Radical IFS
Radical IFS
2. Koala: The Blue Bottle Tree and Paper Maché Alien
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2. Koala: The Blue Bottle Tree and Paper Maché Alien

How Your City Can Heal You

Welcome to one of our most tender, strange, and soul-nourishing episodes yet.

Koala is not okay. They’ve checked into the Parts Hospital. Everything feels bleak… until something shifts.

Suddenly, we’re walking through Chicago.

What begins in sadness becomes a love letter to a city, a meditation on weirdness, memory, and unexpected joy.

We follow a firefighter part, Koala, as they gently lead us through alleyways, railroad crossings, and neighborhoods exploding with small miracles: flower patches, fairy gardens, toy-studded trees, a paper-mâché alien on a skateboard, a Little Free Library containing a random pair of shorts, and a Barney Fife Highway sign.

Through laughter and longing, parts argue, marvel, and re-discover love for a place that never stopped offering magic.

Along the way, we explore:

  • The power of resourcing through curiosity and play

  • Parts that are dissatisfied vs. parts that are deeply grateful

  • The quiet healing of being witnessed by city streets

  • The genius of the Parts Hospital as a place for Self care

  • How firefighter parts can sometimes offer joy instead of distraction

This episode holds everything: sadness, sarcasm, softness, sensory delight, and the sheer weirdness of being human.

If you’ve ever been in emotional ink, felt pulled in opposite directions by your parts, or fallen out of love with where you live — this one’s for you.

There’s no street in Chicago without something weird.
And sometimes, that’s all the healing you need.

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