Coming Back Differently
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Rebecca Hunter, MSW: [00:00:00] Thanks for listening to Take Out Therapy, where you can improve your mental health, emotional stability, and life skills in less than 20 minutes a week. Simple, straightforward, authentic advice and education, right from a private practice therapist and anxiety expert. I'm Rebecca Hunter, and this is better mental health, delivered.
Visit TakeOutTherapy. com for lots more resources to help you thrive.
Well, hello there, friend. Guess what? I'm back. If you've been wondering where the heck did Rebecca go, I'm going to tell you all about it in today's episode. And at the same time. If you're feeling kind of stuck or burned out or bored, or just a little restless in any area of your life. I'm also going to give you some tips and techniques to do a full stop reboot.
Okay. So [00:01:00] whether it's in work relationship may be parenting because that happens. A break is sometimes the best thing that we can do to get that mojo back. And I'm happy to announce my mojo has returned and I as well am returning to my takeout therapy project. And to helping you. Every single week, keep your mental health health in the top of mind in your priority list as something that is important to maintain.
So here's what we're going to talk about today. If you don't feel yourself in a thing that you are engaged in, in your life. You can regroup and come back in differently. That's what I'm doing with this project. I'm coming back differently. Because here's the deal, separation, breeds, [00:02:00] inspiration and new ideas, new ways of thinking about things.
So what do I mean by that? Well, it's like, you have to use your imagination here. I'm a very visual person. So imagine a bowl of corn flakes with one cherry right in the middle. You know, We're going to pretend that you're that Sherry my friend. And there you are floating in a bowl of cornflakes and all you can see is the corn flakes.
Right. You can't see. Outside the bowl. You can't see. Um, much beyond whatever cornflakes you're near. However, when that Sherry gets lifted up. It can look down into the bowl and go, uh, Oh, I see what's going on. A little separation gives perspective, right? Like the cherry doesn't know, even what's outside the [00:03:00] bowl. And so sometimes this helps me to remember. That like when we're in it, we don't understand really what's happening. But when we're not feeling it. That's something to listen to. So when we can take a break and walk away for a while and come back in fresh. We can be more aligned.
We can be more intentional and frankly, we can do a better job at whatever the project is, whether it's relationship or something at work, or again, maybe with a parenting thing. Okay. So today I want to help you examine where you might be able to step away and how to do it effectively. So here's the deal.
Here's what happened with me. Is that if you've been listening to the podcast for any length of time, you know, that I recently moved to the Southwest from the Pacific Northwest. So that's a huge transition. [00:04:00] We moved in February and in April, I just wasn't feeling it. The thing is, is. I'm the kind of person that if I do the same thing over and over for long enough, I get so bored. And what also happened during that time is that I lost my creative space.
I used to have this really cool hooch out in the back of my house where only I could go. It was my private space. It was my studio, honestly, for me to do my meditation, my personal growth work. And work on the takeout therapy project. And when we moved, I lost my space. Now I have this great, beautiful new office space, but I just wasn't moved into it yet.
I hadn't really. Um, adjusted to the change very well. And the other thing was is that when you move. It's like everything's new. Right. And taking the [00:05:00] time outside of my private practice to work on the podcast and the other takeout therapy projects just got put on the back burner, to be honest, because I wanted to explore my new life.
I wanted to meet some people and go on some hikes and figure out where I am. And on this earth. You know, get comfortable in my new surroundings, I started feeling really lonely and disconnected from my takeout therapy project. So. That to me is the first sign that I needed to take a break and just reassess. And what's funny is I'm sure you've done this as well.
You're like, you know, I set the timeline, so I was like, okay, I'll stop in April for about a month. Well, may came along and I was like, man. Just not feeling it yet. And then June came along and I was like, man, not yet again. So here's the deal when we set these arbitrary timelines and we, um, think like, I'll be ready by then.
[00:06:00] That's not how life works, friend. You'll be ready when you're ready. So when we talk about making a separation from things that just aren't feeling good, It's really important to remember that your body and your soul and your emotion will tell you when it's time to return, not some arbitrary timeline.
So. Um, I took my break. And it was really long. I stopped in April and now I'm recording this on October 1st. So that's a pretty long break. It's the second long break that I've taken from this project. And those breaks have only benefited me my life and the takeout therapy project. So I'm happy to be back and it's important. For me to kind of reflect for you what my process was.
So that starting out, we're both on the same page and maybe I can help you if you're relating to me, like, yeah, [00:07:00] Rebecca, I've got this one thing going on in my life and I'm just not feeling it. I don't feel like it's jiving with me. I hear you friend. I'm going to give you a little bit of a strategy and a way to kind of make that separation that you need. To make in order to get going again in a constructive manner, because here's the thing. When we start to go down burnout alley. It's you've got to listen.
