Hi there, you're listening to Take Out Therapy, short lessons in popular topics about emotional health. This is your host, Rebecca Hunter. I'm a therapist by day, and we don't really tell people what to do.
We listen, we validate, and we focus on helping people reach their goals. But in the next few minutes, I'm just going to be straight up with you about what to do in certain situations, because sometimes we need some damn instructions. Clearly, this is not a substitute for therapy, but I guarantee you it might help.
Listen up. And if you have little people in the room, throw on some headphones, because I swear, okay? I'm grateful you're here. Thanks.
Hi there. Thanks for tuning in today. I don't know how this is going to go.
We're going to have a really serious conversation today, and I don't know if you're going to like it. That's all I'm going to say. I'm going to try to be gentle when I tell you something.
And it is that no one needs your advice. Yes, this is what my episode is about today. No one needs your advice, my friend.
No one needs my advice, frankly. No one needs advice. What people need in relationships or just in life in general is they need to be seen.
They need to be just listened to, is what I mean by seen. Like literally, like I kind of see you, you know? They need to be seen in what they're in and just kind of held there, validated. Right? So let's talk about this.
Let's totally dig into this. I really, one of the reasons that I really want to talk about this is that it comes up so much in the therapy office. And just as an aside, I want to talk just for a hot second about therapy and advice.
Therapists, our job is not to give people advice. And so if you're seeing a therapist and they're kind of somebody who gives a lot of advice, I would say that's a conversation that needs to happen with your therapist, that you feel that way, and also consider getting a different therapist. I'll just say that.
A therapist's job is to actually just hold space, like just see you, right, in what you consider to be a problem, which like, by the way, your therapist might not think what you think is a problem and that's not their business, right? Because the job that they're doing for you is to help you see what you're in, right? And so, yeah, just like basically a therapist's job is to help you figure out what your values are and whether your actions are in line with your values. And so we couldn't possibly do that through giving you advice because I have my own values, right? I don't necessarily have the same values as everybody else, or I wouldn't like, I'm not in the same place in my personal growth process, right? Or I deal with things totally differently based on like my own perspective. And so in the therapy office, we don't give advice, we actually help people find the answers to their own answers to their own perceived problems, basically, right? But I see it come up a lot that people are really distressed by other people giving them advice.
Or the other thing is that they're very stressed because someone isn't following their advice, right? And I just want, I have to just say, as an aside, I see a lot of men and I always have in my practice, I very much enjoy working with the male experience of this shit show, right? And what I want to say is like, men have a role just like women have a role, right? We all have our roles. And one of the parts of men's roles is to problem solve, to give advice, basically to tell specifically women what they ought to do, right? And I don't think like at this point in our culture, we have to acknowledge we're not totally along gender stereotypes anymore, right? But as a whole, this does exist still. And men are all stressed out about it.
And women are all stressed out about it. And it comes up a lot, right? And so I release the man, I release the man from having to problem solve. So and I'll do that throughout this episode in a very specific way.
And I release the woman as well. It's really important for us to talk about why we we ought to not be getting our advice. Because we need to just like do a quick moment where we just put ourselves in our shoes at a time when we were really struggling, and we reached out to somebody, and we just needed them to be there for us.
And when we walked away from that transaction, or that engagement, right, that conversation, it didn't feel good. It didn't feel like they heard us or could see us in what we're in. But rather, it felt like a, like, this is what you should do.
And that didn't feel good either. Right. And so in order to talk about kind of why we ought not to be giving so much advice, we have to put ourselves in a situation in which we we felt what that feels like, because I'll just say like, it's kind of insulting.
Right? It's, it's super frustrating to feel like, wait a second, like, I'm in this situation, right? And I'm in it, and I'm willing to be in it. But like, can you be in it with me? Right? Like, I think that when we give each other advice, it's kind of insulting, because it's like, I don't need your advice. I just need you to listen.
Right? And advice feels very judgmental, right? It feels like, like, for me personally, and I don't know, maybe you can relate to this, maybe you can't. To me, it feels like this statement about like, oh, you don't do not think I can solve my own problems. And I hear this a lot from like, mothers or fathers around parenting, right? We tell each other how to parent.
We don't see each other as our separate selves, and doing things our own way. Right? And so we're just like bossing each other around all the time. I totally do that too, by the way, I've done that, like all this whole time, I stopped, I tried, like, only became intentional about it, maybe like, when the boys got to middle school.
Like, it's hard, right? It's really hard, because it's really uncomfortable to watch somebody else doing something in a way that we wouldn't do it. Right? But when we give people advice, it's really invalidating it, like doesn't allow them just to be in what they're in. And so it feels like to receive advice, it feels really disconnecting.
And actually to give advice, sometimes don't you give somebody advice? And you're like, well, why aren't they listening to me? Right? It's like really disconnecting, it's kind of lonely, gets lonely there. Right? So and it's, you know, again, it's really invalidating. So it doesn't just like see somebody for what they're in, which feels kind of invisible, if you don't know what validation is, I did a previous podcast episode on that.
So check it out. And I actually teach you how to be how to validate other people. You know, we give each other advice, I just want to acknowledge out of the kindness of our hearts, we really want to help each other.
And advice is one way that we feel that we can do that. As misguided as that actually is, it's okay. You know, a lot of times I asked for advice, right? Of course, I'm like, just give me a different perspective.
Tell me what you think. But if I don't ask for advice, or if somebody didn't ask for my advice, you know, maybe I'm like, really want to help or maybe, right, we're triggered. Maybe this situation that this person that we care about in reminds us of a situation that was very, very painful for us.
