Seriouslyourself

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

Hey, hello, happy new week and come on in. It's really good to be with you. I have an interesting topic today. It's really I think very important for growth and for living feeling alive and that is about questioning and revising and seeing what you might not have seen before. You know, if you can imagine when you were a little kid that you just kept the same set of beliefs your entire life, right? So you still believed like many kids do that, your parents could read your mind or you still believed that the easter bunny actually was your height and walked in your house with a big basket and if you do believe that I'm very sorry. Or you know whatever it is that you believed that the world really revolved around you. I mean to be honest, that's what little ones, that's what babies believe, right or that they are their mother, right? If you still believe those things, your life would be highly limited, wouldn't it? I mean it wouldn't be a good thing. You would not walk around behaving in ways that made sense to people or yourself. So that's easy to understand that we want to grow and we really want to look at our belief system and and change it as we get older, right? 

And I think as we become adults, it is equally important to do that but often we forget that we can and absolutely should do that. The hard part about it is to have to question what we've been believing as an adult can evoke a lot of pain. I remember In my 30s, my young 30s, really having to look at what relationships were, you know, whether they were family relationships or my relationship to particular communities that I had been engaged in and the the pain of having to re-imagine those more accurately for where I was in my life and what what that meant to me, right? 

And I realize this sounds kind of cloudy and fuzzy probably, but when we stop and take a look at every little thing, it can feel yucky. For example, on Mother's Day, you know, I mean mother's days, you know, whatever, it's fine. I have kids and they're always kind and you know, have grandkids and they're very sweet around mama, mama kind of things, and that's fine. But I just caught myself just again questioning questioning like why do we do this? And what are we supposed to believe about women and Motherhood and why do we why is it just hallmark that has sold us a bill of goods or what has happened? Um, actually learned that Mother's Day started as the women's response to warring and war and the endless wars of men and saying we want more of a say, we don't want this to keep happening, which I think is tremendously cool by the way, but not what we're being sold now. So I caught myself questioning that and then I had a critical part inside me, a voice that was like, well, "could you just stop analyzing everything and maybe just enjoy yourself? Would you cut it out quit being critical or harsh or or not believing in, you know what you could believe in?"

 Yeah, I could. And I did for for some time, but I really think it's good for us to stop and go, oh, this thing that I say or do or believe does need to be reanalyzed. And of course, the last 2.5 years, three years with pandemic, we've really had to rethink a lot, you know? And so we might be a little burnt out of doing that and I understand that. But if you can stay calm and just look at alright, why do I accept things in my life that I always have? Maybe it's the way you're treated when you're allowed to speak up, how you feel. I mean, some of us really accept that we're just going to be people who suffer. Believe me, if you're not one of them, I will tell you there's many out there many people who believe, you know, I'm probably just here really to suffer and how sad is that, really to suffer? But if that's the way you were raised right, then maybe you had a reason for believing that. And yet just because you were raised that way doesn't mean you have to hold that belief. 

I've talked to people who were really treated poorly as Children. Well, I should say sometimes treated badly as children, whether they were beaten or abused or neglected and other times treated well. How confusing is that for a kid, yeah? But as an adult, it can be really intimidating to take a step back and really look at it for what it is and get enough space to be able to see it. You know, there are parts of us as kids that when things happen that are terrible, we tend to take them on as if, well, this was me, this was my fault or I deserved it or I was too much or too little, right? And rather than just taking that sensation in as an adult, it's better to review it and give yourself a little peace and patience about that. Just because a parent taught you something doesn't mean it was correct, right? And it doesn't mean that it didn't hurt and it doesn't mean that it was worth keeping for the rest of your life. 

This also goes to bigger things, right? So many of us are raised with certain concepts about society who's important and who's not, right. We discriminate against others and we think that that's just fine because that's just the way it is right, well that should be questioned. Let's question it and it can feel uncomfortable and embarrassing and hard to do, but if we don't question things like racism and genderism, and speciesism, and all those sexism, ageism, all those things, then we just perpetuate them and we cause ourselves and others pain. And then because we haven't questioned the original concepts at all in a, in again, like I said, a very patient and compassionate way. Then we justify it over and over and over again. We justify our own pain. We justify our own suffering when really we could take a step back and go on what am I basing this idea and what am I basing this? 

So if you were taught, say, you know, women were supposed to be sweet and pleasing and gentle and light and you were a normal woman or a person and you weren't always sweet and gentle and pleasing and light, you might have taken on a story that you were bad or too much.  Apart of, you could still believe that that's not yours to carry, right? So it's not that easy of course to just say, oh, I'm going to think differently about it because it really is very finely grained, ingrained in you, right? But man, when you can start seeing, oh, so when I would be upset and someone would say, well you're kind of a hater, aren't you? Or you're a quitter or you're lazy. I took that in like part of that was true. Even though maybe part of me didn't believe it, right? 

What are you needing to review, what traditions, thought patterns, habits, givens are you ready to not just take at face value as if they really are. And if you can do that without frightening, frightening your insides, frightening any young parts of you that might feel like, oh, it's really important for me to believe that there's always snow in December. I'm trying to take things that are very not too evocative for you honestly, but you can think of the evocative ones. This sounds crazy I suppose. But a lot of people in my parents generation have had to rethink burial, right. Everybody was taught you were embalmed, you were put in a casket, you were buried that way and that was the best way, without even questioning it, right? It became associated with the afterlife and all of that and I've watched, you know, not only my parents, but others go through the question of wait a minute, is that accurate or was that something I was kind of sold by the funeral homes back in the sixties?

 So there are things like that almost every day, almost every day and new ones coming online, like the right way to be on facebook or the amount of times you should text someone before expecting a re-text back, right or the, you know, some of the political concepts like if you consider yourself liberal, you have to believe this or if you consider yourself conservative, you have to be this way and I think we can bring so much more to ourselves, our families, our communities and our planet if we just stop for a minute and say, well where did that come from? And can I rethink that? Does that really honestly sit well with me? It isn't easy, but it sure is nice and it sure is freeing. 

I remember a woman telling me that one of her grandparents had abused her and she told one of her parents. And they kind of stopped for 1 second and said I'll take care of it. And I remember feeling so badly and and I remember thinking about, wow, if that were my kid, well what I've done right? If it weren't for the idea that the parents obviously had which was, well, this kind of thing happens in our family, and I think that led to this nonchalant almost way of shutting it down, right, I'll take care of it. And when I turned to this person, I said did did your parents ever ask you if you were okay? They were like, oh my goodness, I didn't even think of that. But if it were my kid, that would have been the first question they said, yeah, of course, of course, we are raised with assumptions. We are raised with old stories, we are raised with old truths and things that don't always fit or aren't even real and it can feel really scary to question them. But I would suggest gently and with patience and care that every now and then you just take your day and you write down all the things you're assuming have to happen are true and question them just a little because that is one way we grow. I'd love to hear what you're questioning. I'd love to know what you take as an assumption and what healing has come from you going, Is that true? Mmmm. And remember that, what you feel, sometimes it's the truest thing in the room and your thoughts may not be. Take really good care of yourself. I'll 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, Come on in. I'm thinking today about the words regret and grief, kind of grieving regretfulness. You know this is a little different than the topic from a few weeks ago when we talked about um the slimy strawberries and sharing what you have to offer your gifts and how we can regret when we don't do that. This is different. This particular little brand of regret is when I often see with my clients and I have experienced myself and I bet you have to, and that is when you are feeling better, right? Something has shifted for you and you're not feeling either depressed or down about yourself or anxious or a part of you has really healed and believe me it happens all the time. So if you worry that you have parts of you that couldn't heal, I want to assure you you can.  But often there is this pretty immediate sensation of grief, sadness, and regret and when we look into it, it's like why? You know when you are just feeling really good like ah I feel so much better. It's so much better now I'm not suffering with that sadness or with that pressure or that self criticism or whatever it is that burden. But then just as quickly it's like ugh such sadness and grief and regret and I bet you know already what it's about right? It is the regret for the time lost. The regret for the parts of you that felt so sad often for what feels like far less reason than they thought and just really feeling bad about that. 

