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, thank you so much for tuning in today. I'm going to talk to you today about a relationship that you have in your life that you might not even know that you're having.
And that is basically your relationship with your brain. Specifically, this podcast episode today is going to focus on why it's really important that we have a relationship with our brain in which we get to know our brain, where we know the difference between us and our brain, right? Because have you ever heard that expression, you are not your thoughts? What that means is basically sometimes your brain thinks about things that aren't true for you. So you can kind of come up with some examples of how it does this.
It tells us we need things that we actually don't need. Right? And so if we didn't have a relationship with our brain and we didn't get to know it, we might not see that it was doing that. Does that make sense? So you want to have, you want to get to know your brain.
You just do. Because one of the things that I talk about a lot is our brains don't know the difference between the past and the present. And so sometimes our brains react badly to present day situations based on something that might have happened a long time ago.
Because the brain is just a very simple computer, right? So it doesn't really, it doesn't really understand that maybe, right, just because your husband is driving crazy. Anyone that knows me knows that John loves to drive crazy. He's good at it.
He's well trained, but he does drive crazy. And my brain kind of sometimes makes me act or like, you know, makes me act. We say that, don't we? Right? But sometimes my brain reacts differently than I know.
So I, my parents were crazy drivers when I was a kid. And so I think that that's why I react to John's driving. But sometimes my reaction is, yeah, way out of line.
So and he knows, I'm like, it's not about you. You know, I didn't mean to react that way. But generally, like, because I know my brain and its personality, and I've taken the time to do that, then I can sort of be better informed to either not have silly, outrageous behavior.
Or another option is that I can have the behavior, and then be able to go back and be like, oh, that's what happened, right, and apologize appropriately. So you want to get to know your brain, because it keeps us safe. You guys, that's the job of the brain.
The brain keeps us safe. Right? And so of course, when things that happen, feel like things that were unsafe in the past, of course, your brain's gonna have a lot of thoughts about that. Right? And then also, sometimes your brain doesn't really understand the difference between physical danger and emotional danger.
Yeah, noodle on that for a second, if you haven't heard me say it, right? Because what that means is, love is just as risky as walking in front of a Mack truck, right? So you have to kind of get to know your brain, so that you can understand that sometimes it reacts strongly to difficult emotions, and kicks up a whole bunch of thinking. Right? That, like you, you know, that stuff's bullshit. But sometimes we forget, like, if we don't really know our mind very well, our brain, then we can like, think that that's how we feel.
Right? So the brain's just keeping you safe. Right? And I said something about love, and, you know, love is really vulnerable sometimes. Right? And so vulnerability, you guys, if you if you're Brene Brown fans, like you know exactly what I'm talking about.
And if you're not, I'll put Brene Brown in the show notes. Vulnerability is a very dangerous emotion that we avoid. We do not like being vulnerable in our brain, because it thinks that vulnerability is unsafe.
It will tell us all kinds of things in order for us not to be vulnerable, which is why sometimes relationships are so flippin' hard, right? Because our brain has a lot to say about love. So that's just one idea about why it's a good idea to get to know your brain, so that you can see that Mack truck coming from a mile away and choose love instead. Right? And know, like, it's okay.
It's not unsafe. It's a little uncomfortable sometimes. Right? Just a little uncomfortable.
So once you start to get to know the way your brain works, you know, this is where change begins. You start to be able to, like, really know about your behavior and see it. You can, you can, you know, go down the same path you always go down, but then like you have this gift of reflection.
Right? You can kind of go, what just happened there? You know, a benefit of just like having a relationship with your brain and seeing it's more separately than you and like getting to know it, right? And how it thinks and what its ideas about the past are, right? And how it might be keeping us safe when we're not unsafe. Like we can really start to connect with people. And that I think is one of the biggies.
And that's why I talk about love, right? Connection and like with our kids, because, you know, I, I do all kinds of stuff. I have done so many things through the years based on a lack of insight, which is another thing that we get out of getting to know our brain is like this beautiful insight about why the hell we do what we do. So most people don't take the time to get to know their brain because they just don't think of their brain as a separate entity.
Right? But again, like your brain is, it's just an organ of your body. The brain thinks like the heartbeat. And that is something you will hear me say again and again.
