Seriouslyourself

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hello, how are you? Come in, have a seat relax, kick off for 15 minutes or so, just enough time just to get a little boost today. I'm so glad you're with me. Thank you, thank you for joining me this month and seriously yourself, the community, we're talking about visibility, visibility, meaning the ability to be seen, right? And along with that, the ability to see ourselves in all of our fullness and wonder, and then to allow ourselves to be seen in the world, right? How hard is that? How hard is that? You know, we're, we're so taught to ego up, create the alter ego that can be seen and often we need those, you know those little impressions that we bring along with us to be in certain groups of people, certain spaces, right? Like how do I show up and do this podcast? Well, I hope I show up with as much authenticity as possible, I hope you feel like you're seeing me that is a goal. And some days, you know, it's like maybe you're hearing the therapist hatted person or the, you know, person who is playing with the microphone or something like that, maybe I'm hiding behind something, it's good to check, you know, even when I come onto the mic, it's good for me to stop and check who's talking, who's talking to you.  So I would say I'm here, I feel pretty here today and usually do, because I like to talk to you, it's really fun and of course it feels pretty simple. I'm not seeing your faces in return though, I would love to. So visibility requires vulnerability, right? It requires that sometimes tender looking in noticing what is present within and sometimes on the outside of us too. And then letting that sometimes be seen if we so choose or at least seeing it ourselves and then deciding about it right, visibility requires vulnerability. And you know, the queen of vulnerability, I don't know if she's called herself that yet, but Brene Brown talks about that quite a lot. In her book Dare lead, She says vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path, wow, I mean really makes me feel like, okay, so worth it. Right, so worth being vulnerable. Which is why it is the topic of the month for august in the community, so worth being vulnerable so that we can be visible. You know, and maybe not just visible with the eyes but visible energetically around people. 

Recently, I read a post by a philosopher named Charles Eisenstein and he was talking about the difference that makes a difference for what the world chooses to change, right? To help really comes down to love, right? We can know that the monarch butterflies are suffering right? And becoming now endangered. We can know that. But until we recognize that we love them and that we would desperately miss them in our world, not only because of the ecosystem being offset right in a negative direction, but just missing them. Until we can feel that love right? That vulnerability, we won't make a difference. There will be no collective movement, which is probably what it requires of each of us somehow to call upon anything that needs to make the changes.

 So vulnerability, the ability to be seen, felt, known really is not only important personally. So that you can come to the end of your days and go, you know, I was here, you know, I was here, I lived, I made a difference somehow doesn't have to be big can be like the beating of the butterfly wing that connects to the rest of the world. But it needs to be you, right, needs to be you. So how do we take a breath and just notice? Oh, here, here I am. I am imperfect. I am confused sometimes. I am tired often. I'm impatient, I am all of these things but darn it, I love, I have love, I have energy, I have import. You do you see, you do you see that? Right? I've worked with a lot of people, a lot of people. Everyone does matter somehow. And it's interesting because the things that are most vulnerable in a person or maybe they consider to be the shortcomings or the pain of life or the difficulties are exactly what holds the power almost if I can use that word, the consequence of that person in connection to other people. When you have had things that have happened in your life that you have been able to somehow come to some kind of understanding about. Maybe you've really been able to take the constraints out of them and and notice them with a full embrace, whether it's loss or pain or yearning, frustration, longings, clarity's, courageous moments when you're able to get clear with those because you are able to be vulnerable both with yourself and with others, right? Those can all be seen. 

I'll give you an example when I was working with interns in the field of family therapy. Often, often someone would come in and the new student who was a Master's level students a grown up would come in and they would say, just please don't give me X kinds of clients because that was my story and it still feels a little raw or I might not have perspective about it. And I would listen. And okay, so maybe that maybe it would be please don't give me children whose parents have cancer because my mother just died of cancer. Or please don't give me young girls who have been molested because that's my story or please don't give me families who are dealing with addiction because that's what I just came out of, right? And in all faithfulness. I would say sure, I will certainly keep an ear out for things that might be too triggering in your first year of working as a therapist for you to manage. And I would honestly, I would we did lovely intakes and I would try to get as clear about what the client was bringing to them as I possibly could. And I would say nine times out of 10 the clients that they were most close to would pretty quickly disclose to them that they were dealing with. Exactly the thing the therapist had asked me to avoid and it blew my mind because it was like, no, really, I was trying to not give you that I was really trying to be respectful of your needs at that time. But in truth, I think that it is those very things that when they've been vulnerably addressed, right? We've taken the time to break down our own internal walls and be with parts of us that have been through hard things. It just gives us a connection to our human family that we don't have to hide. And pretty quickly in each of the cases I'm thinking of, the therapist would recognize, oh, I don't have to hide this. I don't have to feel like I'm incapable because something happened to me, right? I can know that I am a survivor, that I can listen to someone else's story and have compassion. I don't have to relate to it identically to be an agent of comfort and I can be seen, I really can be seen. It's okay. 

So I'm wondering how would you like to be seen even just a little more this week, right? Just a little more. How would you like to be seen? Would you like to be seen more fully if you've caught yourself being in maybe sort of a stereotypical pattern? Right? Let's say you feel like you're only being seen as the mom or the worker bee or the addict or the faithful few, right? Or the creative, if you're only being seen in one light, are there other parts of you that would like to be witnessed? Maybe there are some of the ones that you tend to push back a little, you know, those might be the very ones that you could be with get clear about and then notice who who comes who comes when you're more easily seen in these ways. 

I was talking with a wise woman this morning and she said, you know, one thing I know about addiction, we were talking about addiction at the time is that the cure for addiction is community, right? And of course, one will notice when there is someone who has an addiction, one of the, one of the things that happens more and more is they fall out of community, right? There's so much shame and hiding and isolating that goes into that. And there's something about visibility, right, That opens us up to community. We can be as much exactly who we are in that vulnerable way as possible. Yeah, so take the challenge this week, if you'd like, take a moment and just notice where's the moment of vulnerability that will help you be more visible first to yourself, and then as you open that up, how would you like to be a little more visible to those around you? I'm so excited to see what you come up with and I'm grateful that you have been here with me today. Look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks so so much. Ke being you okay, bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 
Hey there, Welcome, come on in, How are you, my friends? Have you ever caught yourself saying, "oh but that's just a feeling or that's just my emotion speaking"? I hear that a lot in therapy sessions which is interesting because I think one of the reasons that people come to therapy is to get in touch with their feelings. At least often, that's what people would say they've come for. But there is a distinction for people between getting in touch with and really listening to the feeling, listening to even the part of us that holds the feeling or the sensation. And I think that we really do have a bias against listening to feeling. 

You know, I'll name up front that there are schools of thought in therapy that really want to get you out of your feeling mind, right, out of your what might be considered a more reactionary or unthoughtful type of mindset, right? So I feel upset and then I just go off, right, I act on that and so they teach you to sort of set that back and almost be in my words like suspect of the feeling and then you know, proceed with a more logical, thoughtful, together, kind of a response and there's value in that there really is value in not acting from every last little feeling we have. 
But today that's not really what we're talking about, right? We're not talking about the reactivity that comes from spontaneously behaving out of an emotion. What I'm talking about is the ability to communicate with the emotion, to sense the feeling, to get information from the feeling that you have and to even know that you're having a feeling. I think so many of us have been taught to live in our heads, like we are just heads with feet walking around and you know, unless you get a bunion, there's nothing happening in the body that you could possibly feel and get information from or if you do, you should really be sort of suspect of it, right? It could be scary. It could lead to pain, could lead to you feeling too much. And so we tend to just, oh, that's just a feeling. 

And it also, I think reverberates through our society. If you're a woman, we are sort of granted by culture and society the ability to be the emotional sex, right? The emotional gender. And so, you know, because of that, the idea that emotions are lesser that they are not to be considered as important, I think carries on through that patriarchal concept, right? Yeah. 

But it's so essential, like beyond important that you are able to feel your feelings, to feel the sensation of the emotion in your body, in your mind, or around you. This is not just some abstract made up fairyland concept, right? There are all kinds of neurological tests that can show when you have a sensation, it's lighting up in your body, in your heart, right? In your gut and in your brain also. So this is real folks, this isn't made up. It's not to be left aside or thought of as a lesser thing. And it's not something that will lead you down a merry path to nowhere. I really want that point to get across today. Like paying attention in a witnessing way, in a compassionate way, in a fuller way to your body, to your feelings, to your emotions is not something to be taken too lightly. It matters. It really makes a difference. Have you felt that way in the past? Do you have that sort of dichotomy between important things and then just your feelings? Do you treat your kids that way? You know, stop being so emotional and tell me what's really going on or that's nothing to cry about. That's just a feeling. You just got your feelings hurt, right? We were all raised on right, that sticks and stones will break your bones. Well, names hurt and feelings hurt and that is an actual bona fide sensation. It is a neurological event. It's not made up. It's not imaginary and it's not located nowhere often, right? Sometimes it's a memory of an old pain and it's still doggone it right there in the body, you know, I can be working with someone or with myself and go back to a memory and you can feel it as clearly in your body maybe as you did the day it occurred, That is not nothing, that is important. 

