The Resilient Mind - Mental Health Expert: Why Always Being Strong Is Breaking You - Haesue Jo

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Watch the full video interview on the new Resilient Mind YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWVjs5VwVbYIs self-care more than just bubble baths and chocolate? In this episode therapist Haesue Jo to dive deep into what authentic self-love and radical self-care truly mean.Clinical psychologist, Haesue breaks down the common misconceptions we have about taking care of ourselves, especially for high-achievers and those from cultures where self-sacrifice is praised. Learn why "garbage in, garbage out" applies not just to food, but to the media you consume and the people you surround yourself with.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/Download_Journal Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What are you consuming when it comes to media, when it comes to people? Whatever we put in is someday going to be what we put out. From your perspective, what does authentic self-love look like? I think there is a balance between tough love and self-compassion. Are you surrounding yourself with the right people to help you feel the best that you can be? People typically think that self-k is doing positive things in the moments. It's really easy to engage in the doom scrolling endlessly at night. Research shows that the average adult.

adult woman needs somewhere between eight and ten hours of sleep a night, and the average adult man needs somewhere between seven and nine hours. I don't know how many U.S. adults are actually getting this amount of sleep. What do you think are some common misconceptions people have around self-care? I cannot be the best version of myself if I myself am not being kind to Hesu. So if you're feeding yourself and consuming garbage, that's essentially how you're going to feel and essentially how you're going to treat yourself and potentially other people. This is a lifelong ongoing challenge, I think. Welcome to another episode of the Resilient Mind podcast, and today I'm super excited to be joined

by Hesu, and we are going to be covering a lot of ideas, a lot of concepts around mental health, self-care, and self-compassion. Welcome, Hesu. Hi, Simba. Thank you so much for having me looking forward to this conversation. Hesu, so your work is deeply rooted in empathy and care. Can you share a bit about your personal journey and what led you to become passionate about mental health and emotional wellness. Thank you for this question. You know, I'm a therapist and I practice and have clients and really, really enjoy what I do. And I think that question of what led you to be a therapist has always been very difficult

for me to answer because it's never been about one particular thing. But I will say briefly, even as a child, even as a teenager, I felt that I had some kind of satisfaction, some kind of fulfillment, from just being there for my friends, from being a supportive person, from being somebody that can listen very well. And sometimes offer a little bit of helpful insight. So I'd like to think that my career choice was being heavily shaped by just the interactions I was having with friends. And of course, like many other therapists out there, I myself had a transformative experience through working on myself, working with professional support, and finding that this is something that I think that I can do.

I've worked in a number of different industries before I entered into mental health as a young adult. And I just can't see myself doing anything different. And that's been my journey thus far. And so at this time, like, what is your relationship with self-care and self-acceptance when you're growing up? And how is that evolved over time? You know, growing up, I'm not sure if a lot of kids are thinking of this concept of self-care. I do think children very much absorb the behaviors, the prioritization of what we should be doing in our lives from your parents. And when I was a small child, I don't think I was explicitly perceiving my parents to be those that were very engaged in this concept of self-care.

But I did grow up in a life with parents in a privileged place to recognize that they were doing things to nurture their spirit, to take care of their bodies, to keep their minds. to keep their minds active and healthy and to really support each other and create good relationships and facilitate that for themselves, of course, for their children, me and my sister. And my relationship with self-care has evolved over the years

as I myself have been educated in what that is and how I've kind of figured out what makes sense for me. So my relationship with self-care is important. I believe that it is potentially very, very difficult to live a happy, healthy, fulfilled life if you're not taking care of yourself. And I don't think of self-care as indulging in things that make you happy all the time. I think of it really as sometimes going out of your way, sometimes doing stuff that you don't want to,

because in the long run, it's good for your overall wellness. So that could be physical wellness when we're talking about exercise on a regular basis or eating, nourishing foods, the ones that are going to give you energy and give you the nutrients that you need to be healthy, you know, putting in time and investing energy to other people and, of course, into yourself. So I do believe that my relationship with self-care is something I'm assessing every day and something I prioritize because without proper self-care, how can anyone really be present for themselves? And then a step further, be present for somebody else, which is what I've chosen to do as a career. So it is of utmost importance for me to make sure I'm taking care of my mind,

my body, my spirit. And when it comes to self-compassion, this is a lot of. lifelong ongoing challenge, I think. It can be challenging to be compassionate to oneself. When you're also thinking about competing things such as ambition or success, accolades, achievement, legacy, these are all things I think people think about on a very regular basis. And in order to be a high achiever, sometimes you may think that it takes some tough love on yourself, which I think there is a balance between tough love and self-compassion. But I've recognized quite a bit ago. that I cannot be the best version of myself if I myself am not being kind to Hesu.

I love that when you're talking about how South K is not just bubble baths, spot, because when we hear about it, we are always thinking, okay, what are those things that are going to make me feel good in the moment? People typically think that South K is doing the positive things in the moments, but is also doing the things that may not be comfortable in that moment, knowing that they're going to have better outcomes,

they're going to make themselves feel better in the long term. So how can people start identifying what kind of self-care they truly need in moments of emotional burnout or just proactively so that they don't get to that point of burnout? I love that you're asking about proactively, how can you identify where you can take care of yourself? Proactive is about not waiting until you need to respond or react to something. So when you think about proactively, things that you're, can be doing to manage your own wellness. There are some pillars to this that I personally follow and I really, really emphasize with the clients that I work with as a therapist. And those three

pillars of wellness, all of us have heard this, is sleep, what we eat and exercise, movement. These are the pillars of wellness. So if you're neglecting these things, these are a really great place to start when you're thinking about proactive self-care. What can I do to take care of my mind, my body, my spirit, is to have the good sleep hygiene and to get enough sleep for yourself. Research shows that the average adult woman needs somewhere between eight and ten hours of sleep a night and the average adult man needs somewhere between seven and nine hours. I don't know how many U.S. adults are actually getting this amount of sleep per hour, per day on a regular basis, but it's something to aspire for.

