Curiosity Over Control: What If You Didn’t Need to Force It? [#168]

Kelsey: Welcome to Educate and Rejuvenate: The Podcast, the show that helps you teach and live well. I’m Kelsey Sorenson, a former classroom teacher, current homeschool mom, and a proud Teacher Goals author. I’m on a mission to help educators of all kinds not just survive, but thrive.

Are you ready to educate and rejuvenate? Let’s go.

Okay, isn’t that little intro fun, Chrissy? I don’t think you’ve seen that before.

Welcome, welcome to our podcast episode today.

Chrissy: Oh, Kelsey, I couldn’t hear you for a second. Can you talk?

Kelsey: I’m here.

Chrissy: I’m here.

Kelsey: Oh, perfect. You’re here. Awesome.

So today is the second episode of our Ease into Summer series we are doing for Educate and Rejuvenate: The Podcast in collaboration with Teacher Goals Publishing. We are here to help you not feel the hustle and bustle during these last couple months of the school year — or really probably month for most of you at this point. We are here to help you ease into summer.

Who’s here for that?

Chrissy’s here for it. Kenya is here for it. I saw you already in the chat before we even began.

There are eighty-four of us here live right now. Ninety-seven now. The number is going up — one hundred! Live in the studio with us. Most of you are on the Teacher Goals X platform. Love seeing it.

Again, what I want you to do, as always — we give away a Starbucks gift card to somebody who joins us live in the chat. So what I want you to do right now, is there are a whole bunch of you — I want you to say hello in the chat. I want you to tell us where you’re tuning in from.

Linda’s here from sunny Arizona. Kenya’s here on this Taco Tuesday from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Chris is here — she says, “Woohoo, yes!” — from San Diego, California. Just because I know you and I know where you’re at. You’re one of our awesome club members.

Hello, Tanya! Tanya is here on YouTube. Again, you might not see all the comments on the platform you are on because we are multi-streaming to multiple platforms. So we’re on YouTube, we’re on Facebook, we’re on LinkedIn, we’re on X — on both Educate & Rejuvenate and Teacher Goals. So super fun.

Okay, so Chrissy, before we get going, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and why you hopped on this episode with me?

Chrissy: Yes, I’m so excited to be here. I’m Chrissy Nichols. I’m an executive function and life coach. I basically blend the “how to get your shiz done” with looking underneath and understanding why you’re not.

So when I talk about the “looking underneath,” that’s everything we’re gonna talk about today. And I think it’s kind of perfect timing. As we ease into summer, we’re easing back into ourselves.

And as an educator that has spent more than twenty-four years in the classroom teaching everything from second grade to seniors — from everything from history to French to definitely executive function — I know what it feels like to be easy with yourself, be easy with your life.

And I am also here because I love you. I adore this space. I adore helping teachers. And I adore everything that you offer, Kelsey. So it’s a wonderful thing to add coaching and to be in this conversation with you.

Kelsey: Thank you for having me. I am so thrilled. I had this episode mapped out and then I was like, you know what? I want Chrissy to join me.

So Chrissy and I, we’ve been collaborating for over two years now. Chrissy has been coaching with me in the Educate and Rejuvenate platform. She was actually coaching before I even felt like — at first I was in the, “I need to hire a coach. I’m not good enough” — I was in that mindset. But Chrissy, you knew. You’re like, “She’s going to become a coach in no time.”

Chrissy: I a hundred percent knew because I’ve been coaching. You know, deciding to manage your mind and then understanding that it is your choice and your honor and your responsibility to be accountable and responsible for everything you think — I think that is just such important information.

It changes the way we feel at work, with our students, with our admin, with our parents. It just helps us reclaim our power. So yes, I’m a big proponent of coaching.

Kelsey: Yes. And what we’re here to help you do — and like Chrissy said, she’s like, I know what it’s like to ease into summer, to be nice to yourself and everything — but some of you might be coming here at different points in that of your own journey.

And we both have been hard on ourselves too at times. Chrissy, we’ve both been like, “Ugh, if I could just get all these things done,” or whatever. All that.

 

So wherever you are — whether you are already feeling the ease into summer or you’re like, “I don’t even think that’s possible” — we’re here for you.

Chrissy: Absolutely. And I want to just really hold space for the fact that a lot of us aren’t easy. In fact, I think teachers are some of the folks that are the hardest on themselves.

And so if we can change one thing, it’s really creating more of that self-compassion, that spaciousness inside our bodies, and that ease.

And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, just stay tuned. We’re going to break it all down for you right here.

Kelsey: We are going to be breaking it all down. And yes, Tammy, I love seeing the comments.

Tammy says, “I’m a big retired teacher and I agree.” Chris says, “That is such a good way to look at it — your responsibility to manage your mind. Mind blown.” Yes, it really is, because nobody else can do it for us, right? We have to decide to do that.

And sometimes we need to process some emotions or regulate ourselves before we can do that. And it’s our opportunity to observe — which is what we’re about to get into — and see what is it that I need to do right now, the next right thing, so I can ease into summer, so I can enjoy my life now and not just be counting down the days until summer break.

How many of you have a countdown going on? Tell me! Tell me in the chat. How many days do you have left if you are here live? And if you’re on the replay, I’m sure you could think that number in your head right now.

I know that I often had a countdown, so it’s so normal. And sometimes I would try to ignore the countdown because I couldn’t even stand it, right?

You’re like, “Ugh, it’s too many days — like, how am I even going to make it through?”

And I’m not here to say there’s anything wrong with having a countdown. It’s just that maybe, like, you’re counting down and you can enjoy those thirty-something days in the meantime, right?

Chrissy: Yeah.

Kelsey: Linda says eighteen days. Amazing that it’s only eighteen!

I know. And it also depends on if you’re counting weekends and when you get out. Some of you get out end of May. But I remember last year talking to some of you who — it’s like end of June and you’re still in school. I’m like, “Oh my goodness!”

So it really depends. Marie says seventeen. Cameron or Nicole is here from Virginia. Nice to see you.