I don't know about you, but I will go back and look at pictures of when I was younger sometimes and I get this feeling this sort of sad grieving regret because I remember when I took the original picture or it was taken that I probably was criticizing myself about the picture, right? I've got a wrinkle there or I'm too heavy there or my clothes don't look just right or you know, whatever it was at the time that I was picking at right, being mean to myself in a way, just perfectionistic and and also fearful I guess of just seeing oneself without noticing every detail that might be a problem. And I would look back on these pictures and I think Wow, I look great. I'm really, I mean what would I give to look like I did at 20 and 30, I mean I'm not going to do that. I feel really happy now. But the point is I regret not feeling happy then, right? I regret carrying the burdens that I carried about some kind of way of being that took away from my happiness in the moment. That's what it is. Those things that take away from your being present to yourself to your life to those you love because you're so busy worrying about something else or you're so unfortunately down or or depressed about something, right? I can look back on family vacation photos that I just long for my kids are little the sun is shining, my body is youthful and well my husband's there, my family maybe and I can remember I was probably depressed, haha. At least part of the time and not able to really just luxuriate and how fabulous that time was. And then that feeling of regret comes up and sadness about why, why couldn't that part of seeing how good it is and why couldn't I just have felt better and and appreciated, right? That's why the practice of gratefulness is so powerful when it is authentic, it can help so that you don't have those deep moments of regret for not appreciating all the goodness is in your life. 

But I want us to look one other way at this because honestly I believe that every bit of your life is inside you somewhere, right? Things don't just go into nothing. Even if you don't remember them with the front of your mind, they're in there. All those experiences and happenings and uh impacts they still exist. And so regret comes up about the past, right? It's really about and experience of our past and if you have had a discovery that allows you to let go of something painful from the past, right? To really feel better. Like when depression lifts or when you unburden a part of you that has been making you feel in some way to suffer. When that changes, a moment of regret or of sadness and grief for the pain that you had carried is normal. And so if you get that kind of sensation of regret, there is a tiny bit of good news in it and that is from here on out, this being that holds all of this, that is you, gets to go forward with this new insight and this new spaciousness of knowing. I don't have to feel that way now, I don't have to drag that along with me and I have changed and I've grown, you know, we can't change and grow unless we recognize something that was feeling off, if we're afraid to look at that because we're afraid of feeling some kind of grief or regret about having lived a certain way, then we won't make those shifts, we won't make those changes that help us to change and grow and feel better, right? To be more ourselves, to be happier, to be more true. If it's always like, oh, but then I'm going to feel so bad about the way I've lived up until now, you see the flaw in the, in the thinking there? I'm sure you do. 

So if you're feeling fearful that you might regret having lived a certain way, just know that's a great thing to have happened to you, it will be a beautiful, complete part of your growth and healing process. If you come up cross apart, that's like, oh I feel really badly that I was so down during this whole decade of life when I could have been happy. Well maybe, maybe you could have been, but you are now and you see it and thank goodness that part doesn't have to keep suffering anymore, and you can move on knowing you get to celebrate those times now. Rather than continuing the feeling of regret and regret and regret, I regret that I didn't have more fun then, so I regret wasting the time, so I'm going to bring that regret right smack into today. Then you have a whole new burden for today, rather how wonderful that I can look back and grieve for my younger self not having felt better or been aware of the kinds of healing that could happen for myself then I realized it now I feel a bit of regret, I can offer myself a big hug around that. Of course I feel sad about that and now I get to feel good about it. You see that helps you keep from owning an identity of suffering of regrets all the time. So play with that. What do you regret when it comes to times of your life when you didn't feel so well and can you appreciate the sensation now of oh I see and I can move forward, not carrying that regret around with me all the time. I hope that makes some sense for you and I look forward to talking to you really soon. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them and I'd love to see a review as well, then I know what you're wanting and what you're, what you're interested in. I hope you stay well too, take 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. 

Hey there. Hi, come on in. Nice to see you today though. I can't really, but I'm imagining you ,with lots of love and affection. Today we're talking about change and a lot of us don't like change. I've heard that 1,000 times in my office, I don't like change, don't ask me to change. Change is hard and it is, but I prefer when I'm thinking about change the word shift, you know, to shift.  If you try to shift a car if you've ever driven a standard, is that the word standard, right versus automatic? You know that if you don't shift correctly, you can actually wreck the whole transmission, right? It's like stripping the gears. If you you go from reverse into drive without maybe hitting the clutch right? Or going through neutral. You make too swift of a change and you ruin things. 

So today we're really looking about this on a personal level because when we think about becoming seriously ourselves, we want to make some change probably from the things that are holding us back. Constricting us not being true. You know, the things that are not really us to being more truly seriously yourself. 

So change, let's look at the word shift. The biggest lesson I believe I ever learned about making changes came from a woman named Sue Bush and she was my youngest son's second grade teacher. Sue died much too young and is no longer here with us. But she really taught me this amazing little lesson and I'm going to share it with you. When my son was little he was having some trouble in school because he felt very very rushed and pushed to get things done a certain way in a certain time. He also had to deal with having type one diabetes and would have to test his blood sugar often. Sometimes that would take time for him out of things that the other kids were doing. Because of course the other kids didn't have to stop and do that. And you wouldn't think that would be a big deal. I mean I wouldn't have honestly because it takes you know 30 seconds to do that. And I remember talking to Mrs.Bush and saying how he was feeling so stressed out though, he liked her class and he basically like school and he was having fun with his friends. There were no major issues. But you know, how could we possibly help him then? You know what can we what can we do? And she looked at me and said, well it sounds like he's really struggling right before lunch. Everybody is getting to go to lunch and he's having to wait an extra minute to check his blood sugar. 

And I thought well yeah that's true, but big deal. You know it's a minute at the most. And she turned to me and she said you know I've worked with lots of kids and lots of kids with special considerations and needs. And one of the things that I've learned that is most essential is making these tiny little changes. Things that she said for me are absolutely no big deal to make the change at all doesn't matter to me. But it can make all the difference in their body, in their psyche in their day, in their week and how they feel about their lives. So uh, there you have it. She let him go like two minutes early, maybe not even that long to go check his blood sugar so that he could line up for lunch with everybody else and it made all the difference. He was calmer, He was more content. He felt more part of the gang and like she said, it was no skin off her teeth. It just didn't matter to her. 

That tiny shift was enough to make a huge change. So often when we want to make change, we think we have to do something grand, something large or something perfect. What I've learned is that that is often exactly the opposite of what we need to be about. Here are the kinds of things that I, I hear, not only from my clients, but in my own body, in my own mind, there are things like this. Like, "I don't want to feel affection for this person who has hurt me. So I wish I could hate them" or "I don't want to fight anymore. So I'm just going to roll over and accept whatever comes my way". Or "I'd like to change that I really care about this because I don't feel like I can do anything about it, so I'm just not going to care about it anymore". Those we think are changes, but they are actually still exactly the same parts of us, They're just the inverse, right, same part other side. And I know I've talked about this before, but it's so essential that I'd love you to get a sense of it. 

So imagine something right now something in your life or in your body or in your being this thing you call yourself that feels uncomfortable, not just right, a little off balance and then notice maybe what you feel would be helpful to do to change it. And if that idea, A is kind of big and, B is diametrically opposed to the first thing that was bothering you. That's not the way to go, it's still the same part of you. It's just the inverse. Now stop and imagine what's it like to dream just a tiny dream of what would make you feel a little better, a little more complete, a little more true, a bit more in your body, a bit more authentic, happier maybe. 

Just a tiny bit, you could change something small and sometimes that's something small is something you can actually help someone else with, for example by being willing to mention this sort of seemingly innocuous thing too. My son's teacher, she was able to make a seemingly inconsequential shift. A 3o second change and he was lighter. He was happier. And guess who else was mm hmm. Me and probably her. If you're able to make those changes for yourself or for others, they can make your life feel a whole lot better. So if you imagine today you're unhappy because maybe you want to travel and you haven't been able to travel in a while. Either, you know, you've been staying in for the pandemic or it hasn't felt safe to you or you can't afford it or you don't get time off or you have little kids and you can't go whatever it is and you want to travel at least give yourself five minutes in the morning to dream of that travel, you know, without shifting into. Oh, it's all or nothing, right? I have to go or I can't enjoy it. Or if I think about it, it just makes me so sad. Oh, what if you let yourself have just a bit, right? 