And in order to sleep enough and to sleep well, you need to invite something called self-discipline into your life. it's really easy to engage in something called revenge procrastination. This is a topic that's been coming up a lot. Those of us that feel like we don't have as much control over the decisions in our day, perhaps we have a very demanding job, or perhaps we have a lot of people that depend on us and we're caregivers in some kind of fashion. It's really easy to engage in the doom scrolling endlessly at night.

It's really to engage in this idea that nighttime is the only time that nobody's bothering me. So this is the time that I can be awake and focus. on a lot of activities or things that I want to look at or read. But really, this is the time that we should be sleeping. It can be very difficult to trade activity, the stuff that stimulates that sort gives us a boost of dopamine for something so passive like sleeping. But this is a big emphasis, which is why I'm going on so much about it. You got to invite self-discipline to sleep regularly because it means going to sleep around the same time every day, aspiring to wake up around the same time every day and maintaining a really good sleep schedule. I talked about what you eat,

but my personal interpretation really is what you consume. So it's not just about food. Food is important. You want to eat things that are nourishing you, things that are healthy. And of course, I think in moderation eat stuff that is sometimes a bit of an indulgence or treat. But really consume. What are you consuming when it comes to media? When it comes to people, when it comes to vices, like all the things that get you through the day.

I think of our personal ecosystems of our body as a feedback loop. Whatever we put in is someday going to be what we put out. So if you're feeding yourself and consuming garbage, that's essentially how you're going to feel and essentially how you're going to treat yourself and potentially other people, maybe. And finally, movement exercise. This is another proactive thing that people can be doing on a regular basis is figuring out what kind of sustainable activity there is for them. And I say sustainable because you want to find something that's tolerable enough that you'll do it on a regular basis.

Those that hate to run and decide that running is going to be their way of fitness, they're probably going to give up pretty quickly. So these are proactive ways of self-care. And how to identify what things to address when you're potentially burned out or you're feeling like maybe you're on the verge of that or you're just having any kind of mental and emotional struggle or challenge. I think it really starts with just paying attention to your body, which starts in mindfulness is just something that people can look into our research.

And if you're proactively taking care of yourself in all those main pillars I was talking about, you're generally going to have a better connection from your mind to your body. You're generally going to be able to pinpoint when you are having some kind of challenge or issue somewhere. This aches and hurts. I'm having a headache. I'm not feeling well in this way. I'm emotionally drained. I need somebody to talk to.

Another really good tip for people to maybe put in their back pocket is the acronym for HALT. H-A-L-T. It's a nice self-check tool to identify where you could immediately intervene if you're not feeling at your best. And it stands for hungry. Am I hungry? Do I need to eat something? Is my blood sugar low? Am I angry? And if I am angry, what is the underlying issue? Is there something here that I can do something about? Am I lonely? Is it time to reach out to a trusted friend, family member, professional support? And finally, am I tired? Do I need a nap? Do I need to go to sleep? Do I need to take some PTO and get a break a little bit here. So I think these are some of the tips and tools that will hopefully help somebody identify where they can focus their energies on taking care of

themselves and what they could be doing on a proactive basis. Love that. Halt. Makes it nice and easy to understand. Yeah. What do you think are some common misconceptions people have around self-care, especially for individuals that might be higher achieving, or maybe they come from cultures or environment's ways it's expected to always be working really hard or to be taking care of the people around you. And it's selfish to take that time for yourself. Well, that's one of the misconceptions. You just said it, that it's selfish to take time for yourself. And the idea of selfishness being a negative thing, I think this is actually pretty present in many different cultures from the west to the east. Like wherever you're looking is pretty predominant and pervasive

in how people are socialized, I'm going to put the needs of others, the people that I love and care about, ahead of my own. I got to present in such a way that I'm a caring and loving individual, and in that pursuit, I'm going to sacrifice my own wellness.

There's a saying here, in order to keep somebody else warm, I'm going to set myself on fire. And in some cultures and in some settings, it's like you get a badge of honor for doing that, high achieving individuals, which you referenced, they may have internalized some idea that I need to be perfect in order to gain approval from people. And in order to be perfect, I can't take any days off.

I don't believe in vacation. I'm just going to hustle forever and ever. But it's not, I ultimately think it's not very sustainable. Some other misconceptions about self-care, I think are largely focused around feeling good in the moment. We're in a day and age of instant gratification. We can usually get whatever we want within an hour or so. people get irritated when they don't get instant results for something that they're looking for these days I've observed. So one of the misconceptions that's related to this is that self-care is about feeling good right now. So there's a neurotransmurter that is produced called dopamine when we're doing something that makes us feel good. And so self-care, sometimes people think

I need to chase the activities that give me a lot of dopamine. I'm going to go shopping or online shopping and buy a bunch of stuff or a bubble bath is a good example. Bubble bath is like a nice thing. It makes me feel good in the moment. But is it really addressing the underlying issue of I don't sleep enough? I'm eating unhealthy things all the time and I'm sedentary. I don't know if a bubble bath is really going to negate the effects of that kind of lifestyle. So the misconception is as long as I just like have some chocolate tonight, then my life should

be fine. So again, self-care is not just about finding things that make me feel happy right now. It's about really, in essence, prioritizing and sometimes going out of your way to nurture your health and your overall wellness. And self-care in my mind is connected to the idea of self-love. And I know again it has become kind of a buzzword as well, like self-care. But from your perspective, what does authentic self-love look like? This is a tough one.

