047 - Rediscovering Your Path to True Freedom Through Parts Work with Tim Corcoran

In the hustle and bustle of our modern lives, we often get caught up in the daily grind and forget to prioritize ourselves. It's so easy to lose sight of what truly brings us joy and fulfillment. But picture this: a life where we're no longer held captive by our own unconscious thoughts and behaviors. A life where we can tap into those hidden parts of ourselves that hold the key to happiness, beauty, and a sense of playfulness.

This week On This Walk, I welcome back Tim Corcoran – previously on Episodes 15 & 16 – as we discuss the benefits of parts work and the ecology of self, and how it can help you rediscover your unique path to true freedom. Tim shares his personal experience with parts work and how it has transformed his life, emphasizing the importance of understanding and loving all parts of ourselves, even the destructive ones. The conversation also touches on how to discover your purpose through vulnerability, stillness, and connecting with nature and the importance of judgment as a tool for self-growth.

In This Episode

(06:17) How parts work transformed Tim’s life
(06:28) Three primary benefits of parts work
(10:05) What is parts work and the ecology of self
(12:55) The invention of the practice of voice dialogue
(16:17) The power of identity formation through the use of "I am" statements
(23:23) Understanding and loving destructive parts
(25:07) Reclaiming vulnerability and its importance in self-love
(32:47) How parts work can help individuals rediscover their aliveness
(35:29) How the lack of polarity in relationships can actually hurt them
(40:51) How parts work can be used to improve relationships
(47:05) How the parts of ourselves that we show up with can create our reality
(51:03) 2 keys to discovering purpose
(54:31) The importance of stillness and connecting with nature to access the soul and intuition
(58:47) How judging others can be a tool for self-growth
[01:03:26] Vision quest as a way to encounter the deepest parts of oneself
[01:04:28] The significance of childlike parts in accessing the soul
[01:06:56] How Tim received guidance from a dead Joshua tree

Notable Quote

“All parts serve and all parts deserve love. Even if they are destructive parts, even if they are parts that have caused great damage and great pain, a part cannot exist without a function. They don't just exist randomly and they all serve the self in some way. It might get really twisted and sometimes it does, and the key is not to kill the part, the key is not to throw it away. That just leads to more pain and suffering. The key is to understand it and ultimately to love it. And it's through that embracing that we can really experience transformation.” - Tim

Our Guest

Tim Corcoran is the founder of Purpose Mountain, where he offers Nature Based Purpose Guidance to support people with a love for wild nature who feel a deep yearning to discover their purpose. Tim also serves as co-Director of Twin Eagles Wilderness School, an organization he co-founded with his wife in Sandpoint, Idaho in 2005 dedicated to facilitating deep nature connection mentoring, cultural restoration, and inner tracking.

