← Take Out Therapy: End Overthinking & Overwhelm for Empathic High Achievers
Take Out Therapy: End Overthinking & Overwhelm for Empathic High Achievers
The ONLY Place to Begin Personal Growth Work for Less Overwhelm, Overthinking & More Inner Peace, Self Love
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In today's Takeout Therapy episode, you'll discover my secret therapy formula and the best approach to any personal growth project. Bonus. I'll tell you exactly where to begin. Welcome to Takeout Therapy, the podcast for empathic high achievers who are done overworking, overthinking and being overwhelmed. I'm Rebecca Hunter, an anxiety expert and therapist helping busy, big hearted people like you learn practical skills to quiet your racing mind, overcome self doubt and actually be present in your life. If that sounds good to you, you're in the right place. Visit takeouttherapy.com for helpful resources, classes and to find out more about working with me. Thanks for listening. Let's get to work. Well, hello there friend. I'm so glad you stopped in for today's session because you are going to get a wham bam out of this episode. In this episode, I am dishing out the three core areas of therapy that actually create change quickly, why most people are doing it wrong in terms of their personal growth work, and a super simple way to bring more calm and presence right into your life, starting right now. Okay, let's get going. Well, hello there friend. I'm so glad you stopped in for today's episode. I want to talk with you about how personal growth can look. If you are someone who's listening to this podcast because you want to get to work on improving your mental health or your relationship with somebody else, or the way you deal with your emotions, or your relationship with yourself, then it's really important to have some simple instructions on what the heck to do. Because I think there is so much information out there. Like you could learn all about any one of a number of personal growth topics. Right? You could go really deep into one. And actually that's what I do with people when I work with them. I take them really deep into usually one of three areas in their life. And so I'm going to give you the hack today. This is my method or my philosophy about how we can maintain and improve our mental health, thereby improving literally any area of our life that we want to improve. Because I've got to say, mental health is where it all begins. And it begins in three specific areas. The first thing that we have to look at when we're looking at the picture of mental health and we want to do some work is how do we handle emotion? Are we able to functionally be in relationship with the complicated array of emotion that comes into our lives on a daily basis? What the hell do we do with all of it? What is a functional and healthy Way to handle it. Many people, I think, would say, oh, I'm good on that. And I would say it takes actually a couple of additional skills to know if you're good on that. So the second area that I always focus on with people and that if you're looking for a personal growth project, take a look at, is your relationship with yourself. And a lot of people don't really know what that means. I've actually done an episode on that in the past. I think it was a couple years ago. But your relationship with yourself forms the foundation for literally everything else in your life, right? And just like if you met a new love interest, for example, you are curious about them and perhaps you see things about them that you're not crazy about. But in the big picture of things, you accept them, you are kind to them, you don't hold things over their head or blame. You're in relationship to that person because you love them, right? And as I'm sort of reciting this, I'm thinking, is this what love looks like? Well, that's a great question. Is this what your relationship with other people looks like? Are you accepting of them? Do you sort of understand their differences, Feel the difference between the two of you, but, like, allow for that, right? Are you kind? Are you loving? And how about in your relationship with yourself? Is there a curiosity there, an interest, frankly, in getting to know you better? This second area of what I would say just basic human development is not something that we're taught about. We are not educated at all in our upbringing or in school or in our relationships, about how vital a relationship with oneself is. And I gotta tell you, it is the foundation of the house is pretty much what I say it literally. If you have a nice relationship with yourself in which you hold positive regardless, unconditionally, and you're kind and you're loving and you have grace, when things don't go well, you will find that your life improves immensely. And so it is one of the areas that I focus on with people. But I don't go there first either, because, man, that's deep, isn't it? I mean, just to tackle the self criticism alone is a mega project. And most people don't really pay attention to their relationship with themselves. It's in the background of everything. That voice, right, that unkind, demanding, perfectionist voice is always there. But it's like it's so much a part of us that we're not really focused on it. So it runs unfettered in the background. Which brings me to the Third area of focus, when we're looking to do some personal growth work, and we have to start here because it basically lays the foundation for everything else. Basically, if you don't do this, you can't do the other things. It's presence, my friend. It is the ability to be present in your life with what is. Which is really, really hard. I've been working on it for a long time, and I was chuckling with a client this morning about it because he was like, is this supposed to be really, really hard? Like, yes, it is. And most people, typically, the way we operate is that we think a lot. And so we think that