It's time to reassess because if you ignore the signs that burnout is happening, then you're heading straight for burnout. Hell. And burnout, burnout, burnout, like deep burnout is really hard to get out of. Right. So we have to listen to ourself when those little inklings show up, those are fine. Those are truths and those have to be listened to. Time and distance helps my friend.
I also took a month off during this [00:08:00] time and I traveled, we traveled all around Portugal. It was super, super fun. And low and behold, my inspiration returned and my desire to begin again with this project, but I'll tell ya. I'm coming back differently. I don't know exactly what that's going to look like right now.
I'm going to stay with short form 20 minute episodes because frankly, I don't really like to talk for much longer than. Than that, but I'm going to start inviting some experts to come on and do short little lessons for both you and me so that we can learn together some new skills, some new techniques. And so that I can have some compelling conversations with cool people. So if you're one of those cool people. Reach out to me.
It's funny over the years, lots and lots of people have reached out to me to come on the podcast. But I've never once had a guest because it's not an interview style podcast. So I either just [00:09:00] don't answer the email because it doesn't really pertain to me. Uh, or I answer like, Hey, that's not really how my podcast is.
So if you're one of those people, it's time to resubmit your fabulous idea for a very short lesson on the podcast. And I think that'll be fun for both of us, no interviews. I do enough of that in my day job, you know? I'm a therapist. So I spend all day. Um, during the week, talking with people and interviewing people, that's part of my job.
And with this project, that's not what I'm looking to do. I'm looking to do quick bites of little bit of education to help you get through the difficult and rough spots in your life. So that will continue. So, let me talk to about this idea about getting space, doing a stop, getting, pulling that cherry out of the bullet cornflakes and [00:10:00] looking over the rim of the bowl. And turning around and looking. Down into the bowl. To see, like what is going on here?
Okay. So the first thing you want to do is you want to separate from other people's needs. Their input and their advice. Here's the deal. No one knows what you need, but you. And then the second thing you want to do is get creative about what a break looks like and how to disconnect. Because you know, when I talk about this with people, oftentimes they say, there's no way I can take a break.
I'm a single mother. There's no way I could take a break from my job. I need to make money. There's no way I can go out of town. I can't afford it. And those things are all true and super understandable. And there is possibility to take a break anyway. And so generate some ideas on [00:11:00] paper about how it might be possible for you to disconnect whether it's taken afternoon off and go do something you don't ever do or. I refuse to think about or ruminate on a certain subject.
Right. Take a break from people that are driving you bananas. Um, you know, it's okay. Like not to call back sometimes. It's okay to say, Hey, I'm super busy and I'm, and I'm not going to be in touch for a while. That's okay. Friends. Like you have the right to separate out. So get creative about how that needs to look for you.
And the other thing is like, if you're burned out in a certain area that you could possibly outsource or get some help with, that is a good way to start to disconnect. You know, disconnection can happen either. Um, [00:12:00] literally or kind of, um, figuratively meaning disconnection can mean you literally leave a situation for awhile, whether it's a friendship or relationship, or you take a little leave from your job. But you can also kind of disconnect in a lot of different ways as to. Emotional disconnection is a good example of this meaning like. I'm not going to really put so much energy. Into my work right now, right?
Like I'm going to take a step back and only do what's required of me for a while and see how that feels. Or I'm not going to engage with some BS that I've been engaging with for awhile. And I'm going to see like, how that feels. So there's both emotional separation and physical separation that you could consider as some of your ideas.
And then the next thing is like, [00:13:00] You got to learn to let go. And this is where I see people really stumble because letting go is very, very hard. Letting go means you are refusing to take part or engage in a situation or a dynamic or whatever it is. That's driving you up a wall. Right. You have to let go in order to get separation.
That is super important. So while I've been. Been off from the podcast all this time. I haven't been thinking about the podcast I was taking time away. So when the thought of like, oh, I should get back to doing that came in. I would just quickly check in like, should I, is that a thing? And then if the answer was, no, I would move on.
I wasn't like sitting there ruminating about when I'm going to do this, when I'm going to do that. No, I took a full-stop break [00:14:00] and I allowed myself. And enough time and space to like figure out how I wanted to come back in differently and just kind of feel my way through that. Which is kind of vague.
Isn't it? To feel our way through things. But what I mean is when, you know, you know, And when you don't know, then that's the answer. It's pretty fricking simple, in my opinion. Learn to let go. One easy way to do that is become absorbed in the present moment that you're choosing become absorbed in your life.