And there's even thought that not only can we feel in our own lifetime, but we can feel what our ancestors dealt with due to epigenetics passed down. So we we carry the body sensation, right? They talk about the little brain and the heart, they can show it now on scans right? Where the neurology of the heart, the neurons light up there firing and you're feeling you're really feeling, we're going to talk about that more in a couple of weeks. 

But today I wanted to think about this in terms of being seriously yourself, right. It is important to take a moment and really notice the feeling parts within and around your body and mind. So if you say I'm feeling upset. Okay. Gotcha. Where? No, really? Where are you feeling upset in around your body? How do you know you're upset? Well, I think I'm upset maybe check around. Is it a brain thing? Like I thought upset And so somehow based on that decision, I have a knowing that I'm upset. Is it really cause maybe not, you know, check check check. Is it that I had a thought or a memory or I heard something or I saw something and my gut just tightened right up. I almost felt a little nauseous. Oh and I got that crawly feeling up the backs of my legs and I started feeling kind of weak in my hands as if there wasn't enough blood flow and then my heart sort of dropped. Yeah. And then my face turned red and then I got all kinds of protective like I just needed to defend myself. Yes. That's upset for me in this moment. You see how amazingly different that is from? Yeah, I'm just kind of upset. Well what's upset? I'm frustrated. What are you frustrated about? Well so and so did such and such and I feel frustrated. Well how do you know you feel that way? Right? It's so much more nuanced. 

The body is amazing when you start paying attention to it. It has this distilled brilliance. The feelings are just the feelings. And they give us indicators with this clarity of oh this is exactly what it is and maybe it's not immediately evident to the brain because it's not in the brain. But if you give it a minute and you listen and you pay attention to that feeling. That emotion, that sensation in the body, the brain, it will speak through the vagus nerve up to your brain and you'll be like aha, oh I see now and then you'll have a fuller way of moving forward than had you just shoved aside the feeling for the more preferential logic or knowledge or thought and move forward. Does that make sense? 

So if you don't do anything this week, make any changes. If you can start questioning any preconceived notions you might have, that lessen your experience of your emotions. Not that make them too much for you to experience or overwhelm you. But that place them on a lower category or lower on the hierarchy of importance than your thoughts. Because they all work together to make you, you. And they all provide such amazing information for you to help yourself to be with others, to share with your children, your families, your coworkers. And so that you can show up a little more fully, a little more competently with more confidence. So take a deep breath right now, what are you feeling inside? What are the feelings? Mm hmm. 
Right now my heart feels happy to be with you. Thank you again for joining me. If you'd like a little more wonder, please hop in my inbox and let me know you'd like to get the newsletter. If you don't receive it now. Or if you'd like even more, please join our seriously yourself subscription. I'll be opening up a new cohort. That's a fun word cohort, in October, and it's going to be magic. So, looking forward to having you there. Talk to you soon. Take good care by now. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Oh, hey there, come on in. How you been? I hope you've been having a good summer if you're in summer weather and that you're feeling curious and ready to dive into a new curiosity, a new creative question. Today, you know, last week we talked about control, what it's like to feel out of control, some of the strategies that are parts inside, used to regain a sense of personal control and how tricky that can be, and today we're kind of following that up with the topic of choice. You know, like what kinds of choices do you make? When do you feel like you have choices and how do you feel about making choices? I'll tell you what this topic grew out of a wonderful conversation we were having in the seriously yourself community membership and we were on a coaching call and you know, the neat thing about the membership is having the experience of learning and sharing with each other, it's just way more than I would ever actually have imagined. I've never been a real groupie kind of a person, I don't think I was a real groupie girl, I like to be a little different. I, I ride on the edge between extrovert and introvert and so sometimes I would feel overwhelmed by groups, so I would tend to move away from them a bit. Which is odd because at the same time I have this deep, trusting faith in the power of community, being with those who are safe and who care about you in a loving way. And so it's really been exciting to watch that kind of sensation reverberate through the group and the strengths and the ideas that come out of it are rich and rewarding and wonderful. 

So in the group we were talking about freedom and one of the women mentioned wanting freedom but feeling better when she didn't have as much and especially in terms of eating and you know, the kinds of foods she was choosing and that kind of thing. Which, I think many of us as especially as women can totally relate to, right. We're raised with such a strict confines of what is the quote unquote, right? Food to eat or not eat and why and when and how and so on. So she was saying that when she had been in sort of a restricted diet, she physically felt much better. But emotionally, she felt very stuck and very out of control in a way like things were being forced on her which of course everyone can relate to. And it came to her during the meeting that it would feel great if she was choosing if she felt like she was choosing what she felt would be healthier for her. In other words though, she wasn't eating certain foods or a certain way she was choosing a path that felt happy and inviting and healthy for her, see what I mean, really brilliant, right? And so that's kind of the truth of it. I think like choice tells us we are really still present with ourselves. Choice says this might not be the easiest thing to do, but it is what I choose. It's what I desire, whether it's the results I want or the lifestyle I want or the pleasure I want. Right?

 And if you think about it, there are so many things from the time you open your eyes in the morning until you close them at night that you have to choose. And I wonder often even with myself, how much do we really feel like we are capable of choosing and what sort of feels like it just is a must or comes at us. So let's take waking up in the morning for example. Alright, you wake up and what do you have on your list that you feel like you're going to do? Right. I'm gonna run to the bathroom. I'm going to check my emails. I'm probably going to check the news. I might check social media. Yes. I'm admitting it here. I might see if I've had any phone calls or text messages. Right. I might do this before I even get out of bed. Right. I'm going to make some coffee. I'm gonna drink some coffee. I'm going to walk my dog. I'm going to brush my teeth. I'm going to, you know, take a vitamin gonna wash my face. I'm gonna put on some makeup or I'm going to, you know, take a full shower and do my hair. I'm gonna do all those things. And often I'm gonna do all those things without even thinking about it and I'm going to do them all before, you know, 8:30 AM. So how much of that do I embrace as my choices? Right? Sometimes I don't, you know, sometimes I'm like, you know, I have to take this vitamin, I'll be honest with you, I don't like taking the vitamin and I don't have to take it. It really is a choice. So there's a great example of like I'm taking something almost as if someone is forcing me to do that, right? Like someone is standing over me wagging their finger, you know, come on kid, you got to get this done and I don't really have to, I eat pretty well. I don't really know that the vitamin has any particularly effective properties for me though. I think you hit a certain age and you feel like you need a certain amount of calcium or magnesium or vitamin D, or C, or B you know, be whatever is going on in there. So I've come to believe that it's sort of a necessity and then I sort of believe it into, yeah, this works, this keeps me healthy, but I don't really know. So where does choice fit into that? Right? Where does choice fit into that? I guess it fits in that there are some days that I look at it and I think, no, I don't even I don't want to take this, I just don't want and I don't, right.
Or maybe it's the choice of how the world will see you on any given day, Right? If you are a woman of a certain age and I honestly don't know what the certain age might be or a certain culture even you might not ever, ever, ever leave your house without making up your face right? Without putting on makeup without, you know, wearing mascara, maybe lipstick, right? I've known women that would not leave their house without lipstick on. I've known very young women that would not leave their house without a makeup or a foundation on their face. I remember I always have worn mascara since I was in high school and I have very light and you know, relatively thin short eyelashes and it just, you know, made me feel better. Which is silly if you think about it like who cares, this is my face. But it would make me feel better to have my eyelashes covered, still does, I'll be honest. But that's a choice, right? It's not a must. So if I look at the flip side, if if I could feel better right on the days that I don't wear makeup, if I could choose how I want to feel about that. If I could talk to the parts of me that are like, oh, you're gonna look ugly or someone's gonna comment. I remember one time my many years ago, I was in my twenties and my father in law came to visit and I had just not put on any makeup and he looked at me, he goes, oh, are you sick? And I was like, no, I feel great. Why? Well, I don't know. I thought maybe you had the flu or something and it was because I didn't have mascara. I hadn't done my eye makeup. How weird! But that definitely stuck with me. And I thought, sheesh, I don't want to be walking around with people thinking I'm sick. So I guess I don't have a choice but to put on makeup, which is not true. Of course I have a choice. And when people begin to see this is my face, not that, this is my face, that might be my face on a fancy day or a different choice day, right, then I would look normal. I would look like me, I think, right? Yeah. So everything is a choice. Ultimately. 

