The Adult Chair Podcast: A Deeper Understanding Of The Adult Chair

After four years of this podcast, Michelle felt like it was time for a refresher of the three chairs. In this episode, she discusses where the Adult Chair model came from and a review of the three chairs. This is a beautifully honest, insightful and informative podcast that for long time listeners, will reinforce your knowledge of the Adult Chair. For new listeners this will help you to build a foundation for this model.

Transcript

Hello,

Everybody,

And welcome to The Adult Chair.

I am Michelle Schelfant.

Today is going to be a good show.

I am chatting with all of you today about The Adult Chair and The Three Chairs.

I'm going to be really going over what these three chairs are all about,

So make sure to stay tuned,

And if you think you know all about The Three Chairs,

You might be surprised.

You might learn something new.

But before we get started,

You can find out more about this show at theadultchair.

Com.

You can join the conversation on Facebook,

Instagram,

Or Pinterest,

And be sure to request to join My Adult Chair private group on Facebook.

As you know,

We are all in there learning how to live in our adult chair,

And it is a beautiful place.

If you want to share what's going on,

You'll get some amazing comments.

Post whatever you'd like having to do with The Adult Chair and get just honestly great,

Great feedback.

I've got two announcements to make,

And I am thrilled about both of these things.

Number one,

Today is November 1st,

And today is the beginning of the 30-day journaling challenge.

We did this a year ago,

And it blew up,

So we're doing it again this year.

It's free.

And basically what happens is every day of the month of November,

You will get in your inbox a journaling prompt.

And you can either use that prompt or just go off of whatever's happening with you in your own life and write.

And I'm inviting you to join a humongous group of people that have joined this challenge.

And we have created this beautiful collective consciousness around transformation the month of November.

It's the perfect time to do it because we're leading right into the holidays.

So we want to get ourselves strong and clear and,

Of course,

Live with more peace.

And the journaling does it.

So if you want to join that,

Even if you're listening to this and it's already beyond November 1st,

Come join us.

You can still join at theadultchair.

Com forward slash journal and be part of this big,

Giant energy of transformation.

I encourage you to join us.

It's amazing.

Okay.

That's number one.

Two,

Guess what?

I have put another workshop on the calendar.

I will be in Charlotte,

North Carolina,

January of 2019.

For more information,

Go to theadultchair.

Com forward slash workshop and you can get all kinds of information about what we're going to be doing there.

I realize this is podcast number 130 today,

That a lot of people have never heard the first four episodes,

Which kind of sets up this whole entire model.

So I have a lot of people that will email me or ask me questions.

And when they ask me questions,

I realize I'm like,

I'm not sure that they know everything that there is to know about this model.

So I thought today would be a great way to review what these three chairs are and what the adult chair is all about,

Where it came from.

I have a lot of questions about where did it come from.

They want to learn more information.

So that's what I'm going to go over today.

This is based on a lot of different emails and questions on social media that I've gotten.

So I hope you all enjoy it.

So I want to start out with really where does this model come from?

Where did the whole adult chair model come from?

It really came from my own journey,

My own quest of wanting to,

Which I don't like this word now,

But way back when I really did want to fix myself.

I don't like that word today,

But I will use it now because that was what I was doing all along in my earlier life.

So I grew up in Rochester,

New York and grew up with a,

What I would call a dysfunctional family for various reasons.

There was alcohol abuse,

There was emotional abuse,

There was verbal abuse,

There were all kinds of things going on.

And I don't just mean with my family of four.

We had aunt's,

Uncle's,

Grandmother,

There was a lot of us.

We are,

Or at least my father's side of the family was Italian.

So there's like sort of as you Italians out there know or Latinos or anyone that comes from a very ethnic background,

We're all enmeshed with each other and we're all in each other's business so there's a lot of codependency.

There was just a lot going on in my childhood.

Not that I didn't feel love because I did,

But it was a lot of dysfunction with that love.

So what I realized now,

Again,

I knew there was something going on when I was a teenager and I realized that I felt like something was off within me.

I used to use a lot of alcohol to get through my weekends with my friends and then moving on to college,

Same kind of thing.

And what I would say now that I didn't know then was that I was filled with anxiety and had what I have called,

Even on the show,

You might've heard me say this in the past,

Functional depression.

In other words,

I looked very normal on the outside.

I dressed well,

I had boyfriends,

I had a group of friends,

But on the inside I felt really bad on the inside.

In fact,

I used to use this term for many,

Many,

Many years.

I felt like I was damaged goods on the inside.

So I had a lot of work to do and going through undergrad,

Psychology,

Master's in counseling,

Getting my license,

I was like,

I just need to fix this inner feeling.