Hannah says, “Love these two so much. Better than Netflix and popcorn. Podcast and popcorn.” Yes, grab your popcorn! Grab your — I like to call this — these are kind of like our coffee chats where we’re getting together. Although they are in the evening, so maybe you’ve got your decaf or whatever sounds good to you.

Nicole says, “Eight school days.” You got your LaCroix. I’ve got my water and my Coke Zero. I only had a tiny bit left. This is from earlier.

Amber says seventeen. Vanessa says, “Not positive. I think it’s twenty-some. I have, but it stresses me out too much to get done.”

We’re here to support you, Vanessa. We are here to support you.

Okay, so Chrissy, should we start diving in? Should we get into like what we want to chat about today? How we can help these folks — everybody here — however many days you have left, to ease into that summer, starting with the first step in my book, which is to observe yourself?

Chrissy: Yeah! I talk about this all the time.

So, Chrissy, how about you take the floor for a second. Tell me what you think. What does it mean to you when I say that?

I love using my “watch yourself” in really anything that I do. And that’s from working with clients to really working with my own mind.

Believe it or not, friends out there, you know, Kelsey and I still wake up on the regular with all sorts of thoughts and shenanigans and the big lie that our brains tell us. And once you just know that your brain likes to run these big fat lies — I’m not saying that we need to be in a, you know, animosity or rebellious or fighting position with our brain. Our brains are simply trying to keep us safe. And that is completely normal.

But I think getting ourselves into the watcher, into the observer — first of all, it takes us out of judgment. And I think getting out of judgment is the key to everything, right?

Even Chris in our comments is saying, “It’s too stressful to even count down. There’s still too much to get done.” Well, if I’m in my watcher self, even with that thought — “There’s too much to get done” — and I’m going to just observe myself having that thought. And I’m going to say — first of all, neutralize and normalize who I am and what I’m doing:

I’m a human woman.
I happen to be a teacher.
I happen to work with this age group of students.
And I happen to think that there’s a certain amount that I need to get done.

I just want you to question all of that.

Is there a lot that you need to get done?

And then watch your response.

Yes? No? Maybe? “Hmm, I’ve never thought of it that way.”

Who is going to come in and decide what’s enough?

And then watch what your brain does with that. And so I think watching and holding space for this kind of watcher, reflective self — I like to use paper and pencil to do this. In our coaching modality, we call it a “thought download” — just getting everything out of your body, kind of stream-of-consciousness, automatic writing, and just seeing what’s there. Being even a watcher of that. Being even an observer of what it is you truly are writing down and what you are getting done on a piece of paper.

But what this does is — it can create a shift in your perspective. And that’s all we want. We just want that shift. We want to hold space for the fact:

“Hey, maybe the way I thought about it even five minutes ago, five years ago, five weeks ago…
Maybe I can look at that and decide something different for myself.”

We want to be open, willing, and noticing of a different way to be in our lives.

Chrissy: Yeah. And that’s what we want in our “watch yourselves.” What do you think, Kelsey? Tell me what do you see?

Kelsey: I just love everything that you shared there. And I want to first add on to what you were saying and kind of like give my “yes” to all of that.

So those of you who have been listening to the podcast or who are in the Educate and Rejuvenate Club, you know I love my Kindle Scribe. You can see I have all these notebooks where whenever I am feeling all the feelings, whenever I’m having so many thoughts spinning in my head, I grab this.

I go into one of my notebooks, or I start a new one — depending on the topic or just whatever I feel like right then — and I write and I write and I write. And what it does is it really helps you shift from “I am in these thoughts” to “I am able to see these thoughts on something.” It can be a piece of paper. For me, it’s my digital Kindle Scribe — something outside of me where I’m able to observe what has been going on in my brain.

And I think those thought downloads can be so powerful.

And some other ways I’ve also been — so in my — I want to mention, because again, we’re on the Teacher Goals platform. So again, I am the author of the book titled Educate and Rejuvenate, and I want to put this little thing up because I usually hold up my book. But I am not home right now, and I did not bring my copy of my book with me. So sit tight.

I wrote this book with Teacher Goals, and a lot of you are watching on their platform. So it’s called Educate and Rejuvenate. You can see the cute little blue cover that they made for it right here. So if you go to that link, you can check out the book.

But the first five chapters are about observing yourselves. And two of those chapters are about thought work, and then two of the chapters are about feeling our feelings and our nervous system.

So when we talk about observing yourself, we want to make sure that we are paying attention to our thoughts. And also, what are we feeling about those thoughts, right? Like as we read what we wrote down or as we’re noticing that thought — was it Vanessa who said “there’s too much to do?” — and when you ask the questions Chrissy was saying, what feelings are coming up?

Are you feeling resistance?

Just noticing and observing — like, what is the full experience? Our mind is part of our body. So again, we’re paying attention to our mind and we’re paying attention to — is our pulse rushing? We’re paying attention to: what emotions am I feeling?

And all of those things can help us to become that observer where we’re able to separate it from it a little bit.

So yes, I might be feeling that anxiety. I may be feeling that stress. But I’m also noticing it. It’s like there’s a different part of us — which we’re going to get into parts, Chrissy, aren’t we? — we can notice the full experience, the watcher part, right? Where we can really see what is going on.

Chrissy: A hundred percent. I love what you said there because I think what you underscore — when we do separate between ourselves and our writing — and I’ll just show everybody out there since we are live, and I want you to know that I have to do this work in real time.

You know, like, this is me. I love it. Some of you — I am only showing you some of these pages so that you understand that, like, this is another page. Excuse me. Boom.

Some of these pages are in response to writing prompts that I am gonna ask my clients, my students, to do. And they’re an answer to these questions. Some of the questions — I’m just gonna read and just vulnerably share:

• What am I afraid of?

• What stories or memories really bother me?

• What have I not forgiven myself for?

• What have I not forgiven someone else for?

• Is there anything I feel ashamed about?

• What do I wish I could change?

So if you can imagine all those pictures that I kind of shared and showed — you might think, “Well, Chrissy, I don’t even have time. I don’t even have time to sit down and do that.”