Often we are raised without choice. You must do this. You must do that. You must believe this. This is the way our family believes, right? I was raised, you went to church every Sunday unless you were ill and I mean sick. So that kind of teaching can have lots of benefits. I'm not not trying to be critical, honestly, of my, even my own upbringing, but it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for personal choice or autonomy or the sense of that this life belongs to me. I am in control of myself within a very out of control whole system, right? What can we trust? The sun rises and the sun sets? Yeah. And we watch everything else sort of unfold and we try to stay within ourselves in our own grounding and trust that we can make choice around everything in life. But if we're not given that opportunity, right? If things are told to us by family or society, it makes it really tough. Doesn't it makes it really hard to do that to relearn that we are not constantly children or owned by someone so that we don't have a choice. Yeah. So what do you want a choice about today? What do you not realize you have a choice about today, what would be thrilling, What would be authentic? Invigorating True for you? One small thing today that you could step into and say, I choose this. It can be something you're already doing, that you're kind of not liking. But you recognize, oh, this isn't some young part of me that has to do this. This is my grown up self that wants to, you know, exercise or eat right or call that friend or have this kind of pleasure whatever it is, right? If you question where you're already with compassion for yourself and patience for why you're feeling that way, then I think you can recognize that within any given thing, there is more choice and make that happy choice for yourself, right? Let me know how it goes for you. I know in our group it was really exciting to hear the participants say, you know, I'm going to really notice this as a choice for me, not a must or a pressure or a prescription or a duty. Maybe you could do a little of that for yourself today. Thanks for joining me. It's really so wonderful to have you here and let me know what your new choices are looking like or how you're feeling about your old ones. We'll talk to you soon be well, my friends and um remember to show up, you matter, bye now.

 Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hi there. Hello, hello, come on in. Hey, this week, I'm laughing at my topic and it's not about humor. That was the last time, right? So why is this topic funny to me? Because the topic for today is control. The feeling of having control. You see it's funny to me, why is it funny to me? I think because honestly here I am, it's a beautiful, actually very warm, humid summer Sunday in New Hampshire where I live. And I am feeling so much vibration, reverberation if you will of lack of control in life. So much feels out of control, maybe it's the heat, right? And so many warnings about the heat waves all over the world. I just read an article this morning that was saying, you know, we think we'll accomplish things by 2050, but the things that they thought would kind of be happening by 2050, are happening now climate wise, and so we can't plan to have things up and sort of helped by 2050 when we're so much more ahead in terms of climate change, right? And that made me feel as it might make you feel incredibly out of control, like my gosh, well what can I do, right now? And does it matter what I do right now? 

If we really take a minute and we think about control that's kind of the key, The key sensation. What can I do? And does it matter? Is there something I can do? And does it matter? We are doers aren't we? We are people of doing. Many of us have learned that that is our worth and responsibility on this earth is to be people of doing and so we gained parts of us that protect us that lead us along, that help us to navigate our lives by doing all the time. Do do, do get it done, change your behavior. That's all about doing, right? And certainly we need these parts of our lives. We need these aspects of our personality because there are things that we need to be about doing. 

I was watching the birds outside my window the other day which I love to do. It is the most happy enlightening thing for me to watch these birds. They're just simple. You know, outdoor backyard kind of birds. I don't have any special homing pigeon pets or anything out there. So I'm watching these birds and you notice they are so much about doing, right? They hop from tree to tree, they fly. They're singing, their songs seem to have purpose, they call to one another. The other day when I was feeling especially lonesome. I was watching outside and I've never seen this before though. If you are bird enthusiasts and you've seen this a lot. I would love it if you would shoot me a little message and let me know about it. I saw three different, well I think it was actually two different birds and three different moments in the day where I saw one bird feeding another and the other was not a baby in the bird nest, right? So the bird which I'm guessing was a parent, a parental bird was going over to the bird feeder and taking some stuff. And then there was another bird of the same breed standing there and they would feed that bird beak to beak rather than the younger I'm assuming bird going over to the bird feeder. And I saw this happen three times and like I said, it wasn't always the same birds and I was like so taken with that. Like I had never really seen that in backyard birds before and I really I loved the message of it. Like I was feeling sort of lonely. I was feeling kind of out of control and I thought, yeah, sometimes we do just need support, right? Sometimes we need to take a breath and stand and allow ourselves to be fed. Sometimes that letting go of the doing offers the greater sense of grounding control about life. Write the message that we don't have to be the ones to do to be in control all the time. Nor do we have to demand or call the shots for anyone around us by controlling them. 

It didn't appear to me that these younger birds were making any particular claims of the other bird that was feeding them. It didn't appear to me that they were like get over here and feed me though, I don't speak Sparrow. So perhaps that was what was happening. But it really felt like the bird was waiting and then they were being fed, right? 

So do you notice sometimes within you, parts of you that are feeling out of control and can you take a moment even now and breathe and get really curious about them? When does it happen? And what do you hear yourself say inside And how do you feel towards that? Right. There's that lack of control that can sound really panicky. I used to wake up often having nightmares and people that were sleeping near me. My family would be saying you go, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no fun to wake up to for partners and siblings and that kind of panicky? That's that's really the panicky sense of I am out of control, right? Like ah, there's nothing I can do! And of course we know when we're there, that's that's that sympathetic nervous system. Just kicking in big time. But there are much more subtle ways of feeling out of control, right? You might notice all of a sudden that you are feeling really critical of a lot of folks around you or that you are more sensitive to their words, right? So, hey, could you pick up your shoes? And it's like, what do you think? I'm not picking up my shoes. You think I'm a slob? What do you think? Right, maybe that's part that feels a little out of control or again, watching the news, or being engaged in this great big world that we have a front row seat to much more than we have ever in history. In fact, now we have a front row seat to the Galaxies. Thanks to the really quite amazingly gorgeous web telescope pictures. So isn't that amazing? 

And yet boy, it can make you feel a little out of control. And I would say in those instances for me it's kind of in a good way, you know, like it lets my more responsible parts, my more egocentric parts let go and recognize, oh you are really tiny here, you know, you are beloved, you are loving, you are, you are important in your world, but you are really, really infanticide family small, relax for a moment. Yeah. So just consider for yourself what happens for you when something inside begins to feel out of control and then what parts of you step up to react to it? Maybe you go into cleaning frenzy. Maybe you go into more numbing behaviors, maybe more addictive behaviors, Right? Maybe you drink or you smoke or you go shopping or you run like 20 miles a day just cause I don't know anybody that well that's just my circle of friends anyway, whatever it is you do that numbs you out. Do you do that when you are feeling kind of out of control. And is it helpful? Right? What's it like to just stay in your body and get curious and kind of ride through it. 

You know, we know that people really can enjoy sensations of being a little bit out of control, right? Think about it. How many things do people do to feel at least a little out of control? Maybe, you know, that's the thrill seekers in our world, right? They love to surf or they love to go on roller coasters or skydive or go on those ropes courses, Right? And those can be really great little techniques to discover what happens for you when you feel a bit out of control, What can you release? What can you go with? What are your calculated means of knowing I am safe and sound though. I don't necessarily feel like I've got every capability to call every single shot here. I actually think that was a really good little techniques to do right, in a, in a safe way because we realize that we can rest up some of those parts of us that so deeply feel like they need to be calling every single shot and it's just not possible. We just really can't, we can't do it for other people, right? We can't do it for our Children. And I'll tell you what, we can't do it for our Children? I don't care how little they are. Well, maybe when they're infants, but much beyond that, we can't even do it when they're infants. Let's face it, we can't control if they wake you up in the middle of the night or they're hungry, right? You know, we we think we have control over others. We think we have complete control of ourselves. We think we have control of the world and we just don't. But we can stay with ourselves anyway. That's the key, I think.  We can stay inside and with the parts of ourselves that are trying and let them rest that are numbing us and let them know it's okay, I can feel, I'm okay, right? I might need to take it easy a little bit, but I can get through tough things. I can feel it. I can be with it. I can get some space. I can talk to someone. I can allow myself to be nourished and fed and supportive. Like my bird friends.

