Shadow Work, IFS, and the Rise of Identity Fragmentation

Summary

Decoded Podcast Summary

Episode: Shadow Work, IFS, and the Rise of Identity Fragmentation
Host: Elisabeth McKay
Release Date: May 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

Elisabeth McKay dives deep into the current landscape of self-help and mental health, focusing specifically on shadow work, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and the broader trend toward identity fragmentation. She critically examines how popular therapeutic models intended for healing can, if misapplied, contribute to increased division within an individual’s psyche. With her characteristic candor and use of real-world examples, Elisabeth draws on her experience as a mental health innovator and founder of PredictiveMind and Break Method, challenging listeners to question the effectiveness and sometimes the dangers of modern healing trends.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Paradox of Self-Work: Healing or Division?

• Elisabeth opens with the provocative observation that often the “least psychologically suited” people are drawn to practices like parts work and shadow work ([00:00]).
• She notes a “rampant” phenomenon: the more someone engages in self-discovery practices, the more complicated and divided they become—in stark contrast to the intention of healing, which is unity and clarity.
• Quote: “There’s a difference between becoming aware of yourself and becoming divided within yourself.” ([02:15])

2. Shadow Work: Jung’s Integration vs. Modern Justification

• She sketches the original purpose of Jungian shadow work: to bring the unconscious into conscious awareness and integrate split aspects of self—an idea she supports.
• Shift in the Field: Modern iterations focus on identifying, naming, and validating parts, but often fail to integrate, slipping into a cycle of naming as justification: “That’s just my shadow.”
• Elisabeth warns this approach can rationalize maladaptive behavior, excusing or minimizing harm rather than addressing root patterns.
• Quote: “The goal is to integrate and unify… so that you don’t have these separated pieces anymore. And yet, many years later… people bastardize this work.” ([05:10])

3. The Risk of Fragmentation and Self-Deception

• She theorizes that mental illness is “a downstream effect of self-deception” and that the mind’s capacity for rationalization is at the core of maladaptive cycles.
• Modern shadow and parts work, when not aimed at integration, perpetuate division and can reinforce negative coping mechanisms instead of correcting them.
• Quote: “We become very good at justifying, excusing and minimizing these things and making it seem totally reasonable and normal.” ([10:35])

4. Objective Truth, Moral Standards, and Cultural Relativism

• Elisabeth unpacks the societal consequences of relativistic thinking, referencing a debate between Russell Brand and Sam Harris about moral standards ([18:00]).
• She expresses alarm at the notion that questioning child exploitation in other cultures could be dismissed as “white colonialism,” warning against surrendering objective truth.
• Quote: “If at that point, that’s where we’re at, God bless us, we shouldn’t have nuclear weapons. We’re totally screwed. But I digress.” ([21:41])

5. Parts Work and IFS: Clarity or Chaos?

• IFS reframes inner experiences as separate “parts” or “roles,” which Elisabeth criticizes for risking further fragmentation—particularly among those with identity instability or trauma histories ([38:45]).
• She argues that what feels like multiple parts is usually just variations of one underlying brain pattern, which can be rewired without creating distinct internal Personas.
• Quote: “When internal experiences are structured into separate identities, your system is organizing around division instead of integration. And there’s no way around that.” ([47:12])

6. Real-World Consequences: Case Studies

• Elisabeth recounts experiences in residential therapy contexts, where teens began living out the identities of “parts” given names by therapists. This, she says, led to increased instability rather than healing ([48:00]).
• She ties the tendency to assign separate identities to an increase in chaotic, unstable behaviors—particularly dangerous in vulnerable populations.

7. Language as a Tool for Healing or Division

• Language shapes thinking: When clients are taught to say “a part of me wants this,” it cements that division into identity, making healing more difficult.
• True progress comes from observing triggers and patterns, not identifying with them:
  • Healthy language: “I notice I’m triggered by X, and it’s tricking me into justifying Y behavior.”
  • Parts language: “This part of me likes Y, and it should be expressed.”

8. Fragmentation, Delusion, and the Dangers of Misapplied Healing Modalities

• Fragmentation increases susceptibility to delusion, spiritual confusion, and—paired with things like psychedelics—can rapidly destabilize attitudes and personalities ([01:03:30]).
• Elisabeth reports clients whose identity became further fractured in psychedelic or “medicine” contexts, often encouraged by frameworks like IFS.
• Note on selection bias: The most emotionally volatile individuals are also the ones most drawn to these modalities.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the shadow work trend:
  “The more work some people do on themselves, the more complicated they seem to become… and all the while, less stability, less consistency, and far less clarity.” ([01:30])

• On moral relativism:
  “Are we saying that maybe children should have the right to be married off to 70-year-old men and raped? Because obviously a child can’t give consent. I feel like we’ve completely descended—full-blown chaos.” ([21:23])

• On patterns and change:
  “Awareness alone doesn’t change the brain. Repeated behavioral input does. Your brain changes through neuroplasticity, through the pathways you strengthen with action, not just awareness.” ([32:01])

• On the language of parts:
  “When our language creates separation and division… we see a strong fracturing of reality and subsequent behaviors translate as chaotic and unstable.” ([51:00])

