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Inner Healing

When You Feel Unwanted—Meeting the Parts of You That Long to Belong with IFS Therapist Tammy Sollenberger

Episode Notes

What do you do with the ache of not feeling wanted? The part of you that wonders if you’ll ever truly belong?

In this powerful conversation with IFS therapist and author Tammy Sollenberger, we explore how the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model helps you turn toward those tender places inside—rather than pushing them away.

This conversation originally struck a deep chord with listeners—and it feels especially relevant right now. Whether you’re hearing it for the first time or tuning in again, it holds fresh insight for your journey.

Tammy shares:

  • Her personal story of feeling unwanted—even though her parents loved her.
  • Why “parts work” is so transformative in healing emotional wounds
  • How self-compassion opens the door to real connection
  • A simple practice to begin befriending the hurting parts within

If you’ve ever struggled with feeling left out, overlooked, or not enough—this episode will meet you with kindness, insight, and hope.

📘 Learn more about Tammy’s book: ⁠The One Inside⁠

💬 Got a question or reflection? Call 307-429-2525 and leave a message for a future episode.

If you liked this episode, you'll love:

Thanks to our sponsors:

Editing by Giulia Hjort

Sound engineering by Kelly Kramarik

Music by Andy Luiten

While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

© 2025 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage or transcript without permission from the author.

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Episode Transcript:

Alison Cook: Hi friends. It's Dr. Alison. Welcome back. I'm so glad you're here, and if you're new here, I'm so glad you found your way. This is a space where we talk about the intersection of our spiritual lives, psychology and the healing journey from the inside out.

Whether you've been listening for a while or you're just getting started, I'm so glad you're here.

We've been in the middle of some incredible conversations about how we reconnect with the parts of ourselves that carry pain, fear, or doubt,

And today I wanted to bring back one of my favorite episodes and one of the episodes you have shared and re-shared a conversation that beautifully illustrates what the internal family systems model or IFS for short looks like in real life.

My guest, Tammy Sollenberger, is a licensed clinical mental health counselor and IFS certified supervisor and the host of the one inside, one of the very first podcasts to explore the world of IFS. She's also the author of The One Inside: 30 Days to Your Authentic Self.

A simple, practical guide for getting to know your inner world.

And what I love about this conversation with Tammy is that it's not a teaching, it's a story Tammy shares openly about her own childhood and the parts of her that formed in response to early loss and how those parts shaped her experience well into adulthood.

Tammy's story is personal, it's honest and it's filled with insight for anyone learning how to turn inward with compassion.

We also talk about the inside out movies, which have done such a brilliant job bringing parts language into the mainstream.

If you have not seen the first Inside Out movie or the second Inside Out movie Inside Out two that came out last summer, I highly recommend them as a great starting point for beginning to understand this way of viewing our inner lives. These movies are not just for kids. They are for all of us. They help us understand and name the different parts of us that we all carry.

This episode so beautifully illustrates a larger thread that we're constantly weaving throughout the show. And if you wanna go even deeper into Parts Work or IFS, please check out episode 108 with Jenna Rema for a powerful conversation on parts, pain and compassion. And also check out the boundaries for your Soul Series that whole series episodes 39 through 43 is a great companion to what you'll hear today, and you might wanna especially check out episode 43 where my co-author of Boundaries for Your Soul, Kimberly Miller and I talk about taming your inner critic.

We'll link to all of those episodes in the show notes. You can also find them on my website, DrAlisoncook.com/podcast.

Tammy's story is personal, it's honest, and it's full of wisdom. For anyone who's felt unwanted, cast aside, or not enough, I can't wait for you to hear it.

Please enjoy my conversation with my dear friend and fellow therapist, Tammy Sollenberger. 

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[00:03:17] INTERVIEW

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[00:03:17] Alison Cook: Tammy, I just love talking to you always. We always have such great conversations. I'm such a big fan of your podcast, The One Inside. It's such a great resource for anyone who wants to go deeper. And then your book, The One Inside, which I love, it's 30 meditations.

[00:03:34] Tammy: It is 30 days to your authentic self. And so basically what it does is it's a day by day teaches you the IFS model, but it teaches you by going inside and helping you get to know your own system. 