And I didn't know what was wrong,

But I knew I needed to just somehow fix this.

So I've always been a seeker my entire life.

I think I popped out of the womb as a seeker and I wanted to know why.

Actually why and how?

Like,

How do I fix this?

Why am I like this?

So I spent most of my life living like that,

Which of course I don't like the word why.

In fact,

When people ask me why now,

I'm like,

That's a bad question because we can never know why.

But I wanted to know when I certainly was in my 20s.

So that started my quest.

So I've always been very,

It was always on this journey of helping,

Really trying to figure out why I felt so bad on the inside.

So I went a very traditional route.

I became a therapist,

But also I was also very spiritual.

I've been that way my whole life.

So being born and raised Catholic was different.

So I'm not talking about religion,

Although I have nothing good or bad to say about religion.

I'm neutral on that.

I was spiritual.

I wanted to understand more about God and energy in the universe.

So I went in that direction and also took a very traditional route of counseling.

And what I found over the years is I was just blazing down my path,

Again,

Really going to every class I could find on whether it be meditation,

Chakras,

Energy medicine,

And also all of the traditional routes of learning about traditional types of counseling and different techniques.

So over the years,

What happened was I started to just combine both.

And I would call myself,

In fact,

I have a hard time today with my title.

I always say I don't know exactly what to call myself because I'm not exactly a traditional therapist.

I'm also a holistic life coach.

I'm a teacher and I'm really spiritual.

So I don't know what that title is.

If anyone knows,

Please comment because I have no idea what I am.

I'm an integrative therapist,

I guess I would say,

Or a holistic practitioner or a holistic kind of therapist because I really combine everything I can into one.

And that's what this podcast is all about.

So as far as my journey goes,

So I spent much of my life feeling like I was this damaged goods and along the way I had this awareness,

Like,

You know,

I just wonder because I had such negative ruminating thoughts growing up.

I wonder if the solution is to love myself.

I realized maybe I just don't love myself.

That was what the problem was with what was going on as far as my anxiety and my depression and this codependency and all these things were going on inside of me.

Maybe if I could love myself,

Then I would feel better.

So that was I was blazing down my path trying to figure that out.

And I read every book I could possibly get my hands on.

I had many,

Many,

Many teachers and mentors along the way that I learned from.

And I took so many just different classes and certifications.

I mean,

I was just filling my brain with knowledge.

What I found along the way is that I would learn something and it would help me a little bit and then,

But it was never like that magic pill.

You know,

I wanted that magic pill like in that Bradley Cooper movie.

I can't remember the name of the movie,

But he takes that pill and like his whole life changes.

That's what I was looking for.

And I was looking to get to the end of the road.

But what I have discovered along the way is really that whole,

The quote,

Really life is a journey.

It truly is living my life through all of these different things that I've all my ups and downs.

That's part of life.

That's part of my journey.

But as I blazed down my path,

Trying to learn everything I possibly could,

I moved to Nashville,

Tennessee,

11 years ago.

And I had a lot of people that I had met that said to me,

You know,

You really need to meet the Susan Crumpton.

And I did.

And I went and took,

She,

I went and met with her as a therapist and she was my therapist and sat with her in day one.

She says,

You need to join our group.

So I did that.

And it was there that I realized I took everything that was in my brain and everything I had learned along the way.

And I had really integrated into who I was in those four years with her.

And it was with her throughout the four years and these 10 other people.

And I would call it as far as what we did during those four years,

Really like an emotional ass kicking.

And I mean that in the most positive way,

I promise it wasn't anything that was mean.

It was really,

I needed to get in my body with all of this stuff that I had learned throughout all of these years.

But all this beautiful knowledge.

And of course I was feeling better throughout the years,

A little bit here and a little bit there.

And I wasn't what I realize now integrating all of it into my being.

And that's what I did in this group setting with these 10 other people.

And it was there that I heard the term.

I had done chair work with other people before and other trainings,

Of course.

And I'm sure a lot of you have done chair work where,

You know,

We're working with the inner child and we're working with a teenager chair and all these different chairs,

But it was with her and we've heard of the healthy adult chair.

Again,

If you're a therapist,

I'm sure you've used this and it's part of your practice or probably,

Or at least I've heard about it.

But I don't know what happened,

But it was the one day when Susan was going through everything and she used the term the adult chair in one of our groups that were one of our meetings that we had.

And I know where I can remember where I was sitting and it was like lightning bolt came a lightning bolt came through me and I thought,

You know what,

That's what I'm looking for.

I'm not just looking for ways to love myself and how do I love myself?

