Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - Grape Therapy: Big Life Changes & Building Resilience with the ShrinkChicks

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

This episode is putting the “therapy” in “Grape Therapy.” It's been almost a year since our favorite Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists, the ShrinkChicks, have been on the pod. A lot can change in a year. Change is a natural part of life, so Em and Jen are here to help us navigate through it. Whether you're stuck in a "what if" spiral, avoiding the painful feeling of the unknown, or you've made a tough decision and need to build yourself back up – this episode is for you. They discuss the feeling that you aren't where you're supposed to be in life (based on societal standards), understanding the lens in which you see the world, cultivating a positive mindset, and reframing setbacks as opportunities for growth. Oh, and don't forget to check out thetherapygroup.com for all your therapy needs – because everyone deserves a little support on their journey! Thank you to our sponsors! Vinos, check out these deals: WELLA: Try the Ultimate Repair Miracle Hair Rescue with 10% off the travel size on Amazon by using promo code 10VINE.  CLEARSTEM: Use code OFFTHEVINE at clearstemskincare.com for 20% off.  DRAFT KINGS: Download the DraftKings Casino app and sign up with promo code VINE and play $5 to get $100 in casino credits.  Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit www.1800gambler.net. In Connecticut, Help is available for problem gambling call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. 21+. Physically present in Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia only. Void in Ontario. Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. One per opted-in new customer. $5 wager required. Max. $100 in Casino Credit awarded which require 1x play-thru within 7 days. Terms at casino dot draftkings dot com slash holidays on the house. Restrictions apply. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Okay, listen up if you love a good slow burn romance, and let's be real, who doesn't? You need to check out the new Audible Original of Pride and Prejudice. It's an intimate performance that literally makes you feel like you're right there swooning with Lizzie Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Marisa Abella as Elizabeth and Harris Dickinson as Darcy, I'm obsessed. So whether it is your first time with Jane Austen or your 50th, this version is such a fresh, fun listen. go to audible.ca slash jane austin to dive in i'm kately bristow your session is now starting welcome welcome to great therapy i'm your host katelyn bristow and today i have emily and jennifer on

who you may know as the shrink chicks, I'm obsessed with them, our favorite licensed marriage and family therapist. And we talk about how the last time we talked, it was a year ago. A lot of big changes have happened in my life from a year ago. So we decided to talk about navigating big change, small change, building resilience, holding capacity for yourself to grow. And I just think this is always a really important conversation that everyone can benefit from, whether you're 13 or 80. It's so crazy to me because I feel like I talk to you guys often, but that just goes to show how fast time goes by because it's almost been a year since I came out of Hoffman and we did our podcast around inner child work and obviously so much has changed not only our

hair but also love lives homes like yeah so much has changed in this past year so we're we're gonna get into it I know change is obviously inevitable and like that just happens in life but change feels so difficult all the time whether it's like big huge change and making like a shift in your job, a divorce, ending a relationship to like the smallest thing of like, I need to renovate my bathroom and I want to make a small change just for like, whatever it is, it's always feels so overwhelming. So how do you think people should approach big life changes? Like a simple mindset to approach a big change. Well, the funny thing that we're always going to say is that this is going to depend on knowing yourself, which is why we talk nonstop and

you talk not stop about the point of personal growth. Because how. I approach a life change might not be the same way Jen does or that you do. And it's really important to know how you are, right? So for some folks, the mindset's going to have to be, this is going to be hard and I'm going to survive that no matter what's going to happen here, I'm going to live through this, right? Like there's going to be, I can do something really hard and make challenging. For other people, it's going to be like, I'm going to kick the ass to this change. And part of this is where does your mentality need to be for what you're about to climb?

Another piece of this, too, is just understanding that change is a natural part of life, no matter what throughout our lives, we will constantly be going through transition. The difference is, is that sometimes those transitions are in our control and sometimes they're not. And I think some of the hardest ones are ones that we didn't necessarily anticipate. And it leaves us open not only to having to process that change, but to also grieve the idea of what the future was going to look like. And I think that that piece of it is really hard and something we really leave out of understanding what it's like to process change is going through that grief. and it leaving us vulnerable in those moments to figuring out, well, now what does my life look like? How do I figure this out? Because as human beings, we have a deep fear of the unknown. And even if something's not working for us, we sometimes stay in things in order to avoid the painful feeling of the unknown. Yes. And so just understanding that that is a natural process that everyone goes through.

And just because you're experiencing this sense of unknown does not mean that you can't get through it and you can't rebuild. Such a big part of change does come with avoidance. And even if you are set up for success and you know what you're doing or you don't have the confidence and you didn't predict this coming, like avoidance is a big part of it. So how do you move from avoidance to acceptance? One of the things to also think about is, is for a lot of us when we've invested a lot of time in something, we have a fear of loss of investment where I've invested time, energy, resources into whether it's a job or a person or a house. And the idea of losing out on that actually leads us to avoidance, right? So it's like, oh, well, you know, right now our relationship totally sucks. but it was good five years ago.