And so we want to help them just get out of it, like, a quicker, easier, better, right than we did. So we're, we want to help them because it's something in us that hasn't quite gotten healed. Right? It still bothers us.
So we really want to like fix it. And all the better to fix it in somebody else, then fix it in ourselves, hello, of course, it's easier, way easier, right? Rather than do our own work, we just sort of like, ask others to do it for us. So and then we also like, we give a lot of advice, because we don't know what else to do to like help.
Right? So we want to help. And we may get like, kind of triggered. And that's why we give advice.
But we also it's like, we don't we don't know what to do. And so it's important to understand that we don't have to do anything, we can just, we can just sit with somebody, we can just see them when they're having a problem. So let's talk about kind of ways to practice giving less advice.
And then we can all like go and try that. And then you guys can tell me what you think. But I think in order not to give advice, you have to be really intentional about that, that like, you know, when I get together with somebody, I think to myself, okay, like, you don't need to give any advice about this thing that they're struggling with, I kind of put it in my intention before I walk in.
And then I'm just really careful to just listen. Just listen. Right? It doesn't matter what I think.
It doesn't matter if I already know the solution that I would use if I were them and boy, you ought to have it. Just listen, look at somebody, right? Just pause, be able to just pause and just like reflect, right? Another way to practice giving less advice is to reflect to ask questions. Like, how much that how is that for you? Right? Or, you know, just saying, that must be really difficult.
What are you thinking you might do? Right? Or are you looking? Are you looking for solutions? And then, you know, just ask questions. Curiosity is so, so valuable in relationships, you guys, curiosity. It's a good thing.
I'm just telling you. And then, you know, another way to practice giving less advice is just to practice validation. And then you'll be so caught up in your practice of validation that you will not get advice.
Because there's no part of validation that includes advice giving. I'm just saying, right? And so if you want to learn again, if you want to learn about validation, go back to that episode. But it's like having empathy for somebody, getting in there kind of emotional, being willing to kind of get in their emotional space a little bit, like, are they grieving? Can you can you go there? Can you help reflect, right? What's going on? And it sounds like you're really struggling.
That's reflection. That's all reflection is. Just saying, not that hard.
And then like, validation is really empowering. Because it helps people just solve their own problem, like you're not problem solving for them. Right? So because when we give advice to people, we are stepping out in front of them to solve their problems.
Why are we doing that? What is that about for us? Right? You know, this comes up so much in my office. And it's something that married people really struggle with, I think, you know, and I hope that, you know, we can all just kind of be released from this idea that we have to problem solve for each other. We don't have to do that.
Like, it's okay, I release you from coming up with the solution. You know, pivot, pivot to validation, pivot to being curious, pivot to connection. How do we really connect with each other? How do we really feel connected? Well, gosh, we just feel like people can be with us and whatever we're in and it's all good man.
That's that is connection for me. It's very disconnecting for me personally, to be given advice. It feels, it just doesn't feel good.
Right? And that's not all the time because sometimes, frankly, I could use a little advice because I don't know what the hell I'm doing any more than anybody else does. But I promise I'll ask for it. How about that as an agreement? If I need any advice, I promise to ask for it.
You know, as I'm kind of ending the episode, I want to talk about grief. Because I think that people in grief are really in a unique type of suffering. And God, if you've ever been in grief, you guys, it just bitch slaps you upside the head.
Like Hello, I'm here today. And you kind of just like for me, and what I know, just kind of talking about it with people, it puts you fetal position. You know, you're just like, I can't do today.
It's really difficult. Right? It just kind of like slaps you. And so it's, it's really important to know when we're having relationship with people in grief.
That's a really important place not to give advice. I'm just saying, right? Because to say to somebody in grief, it's time to move on. Or, you know, what you really ought to do is join that knitting group down at the blah, blah, blah.
Sometimes what people in grief need is just to be where they are, because it's just that funny emotion that does this wave thing. Sometimes it goes away, and then it comes back. Right? And if you can ever think of somebody giving you advice when you were in grief, this is like a primary example of why we should really try not to do this so much, because it's hurtful.
It hurts relationships, it hurts people's feelings. And it hurts us too, because we feel so helpless, right? How we can help is just hold space, right? Just hold space. And honestly, if you can't just be there and validate that's just driving you crazy, then friend, just take a step back.
It's okay. Just take a little step back for a minute, and regroup, and get your head around what's happening for you, and then come on back into the relationship if you want to. So anyways, I hope this is helpful.
I hope I didn't hurt your feelings. I feel like I'd give plenty of advice to my, ask my husband, ask either one of my boys, although, you know, again, like, let's all just walk in with intention. To every interaction, let's be open to the idea that it's not our job to problem solve.
Okay. Love you guys for listening. Hey, I appreciate all the texts, and phone calls, and emails about how much you guys are like in the podcast.
And thank you again, Alex, for your view on the big place where people listen to podcasts. I don't know. I can't think of the word.
iTunes? Anyway, I appreciate you guys. Thanks for showing up. Thanks so much for listening.
This podcast is meant to be helpful, to help you learn some stuff and grow as a person, And to help me fulfill my mission of opening the doors to the therapy office a bit wider so we can get rid of some of this stigma. Life is challenging and we need all the help we can get. This podcast is not meant to be a substitute for therapy, but I do recommend getting some professional guidance whether you're struggling or not.
It can be a great way to learn about yourself so you can navigate life a bit easier. I'm really excited to be a part of some change. If you like what you heard today, head on over to my website at rebeccahuntermsw.com or go ahead and follow me on social media.
I'm Rebecca Hunter and this is Takeout Therapy.