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00 – Episode introduction; core concern: division vs. integration in self-healing
• 05:10 – Jung’s shadow work: historical context vs. modern misuse
• 10:35 – The self-justification loop and dangers of reinforcing maladaptive patterns
• 18:00 – The “objective truth” debate and societal consequences
• 38:45 – Explanation and critique of IFS and fragmentation
• 48:00 – Case study: naming parts in therapy leads to increased instability in teens
• 51:00 – How language choices determine integration or division
• 57:50 – Risks amplified by psychedelics, “medicine” spaces, and spiritual contexts
• 01:12:00 – Closing message: choose integration, not fragmentation

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Elisabeth’s Core Messages

• Healing Means Integration: True emotional and behavioral change requires unifying fragmented parts, not giving them separate names, roles, or validation as identity.
• Beware of Fragmenting Models: IFS, shadow work, and similar approaches can foster division, especially among psychologically vulnerable individuals.
• Language Shapes Reality: The way you talk about your internal world matters. Describing maladaptive impulses as “parts” to be expressed can entrench rather than heal them.
• Skeptical Engagement: Often, the most unstable individuals are attracted to the “edgy,” novel healing practices, but these may fragment them further.
• Cultural & Spiritual Risks: The liberal reassignment of truth and rampant relativism—both individually and culturally—can lead to chaos, self-delusion, and even spiritual confusion.

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Final Thought

Elisabeth’s warning is clear: If the practices you embrace for healing cultivate more division than wholeness, question their utility. The path to genuine transformation is through integration, pattern disruption, and language that supports unity of self—not further fragmentation.

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For more, see:

• Break Method
• Related Episodes: “Why Intrusive Thoughts Happen” and “The Psychology of Shame”

Transcript

[A]

