CastPlus (https://castplus.fm) Seriouslyourself https://podcasts.castplus.fm/seriouslyourself https://feeds.castplus.fm/seriouslyourself Don't you love it when you talk with a trusted friend and they help you get clearer about who you are and what you believe? Seriouslyourself is a podcast that invites you to delve a little deeper into those stuck and confused places in life. Ingrid Helander brings her decades of experience as a family therapist and author to your everyday questions, problems, and wonderings. With humor & genuine conversation, Ingrid's lighthearted and dedicated style invites her guests and listeners to question and wonder with genuine curiosity. By uniting what she knows about therapy, psychology & human experience with inspiration and encouragement, you leave feeling refreshed and ready to find yourself in this life. Why waste life's precious moments when you can be seriously yourself? © Ingrid Y Helander, LMFT en Sun, 23 Jan 2022 13:07:20 +0000 Fri, 08 May 2026 15:37:30 +0000 https://content.castplus.io/uploads/vmq7vm21/ba1ec800-82b1-11ec-b2ab-f76c3d009499/ba1ec960-82b1-11ec-8625-a7432f60c7da.jpg Seriouslyourself https://podcasts.castplus.fm/seriouslyourself Don't you love it when you talk with a trusted friend and they help you get clearer about who you are and what you believe? Seriouslyourself is a podcast that invites you to delve a little deeper into those stuck and confused places in life. Ingrid Helander brings her decades of experience as a family therapist and author to your everyday questions, problems, and wonderings. With humor & genuine conversation, Ingrid's lighthearted and dedicated style invites her guests and listeners to question and wonder with genuine curiosity. By uniting what she knows about therapy, psychology & human experience with inspiration and encouragement, you leave feeling refreshed and ready to find yourself in this life. Why waste life's precious moments when you can be seriously yourself? Ingrid Y Helander Don't you love it when you talk with a trusted friend and they help you get clearer about who you are and what you believe? Seriouslyourself is a podcast that invites you to delve a little deeper into those stuck and confused places in life. Ingrid Helander brings her decades of experience as a family therapist and author to your everyday questions, problems, and wonderings. With humor & genuine conversation, Ingrid's lighthearted and dedicated style invites her guests and listeners to question and wonder with genuine curiosity. By uniting what she knows about therapy, psychology & human experience with inspiration and encouragement, you leave feeling refreshed and ready to find yourself in this life. Why waste life's precious moments when you can be seriously yourself? No No episodic Ingrid Y Helander Don't you love it when you talk with a trusted friend and they help you get clearer about who you are and what you believe? Seriouslyourself is a podcast that invites you to delve a little deeper into those stuck and confused places in life. Ingrid Helander brings her decades of experience as a family therapist and author to your everyday questions, problems, and wonderings. With humor & genuine conversation, Ingrid's lighthearted and dedicated style invites her guests and listeners to question and wonder with genuine curiosity. By uniting what she knows about therapy, psychology & human experience with inspiration and encouragement, you leave feeling refreshed and ready to find yourself in this life. Why waste life's precious moments when you can be seriously yourself? Don't you love it when you talk with a trusted friend and they help you get clearer about who you are and what you believe? Seriouslyourself is a podcast that invites you to delve a little deeper into those stuck and confused places in life. Ingrid Helander brings her decades of experience as a family therapist and author to your everyday questions, problems, and wonderings. With humor & genuine conversation, Ingrid's lighthearted and dedicated style invites her guests and listeners to question and wonder with genuine curiosity. By uniting what she knows about therapy, psychology & human experience with inspiration and encouragement, you leave feeling refreshed and ready to find yourself in this life. Why waste life's precious moments when you can be seriously yourself? Ingrid Helander ingridyhelander@gmail.com No No No Really, Don't Just Let It Go! https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/lnqvvpp8-really-don-t-just-let-it-go Really, Don't Just Let It Go! 40 No No 81nrr881 How can you let go of a feeling you've never really held? Have you ever thought to yourself, "I've heard so many people say this but I don't know how to do it"? In this week's podcast we go over how to do just that. How can you let go of a feeling you've never really held? Have you ever thought to yourself, "I've heard so many people say this but I don't know how to do it"? In this week's podcast we go over how to do just that.




Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hey, welcome, welcome, come on in. How you doing? Oh, I hope you're well. Today, we're revisiting something that came up I think was an episode 37. And in it I was talking about sort of subverting, is that the right word? Subverting, getting you know, going around circumventing? I think that's what I mean, feelings that I don't really like by thinking about them so much. So I would, you know, put them up for judgment and you can hear that if you go back to episode 37, it's called "motion, not negotiation" or something like "emotion without negotiation". 
But today I really wanted to talk a little more about a comment that I made in there that has gotten some attention and that I think is really important, and that is the comment that you cannot let go of something that you haven't already held right? You can't let go of something if you don't hold it, have you tried? It just doesn't work right. You know, if I catch a ball that someone threw to me and I've got a hold of that thing, I can let it go, but if I go to catch a ball and it glances off my shoulder, leaving a bruise that I ignore and I don't hold on to that ball and someone says, well let it go, I don't know what they're talking about because there's nothing to let go. And we do this often, I would say, oh just let it go. How many times do people say just let it go would you just let it go. And of course letting something go make sense, especially for driving the other person crazy ruminating about what is upsetting or hard for us, right? Just let it go. Yeah. Well the problem is you can't let it go because you haven't held it in the first place right? You haven't embraced it. You haven't given it enough actual sensate right to hold. You could hold something in mind right? You could just hold it in your mind and what are you gonna do? You're gonna say it over and over and over. You're going to repeat it. It's gonna come back to haunt you because it's held in the mind, right?

So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about actually taking the time to notice the fullness of what you feel. To notice what comes up in you around a feeling and to get real about it like oh hi hello who's that? What's making that feeling inside me? And usually again why would I was gonna say usually we tend to avoid holding bad feelings but I think as many of us also tend to avoid holding good things, right, compliments or gratitude right or happiness or joy. It's hard to hold both right? The one feels a little dangerous to hold, you might get too cocky or too insular to secure and make a huge mistake and oh no, right and the other just hurts just painful. So we don't want to hold that one either. But I would say if we don't hold them, we can't let them go, we can't release, we can't let them be where they properly need to be. Right. And so the statement of just let it go cannot happen until we know what it is we're letting go of, right?
 So how can you do that? That's not an easy practice in the seriously yourself community. I think it was last February we were working on the concept of joy and lament in the same month, right? It was like this oxymoron, this juxtaposition of these two very different things, joy and lament, but what joy and lament or joy and greeting, joy and sorrow, however you want to put it have to do with one another is that they are both full. They both hold a lot of deep feeling and meaning, right, and to witness them together is to find a way to hold that depth. That sensation, love charisma delight, deep grief, loss, all of it to hold it to feel it. And then, you know what honestly, you don't even need to let it go because what we discovered is that when you do that, it sort of lifts it sort of elevates it sort of rises in a way and you're not even casting it off, letting it go, it just moves and it tends to move up and out and leave you with the most wonderful sensation of hope, of clarity, of well being, of connection. 

So what do you feel? You've been trying to let go of and let go of and let go of? And people have told you maybe just let it go or you tell yourself or you even, you know, you just hope you can let it go or you pray to let it go or you think you would let it go and then just get smacked with it again the next day, or the next time someone says something to you that gives you that feeling, Oh, it's right back to snap, right? There was no letting go. It was like lying dormant. Yeah, because you didn't hold it, he didn't hold it. And I'll think about holding something, okay, I wanted to make it really clear holding or embracing is not like being it right? I can be a baby. Well, I can't be a baby, but I was but I can't, if I'm all baby, I couldn't hold myself right? That's just silly. Maybe it's a silly example. But in order to hold something, you don't just run it through your mind and hold judgment. That's episode 37 decide if it's valuable or has a right to be there now, it's there. Guess what? You sort of lift it up and if you imagine holding anything, it's in front of you, right? Our hands are such that when we live something, it's usually in front of us. If it's not switch it around and look at it in front of you and notice in the body, what am I carrying? What is this? What is this twinge or pain or heaviness? Fear? What is this that I would just as soon let go of? What am I letting go of? What parts of me are connected to? It. Does it remind me, does it bring me back to an earlier time in my life? Right? Is it to worry about the future? Is it just this sensation of? Well yeah, that person said this and it hurt but it shouldn't have. No, no, no, that's the mind thing. It did. So what part of me took the pain? Right? A part of me took the pain and then hold that part so that you can be with it. Let it tell you, let it show you, right, take a breath into it. This is what we did in our group with sorrow and joy with sorrow and delight, lament and joy. We really held them both out front and allowed ourselves to be with them. 

Yeah, there are things you may need to actually let go of release. I would say, you know in your mind's eye, don't just drop it or push it or backing away if you really intend to release something, take a breath and you can release it. You know the IFS, the internal family Systems model way, is releasing it to any of the elements right to the earth, to water, to fire, to air and sky, to the sun, to light, right? Or to anything right? You can imagine now I am so done with this pain that, you know, never belonged to me. It was, you know, my grandfather suffering that my mother decided was mine. I don't know, I'm making this up now. Well, not exactly and you can put it in the garbage can, but you can't put it there until you really know what it is and that you really know you have permission inside you to release it. I think that's another thing that comes up with the concept of just let it go, our brains and a lot of us, you know, really says, oh yeah, of course, I don't want to feel this pain, sorrow, bitterness, resentment, anger, frustration, annoyance, I don't want to feel that grief, heartache, I don't want to feel that anymore. And so, yep, let it go. But you gotta make sure inside that there's no sense of like, I'm not ready. You know, there could be a part of you that has no idea that you're even there and you're off letting this go and letting that go and inside they're like, yeah, well, good for you, but I'm still hanging on to this pain. Yeah, so if it doesn't work for you. I just want you to understand, you're not weird or broken. There's a reason it doesn't work. There's reasons it doesn't work okay. It's not all on you. 

