The Art of Healing Trauma with Coherence Therapy

Welcome to Empowered Through Compassion of the Podcast. I'm David Puliti, I'm an IFS-informed EMDR therapist, and I'm on a journey to explore how the most powerful therapeutic models, such as IFS and EMDR, can be woven together to support deep lasting healing. If you're curious about the intersection of therapy, spirituality, and personal transformation, you're in the right place. I'm excited to share with you an upcoming book that I helped edit. It's called IFS-informed EMDR, Creative and Collaborative Approaches. It's going to be out in December 2025, and if you would like to pre-order a copy, you can find it on Amazon today. Please remember that this podcast is not intended to replace therapy. If you are looking to do some of the steep work, please seek out a trained professional. Hello everybody, welcome back, welcome to Empowered Through Compassion, I'm really excited that you're here, guess who I have today with me? I am so excited. I have Tory Olds, she is a hero of mine, she is somebody who she has a YouTube channel, she talks about all these incredible models, and I'm really excited to introduce you to her, and to have her here today with us. So, Tory, welcome. Thank you David, it's great to be here. Yeah, it's okay, so really quickly. Yeah, tell me, yeah, go ahead. Really quickly for the listeners, say a little bit about yourself, your background, how you got into this field. I heard that you were in this field, it's been like generational kind of wisdom passing. You are a healer in your bones, so say a little bit about yourself, because I could brag about you, but I'm going to put you on the spot to brag. Well, that's what I was about to, when we both spoke at the same time, say, it's still a little odd to be like, to realize there's people that know of me that don't know me, you know, like that's not, still not normal for me, I don't think that way, but it's like, oh, we got, he like knows of me. But so, yeah, I mean, the simple version of the story is just that I grew up with therapists who are, as parents, my parents were therapists, I was raised by therapists. Who were just really into training and loved what they did, and they were more analytically oriented. But then my mom in the 90s started training with this amazing British woman who was doing an experiential form of group therapy, they were really into group therapy. And yeah, I mean, I did kind of start learning it pretty young, I mean, I think it was naturally curious about it, and there would be all these interesting people around, because they would host trainers a lot. And this woman of Vaan, for instance, from England, she was just a force of nature, she's passed now, but she's already this kind of older professor of mechanical type person. And I just, I got really excited about emotions and the body in high school, like feeling it, like, you know, like, my dad even, I'd be like, sit down, I'm going to feel, that hurt me, and I feel like my chest, and I'm making a fist, and I want to punch you, you know, like, I was really into like the, like, I'm like, pretty young for redoing, you know, into that stuff. But then in college, I was like, okay, I just chair the world, so I started doing like sessions on my dorm room, helping people feel their feelings, and getting trainers to come, to train my friends. And so I was lucky that I got, that was 20, well, 26 years ago, I went to my first official experiential therapy training, right out of the four college kind of thing. And so I've had time to just kind of watch the experiential therapy movement happen. And be, I don't know if I'm exactly, I'm not part of it, but I've gotten just, I've gotten to be in meeting these people and learning and seeing it, and I don't say you're a part of it. Well, thank you. Maybe now I'm starting to be, which is really fun. I mean, even being able to like, pull it together, like to have a, have a unique offering of like being able to integrate between theory, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's going to be like, oh, wow, and, and that bit feels really exciting to now be like one of the teachers and not just the students. It's fun. Yeah. Could you say a little bit about your offering, because I looking into it, it's, it's really exciting to me. And, you know, especially now too, it's like this revolutionary time that we have where there is just so much kind of blossoming and kind of poking its head out of the earth. And all of these things just seem to be accessible through the computer and around the world and without getting too much on a soapbox, you know, and these times right now that we're all experiencing, they're so desperately needed. So it's, it's really nice to have them to be able to experience like, how do we heal our traumas? How do we feel more connected? How do we resolve some of the stuff that we've been sitting with for years and years and years or help people, you know, release stuff that they don't have to sit with for years and years and years. So, yeah, talk a little bit about your offering. Yeah. Well, what I do, obviously I love putting YouTube videos out just to get some free stuff out. Which, which is for the audience, they are amazing. Thank you. And if you have some time, please check out Tori on YouTube, because you teach, you offer like basically like free, free videos where you're really explaining some very important concepts and it's, it's so nicely have that. Oh, thank you. David, I appreciate that. So that's one, but in terms of like, mostly what I put out on YouTube so far has been what I've learned from these theories and how the theory itself talks about it. Mostly, I guess I did one on experiential therapy broadly and that was maybe more Tori in there, but in terms of me putting things together, but I do a training group called Mining the Heart that's six months that is integrating. You were just talking before we pushed record about how your mentor Bruce does EMDR, IFS and Coherence Therapy all together and that's sort of his three. And my, I do say I do six month training, but I do, yes, IFS and Coherence Therapy, but also ADP, which is more emotion focused stuff as my third. And one of my students calls it like the Holy Trinity, so I'm reminding me of what Bruce is doing. It's like, if you kind of have all of those and you could do EMDR or something else, but because they're all kind of getting at the same thing, really, but having a few tools in your tool belt, but what I really love about Coherence Therapy, which I think is what we're going to be going to be going today is, or just, oh, I hope so, yeah, or just the idea of memory consolidation, which is not a form of therapy, it's a brain process, but is that we can, now, and I think this is a new, the new, new emergence, like we've had experiential therapy and then that was kind of its emergence and the new, new emergence right now that we're in the middle of is okay with all of this, a landscape of amazing experiential models now, amazing. I mean, each one. So I can't pick one. I know. I know. Well, like they're just, it blows my mind, I could go on about that, but it blows my mind that people invent these things and they're like