The people who are the least suited psychologically to engage in parts work, shadow work, medicine journeys, are the ones who are attracted to it. If your preferences can dictate how you're choosing your healing experience, we've already lost the plot. Because your brain pattern is what's guiding that. And you're going to like things that aren't actually the right things. Medicine isn't supposed to feel good. Medicine isn't supposed to taste good. For something to be medicine, it has to be opposite. Your brain is wired for deception. But here's the truth. Patterns can be broken. The code can be rewritten. Once you hear the truth, you can't go back. So the only question is, are you ready to listen? Have you ever noticed that the more work some people do on themselves, the more complicated they seem to become? There often end up being more parts, more layers, and frankly, more identities, and all the while less stability, less consistency, and far less clarity. That pattern has shown up again and again. Whether you look into spiritual communities or self help communities, this is rampant. And I want you to be clear. There's a difference between becoming aware of yourself and becoming divided within yourself. A lot of modern healing work, especially those that track the shadow work, parts work communities, and even medicine communities, without realizing it, they move people in the direction of division and separation. And once I show you to see it, you're never going to be able to unsee it ever again. Most people stay stuck in the work that they've been doing because it's reinforcing the very patterns that they're trying to break. That is the entire hypothesis of my entire body of work with break method and predictive mind. When people talk about shadow work, they're usually referring to the idea that there are aspects operating outside of your conscious awareness. These could be thoughts, emotions, and tendencies that were pushed down and never fully integrated. You may know that this concept tracks back to Carl Jung, who described the shadow as parts of your psyche that sit outside of your conscious identity, and they're still able to influence behavior from behind the scenes. And to be clear, I agree, I agree that what we consciously think about ourselves is not the primary influence of how we see the world and how we respond. I totally agree. His work centered around bringing those elements into awareness and integrating them into a unified system. And again, I don't have any problems here. I agree. These pieces exist and the goal should be to bring them forward into a unified system. As you can imagine, this process requires a sharp level of discernment. Some elements within the shadow are Immature, reactive, and destructive when left unexamined. And bringing them into your consciousness or your awareness can create an opportunity to change how they show up in behavior hypothetically over time, sadly, this idea has shifted. The modern version of what I see pitched as shadow work is something very, very different. It's something that centers around identifying, naming, and validating internal experiences. That creates clarity, perhaps at the level of describing something. And it's giving people language to describe what they're feeling. But they're completely getting lost in the integration piece. More often than not, when I see people talking about shadow work, perhaps without even realizing there's a part of their brain pattern that very much has this goal, much of their language is centered around trying to excuse, justify, or rationalize the existence of this maladaptive set of behaviors. So I'll give you an example. I've seen people talk on Instagram about, oh, that's, you know, that's just my shadow. So there's an acknowledgment I have. These are parts of me, and they are. And they are allowed to exist. Which, the more you dig into actual Jungian shadow work, that's not ultimately the goal. The goal is to integrate and unify so that you don't have these separated pieces anymore. And yet here we are, many years later, and we're seeing people bastardize this work to now be something that does separate, justify, rationalize, excuse. Now, the hypothesis of all of my body of work is that mental illness is actually a downstream effect of self deception. If we can learn to understand how our brain is distorting our perception of reality and bring back that correction back to objective reality, or as close as we can get, we're able to see our maladaptive behaviors or negative coping mechanisms from. For what they really are without trying to justify, without trying to excuse or minimize any of the things that we would do to make it more palatable for us. Now, if we look at this shadow work aspect of it, we run the risk here of people, especially in the modern iteration of shadow work, desiring to explore, play, experience. So think about it this way. I like to think in my work about territories on a map. So imagine that in the territories on your map, you've got kind of the. The healed, reasonable, conscious parts of yourself. Okay, let's say that that part of your territory map is about 40%. And then we've got 60% of the territories over here that, you know, if you could see your behavior like a video camera or like what I jokingly refer to as a God Replay, you'd be like, that's not a good look. Those things would all go. Now on the 60% territory over here, which Jungian work would call shadow, right? What ends up happening is that when we are, let's say we're now a character walking around on this territory map, when we're in those shadowy bits and our self deception is operating, we become very good at justifying, excusing and minimizing these things and making it seem totally reasonable and normal. That is the entire hypothesis of my work. So when you are in those places, it's really easy for your brain to generate a reasonable sounding. But right after, well, but they did X, but I really feel Y. Now let's take that one step further. Now when we have this convergence of the shadow work parts, work consciousness communities, spiritual communities all converge. Now we also, on top of this, have this, my feelings are valid, feelings need to be felt, sort of dynamic that gets in there. So now everything that you feel or experience, even though it may be distorted, even though going back to a previous episode a few episodes ago, it may be coming from an intrusive thought that doesn't have your best interests at heart. Now, according to this sort of shadow work, parts work consciousness community, we have to explore this. There's this sort of like call, call in, let's understand, see if this is a piece of us that's calling for attention or for us to experience it. Maybe there's a deeper truth in this sort of darker, shadowy aspect of ourselves. I'm sure those of you that have listened to this podcast for a long time, all of your alarm bells are going off and are like, alert, alert. Do not do this. It's the same thing with intrusive thoughts, right? And those of you that may have struggled with anxiety or intrusive thoughts or phobias, do go back to that episode on Intrusive Thoughts. And I walk out a very clear line there of where it comes from and what steps you can take to free yourself from intrusive thoughts. Having such a strong grip over your life. When we're having something kind of manipulator twist our thinking like an intrusive thought, we run a severe risk by even creating the slightest opening of is this coming from something deeper in me? Does this need to be something that I explore? I think on a very real level and you know, this kind of opens up a can of worms into, I think some other socio political issues that are very persistent in our society today, which is this whole is there truth? What is the Truth? Should we have a clear set of moral standards that are universal? Are morals universal? Right. This is kind of what's happened with the rise of secularism. And later on in the season, we have an episode coming called who Killed God? That I think will really drive this point home once we start to create all of this again, kind of like division and distortion. Like, is there truth? Is it your truth or my truth? Is there an objective truth anymore? It can we objectively say that something's right and wrong. And I go back to. To drive this point home. And again, not saying this, to pick on Russell Brand. I've enjoyed watching his transformation over the years, but if I go back there, I don't remember in what year it was, but it had to be like 20, 18, 19. He did a YouTube podcast or live stream with Sam Harris, who I, full transparency, cannot stand, can't stand him at all. And if you know me, you know I'm fully capable of watching and absorbing people that I can't stand. So I very much do not like to be in an echo chamber of my own thinking. I watch and experience people that I vehemently disagree with because it helps me get stronger in my debate skills. So in this particular podcast or live stream or whatever, it was Russell, Brandon, Sam Harris, and ironically on this particular topic, I tended to be with Sam Harris, who I can't stand. Um, I'm sure Sam is not watching this, but sorry, dude, it's not unpersonal. I. It's not that I can't stand you. I can't stand the way that you convey your ideas and how clearly