The Therapy Edit - On 5 more things that changed my life

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

Following on from last week's episode where Anna shared the first 5 free and accessible things that have changed her life, this week she shares 5 more! If you enjoy this week's practical tips, don't miss last week's so that you have the full top 10!

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hello, I hope you're well. Today's podcast is an extension, a two-parter of last weeks, in which I shared five things that have changed my life. So if you want to hear more after this one, then go back and listen to that one. It's got five more free tips. So this little five things series on five little things that have changed my life is a response to having seen some posts on social media where there are lots of recommendations going around. They're not all affordable. They're not all doable. A lot of them require a lot of logistics, sometimes a lot of

finance. So I wanted to share some things that have really made a difference to me that are free. So last week I shared about, actually I'm not going to tell you what they all are. You can go and have a listen and go and have a listen over to the last episode, but today I'm going to share five more things that have changed my life. So what have I got in my list here? Putting boundaries around my phone use. I don't know about you, but often in moments of boredom or emotion or stress or just feeling like I just need a breather. often what I do is I head to the busiest place in the entire world, which is my phone. And actually, this tends to be quite compulsive. So I'd find myself on Instagram or I'd find

myself checking my email despite the fact I'd already checked it recently. When I was adding orange juice or, you know, a cucumber to my online shop, I think, oh, I would need to add that to my online shop before I forget. So I'd go into my app. And before I realized, I was there standing in kitchen scrolling was my kids are eating dinner. I don't really want to be doing that. I don't really want to be doing that. So I decided, and I decide often actually to put new boundaries around my phone use. I rarely go on my phone late at night now or really early in the morning. I make sure that it's not the first thing that I do. That's really helpful. I really question why I'm going on it, which is hard to do when it can often be so compulsive and impulsive. So I found this app.

that a friend showed me, we're on a walk, and she showed, she was, she wanted to show me something on Instagram. I think it was something that she'd found that she wanted to share with me. And she went on her phone and she was like, oh, wait a minute, I've got to take a deep breath. And I was like, what are you talking about? And she said, I've got this app. It's called OneSec. It's a bit of a fiddle to set up, but it's worth it. And when you, you can apply it to whatever apps you want, whatever apps that you find yourselves skipping to. And so I've applied it to my email and my Instagram. And all it does, it encourages you to take a deep breath. Just, it shows you this little visual inhale, exhale before it says, do you still want to go and use this app? So it just interrupts

that impulsivity. And I, yeah, I think it's flipping amazing. And it's actually massively reduced the amount of time that I check my emails and go on Instagram. Actually massively drastically reduced it because it asks you, whether. that's actually what you want. I think often if we're honest with ourselves, that's not necessarily what we want to be doing in that moment. So it gives you that pause to think. So putting boundaries around my phone use has been really, really helpful. Another thing that has changed my life is saying no to stuff, which has involved addressing people pleasing and perfectionism. Just things that have helped me implement boundaries, things that have helped me look at the overview of my week when I asked to do

something, have I got capacity? Can I do it? Have I got time? Am I saying yes out of people pleasing? Am I doing all of this out of perfectionism? What am I trying to earn here? What is the drive for me saying yes to everything I used to say yes to everything? I used to be the yes person that everyone would ask to do stuff because I would always, always say yes. Didn't want to let people down. I want people to like me. I wanted people to be pleased with me. So saying no has really challenge that, but actually at the same time, it has given me so much back. It means that when I say no to something, I haven't got capacity for, I haven't got time for. I'm not going to do it resentfully. I'm not going to do it in that kind of bad faith, resentful way where I think

they have no idea what this is costing me. It's also really helped me find balance in my week because I'm not trying to do everything for everyone. My mum always says to me, you can do, you can do, you could do everything, but you can't. You know, we can do many different things, but it doesn't mean that we can actually do it healthily. It doesn't mean that there is a cost. So saying no, again, this is another little thing, but actually we know it's massive. I've got, no, you're worth my book really, really helps with people pleasing and perfectionism. So if this one for you was like, Anna, that it's not little at all.