So imagine something small to start. Imagine something small a feeling you know that maybe is a little uncomfortable, just a bit, maybe someone said something the other day or you're just kinda languishing on an email you had gotten that didn't sit well maybe you saw something a movie that bugged you right? And instead of just committing it to be let go, take some time with it, hold it in your hands, put it in front of you. You know, take a real good look at it, breathe, see what comes up in your body, see what words you hear in your mind, notice what parts of you are interested in what you're holding in your hand and that will help you find that. 
It's really so special. So sweet to get to know all of these nuances within us. It's such an honor. You know, it's like our gift as human beings to be able to spend time any time at all with these impressions sensations, feelings, you know, even if they hurt a bit to place them in front of you and be with the pain instead of absorbing or being in the pain, be with it, hold it, embrace it. Take good care of you this week. And hopefully this is something you can remember as you go through your week. Just taking that moment two to hold on, just a little longer before you let it go. Maybe you'll find you don't need to let it go at all. So good to be with you this week and hope you get great joy and delight just being more and more of who you are every day. See you next time. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 



 
]]> Fri, 21 Oct 2022 01:14:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 908 How can you let go of a feeling you've never really held? Have you ever thought to yourself, "I've heard so many people say this but I don't know how to do it"? In this week's podcast we go over how to do just that. How can you let go of a feeling you've never really held? Have you ever thought to yourself, "I've heard so many people say this but I don't know how to do it"? In this week's podcast we go over how to do just that. No No One Big Relationship https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/5nz211pn-one-big-relationship One Big Relationship 39 No No 80zpwwr0 When most of us think of relationships, we automatically think of romantic partners. We are in so many relationships that go way beyond that as well. We're all engaged in a whole bundle of relationships, from romance and family to our relationship with our finances. So it’s super important to take note of… how am I relating to this person/place/ or thing? In this podcast we go through 4 ways to avoid miscommunication and enhance your relationships. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hey, hi there, come on in, how are you? Good to have you with me today, I feel like we have kind of a little bit of a relationship going, what do you say? That's what we're talking about today, relationships. You know, one of the best parts of being a family therapist, marriage and family therapist is that I've gotten to work with so many people, around so many different kinds of relationships, it's been delightful and I still really, really enjoy that aspect of my work, just helping people to restore relationship, understand relationship and most specifically to really grow in relationship to themselves and to others, and that's a lot of what this podcast is about, right?
 
How do we grow in relationship to ourself and also to the world around us and to everything that we love those we love. So, this month in the seriously yourself community, we've been talking about relationships and the interesting things within talking about relationship is we often think, oh, you know, well I'm not really in a relationship, if I'm not partnered up or married, but of course you are in many relationships. And if you're in, say a married relationship or a partnered relationship, you might feel like, well that's my relationship and it is and it's a big one, but hey, you have many, many kinds of relationships. And I have a notion that often what we bring to our relationships with other parts of our lives, we bring to our primary emotional relationships as well. So it's worth looking at and playing with a little bit and that's what we're gonna do today. So I hope you'll stick around. Let's keep going here. Let's unravel that thread of relationship. Yeah. 

So take a breath right now. And I'm gonna mention some things that I think you probably may have a relationship with. And as you hear them, your job, if you so choose, it is just to notice how do these concepts make you feel when you think about yourself, your relationship to this topic, right? That I'm gonna mention and notice your mind, notice what you hear yourself say and notice the feelings in your body. Okay, let's give it a go. It's kind of fun. So number one, your relationship to your family of origin, your relationship to your romantic partners, your relationship to your children. If you have them or to Children. If they're not yours, your relationship to your home, your body, pets or animals in your life, your community, your town, city, county, state, country, Anyone you consider to be "other" in quotes other your possessions, special things you have, you can hold you own, your car, maybe your relationship to money, your own creativity, your spiritual life or spirituality, the earth and the natural world. So what happened? What happened inside you as you were listening and you thought about what's my relationship to this, right? And you can add any relationships that I haven't thought of, right? Maybe fitness or food or a substance, right? You can add anything. And it's quite interesting to notice rather than these parts of our lives just being, there are just being things. But to notice a relationship right? The give and take between us and this part of our lives, right? And really noticing how much we care about it, What difficult feelings come up, you know, constraints in the body that indicate, oh, there's something going on here that probably I should pay attention to. Yeah, all really valid. Worthwhile moments to have as you consider being seriously yourself.

 Now, one of the things that I think is important is whenever you're in a relationship right, you really should notice what you bring to it. What preconceived notions, what kinds of energy, what attitudes, right? And opinions you bring to it. So you might be thinking about say your spouse and you would notice, okay, what energy do I bring when I'm with my spouse, thinking about my spouse imagining having a conversation with my spouse. Do I feel safe inside? Do I feel aggressive? Do I feel calm? Do I feel loving? Is my heart open? All those things really matter? The thing to remember in any relationship? And this is like if I had every couple just write this on their foreheads backwards so that when they look in the mirror every morning they would see it. And I mean me too, because this is the hardest one to remember. In all relationships, the only thing you have direct control over is, yep, you got it yourself, right yourself. So we want to change everything about the other person, right? And I I say this as a family therapist who's had, you know, over two decades of experience, no one ever comes in. Well that's not true. Sometimes people come in and they say, you know, I really want to relate better, but then they want to tell you everything that the other person needs to change so that they can relate better to them. And honestly, the change starts inside, right? It starts with you and that is regarding any of these relationships that we mentioned. 

I was in a workshop, oh gosh, long time ago. Now, I really don't even know, maybe 2014 2012 could have been 10 years ago and the woman was leading it on the topic of money and her first question was something like, what is your relationship like with your money? And you know, honestly, I had never other than thinking, I hate thinking about money, I hate working with money. You know, don't like the whole thing about it. I had never really thought about that as being a relationship, but it is, it is a relationship, it's how you relate to, right? It's how you get along with, its how you pay attention to. So as you're thinking about this then, remember you have to notice what you bring. You have to notice that you're the one you have control over. That's another point here, I'd like you to notice that if you have a really strong negative agenda which would sound like this has to happen or this has to change or I'm feeling you know what that would feel like, right? Like don't do that if you were talking to someone else or I don't like this about you, right? So this could be your home. I don't like this about you, my home. I don't like this about you, my finances. I don't like this about you, my family of origin. I don't like this about you, my physical surroundings, I don't like this about you, my body. You see how it kind of can apply. So if you have that really strong point opinion perspective, you can have that and it might very well be true, but you have to get some space from it before you bring it to the other because you are not fully yourself when you have a strong, strong agenda that is a part of you that you are feeling sort of dominated by, that is sort of driving the bus. And as I will mention over and over again, when you have a part of you that sort of taken over that part will seek to protect you. But nine times out of 10, it will get you the opposite of what it desires and it will get you what it's trying to save me from. 
So say for example, you're feeling like your dad is greedy with you. Like he hasn't been generous with you and you have an agenda, you're gonna set him straight, you're gonna go and you're going to relate to him and you're going to communicate, you know what dad, it's just been wrong. It's not fair and you are selfish and greedy and I don't like it. If you come from that energy, you are probably going to create all kinds of defensiveness in the other person. They're gonna lock up, right? And when someone locks up, do they seem more generous and more greedy? Right? Yeah. You know now you can get that message across but you really have to spend some time with yourself. You have to come down to what what do I really need? What are the feelings under this? So what if he stays greedy with me? Does it really matter? How is it hurting me? What do I need him to understand now? I'm not saying that the person will always understand if you come to them with those deeper feelings. But I know if you come to them with a strong agenda, a negative agenda, they won't, they just can't and I think again you can imply this to other relationships that you have in your life. 
The other thing that I think can be really tremendously helpful is the ability for us as people to really observe what's going on. Have you ever watched children learn something? It's so fun to watch them because they just, they'll watch now some will watch actively, right? Like they're gonna use those hands and fingers and try to get in there. But mostly they're observing what is happening around them and they're gonna learn and they're going to get to know everything they're going to get to know well everything that you know now you came to know right? And the best way to do that is by feeling safe and calm and curious enough to just observe without agenda or maybe with a desire, right? Maybe with a hope, a love to get closer to make relationship right with whatever it is. But by observing. 

So if say your connection or your relationship to your natural world feels a little wonky, like I really like outside, I'm kind of uncomfortable or you know, I feel like I don't get out there enough and then when I do, I don't know what to do with myself, if I'm walking in the woods, I don't know. If you just find a place to just calmly observe. It comes to you, doesn't it? It comes to you and then you get to witness things that you didn't know or understand before. And it's true of all relationships if you ignore your money, right? If you cast the concept of money and finances aside because it makes you uncomfortable if you can get calm enough to look at your accounts or look at your earnings, look at you know, whatever money symbolizes you, even money in the hand and get curious about it, right? You're gonna change your relationship to that and it'll feel better. Yeah. 

So take some time this week and just go over your list. What are you in relationship with and how's it feeling for you? And then you could apply those little notes? You know, am I noticing what I'm bringing? Am I taking direct control moreover myself or wanting to take control over the outside? Do I have a strong negative agenda or opinion that I need to enforce? And can I calmly observe with curiosity. Hope that helps. Hey sending you lots of love, lots of calm, lots of curiosity and really an openness in all relationships. I hope that they feel wonderful for you. Look forward to talking to you again soon. Thanks for stopping by, bye now. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 