Like what does it mean for me to have parts and how do I pay attention to my parts? And how do I know who is here and how do I know how to track them, and how do I start listening to them? And it just is a very bite-sized way for you to begin to [00:04:00] understand and learn and befriend your own personality.

[00:04:03] Alison Cook: Well, I love it. And you're a seasoned IFS therapist. You do this work all the time. You actually consult with IFS therapists who are getting their certification. You lead some groups in IFS. I mean, you are seasoned in the model. So the fact that you can take something really complicated and distill it into basic principles is actually really hard to do.

And I. Commend you for it, which is why we love this movie Inside Out and the New one Inside Out too, right? Because that's exactly what it's doing. It's taking it out of therapy and into normal, mainstream life. We all have these parts from little kids to ourselves, to our friends, and it's just such a helpful way to think about the people that we love and ourselves at basic level, at the foundational level of the soul, right?

Is we have different parts of us.

[00:04:48] Tammy: I love it. Right? So an inside out has really done just this marvelous job of making this idea mainstream. Anybody any age can really begin to have this language [00:05:00] of a part of me feel sad. A part of me feels mad, a part of me is jealous. A part of me is bored and I'm allowed to speak for them, and I'm allowed to say them, and they make sense.

Like it makes sense that I would have a variety of parts and a variety of different, different emotions running my system. And so, yeah, I think the movie does such a great job of explaining these kind of higher level concepts, but it does such a good job of making it not that complicated.

[00:05:24] Alison Cook: So toward that end, Tammy, I actually am dying to ask you some of these questions 'cause I don't know these aspects of your story. I know a lot about your current life. I know a lot about, you know, as we've gotten to know each other for some reason, I don't know as much about your personal history we're kind of in this series looking at.

These personal stories about when these parts form, like we see RI, right? She's moved across the country, she's got to deal with new friends, new school, all these things, and we see how that. External experience and the way she relates to her family, her parents, her literal parents, begin to shape the development [00:06:00] of the different parts of her.

I would love to learn a little bit more from you if you would be so gracious as to allow us to go back in time for a moment. As you think about your pre-teen. Self. The younger you, the little young. Tammy, what are some of the characters or the parts of yourself that you now understand were parts at the time?

I'm sure you had no sense of that vocabulary, but how do you see that younger you and how she was existing in the world at maybe sixth grade, seventh grade, middle school? I see your face just immediately grow, compassionate and empathetic. That's beautiful.

[00:06:39] Tammy: Yeah, I mean, so Riley is 13 and so, yeah. I mean, this is a huge time of our lives, right? This huge transition, uh, developmentally, physically. So, yeah, I mean, I think because you're, you, and because we have this relationship, it does feel really safe. And I always say on my podcast too, that like I. I'm not thinking about the people listening, I'm just thinking about you.

So I'm just thinking about [00:07:00] my friend Alison, and me and you having this conversation. So it feels really safe for me to sort of share this. And so growing up, my mom and dad were 16 when they had me, my mom was Catholic, they got married and then they got divorced sort of a year or two later.

So my mom was a single mom. My dad was kind of in and out, but I would see him every other weekend and I still have a relationship with him and, I think I was maybe six or seven when my dad married my 

 stepmom and they had three boys. It was just my mom and I till I was 10. And then my mom married my stepdad. He had a daughter that was my age and then they had a daughter. So So basically I have a dad and a stepmom and three brothers. And then I have my mom and my stepdad.

And then I have a sister who's 10 years younger than me.

[00:07:40] Alison Cook: Slow down for a second because talk about a complicated family system. because what I heard in that Tammy, is you have a few half brothers and a half-sister who's 10 years younger, but, and then also a stepsister who's roughly your same age.

That's a lot of change for a [00:08:00] 10-year-old.

[00:08:00] Tammy: it's a lot of change and what I remember is that I was a really happy kid because I, in general, like I'm a really happy sort of sunshiny person, like as an adult and I was, I was a really happy kid that I remember. I.

[00:08:13] Alison Cook: You have a strong

[00:08:15] Tammy: Yes,

[00:08:15] Alison Cook: I see that

[00:08:16] Tammy: yes. I have lots of joy.

[00:08:18] Alison Cook: the movie.

[00:08:18] Tammy: Anger has been completely exiled, but joy is here in abundance and we like joy and sadness is pretty good too.

