The Therapy Edit - On thriving through change

Episode Date: May 15, 2020

What can we do to steady ourselves when all around us is changing? And what might we put in place to support ourselves in any times of change ahead?

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 and welcome to episode 11 of the Therapy Edit. Today I'm speaking on how to thrive in change. We as a world at the moment, as I speak on this podcast, are going through a much. massive period of challenge and change. We have experienced and are experiencing a pandemic. We have been in lockdown. Our lives look incredibly different to how they did even just a couple of months ago. And it's a challenge. It's a challenge because we are so hardwired to find safety and consistency and familiarity. And in so many ways, we haven't had that.

we haven't had that there has been a lot of loss there's been a lot of fear there's been a lot of emotional challenge physical challenge and in this podcast I'm just going to touch on a few little things to think about that will help us navigate times of change it can be applied to our current situation but also it can be something that you might want to pop back to and listen to in the future when you face a period of change often the hardest kind of change is the change that is out of our control. It's a change that comes out of the blue. It's a change in which we do not have a choice in.

But our reaction and our attitude, you know, they do make a difference to our experiences. So this is what we're going to have a little look at. So first of all, as you know with me, I will always bring compassion into it. When we go through periods of change, it's so important just to, think about the impact that it has had on us, the impact that change has on our lives,

change challenges, our resources and our normal ways of coping. And often when we are faced with these challenges, it can feel like we've been stripped back, that we've been stripped back of familiarity and the things that we find comfort in. So it's really important to bring compassion in. We need to be compassionate about the fact that we don't have a map for this it's often the way isn't it with change that we we don't always know who to call on we don't always know where to look sometimes we just have to dig really deep and use the resources that we have which is exhausting and it depletes us and that in itself is worth being compassionate about you know i think it's often easy again to think how would i speak to a friend if i knew

that they were going through this it can tend to be easier to find compassion for someone else than ourselves so it can help to just take it outside of our own experience and imagine how we would respond to a friend. Another point is to try and encourage a bit of flexibility around your expectations of yourself and how things will look in a few weeks where you set that bar of how you are planning on navigating it, how you're going to cope as soon as we put pressure on ourselves we then it's more likely that our internal dialogue will become a little bit more critical so just think about how you can be flexible in in times of change in the way that you set your expectations of yourself and how you'll act and how you'll feel and do you know what

every day our resources are different my resources today after a bad night's sleep are different to how they might be tomorrow after a good night's sleep. Some of those emotions are a little bit closer to the surface. It can be harder to rationalise some thoughts. So it's important to remember that we are different every day. And to expect yourself to feel as strong as you might have done yesterday is a bit of a tall order. So we're moving feasts. And it's a really kind thing to do to allow ourselves to be changeable and to sometimes move boundaries

and move plans even if that's what we need in these times. My next thought is to have a think about those things that you cannot control. And it's easy for me to say, isn't it? Let go of what you can't control. It's not that simple, is it? But it's really good to note sometimes. It's good to note those times that we are trying in some way to control the things that we can't, even if it's just reading up, reading up, reading up to try and gain lots of

knowledge, in the hopes that it will give us a sense of control. But actually, there are certain things that we just cannot control. So encouraging ourselves to focus on those things that we can. I cannot control what the government decide in the next coming weeks in this time of pandemic. But what I can control is the way that I let my thoughts run wild, the way that I tend to go off on the what if tangent, I can control that. I can take steps to look after myself and my family. I can take steps to continue instilling a routine that I know is helpful for us as a unit. There are lots of things that I can do. The next point is to look after yourself. Change depletes us. It challenges our resources. Going through challenging times in itself is a drain just in order to

process change, to process our lives in the light of the circumstances, that is a challenge. I really want to encourage you just to let your feelings be. Think of them like waves. Often I have feared feeling. I've feared leaving space for feeling. I've feared actually feeling those feelings that come with change of frustration or resentment or that sense of being out of control. And I think I've tended to try to distract myself from them because my concern has been that if I actually let myself feel, will it ever stop? Am I going to be of any use to anyone if I'm just feeling overwhelmed? But actually so many feelings, we can't feel anything too intensely for that long. You know, feelings come and they go. And the more we try and resist them, like sweeping

under the car, them under the carpet, it gets lumpy and the more likely they are to come out sideways in irritability or resentment, things like that. So just encourage yourself to trust that if you allow yourself to feel irritated or frustrated or confused or fearful, that that feeling that by allowing it, you're allowing it to pass. Valid your feelings. Let them be. It might be that you want to talk about them. Often I get this sense of, oh, yeah, what's the point if I talk about it? No one can change the situation. No, people often can't. But there is something that happens when we speak them out to someone else. In that action alone, we are validating it. We are saying that this feeling has value, regardless of the fact of whether it can be fixed or not,

I'm going to, I'm going to choose to value it by sharing it with someone else. And that, it does something, it does something. And finally, I want to encourage you to remind yourself of all the change that you have been through in your life, the unexpected changes, the curveball changes, the ones that feel like life stopped with a single phone call. Yeah, we've all been through so much change yet we have made it this far. We have made it this far. And again, it's that reminder that we are stronger than we give ourselves credit for. Remind yourself what you have been through in the past. The things that you thought there was absolutely no chance you would be able to navigate, face, move through, find you normal after that change. And you have and you did. And you can

definitely, definitely do it again. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe and review. You can find more from me on Instagram and I'm Arthur. You might like to check out my two books called Mind Over Mother and Know Your Worth. I'm also the founder of the Mother Mind Way, a platform full of guides, resources and a community with the sole focus on supporting mother's mental and emotional well-being. It's been lovely chatting with you. Speak soon.

Thank you.