Podcast Summary: You Make Sense with Sarah Baldwin

Episode: From Fragmented to Whole: Tools to Tangibly Reparent Your Younger Parts
Date: September 30, 2025
Host: Sarah Baldwin, SEP

Overview

In this episode, Sarah Baldwin offers a comprehensive, tangible roadmap for reparenting fragmented parts of ourselves—those younger, wounded inner selves that drive our emotions and behaviors. Drawing from neuroscience, somatic experiencing, and parts work (IFS), Sarah explains how trauma fragments us and how reparenting is essential for healing, self-liberation, and living a fuller life. The episode moves from theoretical grounding to rich, practical tools, ending with a candid Q&A that explores practical concerns of listeners.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Foundation: Understanding "Parts"

[01:00 – 12:30]

• What Are Parts & How Do They Form?

  • We start life as one whole being, but trauma—ranging from overwhelming events to chronic unmet needs—causes parts of ourselves to “fragment off.”
  • These aren’t separate personalities, but rather, versions of ourselves—each stuck in the time of their wounding.
  • Quote: “Your soul, your body, your life force wants to come back into wholeness. It knows how to do that… and is just waiting for the conditions necessary to make that happen.” (Sarah, 04:28)

• Parts and the Nervous System

  • The neuroceptive systems (brainstem threat detector and interoception) search internal and external cues, reactivating old parts when there’s a “flavoring” of past threats.
  • Example: Moving to a new city triggers the same feelings as a bullied sixth grader.

2. Types of Parts: Vulnerable, Protectors, and Self

[12:30 – 18:35]

• Vulnerable Parts:
  • Hold the original wounds—pain, shame, fear of not belonging.
• Protectors:
  • Develop to keep the vulnerable parts from being hurt again; may show up as hypervigilance, perfectionism, avoidance, or people-pleasing.
  • Quote: “Their job is to ensure that the bad thing doesn’t happen again… always trying to ensure the vulnerable part never has to feel that pain again.” (Sarah, 14:55)
• Self (“Adult You”):
  • The grounded, present-moment adult capable of choosing and attuning wisely; our truest core.
  • Quote: “When we are in our truest self, our adult self, we feel anchored, present, here, able… That’s what we’re all wanting to experience.” (Sarah, 17:01)
  • Sarah uses lions in nature (or any calm animal) as an embodiment model for “Self energy.”

3. Why Reparent? From Beautiful Prisons to Freedom

[19:45 – 23:15]

• The Cost of Unreparented Parts:
  • Unmet parts and overactive protectors can result in “beautiful prisons”—a seemingly regulated but actually limited, inhibited life.
  • Common signs: Inability to connect to purpose, chronic dysregulation, insomnia, chronic illness, or a “stuck” feeling.
  • Often, the things we desire most are exactly what was dangerous or forbidden in our past.
• The Path Forward:
  • True healing is allowing parts to rest, ending suffering, so you can be free: “We don’t reparent our parts for the sake of doing it. We reparent so we can end their suffering, which ends our suffering. That allows you to be free.” (Sarah, 23:23)

4. Holistic Model—You Make Sense Program

[25:05 – 28:14]

• Sarah shares how her integrated program combines parts work (IFS), somatic experiencing, boundaries, and attachment theory—identifying the importance of working holistically rather than in fragmented modalities.
• Quote: “What I realized was how much each of these modalities need each other like a web… so you don’t have to go to multiple clinicians.” (Sarah, 27:19)

5. The Practical Process: Tangible Steps for Reparenting

[28:15 – 47:30]

Step 1: Build Capacity to Anchor in Adult Self (Self-Energy) [28:24]

• Regulation First: Must be regulated to not “freak out” at our parts’ overwhelm.
• If you try reparenting from a protector part, it’s like “an 8-year-old trying to soothe a 6-year-old.”
• Key Practice: Rehearse and anchor physical feelings of “adult you” (aligned spine, open chest, safe, capable).
  • “You have to work the muscle of being an adult you.” (Sarah, 29:50)

Step 2: Differentiate from Your Parts [32:45]

• Most people are “overcoupled”—they think they ARE their part rather than seeing it as one aspect.
• Practices:
  • Recall a moment of being “adult you;” write down the feelings/sensations.
  • Then connect to a vulnerable part or protector, ask how old they are, what they feel, what they want to say.
  • Tools: “As if”—Imagine talking to a child who feels what your vulnerable part feels; what would you do/say?
• Quote: “There is nothing that any 5-year-old could do that would make them bad… They are not inherently bad. They are inherently innocent and good.” (Sarah, 34:52)

Step 3: Introduce Your Self to the Parts [36:20]

• Many internal parts do NOT know you’ve grown up; they respond as if the world is still unsafe.
  • Practice: “Have them look at you; ask them how old do you think I am?”
  • Walk them through a “film strip” of your life so they see you now as an adult.

