stuff that I have, I really do in the winter, tend to have a harder time. And I haven’t ever been diagnosed with something. But there’s a part of me that believes when I feel more tired and more down in the winter, that it is a burden for other people. For my family. There’s a part of me, that worries, I’ve done it all wrong. Being a mom having a business, that I haven’t been kind enough to my kids or enjoyed my life enough. Maybe this sounds like your mission or something to you, it might sound different in your head, there’s a part of me, that gets super frustrated with my kids, there’s a part of me that gets super frustrated with myself. There’s a part of me, and this has been super vulnerable. Because I’m so passionate about what we’re doing here on this podcast. And the work I’m doing in the world with missionaries, there is a part of me even if it’s a small part that thinks I’ll never make the impact, or carry out the vision that I have for this work with missionaries. There’s actually a part of me that doesn’t like who I am part of the time, or wishes that I had more friends or, or wishes that more people would reach out from the ward. So these are all parts of me. And we can start thinking about all these different parts. And if you decide to read the book, it’s super fascinating. It was just really resonating with me as I got into it. I’m a few chapters in. But what we start to see is that when we’re not made up of just one brain, one mind one brain, we have all these different parts that sometimes feel competing. But the title of his book, no bad parts means that it’s all Oh, Kay. That your brain is functioning the way that it should. Now what we tend to do, right is we see this part of us where we don’t like who we are that worries that things will never make an impact that feels fundamentally flawed. What all of us do tend to do, because that feels super uncomfortable to look at that is we lock that in a closet. And we just like lock it away and say I’m not going to look at that I shouldn’t think about that. I shouldn’t feel that way. I shouldn’t think that way. I shouldn’t show up that way. When what I’m learning from this book, and what I have found in my work so far, with missionaries, it’s what is what’s far more effective, is to just understand that it’s okay that you have this part. There’s no bad thoughts, there’s no bad feelings, there’s no bad actions. There’s just you being a human with all these different parts, think of kind of like a pie chart. Now all of that being said, and all of the things I just shared with you that were super vulnerable. There’s also a lot of pieces of my pie chart that are different that are actually in complete contradiction contradictory. Shall I say, in complete contradiction is what I meant to say to the other parts. So there’s a part of me that knows I’m right where I need to be right now. And who I am right now is who I meant to be to create the future I want. Part of me knows that being flawed, makes me more relatable and kind of makes me like, a more deep feeling person. There’s a part of me that understands that the ebb and flow of life, like the seasonal part, and the spring, summer fall of life makes me a deep feeling and a deeply compassionate person. There’s a part of me that believes that I am living my life well, and that I never need to be anything different than just what I am right now. There’s part of me, instead of being frustrated, that wants to cuddle my kids, my gosh, I’m getting a little emotional. And never let them go. Now notice how that feels completely contradictory to my first part that gets super frustrated with them. And there’s a part of me that knows 100%, that the work I’m doing, whoa, I don’t know where all this emotion is coming from, that all the work I’m doing with missionaries was inspired and is inspired. And the work that I’m doing here really is making a difference for people and that I’m the best one. So let me gather myself a little bit here, wipe these tears away from my eyes, you guys know that I feel things deeply. And there’s a part of me that feels everything super deeply. And it’s okay. But notice how we have a tendency to the parts of us that we don’t like, we lock in closets, we shut it down. We don’t want to look at it. But there’s other parts of us, we’re really willing to bring to the table, these parts that we like, and these parts that we think other people will like. And so what we’re asking, and what I’m challenging us all to do, and I include myself in this, this quest that we have, I believe in this life is one of the main reasons we’re here is to learn how to love all of the parts. So that’s why on Valentine’s Day, Week can love all of the parts. And if there’s parts that we don’t love quite yet, you can go back and listen to episode. I won’t remember which one it is, but it’s called dealing with difficult people. And I kind of give you a step by step way to look at other people and different emotions that you can go down. And you can do that for you. So the first step is always acceptance, then curiosity, then compassion, and then an conditional Christ like love, which many of us would call charity, which is loving the way Christ loved. And you can do that for you. In fact, I highly recommend that you do I heard this analogy, and I apologize that I don’t remember where I heard it. I listened to so much. But this analogy of giving from our saucer, so we fill ourselves up with so much love that in a cup, we fill ourselves up with so much unconditional Christ like love for us, and for other people that it just spills out, and we can give from the saucer, the overflow. I wanted to share this quote from you from elder Holland. And it’s from his 2016 general conference talk tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. He said my brothers and sisters, the first great commandment commandment of all eternity is to love God with all our heart might mind and strength. That’s the first great commandment commandment. But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with his whole with all of his heart, might mind and strength. He says that love is the foundation stone of eternity and it should be the foundation stone of our daily life. And so notice how if that is the way God loves,