]]> Thu, 20 Oct 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1023 When most of us think of relationships, we automatically think of romantic partners. We are in so many relationships that go way beyond that as well. We're all engaged in a whole bundle of relationships, from romance and family to our relationship with our finances. So it’s super important to take note of… how am I relating to this person/place/ or thing? In this podcast we go through 4 ways to avoid miscommunication and enhance your relationships. When most of us think of relationships, we automatically think of romantic partners. We are in so many relationships that go way beyond that as well. We're all engaged in a whole bundle of relationships, from romance and family to our relationship with our finances. So it’s super important to take note of… how am I relating to this person/place/ or thing? In this podcast we go through 4 ways to avoid miscommunication and enhance your relationships. No No Disappointment https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/5nz2py5n-disappointment Disappointment 38 No No 80zpr8q0 Disappointment is a tough thing to manage, but you can do it. This week we explore how to view your disappointment through a lens of care and how to befriend it. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hello, come on in. Welcome, how are you today today? We have a topic that honestly, I just don't really like, but I think that's important to talk about. So what I don't like at all very often is disappointment. You know, I can handle being sad, I can handle you know grief, I can handle loss, but there's something about being disappointed or disappointing that kind of drives me nuts. I don't know do you have that? And I've been thinking about it and working on it and I'm curious about it, you know, disappointment often can kind of run my show. It's almost like something that I feel like, is to be avoided at many costs, almost all costs and that's big, right? I mean we shouldn't have to avoid any emotion I think at all costs that kind of feels just innately like a problem. So being that there are parts of me that really feel like let's get rid of all sources of any possible disappointment. Yeah, that can't be good. I don't think that can be good. How about you? 
You know, I was looking up the word disappointment and it comes from the french word, which is to disappoint, right? So you would actually be removed from an appointment to an office, you had been stationed in, right? Like say you were elected to mayor and then you were removed that would be a disappointment or if someone canceled an appointment that would be a disappointment and it's interesting how disappointment works that way. You know, we use it now to be something that makes you feel like you've lost and you've lost hope and you've kind of failed, right? And that would make sense if it came from a word that meant you've been removed from office, right? You've failed and I really think that's so tangled up in it. You know, words that are passed down generation after generation, they hold meaning in our bodies and I don't even think we often think about it or or know it until we start feeling our bodies and then we go, oh yeah makes sense. This disappointed thing. I feel like I have been let down on something. I was looking forward to say an appointment. I feel like I have been removed from an office, maybe even an honor. I have disappointed, right? 
So when you think about disappointment and maybe it's not a thing for you, you know, I don't know but what comes up in your own body, your mind? You know, one of the things that has happened lately and is the reason I'm talking about it honestly is that I think the sort of rise and surge and you know diminishing of the impact of covid and global pandemic and quarantining was that there was not as much need for protection of disappointment personally, does this make sense? So yes, there was colossal disappointment about everything. We had to go through all this stuff we had to undo. It wasn't a lot of doing as much except for maybe I was making crazy T shirt masks and wiping off my groceries and collecting, you know, toilet paper I guess that you would need. But you know, there wasn't a lot of outside activity to do. You know, most people couldn't even go to work. Your kids couldn't go to school for a while. You know, you couldn't go visit your grandma, you couldn't have Christmas all together. You couldn't, right, couldn't, couldn't couldn't, but you knew you couldn't, so the pressure to create moments of doing things sort of ceased very quickly very, very quickly. And there was that I'm so sick of having to sit in the house and oh, I miss going out so bad. I miss having a beautiful dinner in a candlelit restaurant and I miss going to this concert or sitting in a crowded movie theater. Yeah, yeah, we missed that. 
But because those things were not my fault if you will, that not being able to do those things was not under my control. I found it much easier to resist any feelings of disappointment. So I didn't have to worry that if I planned a birthday dinner and nobody could come or people got sick right or they were otherwise occupied. I didn't have to worry about any disappointment because it couldn't happen anyway. Or perhaps, you know, I wanted to have a vacation right. It had to be so boiled down right. Less people protected areas. You know a lot of work to make any travel or anything happen and so often I just didn't, it was just easier not to but I didn't feel bad or disappointed about that because I really couldn't do it anyway. 

And now many people well prior to now I realize but you know, I think as a whole the country is sort of saying well you know you can go about your life, you can move about the cabin now. Yeah and that feels great and for me this little tiny internal sensation of the possibility of disappointment is sort of peeking up its little head. It's sort of looking around like oh, oh I could make a mistake. I could want something a lot, like a beautiful vacation and maybe get sick or have the flight canceled or have a hurricane happen or nobody wants to go or or or right? Lots of catastrophizing gets associated around this sense of disappointment and it's all protective. It's all in the interest of not feeling like I've done something badly or that I am disappointed. I am either disappointed or a disappointment. So for me the way that I help this is not to dwell on it though, I recognize might sound like I am but it is to take it seriously which is what we do here it seriously yourself and to give it some time, give it a little airplay so that the parts of me that worry about disappointing or being disappointed. Don't feel so alone.For one thing that they know they have adult guidance, which would be me and all of the resources that I have at my fingertips and that I will listen. I will listen to them. You know when I sense into parts that feel disappointed and I begin listening, I also can feel kind of a deep well of sadness. I'm not even sure what all of it is honestly. But if you come across that, just know, it's okay. You don't have to feel like you're not all right. It's all right to take a breath. Ask for a little space inside from your parts that want your attention. Yeah. And just you know, notice them as if they were children or they were someone you care about. 

They don't have to take over your mind, your heart. They don't have to tell you. Yes, in fact, I'm disappointed because you are a failure. You are a disappointment. No, no, you're not a disappointment. And if you heard that sometime or you picked up that energy so much better to take a moment and let that part know, that was not true. Right. That was not true. You were not supposed to be perfect when you were five, You did not ruin everyone's vacation when you were four. You could not have known that everyone would get the stomach flu. That Christmas, that was not on you. I don't know if that helps or not, but whatever it is for you, right? 
The easiest way to do this is to get it on paper and I say that having done this for a long time that when you're really listening to your inner voice is your inner parts, your psyche. If you will, it's so helpful to be writing or drawing because you can see then and you can literally get a little space from what you're putting down, right? You don't want so much space that you have to push it away and ignore it and not listen but you want just enough space so that you can stay curious and calm and from there you have a million possibilities.

 If I don't get space, what happens is I hunker down around this disappointed fear of disappointing or being disappointed and I create all kinds of systems to manage that pain and then I don't go on vacation or I don't even try, I don't make plans, I don't make any effort toward anything that might be risky and that's not okay, right? That is in a way that I want to live. It's a way that that part thinks will be successfully safe. But it really only gets it more disappointment. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really key thing to remember that when you have these strong sensations inside or ones that have been there a long time and they want something for you. You know, like to never be disappointed again. The sad truth is if they feel like they are doing that by themselves and you operate around everything that protects them, manages them, keeps your life rolling away from them. You're gonna get exactly what you don't want. And that's the worst, right? But when we listen, we offer compassion. We help bring that part into today's world, right out of the past and into the present. And we notice that all that protection might better be used to well maybe to plan a trip or to invest in something or to do something that you might feel a little bit skittish about with the concept of you know it's okay. You know it's okay. No one's really watching, no one is going to blame you. And if they are you can talk to them about it. You are going to be all right. You're gonna be all right. So notice what parts of you worry about disappointing or being disappointed this week. Maybe let them know you're gonna be alright and spend a little time writing or drawing from them. It's a really amazing thing to do and it only takes a second and it doesn't have to be perfect. It's just starting. It's just a matter of starting right now. You can start by simply breathing and feeling your own feelings in a way that you can witness, let me know what goes for you. It can really be actually kind of fun and I'll keep you posted on how my disappointed part is doing as I'm up and around and doing more and I don't have that giant pandemic permission slip, be well, come join me and seriously yourself the community and I'll see you soon. Take care. Bye. 


Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 

]]> Thu, 13 Oct 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 961 Disappointment is a tough thing to manage, but you can do it. This week we explore how to view your disappointment through a lens of care and how to befriend it. Disappointment is a tough thing to manage, but you can do it. This week we explore how to view your disappointment through a lens of care and how to befriend it. No No Emotion Without Negotiation https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/r877k6r8-emotion-without-negotiation Emotion Without Negotiation 37 No No k08lq280 How can we experience and integrate our emotional parts if we're constantly second-guessing their right to exist? This is a very sneaky self sabotaging habit of denying, minimizing, or invalidating our strong or tender feelings. In this episode we bring into light how that part of you is just trying to help - but sadly is making things worse. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander.

Hello, hello, how are you? Come on in. It is really a gorgeous day here in New England and um I hope wherever you are listening from, it is also a good day where you are. Today, I'm talking about an interesting thing that happens inside of us and it's interesting, especially to me because with the help of my own therapist, I was able to discover something I was doing with the best of intentions that was making my life really way more difficult. And so I thought, hey, if I'm doing this, probably others are doing this too. And so I thought I would share it with you. So here's the question, do you have parts of you that are very concerned about being very fair, sort of maybe judicial, what's the word? You know, appropriate that are careful and considerate of others feelings and thoughts? Yeah, I bet you do. I bet you do. And I found this part of me that had gotten a little twisted up in that very state. That trying to be fair, which by the way, I do think is important, right? It's the responsible thing to do to take responsibility for our own actions, our feelings and our behaviors. But what was happening for me, which I was able to find thanks to a fabulous therapist that I work with and I'm gonna insert a little parenthetical here, (if you work with a therapist and they say they never work with a therapist, you totally have my permission to turn and walk out the door because you kind of have to do the work to do the work) that was in the side and parentheses? Right? 

So back to the topic here was this neat little way that I was sort of sabotaging my own parts and my own feelings with the very, very best of intention. I would say things like this. Well, a part of me feels this way And within about 20 seconds I would also say something like this. And that's not really fair though, because this person doesn't know they're doing that or it isn't their intention to hurt me. And so I should therefore feel differently. And the brilliant therapist that I see, was able to catch that and she went, whoa, your therapist ever make you slow down and stop and wait, wait, wait, take a look. 

So we started taking a look and it was something like this, I would have a feeling. Maybe it would connect to a thought. For example, something like my husband said this and when he said this, it kind of hurt my feelings and made me feel unseen. And then within seconds, but that's not really fair because I know that wasn't his intention and in fairness, he couldn't have known my feelings. And in fairness, you know, this is something maybe I need to deal with and on and on. So I would take every bit of responsibility for the feeling and put it up into my brain and set it up to be evaluated. Do you hear that? So rather than it just be a feeling or a passing thought attached to a feeling, we would be more like here is an article for your consideration, judge and take a minute and really notice. Is that fair and accurate and complete or is it not? And then another feeling would have to come in pretty quickly to balance that like, well, okay, that makes perfect sense and therefore I should really attend to myself so that I don't keep doing this unfair thing to someone else and the feeling would come up and it would end up in my system like I can't trust, right? I can't trust myself or anyone else to care about what I feel at that time, Right? Because there was no validation for even a moment about what I felt. It was a naming of it, which is a great first step and then I would jump right to well what's the judgment about it? Right. Do I have a right to be angry? Do I have a right to be hurt? Do I have a right to feel untrusting? Do have a right to feel portrayed? Do I have a right to feel invalidated? Do have a right to feel frustrated? Do I have a right to feel annoyed all day long? Do you see how that could happen? 