And I say that I paused because I reflected on a number of clients I've had over the years that cannot access initially when we meet, that cannot access the concept of loving themselves. And for those that have experienced some kind of trauma in their lives, it can be very difficult to access the idea of being able to love oneself. It doesn't mean it's impossible. So when you think about somebody else that you love, I imagine you can start thinking of the things that you feel for them,

the things that you are willing to do for this person. You know, I've heard this quote before that love is a verb. So to me that means love is action. What are you willing to do? What have you already done for this person? How far are you willing to go? For some reason, actually a very understandable reason for me. It's easier to love somebody else often than it is sometimes to love ourselves.

Sometimes we grew up with this internalized idea that I'm not deserving of my own care and my own love. And this can be rooted in a lot of things such as trauma. but when I hear this question, what is authentic self-love? I really lean on my understanding of what it is to love another. And I think about, can I extend those things to myself?

Can I treat myself like somebody I love? Meaning can I extend patience, compassion, understanding, support, a flexible mindset to accept this person as they are. And in order for me to treat myself as someone I love, I need to behave like,

someone I love. It's a lot easier to hate myself if I engage in behaviors that I hate. So if I'm disrespectful to people, if I don't prioritize my wellness, if I blow things off all the time, and I don't really value people's efforts towards me, that kind of person is not somebody I respect very much. So it's going to be really hard to love somebody that I don't respect. So when I think about self-love, I really aspire to behave like somebody that I would respect so that I could trust that person's decisions, love that person. So I think authentic self-love is not only about being able to treat myself like someone I love and talk to myself like someone I love, but it's really behaving like someone I love because then truly, then I can respect this person, admire this person

and be proud of this person. How can you really love somebody if you don't even respect them? So for me, it really is about how I behave, how I present to the world. And in order for me to do that in the best loving way, I'm working on all those things when it comes to self-care. I'm working on all those things so I can be the best version of myself. Because if I'm not working on those things, it's not going to be as easy to love myself to access this thing that we're talking about. And you mentioned that sometimes when people have been through trauma or traumatic experiences,

they might have difficulty accessing that self-love. And typically with trauma, there's internalized shame, they struggle, self-worth. So if a person is listening to this and wants to actually start the journey towards maybe self-love might be too far, but maybe just self-acceptance. Where could they start? Well, therapy is a really good place to begin to uncover some of these. things and explore, process, unpack, and hopefully heal. And there are some specific types of therapy that somebody might consider looking into if what they're trying to address is trauma.

Of course, there's trauma-informed CBT. There's something called internal family systems that can be very helpful. There's cognitive processing therapy. And one of my recent big favorites, EMDR, which stands for eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing. So these are a number of different kinds of therapies that I would encourage anybody to look into and find therapists that practice from these modalities in order to start addressing past trauma. But I understand that therapy, paid professional help, is not accessible to everybody. And so if you're in a position where you're not feeling it's accessible to you right now, something I really encourage folks to do is to start educating themselves. First, what are the symptoms of

trauma. And can I find some kind of understanding and how those things are impacting my life? Can I identify some of these symptoms so that I could separate them from my identity? I am not my trauma. I am not the symptoms that I'm now experiencing. And it can be very hard to separate those out if you don't know what they are. So it can start with education. There's a book that I highly recommend to people to read, which is called The Body Keeps the Score, which is by Bessel van der Koke, and he's a medical professional. But this book will put into perspective some of the things that people are experiencing after having gone a significant trauma and they may not understand what's happening to them, what's happening in their bodies. So that's a good place to start. Is therapy and or self-education

and it kind of gives you some sense of where to go from there? And I really encourage people. I mean, if people are listening to this conversation or talking, it means they have access to the internet. You have access to the world's knowledge at your finger. tips. So it can start by taking a little bit of active participation in your own life and doing some research and finding out a little bit about what might be going on with you. And for people that whether there is trauma with the capital T or their unprocessed emotions and let's say they might not even be aware that they have it. How can that, how can they maybe get a glimpse into that awareness that maybe I'm listening to this and I think that well like something to improve my

mindset, but maybe there's something that's going on in my body that happened in the past that I've not processed. Is there a way that I can become more aware about that? Yes. Yeah, I think so. I think in order to become a bit more aware of the potential of a past trauma, but maybe affecting your current life is to just check in with some of the main domains of your life, the main contexts of where you find yourself. So, you know, when you think about your physical wellness, do you find lethargy, absence of motivation to move? Do you sometimes feel like catatonic even, which means you're not moving around at all? Do you feel really restless? Do you feel like you can't really relax? Your heartbeat is elevated all the time. You're having panic attacks.

You get into uncontrollable sweats. Your body just feels like it's kind of betraying you. if you've noticed any of these things, it could be an indication of a physical issue, but it could also be an indication of a somatic sign of past trauma. You also want to be paying attention to your overall emotional wellness. Do you feel like you have a pretty stable mood? Or do you feel like your mood fluctuates quite a bit and very drastically on any given day? And does it make it unbearable for you to engage in things like going to work or talking to significant people in your life?

