Ep. 10 The Inside Team Part 1: Getting to Know the System of Me

Across 3 episodes in season 4, Katie talks with master coach Cynthia Loy Darst about the Inside Team: How To Turn Internal Conflict Into Clarity and Move Forward With Your Life. Based on ORSC concepts the Inside Team approach explores the collection of internal voices, parts, and beliefs that exist within us all and offers a framework for exploring these different parts of self so that we can explore our thought processes and better understand what these parts of self really want. By doing so your creativity and resourcefulness will have room to grow, turning internal conflict into clarity, negative thoughts into positive ones, and moving forward with more ease and fun in your life. In part 1, topics include:

• Creating the concept of the inside team
• The value in getting to know our inside team, or system one, the system of ‘me’ 
• Techniques that can help us to become better acquainted with our internal system 
• Understanding that every player has a wisdom aspect

Cynthia Loy Darst is known as a passionate pioneer in the world of Coaching and has a reputation for being both playful and inspiring. She works with all kinds of people to move them past their limitations and into more effective action. As well as being a senior course leader at CRR Global and CTI, Cynthia was one of the first eight to receive the designation of Master Certified Coach (MCC) from the International Coach Federation in 1998. Passionate about quality and excellence in the world of coaching, Cynthia was a founding member of the International Coach Federation and has served as President of ACTO (The Assoc. of Coach Training Organizations). Cynthia is also the Author of 'Meet Your Inside Team – How To Turn Internal Conflict Into Clarity and Move Forward With Your Life.' Her book is required reading for the EMBA program at Loyola Marymount University where she is a frequent guest speaker.


For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time

We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

Transcript

Key 

KC – Katie Churchman 

CD - Cynthia Loy Darst   

[Intro 00:00 – 00:09] 

KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast. We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity, to nature, to the larger whole. I’m your host, Katie Churchman, and across the next three episodes I’m talking with master coach Cynthia Loy Darst about the inside team. How to turn internal conflict into clarity and move forward with your life. Based on ORSC concepts the Inside Team approach explored the collection of internal voices, parts and beliefs that exist within all of us, and offers a framework for exploring these different parts of self so that we can explore our thought processes and better understand what these parts of self really want. By doing so your creativity and resourcefulness will have room to grow, turning internal conflict into clarity, negative thoughts into positive ones and moving forward with ease and fun in your life. Cynthia Loy Darst is known as a passionate pioneer in the world of coaching and has a reputation for being both playful and inspiring. She works with all kinds of people to move them back their limitations and into more effective action. As well as being a senior course leader at CRR Global and CTI, Cynthia was one of the first eight people in the world to receive the designation of Master Certified Coach from the International Coach Federation in 1998. Based in Palm Springs, California, Cynthia maintains a full roster of private clients including cooperate execs, entrepreneurs, creative types, people in transition, as well as other coaches. She and her husband, David Darst, also a coach, are partners in their company and do work with individuals as well as teams, couples, partnerships and organizational systems. Passionate about quality and excellence in the world of coaching, Cynthia was a founding member of the International Coach Federation and has served as president of the association of coach training organizations. Cynthia is also the author of Meet Your Inside Team, the themes of which we will be exploring over the next three episodes. The book is required reading for the EMBA program at Loyola Marymount University where she is a frequent guest speaker. In part one we discuss getting to know the system of me and topics include creating the concept of the inside team, the value in getting to know our inside team or system one, the system of me, techniques that can help us become better acquainted with our internal system and understanding that every player has a wisdom aspect. So without further ado I bring you, the delightful, Cynthia Loy Darst. 

KC – Cynthia, welcome to the Relationship Matters podcast. I am delighted to have you on this show today. 

CD – Oh thank you so much Katie! I am thrilled to be here. 

KC – So, across these three episodes we’re discussing the inside team, and in this episode we’re talking about getting to know the system of me. And before we go there, I’m wondering if you can start by taking about how you came up with this concept of the inside team? 

