The Therapy Edit - On how to feel less guilty for not being present

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

In this, the fourth of a special ten part series of The Therapy Edit, Anna talks through the second of The Uncomfortable Truths; I Can't Be Fully Present all the Time.The Uncomfortable Truth: Change Your Life By Taming 10 of Your Mind's Greatest Fears is Anna's 5th book and is set for publication on the 8th August!Pre-order your copy here and have it delivered straight to your door on publication day. Here's a teaser from Anna about what to expect in this long-awaited, transformative book.‘Some people don’t like me”“Bad things will happen to people I love”“I’m going to fail”… these words underpinned my anxieties and nightmares. I bet they feature in yours too.Our fears are anchored in the unavoidable truths of life; all things reach an end, bad things happen, and we lack the control we crave.As an experienced psychotherapist, who’s had years of therapy, I realised that ploughing endless energy into trying to control the uncontrollable is keeping us all tired, wired, and worried. Ignoring fears doesn’t make them less true, it makes them more powerful. I decided to try a different tact and it changed my world.Instead of doing everything I could to ease and avoid life’s uncomfortable truths, I sought a deeper acceptance of them. Through using this approach, my clients and I discovered that fear began to loosen its grip. We were living more intentionally and peacefully.So, face your fears one a chapter at a time, and discover who you are without worry, doubt and people-pleasing holding you back.

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. Hi everyone. Today is episode four of a little 10 episode series, all 10 minutes on an uncomfortable truth. We've talked about the uncomfortable truth of people not liking us. we've talked about the uncomfortable truth, the fact that we will fail and we will hurt people that we care about and also people that we don't care about, we're going to hurt people on our way through life. And today we're going to talk about the uncomfortable truth of the fact that we cannot be fully present all the time. Now, I've taken these from my new book, The Uncomfortable Truth,

which is all about changing your life by taming 10 of your mind's greatest fears. Now, I'm I truly believe that so often the truths of life, the fact that bad things will happen, that we will fail, that some people won't like us, that we will die, that we will lose, that we can't always be present in our lives. All of those truths, I feel like we try so hard to do our best, to make people like us, to that bad things won't happen, to protect ourselves, to imagine all those worst case scenarios so that we can, you know, get to a worse, should anything bad happen, we're like, it's okay, I knew this was coming, I fully prepared myself, when actually in truth, we know that this is

an exhausting way to live. We are constantly worrying, ruminating, we're feeling anxious, we're feeling burnt out from the people pleasing and the perfectionism, and the guilt. Today's episode is on the uncomfortable truth of the fact that we can't be fully present all the time. And this one for me has prompted so much guilt in the past, especially when I look back, especially in the first years of my kids' life. They're currently now, five, eight, and nine. And I think, man, where was I? I was just in survival made. I wasn't fully present, just reveling in the wonder of it all. I was some of the time just wanting it, willing it to pass faster. And I can feel so much guilt those days that I'm juggling and struggling with the juggle and trying to do too many things

at once and the kids are calling my name and it's in my head somewhere in the background and I'm not responding and then I just feel so guilty at the end of the day and I think oh where was I life is short where was I and I feel so much shame so I'm going to explore this with you because I want to take some of the guilt out of that and in the book I talk about how we can become a little bit more accepting of the fact that we cannot be fully present all the time. I mean bodily we can, right, because we're here all the time. But as you know, I mean our attention and our focus. So I want to relieve some guilt and I want to give you, I want to give you some understanding of how actually just accepting this truth means that we can shed that guilt and that shame. Because

how differently would you feel if you actually felt more accepting? How differently would you feel you actually felt more accepting of that truth that you cannot be present all the time and that's okay how much guilt would you be able to let go of how much more intention do you think you might be able to find because when we let go of guilt and shame and self-criticism we actually free ourselves up because it is exhausting to live like that we free ourselves up to actually be a bit more intentional and as a result ironically a little bit more present so i've definitely found that as I've lifted off, the pressure, pressure, pressure to be present, focus, absorb it, enjoy it. I've actually found more ease and enjoyment in the present in doing so, in not forcing it.

So I'm going to share a little excerpt from the book and then I'm going to share a tip or two on how to get more comfortable with the uncomfortable truth. So your focus isn't always in the here and now. Life affirming moments will pass you by and your head will be elsewhere. You will spend time with the people most important to you and you will leave feeling like it was a blur, barely remembering what happened, let alone what you said. Your head was in a work drama.

Your heart was at home on the sofa. You'll miss firsts, your miss sunrises, your miss shooting stars tearing through the sky because you were busy gazing at the dirt around your feet. Your lose loved ones and curse yourself for not inhaling every moment of their presence while you could. You'll feel sobered and you'll pledge to make the most of life forever more lest you miss out on the things most precious to you.