Resources & Links

On This Walk

Tim Corcoran

[00:00:00] Luke: Thanks for tuning in. You are listening to On This Walk the show that helps men rediscover their unique path to true freedom. My name is Luke Iorio. I spent the last two decades in the human potential industry helping teaching, coaching thousands of people to create a more fulfilling, deeply aligned life.
[00:00:20] It's my mission to reawaken and reconnect men to the joy of purpose and peace. It will help you become who you aspire to be for yourself, your loved ones, as well as those you lead. Today I've invited back a previous guest from one of our most listened to episodes of Walk With Purpose, who was released back in the early part of November 22.
[00:00:40] As part of my time working actually, uh, directly with Tim as a guide who I'll share more about in just a moment, he introduced me to some work that I had never done before in my life. And since being exposed to this work, it seems to come up a lot on these episodes. It's been present to my client work, and I've gotten familiar with some of its more popular variation and why this work is so important, why it's stuck out so much.
[00:01:03] It has revealed to me the ways in which we aren't free, the ways that we stay stuck, and the ways that we are actively running programs in our lives that directly contradict what we truly want and who it is that we wish to be. And that's why today we're going to tackle this topic of parts work and specifically an approach called voice dialogue.
[00:01:27] That's where Tim's primary training was from. This work helps us to bring awareness to the parts within us. You can think of these parts as sub personalities that are most typically running the show and which are the parts that usually are the ones that hold the keys to our joy, beauty, playfulness, and more that we want to reemerge in our lives, but they have remained trapped.
[00:01:47] Without doing this work, our blind spots and our unconscious programming are gonna continue to run
[00:01:52] Tim: the show. Of course, we've got so much outer conflict in the world as well, but as all the old wisdom traditions tell us any conflict happening out there in the world, if it exists out there, it exists in here.
[00:02:06] So
[00:02:06] Luke: to navigate this. We have back Tim Corcoran, who's been doing parts work and voice dialogue work for decades as part of wilderness based programming that helps individuals reconnect with their purpose. And I will add aliveness cause that's something I directly, uh, experienced working with Tim and the name of his company is Purpose Mountain.
[00:02:26] Tim led me through this work. He guided me all the way through a vision quest, which I detailed in part two of Walk With Purpose back in November of 22. And Tim's been mentored by indigenous elders, uh, top teachers and voice dialogue that were involved in. Its in that work from its earliest days, as well as having supported hundreds of hundreds of clients on this journey.
[00:02:46] Tim even reveals at the latter part of this episode how this work specifically has impacted his relationship with his wife and how it can impact us. This way as well. And so one last item before we kick off. One of the ways that I was actually able to receive such great benefit and impact out of the work that we're discussing today is because of developing a mindfulness based compassion practice.
[00:03:09] And so if you could do with a little less stress, especially when it comes to your relationships at home or at work, I wanna send you the compassion meditation for building empathy that I have created something that I share with my clients. So just send me a DM through any of the social networks, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever.
[00:03:27] And I'll send it to you for free. Cause I want you to get the absolute most out of this work and frankly, this life. And I know how many clients I have helped with it. So please don't hesitate to drop me that DM for the meditation. Now let's dive in with Tim Corcoran and freeing all of our parts. Tim, I wanna welcome you back on this walk.
[00:03:46] It's great to have you, uh, back on the show.
[00:03:48] Tim: Thanks, Luke. Great to be back.
[00:03:50] Luke: Excellent. I teed a little bit of, of this up in, in, you know, some of the introduction, but, uh, maybe just kind of to ease us into the conversation for everybody listening and for Tim, you know, when this emerged in part of our conversation previously, we alluded to some of this, but this is something that keeps coming back in multiple episodes that I've done and that's specifically this issue of parts work.
[00:04:12] Mm-hmm. And what I've described to people in the past is that as I have really kind of deepened into my own understanding of working with the different parts of self, different parts of who I am, what it's allowed me to do is to see these different voices, these different roles, these different aspects and pieces of who it is that I am step forward.
[00:04:33] I can better understand them. And it also gives me this feeling almost as if, if I can see all of my parts, almost like sitting around me in a circle and I can see myself in the middle, it allows me to see both the parts as well as the whole mm-hmm. Of what's going on. And that allows me to just take in so much more information and wisdom and understanding and, and all sorts of other things that we'll get into today.
[00:04:57] But I just wanted you to have that as a little bit of reference to what's been coming up on some of these different episodes since you were last here to talk about the, the vision quest and all sorts of other work that you and I did together. And so today obviously we're gonna talk about parts work.
[00:05:10] We're gonna talk about the ecology of self and you know, for everybody listening. I didn't have any frame of reference for this. Like when Tim and I started working together, I had never done anything with parts work. I had no experience with this. You'd been prepping me for it and, and I think it was maybe four or five sessions in that we started to dive in and I was amazed at how quickly we were able to get into the work that we're gonna be talking about today and how much insight and how much openness, like once you connect to these different parts of ourselves, these different voices that exist within us, how much openness you gained from that in the way that your awareness opens, your understanding opens.
[00:05:53] So anyway, it was something that was really incredible. That's for everybody listening. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to have Tim back on the show is to get into this. So maybe if we begin. Tim with maybe some more of your personal experience prior to professional, cuz I'm curious how you first were connected to, to this parts work.
[00:06:10] Like how did you find it or how did it find you? And then we'll get into just the importance of this and, and let it unfold from there.
[00:06:17] Tim: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this is a really exciting topic. It's a big part of my work in the world today, Luke. Let me just say this, three primary benefits and then I'll jump into my, uh, personal story.
[00:06:28] Three, primary benefits of parts work, ecology of self. I see it as the royal road to self-love, thriving human relationships like with intimate others, partners or friendships with business and discovery and embodiment of purpose or vision, right? Those three prime, those are three big benefits, big ones.
[00:06:51] Right self-love, thriving relationships and purpose. So for me, I got introduced to this body of work, gosh, a dozen years ago. And I was at a phase in my life where I was running the wilderness school with my wife, uh, twin Eagles here in Idaho. And I was not finding the deep spiritual fulfillment from it that I once had.
[00:07:15] And so it was a bit of an existential crisis for me. The work was still good. I was still impacting people really positively. But the impact on me was dwindling there. I wasn't getting that big spiritual hit like, this is my juice, this is meaningful, this is deeply fulfilling. I just wasn't happening. So I went to some of my mentors at the time and they had been introduced to parts work.
[00:07:35] I was brand new, much like yourself prior to working with me. Mm-hmm. And I was able to uncover really immediately, I would say within gosh. The first 30 minutes of, of being introduced to parts work. Look, I was able to, to uncover a traumatic piece from my own childhood that had been plaguing me for years.
[00:07:58] And frankly, I was largely unconscious of, mostly unconscious of, and it was safe. It was not overwhelming. It wasn't too much, too soon. I was able to be with it in a, in a deep way and ultimately find self-love and healing. Through that approach, it led to all three of those, those benefits. It led to the self-love.
[00:08:18] That's where it began for me. It helped me realize that I was actually evolving on my own spiritual path and that my work at the Wilderness School was, was still great work in the world, but it wasn't my calling in in the same way that it once had been. And of course it had massive impacts on my relationship with Janine, my wife at the time, and the other big one.
[00:08:38] Gosh, I mean, parts work has also saved my butt financially. It helped us get out of a big financial hole we were in. And it's pretty awesome stuff. It's, yeah, it, it is a deeply transformational process that has wildly changed my life for the better and many, many others.
[00:08:54] Luke: I appreciate the context and we'll get into each of these kind of a little bit further of some of those, those major benefits and as you described, the royal road to self-love, thriving relationships, and then that discovery and embodiment of purpose.
[00:09:06] And I think for each of these, what I found is that, Through the parts work, I was better able to see the parts of myself that stood in the way that was resistant. Right. To each of these. It's funny cause I'm trying to think of if, if there's anything else that I would add to that list of benefits. You know, I think within each of those there is, you know, elements of, of healing.
[00:09:31] There's elements of the emergence of trust in whole new ways, trust and confidence that grows in whole new ways. But I think it's all wrapped up in, in what you described. Maybe if just for a moment, if we could define parts work and so that people just have a, a, you know, a little bit of a grounding of, of what do we mean by parts work And if you wanna put that in that broader context of the ecology of self.
[00:09:50] Cause I know that's kind of the bigger frame of, of
[00:09:52] Tim: this conversation. Yeah, sure. So, and I'm also aware, Luke, that parts work is gaining popularity amongst coaches, therapists, healers, and anyone doing transformational work these days. So the way I look at parts work and the ecology of self is that we are not ec static.