What if you let yourself shop online for groceries or foods from that country or that space, that area you'd love to travel to and you cooked i? Or what if you found some images of it online and made a beautiful board for your room or what if you listen to the music or the language from that country, tuned into one of their radio stations online or from that state you experimented with following their newspaper for a week? Probably wouldn't want to go there then you'd have heard every bad thing. But you know what I mean? Tiny shifts can make a big difference. Say, for example, you want to improve a relationship, but you don't know how and you feel like I either have to completely convert myself into someone. I'm not or I have to cut that person off. That might be true. You might need a really big boundary, but on the other hand, you might need to just go, what would make it easy? What if I let the expectation that it had to be a certain way go and I let myself enjoy what I do enjoy about the person and see what happens and be patient with the parts of me that don't enjoy this person. Or what if I, I decided I would reach in to discover something new about myself and I didn't have to do it perfectly? But I made a small shift toward what I love, what delights me what lights me up just a little bit more. Do you see the difference? If we make huge changes, we're going to blow our minds and we're not going to want to do them and then we're going to feel stuck because all of our critical parts, those voices in our head that say, "you never will do it. You don't do anything. You don't make any differences. You know, it's not good enough. You're not good enough". They step up and they get loud probably to protect us from the disappointment we feel from not having made the difference when all we have to do is make a tiny shift. 

So what are your tiny shifts today? What little changes do you want to make? Do you want to exercise more? Maybe you just walk everywhere in your house? Mhm. Do you want to have more friends? Maybe you write a letter to somebody you miss? Do you want to have more time? Hmm, maybe you look at what is sucking your time away and you put it down for an extra 10 minutes today, as I'm looking at my phone. Yeah, tiny tiny shifts. They're the stuff that life is made out of. Did you know that? All those little changes, I want you to hear that you're doing great. By the way, if you've listened into this podcast today, that tells me that you're interested in making tiny shifts and that interest will draw. We'll draw that to you. If you don't believe me, start thinking about something anything. And then notice how often you see it around you, right? That's that bias that we have. That when we're paying attention to something, we notice it then. So you're ready to make some shift. Yeah, one tiny 1. Don't blow your mind and see how it feels. And then give yourself credit, okay? Thanks Mrs Bush, You were a good one. And all of you take good care of yourselves. I'd love to see you sometime in my membership group. I want you to know you're invited. You can shoot me a message or look for me online at https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/. You'll see it there. Take good care of yourselves. 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. 

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

Hi there, come on in. This is gonna sound a little strange maybe, but I'm hoping I've caught you at a bad time. I really am. I'm hoping I caught you at a time when you're like ughh, because that's what I'm talking about today.  The other morning I woke up and I had a list of things, you know, things like fun, things really like I'm going here, I'm doing this, I'm planning this trip that I'm doing or I've got some projects to work on. And loud and clear in my head, I hear, "I don't want to, I don't wanna" do you ever have that part? "I don't wanna" and it kind of got louder and more, I would say almost childish, right? Like "I don't wanna". And I'm thinking, wow, my first reaction is boy, I'm in trouble today. I really don't want to do things. And then I took a breath and I practice what I preach. And I stopped for a second and I'm like who's that? Who the heck is this voice? It sounds oddly young and really negative and frustrated. I don't want to. And so I started getting curious in that moment like what don't you want to? And it's like, "I don't wanna be a certain way. I don't want to do things. I don't want to try. I don't want to care. I don't want to look a certain way. I don't want to look the way I do. I don't want to be my old self. I don't want to be something new. I don't wanna", whoa, that'll leave you feeling stuck. That'll leave you feeling really stuck. There's nowhere to go. 

And later on the day, of course I didn't not want, I got up and I did my thing and later when I had some time I was able to meet with a good friend who also does this internal family systems work that I adore and this, I don't want to came up again and it's like, well let's, let's really get with this. Let's get curious about. I don't wanna, who's that? Oh, and I couldn't get it, you know, because of course inside the energy of idol wanna will block you. So it's really hard to get curious about because guess what? You don't wanna, right? So it's, it's the same inside. 

So the guy I was working with was so wonderful and he said, well what do you want? What do you want? Mm hmm. And I just was able to breathe into that, wow, what do I want? And I imagined in the same kind of childlike way, one of those cartoony, almost white sand islands that's, you know, maybe a few yards. I don't even think it be miles, maybe a couple city blocks across and wide, a little circle in the ocean. Blue water and on that island is a palm tree and one nice lounging chair and some shells and that's about all and it's not too hot. And it's not too cool. Oh and that was what I wanted. And he said, well, you know, why don't you go there? Okay, sure. I'll go there. I do wanna. So in my minds eye was able to imagine going there but I couldn't rest. I couldn't rest. I couldn't something inside my chest felt all tight. Ahhh and frustrated like god darn it. I'm in my imagination in the most perfect place I can imagine right now. And he said to me, what would make it a little better? What would you like to be there? I don't know. I don't know.  I said I can't think of anything. Nothing was coming. And then suddenly it was like a book. I would love a book. Mm hmm. So I had a book I got to just sit and read a little more shades. So it didn't bother my eyes. That was nice. And yet still I don't want to. 

And then I noticed this feeling of like the idea of going any deeper below that surface. Mm hmm. Imagination play in my mind was kind of scaring me. I didn't want to go any deeper. Felt like it might be too much. And I was able to notice that part of that fear was fear of disappointment. Which is a big one for me. I don't know if you can um relate to that. But I have parts of me that are deeply fearful of being disappointed, which sometimes I have parts that criticize that because of course we're going to be disappointed, right? But at any rate, that fear was present with me on my little island there it was and actually, you know, I asked it if it would just kind of you know, take a little dinghy out to somewhere else and it did, but left behind this little sensation of trying, like I'm trying all the time and it was pretty clear the sensation that this was the part that didn't want to, this part of me that had been trying and trying and trying and trying to do to be. And I imagine that many, many, many of us have parts of us inside that you know are are really great at managing our lives right? We have these aspects of our ourselves that keep us going, keep the world going, behave in responsible ways, especially those and I really think through the last several years for me and I think for many of us these parts that have been trying to do things well, to do things right, to get clear to understand, to help, to be responsible, to stay well so on and so on, to work to parent to communicate, to stay in engagement with people we love have been trying like crazy so much, so often so hard, so if you hear yourself saying, I don't wanna right think of the sounds you make, we didn't wanna write, I don't want to even if it's pleasant stuff, I don't wanna or maybe yours is similar but different find it and just notice do you have parts of you that have been really trying over time? 

I'll tell you what I found when I found mine. I found first of all invited with the help of my friend, I invited this part to join me in another lounge chair on my little island. Inside my imagination. And she did. But when I turned to see how she was doing, she wasn't there. She had moved instantaneously from that other lounge chair, directly curled up in my arms, sound asleep and she was about two years old. Now if you've never experienced your internal world this way, I know it sounds crazy. I know it sounds weird. It does to me too, but when you've experienced it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And I was sort of taken aback by this tiny little me lying there and it brought me to tears because I realized some parts of me have been trying my whole life. They are the parts that tried to keep up with older siblings. They are the parts that tried to carry being the youngest in the family. There are the parts that carried expectations from people that loved and cared about me. There are the parts that try to live up to the naturally responsible person that I am and they're tired And this little one rested in my arms gave me the most amazing sense of peace and contentment and rest that I've had in a very long time. I

 don't know that you will have a similar experience. You'll have your own. But I really want to encourage you when you catch the voice of "I don't want to, I don't care, I don't like it. I don't feel like it", take a moment, take a breath and just notice what it's like to be with those parts of you. That little one needed me. She needed to know that she doesn't have to keep trying. I got this. She's okay. And when she calms, I calm, what do you not want to do lately? Have a listen inside. There's probably a good reason for it. Thanks for joining me. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to drop them. You can go to my instagram or my web page Ingrid y highlander LM FT dot com. You can join my seriously yourself community where you'll have lots more ideas. You can comment and give me a review where you get your podcast. Thanks so much for being here. I hope that you and your I don't want to parts have a great week. I'll talk with you soon. Bye 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 there. How are you? Come on in. I'm so glad you're here today. Today's offering on SeriouslYourself comes from some soggy strawberries in my refrigerator. See there's inspiration everywhere right? Soggy strawberries in the fridge.  I'll tell you why the other day we had family over for dinner and I made, as I do, enough food for probably three times as many people. I don't mean to do that. It's just if you cook at all and you're like me, you know, it's hard to cook for a different amount than you might be used to. So on this particular occasion I made way more than I needed and as people were leaving, my sons and families, I thought I'll make sure you grab some of that food and send it with them because they are more likely to eat it. And I did actually offer a couple of things but I got distracted and kind of forgot about it. And uh several days later I looked in the fridge and there was a big beautiful half bowl full of lovely organic sliced strawberries just sagging away in there and they made me sad. I hate to throw food away. I really do.  And I'm, I'm getting more like that. I think as I grow older and I think as I realize, you know that we really do have to care for our resources and resources around us. 