I wanted to figure that out because nobody talked to us about how to love yourself.

Everyone says along the way we need to love ourselves,

But nobody ever talked about why.

So that's one thing that,

Or how,

Excuse me.

That's what I was really on a journey and a quest to figure out.

But also what I realized in her class that one day,

And I really think it was all divine timing.

I had heard about living of course from my healthiest self,

But it was the day and the timing and the setup.

When she said the adult chair,

She had three chairs that were set up or maybe more.

She used a lot of chairs,

But on this particular day,

When she said the term the adult chair,

I thought that's what I'm trying to do.

I'm trying to live in my adult chair.

That is the journey that I need to take is to figure out how do I live?

And in my opinion,

The adult chair is the healthiest version of ourselves.

So that is when we're there,

We do love ourselves and we do live authentically.

And that was what I had come up with on that day.

So to fast forward again,

Of course with her blessing,

I said,

I want to use this term and use everything I've learned from you and combine it with all of my learnings over the last 25 years and create this model that I'm going to call the adult chair.

And she gave me her blessing in a way I want.

So that's where this came from.

A lot of people have asked me,

Where did this come from?

Is there a specific book out there on this?

And I would say there's a ton of books and this all did not even come from Susan because a lot of what I have added to this term,

The adult chair is my own understanding of healing and transformation.

And in my opinion,

The reason that we want to learn how to live in our adult chair is for self-realization.

I have used this,

I think I used on the very last podcast,

The word healing for me can be sometimes triggering because that implies that we're broken.

And I don't believe that we're broken.

In fact,

When I look back on my own life,

I don't believe I was broken.

I just didn't have a realization of who I really was.

And through this model called the adult chair that I have created here,

It's like we self-realize and we transform the parts of us that feel damaged,

The parts of us that feel like we don't matter,

The parts of us that feel like we're not good enough,

The shame we transform using this model.

So that's where the model came from.

Yes,

It's a little bit of TA and gestalt therapy.

And people have told me it's similar to family systems and which I was never trained in family systems.

I didn't even know that.

And I thought,

Yeah,

It is kind of similar to that too.

But it's also something that I learned many years ago about working with our parts called RAP-C.

It's about,

I use EFT in this model.

I use meditation with this model.

So this is all things that I have added to what I learned from Susan.

So there isn't any one thing that I could guide anyone to read or learn more about because it's just a combination of so many different things that I've put in this model.

So that's where the model came from.

I have a lot of people that ask me,

So that's how this whole thing happened.

And what happened was I started sharing this idea that Susan had given me called the adult chair in my sessions.

And then my clients started changing and transforming.

And they're like,

Can I learn more about this?

And I said,

Sure.

I think maybe it's time that I write a book on this because everyone kept asking me for a book.

Where's the book on this?

I said,

Well,

I better write one.

So that's where the book came from.

And there was a much bigger book and I scaled it way back to a much smaller book,

Which the bigger book is also coming hopefully in 2019.

So that's the whole idea of the adult chair.

So let me go through with you guys the three different aspects of each chair.

These are the three different parts of our lives is how I define this.

So when I look at the adult chair,

I typically set up three chairs in my office and in a workshop.

This is what I would do too.

So the three different chairs again represent the three different phases of our lives.

So what happens is we are,

Even when we are in utero,

And this is where the child chair begins.

So the child chair is the first phase of our development.

So this is basically the inner child and I call it the child chair.

And this happens from in utero to about age six,

Six to seven.

So when we're in this child chair,

You got to think about what was going on when you were in utero.

This is where our programming begins because what happens in this chair,

So from the age of zero to six,

Everything that happens is recorded in the brain.

It's like we have a tape recorder and this creates the roadmap for the rest of our lives.

It's fascinating to me that from age zero to six is what we are using as adults to live off of,

Which hello,

Is pretty darn,

In my opinion,

Immature.

So it's outdated obviously this map because it's from a very,

Very,

Very long time ago based on all of our experiences,

But these experiences begin in utero.

So think about it.

Were your parents fighting when you were in utero?

Were you adopted?

Was it,

Were your parents happy to have you?

What was happening in your environment?

So start thinking about that.

And then we're born.

So when we're born,

We again are in this child chair and this is when as little human beings,

As little babies,

We learn all about,

And here are some aspects of what happens in this inner child or this child chair.

This is where we learn all about our true emotions.

Now true emotions are different than once,

Remember,

But true emotions are things like I'm sad,

I'm lonely,

I'm happy,

I don't matter,

I'm not worthy,

Joy,

Bliss,

Excitement.

All of these things are true emotions.