just discovering them and getting into the world of them is amazing, but what we've been needing is some kind of framework for integrating between experiential models, or really, I mean, there's a place for all their different kinds of therapy, but I'm more focused on integrating between experiential work, and that's what I like to kind of, I've kind of created my own way of framing it, although I'm using, I just have my way of teaching the core parts, but in service of memory reconsolidation, which is not a form of therapy, it's just an overarching way of thinking about a particular type of change, transformational change, they call it, it's not the only kind of change, but it is powerful. And how to, how to then use, you know, techniques from different models, but sort of in service of this. And that's, that is an exciting time, and that, I've noticed a shift in our field where a lot of people are now talking in more integrative ways, you know, like, okay, let's bring in parts work there, especially IFS. IFS gets integrated into like everything, you know, because it's really, it's a lovely, and then coherence is a great way of thinking about what, you know, Bruce Ecker, my mentor, who invented coherence therapy, he really gave us a great lens for understanding the integration process, and anyway, I'll pause there because I already said a lot. I love that. And so, would you say coherence therapy is really of a model to allow us to integrate other models? It is. Yeah, coherence therapy is both a model and in of itself that has some of its own techniques and certainly has its own, like, goals, like really understanding what the emotional learning is, and having a searching for discomfort, you know, has its steps and has some techniques to support those steps. But the steps which are aligned with what the brain needs for transformation are much more important than the techniques you use, like Bruce is my, again, my mentor, he's like use any, use the MDR, draw in parts work, draw in NLP stuff, draw in, you know, emotion focus, as long as you're, as long as you're doing somehow these three steps and moving in that direction. Yeah. So it's, by nature, it's the most integrative model I've bumped into, which is, both its greatest strength and maybe its greatest weakness because it is harder to learn because of that. It's not just do this, do this, do this, it's like, here's this big task and you can do lots of different ways. You know, it's just, it's more very, very sophisticated model in that way. It's, can be, you know, a lot to learn, it took me forever and I'm still feeling like I'm learning it, but, um, but, you know, it's, it's also beautiful in that way. Yeah. No, and I really appreciate what you're saying. And I do think Bruce Ecker really has been able to, uh, pinpoint some type of process that neurologically is going on in the brain that really allows for this deep transformation to occur, which is just, it's incredible how he's been able to put it out there and to, you know, just share it with others. Yeah. I really appreciate that. Yeah. He found memory consolidation like two years after his out like, I mean, the, the research on memory consolidation was like early 2000s, 2003, 4, 5, and he, he was looking for this. He had noticed this process in his own technique. He's like, God, there's, God, it'd be a moment where if you do this and this, it changed. And then he found that there was exactly where the researchers were saying. So he, he picked it up really fast. So he's had about 20 years of just trying to get the message out about it. But in the meantime, there's been thousands of studies like 20, you know, 20 more years worth of research on memory consolidation. So now people are both through them being there more, there's more research and he's been putting the word out. Now a lot of people are talking about memory. Yeah. Well, how does this sound? I like to like pick apart models and in my brain works with like really appreciating the model. But then also like asking these really hard questions about it, or are you game for that? Sure. Yeah. Challenge. Yeah. So I don't know how much familiarity or experience you have with EMDR. But it was something that I asked in my class when I was in coherence therapy and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. But I'm really curious with EMDR and I could go into it if you want and I'm imagining you have some experience with it. But I'm happy to talk about it, you know, any of it. My understanding is you're really kind of working with memory networks, working with the ADP, the adaptive information processing network. And I think I read or heard that Francine Shapiro had said that, you know, she first started with the eye movements. And then based on the field, there was desensitization so that got put into the model. And then there was reprocessing and it caught on and people were, there was name recognition in EMDR, but that eventually she realized this is all reprocessing. We're really reprocessing. We're finding in the innate healing within people's own AIP network and we're helping them to access that and then to really resolve these memory networks, which she called reprocessing. And I'm feeling like, well, isn't reprocessing and then in coherence therapy, we call it reconsolidating and really trying to grapple with, well, isn't it kind of the same thing? And if she said, well, ultimately, I would just name my whole, you know, what I came up with my whole model, I would just call it reprocessing. And then you have coherence therapy where it seems like what coherence therapy is really aiming at is through these particular steps. We're really looking at memory reconsolidation, which is really getting rid of the emotional learning and not having to feel trigger or not having to feel the emotional trigger when certain activated environmental issues are hitting us in a certain way. So basically how I look at it is it's, we have trauma, it's held in our body like Vander Kulk says, and then once we go through these processes, whatever they are, we're allowing our bodies to relearn and to really experience the present in a very different way. So that's a very long way of saying like, what is the difference? What's the difference between reprocessing and reconsolidation? That's a great question. It's funny. I had this long email thread with Bruce and one of his other students, my friend, his very technical about this stuff of like, is there a difference between memory consolidation and just processing something and slightly different question, because what I would need to do to really fully answer that is sit down with Shapiro or someone and like, what do they really, what do they mean by this network? What do they mean by reprocessing? But I'm guessing, we tried to find language before we knew what was happening in the brain. And we find it. He was invented before he knew he just found the thing and then found the way to explain it neurologically. But I'll just say, I bet most of it is memory reconsolidation. That's a very big term, actually. That just means, basically, just means learning and unlearning. Like, I mean, really, it's like, now, the thing is, when it comes to like