[00:10:10] One dimensional being that there are many, many different aspects to who we are. You could look at that psychologically and say that our psyche is comprised of many different parts, where we could look at that spiritually and say that there is a spiritual ecology of self, or from a soulful perspective, that there are just like if we were to look at a natural landscape, there might be wetlands and there might be mountains, there might be meadows, there might be thick evergreen forests and riparian forest of aspens and cottonwoods.
[00:10:43] That the journey towards true fulfillment in life involves the process of reclaiming our wholeness. Whether we're on the track of like, gosh, I need to love myself more, whether we're on the track of I want better thriving relationships in my life with other humans, or if we're on the track of I need to discover and and live my purpose.
[00:11:04] In order to do any of that, we need access. To our full inner resources, our wholeness, and interestingly, the terminology healing. If, if you look into the etymology of that, it means becoming whole. Yeah. And so to look at it and understand that through the natural process of being raised as a human being on this earth, inevitably in our childhood, we come to a certain point where we determine that certain ways of being certain parts of ourselves are unacceptable.
[00:11:36] You know, example for me, when I was six years old, I was a, a little hell on wheels, you know, hyperactive kid. And it was too much. It was too much for my mom. How many times did my mom say, Timmy, get out of the kitchen. You're too much. You're too much. Eventually, over time, Luke, I made the decision, oh, that wildness inside of me is not acceptable here.
[00:11:58] So I put it away. I decided that's not acceptable. It was still in me. Yeah. Where did it go? It went back into the recesses, you know, down in, into my inner basements or in, into my inner bogs, or inner swamps only to be reclaimed years and years later. Right. So another metaphor, this is less of a nature metaphor, but it's it's a useful one.
[00:12:19] You know, if, if you have a vehicle and if you've got your car and your car stops working, it's useful to recognize that the vehicle has different parts. It has an engine. Mm-hmm. It has a starter, it has an alternator, it has an air conditioner, it has transmission. And if you're gonna fix the vehicle, you need to identify which part has the issue and which part needs attention.
[00:12:40] So when people come to me and they're struggling, that's part of it is, is looking, okay, well, where let's slow down and, and look into this, and where is the issue actually at and how can we address this in an appropriate way? And I wanna actually mention the terminology voice dialogue. Yeah. So doctors, Hal and Sidra Stone, uh, two of my teachers, Hal passed away a couple years ago.
[00:13:01] Sidra is still alive. They were like renegade PhD psychologist back in the sixties. And he was originally, Hal was a Jungian analyst and took Carl Young's work of the sub personalities. It's another terminology we use parts, voices, selves or sub personalities. And he was the very first one, just through his own creative process to think that, oh, we, I can actually speak to a part of a person.
[00:13:29] One at a time. And so he really invented the process. If, if there was one individual that we know of who invented it, it was Hal, and I'm aware of Richard Schwartz and Internal Family Systems ifs very popular these days. Interestingly, Dick Schwartz, he trained with Hal Sidra. That work goes back to Helen Sidra.
[00:13:47] They're really the pioneers of this work. And so parts tend to present themselves in opposites, right? I might have a pleaser, a part of me that really wants to make you happy or make, uh, someone I'm speaking with happy because if I do that, then what? Then I get your approval, then you'll love me. Right?
[00:14:07] But at what cost? If I'm unconscious of it? Well, at the cost of, I. I'm not true to my own heart. I'm not true to my own voice. I put my needs second really common one out there, especially for a lot of guys these days. Guilty. Right? Got it. And so this is what tends to happen. So, and maybe I learned that when I was 10, cuz my mom would get so upset at me.
[00:14:30] And I, I learned real quick if I wanted her approval, her love, I had to do what she want. I had to make her happy, you know, really common stuff. Yeah. And so then what, 20, 30, 40 years go by and I've adopted this survival strategy of pleasing others, but totally not being true to myself. And then it catches up and I feel like God totally, like horrible and, and resentful and upset.
[00:14:54] Or maybe I've got addictions or bad habits of eating or, you know, screen time or whatever it is to, to compensate. But the heart of the matter is that I. Have forgotten how to really love myself, how to really put my voice first. Now, that's just one example. There's lots of examples. We might have a perfectionist and a carefree self.
[00:15:16] You know, a lot of people perfectionist these days have forgotten what it means to be carefree. Or we might have an achiever, the doer, the, yeah, this is a big one, right? How many have constantly gotta be working and making shit happen, and when do we have time to just slow down and be there? Is the inner critic another big, you know, one common one and it's opposite The inner teacher, you know, the inner critic that's constantly reaming us a new one and telling us what we're doing wrong and giving us a hard time, and really oftentimes downright abusive.
[00:15:52] And the disowned self. The opposite self that we've yet, that we've put away is what that inner teacher, that one that can hold space, that's patient, that's understanding, that can really guide us in a positive way forward. So lots of different examples here, but hopefully this begins to paint the picture for folks.
[00:16:17] Luke: As Walt Whitman equipped, I am large, I contain multitudes. We like to think of ourselves in some solid way that the self that we know is clear and perhaps even singular. We don't really think of ourselves as a multitude or having all of these different parts. So I want you to pay attention when you use those powerful words.
[00:16:37] I am, because those words create those words can make solid whatever follows them. So what do I mean by solid? Well, when we make something solid, it gives the impression that whatever it is, It isn't changing. It's gonna stay what it is. It doesn't have that quality of, let's say, an air or water, for instance, to move to reform into something new.
[00:17:00] Instead, what we've made, solid feels fixed. It can't change, it can't grow. So when we say something like, I'm a perfectionist, we make it hard for us to see more of who we are other than just that part. It's more accurate to simply say, A part of me is a perfectionist, and part of me loves letting it ship, as Seth Godin might say, meaning giving it a good effort and then letting it go.
[00:17:25] When we make a part of a solid, it also then shuts down the other aspect that is its counterpart within us. In this case, it could be that you shut down your playfulness or your creativity ingenuity, that ability to be carefree, even if just for a while, if you stay stuck in the I'm a perfectionist illusion or story.
[00:17:47] There is so much more to who each and every single one of us really truly is, and we have to lean into understanding all of our parts to really be able to unlock this, to show up as fully as we wish to show up. But why do we do this? Why do we give in to just labeling certain parts of us and allowing those parts to become the primary, the dominant factors that shape our personality, the way that we interact with this life?
[00:18:14] Why do we do it well for that, you're gonna have to keep listening. We'll get there.
[00:18:23] The peace that it calls to mind for me is that as you go through this process and you begin to identify these different parts and you learn how to engage and relate and communicate with these different parts, for me as we got into it, and we can go into an example in a moment, is that it allowed me to bring up elements of myself and personify it.
[00:18:43] So if I could take a trait like achiever, that was, and, and for me it was not only achiever, but it was wrapped up into, into a piece of me that I, I would think of as the businessman. Oh, yeah. Right. Is the, the businessman he's, he's gonna achieve and it's gonna be structured and it's be planned and it's gonna write all this whole list of attributes that go with that part.
[00:19:00] That is a sub personality part of my whole, of who it is that I am. But when I was able to start to relate to them, because I was able to personify that part, I could engage and relate and communicate in a very, very different way and begin to receive back from that part so that I could actually hear, what is your intention?
[00:19:21] What are you trying to accomplish here? And it changes that dynamic where you're yes, you are right. You're reworking the relationship with something that exists within you. And I guess the other piece that I want to add to this and, and then just see what you, you would add to it, is that as I did that, I was able to recognize when certain parts of me businessman is a great example of, of this, when all of a sudden that part of me would try to sit in the driver's seat and take over.
[00:19:51] Yeah. Yeah. And it's like now I can recognize in any given moment, and maybe it'll take me a few moments, but theoretically in the moment, yeah. I can begin to recognize when, oh, wait a minute, one of my parts has taken control and I need to pause for a minute. I need to regather myself. I can see what that part has to say.
[00:20:10] I can see what it needs. I can see what the issue or the resistance, whatever it is that's coming up, but let's move it back to the passenger seat and it it ch because we've personified it. We can be in relationship with it in a different way and recognize when it's trying to step in and why is it trying to step
[00:20:27] Tim: in.
[00:20:28] Absolutely. And what's key in that I think of is awareness. That's exactly what you're talking about. Look, being able to step back and see, oh, there's this aspect to me, That is a pattern. And see when we're unconscious of it, we just think of it as ourself. We might say we're identified with a self. I'm identified with the achiever.
[00:20:49] What do you mean? A part of me is an achiever? No, it's not. That's just me. Well, actually no, the self is like a set of rose colored glasses. And maybe you've been wearing those rose-colored glasses for 35 years and you really think it is you, but you can take them off. Yeah, and there is a wholeness underneath that.
[00:21:07] There's something else behind that. And as you go through this process of personifying, identifying with these parts, learning about them, connecting with 'em, and importantly separating from them, having times where you can set them aside, where you can take the rose-colored glasses off. You begin to see, oh, there are other options.