The other thing that happens in this chair are we learn all about our true needs.

So when I ask people this question of what are our true needs,

Of course we have food,

Shelter,

Water,

But let's look at the emotional true need.

What is a true need?

And we get these confused with wants.

So a true need,

A true emotional need might be something like I need a hug,

I need a kiss,

I need you to tell me everything's going to be okay.

I need you just to hold my hand.

These are true needs.

Another thing that happens in this child chair is we learn all about vulnerability.

We learn about trust.

So if you don't trust as an adult,

This is how these chairs work.

We have to go inside and work with the inner child to help with this trust.

This is where we learn about spontaneity in this child chair.

So think about if you've ever seen a little child that is playing with something and a bumblebee goes by and then they start chasing the bumblebee or their attention span jumps from one thing to the next.

They're very spontaneous.

This is where we learn all about intimacy and vulnerability.

Think about a mother or grandparent or anybody holding a baby and we just nestle right up with that baby.

It's like,

Oh,

Such a beautiful intimate moment.

And vulnerability,

As you have probably seen,

I can't imagine anybody that has not seen a child that's age three or two in a restaurant screaming or in the mall,

Screaming and flailing on the ground.

They don't really care who's around.

They're pretty vulnerable.

They don't care.

So this is where all of this is learned.

This is where we learn about passion.

You've seen children play and they play hard or they're very engrossed in something.

This is where all the passion is formed.

So when an adult comes to me for a session and they say,

I just have lost my passion,

I lack passion,

I of course go into the child chair with them.

I want to go in and figure out what's going on with that inner child.

And so often that inner child is covered up or lost and we've got to go find that inner child in order to bring that passion out.

And the last few things that happened with the child chair would be creativity,

Play and fun.

So if you lack fun in your life,

I would suggest you start connecting with the inner child.

The inner child is the part of us that is what I would call like the container or the source for all of these things that I just mentioned.

So if you're having intimacy issues or if you're having issues with vulnerability,

It's about connecting into that child part of us.

And once we feel bonded with that child,

So what happens is the adult part of us connects in with this inner child part.

Once the connection there happens,

The child starts to heal.

This model is all about really reparenting these inner parts of ourselves and giving them what they missed out on when we were so young.

But we do this from the healthy aspect of who we are today.

So we're going back in time and we are bonding with these parts.

But I want to add to that,

By the way,

When we work with the inner child,

It doesn't mean you have to go back and remember when you were two years old.

What we do with the inner child is instead,

We just imagine,

Gosh,

Let me see my two-year-old right in front of me.

I wonder what he or she looks like right now.

And for some of us,

We're very visual and it's really easy for us to do that.

Other people sense the inner child.

Other people,

There's just like a knowing or they just hear a voice.

So whatever works for you is fine.

But that's what the inner child part is or the child chair.

So when we are living in this child chair,

All of these things are developing and forming in our lives.

So this is just a tidbit of the child chair.

I just want to give you all an understanding of what's happening in there.

And if you want to explore more about the child chair on my website,

There is a pop-up that you can,

It's again,

Actually,

I don't think it's a pop-up anymore.

It might be a permanent thing now.

Right on my homepage of my website,

There is an inner child guide,

I would call it.

So I've got two meditations,

Two guided meditations to help you access this inner child part and work with the inner child.

And I've got some journaling prompts and I've got some videos for you.

And that's all free,

Of course.

So if you want,

Just go to my homepage on my website and you'll be able to get more information and guidance on working with this inner child part.

Okay.

So this is again,

Just a tidbit,

But moving on,

We've got then around the age of seven until about 25 years old,

We are moving now into the adolescent chair.

So this is of course,

Pre-adolescence,

Adolescence and post-adolescence.

So when we're in the adolescent chair,

This is really the development and much stronger formation of the ego.

This is the part of us that is based in fear.

It is here and created to keep us alive.

That's its job.

The job of the ego is to keep us alive.

And so when we're in this adolescent chair,

We have many,

Many,

Many,

Many parts that develop.

And I liken this to,

If you remember being in kindergarten or a very young school age,

Whenever age we do this,

I think it was kindergarten.

If you remember doing the art experiment where we fold pieces of paper over like many times and cut out with scissors,

And then we opened up that piece of paper and it looks like 20 snowflakes in a row.

That's how I think about the adolescent chair.

So it's not just one of us.

There are many parts,

Even though it's one chair,

There are many,

Many parts that live in this chair and develop over these years.

So this is the part of us.

Remember,

Its job is to keep us alive.

So it cannot live in the moment.

So if you're not living in the moment,

You're in the adolescent chair,

Which of course is most of us,

Unfortunately.