traumas, like you said, or things we learned again and again and again, it's just, those old learnings are basically, the idea of memory consolidation is that our brain actually evolved to be able to continue creating new maps, right, of expectations about how reality works. I'm doing the old and updating, dissolving something that wasn't actually true and learning something else. However, for reasons that are, I could name a few, probably, when it comes to highly emotional stuff that doesn't always happen. And we, there's so many places we could pause, so you let me know where we want to go. But I mean, I think partly that's because we're not retesting the theory, you know, like we're, if we think, I better numb every time I feel sad or angry because I don't want to be weak or don't be like my major, like father, or whatever, and then we just do it. Like, how are we ever retesting to learn that it would actually be safe to be angry or let people close? So there's something that I think once our brain is making a strong prediction of danger, danger, danger, it can put it in a state where it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We have to be in a regulated brain state for memory consolidation to work and sometimes we're really triggered or not. Like, so there's, there's, there are some like requirements that like make it a little technically difficult for the brain just out in the wild to heal. Absolutely. It has the capacity, but it needs some, you know, some barriers have to be, like, like skillfully adjusted for it or helps move out of the way, you know what I mean? And it heals, I would say that it heals, but it heals in a way that doesn't always take reality, whatever that is, into account. So it's like now it's creating its own construction of what's happening in that moment without really accessing all the information in a more objective way. You mean, like, if it just happens out in the wild and it's not really full kind of healing or? I'm not being clear. What I mean is that what I'm getting from you, which I'm loving and kind of ripping up, is that because of us having to survive and being led by our emotions and, you know, having like not being in a, you know, the window of tolerance or for so many multiple factors, we're not able to really build an accurate map in that moment. And we're just kind of layers upon layers of inaccurate kind of response, not accurate responses. Responses that are not really taking in the present moment into your full consideration. We are now living in our bodies that aren't necessarily really taking in everything in an objective way. No, that's exactly, that's exactly what I was saying. That's perfect. Yeah. And I do think sometimes the whole goal of healing, this is going to sound a little strange because, so I'll caveat it, but let me just say it and then we'll, that's what we got it. I love strange. Really? Is to really be in reality as much as like really fully the accurate in reality. And the reason only. I got told, told it was the man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And the reason I think that sounds a little strange is maybe because like it could sound like, I don't know CBT stuff, like let's just be rational or be accurate or like, but I mean, like a deep way, like like really, and some really more in a more nuanced way mapping what's real, both in terms of like, what are we likely to expect from the outside? And also, what are my capacities to deal with that? Because those are the two things that often get coded in a, in a problematic way. We think because we're an abuse of household, everybody acts like this. And we also imprint and my response is always this empowered because we happen to be a child during every time that happens. So we imprint, I don't have any power to do anything about this, et cetera, you know, those are just examples. But those kinds of imprint happen. And the tricky thing is not, it's not like reality is perfect. So I'm not, it's not always just like, oh, go for a more positive thing. But can we accurately, just accurately map it? There will be some hard things in that map because reality is not great. People can still be dangerous. There are dangers in this world. But once we get some of the noise out of that, like, I don't know, it's a sin to be gay or it's like, you know, it's just like stuff that we just took on. It's your week if you're sad. Like, okay, that's not true. So if that's producing part of our suffering, like, can we help those models dissolve or update? Because sometimes they're just too black and white. Like some people can be a jerk, but not everybody, you know, that kind of stuff. If we can help those sort of really be more in touch with not just reality, but current reality, because it might have been true in the past, but isn't any more of that kind of thing. And then contend with it, you know, and the contending with it part is more, I mean, gosh, we might need support. We might need self-care. I think grief is a huge part, like, okay, we get, we get, we get, we look, we're now we're with reality. Oh, man, there are some bad news, like, it really is true that your mom didn't love you. Or it's really true that your pet just died or like, it's not like it. And then if it's something that we can't change, and it is true, you're in reality and we really can't change it, then we grieve. And that's a big part of therapy, I think as well. So all of those are sort of pieces, yeah, yeah. But memory consolidation is really helpful with the, let's not at least suffer from a made-up construct. You know, like, their life has enough suffering. So it's not like we're, everything's great. We have to grieve, someone who has to problem solve. But if some of our suffering, which most a lot of it is, is from templates of reality that were set that are no longer true or maybe were never true, like, it was my fault when mom left when I was nine, like, I was never true, then really finding some way to slow down with those. And then begin to open, explore them in a way that opens up the brain's capacity to reconsolidate what that imprint says predicts is what the brain science is saying. What did it know? Yeah, I love that. And when you talk about the brain in that way too, and I mean, the more you hear you talk the more I'm like, yeah, Tory, we're totally on the same page. And I feel like the brain, we're doing something with the brain and in the brain. But it's so much more beyond that as well, and I really appreciate bringing in the experiential piece, the feelings piece, the emotional piece, because I have a lot of clients that they'll say to me, like, oh, yeah, I get it in my brain, my brain gets it, but that I'm still feeling this way. You know, the maps are more than just something cognitive that they're utilizing. It's really something that their body is being pushed into. And their body's like, I don't care how you're telling me I'm supposed to see this. I'm feeling it right now. I'm going to make my way through the map, the way that I want to make my way through the map. And they could sometimes even see that disconnect. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like spiritual people, especially those they like, I really cognitively, and in my heart, like a part of them, they're real deep as self believes that like all, all human beings are valuable and worthy of dignity. Like they, you know, they, they, it's not like it's a joke to them. They really believe out on the one hand. And they have some other knowing somewhere else, which we think of as a neural network. It's in the brain. We feel it in the body, often, but that has imprinted a different truth, you know, maybe I'm a piece of crap. And that got imprinted. And it's very confusing and crazy making for people because they're like, I literally see that's irrational. You know, and yet, like you said, in the body, but you know, it's our brains make a prediction. We feel it. We're not conscious of it happening as a thoughts. We feel it more in the body, but, um, but it's really predictions, really actually cognition in a way, from a brain perspective, um, um, feel this is predicting that knows, um, no, I'm a piece of crap, or I better, it's safer to think I'm a piece of crap is really often what's underneath that, but, um, and, and then just being smarter cognitively, that's a whole different issue than going to the neural network, the imprint that got this reality imprinted and actually updating it. So that's why just thinking rationally, it's just not enough because it's just the wrong. I used to say wrong part of the brain, but I'm realizing how much of these imprints are actually neocortex, like it's, so it's a whole brain. It's, it's, it's yes, limbic and subcortical and all that even brains them, but it even in the neocortex, what you think of as our thinking brain, there a lot of that's not conscious and has a lot of some of these templates. So it's like the whole brain, it's just really how I divide it now is more the like explicit memory, conscious putting things together versus these implicit imprints that happen all over the brain, um, and, and are just designed to be non conscious. That's why we only feel them through the body. We didn't notice having the thought that our body noticed having the thought, you know, it's like, so we're having this reaction. But, but really there, it's not even like you can point to this part of the brain or the subcortical. I mean, it's, it's a lot of it is subcortical, but, um, like I make a lot with fear and stuff. Um, but that's, but it's more interesting to say, okay, what am I just not, the brain is having a thought, I'm just not read, I'm just not conscious of it. It's having a prediction is what they would say, um, an expectation, oh, I think this is about to happen next, and this is how I'm supposed to respond, um, and those are more learned through experience, they're just kind of encoded through experience. And the more confident we are, the less conscious it becomes. So if we experience something again and again, like every time we try to have a voice in our family, we get shut down, like the more that prediction is like, oh, I know that that's how it works, the more the brain will say, okay, I already know that I have to think about to make it conscious and it just literally becomes less conscious, which is really interesting. That's part of what we're working, you know, within therapy because like, well, your brain is so confident about that, it's not even letting you win on the conversation. It doesn't even need to layer on just my, I'm a conversation there. It got really, so it either is powerfully imprinted by repetition or by one time they're being a lot of danger. And it's like, let's not second guess this one because it really saved our life. So imprint it hard, move it, automate it, make it non-conscious because it's really important to do it and we don't need to think about it, like we need to save our resources for things we're questioning, you know, we don't question this, you know. And so it's a funny thing how like, it means we go around throughout our life, not really knowing a lot why we're doing what we're doing or feeling or feeling, you know, if it's a confident, it just becomes our personality kind of, you know. But we can slow down. It's really not, it doesn't have to stay at non-conscious, it's just for the efficiency sake, the brain says, you only need to pay attention to this, we got it like, we can do this non-consciously. But if we slow down and ask our brain to make it conscious for us, like, but why are you doing that? And we ping it, we cue it in certain ways that have to be in ways that don't make us think about it because that brings us our conscious mind online that's not helpful, it doesn't know. But if we cue different things like images, like right in that moment, what was going on, like really slow down and tell the brain, actually we want to make this prediction conscious. We want to work at this, what really are you predicting under there? Then we start to put the pieces together. Yeah. No, I love that. I love that. And I think so much of it, too, is really our society where, you know, and maybe this revolution that's occurring within our field can spread through the wider society, but I think society doesn't really create the optimal environments for us to slow down, to be able to tap into the stuff. And if it did, then maybe it would be more natural, but some of what you're talking about where the body's just like, let's imprint it, this is important move on is because of the lives that we're leading right now, which are just so quick. And I got to get my coffee, and then I got to get to work, and then I call about the traffic, and then I got this, and then money, money, money, money, and so, so, you know, that's that in and of itself is causing us to be in the survival mode, which isn't slowing down, which isn't allowing us to really tap into what are our emotions. Some people don't even know they have emotions, right, or that emotions are bad, God forbid, that emotion that we have bad emotions. So yeah, that's where I think this revolution is critical. I really appreciate you saying that, David, because I don't think people say that enough. And it's a simple and profound part of this thing is exactly what you said. We just move too fast. It's funny, I was just making that teaching point to a small group, I was leading this morning where I did a demo, and I'm like, I'm just demoing, slowing down. And all I did was help the person track him, well, now it's there, take a moment with it, just take a moment, and just see what comes next, you know, and appreciate all this profound stuff come up and had realizations and seven people were like, well, you're slowing down so much. But also, I wasn't, and I wasn't doing much, I was just helping them slow down. But the mind is brilliant. We can have huge insights about ourselves and put pieces together, we're so smart. We just never slow down and ask it to do that, but I call the work of the mind, whether it's processing and experience we're having and making me out of the experience, we're processing a, like, a feeling or a behavior, like, why am I feeling this way? Why am I doing this? Either way, we're not going to get, like, it's complex stuff and it's mainly, it takes some work to get it to consciousness and put it together. And if we just don't slow down to do it, it