19:38 unconditionally with all of his heart, might mind and strength that we if we want to be like him, got to do the same thing. And notice, that means including all of the parts we’ve got to love all the parts Hearts of us. I’m sure that our heavenly parents do. I’m sure of it. They’re not like, oh, this part I don’t really like about Jenny. This part I don’t really like about that missionary, they love us with their whole heart, might mind and strength. And, and we can do the same thing for us, which then allows us to do that for other people. So again, what we sometimes do with these parts are like, I don’t like that part, we close our doors to it, we hide it away, we don’t let it come around, we punish it. But then that part doesn’t feel welcome. One experience I wasn’t planning on sharing, but my son who is on the autism spectrum, he’s a senior in high school this year, I really do remember certain parts of me when he was younger, and he would throw tantrums. And I would be really frustrated. And not even sure like if I liked him, which is kind of sad to say out loud, but the experience that I was having, just because he was so challenging. I remember at some point, I was so sort of ashamed, and mad at myself for who I was and the experience that I was having that I just shut down, I literally had to start locking parts of me in closets, the parts that were too painful. And then I what you notice then is like if we take this piece of the pie chart, and we lock it in a closet and take this piece of the pie chart and lock it in the closet, that pretty soon we’re not even a whole person anymore. Which we want you to be a whole person. I want to be a whole person, I want to be that deep feeling, accepting, loving, unconditional Christ, like love, I want to fill myself up with that charity, to the point that it’s over brimming, and I have it for other people. I can’t, it’s not easy to I don’t want to say it’s impossible, but it’s hard for hate and love to exist in the same body. At the same time. If you believe in emotions, the way I teach them here is it’s pretty tough to feel both of those at the same time. And so it’s pretty tough to hate ourselves, or different parts of us and love different parts of us, or to hate ourselves and love other people. So we can just start practicing loving all the parts of us now, a lot of times I’ll get on calls with a client. And they’ll be like, I just, I know, I should be like that. I know, I should love myself. I know I should love all the parts of myself, but but I can’t. I just don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to love myself more. And I want to offer to you here it’s not something that just happens. It’s an intentional choice. For me, this is how it works at least every single day to love the different parts of me. Because my my natural human brain wants to be like none of that. Nope, not good. And it has to be intentional. Like no, wait a second. I love that part of me too. I have one tip for you if you have a hard time finding the words or the thoughts to create that feeling of love of unconditional love. Try it on with someone else. And what I mean by this, let me share an example. I was talking to a client the other week and he was just having a hard time. Like I don’t know how I love this part of myself. I don’t feel like myself. I don’t know how I love this part of me that feels kind of discouraged right now. And I said, Do you have anyone else that you feel love for in your life? And he said, Yeah, I mean, of course, like I love my family. And I said, Okay, let’s pick one person in particular, who do you love? I was like, Do you have a sibling or a younger sibling, anything like that? And he was like, Yeah, my younger brother. And I said, Okay, why do you love him? And he said some things like, well, we’ve had some experiences together. And we’ve done this together. And so we have a history and things like that. And I was like okay, well, and he said something like, Well, if we all he said and then you know I love going on adventures with him. And that makes me love him. And I said, Well hold on a second if let’s say for some reason he became disabled in some way and he wasn’t able to go on those adventures with you anymore. Would you still love him? And he said, Well, yeah, of course. And I said why? And this is kind of what he came up with. He said because He’s a good person, regardless of what he does. He said he has a good heart, and good intentions. And I said, Listen client, do you know that’s true about you too?

25:23 Did you guys know that’s true about you to all of you listening? Like, we’re not always gonna get it, right, we’re gonna have these parts of us that maybe aren’t our favorite, but we can still love them and include them, even if they’re not showing up the way that we want them to. Even if they feel a little hurt or disabled in some way, or they’re not able to show up or go on a hike with us, or whatever it is, right? You, I hope you’re understanding this analogy is we can love ourselves and have that same thought about us, I’m a good person, regardless of what I do, I have a good heart, and good intentions, and start filling yourself up with love. Now, I’m guessing some of you are gonna get tripped up. Because we have this favorite scripture in the Book of Mormon, where we talk about the natural man being an enemy to God. And because I really subscribe to this idea that we’re all human, and it’s all okay. And our, our work here on this earth is to learn how to love ourselves more fully, so that we can share that love with other people. I, I was really wrestling with this. And I’m like, okay, Heavenly Father, what do you mean? Like a nap, The natural man is an enemy to God. Let me read it to you guys. Mosiah 319, for the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam and will be forever and ever. That’s the part we like to quote, especially in Gospel doctrine, you know, and in talks at the pulpit. Well, the natural man, he’s an enemy to God. And I was hearing it over and over and I’m like, What is this about? And I was kind of pondering it one day, because what’s actually true is God put us here, our heavenly parents sent us here to be natural men. So why would that mean what? That we’re enemies to him too. I send my kids out into the world. And just because they’re having a human experience doesn’t make them my enemy. So as I was pondering over this, one of the days I was like, I was like, okay, natural man is an enemy to God. And immediately, the Scripture that came to my mind was third Nephi 1244. But behold, I say unto you love your enemies. I was like, Oh, okay. Okay. And that’s when I went back to