But it lives in the past and the future.

And it lives in the past and the future because it's got to watch out for what's coming ahead and it bases what's coming ahead,

Which would be an assumption based on what happened in the past,

Which are stories.

So this is the chair also of stories and assumptions.

And remember,

I did a whole podcast on stories and assumptions.

I think I've done two of them,

Our stories and assumptions are incorrect.

Probably 97% of the time is I think the fact that I read one time and I,

The stat and I love that.

That's how incorrect we are because we're looking at what happened,

Even if it's in the past through our own filters.

So it distorts with truth.

The other thing that happens here is remember,

This is the seat of the unconsciousness.

This is not a conscious chair.

It's reacting versus responding,

Which is what we do in the adult.

This is a chair of reaction.

So it can be very quick tempered,

Which means I can rage on you or I can lose myself in stonewall and just put a wall up.

I can become invisible very quickly.

Remember I'm doing this all to protect myself.

We might learn also in this chair to be a perfectionist.

So if we had a parent or grandparent or whomever that criticized us for being,

You know,

Having a messy room or for never being good enough,

We then might form this egoic persona of perfectionism.

Same goes for control.

We form these parts of our personality in order to keep ourselves safe.

None of them are bad.

This is the part of us where we get triggered and remember what a trigger is.

I did a whole podcast on this as well and I'll put all this in the show notes.

I just did one recently a few months ago.

So good because I was just triggered and I talked about it on how you transform a trigger.

Remember what a trigger is.

A trigger is something that happens to us when one of our unconscious shadow beliefs about ourselves that we are hiding surfaces.

So this is the chair that blames.

This is the chair that lives with absolutes.

Like you always do this and you never do that.

That's so extreme.

That's the adolescent chair.

That's something that we would say when we're sitting in the adolescent chair.

This is the rescuer.

This is the part of us that obsesses and has ruminating thoughts.

This is the part of us that blocks or defends our emotions.

Now understand this.

When we live in the adolescent chair,

This part of us does not know what to do with emotions.

It doesn't have time.

It's trying to keep you alive.

So we've got the other part of us.

Remember,

Around the age of seven,

This child part of who we are steps inside and that's why we call it the inner child.

It does not go away.

It's a very big part of us.

It just steps inside.

So when we have an emotion like I'm really sad or I'm really lonely,

The adolescent who's like driving this boat or this bus on a cliff has no time to deal with emotions.

It's like I'm trying to keep you alive.

I don't have time for emotions.

So what it does is it pushes the child away.

It does everything it can to stop those emotions from rippling through the body.

So another thing that the adolescent does is,

Again,

It blocks these emotions,

But it also creates anxiety and depression.

That's what happens here.

Remember,

What is my definition of anxiety?

Anxiety is the physical manifestation of unfilled emotions because anxiety,

In my opinion,

Michelle Chalfant's opinion is not an emotion.

It's physical.

Think about anxiety.

Not in my throat,

Not in my stomach,

Tightness in my chest.

That's physical.

So think about it like this.

In my adolescent,

If I'm sitting in this adolescent chair and to my left,

I've got this little kid,

My inner child,

That's crying because he or she is so sad.

I'm trying to keep us alive.

I can't take my attention off the road to deal with this,

So I need to push that down.

So I need to create vices in order to block these emotions.

So I might realize I'm going to have some cookies over here.

I'm going to have this big pizza or I'm going to,

You know,

And I can remember,

I can't process emotions and food at the same time.

So if I'm eating something,

I don't have to process emotions.

My energy is going toward breaking down my food.

I don't even have to think about emotions.

All of the ideas and strategies that come up in this adolescent,

Remember,

Are coming from an emotional perspective of about 12 years old.

Emotionally speaking,

We're 12.

So the idea of eating a piece of chocolate cake or having a beer or watching porn or whatever it is,

All these vices that can of course turn into addictions,

They're coming from about an average age of about a 12 year old mentality.

Really,

Really young.

But this is what anxiety is.

Same with depression.

I'm depressing really the inner child.

If we want to look at it just from a chair perspective,

It's like we are taking this child's chair and putting it in the basement in a closet and locking the door.

It's a depression.

So if I want to transform anxiety,

Depression,

Addiction,

Codependency,

Which I think is also an addiction,

A codependent is an addiction to fixing or quote unquote helping another.

That's what codependency is,

But all of them are the same.

I believe if we can get in touch with that inner child and start feeling what's going on there,

It is a game changer for all of these things.

That's what shifts.

And I can say this,

This is my perspective.

I'm not saying it will 100% work for you,

But I will say this,

It worked for me.

