The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Looking Back At Old Relationships With New Eyes - Inner Work

Episode Date: June 14, 2026

What happens when you begin recognising old relational patterns… and start looking back at past relationships differently?In this week’s Inner Work episode, I reflect on grief, hindsight, growth, emotional memory and the complicated feelings that can emerge when we realise we might make very different choices now than we once did.We explore:changing values and prioritiesrelational growth and self-reflectioncompassion for former versions of ourselvesgrief for what could have beenemotional reactions to photos, memories and relationships from the pasthealing old emotional woundshow therapy can help memories feel less emotionally jaggedThis is a reflective, compassionate episode about growth, hindsight and learning to hold both sadness and fondness at the same time.My Inner Work series is a space to pause and think more deeply about yourself. I explore where those roles come from… and whether they’re still serving you now.These videos were previously members only but I have decided to share them with you so thanks for being here.💡 Want to support the channel? Like, comment, and share this video!🫶 To join my podcast membership to get early access to episodes head to: https://the-aspiring-psychologist.captivate.fm/support or to the Apple Podcasts App: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-aspiring-psychologist-podcast/id1605628278 or to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOwjrIP_jatiqlAivJE2mgQ/join📩 Business & Collaboration Enquiries✉️ Email: [e-mail]🎧 Stay Connected With Me🌍 Aspiring Psychologists Website: www.aspiring-psychologist.co.uk🌍 Good Thinking Psychology Website: www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk💼 LinkedIn: Dr Marianne Trent: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-marianne-trent-psychology/ 📘Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodThinkingPsychologicalServices🐦 Twitter/X: @DrMarianneTrent📸 Instagram: @DrMarianneTrent🎵 TikTok: @DrMarianneTrent.📚 My Books on Amazon📖 The Grief Collective → https://amzn.to/4hNHru5📖 The Clinical Psychologist Collective → https://amzn.to/3ErIEJs📖 The Aspiring Psychologist Collective → https://amzn.to/4jSxc9N📖 Talking Heads: Stories of Psychology & Mental Health → https://amzn.to/3EvbKaN📖 An Autistic Anthology: Neuro-Narratives of Mental Health Professionals → https://amzn.to/3WXBpz9⚠️ Disclaimer This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute medical, psychological, or professional advice. Any actions taken based on this content are at your own risk. © Dr Marianne Trent#psychologypodcastMentioned in this episode:Sponsored by WriteUpp Tap to PayThis episode is sponsored by WriteUpp. Their Tap to Pay app turns your smartphone into a card reader, helping private practitioners take secure payments without additional hardware. Use code MARIANNE30 for a free 30-day trial and 30% off your first 6 months at this link: https://writeupp.com/?refid=142336

Just a quick one before we dive into today's episode. If you're in private practice, you might know the slightly awkward dance of actually getting paid. The I'll send you a bank transfer later that can often turn into sending chasing emails three weeks on. Well, this episode is brought to you by write-up. And their new tap-to-pay app might just sort that out for you. It turns your existing smartphone into a card reader. Your client finishes their session, taps their card, or. phone on yours, payment lands, receipt sent. No card machine to buy, no clunky terminal,

no awkwardness. And because it's built into write-up, the payment links straight to the client's invoice and notes, so your admin actually stays joined up. Write-Up is the practice management platform built in the UK for UK practitioners. Have a look at write-up.com. That's W-R-I-T-E-U-P-P.com. Use code, Marri-A-R-M-A-R-R-E-U-P-P-P-com. Use code, Marri-A-R-R-R-R-R-A. and 30 for 30 days free and 30% off your first six months and see if it makes your week that little bit lighter with much better cash flow. Hi, welcome along to Inner Work. I am Dr. Marianne Trent, a qualified clinical psychologist. Thank you for being here. I had a really wonderful time recording the main podcast episode with Dr. Kate Sherritt. I think it is such a strong episode. And

if you've listened to it or watched it, I would love your thoughts. What really struck me afterwards is just how amazing it can be for us to reflect and to grow and then to kind of think about these relational patterns and think about setting ourselves up for things to go really well in future. And then that obviously impacts on our future friendships, our future work dynamics, our future relationships, if you go on to have new relationships. But then, you know, we might kind of almost look back on our previous experiences, maybe with some difficult feelings, maybe with some grief for what we feel we might have missed out on, or what others might have missed out on, or what could have been different if we had been aware of our own.