For hours later, your mind will be pondering things that don't matter. You'll waste time. Your focus will shift with the to-do list yet again. What does it actually mean to be present anyway? You're there in body always. You can't have half your body here in the moment and half of it in tomorrow. You are here right now. As soon as you are aware of the moment,

you are in the moment you might not be inhaling it or walking around in a zen-like state of gratitude full joy but your focus is on what's in front of you I think by being present as such we are actually alluding to the fact that we're either like not looking backwards we're not looking forwards we're focusing on what we're doing feeling or seeing whether we want to pause time in that moment or hit the fast forward button as I just said I felt so I would love to share with you a couple of thoughts as to why you might find it hard to accept this truth. I think one of the reasons that we find it hard to accept that we can't always be present is that we feel so guilty for not being present because boredom is becoming extinct. And we

want to be more present in our lives, but we're actually uncomfortable with boredom only years ago, you'd stand in a queue and your eyes would roam into the spaces, faces and places around you. And you'd be reminded of the bigger picture of life in seeing the community around you and the natural world above you. But these days, we're taught to avoid bored. These days, we're taught to avoid boredom, aren't we, by filling our minds with words and images and songs and podcasts. But do you listen to this one? From screens. And we're almost surgically attached to those screens in the palm of our hands, aren't we? And the thing is with boredom, it inspires creativity.

It leaves space for emotion to ebb and flow and for dreams to be pondered upon. So actually, when that's, I think, part of the reason we just struggle with that uncomfortable truth that we can't be present all the time is because we feel guilty that we're not present. We're not allowing our minds to be bored. We're not enjoying those little spaces and little breathers. So I think that's part of it. And another part of it, I think is that we're encouraged to avoid difficult feelings. There are so many ways to avoid feelings out there.

Just we're encouraged to numb them. Just numb them with alcohol. Have a glass of wine. If you're feeling sad or overwhelmed, have a glass of wine. Just binge on a Netflix series or dull heartache with stress or drugs and alcohol or work, work, work. And just leave little space for thought. We drown out thoughts, don't we? with music and on words stream into our ears and we can fear that if we stop and slow and pause,

that all the feelings will just come and hit us and will never feel okay again. So no wonder the call to be present all the time feels like a totally overwhelming prospect. So there are a couple of reasons as to why I think we can really grapple with that concept of being present. So here are a couple of tips. Number one, cut yourself some slack, look back, think about the times that you've really struggled to be present, to absorb, to remember, to make memories, to feel that swelling gratitude. And I know this. Survival is a gift sometimes, sometimes not being present, not being in the moment

is actually a survival mechanism. And I think when I look back to a period, of postnatal depression and it was very much just about making it through getting it through putting one foot in front of the other going day by day sometimes even minute by minute and surviving and coping and actually i can look back and i can really criticize myself and not being present not being absorbed in that period of my life not making the most of that season when actually i i remember this light bulb moment and it's one i love to share with people that i'm working with is to recognize that you know what? Sometimes survival is your gift. That is your gift. Yeah, it's really hard to be present when you're in survival mode. And at times like that, survival is definitely

the priority. Sometimes we do immerse ourselves in work or we do immerse ourselves in box sets when we get a moment because actually it's just about survival. It's just about getting on, getting through. And then the most important thing is that when you're through that period, then you make space for those emotions and you do all the things that we know we need to do. But sometimes survival is your gift. The second thing, I love this tip. It's a tip someone gave me when I was before I was getting married, which was all of 15 years ago and I still remember it now.

And they said, well, your wedding day will go by in an absolute blur. So make sure that you pause at a few points and you just absorb. And those are the moments I remember standing on a wooden balcony looking at all my friends and family dancing. I remember that moment so clearly. The day, the rest of the day, so much of the day is an absolute blur. But it's those couple of moments that I stopped. And we absorbed those, the moments that we were really present

rather than just, you know, being whipped up by the whirlwind of it all. And I use this in parenting all the time because the days, we know the days, they feel like they go so slow at the time, but they fly by. And I try and do the same. I try when I remember to just pause and absorb and look at the scene in front of me, whether it's my kids in their onesies on the sofa or whether I've got my, you know, I put my phone down and I just sit with them for a minute and laugh with them or watch

something with them and just comment on it with them and I'm with them and I'm not just with them. I'm really with them. And it's those moments that punctuate the days. So there's just a couple of things amidst all the other stuff in the book that is there for you to help you just really, yeah, feel a little bit more comfortable about the fact you can't be present all the time. So stop pressuring yourself. Set intentions, do those little things. I've got lots more to share with you. But yeah, those moments really matter. And when we alleviate the pressure and the guilt and the shame, actually, we can make a little bit more space and find a little bit more energy for them. Anyway, I hope that you found that helpful. And don't forget to grab a copy

of The Uncomfortable Truth is a big sunny yellow book. I know we tackle big themes in it, but I promise the idea really gently. And I found it to be absolutely stuff has changed my life. And I can't wait for it to change yours too. Sending love. I am so excited to announce that my brand new book, The Uncomfortable Truth, Change Your Life by Taming Ten of Your Mind's Greatest Fears, is available for pre-order now and is out on the 8th of August.

this book, we tackle some of life's big, unavoidable, uncomfortable truths such as some people don't like me. I am going to fail. Life isn't fair. Bad things will happen. And in this book, we tackle these big, uncomfortable trees that rob us of so much headspace and energy as we try and control and avoid them. And as we move into a place of radical acceptance of these truths, you will find yourself living more freely and intentionally with more presence and confidence than ever before. So come on this journey with me and pre-order now at Wardstones in Amazon and we can celebrate together.