And that's a good segue into looking at your relationships. Do you have constant issues in your relationships? Do you find yourself losing patience very quickly and lashing out at the people that you actually love and care about the most? Do you find yourself yelling when you don't really want to? Do you find yourself not being able to access something called patients and being able to be supportive to those that you love? These could be indicators of a lot of things. But oftentimes when our relationships are struggling, when there's no medical answer to why our body doesn't feel like it's doing what we want it to, when our emotions feel like they're out of control and we have no way to address that in a healthy way,

these are big indicators that it might be helpful for you to start looking into the past maybe or digging into something that may have happened to you and how it's affecting you today. And with our modern culture, social media has now basically now a part of our life. How does that impact our mental health, our self-image and generally the information that we are now receiving? Social media, love it, hate it, however you feel about it, it's everywhere. A business, in my perspective these days, it's almost like a business can't exist unless they have a digital footprint or social media channels. And that to me shows how important social media has become, but because it's so important, because businesses rely on this, because people rely on it to become successful business people or

connected with others, is so ingrained in our society and culture that it's very difficult to get away from it. So on this flip side, there are some cons to it, which I think a lot of people are aware of at this point. It can be very addicting, which means you're spending most of your time and your energy on scrolling or posting or checking how many lights you're getting. Am I getting the validation from the people out there because I can't give it to myself? With social media comes some slippery slopes, some potential dangers. And I say potential because it doesn't affect everybody the same way. Some people are very easily able to engage in an active social media life and not be negatively impacted by it. While there are plenty of other people that do have negative impacts from engaging in a lot of

social media activity, you know, some of the basic things I think we're all aware of is that it makes it very easy to compare your life to other people's curated lives. You're not seeing the whole picture most of the time. You know, the algorithms on some of these platforms will also keep feeding you the types of content that you interact with most. And I say interact, not like, but interact with. If you happen to be watching a lot of negative content and you happen to pause and watch these things, Algram is going to feed you more of that. And whatever you feed becomes the bigger creature. So if you're feeding negativity in your life, if you're feeding your own perspective by watching a lot of content that doesn't feed you, that doesn't nourish you, that doesn't educate you in some kind of way,

what are you putting into your body? You know, we think about healthy, eating, but I also want us to think about healthy consumption. What are we consuming from the outside world? And social media allows us to consume a lot of nonsense. It allows us to consume a lot of stuff out there that doesn't make us feel good about the world around us or ourselves. So the advent of social media has brought so much good, so much positive. It allows us to connect with people from all around the world. It allows us to share ideas with people that we may never meet in real life. But it also allows us to be very alone. It allows us to deprioritize real human connection, investment, energy, and putting time into ourselves by instead being sucked into a screen. So, you know,

lots of pros and cons to this. So I think it's very possible to live a healthy, happy, functioning life while engaging in social media activity. But I also think it means you have to take a really concerted effort to have some healthy boundaries and to separate some of the things that you're consuming from who you are as an individual. And for you, what practices or tools have you found to be very helpful when whether you or your clients are feeling emotionally exhausted, dysregulated, stressed? What are some effective tools we can use? For me, the proactive route has largely been super helpful for me. So I have a hard time if I am just relying on reactive measures to take care of struggles or challenges. I think everybody does. So those proactive means of self-care

super important, taking care of your body, which means regular movement, finding sustainable activity, you know, whether that looks like going to the gym or playing a certain sport or getting involved in a community activity that makes you move your body. Like, whatever it is, you got to move. I think the recommendation these days is to try to get around 150 minutes of elevated heart rate per week. So we're thinking about cardiovascular health in that case, but you also want to be thinking about your strength. Are you strength training? There's a lot of research now on how important this is. Are you even thinking about flexibility, endurance, and stamina? So movement is really, really important for me.

I really do focus on what I eat. And I'm not just eating chicken and rice and broccoli. But I'm also thinking about the nutritional value of what I consume. I do also like treats and stuff that maybe doesn't have a lot of nutritional value. But I also think about moderation. This stuff is making me feel good in the moment, but it's not actually doing anything for my body. So I'm mindful. I try to practice mindfulness.

And on the flip side, sometimes I do go overboard because I just, I'd love to eat. I love food and sometimes I eat too much. So something I have to practice is self-compassion and not beating myself up for not sticking to something super strict. Sleep hygiene, huge thing. I already talked about that quite a bit so I don't want to get too much into it again. But things that people can also consider looking into is mindfulness, which has been such a life changer for me when I learned of what it was. And briefly, it's the idea of being able to shift your attention to the present moment. I think a lot of mental and emotional unwellness comes from being stuck in the past, dwelling in the past, ruminating on the past.

This thing happened and I can't get over it and I keep thinking about it. I keep replaying it in my head. I keep thinking about all the shoulda-coulda-woulda's and all the stuff that I wish I would have done. Ultimately, past is in the past. It already happened. You can't change it. Or it's about freaking out about the future, some stuff that doesn't even exist yet. It hasn't even happened.

But that's what anxiety is largely rooted in it is being panicked about something. that hasn't happened or may happen. So when you're stuck in the past or when you're freaking out about the future, you're not living in your present moment, which is life. And that is one of the tenets of mindfulness is being able to be in the present. So encourage people to look into that if they would like to. And part of mindfulness when you start looking into it is you'll find different activities, exercises, different techniques and tips in order to be able to train yourself to do this. And I'll share one with you after I share one little thing here. It's an analogy to help people understand. I don't run. I kind of alluded to this earlier. I'm not a runner. I don't like

extended periods of running. If you like running, that's wonderful and that's great for you. But I have a really hard time running. I get really tired and winded and bored and all of those things. So, as you can imagine, if I decided to run a marathon tomorrow, I think you could guess what might happen. I'll probably pass out. I probably won't finish the race. I may get a get injured. Some bad stuff is probably going to happen to me because I'm not trained. I'm not conditioned. Now, the effective thing, if I decided to run a marathon, I would not need to start a training program tomorrow. I'd probably have to start adjusting the way that I engage in cardiovascular activity. I'd start running a little bit here and there and gradually increasing the distance that

I'm going to build up my stamina, to train my body so that on the actual race day, I'm prepared. I've trained in different terrains. I've been able to make sure that I know what to do if something happens with my shoes or there's some dysfunction in my wardrobe. I've gone through all these different things to practice and to teach my body what to be prepared for on the day of the race. So similarly, grounding exercises, mindfulness. These things we can't just decide that we're going to use it tomorrow without having trained. So these things also require some training. So box breathing is a really basic thing.