And as a therapist, you know very often? Well always I would say it's really important to be able to rest back and receive everything that your client is expressing in a way that is open and nonjudgmental and just allowing and clear. And I think that is always true, but it didn't really apply internally. In other words. I don't have to be so quick. Well, I guess it does apply internally. Like I wasn't doing it for myself right? Like I was so quick to go, yeah, let's let's just consider the other person, but not me. Let's consider the other person in a personal example, but not myself really, right. I could consider it by naming what I'm feeling. I'm naming that I'm annoyed, but that's not really right or fair because the person, you know didn't mean to annoy me, didn't know. 

So after realizing this, I'm recognizing, wow, I do this quite often. And what I believe it causes inside us when we do this is sort of this constant polarization, right? I feel this way, but I shouldn't feel this way right? Or I feel this way, but my thoughts say that's just wrong. Therefore do not. If you have this experience, I want you to listen in really tightly because this could definitely contribute to rumination that feeling of like I can't turn my brain off at night, right? Or in the morning or whenever it happens to you. That running mind because you're always sort of placing your feelings into the vat of judgment and evaluation and determination whether you should have that feeling and I'm here to tell you you already have the feeling. You already have the feeling so you don't have to stop and go. Should I have this feeling? That's a done deal. That's a done deal. You don't need to evaluate whether it deserves to be. It is, it just was already, are you getting it? It's subtle. It's weird. It's a little head trick. 

So what can you do instead? Well, the first thing is when you do name a sensation a feeling you have it is fine to not activate any parts in your mind that wish to decide whether you should or shouldn't have that feeling. It's a feeling, feelings happen they're happenings. Okay, take a moment and this is what I'm actually retraining myself to do and notice some part of me feels let's say frustrated and maybe this part has a story right, about what it's frustrated about. So maybe the story is my husband used my special facial soap in the shower as you can tell. This probably actually happened because who would come up with that? Right? So he actually used my special, more expensive facial soap as a body soap in the shower, though I had it separated from the body soap. So what I might feel is annoyed or irritated. Right, Okay, so my habit would be to name it, oh man, that's annoying and irritating and then instantly go into, but it's not really fair because I don't really remember if I mentioned to him what that was and I really can't expect that he would just know not to use it even though there is a bar of body soap in the usual place etcetera. Okay, lots of explanation, lots of justification for his feelings. And he, we haven't even talked yet, right? We haven't even talked about it. So now rather than doing that, what I'm discovering again is that it's important to name, whoa, I see my husband's in using my face soap and that feels annoying to me and then rather than jumping to the brain and pushing it away or reasoning it out of being. Acknowledging this feeling exists, currently I'm annoyed. 

Okay, so let's take a breath, taking notice. What's that feel like in my body. What does annoyance feel like? Well, feels kind of tight in my jaw. Maybe my teeth clench a little bit. Maybe my heart sinks and I hear myself say, yeah, "he doesn't care about my stuff or I don't feel like respected". Now this no longer is likely about my husband, but that doesn't mean it's not important for me to attend to and I want you to hear that. This is probably no longer entirely about the other person, but it is a feeling that you need to attend too with compassion. So maybe I hear that part say, you know, I'm not feeling cared for or seen or validated and then maybe I have a sense in my body of roots, right? Little parts from history that say, oh yeah, I was the youngest child, so maybe I didn't always feel respected. Frankly at that age, I probably, you know, didn't command a whole lot of it, that's okay, but I still felt it right. Or maybe I do find a current day something like it is important for me to verbalize, to speak to my husband about things that feel owie when they get run over a little bit without blaming or shaming or ignoring. 
You see, when we send those feelings directly to thought and try to balance them out, It amounts to sort of ignoring the issue on the outside because at least in my case I always lose, right, I always am the one that after I've negotiated with my own brain about this feels like I don't have the right to speak up about it. And so, you know, that definitely contributes to poor communication in my home, right? Because I'm always having the conversations with myself in my head and then sort of stuffing down the feelings. This is sounds like something you might do too? I'm gonna guess it might be. 

So maybe this week you just notice how often do you name what you're feeling, which is a really good thing to do, do it, but then move on as if, yeah, but I feel different ways and maybe it's not fair, or maybe I should just let it go. Maybe you should, but we can't let something go that we didn't hold to begin with. You felt it, you can feel it and it's important to feel it and to spend a little time with it, without explaining it away. So that's my little little word of this week. I hope it's helpful for you to if it is, please drop me a message and let me know, let me know what you like about the podcast and definitely subscribe and leave a review about what you loved wherever you get your podcast, that really does help. And if you love even more, I would love love to welcome you to seriously yourself, the community. We do have some time this month where we're going to be bringing in new people and you can find that on my website at https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/ . Look for the tab at the top that says seriously yourself subscription and come and join us. Thanks for being here. As always, I really enjoy your company. Take good care, bye. 


Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 



]]> Thu, 06 Oct 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1003 How can we experience and integrate our emotional parts if we're constantly second-guessing their right to exist? This is a very sneaky self sabotaging habit of denying, minimizing, or invalidating our strong or tender feelings. In this episode we bring into light how that part of you is just trying to help - but sadly is making things worse. How can we experience and integrate our emotional parts if we're constantly second-guessing their right to exist? This is a very sneaky self sabotaging habit of denying, minimizing, or invalidating our strong or tender feelings. In this episode we bring into light how that part of you is just trying to help - but sadly is making things worse. No No Tiny, Panicky Parts https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/1825yk5n-tiny-panicky-parts Tiny, Panicky Parts 36 No No 2093jx30 Sometimes, small parts of us rebel when we're trying to embrace the positive. What are those parts trying to tell us? Sometimes when we feel two polarizing truths (happiness & depression/panic) we can feel inauthentic. In this podcast, we learn how to fully feel our positive moments without avoiding the voice of anxiety that can knock on the door when we are feeling good. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hey there, hello, come on in, I'm excited that you're here with me today and I think I have a really helpful and interesting topic for you because I'm hearing about it a lot, I'm feeling it, and I think there are lots of people who right now are experiencing sort of resurgence of life, a verb, um a happiness to be social and to be part of community. Yay, yay, it feels so, so good. And I also think that for many of us, especially those who tend to have some worries there is this simultaneous sensation that happens just behind the scenes. I would say kind of just behind my shoulder, right, so let me describe what I'm talking about. Today, we're talking about that tiny little panic that we might be experiencing about different things at different times, but it comes up often. So if you have any sensations inside you that sometimes get very concerned about your life, about the world, about the way things are, then stay tuned because this podcast is really for you with great affection. 

So I realized this the other day when I was um with a group of colleagues in zoom call and we were talking about life just doing a check in. And I realized that as I would mention things in my life that felt good or optimistic or healthy or happy or for which I had gratitude, I would get almost within seconds, maybe even simultaneously a voice inside that would have a counterpoint and and the voice was a little panicky. No, I am not, I do not hear others voices. I just want to say that these are parts of me, right? I think we can all experience that there's parts of you that are like yeah, go and do this thing and then you'll hear or experience or sense in your body pretty quickly. I don't want to write or I don't feel like it, that's an example of this kind of thing. So it's a very subtle internal dialogue if you will and it's good to get used to noticing this several internal dialogue and I'll tell you why in a minute. 

So I would say something like, well you know, my family is all healthy and well and I would feel that and then I might hear and I worry about them right, okay and things are good in general, we like where we live and then I might hear though, we often are concerned or I am concerned about climate change and its impacts and you know, losing species of plant and healthy living on the planet. I do worry about that. And then I might feel something like you know, day to day things are generally calm and then this little tiny panicky part would come up with something like you know, except for the fact that many groups, even within my own community are terribly polarized right now and there are elections coming up and I fear what it will be like. Or I think yay the kids are in elementary school and daycare, they get to go back again. And then I hear the tiny panicky parts say though I'm very aware that schools are often not safe places for our children and this is how it goes. 
You know, this awareness when I'm really paying attention of the up and down, like this balancing factor inside me that feels quite concerned to the point where I can feel actually kind of like panic and if I'm not aware of it, right? And you might be noticing you do this. I know a lot of my clients and a lot of people I talk to say, yeah, that's that phenomenon that says, you know, I feel like we're all dancing and living it up on the deck of the titanic, right? Or we're all arguing about which political leader we like best while all being in the same concentration camp, for example, you know, those little kind of memes and jokes and stories and I think this is why this happens, right. That there are parts of us that want us to make sure that we know well, you know, things might be fine for you and "I" meaning this little tiny panicky part, am still kind of concerned about this now before I would take the time and feel, recognize, own, allow, some attention to go to this tiny panicky part and often people don't want attention to be directed toward their tiny panicky parts because they fear that they will take over, right. And then they may have full blown panic, right, start thinking about all of those negative things and they scare you and if you don't have any perspective with this part of you inside, you don't have a relationship with it, it truly can sort of come up and all of a sudden you realize you're breathing heavier, your heart's pounding more and you go into seriously a panic attack. 
So obviously if you have those kinds of feelings, you might want to get a little help with this and you can, you really can, but I would say if you just notice these little tiny panicky parts, these little tiny inner sensations that want your attention, it can help. For me, when I didn't realize that I sort of had more than one perspective going on inside me simultaneously, here's what would happen. I would say something like um yeah things are good, but I wouldn't feel congruent inside me or I would say, you know, we're really happy living where we are, but I wouldn't notice that there was maybe another little happening inside another little message coming to me from my psyche, from my personality, whatever you wanna call it. And so I would be like that's kind of annoying whenever I say good things, I feel nervous or stressed, right? Or like I'm not being authentic, I don't like that feeling. And so this whole inner shame system would kind of come up for me like yeah, you're not very appreciative. You know, you talk like you are happy about stuff and indeed I am, but you don't feel it all the way inside. Therefore you must not really appreciate what's going on for you. Makes sense or you're quite the pessimist, aren't you? Even though you're saying things that should sound happy, you're having a negative view of them, aren't you? And I'd be like, gosh, maybe I am. You see when we have to look at ourselves as I am as a whole, either being all this way or all that way, then we get very confused inside and we often will feel very negative about ourselves, right? I was a pessimist. I was neurotic, I was un appreciative. I wasn't grateful for all of these things that I was saying or noticing that we're good in life. When I had these other little things inside telling me things aren't all that perfect. 