[00:21:27] I also think about inner conflict and inner harmony. So many of us these days are dealing with inner conflict and it's easy to project that outward. You know, of course we've got so much outer conflict in the world as well. But as all the old wisdom traditions tell us any conflict happening out there in the world, if it exists out there, it exists in here.
[00:21:48] Yeah. And a big part of the way we heal that I'm thinking about, uh, you know, diversity and inclusion and social justice these days, that journey has got to begin within. Yeah. We've got to find that inner harmony. And oftentimes you can have two of these opposite selves that are fighting. And this can get pretty extreme.
[00:22:08] I mean, to, uh, all the way to like, full on like inner abuse. I mean, I've seen so many people and been there myself where like the pleaser, right? The nice guy, the one who's always fawning over others. There are parts that get so upset about that pattern and then you get this inner conflict and these inner battles, these gargantuan wars.
[00:22:29] Through the work, people are able to see that. And this is important, right? That two things, that all parts serve and all parts of. Deserve love. Mm-hmm. Even if they are destructive parts, even if they are parts that have caused great damage and great pain, I don't say that lightly. I'm thinking of all the way to, to full on, you know, abusive scenarios.
[00:22:55] A part cannot exist without a function. They don't just exist randomly and they all serve the self in some way. It might get really twisted and sometimes it does. Yeah. And usually for most folks, not thankfully, you know, not that crazy. And the key is not to kill the part, the key is not to throw it away.
[00:23:14] That just leads to more pain and suffering. The key is to understand it and ultimately to love it. And it's through that embracing that we can really experience transformation.
[00:23:23] Luke: And I've found that with, and I think this is what you're getting at. If you have seen seen it in different ways, by all means, please correct me, but I.
[00:23:32] Each part that I have had the chance to sit with and examine and be in relationship with, when I go back to the origins of that part. Mm-hmm. I almost always find that it's acting from a place of love and trying to keep me safe. And there are other parts as well that still stem outta love. But for the parts that we think of that are times overbearing or difficult to deal with, the inner critic, the protector, another one that we haven't specifically mentioned, the pleaser.
[00:23:59] Things that I identify with very, very, very well. All these different parts for me, I know they were born out of that protector mentality. They were born out of wanting to keep me safe, which is an act of love. And then they took over the driver's seat and they got a little aggressive. Right? Yep. They came.
[00:24:14] A little overprotective. A little overbearing. Yep. And it continues down that path until it gets interrupted. But when I can go back and recognize that the origin of. Of what they were doing was to care for me. That was part of what it was trying to serve in that moment. Then even everything that came after that might have gone too far.
[00:24:35] I can still have love for, cause I can recognize where it came from.
[00:24:39] Tim: Yeah, exactly right. No, abso absolutely. Luke. That's so key. You know, especially those big dominant ones we're talking about the pleaser. Oh yeah. The critic. The perfectionist. The achiever. These are, you know, sometimes what we might call primary selves.
[00:24:54] Right, and they exist. Yeah, exactly. They're trying to help and the way they do that is by either, typically by making a smaller in the world oftentimes, and by preventing us from feeling our vulnerability because it's scary to feel vulnerable, to feel sadness, to feel fear, to feel that intense, often childlike rawness and as kids.
[00:25:21] We had to have something. There had to be some kind of protection. And so, yeah, in the psyche of a seven year old, oh, the genius move and it was genius at that time is, I'm gonna please others. That'll work. I won't have to feel so raw, so sensitive. So vulnerable. But the problem is we use that strategy for 40 years.
[00:25:43] Yeah. And interestingly, vulnerability, that's such a buzzword these days. But it's, again, I go back to the three big benefits. If you really wanna love yourself, you have got to have moments of feeling vulnerable. If you wanna connect with another human being, you have got to have moments of shared vulnerability.
[00:25:58] And if you wanna connect with your purpose, your vision, you have got to get vulnerable with God, with creator, with mystery, with soul, however you fill, use, fill in the blank what, whatever your word of choice is there, but that vulnerability is key in all of those areas. So
[00:26:14] Luke: that's actually something I, I, I wanted to then get to is, cuz you know, we've started this by talking about the pleaser, the achiever, the inner critic, you know, some of these more domineering ones that tend to be primary because they come out usually at the very early age.
[00:26:27] So that, you know, we're only so sophisticated at that point and we are doing the absolute best that we can to handle whatever the circumstances happen to be that we're going through. And so we're talking about more of those that can be a little more domineering or as you described, might be primary if, if that's part of our, our patterning and conditioning, what are they covering up?
[00:26:46] Yeah, right. Because there's, there's all these other parts too. And that's, you know, that was to me, so much of the value of the work that I found so quickly was all of a sudden the parts that had been hidden or repressed, depending on which language you wanna use, were just kinda like waiting there to be rediscovered.
[00:27:04] Yeah. But they needed to feel safe to come out. What's the other side of this? Right? Let's talk about a little bit of, of what gets hidden in this process
[00:27:10] Tim: again, and this is where I go back to the opposites, right? So yeah. So like with the pleaser, if I've adopted, and I, I was, I was, are you kidding? I was the nice guy for so, so long.
[00:27:19] Oh yeah. And he still pops his head up occasionally, right? Yep. So, yeah. So maybe when I was a boy, I realized, like I said, I realized that I have to please others. And oftentimes it does stem from relationships with parents. I realized that I had to please my mom to make her happy to experience approval and love from her.
[00:27:38] So I took that on in the process. I made everybody else more important than me. It's not all bad either, right? Like another thing I did was I cultivated a high level of awareness for others. Like I could walk into a room and read that room and figure out oftentimes, you know, in just a matter of seconds, What's going on?
[00:27:58] What's the social dynamic? Who needs what if I wanna get in with this person, how I've gotta be, or what I've gotta say? So there was a social awareness that was birthed from that self and that social awareness is actually, it's a very, very important skill. And helpful, yeah. The question is just who's, who's using it, right?
[00:28:17] So over time I realized, gosh, this isn't working. Maybe I'm in my thirties or forties and I realized, wow, I'm putting everybody else first. And I, like I said, I feel horrible. I've noticed that my relationships aren't, well, it doesn't actually work. I'm not getting my needs met. I'm starting to feel resentful.
[00:28:35] There's maybe a lack of polarity in my romantic relationships and the spark is gone. What the heck's going on? Wow. Well, there's an opportunity to look at that, at that pleaser. And so I do, and maybe I go through some, some parts work and you know, I kind of get into the history of it. I feel it in my body.
[00:28:55] And over time I realized, oh yeah, that there's actually a lot of pain back. There's a lot of vulnerability back there that I've actually been unaware of unconscious of all these years. And so typically it's the vulnerability that has gotta come first. We've gotta realize why did that thing come to exist in any way in the first place?
[00:29:16] And then there's an opportunity for me to say, wow, okay, if that pleaser's not gonna, if he's gonna step back, maybe he's tired after 30 years of pleasing, you know, maybe he's ready to take a break. Well, he's willing to, but the thing is that vulnerability is still gotta be addressed. The vulnerability doesn't go anywhere.
[00:29:36] It's still there. It's got to be protected. So either he's gonna do it, or if not, if he's gonna take a back seat, there needs to be a new reconfiguration in, in, in my inner world, in my inner ecology of self. And so what needs to happen is I need to come forward. Consciously with my own what? Maybe like an inner father or inner mother, inner nurturing parent that can just be there for myself that can admit it when I'm scared.
[00:30:04] I remember when I first started doing podcasts, this was a big one. I'd get so nervous, you know? And yeah, fear of public speaking, man. My heart rate would go up like crazy and, and this is what I would do. I would say, well, I'm not gonna do the old strategy. I would just feel it. I was like, I'm gonna feel scared and I'm gonna be there for myself.
[00:30:21] And I would imagine an inner parent showing up and being there for my scared little boy. And you know what? I did okay. And I was able to get up here and speak and do stuff. And you know, back in the day, I could have never imagined being here doing stuff like this. So then what that does, okay, so pleaser steps back, because I'm actually showing up for myself.
[00:30:42] Some would call this the journey of reparenting, right? Or parenting ourself. And now, I realize, whoa. Yeah, there's this opposite self called self-respect, self-care, self-confidence, self-esteem. And he's like been chomping at the bit and he's, if my pleaser and, and the nice guy was a 10,000 pound, you know, gorilla, my self-care and self-respect over there was like a, was like a 10 pound chimp, you know?
[00:31:15] Yep. Yeah. Or to use the analogy of muscles, you know, I had overworked that right arm so many times it had this huge muscle arm it, and then the left arm had just nothing. Yeah. Total muscle atrophy. And so, but we have a talk with that other side. We have a talk with self respect and, and we find out that he's been there all along and that he sees all these areas where he can show up in my life and how he can help and how he can help me in my relationship with my wife.
[00:31:40] He can help me on my spiritual path and he can help me really learn till put myself first. Not in an arrogant way, but in a way that honors myself. That I can move with respect for myself and pride in this life. Yeah. And over time, the change starts to happen. Over time. I catch it when my pleaser takes over and is driving the car and I consciously say, oh no, not right now.
[00:32:04] I'm with my vulnerability. Now's a moment for self-respect. I'm gonna step up here. I'm gonna speak up for my needs right now. And wow, I mean, that one, that alone can drastically change. Uh, certainly drastically changed my life and has for many, many
