Hey, everybody here we are again. If you've ever wondered what therapists get up to when they're not with their clients, this is gonna give you some insight. It turns out my wife is right. All we do is just carry on talking about mental health and what it is to be human and just not be paid for it. I'm Richard Nicholls and I'm joined by fellow psychotherapist, Fiona Biddle. Here we are again, Fiona. Now I've been podcasting for over a decade now, but you're quite new to this.
This isn't something you've done really before is. it
It isn't but I have nattered. As you say, we do talk about these things. But not everybody's that keen on joining in are they?
I feel ever so sorry for my wife sometimes because, I mean the last time we all got together and my wife was with us, she was the only person in the room who wasn't a therapist and bless her. She had to sit and watch us all just so passionately and enthusiastically talk about mental health and the NHS and what we can do to improve things and education and all those different things. And she just smiled sweetly and sort of lets us get on with it and then drove me home.
she said, I felt like a taxi driver. Yeah. Sorry about that. But I think when you find your passion. It's hard to switch it off. Isn't it? When you, when you really know what makes you tick and you know where your values are, then you act accordingly and you live a life that fits you. That works for me.
Yes, I completely agree, but I do think it is also worth contemplating what other aspects of life there are. Because this is our work and what's that phrase
Which phrase
the Mars advert
work, rest and play.
work, rest, and play.
Yep.
And we need to do all of those things.
We do. And I always wanna make sure that the things that I do, I mean, you can't always live your life like this, cuz you know, other people get in the way and that's fine. But if all of those things have a common theme or at least the things that you enjoy in the work in the rest, in the play, have a common theme. And they fulfill you, then you are living an authentic life.
That was exactly the word I was just coming to being authentic. Yes. But they don't have to have a common theme because we are multifaceted creatures are we not? So it's okay if they don't apparently I'm trying to think of something that I do. That's not particularly related to therapy. Well, I was actually just saying to somebody earlier that I'm looking forward to tomorrow, when I'm just going to sit and watch Netflix and do an embroidery, that's not really to do with therapy in any way.
I did a brief little five minute exercise earlier on today when I was doing some research for a Patreon episode and it was about making sure that your life did align your behavior did align with your, your core values. And I, and I was talking about how you look at the things that make you happy. You look at the things that make you proud.
You look at the things that make you fulfilled, and you look at the different things that have happened in your life and to work out the difference between what is, what makes you happy and what makes you feel proud? What jumped out at me was things like my amateur dramatic stuff really enjoy that. I really feel quite proud of that. We do three nights and on the last night, the play finishes, everybody takes a bow and there's a lovely, proud feeling. I, I wouldn't call that a happy.
It's pride. And I, and I feel really quite proud that we've, we've achieved something. We've come together and we've created something and people have been entertained. And I feel really proud about the hard work that we've put in for that. And then afterwards, when we have an after show party, The, the pride is, is still there, but it's sort of filtered away a little bit and it's been replaced with the things that make me happy. And then that's the community side of it.
That's the people getting together, having a laugh, having a chat, talking about the past and talking about what we're gonna do next in our future. That makes me happy. And if you can see within your life, those things that make you happy and proud and fulfilled. Then you get to really know yourself. And actually one of the reasons that prompted me to consider this was a, a reply to the existential episode that we did. I forwarded it onto you. Fiona, do you want to read out Julie's email
oh, yes. Okay. I will do so. I really enjoyed this week's episode. Thank you. Well, thank you Julie, for saying thank you. Finding meaning in my life has helped me through some quite difficult times. If you know of ways to encourage this approach with others, especially children, I'm a teacher. That would be great. So says Julie. And she's got several points there within that. The finding meaning in life helps. Yes. For most people, it, it does. Encouraging this approach with others.
I think that's done through modeling. If it's friends and family, then if you can live an authentic life and you can talk about the things that make you feel proud, and fulfilled, and satisfied, and happy, and you share that, that can help people scratch the surface as to what's going on with them. I think that's probably the easiest way of encouraging people to look.
Yeah, cuz we need to be careful not to be preachy. People don't like being preached at and told, oh, your life is lacking in meaning you need to be finding it, However well meaning you might be about meaning
Hm.
that's not likely to go down to terribly well,
No, there's a reason why the churches are getting emptier and emptier every Sunday, sadly. And that's probably a part of it that it's, it's been in the past and well, things might be changing, but it's been too rigid. That says, no, look, it's written, it's written, you gotta live like this and the church of England and sort of Methodist. And so on, sort of changed a little bit and a bit more modern and, and say, look, these are just ideas. These are just, these are guidelines more than rules.
