3 Unhelpful Characters
Speaker 0: Welcome to Takeout Therapy. I'm Rebecca Hunter, a therapist who knows therapy is actually very expensive and believes that mental health education should be free. Stick with me for the next few minutes, and you'll learn something that will help you think about life differently, or maybe manage things better for yourself. This podcast is authentic. It's unedited and without a bunch of ads.
All I ask is that you pass it along. Please forward an episode to a friend in need. And if you like my style and you wanna do some work with me, come join the club at takeouttherapy dot com. Let's get to work. Hello there.
Thanks so much for showing up. To do your personal growth work with me today. I hope you find today's episode helpful when you're having a tough time. Because what I wanna talk about today is something that is really important to remember when life gets tough, basically. You know, it would be easy to or, like, delightful to be able to say, like, well, when life gets tough, what we really wanna do is look at every problem as an opportunity.
But, frankly, like most of us don't respond that way. At first, maybe we can get there after a little bit. But at first, the way we respond is usually one of three ways to problems in life. And whether it's problems that we've caused ourselves, or problems that we perceive other people causing for us, there are three characters that constantly show up in life that you kinda wanna be on the lookout. For because you wanna look out for these characters because they make life harder.
They make hard moments, even harder, and they make hard moments, hard to get out of. And that's where people get stuck. And part of my work is to really help people get unstuck. So when I was kind of thinking about this and trying to conceptualize, like, what are the ways and what are the kind of characteristics of stuckness? I came up with these kind of three characters.
As I'll talk about them. And these three characters live in most of us and also as I describe these three characters, I'm sure you know somebody. That's kind of one of these characters. And the thing that I find really helpful about that is not to just like dog on other people for being how they are. But it's like to put a face with a thing.
Right? To be like, oh, this is how I'm feeling internally. And this is my visual representation of what that might look like. And so we all have these people in our lives that actually behave on a regular basis as these characters. And what we wanna do as personal growth juggies is we wanna spot these characters come in, and we wanna head them off at the pass because they're gonna make us feel worse, and they're gonna want us to stay stuck.
So let me tell you about these three characters. And then we'll talk about kind of what you can do when you see these characters show up in your life. So the first character that I wanna talk about is the martyr. You know, the martyr. The person who feels like, well, if I don't do this, No one else will.
Right? So it's the person at work who won't delegate any tasks and then grips about how much work they have to do. Right? The martyrs. It's the person who does all the housework but never let anybody forget about it.
Right? The martyr. The martyr is somebody who doesn't see themselves as the caretaker, but they are and they don't like it. It's the mom who volunteers way too much and then complains that none of the other parents wanna get involved. It's the boss who, you know, acts overworked and burned out and just basically creates a culture of complaining.
In a workplace. So when we get into a tough emotional space, you want to watch out for your own martyr for this character to show up in your life, in your mind. Of course. That's where the martyr lives. Because most of the martyrs stick.
Most of their marketing messaging is BS. Right? It's a it's a perception about one's place in the world. It's a perception about what a person is expected to do and what they're not expected to do. And frankly, that's completely self created.
So you wanna watch out for the martyr. Do you have a martyr? What does your martyr say and do? When you get into tough emotional territory. Whether it's overwhelm or it's worry, or it's a sense of confusion or frustration, the martyr will definitely kick up.
Okay. So the second character that you wanna look out for is a friend of the martyr, actually. It's the critic. God, I love the critic. The critic is an equal opportunity critic.
So everybody has a critic. Myself included, I have all these things. That's why I'm talking about this. We all have a lot of different parts of ourselves that aren't that easy to see, you know, but they kinda work shit, like kinda shady in the background. And the critic is definitely one of those.
So some people have a really loud internal critic. When they have a lot of emotion, the loud internal credit kind of sounds like, what's wrong with you? Why can't you handle all this? Why are you being so emotional? The critic is an expert gaslighter of oneself.
Right? Also, the critic, as I said is an equal opportunity appetizer. And so the critic will also judge other people. So when you're in tough emotional space, you wanna watch for the critic because what's helpful exactly about criticizing yourself or other people in terms of dealing with an emotionally burdensome situation. I'll give you the answer.