 But to bring the IFS piece in and a little bit, so my first big training with IFS was I did a week with Dick Swartz at Cape Cod Institute about 11 years ago. So I did this week long workshop with Dick, and there was times where there was. Pieces of teaching, and then there's times where you could work with somebody kind of one-on-one.

And the first big piece of work that I did was this 10-year-old part of me who lost her mom, and I was sobbing, like hysterically crying, and I did not know that was there. but looking back and thinking about it, I'm like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

'cause for me it was me and my mom. And I remember we lived in this little tiny, we call it the beach cottage. We lived in this little tiny beach cottage and we bought, if I remember this correctly, like we, we each had different types of toothpaste that we bought. And, and to me, I had a happy life. Like my poor mom was a single mom and.

You know, 26 years old with a 10-year-old, you know, so working full time, you know. But I'm like, happy as can be. And then all of a sudden into my system, we move, we move across the street. So I go to a different school. All of a sudden there's a stepdad who's the nicest guy. He's a nice guy, but there's this man.

His daughter, who was very, very tough and ended up getting kind of asked to leave our house when we were 16, so there was a lot of stuff there. And then my mom got pregnant. Basically immediately, so you know, by the time I'm 11, I have a baby sister, a stepsister, a stepdad, a new house. And so there was all this loss, and I think that my system basically exiled all this pain.

And so we're just gonna be cheery. We're gonna be a nice girl, we're gonna be a good girl. We're not gonna cause any problems. and I'm not gonna have any feelings. You know, there's not gonna be any pain or sadness and there's nothing about me.

Right. There's no me here. Right. My feelings about losing my mom and what this was like for me, that that wasn't even. Didn't even dawn on me that I could even speak for like what this was like for me until probably 14, probably when puberty hit. I think I just was super emotional and the word comes up for me as sort of like identity, like like, you sort of see Riley, like she's, she's got hockey.

Like I didn't have a thing. Like I was never really good at anything. You know, I was just okay at school. I didn't really care about school. I cared about my friends, just like Riley. You 

 I tried to find different friend groups. I think this is where sort of the church comes in later, you know, when I've done my IFS work, I have this. This exile around not being wanted. Like of course you weren't wanted, you had teenage parents, you weren't wanted, and my parents were really good about saying, you're wanted and you're loved.

And they would say that they were very good, very good about that. But this part of me says, well, the truth is you weren't wanted, like, let's be honest, Tammy, And so I have this. This part that is kind of in, and it'll say like, it's just in my blood, like not being wanted is in my blood.

And so I have then these other parts that do anything that they can do to be wanted. And we see this in the movie with Riley. Where she leaves her really good friends to go with the popular girls, and she makes some really bad decisions. And I think I would've done anything to be wanted, like, just want me, just include me.

Just let me be a part of it. Give me identity. And so I sort of flounder, right? I flounder with friends. I flounder with. Boys, once, you know, high school comes, I'm just wanting to be wanted by boys. And as a three, you know, three is we wanna be successful. And like I wasn't successful at school, I wasn't successful at sports, but it'd be like, okay, but if I wanna be with this boy, that would be the way I could be successful.

Or, you know, being fun or whatever. Like that's, that's how I could be successful. So then my system, when we think about. Parts, there's a lot of protection around this being wanted, and then what happens when I feel unwanted, and so I have all these parts that kind of swirl around the idea of being wanted and unwanted.

[00:12:19] Alison Cook: Gosh, there's a lot in that and I can tell there's also a lot of years of getting to know those. Different parts, and so this is the power of IFS. It makes sense that a part of you picked up burdens all along the way. I would imagine as you started doing the work with Dick 11 years ago, and there were memories that surprised you of things that happened that reinforced that burden.

That wasn't necessarily true, but moments where maybe even your parents were trying not to reinforce that burden, but maybe something happened that did reinforce that burden. Were there some key memories or moments as you've done some of this work as an adult that you would go back to in your mind?

[00:13:08] Tammy: Yeah. I mean that's part of why this work is so powerful is you can go back, but when I go back, it's not traumatic to go back because then I am there with me, the adult leader, the authentic self like I can be. Then with my. You know, sixth grade part that felt like she had no friends and was sitting in the middle school cafeteria and felt this incredible aloneness.

