The Adult Chair Podcast 4: The Adult Chair

Over the past two weeks, our conversation has centered on the child and adolescent chairs, moving from the creativity and trust of the child to the judgment and doubt of the adolescent. Today, we take on our namesake, the adult chair.

The adult speaks in truth and fact. The adult is conscious, connected to the higher self. The adult is our keen observer, rational and patient. This week, we offer an exploration of the adult, and share insights into how the adult supports our growth from child and adolescent every day.

Transcript

Welcome to the adult chair,

Living authentically with Michelle Schalfont.

I'm Pete Wright and here we are.

Michelle Schalfont,

The rubber meets the road right here.

This is the namesake of this whole podcast.

We are talking about the adult chair today.

Hi Pete.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you?

I am so ready for this.

Great.

Are you in your adult chair?

I have no idea.

Well,

I have a standing desk.

How does that work?

Oh yeah,

No.

You're not in your adult chair.

I'm in my adult shoes?

Yes,

You're in your adult shoes.

You know,

We've spent the last couple of weeks introducing this concept of the chair work that you do.

We started talking about the child chair and the benefits of living authentically with your child,

You know,

Understanding vulnerability and creativity and trust and passion and then the,

You know,

What happens when you become an adolescent or the benefits or the challenges of the emotional adolescent dealing with,

You know,

Judgment and addiction and the feelings as you try to rationalize the world around you and become aware of your own ego.

And today we introduce what is starting to sound like the referee.

Yes.

With the adult chair.

Is that a fair assessment?

In a way,

Yes.

What does the adult chair allow us to do as we put all these concepts together?

Okay.

So just to go down the timeline,

From about zero to seven on average is when we're in our child.

And then around the age of seven,

The child part of who we are becomes inner child and the adolescent part of who we are is born until,

You know,

From us again,

It's average age of seven to maybe 18 ish,

Somewhere around there is when the adolescent happens and drops in.

And then if we had parents or parenting,

It doesn't matter if you're in a foster home or grandparents raised us or siblings,

It doesn't matter.

But if the people that raised us were able to process their emotions,

Live authentically,

Have healthy boundaries and love themselves,

If we had that growing up,

Then we very easily transition into this,

What I call now the adult chair,

Which is really our authentic self.

I feel like there's a giant but coming.

It's giant.

So how many people do you think actually slide into this adult part of who they are?

Statistically speaking,

I'm guessing not very many.

So,

You know,

We just,

Unfortunately,

Our parents or whoever raised us,

They came from a dysfunctional upbringing.

So that's what we got too.

So they gave that to us.

It just gets passed down the line.

So what happens is we get stuck in this part of us that is called the adolescent.

So even though physically speaking,

We continue to age from our emotional self,

We get stuck in this part called the adolescent.

Unless,

Again,

We had this upbringing that taught us how to be authentic adults.

So here's the problem.

So now what do we do if we didn't have that?

If we didn't have this upbringing,

Now what?

Well,

The good news is we can introduce now our authentic adult into ourselves now,

Even though we didn't see it.

And,

You know,

Obviously,

We saw maybe a little bits and pieces,

Some of us never did.

But what we want to do is bring that part of us in.

So today I'd like to talk about how we do that.

Oh,

Yes.

So,

First of all,

Let me talk to you about who is our authentic adult.

What does that look like?

Well,

That is the part of us that's able to love ourselves.

That is the only part of us of all these three chairs that we've talked about that is able to live in the present moment.

It's the part of us that only lives in fact and truth versus the adolescent part that speaks in stories and assumptions.

Okay,

What is fact and truth?

Fact is,

You know,

I had a client that came in and said,

Oh,

My God,

I'm going to lose my job.

And,

And I said,

Why?

What happened?

Well,

You know,

I heard through the grapevine that they were having layoffs.

I said,

Okay.

And she said,

And I am the most recently hired person in this firm,

So I'm going to be the one that's,

That's going to get fired for sure.

So there you go.

There's an assumption that's all coming from that adolescent chair.

So I asked her,

I said,

Okay,

So let's,

Let's get your adult's perspective.

I said,

So right now in this moment,

You know,

On Thursday afternoon,

Tell me what's true about what you know about getting fired.

And she said,

She was,

The look on her face was,

It was funny.

She said,

Well,

Some people are going to get laid off.

And my company is it okay?

What else do you know?

This is true.