But it's about counted breath. It's about paying attention to your breath, breathing in slowly through your nose for four counts, maybe holding it at the very top of that breath for a couple of beats, and then exhaling slowly through your mouth, like you have a straw in your lips. Or even something that I've learned through yoga is exhaling through what's called a lion's breath. So when you can imagine it's a cold day and you want to draw something on the window, so you got to fog it up so you can draw something with your finger. We use that breath.

It's a little bit hotter, but exhaling in that way can calm our sympathetic nervous system, which is something that's activated when we're getting anxious or stressed out or perceiving some kind of danger. So just counted breath can be really, really effective in helping decrease our heart rate in reminding our bodies that in this moment we're safe, that in this present moment we're okay. So just breathing. I know a lot of people, I say this because a lot of clients have come to me in a first session say like, I've tried all the breathing exercise. This doesn't work. Give me something else. But I really encourage people to consider breathing. You probably don't even realize how many times a day you're actually holding your breath. You know, sometimes when I go to a yoga class, this is something else I do on a regular basis for my own wellness. We take these deep breaths before we get into it. We warm up our bodies, but we also warm up our mind. And something my teacher has often said is reflect on the fact. that this may be the biggest breath that you've taken all day. And it does make me reflect, oh my gosh, is it? It's like 7 p.m.

Have I not been breathing this whole day? And I've been doing yoga for over a decade. And I still get that reminder in the evening of, have I not been breathing today? So that's my reminder to everybody is take a breath, learn how to breathe. There's tons of videos on YouTube on how to do it. So these are some good starting places, I think.

I love that. And one of the thought that came to mind was when you mentioned that people might say that, look, I tried this and it doesn't work. But there's also the idea of maybe us reflecting as well, did we actually try it properly? Or did we implement it long enough to actually start seeing those benefits? Because if I haven't been running for 10 years and then all of a suddenly I decided I want to run, my first few runs are going to be not as enjoyable. And I might not suddenly see the benefits or feel the benefits.

But as I do, if it's I practice and go running more often, then those benefits are going to come. So whether it's mindfulness, reading, journaling, whatever it is, there's almost needs to be a time period that we apply this so that we end up actually getting the benefits. Love that. And it reminds me something in the world of adopting animals, for those I can see, I have a dog behind me here. I love animals. They often give a tip. A lot of shelters give this tip when you go home and adopt a new pest. pet, they'll say three days for the animal to not be so freaked out from this new setting and

change. Three weeks for them to maybe start coming out of their shell a little bit, three months for you to maybe determine how things are going to be with this animal. So three days, three weeks, three months. A lot of shelters give this guidance because what they see is a lot of pet owners not knowing what they're getting themselves into and being overwhelmed with things that happen out of their expectations with the dog, for example, and then they return the dog to the shelter. So the shelters are communicating. It takes time for the animal to adjust. It will take time for you to adjust to having a dog. So give it some time before you decide to just bring the dog back, before you decide to give up on them, truly. So I think it's similar to what you're talking

about here is when you're incorporating a new exercise into your life or a new healthy habit, trying to bring in self-discipline to create a new routine. I would say give it some time. I think I read something, fact-checked me on this, but I think I read something saying like, in order to develop a new habit, in order for it to feel second nature, you've got to do it at least for 21 days on a regular basis.

And from there on, it won't feel as uncomfortable. It won't feel as impossible. But that means for the initial three weeks or so, you're really tapping into something called self-discipline and willpower. And these things are difficult to access if you're not well regulated and well taken care of.

And I'm also thinking you're talking about self-compassion. And so whenever we implement or start doing any new healthy habit and let's say we are not successful, or maybe we don't see the results as quickly as we want to, or we forget and we end up eating a treat. When we said we're not going to eat that treat,

how can we practice that self-compassion when we are trying to be more self-laping, we end up maybe not hitting those expectations that we've said for ourselves. I think for somebody that is beginning the journey of figuring out how to practice self-compassion, a tip is to externalize it a little bit. Think about somebody that loves you very much,

cares about you, has been there for you in the past, has always been very kind to you. For many of us, not all of us, unfortunately, but for many of us, it might be a parent. It might be another trusted family member or a friend. But if you can think of somebody that is generally very kind to you, think about what they would say to you in any given circumstance, rather than turning to what you're saying to yourself initially. Because sometimes the things that we say to ourselves

when we make a mistake or if we are doing something that is perceived as a failure is, you're so dumb. Why couldn't you do that? You weren't enough. It must be because you're not good enough. It must be because you're inadequate. These are a lot of the things that we say to ourselves. But when you think of this loving, kind person and what they would say to you, can you imagine this person saying that stuff to you? Often no. So if you're having a hard time accessing kindness and compassion from your own voice, you might want to imagine the kind and compassionate figure from somewhere else in your life. Now, what would so-and-so say in this situation to me? And this is we can start practicing having a voice of compassion is to use somebody else's until we can make it

our own. And how do you think boundaries play a role? Boundaries. Got to love them. The way I think that boundaries can play a role in this is it, you know, boundaries, first of all, for those that aren't too sure of what it is, it's physical, emotional, mental barriers that we put between ourselves and something to protect something, right? Like if you think about fences around somebody's yard, this is a physical boundary. It indicates in a visual level where one property begins, another one ends. It physically keeps certain things out of the yard, and it physically protects what's in the yard from those that are outside.