Like, I can go back and be with her in that moment in the way that she needed someone. Whether she needed my mom or she needed a friend. I can go back and be what she needed and really. Get her out of that place that she's in, that she's still in, where she's still, 'cause that's what happens in our bodies is I still have these parts that feel that unwanted ness or the no sense of belonging or these two families.

But I don't exist really in either one of them. I'm not really wanted in either one [00:14:00] of these families, which again, other parts of me say that's not true at all. But there's this burden of I don't fit, I don't fit, and I'm not wanted.

[00:14:08] Alison Cook: We have these rational, logical parts of us, no, no. My parents loved me, but this is what the listener who hasn't experienced this, I want you to understand these are. Stored in our memories. I remember when I was writing Boundaries for Your Soul and we were supposed to come up with stories, and I thought, oh, my stories are just dumb.

the story that I tell in boundaries for your soul of not making the basketball team in, I think it was seventh grade, right? Which is such a formative year. I worked and worked my tail off a good little Enneagram three part of me. I worked at it, I worked hard to make that team. And when the day came and I walked into the locker room and the list of names was up and my name wasn't on that list, the shame that overwhelmed me.

I had bought brand new sneakers that were the sneakers that the real basketball player girls were wearing. And this was in a time when that was a big expenditure. People just didn't throw away money on brand names, sneakers. It was a big deal. Like I got 'em, I think, for a Christmas present, you know? And then I.

Didn't make the team. And I was just mortified and swallowed up by shame because I've had to then wear those sneakers and I didn't make the team right, and my parents actually loved me through that as best they could. It wasn't even like any horrible big T trauma thing that we might think of had happened, but the way that my parts.

Lined up and the way that that story landed in that moment with other things that had happened to me as a child was just this feeling of invisibility. My name is never on the list. I'm always invisible, and I still to this day have to update that part of me. Because I can find all those moments when that happened and I don't notice the moments where, you know, my friends will say, Alison, are you kidding me?

Like you were always on the honor roll. You're always on all these lists. I'm like, didn't matter. I only remember the ones I didn't make and the shame that I felt, and I bring that in. I hear you saying so well, Tammy, and so clearly, right? Those burdens get picked up and sometimes the memories that we have where there's pain are surprising to the logical, rational parts of us.

They're like, but you sometimes don't make the team. It doesn't matter. I had to go back to the place of that memory and be with the young girl who in that moment just buried that feeling of shame deep inside.

[00:16:24] Tammy: Well, in the movie Ri, you know, she has these balls of memory. And what you see in the second movie is she really joy exiles any. Balls that are shame. She sort of puts up in this little sucker thing and just sort of sucks it away and sort of puts it in the basement. And that's what we do with memories or things that don't align.

And so Joy does that with sort of sad things, right? Or shaming things, right? Nope. We're only gonna keep the Happy balls, the happy memories. The happy moments. The little balls that reinforce that we are loved and we are good, and we are happy and we're a good friend, and we're smart and all these beautiful things that we wanna believe.

We're just gonna keep those balls. But what happens is our system, because it's so protective in nature, we sort of hold onto the balls that reinforce that burden. So if I have a burden of being unwanted. my parts like almost are hypervigilant for looking for anything or any one, right? It's sort of that idea of one person says, I don't like you.

It doesn't matter that there's a million people out there that think I'm the best thing in the world. My system's gonna focus on that one person and like highlight that little ball. That memory then is gonna become sort of stored as evidence of my burden.

[00:17:44] Alison Cook: That is so well stated, and I can then imagine as you're going through high school and the social jungle of high school and young adulthood, the exhaustion. Of trying to make sure every guy, every girl, everyone likes you what do you do with the ones who don't want you?

That would just be devastating as opposed to learning, oh, wait a minute. There's another way to go through life in terms of relating to other people. 

[00:18:16] AD BREAK 1

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[00:18:16] Alison Cook: Tammy, as you got older and you brought some of these burdens with you into adulthood, when did you begin to realize, oh, this might not be working?

This strategy for gaining love and gaining a feeling of being wanted might not be working. I.

[00:18:32] Tammy: That's a good question. We talk about the CS of self energy. So authentic self is that leader, that essence of who we are. The divine us inside is this authentic self, and we use these C qualities and a C that is not listed in the c qualities is choice. And we often think about, if I had choice, if I had more perspective, what choices would I make that would be different, right?