And she thought about it.

She said,

That's it.

But she came in in this gigantic panic,

You know,

It was almost in tears and so upset.

And I said,

Okay,

So for today,

Some people are getting laid off.

She said,

Yes,

I said,

Okay.

That's all we know.

Yes.

Okay.

So that's what I mean by living in fact and truth.

So in this moment,

So our adult part is able to say in this moment,

What's true,

Because the mind or the adolescent part of us likes to make up all kinds of stories based on things that may or may not ever happen.

And typically,

What we find is they never do happen.

So the other part of the there's some other traits to our adult is the only part of us that's connected to our higher self.

She can be very grounded.

She is the part of us that lives with compassion and has boundaries.

She is the part of us that is able to tune into our feelings.

So she she knows what to do with the child part.

She knows how to sit with feelings.

She knows how to accomplish taking care of whatever our needs are from that child part.

She also is an observer.

She notices she is able to look at the adolescent part of who we are.

She she kind of observes what's going on in the mind and does not react to it,

But just watches until it's time to take action.

So she very much responds or he she or he responds versus reacts.

We react from the adolescent part.

That's the part of us that has,

You know,

Flash anger,

Flash rage,

Or screams out at people or gets so upset about things where the adult takes in all the facts,

Sits in the facts,

And then decides,

Okay,

Now I'm going to take action.

It's the part of us that's aware of our addictions.

It's the part of us,

Again,

That's the only part that can bond with our child.

So it's a really,

Really valuable part to who we are.

Let's get back to what you were saying in the first week when you when you pop out your inner child,

You have to be living sort of presently in your adult to act as that sort of parenting model to your own inner child.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

So,

Again,

If you don't have an authentic adult,

If you're not living from that part and you'd like to,

What do we do?

So here's some ideas.

Number one,

Which is again,

What I said in the first week with the child chair,

The adult chair is the only part of us or the adult part of us is the only part that would ever ask the child,

Hey,

What are you feeling or what am I feeling?

So just asking that question brings in this energy of our adult self and brings in the energy of the child.

So it does both.

So by connecting these two parts of us,

What happens is every time I ask that question to myself,

It's just bringing in more energy,

More energy,

More energy into these two parts and bringing them are present in my life.

So then the adolescent part begins to sit,

It slides back a little bit.

It doesn't have all the energy.

So that part of us gets a little bit quieter.

Then I find that the thoughts that are going over and over and over and over that keep us up at night,

The ruminating thoughts,

The negative self-talk,

All of these things start to quiet down just by starting to tune into what am I feeling and then validate it.

And then what do I need?

Those are the questions that I ask all the time in session with people.

They're the questions I ask myself.

What am I feeling?

I feel lonely.

Okay,

What do I need?

I need a hug.

So I'll grab a pillow,

I'll hug a pillow and I imagine it's my inner child.

These are all activities that we can do in our mind.

But remember,

The mind doesn't know if it's in reality or if it's in the imagination.

And to the mind,

It's all the same.

It's all real.

So by doing this work,

We re-parent ourselves.

It's really powerful work.

This gets back to,

It seems,

Your example with your husband that you told about just when you were able to sit down and rationally say,

Here's what I need.

I need you to hear me out and I need you to do it with your hand on my knee.

And that's what I need.

And I'm going to have this experience and you're going to witness it.

And that's what I need.

When you couple that with this question,

The first question you posed,

Which is asking yourself what is true,

You're able to separate whether you need to actively process and make a decision on something or whether you just need to be heard.

Yes.

Or whether I just need to wait.

That's the other thing that the adult can do is we can wait until the proper time to take action versus the middle.

I call it,

When my chairs are lined up in my office,

The adolescent's always in the middle.

So I also call it the middle chair,

But the adolescent chair says,

Oh no,

I have to do it right now.

I have to do it like this.

No,

No,

No.

It's not true.

We can wait from that adult chair.

So many things have changed since,

You know,

I've been doing this for years now,

But in working with my adult,

I know that even the way I eat has changed.

So I'm a healthy eater,

But sometimes I'll fall off the wagon and I like chips.

I like to eat potato chips.

So I remember one day I ran in the house and I just walked right into the pantry and I realized,

Again,

The adult is the only conscious part of who we are.

The adolescent is unconscious.

So I walked in unconscious,

Grabbing potato chips and I'm eating and eating and eating.

