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 so much for choosing to spend a few minutes today reflecting on how you can make your life better.
Today's episode is about getting some help. Let me tell you what I mean by this. It's interesting being a private practice therapist right now because we are getting slammed, slammed.
There's not enough help for all the people that deserve to have that space held for them. There's just not enough help. I'm in the US, but I wonder about my friends other places.
Are you guys seeing the same thing? Are my therapist colleagues in other countries experiencing the same thing? We're all getting pushed. I think that's great. Probably not what you thought I was going to say.
I think it's great because what it means is that people are accessing mental health. That's a big deal. We want that, my friend.
We want it. If people are now realizing, like, hey, I've gotten to this point where my struggle is so real that I'm actually going to need to get an expert on board, somebody to help me, I say game on. We're coming out of something, my friend.
We have had a lot of collective trauma. Don't get me started. We're coming out of something very difficult, very personal, very confrontational.
We've all really gotten confronted with ourselves in the past year, year and a half. It depends on where you live. I think it's really important that we realize that we might not have all the tools that we need in order to rebound effectively.
Yeah, so we're getting pushed in the mental health system, and it led me to think about my own mission and my own work and what the heck I'm doing here and why I feel like this all kind of goes together for me, but also for the people that I work with. You know, we're not humans in general. We don't always do a good job of knowing when we're out of our capacity, meaning we don't always properly assess our own ability to deal with life and all the different things that go on in life.
We sort of think like, I got this, or like, it's difficult, but I can handle it. And we sure as heck don't like reaching out for help. And part of that is that it's stigmatized, right? That we have this idea like, well, if I ask for help, that means I don't have the capacity on my own to handle this.
And I'm going to say, yeah, and what's your point, right? If I decide to build, I would really like to bust out one wall in my bedroom, and I'd like to expand it into this giant room where I could, you know, stretch without bumping my ass on my dresser. So I'm not just going to start knocking down walls. I'm thinking like, I really want a big change, and I don't really know what the steps are to get there, basically.
Like, I want a bigger room, but I don't understand how to do a construction project. I have never learned about those things. And so one thing, one way to think about kind of when we're in these situations in life where we're really struggling, and we think I should go and talk to somebody, or I should do something about this, but I want to try to figure it out on my own, I just want to tell you, like, you don't have to do that.
You can just understand that there actually are people that know how to add rooms onto houses. There are people that understand some of these things that we get into as human beings, some of the difficulties of life, and can actually really help us to navigate those times. And so if you're like me, like many people, one of these people that's like resistant to reach out when you struggle, just understand that you're getting in your own way there, friend.
I spent years in my own way. And it's very refreshing to just sort of like, give oneself the grace to go, I don't know how to deal with this, or I don't know how to, you know, I specialize in anxiety. And so many people that come to me are like, I tried to deal with it on my own for a really long time.
And I just, I just couldn't figure it out. And I'm like, that's like trying to add a room to a house. Like most people aren't educated and trained and cultured in the world of dealing with the human body and specifically the brain, right, which has everything to do with recovery from anxiety.
And so people wait too long to ask for help. And then things get worse and worse. So as we're having this conversation, I'm hoping to change your perspective about your capacity to deal deal with things like what are we why are we just white knuckling our way through situations rather than picking up the phone and going, Hey, aren't you an expert at adding on to houses? You're an expert at helping people with anxiety.
Right? Why? Why are we just trying to white knuckle? I don't know. I think it's kind of funny. And I also do it.
And so it's not that funny. It's funny, not funny. What are your options? This is what I this is, I'm hoping to change your perspective so that you're at least open to the fact that you might want to like do something if you have an area of your life that's not thriving, then it might be time for some change.
So what are your options for help? Well, let me rattle some off to you. You know, when we're dealing with anxiety specifically, and we could we could totally parlay this into a conversation about relationship issues or depression or PTSD, like I just use anxiety because that's the language that I know in the world in which I work. So if somebody has a problem, any kind of like struggle, there are always options for help.
The only solution to anxiety isn't medication. Okay? Also medications not a solution. It's kind of a bandaid until you can find a solution or right until you work your way into a solution or some people just use medication always and that's fine too.
I don't have huge opinions about that. I just don't want people to get duped into thinking that one method or one thing is a solution to one problem. That's my hot point button, right? So yeah, you could totally take medication and that would help get you stable so that you could work some different stuff into life.