[00:32:22] Luke: others. The two things that came up for me, number one, Is when that vulnerable part of us and all of the different parts that are connected to that vulnerable self.
[00:32:33] It could be the carefree self, it could be the playful self. It could be like all these different versions. This being energy. Yep. Being energy. The part of us that's just willing to love and trust, just like out of the box, they're ready to be there and show up that way. What I got the sense of, and I have found for myself, my own experience.
[00:32:52] That's when more of my aliveness Yes. Started to return, right? Yes. Because when we're in the parts of self that want to keep us safe, yes, that has served a function, but it usually puts more of a buffer between us and the direct experience of what this life can offer. And when we're willing to take down some of that, that buffer, and we allow ourselves to be the vulnerable self, the playful self, the innocent child that's within us, to go out and play with the world again, to be creative in that fashion.
[00:33:22] There's this vitality, there's this aliveness that begins to return, ands, a vibrancy that we can really begin to connect to. And as that fills in that last piece that you brought up in your experience, it's been my experience as well, of the part of me that can now speak up and say, these are what my needs are.
[00:33:41] And I can say that in a confident place, not a selfish place. I can say it in a mature place, not an immature place. Ironically, that's actually a lot of what is, is playing out is that so much of even what we see right now in society is a lot of the, the wants, the things that are, the desires are actually coming from an immature part of ourselves.
[00:33:59] They're coming from a very different part. They're not coming from the mature adult that actually exists within
[00:34:03] Tim: us or from an angry place, you know, or from an angry place. This has gotta happen. You know? That's a sure sign that balance has been lost. Yeah. Well and
[00:34:10] Luke: that, absolutely. And cuz that, that was something else that had come up for me before as you were describing the pleaser, is that you head down this role of the pleaser and you begin to feel.
[00:34:19] The parts of you that you're sacrificing, which ultimately can only lead at some point to resentment. Exactly. Like you can only put up so much of that. Exactly. And that resentment's gonna manifest in anger and, and frustration and aggravation and conflict and all the things that, or, or
[00:34:32] Tim: withdraw and pulling back.
[00:34:35] Yes. And And shutting down and collapsing.
[00:34:37] Luke: Right. Yeah. How much of both of those are we seeing in the world right now? Oh my God. Right? Yeah. But it starts exactly as you said. It's gotta be, we've gotta cultivate that inside of self first so we can bring it forward. There was one thing I wanted, I mean, this is a minor line that you dropped in the middle of it, but I caught it and I needed to explore this.
[00:34:54] It's not actually technically part of our, our dialogue here, but as since you mentioned the benefit, one of the benefits here was the thriving relationships. You used a line before that had to do with the pleaser. Was creating a lack of polarity in your intimate relationships. Yeah. Yeah. And I wanted to bring you back to that cuz I don't know how many people would've caught that, but that's something I'm aware of and there's some explanation there because, and I think it's a really important one, we don't think about as much.
[00:35:21] So could you explain what you meant by that, that lack of polarity and how that actually hurts a relationship as opposed to enhances one? Yeah,
[00:35:29] Tim: yeah. Well this is classic. I, I, I work with all genders in different ages as a middle-aged man myself, you know, I, I do get a lot of middle-aged men as clients, and it's a very common pattern these days for middle-aged men.
[00:35:42] You know, I'm thinking of heterosexual, middle-aged men, married who are pleasers, who are nice guys, who have stepped into this pattern of putting others' needs first, and particularly putting their wives needs first. But this can happen in any kind of, Set up. I mean, any relationship, women and women, men and men, uh, maybe the woman is the pleaser and the man and, and she's trying to please, I mean, that's more the old, you know, kind of outdated model from the fifties or something, right?
[00:36:07] But so polarity in relationship. So in that scenario, I'll say if I'm pleasing my wife, I'll use my myself as an example. If I'm pleasing my wife, she's supposedly getting her needs met. She focuses a lot on herself. I focus a lot on herself. Interestingly, I. Our partners tend to embody the opposite primary selves that as we do so if I'm identified with pleaser and I'm not identified with self-care, typically, not always, but typically then my partner will be identified with self-care.
[00:36:36] So she's really good at speaking up for her needs. She's really good at going to yoga every morning. She's really good at going to bed on time. She's all this stuff, right? Yeah. And I, I kind of judge her for it too. And judgment. This is a whole other area where cuz we judge what in others, what we've repressed in ourselves.
[00:36:53] So what happens though in the relationship is you can see how well I'm pleasing her and she's in self-care. So all of the energy is tied up for her and it's not. Focused on me. And so there's no polarity, there's no plus and minus. You know, you think of electricity. In order for electricity to flow, there's gotta be the positive and the negative charge, right?
[00:37:16] And in order for there to be sparks in a relationship, both individuals need to be, have a sense of personal empowerment and that self-love, that self-respect that, hey, I'm gonna do this for me right now. You might like it, you might not, but I'm doing this for me. And when that's there, that polarity, there might be times where it's like, oh, that kind of rubs me the wrong way.
[00:37:40] And well, what do you mean I'm not gonna get my needs met? And what do you mean? No. But as that shifts and each individual is honoring themself in that way, then the energy sparks. And we noticed that, you know, because it's, it's sexy, right? It, it's not sexy. Just go into like, the dating world. I'm not a dating coach, but boy, oh boy, if you're gonna go in there and just be a pleaser and try and please that person you're courting, it does not work very well.
[00:38:09] They wanna see someone who's honoring themselves, who can make stuff happen, who can, who's loving themselves, who's showing up for themselves and treats them in a good way, treats them honorably. Right. I hope that explains, uh, a little bit more on, on, on polarity.
[00:38:24] Luke: It does, and both partners, right, can stand with a certain degree of inner strength when they can stand with that honoring of self, who can stand with more of that empowerment.
[00:38:34] Where it is more, you know, as, as my wife and and I at times have, have described this, we don't need each other. We want each other. It's a choice that we have made. Yeah. And so there is an, an independence and an interdependence, but there's not a codependence Yeah. That gets developed there. And so when we are able to stand in the strength of who it is that we are, and our partner can do the same.
[00:38:58] Yes, that's true. Every once in a while. Yeah. Be like, oh, come on, I want, you know, I want a little more of my needs met. I want a little, you know, whatever. Right. And at the same time, there is such beauty or handsomeness, however you want, want to describe it in seeing someone who can stand with that level of presence for themselves, as you said, it's, that's very sexy.
[00:39:18] That's really attractive. Yeah. To see somebody with that level of, you know, self-determination and, and understanding that they've got, I did wanna pull that out because that, that is an important piece of this. I think the other thing in terms, cause we, we talked a bit about. The component of self love, meaning the more and more that we can see all these pieces and the pieces of us that have felt vulnerable can come back online.
[00:39:38] We spend a little bit of time there on this thriving relationships. I wanted to make a, you know, bring up one or two other things before we move on to the purpose side of these benefits as well. In terms of relationships, I would imagine the other dynamic that comes out is that when I recognize, like when we're in relationship with others, that's usually when our primary selves and our repressed selves are gonna bounce back and forth.
[00:40:01] You know, our relationships are the greatest possible teacher that we can have in this life. Oh yeah. And so we're gonna find that these dynamics that we have not yet brought into awareness, that still needs some healing and holding inside of who it is that we are, they're gonna get triggered and they're gonna come up in these relationships.
[00:40:16] And what I've found is that's where all of a sudden, if I can step back at any given moment for maybe a challenge that, that my wife and I Dawn and I have had, or if it's even with my kids or a very, maybe a very close friend, I can step back and go, huh. What part just came back online because that was most definitely not my best self.
[00:40:36] That was not my, yeah, exactly. Right. And so I'm curious, just like for your perspective as to how do people maybe use some of those parts work maybe with an eye specific to their relationships so that it's something
[00:40:49] Tim: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, it is, I mean, relationship is just incredible, incredible teacher.
[00:40:55] And this kind of parts work ecology of self is so well suited for supporting individuals in relationship. So, as I said before, typically what happens is if you have two people in a relationship, one holds one end of the spectrum and the other holds the other. Particularly if there's, if they haven't done a lot of inner work.
[00:41:16] And again, I, I, I wanna go to examples to help make this real for people. So here's another pair we haven't talked about so much yet. Heart and mind. Mm-hmm. Okay. So classic. What's the classic example would be the overly intellectual male. And the incredibly heartful loving female. Like this is an old, old one.
[00:41:35] Right, right, right. Goes back decades and decades and I'll again, I'll just use myself as an example. So, so I'm really identified with the mind. Everything's gotta make sense. The scientific worldview, intellectual. And then my wife over there is really heartful. She's, she's running all the emotions in the relationship.
[00:41:53] I'm really disconnected to my heart. I don't feelings. What do you mean feelings? I've got a meeting to get to. Mm-hmm. And I go to judgment. You know, judgment is such a great teacher. Yeah. One of the laws of inner work, right? This is worth mentioning Luke, is that what again, what we judge in others, we have repressed in ourselves.