You know what? The game I play with myself is — when I really need to empty out, and the reason that I write just about those kinds of things in my life is to create the spaciousness for the shift. And so that I can understand that:

I’m not shame.
I’m just having a feeling of shame.

Or:

I’m not the one who’s being really petty about not forgiving someone or, you know, myself or something.
I’m just having that feeling.

There’s a part of me — it’s probably a protective part — we’ll get into that in a sec. But I’m not these things. I’m feeling these things. I’m not this woman. I’m a human person with this experience that is always changing.

Our emotions come up. Our writing shows us this — that our emotions are here as wise messengers. And it wouldn’t be such a big deal if we didn’t stop them. I think so many of us stop them in their tracks and say:

“No, I can’t feel frustration right now. I’ve got a room full of six-year-olds.”
“I can’t feel shame right now. I’ve got to go talk to my principal or my director.”

Chrissy: …“I’ve got to go talk to my principal or my director.”

Kelsey: Is your sound cutting out for everyone or just me? It’s like you went in and out for a second. And now you’re good.

Chrissy: Am I good?

Kelsey: Okay, you’re good now.

Chrissy: I’ll just restate what I said. But do this for me if it’s cutting up…

All I want to underscore here is that the writing really helps you understand and see yourself from a different diagonal position. And that’s what Kelsey and I really want to motivate you to look at — is how to see yourself in a different way.

Kelsey: Yes. And I love those questions so much. I see Linda in the chat says she did. What Chrissy and I both learned in our coach training is just how powerful a question can be.

Even just one of those questions that Chrissy listed out, I feel like you could journal on for several pages and get some great insight. And when you ask better questions, you get better answers, right?

So when you have a really good question and you really answer it truthfully and honestly — knowing that you’re the only one who ever needs to read it or know what’s written down — it can give you so much awareness.

Self-awareness is what we’re going for when we’re observing ourselves. We’re going for understanding what is going on for me.

And what you were saying, Chrissy, about the emotions — that “I can’t feel this right now when I have all these students,” or “I’m going to talk to my principal.” The fact is, we have emotions and they’re not bad. They’re signals. They’re telling us something.

And sometimes we do need to feel that emotion for a second or do something to acknowledge it rather than trying to push it away.

Wouldn’t you say, Chrissy?

Chrissy: A hundred percent. And in fact, one of our amazing, incredible members, Hannah — she says:

“I have kids in my school who are afraid to feel the negative emotions, and they need to be explicitly taught that these emotions are okay to feel.”

And this is — you are the reason that we do this work. Because if every teacher out there could practice in their own laboratory — her own laboratory, his own laboratory, their own laboratory of themselves — and then be able to give this knowledge…

You know, I’ve heard it been said like:

“Well, when do we learn about emotional intelligence? Nobody comes home skipping from the third or fourth grade on a Thursday and says, ‘Well, I learned how to feel fear today. I learned how to feel pride today.’”

But that is such a goal of our coaching mission — is to really help you. And that’s the ripple effect — of helping your students out there, your parents, everybody in your corners of the world feel their feelings and know that it’s safe.

Kelsey: And Chrissy, that is one hundred percent it.

And what I want to also say — because I know some brains are probably arguing back right now:

“But I don’t have time for that.”

You know, I feel like so often — like, yes, our kids need that. I need to be able to give that to my kids. But can we do that for our own children or for our students if we don’t do it ourselves?

If we aren’t able to explicitly model, like Hannah said, how is it that you feel an emotion? What if you have an emotion come up during class?

What if you told them that?

What if you told them, “Oh, I’m feeling this feeling right now, and here’s what I’m doing about it”?

Imagine — they’re going to remember that so much more. That maybe five minutes you take to do that, versus like, “Oh, we got right into the lesson and I didn’t get to move through that feeling.” And that’s impacting the entire rest of the day.

We think we don’t have time. But we don’t have time not to.

Chrissy: Well, that’s what I’m saying. That’s absolutely the thing.

And in our own lives, I think if we say, “Oh, I don’t have time to feel,” you know what happens unconsciously or subconsciously?

A lot of us just layer over. We wallpaper over the problem.

I used to overwork, overeat, overdrink, over-____ — over-socialize — so that I wouldn’t have to feel very basic 50/50 emotions.

My friends, life is 50% positive. There’s joy, contentment, happiness, awesome, amazing feelings. But also, it’s supposed to be 50% sadness, grief, anger, despair, frustration — what we label the negative emotions.

I have learned so much from my negative emotions throughout the years. But when I go back, I’m just putting myself…

Maybe you can speak to this too. How would you feel your emotions, Kelsey, before you found coaching?

Kelsey: Oh yeah. I used to just try to be numb. Or try to push it away.

I would do a lot of what — in the coaching world — we call “buffering” or “avoiding” our emotions. Where I would eat something, or drink something…

Or — my biggest one — was grab my phone and scroll. Who does that? Tell me in the chat if you do that.

And I still find myself doing it. I’m not saying I don’t. But now I notice it.

Like, “Oh wait — am I scrolling because I need to do something for work or for enjoyment? Or am I scrolling because I’m avoiding a feeling?”

That’s, again, that question — that sometimes the questions are more important than the answers. I think just asking yourself that question is massive.

Chrissy: Yeah.

Kelsey: “Am I scrolling because I really am looking for information or I need something? Or am I scrolling because I’m trying to avoid myself?”

Chrissy: Yeah. Yeah. It’s powerful.

Kelsey: Questions are so powerful. And one question I love that we both use a lot, Chrissy, is: whenever we have a negative thought coming up — “Is that thought actually true?”

Chrissy: Yeah. “Is it true? Is it true? And how do I know it’s really true? How do I know it’s true? Is it kind? Am I being kind to myself right now?”

Kelsey: Yeah. Yeah. “Would I say this to my student or to my partner or to a friend?” Those are questions that have stopped me in my tracks:

“Is it true?” — “No.”
Or sometimes if I try to make it true: “Is it true?” — “Sure. Yes, of course it’s true.”
“How do I know it’s really true?” — “Well, well, well… but… but… but…”

And — “What will people think?”

