Greetings to you podcast fans. This is the Therapy Natters podcast each week, myself, Richard Nicholls, along with fellow psychotherapist, Fiona Biddle here, answer your questions about mental health, personal development and all things therapy. Hello to you, Fiona, how are you on this slightly gray autumn day? Oh, it, is it gray and autumnal at your end? It is. Yes, but it's quite nice. I do quite like autumn. I like the sort of starting to begin to feel a little bit cozy time.
I do, but the only reason I'm a bit annoyed at the minute is because. I dunno whether to put my central heating on or not. Now, my brain is and my back pocket is telling me no, no, no, no. Just, just jump up and down on the spot rather than flush 50 quid down the toilet, or just set fire to the money. You know, you use that to keep you warm. What's the difference. And I've got a log burner. I don't have to put the central heating on. I've got a log burner. Could just throw some wood on it.
But some nights it's not cold enough to light it, but I want the coziness. I want that lovely feeling of, oh, this is nice. This is, this is cozy and comfy, but I don't want it to be too hot cuz it's not quite October yet, you know? And that that is very true. Isn't it? You can, you can find that it's freezing cold in the morning. And then you find the sun comes out and you're actually perfectly warm. And then there's what earth do you wear? Oh, that bit of, I dunno what to wear.
I've seen people in shorts and I'm like, what? But people are still in their shorts. So, we've had a number of questions thrown at us lately and we haven't answered, cause the queen had just Yeah, but that's, that'll on a bit of a tangent. that's in terms of the order of recording them, not the order of them going out, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we did. We did wait for the time management episode that was supposed to go out a couple of weeks ago and it went out last week instead.
it doesn't feel like we've actually answered anybody's questions for a little while. And we've got three that have been sent to us and they kind of work together. Don't they do. Shall I read one? And you read two or you read two and I read one. You read the first one. I'll read the second. We'll argue about the third. Okay. So the first one, actually that works cuz the first one. I can connect with perhaps more.
So the first one from anonymous from Portsmouth thanking us for our podcast, which is very nice. I've always found psychology absolutely fascinating. And your episodes are so informative. Additionally, I'm currently seeking counseling for some family issues and I feel your podcast is benefiting me alongside that. My question is about Racket Feelings, which you spoke about a few episodes ago.
It was great to hear this term, as I knew instantly what mine was and didn't realize there was a name for it. My Racket Feeling is crying. I cry when I'm sad, disappointed, angry, frustrated, happy, tired, et cetera. My question is how do I manage my racket feeling? So I don't start crying when it's completely unnecessary. I'm often too quick to react to situations and can regret it later. It's gotten better as I've gotten older, I'm 28. However, it does still happen.
And I wish I wasn't like that. I find it easy to rationalize potentially why I'm like that. As I have an absent parent who has always been absent, but I don't know how to change. Hmm. And I think that is common experience that people are gonna bring into therapy. Isn't it, that sort of experience Yeah. I mean, it's the element of, knowing what's happening to themselves and not being able to do it differently.
So yes, Yeah. They're, their unconscious says here's I'm gonna cry This is the feeling you're supposed to feel. Yeah. and for a lot of people, it makes them cry. It makes the brain go, oh, we're supposed to leak water out of our face for this, which is just a, well, an evolutionary. You know, pre-language display, it's been with us for millions of years and it isn't gonna go away. The more that we can accept that about ourselves and others, the less of a problem it's gonna be.
But that's a cultural Yeah, there is. I mean I'm 61, anonymous is 28. I still cry at anything. But I've got to the point where it's sometimes mildly annoying, but that's about as far as it goes. Most of the time, I'm just perfectly fine with it. There are occasions where I think, no, I really don't want it to happen at this point, but we'll talk about that more when we get to the others. Yeah. And there was a, another question from Sean, from Harrogate who says.
I've never been what you might call a confident person I'm in my forties now. And I've always felt very shy around people, even people I know. Well, the outside world has always seemed like it must be dangerous. And I can't wait to get back to the safety of being alone, even though it makes me lonely. My question for you is about how to move on from this. I don't want to spend another 40 years feeling that being alone is the only way to be safe. How can I boost my confidence?
Say Sean, again, such a common thing for people to bring into therapy. Isn't it. And he's acknowledging it. He's saying this isn't right. I shouldn't have to feel this way. The outside world shouldn't feel so dangerous to me, even people I know well, he says cuz he knows these people aren't a threat to me. No, one's gonna pull out a, a spade outta nowhere and clang me around the side of the head with it. I am safe, but his body says, no, I'm still gonna carry on as if you're not.