We put all this work into it and we did all this stuff. And so how can I do it now? So I'm just going to hope and avoid that it just gets better on its own. And so part of the avoidance is also wanting to try to save our investments. And it might sound, I know I'm using business terms and business terms and it takes a bit of the emotion out of it. But we do get stuck. And then when we hit that avoidance, we're sitting in grief that we aren't actually accessing it. so it's like I'm sitting in this puddle of something but I don't actually let myself see it right so I'm like sitting there and there's grief around me but really I'm just like it's gonna get better guys everything is gonna be a okay but I'm like totally like hip high and shit right and so you're not actually avoiding it whenever we actually think we're avoiding something we're actually not because it's affecting us in all these other ways yeah that's so hard though because like some I was talking about this with Alicia too and this happened for me where

when I came out of Hoffman, I went because I needed clarity on the few things. And then I eventually just had so much clarity that it was slapping me in the face. And then I'm like, some people would look at that and be like, don't you wish you would have done this earlier or done that. But I'm like, I'm trying to look at it. Like I didn't waste that time. And my regret is not getting out earlier, moving earlier, whatever I needed to do to make these big changes. It was, I'm actually glad I stayed and got that clarity and figured things out and got to the point where I didn't have to question things anymore. So there's like there's some beauty in avoidance too if it's like getting you into that puddle to really feel it and drown in it and then go, okay, I see what I need to do

now. Yeah. Well, but I do want to say it sounds like as much as maybe the action was avoided, you were very much dealing with the emotions that were coming up from it. Yeah, that's not that's not like fully. Yeah, yeah. Like you were you were tackling it. And so I think, you know, some people have an incredible ability to compartmentalize and put things aside. And then it will trickle into other areas of their life, right? Where, you know, they might be getting extra angry at their kids when really they're struggling in their relationship or it's just comes out in other ways. So that's kind of where we see what happens when there is avoidance. And what I would say if you're listening to this and you're recognizing like, oh, wow.

I am, you know, taking shit out of my kids or I am struggling with this in different ways. And it's starting to come to the surface to ask yourself, like, well, what is the cost of not making a decision here? What is the cost of not moving forward and changing something in my life? Because I think that really brings it to the forefront to be able to say, well, okay, the cost is that I am taking it out of my kids or it is affecting my other relationships. And to really put it, you know, in the forefront of your mind to make it more conscious as opposed to subconscious, it pushes you more so to make a decision about it. Yeah, because also I'm like, I was trying to think of like, how do you break down those overwhelming challenges into like something you can actually digest and them put into action? But you kind of said it. It's it's asking yourself the right questions and and pushing yourself in the right direction.

I think with that too, it allows you to because, you know, we talked about the fear of the understanding. unknown for you to compare it to for you to compare what the cost is to that fear of like what's going to happen if I make this decision as opposed to just holding on to like well I don't know what that's going to look like and so I'm just going to stay in this in this comfort right so it's right in that you're comparing I feel comfortable even though I might not be happy I feel comfortable because I know what's happening comparing that to the sense of unknown right of course you're going to stay in your bubble if you can look at well how is it actually affecting me what is the cost of me doing this over and over and over again and then comparing that

to the fear of the unknown i think that allows you to put it in perspective in a different way sometimes when we talk about like decision making i think people always think that we mean some huge action item sometimes decision making is an internal process right so like it might be that like you want to know what i feel like i have to leave relationship or i have to stay relationship but sometimes i make the decision of like okay i'm just going to accept this person for who they are I'm going to accept this for what it is, and I'm going to shift some things around me. And so I think when we talk about some of these terms, which I think over the past like five years, right? Like therapy terms have just become like wildfire on the internet, right?

So everyone's like, you know, like everything's avoidance, everything is gaslighting, right? And like sometimes it's so much more nuanced than that because sometimes the avoidance, like Jen had brought up earlier, is at no point were you actually having avoidance, you were going through an internal process. of what was happening for you. That takes a very long time. Because when we know ourselves and we think things through and so many of us, especially women are overthinkers. And so we think through a million things because it's also a way of trying to control it. If I can think through every possible situation, right? The point of overthinking is I hope I come up with a solution. If I think about this enough times I will figure out a perfect solution here. When a lot of times in life, there is no perfect solution we just choose our hard yes the choose our hard thing i want to make that a t-shirt

like choose your hard what like is it harder to stay in the relationship is it harder to get out is it harder to like like even and i've talked about this on podcast before where staying in the comfort of this home that i've just lived in for eight years that i've gone through so much and i'm like i almost don't know if like you go through the what if spiral like well what if i actually get in this house and i miss my old one like what if this house is too big for me which sounds so stupid, but that's how I feel. What if this isn't my path? What if I've chosen the wrong direction? It's all the what if spiral. And then I wanted to ask you guys, how do you get out of the what if spiral or not even get there in the first place? Or do we all just have to