I do not live with depression and anxiety anymore.

I don't have that anymore because I learned how to feel my emotions.

Now sometimes perhaps it's a chemical issue,

But I think that's not as often as we think.

Again,

This is my personal opinion.

So getting back to this,

The energy in the adolescent chair is very,

Very fast.

It says I got to do it now.

You can't wait.

Hurry,

Hurry,

Hurry.

I got to make a decision about this right now,

Right now,

Right now.

There's some other things too,

But lastly,

I'm just going to say the adolescent part of us,

It feels very separate.

It loses the idea that we are connected to everyone.

In the child chair,

We think and we remember that where there's a oneness that I am a part of and the adolescent says,

I'm separate.

I am an individual.

I am Michelle and I'm separate from all of you.

And that just is not true on an energetic level.

We are actually part of a oneness energy,

But the adolescent forgets that.

Okay.

Moving into the adult chair,

We do this quite naturally if we were raised with parents or caregivers that are or were also living in a healthy version of themselves,

Which unfortunately most of us don't have that or didn't have that experience.

We had someone that might've been healthy here and there,

But we need models to teach us how to do this.

How do we become healthy?

Well,

If who was raising me was healthy,

Then I naturally can do that.

But because most of us weren't in that environment,

That's why I love this model so much because it teaches us how do we do this,

How we can live in the healthiest version of ourselves.

So when we are living in our adult chair,

We are living in the moment.

We are living with fact and truth versus stories and assumptions.

We are what I call storybusters.

So when we're living in story and assumption,

Some part of us has to bust that story and that is this adult.

Remember the adult,

We really,

You know,

The adult trickles in,

Of course,

This energy of the adult starts manifesting probably when we're teenagers,

If I had to guess.

But it really solidifies itself around the age of 25 because when we live in our adult,

It's not just an energy of being grounded and connected to the higher self.

There's a physical component,

Which is the brain is able to access the prefrontal cortex.

And that is the part of us that is the,

That's where we get that executive functioning.

It's that higher,

That higher way of thinking.

So when these all come together,

That's the adult.

So to be a story buster,

We've got again,

The energy of this higher self,

This grounded version,

But we've got this executive functioning that says,

I'm going to get out of this story that I'm telling myself because it's not helping me.

When we're living in the adult,

We're very compassionate for ourselves and others,

Non-judgmental.

We're curious and we observe what's going on.

We observe what's going on with my child,

Which is the feelings and needs.

And we observe the thoughts.

We don't buy into the thoughts and react.

We respond.

So one of the things that I say all the time is that when I'm in my adult chair,

I'm very connected to what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling emotionally speaking.

And then I make a decision.

And I know because I'm in my adult,

I don't have to do it immediately.

I can take my time with it.

This is the seat of consciousness.

This is where we bring consciousness into the equation.

We gather information here.

So if I don't know what's going on with somebody,

I'm going to gather information.

If I don't know how to do something,

I'll gather information.

If I feel stuck,

I'm going to go find further information.

Then I'll make a decision.

Again,

This is the part of us that responds versus reacts.

So that adolescent chair,

If I'm sitting there,

I'm going to react.

Age comes from that adolescent chair.

Quick thinking is the adolescent versus adult is calm.

It can pause.

It can wait.

This is where I set boundaries.

This is where I find my power in my adult chair.

I can stay present even when I'm triggered,

By the way,

When I'm in my adult chair.

It's like I almost am watching myself be triggered.

When I'm in my adult chair,

I can take responsibility for my life even if I don't like parts of what has happened in my life or what is happening right now in my life.

I'm still going to take responsibility.

And lastly,

Again,

There are many things that happen in our adult,

But I can let things go from here.

I can move on and step into the moment.

And I can't do that from my adolescent.

I can do that only from my adult.

So these are tidbits of what happens when we're living in the adult chair.

And I want you to know,

When I'm living in my adult chair,

It does not mean that I'm in this zenned out position,

You know,

Ending stale on the couch all day where nothing bothers me and I'm living in this perfectly neutral zone all day,

Every day.

And I'm living in my adult.

Remember,

It's the healthiest,

Fullest version of myself.

So it means I'm feeling all of my emotions.

I can be angry and be in my adult.

It doesn't mean I'm not having negative emotions.

And I don't even think there is such a thing as negative emotions.

Of course,

Some of them don't feel as good than I would say the more fear-based emotions,

Which are things like anger.

They feel much differently in the body than positive emotions,

As people call them.

But I think we have a spectrum of emotions,

Which is going from love to fear.

We feel all of them and we let them through us in the adult chair because I can do that because I'm connecting into my child chair when I'm in my adult.