And that's yeah, that's awful. Isn't it. And the next one go on. And then Fiona, you can read, you can read the other anonymous Oh, thank you. Okay. So the third one, another anonymous. Do you tend to find that clients who had previously never experienced anxiety experience now after going through. Do they ever get over it and go back to normal. I've had two miscarriages and I thought I'd dealt with it.
But lately I've been experiencing the familiar feelings of heaviness on my chest tension in my shoulders and general anxiety, which I never experienced prior to my losses. I want to move forward, but struggling. I have started counseling again, which I think is needed. Maybe this is also part of the reason for the increased anxiety. I also cry, here we go again, in every session. Is this normal and will I get to the point where I'll stop crying.
Tired and fed up a bit, to be honest and want to feel more myself again? And this is, this is because since the trauma and now, it sounds like your body just squashed it all down. The initial traumas were that upsetting that the brain and body went nope. Not gonna have you look at that, not gonna have you look at that. And squashed it down, which is a defense mechanism that is supposed to help us, and it can help.
It can be that for some people, once they've experienced the trauma, the life difficulties, whatever it is, that's happened to them. Their unconscious mind takes over and says, all right, let's pop this in this box where it belongs, and then we're gonna get triggered if, you know, somebody in, in literature or fiction, or even in our real life has something similar and the brain goes, oh, I don't like this. And we can get upset a little bit. Coming to therapy is gonna open that box.
But what I would notice here, there's a reason why you went to therapy. Things weren't tickety boo. And in order for them to become tickety boo, you might need to open the box and have a look at what's inside even if you don't like it .Because your body's been holding onto the emotions causing other issues that has made you consider therapy, which is great. Thank you. Well done. That's hard as well, you know. Well, and keep going back.
Every session's making her cry and she says, but I know this is supposed to be good for me. So I'm gonna go back that, you know, that that takes guts well done. I think an answer to the question of, you know, is it always gonna be like this? No, no, it, it, it is gonna get easier. There's always gonna be something there. People say, oh, you'll just eventually you'll get over it. There are some things that aren't to be gotten over are they.
Some things are always gonna be a bit triggering and that is okay. There's something about this, person's experience, the first sentence, who's never experienced anxiety. I mean, you, you mentioned about keeping things in boxes. I'd like to say that her human ability to experience anxiety has been freed up. And, that it's a good thing. So obviously it's not a good thing to be overly anxious and worrying about every little thing.
But to be able to experience it at times when it's appropriate, that seems like a, a positive step. And Yeah. She's taking these steps towards understanding, being more like herself. Well, maybe the new self. Maybe that's a, a better place to be than the old one that wasn't able to experience it possibly. Hmm. I guess what what a lot of people need to do is turn the volume down on their anxiety. Cause obviously we don't wanna switch off the fight or flight response. That's flipping dangerous.
You know, then we that's when we walk in front of buses, cuz we didn't care about the sound of the horn. We're like, eh, whatever, it'll be okay. The flight flight response is good. It keeps us sharp. Keeps us focused, helps us to jump out of the way. But what we don't want cos what doesn't keep us sharp and focused. Is that heavy feeling that it brings. That feeling that says the outside world is dangerous or something is dangerous.
What we've gotta remember is that the brain being the way that it is it isn't trying to keep us happy. That's not what the brain does. That's not its purpose. If it has one, it's to try and keep us alive. It's to try and keep us safe. It's not built to try and make us happy. But our body and brain can get confused, can't it? And it confuses what is dangerous with what is safe and makes us fear things that are actually safe.
And when we've had something happen to us that's traumatic, talking about it, makes the brain go that's dangerous. Because it makes you feel whether it's lonely, isolated, or whether it's grief, whether it's pain of some other sort. Talking about it is something that needs to be feared. And that's, that's the culture we've got. The other week at the Queen's funeral.
I heard somebody, I think it was the BBC commentators talking about how wonderful it was that the, the mourners, the Royal family could walk and they, how good of them, they were not showing any emotion, very stoic, stiff, upper lip. I'm like, that's not a good thing. It's not a good thing to not cry when you are sad, but what's a horrible thing is pretending that you're not sad when you are. That's not healthy.
I don't recall hearing that particular comment, but it was on for a very, very long time. So , I wouldn't have switched on to every, every little thing. but I did see somebody, saying on Facebook, I think it was that they didn't see any emotion from the Royal family. Well, I think they weren't looking very closely. You could see it. I mean, there were I saw both, um, the Earl and Countess of Wessex I saw both of them dabbing their eyes. Oh, okay. I saw expressions on faces.