 Byron Katie, who is an amazing woman and has a program called the work. She talks about The business of life. And she says, you know, there are three kinds of business. There's your business, My business and God's or the universe is business. And you want to always stay in your business because when you get out of your business, you're sort of lying to yourself as if you have some control there that you don't have. So if that's true. And I think it is, it's really helpful to begin to just be curious inside a little inquiry about, well, what really is my business and how can I tell? How can I tell when I'm migrating out into the other two kinds of business? And what can I do to come home to me? I hope that you find that may be trusting yourself rather than controlling everything so deeply inside right, will help. I hope that you will find that listening to even the young parts inside you and listening to even critical places inside or domineering places inside you. I hope that you can find that that helps because I know it does. And as you do this, do it with great love and patience for yourself. Because let's face it, we love to be in control when it feels like we got it all together, don't we? Many of us. And I would say there is a beauty to this ride of a little more risk, a little more release, a little more authenticity of what we really do hold within our own capability. You are probably more competent and capable than you know. But you might be looking at it from the inside and looking out for the control rather than understanding you have great capability within you. Have a really wonderful week by friends. I look forward to joining you next week. I think we're going to talk a little more about choice, which certainly fits the topic of control. And I hope that you take great pleasure in all that life brings. I'll look forward to seeing you then take good, good care Bye. 


Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hello, Hi, come on in. I was just thinking about things that make me laugh and I was thinking about it because last month in June in the seriously yourself community, we were talking about humor. And humor and laughter tend to be thought of as maybe trivial or unimportant or things that are saved for when all the tough stuff is out of the way. And I'm here to tell you this absolutely not true. 

In fact, I would imagine that people who have been through crisis and difficulty and you know, really scary survival kinds of things in those moments, if it goes on very long, find amazing refuge in humor, right? In laughter in the ability to get a kick out of anything at all. 

And so you know, we know that laughter makes for healthy people and yet we tend to ignore the absolute respect that laughter and humor deserve and I was trying to think of a joke to tell you and I'll be darned if I can think of one and I'm not going to remember them, I like them. Only joke I could think of is when, when is a door? Not a door, You know this one when it's a jar. Yeah, so there's that, but what do you find humorous? What makes you laugh and when and why? You know, we asked that in our group and we got a lot of interesting answers, you know, people love to hear people that are, they find sort of the humor and irony and everyday situations. Some group members absolutely cannot stop laughing at these like fail videos where people are falling and tumbling off of bicycles and plopping over on segways and right? You know those, they don't actually die or nothing terrible happens, but it just looks so darn funny when, when they're falling. And I think it's probably because we know that feeling right of tripping and falling and parts of us do want to sort of giggle and laugh about it and that's good for us, right? So good for you to laugh. It lowers your stress levels and your blood pressure and it connects you to other people, right? And it helps you to breathe more deeply in a really great way. 

I was thinking about, oh my kid, I think it was the very youngest. When we were traveling, we had like a 24 hour ride from the northeast down to Florida and he had taken up this little thing he would do, where he did this forced laugh, and it was so annoying. It was like "ha ha ha ha", and he would do it and do it and do it. And at first to be like knock it off and then he did a little more, you know, without being offended and we'd be like, stop it. Really, no kidding, stop it, we're in a car together, please stop. And he would do it some more and some more and some more until finally you couldn't not laugh. You couldn't, there was just no way. And once we all got going right, then his laugh would become more like a real laugh because he was sharing it with us and receiving it back and then we would be just crying and snorting and howling altogether. It was so hilarious to us and it started out being so annoying, right? Just irritating. Like a, like a fly, a bee buzzing in your ear. 

So what do you find humorous and why does it matter? Well, what would you be if you had no humor? The ability to look at ourselves with humor. It's the same route as humility. I think we can see our life in a greater perspective. We can gain ease, we can find joy. We can delight. One of the women in our group said this amazing thing and I love it so much and she said, you know, I think if when my kids are bugging me, if I can step back for just a second and I can find the humor in what they're saying, not in, you know, a day or two or a week or a month or a year, but now if I can get enough space to find humor in this thing they've done or this space there in. I think I would be a far more calm and patient parent. I think she's right. I think she's right on, if we can find a little bit of genuine humor, good humor, a sense of humor about our circumstances, about others around us. About the things that feel absurd to us or about things that we feel like we need to mm fix right? Lots of times with our Children. It's like, well if I laugh, they're going to take this to the endth degree. 

I think that's why I love the example of my kids so much because the truth is he was gonna do that till we laughed. He's going to keep trying that until it is successful, right? So by ignoring it, we were prolonging what was agony to us and by joining it, it stopped. We all got a good laugh. We were all done satisfied snotty and tearful and happy as can be. Right. So when something in part of you pulls your natural humor, your natural sense of this is goodness. Then you should share that if possible, right? Even if you have to change a rule or or change a system or pick up a mess later. If you can find that space, that moment of oh, this is really kind of charmingly funny. It's gonna help you. 

You know how about a fender bender? What if there was something funny about it? I remember my Dad asked if he could drive a brand new minivan. I had gotten, this was back in the 90s and I was like sure of course you can. And we drove to the mall and he was appreciating it and I was feeling kind of pumped that my dad liked my nice new car and he backed into the parking place and there was a light post and unbeknownst to us, the lower portion of the light post was probably a cement or like a steel holder, right? And it stuck out from the post itself, but he couldn't see that they didn't have those nice backup cameras then and I think it's got his name on it. The backup camera actually now it was discovered maybe for him. No, it wasn't. But so he backed up and I hear this and man my brand new, I mean I had driven it three times brand new car and it was perfectly clear that when we were going to step out of this van, there was gonna be a big gash in the back and my heart just kind of sank and my dad was like horrified. Of course, you know, he just felt terrible instantly. And for some wonderful circumstance, this sense of like humor came over me like welp, there you go, what can you do, what can you do? It was just a pure accident. It was just a tiny error. It was just, oh well, we got a big dent here. And you know, I knew I probably wouldn't be able to get that fixed because I didn't have extra money to get things like that fixed and insurance wasn't gonna cover stupidity. Oh, that was a stupid way to have a pole there and it's stupid. There's no cameras and that was a stupid move. No, it didn't matter. So it was just one of those things that was gonna be and I was like, oh dad, it's fine. It was either gonna be you or me, You know, it was gonna happen. I've never owned a car that didn't at least have a ding or dent or you know, sometimes my fault, sometimes someone in the parking lot doesn't matter. And the sense of just peace and funniness and positive came over me and it was like, yeah, oh well. Oh, crap. Oh, funny. 
Yeah, that's what I mean. It makes space for us when we appreciate a sense of humor, when you have a sense of humor about yourself, when you have a sense of humor about those you love. And even when you have a sense of humor about those you don't like and probably especially. That's so essential right now. And humor doesn't mean we make excuses for people. And humor doesn't mean that we ignore things, humor just means we come at things from a place of, you know, we're all human and this is a pretty funny circumstance we're in, yeah?

 So hey, it's summer. Summer is supposed to be fun. Go out and find yourself some humor and the first place to look is right inside you, go right to your heart, go right to your belly and indulge yourself a little bit. What's funny? Let yourself see it, love it, and appreciate it and just watch it's contagious, you know. See you soon. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 


 Hey hello, come on in. You know I've been a therapist for many years, many, couple of decades now actually, seems impossible but true. And I was talking to someone the other day and they did this thing that I am aware of because it's happened many times and I will describe it to you.
I asked them, what do you feel right now? Like what do you hear yourself say? And then I watch and it's like they start to answer and then they stop and then they start to answer and then they stop and then they start to answer and then they stopped and I'm like huh what's going on? Well I know what's going on generally, they're editing inside, right? They start to say something and then they think is this accurate, is this the whole truth, This sounds bad, I shouldn't say that whatever it is. And this can be a really simple question like you know, what did you just hear yourself say, or what do you feel about that? 

And I realize because this happened so often that probably most of us do it sometimes, right? I also realized that I can have some benefits. There are times when of course we should stop and really consider what we're saying. But here we are, you know, it's just me and the client and there's no need in my mind to please me or to change their position on anything or just say anything differently. I am really very curious of about just what is happening inside you. And there are parts of most of us that have learned, don't say it, don't let anyone know, it might not be okay. 

So it's July 2022 and in the U.S., I think most of us are raised to think about July as a holiday month, mainly captured by fireworks and symbols of freedom. The Fourth July, right, independence day. Now we know for many of our population there there was no independence when independence day came around. However, it certainly has been a part of our national culture and tapestry for as long as I've been alive and it is a time to really think about freedoms and liberties and independence. And I was thinking about it for us here in terms of like, well you know, maybe one of the places that we stop feeling free and independent and full of liberties is internally, you know. 