we're present, but really we're thinking about things, which is fine, but we're not actually present in whatever is happening. For example, I'm standing in my office and I'm recording this podcast. And in the back of my mind, I'm also sort of planning what I'm going to say, right? And there's a bird that flies past the window. It's a hawk. I love hawks. That's a lot going on at one time. What am I doing? I'm recording my podcast. I'm talking with you, friend. So sometimes I get distracted. And presence is not, not getting distracted, because good luck with that. Like, hello, the world is bananas. Presence is being willing to come back to the moment. There I am here, I'm back. I'm talking just to you now. No bird, right? No distractions. Here we are back again. This is what presence is, and it's really hard. And what I typically recommend to people very first off the bat would just really irritates them, actually, is to learn to breathe differently, because our breath is a bridge to presence. And if you don't know what breath is your bridge, that would be a place to begin. Isn't that so interesting? So all those annoying people that have been saying for so many years, you just need to take a deep breath. Well, they were right, kind of. But some people can't take deep breaths. It's anxiety inducing. It makes them feel even more tense than they were to begin with. And so this is what I work with people on is like finding your unique breath. I mean, it's not that hard to find it, but it's a place to begin because only from our breath can we come back into the moment. It's interesting with presence because you have to be able to be constantly battling for it. Holy moly. Like, the world is so distracting. I mean, when's the last time you single tasked? And that was all you're doing, you're not like thinking about what you're gonna do next or you're not, you know, planning a meal, or you're not driving and working some shit out at the same time, right? We're just so on tilt that we have a hard time just single tasking and being present. I would say if you want to get to work on a personal growth project, begin with presence. Download an app, take one of my classes, come work with me, download a podcast about presentation, presence, mindfulness. It's not meditation. It's choosing to show up in your life. Just as it is sometimes, not all the time, but it's choosing to do that. And when you do that, what will happen is that your system will calm down a little bit, for one thing, because we are all running crazy town, aren't we? And then there's just a lot of input. There's just a lot coming at us at one time. And so when we learn to be present, we start to be able to combat that better. But then what happens is that our relationship with our self shows up in all of its dysfunction. We feel anxious, we feel bored, we're hard on ourselves that we can't just be present. There's a lot of internal dialogue that kicks in right there. Oftentimes when someone comes to see me, they have been working on meditation and they're like, what the, what is going on here? They have been confronted with their relationship with themselves and the self critical nature of things. And so when you show up and you learn to be present, then you start the next project which is working on your relationship with yourself. And once you get going on that project, then and only then, my friend, will you be able to deal with all of the emotions of life functionally without having to shut them out or turn them down or completely dissolve into all of the emotion that life can present for us. But to sort and categorize and label and process functionally in your mind, in your body, that is what a well rounded and well organized personal growth project might look like. And it is my method that I use with people and they come in to see me for all kinds of different stuff, right? People are getting divorced or they hate their jobs, or they're just totally burned out in parenthood. But I'll tell you, it's those three areas to work in that you will make the most progress on your own, honestly. But in a well facilitated program or with a good mentor, ah, it's a really nice way to get some work done. That's not just talk therapy, honestly, not just talking about things, but actually working on these certain specific things. That's how you become a more peaceful and calm and just satisfied, less angsty, less overwhelmed. Like I am creating my reality in my life. I'm working towards my goals. I'm feeling pretty good. It doesn't have to be that much more complicated than that. Anyways, I hope me peeling back the curtain on the therapy office helps you just a little bit today because I do think it's fun to talk about. Like what are we doing when we're working with somebody And I don't really work in the medical model. I don't do traditional therapy anymore. I work with people in a very action oriented way so that we can basically tackle these three areas in a really nice formulaic way that provides just a ton of results fast. So get started, let me know what you thought of the episode and I'll see you again next time. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. I really appreciate you being here and doing this work. You know, it doesn't only impact you, it impacts everyone around you. New sessions are released on Fridays and I've recently added this mini session on Monday mornings. So be sure to subscribe and do a quick review please so more people can get this type of help. Speaking of which, if you haven't taken my free newly revamped class that will help you to stop overthinking things to death, just grab it@takeouttherapy.com I'm always happy to teach you what I know and remember. While Takeout therapy is a great educational resource, get the level of support that you need for your situation. Only you know what that is. Head to takeouttherapy.com to stay in the loop until next time. Take really good care of yourself, friend.