Most of them, certainly the King. Certainly Camilla. Certainly William. Harry did look pretty stoic, but he's probably got more reason than most to stay very stiff. Catherine, there were the princess of Wales. You could see it on her face. I think if you look. And look at them as human beings, as opposed to these automator walking behind and Hmm. all the rest, you could see it, it was there.
I think this also does tie into what both the anonymous people were saying about crying that if people are wanting to not cry. Either it's because they've run out of tissues or it's because in some sense that there's an embarrassment to it, or maybe that they would have to put their mascara back on. If we can move beyond that perception of what other people think of us when we're expressing emotion. That could be really helpful for both those anonymous people.
Both of them are wanting to not cry. And well, what is it about the crying that matters to them? And I'd like them to think about that. And maybe it's the feeling that brings on the crying that they're trying to get rid of Yes. If that is the case. But first anonymous was she's crying at everything. The second one is crying in session. But all three of them are recognising where they are now and wanting to be somewhere else.
Yeah. So. We have talked a lot in these episodes about building the awareness and perhaps we haven't talked enough about how to make a difference. I mean, that, that awareness is the key. You're not going to change if you haven't got that. Yeah. Once you've got the awareness of what's really going on for you. Once you can understand that. And I think accept it.
And we've talked about acceptance before, because I, I do think the fundamentals of change do actually come from accepting where we are first. I think if we can't accept, this is who I am. This is where I am. It's not easy to move into who you want to be and how you want to be. Because you're always gonna be fighting with your unconscious, your emotional brain. Your body is always gonna be feeling those feelings that you've been trying to squash and hide in the box. I completely agree.
I think without knowing and understanding where you are, how do you know how to get to where you want to go to. Just think a simple metaphor if you're standing wherever you're standing, but you don't know where it is and you want to get to London. How on earth are you gonna know how to get there? Yeah. You need to know where you are Yeah. There's no point putting an address into a sat nav if it doesn't know where you are in the first place.
Yes. And that was making me think of a metaphor that I've sometimes used. I dunno if you have as well, Richard, the idea of, if there's something wrong with your computer, that something, you know, it's not working very well or that there can be improvements. Then we do an update don't we, we update our software or we update our computer systems. And what do we do when we are updating our software? Well, we shut everything down. Delete the old program and reinstall a new one.
Why do we not do that, the same for ourselves. Well, we can basically, we can have that same process for ourselves if we think about, okay, what's our program? What program are we running? Let's change that program and update it to a more efficient version. Because there could be some apps running in the background, like the tread carefully app, the stay safe app. The don't be judged. Don't be criticized, be a people pleaser app.
You know, there's all these different things that can run in the background. And I think it is, and this is something that we do as hypno therapists. You know, we'll, we'll talk about having some sort of control room in the mind, a mind palace. Well go to it, have a look around. People look around in the little control room in the mind and they look for the switches and levers and all the things that need to be pulled and turned down or turned up and turned off and I go and play with it.
And it might be that out of habit as time goes on, if your mind tries to turn things back on again, cause it thinks, oh, that's probably the right way to get. Well, you go back there and you explain. Thank you brain. Thank you for turning that on. I understand why you did it, but no, I am safe. Everything's fine. And you can turn the volume down on it. it's a cheesy metaphor, but it works.
It really does help, but it means lying down, creating that nice, relaxed state of mind and going to That mental place. And for those that have never used mindfulness meditation or hypnosis or anything like that, and you'd like to have a go, I'll tell you what, there's lots of free resources out there. You don't have to pay a hundred pound a session and go and see somebody. You know, you can just find lots of free stuff on YouTube.
In fact, us and some of our colleagues and friends, we've got a YouTube channel purely for hypnotherapy things to listen to when you go to bed, Brookhouse hypnotherapy group. Have a look on YouTube link is in the show notes. Actually, I think I always put in, in the show notes to these episodes, there's things on there to practice I think sometimes you say you don't have to go for sessions. Going for some sessions, you can learn how to liaise with your own unconscious mind.
Which can be a great benefit. So thinking of the first Anonymous with the, the crying response. If she was a client of mine, I would be helping her negotiate with her unconscious to say, is there a better way we could respond? Because this is causing me some angst, some embarrassment I've run out of tissues. I don't want to replace my mascara, whatever it is and see if the unconscious can come up with a better way. And quite often the unconscious sort of says, oh, oops, sorry.
I thought that was quite the sensible thing I was doing. But now I recognize that it's not such a sensible thing that I'm doing, and maybe I won't do it so much. Mm. And those conversations. It does sound really quite, I don't know, simple. But it works. It does. You can have those conversations with your own mind. As long as the unconscious mind that runs all these things in the background knows that it's safe to do so.