CD – Well thank you, I’d be happy to start there. So, check it out, I wanna be really clear with people that the idea of having different aspects of our self, of knowing different parts of our personality, this is not new. This is, I am, this is far from original. There are many, many different types of modalities and we can talk about them later as we go. But the way this came into being, I’m gonna go way back in time. I have a master's degree in acting, for God’s sake, and in my acting training, early on, I was taught to use transactional analysis, the stuff that Eric Berne created. Transactional analysis as a way to analyze a script. Now, what does that mean? Some people don’t know what the hell is that. We all know this. If I say to you there’s a creative child part of you, or there’s a critical parent part of you, everybody, that’s common knowledge now – that’s Eric Berne’s work. So, I studied that, I used that in my acting, that was all really cool, fast forward I come into coaching with CTI and I learn to be a co-active coach, and somewhere along the way I start thinking wouldn’t it be cool if we could somehow use that idea of internal voices with coaching so clients could see. And, you know, I knew the saboteur and I knew this, but it didn’t quite come into focus, right? Then, fast forward a little bit more, Marita Fridjhon and Faith Fuller enter my life and I start leading for ORSC, I start learning this work, and one of the main courses that I led frequently was the geography course. So, those people who have been in that course know that we do this whole part on outer roles, inner roles, secret roles, you know, ghost roles, all of this. Well, when we started getting into secret roles, secret selves, I was like oh this is, this connects back to that, what if… what if, we start noticing anything that we’re getting challenged by in life, what if we start noticing the different parts of us that are talking and then what if we start doing relationship coaching with them. And so I was on the phone with a friend one day, who’s also a coach, and I said hey, would you mind if I try this thing with you? 

KC – I love it. 

CD – And he was like sure, you know. And pretty soon we started creating this idea, the first part of it is to meet your inside team. To meet, to notice. So, how do we use this? When does this come up? Do you mind if I kinda… is there any question that you have right there Katie before I go into this next piece? 
 
 

KC – Well I just love the name, the inside team, because we tend to know there are different parts of self but we don’t think about it in that language, and that feels so every day. We have teams at work, we’re part of the football team, and now we have a sense of our selves like that. It’s a very different awareness of who we are. 

CD – Yeah, and for me it really helps to hold it that way. Right? So, I’m going to give you a weird thought that I haven’t really set out before but I’m gonna try it here. So I want you to think about what it takes for you to get up in the morning and get going. Now, in that, there are probably some little conversations that flitter in your head. I’m just making up, like is it time to get up? Yeah, time to get up. Oh, let’s start the coffee, let’s do this. Oh, let me take a shower, whatever. And generally speaking that is your inside team working together to get your day moving, right? You probably, I’m making this up, you probably don’t sit on the edge of your bed and go what should I do first? I don’t know what to do! I don’t know if I should get up or I shouldn’t get up or if I should have coffee or if I should brush my… like, you don’t sit there and freak out about it, you just do it – right? So we all have parts, places in our lives where our inside team in that particular area is working really well together. The roles are clear, the focuses are clear, the values are clear, off we go. 

KC – So, what’s the value in getting to know our inside team? If it sort of works on autopilot to get us up out of bed and moving for the day, why do we need to know about this? This team. 

CD – Yeah, so that’s all lovely while we have inside teams that are working well together, but for many of us, like I want, if you think about a place in your life, maybe, it could be a relationship that you’re having a struggle with, it could be I need to organize my office, I need to do this, you know, it could be any number of … I wanna write a book… any place where you or your client finds yourself getting a little twisted, right? And as a coach, when I’m hearing something like well, you know, I’m thinking about writing a book, but you know, I don’t know, I don’t think I have the time for it, I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it… I’m hoping that you can literally hear different voices there, right? That’s what I’m listening for. I’m listening for a different tone of voice, a different speech pattern, a different... and that’s when I know I’ve got more than one part of my client talking and that’s their inside team trying to figure something out. 

KC – So that’s fascinating because it’s a way of working systemically with individuals then? 

CD – That’s right. 

KC – And I guess it makes us understand why couples, partnerships, teams are so complicated because everyone’s got their own little chatter going on inside. 