own relational patterns earlier on. Maybe you realise that someone you'd previously spent time with was actually a better fit for you than you thought. Maybe you had discounted them as being boring or maybe the decisions you made reflected the person you were at that time and the priorities, the values, the things that were important to you then. But as you age, as you mature, as you change as you develop and as you have new experiences, new encounters, ones that you like and ones you didn't so much, you will change. I do think we should all be malleable, always, we should always be reflecting, to be growing, to be curious and you might just find that if you are making decisions now, you would make different decisions based on your current values.

your current priorities. Hindsight can really feel like 2020 vision, as they say. And whilst we can't go back and change things or fix things all of the time, I mean, no, you might choose to. If you do, come and let me know how you get on. You can also give compassion, send compassion as a bit of a compassionate flow, to your younger self for the choices they made. they did make them with the information they had at the time. I always think it's really interesting when you look back at old photos

of people who are no longer with us. And it's like, oh, what would I have like to have said to them? Or could I have warned them in some way? It feels almost voyeuristic looking back on photos of kind of days gone by, people gone by, relationships gone by. And I don't know if you guys have watched the video I did about Lily Allen. Even listening to more recent episodes of her and Makita's podcast, I'm still way behind, by the way. So I think I'm still in 2024, maybe 2025 now.

But yeah, like hearing about some of the things that she's talking about, it's like, oh, now we have that context for how she's described how things went down in her album, West End Girl. some of what she's talking about on the podcast sort of feels like it makes more sense because we have that context, or at least we think we have that context. We don't always have all the information, do we? Yeah, it can feel a little bit like we're doing that with our own life when we look back on even videos in your phone. It can be a really nice trip down memory lane, but can also be really emotional as well. I remember after my dad died, I found it really, really hard to look at photos of him.

And my iPhone will kind of automatically store people's faces. If you've got an iPhone, yours will do that too. And then you can click to watch a movie, watch a video of that person. And when I was really hurting, I used to kind of make myself watch that video so that it began to knock those edges, knock those barbs off.

And so that I began to then see the joy in those photos. again, which had been previously difficult. Looking at someone that you love, who's smiling, who's very much alive, or looking at, you know, photos of you and an ex-partner smiling can feel really complicated. But if we're just seeing the sadness, then we don't necessarily get the joy or the fond reflection. And what we want when we're able to look back on relationships, either people that are still with us or those who are no longer, no longer alive, is we want to be able to look back kind of just with the appropriate grief, a little bit of sadness, but not have it be so jagged

that we're tripping over it all the time. So if you notice that you really can't look at photos or can't kind of connect to fond memories of times gone by that can be an indication that maybe getting things talked through, worked through, maybe using something like EMDR can help things to lay flat and to level up a bit for you. It's kind of related to what I was talking about, but it felt important. It felt like that might be helpful. If you haven't had therapy or if you think you might be ready for the next chapter of therapy, please do bear me in mind as well. I do offer one-to-one therapy, which happens midweek, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday mornings, usually. Thank you again for being a member of Inner Work. I love that you're here. Please do let me know

your comments, your feedback, and I will be back along for the next episode next week. Thanks again. Take care. My name's Yana and I'm a trainee, psychological, well-being practitioner. I read the clinical psychologist collective book. I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one. And this kind of filled me of confidence that, no, I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself.

So if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist, I'd definitely recommend this just to put a, yourself at ease and everything will be okay. But trust me, you will not put the book down once you start.