Sometimes I used to be so externally focused. So concerned and anxious about what everyone else would think. That was more important than really tuning in to what I needed, what I thought, what I had — you know, this beautiful self-regard.

And when I said at the top of this podcast:

“It is your responsibility, your privilege, your honor as a human to take accountability and to choose your thoughts and to tune into your emotions…”

It truly is. It truly is an honor. And it is a responsibility. Because if you can model what a well-managed — or I’ll even say, a sixty percent well-managed — mind looks like, because we’re not…

Kelsey: Above average, yes.

Chrissy: Yeah, we’re not perfect. But even if you can model that — you know, our students and those around us can tell a difference. And they’re really tuning in not to what we say.

We know our students watch what we do — and our quality of being. And I think we all understand the beautiful educational experiments of starting…

I know for me — when I would start class with three deep breaths, and I would ask my students to take three deep breaths — it instantly brought our vibe down after specials or transition or life.

When I forgot to do that breathing — when I forgot to take that pause of consciousness — number one, one of my students would raise their hand invariably and say, “We forgot to breathe. Can we breathe?” That was great.

But number two — if I was in a fluster or in a frazzle or just go-go-go mode — I’d just come running from the copy machine where I undid a jam and repaired it or something, and when I was so flustered, the rest of the afternoon… you know, the rest of class was kind of shot. They were flustered.

So I almost want everyone to remember that doing this work — understanding our parts even at a really, you know, basic, beautiful foundational level that we’re going to talk about — is everything. Because it allows you to be able to turn the thermostat up or down.

And that’s the responsibility piece that we’re talking about — and that modeling. I think it’s the highest form of teaching. What do you think?

Kelsey: Oh, absolutely. I mean, when you think about it — do students learn more from you just explaining it or reading it out of a book… or you showing them how to do something?

Showing.

So if we tell them, like, “Oh, it’s important to feel your feelings,” but then we don’t actually show them — they can tell from our energy that we’re feeling a feeling, but we’re not acknowledging it. We’re ignoring it. We’re pushing it away.

What do they get out of it?

“Oh — what my teacher or what my parent actually does — is what I’m actually supposed to do… is push that emotion away and just pretend it doesn’t exist.”

What we want to do is bring it into the light. And not feel like we have to avoid it or pretend that it’s this elephant in the room that we don’t talk about — these “negative” emotions.

Where really, emotions are just emotions, right? Like, there are “positive” emotions, “negative” emotions — but really, again, they’re just telling us something.

When we look at it, when we bring it into the light, when we look at it — what is it telling us?

When we use it as a moment to connect with others around us — by talking about it, by teaching children what to do when they feel that emotion, because they will — it’s just so much more empowering for everybody involved.

Chrissy: Yeah. Well, why don’t we talk about that? Why don’t we talk about how to feel our feels at a very foundational level? And what kinds of — maybe even different modalities and exercises — we can inspire our educators with?

Because describing emotions, my friends, can become such a creative, innovative way. And I think kids get this. I think they understand what sadness looks like, feels like, its color, where it is in our bodies…

I really think that we can follow the wisdom of our small PhD students when it comes to this, because they’ve been less layered on top of — right? Kind of less cultured or had the effect of culture and society weighing on top of them.

Kelsey: Yes. Yeah. It’s like that layering. And I feel like that’s what Hannah was even mentioning in this comment — of like:

“I am just tired,”

instead of truly exploring what it is. Like, we do just say, “Oh yeah, I’m fine,” or “I’m tired.”

Chrissy: Yes. One hundred percent.

Kelsey: And what we’re wanting to do…

Chrissy: Oh yeah, go on — I didn’t mean to step on you.

Kelsey: You’re so good. We just do it — we kind of share a brain.

Chrissy: Kelsey’s is so fast and so amazing, so I just try to keep up here.

But what Hannah’s talking about and feeling into is like these cover emotions that are the socially acceptable ones. And “I’m just tired” is one of those cover emotions, right?

Or another one — if we’re really feeling something that we don’t want to go to…

I mean: “Fine.”

I just did a beautiful workshop and it was called:

“Fine is the new F-word.”

I don’t ever want to hear “fine” for the rest of my life. You know, I’d rather hear:

“I’m neutral.”
“I’m sad.”
“I’m frustrated.”

Kelsey: It is really funny how culturally, literally, that’s what we’re supposed to say: “I’m fine.” “I’m good” or “I’m fine.” Like, those are one of the two answers.

Chrissy: Yeah.

Chrissy: So, “I’m just tired” or “I just need to get more rest” — while that could be true (and I think — I’m a sleep evangelist, I think sleep will change your life) — it’s also really important to understand what’s underneath the “fine” or what’s underneath the “tired.”

Because there’s always something a little bit more and more there that gets to the authenticity of what we’re really feeling.

Kelsey: Yeah.

Andrea says:

“I try to have kids move from the ‘I am’ to ‘I feel’ to not let it identify us.”

I love that.

Chrissy: Oh good! Andrea, that’s excellent. You’re a master. You’re already doing it.

And in the chat — if you already have some really good exercises or modalities that you already do, like Andrea just offered for us — we’re all here to learn. I learn from all of you all the time.

So teach me. Teach me what you’re doing out there.

Kelsey: Yes. We learn from each other — one hundred percent.

Yeah, but Kels — when we’re talking sort of about all these different emotional parts of ourselves, what are we really talking about here? What do we mean by all of that?

Kelsey: Yeah. So let’s get into it — because we’re thirty minutes in. We could talk all day.

So one thing that Chrissy and I wanted to bring that’s a little bit new…

So in my book and in the club, for those of you who’ve been around, we’ve talked a lot about:

• Thoughts

• Feelings

• Nervous system regulation

The things that Chrissy and I have been talking about so far.

And we’ve also been mentioning “parts.” And you’re like, “What do you mean by parts?”

So when we talk about that — we, Chrissy and I — we’re both familiar with (we’re not therapists, but we are very familiar and informed in) parts work. And for me, it’s been especially through — and I think for you too, Chrissy — through Internal Family Systems.

Chrissy: Correct.