CD – Exactly! So we’ll probably get there a little bit later, but when I, I have been starting to work with teams and groups about noticing, like if, let’s say there’s someone on my team that I tend to have trouble with. What is it? What’s the inside team player that I’m listening to that has trouble with that one? What’s the player that they have come up that makes me then react to them, right? If we could actually take the time to find that out and to talk about it, now we can start to work out some of our stuff. 

KC – So, how does one get to know their inside team a little bit better? 

CD – Great, let’s start there, that’s the best, that’s the best way. So, I believe that for, this is going to sound maybe a little strange, that for every part of your life you actually have different inside teams. Like, you have a kind of inside team for running a podcast that is very different than going to the grocery store and choosing your food. 

KC – Yeah. You could say that. 

CD – Right? Probably! Just probably, I’m guessing, right? Now, there may be certain players you have that are on frequent teams, that’s not unusual, or are on a variety of teams. But, you know, my inside team for my sex life is not the inside team that I use for coaching, thank you very much. You know? So, one way to get to know an inside team of yours is to think of an area of your life that you’re having some kind of, it could be a challenge with, it could be just a question that you’re not sure how to answer, it could even be something like hey, I wanna take a vacation and let me think about this. It could be anything. So what we then wanna do is to start noticing who wants to speak, right? 

KC – And this is when we’re starting to listen to the internal chatter, so you’ve got the one saying I want to do this and one saying well no, I don’t want to do it that way. 

CD – Right. You’re gonna find, probably, at least three or four voices. 

KC – Wow. 

CD – At least. Well some people have had up to 17 in a conversation but that’s, but normally it’s like, one of the things, I know we’re going to talk about it more in the next call, one of the things is quite often what we tend to do is just hear a couple and then we want to shut the conversation down. And that means that the quieter voices or our system, are internal system, don’t get to speak. 

KC – And then we’re not living from the principle of every voice is a voice of the system, including the system of me. 

CD – That’s right. That’s right. 

KC – So, how do we listen to the quieter voices? Because what I find is that there are the loud, shouty voices and if I’m honest I don’t really hear anything else after that. 

CD – So think about, think about being an ORSC coach and imagine that you had a group or team that you were working with and there are a couple people, one or two, that just every time you ask the question boom, they’re the first ones to speak, oh they have the opinion, and then there are all these others that are just sortta sitting there looking at them. Right? How would you work with that? 

KC – I’d probably ask let’s hear from some of the quieter voices and create space for that, but I realize I never do that in my own life! I’ve got a particular situation in mind, when you said this, and I don’t do that! 

CD – There it is. 

KC – It’s hard to create space though isn’t it, in your own mind, in your own system. That’s why it’s useful to work with a coach on this, honestly, because it can be very hard to hold that in our own brain. So, in order to do inside team well, one of the things, as a coach, is you sort of keep calling your client to that adult self. And I will often use a metaphor of imagining that we’re gonna bring this particular team out on a stage, or we’re gonna watch it in a movie. We’re gonna watch it. What this does is it has me get the voices, these parts, out of my head so I can, it starts to reveal the system to itself. 

KC – Ok. 

CD – Ok? I start to see it. Now one way to do it is to take a piece of paper and to who’s the first, you know, let’s play with a topic, Katie, what’s a topic? 

KC – Urm, moving out of the city or not. 

CD – Perfect. Moving out of a city. This is the inside team around the decision of moving out of a city, right? Great. So, do you mind if I work with you a little and you can say I don’t wanna... you know? 

KC – Let’s do it. 

CD – Great. So, who’s the first, what’s the first thought – moving out of the city. 

KC – It’d be great, there’d be so much space, we could get a dog and go for long walks and we’d probably have a garden. 

CD – Yeah. So even as you, I’m noticing there’s a kind of sweetness and possibility. If you were to start to imagine that part of you as a character, as a person or, we’re going to call it a player on your inside team, what’s that one about? What do you see rather? 

KC – I see a person wearing wellies and walking miles across fields in the morning with a dog. 

CD – Yeah. 

KC – Yeah, quite free and fresh faced and, yeah, easy and I think it’s in my voice as well. 

CD – Yeah. So there’s one player, right? And if we were to just give them how would you… 

KC – Countryside Katie. 