will not have a chance to do it. Yeah. So exactly as you said, we just move so fast, we never say, pause. It's a, you know, it sounds so mystical, but it's just like, reflect, like, just take a moment and just notice, like, sometimes we don't know what we're doing, let alone why. Like, we might snap at our partner and then we're like, onto the next thing and we forgot we even did that, you know, and that's like, well, first just even notice that I snapped. Okay, or like you said, notice, I had a feeling, you know, and then, oh, that might be cute, anything else is going on. Let me take a moment to just discover what that might be. Right? Yeah. Is it a narrative I had going on? Sometimes people, you know, I call schema, these imprints, but some knowing prediction or belief, these things were talking about the getting printed. Was that book trickered my snapping? Was it am I tired? Like, you know, what's going on here? Like, and we have to sort of train our brain to do that a little bit because it doesn't, it does, it really needs to be as lazy as possible for evolutionary reasons. Like, it doesn't want to waste energy on, or something's not useful. And so I was like, oh, you're just tired. Look, it'll even just the first feel, just be like this, don't think about it. Really? No, brain. We actually want to work on this. We are putting glucose toward this. Okay. Everyone's like, okay, fine. We're really asking me to do this. Like, I'll do it, you know. But we have to take the time and value it. So yeah, you know, give me a good, like, let's really see if we can unpack this, you know, and take our time with that. And there's skills we can learn, like, parts work or journaling or mindfulness. I mean, there's all sorts of ways to, like, begin making this unconscious stuff or non-conscious stuff more conscious, you know, but, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. I'm going to take a little bit of a turn here, but you and I both love IFS. And one thing that I've been really diving into, which has been super fun, is the whole spirituality of IFS. And the door that it allows for spirituality to come in through the self. And I'm curious how you feel, like, you know, how you experience that, how you bring that into your work. Yeah. It's a great question. I mean, my first, a lot of my first inner work was in my 20s. Throughout my 20s, I was like, a mystic. Like I was meditating like crazy. Nice. I think I'm like, not like purposely moved. I was like, I've time. I moved away from that. My mom and I got busy and like, and I have let lean so into the science now. So I'm kind of like in there right now. But it's not like I forgot those experiences, but I think there's just something. So whether you think of it as a metaphysical spiritual or just the sacredness of, you know, without any, like, just science, a sacred, you know, I mean, like just, yeah. Either way. And I have students, some students that are like, no, it's energy. And then some sort of like science. But it's still sacred. It's like this beautiful thing. You know, we are beautiful, you know, that actually really love that, that it doesn't have to be, you know, separate from science, science is sacred. Yeah. It's like reality is coming. Like there's something sacred about just getting the beauty of reality, whether it's like, especially the one us, the this reality, like we're really, it's, there's a lot of beauty anyway. And it can feel, if, when you're really tapping into those levels, it does feel more spiritual. It really does. So again, whether you put a metaphysical interpretation on that or not, but some people do. And that adds to their, like, there's people who are, I've seen rabbi, I've seen a conversation with Dick Schwartz and these rabbis talking about how, like, all his, the stuff he found were in these ancient, you know, Jewish texts. And I saw, I've seen many on, like, Christians talking about integrating IFS and their Christian journey and why it's a fit and not fascinating that by and, and then of course, the new AG people all over the place are Buddhists as well and, you know, people taking it, can fit in any spiritual frame. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Right? Because it's just saying, hey, slow down and come from your best self, like it, and those other reactions, you don't have to demonize them. I think it's maybe where sometimes it breaks a little from traditional religion in a way. I have gotten pinged on that by some Christians occasionally, like, but there is original sentiment, I don't know, but, um, but, you know, that's, you can work around that. I think, um, I think it's okay, you know, you can find your way through that. But, but I think just the basics idea that, like, you know, record our good, even, even in Christians, like we're, our, our, our Judaism, like our Maiden God's image, kind of thing, you know, um, that, that, that we want to just slow down and find that place. But then bring that to these wounded or troubled plate parts of our self or young, you know, younger, just means that they were imprinted earlier development on level and we can say what that means. But that are just learned a way of, we had to when we were 10, learn an adaptation, so we learned it and we had kept it, right? Because the brain doesn't even let us be conscious of it, right? So we just keep going. If we slow down and we're like, ooh, that's a good, what a 10-year-old would come up with and we just stuck to it, you know, then it's like, hey, we don't, you don't have to judge yourself for that. That's just how the brain works, you know. But we can call that a younger part of us, you know, would be a way of saying it. It's like, okay, like, I have some states inside that that came out of a younger time and are based on younger assumptions or what the best I could come up with when I was 10 or younger adaptations that are really not as empowered because I wasn't empowered at 10. They were numbing out or this or that or being a bully or whatever, okay, that's the best I could do. So then, but now it's become a habit, it's not more than a habit, it just became a learning. Now to learn to just slow that down, step back from it and name it in some way where you call it part or schema or neural imprint or an adaptation or whatever, just say, whoa, that's my pattern that got imprinted and that's not who I am. It's a big part of IFS, but also like spiritual traditions and everything of like, disidentification is what the psychologist called, it's not me. So that means I can be the me that's available to just be curious and sort through this and discover it and track it and learn from it and then heal it. And then I want the beautiful system for that, but everybody, I mean, I don't know if anyone would disagree with that. It's just IFS has their way of doing it that is unique to IFS, yeah. I think IFS, yeah, and I think you've said this and other people said it's just, it has beautiful language. It has a beautiful way of sharing it and it's very compassionate, very empathetic and accepting. But I like to think, like this is my newest kind of feeling about IFS spirituality and therapy is that as my definition, my current working definition of spirituality