Step 4: Build a Relationship—Consistent, Daily Contact [38:08]

• Consistency: Show up daily. It’s not enough to comfort parts only when they’re upset.
• Tangible Practice:
  • Imagine caring for a foster child; what daily rituals would create safety and trust?
  • Create gentle reminders—photos, notes, morning or evening rituals shared with your parts.

Step 5: Comforting in Distress—Attuned, Fierce Presence [41:45]

• The role of the “ferocious defender”—being both wildly protective and deeply attuned/soft.
  • Let parts know: “I am not afraid of what scares you. I will defend you at all costs.”
  • Quote: “They need you to be soft and attuned and ferociously protective… That’s what your parts need to feel in your system.” (Sarah, 43:27)

Consistency is Key:

• “When this happens… I am free to live the life I am here to live. And all parts of me are free too.” (Sarah, 47:23)

Q&A Segment

Starts at [31:11]

1. Do You Need to Know the Exact Age of Each Part?

[31:11 – 37:38]

• Summary: No—you don’t need to identify the precise age of every part. Focus on the primary few (the major wounds and their associated protectors). Healing these can ripple out to many others.
• Developmental Stage Matters: Attunement changes depending on whether the part is preverbal, a young child, or a teenager, because “the way you comfort a preverbal baby is very different than the way you comfort a 17-year-old.” (Sarah, 35:29)
• Use your body’s memory (“When was the first time I felt this way?”) rather than your mind.

2. How Do You Move Through Anger, Resentment, and Rage Towards Abusive/Neglectful Parents?

[38:11 – 51:45]

• Personal Journey: Sarah shares her trajectory—initial inability to feel anger (it was unsafe as a child), then experiencing healthy aggression as she built safety and capacity, before finally accessing righteous anger and releasing it in a somatic context.
• Key Practice: True healing happens in the body, often requiring repetition, safety, and guided therapeutic work.
  • Quote: “That energy [anger] became the appropriate rage. And in a therapeutic container, I was able to feel the appropriate response to the experience… my organism took over.” (Sarah, 47:07)
• Outcome: Eventually, Sarah felt true indifference and release from her relationship to her perpetrator—her parts no longer looked for care from unsafe people, and the “reparenting” was complete.
• Quote (on release): “All I kept saying over and over was, ‘I am everything and I am nothing...’ It was one of the most profoundly spiritual moments of my life.” (Sarah, 50:15)

3. Why Is Basic Self-Care So Hard for Some, Even if High-Functioning?

[54:03 – 62:17]

• Possible Causes:
  • Childhood neglect or lack of modeling (never learned how to attune to and meet needs).
  • Survival or “freeze” response—cut off from one’s own body and self-needs.
  • Overriding survival patterns (e.g., ignoring pain).
  • “It can even feel like it’s babying ourselves to take care of ourselves.”
• Practical Tool:
  • Set up systems as if you were caring for a young child (e.g. putting iron supplements where you see them, with notes). Start with one thing at a time.
  • Celebrate progress, fall in love with the process, and recognize nobody is a finished product.

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “You make sense. All parts, always.” (Sarah, 00:08)
• On Protectors: “You can run a giant company with a hundred thousand employees and be in a protective part, not be in your adult self.” (Sarah, 16:25)
• On Reparenting: “You become the home your parts have been waiting for… When this happens, we are safe to take risks in the world. We aren't looking for anyone to rescue us. And that means every relationship is additive.” (Sarah, 46:50)
• On Healing: “You never have to do this work with the people who harmed you, ever. The beautiful thing is we can do all this work in our therapeutic containers.” (Sarah, 48:20)
• Transformational Release: “It was the most beautiful experience of darkness… and it was the first time I felt totally free in my life… I am everything and I am nothing.” (Sarah, 50:15)
• On Self-Care: “None of us are a finished product… I know the pioneers in my field, and I can tell you, they are not finished products. We’re all on our journey.” (Sarah, 58:38)

Notable Timestamps

• 00:15 – Introducing parts work & overall purpose
• 12:30 – Explaining protectors and how they operate
• 16:45 – The concept of Self energy
• 23:24 – Why reparenting matters; “beautiful prison” metaphor
• 28:15 – Steps to tangible reparenting work start
• 31:11 – Q&A with Rachel begins
• 31:38 – “Do I need to know the age of each part?”
• 38:11 – On moving through anger and resentment to freedom
• 54:03 – “Why is self-care so hard even when high functioning?”

Final Thoughts & Resources

Sarah shares that consistent, loving, attuned contact with our fragmented parts creates inner safety and empowerment, allowing us to choose growth and freedom instead of survival-driven limitation. She normalizes the non-linear, layered nature of the journey, and reminds listeners that they are not broken—each part makes sense given their history.

• Further resources: Sarah’s “You Make Sense” program, free quiz for somatic healing, and her email community (linked in show notes).

This episode is a must-listen for those seeking not just “why” they feel stuck, but exactly “how” to begin reparenting, loving, and reclaiming the wholeness that trauma scattered. Sarah’s vulnerability and precision offer a rare, powerful blend of clinical wisdom and lived experience.