And in the middle of it,

I could feel,

All of a sudden I said,

Wait a minute,

What am I feeling right now?

And as the chip was coming up to my mouth,

I thought,

Oh,

Wait a minute,

Hold on,

I'm feeling whatever the feeling,

I don't remember what the feeling was,

Sad,

Let's just say I was feeling really sad.

I'm like,

Whoa.

And in that moment,

The craving for the potato chips was completely gone and I couldn't even put it in my mouth because I stepped out of that adolescent and just,

Oh,

Wait a minute,

Hold on.

So I find that my eating habits have changed where I was always healthy.

I used to eat a lot of pasta,

But I put vegetables on it so it's healthy,

But hardly eat pasta.

I don't hardly go for the chips anymore.

The more my adult,

And I think this is a lifelong process,

It's not something you get one day and you never have to practice it again,

But it becomes a lot more automatic.

So I didn't have to,

In the pantry that day,

I didn't have to pop my child out and pretend my,

I didn't go through all that.

It was very automatic and I was like,

Whoa.

You are getting to something that is very personal to me too.

I mean,

In terms of eating,

I have a number of sort of reactions to certain foods.

I can't eat corn.

If I eat corn,

I can't walk.

My ankles and feet get so swollen that I'm in a great deal of pain.

And corn is in a lot of things and I find myself,

I mean,

The way you're talking about living in the adolescent,

I can visualize,

I can feel,

I can pop out my adolescent.

You know what he's doing?

He's literally hanging on my back with his arms around my neck.

And he's reminding me,

It's like urging me to say,

You don't need to listen to those stupid dumb doctors.

You don't need to listen to those people.

You can eat whatever you want.

I dare you to eat corn chips.

And then I don't just eat a few corn chips.

I eat a bag of Juanita's fantastic nectar of the gods corn chips.

And I eat them with a bottle of sriracha.

And then I am bedridden.

But that's okay because I took back my power and there's my adolescent standing in the corner with his hands on his hips,

Like,

You know,

Crowing.

But I mean,

That's my journey with food and it becomes a debilitating weight and what I've been learning.

And I think processing from my conversations with you is that it's likely because I don't have a healthy conversation with my adolescent.

Right.

I would agree.

And then another step I might take,

Again,

The only part that can do this with you is your adult.

But one word that jumped out at me when you said that your adolescent,

Something about having power.

So that tells me there's a part of you that might feel disempowered.

So we want to look at the dialogue that's happening and the adult can pull out these keywords.

And one thing that happens in our adult is empowerment,

But healthy,

True,

Authentic power.

So yes,

If you see him on your back,

Pull him out in front of you and your adult needs to have a conversation with him.

And when I say that,

You know,

I've had clients in my office that want to tell the adolescent off.

I'm like,

No,

No,

No.

That part of us is there to protect us and it thinks it's protecting us,

It's keeping us alive.

It doesn't mean it doesn't have angst for God knows what happened in our past.

So it might do things like you're saying.

It might say,

Go ahead and need another one.

Go ahead and have more.

Go ahead and have more.

But we've got to sit in it and figure out what is that part?

What is the motivation of that part of me that is wanting to go ahead and eat all those chips or finish off the ice cream or,

You know,

People that are spending addicts,

They need to go spend money,

Spend money.

What part of me,

There's some part within the adolescent,

What's the voice,

What is it telling me?

What does it need from me?

So I would sit down.

That's a great example.

And I'm glad that you shared that.

But sit down with him and ask that adolescent part what he needs.

Yeah.

You know,

You bring up that I use the word power sort of unconsciously.

But that is the feeling of disempowerment that comes from being told what to do.

What is the emotional sort of response to being told what to do as a child?

Like,

You can't tell me what to do.

That strikes me as a stereotypically adolescent response.

You're not the boss of me.

Right?

And even though my best interest is harmed by this,

You know,

Which I find interesting,

My best interest is harmed by that,

You know,

Power differential being tested.

I,

You know,

I fight that every day.

That's the fight of both addiction,

But also of my emotional response to dictate.

It needs a voice.

You know,

The seat of the adolescent,

Remember we talked about that each chair has many different voices in it.

But at the forefront,

You know,

We have the child,

The adolescent,

The adult.

So in your adolescent,

And if anyone that is listening,

That has addictions or that can't stop eating or anything like this,

Ask yourself,

What does that voice really want to say?