So if you think of that as a boundary, then you can think of the different boundaries we have in our relationships. We say no to this thing or we express what we're willing to do, how far we're willing to go for any given thing. And this is important because it allows us to protect our sense of self. It protects our time. It protects the priorities that we have. Sometimes we feel the need to do it all in order to gain approval or appreciation, love, respect from other people. But ultimately, if you're constantly saying yes to the point that you're burning out or you're not able to actually be present in the moment.

moment, you might actually get the inverse effect. You may not appear very effective and you may over time grow resentful of the people that you weren't able to place some boundaries with. Placing a boundary is one of the most compassionate things that you can do for yourself because it's very difficult to sometimes disappoint our friends and family, sometimes very difficult to say no in the event of knowing that the outcome of us saying no is going to lead to something that's uncomfortable for either ourselves or for other people. But in order to start practicing this thing, self-compassion. I'm going to be gentle with myself. I'm going to be nurturing with myself. I'm going to take care of myself. I need to protect myself. And in order to protect oneself,

you do that with some boundaries. For those people out there that have children, you think about what you would do to protect them, pretty much anything. So I hope you can extend that kind of thing for yourself too. And that's some of how I think boundaries plays a part in all of this, is it allows us to protect. That word protection keeps coming up for me when we're in this topic. But boundaries allow us to protect something very, very important for ourselves. And I'm thinking when I started learning about boundaries and setting them, I felt guilty sometimes when I was implementing them. And I think a lot of people also feel guilty that they want to set this boundary, but they feel guilt if they do it or even when they do set it and

then they feel this guilt. How can we overcome that guilt? That is a tough one because I'll be real. I think sometimes you're just going to feel the guilt and it's not going to go away. And I say that because sometimes you're going to set a boundary and somebody else will respond poorly to it. And so it's really hard to address those feelings of guilt when the other person really is responding poorly to it. So one of the things I can say is learning to be able to sit with the discomfort of uncomfortable feelings. Most of us avoid. Why, I want to scratch that. Many of us avoid difficult feelings, negative emotions.

and will do a lot of things to prevent ourselves from feeling that way. So to prevent myself from feeling guilty, I will never say no to this person. Ultimately, this will lead to other things, other potentially negative outcomes. So to address the feelings of guilt that may come, I just want to remind people, you cannot control other people's emotions. We cannot control how other people react to our behaviors. We can control our own responses to our own thoughts and our feelings, Sometimes it can feel like we can't control them, and that's where you might want to reach out for additional support with that.

But if you cannot control how somebody else feels, which might be them feeling angry, disappointed, and then in turn, that makes us feel guilty, I think some of the things that we can do is to communicate. You can communicate clearly if you're able to access that with the person, why you're setting this boundary, why it's important to you, why you feel it's important to the relationship. and ultimately, if somebody cannot respect your boundaries and have a level of understanding that you're coming from a place of wanting to maintain the relationship in a healthy way, that's where I think it's actually important to evaluate the relationship itself. If you're surrounding yourself with people that are constantly disrespecting your boundaries, violating them, or acting like they don't exist, are you surrounding yourself with the right people to help you feel the best that you can be? And of course, it becomes infinitely difficult when those people are your family. And I thought just came into my mind that when we talk about self-compassion and self-love, they are not without their discomfort.

And so when we are setting a boundary because we are becoming more self-compassionate, there might be some discomfort where the people that were setting that boundary may not respond the way we want them to respond. We may feel guilty. But if we don't do that, then of course we might build resentment towards them. and then the way we see and feel about ourselves is going to be negatively impacted. So it's almost like both options are going to be uncomfortable. Question is like, which decision do you want to make or how do you want your life to look? Because either way, there's going to be some level of discomfort associated with any choice that you made. Yeah, that's a really great way to put it.

And something I've done with clients is something called scaling. So if you've been in therapy before, your therapist may have done this with you. they'll kind of ask you on a subjective rating, of course, on a scale of zero to 10, how miserable are you in this situation? On a scale of zero to 10, how uncomfortable would you be if you did this thing that's going to change the circumstances that make you miserable? And then through this series of having somebody rate their own subjective means of suffering or discomfort, a lot of people will be able to identify the discomfort of making a change of placing a boundary. is actually less than the misery I'm experiencing by having zero boundaries and not knowing how to

practice self-compassion. And so a little bit of that perspective and insight can start beginning a movement towards making a change. And I love that it quantifies it a little bit. You can actually kind of compare the two, which I think is fantastic. And I know you are with that better help. And one of the questions that I do have is how does therapy fit into the bigger picture? When we're thinking about building resilient, self-transformation, because some of the individuals may not necessarily have a diagnosis and maybe they're thinking about just wellness. So how does it fit into the bigger picture of what we're talking about right now? Therapy is not a magic fix-all. Coming to therapy is not going to change your life circumstances. Your therapist is not able

to change your parents or able to get them to apologize to you for something. something that happened in the past. There's no magic wand? I wish there were. Although your therapist may have referenced to magic wand at some point. Therapy is a place that you can begin to do something called introspection, take on different perspectives, talk about things that you've internalized for potentially a very long time, and have somebody that's not intertwined in your personal life, provides you.

with validation, with reflections back, sharing their own interpretations and insights of something that you've shared, maybe helping point out something that you haven't seen. It also is a safe space for you to practice different kinds of interpersonal conversations or even talk to different parts of yourself that you haven't been able to access previously. For those that are unaware of past trauma, therapy allows people to begin to uncover these things so that that you can better understand some of the why behind your behavior. If you start beginning to understand some of that why, perhaps it becomes less difficult to address that

or to start shifting some kind of pattern of behavior. Therapy allows you to start beginning to chip away at things like self-loathing, reasons why you think you don't deserve love or good things. So I think therapy, this place where you process and engage with another human and use that relationship to figure out some stuff about yourself, it can play a pretty significant role in the journey of self-compassion, self-love, because often your trained professional therapist is going to give you a starting point if you don't know even where to begin on that path.