surrender to the what if spiral? So it's such a good question because I think so often people are asking that, right? Like how do I not do the what ifs? And so what I'm about to say is actually pretty counterintuitive is that I would take yourself into the what ifs, right? So what if I get out of this and I miss it and then say, okay, well, what if that happens? What am I going to do with that? How will I handle that? Because I think when we stop at the top layer of the what ifs, what we're saying is like, well, what if this happens? If this happens, I won't be able to handle it and I'll have no idea what to do. And when you take yourself into the what ifs, when you ask yourself the questions, you take yourself deeper and deeper. What if this house isn't right for me? What will I do

that? How will I handle that? You start to realize that you actually have more resilience. And you have built more trust in yourself than you're giving yourself credit. And you prove to yourself that I have actually gotten through so much in my life. I have gone through so many transitions that in the worst case scenario, if I take myself down the what if path, I know that I will be able to handle it. I have resources. I have resilience. And I will be able to get myself through it. I love that.

Grab a coffee and discover nonstop action with Bud MGM Casino. Check out our hottest exclusive. Friends of one with Multi-Drop. Want to even more options? Play our wide variety of table games. Or head over to the arcade for nostalgic casino thrills only available at BetMGM. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today.

19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario.

So what Jen's talking about is totally right, right? It says if I allow myself to go deeper, right? So when we stay on that surface level, we think that we're going to shock ourselves into making the right decision. Like I said, usually in life, there's lots of different decisions. And sometimes people also get caught up. We hear this all the time, especially people are looking for job changes, right? Well, the other job pays more or this one pays more. And a lot of times people get stuck into making what is this smart decision for

what's the right decision. Often, the smart decision and the right decision are not the same things. The smart decision is sometimes, well, I bought a house with this person and we invested money in together. And so I should stay, right? Because financially, maybe that's the smart thing to do. And so what we talk about is if I was to go deeper into these fears, what if I made the wrong mistake? What if I quit my job and the one that I moved to isn't the right one? All right, then what would you do? I guess we'd look for a different job. I guess I'd be pretty sad and depressed. okay so what would we do if that happened and we keep going deeper into what is really behind it right and for a lot of people the deep deep below is fear of what other people will think about me

fear that i'll be lonely fear that i'll have ruined everything and hate myself fear of you know all these things the deep deep wounds we might have inside if i lose out if i leave this relationship so i lose also all my friends like they're almost like this could be a setback where I'm going to now, now if I'm not only going to lose this job, but now I'm going to lose these friends. I'm not only going to lose this relationship, but now I'm going to lose this family and this, and people are going to have to make a choice. And at the end of the day, it's always that fear of loss and being alone. And it's so interesting how everything comes back to that in life. Yes. And I think it's a, it is a very human need to be connected to

people. Yeah. It's so important for us to have connections. And so when you experience a grief like death, right? It's something that you don't have control over. When you experience a loss, like a breakup, right, where sometimes you do have control over that loss, but it's such a huge, it's like you're making a decision to go through this huge grief process where not only are you losing the relationship, you're losing relationships that were connected to that relationship. You're losing the idea of what the future is going to look like. Like, it is a huge experience to go through it doesn't mean that you can't get through it but it does mean it's going to take time it's going to take processing it's going to take a lot of support around you and so of course

to make a choice to go into that is a really difficult decision one one of the things i'm thinking about is i know that i sound like a broken record but one of the things is that this is why it's important to understand the lens of which you see the world right so if i'm leaving it if i'm considering leaving a job one of the things i have to think about with this consideration is let's imagine I put on a pair of glasses. And I'm going to put on a pair of glasses that is my idea of like, you know, what's what's the hardship that I'm scared of? Right. So for like, I'm taking example for myself, fear of abandonment and being alone unlovable. So when I think about any type of transition and I consider the glasses in which I'm putting it in on, okay, if I end this

relationship with this person, my fear is that every other person that was, you know, a shared mutual person is going to leave because I'm actually, my fear is I'm lovable. And then I'll always end up alone and so now i have to try to say okay well what if i was to take those glasses off right so what if i wasn't so scared about everyone leaving or i didn't go to my biggest fear does it change how i feel about this decision i'm trying to make so what glasses are you wearing when you look at all the hard things in your life i love that and i think the you know if you take if you take the idea of i'm unlovable we can take that so much deeper of like where did this idea of of how you're going to relate to the world, where did that start for you? And I think that big