Kelsey: Yeah. With Richard Schwartz. So he wrote an amazing book called No Bad Parts. I’ve read several of his books and done several trainings with IFS.

And basically — I’m trying to figure out how we want to explain this — but we each have inside of us… think about like your classroom, right? It’s a system, right? Or your family.

Like, Internal Family Systems is the idea of — there are these different parts that are playing a different role in the system.

And so for Internal Family Systems, that means that for ourselves, there are different parts at play that have developed over time when certain needs came up — a lot of times during childhood.

How would you explain it, Chrissy? Am I on the right track?

Chrissy: Oh my gosh, a hundred percent. Yeah.

I think what’s beautiful is that we’re already familiar with this work because we’re already speaking in this language of parts, right?

Like, if a friend asks you, “Hey, Kelsey, you want to go to that party?” If you’re really kind of tuning in, you’re like:

“You know what? Part of me really wants to go — that’s a really good friend for this party. I want to support him or her.
But part of me also wants to just curl up in my jam-jams, eat something nice and snuggly, watch some Netflix, and be quiet.”

So already you’re cueing into the fact that:

• There’s a part that wants to go and show up for your friend

• And there’s another part that just wants to stay snuggly at home under the duvet watching something great

And I think a move that can help get us into—

Kelsey: Oh yes! Yeah — if anyone’s ever seen Inside Out or Inside Out 2…

Chrissy: It’s the perfect description!

Kelsey: Perfect visual of all these emotional players and the role that they play in this young girl.

If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s a Pixar film called Inside Out. And just this idea that — as Dick Schwartz talks about it…

Kelsey: …Dick Schwartz talks about it — I’m currently in an IFS-informed class right now — and he just talks about the fact that…

You know, I think he came up with this parts work metaphor, “family system,” because he was working actually with adolescents. And this was the language they were using. And he saw that:

There are really no bad parts.

As Kelsey referenced so smartly — the title of one of his books — all of our parts inside of us are actually working for us. Which I find so positive and lovely — that I don’t have to be at war with my brain, or with my heart, or with my gut.

That I can tune into anger — which, by the way, coming from my family of origin was not an okay emotion for us to feel. Anger, for me, meant sometimes violence, sometimes upheaval — definitely conflicted emotions around everybody when anger was present.

So for a really long time — even before I became a coach — anger was something that did not feel safe for me to feel. I had to relearn how to feel that emotion — that has given me so much wisdom.

But knowing that:

I don’t want to cut anger out of my body.
I want to thank it. I want to understand how it’s kept me safe.
I want to know that it kept me safe maybe when I was 4, or 10, or 15, or 29…
But at age beautiful 50 now, I can feel it. I can understand the wisdom it’s giving me.
But I don’t need it to be cut out of my body.

And at the same time — I can feel it, and I can also say:

“Hey, do you want to join with another part?”

So this idea that my other emotional parts — like compassion, or even understanding — can work with anger together. Like little buddies in a group, in a classroom, in a group project. And they can hold on to each other. And they can work together.

I know that sounds really simplistic. And if all of you are familiar with IFS, I don’t mean to dumb it down or be reductive in any way. There’s so much. But I think that’s a good way to describe it. What do you think?

Kelsey: No, there’s so much to it, and yet it’s so complicated — but the basic explanation of it is actually really helpful to know and understand and realize like, “Oh yeah, it doesn’t have to be this big, overwhelming thing.”

You can do years of work in it — I’ve been seeing an IFS therapist weekly myself for over a year now. So I’ve been getting very familiar with all of my parts.

And there’s one that I’ve been working with a lot that I bet a lot of teachers have, too. I have a part that is very much wanting me to be productive all the time. And it’s trying to keep me safe in that way, like:

“You are getting things done. You’re making sure that you and your family are taken care of. You’re making sure that this is how we prove our worth in the world.”

Like — all of these things.

How many of you feel like you might have a part that makes you overwork? That makes you maybe stay after contract hours a lot or put so much extra effort into a project?

Where it’s not a bad thing — it’s just, when you learn to work with this part, it’s like:

“Yes, I do want to be productive.”

It’s just learning to have that part’s role be serving you more. It’s learning how to work with that part, how to have that part trust you.

And what we didn’t quite talk about yet is: your resourced self.

Self-energy is really when you’re fully tuned in with yourself. It’s kind of like the self is the manager of all of these different parts.

And when you are able to come in with self-energy and observe these parts — rather than being blended with them — like, “Oh, I am this right now.” Like, there are times where it’s like:

“I am fully in with… I am in the boat. I have let…”

Or like in Inside Out 2, where anxiety takes the wheel, right?

You’ve let that part completely take the wheel.

That’s what we’re trying to — with parts work, when we’re observing — we let our resourced self take the wheel, but still realize those parts make…

“Hey — this is the role you can play. This is how you can help us.”

Because our parts — they all have really good intentions. They’re all trying to help us in a certain way. They might just be a little misinformed about why. Because they might have developed when you were 8 years old on the playground. Or when you were 12 years old and your parents got divorced. (Hello, to me.)

Or, you know, different times in your life where these parts might have developed and they don’t realize that:

“Oh wait, I’m not a twelve-year-old girl anymore. Like actually, the coping mechanisms you were using then made sense at that time.
And now I’m much older — and we can do it this other way now.”

And just have it get to know you now.

One of the things that — in IFS — we’d be like:

“How old do you think I am?”

And that part thinks you’re still like… twelve or whatever. And it’s like:

“No, actually, I’m not. We’ve grown a lot since then.”

Chrissy: I will also — thank you so much. That’s so impactful — your work with your own IFS amazing practitioner.

And this kind of self energy — another person that I highly recommend in the thought leader space, in the coach space — is a woman named Gabby Bernstein. You might know her — a lot of you out there — for her work in manifesting.

She has an amazing app. She’s just… she’s a wonderful leader in our sphere. I mean, I’ve never met her, but I call her my colleague — because she is my colleague.

And she is so familiar and in love with this parts work. I think it dovetails perfectly with coaching in this way.

