You're listening to Take Out Therapy with your host, Rebecca Hunter. If you're into personal growth and fascinated by the human condition like I am, stick with me. In the next few minutes, I'll break down a common personal growth topic and give you some straightforward ideas for change.
I'm a private practice therapist and online mental health educator, so I see a lot of popular topics both in and out of the therapy office that we all struggle with. I'm here to help with that. This podcast is not a substitute for therapy, but rather the musings of a therapist and an opportunity for information and a little bit of help.
Okay, let's get to work. Hello, my friend. Thank you for showing up for your weekly mental health butt kicking.
Today is going to be more of a pep talk because I have something to say, hence the mic and the podcast. Anywho, you know, people seek therapy for so many reasons, but sometimes it boils down to a couple of things. One is that they feel really, and we use this word, and I use this language because it's the language of the people that I serve, but I do not think this is helpful language.
People are stuck, and we use this word, and it's like, I'm so stuck. I just don't know which, what thing to do, and I can't make decisions, and I don't like my behavior, and I'm not happy in this relationship. Or it's like people are really victimized.
They're at the mercy of others. I don't love the word victimized either, but it really sums up what I mean, and I think you can understand when I say, like, do you ever think maybe you're not in control and that you're, like, life is happening to you. It's literally beating you down sometimes, right, and it feels like you don't have any wiggle room and that you're paralyzed and you're stuck.
And here's what I want to tell you. That's not true because you get to choose. So let's talk about this because I think it's so important, and in our moments of humanic desperation and misery and frustration and confusion, we forget this peace, and the peace is like we get to choose.
So if you have behavior or people or a job or a dynamic or whatever going on in your life, and it feels really stuck and you feel paralyzed and a little beat up on, just understand that what you need to do is within you, like you get to choose. This is your life, and you get to take up space here. You know, a lot of times people go, well, Rebecca, I don't know what to choose.
I don't know the answer. And my answer to that is, my friend, you know the answer. It's in your gut.
It's part of what we call your intuition. Our intuition is like this inner knowing that says, I really don't like that part of that person, and I don't want to be around them when they act like that, right? It's that part of us that says, this dynamic in this household doesn't work for me, or this group of people no longer feels good to me. It's that part of us that kind of says the truth, our intuition, and we'll just call it our gut, right? Our gut never lies, my friend, even if you wanted to.
Even if your gut tells you something that you don't want to know, it still might be true. It still is true for you, and that's where the work begins. So intuition and your gut and your knowing doesn't care about your little subconscious belief system.
Your intuition doesn't care about your programming, like how you were raised or anything about your history. Your intuition doesn't care about that. Your intuition is like this deeper part of yourself, and it doesn't really care about society's rules or norms.
Like, have you ever been in a relationship and started liking somebody else? Your intuition doesn't care if that's not appropriate. Sometimes you have to have an experience in order to have an experience, and that's all there is to it, my friend. You know, your intuition is not your ego.
Those are two totally different things, and there's so many good resources out there about that, and we can talk more about that. But your intuition is like that part of you that just kind of knows what's up and tries to let you know that. And then your ego is that part of you that's like, well, you can't really leave this relationship because think of all the other things that are going to happen.
Just keep doing the same thing. Stay safe. Right.
So here's the deal, though. The bottom line in my short pep talk, you get to choose if something is not right in your life. You get to choose to take a different action.
You get to choose to have a different thought about it. You get to choose to surround yourself with different people. You can leave a job.
You can leave a whole career, my friend. You get to choose. You get to choose who gets to be in your life.
And here's the thing where people get a little tossed up is they think, well, you know, I can't change a person and I'm not going to feel or I'm not going to be able to find somebody as good as this person. OK. And so what I'm going to say to you is that's a choice.
So live in that choice. Right. So it's like that's the whole problem is if we get caught up in this idea that we don't get to choose, we're like all stuck and victimized.
And oh, how how am I going to work this out or any of it? And there are situations in life that are kind of like that. Right. Ever been in a relationship with an addict? That's hard.
Right. Ever had to take care of somebody with deep, special needs? Whatever those were. Right.
I mean, there's always going to be times in life where you feel like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't have a choice here. And what I would say is you always have some choice.
You always get to choose. So whether that's on the bigger picture or a smaller daily, right, on the daily picture, just remember. That this is your life.
And what you do from the moment that you understand that you get a choice, what you do with the rest of the project, that's becoming whole, my friend. Because when you realize that you have within you the choice to make and to deal with whatever decisions that you need to make or deal with, when you understand that you have choice there. It opens up a door to just living fully, don't you think? So if you, you know, need to relook at your job or maybe you need to, like, get some different roommates, that's a thing for a lot of people right now.
Right. Like maybe you need to switch it up a little bit. That's OK.
I just want you to know, like, you don't have to suffer along in relationships or jobs or dynamics with people that don't feel good. So just remember that. Are you guys joining me for Anxiety Recovery Week this week? I'm, you know, I'm over on social media doing my little live videos this week.
I'm basically, I hate doing live videos. Can I just be honest with you guys? It's it's very nerve wracking, but I think there's a real special value in me just teaching and I love teaching. And so this week I'm hosting in my private group on Facebook, I'm hosting Anxiety Recovery Week.
And it's basically a live 30 minute class about anxiety recovery every day. I just want people to understand, well, look at there, I'm going to tie a bow on this baby. I just want people to understand they have a choice.
Apparently, it's very important to me. You know, it's why I created my online class for people with anxiety. It's called Back to Calm.
And I just did a huge rebranding project on it. But it's all about like, can we just understand that therapy is not the only way to heal from anxiety? Like how about an online course? How about an online recovery program that fits into your life wherever you are in your life, in your anxiety struggle? It fits right there. Like we have a choice about how we access help.
And I know you guys probably heard my last episode called Get Some Help. Thank you for always listening to me as I do my very unrehearsed, unscripted riffing on mental health in my world, the world of a therapist. Now you see inside.
Thanks for making the choice to spend a few minutes with me today. Take really good care of yourself. I'll see you next week.
I hope you found today's episode helpful. Here's the deal. I'd like to get rid of some of the stigma around mental health.
And this is how I'm doing it. You can join me by leaving a review, sending an episode along to a struggling friend, or even subscribing, my friend. Any of those choices would be exciting because then we would be helping more people.
If you want to dig in further with me, I have spots open in my monthly online anxiety group. It's going to fill up fast, so get in touch. Or you can join my free private group for daily tools, journal prompts, and information to help move you from struggling with anxiety to healing it.
It's the Anxiety Recovery Club, and I'm not messing around over here. Head to the link in the show notes at RebeccaHunterMSW.com. Way to show up today.