It does it all the time. Right? And even here's something when there's nothing going on, your brain kicks into high gear. And you know, this is true, especially when it thinks that something bad is going on, right? Something unsafe, emotional or physical.
It thinks it's in the past and it's not. You're in the present, right? And so that's why we talk about the present moment, that just being in the present moment will help to train your brain a little bit from like flipping out all the time. Right? Yeah.
So get to know your brain. So, you know, I recommend a few ways to do this. One way to do it is like just have a little sitting practice.
We don't have to call it meditation. We can just call it like zone out time. We can call it mindfulness.
We can call it sitting on your ass, relaxing for a second and breathing. Right? I don't care what you call it, but just sitting for five minutes, the very least five minutes a day, and just listening to your thoughts without engaging with them, without, you know, just like taking them down the road. But as soon as you notice that there's thoughts, just notice them, right? You just see them.
Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm thinking about the kids again.
Or like for me, one of the things that I notice is like patterns, right? So that's another way of kind of getting to know your brain is to start to notice patterns, right? And so just sitting and listening to your thinking for five minutes a day, or just trying to do a sitting and breathing exercise, meaning just focus on your breath. Notice when thoughts start coming in and then just go back to breath, right? I teach all this in my course. But yeah, so you have to notice the patterns that your brain follows.
Like, let me just tell you something about my brain. You guys know, I grew up in a really chaotic environment. So here's something.
My brain likes to know what's going to happen next, which is a real problem, you guys, because I have no idea most of the time what's going to happen next. And me, I, Rebecca, I don't actually need to know what's going to happen next. I actually feel like it'll be all right.
Like, I can deal with it. But my brain, when I let it go and go and go, and I start to look at it and notice it and get to know it, it thinks about what's going to happen next quite a bit, right? And so this is like a place where you just get to know your brain. So we're not going to be mean.
Like, just be nice. You're just getting to know your brain. It's not important what you think of it, right? I could be so annoyed that I need to know what's going to happen next.
But instead, I'm like, oh, yeah, OK. All right. I see that.
I see it. It's not shocking, right? And one more way to just start to get to know your brain is to learn about your past experiences and how they've affected your mind, your brain, right? OK, so what I mean by this is like, for example, a lot of us in my generation, I'm 40-ish. All right.
I'm 46. We grew up with parents who had addiction issues, right? And so just learning about addiction issues, like being the child of an alcoholic, for example, right, there's a few books out about that, just so you know. Just feel free to search on Amazon.
I recommend Adult Child of Alcoholics, right? It's a good one. It's a good one. There's all kinds of people doing amazing work.
They're teaching us about our past experiences and how our mind was affected by that, how our brain grew in that, right? And so there's tons of books out, too, on like childhood trauma. And I'll put a couple in my show notes that I recommend. Right.
And so, yes, learn about your past and its effects on your brain, and then you'll have spent some time to get to know your brain. Right. And so I will tell you that this work is really important because people that have a relationship with their brain and they understand it as a separate entity and they understand how their brain grew and what its job is, right, these people are emotionally healthy.
I have to tell you, right, they can say things like, oh, that's just something I think every now and again. Right. But I don't act on it.
Yeah. And so it's a good idea, right, to just understand that the more we get to know our brain, the more we understand who we are. Right.
And so, OK, so here's an example. My brain is supposed to keep me safe. OK.
And by the way, it does an excellent job. I might have the nickname of Safety Sally. Right.
And that's not like my brain's running the show, but I definitely choose safety, you guys. So whenever my children say to me, like, we are going to go swimming in the river, the first thing I think is, oh, my gosh, I'll never see them again. Right.
Because I have some very irrational fears about water. And by the way, they're good swimmers because I may go to all these swimming lessons as a way to reassure myself that I will prepare them to swim. Yes.
And so they're great swimmers and they could totally go to the river. But my brain is like, oh, no. Right.
And so the way that this work helps is that I show up in my life in that moment and go, that's just a thought. It'll be OK. They're prepared.
They have to go and live their lives. I've got to let them live their lives. Right.
That's my value. I don't let my brain run my life and you shouldn't either. And as a way of not doing that, I would encourage you, my friend, to just get to know your brain.
Right. And hopefully I have given you a bunch of ways that you can start to do that. I'd love to know what you think.
Be in touch. Thanks. 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 Take Out Therapy.