If I'm only making choices that are protective in nature. Because my parts are like, I have to make choices to be wanted or not wanted. So I'm gonna pick jobs or hobbies or activities or friends or people that really try to reinforce and sort of create a space of being wanted. And if I get any, uh, feeling that this person isn't really gonna want me, they're not in the club.

So to answer your question, you know, when I was 21, I got really involved in my boyfriend at the time who became my husband. We got married when I was 22 and we got really involved in his church and that really shifted my whole life for. Probably 20 years that I got really involved in church. And that was a community.

I had a good church experience. I have not had a traumatic church experience at all, even though I don't really go to an evangelical church now. But I had a good experience for the most part. But you know, I think that's where sort of the Enneagram three. Busy, the busyness and the tasks and the being good at something.

That's when that started coming into play. When I was in my twenties, like all of a sudden I wasn't chasing boys anymore. I was like, oh, I'm actually not dumb. I'm actually, I'm kind of smart. And so if I take a class. I want an A plus. If I teach this Bible study, it needs to be really good. I need to spend hours on it.

I want everyone to come to my Bible study. Like it really shifted to this sort of idea of being wanted and the idea of success shifted to be really good at this other thing.

[00:20:28] Alison Cook: So, Tammy, is it fair to say on some level your strategy. Just shifted to more either church sanctioned or socially acceptable sanctioned ways, but really you hadn't healed those deeper inner parts of you. You just shifted from getting the affection of boys and popularity to, I'm gonna be the best Bible study leader.

I'm gonna be the best therapist, I'm gonna be the best wife, friend, church member.

[00:20:57] Tammy: would say yes, except for I don't know that I ever wanted. To be the best wife, which I'm so sorry to my ex-husband. But to be completely honest, that that wasn't there. You know it, and, and I can feel that now because now I have a partner and I feel differently. I feel this idea of like, I wanna be a good partner to him.

And I look back and I think, wow, I never felt that way with my husband. Like there was, it was sort of like, yep, got him. Check off the list, turn around. Let's, what else are we doing? 

[00:21:24] Alison Cook: interesting.

[00:21:26] Tammy: Yeah. Yeah, and that's been something that has been. It. It's just interesting to sort of notice, so I'm not judging it, but I'm just really noticing that like, wow, that was not on my list.

 an Enneagram one is gonna wanna be perfect and be the best at something, and a three's drivenness isn't about that. It really isn't about being the best, it's more about the accomplishment of it. Right? Like I think for me it was that idea, and maybe for you too, it's like the idea of being wanted, right?

So my success is being wanted. It's not even really being. The best at it. When I think about my book or the podcast where I have a lot of like, it's good enough, let's just accomplish it and get stuff done. And so it has a different kind of flavor.

[00:22:07] Alison Cook: It makes sense. And I really appreciate your honesty and I think this is something IFS affords is we can really look at ourselves honestly because we remove the shame and we really just get curious. And I really hear you saying and it makes sense to me that there's an Enneagram three part of you that was like, I can check off the list marriage I've accomplished.

Marriage, which is a very different way of looking at it than what does it mean to consistently show up for this other human being that I've chosen to bring into my life or God has put into my life. And there's such an honesty. I have no doubt there's a whole nother side to that story. We won't go into that, but I do appreciate the.

Honesty of your own ability to go? No. In reality, when I look back, yes, there was a lot of me wanting accomplishments and I think that is, you're right, that's a good pushback on that. It's not being the best, and it makes sense to me that at that young age it's like, okay, I did that,  done next, and that, that probably did impact from your side of things, how you could show up as a friend and a partner and an intimate person.

In a long term relationship. That's really honest. I just wanna pause there. I think that's unusual and worthy of just pausing on, oh gosh, yeah, this is what was going on with me without shame, with real honesty. There's a freedom in that.

[00:23:26] Tammy: Well, I like what you're saying because I think IFS really does that. Like if we look at Riley in this movie, you know, we can really look at these parts of her. But just sort of, yeah, of course there's an anxious part of her. A sad part, like these parts are here. We don't have to judge them or apologize for them, or we can be curious about them.