And I think it's important that people know that.
We do have to have rules the law sort of shared moral code, but that's quite, I would say quite high level. And then within it we have our choices as to what's important to us. So I suppose in terms of children and teachers, I think, yeah. I mean, if we all think of the best teachers we've had, then it is modeling isn't it is that we see the way that they are and want to be like that.
I think so. Yeah, because to sit down with, especially if it's, if it's primary school age children and go, Hey everybody today, we're gonna learn about existentialism. It's gonna cause problems. They're not, they're too young. And I know that for a fact, a couple of months ago, when my son went and did some work experience at a primary school, they, there was, there was a section on, I think there were doing, there was a religious section or a spirituality section and they touched on Budhism.
And when talking about the, the noble truths and the first noble truth is the idea that everyone suffers and that suffering is part of the world. And that's the Buddhist belief. And it made this little girl cry. So we don't want to overwhelm children with existential angst when they're eight. That's not a good idea. But there are things that we can do.
Yes. But it's interesting. You mentioned about the church, cuz that led me to think about structuring of time in terms of values as well. In previous episodes, we've mentioned transactional analysis a few times and touched on it here and there. One of the theories is about how we structure our time and there's six different ways. In fact, we've already covered two of them because the way that your wife was at that Christmas party. She was doing the first one on the list, which is withdrawal.
In other words, she was there. She smiled a lot. She was perfectly polite. But she'd gone inwards a little bit, hadn't she? She'd sort of stepped back from the group and
Yes.
overly participating. So that's an example of where withdrawal is a good use of time you've talked before about her being an introvert as well. So if she'd
It's
tried, if she tried to get involved, tried to contribute that would've been unpleasant for her.
She it would, and she, it would've put her to sleep. It would've tired her own.
Yeah, we'd have been fine with it, cuz we'd have welcomed anything she had to say, but she wouldn't have liked it. So in that context, withdrawal is sensible. I had a very, very small little party couple of weekends ago. And at one point I was just, I felt rather overwhelmed with everything and I just took myself inside. Just went upstairs, laid down on my bed for five minutes. Withdrew, Literally
Literally
And then after five minutes I was Right, ready to carry on back down I went, nobody noticed I'd gone and it helped. So that's the first one. And I think we've said two examples of where it's been good. I think it's quite obvious that sometimes that's not the right thing to be doing.
Yeah. don't do it in a job interview.
No but then the next one is the one that ties in with church, which is ritual
Oh,
ritual. Doesn't have to be that sort of ritual, although that is ritual. So church services of whatever type. So regular Sunday service or whatever day it is for your own particular religion or daily rituals to do with religion or weddings, funerals. We have those sorts of rituals, but we have other rituals as well that don't have to be anything to do with religion or anything else.
So we have, we have just our standard rituals of how we greet each other or the rituals that people have within family life, that they might have their meals at the same time every day, or that they have coffee at this time and tea at this time or wine at this time. And there's all sorts of rituals that we have. And again, those can be good and they can help people to feel secure to have.
we like, we like our expectations to be met. And if we know that Sunday lunch is at 2:00 PM, then the, the plates are on the table at 2:00 PM. And you know, that that sort of ritual has always wound up my wife. Cause she, she likes flexibility. She doesn't like to be told what to do even by her own mother who says no Sunday lunch 2:00 PM. Make sure you're here. She's like can we just not have it at two 15. What's wrong with that to have it whenever.
But it ties in with your, value system. You are then valuing freedom and flexibility over that security of knowing what time it was. That just reminded me that when I was living in the family home with two children meals every evening. We had a ritual, we had dinner at 7:15. Dunno why it started as that. But that's what we did. The number of times one or other boy, or both would say what time's dinner?
15.
Now I could understand that of Jack. Sorry Jack.
15 man.
Well, they would both do it at least. I think they would, I'll have to just check later what Greg would say to that, but I'm pretty sure they did. And there's also little silly things like still when this is Jack again, if I give Jack a, a cuddle, he'll say, what are you doing? Do you not know by now? But it's, that's just become a standing joke and that's standing jokes of rituals. So again, these, this can be a, a really good thing.