[00:42:12] Yes. So I might judge my wife as being so chaotic, you know? Geez. Like she can't. Stay on one track in a conversation. She's constantly all over the place. She won't make the point, honey, what are you trying to say? Would you just make your point? Would you just tell me what the point is first? And then you can go on and talk for like half an hour with all these detail.
[00:42:35] That's drives me nuts. Right? This is personal experience you see, but what's going on is she's actually connected in the heart. Yeah. I'm all up here in the head now. One's not right, one's not wrong, right? That's the other thing to be mindful of. Yes. Be careful of the mindset that would tell you. Well, the mind has destroyed everything in the world and it's disconnected and it's cold and, and so we need to get rid of it.
[00:42:58] Uhuh, it has a place, it's a tool. Maybe it's been overused. Admittedly, but it's a tool. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. So I judge my wife as overly emotional emoting all of the time. I've got all of my reasons why it's inefficient, why it makes our functioning as a family slow down and all of this judgment.
[00:43:22] But what I'm judging in her, I've repressed in myself. Yeah. The truth is I have a hard time accessing my heart. The truth is, it's easier for me to, and safer for me to be up here and in judgment and in my mental process, rather than actually feeling all of what's going on inside this heart. And that's actually scary.
[00:43:44] Yeah. And so if I can see relationship as teacher, if I can see that what I'm judging in her, I've disowned in myself, if I can see that, wow. All that what I call chaoticness, it's not that I need to become chaotic. It's that, what's the positive spin on that? Oh, it's that I need to connect with my own heart.
[00:44:06] I need to feel, I need to express this. Wow. It just so happens she's always kind of cold with me too, because I never actually approach her from the hearts. Maybe I, I feel like, I don't know how, maybe, and it's not even my fault. My dad didn't model this for me. I didn't have mature men when growing up modeling this.
[00:44:25] I didn't have uncles who were my male mentors. Super common one, right? I've heard this story a billion times, right? Live this story, and so the work then for me is, can I claim some of this heart connection myself? Can I begin to feel, can I begin to share on this level? Interestingly, as I do it, you know, we think of a couple, it's like one unit.
[00:44:48] So if she's running all the emotions and the heart, and I'm over here running all the, the mind, what I want is for her to be a little bit more logical, and maybe that would really help. Maybe there is some growth on her part, not in a judgmental way, but just holistically speaking. Maybe there is, but you see, if I'm running it all, I've got a hundred percent of it.
[00:45:07] There's none left for her, and vice versa. So as I embrace maybe 10% emotion, I'm still running 90% mind, right? But I'm embracing 10% heart. That frees up that 10%. She actually can feel me starting to connect in my heart. She picks up that 10% of the mind and conversations go a little bit better. She feels more connected with me in the heart.
[00:45:34] She is able to be a bit more logical in her conversations and we've we're able to meet there in the middle and maybe over time, in the ideal world, what, you know, maybe that bumps up and now I'm running 20, 30, 40% heart, you know, so relationships as teacher, a huge one. And that's just again, one example, hard and mind.
[00:45:53] Mm-hmm. But we could look at many different examples of different opposites, how that plays out.
[00:45:57] Luke: I think a few things. One is that when we take on that part, or we take on that archetypal role, cuz I think mind and heart is a beautiful archetypal kind of of energy that we could talk about here, is that when we operate from that self, from that part of self, we forget that we are going to create the reality.
[00:46:21] That we're playing into, because there is both projection and interaction from that part of self. And the more that we interact in that persona, that archetype, that energy, the more that the world is gonna respond to that part. And it's gonna become more concrete. It's gonna seem like, well this is all of, as you said before, no, this is exactly who I am.
[00:46:42] Well, actually, it's part of who you are now. I've been this way for 40 years. I know that. But it's still just part of who you're right. And so we're, we're actually creating our world based on the part that we're showing up with. And so the more that we can recognize these parts we're meant to be passengers so that the full self, the whole self as often as possible, or at least our most conscious self at that time can show up, then we're gonna create a world based on interacting from that place.
[00:47:09] And obviously that's gonna play out first and foremost within our closest relationships. The other thing that that came up for me, as you described, that was. That this is also about what the appropriate balance is for each of us. Right? And you described at the end, you know, maybe it's 90 10, maybe it's 10 90, what, you know, whatever the thing is.
[00:47:27] It doesn't mean that everything has to be 50 50, right? If, right, if, if for me, natural is, let's say 70% in the mind and 30% in the heart, just to use this latest example that's balanced for me. And it gives me what feels like is, is appropriate for who I am in my design. But I can tell you a hundred percent and zero, there's nothing about that.
[00:47:46] It's not, it, there's nobody on this planet that, that, right. That that's true for, because it, it, it, it literally is defined as imbalance in, in that regard.
[00:47:54] Tim: And it's also not static. Right. I mean, I mean, we're using numbers, but Exactly. But, you know, I might vary. I might have moments where I'm 90% hard and or a hundred percent and that's the right thing.
[00:48:03] So it it, it grows and changes over time.
[00:48:05] Luke: And actually I really appreciate you saying that way because that's also part of balance. People have heard me say it. Balance to me is not the scales of justice. Balance is the surfer on the breaking wave. And so as life is breaking all around you, how is it you're staying balanced?
[00:48:18] 90% this way? 40% this way, 20% this way. 20. Right? So you're always shifting and that allows you to stay in balance for the moment that you happen to be in. What you were saying before of, and I I just wanted to repeat it for everybody. What you judge in others is likely what you have repressed himself.
[00:48:34] And for me, what I found in that, and I'm just gonna use a different example because I could replay most of the example and illustration you gave of me as well. Middle aged man, you know, right here. Oh yeah. Um, right. So one of the other things that through your work and through the work with you, I should say together that I illuminated was that there individuals that had been, you know, have been and are in many instances, close relationships to me, who were, to me, came across at times as very brash, as a bit self, quite a bit selfish.
[00:49:07] They were always speaking up for this is what I need and this is my perspective and this is this. And. Whether they were coming at it from a good place or they were coming at it from a judgmental place doesn't really matter. It's that, that, that behavior and that energy I'd perceive in a very, very negative way.
[00:49:24] And I would take that as I would judge it just tremendously. Yeah. And for me, the part that I was repressing was that I wasn't speaking up for my needs. Exactly right. So we go back to the pleaser and as a pleaser, I was not speaking up to my needs. I would many instances wasn't even conscious of what most of those needs were.
[00:49:43] And these were individuals that, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with how they were going about doing it, they were speaking about their needs. They were sharing their perspective, they valued their perspective, their own worth to say, no, this is my opinion on this matter and this is, I stand with conviction on that.
[00:50:01] Those were all things and that that idea of our needs, the conviction and the confidence to speak from that place, yes were all things that I was looking to grow within myself. I really encourage people to take a look at that mirror of what you are judging and others try not to wince when you first look.
[00:50:18] It was, I had a couple of wincing cringing kind of moments when I did that. Yeah. But it, the value. That it provides the wisdom it provides, like you said, it changes Royal Road, the royal road to thriving relationships. And that is also another element that adds to self-love because you begin to embrace yourself in such a different way.
[00:50:39] The piece I wanted to get to is that then that third was the discovery and embodiment of purpose. And that I really wanted to just touch on for a bit, because this idea of understanding selves as also revealing purpose. Mm-hmm. I can kind of draw the dotted line there, but I have a feeling you can draw the much more direct line as to how this occurs.
[00:51:00] And so I wanted you to share some perspective with us on that.
[00:51:03] Tim: So two keys to discovering purpose are, and I've spoken about this before, vulnerability and passion. Passion because we have to find that part of ourself that really. Comes alive. We spoke about aliveness earlier. We have to find that part of ourselves that is alive with energy and passion and motivation and inspiration that can really fuel us.
[00:51:33] And for many people today, that's missing. It's not that it's gone, it's that it's, it's repressed, it's disowned. And then the other one is vulnerability. If we're going to connect with our calling in life, with our vision, it's an intimate journey. One of the things I like to say is that it's, it's where our heart breaks, is where our calling lies.
[00:51:55] Our calling dwells, where our heart breaks. So, you know, if my heart breaks with, gosh, all of the, the youth, this was an earlier one for me, part of my calling with all the youth that were never, never met, you know, and really it goes back to me when I was 14 and really lost and lonely and didn't have anyone there for me and my heart broke at that time.
[00:52:17] And then I see, oh my God, I can do something about that. For years and years I served, I, I was a youth mentor. I still do some youth mentoring, showing up for teenagers. Oh my gosh. And had a special gift for helping out teenage males because I was one. And boy, oh boy, have I made a difference? You know? So finding that vulnerability and finding passion.
[00:52:39] Two keys to purpose. So with parts work, it offers a direct pathway to connect with that vulnerability. Okay. So if I'm judging so-and-so as arrogant, because I'm not able to really speak up for my own needs. To use your example there. Yep. In order to take that on. In order to actually step, it's not as simple as just, okay, I noticed now I can do it.