Okay, yeah, you could totally go to a therapist, right? That is like the old school go to what should I do I have I'm super depressed and can't get out of this hole and people say what's the first thing you say they say go to the therapist, right? Yes, that's totally an option. There are also many many other options. Do you know how many books have been written on the subject of depression and anxiety PTSD stress burnout all the things hello, you can read a book.
Absolutely. This podcast is something that you could do right every single week. You could listen to the a podcast there are podcasts that dig into every subject matter.
For example, like I listen to a lot of relationship podcasts so that I can be continually getting better at being in relationships. I love and recommend quite a bit TED talks videos YouTube, right content that's basically put out there to help people. So it's it's really important that we realize Googling is not a solution unless you're going to engage with whatever you you end up with.
So does that make sense? I think a lot of people sit on the computer and they go to WebMD and they read some stuff and then they're just like, oh, I don't know what to do. This is to breathe and to do the child's pose. I don't know.
I don't know. So I just want to encourage you to a widen your perspective of what help looks like my friend and understand what help does not look like. Okay.
So I think you know getting I'm going to go on a little bit of a rant here. I want to tell you something about the mental health system. As some of you know, I've hopped out of the mental health system and so I'll get into that in a minute.
But what I want to say is this idea that when you're struggling with your mental health, the best answer is to go into a therapist's office. It's not true. Many people, most people that struggle with their mental health and I guess I mean even saying that struggle with your mental health like hello.
Have you ever been in a relationship? Do you call relationship difficulties struggling with your mental health? Because I don't. And yet that is one of the number one reasons why we end up in a therapist's office because we don't know how to have healthy relationships and when they don't feel good, we need help. Right.
And for whatever reason like that's way more acceptable in our mental health system. We have created stigma, which means not everybody has access to therapy. Not everybody has the privilege to go, oh, I'm really struggling with the anxiety.
I guess I'm going to go to the therapist. Like I said, there's more problems than there are people that are there to help with the problem. And so and having this idea of like the solution is therapy and that's the only solution, it kind of keeps all the magic and all the good stuff behind the door to the therapy office and we can't get at it.
And that's not true. That's mental health stigma is what I want to tell you. And so if we start to normalize all these different ways of accessing help and we start to actually talk about our personal growth work in every area, whether it's depression or anxiety or dealing with PTSD or trying to be in a healthy relationship, then we're going to get rid of stigma.
And therapy becomes more of a back like to the back of the line option. It's not the first line of action. And I firmly believe that because if I'm the first place that somebody can access help and they don't know how to find me or they don't have enough privilege to even access what I offer, like how is that for people? So like too bad for you, right? So go back up to all the ways that I said we could access help.
You know, one of the reasons that I am having this conversation with you is because I want you to understand that number one, you're not supposed to be able to deal with everything. You're just not supposed to, my friend. I can't deal with everything.
No one can deal with everything perfectly all the time. Things are supposed to be difficult. That's part of the point.
And that's okay. And I just, I want to validate that for you. And I also want to say, and when you're struggling, there's a lot of different ways to get help.
You know, one of the things about being a therapist that's super interesting is like we're really taught that we're kind of the solution. And I kind of call BS on that. I was a really hard worker in community mental health.
I had a huge caseload on a part-time basis and I was good at my job. I type fast. I am a good therapist.
I'm really well trained. This is my second career. So like, this is actually my passion, my drive and what I want to be doing as opposed to like, oh, I just picked social work because I was in college and needed a major.
No, this is like, I went to school, my kids were little and got my master's degree and did my practicum and all those things when I was raising my kids. So like, this is a passion driven choice for me. And what I saw when I first came out into the field was horrific because my field is very like we're pushed beyond our capacity.
And so what that means is we have like this giver's disease, right? The helper's curse, which means it's a burnout field. It's a field in which practitioners unfortunately commit suicide. This field is filled with people who don't have the time or the energy to do their own personal growth work.
And when I came out into private practice, I'd already burned out and recovered from it. I said I would never work a full-time caseload ever again in my life. It's not healthy for me and I don't really think it's healthy for anybody, but I don't get to choose what's right for other people.