So I wonder about you, do you have a running tally inside or maybe you do and you've learned to really push it away. I would say this is not necessarily in your best interest to just simply say, oh yeah, there's a part of me that could get really worried about that, but I'm choosing to ignore it completely, why do I say that's a bad idea. I'll tell you, when we choose to ignore parts of us that are deeply concerned about things, whether they're connected to our past, when we are children or teens or young adults or whatever. Whether they're connected to just sensations that carry concern. If we ignore them, they tend to get louder just as if you ignore a child, it tends to get louder, right? Mommy, you ignore mommy, you ignore mommy! Mommy! Mommy, right? It's gonna really come at you. 
And sometimes these worried parts come at us when we're trying to sleep or when we don't expect it or when we're under stress, right? And then we literally do have perhaps a full blown panic attack or what feels more like a crisis. And it needn't be that way. If we've taken the smaller moments to notice. Oh yes, I in fact am happy about my family being healthy and at the same moment there are parts of me that want me to remember that there are things that are important to me to carry concern about that impacts my family's world. 

When I listen to it that way, I can get some clarity. I can create some space inside. Does that make sense? I can take this deep breath and I go, well for sure, that makes sense, right? And I don't have to shut down any information. I don't have to ignore that the crisis of the climate is important to me. I don't have to ignore that. Political concerns matter to me. I don't have to ignore that while my life and my family's life feels safe and sound, I carry a deep concern about the lives of others that don't feel safe and sound. I don't have to ignore those things just to be quote unquote, authentically pleasant, happy upbeat. I can take those into deep consideration and I can be more effective about those things, right? When I'm not either panicking from them or ignoring them completely, I can have an impact. I can do something to impact the political system or the environment or others lives around me that I care about without denying that many, many, many, many if not all really, most things in my life feel really great. I don't have to succumb to messages of like, wow, you know, life is good. And then I have this little voice in the back that says and it's really hard for me and many of us to make it financially these days. That's very difficult. It feels like a setup like we just can't win. Okay, both of those things can be true. I don't have to rule either out and I don't have to feel all caught up in my tiny panicky part. Nor do I have to ignore because it is real. That part cares deeply about my life and the wellness and safety of others lives too and it wants me to know that. So when I take a minute, I take a breath and I let it know I hear you, I hear you Yeah, and that is a different experience than the good one I'm having when I think about how well things are, when I celebrate wellness, when I celebrate health, when I celebrate having enough to eat, when I celebrate fun times and all of this rejoining and getting together in community again, which we so love and we so need.

I hope that's helpful for you. If you have any tiny panicky parts, go ahead and let me know, I'm interested to hear your questions and if you want to go a little deeper and if you'd really like to go deeper, I would recommend highly my community Seriously Yourself. It is a place where you can share, you can get more of these kind of offerings every month in print, in live coaching calls and you get some sweet tender, wonderful gifts in the mail just for you, take good care of yourself and all those tiny panicky parts and celebrate what you know is good in your life today. Thanks for being with me. I'll talk with you soon, bye. 


Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 



]]> Thu, 29 Sep 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1018 Sometimes, small parts of us rebel when we're trying to embrace the positive. What are those parts trying to tell us? Sometimes when we feel two polarizing truths (happiness & depression/panic) we can feel inauthentic. In this podcast, we learn how to fully feel our positive moments without avoiding the voice of anxiety that can knock on the door when we are feeling good. Sometimes, small parts of us rebel when we're trying to embrace the positive. What are those parts trying to tell us? Sometimes when we feel two polarizing truths (happiness & depression/panic) we can feel inauthentic. In this podcast, we learn how to fully feel our positive moments without avoiding the voice of anxiety that can knock on the door when we are feeling good. No No The Wisdom of YOU https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/xnvmll58-the-wisdom-of-you The Wisdom of YOU 35 No No 71ympp81 Do you think of yourself as wise? I do, and I think you should, too! We often confuse wisdom with related words like knowledge, intelligence, or understanding. But wisdom is making sense of and using the knowledge and understanding. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hi there, come on in, how are you? Hey I have a question for you today, for our episode. The question is do you think of yourself as wise? Yeah, really think about it. Do you think of yourself as wise? Now I know a few of you and I can hear you saying well I'm a wiseacre or I'm a wise guy or I'm a wisecracker. Funny, but take a minute, really. Do you think of yourself as a wise being? That's our topic this month in our seriously yourself community and it's really wonderful to start looking at what we know about wisdom and how we share wisdom, what messages we've taken in about wisdom or being wise, what burdens there are around considering oneself as a wise being. 
I know a lot of people who would instantly say no way new and I also know quite a number of people who would pretty quickly own Yeah, I feel I feel wise, I do feel wise, I wonder about you, today let's look at it. 
So wisdom is often confused with related words like intelligence, knowledge or understanding right? Really, the simplest way that I've learned to differentiate the from each other is that wisdom is the big picture, right? Wisdom is the whole, information you need, right? But it's not the whole, you use information if you are wise, right? You can use it, you can make sense out of it. Knowledge is just the information, okay and understanding it is just the ability to take it in, Does that all make sense? I think lots of times we confuse being intelligent with being wise and and they are not at all necessarily synonymous. 

You know, people talk about common sense and book knowledge, you know that person has lots of book knowledge, but no common sense. I think that's sort of stepping a toe into this idea a little bit like yeah, you can, you can know a lot and not really be expressing or living within wisdom, wisdom is really the making sense of in using the knowledge and the understanding and I think the word making sense there is super important because if you can make sense of something, it's kind of, you can sense it and sensing comes from using your senses, right? It's more of a body thing, if you say I make sense with my mind, that's kind of just, I think about it right? Or I can rationalize it or I can take it in, I can understand it right, it's in my language, it's in terms that I get, but that doesn't mean that it makes sense for you in a way that will be transmitted as wisdom makes sense, does it? 

Yeah, so think about someone right now who maybe you consider to be a source of wisdom for you or who you believe to be wise, maybe it was a grandparent or a parent or maybe there's an author or a leader or a spiritual teacher of some kind that you really consider to be an elder for you, right? Um, and I don't mean just someone who's older, but someone who carries wisdom.  I was, I was asked when I was like 45 to be, I don't even think I was 45 yet to be an elder in a church community I was in at the time and I was a little offended. And another part of part of me was very flattered. It was a very wonderful offer, but I was like, are you saying I'm old. How old am I feel silly about that? 

So don't get hung up on that stuff. It's not about that, it's really more about making sense, being in your senses around what you know. So do you have someone, maybe, maybe Gandhi is wise for you or you know, christ or buddha or you know, your fifth grade teacher, your grandpa John, I don't know. And then try to imagine what it is about them that you found wise. Maybe they had a gentle way of showing you things about life, right, pointing out where you might trip and fall along the way or where you might find nourishment. 

There are so many ways to transmit wisdom, right? It's something that we are, I think as humans, it keeps us surviving just like the animal world, right? Animals really know and transmit to one another, what is safe and what is not safe to eat, that's kind of a wisdom, isn't it? In some ways, maybe people are less wise, we get so hooked on our ideas that we don't allow them to settle into our bodies so that we can sense them. Believe what is in our bodies. That makes sense. So I take this from uh what's ready? I apologize. I don't remember the author, but um they were talking about, you can know and have the information and even understand that, say cigarette smoking is really bad for you, but until you sense it in your body somehow, if you want to smoke, you'll smoke, right? So not to smoke, we might say, well that's a wise choice. Never to have started maybe was a wise choice, but that comes from something. 

So how are you wise? You know, we like to shy away from that question. It's kind of embarrassing, right? Like what kind of egomaniac would say that they were "wise", you know? And in fact even Socrates himself who certainly many considered to be very wise said the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. And I think that's very wise, that keeps the mind open. It keeps the mind curious. And I do think again, it does point to the body because no, you know nothing right? But the body senses right? 

I could know it's safe to walk around my building generally, but I'm telling you if it's dark out and I started to walk and I got a sensation in the body of danger. I best listen, right, maybe it's nothing, maybe it's a bear. I don't know. So here's the thing, you know, talking about it on this podcast on seriously yourself. I think you have wisdom. I think you are wise. You know, we're all only human and we're certainly all subject to all kinds of questionable information, all kinds of questionable knowledge. But you still, I believe have the capacity to stay curious, as Socrates says, unknowing and makes sense. And I think in that way that kind of wisdom belongs so, so particularly to you, your own take on things how it's felt for you, what you've gleaned from your own life, experience, what you have to teach others. You know, it's so important. It has nothing to do with your SAT score or your rank in your high school or what college you went to. I don't believe that. I think some of the wisest things I've heard are from little children, some of them intentional, some of them accidental and some of them just like profound right little kids say the most amazing things, amazing things. They notice and they feel and that tends to come out in their words.

 I always love and I've probably told you before about my nephew Otto who's now a teenager, but back when he was like two instead of using, I don't know, he would say, "I can't know", you'd ask him about something and he'd say, "I can't know". And I think that's a bit of wisdom. He couldn't know, he didn't have it in there to be able to know the answer. Yeah, Little Socrates we had there, we didn't even know it. So you don't have to know everything to be wise and you don't have to be old to be wise and you don't have to be narcissistic or egotistical to be wise. You just have to feel into that body, use your senses combined with what you have experienced and what you've taken in and with curiosity and patience and care express that when the time is right, right? 
Or just live in it and people will witness your wisdom. I think I really want to encourage you to do that because I don't have your wisdom, you know, and if you make it uniquely your own, if you don't just quote what you heard on this program or the news or even in that book, but you feel into it and kind of, you know, mix it around in there with what you've lived through and keep an open mind and heart and notice what is important. I think your wisdom is going to show through and I think the world needs you. Yeah. So how are you wise? Where is your wisdom today? What does it tell you to do or be take good care of you stay in touch with yourself and me too. Hey, and if you enjoyed this episode, please, please drop me a little review where you're listening, it is most appreciated. And if you're thinking of even more goodness, please look into the seriously yourself membership. We are going to be opening up for more members this fall and I would love to have you there, take good care of yourself. Don't be a wise guy. Talk to you soon. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 





]]> Thu, 22 Sep 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 870 Do you think of yourself as wise? I do, and I think you should, too! We often confuse wisdom with related words like knowledge, intelligence, or understanding. But wisdom is making sense of and using the knowledge and understanding. Do you think of yourself as wise? I do, and I think you should, too! We often confuse wisdom with related words like knowledge, intelligence, or understanding. But wisdom is making sense of and using the knowledge and understanding. No No Busy? Listen Up! https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/rn7m42wn-busy-listen-up Busy? Listen Up! 34 No No k18wypk0 Feeling busy is a message from your body and heart. What are they trying to tell you? We are discussing 4 possible reasons why "I'm so busy" keeps showing up for you, and they are usually under the surface and hidden. Let's excavate! Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 


Hi, come on in, how are you? I'm hoping you're busy. Are you busy? You're really, really busy. You probably are busy. Yeah, I'm recording this for September. It's September now, and I'm guessing you're busy, because everyone I talked to when I talk to them, they're like, I'm so busy, but how are you? I'm busy. Are you feeling, busy? It's too busy, I'm tired, it's so busy. Yeah, busy. 