CD – Countryside Katie. So there’s countryside Katie, right? And now what’s the next voice that wants to be heard here? 

KC – Ah, but no, you don’t want to move out of the city because it’ll be a bit boring and you’ll miss out on a lot of things and you won’t have the public transport, London’s so alive, you don’t wanna leave that! 

CD – Uh huh, and even, I’m just noticing there’s kind of a, in your posture, there’s kind of a hmm, something that happens there – what are you becoming aware of? 

KC – I just spoke so fast, as soon as I was in that city space. And, yeah, there was a sort of tightness, a tension about leaving. 

CD – Yeah. What’s important to this one? 

KC – Accessibility and ease in some ways. Ease of transport and not having to commute so far and jumping on a tube and not having to worry about getting into anywhere to do work. I think those things are really important. 

CD – Yeah. And there was also a little piece that this one said about it’s going to be boring out there. Like… 

KC – Mmm. Being relevant, I think. 

CD – Relevant, uh huh, uh huh. 

KC – In the city, in the hub, I think there’s something about that, whereas… yeah. 

CD – Yeah. So even now do you notice how each of these players starts to represent some of your values? 

KC – Yeah, I am actually. And it’s hard to not side with one or the other, and I guess this is the work, right? 

CD – This is the work with it. Right? So now we’ve got two of the players. What would you call the second one that we’re seeing? 

KC – Sassy in the city. 

CD – Fabulous! Sassy in the city! Great. And so now, based on what you said earlier, I get a sense that those have been the main two. 

KC – Yeah, absolutely. 

CD – Right. So, I want you to just keep, if you haven’t already, start to imagine them kind of out in front, start to imagine them so you can kind of watch their dynamic a little bit, right? Who else is part of this team?

KC – There’s a quiet introverted reading character, which definitely represents a big part of who I am, I think often I get identified as an extrovert but there’s a big part of me that loves to curl up with a book and that part is just quietly reading in the countryside and enjoying the lack of traffic and noise and the space. 

CD – And if this one had a voice, what does it want to say? 

KC – I want some calm and peace for us. For our family. 

CD – What should we call this one? 

KC – Peaceful Patricia. I love alliteration so we’ve got the double P going. 

CD – Fabulous. Ok, so, we’re gonna pause just a second since we’re…. what are you noticing about how to start discovering an inside team? 

KC – I’m noticing that, at least in this example, it was very binary. We should or we shouldn’t, and then there’s these sort of marginalized voices that sit in the grey space and the further I step back the more I notice there’s actually more grey around this subject than I realize. Is that what you typically find, that it’s all or nothing or yes or no? 

CD – Yes. 

KC – Uh, how interesting. 

CD – This is very normal, this is very normal for it to be this push you pull you, and we haven’t by any measure heard all of the different voices or thoughts or feelings here. And so let’s do one other part of it, ok? So they’re may be more that we haven’t heard from. I want you to, I want you literally to start to imagine them coming out in front of you. It could be on a stage, it could be in field, I don’t know, it could be in your apartment – but I want you to imagine them coming out. So, countryside Katie, sassy in the city, right, peaceful Patricia – where do they go in front of you? How does it work? 

KC – You’ve got, one of them is sort of walking, in movement, and then peaceful Patricia is sitting down on an armchair, and then sassy in the city is sort of like already ready to go, there’s something fun to be doing in the city, and so they’re very different in their energies. 

CD – Aha. And as you notice them I want you to think about the dynamic. In other words, are they interacting with each other? Are they interacting with you? Do they interact at all? How does it go? 

KC – So sassy in the city is that friend who’s like cmon, cmon let’s go, there’s so many fun things to do, and she’s very much like clicking her fingers. And then peaceful Patricia, she’s sort of just a calming influence, she’s sort of there holding the space. And then countryside Katie I think has her opinions too, she will talk back. But that’s, I think, the noise is between those two and then Patricia is holding the space. 

CD – Is she talking back to them or to Sassy in the city, are they ones, the primary… 

KC – They’re the primary drivers, they’re just back and forward and I don’t think they’re really seeing anything else but their own positions, actually. 