Not much. Right? The critic is a pain in the butt. And usually, it's kinda quiet. I think a lot of people have really loud critic for others.
Meaning, we're pretty judgmental. Right? We kind of look around us and we're like, you're a mess. And the critic is also very covert in the same manner. It will also kind of criticize others, but like underneath the surface of things.
Sometimes we don't even see our own critic happening. We're busy criticizing our friends and saying how people aren't this or they won't do this or blah blah blah. But we don't see it as like this character. Of our mind. We see it as truth.
We see it as a pathway to get to solution. And I'm telling you, my friend, it is not the pathway. To solution, it is the pathway to absolute misery. So far, are you cited to sit in a room with a murder and a critic. Well, let's add the third character because where would we be without the victim?
Right. The part of us that thinks we're not getting a good deal that people are always trying to pull one over on us and we are completely right. We're victimized. We're just like, poor me. I have to do this.
And I'm expected to be this way. I, you know, like, the victim is always kind of feeling like they drew the short straw. And this is a very important cognitive process that we have in difficulty because it helps us to create distance psychologically from whatever's going on. Right? So, like, for example oh, gosh.
I always try to think of examples on the fly and that's so hard. If we're at work and we're not getting all of our work done. Right? Because we're distracted and we don't know how to use our time well, we could have a lot of things happening. The martyr could show up to say, well, if I didn't have so much work, how can nobody else can do any work?
And the critic will jump right in there and say, yeah, these people are all so lazy. Or the critic will jump in in a in a more self facing way and say, yeah, you really need to get your act together. And do more work. Right? And then in comes the victim.
Like, oh, I hate this job, and I have to work here, and Oh, poor me. What am I gonna do? None of these things are helpful. None of these things are helpful. When we're overwhelmed, when we're up set in any way.
These things are natural occurrences of the mind's workings, just so you know. And so if you notice that these things show up in moments of difficulty, take a pause right there. And let's talk about a different way to approach emotionally burdensome situations so that you can be like way more functional and so that you can get through things faster because Here's the number one thing I want you to remember, is that life is full of problems and every problem. Has something for you. It has a learning.
It has a message. It or it has an opportunity. So a problem at work, there is such an opportunity there. There is an opportunity for you to grow as a person that is an opportunity for you to move on to something else. There is an opportunity for you to understand what's hard, what's easy, and how to develop your drinks better, but we don't always see it that way because we get stuck in these characters of the martyrs, and the critic, and the victim.
Right? So the first thing you wanna do is, like, spot those characters and back up a sec. Meaning, take a little pause, do what I always say to do, and take a few deep breaths. Practice a little mindfulness to get your mind off the track that it's on, the martyr, the critic, the victim track. And let's get to, okay, curiosity, what's going on here?
What's going on for me right here? What am I struggling with? What feels impossible? What can I maybe change? How could I Think about this differently.
What kind of opportunity exists here for you? So you wanna pause and you wanna breathe and you wanna get curious. And you wanna remember that when you're under emotional stress, there's always something deeper that you need to uncover. And the martyr and the critic in the victim are literally standing in your way. To get them out of the way, which means you've got to give yourself time to get emotionally regulated.
And what I'm saying by that is, like, if you're in a space where you're just like emotional emotional. That's not super helpful, and these three characters thrive in our emotionality. Where they don't thrive is when we start to regulate ourselves. When we start to go, oh, like, I'm really emotionally overwhelmed right now. Let me see if I can regulate that a little bit.
And do you have emotional regulation skills? If you've been listening to the pod cast for any length of time. I hope you have some emotional regulation skills. We all need these skills. Because they help us to come out of this part of our mind that has emotionality attached to it.
And when we're able to kind of calm down through breath and nurturing ourself into emotional regulation and whatever way we do that. We can kinda get out of this very emotional space and we can start saying, okay. Well, like, let me think about this a little bit more rationally. Right? Because remember, we have we have a lot of different parts of our brains.
I'm gonna oversimplify this for you. You're welcome. There's a side that is very rational. It's the who, what, where, when, how of life. But when things happen, the side of our brain that really kicks in within emotional overwhelm is kind of this emotional side of our brain.