You know, we can see how much they love Riley and how hard they work for her, and that's. The same thing with our parts, right? the parts of me that were like, let's pick a boy and let's be boy crazy and let's do what we need to do to be wanted. And the parts of me that feel really unwanted,  I really understand them.

Like it makes sense to me that they're there. It makes sense to me why they're there. Not in a logic way, but in a heart way. Like my heart, my open heart, myself. Can really understand in a loving way how these parts are trying to help me. And if we kind of make it a little simplistic, my system really just gets built around this idea of being unwanted in success, right?

Just these two things that are highlighted for me, being an Enneagram three and coming from the family that I did. Then think about the parts of me that work really hard to make sure those things happen, and then think about the parts of me that come in when that doesn't happen. Right? Well, my name isn't on the basketball list, and then all these parts have to come in to help me with these feelings of failure.

With these feelings of being unwanted. I mean, that happens with my son. If my son, my 13-year-old. He's an only child. I had a hard time having him. And so when there's any little hint that he doesn't want me, my system goes haywire. Like and there's rage and there's shut down. 'cause my system is built, 

 around this idea of being wanted and unwanted. And so when there's feelings around that, everyone goes crazy. Right. So then I have to be there to say, Hey guys, I'm here. I'm with you. Turn and look at me. I am with you. Right? And so we have self that kind of steps into the room, which we don't really see that in inside out too.

 I come into the room and I say, I am here. I want you. I love you. Let's see. What do you need from me? Let's have a connection with me. And you sort of see what happens to these sweet parts when I enter the room.

[00:25:40] Alison Cook: Can we move into that a little bit, Tammy? Because I love what you're saying. What does that actually look like? those old childhood, 10-year-old parts of you that felt unwanted. 

 Can you give us a little glimpse of how you've gotten to know those parts that show up? How do you even notice it in your body?

[00:25:59] Tammy: I've noticed it happens usually when I pick him up from school in the car. So I'll pick him up and you know, he's tired, he's anxious, and it's, it's just. Sometimes is a hard transition, and so he'll say something and what I notice in my body is it feels like I disappear. Like

 Like I could be singing and having a little dance party by myself waiting to pick him up. He gets in the car and I'm like, Hey baby, how are you? How was your day? La, la, la, la, la. Right? Because Joy is usually here, and I'm all Joy, joy, joy, joy, joy. And he says something and I enjoy Joy. Joy. And he says something else, and then all of a sudden I feel like.

An invisible cloak has sort of come over me and I don't even feel like I'm there. I'm putting my hands on like 10 and two, right? My hands on 10 and two, I'm driving the car and all of a sudden it's like there's no more personality here, right? It's like I go from singing to, I'm not here at all, and I'm aware.

I but I really feel this cloak of like nothingness that I've completely shut down. Like I'm shut down, I'm numb. It feels like it takes over my whole body.

[00:27:07] Alison Cook: Sounds like a nervous system response, like it's not freeze necessarily, but you really do go into a form of a fight flight response inside of you. A part takes you out. Essentially. We all have those experiences and as you work with the parts, how do you in that moment, hang on to yourself.

[00:27:28] Tammy: so one of the thing, one of the things I think is really true is it's happened so much and this has become a part of me, that when I think about it and I consider some, like some of those moments that were really hard, I'm like, oh yeah, this part's been around for a long time. Right? It predates my son, right?

It predates it. It goes back to when I was little, sort of this really protective kind of cloaking numbing, shutting down. Part of me. And so I think one of the things I really recommend for listeners is to become really familiar with what we call their, your major players. Like who are the major players that are driving your bus, because then you can get really familiar with when they come.

Right? So this sort of shutdown part, I'm like, oh. Here you are buddy. Right? Like, it's almost like if sadness takes over that console for Riley, we all know what sadness feels like. Like you know, she's got her little, her little cute face and her little voice and we're all familiar with that part for Riley.

And so for me, and I think for us it's really getting familiar with like, oh, that's what's here right now. Right? So it's so totally blended. Totally took over that console. Totally started driving the bus. And so what I'll do now is I just will begin to breathe. And I will say, I am here.