CD – So take a look around and see if there’s anyone else who wants to have a thought or feeling in this. And I’m saying feeling because there are times where inside team members don’t actually have words. 

KC – There’s one that wants an easy life and I think that’s a complex one to come to terms with because easy life sometimes means not commuting for hours, and where my husband works, it’s sometimes quite late and the further you go out, the longer that commute, so I think there’s this grapple in this part of me that really longs for this easy life decision and I’m not sure what that is yet, and so I think they’re happy to hold the complexity of this and to not know yet. Whereas the others are like we need to know! We need to know! Easy life is like whatever emerges. And its sort of also holding space in the unknowing. Or the not knowing. 

CD – So there is, I assert there’s some new information that you’re gaining in this conversation. 

KC – I’m finding out there’s so much grey space around these kinds of decisions, and, yeah it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. But there’s also parts of me that are ok with the not knowing and I didn’t realize that. I think a big part of me wanted to know, wanted to have a sense of this or that, but there’s a part of me that’s actually ok to hold space. 

CD – So I assert that’s the, that’s the adult part of you. The adult part of you can hold that paradox. Can know that you don’t have to have, it can be with the ambiguity. We haven’t quite figured this out yet, this is unfolding, we’re looking at it, we’re considering it. 

KC – And so, how do we, how do we stop ourselves from marginalizing these parts? Because either it’s that we probably have our favorites, I imagine we have these parts that we like, and there’s probably parts that we really don’t like. 

CD – Right. 

KC – But also, we might just not hear some other voices that actually are very much there, we’re just not listening for them. 

CD – So what was the first part of the question because I got excited about where you were pointing too and I missed it. 

KC – Yeah, so in terms of how do we stop ourselves from having favorites and marginalizing? 

CD – We don’t. We don’t. This is the challenge. This is one of the challenges of being human. Is that it is, it’s not like oh, I’m going to see my inside team and now that I’ve seen them and heard from them, I’m just going to welcome every voice and listen every – no! We’re human and so just like in our in person systems there continues to be one who talks more than the other, there continues to be one who never gets heard from, there continues… and so it is a matter of, to me, it’s a matter of growing awareness, growing that muscle that we have as ORSC coaches to know that the loudest voices aren’t the only voices. To know that they are, their voices of the system and that it’s important to hear from others. So if I can remind myself of that I can sometimes slow myself down. The other piece of this Katie is your inside team that you presented here today is really quite a thoughtful, sweet inside team. 

KC – Yeah, there might be some other parts I wasn’t willing to share on the podcast, but… 

CD – Ok, that’s fine, that’s alright. It’s like, it’s not the least bit unusual for people to have players on their inside team that really have toxic behavior. You know? That are like very judging and very blaming and very, you know, no, you can’t do that! Blah, blah, blah – you’re not smart enough, you’re not whatever it is. That’s unfortunately very normal and, you know, where’s it come from, past traumas, childhood, culture, who knows, all kinds of places. That’s where we bring, create our inside team from. What I have found is if I can allow myself to do this piece around putting these players out in front it starts to become a little bit like watching a movie. Like if I’m watching a movie and Darth Vader comes out, I’m not personally scared of Darth Vader. I don’t think Darth Vader is gonna come off the screen and attack me. I actually, it’s ok to have Darth Vader in the Star Wars movie because we need that for the drama, right? Otherwise there’s no movie. So when I’m grounded in my adult self and I can bring these players out I can be fascinated by all of them. I don’t have to resist any of them. 

KC – That’s such a good point because I think there are parts that we really don’t like about ourselves, like the jealous part or the angry part, and then we marginalize that part and we never really hear what it’s trying to say. 

CD – Exactly. 

KC – And so, any tips for leaning into those parts? Those parts that make us absolutely cringe to even think about yet alone talk too and create a relationship with. 