This is one thing I really love about working with Internal Family systems model in therapy and that is that you can learn that there are many parts of you that say and feel many different things. In fact, most often they say and feel the opposite of one another for example and we've talked about this before, but just to refresh your memory, you know, if I ask you, how do you feel about broccoli? You might have a part of you that says, you know, I don't really like broccoli, this is not me because I really do like broccoli, but if you did, "I don't really like broccoli". And then pretty quickly after saying that you might have a part of you that says, well, you know, "now I feel dumb because I know you're supposed to like broccoli because it's good for you", right? And then you might have another part of me that says, well, okay, like I like it when it's raw, but I don't like it when it's cooked or I like it when it's in the salad with bacon, but I don't like it when it's just plain, alright? So here's this tiny little non provocative topic of broccoli and we can imagine that inside us, we might have parts of us that feel very differently about broccoli and that can be really confusing. 
And if you think about it when you're a little kid, if you're asked about something and you are not great at really being savvy about your words, you don't maybe know how to edit yet. You might have said or done something that caused you later to feel embarrassment or shame, right? A friend might say, you know, when you're in first grade, how do you like my dress and you hate blue? So you say, oh, I hate it. And you learn pretty quickly, you know, after the kid has started crying and the teacher has made you go sit in your seat that you probably should have edited those words, right? I remember being in the back seat of the car and I was you know, certainly old enough to quote unquote, know better. But I said something that hurt a family friends feelings. And I remember my mom turning back to me and saying, you know Ingrid you need to learn some tact. And I'm sure she was right honestly. And there are many times when some editing and some tact is a good tack, it's a good way to go. But if you're really in a position where you are alone, right? You're with a therapist, you're with someone who loves you, like a partner, right? Very good friend. It's so important to be able to name. Well, a part of me is feeling this way and then, you know, a part of me is also feeling that way. And then I have this strong reaction to both of them that says this because I'll tell you right now, that is more the true experience of what's happening inside us. 

It's hard to have freedom when you have to edit every single word that comes out of your mouth. And sometimes every single thought that is in your mind. It is hard to have any freedom when you have to do that. And it is exhausting to have to hold all of that. It is exhausting to have to hold back, right. I look at my clients who are doing that little internal edit, It's like a shake off. You know, it's like that shake off don't say that. No wait. She asked what did she asked me? She asked me how I felt. Yeah, Well, I kind of feel, but no, I can't say that. Well, it's not exactly this. Well, it's not how amazing, if they were free, right? If they had the liberty to just say, yeah, it's kind of like this. And it's also like that I hear myself saying this really harsh and rather embarrassing thing. I hear myself wanting to just quit. I certainly have parts that don't want to quit and so on. Just all of it, right? Hey, I got time. I can hear all of it. It's okay. 

In those moments, what I tend to do, it's just stop for a second and first notice there is a part of you that's working really hard to get it just right, isn't there? And the response to that answer Is almost 100% of the time a resounding. "Yeah, I'm really tired. I'm really tired of trying to get it just right". And then when you say, let's acknowledge that part for really trying so hard and let's look at parts of you that we're speaking. We can even hold them lightly, right? Like there's the silly part that was like, oh screw this and there's another part. Like I'm just so mad. We can even hold those lightly and lovingly because I'll guarantee you at some time in life they were not, they were not looked at lovingly or lightly. You know, we need to be able to hold parts of us in this free manner without constantly check, check, check, check, check. And one way to do that is to be aware of them personally because when we're not, they tend to come out when we are tired, when we've had a drink, when we're frustrated, when we've kind of hit the last straw and instead of being able to be spoken for in that way that is light and precious and to say, oh, there's a part of me that just goes yuck, I hate that. Instead they come out like "I hate you, you stink. You're so mean to me, why would you do this" and so on? Right? 

So where can you find a little more freedom? This July right. A little less personal editing when you are in personal space, that's the place to practice folks and it is a practice after you turn off the podcast today. I would say take a couple breaths and just notice how many opinions ideas critiques, comments, thoughts you have. There are many and many parts of you are also so very, very tired of editing them all the time. Even when you are 100% perfectly safe. That's part of liberty, isn't it? That's part of freedom and independence, knowing that we are safe, right. Now, there are many settings when I know you don't feel safe. I'm well aware many settings wherein I don't feel safe. That is not the place, right, to let these parts of you just rip because you're going to get hurt again, right? And then all that protection, all that lack of freedom comes back in and it locks you down. It says it's all because of everyone else. And it puts the key down and it says there, I have no control over this. But inside you you can pick up that key anytime you want and you can listen to all of you and if you need help doing that, you can always find a really good therapist, yeah?
 So how are you going to be a little more independent and free this July. How are you going to be a little more seriously yourself? Especially with yourself? Yeah, let's do it with humor. Let's do it with lightness. Let's do it with respect. Let's do it with love. 
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. You can DM me on my social media at Ingrid L. M. F. T. You can send me a message here and for sure follow and share this with friends. It would be a great topic. How much do they edit every day, especially with themselves? Talk to you soon. I hope you're feeling some freedom be well guys, Bye. 

 Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Oh hello, how are you? Nice to have you joining me today. Come on in and get comfortable. I wanted to talk today about something that I think really is important when you're considering being seriously yourself. And that is that if you are listening to me right now, you are getting older period. Right? We know that, everything inside us knows that time moves forward, and sometimes it kind of loops around but our life has a certain forward pathway from being a baby to hopefully being an elder, right? That's our life here on this planet. 

Unfortunately, at least in the U. S. Where I live and I think in a lot of countries we're told that that's not the goal. Isn't that weird? The very thing that is, is not the goal, or if it is the goal to get older, you must do it without appearing to age at all. And especially women are targeted. Girls are targeted. Can you even imagine I was thinking the other day like how many ads with messages have I gotten in my life, not even to mention in a month or a day, right. About anti aging or age defying or wrinkle resistant or age erasing, how ridiculous is this? How absurd is this? This contradiction of what we know is exactly right for us, right? I've listened to girls in high school complaining about getting wrinkles and saggy things and they're using creams and makeup and solutions and I'm not criticizing them because I'm absolutely certain I did the very same thing. 

And now I look back at pictures and I think, oh, good grief, what in the world was I worried about? And I like to think that maybe my 100 year old self would look back on me right now and think, oh good grief, what on earth were you worried about? You could try that yourself. Imagine yourself 20 years in the future and even if that 20 years seems like a time when you may not even be on the planet, that's fine. Just imagine that one looking at you now. I bet the first thing she would say was not, "oh my you really should be getting some kind of treatment for those crow's feet". It just seems kind of ridiculous, doesn't it? Yeah, it is ridiculous. And yet we spend a great deal of money, a great deal of time, a great deal of energy of mental health pursuing this lie and fostering it. Oh my gosh, doesn't she look fabulous for her age, right? Doesn't she look great? I bet she's had something done, right. Now make no mistake if you have something done alright. If you get a little Botox or whatever, you know, is the thing that's fine, do what you need to do, feel good about you. 

But I want us to imagine for a minute that this lie that we carry around that this myth, that skin that has been out around the sun skin that has been in the fresh air skin, that has been lived in skin that shows years is a dead thing, right? Is a scary thing, right? It's something that leads to death. That's what we think, right? And I suppose that's true, but that isn't what leads to death, that is just the result of living, ha, It's just the result of life, right? Death follows life. So if we take that stigma away from it, how amazing could it be if from the time you were little, you had this realization that you got to live and as you got to live, you got to live into what every little kid wants when they're very young and that is to be a grown up? Oh my goodness! Little little kids can't wait to have homework and to drive a car and generally speaking some some don't, but you know, they wanted they play grown up, right? They want to they want to age, of course they do, that's their job. And then we forget and we start thinking, oh we're supposed to anti age, we're supposed to age defy we're supposed to trick time. All of these little catchphrases that we're seeing all the time, in magazines and on television, and social media. 

Yeah, Is that why you're here, are you here to fool, fool the world, are you here to express that the only vibrancy comes from the kind of vibrancy we see in youth? That without smooth skin, we have no light, we have no life? That with gray hair, we have no shimmer and shine that with any signs that we have been here more than a couple of decades. We should be hiding? I don't think we want to live that way if we are really wanting to be seriously ourselves. You know, the first thing we have to do, if we really want to feel good about being every age we are, the first thing we probably have to do is shake our heads really hard and get out of the mindset that we've been swimming in, right? We have to get out of this idea of what is right of what is appreciated of what has value of what is beautiful and recognize that those things are found at every single age and stage of our lives. They have to be, they have to be because they are inevitable and what and who we are is not disposable, right? And what and who we are at our fullness that are most comfortable is not to be tethered to ideas of shame, right?