transitions, big changes, they bring those things up for us, right? So one of them might be, I fear that I'm unlovable, might be, I fear that everyone's going to abandon me. I'm going to be rejected, right? So we all have these, you know, if we use like cycle bubble terms, introjects, where we have this idea of how we're going to relate to the world, to other people, based on our upbringing, based on how we grew up, based on experiences that we had in childhood, and we bring them into adulthood and they play out in these ways of relating to people. And so what happens is that we react in a similar way that we might react when we were a child because maybe when we were children, it worked for us. And we bring those coping mechanisms, ones that were once really

helpful for us. We bring them into adulthood. And they were things that once really helped us. And they are now things that no longer are serving us. Yeah, they're in fact hurting us. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And they end up hurting us. So my question would be if you're, you know, thinking about, you know, going through a big life change and recognizing that it's something that you need to change, but you're holding on based on childhood experiences, I would ask you to look at, does this actually fit with my circumstances now? Or is this something? that's coming from old wounds that I'm holding on to. So to make it a little bit more interesting,

so what Jen's talking about is what we call it's adaptive child, right? So let's say I grew up at a household where my parents were super busy. My parents were super busy and they always had a lot going on and I'm one of four kids and there was just a lot of stuff in my house. It wasn't intentional. Nobody was a quote unquote bad parent. Nobody was inebriated. It was just the way life happens.

But let's say in this family, the only way I really got my attention is when I totally melted down, right? Like really took me getting to like a pretty bad point for me to be heard. So I scream or I have a fight. And then all of a sudden, everyone's like, what is happening with Emily? And then I got my needs met. Great. What do you think it's going to happen in adulthood? Even if I don't need to be doing those things, I haven't learned to actually be able to say, hey, I'm really hurting right now. And I'm really hurting. So I actually need to give you to give me a hug right in this moment. What I'm probably going to do is you never give me a fact. I do so much and nobody ever says anything to me.

Yeah. Because in that moment, little Emily is coming out and she really, really, really needs to be heard, but she's doing a really, really, really bad job at doing that. Because when you come at that, surprisingly, nobody actually wants to hear you. Then all of a sudden, you're labeled as something that's probably a trigger for you. My niece, and I know she won't mind me saying this because we're podcasting actually later today and she's very open about this stuff. She's 15 years old, and, you know, she goes back and forth from moms to dads to very

different parenting styles. She's hormonal because she's 15. And she has these temper tantrums. And I remember having them at that age too just as a hormonal teen, but these just seem next level. And there's so many things I feel so terrible because I'm like, I want her to be able to go to therapy, build this resilience. And because I was the same way as a child that I think I did temper tantrums, I also would fake sick to get attention, which I would find myself doing in adult relationships as well. And obviously, over the years of doing so much therapy and

working on myself, I've built like the capacity to understand myself better and to give myself a little more grace or to see where I'm reacting the way I shouldn't. Like I've built that up. But as a 15-year-old, like you talk about resilience, how do you, you don't have much life experience to build that capacity. So how do you build resilience as a teen, even as an adult? It's such a good question. The, you know, the thing I was thinking about when you're talking. And I said this to my husband the other day.

I was because, you know, we were visiting my niece. And I was like, you know, it really sucked to be a child. And reason being is that you have no control over anything. you have no control she has no control over going back and forth you know and so i think sometimes temper tantrums too are our way to like try to regain control over our environment and we have no control over our environment during that time right and so it's just another example of how when you're an adult you do have more control over your environment you can create your routine you can cite boundaries. You can choose who you want to be with, what you want to do. You have so much more

control over your life. But your childhood self is telling you you still have no control. And so you're using the same coping mechanisms that you once used. And so I think it starts with understanding how much more control you have over your life as an adult. And if there's places where you don't feel like you have control, to ask yourself questions about that, What's difficult about that for me? An example of this might be in relationships where, like, let's say you have a friend who wants to do something and you don't want to do that thing, but you go anyway, right? So it's like difficult to set boundaries with people to say, listen, you know, I am, I can't do

that tonight. I need to stay in, whatever. And so for you to ask yourself the question of like, where are the areas in my life where I don't feel like I have the control that I need over my own life? to be able to navigate and regulate my own emotions. And those are the pain points to look at, to say, well, how can I improve that? What can I do differently? Because I think that the temper tantrums are just a way of trying to regain control over

and experience that you really have no control over. So reminding yourself as an adult, here's what I can do to feel like I have more control over my decisions in my life. You know, it's a funny thing also on a societal level, if we want to zoom at a little bit, how we treat anyone who's gone through puberty, which is we look at someone who's gone through puberty and we think they're an adult, which is not correct. If you were 15, your brain is not developed. You actually have no freaking idea what you're doing. I mean, you could not pay me enough money to ever be a 15 year old girl ever again. No matter what. It's the

worst. It doesn't matter, right? Because we live in a society actually that you go through puberty and society decides, well, you should behave a certain way now. Now, if my three-year-old, has a breakdown in the grocery store, then you get a few different, met with a few different stuff. One, people are total dickheads. Get your kid under control. Another, oh, my God. Oh, that person's struggling. And one is, like, I'm going to pretend that you're not having this breakdown right now.