Like, you don’t have to necessarily be… I also love therapy — I think it’s a wonderful thing to do. But if that’s not your jam, or if that’s not the entry place you want to be in — I highly recommend you check out the work of Gabby Bernstein. We can link to her.

Kelsey: Oh yes! She’s got a book that she just released called Self-Help — that’s really good and goes into IFS and how you can do these check-ins yourself.

Chrissy: Yeah! I thought I would just, like — for folks who are even more curious and they’re like—

Kelsey: Yeah, share those!

Chrissy: Yeah! Do you mind if I talk about—

Kelsey: Yeah, please do!

Also, did you know I met Gabby? Did you know that? Did I tell you that?

Chrissy: No!

Kelsey: I was on her Instagram stories in Phoenix last year. It was so fun.

Chrissy: Wow!

Kelsey: But go on — I want to hear it.

Chrissy: That’s gonna be bonus material — bonus material, all about—

Kelsey: No, I just ran into her in the bathroom at a conference. And it was—I was like, “Oh, I love your app!” And then we started talking. So it was fun.

Chrissy: Well, she’s just the best. She’s the best.

Kelsey: Of course she is.

Chrissy: Yeah, of course. Your heroes are the best.

But also, she’s just our colleague. Puts her pants on just like everybody else. We’re all human, right?

I think with the watch yourself and what we were talking about earlier, Gabby’s IFS check-in — and by the way, her book Self-Help, which is such a fun play on this development world, this help world — but also like accessing self and this self-energy that we’re talking about, this higher self…

I think what’s beautiful is that Dick Schwartz — who came up with this model — he’s written the foreword of her book. So he’s all about bringing this to the masses.

Kelsey: Yes! It doesn’t have to just be in a therapy office. It can be through reading a book. It can be like — you’re learning it with us right now, and we’re doing a workshop with the club this month too. Like, so many ways.

Chrissy: Oh, we are? Tell us more about that.

Kelsey: Like, wait — Chrissy, you haven’t forgotten, have you? (laughing) I was teeing you up. But we’ll talk about it after.

Chrissy: I like getting ahead! You need to share the steps, and then we’ll share about our workshop.

Kelsey: Sounds great.

Chrissy: Okay — we’re gonna dive a little bit more into this in the workshop, so if you’re thirsty for more, just stay tuned.

But Gabby talks about:

---

Gabby Bernstein’s 4-Step IFS Check-In

Chrissy:

1. Step one: It’s very much like this idea of being the watcher. You need to just choose to check in. You need to decide.
   It doesn’t have to look like pages and pages in my journal — but it’s just a decision. Maybe take a deep breath, maybe close your eyes, maybe just choose to make that choice to turn inward.
   Emotions are a guidance system.

2. Step two: Curiosity. Be curious. Maybe put your hand on your heart. Maybe on your belly space.
   What that does is it calms your sympathetic nervous system right down, and you just slow your breathing down. You just notice — with curiosity, with that “watch yourself” — what you’re feeling. What you’re noticing. What part is kind of coming to the forward. Who’s kind of standing up?

3. Step three: With that part — maybe it is, as Kelsey just said, productivity (or sometimes I call her Go-Go-Go Girl). Like, Go-Go-Go.
   If my Go-Go-Go stands up, I just ask it:

   “What do you need?”
   And then I take notes. I literally do this like a little play between me and my part.
   And then it tells me.
   And then I ask it again:
   “What do you need?”
   And I write, and I listen. And even if it sounds crazy what this part needs — like, “I need Zumba class” — whatever, I write it down.

4. Step four: Check in for any of these big “C” words — qualities of Self:

   • Curiosity

   • Compassion

   • Calm

   • Clarity

   • Connectedness

   • Courage

   • Confidence

   • Creativity

   If any of those C’s are around — and by the way, you’re already curious because you’re already doing the work — you’re already compassionate because you’re asking a part of yourself (which, by the way, is you — right? Don’t get too tripped out about “Who is this I’m talking to?” — it’s you)…
   You’re already getting to this place of compassion, curiosity, and this work in and of itself is creative.

So that’s kind of the four steps, which I really love.

Chrissy: So that’s kind of the four steps, which I really love. You just:

• Decide

• Check in

• Get curious

• Ask that part: “What do you need?”

• And then really listen

And for me, Kels, when I really slow down and do that process — and believe me, I always need to do it more — but I know I’ve done my work when I feel a sense of relief.

Kelsey: Yeah, I agree. I feel like it soothes you. You know, there’s a soothing energy.

But I was just about to ask: What about you? How — what’s your way in? Or how do you access this?

Kelsey: I mean, what I did — and it’s crazy, because before I even read Gabby’s book — I feel like… like, when she listed her check-in, it’s just like, “Oh yeah, that’s how it works,” you know?

But she just put some really great wording to it, and like a framework. But it really is — and it ties right in with even the coaching framework I talk about in my book.

We’re observing, right? And then we’re choosing the direction and aligning to it — which is when we’re able to get into that self-energy.

When we’re in that self-energy, we know we’ve been able to start observing — because when we’re observing, we’re not blended with those parts, right?

We’re not like identifying as that overachiever part or identifying as the anxious part or whatever part.

Chrissy: Yeah. Yeah. Our judgment — when we’re able to feel curious and compassionate (which even in our coach training, which wasn’t IFS, it was all about those emotions) — and that’s where I just feel like all these modalities, they really flow together so well.

And IFS just, like, comes right into it so beautifully.

Kelsey: So beautifully.

Chrissy: So I’m really excited that we’re going to continue to explore IFS with our workshop in the club — and that we’ve been able to do it here on the podcast today.

So Kelsey and I, we are doing a two-part series where we’re going to dive even more into Internal Family Systems and how it works with all the tools that you’ve already been utilizing with us.

It doesn’t need to be this new overwhelming thing — it really beautifully blends right in with all the work we’ve been doing. It really is just like another, “Oh yeah — this is another piece in my toolbox that I can utilize.”

Wouldn’t you agree with that, Kelsey?

Kelsey: A hundred percent.

I think what’s beautiful about all of these things — whatever is your thing or your way in — just choose it.

