“There are no bad parts.” That’s a core idea behind Internal Family Systems, a form of psychotherapy that helps guide hidden parts of ourselves to the fore so they can be acknowledged and integrated. Today, recurring co-host Adrian Klaphaak and I are building on episode 319: Who’s Sitting in the Board Room of Your Brain? by talking about how IFS can clear blocks when navigating change, and modeling the process with JB in the hotseat.
Are you looking for a little support and guidance on finding your purpose, or best next step? Check out Adrian’s Career Pathfinder Program and apply promo code PIVOT for a special offer on his group training. If you’d like to work with him 1:1, he just opened up a few new spots—book a free consultation here.
More about Adrian: Adrian Klaphaak is a coach, purpose guide, entrepreneur, and founder of A Path That Fits Career and Life Coaching. His coaching approach is holistic—a constant balance between getting results and a quest for meaning and fulfillment. He describes himself as “a deep seeker with a constant itch to make things happen.”

? 3 Key Takeaways



IFS is a form of psychotherapy that says we’re all made up of multiple parts that serve to protect us and a core self—who we are beneath those protective mechanisms.


Exiles, Managers, and Firefighters: Our exiles are the parts of us that experience anxiety, fear, and trauma (often when we’re very young); managers dictate how we interact with the world to protect us from those fears; firefighters seek to protect us by pushing us toward distraction to numb our pain.


Unburdening: A process for helping an active, stuck exile rejoin the core, true self by reminding it that you have new tools now, compared to when you were a child.


✅ Try This Next: There is genius in our parts, and we can apply their gifts in our adult life. Try to identify how at least one of your manager parts and one firefighter might be stepping in to avoid feeling the pain of an exile (most likely formed in early childhood as an adaptive measure).

? Resources Mentioned



Adrian on the web, Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn



Course: Career Pathfinder, promo code PIVOT



Video: Finding Your Calling



Articles: Academy of Ideas—Carl Jung and the Shadow: The Hidden Power of Our Dark Side



? Books Mentioned


Introduction to Internal Family Systems and No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz


On Our Best Behavior by Elise Loehnen


Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford

Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business

Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

Life After College


? Related Episodes


Pulling the Thread: Recovering Every Part of Ourselves (Richard Schwartz, PhD)



Pivot: 319: Who’s Sitting in the Board Room of Your Brain? With Adrian Klaphaak, previous Pivot x Career Pathfinder podcast episodes with Adrian (Spotify playlist)


Free Time: 031: Eleventh-Hour Creative Gremlins and 064: The Vulnerability of Launching



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