 If you look at your knees and your knees are wrinkly, why should that be a shame if you're really considerate, like, so what, you know, like maybe that's where your skin has wanted to be now. I've known people that were extremely fit and they'd stand up and they go and look at my look at my knees and they're just covered in wrinkles. Yeah, that's where that skin went. Okay. You know, what are you gonna do have have a knee lift? I suppose you could. But what's the message? What's the thing you're responding to that you were never supposed to get here, that you aren't worth being in your fullness at every single stage. 

I'm sure that there are forces. Maybe it's about capitalism, right? Can't sell what actually happens because nobody would pay for what actually happens. Imagine if we were selling wrinkle cream, people be like, well, if you just wait, you're going to get that anyway. I mean, like make you wrinkle cream. That'd be hilarious. If I think about it, what if wrinkles became the mode and everybody was, you know, buying creams that would pucker up their skin, they probably couldn't get the, you know, the exact precise look that you would get with true aging, right? And so that would become really wanted and desired. That's all that is, you know. You know, if you really allow yourself to look at what is real, all that is is being sold a bill of goods that somehow you are not supposed to be here past how you looked at 25. And of course, we know that's not true. You know, that's not true, my dears. 

So, imagine what it's like to be born. You know, you're born, you're here and you have this amazing gift. And if you're really, really lucky, you get to be well and feel pretty good through most of it and I know a lot of people don't, but a lot of us really do get to feel quite well and if you're really, really lucky you might get 70 80 90 some people are getting 100 good years. Isn't that incredible? A century of life. And what would it be like if during that century of life you were not believing that aging should be happening to you from the time you were 10? You know, my granddaughter, not too long ago, she asked me, well grandma when I'm 25, how old will you be? And I kind of chuckled and I said, oh Lucy, I'll be an old lady. And she looked at me, she goes grandma, why would you want to be an old lady? And I'm like, well because I'll just be older and I'll be a woman. So I guess I called that an old lady and she kind of shook her head and look at me and I thought, you know, I believe she's imagining something she's seen in a cartoon, right, where the old the old lady witch? And she was like why would anyone want that, right, old lady? She was imagining something she had been taught and she wasn't even five, she wasn't even five years old. 

So you know, we could talk about this in terms of everything, right? We could talk about it in terms of body image. We could talk about it in terms of the value of each individual. We could talk about it in terms of control, right? Who and what controls your body. We've been thinking about that a lot. Especially, you know, in the month of June here in the United States in 2022, we've been thinking about control and who controls bodies and what that means. Who has a control on life and bringing life into the world and what that means. 

And I think what makes it really hard inside is when a basic obvious truth is denied. And that basic truth in this case is that people are here to grow old if they are lucky and it is not a bad thing. And it is not fair to re-violet, to try to polish it, or change it, or eliminate. It's not fair to anyone. And I would say just to align those two concepts and I think I'm talking about control later in the month. So hang on for that one. But you know, we don't control anyone's body. We really barely control our own. If you think about it, we barely control our own body. And we can do these jokes right of it. Like, well, we can get any plastic surgery we want and we can do as much attending and exercise and changing as we want and we can. But ultimately, our bodies keep the score. They know they need to be fed, watered, tended, and loved and we don't control others bodies either. That's even more obvious. We don't even control children's bodies. Trust me, I've worked with so many parents who were so frustrated that they couldn't help their kid to be eating or potty trained or obedient. We don't control, we just don't control what it matters of the body. We don't. So I would say release that lie. 

And today really look at how can you step out of the myths? How can you step out of defying what is beautifully laid out in front of you from the day you were born and live into its fullness and its vibrancy and it doesn't matter how old you are. You can step out of that today. You can start seeing where your believing lies and embrace where you know it is good to be and that is in your truth and in your beauty and in your age.
Thanks for joining me. I hope that this has been helpful for you and I really look forward to more. If you agree, disagree, like it, don't like it. Please message me and let me know what you think. And I'd love it if you would follow me and leave a review, those reviews people actually pay attention to not just me, but when they're looking for a podcast, they want to know what do you think? So, let them know if you like it. As Glenna Joy would say, "if you don't yeah, well, you know, you can just move on". Thanks for being here. I'll see you next time. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hello, hi, welcome and come on in. I hope that you are feeling today, I hope that you are feeling, not that I hope you're feeling badly, but I hope you've got some feelings that we can tap into in a seriously yourself kind of way. You know, we've talked about lots of different feelings, I think in the last several episodes and today, because it is summer and we've had a few stints of some heat. I know some of you in the country have had massive amounts of a really, really hot weather and when I think of hot weather, one thing I do consider is hot emotions, emotions that heat up, right? I find myself more in touch with those, I think when it is warm outside and you certainly can see that people's tempers, we talk about their tempers kind of boiling over, right, and really less patience with one another possibly, and stronger feelings, a little more yang, the yang of things rather than the yin, the, the sort of fiery energy. 
So today we're considering that most common maybe, that most prevalent feeling of anger, right, anger. And I think that anger is often kind of a disrespected overlooked emotion, you know, there are people that come in and they'll sit on the couch across from me and they'll be like, you know, I don't really get angry and I think, well it's kinda everyone's birthright to have anger, you're allowed to get angry. In fact, it's probably pretty essential, but what happens is a lot of us grow is that anger is not an okay feeling, right? If I say, what do you think about anger? Just notice the kinds of words that come up for you, you know, and see what you get because they probably often come from your upbringing. So you might hear yourself say things like, oh anger that is weak, or anger is powerful, you might hear yourself say anger is for the stupid, the foolish, the immature, you might hear yourself say anger is an out of control, kind of a thing you might hear anger is bad, anger makes me feel numb. There are so many different nuances about anger that we don't even consider. So let's take a minute today and consider them because you know what anger is a real thing, it really does happen and it is not this most basic of things that we consider it to be. 
I don't know, I think people often characterize anger as sort of juvenile, right? Kids get happy, sad and mad. I used to work with a lot of Children and I'd say, well what are your feelings happy, sad and mad, happy, sad and mad. Okay. Yeah, yeah, those are some of your feelings, but there's nothing particularly basic about anger at all. In fact, I think anger is complex, it is nuanced and it's energetic. If I'm talking to someone and they're expressing anger and they've been really depressed in the past or there is a risk that they could become depressed. I'm sort of happy to see anger. It's got energy, it's got fire, it's got verve, there's some life to it. It is not this horrible thing. 
Now, if it comes up and you've been raised to believe that it's terrible or you have witnessed people being terrible out of their anger behaving in ways that are really hurtful, then, you know that energy might be significantly dampened or feared right? Or create extreme anxiety and that makes a whole lot of sense too Yeah, of course she would feel that way. So, some ideas, what do you do when you're angry? What can you do? One of the things I think we should always do if we get that twinge of anger. And again, if you don't like to call it anger within yourself, you could look for things like twinges of frustration, annoyance, feeling disgusted, resentful, perturbed, upset, Right? These are other ways that people describe these variations on the theme of anger, right? Disrespected, I hear that a lot. I felt so disrespected. Yes. And what did that bring up inside you? Maybe anger. What anger is generally doing, and again, it can lead us down many different paths, but it is telling us something is wrong, something's not right, right? Something has rubbed me the wrong way, just like you when you take the fur on a cat's back and you go the opposite direction and the snarl and kind of hiss and go away, right? That's anger I'm rezzed up. So when you feel angry rather than going into all kinds of moral stance about it, like, oh, this is bad, I'm feeling this way or rather than acting from it right, flipping someone off, or yelling at them, or being harmful. Take some time and listen to the part of you that feels angry, right? And if it's hard to do alone, you could find someone you really trust and just say I would love for you to without worrying about fixing it or getting afraid of it. I'm not going to act from it. I just want this part of me to be able to speak, right. And so anger will start going, you know, and again with its that special energy that only anger has it could really want to say a lot. This makes me furious. I am so mad about this. I cannot stand that, you hear it, yeah. And then listen, what's so upsetting? What's so upsetting? Something is wrong. 

Oftentimes the things that make us the most angry are the most helpful at telling us exactly what is happening inside us that we don't like about ourselves or that we are doing to ourselves. So if I am really angry at someone for ignoring me, that's probably true in the outside. But on the inside of me, I might really want to start searching around for parts of me that I'm ignoring or parts of my life that feel ignored, right? So this can be a really wonderful trailhead. If I'm angry that someone is being foolish or being fooled, I have to look for parts of me that I worry are being foolish, fooled, or that I'm fooling. If I am mad at someone for being hypocritical. You know, it's a good time to look in and find what parts of me feel hypocritical to myself? And it doesn't hurt to do that, it's okay. That doesn't mean you're a bad person or you have to be throwing yourself on the floor or something. It just means you're human. And it's always a good thing to find. 