you are stuck in an echo chamber that you can't get yourself out of. I hope you can get. Get yourself out of it at some point. So neither here nor there in this live stream, they somehow get on this topic of how in Muslim cultures there tends to. Not all, but in Muslim cultures there tends to be this overlay of child brides and systematic rape of women slash young women. And Russell Brand, bless his heart, at some point in his sort of like warped progressive. I don't know what he was doing at the time. And this isn't to denigrate progressive thinking, but just I feel like this is the. It's the system that he was functioning at the time that caused him to make a statement like this. He basically said, and I'm paraphrasing here, who are we to decide, you know, what's right and wrong? If that's right based on their culture? Isn't that just us being white, colonialist Now I use this example. I know that it's trigger central in a variety of ways, but if you're going to sit here and tell me that maybe it's my white colonialist perspective that a child, a female child, should not be married and raped by an old man, I'm going to tell you you've fully lost your marbles. And I'll feel really good when I say that. So. And for what it's worth, I think Russell Brand at this point would probably be cringe central at hearing himself say that. But it just goes to show you, if at some point you're like, it's white colonialism, who are we to question why people do things? Are we saying that there isn't a moral standard? Are we saying that, I mean, maybe should, should children have the right to be married off to 60, 70 year old men and raped? Because obviously a child can't give consent. I feel like that's something. We've completely descended. Full blown chaos. We can't like at that point, if that's where we're at, God bless us, we shouldn't have nuclear weapons. We're totally screwed. But I digress. The point here is we get ourselves into this place where there's no truth anymore. We can't. We're now going to argue whether something's right or wrong. And it's like, well, who are we to say if that's right or wrong? And then all of a sudden now you layer in this like you can't even give an opinion on what's right or wrong because of your skin color, which by the way is racism. But whatever. I guess that falls, that falls flat with some people. And this is the point. Parts work, shadow work, all you can see these things all, they're all working in the same system which is ultimately divide, confuse, create chaos, not name, separate, call out the error, integrate and heal. Right. If we were to go do that process, our world would look very different. The separate divide. Find a way to justify, excuse or rationalize some of these darker, more maladaptive aspects of ourself or maybe even pitch them as spiritual or play around with them because maybe there's some deeper truth that's waiting to emerge. That's where we run ourselves into the problem that we're at today, which is very much, I think, a world that has predominantly two groups. Group A believes that there is an objective truth. And if we all did our part to seek via evidence in the scientific method to arrive at that objective truth, we could get there and Those who believe that there is no objective truth and that truth is what we decide it is. And those are the people that unfortunately distort and manipulate language. Because as we're gonna see later in this episode, language is one of the primary ways that our brain organizes and makes sense of our world. And to be clear, it's one of the reasons that I am concerned is an understatement. I am concerned about shadow work and parts work like ifs, which we're gonna go into in particular for certain types of people. And this is not an episode to speak poorly on those things. I feel like my job is to help you understand the moving mechanisms of systems so that if that system is actually put on a pedestal by society, I'm like, this system is totally great. I would rather you be able to take the blinders off, see a system and its mechanisms for what it is and potentially protect yourself from it because you understand what its inherent goals are. And sadly, I do think we live in a world where many of the things that are put up on a pedestal and presented as great often have a sinister underbelly or an aspect underlying that might not be again, like front facing. It's not what they're pitching to you on the front face, but the back end mechanisms are obvious if you know what to look for. And that is what we are going into today. You know that everything I do in my work is built on sustainable transformation to me. And I say this to my clients all the time in break method. Part of the reason reason I make you work for it. I could just give you all the answers and if you did what I told you to do, it would work. But if I did that, you would become dependent on me. And I don't want to do that to you, and I certainly don't want to do that to myself. I want to equip you to be able to do this for yourself for the rest of your life. Creating emotional and financial codependency is not in the best interest of any human being. And unfortunately, in today's marketing bro culture, everything's like the next level, the next hook, the next. I have no desire desire to do that whatsoever. I always tell people with break, like, get in, get out, high five me, change your life and then go be a better actual human out in the world. Pay that forward at Starbucks, at the grocery store, at the gas station, and your family and your work. And little by little, that has brought me many clients because when that person changes and they're able to now be the Example of what a changed or renewed life looks like. People around them that once knew that person to be an a hole are like I, you know, a Harry met Sally moment. I'll have what she's having. Your brain isn't broken, it's running. An old code break method is a system that maps your neurological patterns, decodes your emotional distortions and rewires your behavior fast. No talk therapy spiral, no getting stuck in your feelings, just logic based rewiring. In 20 weeks or less. Head to breakmethod.com and see what your brain is for really up to. So we know that sustainable transformation requires a shift in your behavior. And to shift your behavior you have to shift your perception. There's no getting around that. We think we see something in our world, we define it, we constrain it. Our brain does that by the way with language. And we in turn feel something downstream of what we just decided we saw. So if I see something that looks scary to me, I'm going to start to experience the emotional state of fear. If somebody who had a very different life than me is in that same situation, they're not going to experience that as fear. Let me give you a real easy example of this. You guys. I hate elevators. I hate elevators so much. I'm so claustrophobic. I even hate locking bathroom doors. Okay you guys, I do it but I've got no chill there. There's a part of me every time I go to open the bathroom door. Did I experience some sort of serious trauma here? Yeah, I think most likely. But literally to this day I'm a 41 year old woman who pretty much has her shiz knit together. Still to this day if I have locked the bathroom door, every time I go to unlock it, there's a part of me that's like but what if? Okay, so this is, this is my kryptonite. Locking bathroom doors, elevators. Now most of you would be like busy. That's, that's insane. And listen, I agree with you, I do. If I were to go hit the elevator button and go stand there and wait for the elevator doors to open, do you have any idea how much fear would be coursing through my body? Extreme amounts. I literally can't think of anything scarier than that. I can tell you 10 scary things I'd rather do other than that. But that's me, right? That is how my brain pattern and my experiences constrain my thinking in that moment. So I could be right next to Gordon who hits the button, is standing there waiting for the door to open. And he's like, do to do. Having the best day of his life. So what's ultimately the difference? We're experiencing the same objective reality. We both did the same thing. The difference is how we are patterned and programmed. So believe me when I tell you how we are individually patterned and how our brain starts to constrain and define our world through language will determine everything about the behavior that comes next. I'm gonna be like, sweating and shaking and tapping my foot. Gordon might be scrolling on social gram, social media, socialgram hashtag scrolling on social media, thinking about whether he wants to have a burger or Mac and cheese. Let me tell you, the last thing I'd be able to think about in that moment would be, so what's the truth? Right. The truth in this moment is that I have a phobia of elevators and he does not. The same objective thing actually took place. So what we have to be really aware of in these moments is how our pattern distorts our perception. And we have to start to poke holes in that distorted perception so that we can actually set ourselves free. So as an example, I had to go. I was invited into a program at Johns Hopkins University. Of course, I found out. Guess what floor like the 24th floor. Every single day, I'm sweating