But they can be over done if somebody's living purely in ritual, that's not a very good thing. And you'll see that these sort of it's a sliding scale really, cuz the next one up is pass times, which is passing the time. Without really achieving anything terribly much. So British people, as we have talked about several times, discussing the weather, discussing what you saw on TV last night, having a little gossip about other people in the office. Again, it can be really, it's a useful thing.
It's creating relationships. But not an awful lot gets achieved. I suppose it's the small talk area as well that some people really hate and others thrive on it.
Yeah, that, that's the thing that would fulfill me. Those water cooler chats. Now they're the ones. That's what I'd go to work for, if I worked in an office. I'd probably never get any work done.
Again can be useful, but you wouldn't want to be well, you would, but most people wouldn't want to be spending all their time in pastimes. The next one is where probably most adults spend most of their time, which is in activity, which is doing things with a purpose. If you go to work, you are going to do something, presumably. You have an outcome at the end of that. So right now, Richard, you and I are in activity mode.
We are creating a podcast, but we're doing it in a sort of semi ritualized and with a little bit of pastime thrown in, but that's okay. Then we've got one that I'm going to skirt over, cuz I'll come back to it. But then the sort of the ultimate is what they call intimacy, which is a real connection between, two people or a group of people. Doesn't have to be that sort of intimacy. It can be but there's just a real, real connection between people.
So you can see the process from withdrawal through rituals, pass times activities to intimacy. The one I skirted over because it comes fifth in the list, but I don't really know why. It's the maladaptive way of structuring your time, which in TA terms is called games.
Mm.
And when two people are playing a game and I don't mean monopoly as a psychological game and the basic upshot is that both end up feeling bad at the end of it,
Yeah, no one wins.
Yeah, I just thought then all of those are tied into our values. So I wouldn't choose going to watch boxing because, well, I wouldn't like to see people punching each other. That's not my value system,
Mm,
And I like to create things. So a lot of my activities are creative, but an awful lot of people just don't get that. Don't see the point they see my house, which is filled with not very good embroideries and they're always very polite about them, but they wouldn't see why I want do it.
I think a lot of our values or, or those that we think are our values are pass down generationally. They're, they're a ritual. That's become tradition. Well, this is, this is what we do. And it's worth questioning that sometimes that is this what I want to do, or am I doing this just because, well, this is what we've always done, or this is what my mom did, or this is what my dad did. This is what my dad would say. Well, what would you say?
And I think it's, it's quite hard sometimes to figure out what makes us tick, because we are, we're an organic machine. If we are honest, , we have both nature and nurture that drives our personality and it, it can be a little, I mean, I'm quite comfortable with it, but a lot of people wouldn't like the idea of going. So what makes me me have I just been taught how to be me by my parents when I was young and I just copied them. So who am I? Well, you are you? Ah, no, I'm not me.
I'm the me that my parents taught me to be. Who's the real me. And you think, oh, now we, now we, we're not just scratching the surface. We're getting a big, deep shovel and we're having a good look underneath and it's okay if what you find is. I've not been me for 30 years. I've been who I thought my parents wanted me to be. It's worth asking those questions. I think it's worth taking a shovel to ourselves in one way, shape or form at least. And having a look underneath and see what's going on.
I think it's great. That's therapy isn't it? I suppose.
Yes. And when, when you have clients who are wanting to do that, I absolutely love it. I know we've mentioned this before, but about how therapists have to have therapy. And some of our students have said, well, I don't have any problems. Well, they're in denial, of course. Cause everybody does. They've got the mindset that therapy is about fixing problems, helping them to see that it can just be really an exploration of the self and life. But then what you're saying, then it just expanded.
You talked about traditions, then we've got culture. And I was thinking about Christmas as an example that we have the things that each family does at Christmas. And in the UK, pretty much whatever religion you are, you still do something at Christmas.
Oh, yeah, it's become very secular
It's, it's very secular. So I, I hope that that's safe thing to say. But then also if we look at time structuring. To take it more generally that most people have a schedule for a day because we are asleep for some of it and we are awake for some of it. And we work for some of it on some days of the week. So we work rest and play. Somebody should use that in an advert. So we have the structure of a day. We have the structure of a week.
Usually, this can be a problem in retirement when people don't have a structure of the week or it's changed. And then we have a structure of the year with seasons, again, in the UK, there are places in the world where the seasons are all the same, and we have times then when we are on a holiday, which might be going away or it could be going and seeing friends or family.