So it bugged me, you know, but I got to thinking about it in another way, on another level. And that reminded me that we're always probably going to have things in our life that we look back on and we wish that we had given or offered. That makes sense to you. Yeah. There are always going to be things in our life that we wish we had given or offered to someone who would love or appreciate those things, those offerings. And I believe that is really one of the most critical reasons that I decided to do this podcast. Not so that I could be giving and offering, although in part that's very true, but so that I could help you to really show up and offer what you know you have to offer. 

And I need to make a little disclaimer there because I think there are some of us that perhaps we offer from a place of responsibility, over-responsibility or pleasing or because we're not enough. Like there are parts of us that feel like they're not enough and so we want to offer in order to bolster our sense of being okay. And that's a very different thing. That's sort of like a burdened offering if you will, that comes from a place of pain. And I'm not saying that those offerings can't help someone because I'm sure they do and that's great. But that's not what I'm talking about here. 

What I'm talking about here is those things that are in the moment beautiful, vibrant nourishing alive and ample, that we could be easily offering. I think about those strawberries right? The day that I purchased them, slice them. You know, put them a little lemon or something and then put them in the bowl. They were gorgeous. They were really a worthy beautiful gift. But after they had sat in my refrigerator for four or five days, they were just compost. I suppose. 

What do we hold of ourselves that could be offered from a really fresh, vibrant nourishing space and would do someone good, right? That would be an inspiration to them, a help ,an aid, a community connection. What do we hold back and why? So think about that for a moment. Like what do you kind of sit on? What do you kind of retain? What do you hide away? What do you hold back about your very being, your own gifts, your own beautiful self. Those fresh, vibrant strawberries that are you, what do you hold and hide and stow away and forget about and neglect and not bring out to gift others with. Right and why? 

So take a moment and really you grab a piece of paper, take a few breaths and go to that. You know, what are those things that you know are within you that maybe you just love? You just love but you really haven't shared them or you don't share them fully or you're fearful of sharing them? I'm not saying you should run right out and share them because it seems like when we do without the permission of everything that's going on inside us. The permission of the parts of us that have withheld those things for a good long while. If we just rush out and you know, here's my new song I wrote and I'm gonna sing it on the corner of the, um street and hope, well you could do that if you feel really in tune inside like that's okay with all of you. But if you don't slow down and just get it on paper with no judgment and no sensation that you have to do it, okay? You don't have to do anything to put something down on a piece of paper or in a voice memo. If you don't like to write things down, you just are noticing, right? Like, oh, I I love to write letters but I almost never do. Or you know, I want to write a poem or I want to share my cooking ability or my guitar skills or my ability to balance a ledger, right? Whatever it is and just get them out and then notice them. Taste them a little bit like I would have tasted those berries. 

See if they still delight you and then notice why you don't share them. Why you don't offer. Why they're not given. Is it because they are absolutely personal and private and only for you and that's the gift of them, that's great, right? We need those things hold those their treasures. But if it's fear, fear that there won't be enough, right? If I had gotten worried, "oh gosh, what are we going to do without strawberries for the week"? Um which I didn't then I would have maybe needed to look at that and go, well, wait a minute. How many strawberries can I eat? Right, and shall I put those in a small dish and give the rest? So if you're afraid you won't have enough time, talent, resources in any way... really, take a look at that and notice where you can keep some back for you. It's okay, belongs to you to begin with. But then what would you like to offer? Or maybe you're afraid? And I think this actually came up for me with the strawberries, oddly. Maybe you're afraid that that offering will be rejected. Oh, we don't need strawberries. We don't need your strawberries. We won't eat them. We don't like them. We have enough, right? 

Think about that. In terms of the gifts that you've identified. When do you think they'll be turned down? And what does that mean to you? How do you make meaning of that? And then be with that and notice. Could you give a drop? Could you show up just a bit more? Could you offer it in an invitation? That sounds something like, you know, I've written a new song. Would you be interested in hearing it? Or I have a little extra time on the weekend, would you like to go for a walk? Or I know a little something about making bagels. I don't know where that came from. Would you like to learn it too? Right? Or here's my sense of humor. I'm going to share it a little more. There are many ways that we forget that we have so much to give and offer in ways that aren't painful in ways that are plentiful. And I hope for you this week that you can really think about... What will you wish that you had given or offered later? And when you land on those things, don't wait, take a moment, get a green light, notice what's the right amount, and go forward. 

So good to be with you as always, I love these times together and I hope you do too. And if you do drop me a review wherever you listen to podcasts, that would be so helpful for me. And remember SeriouslYourself the membership, I'm going to be opening up more slots more to give more to offer. And I think you will love it. I'll talk more about that later. But you can go to my website today and find out more for yourself. I'll be anxious and excited to see how you're going to show up. Let me know! 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. 

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

Hello, hello, come on in. Welcome to Seriously Yourself. I'm happy you're here. I'm sitting here and I'm looking out my window in my office at still bare trees of New England. I think they should be popping out with some leaves pretty soon. I see buds but they're not quite there yet. And they're reminding me of what I wanted to talk with you about today, and that is something that we've been talking about in the seriously yourself community. 

And it is the idea of balance, balance. How do you balance your life? How do you balance your well being? How do you balance your time, How do you balance your emotions? And do you even think about that? As I was imagining talking to you? I was thinking like "I can't honestly recall very many men walking into my office and saying I just feel like I'm out of balance", right? Sometimes they quite certainly are and maybe I bring it up like it seems like your life is a lot of balance, but it's not something that I can picture men saying I'm even trying to think of, do they say it in another way? And they probably do, I mean like "I'm just so exhausted" or "I'm working too much, you know, or I don't have time to do my work", Something like this? But I'll tell you many women will often come in and they'll say, "you know, I just need some balance in my life" and I think that's kind of interesting. It's maybe a little more of a feminine wisdom concept? You know more the, yin of things that we feel like, that energy that we want to feel both grounded and alert. We want to feel um that we're not gonna suddenly tip over in any direction. We don't want to feel kind of pulled apart from the center, sort of strung out with too much to do and too many ways to go. We want to feel balanced, right? Like we can stand on our own two feet and be well. 

So looking at the trees, these April bare trees, still.  I am thinking about what it's like naturally to have a sense of balance, right. The environment here in the Northeast Can feel incredibly unbalanced. And, and I think Midwest, well, all over the country, I think lately, you know, you hear about one day, it's in the 70s and the next day people will get 14" of snow. I think that happened in upper New York state last week. It doesn't feel like, well, it feels like balance, but balance of the extremes right. Which is of course, one way to balance it is one way to balance. That People, many people actually prefer. They love the sense that they can have very high highs and very low lows. 

And of course in the field of psychology, we sort of demonize that right? Then you're bi, bipolar, you are bipolar and you know, in fact there are bipolarity symptoms that can be really debilitating. So not making less of those, but you know, for some people to have some higher highs and lower lows feels entirely natural and completely balanced and without them they feel unbalanced, stuck. So the feeling is not grounded and centered. The feeling is trapped and stuck for certain kinds of personalities. You may be one. For others of us, It's more of like a, do you remember the game Tippit? Do you remember that game growing up? If you were my age, you remember Tippit and there was a little circus performer on a wire, little plastic guy, and he had rings and was holding a stick kind of thing that balanced him, little rings on the side and I can't honestly remember what you were trying to do, but you were trying not to tip him. And I think sometimes my sense of balance is sort of like that like micro adjustments. You know, I don't like to get too far a field from my center. I like to catch, oops, I'm a little off there and make a micro adjustment. And this could include almost anything. For example, if I've been eating in an unhealthy way, I might do a little tiny tip on that side and um plan my meals more carefully or shop for more vegetables or get more healthy, right? Or if I'm indoors too much haha. I'm gonna tip that a little bit and go out and try to take a walk or get some sunshine or spend some time breathing fresh air anyway, I can. If I'm to social, I'm gonna absolutely pull in and find moments of quiet and solitude because I love community, but I'm not an extreme extrovert. There again, if you are, your balance is going to feel different. There is sort of a give and take to balance. So if you feel you are giving more of yourself than you are allowing to come in and receive, you're going to feel off balance right, you're going to feel depleted. 