And they just come through.

So I can be angry.

I set a boundary that might look like me raising my voice even and setting that boundary.

But these are things that happen when we are in our adult chair.

If I'm feeling that I can redirect my codependent reactions when I'm in my adult chair,

If I'm reaching for chocolate cake because I am so upset about something,

I might pause and say,

You know what,

Do I really want that?

Someone had asked me on the closed group the other day,

What do I do when I'm hormonal or when I'm really stressed out?

How do I live in my adult chair?

I thought that was such a great question because again,

It doesn't mean when I'm in my adult that life and what life brings me goes away.

It doesn't mean it's the magic pill that fixes everything.

The differences is how I'm showing up in my life for times when I'm hormonal or times when I'm stressed.

So if I'm stressed out,

What that looks like for my adolescent chair versus my adult chair is night and day.

So if I'm stressed out in my adolescent chair,

I'm going to move really fast.

My brain is going to say,

Do more,

Do more,

Do more,

Do more.

You haven't done enough.

Hurry up.

You're running out of time.

That only adds to my stress.

My heart's going to start racing.

God only knows what I'm going to do.

I'm going to eat,

Have sex,

Do porn,

Do drugs,

Whatever we do in order to numb out,

Have a glass of wine,

Whatever.

From my adult chair,

I'm going to actually do what feels so counterintuitive to the adolescent chair.

If I'm stressed from my adult chair,

I'm going to go,

Okay,

Hold on a second.

I need to slow everything down.

And the adolescent is like,

No,

I got to hurry up,

Go faster,

Faster,

Fix it,

Fix it,

Fix it.

And my adult will say,

Hold on and stop everything,

Look at the facts,

Gather more information,

Come up with a plan.

Okay.

That's how an adult would deal with stress.

It's healthy.

I can't make the stress go away in my adult.

Life is going to continue to show up.

It's how we look at and approach and live in life.

That's what changes from our adult chair.

That's how we change.

And as far as hormones,

Someone asked me about how do we deal with when we're hormonal?

It's like,

If we're up and down,

Let's just pretend we're hormonal.

And I'm all over the place and I'm crying or I'm yelling at people from my adult chair.

I'm going to go and apologize to people that I might've overreacted with and say,

Hey,

I just want to say I'm really sorry.

I'm going to own my reality.

I just did a podcast on that a week ago or two weeks ago.

I'm going to take responsibility,

Which is what I do for my adult and say,

You know what?

Hey,

I'm really hormonal.

I'm so sorry.

You might want to avoid me today.

I'm really snappy and this is not who I am,

But it is who I am today because my hormones are raging.

I'm taking responsibility.

That's how we handle things from the adult chair.

I'm owning my reality.

So when we live in our adult,

We find greater peace and more emotional balance.

I'm getting into my life instead of avoiding my life.

I'm realizing my parts that are in my adolescent chair.

So many of us want to avoid those parts again and numb them out.

For my adult,

I'm going to go straight on in there and say,

What's going on?

I need to connect with my parts and we learn how to do that.

Of course,

You know,

I've talked to you guys many times on how to do that on this podcast and in class,

Of course,

In the workshops and in the book,

We need to get in touch with the parts of us that feel codependent,

That feel out of control.

And that's how we find greater balance.

So again,

The adult chair model helps us to reparent and fill in the blanks to parts that we didn't get when we were growing up to and experiences that we did not get as we were growing up.

And helps us to,

Again,

You can use the word heal.

I'm going to use the word transform those parts and integrate those parts.

This is all about integration.

I can't get rid of anything.

This is something that Susan taught me way back when,

And I could not agree with her more.

But I realized it is a process of self-realization.

I can't get rid of my loneliness.

It's not like I can erase that from my emotional basket.

It's like,

Kind of like,

I don't want to get rid of my fear.

Now,

If my fear is out of control and I live with tremendous amounts of fear,

Then I want to bring that more in balance,

But I don't want to get rid of my fear.

Part of being human is having a whole spectrum of emotions.

That's part of the human experience.

So feel your anger,

Feel your fear,

Feel your shame,

But let it come through you.

Remember Jill Bolte Taylor taught us that when we fully feel emotions,

We feel them for 90 seconds.

That's it.

Feel them and let them through.

What we do as humans though,

Is we have an emotion that comes up through us and the brain comes on top and goes,

Or the adolescent part of us jumps in and goes,

Oh my God,

Why are you so angry?

Maybe you should,

Maybe we should do this and do that and do that.

So the anger is coming through us or the sadness or the shame or the grief.

And then we build a story around it and try to fix it.