is really kind of appreciating and feeling something greater than ourselves and kind of reaching out to whatever that is love or whatever that is and when our parts feel confident enough and safe enough to allow that space to occur, that self-energy inside of ourselves is really kind of tunneling or channeling this greater kind of energy that's out there and that that's what's coming through to us and perhaps healing us and allowing us to be our best selves and allowing us to evolve and I think that here I'm going to piss off some Christians that are, you know, that opinion about original sin, but I wonder, I tend to wonder, is it not about original sin but is it about more original trauma or just a trauma that we all have or suffering? Yeah, totally, totally. It's like, exactly, if you just evolve, that's why I like think and work around that which is probably as we evolve as humans, we should evolve our concepts of things, even if we don't start to grow it out, it's probably a better way, it's probably a slightly more nuanced way to think about what that would even mean, you know, but yeah, we have some original vulnerability to trauma and learning and being imprinted because you think about a newborn, they're completely exposed to everything. Yeah, and I think they're completely innocent and I honestly, I think we stayed completely innocent. I think we're always completely innocent, we're just, our brain is doing it the best job it can to map reality, but sometimes it gets very skewed data, you know, and so therefore it's, and it's just meaning at the developmental level it has at that moment and so we end up with some problematic learnings, but that doesn't mean, we didn't do that on purpose. Right. We make problematic behaviors, I'm not like trying to, like, we could be a bully, we could be a, I don't know, it could lead to some really dark things, addiction and, you know, all, you know, can go with violence and, yeah, I mean, yeah, so I'm not saying those behaviors are fine, but what I love though, I do love the IFS emphasizes this coherence therapy does as well, actually, they're a little, it's a little less touchy feeling of a model, so it's not quite as like, oh, they're new, but this is absolutely something Bruce would say is why it's called coherence therapy, everything is coherent, makes sense, is that there's like underneath any, even bad behaviors, if you track it down, there's a positive intent, originally when that thing got set up, it was for something, even if it's just to survive or, or save my sanity, like, okay, like, honestly, that's not moral or moral, it's just, I mean, it's probably good, you know, it's fine, like you should want to protect yourself, you know, so like, or protect somebody else, but it can, it can be very confusing, because even a really loving impulse, like, let's say you're a child and you have an abuse of dad and you be younger brother, this is just like an easy example I sometimes go to, like, and you know if that brother makes a slightest mistake, he could be like, be not or something, like, this is serious stuff, you know, like, you need to protect brother, so your learning is if brother, other laughs too loud or spills something, you have to kind of like, come in kind of hard on him and like, don't do that, right, because you're saving him from a worse thing, right, but that's all going to be automated and learn is just like, just do that, like, you just become like the movement you do, it's automatic, right, then later you're having kids and they make the Chinese mistake and you come on down on him really hard, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, I'd be so mad at them, like, I hate that kind of parenting, you know, and at the same time, if they're my client, if they're really sit down with me, I'd be like, okay, I'm, I was mad at you for a second because I'm protected with your kid, and if you're really sit down with me, I know that underneath that is a solid intention. Even if it's an intention to protect younger brother, but then got imprinted as any time a child makes a mistake, I have to come down hard with them or else bad things happen. Like, that's just how the brain will make that assumption in like a millisecond, right, absolutely unconscious. We talked about brains like, I already know that, don't think about it, just do it. And then we were like, why am I being such a jerk as a parent? And then we either have an option of just justifying it or shaming ourself and neither are great, but, but what we could do is pause. And this is what all these therapies are trying to do is like, don't jad, don't justify it or brilliant yourself. Just get curious. Right. Soon that there's a valid thing happening underneath pause. And just without judgment, but just seeing, well, why is it, what are you for, this is the classic eye fest question. Ask the part of you that does that. What do you frame would happen if you didn't? This reminds you of questions or what forced the brain to start taking things that are health and non-conscious and making them conscious. It's, I want to know the prediction here. Slow down, actually, give me the prediction. I know you had you do it fast. What is it? And if you slow down, if you begin to use the right language, like, what do you frame would have? If you imagine not doing it, and then the system will freak out and start sending the error, the message more loudly and all those techniques you can use, you can begin saying, Oh my God, because I think my child's in danger if I don't mistakes are dangerous. Maybe first comes out, because mistakes are dangerous. Oh my God, I didn't know I thought that. And then you say, just stay with that. Just be curious, where did you, where might have you learned in a mistake? Oh my God, my dad's face comes right away. It's like, it's not, I think it was reverse engineering, but it's not rocket science. It's like, just, like you said, just slow down. Stay curious. Don't judge yourself. Create enough safety so this stuff can flow because it won't flow if you don't feel safe, which largely is done through compassion and non-judgment and just like, look, take it slow. Then you can begin to kind of like, like, like, discover yourself, like, discover that pattern. And then once you know it, like, Oh, okay, now at least have a fighting chance of updating the prediction that my child's about to be beaten because of that. And like, no, oh my gosh, we're not with that anymore. And that's that, I know we said we get to memory consolidation at some point. Let me just say it really quick, because the wet the brain needs to update an old implicit knowing. It needs electricity. It needs to be actively making the prediction, electricity flowing down the neural network that does that while at the same time witnessing evidence that disconfirms what this prediction predicts. So I have to feel, and if some of the times you get more bottle, like, it does feel more bottle, like, I don't know, but this, like, no, my dad, like, it's not safe, right? So let that be online. You can't, if you intellectually just talk about it, it doesn't send electricity down the neural network. So you have to feel it a little bit. You have to, like, activate