buckets as I'm hitting that button. I went up and I did it, and I survived. But do I walk whenever possible? Heck, yeah, I do. The point here is when we don't understand how our perception can become distorted and we don't learn to actually meet some of those errors or those discrepancies head on, we actually start to separate out more. And this is very readily available in some of these sort of shadow work parts, work sorts of practices. So I firmly believe that separation is in direct opposition with healing. Healing should mean integration, unification, and ultimately becoming whole rather than anchoring in any sort of further separation. When we're talking about separating and creating distinction and allowing certain things to exist and almost seeing inherent value in their existence or something to learn from their existence, we run the risk of not fully healing. And healing means integration and unification, becoming whole rather than further anchoring and defining these separate pieces. And believe me, separation further influences delusion. And the entire body of my work proves that more people than you would like to admit actually live in a very deep delusion, and they see it as objective reality. So when we're talking about creating these sort of allowances or individual identities for each facet or shadow, we run the risk of that person actually fracturing their sense of objective reality. And instead of unifying and creating sort of correction to each of the distortions, each of the distortions actually end up being built up with their own sort of Persona or personality. And then people get to kind of put them on like a mask, like, I'm going to be this today. I'm going to be this today. And you're going to hear a story in a little bit about one of my clients who did this. And I want to be really clear. This is not just Jungian shadow work that has created this sort of delusion disaster. All parts work builds on a similar sort of idea, and it ultimately just ends up organized differently. Instead of describing internal experiences as unconscious material, it frames them as distinct parts within the mind, each with its own role, perspective and function. And one of the most well known models of this is internal family systems, which was developed by Richard Schwartz. In this ifs sort of model, internal experiences are organized into defined roles and they are treated as separate aspects of the self. At the surface level, both approaches are describing something that is real. It's the experience of internal conflict, the sense that different reactions, emotions or impulses show up at different moments. Right. We are, after all, multifaceted, often incongruent beings. But this is where the problem starts. What often feels like multiple parts is actually, according to my work, and the 12 years of bringing this work into the global awareness is actually generated by a single underlying pattern. In brain pattern mapping, we track nine distinct markers. Two tell us how you perceive reality and distort that base level reality. 3 Tell us how you respond emotionally and biochemically in early, transitional and late stages. And four tell us what behavior markers occur in what order. So again, early, transitional and late stage. Once we understand these nine markers, we can explain to you what parts you would be easily duped into describing as shadow or apart, when ultimately it's coming from changes or transitions in rules that your brain is using to quite literally just define reality. And these all come from early childhood experiences. So you actually can rewire this whole system through unification and calling out the errors and getting your brain to actually readjust or correct back to objective reality without giving any of these sort of maladaptive or negative coping mechanisms anymore time behind the microphone or the wheel of your life and without sadly, actually building them their own identity and Persona. Unfortunately, I have seen this far too many times segue into a DID or multiple personality disorder like state. I'm not saying that that this always turns into that, but quite often I have seen Especially in the residential therapeutic space, this become something that in teens use to express dissociative identity or multiple personality like states. And under the guise of things like ifs, this is totally normal. It's totally normal, you guys. So this problem is, it's a profound problem. As soon as you start to separate into multiple parts, instead of understanding things under one core pattern, now we just naturally start to justify and break apart different pieces and we don't look for their interconnectedness anymore. And I think bigger picture, we don't seek to stop them. Right. It's almost like it's a piece of us that's wanting to be expressed. Well, what would you say if that piece that wants to be expressed turns into a serial killer or like a serial cheater or an addict? Right. Sometimes when it's. It's when the maladaptive behavior, the negative coping mechanism becomes something that we all would describe as deviant or criminal, then it's like, oh, okay, well, that's where we draw the line. Can I tell you? And you know, sometimes I have to sit with this on my drive to work. And today was one of those days where I'm sitting with my son who's 12, and we're having a conversation. And Zev, bless his heart, is like, mom, I'm pretty sure most people in the world are crazy. And I was like, yeah, but that's sadly true. And he goes, and a lot of the people who aren't are made to feel crazy by the people who are. And I was like, damn. Yeah. Even my, my daughter with special needs in the background, she. She likes to do a single clap. So she hears this and she's like, single clap? Unfortunately, this is true. And practices like what we're talking about unfortunately really appeal to those types of people. And unfortunately it often gets worse. So think of it like this. If you're separating out parts, you're starting to understand your shadow or where the shadow came from, and you're almost giving it again like an allowance or its own Persona, then you're starting to learn how to language it. As part of me wants this or part of me wants that, or part of me feels this way. When a client is being taught to language things this way, they are moving far away from integration. Example, let's say that a part of me, and I've seen this again way too many times, you guys. So in particular, this sort of shadow work parts work side of people who have experienced sexual abuse. This is one of the more common things that I see. And this is you know, certainly I've had experiences of sexual abuse. This isn't coming from a place of judgment at all. Often, as many of you know, sexual abuse history tends to cause one of two things. You either become promiscuous and you seek to kind of replay aspects of your abuse cycle. Or in some cases, people get very shut down and reclusive and completely want nothing to do with any sort of sexual encounter. Now, with this in mind, knowing that I've, I've had a lot of clients come out of things like, you know, Jungian shadow work, parts work, ifs into break method. There's often this explanation of how there are these parts of the client that likes, you know, living on the edge sexually, and they end up then using that to justify perhaps BDSM or certain types of kink or pornography. Right. Well, part, you know, it's just this is a part of me that likes to be expressed. Well, what if I could show you that that part of you that's looking to be expressed through kink or some sort of BDSM actually could ultimately be healed so that you wouldn't need to seek out that negative coping mechanism or maladaptive response and actually could be in a committed, monogamous, really lovely relationship. Often doing the parts work has you believe that this aspect of needs to be expressed. And I'm learning something about it through its expression when the reality is. Very often I'm then left to help a client like this pick up the pieces of being led to believe that watching their life spiral out of control, descend into chaos. Because guess what, that stuff's addictive. If you keep doing it, then you're escalating and it's probably tied into a fear of shame pattern. Go back to my psychology of shame episode where if you could just excuse my language, cut the shit, just get to the core pattern and do the rewiring without letting yourself be duped into justifying negative or destructive coping mechanisms. Because a part of me wants this. You wouldn't have to clean up so much mess after the fact. And if you can feel that I'm frustrated, I am frustrated because I do have to do the cleanup up. A large part of my work personally with clients is cleaning up stuff from parts work, ifs shadow work, medicine, journeys, but also things like exposure therapy. If you go back to that intrusive thoughts episode, I can't tell you how often that happens, even with clients who had previously been trans identifying. We are so easily manipulated and deceived, you guys. And if you don't Put up in like as your North Star, the desire to seek truth and healing and true unification. The chances that these healing practices that you're engaging in are actually going to take you on a twisty, turny, chaotic journey are extremely high.