[00:53:02] If it doesn't change that quick. I've gotta be honest about the fact that it's actually scary for me. To speak up for myself. And if I'm really honest about it, my heart rate goes up and I kind of have maybe a little panic attack or maybe a big one. All this anxiety comes up. What's going on there? Wow.
[00:53:20] Maybe there's a whole journey of traumatic experience when I was little and when I did that and, and God bullied or something at school. Uh, lots of different examples. So I've gotta go back again and come back to that vulnerability and feel that and be willing to feel scared, be able to admit it, be able to accept it.
[00:53:41] It's uncomfortable. Who wants vulnerability, you know, like gimme vulnerability, like give me Facebook feed or my YouTube videos or whatever, you know? So that's one. A second piece for connecting with purpose is that we live in an incredibly fast paced world. We talked about the achiever. Mm-hmm. And it's opposite.
[00:54:01] We just spoke briefly on it being energy. So, Wow. It's so hard for me to just get still. Stillness is where, and the quiet stillness in body as well. Stillness in mind. You know, I, I can barely sit still for three seconds nonetheless, like actually get my mind to be still, you know, and I'm not just talking about meditation, but my big part of my background is with nature Connection.
[00:54:26] And I run a wilderness school the last 18 years with my wife. And the stillness that we experience in nature is a direct pathway to soul, to vision, to purpose. This is all the old wisdom traditions. All the old spiritual traditions tell us this, you know, it was Jesus. Uh, spent his 40 days in the desert, basically a 40 day vision quest, fasting and praying.
[00:54:51] Buddha didn't get enlightened on a mat in a monastery. It was under the Bodhi tree. So many of the current popular dominant selves, the, the doing energy, the achiever, the perfectionist, the inner critic, when they take over like that, they prevent us from having any access to that. Being quality. Yeah. Or being carefree or the imaginal child, like what happened to that three-year-old that could lay down in the grass and stare at the clouds and see images and, and have a whole conversation with trees.
[00:55:28] That is a big part of what I connect people to. I I do a lot of work these days helping people discover purpose, and that's a big part of it is going back to that. But we gotta let go of all these other, you know, incredibly 10,000 pound gorilla, incredible dominant selves that are keeping us from that.
[00:55:45] So that's another one. Then the last layer I would say is, okay, and for the audience, just bear with me here. So if we have one o one self, maybe it's the, the achiever and constantly pushing and it's got your to-do list and it's never done and there's always more. You finished three items and 10 more pop up, and then it's opposite as being energy.
[00:56:05] Okay, well even that is limited cuz they're just selves, they're both actually colored sunglasses. Maybe the one is one color, one's the other. But what happens when we realize that, okay, well I'm not my achiever, I've got this other side of me. I, I can embrace being energy, but that doesn't define me either.
[00:56:27] So I'm not defined by achiever and I'm not defined by being energy in, in this example. Or the same would go for something else. I'm not defined by being a pleaser of others, nor am I defined by self-care. Not saying there's anything wrong with either, but they're just energies. So what happens when I take them both off?
[00:56:44] And I put them down, who's the one that is aware of both of them? Who's the one that, the sunglasses go on their face? What's left? If I'm not this and I'm not that, then who am I? That's the mystery and there's no easy answer to that question, but I will say, my feeling on it is that is where soul resides.
[00:57:07] That's where our calling resides. That's where our purpose is. My work isn't so much to tell people, oh, you're too much identified with achiever. You need to do more being, or, oh, you're too much of a pleaser. You need to self, that's not my job. My job is just to build awareness and say, here you go. Here's these two sides.
[00:57:27] You tell me cuz people are wise, people are able to see where each energy is needed in their lives with some awareness. Mm-hmm. And that natural process, Helen Sidra, the originators of voice dialogue, called it the unique psychic fingerprint, that which is left when, when we're not identified with any parts, I would just call that soul.
[00:57:53] Yeah. And that's like this great intelligence, this guiding force that guides us. It is our calling. It's the source of intuition that is an incredible mystery and in my experience, most easily connected with in the natural world as well as dreams. We haven't spoken about dreams. Yeah. That's a whole other arena.
[00:58:13] But that ties right in here. And yeah, I mean, in my experience of helping people discover vision and purpose, uh, voice dialogue and ecology of self parts work, this is. I can't think of a better approach to, to help people Sure. That, and like the vision quest, you know, is quietly sitting outside in nature, which we've spoken about in, in another podcast.
[00:58:44] Luke: Okay. I wanted to make sure this one piece wasn't missed. When you judge another, you're most often identifying a part of you that you've hidden away or that you don't want to acknowledge. All right. First, lemme just say, ouch, I've been there, I've experienced this. Uh, but let me also say secondly, that this isn't necessarily easier, just cleanly straightforward.
[00:59:06] So let me explain a little bit. I was really, really good at judging people who seemed to be solely focused on their own needs and wants. They had no trouble turning other people down, saying no, or not being as flexible or as available as I liked to be. Well, I judged them as self-centered. It's narrow minded.
[00:59:25] It's only in it for themselves, especially if they were loud and emphatic in how they declared their needs first. I mean, come on, get over yourself. Well, what was I actually identifying though? I was identifying the fact that I wouldn't stand up for myself and put my needs first ever. I didn't speak up for myself that way.
[00:59:46] I didn't speak up for my needs and what I really did need at any given time. I didn't put that out there in the world, and I had resentment around it. I almost always said yes. Saying no, even still pulls a little bit on my heart. I judged. They had something that I felt I was missing. It was causing me stress and pain without being able to acknowledge what was going on.
[01:00:10] You can turn judgment into a huge tool and practice for your own self-growth. In other instances as, it's just another simple example, I had judged people who littered. Like they didn't care at all who had to go after and clean up after them. I mean, what the hell? Until I found myself leaving dishes in the sink for my wife, for her to clean them up, or I missed a garbage can in a park and I just kept walking.
[01:00:36] Ouch. Again, I'd identified that maybe I had more in common at that moment with those who have littered and I had cared to admit. Thank you integrity for that one. So pay attention to what and who you judge. You can turn this into a tool and practice for your own self-growth. Try to get a little bit below the surface and consider what is really bothering me about this?
[01:01:00] Where might they be exhibiting something that I wish I had more of, or where might I be judging that actually exists within me? And that I don't want to look at seriously, write this down. Take these questions with you because if you walk with this for a couple of weeks, you will see how much your eyes open too.
[01:01:23] Now let's bring it home with Tim.
[01:01:29] It is an amazing way to discover that, as you said, the the unique psychic fingerprint, as Halen said, or stone put it, the soul or the soul print, certainly as I've also called it, and it's amazing because. At least for me, there is something about that soul that knows the way in which our parts are going to show up at different times in our lives that it, that, you know, at least for me, I believe there is a certain weaving that the, the soul certainly plays with us, that that has us encounter life in certain ways.
[01:02:03] And as we go through that, as you said, to be able to step back into the vulnerability, which usually means also to face the things that we have felt unsafe around or wounded by. I have seen that repeatedly. Be the spark of something, as you described, even in your own journey and, and now of having had so many years of youth mentoring and things like that, where it's, there are times that that wounding also produces a gift for us.
[01:02:29] I'm not gonna say that universally, that's, that's for everybody to sit with for themselves. But certainly that's been my finding and my experience, that being energy, that stillness and how that clears way for all of it to be laid down for the soul to step through, reminds me so much of the way that Parker Palmer.
[01:02:45] Right. Very famous teacher known for Circles of Trust and the Courage and Renewal Center, and he talks about this notion of how if we want to have these encounters with the soul, we can't go traipsing around nature making all sorts of noise because we can't startle it. It is meant for us to move so slowly to move with that stillness, that subtleness and just like the little quiet animal in the woods, they'll all of a sudden just start to come out and allow themselves to be seen.
[01:03:17] And we don't create that space in modern society to have that level of stillness, let alone something like a vision quest that cultivates it at a whole other level. And so it is this really kind of beautiful way of creating this encounter with the deepest parts, uh, the deepest part actually of who you are, which is actually the truth, the soul, the whole of everything that you truly are.
[01:03:41] And I can attest to the fact that this is a beautiful process to be able to actually go on that type of journey and open up into a whole other space, ask whole other questions, and answer them from completely different realms that you have not accessed before because you've been coming at these questions from parts of who you are and many parts of you have been left on the side and didn't have a voice in a lot of the questions that you've been answering.
[01:04:07] So this is one of those processes and, and a very unique one at that. It begins to bring all of those back to the fire sitting around in circle, contemplating these questions until ultimately that stillness and that being drops in, fades away and we can see what's
[01:04:24] Tim: there. Well said Luke. And the only other piece I would add is the significance of the childlike parts, the child parts, the imaginal child, the vulnerable child, the magical child.