And I just call all of these beautiful tools like having more colors in my color box. I don’t have to just paint with primary colors anymore. I get to use different colors that my parts give me, that coaching gives me.

It’s a really beautiful — I love the idea of just having more colors. More colored pencils in my box.

Chrissy: Yes. Like sometimes you might just want to do a model. Sometimes you might want to check in with a part. Sometimes you might be checking in with a part and be like:

“What model is this part using?”

If you want to get really more advanced with it — like, it can just be fun. It’s like an art. It’s being creative with it — and what makes sense to you and your brain and your body and your emotions and all of it.

Kelsey: So in this series, in the first part — this is kind of the plan, but as always, Chrissy and I, we go with whatever is being needed by our audience or whatever we’re just being guided to teach you…

But my plan is kind of:

• Part One is really IFS-focused — like, making sure you fully understand it

• And then Part Two is how it blends in with everything else — how it fits into the greater toolbox

  • Like how do you use the model and IFS?

  • Or processing emotions?

  • Or how does it tie into the nervous system?

  • Kind of a very basic overview of how all these pieces fit together

Chrissy: And Kelsey and I have already had some great conversations about not just talking about this work, but actually seeing the practical example of it.

So I’m really hoping Kelsey will coach me live. Or vice versa. We’ll give somebody else the opportunity first. But Kelsey and I — we’re not afraid to coach each other!

Kelsey: (laughing) Those of you who are in the club — our recent call, Chrissy coached me. No, wait — I coached Chrissy. And then you coached me!

Chrissy: We coached each other!

Yeah, but I think it’s so important to really talk about the nuts and bolts of what parts look like.

I will tell all of you already that — when I imagine my parts (and I think it’s because I’ve had over two decades in education) — my parts…

It’s a rug.

As I’ve gotten to know my parts, my rug’s gotten bigger. But it’s the reading rug that a lot of us have…

Kelsey: (laughs) YES.

Chrissy: …in our classrooms. And it’s got all these colors on it — it’s got the red and the yellow and the green and the blue circles.

And all my different parts have a different circle that they sit on. Sometimes they move. Sometimes they jump on each other. It’s funny — it’s like a puppy pile of parts.

But when I ask who needs to kind of be recognized — who needs to stand up — I’m right there in my reading room. You know, with the reading rug. And the little circles will just kind of come up.

And they all — they have all different ages. Some of them are like human figures. Some of them aren’t. Some of them are qualities.

Chrissy: I have another client — when she does her parts work, she imagines that she’s on a stage, like a conductor. And all of her parts are in the orchestra pit.

Kelsey: I love that.

Chrissy: And so the orchestra sort of pit members are her parts, and they stand up and come up on stage to talk to her — or stand and allow themselves to sort of play what they need to say or play.

It’s really beautiful. She’s not even a musician — but that’s what works for her.

So it’s so cool to get all of these creative visuals about how parts work is so personal… and so cool.

Kelsey: It’s so different for everyone. Like for me, it’s been a lot of writing about the parts — but now I’ve just started feeling the itch to actually start sketching them out and kind of map them out and everything.

Now that I’ve been doing that for like a year… And it’s just so interesting how it’s different for everyone, because some people start that way. Some people start with like a visualization.

It’s really up to you.

Kelsey: I did see we missed a comment earlier, Chrissy. This is from Amanda — this was about thirteen minutes ago.

She said:

“I don’t have a choice. The disappointment is when my students don’t have empathy and don’t care about my effort.”

So this is some… like, stuff like this — when we’re feeling this — it is the perfect opportunity for coaching, for doing a check-in even. Right?

Chrissy: Yes. And I just want to say, Amanda — that disappointment you feel, right? When you say:

“Your students don’t have empathy or don’t care about my effort” —

Of course, we can’t control what our students care or don’t care about. Of course, we can’t control what their energetic signature with their empathy or non-empathy is. To be honest, like, yes — we don’t get to choose what they do.

Kelsey: Yeah.

Chrissy: So that part is true. Absolutely.

But you do, of course, get to decide how you are going to feel and think about it in that moment and say:

“Wow — if I could wave a magic wand and have every single child come in with families who understand empathy…”

That’s the tragic part. And the compassionate part.

I just feel so much compassion in what you are even commenting on — that you know there are families out there that don’t have empathy. Right? It’s a hard world. Or they don’t even know what that is.

But you — getting to know that maybe familiar disappointment, and working with it — because I bet that disappointment is 100% there to protect you.

Kelsey: Yeah. And that disappointment is not a bad thing.

And we’re not here to just be like, “Oh, well, you can’t control those students, so why are you feeling disappointed?”

Like — not at all. That’s not what we’re saying in the slightest.

We are saying: Let’s not push away that disappointment. Let’s look at it. Let’s bring it — I don’t know why today my big thing is:

“Bring it to the light.”

That’s just my phrase today, apparently. I don’t say that all the time — it’s just like today!

It’s all like — no, nothing needs to be hidden or in the shadows. We’re just bringing it up.

So what is that disappointment telling you?

And like — check in with that part that’s disappointed. And do that check-in process. Like:

“What does it need? What does that part need?”

Chrissy: Yeah. I think that’s beautiful.

And I mean, that’s a place where I would just journal my buttons off.

Even — I just set a timer for five minutes. I don’t care how bad my handwriting looks. And I just go for it.

Sometimes I audio in my phone. I used to do that in the parking lot before driving home — and like kind of ignoring or self-abandoning or wanting to self-betray.

I’d actually make myself sit and do an audio.

Kelsey: Or just like on the way home, I talk to myself out loud like a seemingly crazy person — and I would just be like:

“What am I feeling right now? I’m feeling so much sadness.”

“How is sadness protecting me in this moment?”

Or working with disappointment. “Oh, it’s really helping me see that not all my kids are built the same — and that’s okay.”

I don’t have to necessarily take that on. That’s not for me. But I can protect myself from all the feels that come from students and their level of care… or their non-level of care.

Chrissy: Right. You’re right.