And that kind of is how life is, right? So one is people say to you, get your stuff together. I'm not going to give into this. Another one is people can overly give into it. And the other one is people ignore and avoid you altogether. And that happens throughout time of all this looks together. but the reality is is that skills must be built so when we talk about things like building resilience or building self-esteem it is always through mastery we have to experience hard things to be able

to handle hard things that's how it happens now there are some people there are some people that are more prone to resiliency right because of different life skills they have a more positive outlook they have less childhood drama there's ways to evaluate that but the reality is is that most of us need a life experience. Most people in their 30s will say my 30s are way better than my 20s. Most people in their 40s will say my 40s are way better. In my 50s, 50s, there's a reason for that. It's not because life gets so much better. It's because we have a much higher tolerance the more we go through and to look at someone's, and I think about this the same way. If you think about someone's developmental age at 15, I say the same thing about people in relationships.

If you only been with someone for three years, that is developmental age of three. It's going to have a lot of problems. That's normal. And I think a piece that goes into this too, and we talked about this, Caitlin, a year ago when you came out of Hoffman, is part of this is asking yourself in those moments when you're breaking down, when you're struggling to say, well, what do I need right now? Ask yourself the questions that no one ever asked you as a child. This is part of the reparenting work that when you're younger, you don't have the language, you don't have the words to be able to say, hey, I'm having a timber tantrum because I am really in need of this. I need to be taken care of in this way. And part of building that resilience is to be able

to ask yourself those questions of, well, what do I need in these moments? How did I want to be parented? What would have been really helpful for me? How can I self-soothe? How can I help regulate my own emotions? And that might take time. And that might, as Emily said, that might take a ton of experience of going through this and asking yourself that question over and over and over again. And, you know, we see this in, you know, when we work with individual clients, we also see this when we work with couples because we'll say something like, well, what were you looking for in those moments? And often the response is, well, I didn't want this and I didn't want this. As opposed to, well, I was looking for you to attune to my needs. And I was looking

for you. A lot of the time we hear people say, I don't even know. Like, I don't even know what I wanted in those moments because we never learn to attune to our own needs. If no one was attuning to what our needs were growing up, then as an adult, it's extra hard to attune to your own needs. So you might have to ask yourself that question over and over and over again. Well, it's even nice to think about that as like an aunt in that situation. But I do want to like just ask those questions and I want her to be able to know I guess the answer like what do you need but at 15 how do you know because sometimes even like you said in relationships and as adults you might be like I actually don't even know what I needed in that moment but I think even having that conversation with a kid at

the age of 15 to even just start to be aware of maybe asking yourself like okay when I'm having these breakdowns like maybe I just sit in my room and I write down what I actually need like almost like what do they call it flow writing where you don't even stop the pen and you just keep writing like obviously that's hard to do in the middle of a breakdown, but even after, like, as soon as you're done, you just take that pen to the paper and, like, maybe that could be a tool that you have to understand even what you need. So something we're also talking about is how do we blame the system, not the person? So in general, right, usually we have a broken down system. We don't know how to handle each other with big feelings. That's an issue with a system, not a person

issue. And so how do we as a family develop a new system, right? So somebody starts having big feelings. Who's the person that can handle that and step in? Who's the one who really needs to have to learn to walk away? And how do we invent a new system in our relationships? And this also comes, once again, with knowing how you are in a situation. I'm the person typically that needs a timeout. So Jed and I were in a meeting last week. We owned this big company. And I had to, I'm in this meeting and I know I just have the world's worst resting bitch face. Like, things are bad. I am having these feelings and they weren't feelings of anger, but I was looking angry because I was feeling shut down.

You know, typically, in a workplace environment, you smile and get through a meeting and then everything's uncomfortable. The nice thing about owning a business is you actually don't have to do that. So very quickly, I said, I actually have to end this meeting. I'm having something big come up. And I can't say what it is, but I know I have to stop this meeting now and restart it. We got off the meeting, able to come down, restarted the meeting 15 minutes later, ends up with a wonderful solution by the end of this.

But I needed to know because I could also know that how it was looking to other people wasn't going to make them feel good. And it wasn't about them. And we also have had to go through that experience multiple times, right? There's so many times in business where you have to have uncomfortable conversations. And so we have had to go through that over and over and over again in order to figure out what's the best way to communicate this in the moment. How do we handle this so that we can make a rational decision that's not based off an emotional reaction. And that has taken time. And that's what I mean when we say.