Right? Separate out from the content of whatever the problem is. Meaning for example, if you have a friendship that you're kind of like, man, I just, I feel like we're not a good fit for each other anymore. We've both changed. I kind of want to get some distance and see how that feels. Then you'll need to find something else to [00:15:00] occupy yourself.
If that relationship was taking up a lot of emotional and logistical space, you'll need to learn to absorb yourself differently in your life. Right. We have so much content in our life. And what I mean by that is the situation. So many situations. Right. But what we really want to do is separate out from the context, meaning the underlying situation.
Like, why am I. Feeling this way. Why am I continuing a pattern in a relationship? Right. Um, you want to kind of look a little bit deeper than, well, she said this and I said this, and then this happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But what's really going on underneath the surface. It's very important to look for patterns.
Okay. [00:16:00] Patterns that are not working for you patterns that don't feel right to you. Patterns. I am a pattern expert. That is what therapists do we help people identify patterns in their life. So that they can change patterns in their life. And my friend, there's a lot of ways that you can do that for yourself.
So one of the things I recommend is that if you have a situation they're kind of relating on this in this episode about. Then look for a pattern. And write, write, write about it. Here's the thing. It's one thing to think about things, but. Thanks. Isn't super constructive, is it? We can think about things and think about things and think about things and nothing ever really changes.
But when we start to put pen to paper, oh my gosh, the situation becomes reflected on that [00:17:00] piece of paper and we can see what's happening. So I really, really encourage people to write it's evidence-based practice. What does that mean? Well, they've researched the impact of writing. Journaling as we call it, which people, as soon as I say, journaling, they run for the door. But that's what I'm talking about.
Friend journaling is a therapeutic approach that works. It gives our brain a break. It lets us connect emotionally to situations and it gives us a different angle on things. So grab your pen and grab your paper. Take a little disconnection, separate out from the situation. Be willing to let go of it. Look for patterns and do some writing. That's my strategy.
That's been my strategy for the past few months, every now and again, I've given myself some time to just like ponder it. Right. But not all the time and not [00:18:00] unstructured, boundaried pondering. And the thing is, is that. You'll know when it's right. And don't begin again until you are damn good and ready because the thing is, is you'll just go back in exactly the same, right? Make some commitments to yourself about what you're going to do differently.
Many people approach a project or a problem from an other perspective, meaning this person did this and he said this and my boss is like this. Here's what I recommend. Start your sentences with I, because that's going to get you somewhere. You are unique and special and amazing human being. And you need your life to be in alignment with who you are.
And if it does it feel like that. Then then you've got to step back and figure out what it is that you [00:19:00] need in order for things to feel better, more resonant. Right. So don't begin again until you're really, really ready. So here I am beginning again. Welcome back to take out therapy. Well, I will be coming to weekly with more lessons.
I have three solid pages of future topics. I'm going to talk about, um, a lot of different things in the next few months. That I've been pondering all this time. So lucky you, you always get to learn from my life lessons. Okay. So hopefully this episode kind of gives you some ideas about when you feel a little bit of burnout in any area coming on.
It's okay. To just step to the side, because here's the deal. If you don't it'll twist into a mental health issue. I was full blown burnout possibly. And we do not like that. We do [00:20:00] not want that. Life, it's kind of like a video game. Only you only get one life, right? You don't get three lives at this thing.
You get one and video games are kind of fun. And so you could have. More playful approach with things which might really help you actually in the project of life. And at 51 years old, after working my ass off to get to where I am. If it's not fun. I'm not doing it. And I wish that for you too. But, you know, I know that life is hard and sometimes we can't take a break from things like trauma, right?
Like if we're going in the middle of a really bad situation, we can't just bail out on that. So, what we can do is be kind to ourself and give ourselves grace and take a break from thinking about it all the time. If [00:21:00] possible. So what I wish for you. Is that you could imagine how you want your life to be what you want. And in teeny, tiny ways every single day, just keep walking towards it.
Okay. And I will be here to support you in that. And honestly, if you need any help, regrouping, get in touch with me. This is what I do for a living friend. And I'm here for you too. Okay. I missed you. I hope you'll stick around if you're not subscribed to the podcast, push that button because then you'll get a notification every time I upload a new episode.
And if you know any really cool people who might want to come on the podcast for five to 10 minutes and talk about what they know about that will help us both get them in touch with me. Email [email protected]. Okay, I'll see you soon. Bye.
[00:22:00] Thanks so much for joining me today. To support this free resource, subscribe, review, and pass an episode along to a friend in need. And always, please get the level of support that you need for your situation. Want a full session? Just reach out. I'm here to help. Head to TakeOutTherapy. com for lots more resources and to join my community.
This is better mental health delivered.