Then you were saying about, are you doing these things because you are choosing to, or are you going to Skegness because that's what your family has always done or to Chamonix. Different people, different things, but are you doing it through your choice or other peoples?
Yeah. If you do things based on other people's values. Thinking that this is what's going to fulfill me and it doesn't, it's not your fault. There's nothing wrong with you if you are doing the things that make you unfulfilled and wondering why you are not being fulfilled. It's because you're doing the wrong things, but you're doing what you think is the right thing, but it's for the wrong reason.
And actually it's okay to figure it out for yourself and go, I don't want to go to Skegness I've never really liked it. It's too windy. I would much rather go to St Ives where it might be less windy. Dunno. Never been to St Ives. Apparently it's pretty.
It was also there making me think about the shoulds that people have about these sorts of situations. I've heard many a person say Oh, I don't sit on a beach. I don't just sit on a beach. That's wasting time. I have to be doing something. So I want to go to a city and look at the art galleries and so on. I'm thinking, well, fine, if that's what you want to do. But if you want to sit on a beach and read a book, that's okay. As well.
Yeah, cos it could be that they'll be more fulfilled by sitting on the beach, reading a book, but they think that their values are in thirst for knowledge or in some sort of academic way. They want to talk about their holiday, which. To a degree is a big reason why people go away. Yes, it's nice to have a break, but sometimes people choose the places they go to so they can come back and go. This is where I went and this is what I did.
And if somebody goes to those art galleries for the wrong reasons, what they want to do is feel good about themselves. Then do the things that make you feel good about yourself. But if the schema, the narrative, the story you tell yourself is The only way I can feel proud is if I'm looking clever. For example, then that needs challenging, cos you're not gonna be living that authentic life.
It's another existential thing, the idea of bad faith, which is behaving inauthentically
yeah.
for the wrong reasons.
There's a, a lot to explore with our value system. When I was looking into values for a Patreon episode and looking for a, you know, different human values and found a list of 150 different ones, I'm like, what are all of these? They, I mean, I've still got the list here actually. Cause I haven't recorded that episode yet. They were things like here are values. Do you value focus, generosity, balance, restraint. Are you results oriented?
Is it about holiness, your life or contentment and creativity and insightfulness and intellectual status? Yeah, that's that one there there's all these things that we just don't consider. And, what I'll do is I'll, there's 150 words here. I think something like that, I'll put them in the description in the show notes for you to look through and go, oh, I never even thought of that. I never thought that I might be interested in diligence, legacy, tolerance, and traditionalism.
But if by seeing those words, cause I'm not gonna read them all out now and bore you to tears. It can give you that little bit of insight into yourself that says, I think I'm beginning to figure out what makes me tick. And then it is easier to make a decision. You know, we did the episode about choices decisions the other week, and if you've got a choice of two different things, such as.
Do I sell my house and move to Kenya to do charity work when you've got the option to, cause it sounds like a big thing and that's something you've always wanted to do. Maybe when you look at the reasons why Kenya seems an attractive proposition, you might find that you get just as much benefit from not selling your house. And instead just doing some charity work closer to home, who knows. If it's about getting rid of any stigma to do with Kenya, then you've gotta go to Kenya.
But if it's actually just about trying to make the world a better place, then that can to a degree be done anywhere. It is important to figure out what makes us tick. So we don't accidentally sell our house.
Remember when we talked about choices, we were saying that it's not really a choice if there's no advantage to one of the two options. And then it's just, you do A, because there's no advantage to doing B it's a little bit like that with values. I suspect that most people, when they look at that list of 150, some of them will just be as, I don't even need to name that because that's obvious. But it's it certainly, isn't gonna be obvious to everybody.
But when it's obvious to you, then it's quite likely you, you haven't really named it. So that's, that's quite a useful process of recognizing that these things can be named. Diligence struck me there. When you were reading that out, people who are diligent are likely, I would think to not really even notice that they're diligent, cuz they just are.
The same for traditionalism. The same for a lot of things. They don't realize that they're behaving in a way that is because of their values and that there is a choice, if in doing that exploration, you realize, oh, I'm not behaving in a way that aligns with my values. That's when changes can be made, if you want to
Mm, and they don't, you, you don't have to be diligent in everything that you do.