And then it gets stuck.

That's why we get stuck in our emotions without the mind chiming in.

These emotions just float right through us.

So cry it out.

I always encourage crying in my office.

Cry,

Cry,

Cry,

Cry,

Cry.

It gets the emotions moving.

It gets energy moving through us.

So okay.

That's let me look,

I think that's about all that I want to say about this.

There are so many topics that I've done that teach you how do you live in your adult chair.

So if you go to my website,

Just go to theadultchair.

Com on that podcast page,

There's a search bar.

You can put in just about any topic and the podcast that's related to that topic will pop up and you will then be able to gather more information,

Which again is an adult chair term.

So I hope that this has been helpful for you guys.

And I can say that it has this model has,

I do not feel like damaged goods anymore.

In fact,

That feels like such a thing of the past and I owe it to this model.

I know what to do now when I have ruminating thoughts.

I know I have to feel my emotions and then they're gone.

I know what to do with anxiety if it does come up because I'm human.

And some days I do feel like some anxiety coming up,

But I now know what to do.

There's so many tools built into this model to help you to work through just about anything.

Now I'm not going to say that this model works with things like schizophrenia.

I've never had a client like that.

I don't know because I've never worked with someone like that.

That feels a little bit too extreme for this model,

But this model will work for people that have things like codependency,

Any sort of mood disorder.

I really believe that you can plug this into just about anything and it will help you on your journey.

That has been my personal experience.

Of course,

I cannot and will not guarantee anything.

So this is just something that worked for me and I decided to share it with clients.

And four years later,

There's a podcast with thousands and thousands of people that download every single week.

And it's surreal,

Honestly.

So I wanted to share my story with you guys and share just a little bit more about the chairs.

And I hope that you have found it helpful.

And of course,

If you have questions,

Please,

I would love to hear them or comments come into the closed group at the adult chair and comment and question anything.

And I will do my best to answer just about everything.

So okay.

Well,

I have loved this as always.

I love spending my time with you all.

And I have a great book today to recommend.

It's not on Audible.

This is the one week we're not going to be on Audible,

But it is the adult chair book.

So if you want more information about the adult chair,

There is a short book that I think I just said to you earlier,

I wrote a big giant book that is still in the works.

And I just made it very short,

Sweet and simple.

And you can go get one for yourself.

It's at Amazon and it's just called the adult chair and it's the guide to loving yourself.

And if you want to learn more about the adult chair,

That would be a great book for you to get.

And I believe you can get it even internationally on Amazon.

Okay,

Everybody.

I hope that you've enjoyed today.

And remember again,

To join the journaling challenge,

Go to theadultchair.

Com forward slash journal.

And if you want more information on the Charlotte workshop,

The end of January,

Check out the adult chair.

Com forward slash workshop.

I hope that you all have enjoyed this.

I of course have loved spending time with you and that's all I've got for you today.

Have a beautiful day and much love to all of you.

I will see you next week seated right here firmly right in the adult chair.

Reviews

Really enjoyed listening to this! Thank you 🙏☺️

Thank you for a great introduction to your model. I am very excited to learn more about your approach and I so appreciate your time and willingness to share your accumulated work and wisdom❤

Completely reframed my perspective. Love this model! 🙏🏾 #gratitude

I always look forward to my Friday morning podcast with you. Everything you say resonates. Amazing words or wisdom Thank you for your guidance.

Excellent thank you for further explaining the adult chair!☮️♥️

Straight forward. Thank you. 🌤

Really helpful information about this model. I am finding it fascinating and trying to put in place some of the ideas. Thank you Michelle 💜x

Wow great explanation...my life exactly...now for some adult work

Thank you for revisiting the 3 chairs and how you came to develop the adult chair. It resonates with me. ❤

Thank you. Such a great way to see things. I look forward to hearing more of your podcasts

Thank you for that review and explaining what all the chairs are! So helpful!

I like the clear, easy way of conceptualizing this model. I didn’t know 12 yrs was avg age of adolescent chair. 🙏❤️

Another enjoyable talk. Thank you.

WOW!!! SO MUCH AWESOME INSIGHTFULNESS AND INFORMATIVE TOOLS! I wish I knew all of this year's ago. I have to share this with my, just turned adult, children. This is all extremely important for a healthy survival, especially when dealing with so many disorders that all relate to the different chairs. Thank you so much!

Thank you! Very promising, informative and inspirational! ❤️🙏🏻

Fantastic as usual Michelle 💙

Awesome!!!!! An entirely different way to approach transformation!! Thank you 😊

I love this model. I Learned a lot and looking forward to more! Thank you❤