That is terrifyingly massive. Then that book is there for you to delve into that. Another thing that has changed my life. Number three is challenging my internal dialogue. Absolutely exhausting when I started doing this. I started doing this when I started training as a therapist. And we learned a lot about our internal dialogue and how it feeds into our confidence and our self-esteem and how many of us are just constantly criticizing, maybe bullying ourselves internally. it's really hard to believe that you're deserving of lovely relationships and kindness and good

things when actually you're bullying yourself internally. And sometimes I think we need to recognize where that voice is. Is that really you or is it an old teacher, a parent? Where is that internal dialogue being critical and bullying? And how might you just start to recognize it? How might you just start to notice how you're responding to yourself? how you're talking to yourself and introducing a different way. We can't change the first thing that comes into our head. We can't change our knee-jerk response, but we can start reshaping it.

We can start challenging it. We can start making sure that it's not the only voice in our minds. And I started introducing a more compassionate, kind, balanced human alternative. When I say human, I mean realistic. because often my internal dialogue would be really perfectionist, really unsustainable. You should be doing this. You shouldn't have done that. You should be feeling like this. And actually, my more human dialogue has a lot more margin for error, a margin for humanness. So just start challenging your internal dialogue. Start thinking, how might someone that cares about me speak to me in this moment?

Just start introducing an alternative. And I promise you, over time, it's like that one starts getting louder and louder and louder and louder. And my whole internal dialogue has changed because of introducing that second one. Definitely. Lots kinder. Lots more compassionate. A lot more realistic. A lot more realistic, a lot less shaming, a lot less critical. So number four is starting to value rest and self-care now. If you follow me on social media, I bang on about this a lot because it feels like a really renegate thing in our culture to start valuing rest when our culture really values the doing, the doing, the doing, the doing, the doing. Where are the moments of rest that you can recoup and

recharge. I often literally think of that phone charger coming out of my backside and plugging into a wall and knowing that as I slow, as I sit, as I just pause, I'm allowing myself to recharge. I'm allowing myself to give myself a little bit more of something that I will undoubtedly need to use in a moment or two in the next few hours. I definitely recognize that the quality of my parenting is directly related to how rested I am, how well I've slept, how much I've had to juggle, how depleted I am, it all directly impacts our parenting because when we're exhausted and we're depleted, we cannot respond in a way that is considered and often the way that reflects how we want a parent. This is a lot to do with the premise of

a happier mother, which is my book coming out soon. So if you recognize that you're just depleted and the way that you love is to give yourself away to those around you, then that one is going to be right up your street. Number five is something else that has really changed my life. It is making my goals so super small that I can't not do them. I used to think I'm going to read a chapter of the book a day, a nonfiction book. I wanted to learn. more. I have all these books. I struggle to get through them. So I was like, right, I'm going to read a chapter a day. But I just fell by the wayside. For me, a chapter was too big a little mountain to climb. So I started challenging myself to read five pages a day, just five. And I'm

going to get through books slowly, but I'm going to get through more books than when I set myself a bigger goal that I wasn't going to do because it felt some days too much. So, what habit would you like to instill? What challenge would you like to set yourself? What goal have you always had that you'd like to achieve? I'd like to learn a new language. So you download apps and you pledge it you're going to do half an hour a day. What about one word a day? You want to move every day. What about five minutes a day? How can you set that goal so small that you can't not do it because what happens the smaller we get the smaller that goal is the less barriers there is to doing it and we feel really good when we manage to achieve a goal

don't we so making it small gives us that sense of achievement it gives us that buzz it gives us a little bit more drive so maybe one day I find myself reading 10 pages a day but the goal is five sometimes I get so into something I look up and I spend half an hour that evening reading but the goal is five make it doable make it doable make it it's small. So there are five more things, little free things that have really changed my life. And don't forget to go and have a listen to last week's episode if you'd like to hear more. But yeah, what might those things be for you? How can you make them so small that you can't not do them? Thank you so much for listening. Please do take a moment to subscribe, rate and

review as it really helps get these words out to benefit more juggling parents like us. And head to anamatha.com to find my resources on everything from health anxiety to people pleasing, starting at only 20 pounds. And finally, don't forget to pre-order my new book, Raising a Happier Mother, how to find balance, feel good and see your children flourish as a result. I can't wait for you to have that. Take care and we'll chat soon.