I have a real distinct memory and it's not one um that I feel good about, but I remember when my oldest son's were very young, I remember I was driving home from yet another meeting somewhere and I was volunteered all over the place and I was young and I remember this feeling like I was sort of bleeding out, right? I just had this image of, you know, blood coming from my, from my hands gross, right? But that feeling like there's not enough replenishing here, It's all going outward. That's imbalance. Yeah, right? Or for people who have been so busy and they sit down at the end of the week and think I didn't get to, you know, see my little child all week or put them to bed or feed them a meal that's heartbreaking, that's imbalance. Or you know, especially after 2.5, 3 years of covid to feel like I haven't been with people. First of all, I haven't been with people that I dearly love and appreciate as family and friends. And also I haven't been with just people face to face side by side, imbalance. 

And parts of us inside can get imbalanced as well. This is always something to consider if you are feeling out of balance. A little tip from internal family systems, check in and notice if there are any parts of you that have sort of taken over your driver's seat. Maybe there parts that are overly managing your time or trying to please or parts that are even down, angry, depressed, whatever it is.  If you feel out of balance, it is quite likely that you're sort of central energy, yourself energy, your higher energy has taken a backseat. That doesn't mean it's gone and that doesn't mean it is lesser. It just means that you're out of balance. So it's a great time to take a breath, slow down, feel your body and allow your nervous system to present back to your brain what is going on, right? 

We often think and this is a very unbalanced thought. We often think that our thinking parts are all of us, I think therefore I am, my mind comes up with this idea. Therefore it's true. My brain knows what's going on with me well sometimes and sometimes that is absolutely not the case. Oftentimes our bodies know whats happening well before our brain and they have more clear information. Our bodies do. The parts that are in our Soma, the nervous system, all those nerves that run through your body, without connecting the brain is left to interpret without the whole story, right or information. I'll talk about this later. There's a whole lot there. 

But in the moment, if you are feeling out of balance, you could be relying too much on your brain. Your poor brain, it is not you and it is not all of you. It is important and vital, but allow it to receive. So if you're thinking parts are trying to figure stuff out and figure stuff out. That is a way of being out of balance as well, yeah. 

So take a moment to feel into your body. Notice what feels maybe not quite like you or heavy or congested or stuck or uncomfortable and give it a little bit of your time and attention, allowing the reality of what it's experienced to come up to your brain and that will help you rebalance. 

How are you balancing this spring? I'm encouraging you if it's spring where you are to get out and look around and notice not everything pops out all at the same time and quote unquote comes back to life. You know, not everything has the same schedule. Many, many, many parts of nature are waiting, holding many parts of nature are ready, Some are dying right. Some are leaving pay attention and notice you are not different. You too are searching for balance, right? And then stand up, feel your feet take a breath, notice what's inside... you have options. Let me know what your thoughts are. If you need help with this, I can talk more about it. I hope you're finding your own real balance and remember it doesn't have to be perfect to be balanced. Thanks for joining me. I love being with you and I'll talk with you really soon. 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. 

Well, hello everybody, I'm so glad you're here. I hope you're comfortable. Come on in and take a seat if you want or if you're out and you're in your car, you know, just soften your shoulders a little bit. Maybe you're taking a lovely walk outside. That sounds like a great place to be. Though, It is quite rainy here this spring in the northeast of the US from where I'm speaking. So I am indoors nice and dry. 

Today I thought it would be helpful to talk about a little technique that I use a lot and I use a lot with my clients and I love it so much because I think there are parts of my life that it feels like it's kind of saved different relationships and whatnot. And like much of what I do, it is based in Internal Family Systems, a model by Richard Schwartz, which is truly healing and um amazing for anyone. And what I call this technique is the zoom out... zooming out, which is different than zoning out. Though, There are certainly times when zoning out can be lovely, but we're not going to zone out today. We're talking about zooming out. '

So here's what I mean, I was talking to a woman the other day and she was naming how confusing it was at work and as she began talking more, you could hear that she could not get any clarity about what was going on and it was sort of triggering her, right. You know, that feeling when you're being told one thing over here and another over there and you just feel like, "oh man, maybe it's me".  And I think we're sort of wired to feel like it might be us in those situations because we are being managed by our bosses, right? Or our superiors, if you will. And so the tendency is to think, well, I must be unclear or thinking incorrectly or not hearing right, and it's okay to have that humility about things that's fine. But when you're feeling really tangled up, what can happen then is you start creating a story in your mind. You know, a part of you starts trying to make sense of this and the story might sound like "this person, thanks, I'm incapable or foolish or doesn't value me", right? "This this manager really doesn't like me or they talk about me behind my back", right? It can get almost like a a little paranoia to the story. We can begin feeling tremendously insecure. I don't know if you can imagine a time when you have felt this way. Maybe you imagine that your your family is thinking some kind of way about you, you get really hooked by angry or frustrated feelings and you can't release them. And so you keep telling the story about what's going on and how wrong you have been over and over again. People with a little more anxiety tend to have a very honed toned system that will repeat and repeat the stories and that's really frustrating. 

So what I love is to take a moment and to zoom out, and what zooming out does is it helps you to gain perspective and clarity and you can use this technique right away any old time. And once you get practiced at it, you're probably going to find that it's really not that hard for you, but it does take some practice. So be patient with you. Okay, so you can use this method to suit your own style, right? So for example, some of us are more visual. So when I say zoom out, you can imagine maybe a wider camera angle, you know, you picture someone shooting a movie and they're on one of those rolling camera seats and they pulled back from the scene so that that you are seeing more of what's in front of them. Or you could imagine visually that you are looking through a microscope and you want to see more of the field that you're looking at. And so you you change the uh focus and so you can see more of what is under there or with a camera. You know, we all have cameras on our phones and you can get up real tight to something by just standing there and tapping the focus on it. Or you can pull back. So in that way visually zooming out is a way to pull back, okay. 

If you're more of an audio type person, an audio learner or experience or you can do this with your audio range. So in this way it is like you're listening to one bird outside your window and then you expand to hear all the birds and then you expand to hear the birds and the breeze and maybe the truck going down the road. Or in another way you're listening to a voice in your mind and your hearing just that one, and then you take a breath and you expand to hear, oh, there are actually other opinions and other sensations that I'm hearing come up inside me. Maybe there's a part of me that says, "my boss thinks I'm a jerk". And then there's another part that says, "I don't like my boss". And then there's another part that says, "I wish my boss liked me", so you can play with that. 

The third way is kinesthetically so in the body, you know, when we back up from something, we can often get a broader range of what's going on. If you ever had to do that. If you were say looking for someone in a crowd, you try to get up and above and you so you move your body so that you have more space from it. Or if you take your hand and you place it right in front of your nose, right on your nose and then you try to tell me what your hand looks like, You're not going to be able to tell me right? But if you pull your hand back then you can see it quite well. And you could give me a great description. So kinesthetically you might zoom out that way. So how does this work? 

Well, it gives you a sense of there is more going on here. Then either what I'm seeing right now, I'm hearing right now, the stories in my head, right? There is more going on. And I don't have to attach to the thought, the one image in my mind, the sound that I hear from my own voice or the imagined sound of another's voice. I don't have to attach to that and assume that that is 100% the truth of what is happening, right? And I can also find more of me and that's why I presented to you today because here at seriously yourself, we are really all about being more of who we really are. And if you zoom out, you can see more of what's around you. But the beautiful thing is you can also find more of yourself because you're not just attaching, holding on to either the beliefs, the visions, the sounds or the feelings of one part of you. When we do that, It can be really damaging because then we will also tend to respond from either that one part of us that probably isn't feeling great or from some protective state, you know, defense or you know, I'm going to tell you, um if you're really angry, it's a great time to listen to the anger and then zoom out. That's why I like journaling so much because it helps me to zoom out. 