It takes time and experience in order to figure out what works best. And I love, Kaileney, you sound like an amazing aunt for you to be able to say, you know, I want to know what I can do in those moments for you and to help her just think about what is it that I might need. in these moments like that and to do that at a time in which she's not reactive and i think that's where we get stuck is that so often we try to ask someone what they need when they're feeling really reactive where i would encourage anyone who's going through this to take the time away from it to say like hey what did i didn't know what to do i want to support you i want to be

there for you what is it that you might need in those moments what can i give to you like if i think about myself when I was 15 and I was breaking down. Something that I would need is someone to just say, I see you and I know you're going to be okay and I'm here if you need me, right? Like to know that there was like a secure base there that I could go to if I needed it, but it wasn't someone overstepping or trying to tell me not to feel what I'm feeling. That doesn't necessarily mean what she needs or what everyone needs. But I think too, just thinking about, well, what did I need in those moments what did I mean also allows you to take that into adulthood of like well what does that look like for me as an adult so therapists do this thing called objective observing and

it's this thing here's the behind here's behind the scenes y'all of what therapists do right so do this thing called therapist secrets yes therapist secrets hashtag um people do hashtags anymore i don't know that joke didn't fly someone edit that okay Emily's been off it. Emily's been off social media, so she's like become. I don't know what's happens. Yes. So, and what we do is when we look at objective observing, it's like, how do I just observe what's happening? And then we do this other thing where you say that everything is information. So let's say I'm in a session with a client and they say, you are such a BITCH. And one, I can be like, wow, I really messed up. Or I could say, oh, ew, what the heck? Or I could say, that's a lot of

information it's a lot of information that what i said got that reaction from you and this is the same thing in all of our relationships is that when things happen we can do a few things we can offer self compassion we can beat ourselves up i'm the worst aunt in the world i froze i didn't know what to do how could i've gotten this so wrong or wow what i tried there didn't work i guess i have to do something different next time and when we start really embedding that level of self-compassion into our relationships with ourselves, it actually leads to a lot more resiliency because I'm not beating myself up at every turn. If you want to talk about how you really build resiliency, self-compassion and mastery are what we're talking about here. And that means you get to mess up

all the time. I make mistakes every day in my life all the time. Right. I knew how to stop that business meeting because six months ago I made a mistake in a business meeting where I didn't stop it and things didn't go well. Yeah. And so when you say, and I I had a thing, which is after that first time I did, I could say, God, I wasn't cut out for this. I have to get out. I'm so horrible. Or I could say, man, I guess I should do something different next time. Yeah, I think that's a really important life lesson is to think of a mistake as I'm going to try something different next time. Because, you know, we all say that definition of insanity about doing the same thing over and expecting a different result. That kind of comes

into play in, you know, these situations as well. I even hear, you know, Sydney at a young age talking about like, I thought I would be like this in school and I thought I would be learning at this level and I'm just not. And I'm like, that doesn't stop as an adult either, this idea of I'm not where I'm supposed to be in life. And, you know, at like 38, I didn't think I'd be single and not having any children. And like, life just throws you off in so many different ways in a different path of what we're supposed to be on. So what would you say to a client who feels like change is setting them back? Because I think like for me personally, I thought going through another breakup and moving to a new house was going to be a setback

when, of course, that was just the fear talking. So what do you say to people who feel like changes a setback? One of the things we love to talk about with clients is their expectations and where they developed those expectations of, well, I'm supposed to be at this place at this time. And we all have them. Even as therapists in doing this, like as much as we want to deny it, like we all have expectations about this is where I'm supposed to be. And if I'm not there, then something must be wrong with me. And then we personalize it of, well, this must mean something about me because

if I look at what my expectation was or maybe what my peers are doing, right? We're comparing ourselves to other people. It leaves us feeling less than we start to personalize it. So I would start by helping clients question their expectations around who they're supposed to. to be what they're supposed to be doing. Where did they develop that? Why is it important that they're holding onto that? Who told you that that was where you were supposed to be? Is there room to be able to question that for yourself? Because I want you to look at holding onto that expectation, what's it doing to you? What's it doing to your self-esteem? What's it doing to your sense of self? Because in reality, there is no right or wrong. Society has told you,

told us that you have to do things in a very specific way. But in reality, there is no, you need to be doing this at this point. And so I understand that's a lifetime of society telling you and social media telling you and allows you to question, okay, why aren't I at that place? But instead of questioning yourself, I would question society. And I would say, well, Am I allowed to do things differently? Am I allowed to make my own path, have my own journey? And what is it really doing to me to hold myself to this standard, this expectation that isn't working for me? I talk about it all the time with, you know, like things that I've gone through in my life.