[B]

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever noticed how you can know something is unhealthy and still do it anyway? You know you shouldn't react that way in an argument.

[A]

You know that habit isn't good for you.

[B]

You know that that thought pattern is irrational. And yet somehow your brain runs the same loop again. This is where a lot of personal development goes wrong. Awareness alone doesn't change the brain. Repeated behavioral input does. Your brain changes through neuroplasticity, through the pathways you strengthen with action, not just awareness. And that is exactly why I created Renew youw Mind. This program sits at the intersection of neuroscience, behavioral rewiring and. And biblical teaching around the command to renew your mind. Inside this program, I walk through what's

[A]

actually happening in the brain when patterns

[B]

form, why your prefrontal cortex shuts down under emotional pressure, and how specific behaviors activate areas like the anterior mid cingulate cortex, which is responsible for resilience, discipline, and the ability to push through discomfort. But the most important thing we talk about is pattern opposition. Because if you want a new life, you can't keep feeding the same neural

[A]

pathways that created the old one.

[B]

One scripture says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. But most people were never taught how to actually do that. Renew your mind gives you the framework to begin interrupting destructive patterns, strengthen your ability to regulate emotion and build the emotional resilience that is required to become a new creation. If you've ever felt like your reactions, habits, or emotional patterns are running your life instead of the other way around,

[A]

this program was built for you.

[B]

Renew your mind can be accessed at Stan store busygold.

[A]