A little bit, like I have two guitars on my wall over there, one's an electric, one's an acoustic, I'm equally crap on both equally, but I, still really enjoy taking them off the wall and having little play around. I don't diligently practice. I know that if I did an hour a day, I would improve as the years go on.
But I don't, instead I hang it back on the wall and in a couple of weeks, I'll go, oh, I haven't played my guitar for ages and I'll play the same three songs and I'll probably really enjoy it, but I'm not striving for continuous improvement. I'm just happy being crap at it. And it's fine. Quite enjoy being crap at it to a degree
So in your value system, it's okay to be crap at playing a guitar, but you're still happy to do it. And that is I would be too, although I just wouldn't see any point in doing it. I don't see any point in doing it because creating music is not of any value to me. It's not part of my value system. Music's not that important generally. But there could be people who would be really struggling to understand what you're saying, because if you're going to play, then you should learn to play properly.
Otherwise what's the point. I'm not that I just, I don't see the point of doing it full stop.
And that, and that, can take the fun out of it for people. If their values are in constant improvement, then great aim for constant improvement. But if your values are in having fun, then you don't need to aim for constant improvement. You can just play the guitar or play tennis or whatever for fun.
We're on the same wavelength today, cuz I was just thinking of tennis. I used to play tennis, but not very well at all, but I just love playing it and it was, it was great fun and people would suggest having lessons or something. No, I did have a couple of lessons and it made absolutely no difference and they'd get frustrated with me. Cuz I wasn't diligent, I suppose. But it didn't matter cuz I was just having fun.
It was like, I, I did my first degree at Loughborough and a lot of people listening will know Loughborough's the sporty place. And I did trampolining when I was at school. I was okay as a trampolinist better than as a tennis player. So I joined the trampoline club at Loughborough and went along. I think I went twice. Far too serious. Even though I was okay at that, but it was far too serious. It was push, push push the whole time. You know what I did wasn't enough. You had to be improving.
So there was the, the, the fun element wasn't allowed in that context,
Ah,
which is a pity
it is
well, in my value system, it's a pity, but again, there'll be people listening who are well of course.
Of course you should be improving. What's the point in doing it? If you're not gonna get any better, what's the point you might as well not bother and that's their value system. And it's interesting that we all have different ones It is worth looking at whether it's genuine. Is this genuinely my value system, or is this somebody else here that I've just inherited or picked up? is this value system serving me well? Is this helping me? Is this making me contented or unhappy and fulfilled?
And if it isn't, then let's have a look through it. I think that would be quite useful,
Unless, of course your value system is to be, if you are happy being unhappy.
Oh, that's a good point. Strangely. Some people are quite happy having something to moan about. It gives them that little positive feeling for some reason. And it's good to know if that's you so you don't go to therapy to go, oh, am I so negative all the time? I don't wanna be negative. Everybody tells me I'm too negative. Do you like it? Yeah. I love it. It gives me a, gives me a purpose. if I can't be angry and negative about something, then nothing can change.
And I wanna feel that I'm included in the world and can make a difference in it and encourage changes. And, oh, well, there we go. Then you don't need therapy. Oh, thanks very much. Still 80 quid though. Oh, thank you. Fiona, goodness me, have you seen the time?
Amazing how time flies when you are structured?
I don't think we were particularly structured. Although we did show up at the right time.
Well, we were structured in that. We had a period of time that we were in an activity and we covered the things on my list. Apart from the word compartmentalization. say that one.
well, you've said it now, What do you mean about compartmentalization in this regard?
It's about knowing what you are doing in which bit of time. So take the work rest and play idea. So you compartmentalize. So when you are working, you work, when you are resting, You rest when you're playing you play and you don't cross-contaminate. We can get it to be a much more complicated theory, but it's basically that. So many people do mess them up. They lie awake in the middle of the night, thinking about work, and then they're too tired to work.
Or they gossip at work, and so they haven't got it done. So they spend the evening trying to catch up. So that's what I mean by compartmentalisation.
Just the job. Perfect. Well, we'd better love you and leave you all for another week because our time is up. As always link is in the show notes to our form on the website for you to fill in, submit a question or a topic idea, and believe me will turn the mic on and natter away about pretty much anything that you want us to, as long as it's appropriate, but make it appropriate please. Have a super-duper week and we'll be back soon. Bye for now.
Bye.