mosaic 319. And it says, we always forget this unless part. So, the natural man is an enemy to God, we’re supposed to love our enemies within ourselves. And unless he yields to the entire things of the Holy Spirit, and become a saint, through the atonement of Christ, and become with a child, submissive, meek, humble patient, full of love, hello, full of love, willing to be willing to submit to all the things which the Lord sees fit. So, the Holy Spirit, I won’t be able to quote the Scripture. My clients might missionary clients and RMS usually can but when it says that we, that we yield to the Interestings of the Holy Spirit, you think about that scripture that talks about all of the fruits of the spirits, it’s love, abundance, peace, long suffering, kindness, gentleness, meekness. So what if it’s true that the natural man, the part that wants to hate ourselves, is the enemy to God? Mmm unless we yield to the enticing of the Holy Spirit, and pull off that part that wants to hate us ourselves and become a saint, and fill ourselves with that kindness, patience, love, abundance. And it says right here, full of love. Not just half of love, hate this part, love that part, but full of love. Let me finish reading to you in third Nephi 1244 Where it says But behold, I say unto you love your enemies, is 45 goes on to say that you may be be the children of your Father who is in heaven, for he maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the good side. He loves all the parts of us the evil and the good he, he, we are His children, our heavenly parents, we are their literal children. And he goes on to say, therefore those things which were old of old time, which were under the law in me, all of them are full filled. I love the full, full filled, a full person, a whole person, all of the parts of us, all things are done away. And he says, and all things have become new, not just the good parts, not just the parts that we like. And then this is where this scripture we talk about a lot, right? Verse 48, therefore I would that ye should be perfect. Even as I or your Father in heaven is perfect. You guys, I have been thinking a lot about this scripture. And this idea of being perfect. And I talked a little bit about it on one of the podcasts, if you go back a little ways, perfectionism. But what I’ve been thinking about since kind of studying this parts work, and loving all the parts of me is I went into the guide to the Scriptures. And one of the first things it says in the definition is perfect means being complete, whole, complete and whole. So, I’ve been playing with this idea that maybe when we accept all of the parts of us and fill us ourselves up with complete and whole perfect love. That that is the way I thought of this analogy, which is a box of chocolates. With it being Valentine’s Day. Now think of yourself as this box of chocolates, now you’re going to open it up. And inside, there’s going to be lots of different kinds, lots of different parts. And some of those chocolates, like we don’t really love. There’s certain ones that I’m like, Oh, I don’t know, I actually love the dark chocolate ones, some of you might not. And there’s ones with nougat and stuff that you may not like. But instead of just like throwing that chocolate out. I mean, like this whole, this whole box is worthless, because of these parts. Let’s just decide that all of the parts inside of that box are sweet. All of the parts are sweet. And all of those parts together all of those chocolates together, make a whole box of chocolates. Now imagine yourself, putting the lid back on the chocolate, the chocolates, and it’s in the shape of a heart. And I think that I really feel like that’s how Heavenly Father sees us or heavenly parents. And that’s how we can see ourselves to. And I’m not saying some of those parts aren’t hard to work through. And that some of those heart parts are hard to hear when they come up, kind of like I shared with you some of mine that were pretty vulnerable. But we can create this space for all of them to feel welcome and to feel heard and to feel loved. And conditionally. There was this one quote that I wanted to share from that book. No bad parts, which just resonated with me so much. He started talking about how seeing ourselves through this lens of having the internal family systems and all these parts and none of them are bad. How that can play a role in the way that we practice our faith and our religion. And he said through internal family systems, people wind up doing in the inner world. What Jesus did in the outer. They go to inner exiles and enemies with love, heal them and bring them home just as Jesus did with the lepers, the poor and the outcast. So I say, if we’re trying to be like Jesus, let’s go all the way. Let’s not do that just for other people. Let’s do that for all of the parts of us. us, too. Can you find a way to welcome them all it’s it doesn’t just happen automatically. It has to be an intentional choice. But what I offer, what I want to offer to you today is that it’s possible.

35:17 You can love all the parts of you and your life, and the way that you see other people. And the way that you see yourself when you decide to include all of the parts of you and love, all of the parts of you will completely change. Right? You guys, thanks for hanging out with me today. Thanks for listening to me. Well, I was totally vulnerable. Go love you. Go take care of you give from your saucer, fill yourself up with love. Everyone have the most amazing Valentine’s Day, we’ll see you next time. Serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints can present a unique set of challenges. And many of those challenges you might not even see coming. So you’re gonna want a unique set of solutions. It’s easier than you think to overcome worry and anxiety, serve the successful mission you’ve always dreamed up and navigate your post mission experience with confidence. That is why I created some amazing free goodies that I’m sharing in my show notes. Maybe you want to grab the free training for preparing missionaries, my video course for RMS or maybe you and I should hop on a free strategy call. If you’re ready to take your preparedness to serve or your preparedness to come home to the next level. Then go grab one of those freebies. And in the meantime, no matter which part of the mission experience you are involved in. Just know that Jenny, the LDS mission coach is thinking about you every single day