Right? And so there's a beautiful place within ourselves when we kind of can see what's happening, when we can take a step back and go, oh my gosh, Like, my critic is super fired up right now. I need to kind of like get emotionally regulated I need to get back to my homeostasis, my baseline of being. And if you don't have one of these, I have an idea for you. So we need to get back to that in order to figure things out to process the situation differently.
Because sometimes it's like, I'll give you an example of, like, people are really annoying. Like, they're they really pissed me off sometimes. Don't think as well. Sometimes, is it just me? Do I find people annoying as a therapist?
No. I'm talking like out in the world. Right? And sometimes I can really get in my head. I can be like, well, why did why did that person say that to me?
Why why would they have text said me that. What does that mean? Right? Why do I have to be the one who's always being good at communication? What Right?
And and they and hear you. Hear it. You hear it happening. Here comes the martyr. Here comes the victim.
Here comes the critic. Right? And so at that point, I just want to step back and say, okay, it's completely appropriate to be irritated with somebody. And what is happening for me within this exchange? Well, I feel like maybe that was like whatever they said was condescending.
Okay. Right. So instead of sort of taking up a lot of emotional space with that, this process of stepping back, getting regulated, and then going back in will help us to better deal with the situation. To be able to say, like, Yeah. So that feels kind of condescending to me.
Right? Or to just go, like, who cares? Who cares if that's how it feels? It doesn't matter. The person's not trying to hurt my feelings.
Not everybody is out to get me. Right? And we have to remember that. But the martyr and the critic and the victim, they don't remember that. They are not part of our deepest self.
They are part of a cognitive process that keeps us safe from being hurt by others. And when we really develop our mental health a little bit, we can see these characters coming. We can see them from a mile away, and we can meet up with them. And we can interact differently. We can ask them to step back a little bit.
Right? Like, we don't need to handle everything from a criticizing or a victimized point of view. That's not necessary. It sure is easy to get stuck in that space though, isn't it? I'm gonna talk about that in the next episode of the podcast because when we really get going with these three characters, oh, boy, can they lead us to some serious meltdown territory?
Can they? So I'll talk about that in the next podcast. But for now, what I want you to do is keep your eyes peeled. When you're in tough situations for these three characters to show up and you meet up with them and say now, wait a second. I might not need you for this one.
I might be able to rely on myself and my own rational brain and my own personal growth work. So I wish you luck in the next big situation in spotting these three characters, the martyr, the critic, and the victim. Now, before I end the podcast, I want to tell you something. If you want to really dig in and work on your mental health, I wanna give you the opportunity to do that with me. What I've decided to do is I'm gonna start a little monthly personal growth club.
Where I'm gonna teach you things like this only just a bit more extended with lots more action items. So each month, I'll do a little workshop And then I will translate the workshop into every possible format because I know you guys have a very diverse way of consuming content. And so I'm gonna meet you where you're at with that. And then every month, you'll be able to pop in to the club is what we're gonna call it. We're gonna call it takeout therapy club.
You'll be able to pop in there and watch the workshop. You'll even get to come live if that works for you, or you can just watch it later, whatever you want to do. And then every month, you'll be developing really, really important mental health skills. Literally, I wanna teach you what you need to know to stay sane, my friend. I wanna teach you to emotionally regulate.
To be able to spot these silly characters that show up in your mind and cause you all kinds of trouble. Because I want you to be able to love yourself and understand yourself and deal with life as it comes at you. That's the goal. Okay? We're not here to go like, oh, you can't deal with things?
Oh, there must be something wrong with you. No. Where would you have learned? This community is all about mental health education. It's mental health skill building, it's mental health, everything we never got growing up.
So if you wanna dig in a little bit with me, head to my website at takeouttherapy dot com, where I'll tell you all about Takeout Therapy Club, how you can join and how you can totally develop your mental health month by month by month. By working with me, your friend, Rebecca. Thanks again for showing up today. I hope you take really good care of yourself. Thanks for listening.
The goal of this project is really to provide mental health education to everyone who needs it. So if you want to help me with that? Forward an episode to a friend or write a kind review, pleats. And if you like my style and you're ready to dig in, do some work with me, Come join the club at takeout therapy dot com, where I'm now hosting a monthly mental health maintenance club. I also do classes groups and one on one coaching and therapy.
It's time for change. Are you ready?
