You are listening to Take Out Therapy, speedy sessions for everyday problems. This is your host, Rebecca Hunter. In my role as a private practice therapist, I don't really just tell people what to do, but in this podcast, I'm doing things differently.
In the next few minutes, I'm just going to be straight up with you about what to do in certain situations. Keep listening for awesome tips on how to live a more intentional and less reactive life. Clearly, this is not a substitute for therapy, but I guarantee it might help you.
Listen up. Hello, friends. Thank you so much for being here with me.
As we continue to embark upon our personal growth journey, right? I'm recording this in April 2020. I'm just trying to continue to provide relevant content to my own life and what I am going through in my own personal growth journey and yours, what you're going through. Today I want to talk about the importance of perspective.
In this time, when we're basically looking at a worldwide crisis of health with this COVID-19 virus, all of our circumstances are very different, but one thing is for certain, this is not normal life. Today I want to talk about perspective within this situation, but please know that your perspective is very important in terms of your life. Your perspective is like your viewpoint, your personal attitude, and your ideas about any given situation.
When you think about it that way, then you can really have a firm understanding of why it matters, because your attitude or your perspective about a situation, it translates into your actions. Yeah, so it matters, because if you have a negative perspective, then you're not always going to behave in the most helpful way for every situation, unless you think your best side is your negative side. Negative side is super helpful, but a positive perspective can really be helpful, especially in a situation like we're currently in, because there's a lot of different elements to many different situations within this pandemic that we don't really have a lot of control over.
I'm talking to you about this from the Pacific Northwest where we're on lockdown. We can go grocery shopping and do essential things. There's nothing open anyway.
We can go get food, basically. We could get takeout or we can get grocery store. And so in a situation like this in which we have no control, like just so you know, humans not big fans of powerlessness.
So you try to control anything in our environment or basically like if you tell us that we don't have control over something in our environment, as big as like whether we leave our house or not. Yeah, it's not going to feel great, you guys, and it's very important what kind of perspective that we have about that. So I think the important thing here is like I really my intention with this podcast and every podcast that I do is that I want you to know you have a choice in every single moment, right, to change your perspective, to pay attention to the effect that your perspective in any situation has on your actions, your attitude, right? Because that down the line there, right, the actions can affect our lives negatively.
So I just want to tell you that you have a choice and I'm going to kind of teach you a few things about the different perspectives you could have and how to shift perspectives. So let's get into it. We're not all together always aware of our thoughts and our perspective in every situation, duh, right, because we're moving very fast through life.
And so part of kind of doing personal growth work is just slowing down. So there's a lot of different ways we can do that. But it is important when we're talking about the importance of perspectives is for you to understand that if you move too quickly, you're not examining your perspective and whether it's helpful or not.
So I'll just say that. Right. And there's three different ways you could go with perspective.
I always tell this to clients, right? It's like you're walking down a hall and you come to the end of the hallway and there's three doors. One says negative, one says neutral and one says positive. Which do you choose? This is true for perspective, right? One door says yes, one door says no, and one door has a question mark on it.
It counts for decision as well, right? And I'll talk about negative perspective. A negative perspective is one in which, well, one in which we think things are negative. We think about the negative parts of things.
It's very limited. It's not creative and open minded. It's kind of closed minded.
Right. And some of our brains just do that. And if you kind of take a look at your perspective at any point in time, you can notice in the body how it feels.
Negative perspective feels very tight. Right. A neutral perspective.
It's a very interesting idea that is part of kind of working on oneself is that sometimes it matters what we think about things and sometimes things just are how they are. And being OK with that is kind of just neutral. It's not like, wow, this is great.
There's so much opportunity here. You know, it's not all like blowing smoke and faking happy. It's basically like, well, this is how it is.
Right. It's accepting. If you want to do any acceptance work, go look for Tara Brock.
She's got some beautiful resources on acceptance. Acceptance is not like I like this. It's kind of like this is how it is.
It's kind of like the weather, you guys. It doesn't matter what you think about the weather. The weather is going to happen.
OK. Right. And neutral is a very open and mindful place to be.
So, yeah, positive perspective would be the third door, the third choice, which is kind of taking a perspective that's a little bit more growth oriented, hopeful or like grateful, positive perspective. It helps us to feel OK, even when things are difficult. Right.
And so I think what's really important to say in this time and place that I'm recording this, but also in the future. Right. Is your perspective matters.
Your perspective matters on every situation in life, your perspective about this pandemic matters. And about other things, right, because basically if our perspective is fueling our thoughts and our feelings and our behaviors, that's really important. You know, an example is kind of waking up in the morning with a negative perspective.
Well, first of all, it feels tight. It feels uncomfortable. Sometimes it feels like it hurts.
Right. So right now in what we're going through this pandemic, waking up and thinking like, is this still happening? Oh, my God, I just have to get through another day. How am I going to keep these kids busy? How am I going to get through another day in the medical arena? Right.
I think about our frontline workers a lot. Right. Or like just like how am I just going to deal with everything? How am I going to not go crazy because they close nature where I live? Right.
So waking up with a negative perspective can really set you up for the day, guys. You know, you get to make a choice so you can spend some time there. You could also pivot after you spend some time there and go move to neutral.