And, you know, in therapy, people have a lot of opportunity to practice selfishness in a compassionate way. And what I mean by that is, you know, you come into this space and typically you are probably coming from an outside life or your real life where you are responsible for a lot of things, you're responsible for a lot of people, even if you're not responsible for people, if you have a job or a family and friends or anything like that, you interact with other people, sometimes you might feel like you have a hand in their emotional wellness. We all, many of us have a tendency to want to take care of other people in therapy.

You don't have to do that. You don't have to take care of anybody else. You're there to learn how to just take care of yourself. You may have the inclination or the desire to start taking care of your therapist in an emotional way. But guess what? Your therapist is trained to flip that around and put the kibosh on this pattern of behavior that you often engage in so that you can really focus on yourself. There's not a lot of contexts and settings in life where it's socially acceptable to be so selfish.

And being selfish sometimes is not a great thing, but sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes you have to be a little bit self-interested and self-eastern. and self-absorbed to really engage in true self-care. And talking about, we know that again, it's a place for us to be selfish in a positive way. When we look at the environment that we live, so the cultural expectations, the beliefs, family dynamics,

how do you think that those impact or influence self-care as well as general mental health? A lot, I think. they can potentially influence this quite a lot. Family dynamics and culture can very much shape the ways that we feel about ourselves, the way we prioritize anything in life. So one family experience may look very different from another family. So you could have two individuals coming from these different families having learned different ways to engage in the world, having learned different ways to prioritize wellness or not or deprioritize really. I think culture also plays a big hand. I'll just give an example. Some cultures are what we know to be collectivistic while other cultures are individualized. So collectivistic cultures often are focused on group. How does one person's decision impact the group? And in these collectivist societies, oftentimes it's not an individual making a decision just in solitude. It's about

consultation with a group. It's about making sure everybody's on the same page because any decision is going to impact everybody else. What I do impacts the greater, you know, the family, the country, what have you. Individualistic societies like the U.S., every man for himself or, you know, I'm going to, I'm out for me. I need to make sure I'm taking care of. My things are taking care of. Maybe I'll take care of my family. But ultimately, like, it's about me and about my desire and my priority.

and I think there's a lot of benefits to this and a lot of pros to this. So if you look at both different kinds of cultures, there's pros and cons, of course. I'm not going to say that one is any better than the other. But these different ways of being and existing, I think heavily influence and shape the ways that we think about self-care, self-compassion.

Even this idea of self-care, self-compassion, it may not even feel or look the same across cultures. And I can't speak for other cultures. I can't speak from the one that I live in and I grew up. but I can recognize that those that come from different cultural experience may conceptualize these ideas in different ways. And off the top of your head, do you by any chance know in terms of how mental health on a population level is in a more individualistic culture versus a collective culture? I'm not sure if I have a great answer for this. I'll just say I've seen mental illness across cultures.

It doesn't matter what culture you're coming from. Unfortunately, it doesn't protect you from being depressed or developing severe anxiety. So all that to say, regardless of what kind of culture or family that you're coming from, you may experience mental health challenges. They might look a little bit different. You might begin to address them a little bit differently based on some of the things that you've experienced and learned in the past. Some people from collectivistic societies that I have observed, some of their unwellness comes from a large, preoccupation with how other people will, I'm having a hard time with this question. I don't know if I have a great answer for it. Is it like how other people perceive them? Like they are still worried

about the expectations they have and how they look to others? Yeah, like I was beginning to say something about that thought. But honestly, I think people from individualistic cultures can experience that same thing. So I think this question is hard for me, Simba, because I don't want to generalize. And it's difficult to answer it without generalizing people from these. places. Can you say the question one more time? It was just to see is there difference in the mental health of at the population level, individuals in individualistic cultures versus more collective cultures. I'm not, yeah, I don't know if I'm comfortable answering this one. I just, I don't think I have enough data points of my own to be able to answer. It just feels like I would

be generalizing for people. So, and I don't want to do that. And I think what I mean, so go ahead. Yeah, I have noticed, you know, with my own clients that are coming from families that are generally from more collectivistic societies and cultures, there is more distress coming from how are my decisions going to impact my family? How are my life paths and the things that I do with my own time? How is that affecting these other people over here? I don't see that quite as often from people in individualistic societies, but it still comes up. So, yeah, I just, I don't want to generalize. I've seen all kinds of stuff from everywhere.

It's not like all people from collectivistic societies are this way and all people from individualistic societies are this way. It's not like that. So I'm finding it challenging to answer this question. And I think, yeah, there are so many other factors that come into play. And again, I just a curious question that part. popped into my head. I'm like, oh, I wonder if there's differences between the two. We can move on to the next question, which is some of the people that are listening today, like feelings of unworthiness, they don't feel seen. They feel like they are failing at this

self-care, self-compassion thing. What do you want them to hear the most right now? It's okay to not be okay. And I think many of us have heard this phrase before, and I start with this because when you're not okay, piling on self-inflicted shame that I'm not good enough to make myself feel better, it just makes it even more challenging to start the sometimes difficult process of getting yourself out of a hole. So for those that are feeling like everything that we've talked about is so far from reach, how am I ever, ever going to get there? Just know that even you taking a time to listen to a conversation like this is you doing something hopefully for yourself. We all got to start somewhere.