CD – Yeah, I think we’re going to go into it more in the next call, in the next one for this, but my short version would be this. Is that what we want to do, just like if we’re working with an in person team and you’ve got someone who’s blamey and critical, we can, if we can start to take away the blame. If we can listen for the 2% wisdom or truth, what I often do, and this is, to me this is easier to do on the inside team than the outside team sometimes, is if I can imagine that this one is, he’s screaming at me – you need to do this!! You should do this thing!! You blah blah blah!! If I can imagine that it’s just desperately trying to get my attention because it’s so worried that something’s gonna happen to me. If I can turn toward it and calm it down a little bit and just say what is it? What is it, you know, please don’t talk to me that way, it doesn’t help when you are nasty with me or blaming with me, what is the little bit that you’re trying to get across? And what that sometimes does is kind of relax that one so that I can hear it in a way that’s useful. 

KC – What I’m realizing Cynthia is this sort of sharpens our abilities to be systems workers because we’re doing the work with that inside team first, which is probably in some ways the harder work to do, but if you’re able to hold all those voices in you around a topic, you’re probably able to hold more in your clients as well. 

CD – Yes. So if I have a greater ability to be with my own inner blamer, screamer nastiness, I have a greater ability to be in the metaskill of lions roar and just be there and face it without needing to run for the door. 

KC – That’s fascinating, because I didn’t think about it like that at all, I thought about oh getting to know your inside team around the topic, but not thinking about it so much as this is also a resource and when we’re doing the work here it’s like getting our reps in at the gym and then it’s helping us to do the work out there too. 

CD – That’s right. 

KC – And I guess, you’re probably going to tell us unfortunately the work never ends, right? 

CD – Well, there’s that. However, what’s really is good news is I do notice that in my own work with this overtime - by the way, I’ve had to train coaches to do this with me because I can’t do it with myself. So just to be clear, ok, it’s not like I’m some genius that can do my own alone, no! What I have found is the, just like with de-triggering and we’ll be kind of going into that next time. Once I have really recognized these other, these players, once I start to recognize them, once I start to see how the system works, once I start to see what’s actually trying – once the system is revealed to itself, it will naturally start to self-correct and usually will calm somewhat and that to me is a gift. 

KC – There’s something also about the, in some ways the depersonalization, but it is really the personalization but it takes it out from this part of you being all of you, it’s a part of you. 

CD – That’s right. 

KC – And I think that in itself could be so helpful in a moment of stress or worry or crisis even, if you can know that oh that’s my really angry part, it’s not all of me, and you’re putting it out there, do you find that even the language now, like just thinking oh, that’s jealous jane, she’s coming out, can help you to then step away. 

CD – Absolutely. Absolutely, so, and let’s imagine that you’re in conversation with someone. You know, let’s, I’m just going to project this onto you Katie, so please forgive me. But let’s imagine that you’re in a conversation with your husband about this potential move. Right? Now you can say there’s a part of me that wants to go walking in the countryside, there’s a part of me that wants to stay in the city and be relevant, there’s a part of me that wants this… now it’s like we can start getting more information out. So if I say to you Katie, how do you feel about this move – wait! All these different parts have a voice. It’s not a one thing. It’s not this is how I feel. 

KC – We, I think, expect ourselves to have one opinion about everything – 

CD – That’s right. 

KC – And yet, yeah that would be easy but it would take away what makes us so interesting and dynamic and spontaneous as humans, right? I think Faith uses the terminology of we’re like a diamond, and then we’re constantly, other people shine different parts of us. And I guess when my part of maybe countryside Katie shines another part on a part of my husband Dan, there’s a whole different third entity there around that topic. 

CD – Yeah! So it’d be really fascinating with him if you sit down with Dan and say let’s talk about what different parts of you and the conversation your inside team is having about this. And then you can, do you see how much more information comes into the system? 

KC – Yeah, and it really holds that IDIC – infinite diversity in infinite combinations. I didn’t quite realize sort of how infinite it is, it’s huge. 

CD – That’s it! 

KC – Wow. And so advice for coaches. We’ve got coaches listening who are individual coaches, team coaches, they work with whole organizations. How would you suggest they start to incorporate some of this into their work? 

CD – Yeah. It’s a great question. To me, as a coach, the place to start is in noticing, say you’re with a client and they’re talking about something that they want to do, haven’t done, some question that they’re working with – right? Listen. Really tune your ears to those different voices, to what, well there’s a part of me that really wants to write this book, and a part of me that thinks that’s a waste of time! 