And what I'm saying to the part is I know that you're trying to protect me, but I'm letting you know that I'm here. Let me be here. And 

 you see this beautiful scene in Inside Out too, where Riley has this panic attack at the hockey thing. And we sort of see what happens inside with anxiety. But outside what we see when joy sort of takes back over, we see Riley breathe. We see her open her eyes and look down at her skates. We see her senses come back online, right?

We see that she can hear the hockey puck and the hockey skates. We see this beautiful moment of her senses really grounding her. And so that's what I'm doing. I'm saying to this part, Hey, hey bud. I know that you're here. I know you're here for a good reason. Thank you for being here. 

 Let me be here with him. I've got this. You don't need to be here and let's just breathe And I, I'll stop talking to him, right? I'm not, I'm not gonna engage with him right now because engaging with him doesn't work in that moment. I might turn the radio on a little bit.

We're gonna look around, we're gonna look at the trees. We get home. We're gonna take our dogs for a walk, and slowly it feels like I come back online.

[00:29:47] Alison Cook: at that point, you're much more equipped to reengage with your son than trying to fake it in the moment. I think sometimes in those moments we try to fake it or we get mad, or other parts of us take over, but. What I hear you saying is breathing through it, taking your time, being present to yourself, which as a parent, we're kind of jumping into parenting, but the reality is our kids see through our phoniness and sometimes they're just in their own world anyway.

They don't, you know, it's just, they're fine. Sometimes it's like I'm just taking a minute to breathe through it. Right. 

[00:30:22] AD BREAK 2

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[00:30:22] Alison Cook: As you've done this work, as you've reconnected, and I so appreciate your sharing your story from the past and then bringing it into now present day. 'cause it's just so vivid, right?

Like those moments with our own kids replay the tape of our own pain points. That's just what happens. And I am curious, how do you connect spiritually? How is your spirituality of resource to you in those moments?

[00:30:48] Tammy: Yeah, no, it's a great question. I'll answer it sort of broader and then more specific. What's happened over, you know, I was gonna to an evangelical church here in New England, which was fine. All my friends went there and it was, it was okay. And then Covid happened. And during COVID, I discovered a.

Community called Closer Than Breath. And Closer Than Breath is a quote from Thomas Keating, who is a Catholic priest and sort of mystical, contemplative man And he writes that God is closer than our breath. And so I started doing some, some groups with this community and then Enneagram and uh, centering prayer group.

And so I was always curious about Christian, uh, meditation and what that looked like and what did that mean? And so I started doing, uh, these centering prayer groups. And so centering prayer is the idea that we take 20 minutes. We take a, a word and the word isn't necessarily a prayer word. The word is more like a, a windshield wiper.

'cause you know, our thoughts are going all the time, right? Our thoughts are chatty, chatty, chatty, chatty, chatty. And we use the word to kind of clean the windshield and sort of settle back into our heart to settle into like a prayer, to have more connection to the divine. so I started doing those groups and then I ended up going to a Quaker meeting And then I really enjoyed. The silence. You know, I'm a busy, busy, busy person, and so something happened for me during the silence, right? This sort of 20 minutes of silence or sort of the Quaker meeting.

It's an hour of silence around these people that just have this contemplative experience of God that just feels so beautiful and very aligned with what I know. My little Baptist girl. Inside. It's like that feels attuned and aligned. And also because I did go to a seminary, when they do study stuff that's not aligned, I'm like, that's not right, but my parts say it's okay because I have 

 this foundation and so I can go and I can take, take what works for me and sort of leave the rest kind of idea. So. Anyways, that's sort of where I am spiritually now is just enjoying this, this community of people that are just really connecting to God in this different way. That feels a little bit more experiential.

It feels more IF sy really. Right. It's really about sort of going inside and connecting, I think the Quakers say to that inner light To me, I would say the Holy Spirit or to that, that divine inside. If you're IF Sy, you would say to that authentic self. It's just this way to reconnect.

And to be more grounded and sort of open up to our true nature, right? We've kind of forgotten our true nature and we've forgotten this light that we are. And so it's a time and a space for my parts to quiet down and for me to reconnect to the divine and reconnect to God, and that feels really beautiful to me.

And so my partner is from North Carolina and when I go visit him, he goes to an evangelical church and I enjoy that. It feels like home in so many ways, but often I sit with my eyes closed and just sort of take in sort of, you know, what does God wanna show me or tell me through the music and through the sermon and, 

 but it's also to sort of ask my parts, just to give me space just to be here in this stillness and in this stillness. Nothing needs to be done in this stillness. I'm just like plugging into my power source, that source that wants me and loves me and is light and is love, and I can feel that.