it. Like, picture, oh, yeah, it really doesn't feel safe. For this reason, right? Because I think we get beaten if we make mistake, right? And then, then holding it with data that is a genuine disconfirmation, feels subjectively also powerful, like, but are, so what adults around that would do that while I'm in the old adult round, are you going to beat them? No. Like really, like really bringing you, like, hey, so wait, on the one hand, there's a, there's annoying your brain says, I better come now right the second or else I'm, he's in physical danger. And on the other hand, some other part of you knows, not just like in a, like, a wishful thinking, but really knows that you're in charge of your child's safety, and you're not going to let anyone physically harmful come near him. Huh. And you don't even push one out for the other, because that would be more of, like, the CBT move, but then that, that, you know, you actually want both online at the same time. On the one hand, you know, this, on the other hand, you know, this, night and neuroscientist call that a mismatch experience. The more, or you're going to love this word, the juxtaposition. Yeah, say that's what my mentor uses. Yeah, juxtapist, it's always going for that position experience. Yes, that's his word for the, the mismatch experience. And it's a great, it's like, it's like, okay, there's a juxtaposition between there's a mismatch. There's a, you know, prediction errors in other, it's, it's prediction error. Like I made a prediction, I'm reading it as an error. And we parts were being constantly monitoring for that. In the moment they feel a, they sense prediction error, they tell the model to update. Yes, it wouldn't work. Now, that means the, the, the, the proteins that hold all those neural connections in place open. And a whole neural network can dissolve in two seconds. Yeah, yes. And, and this is where I kind of love just seeing all of these models converge and the juncture between all of them, because I think EMDR would call it dual awareness. And then I, I fast would say, this is when you're really seeing the exile and you have the self energy and you're bringing the exile with the self energy. There is a complete mismatch with what the self energy knows and what the exile is holding on to. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. And oh my god. I mean, I think this is like absurdly elegant. Like, I'm just writing a series right now, the science of IFS. I'm like, really want to like show, okay, we're already put out a lot. What is a science of self exploration? No one has really talked about that much. I'm like, okay, we just do that. And then, and then obviously transformation with the reconstruction. But like any time, like, at this way, I laugh and be able to say IFS is like, not evidence-based or scientific or something like that literally may be the most scientific model we have. You know what I mean? I mean, you know what I mean, like every, because it, because every single, like, most models, all the models are beautiful and they all take some powerful pieces of this and they're enough by themselves. They're great. And I've never seen a model in one fell swoop just with the parts work and self energy accomplish like all of these requirements from a brain perspective. Absolutely. You have to also be within your window of hours and you have to have it clear and then you have to like have a new knowing and like, it's like, so many things the brain needs that are kind of tricky technically. And you can get that, yeah, you can get through motion focus or so. I've also trained somatic experiencing great, that's especially great for physical traumas because they create a different kind of mismatch. But, um, but IFS sort of like covers a lot of different kinds of learnings. Like, somatic experience is great for like physical trauma learnings. Like, I'm not powerful. But yes, you are. You see, you fought back, you know, different kinds of things. But IFS is like, whoa, like, it could be any learning. You're just going to ask the part what it learned. It'll tell you, you'll be in a band, band, you know, bandwidth space. You worry to be like, well, actually, I see something else. You know, if it's it's really sort of like absurdly elegant. And even though I love coherence and when people do coherence, well, it's like also absurdly elegant, it's just harder to learn. And IFS is, is something people can also do on them a bit by themselves too. Like, it's not just a therapy, like, currently, it's a therapy. IFS is also like this way of life and a spiritual path and bubble wide. So that's why I'm like out there trying to push IFS a lot. Oh, I'm with you. I totally would love to push IFS. I'm hoping, you know, even with the book that IFS informed EMDR at Bruce Hersey would say, you know, IFS is a complete model. Yeah. Me, David, I haven't found other models to be in my system as complete. I do believe that other models could add dimensions to IFS, which is really beautiful, which is why I kind of push back and maybe upset people, but I push back on being purely IFS, because I think more as Michelle Richardson said, I think more it's about being self-led, but if we're self-led, we could do any model. You know, it's they all have truth. They all have, they're all capable of helping people in certain ways. So as long as we're aware of our parts or where being self-led, the more that marry or why not have other things to add to our repertoire, that could really help in this process. Anything is welcome. So I have an issue with people that will only stay with one model. I mean, not everyone likes parts work and so you have to have a little a little. Some people might not even like the language. I mean, I. But some some clients I have is like, if you totally vulgar here, but but I have this one client from a way back. I love them, and I'd be like, come on, let's talk to your part. And he's like, yeah, talk to this part. Like with his mental finger. I love, I would just find that hysterical and really fun. But, yeah, so, you know, coherence therapy is similar in that like. Again, other than it being sort of like technically hard, like it has that complete feel and it stretches anywhere. It can stretch anywhere. But so much so that even can like, you can just do IFS from a coherence lens, you know, whatever. But and what's what's neat about IFS is it is that it's like very user-friendly. It's also it's just easier to learn for therapists and clients can learn it on their own. But what I like learning about why I also teach coherence to along with IFS is like, if we can, the next step up is like really learn this coherence way of thinking. I just try to transmit Bruce's brain into my brain of like how he sees things because it's like, wow, like then you're not just doing these lovely elegant steps of IFS, but you know why you're doing them. You know, and then and then there's just ways you can. IFS also doesn't teach memory consolidation. So I think, I think when you're doing IFS, even though it's complete and it has everything, if you know to look for the moment's memories, you know, like memory consolidation. Yes, yes, yes. Even more explicit, you know, like, wow. 