KC – Is this your inside team? 

CD – Yeah, there we go! Why not? So if you can kind of tune into that, or even if they’re not using the term ‘there’s a part of me’, but if you can hear that there are these different energies speaking then you can slow them down and you can say I’m noticing that it sounds like there’s two or three different parts of you talking, could we clarify that a little bit? Could we create some awareness there? And just starting to notice that these are parts of yourself, rather than all of yourself. That alone can be so useful for a client. So for example, what was useful to you about just about noticing those three. 

KC – I think knowing that there’s so much grey space there, and I’m sure there were other voices, the marginalized voices that I haven’t listened to that aren’t yes or no, right or wrong, this or that. 

CD – So what does that now, knowing that there’s this grey space, noticing that there are parts that you haven’t heard from, what does that offer you? 

KC – It sounds strange, I feel somewhat excited because I think quite often, maybe this is the way society sort of gears us up, it does feel quite binary and like you have to know. And it feels like there’s more opportunity and potential in the grey spaces. In the not knowing. Which is kind of what we hold as coaches, to now know. 

CD – Really nice. So, I just wanna name something else that’s happening here. On occasion coaches will get attached to an outcome, right? Like if you had come to me as my client in this call and said I’m trying to make this decision. It’s easy to start as a coach thinking that with inside team we’re going for an outcome. We’re not! I don’t, I have zero attachment to whether or when or how you make a decision about this. That is not the job! The job is to work with you to reveal the internal system to itself, to get new information, so that you over time will come to your own decisions about this. 

KC – Yeah, which is the essence of coaching really isn’t it, to help people help themselves. And you know, this is such powerful work, Cynthia. When I read your book I think I’d come across the idea that you are not your thoughts before, but this kind of took it to a whole other level and particularly if people are dealing with parts of themselves that are really causing some challenge or, you know some, I guess trauma you could say. Then you can start to think about it in a slightly different more objective way and yeah, I so appreciate that terminology of this inside team, it’s not all of who you are this one part, it’s a part of you, it’s a part of that system of me. 

CD – That’s right. 

KC – Cynthia, it’s been a delight to dance with you and all of your many selves today and I so look forward to diving into part two with you next time on how we can work with triggered selves and find alignment there. 

CD – Yay, I love that, love that, love that – that is the life changing for me and so many people, yeah, looking forward to talking about that. Katie, you are a delight, thank you for a fabulous conversation here. I appreciate it so much. 

KC – Likewise, take care and speak soon. 

[Music outro begins 38:40] 

KC – A huge thanks to Cynthia for that very playful discussion. Here are my key takeaways. Every day there are conversations that happen in our heads. For example, getting out of bed in the morning, should I get up, should I snooze? And, generally speaking, this is your inside team working together to help you get up and start your day. Any place where your client is going back and forth on an issue or struggling to reach a goal is where you might be able to hear their inside team talking. Which inside team player are they listening to the most and which voices are being marginalized that might have a wisdom aspect share. We usually listen to the loudest voices on a topic, and the same is true on our inside team. How can we recognize and listen to some of the quieter voices so that we can get a more complete picture of how our system is reacting to a situation? When we’re grounded in our adult self we can put these players out in front to raise our awareness around what’s going on in our inside team. It brings more information into the system and allows us to be more objective. If you enjoyed this episode do look out for parts two and three of the Inside Teams series that we’ll be looking at finding alignment with triggered selves and expanding your range as a coach. The Inside Team and Cynthia’s book, Meet Your Inside Team: How to Turn Internal Conflict into Clarity and Move Forward With Your Life is based on concepts from the ORSC geography curriculum. For more information about the geography module and the ORSC series please visit CRRGlobal.com. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with your colleagues and friends so that we can continue to spread these ideas across the globe, and if you haven’t already, do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. And for more information on the ORSC courses please visit CRRGlobal.com. For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time. We believe Relationship Matters from humanity to nature to the larger whole. 

[Music outro 41:30 – end]