[01:04:37] So much of what parts work can offer us is access to the these parts of ourselves that typically are repressed way back there. And not only is that the journey, I have a self-love and that's a beautiful, beautiful part of it, but those child-like parts, you know, that three-year-old that has imaginary friends.
[01:04:57] What if those friends aren't actually imaginary? What if those are truly spiritual beings? I remember when my sons were little, they're now teenagers, but man, they had incredible spiritual connection at that age. Yes. And I did too when I was little. So these, these childlike parts are still in us and we can gain access to them and they have oftentimes the most direct connection to that soul in a way that our mature adult selves are.
[01:05:25] It's completely lost to our com,
[01:05:27] Luke: uh, to our mature adult self. You know, it's one, one of those things that stands out, uh, or rather I, I remember so much from, from things that we shared during our time together working, was that as I began to gain access to that playful part of myself, which is exactly as you said, part of those child-like states, the child-like parts that get left behind through this, this process we called Living Life and you had given a story at the time.
[01:05:51] Feel free to share it if you choose, but. I've gone since. And as you, you described this before, of looking at those parts of you that have atrophied and how do you begin to work them out again so you can build the strength? And so I have gone out very similar to something you described. I have gone out in the woods with my five-year-old self and been let around with my five-year-old self.
[01:06:12] And just to see, and I mean, just to come back and realize, you know, I was jumping from rock to rock to rock. I was climbing on things. I was way off the path, right? My kids going through, you know, their younger times with a d d just running in every which direction, right? And allowing myself to play that way.
[01:06:30] And the more that we do that, the more that those parts come back online and they show up then in different ways. And it doesn't have to be all, you know, crazy and chaotic like a five-year-old, but that playfulness may show up in a meeting. It might show up in a relationship, it might show up with my wife, it might show up in my friends.
[01:06:47] And it can show up in all these different ways. And it, it does, it feels like more of you. Is back in the game. More of you is back in life again. Oh, yeah,
[01:06:57] Tim: yeah, yeah. Do we have time? I can share that story. Sure. Let's, you're talking about when I took my, let's Absolutely. Yeah.
[01:07:02] Luke: Let's end with this. Cause it was such a
[01:07:04] Tim: beautiful story.
[01:07:04] This is a great one. I haven't shared it in a while. So this was, I don't know, 10 years ago or so, and I was on a, a vision quest, uh, four days solo fasting alone in, in the wilderness. I was down in Death Valley in this example. And a big part of my work at that time was reconnecting with my inner child, Timmy.
[01:07:24] You know, that's what everyone called me when I was young, Timmy. And I was a toe head. I had this blo, white blonde hair. Now I've got white gray hair. But back then I had, I had white blonde hair and, you know, I don't know, three, four years old or something. And, you know, there were layers of trauma and, and some abuse in there and, and a big healing journey I had to get through.
[01:07:42] But underneath all of that, and, and, and for all those folks who do deal or who are out there dealing with trauma and abuse, That's the other thing is there is the traumatized child and there is also the pret traumatized child within each of us folks. So please know that, you know, for as much and as hard as life can be sometimes dealing with trauma, and I've, I've, I've totally been there, know that there is also that pre traumatized child that is pure and innocent and you have access to all of that, that's, that's available to you.
[01:08:11] So I was making my connection with that part of myself, kind of this innocent, magical, pret traumatized little 1, 3, 4 years old. And as a dad, when my sons were young, what they would do, they would, you know, when we'd go on walks, they would grab my pinky, they would grab my, my pinky with their whole hand, and it was like the perfect little handle for their tiny three-year-old hand to hold onto.
[01:08:34] And it became like this incredible connection moment for me with my actual sons, you know, when they were little like. Oh, the feeling of those little hands on my pinky, I still remember it now. It was just like, melts my heart, you know? Yeah. And puts me in this incredibly vulnerable place and connects me to my own inner child.
[01:08:50] So here I was on my vision quest. I had this really strong feeling that, oh yeah, I, I need to connect with my inner child. So, well, I had taken a bandana with me and I just had this hit, oh, I'm gonna wrap the bandana around my pinky to apply physical pressure as a way of getting my heart open. So I did, and sure enough, it worked.
[01:09:09] So I'm walking around with this bandana around my pinky, you know, like, what the heck is this guy doing? Well, it's working though, so, and the, in my imagination, I'm taking little Timmy for a walk, but I tell him, I said, bud, this is your time. You get to be the leader. I'm just gonna follow you. So we'll go wherever you wanna go.
[01:09:28] Kinda like, sometimes I did that with my boys when they were little, so, okay. So he wants to go over here. I'm in the desert and there's like cactus and hills and everything, and. Well, I wanna go to this. Oh, I wanna go to that one. And he leads me on this big, kind of choose your own adventure from, he was really interested in, in the Joshua trees, there were big ones and small ones.
[01:09:49] And it was leading from one to the next to the next. Leads me to this, this dead Joshua tree that had fallen. It was big one, you could see the skeleton and everything. And, and he wants to talk to the Joshua tree. Okay. So I talked to, so we talked to the Joshua Tree and the dead one, it's like an old dead grandfather, Joshua Tree and the grandfather Joshua Tree.
[01:10:07] This is all through the imagination, right? And I couldn't access this otherwise if it wasn't for my inner child. Mm-hmm. But the grandfather, Joshua Tree, the dead one, says to little Timmy says, well, if you go up to that one way up there on that, on that mountain, there's a treasure for you. And I mean, I'm looking, and this is like miles away, I can barely make this thing out.
[01:10:30] And little Timmy is like, stoked. And I'm just like, my God, I'm exhausted. I haven't eaten. I've got like no energy. I'm like, Am I really gonna, like what is going on? My skeptic kind of comes in for a moment. Am I, this is crazy. Like, am I gonna, okay, okay, okay, I'll do it. So it takes most of the day I get up there.
[01:10:46] Unbelievably, when I got up there, there was an old ancestral flint napping site, A site where people had napped arrowheads, you know, chipped arrowheads and spearheads. And running a wilderness school. I, I know this skill of flint napping and I know the particular marks it makes on stones and what type of stones.
[01:11:07] And this was without question an old one. It in fact it was so old that the old chips had liken growing on them. So there was a part of me that wondered, well, was this current, did somebody go up there and just do it recently? Cause that could be possible. But lichen, I mean, this lichen I looked at up was hundreds and hundreds of years for this stuff to grow.
[01:11:27] Well, that was an incredible experience, but more importantly, it led to this huge ancestral connection for myself. That is still playing out. I'm actually, I've got a trip with my dad next fall. We're going to Ireland, which is where our ancestral line comes from. Outstanding. And this was a huge, huge piece that allowed me to connect with my calling, with my, my own ancestral power, with my power and vulnerability, cuz those two are a pair that oftentimes go together.
[01:11:52] And none of it could have happened without all the work with parts work and the work I had done to connect with my own inner child. And. You know, this is kind of a high spiritual adventure I'm describing here. Yeah. But I'll tell you what, for folks that really, and, and you've experienced this, Luke, that, that stick with this journey, I mean, incredible, incredible things happen like this.
[01:12:11] Yeah. I
[01:12:12] Luke: thank you for sharing that, cuz I, I delighted in that story the first time you shared it with me. And, and I thank you for sharing that with everybody. I would say for everybody, I encourage you to check out, Tim, to check out his work. Tim, what's, what's the best way for people to reach out to you or to connect with
[01:12:27] Tim: you?
[01:12:27] Find you? Yeah. Purpose mountain.com. That's where you can find me. Just purpose mountain.com. Just like it sounds, no spaces or dashes. I've got some free. Free offerings there and you can check out my other services as well. So would love to connect with folks.
[01:12:41] Luke: Tim, I wanna thank you for coming on. Like I said, it it, this gets us even deeper into a conversation that's been emergent on this show for a while now and I hope this gives a lot of encouragement to everybody in whatever way you choose to pursue this, to check out parts work, to look up voice dialogue, obviously look up Tim at At Purpose Mountain and continue to take a look into this work.
[01:13:00] Cause it can lead you to extraordinary things. And personally I would say self-love, thriving relationships and being able to find and embody your purpose. Those are pretty good ones. I mean that's the pretty, pretty ones good benefits there outta this type of work. So Tim, I wanna thank you so much for going on this walk.
[01:13:15] Tim: Yeah, well you're welcome Luke. Thank you. It's an honor.
[01:13:20] Luke: I hope you've enjoyed getting to know more about the parts of you that have remained hidden, as well as those that have been in the driver's seat, and how you can start to bring those back into balance. Now, before we sign off, just a reminder, as I said before, check out Tim Corcoran.
[01:13:35] You can find them@purposemountain.com, see all the programs and work and events that he's running, and lastly, if you wanna bring more peace and freedom into your life, and don't forget to DM me through any social network so that I can send you my compassion meditation for building empathy. It'll help you de-stress and open up more space than ever before for connection, peace, and ease throughout your relationships.
[01:14:00] Again, just drop me a DM through any social network and it's yours. Finally, thanks to Billy, Sam, Damjan, Feliz, and the rest of the team at Podify for their work and expert service in helping to produce On This Walk.

Feliz BorjaJune 27, 2023

047 - Rediscovering Your Path to True Freedom Through Parts Work with Tim Corcoran

In This Episode

Notable Quote

Tim @ 22min 36sec

Full Episode Transcript