And that can't happen without some sort of communication because our unconscious mind keeps things from us. I was thinking earlier when reading these questions that there's a lot of stuff that our brain does. I mean, yes, it's our body we feel a lot of these things, but it's still our brain, that's sending the signals to our body saying, okay, you can cry. Like crying in therapy. There are some people that only cry in the therapy room and they don't cry anywhere else.
Or as with this listener, they can go three years hardly crying about something that was traumatic. And then something hits them and they can't stop. Why am I feeling this now? It's been, it's been years. Why am I feeling this now? Because it's okay to, because your body has, has told you it's safe to feel this now and it wasn't safe before it was too overwhelming before to feel it. Now you can.
And I think of it a little bit, like how I can be busy with work, busy with clients or some sort of hyper focus with my podcast editing or whatever it is, and hours can go by. I'm like, Oh, I forgot to eat. I forgot to eat. I forgot that I need to eat and suddenly I'll be hungry and I've not been hungry for two hours. I haven't had anything to eat for four hours and I should have had lunch at 12. And it's now two o'clock and suddenly I'm hungry perhaps probably hungry 20 minutes ago.
But my body said it's okay. I won't tell you. I won't tell you cuz you're busy a bit like you can be driving around busy doing some stuff and your body says, you need the toilet, but I'm not gonna tell you because actually there isn't a toilet around here, I'll tell you when you get home and then you pull onto the drive and your body goes, huh? Time to go to the toilet. Flipping heck. Why am I desperate to go now? Oh, I, I, wasn't desperate to go 10 minutes ago.
Eh, it's safe to go now though, because your body has finally recognized it's safe to tell you stuff. And I do think anxiety does that to us sometimes. All sorts of issues and feelings that we can experience are because it is now safe to do so. And when somebody says, why am I bringing this up, now? This happened years ago. Why is it affecting me now? Because the time is right. That's why. And in episode 16, we talked about somebody whose question was about not being able to cry.
And we said similar things then, but sort of the other way around it. But somehow the, the mind is saying it's not the right thing for you to do so. Yeah. You can find the ways to do the right thing. We haven't, I feel given enough attention to Sean from Harrogate Mm. and his confidence, how to change that, I suppose. Well, yes, there's definitely a similarity in that the unconscious is saying you're safe at home.
So head back there whenever you can, and the same sort of conversations can be had as you were indicating earlier, you know, we don't, we don't want to be encouraging Sean's unconscious mind to think that the whole world is safe and you go out and do anything you like at any time, because that's not the real world. You need to keep that focus on being safe and looking after yourself. But he's obviously too far for comfort along a continuum of safety.
Again, it would be to have conversations, try things out, talk about it. So how was that then? Does that need to change that program that we had that said that X is dangerous or Y isn't safe. See and work on it between you, between the conscious and unconscious minds. When somebody says they want to boost their confidence, I'm always quite interested as to what that means to them. Confidence where? Confidence where? In a lot of people's cases, it's confidence in social situations. That's all.
It's not necessarily confidence in their own judgment or confidence in their abilities to play the piano. It's often not being judged, being in a particular environment where they can be themselves and feel comfortable that they can say the right thing for the people that are in the room with them. And I think sometimes people can try too hard in trying to be interesting. If you're in a group of four people and you are the one that says nothing all night, that's fine.
Thinking about my past and my anxieties of being a teenager in a, in a pub with a group of friends and everybody just goes in a round table, goes around the table. Telling a joke saying something interesting, something entertaining, something fun, it's like oh quick, it's gonna be my turn soon. Oh God. And being absolutely terrified because I've got this crap joke that they're probably not gonna laugh at anyway, that I'll stumble over my words.
And they won't laugh or they will laugh, but they'll laugh for the wrong reasons and, oh, I'm not quite sure if I ever completely overcame that. I might still have elements of that now. But the thing is I've got to the point in life where I don't care. Like me with the crying. And is it yes. I mean, I. couldn't have coped with that when I was teenager. If we'd had that sort of scenario of having to do that I, no, I would, I would've been terrible.
I mean, I had some anxieties from stuff from school which I resolved with some EMDR. So I don't get anxious when I have to speak in public now. Which I did because of, it's just the usual thing of asking a question in, in class and being laughed at, you know, most people have had that sort of experience, but it's, it's talking about the, the four and one being quiet. Some people will choose being quiet as their modus operandi for dealing with their lack of confidence.