I just decided to choose what was right for me. So my whole private practice is built on this like burnout avoidance model, which means I want to be able to stay present with my clients in their sessions, which means I can do three or four a day. I used to do six a day.
That's six hours of doing therapy. And some people do seven or eight a day. And I say, hey man, if you can take care of yourself and remain in your own healthy mode while doing that, game on my friend.
I couldn't do it. So I built my practice around basically burnout avoidance. And then I also built my practice around boredom avoidance.
The other thing about me is that I like to have a lot of variety in my work and going session after session after session after session like that. It's kind of boring, to be honest. So the way that I structure my work is that I do my private practice.
That's part of my business. I also run some groups because that's really fun. I've always done that and always really enjoyed it.
I really like to teach. Obviously, look at me here. I'm just chatting away with you on this podcast week after week, teaching you about mental health.
I freaking love it. So part of the way that I built my business was to provide me an outlet for those things. But also, and here's where it all kind of ties back in.
I think the fact that people think that when they're struggling, they have to go to therapy is completely bunk. And so I provide people with other options because I truly believe that each person has within them what they need to heal. And what I can do is just help them access that.
Do they have to come to my office? Hell no, they don't have to come to my office. So that's why I created an online course for anxious people. So I basically created, I've always loved teaching and writing curriculum.
So I just understand how to put the pieces together so that everything makes sense. I found that when I was in private practice for long enough, I have a method to my madness of helping people with anxiety. It's a three stage process that was so clear that I actually tell people about before we work together.
So they kind of know the structure of our work. So what I did is I basically was like, well, geez, I could just make an online class out of that and then people could save themselves thousands of dollars and tons of hours by just doing this online anxiety recovery program that I created. So what that's done for me is it's freed me up to work with less people on a daily basis.
So I'm staying out of burnout and has helped me to avoid boredom of going session after session after session, a little paperwork and it's all done for the day. I get to do a lot of different things, right? I get to show up here for you. I get to tinker around with technology.
I get to meet all kinds of amazing entrepreneurs. So and I've gotten a lot of help and I've gotten a lot of help. So that's the other thing is just remember in your own life that you have a choice about a how much you choose to suffer with any given problem and B how you access help.
There's help out here for you. I got an email from somebody the other day who had gotten like my onto my anxiety program. It's called Back to Calm.
If you're interested in looking it up, it's on my website, Back to Calm. She had looked at the sales page and looked at the pricing and emailed me and was basically like, well, I guess I'm going to be anxious forever because I can't afford this course. And actually, the course is like right around two office visits is what it costs.
And that's not affordable for people. And I get it. That's like that's the whole deal.
Right. And I emailed her back. Of course I did, because I couldn't just let that one lie.
And I just basically said, I, I, I think that it's a choice to get help or not to get help. And here are 10 ways that you can help yourself with your anxiety besides taking my course. So if you can't afford it, that's OK.
But here are all the things you can do to get help. So, yeah, I am a little bit snarky. But I'm also like, don't keep yourself stuck because you have a narrow idea of what asking for help means, my friend.
And I say this to you with so much love and so much understanding that life is really hard. And I get that. And we're always going to struggle.
We're not supposed to not struggle. OK, but when you are struggling, widen your perspective about what help looks like. And I'll just say it.
If you're an anxious person, come check out my website. Back to Calm is an entire program that's built on my therapy practice of helping people heal anxiety. It's basically a recovery program that's broken up into three sections that are like crafted to work with the brain, by the way, to have to be an effective solution.
I think a lot of people try a lot of things that don't work. So having a therapist design an online course that you could take either outside of the therapy office, the therapy thing, or I have a lot of people that take the course while they're in therapy, which is also a great option. Or they read a book or they listen to a few podcasts and then they're like ready to take the online course and to take this next step.
Maybe they'll want a couple sessions with the therapist to process through some of the stuff. So then it becomes this really nice, comprehensive way to get help. But it's not the old school way and it doesn't support mental health stigma.
And that's what I really care about. And I just want to hammer that home. It's like if we keep a thinking that if we need help, there's something wrong with us.
And if we keep having narrow ideas about what our mental health looks like, we're just contributing to stigma. So can we not do that? I'm here to help. I will be with you here almost every week to give you information and guidance and hopefully empower you to change your life in the way that you want to.
I'll see you next week, friend. Thanks for listening. 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.