So this is a good episode, even if it's not September when you're listening to this to take it in because it could be helpful for another time when you might be really busy. And I can't tell you that you shouldn't be busy. In fact, it's probably a great thing that you're busy. It shows that you're alive, you're well, you're out there, you're doing things. Yeah, it's not bad, but there's something about end of summer, beginning of fall along with a few other times of the year, but in a unique way this time of year brings out a certain flavor of busy. Does it feel like that for you? I think for many, many, many, many people if they have families especially or if they themselves are attending school or in the school system or in a business that is connected to a typical school schedule sometimes offering different kinds of lessons or things for children or anything that connects to school. Right, it ramps up in September, End of August beginning of September and then we're off to the races. And so in fact, there is this literal increase in activity, an increase in scheduling and in expectations that have been somewhat released during the summer. 
Even if you're not on that particular schedule with your work or your family say you're retired. I don't think it's uncommon for people to experience this ramping up this like, "oh, got to do now that it's coming into September" because that's what you did for many, many years of your childhood right into young adulthood. Talk about a habit, right? The habit is September is busy. So as you do that, let's take some time so that we don't feel like our heads are gonna explode in September because nobody needs that. Right? 

So I'm gonna offer you today on seriously yourself a little exercise that you can try to help you stay healthy in your body in your mind, even when the expectations and realities of September ramp up for you, okay? 
If you can start by just taking a moment this week and notice how often are you giving yourself messages that you are busy right? Now, some people are very, very aware of their inner dialogue or some would say that overthinking or the voice in their head, right? And other people are really not. I'm not sure if maybe some folks don't have it as much. I I think if you're a person that often hears the running dialogue of themselves in their head and is aware of it, you might be a little jealous of those that don't seem to have that experience, but I don't know, I think probably most of us do have that. If we actually stop and we notice what was just going on inside me. 
But if you have a comment on that, please please let me know. I think it's interesting. So go back again and notice what you hear yourself say to yourself about your pacing, your schedule, your obligations, your expectations and so on. And notice how often you might hear yourself say I'm too busy or I'm so busy or things are so busy when I get busy. I tend to you so with it, I don't know. I think part of me really wants to emphasize that, right? 

Yours may sound more like I am just exhausted. I'm so tired, I'll never catch up. Okay, so take a minute then, when you've kind of gotten it that you're doing this to yourself. Do you do it when you first wake up in the morning as you're trying to get ready to go when someone reminds you about something, is it last thing at night when you're like, oh no, what do I have going on tomorrow? Is it maybe a running tally all day? 
I'm not saying you don't need that. You very well might need that, but we want to help it be as conscious and soothing as possible, right? We don't want it to be a painful experience for you. So after you've determined when you're saying I'm so busy or if you're saying it and you might, by the way, be saying it to friends and family. Also catch those, then ask yourself what happens in my body or around my body sensations when I hear myself say I'm so busy or it's so busy or things are so busy or we're so busy. Maybe even as I say, that you get an idea of what it feels like in your body when this is going on, when that word comes up too much.
You know, for example, your head might go kind of foggy, your shoulders might take your heart or chest might feel heavy, you might feel just a malaise come over you, your heart might start pounding, you know, like, oh my gosh, I gotta get on this, I got stuff to do or it might sink. Yeah, you might want to jot down what you feel. That's a something it isn't just a feeling that you need to ignore, nor is it something you have to sink into. It's just a noticing, right? Oh, busy equals this in my body. Okay? And consciously, I would say when you do feel that send a loving, appreciative or compassionate breath, if it's possible to wherever you do feel the result of I'm too busy. 

And as you breathe and experience that sensation, you might want to just listen, what comes up? Do you hear more? Do you see images? Do you get more sensation? What happens? Do you get a reminder of a certain time period of your life? Do you have a part that shows you your list? Well, here's your list and in fact you are too busy. Do you have a part that shows you a list of regrets? Maybe? Maybe there isn't mistakes. You feel you're making around your schedule, right? Maybe someone has pressed your schedule upon you and you disagree. Takes you back to fourth grade, sitting at the kitchen counter, listening to your mom tell you what homework you had that night. Yeah, wherever it takes you let it take you if you can and just jot it down. If you have a moment, I know you're busy, but if you could, it would be great. You're gonna find things that I could not possibly predict.

And that's why I love, I love working with people because you know, you hear a lot of similar stories, we are certainly way more connected than not. But you also hear these these unique intricacies that make each person who they are, you know, their own little little nuances and experiences and wiring. That is so fabulous. So, if you do come up with anything great from that and you want to share it with me, DM me, send me a message, I'd love to hear. The other thing. You can then notice is that that if you are really telling people a lot, I'm so busy. Maybe you wake up and you just mutter it out loud at the kitchen sink or when anybody ask you, how are you? I'm so busy. I'm too busy. I'm busy. Right. There may be a secondary purpose for the part of you that's saying that, right, what could that be? Well, it's going to be up to you, but take a check, it could be an indirect way of you asking for help. Maybe you have four kids to get to four different sports in the afternoon and you feel like everybody else also has the same problem and you feel like you have no right to ask for help, but frankly you can't do it because you're only one person. And so rather than feeling capable of reaching out, asking a spouse, a friend, a family member for help, changing the schedule in any meaningful way for yourself or another solution. The part of you just keeps kind of shouting out loud, I'm so busy, I'm just too busy, hoping for a rescue. Please help me. It's saying please please come to the rescue. I'm underwater here. That would make sense. Yeah, it may be just an expression of frustration. You know that you are just legitimately too busy. Your employer just plopped a new assignment on you, your kids just started school, right? Some of your family started a new job. Um someone's beginning driver's ed, I don't know, whatever it is, you can do the math and it doesn't work right? I cannot do this. There are not enough hours in the day and there is not enough of me, right? When we get those clones, it's gonna be awesome. Tell you what? Probably not. But you know, don't you wish the other thing that I'm so busy or I'm too busy can be doing for you or trying to do for you is creating a little internal reminder to you that you need to stay on task, right? 

So it's almost like a little pressure button that goes off every now and again to say don't lose track, because there's a lot now you could do that differently and we'll go over that in a sec. But it could just be like a little pop up timer or a little alarm bell really "stay on task, stay on task, there's a lot going on" and what it says to you is, you know, I'm so busy, okay. 

And finally, and it's not finally because you very well could have things that are unique to you. But the other one that I think of is that it could just be a bad habit, right? A very ineffective kind of a little habit that you've developed a part of you started doing and then you just kept doing it and again those habits can be connected to times of year when you needed those habits, right? So if you needed, when you were a high school junior to stay on task and to be so busy because of your lifestyle. Then you may have begun that habit and you may still have it whenever September rolls around, so you could look at that, it's kind of fun really. 

So whatever busy means in your system is okay, alright? But you do have the capacity to work with parts of your body, your mind, your soma that have been dragged along and have dragged too busy forward from your childhood. You may very well need to ask for help. You may very well need to ask for help, right? You might need to say to your kid one sport this year. I love you. But unless you can find a ride, my dear eighth grader, I can't be in another place. I just can't. Right, You might want to look at what doesn't feel like your choice. 
So you may have added activities, right? And then forget, oh, I want this. And so then you're like, oh I'm so busy even though you know, you're doing something that when you get there or tune in or do it gives you great refreshment, right? So maybe busy has become a word, that's logging you down. That's not the word I want. Maybe busy is a word that is dragging you down, pulling you down, but isn't really what you mean? Right? So maybe if you notice, yeah, I'm busy, but I love going to the book group on Tuesdays. I'm so glad we started again. I love being at the soccer field with you know, jimmy because how fun is that? I love, you know that work is busier because I was actually kind of you know, getting tired of what I was doing whatever it is. But if you don't feel that you have the choice and busy keeps entering your mind, you might just want to say, is that what I really mean? Or do I want to say I'm more lively than usual or I'm more active than usual, right? You can really look at how words impact what you feel about what you're doing. 

So those are just a few ideas, I hope they're helpful, I find for me they are really helpful because my body responds to words without me even recognizing barely that I've said them to myself and so slowing down and being more conscious and feeling into them is a great resource. Let me know what you find out if you want to play with this more. We do this kind of work every single month in the Seriously Yourself Membership and it is great fun. There are abundant treats and deliciousness for you. So wherever you live, feel free to check into that on my website and come along, we would love to have you. But you know, in the meantime it's kind of busy. So I gotta run, bye.

 Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 
]]> Thu, 15 Sep 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1068 Feeling busy is a message from your body and heart. What are they trying to tell you? We are discussing 4 possible reasons why "I'm so busy" keeps showing up for you, and they are usually under the surface and hidden. Let's excavate! Feeling busy is a message from your body and heart. What are they trying to tell you? We are discussing 4 possible reasons why "I'm so busy" keeps showing up for you, and they are usually under the surface and hidden. Let's excavate! No No What's Your Addiction? https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/v859j7z8-what-s-your-addiction What's Your Addiction? 33 No No 81ql35k0 Let's think about the things we need - or THINK we need - to help us avoid discomfort. Sometimes we avoid discomfort at all costs and pursue comfort to our own detriment. How do we compassionately move towards comfort and safety without reaching for something damaging? Hi there, come on in. This is Seriouslyourself, the podcast, and I'm Ingrid Helander.
Hey there, come on in. Welcome to Seriouslyourself. I'm really happy you're here today. I have an interesting topic that has been coming up a lot for me lately, and it's about addiction. Addiction... hmm... I never have thought of myself as a person really susceptible, honestly, to addictions. Well, not entirely, but I would say that the kinds of addictions - this sort of scary addictions that we hear about a lot like opioid addiction or alcohol addiction or other drug addictions, I don't really like the feeling of being terribly under the influence. Painkillers seldom work well for me, some even jumped me the other direction and make me feel hyper and have more pain, and it's always been that way since I was a little kid. I was raised in a family where ,you know, you were taught to be pretty afraid -  I think is the word - of all things that would alter you too much. You know, I don't know if that was good or bad. But at any rate, it was never really a part of who I, you know had grown up to be, and so I didn't ever really think about addiction much. But the last couple of months I've been dealing with an addiction in my family and really taking a serious look at myself and what it means to have addiction.