And I think there are these big setbacks when really the setback has been the biggest opportunity for growth. And even like, so at I keep saying my age, not like I'm old or anything, but just like at 38, this again quote unquote setback has actually made me look into again what I'm what I'm doing wrong in relationships how I can grow from this how do we encourage like even listeners our friends family how do we encourage individuals to view setbacks as opportunities for growth well I think one of the things to keep in mind is right to like it's a very zoomed in idea right if we were to zoom out and I was to interview let's say 20 people that stayed in relationships or homes or jobs that maybe they thought weren't right for them. And I said, would you do it again? They

typically say no. People stay in things because fear. So if fear wasn't there, how much is that driving you? How much is fear rule your life? And fear of, aka a setback, which isn't really a setback, right? It's a switch. It's a move. It's scary. But if fear is the driving force behind why I do or don't do things, it's going to limit your life. I also think. I also think, think the feelings that we experience as a result of a big change. We read those feelings, right, any challenging difficult feelings as something must be wrong, right? Like, I must be doing something wrong. As opposed to this is natural and it's embedded into the change in and of itself. That's part of looking at things from an objective perspective, is even looking at your emotions

from an objective perspective to be able to say, just because I'm sad doesn't mean I'm doing something wrong. Just because I'm doing something differently doesn't mean I'm doing something wrong. Just because I'm lonely doesn't mean I'm doing something wrong. And it doesn't mean that I will feel this way forever forever. It doesn't mean that I will be sad forever. It doesn't mean that I won't be able to make changes to my life. So often we feel these difficult emotions and we get very stuck in them and we ruminate over them. And because we always get this question. on our podcast of like, how do I not feel this? And our answer to that is always, you have to feel it.

It's part of being human. Part of being human is feeling those challenging emotions because without the challenging emotions, we also wouldn't be able to feel the really positive great emotions too. And so as a human being to just recognize that your challenging emotions are not a signal that you're doing something wrong or that something's wrong with you. It is just a signal that you are human. That's really that like made right here tingle because I wanted to cry. That's so nice. I love that. And then let's say fast forward, you've taken the leap, you've quit the job, you've filed for divorce, you've left the relationship, whatever that is where you've taken that

leap and you're so vulnerable, what are the steps to start to build yourself back up? What are little things that we can do to build ourselves back up? Is it goal setting? Is it like we always, talk about how it's the little things. It's not these big, massive shifts. It's the micro-shift. So do you have any advice for the steps to build yourself back up? So one of the things Jen talked to again is we never want to ignore grief. It is normal. Grief is a part of change. So one, we're going to make space for grief. And then we're also going to make space to dream. Do I let myself dream of what my life could look like or what I'd like it to look like? Maybe I realize that I don't want to live in an apartment building and when I live on land. Maybe I realize I got to get

out of this house. I want to live in a condo and have no responsibility, right? What is the dreaming I allow myself to do? I think that there's a part. And if you're someone who's like, I got to be practical, man, I got to make a list every day. I got to go on one hinge day at a week, right? Like, when we do those things, they can be helpful sometimes. But then any type of rigidity might be difficult. Because when we're coming out of a massive life transformation or change like this, we need there to be flexibility and adaptability so a guideline is great rigidity is not so the guideline of i'm going to reach out to two friends a week that's great until you're like i need to sit at home and cry but i have to call these two friends then all of a sudden i'm resenting two friends i call it and

there's no reason it doesn't make any sense so this would mean is like guidelines versus rigidity right so guidelines i want you to think about soothing right heart soul physical any of these things right am I reading things that inspire me? Am I dreaming about things inspiring me? Am I moving my body in a way that feels good? Am I surrounding myself? I love. But am I also not trying to like enter into the toxic positivity?

Oh, this is so great. Everything's so great. Even if you're super hype about your decision, it's normal for there to be grief with it. Even if you're like, this is 100% the right thing, that doesn't mean you don't get to also be really sad and grieving for what's going on. Yeah, because I think as human beings, we have a hard time holding on to like duality of this can be the right decision. and also I can feel sadness and both things can be true.

And I think even, you know, when someone asks you, how are you doing, they expect like a one answer, right? We're like, oh, I'm good. You know, I'm fine. As opposed to like, oh, I'm doing, you know, I'm doing really well. Things are good. And also at the same time, I'm sad, right? Like we really don't hold on to that answer when someone is saying, hey, how are you doing?

We're just like, oh, I'm good, fine. So I think socially it's hard for us to kind of hold on to multiple emotions at once and to recognize them to be true. And so just to know that it's something that's natural. It's something that we hold on to. It's very human to have two things at once. We kind of brought up the term toxic positivity. Like we don't want to go there.