100%. Again, it's a map upon a map to make it a little bit more, you know, precise in what exactly we're doing. And I think EMDR does that as well, where it has the eight phases. And if you know what phase you're in, you know, okay, do they need more preparation? Or are we ready really for the reconciledation piece right now? Yeah. Yeah, so exciting. Yeah. Oh, it really is. Yeah, I love this time. I love it. I feel so grateful. And like you said, the technology is so fun to be able to just now like, converse with everybody and like, you know, that's meat and talk. And then you'll, you know, it's just it's like there's a lot of potential for learning. And yeah, it's true. And with the podcast, it's like, there's so many really incredible people doing incredible things out there. And being able to just kind of pick people's brain, have people here and talk. It's just it's so nice. I really appreciate you. And I really appreciate your time. It's fun. It's fun. Yeah. I'm willing if anyone wants to come train with me, you know, it's funny. I've actually trained therapist and coaches. I'm thinking about starting just a coaching program in the next year that would be just for coaches. But I like training anybody. I think everybody's a right to just learn about how the mind works. And that's so cool. That's so awesome. Yeah. And then tell me a little bit about your training. When when you do training, you train anybody, because I've heard that a lot, like therapy is for the, you know, thousands. Let's really reach the millions. Let's reach, you know, as many people as we can to share this stuff. And why, you know, hoard it in just like, oh, this is just for therapists. If this really has the ability to transform, you know, somebody's life, why not put it out there, you know, for everybody. So I'm totally with you on that. And what does that look like? Do you do when you have people coming into the groups that are not therapists? Are there, I'm guessing there is, there's experiential type of, you know, exercises? How do you navigate through that? I can have tears. So I have like my, so it's a six-month training. So I have just like every Monday lecture. It's like an hour and 15 minutes, 45-minute lecture, half an hour questions. It's just like learning about psychology. And anyone can really come to that. People, usually people are just coming for self-help. They just get the recordings of it. So they can pay less, you know, because they're not getting like for training. They just pay like a third of the price. You just get the reward, you know, whatever. But anyway, come to Monday. And then I have a separate smaller group of like 20 where we practice and do diets. And that's either, yeah, I do accept coaches into that. But it's either people that are like students or therapists or, you know, and it wanted to be helpers, not just for their own growth. And then that's like, I think that's what I was interested in because it isn't, is that the one where it's also, it's meeting with you and then at times also with Bruce Ecker. Well, that's a whole other group. I believe lots of groups. But yes, I do have a group. They usually people do my six month training first, mining the heart, and then get funneled in. Although I have no idea when he's going to retire. But so far, we've let people funnel in. And there's two groups I lead with every other time Bruce comes and every other time it's just me where we, it's mainly coherence therapy focused though. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, it's fun. And so I guess two more questions. One, you know, what else is Tori doing? Anything else like exciting coming up in the future. And two, how specifically people could reach out to you? Yeah, I mean, what am I doing? I mean, it is fun. You asked that because for the last six years, my husband and I on the side have been developing this like technology, this whole technology. This is like before the AI got popular. But they're like uses AI to help therapists find the right client. So we're just kind of like, I mean, the client right therapist really helps clients find a good therapist match both ways, I guess. But because I am into therapist client matching, like just find it like, we could probably do better in that. Like right now, I feel like we just throw stuff against the wall. Whoever's on your insurance, or whoever, it's like, it's just so random. And so I think, I think we're like trying to figure out like, okay, slow down, ask some client, ask information with the client ones, get to know the therapist, and then over time make from that data learning, doing AI learning about like what actually is a good one. It's so fascinating because just my, my two cents on that, it's so I feel it really is so much about a relationship and that you're building. And in some ways, it's like what you and your husband are maybe taking on is how do you match maker and figuring out there's going to fall in love with one another. Not literally, but fall in love with like, wow, I really want to meet with you. I really want to learn from you. And the learning goes both ways. And so you're you're setting up like what personality is going to really match with another personality. That's what we're that's aren't because if it was just like a pill, it wouldn't matter who gives you the pill. Like it's just like, this is right exactly. But it's not. It's like, you have to have chemistry. You have to like, personality match, you know, and what kind of therapy went and identities and like, there's all sorts of things you could map in there. Anyway, so that's what we've been playing with for last six years. And I say playing with, but I mean, like, my husband like full time, like it's insane. How much wow. Anyway, so just now we're like coming out like, do we make a therapy directory? Do we like, how are we doing that? But so, and then maybe maybe now, I'll hopefully be an coaching program and then my normal trainings and hopefully making more right now I'm working on just writing a science of IFS thing. But that's awesome. That comes out. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot fun. And so is the best way for the audience to reach out to you through the website? Yeah, there's a contact form on my website. And there's, say, say your website again. Or it's just toriolds.com. And I do have some like, see you online on demand courses, I've three on demand courses, but they do offer, see you use, that you could purchase. If you want to purchase, give me your money. I'll take it. You have a lot to offer. So I'm sure that there's really good information in there. Yeah, I try to well, thank you for being here. Thank you so much for joining me today on Empowered Through Compassion. If you're looking for support on your own healing journey, we'd love to hear from you. My wife and I are both licensed social workers and Massachusetts. And together we co-founded and powered through compassion to offer grounded, compassionate space for therapies, supervision, and trauma-informed couples work. You can learn more about what we offer on our website www. EmpoweredThrough Compassion.com. Until next time, may you be kind to your parts and trust the wisdom that is already inside of you.