Other people might talk ten to the dozen to compensate for it. That'll be me. I think for Sean and his worries that he's always gonna feel that the only way to be safe is to be alone. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but in order to, uh, in order to overcome that, you're gonna have to actually experience the thing that frightens you. And that might mean going out there and doing more things, but with an acceptance of yourself, I think.
And maybe that does need talking through with a therapist or talking through with somebody, even if it's with being more vulnerable with your friends who you do trust, I hope. To be able to say, you know what? Most of my life of my confidence has been rock bottom. I dunno if that was obvious and they go, yes, mate, I've known you for 20 years. Of course it's obvious. You think, I don't know you it's fine. Oh, okay. Well, I get quite anxious. Yeah, that's fine. It's it's fine, mate. Don't worry.
That weight off your shoulders to go. Oh, it's okay to be me then. Yep. And if it's not, if somebody's in a group of friends and it's not okay to be themselves, you need new friends. don't you? Which is a, which is difficult in, in and of itself. But that's at least, you know what you gotta do. I think you use the word trust there. And I, I was thinking back to one of our very early episodes where you talked about trust and about how it's not absolute.
Nobody can ever fully trust anybody because we're all human beings. so it's a leap of faith and it's a, it's a diving in having checked that there's water in the pool before you dive in, but then just going for it. And yes, I agree that Sean, with support, I think this is really what you need to do is to dive in. To prove your unconscious wrong. That it's okay. The world is okay.
And to focus on the things that are good out there, rather than the things that are bad out there, there are things that are bad. Of course there are, but there's an awful lot. That's good. Yeah. And people are part of that. And there are, and I know that because of the way we filter our news and the stories that we tell each other, there are a lot more good, honest and trusting people out there. Then there are dangerous folk who are out to hurt us.
There are a lot more overly selfless people that want to give. Compared to the overly selfish people and all they wanna do is take. And we don't see that cuz no one starts a conversation when they go, How you've been mate. And go, I'll tell you what my Cousin Brother, Sister-in-law, whatever has been such a whatever lately, and this is what they did and they've just taken advantage and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That those, those conversations will happen a lot.
But no one says, do you know what? Somebody's been really nice to me. Oh, okay. What have they done? Oh, held the door open for me. Oh, I dropped some money on the floor and somebody shouted me. Oh, I dropped my wallet or my card. I did that in supermarket the other day, some guy was on his phone, dropped his card out of his wallet, didn't realize. I thought he spotted it and he hadn't. I was looking at it, waiting for him. It's like, are you gonna pick that up? Are you gonna pick that up?
And he didn't, he walked away. I'm like, oh mate, mate you dropped your card. How easy would it have been in the supermarket, cause there was nobody about, there was nobody about, I could have picked up his card and tapped it for my shopping and then chucked it in the bin. Easy, effortless. I mean, I, knowing me I'd have probably got caught because I'm pretty useless doing naughty stuff, but there are good people out there, Yeah, but we don't talk about that.
And maybe we Jack dropped some cash in, in a supermarket just a couple of weeks ago. And somebody came running outta the supermarket saying, did you drop cash? And he checked his pocket. Yes, I did. Oh my I handed it in and he went back in they did check the CCTV to check that it was him because there was that gap of time. So they did see that it was him, but somebody came out and said, no, I've just handed that cash. Didn't have to do that did they?
To but the majority of people will, the majority of people are good. And I think that's where our, our, our unconscious needs to learn that yes, there are people in this world who for whatever reason are a bit shady and probably you do need to be careful about, and I'm sorry, that's the truth. But we can't let that cast a shadow over everybody else, cuz that's not fair on them. That's the way I look at it. So Fiona we've come to time.
Would you believe another episode down and we've been doing this. This is 28. Episode 28. I labeled it as 28. Wow. We've been doing this for ages. Well, 28 weeks we've been doing it than six months. It is. It really is. I hope everybody's been enjoying this. I mean, we, we certainly keep getting questions thrown at us so people, if they are tuning in, they're not then tuning out, which is good. But if you've got any advice or recommendations. Feel free to let us know.
Link is in the show notes to a form on my website, where you can fill in a submission. You can ask us a question that you want us to talk about, or you can tell us that you think that what we're doing is a load of rubbish. And if you wanna do that, that's fine. And if you wanna say good stuff, leave a review publicly, leave the good stuff publicly and just send us the crappy stuff. That'll be absolutely fine. We would prefer it that way round if that's okay.
I prefer that nobody thought that what we did was crappy, but that we can't, there's gonna be somebody at some point who thinks don't get on with these two he's far too enthusiastic. Just slow down, man. Any who. Time to go. Have a lovely week podcast fans and we'll see you again next time. See you next time. Bye.