Ultimate wanting, the ultimate healing that is beyond me and beyond, you know, what I can get on this earth beyond what my son can give me or my puppy or my partner, you know, it's, it's beyond anything like that. And then I had this experience that feels really healing.

[00:34:30] Alison Cook: What's kind of running through my mind as I'm listening is be still and know that I am God. Right. And just the way you brought that around to the ultimate being wanted. And the more you sit in that and train yourself through the slowing down, through the being, through the intentional quiet, through the intentional.

Practice of contemplative prayer and you plug in literally to that. No, no. This is where I'm truly wanted deep inside my core, where who I am meets who God is. Your parts start to trust you in those moments. Then when you're in the car with your son, when those parts still rear up, you've begun to retrain yourself.

No, no, There's more here. You know, it's beautiful. I love that you took us there. I also love Tammy, that your joy, your busyness, your, you're such an energy, you're such a life force. You know, you just light up a room. Those parts of you are just beautiful, right? And also, even with your son, you're lighting up the room and then he's kind of, you know, eing raining on your parade, right?

And those parts of you hijack you. All of that is welcome around. That centering place of here is God, here am I. I just love that you're tapping into that. That's beautiful. I.

[00:35:59] Tammy: Yeah. Thank you. I love the way you say that, right? This sort of, this connection, it's like bringing all of me, me, and all of my parts that are welcome and have good intentions and are wounded in some way and have all these burdens. We all come, to the divine for healing and for connection and for light and for just silence, right?

We all come and enjoy and take in this connection.

[00:36:26] Alison Cook: That's beautiful. Tammy, thank you so much for sharing with us. I would love for you to let the listeners know how they can connect with you and your work. Where can they find your podcast and your book and all the things you're doing?

[00:36:40] Tammy: Yeah, so if you just go to my website, everything's there, TammySollenberger.com and that's where my book and podcast and I'm on Instagram at ifs, Tammy. And um, we have a YouTube channel where we're starting to put. There's a really cool new start here where we put five of some of our favorite episodes.

So if you are new to IFS or you're curious about IFS, you can go to the start here page. It's on YouTube and it's not on my website, 

[00:37:06] Alison Cook: Before we close, I'd love to ask you two questions. What would you say to that younger 10-year-old with the wisdom that you have now?

[00:37:16] Tammy: You know, what I, what I would say and what I think about and what I'm, what I'm currently working with, a part of me, I have like a 17-year-old part that I'm, I'm really kind of hanging out with lately is this sort of desire to play more 

 and draw and paint and music, and just try things and really just experiment more. And that's what's beautiful about you. It's not having to succeed at anything, it's just playing. Go be successful at playing.

[00:37:46] Alison Cook: I. Love that. What would you say is bringing out the best of you right now?

[00:37:53] Tammy: You know, I think what's bringing out the best of me is this relationship that I'm in, you know, this long distancerelationship I'm in. It's, it's bringing out the best of me because it's, it's making me think about who do I wanna be? I wanna be more loving. What's keeping me from being loving? It's challenging me.

 to be like, okay, you're 50. Do you wanna be in a loving relationship? Do you want that? So then what do you need to do? What parts do you need to work on? What needs to happen inside of you internally for you to have the external relationship you always wished you had? Because here's the really cool thing, and I don't recommend people get divorced or have two relationships, but when you do and you end up doing the same thing, you're like, oh shoot, that must be me.

And so you can have the same relationship you had the first time. Or you can try something different. So what seems to be bringing out the best of me is being a little bit brave and a little bit vulnerable to love and to be loved in a really different way.

[00:38:59] Alison Cook: Wow, that's a whole word. I love that honesty. Again, Tammy, that's the freedom that comes with this work of really being able to look at your own self, your own parts, get really honest with yourself. What's mine to do differently? I love that you're getting this opportunity. You're the best. You're just such a light and I'm so grateful for the time you gave to us today.

[00:39:24] Tammy: Thanks, Alison, and I could say the same thing about you. I appreciate your friendship and all that you do for the world and for me just as a friend.

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