I want to give you one caution about zooming out and it's really, really important. Okay, and that is that zooming out is not the same as detachment, right? You know, there are so many new books now and and they're great. They have their own view that is helpful. But you know, like, you know, "The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck" and others such. But what I'm telling you to do is not to go, "okay, I care about this, this is hurting me. I feel strongly click, I've zoomed out. I feel nothing. I'm detached. I don't care. Nothing matters", because I'll tell you that is not a zoom out. That's just the flip side of the very same coin that you were already experiencing, right? So a zoom out, you're still going to be able to be engaged. In fact, you're going to be more engaged. You're going to be more intrigued, more curious, more patient. You're gonna expand. You see zooming out expands where detachment to say zoom out means to just not care. That still is tight and it doesn't allow any more space. It just says I don't care, that I feel hurt inside, or that I'm worried about this, or that this looks this kind of way to me. Does that make sense? 

Yeah, so take a breath right now and notice what it would be like if the next time you are experiencing a steady, strong, possibly, you know, kind of negative or argumentative sensation inside you, if you could just take a break and rather than denying it or pushing it away or telling yourself that you're bad or wrong or hurting suffering, you can simply move back, pull back, pull out, open up, expand, zoom out and see more of what is really going on. Do a little journaling around it, spend some time even just practicing it with your senses. So if you're outside and you are very audio, try to do it with your ears, zoom out and open up to more, then zoom in. See what that feels like. Try to do it with your eyes. If your visual, try to do it internally with your emotions expand right, there's more there than you know, there's always more than you know. Most often I swear what is happening to you, if it's from another person has nothing to do with you or very little or the confusion in it does not belong to you. It often will belong to them or you are only using one part of yourself in a relationship and you feel really bad about that and you want to be able to bring more of you into the relationship zooming out, helps with that. I hope that's helpful. 

I can't wait to hear what you think about zooming out. So let me know. And I also really want to thank you so much for listening. You know, we have, oh, I don't know, I didn't even count recently, but well over 35,000 downloads, which is so exciting to me. And I feel just tremendously grateful that I know I'm not just talking to myself here on this rainy day in New England.  Be well my friends take some time to zoom out and then when you come back in, give yourself a big hug for me. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks 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 there, come on in. Welcome to Seriously Yourself. I am kind of excited to talk to you today. So I hope I don't ramble in too many circles.  If you've been listening, thank you: number one. And I also want to let people know if you're looking for someone who talks to you from a scripted place, like they're reading to you, I'm not your girl. I thought maybe at some point I would do that, and I have no interest in doing that. Though, I know I'm quite certain I know where I'm going when I talk to you. So bear with me and allow your mind to kind of play in these loops and circles that sometimes I create. I don't think I'm a very linear thinker though. I know where I'm going. Anyway, today I'm reflecting on depression. Depression. The reason I'm doing so is because I'm hearing it from a lot of people. It comes out in one of two ways. Usually, either a statement like my depression is bad or I have depression and it feels really hard for me that's kind of one way or I'm feeling really depressed or this is depressing. 

So you see how they're a little bit different. One is talking about. Here's something that is a part of me that I kind of own and know and it's maybe worse right now or more noticeable? My depression or I have depression and the second is more almost oh hey, I just noticed I'm not feeling great, kind of more circumstantial, I'm depressed or this is depressing. I think if you're in the camp of the second one and you've never gotten any advice about it or had any therapy or um, talk to anyone about it and you're feeling depressed right now. It might make sense to get ahold of someone and have a word with them just so you could get clearer on. Is this circumstantial? Uh, something about the way life is right now, that's just hard for you or do you need some care and it's always good to get care? That's why I do this. 

If you're in the first camp and you find yourself reflecting upon your depression. You know, if you hear yourself saying ah my depression or I live with this depression or have really been very depressed. That's a good signal, to take a minute and get curious about it before you continue to have that be kind of a leading part of you. You know, in other words, if everything that you are going to think or do starts with uh "my depression feels or I am so depressed that or I would except for my depression", it's a really good time to get a little step back and I'll tell you what I mean. 

Imagine that you are in a room and there's all these people that you know, and care about in the room with you and you know, you're you're all vaccinated and boosted if you are and you feel really safe and you're going to embrace these people. And you select the one that sort of stands in front of you the most, and that person walks up to you and you hold them. But when you hold them they kind of engulf you. They won't let go. My nephew Aaron used to do a little joke with us when we'd hug him and he'd he'd hold you and then when you get to that moment of natural release he would say "say when" but he wouldn't let go. And it always brought a giggle like uh yeah "when" was about three seconds ago. And then you get into that thing of almost like defying each other like well who's going to say when first like playing hug chicken or something. But in this case you go to this one that often gets your attention and they hug you and they don't let go or you don't let them go and you can't get any perspective on anything else that's going on in the room, right? Because this one is holding you so tightly and it's probably like your aunt Agnes or something that you know, she's always wanting to hug you and you're like you know really a quick hug would be fine with you Aunt Agnes. 

So I want you to imagine that you're depressive parts, the parts of you that feel this depression in your nervous system in your mind, for some of us in our personalities even, are kind of like that. And there are times of our lives, of the year, when they are maybe a little more up - like wanting us to to know a little more of themselves.  You know, like Aunt Agnes hasn't seen you in awhile and she just really wants to share some new recipes, and you don't really want those recipes but you feel kind of stuck with them anyway, even though they're familiar.  

So if you could get a little space from that depression and just take a minute and notice all right, this part of me is kind of leading my thought processes, how I'm approaching the day, maybe kind of sapping my energy, maybe making me feel a little less like myself when I'm in a group, or with a friend, or even a partner loved one. Maybe this energy of depression tells me that I don't have the ability or resources to do the things that I kind of feel like probably would make me feel kind of good right now, or that I don't deserve to feel good right now because the world is difficult or you know. Whatever other story this Aunt Agnes, and my apologies to any Agnes out there. It's a nice name. Any aunties, that depression want to share with you. 

I was lucky, lucky, lucky enough to be at a retreat this weekend and I got to hear, Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote "Eat. Pray. Love" and many other things, and Rachel Cargle
who among other things does the Loveland foundation and "The Great Unlearn", and they were fantastic and I feel more than grateful for the opportunity to have been there.   And Elizabeth was talking about a time in her life when she was just extremely depressed. You know, when our stress rises to a level of impossibility in our body, it's not compatible with life, depression will take over and knock us way into a low state just to keep us alive. That's just an aside if you're feeling that way. But she said when she felt like there was nothing in her but this low, low level of you know sadness, depression, you know grief, you know just horrible feeling for her. She did what she called kind of reverse M. R. I. When an M. R. I would typically scan for disease right in the body. She used her sort of intuitive M. R. I to go in and scan for any spots of light of happy of joy of enchantment of bright any tiny tiny spots. And I love this example because what she actually did then was she took very small steps to make those spots larger. To give them more of the attention that they needed and deserved. And in her example, one of those spots was that she loved hearing Italian, she loved the language and so she began studying it just a bit and then just a bit more and as she learned it, she felt like those little bright light spots were growing within her, creating more joy and more enchantment which were not congruent with the overriding sense of depression. 

So if you go back to our room with all of your friends and loved ones gathered there who want to embrace and you're hanging on with your aunt depression, I'll call her now and it feels like she won't let go. You know, take a minute and look up and look around the room because you're probably going to find other parts of you that I really not like that depressive state at all. You might have parts of you that are waiting over in the corner with your favorite fun thing to do. Maybe they're holding a paintbrush or a pen or a cookbook or auto mechanic tools, haha. Whatever it is, you love, maybe you have a little part over in the corner going, hey, hey, it's been a long time. I miss you come over here and give me a hug or a picture in the other corner. There's maybe a teenage kind of a part of your personality from way back who loved to dance and maybe that part is standing by the old record player or holding a boom box on its shoulder or has on headphones attached to a walkman or is listening to an Alexa playing their favorite music and their dancing and having a ball. Does this make sense to you? Those little spots of light within you that when you can get a little space from this big auntie hugging you, this one of depression, they're still there. But they kind of get eclipsed, you know, they get pushed away. They are absolutely 100% as true as the depression and yet how often during the day do you find yourself going? My creativity, you know, blank, blank blank. Even if you say my creativity is struggling just a bit, but I love it anyway and I'm curious about it anyway. Or my dancer has felt a little out of shape these days. Mmm, but I can still drum up the feeling of that part of my body and maybe I'll hop over into a room by myself and listen to my favorite song and move a bit, right? Or my child imagination over here that is fascinated by tree bark and loves to go for a walk in the woods and just feel the different bark on the trees and notice what it's like to be a tree, maybe even touch or talk to those trees today. That part needs a little more embracing from me, right? A little more attention, a little more time. 