So the core problem that we're trying to pull through here is that instead of identifying and changing an underlying pattern, these models are often organizing the output of the pattern. So the pattern itself, they're giving a structure to, they're giving an identity to it, and they're giving a space for it to exist. So instead of calling it for what it is, this is a maladaptive behavior. This is a destructive behavior. This is self sabotage. They're actually separating it out and quite literally giving it a Persona. So the fragmentation process feels explained. And once it feels explained to you, you might feel better because you're like, oh, I feel so much better understanding these parts of me right that is the trick. Mental health is a byproduct of integration, of coherence and stability inside of a unified system. So when internal experiences are structured into separate identities, your system is organizing around division instead of integration. And there's no way around that. I was working at a residential therapeutic school back in, I don't know, 2021, 2022. It was a while ago and I was working predominantly with clients who were between 14, but most of them, I think were between 15 and 17. There were quite a few clients that I was making a lot of progress with. And then they'd come in for a session and I don't mean to be laughing because this is honestly like I, I laugh when I get mad, I'm mad about this. We'd be making a lot of progress. And then I had, I'll give you this example. I had a client come in that would be talking to me about something and she'd all of a sudden start talking about a different name. And I'm like, yeah, but who's this person? Isn't your name X? I'm obviously not going to say their name. She's like, oh yeah, this is me. And my therapist decided to give this part of me a different identity. And I'm like, okay, do you agree that all of the behaviors that you just described and the thinking that you just described is not in. And I put her name in your best interest? And she's like, yeah, yeah. But it's a part of me that my therapist really wants to explore. She thinks that in exploring it, I may learn new things about myself. Now this person already had a very unstable. What's the good word to use to describe this? She had a very unstable perception of reality anyways. Was very easily manipulated and coerced by peers, was very, very susceptible to social and societal peer pressure. Right? So this is a person that's easily kind of manipulated. Anyways, so as soon as the therapist is like, let's give this thing another. All of a sudden, fast forward, I meet with them again five or six weeks later, guess what? Now they're going by this other name. Because you know what? Now they're getting more attention from their peers from having this other name. So if I person A know that there's these five behaviors that when I do them, it causes conflict in my life. I push the buttons of people I love. It makes them not trust me anymore. My grades go down. I essentially act like a codependency seeking love addict. What benefit is there to my therapist telling me oh, we'll just name that this and this way. When you're feeling this way, you describe it with this name. And we'll try to understand where this part of you is coming from and what aspect of you needs to be healed. Giving that person the ability to separate out the Persona, name it differently, and actually give it time behind the microphone without calling it for what it is strengthens that pattern. And I watched this client come back again and again and again, eventually literally going by the name of this part that her therapist had encouraged her to identify. Now, we talked about how language shape, structure, and if I've learned anything from my 12 years in building break method and predictive mind, it's that our brain uses language as its primary fuel source and it then generates language to describe what we think we are seeing and feeling. And when our language creates separation and division, even in some cases, like what I just described with the boarding school of naming their parts differently, we see a strong fracturing of reality and subsequent behaviors translate as chaotic and unstable. So consider this language. I notice I'm triggered by X and it's tricking me into justifying Y behavior. Great. Makes sense. In this case, I see how Y behavior is directly opposed to my goals and my conscious desires. I'm like, okay, I can see how I'm getting deceived into justifying this next step, which I know will actually do downstream harm and create a mess that I don't want to clean up later. So if I can make myself aware of that in the moment, instead of identifying with the destructive behavior and being like, I like to let it out to play sometimes I'm going to help myself become aware of how that's tied to something else else. Now let's do it. The parts work way. This part of me likes why, and it's a part of me that should be able to be expressed without shame or judgment. When we're thinking this, it's like saying I am this part and it stabilizes it into your identity. All I can say about that is a full blown yikes. This experience becomes very relevant for individuals who already experience some sort of identity instability, emotional inconsistency. So kind of like emotional disregulation where, you know, maybe they would self describe it as they're moody. Any sort of psychological mechanisms like splitting, deflection, projection, blame shifting, those who experience avoidance and withdrawal, and of course all cluster B disorders. We've been talking a lot about cluster B disorders in our whole gaslighting projection obsession episode. So if you want to go Back to those. It's a great, great little thread. Unfortunately, a lot of what we're talking about today, it's. I feel like we often are talking about the same orbit of people over and over again. More often than not. These are the people that I end up seeing, right Where. When we do brain pattern mapping. And I realize I have, I'm sure, a skewed sample because people are attracted to our marketing or advertising or whatever, or whatever else. And obviously, I'm also not necessarily attracting healed people, right? We're a mental health program. So people aren't like, my life is perfect. I'm gonna, you know, open Pandora's box. So I realize that I have a skewed sample as well. But I will say it has become crystal clear to me over the 12 years that I've been doing this, and in particular over the last four years of constantly parsing through brain pattern data. We are just much more mentally ill than we even think we are as a human collective. And it scares me. It scares me how fractured people's mental states are that I meet with day in and day out. And if we know that that's where the average person is operating from, and then we're pitching things like this or like ketamine therapy, we're now participating in something that will completely bring us to our knees. When anything that we are doing reinforces fragmentation and splitting, we are naturally going to make our mental health outcomes even worse than they are right now. And I'm pretty sure no one listening to or watching this podcast would be like, we're doing great, guys. Humankind, totally mentally stable, right? So if you have familiarity with the brain pattern spectrum, what ends up naturally happening are those who are on the far left and far right have more volatility. So there's more emotional dysregulation and volatility on both sides. This can also cluster with things like paranoia, with anger outbursts, right? So those tend to sit on the far left and right sides. In cases of schizophrenia, we see schizophrenia cases on the far left and the far right right. The cluster B disorders and other brain patterns that mimic cluster B disorders are on that far right side as well, but kind of from the middle right out to the far right, for the most part, those that are in the center of the spectrum, there's not a lot of emotional upheaval. There's not a lot of