And what I love, Chrissy, is what you mentioned — when you know you’ve done that parts work (or not even just parts work, like any of the modalities we use — whether it’s:

• “I got on and got coached by someone”

• or “I coached myself”

• or “I listened to a podcast” — like everybody is right now)

A lot of times, when you feel that relief, even though the actual circumstance hasn’t changed — that’s when you realize:

“Oh, okay — I’ve been able to become that observer.”

“I’ve been able to check in with myself and see that even though maybe the students are acting this certain way, or there’s this IEP I need to get done, or whatever…”

We don’t have to be as in that anxiety or that stress.

We can be like, “There’s this here, yes — and I’m feeling more curious and feeling more compassionate and feeling more creative about coming up with solutions to that problem.”

Because when we’re really stuck in it, we sometimes can’t see the other potential solutions, or things — or even just where we need to maybe let go a little bit.

Like, “Maybe I want the students to be this way — we’ve got another month — it’s not changing,” you know?

And we can just let go of that grip a little bit.

Chrissy: I love everything you just said.

And I think what you’re also speaking to — one of our members, Hannah, so clued in on — is that I think sometimes in school, we think there’s a right way to do something. That there is a rule book. There is a way to — there’s a right way and a wrong way to feel. There’s a right way and a wrong way to react to students who are disappointing or are disappointing us.

And the biggest message we have here tonight, and with this kind of teaser about IFS — Internal Family Systems — is:

“You know what the right way is? It’s your way.”

You know what the right way is for you? It’s the way you’re doing it.

And it’s — you’re here. You’re learning. And just creating that more expansion and spaciousness inside your body…

I really believe that’s the secret sauce. I believe that everybody can feel that energetically.

And why is coaching so important?

It’s often so important for the people around you that benefit — because you have a new quality of being.

My husband also says:

“Who’s your meditation for?”

It’s for me. I’m like, “That’s true.”

Kelsey: One hundred percent. Yeah.

Oh, this has been so good. And I love all the comments that we’ve had in the chat. It really helps bring the podcast to life.

I’ve been really enjoying recording live rather than just recording by myself. I love everyone who’s been here. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We know you have, like, a lot of options with your time, and we really appreciate you being here.

Chrissy: And I really appreciate all the comments, all of your presence. I can feel you all. Just really appreciate this community and this collective. And Kelsey — all your work.

Thank you for everything you’re doing out in the world.

Kelsey: Yes! I still love doing these podcasts — and these podcasts are leading to something really exciting.

So if you missed last week’s announcement, we opened tickets to our Educate & Rejuvenate event, where Chrissy and I will both be teaching and coaching at the event.

I want to share this here for all of you — because you can join the event for less than a latte. You can buy a ticket for just five dollars — an early bird ticket — to the Educate & Rejuvenate event.

All the information is here on this page:
👉 educateandrejuvenate.com/summer2025
(You can check out the page later!)

And once you grab your ticket, you’ll have the opportunity to try out the Educate & Rejuvenate Club if you want to. And that is where you could join me and Chrissy later this month at our IFS two-part workshop, either live or on the replay.

You’ll have access to that.

So if you’re curious about the work Chrissy and I do and the workshop — I see some of you in the comments who are already in the club — so make sure to check the calendar and do that.

But if you’re not yet, grab a ticket to the event. If nothing else — you want to join us at the event for only five dollars.

Chrissy: Please, if you even have a whisper of curiosity out there — it’s literally the best deal in town.

Five dollars. Buy a ticket. Come see us. Come see what it’s all about. And this incredible community of educators that joins us all the time. It’s really a powerful place.

I know I feel like everybody says that — but I really do think we have the very best members, the very best educators. A lot of folks that are switched on to this work.

So try it.

Kelsey: Yes. And a lot of them are here — like a lot of the people you’ve seen in the chat whose comments we’ve shared, who have a lot of awesome things to share — it’s because we’ve been doing this work together.

It’s such a great time. And every year we have more new teachers join our community through this event.

We have coaching. We have yoga. We have — it’s Educate & Rejuvenate — so we have speakers on basically every education topic you could think of.

So we’re here to help you with your teaching and with your rejuvenation — your taking care of yourself, which is more of what we were talking about today.

Kelsey: Hannah says:

“The conference was how I joined.”

Chrissy: Yeah! I like to call it sort of adult recess. That’s what it is. It’s about joy. It’s about play. So come on down if you want to play with us.

Kelsey: Yes! Andrea says:

“It’s amazing — get your ticket.”

Chris says:

“It is so fun!”

We have a great time all together.

And the event, by the way, is July 15–16 are the live dates. But you have a whole week to watch all the replays and the pre-recorded sessions.

You can scroll through the page — just go to that link — you can check out more. You can see who all our speakers are and learn more about them. You can click on each name to learn more.

We hope to see you there.

Chrissy: Kelsey, thank you so much for this amazing moment together. I always learn so much from you and have such a good time just talking about what I love with you.

Kelsey: Me too. You’re the best.

Chrissy: You’re the best.

Kelsey: Thank you. Thank you, everybody! See you soon, everybody.

I’ll be here next week doing another podcast too — so watch your socials wherever you’re at for next week’s podcast. And we hope to see you at Educate & Rejuvenate.

See you! Bye!

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Kelsey (Outro):
If you loved what you heard in this episode, don’t forget to hit that follow or subscribe button wherever you’re listening or watching.

And hey — if you’re ready to take this work even deeper beyond just a podcast episode, you’ll love the book that I wrote with Teacher Goals. It’s called:

Educate and Rejuvenate: A Three-Step Guide to Revitalize Your Teaching, Renew Your Spirit, and Reignite Your Passion for Life

This isn’t just a book you read — it’s a whole experience. With your copy, you’ll also get access to:

• A full PDF workbook

• Exclusive reader-only course modules in our mobile app

Designed to help you not just consume the content, but actually apply it to your life — even if you only have a few minutes at a time.

So if you’re ready to make Educate & Rejuvenate not just something you listen to, but a lifestyle you live and a mantra you carry with you every day…

Grab your copy on Amazon and head to educateandrejuvenate.com/book to claim your bonuses.