And that's sort of keeps that auntie of depression, the one that can hold you so tight, you know, with her big bosom and her soft mushy arms that make you wanna cry and sink into the sofa and have no energy and just eat macaroni and cheese. You know that one? Yeah, she can get a little space from you. You're still embracing her, right? You still want to hear what she has to tell you. Maybe she's looking around going, you know, I could use a change too. It'd be nice not to have to hold you so tightly. Wouldn't it be cool if if some of these parts in here step forward just a little bit more for you in your inner world. So that's what I'd love you to try. 

Take a second and notice how much air time, thought time, ownership time are you giving to your parts that might feel depressed and do not push them away. Rather ask them what would feel just a tiny bit more balanced and then look around and own even the tiniest ones that hold some light energy, love, enthusiasm, inspiration for you. These parts are every bit as important, but they don't get the airtime. And when you do just like Elizabeth Gilbert did maybe you give them a little more love, care, emphasis so that they too can grow just a bit and be more with you, more in your presence.  For me when I start feeling low. I mean, first of all, I really have to make sure I'm taking care of my physical body, you know that I'm resting and that I'm breathing and that I'm noticing the stories I tell myself in my own head and then I need to give myself a little tastes of light. So I might grab a pattern and, you know, create something with my sewing machine, or I might pull up a cookbook and make a really great dinner, or I might take a walk outside, or read a book, or take a lovely bath and so on and so on. These parts are not lacking for ideas. Trust me, if you just listen. Well, I'm really interested to hear how you're feeling and I'd love to hear if you could practice when you notice yourself say, "Well my depression or I'm depressed". Then notice are you giving a little bit more airtime to my creativity tells me this or feels like this or my playfulness wants this and make sure that gets some equal airtime in your world, just a bit. Take good care of yourself. Take good, good care of yourself. I'll see you here next week and thank you so much for joining me. I am delighted that you're here. Be well, 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 there. Come on in. Nice to have you with me today. I'm inviting you to hear our talk as a little love letter to the parts of you that felt during covid quarantine... And the modifications that many, many, many, many of us made during the higher levels of pandemic and the beginning of pandemic, the parts of you that sort of moved into those with a certain amount of satisfaction, peace, calm, permission... maybe? To just not do some of the other stuff that really stresses you out. So, this episode is a love letter to those of you that are feeling like oh dear, are we going back to what we had? Because though I missed many, many things. I do not miss the feeling of being chronically stressed out. 
So first of all, let's express a little gratitude and affection. That's what we do in love letters, right? Dear Love, I think you are the most beautiful dear part of me that does not want to return to stressed out living. I think you are wonderful. I think you are true. I think that you have deserved to appreciate long hours on the salsa. I think that you deserve to not feel guilty for any social engagement you did not have to do during the pandemic quarantine. I think you have a right to feel fantastic about every single day, you didn't have to return to the office. I know you were grateful when you didn't have to attend the family holiday celebration because you simply could not and I appreciate you. 
There's your love letter fill in the blank for what makes sense for you. I appreciate that you got to wear comfy clothes and no makeup and leave off your shoes and eat what you felt like. I appreciate you. 
But, these parts of you might be feeling kind of stressed out right now because as we know there is the ability, from what I'm gathering anyway in the northeast of the United States, to have a little more freedom. Quite a bit more freedom maybe to be face to face with others out to dinner, attending work events, traveling, even just walking in a store without covering most of your face. Now if you're still doing those things there's no ,absolutely, no shame from my perspective. None. And many times I am doing those things. But if you like many, many of us are feeling like there is a modicum of normalcy from 2018 that is returning if that's a possible thing. And you're feeling inside a certain pressure, like oh no, Uh huh. And you hear little scripts, S. C. R. I. P. T. S. Scripts like you would have in a play come up in your mind, and they're saying familiar things to you. And I'll give you a few examples, like "Oh my gosh I'm just so busy", or "I am so stressed out", or "This is just too much. It's too much, I cannot", or mm hmm "I don't want to have to do that". "I don't want to have to go" or "I don't even have time to take care of myself" insert ears here. What do you hear your scripts say? You're stressed out scripts. Right? "Everybody wants something from me". That's when I hear, "I do everything for everyone else". That's another. I hear "There's never enough hours in the day". How about that one or "Enough days in the month. Enough months in the year. Enough years of my life". How about that one? How about "It's really so important that I stay on top of things. I have to stay on top of things. If I let it slip for a minute, I'm just gonna lose it" You feeling me? Do you feel the stress just rising in your own body as you hear these scripts?
Well, that's kind of the point. You know, I noticed as I was listening to a client the other day, who I love and I've known for quite a while now. She had returned to some old scripts and I hadn't heard them in some time and they sounded like "There's just no time for me", even to do the most necessary of things like go to the dentist or to the doctor for a certain complaint or to eat well or brush my teeth. Sometimes these kinds of complaints. And I thought, huh, interesting. I've heard this before. Maybe several years ago. And then I got to reflecting on my own stress scripts which have come up lately more too. And I thought these are not new. These are not necessarily because I'm coming out of pandemic quarantine situations and into a more normal schedule. These are old. I bet some of these statements like "I'm just too busy or I'll never get there or there's always a list of stuff or I'm so tired, so so tired". They've been going on since I was really young, certainly since junior high and probably before my guess would be fifth grade when homework and going to school started feeling like an issue for me. So I don't want you to challenge your scripts. I don't want you to get antagonistic with these voices in your own mind. Really, That won't help. Might make them get louder frankly if you deny them or you criticize yourself for those things, don't do that. But when you do hear a message in your own mind, that is a message of stress. If you could just take a second and go, okay, okay, I hear it. Hahaha. And that's a bit of a story. It's a little stress story that I've been telling myself, mm hmm, probably a really long time. Even though now it has to do with my children and back then it had to do with what my parents expected of me or, my teachers or my friends, right?
I want you to take enough of a step back from it to recognize that it maybe isn't exactly about what's going on in the outside world. That's just a little trigger to start the stress story, the script.  And that once you recognize, "oh now I've just hit the tape button, the replay" and my body goes, yeah, this is what we do when we're stressed. Take a minute, take three long breaths and just get enough space between you and that story to recognize it as such, a story. A worthy story. An honest story. Probably something that has been true in your life and may even be now, but a story nonetheless a script. A set of words put together that you have repeated possibly for decades, different situations, different scenarios, different pressures, same stories. And if you can find a couple of those, write them down and I want you to notice when you hear them, "I'm just too busy, I just can't take it anymore. I just can't do it. I am so tired. It's too much", right? When you hear them, what happens in your body? What happens in your body? And I would be willing to bet the farm, that what happens in your body is not calm, it's not helpful, it's not relaxing, It's not even clear. In fact, it probably feels a little more like either franticness is that a word franticness?Well, you know what I mean? Or shut down and neither of those things, is particularly helpful when you're experiencing a world that may have gotten a bit more stressful, or more pressured, or busier for you. 
So today's message really is, examine those messages that you're telling yourself at this time especially, and especially for those parts of you that we've sent our little love letter of "I know it was awesome, it was so awesome not to have to".  If those parts of you are especially stressed let them know, we can still we can still spend hours in our sweatpants if we want to, we can still modify our schedule and say no to more than we used to. We can still expect others to maybe take a little more personal care of themselves in our world and not expect our caretaking parts to take care of everyone all the time. Do you hear it? We can still maintain some of the things that were fabulous.  And then look at those stress stories and when you hear them, notice them as stories, as a script and let them know that you're going to pay attention to the details that they might be concerned about which are real, but that you're not going to let your body be taken over because really they don't want that, rihgt? The stories in your head that are saying, "you know, I'm too tired and too busy". Their job is not to get you revved up, but that is exactly what will happen in your body. So if you can notice them and then say, yeah, "I bet you'd like this better" and take a breath and allow yourself to sink into calm clarity, a sense of sweetness about the possibilities that you have learned In this life in the last year or two and let them know you can bring that also. You don't have to just believe every last old fashioned stress story. I hope that makes sense for you. I'm gonna end the love letter by saying, I wish for you long contented loving moments when you really, know what you desire and you give that to yourself just a little bit more. And I'm wishing that your moments of socializing and family time and friend time are handled with, love and discernment for what feels really good to you. And that you celebrate each and every part of you inside. Thanks for being here with me today. I'll see you really 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. Hi there. Welcome. Come on in. Nice to see you. I wish I could see you. I'm imagining you. 