And I know that mindset obviously matters. And I always wonder how to cultivate like a positive mindset to face challenges while also not being delusional and being like, everything's great. Like, how do you try and, like, have that positive mindset or a good, healthy mindset to face challenges while not going into, like, too much this way, too much that way? The first thing I would say is recognize what your automatic thought is. Like, what are the automatic thoughts that come up for you? When those automatic thoughts come up, I think you can also start to question them, as opposed to saying, I shouldn't be thinking this. I shouldn't have this thought. I should be positive.

and I should be thinking about this in this way, right? To just be able to say, well, why am I thinking about it? And is it necessarily true that everything's going to fall to shit? Is it necessarily true that I won't be able to get through this? So the difference is with toxic positivity, you're forcing a thought on yourself of, well, I need to believe this, right? You're putting yourself in a box. You're holding yourself to a standard, an expectation that you might not really be able to connect with,

as opposed to saying, well, why is my mind going there? Is that necessarily true? You're approaching the thoughts with more so curiosity to help move yourself in a different direction. So we talk about the term that used a lot in therapy world is the cognitive distortion of black and white thinking or dichotomous thinking, right? There's only one, right? So when the pandemic got announced, I went to a place of like everything's over. I'm going to the bank. I'm getting cash out. I'm hiding it underneath my mattress. Like I'm going to full doomsday prep, right? At no point was I like, man, this might be hard. I was like, everything is horrible. Things are bad, right? And so we're also, once again, is talking about in terms of flexibility. If my first thought is a rigidity

thoughts, everything's bad, everything's good. He's sad so I don't get to be sad, right? That is a very, very black and white thought, only one way. None of life works like that. We have to hold the complexities of life. Well, and it's hard when you're on this platform of people who aren't very complex and do see things as black and white and they expect you to have the same mindset as them and then so you start to believe things like even you know the amount of people that have told me that my face looks plastic or whatever I start to be like okay do I have a face and I'm just like delusional about it because the amount of people that started to say it but you know everybody has this like black and white way of thinking it seems to be online more than anywhere I've had this really

good mindset lately of am I taking feedback from somebody where I would want to be in their position am I looking up to them? Do I want to be this Karen online? Like, do I want to be in their shoes? And the answer is no. So why am I listening to their feedback? But I think it's like the noise comes in too. And it doesn't mean you need to have a big platform and millions of people to be following you to have people questioning like the way that you think because they think differently. So it's it's kind of about getting like into your own zone as well and not listening to that noise. Even like even like, first of all, Caitlin, I can't even imagine like having to like deal. We get like we'll get like one. We'll get like one. We'll get like one. or two negative comments and it will break us down. I can't even imagine what that's like. But I think that it also speaks to, you know, the more that you experience that, the more you learn how to deal with it in a way that protects you and protects your peace and protects your sense of self. Because I can imagine when that first started happening, it probably completely shook you for a loop and having to go through that over and over and over again. And this kind of ties back to what we were talking about at the beginning, that sometimes it takes going through

those experiences to figure out, how do I best want to deal with this? How, you know, do I want to let this person's comment infiltrate, you know, my sense of self? And if not, how do I want to boundary that off? What do I want to do differently? What is this going to look like for me? You're right. Like, this is a very specific thing to social media. If I was sitting with a bunch a friend and somebody told me that they comment mean things on random celebrities, Instagram. I'd be like, man, that person's a little whacked. Like, I don't know if I really want to be Susie's friend anymore, right? Like, that would like change how I feel about somebody.

There is such a massive lack of nuance on social media. And when your job has things on social media. And the other thing is people also think that they are entitled to make comments about you and your life because you choose to put things about you in your life on social media so all of a sudden people like if she does it i get to do it and like that is such it's interesting that like social media really brings the childness out in someone yes right like that's some stuff my toddler would do well i was just going to say it also makes me think about how right because i feel like people comment sometimes because they want attention from other people or they want attention

from you or they right so they'll make the meanest comment or that so that they're getting attention from other people it made me think of as you were saying like it's very childlike to to do that too and and it speaks to the fact that like people are trying to get their needs met these like deep seated needs that were never met on social media through your platform it's actually pretty sad yeah so it's sad but it's also but here's here here's the duality it's sad that that's your experience and it's also really sad that that's your experience and that's taken out on you both things can exist at the same time because we all live in this world together in this very complex situation. And social media does not hold nuance or

complexities. No, it's very one dimensional on there. But before we wrap up, is there anything exciting, any updates on your podcast or the therapy group and also where can the Bino's find more of your valuable content? We're always so excited to be here with you, Caitlin. Thank you for having us on a year later. Things really changed. Right. Last time we saw it was a year ago and things change in a year. If you're interested in keeping up with that, you can can check us out of Trink Chicks anywhere that you listen to podcasts. But what we're really, really, really passionate about is we own a company called the Therapy Group, where we have all down-to-earth clinicians in lots of different states. We've expanded a ton over the past few

years. If you are looking to start, change, switch up your therapeutic journey. We would love to help match you with a clinician. You can check us out. The Therapy Group.com, every single person that comes in is matched with a clinician by Jen and myself directly. This is what we are passionate about. This will be really put on this earth for is to help people find good therapy and therapists. So thank you for having us on. Thank you so much. You're doing amazing work and I just always enjoy our conversations so much.

So happy holidays and probably talk to you in a year. Yeah, we'll be here. Good. See in a year. We'll be here. I'm Caitlin Bristow. Your session is now ending. And if I'm being honest, I wouldn't mind a rating and review.

Thank you. Thank you.