And if you're expressing this anger out towards a friend and they're they're just doing this lovely job of, you know, taking notes or something all of a sudden you might notice. Wow, I feel a lot calmer. Yeah. Anger likes to be heard. It likes to know this that it's not there for nothing. Now, on the other hand, if they fight back with you, the anger goes, see, I'm not there for nothing and then it starts reacting and that's not what you wanna do. You just want to listen. So it knows, yeah, I hear you anger. The other thing about anger that you might notice is it is often very, very protective. You know, anger will come up in response to parts of us that feel hurt or feel like we're lesser, right? Anger will come up and you know, it's a signal to us who something underneath got trampled, right? If I, if I get scolded at the grocery store for, I don't know, stepping in front of somebody or bumping into someone, I'm going to get angry. I might have a sense of anger first and it's because I'm embarrassed, right? The anger will come up to sort of protect little parts of me that are feeling embarrassed and you might have similar, right? So that's another great thing to look for. If the anger wasn't there, what might I feel instead? And again, this is very internal family systems model, right? So if the anger didn't do this job for me, what does it believe would be the worser thing I'd have to feel and that might be embarrassment, hurt, shame, pain, rejection, etcetera. 

Brenee brown, one of her quotes is that "anger is a powerful catalyst, but a life sucking companion". Yeah, and it's true if we sit around with anger too long, it really can feel exhausting and embittering and really sort of turns in on ourselves, right, that we lose our humor about us. We don't want to sit with it and be have it be us very long. It is kind of life sucking. On the other hand, this catalyst thing is kind of a big deal. I remember hearing Ken Hardy, who's a therapist speak and he, he talked about people do things, big things out of being dissed, pissed or blissed. So this is the pissed part of it, right? Like I'm so angry that if I listen to the anger and I recognize yes, it really is showing me that something is very, very wrong. What can I do? Not, what can the anger do? What can I do, to respect what that anger has noticed is wrong, to give it what it deserves, to use that energy, to use that energetic, passionate anger. People have run for office because something angered them. People have changed communities, right? Set of things that people needed, helped people, fed people, clothed people, educated them, right, loved them big because they were first angry because something was wrong. So hey, it's summer, it might be heating up where you live or not if you're in Australia might be cooling down, but pay attention to the heat within you. That anger notice its beautiful nuances. Notice the subtleties of it. Ask the parts of you that might feel shame or embarrassment about it as a base or instinct to step back. It's not a small thing. This anger and the more you can listen from it, the more honor it takes on because you are not just flying off the handle from anger. It is not meant to be an action. It is meant to be a signal in my opinion. Yeah. So what is your anger signaling to you today in the past? When do you feel angry and why does it mean something to you and what you want to do with that? I think it could be something wonderful and I'm here for it. Thanks for joining me today. As always, it is my joy and pleasure to be with you. And I would again just ask that you share, share, share the podcast with people that you love and care about. Feel free to drop me a line to send a review or to ask a question. I am happy to hear from you anytime. Take good care. See you soon. Bye. 


 Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander.  

Hello, welcome, welcome back in. I still have my croaky little bronchitis voice and I'm feeling a little bit better. But just so you know, if you hear some cracks and rattles, that's just how it is right now. You know, I feel for people who have been suffering with lots of pulmonary stuff from covid and thinking of you all right now, as I'm dealing with bronchitis because how horrible, it is to feel like you can't take a lovely deep healing breath. So in my mind's eye I am sending that out to each and every one of you. 

Today I have a really fun topic that came to me out of a training retreat that I was on about a month ago and the topic is do you know your yes, do you know your 'Yes', you know if we want to be more seriously ourselves knowing our 'yes', knowing are absolutely 'nots' is really important. But it's not easy. I grew up in north central pennsylvania. So football, stay with me here, this does make sense, football was sort of our, you know, hallowed ground, It was the game of choice. And so at home we watched a ton of football and I was a cheerleader for football and went to the games at home. And so I knew all the rules and the nuances. And then when I was a young adult, I met this lovely fellow from Chicago Illinois who was a huge cubbies and also white sox fan. So I began watching a lot of baseball and there's this little moment that happens in baseball and it happens every time and I love it so much. And the first time I saw it, I remember it just cracking me up. It just made me laugh so much. I don't know quite why, but I'll describe it and you can see if it's sort of tickles you too. And that is the moment when the catcher signals to the pictcher, "How about this one?" That's what I imagine he's saying. Anyway, he's got his hand in some sort of configuration of fingers that indicates a particular pitch. That is their little secret signal. I assume it's a secret. And the picture takes a look and then he does this little thing that cracks me up. If he doesn't like that idea, he shakes it off, right? He gives this little almost imperceptible shake of the head. The first time I saw it, I was like, wait, he can do that. I mean right then and there he can disregard what the catcher wants and maybe the coach has told the catcher, I didn't know. And my husband's like, yeah, that that's how they do it. I'm like, oh, this is fun. And then you'll watch and the catcher will give him another little dude whoop with his fingers. I'm pretty sure that's the technical baseball term. Anyway, and he'll do that and he might get another little shake off like, "no, no, thank you" to that one and then he'll finally land on one and the picture will give an almost imperceptible yes, nod. It's almost like the head just slightly bobs up, almost like he didn't do it. And then bam that's hopefully the pitch that is delivered and works. 

So I'm wondering if you have a sense of that within yourself, right? Something comes to you thought, idea, an impulse, or an offer from something in the outside world, and you have the ability to notice. Do you get a little 'uh huh' that little imperceptible "No, thank you" or do you get, you know, a little, 'okay'. Often times when I've been working using internal family systems model and connecting with a part inside. What's lovely about it is oftentimes I think a misconception of the model is that people are making stuff up, right? They're using their imagination to a point where stuff is not true and what I really love about the model is it's always true. And if you're wondering if it is true or not, real happening inside you, all you do is ask, you know, you give a little signal so it might look something like you've reached into this sensation that you feel very strongly in your body, very familiar in your body, and you get this kind of idea, Oh my gosh, this part's been around since I was like nine and you wonder, did I make that up? And all you have to do is sincerely breathe in and just ask the question. I'm getting you're about nine, is that right? And you get, I get what's funny is I get kind of either the baseball yes or no, I get the little mmhm or uh huh, and I know right away. So it's really a wonderful, a wonderful feeling to have this confident intuitive sense inside.

 I think about so much of life when you don't have that feeling, when stuff is coming at you from with outside or within you and you just don't know. I mean, I used to feel like that a lot. I'd say yes to stuff that, you know, I was either really excited about or felt obliged about or thought would be great and I'd get maybe a little signal that this isn't great or I'd feel too tired or wrapped up in something else to do it and I'd just be kicking myself later, really anxious about it, worried about it. Like why did I choose that? Can you relate to that? Why did I say yes to this? And conversely, there have been times when you know, I think everyone goes, why did I say no to that? You know, why didn't I go on and get my degree at that time? Why didn't we buy that house? Why didn't I say yes to that engagement proposal, right? Why did I not take that trip and so on. 

So yeah, it's an imperfect world And of course we make imperfect decisions all the time. It's okay. Many of those turned out to be incredible blessings, I would say. So what is your 'yes' and how do you know? 

So, back to about a month ago, we're working on this training, this retreat training and there was an exercise that we all got to participate in and in it. We kind of chose a vision, if you will, a goal but deeper, right, an intention, or a hope almost that we would love to make come into fruition or into a bigger part of our lives right now. And I knew immediately for me what it was and it was to really expand and deepen and enrich 'Seriously Yourself', not only the podcast that you're listening to right now and thank you from the bottom of my heart, but also the membership, because I'm just finding it to be so nourishing and such a sense of joy not only for myself, but for the participants. So I had drawn on a paper that was part of the assignment. This image of what seriously yourself, the community would feel like from my perspective. And it just felt wonderful even though the artwork was, you know, stick figures and then the assignment and you can do this at home, I would say actually do this at home with anything in your life, right? How you like your life to look in a year, draw that on your paper, something that you really would love or want for yourself or feel is a calling or you're being sort of guided to do something, get that down on your paper, draw it out use colored markers and make it big like a poster size and then in the assignment and I've done these kinds of things before, so it wasn't too foreign to me. You you put the image down on the floor in front of you and then you notice what comes up, you know, what keeps you from this? How do you feel toward it? Do you have, you know, a little hesitant about it in some ways, maybe some fear, maybe some criticism, you know, or a feeling of like I could never or that's not, you know, I'm not good enough for this or that's a pipe dream or um it's too big, it's too small, whatever, right? And then you step into places so that you can represent those feelings for yourself, those parts of you, right? And then you get clearer, you get clearer and clearer about what is within you, that's responding to this very thing that you so desire that you so long for. Now I've done this in the past with things and typically I'm all over the place, right with all of those kinds of things that I described and I'm sort of stepping all over and often never really get quite too that dream that desire that love. But I had a very different experience this time, the person who was leading it asked you know, "where do you want to be in relation to this? What do you feel the most comfortable, where are you? And the only way I can describe it?" 