It's a very rainy, dreary, drizzly day here in New England...in the northeast of the United States. It's springtime, and we get a lot of that here. So I'm kind of just feeling cozy and comfortable and happy to be in my warm house, and happy to be here with you. 
I thought it would be interesting today, as I was thinking cozy thoughts, I got thinking about being little, being a kid and you know, some of the things that happened or I learned about as a child. And one of the things that's been coming up for me lately, and I'm not really sure why, but I figured, hey, if it's coming up for me, maybe it's coming up for you?...Are things that my mom taught me. Maybe not so intentionally, but through little comments or facial expressions or quips that she had. I mean, one of the things I definitely remember was her frequently saying, you know, "Who do you think I am superman?" That must have been popular at the time because my husband too, reports that his mom would ask if he thought she was superman. But what I'm thinking of today... is that I don't know how many times it happened... Maybe a handful, I have no idea honestly, but my mom on occasion would make sure to tell me... that...
Well, let me say it this way. I'll say it like she used to say it, "Ingrid, It's a man's world and you might as well get that right now".. phew... "Ingrid, it's a man's world and you might as well get that right now." And lately I've been kind of breaking that down a bit. Trying to hear what was in that for her? What did it come out meaning to me? What have I made of it? What difference has that made in some ways? 
It feels like she delivered it in the same way that you would say to a kid who was sulking because they could not or didn't want to go out and play on a rainy day. Just like I'm experiencing today. And in some ways it's like she was saying, "well you can't do anything about the weather", and of course she said that a lot too, "well you can't do anything about the weather." So when there are things you cannot control, don't let it trouble you, really is what she would say about the weather.  When there are things that are beyond you that you really can't do a darn thing about there's no sense in being upset about them, or perhaps in bothering your mom about them, or whining to her, right? Did your kid ever whine to you about stuff that you know, you couldn't do anything about it? "I don't want to ever go to school." Well, sorry, guess what? So this statement... this..."It's a man's world Ingrid. You might as well get used to." It was delivered I think with some of that kind of energy, you know, why make yourself miserable over a fact Jack? If she were superman, I suppose she could have fixed that. But she taught us very clearly that, that was not the case. 
As I remember, you know, there was another tone in her voice that was very different though. There was a very different sound between "it's a man's world Ingrid" and "there's nothing you can do about the weather." And as a kid, I was really able to pick up that tone. I know I was and I think most kids are able to be pretty great detectors of the tone and the energy and the feelings behind the voices that come out of their parents mouth or their caretakers. And so there was an edge. There was a little edge to that tone, different than it is as if she was talking about the weather, an edge of frustration, of a sense of a wrongness maybe...you might as well get used to it... as if the rest of the sentence was...as I've also had to get used to it. And that edge kind of makes me sad. It makes me sad to feel like my mom had to pass on this word of caution or... resignation to me. Really how sad to have to resign to something that maybe bigger parts of you or even a logical piece of you says, well that's just not right... right. How much of our population is made up of women? I think it's like 51%. Yeah? And yet someone raising a child in the United States would say to their kids, well, "it's a man's world", and who is this man? What about being a man? Made it the man's world. 
I mean, my dad certainly didn't run the world, although maybe he did run our home a bit. I think people always thought my mom did because she had a pretty...direct way, a pretty big personality. She could state her mind. I don't think it was really until I was in my twenties, that I actually realized she check, check, check, checked with dad. She kind of ran everything through that and she would try to change maybe how he would think about things sometimes in really hilarious ways. But I think ultimately it was her sense that it was, yes, a partnership, but one where he had a lot of say...and maybe that was fine, you know, it was certainly, I wasn't unhappy there. 
But back to the being a man's world, what is she trying to say to me? I mean, I probably wanted to do something that maybe my brother had been allowed to do when he was my age, you know, go sleep out on the hill or... I don't know, pee standing up? I have no idea, go somewhere, do something, be in charge of something, be able to have some kind of power in some kind of way. I don't know what I was talking about that she would react to me that way. And I know it didn't come out of nowhere. She didn't just walk up to me and say "Sit down, I have news... it's a man's world." No, it was a reaction. It was a reaction. It was a way of getting me pacified, calm down and quieter. And yet it was an edge of "You might as well get used to it." Yeah?
So what difference does it make now? Here I've been alive on this earth for many decades. And what difference has it made to have to sort of, sit back and maybe except just like I have to accept the weather? That the systems, the organizations, the loss, the considerations, the writings, the history, the documentation of things... The first thought, the language, the premise of who you're talking to... is based on masculine. It's based on male. Right? Every song I sang in church was to a he and in many, if not most churches, it's the same. Every history book was written from a man's perspective. Every bit of government was run by men. Men were allowed to do things that women were absolutely not allowed to do in my lifetime and still are. So this was to be something that in order not to lose my mind with frustration. I was to accept, says my mom, you might as well get used to it. So that is to be resigned to the status quo. You know, I think anybody anytime who tells us something that limits us in any way... doesn't allow us to kind of come into the fullness of who we're to be on this planet... is doing a wrong. I think it's doing it wrong. And the thing is, I don't think it's just doing a wrong too. The person that is happening too, it's doing a wrong to the whole right. If this, 51 % of the population does not have a steak, a say, a hand in a power toward the earth the world, right? It's a man's world. Don't we all get limited? Don't we all suffer? I think that while it offers, you know, privileges to men, I think it's just a terrible tragedy to men. I know in my own home, if I feel like something is all about me and all on me, especially as I was raising children. Like, you know, no one else could possibly offer any ideas or use their talents, or you know, be a true partner, it hurt me. And it kind of surprises me in this man's world, that many who adhere to that kind of concept in a not, not a resigned way, but like a "Yes, and that is how it should be." I'm always kind of surprised at that, that that they don't feel the pain or the loss of allowing others to be fully... represented and full equal with them and not living in a world that is biased or turned only to them even on a small scale like a family or a workplace. 
And I wonder about you, what were you taught growing up whether you were male, female, non binary? What what were the messages that you received about the world you lived in, whose world was it? Was it a man's world? Was it your world? Were you taught to accept things just the way they were? Or were you allowed to question them, and maybe even place them aside and move forward? Get off of the ladder. That's what Sonya Renee Taylor talks about getting off that ladder, of white male supremacy so that you're not even playing the game on that board anymore. I just mixed metaphors, ladders and boards. You know what I mean? If you stay in that system, fighting that system, you are still in the system. 
So maybe take it down to a personal level today? What world do you want to live in? How do you want to be in this world? What do you know is true for you? And does it require standing up? Does it require courage or maybe acceptance? I have to accept the rain today and I'm happy to do. So It feels lovely, but...I don't have to... extend the grimace of resignation when things are wrong. When things are unfair or slanted or hurtful. They don't have to extend that resignation of hopelessness to my children and my grandchildren. I hope I can let them know that all of who they are... is available to them in this very world right now. Let me know what you think. I would really love to open the conversation and hear from you. You can drop me a DM or you can put a comment in and let me know, what do you think? Is it a man's world? Even if you're a man, I hope you'll be well, thanks for listening. I want to remind you that if you love seriously yourself and you'd like more seriously yourself. The membership is also open. You can find it at ingridyhelanderlmft.com or in the show notes. Take good care of yourselves. I'll 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.