I can tell you that I definitely have had times in my life and probably even right now where I am certainly addicted to caffeine, to coffee. How about you? I don't know if you drink coffee or maybe a strong tea, you know that if you quit suddenly you're probably going to go through 3-5 days of nasty headache and irritability. And it's a very particular feeling, and you know it pretty quickly like, oh man, I haven't had my coffee! And it can make you really ill, you know, the withdrawal symptoms from caffeine can be terrible. So yeah, is that an addiction? Absolutely.

We know that the definition of addiction is a compulsive, chronic physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior or activity, having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms such as anxiety, irritability, tremors or nausea upon withdrawal or abstinence. That's Miriam Webster.

Yeah. So the purpose of the podcast today is to get us really thinking about that in Seriouslyourself, it's not to minimize significant, serious, life-threatening addictions or any of the people that are going through them or any of those who love those folks. Okay? It's not to minimize that. And it's certainly not to pathologize "normal,"  because that's got a really broad meaning for me, but behaviors that we should not be concerned about. I'm not trying to make normal, everyday, don't worry about it behaviors into something that would be an illness or sickness or a problem. 

So having said that, I do think though that it's really worth it, when you're trying to be more seriously yourself, to look at what addictiveness, right? Or what addictions might you have. One thing I'm learning in dealing with a loved one's addiction is that I have parts of me that are co-addicted with them, right? I don't like them to feel or act off. And so I have certain behaviors that I will repeat in order to maintain them, right? That's that you know that enabler kind of a thing. I hate the word enabler because it makes you feel so lousy, so I won't use it here. But you know, it's that kind of a thing. Yeah? 

So what about you? What do you engage in that might have an extra little bit of a hold and negative impact for you? My favorite current definition of addiction is by a woman named Karen Perlmutter who's an addiction expert, and she defines addiction as: The gradual development of an (inaccurate) belief that I am incapable of experiencing discomfort and therefore I must pursue comfort at all cost. Right? This deep, honest belief in the body - in the mind, I guess that the addict wholly believes (though it is not true) that they cannot experience any kind of discomfort. 

And if you know someone who is really addicted to whatever they're addicted to and you look at them and you're like: Really? Really? You have to do this thing or you have to have that? Yeah, they feel they do. They're not  - they're not kidding. Okay? So if you think about that definition, which I really like, and you apply it to your own behaviors and activities, it can be so helpful. And here's why: It can show you where you're not attending to parts of your discomfort in a way that's helpful. It can show you where you're feeling out of control around discomfort. 

Using that definition for everyday behaviors that you feel compelled to do really can help you to know if you are entering dangerous territory or what the difference is between behavior that is soothing, that is helpful, that is internally supportive and behavior or practices that have a negative addictive quality. Right? So you might say, well, I'm addicted to meditation Ingrid. I have to do it every morning or I am off.  And I would say that's an interesting one to look at, because it is a wonderful practice and you will gain a ton from meditating and you probably aren't going to have negative consequences from meditating, and you probably won't have serious immediate symptoms - I don't think - if you stop meditating. However, if you meditate in such a way that is because you absolutely cannot stand the discomfort you are in, right? And without being able to do that immediately in that way and in disregard of everyone and everything, then you might have an addiction, right? Good or bad? I'm not sure. But you know, so I'm taking something that we normally would think of as just really super great, right? I know people that do really good things like exercise, but from an addictive standpoint. So if they don't exercise their thoughts, feelings become so overwhelming for them that they have to exercise in lieu of absolutely everything and it takes over their lives and sometimes has negative health consequences. 

So for me, I was thinking about, well certainly, you know, if I stopped drinking coffee tomorrow, I would have a headache for a little bit. Now if somebody said, you know, there's a huge coffee problem - I don't know what it would be, but you cannot have coffee again or even caffeine, right? I wouldn't lose my mind over that. I wouldn't be like, this cannot be, I won't be able to handle my life. Okay? But you know, if somebody took my phone away tomorrow, I may have similar thoughts. I was recently with a friend whom I adore, and she had dropped her phone in the ocean and then was trying to go about doing her work, doing her business even of like getting a new phone and so on. But she didn't know the area, and she didn't have GPS with her. And so getting together with anyone or even to certain stores was enormously hard. We are (so really aren't we? Many of us) addicted to our phones, addicted to having a thought, you know, I wonder about this and then Googling it immediately and sometimes when we can't do that we get really frustrated. I know if I'm trying to think of a word or a movie or a song or something, I can't remember some fact. It can drive me purely nuts if I can't get to Google to ask. Now can I get used to that feeling? Yes. Could I tolerate it? Yeah. But you've certainly seen the videos  - and if you haven't, they're interesting to watch - of like young teenagers who have their phone removed and they go through withdrawal symptoms, literal physical panicky withdrawal. They can't imagine not having that tool in their hand really as part of their body and their consciousness that they're going to experience so much discomfort without it. Right? 

So the next time, I would say, that you're experiencing some discomfort in this process of becoming more seriously yourself, notice what you reach for, notice what you're thinking. "I need. I need to do this now." And then stay compassionately curious and ask yourself: Do I need to repeat that behavior? Do I need to look at my email first thing every morning? Do I need to play that game on the phone? Do I need to call that particular person to see if they're okay right now? Do I need to eat this thing, drink this thing? Have this thing? Yeah. And then you can decide, I don't need it. I can enjoy it or I can use something healthy to soothe, but I'm okay. And maybe, you can even notice what is the actual discomfort you're trying to rid yourself up or you believe you can't handle. What is it? What's the worst that's gonna happen? And let yourself go there, not because you're going there, but because some part of you already believes it's going to happen. Does that make sense? And do it gently and kindly. And if you find that you're having, you know, truly serious problem with it and it's really hard for you to take it seriously - because of course the addiction will say no, no, no, no, no I'm not. I am not a problem for you. I'm your savior, right? The addiction has that sneaky way of doing that. 

Especially things like alcohol and drugs, because they have more of a chemical component, even than the juicing of our own body, right? When we satisfy a craving to get rid of a discomfort, right? So if we do that psychologically, I'm sure there's still a chemical happening in our bodies. But if we do it with a drug, then it's even more so makes sense. Yeah. 

So I just want to bring that up. I think especially after the pandemic, we are seeing tons and tons and tons of addictions that have popped to the surface more; that have not been able to be seen by others because people were quarantined. So they got out of hand, that have not been able to get the resources they needed because of also quarantines and illness, staffing all kinds of issues, Right? 

So just offering tons and tons of patience to yourself and to others who are experiencing addiction right now, taking the time to understand your own and offering it curiosity and care. And get help if you need. Reach out. We all want to feel good, and we're all capable of handling especially emotional discomfort with enough help and enough compassion. 

Take good, good care of you. Take a deep breath, stay really patient and get curious. What are your addictions, my friends? Talk to you next time. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 




]]> Thu, 08 Sep 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1010 Let's think about the things we need - or THINK we need - to help us avoid discomfort. Sometimes we avoid discomfort at all costs and pursue comfort to our own detriment. How do we compassionately move towards comfort and safety without reaching for something damaging? Let's think about the things we need - or THINK we need - to help us avoid discomfort. Sometimes we avoid discomfort at all costs and pursue comfort to our own detriment. How do we compassionately move towards comfort and safety without reaching for something damaging? No No The Gift of the Grasshopper https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/xny9kj2n-the-gift-of-the-grasshopper The Gift of the Grasshopper 32 No No l14mzvq0 This week, an invitation to experience the surprising joys of our surroundings. What have you learned from your time when you're not really trying to make anything happen. I find that often that creative open spaces where the best ideas inspirations comforts come from. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hi there. Hi, come on in, how are ya? Oh, today I have a kind of a yummy topic I think and you can take what you need from it, but I think fundamentally it's about being open to receive and to listen inside to you while you also notice what's coming towards you and for you and for a lot of people that might sound kind of woo like woo what are you talking about? But I've noticed that the more I pay attention to my inner world, often using the skill or the practice of internal family systems therapy. And I think for a lot of people using their own belief systems, the concept of the spiritual life and connection to that might be another concept to draw on as we're talking today or just nature and what does nature hold for us and have to teach us about the life here and our world and it's kind of wonderful. 

So I have a story for you recently, I got to experience time at Kripalu which is a yoga retreat center, lovely, restful, beautiful place in great Barrington, Massachusetts and it's surrounded and in the Berkshires of Western Mass and is just lovely there. And I happened to be there on a beautiful summer day and I decided to go down and walk the labyrinth. Which you may or may not have walked labyrinths. I never did really much until I was probably in my 40's and since then have grown quite an affection for them. They're not mazes, they're not things you have to figure out. They lead you in on a very winding turning contemplative path and they weave you back out and I love them for that reason. And they give you a space to really be with yourself, be with your surroundings, listen deeply, it's meditative, right? You can breathe and just be. And in that space sometimes things come, sometimes you get beautiful messages or just a sense of well being. And a labyrinth isn't something that I would rush through. It's something that I would go very methodically, restfully, mindfully through so it can take some time. 