What is it?

You don't feel heard.

That's what happens.

We don't feel heard.

So it's acting out.

Think about it.

Think about who,

How old would the person be that would go and eat something knowing it's going to throw them in bed?

How old would you be?

Like how old,

What's the,

Where's the logic there?

Like how old would you guess?

That'd be 12 years old.

Somewhere around there.

Maybe even younger,

Maybe 10,

Maybe 11.

I don't know,

But it's young.

It's certainly not the adult Pete.

No,

No,

The adult Pete's a pretty savvy guy.

That guy is trying to,

You're 11 year old or 12 year old,

However old you are,

Is trying to get attention.

So let your adult sit down with him,

Have a conversation and ask him,

What are you trying to get my attention?

What is this all about?

Why do you feel the need to do this?

What's this all about?

You know,

Like I said,

We're big puzzles.

We got to talk to all those parts that are acting out and reacting and overeating and overspending and over-sexing and all this.

What do we need?

Because our needs were not met when we were growing up.

They couldn't be all met.

Yeah,

They couldn't have been all met if we're still processing this way.

Exactly.

For sure.

This is obviously an important conversation for me.

I'm thrilled to once again be your vessel to sort of live out loud in this way.

It's very helpful and I hope it's helpful for others.

So thank you very much once again,

Michelle,

For your wisdom this week.

We have wrapped up our first three sort of episodes,

This little series on introducing the chairs.

I hope it's given you as listeners a chance to understand sort of what this chairwork is and at least to set the definitions that we'll be using as we speak about other issues in future episodes around what these chairs are and where we are when we're dealing with relationships,

Dealing with parenting,

Dealing with grief or loss or public speaking or the holidays or whatever it is.

That's what this last little series has been about.

We are going to introduce a meditation coming up very shortly.

We'll put that in the podcast feed so you can do a sort of guided meditation with Michelle and get a sense for doing this work on your own.

Is there anything you'd like to introduce with the meditation coming up?

No,

I'm just really excited about it.

It's going to really help to find that I want to start out doing the lost child meditation because so many of us just,

That's the really big first step is helping us to feel our feelings and that brings that child back and so many of us have just shoved that part of us away.

So that is the next meditation coming.

Excellent.

Well,

Very much looking forward to that and I love the way we can introduce these meditations into the podcast.

I feel like it's going to be a really useful tool.

So folks,

Please,

We'd love your feedback on the meditation as you catch up with that in the coming weeks.

Thank you everybody for listening.

Once again,

Thank you for your participation.

You can learn more about the show at michellechalfont.

Com.

You can subscribe to the show for free in iTunes or your pod catcher of choice and we'd love you to participate in the discussion either on Facebook or Twitter.

We're there,

We're listening and we appreciate your time and attention.

So on behalf of Michelle Chalfont,

I'm Pete Wright and we'll catch you next week on The Adult Chair,

Living Authentically with Michelle Chalfont.

Reviews

Brilliant! I was working with my child and adult chair today in therapy. I was able to self sooth my child by rubbing my chest in circles, when I was connecting with my feelings and the child in me felt overwhelmed and distressed. Listening to this has given me insight into this process, thanks Michelle!

Thank you.. wow thank you

Thank you so much for sharing this process.
I am so very grateful as it has been life altering.

As always, these podcasts are enlightening. I always get something out of them. Thank you.

Beautiful, profound and so so helpful to me. Thank you x

Brilliant, and very helpful. Thank you :)

Very insightful as always.
Thank you!

More excellent insight from Michelle. I'm recognising that these are things I've been aware of and even tools I've been using, but this is an excellent way to categorise it all. It's like I've had a messy drawerful of insightful tools and I know what they are but they're haphazardly thrown in there in a way that makes it difficult to find the tool I need when I need it. This model of the three chairs is a wonderful way to bring order to the drawer! Thank you 🙏🏽

That was great, looking forward to hearing more 🙏🌿 thank you 😊

This was simply fantastic. Thank you so much for posting these series!

Lovely & uplifting talk 🌈

Great work! I am an EFT therapist in Orlando Florida, and I love helping people integrate into their Adult Self. I actually can buy an EFT tapping with EFT couples therapy - Along with the teachings of mindfulness and self compassion. All great tools. Loving hearing about this work thank you so much

This series is so helpful to me; a useful adjunct to my counseling sessions as it parallels the work done there.