And it sounds silly and it is I love to laugh at me if you know me, I love to laugh at me more than I love to laugh at anything. But I literally felt like my heart was pulling me straight down into the picture and that's what I said. I said, there's just nothing between me and this picture. I love this, I'm all in. And so someone said, well go for it. And I just kind of sort of fell forward onto the picture and laid on it with my whole heart. I know I go to weird retreats, what can I tell you? But it wasn't that weird weird meaningful of doctors and phds and healers and therapists and amazing people. So I guess that's weird. 

But can you imagine that feeling? I really long for you to have that feeling where what you desire. So, a part of your heart and you have helped all of your parts to trust you enough so that your yes is all in. And you trust yourself enough to allow yourself to fall, float, fly, whatever face forward, heart forward into that dream. It can be the tiniest thing, It can be the grandest thing. And I feel like when we're all able to do that a little more, it all goes a little better, right? We show up more, we offer more gifts. We are happier, more joyful, not as exhausted. If there had been exhausted parts that felt like it's too much work to do that vision, I would never have moved face forward down onto it, I'll guarantee you, but there weren't, it's not just that little shake of the head. Yeah, this is the right pitch, it's an emphatic, "Oh yes, Oh yes, I'm in". So take a moment today. Take just a moment. Imagine what's your pitch? What's your next step? What allows you to feel all into your life? And then let's see what happens. Hope your next pitch is a strike. Take good care of yourself, let me know what you think. What are you dreaming about? What do you need help with? What keeps you from it? And I'll see you next week right here. Hopefully with a little stronger voice. Take good, good care of yourself. See you then. Bye. 


Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander.

Hi hello, come on in, I am really glad you're here today and I want to tell you that I probably sound a little different and that is because I've been dealing with this crazy bronchial virus and I think a lot of people have it right now. It's not covid, but it's just very long lasting and doesn't seem to want to leave me, so I have to do the podcast with this voice which is probably okay. So that got me thinking a lot about speech this last week. Of course I listen and talk for a living. So speech is kind of a big deal, right, do you have to speak a lot in your work? Maybe at home?

I was listening to my husband talk on the phone the other day and I know that sounds bad, but I wasn't really interested in what he was saying and I couldn't hear the other person. But what I noticed was when he would say something, he kind of would be left hanging and he would start to offer a little anecdote or a shared topic from his life and whoever he was talking to was just kind of kept on going with whatever they were talking about and I noticed that pretty soon he just sort of stopped offering and ended up saying a lot of "Oh yeah, right, yes, yes, I hear you. Oh sure, yeah", so he had to switch into full on listening mode. Which is not a bad thing, but I think he probably didn't feel very seen or heard by his friend and you know, this happens a lot, doesn't it?

Do you feel seen and heard? Do you feel like you're able to get your point across or to go a little deeper if you need to with your friends or family, with your loved ones? Yeah, it's a big deal. It's a really big deal. And I think that there are steps that you could take today, like when you get off this podcast or in your next conversation, to examine and maybe adjust your speech so that you can be not only better heard, but that you can be a better listener for people that you really care about.

I got to thinking about watching television when I was growing up and of course television grew out of other types of media, right, before television, it was either what written or live plays or film. And so television was done a lot like all of those things, especially plays. Um, it was just a filmed play essentially in many cases. And I don't know if it was just that or if it was the era, but people spoke a lot more slowly, a lot more clearly. And I remember when I think it was West Wing, so it could have been another, um, similar show came on the air. You know, the big deal was how quickly they spoke and how over the top of each other they spoke and how real that was, how real that was. So we do that a lot. I do that a ton. I've always spoken pretty quickly and sort of glided over my words. It takes a lot of effort for me to enunciate for you here on the show and probably often, well, I wonder if you're feeling like, what did she just say there? So I'm trying to speak up and be clear.

How can you today slow down your own rate of speech even just a minuscule amount to include more breaks, pauses, breaths and listening, moments, lots of times we want to get in there because we've already got a new idea and we don't want to forget it. And I think especially as we get older, we know we're gonna probably forget it and that's frustrating. So it's like we want to say it, say it now before it's gone because it's such a great thought. I would say probably try trusting that if it's such a great thought it's not likely to get lost, it will come around back to you. It'll come around, trust yourself a little more. You know, that's the neat thing about slowing down our speech is it actually can create a calmer nervous system. You could try that right now. Well don't try it right now, but when you're done listening, just start talking very, very, very quickly. So if I'm going to do it right now, I'm gonna actually kind of increase my rate and I'm gonna talk like this? And I'm going to say, you know, I was just really really thinking about this and I couldn't help myself and I just kind of ran outside and just ran outside and ran around the rain and you feel it? Notice your body right now, yeah. Whether that speech comes from outside of us or inside of us I think has a very similar impact. It revs up the nervous system and there are times when that needs to happen. If I was going to go for a run, I might need to talk like that for a minute, even in my own head to get myself to have the energy to get up and go.

But generally when I'm in a conversation it's so much nicer to just take a pause. So what does that enable you to do? You can stop and just imagine what you're hearing from another person. What are they trying to convey to you? What does it feel like for them? Why do they care if you understand it? How close do you feel to this person? What other emotions are coming up? Just feel it, just tiny little notes. Again, you don't have to worry about what will be your next statement. Your next statement will come and if it doesn't you can take a pause and it will come, what else can that do for you? We've already said it can help you be a better listener. It can help you feel calmer. It can help you get clearer, right? How does it do that?

Well, we know that if the nervous system is sympathetically charged so that it is ready to go, it's revved up and ready to go, maybe has a little fear or a little activation. Yeah, that it's possible that we won't think as clearly, as fully as spaciously and as inclusively, right? That's a private moment in our bodies. That's our body going, this is about me and I need to do something, even if that something is stand here frozen, but it's not a great thinking space and it's not a great community space. It's not really relational. Does that make sense to you? It's not really a place where your heart feels full of love and warm and open and ready to, um invite somebody in deeper. So from that perspective, if you become more aware of your own speech patterns and your own breathing patterns and I'm a little frustrated today because typically I would be taking more deep breaths during this conversation, but I can't because my option is to breathe a little more shallowly and still be able to do this recording or to breathe deeply and cough through the entire thing. So I'm going with A, um but you can do that, right? You can take those breaths and you can even notice if you're with somebody that their breathing will probably relax, right? That that gives them permission to slow down. They won't be feeling like, oh my gosh, I got to get this idea out before she jumps in and takes over and I've lost my moment and I don't get to talk to her and tell her what I'm really feeling. No, the other person will feel like, oh there's time.

And I would say even if you don't have time on the clock, you have time make time what's more important, what's more important than being heard and seen and listening? Nothing. This goes for your kids. You might need to get a lot of information across, write them a note if you can and then spend more time in calm speech with them, right? Use one word to signal something they need to do and then take the time that you would have spent over explaining that thing. You know, brush your teeth. Because if you don't, you're gonna have cavities and you have to get the sugar off and you had that soda tonight and blah blah blah. No go brush and then spend the rest of the time listening, breathing, calming. It could change everything.

What would happen if just in our communities we could slow down not have the most immediate retort, take a breath. So I hope that's helpful. See what you can do with that. I'm really excited to hear what comes of it for you can you notice a difference in your relationships, in your phone calls with people you love? Can you notice that you can also give yourself permission to be heard more? Maybe if it stops being sort of a game show competition between who can insert the most interesting little stories and becomes more about, I really want you to hear me and see me right now and how neat to recognize that you kind of feel what I'm feeling too. Yeah, that's good stuff. So let me know how it goes.

We're in our I think this is the 21st episode and it is so much fun to share with you. I have loved hearing from you and so appreciate when you reach out and let me know how things are going and when you like to listen and if you do enjoy it, please share with a friend. We have over 50,000 downloads now, which kind of blows my mind and you know, let's double that. Let's, you know, help a few more people that we really care about call them in and if you really love this, I would really love to share my subscription membership with you when you join seriously yourself, you get incredible goodies that are all outlined for you on my website and I'd love to have you along. It is great fun, talk to you soon. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time.