volatility. We tend to have more people pleasing patterns, and very rarely do we see people in these spaces even care to reach for work like what we're talking about. The irony, I think, is that the people who are the least suited psychologically to engage in parts work, shadow work, medicine journeys, are the ones who are attracted to it, right? This is kind of the whole farce of all of it, is that if your preferences can dictate how you're choosing your healing experience, we've already lost the plot lot because your brain pattern is what's guiding that. And you're going to like things that aren't actually the right things, right? Medicine isn't supposed to feel good. Medicine isn't supposed to taste good. For something to be medicine, it has to be opposite. So ironically, those who are on the middle of the brain pattern spectrum, the people pleasers who do things in a kind of monotonous, repetitive way, don't take a lot of risk. There's not a lot of reward. They've had the same job forever. Those are actually the people that, that may benefit from things like shadow work or parts work, but they're rarely the people that participate in it. The people that reach for that work are the people that are on these far sides that are the absolute least suited for it whatsoever. When a behavior is experienced as separate, it gains space to operate. And that space allows maladaptive coping mechanisms to continue and often continue to be justified. Patterns that require interruption become maintained within that system. Think about words like this. I know this is unhealthy, but I just really need to let this part of me have time to, you know, just be experienced and to be expressed or embodied. This could also be quiet justification or even compartmentalized hidden patterns of evasiveness that people keep. Now, I think one of the scariest overlays here is now the overlay of medicine spaces, psychedelic work, spiritual identity frameworks, or expanded states of consciousness. With this I would include some types of holotropic breath work. These environments amplify your internal experience and more importantly, they increase your attachment to altered states of perception, emotion. And in most cases they're causing you to over assign symbolic meaning to what you're experiencing, which makes it really challenging to get out of of. And if you want to listen to a great episode that I did with this, ironically on the psychedelic network with Dr. David Dave Rabin, go to. It's called the Psychedelic Report. We did a really in depth discussion on this particular topic. And to be clear, I'm not just like solely against psychedelics. I think far too often, as I describe with shadow work, parts work, the people that are drawn to it are often the people that should not do it. And Dr. Rabin agreed that there needs to be a better process to help create an exclusion where people know, okay, you are not actually a good candidate for this because far too often I've seen it fracture someone further rather than help it integrate. So when you are experiencing this crossover of the shadow work, parts work with the psychedelics, which by the way, nearly every IFS client I've had also works with psychedelics. So I don't know if that is an intentional partnership or that is just again like attracting like. But as I mentioned, it makes sense that people like that would be attracted to that work because in a way it justifies and rationalizes the parts of themselves that likely cause shame and fracturing anyways. And instead of doing the actual work to face them head on and get rid of them for good, it's allowed them to exist in a way that feels maybe structured enough to feel safe, but still allows the mechanism itself to live on, ultimately not ever getting them to a healed state. So when psychedelics get paired with an identity based framework like parts work, the internal experience is going to become intensified and personalized and instead of observing patterns and seeking to heal or rewire them, people start to identify with them. And you guys, not to get weird here for a second, but I know that we've had some conversations where we're talking about what happens in the spirit realm. The spiritual implications of this are profound. I have had way too many clients not to get weird and woo and talk about entities. You know, whether you want to call them entities or negative energy or demons or whatever you want to call them. When you are opening yourself up like that and you're already somebody who's naturally fractured and not integrated and your self deception patterns or themes are not clearly identified, it's so easy for you to be tricked into allowing something into your body and your biofield that does not belong there, isn't you. And now you've given it full blown access and now because it's paired with some sort of spiritual epiphany, you're now seeing this as an aspect of yourself that now needs to be somehow revered or given extra attention to. And I have seen this destroy so many lives of people who went into it stable and came out unstable, ironically, people who are control freaks and it's kind of where I was going back to the medicine thing. People who are control freaks and very like structured and or like, you know, self contained and they don't like a lot of risk, that sort of type of person, that person Actually really could benefit from psychedelic work if it's done in the right sort of container. And they looking at brain pattern markers, they don't have an early six. Having an early six, which is a behavior category is an absolute non starter for psychedelic word or any sort of parts work. So keep that in mind. Often if you are the type of person that's like, ooh, that looks cool, it's probably not medicinal. The stuff that works is the stuff that you're like, ugh, I don't want to do that. That's what makes it work. Rewiring is through pattern opposition, period. That's it. You can't heal by doing the same shit that you've been doing. That's it. Episode over. Just kidding. Emotional and mental healing require integration to bring your system back into alignment. Your perception has to remain stable, your behavior should remain predictable, and your responses should hold consistently across different situations and states. Right? That is integration where you can, you can unify your behavior instead of being like, I'm this part here and this part there. When a framework introduces separation or structures internal experience into distinct identities, you are going to become vulnerable to delusion, period. Once perception loses coherence, the system can disintegrate rapidly. And this is why it's so important to consider how your unique brain pattern organizes itself around experience and behavior before you're so quick to adapt yourself into a model that may actually bring about your total destruction. What appears to create clarity can often reinforce the fragmentation that just allows your pattern to keep living on. For some individuals, this becomes one of the most significant risks that you ever will engage in without fully examining the long term consequences. Something in your healing process is always organizing you. So the question I want you to think about is what is it organizing you into? Is it organizing you into parts with different Personas? Or an integrated, unified whole whose behavior is stable and consistent, not easily susceptible to peer pressure, not easily manipulated by mental influence, because that is where human collective radically changes. I hope this episode highlighted the dangers of some of this work and gets you to think twice about something and even just your own natural preferences. Anytime you're like, oh, that looks cool if I've taught you anything. As soon as you're like, that's cool, I want you to think about, is this cool to a part of me that's still begging to be healed, or is this medicine? Right? Medicine. Pattern opposition is what gets us to the other side in a way that is sustainable and changes the world. I'll see you guys next week.