This this is how things are. Right. And we can kind of wake up every morning and just kind of get grounded in our bodies a little bit and deal with what we have in front of us in every single moment.
We can just kind of be open to life being like kind of messed up right now. Right. Or a more neutral position.
It's a little hard to be neutral. Yeah. A neutral position would be like we're just open to how life is right now.
Right. And my like my current reality is probably one of the good case scenarios. Right.
Which is like we're all stuck at home and we can't go anywhere. And so that's how it is. So we just kind of have to deal with that in each moment.
Mindfulness really helps in neutrality, meaning an ability to just be in your body and be in every moment. That's something that I dig pretty deep into when I teach people about anxiety, mindfulness. So this neutrality just kind of helps, right, to to just kind of like, yes, you have feelings about it.
But like to realize. The importance, frankly, which like for like, to be honest, your feelings right now about a lot of this stuff aren't important. Of course, your feelings about a lot of things are very important, but you don't need to use them as a guide.
Right. Or you don't need to get stuck in negative feeling. So the other perspective that we can basically generate and make the choice to change to is a positive perspective.
So that would be kind of this idea that I'm seeing a lot on social media because I'm a therapist. So I follow a lot of amazing therapists that are out there doing so. People are so helpful.
Anyways, this very growth oriented and opportunity based work. So that's a positive perspective to go, OK, well, for me, what's true in my life right now? Right. And it's it's different for all of us.
But I'll give you a couple examples of like, well, we're at home now. Right. And so that's kind of how it is.
And so what can we do within this being at home together time that could foster connection or bring us closer? Right. Or help us communicate better. Thank God I have a whiteboard, you guys.
I had to assign people dishwasher days. It was getting out of control over here. Right.
But positive mindset is like, OK, there's there's like some opportunity here. Like I truly see opportunity for myself as both a therapist and as a person who's engaged in personal growth work to use all my skills. Right.
And just talk about them. That's super growth oriented. I can also generate like grateful feelings right now.
So even if you're one of those people, many, many people are just stuck home with kids right now. And we love our kids, you guys. They're so cute, aren't they? But they're also a pain in the ass.
Right. And they're also really difficult to be with all the time. It requires a lot of patience.
And so, you know, it's fine to feel all that. And also a different perspective that might be more helpful would then be to shift into maybe a more positive perspective. Maybe it's about being grateful, right, and just watching your kids engage with them, see that as a gift of time.
Right. And, you know, another kind of positive way of another positive shift perspective is the idea of hope. Right.
So we we all understand that this is temporary. Like the rest of our lives aren't going to be like this. This is temporary.
And so another perspective to take is just like generating some hope. Like what are things we can look forward to? What are things, you know, we can learn? What are things we can who are the people that we can connect with right now? Right. Can we generate some hope and some opportunity and some gratitude? And, you know, in all in all the things that we're all facing right now, I have just a peek, a glimpse into the therapy office for you as I finish this up, is that I have people in every kind of scenario.
Right. I have people that are still out there working. You guys are on the front lines.
I have people that don't have jobs anymore. Right. And I have everything in between.
I also work with a bunch of teens and it's really hard. Right. For them.
And so in every single scenario, there is always the opportunity. To decide about what kind of perspective might be helpful here in this situation, and we can always change. So there's always room for that sadness and that difficult perspective.
But that just know that there's a there is a wealth of ways that you can change your perspective. You can just notice it. Oh, yeah.
OK. I'm in a really like negative place there. And then you just pivot.
Right. And what I recommend is if you notice you're in negative, pivot to neutral. See if you can come around to some acceptance.
Just pay attention to your moment. Right. And then see if you can generate some just something else that feels better.
OK, and it matters. And if you need help doing that here for you, I will continue to put out relevant content that's not only relevant in the year 2020, but will also be relevant as we go on along in our lives. Right.
One perspective is that this situation is a setup for us to practice some new skills, to learn about ourselves a little bit. Right. There's a lot to learn in difficulty.
That is where some of the most important work takes place. So here you are in a difficult situation and you get to choose your perspective. So thanks for being here with me.
Hey, before you go, I just want to tell you a few more ways that I can provide you with the content you might be looking for. If you're somebody who deals with overthinking, I actually have a free downloadable guide on my website about how to deal with overthinking. I also have a guide you can download that helps people who are thinking about exploring the therapy process.
And it helps go from tip to tail. Like, how do you hire a therapist? What kind of therapy do you need? And then just so you know, I'm all over my social media. I really enjoy providing good content on social media.
So I'm on Facebook and Instagram and it's Rebecca Hunter MSW. And then within Facebook, I offer a private group for people who are interested in kind of learning the nuts and bolts of how to recover from anxiety. So just a reminder, I have my podcast, but I'm also here for people in a lot of different ways and just trying to get a lot of information out there.
So thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening. This podcast is not meant to be a substitute for therapy, but I hope it was super helpful for you in any case.
I want to be part of some much needed change, but I'm going to need your help. Please subscribe and review the podcast, recommend it to your friends and family and share it on social media. We're living in the digital age, people.
Let's do some good where we can. Visit my website at RebeccaHunterMSW.com to have access to resources, videos and the show notes, if that interests you. And again, I'm so grateful you're listening to Take Out Therapy.
Thanks.