And sometimes it means starting very small. So I don't want anyone to think that everything I'm talking about is what you need to start incorporating into your life tomorrow. But it could just start with a thought or an affirmation. I am enough for me to try to do something to make my situation better. And even if it's like maybe I feel like I'm not enough for other people, maybe forget those other people for now. I'm enough for myself. I'm enough for myself that I want to feel better, be happier, be healthier. And so a lot of our action will begin with just a level of motivation.

And sometimes to foster that, it's about beginning to speak to ourselves differently, perhaps about consuming different kinds of content or consuming different kinds of people. I think I read somewhere before that we are the products of the five people we spend the most time with. So that's something to start tuning into is who are you surrounding yourself with? Are these people that you want to be like? Because that's a good indicator of something. If you're surrounding yourself with people you want to be like, I think that's a good thing. You know, are you engaging in things, whether that's activities or vices that are really bringing significant harm to yourself or harming other people?

This might be a place to start re-evaluating whether you want to keep engaging in that. That's the point of losing trains of thought here. And that was perfect. That was perfect. And then what vision do you hold for the future of mental health care and how we talk about emotional. world being as a society. My vision for the future of mental health care. This is a side note for you, Simba.

It's hard to be optimistic when everything feels so difficult these days in our world. That's just my personal feeling about it. But yes, my vision for the future of mental health care. You know, I've been a mental health professional now for over a decade. And in that time, I've seen a lot of positive change. Positive change in the way people talk about seeking therapy. the ways people talk about their own mental health challenges. At the same time, I've seen ebbs and flows, ups and downs, different trends that affect the field.

You know, mental health care right now, at least in the U.S., is very bundled up into health care. So we're talking about insurance as a huge thing in this country that's difficult to navigate that's very much tied to the idea of being able to access mental health care. We're looking at very complex and complicated infrastructure and systems that create barriers. and make it inaccessible for some people to find an appropriate therapist for what they're going through. So I think my vision, my hope is for some kind of acknowledgement from the people above that do make large decisions that affect policy, that if people everywhere are suffering to a degree

that they can no longer get out of bed or have the self-efficacy to even do a good job in any kind of industry, if we have a whole nation of people that are unwell mentally and emotionally, what is left there? So my hope and vision is not really about what can mental health providers change within the system. It's what are the people that can change the system doing and thinking about? And is there a world and future in which people will prioritize overall wellness? I really do hope that people can begin giving themselves the space to seek out the different support. that exists out there to prioritize their own wellness. I've given an example in different places

before of like, if somebody breaks their arm while engaging in some physical activity, there's no questions asked. Everybody is telling this person, you've got to go to the doctor. You need to get this checked out. You need to get a cast. You need to heal this bone. Whatever it is. No one bats an eye if somebody goes to a doctor for a broken bone. But right now in a lot of society is there's still a lot of stigma attached for anybody seeking professional support and paying for a therapist if they have a broken spirit, if they have a broken sense of self-worth. So what I'd like and hope for is for our communities to respond in the same way to somebody that's broken their arm. Go to the doctor to somebody that's experiencing grief or that's having

overwhelming anxiety or unable to function because they're so depressed. I would hope that they're community and their society around them, no questions ask what the same amount of urgency is, you should see a therapist, and we would accept you and love you all the same. Or maybe not even a therapist. Therapist is not always to answer. It's about finding what works for you. It's just that therapy is one of the options. And it is a stigmatized option still. You know, confidentiality is such a big deal in therapy. And there's a lot of really good reasons for that, of course. But one of the reasons I have pondered is, are we? we perpetuating keeping being in therapy a secret? Are we perpetuating this idea that it's

like supposed to be hidden and that we're not supposed to talk about it? I'm not really sure. And like I said, that conversation has been changing quite a bit. I mean, people talk about therapy. We're on a podcast talking about mental health. This wouldn't be happening a few years or several years ago. So there's been a lot of positive moment and shift. So my hope for the future of what alleviation for mental health challenge could look like involves more communication about it, more openness about it, more transparency when somebody's not doing well. It can be very scary to talk about that because of how most of our societies tend to respond to something like that. Yeah, I just hope for more kindness all around, people to be kind to themselves and to be kind

to each other. And I think even if we just start with some kindness, I think that will go a long way. It's amazing. My final question is, if there's one thing that a listener to this episode can take away with, or go away with, what would it be? Ooh. I'm about to botch a quote. So I can't take credit for this idea. It's something I've seen online. And I imagine some of you have heard it too.

But something I would like for people to take away is that you yourself are worthy of your own love. Sometimes you don't feel that way. Or maybe it's your whole life that you haven't. felt like you deserve that. But you are worthy of your own love. That's one thing that I hope people can walk away from this with is the idea that you are worth making an effort in trying to improve your own situation. Maybe if you don't feel like you're worth it to somebody else, just remember that you are worth it to yourself. You have to live with yourself for the rest of your life. So my hope is that you work on that relationship and you become somebody that you like

spending time with, if not love spending time with. Beautifully said, thank you so much, Hesu, for your time, your insights, and your perspective. Thank you so much, Simba, for having me. Thank you for listening. If Haysa Joe's insights resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs it. And don't forget to subscribe to the channel to keep strengthening your mind with more powerful stories and insights.