So on a particular afternoon I decided I was going to go down and treat myself to the labyrinth and I entered the labyrinth and began my walk and just, you know, trying to be aware of what was around me, the sky, the sun, the breezes that touched me. I noticed little purple clover and cute little buttercups along the way, an occasional bird. The labyrinth was surrounded by I think they're used probably like a fir shrub and some of them actually had other fir trees growing right in them. Like they were trying to take over sort of a blue spruce sort of coming in and out of this original shrub that had been planted and I just thought that I've never seen anything quite like that. And I thought it was kind of fascinating and I wondered about, you know, at what point might that just become like a metamorphosis into this new fir tree and would that even happen? So I just was kind of thinking about that and being amused by everything I saw. And as I came around one of the many curves and turns, I noticed what looked to me like a black and white butterfly probably four feet away from me to the left on the path. And as I looked at it and thought about moving toward it, though it wasn't exactly on my path, but it was near as I approached closer, I I was startled by this, I heard this click the snap and realized it was it was a jumping insect. So I came later to find out it was probably a black winged grasshopper which I'm not particularly familiar with for some reason. So it jumped and made this loud clicking sound that took my breath away for a moment and I thought was kind of fun. And then I noticed it had leaped to the other side of the path, but forward from me, maybe a foot from the path, but maybe four ft 5 ft in front of me. So I was kind of excited that I could see it again and maybe it would do the same thing and it had its wings open so I could spot it pretty easily. So as I kept on the path walking sort of slowly toward it, it once again this snap happened and I was really happy about it. It was like, hey, we're playing here. And then I noticed it leaped over the path and went sort of around the next curve and I knew I would be coming around to it again. And as I did so hey, once again there it was and we had a little game going almost and it was so fun and I had some time in between that moment and when I might find it again, I started getting curious about, well what what do I want to know about this, this interaction, this gift of nature here, what, what's what's going to come from this? And I watched it, it hopped again and I watched how straight its lines were. And it was just crossing over paths that I knew I was going to be winding through much more slowly. And I thought to myself, maybe maybe the message is, you know, to take a direct path, not to wait around for this slow thing, but you know, jump over, take the straight line, take the B line. And pretty quickly had this really strong sensation of don't move right toward the grasshopper with that energy of the straight line, the quick path because I could have right, I I could have certainly just walked right over to it and chased it around and you know, enjoyed it, snapping and hopping and see what it did. But I had such a strong feeling of you came here to walk the path you love. You came down to the labyrinth to engage in your process to do what you enjoy, do that. And the grasshopper at that point was on the opposite side of where the path was leading me. And so I thought, well yeah, I'm gonna keep going here. And I kept walking and meandering around. It was taking me farther and farther away from my new friend and I walked around and came around a corner and all of a sudden I recognized oh I might be getting a little bit closer to where I left the grasshopper and I was a little happy about that. But I wasn't really close enough to where I had left it to imagine that my walking would create that same jump again. And it came to me very clearly, you know, you're on the path you love. And if you just stay there maybe the grasshopper will just come to you. That delight will just come to you. And honestly, no joke. The minute the thought entered my mind and started to leave I hear and it was the same grasshopper. But it had left in between and was on the other side of me, right beside where I walked right past it and it took my breathe, at that time I just literally started laughing out loud, luckily I was alone on the left Corinth because I went, oh, it was so fun. What a delight, right? This little bug for some reason that was representing a sense of fun and and a wakefulness and and surprise came to me. I didn't have to go the B line, I didn't have to go jerking about the labyrinth, which was not my paths purpose to walk the labyrinth. I could simply be and it would come to me. 

So I ended up walking through the rest of the labyrinth and you know, saying goodbye and thank you to my grasshopper friend who stayed there,I think. I had an image in my mind, how fun would it be if it just hopped with me all the way back up to the residents building. But you know, that was my, that was just for fun. That was a fun fantasy. I had already gotten what I needed from the grasshopper. It's gift of be patient, stay on your path, be where you love, do what you love and you know, others that want to play with you that want to delight you and be delighted by you will come to you. 

Yeah, so I'm curious today about experiences that you have maybe when you're in nature, maybe when you're just in a quiet, meditative like state or on a walk, What comes for you? What have you learned from your time when you're not really trying to make anything happen. I find that often that creative open space where the best ideas, inspirations, comforts come from. And so I'm just inviting you if it isn't a practice for you, which I think for most of us it probably isn't, I don't know to take those moments and allow whatever is there to come to you because it will surprise you, you know, just as the crack, that crack of that grasshopper was a beautiful surprise for me. I think these little gifts surprise us in a great way when you're outside, take the time to notice when you're paying attention to your breath, your body, your strong emotions, take the time to notice. It's all here for you to gain joy. It really brings such joy wishing you great joy today. 
If you'd like a little more joy in your day your week, please make sure to sign up for my newsletter. You can do that easily at my website https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/ and consider while you're there, taking a look at the seriously yourself membership each and every month is so wonderful new delights insights, inspiration practices for you that come to you in ways that you can really absorb and use them. There's beautiful written materials that come right right to your mailbox. There's amazing coaching calls that are personally led by me. You're not going to get stuck with a recording and have to, you know, file that away and hope you get to the class someday. It's all live and in person and you get personal care and attention, personal notes from me in the mail along with lovely little gifts to inspire you and remind you not only of what you're learning is becoming more seriously yourself, but how important you are and what a difference it makes to the world and your own community as you show up. So I hope to see you soon. If you like what you hear in these podcasts, do me a giant favor and drop a review that would mean the world to me. If you're on Spotify or Apple or amazon, just drop me a a little quick review saying what you liked. And if you have any questions, you can always reach out to me through direct messages or email. Great to be with you today. Watch for those grasshoppers, they are always around. Take good, good care, talk to you soon. Bye now.

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 




 
]]> Thu, 01 Sep 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 967 This week, an invitation to experience the surprising joys of our surroundings. What have you learned from your time when you're not really trying to make anything happen. I find that often that creative open spaces where the best ideas inspirations comforts come from. This week, an invitation to experience the surprising joys of our surroundings. What have you learned from your time when you're not really trying to make anything happen. I find that often that creative open spaces where the best ideas inspirations comforts come from. No No Heartache & Other Information https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/v8597228-heartache-other-information Heartache & Other Information 31 No No 81ql5220 Our hearts are a sophisticated and magnificent part of our minds. They hold so much information if we are quiet enough, and brave enough, to listen. And if your curiosity takes you further, your heart might let you know something about yourself - longings, constraints, needs, memories and more. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hey, hello, come on in, how are you? I am glad that you are here and I hope you're feeling well. Today I'm talking about heartache, ouch, heart ache. Have you had that experience heartache? I don't know if it's exactly the same as feeling a broken heart. I kind of feel like that's different, That feels more acute, you know, like someone has just slapped you across the face and said, I never want to see you again and oh my heart was just broken where they said something really cruel and I had a broken heart, I guess that's similar. 

And I'm talking about like when you focus on your breathing and you notice your heart and you might or might not have the sensation of heaviness or aching or kind of pain like. Do you know what I mean? Do you ever feel that way? I think I carry a lot of feeling in my heart. I know what I'm working with clients lots of times they're feeling will go right to their gut. They'll say, oh I just feel almost nauseous right now and I know that feeling too. And perhaps you do as well, that might be a more predominant sensation. 

But for a lot of people, when I ask, how do you feel, they'll point to their chest square in the center and they're like, it's always right here. And it can reverberate and be all around their chest sometimes up into the shoulders and down into the belly. That area of our anatomy, sure does carry a lot of sensation. When I first started doing internal family systems model, which is a more somatic model of therapy where you do pay attention to what your body tells you what your body feels like. We were all sitting in a circle and the man who created the model, Richard Schwartz was guiding us to pay attention to our hearts with curiosity and I got to tell you my heart was aching, so bad. It felt really like if you could just, if if you're in a seated position, you just, your your heart was so heavy that you just folded down onto your knees with this aching feeling like, ow ow ow.  And we were probably 40 of us sitting around in a circle listening to him, you know, ask us to be curious about this different kinds of sensations from the heart. And another part of me was sort of thinking, "holy cow, I wonder if I'm okay. This really, really hurts. Like maybe though I'm curious and we're doing this exercise and it's all perfectly fine and we're supposed to be just curious and interested. Maybe I'm having, like a coronary, you know, like maybe this is a heart attack" and I'm just sitting here going, huh? I wonder what's happening. I wonder what my heart wants me to know when maybe the heart wants me to go to the emergency room. Now. Now, as it turns out, I have a very healthy heart and my heart was not advising that I go to the emergency room, but I wasn't used to paying a whole lot of attention to what my heart felt like, right? Unless it was basically jumping out of my chest in some weird arrhythmia, which I had often as a kid and a young adult, or it was pounding unnecessarily hard or necessarily hard from exercise. I didn't really notice it, I didn't pay much attention. 

But boy, in that moment when we were sitting in that circle and we were paying attention, I recognized there was a lot going on there. It really hurt. It felt heavy, it felt like a squeeze almost, but not the good kind that you get when you get a hug, but like the squeeze of a fist, maybe the kind where your fingernails dig into your palm, was that kind of a feeling. And the more I focus toward my heart, the more I was trying to get it to relax a little bit and the more I was trying to get it to relax a little bit, the more it actually tightened and hurt and sent out feelings of yearning and frustration and confusion and sadness and grief. 

You know, our hearts are a little brain. I don't even think they're a little brain. I think they're quite a sophisticated and magnificent part of our mind and they hold so much information if we just are quiet enough to listen. And honestly brave enough courage comes from the word heart and I think you need courage to listen to one's heart. It's not easy and it can feel really terrible, like maybe you're having a heart attack. 

What I discovered in that first time listening and paying attention to my heart was that I had stored up a lot of hardship. You know, just parts of me taking on the pain of life, like we all do ,honestly, like we all do. And my heart wanted me to know memories and concepts that were hurting me that were holding me back that were making me feel kind of lousy and as I was able over time to breathe to shift my focus toward the information coming from that pain in the heart, I was able to help it. You know, you don't have to just walk around with a big heavy heart all the time, acting as if you know you have a chest full of butterfly right? We we often have a heavy heart and it's okay to look at it. It's okay to listen to it. It's okay to not talk at it for a minute. It was really funny when I'm working with people even when I'm working myself and the request will be to focus toward what you're feeling. Just focus on it and be with it for a minute and ask it, you know what's going on. And often within seconds, either my client or sometimes me are talking at this sensation, you know demanding that it step back or demanding that it change you're demanding that it tell us what's going on with you. And it just doesn't work that way. So the idea of listening with an inner voice or an inner ear to these inner voices is really confusing and I get it's really tricky at first. But it is how we are we are set up to be able to do it. I don't know if it comes from sort of just basic instinct that we've forgotten along the way. As our brains have become kind of the the you know, ruler of the body or what, but we really can listen into what our feelings are and especially those of our heart. I think the heart in particular is so full and rich of the neurons that communicate that if we just wait a minute, we're going to get impressions and sometimes images and sometimes words or sensations or memories and they come and you can't make this stuff up. I'll tell you right now, you cannot make it up. It surprises me every time and it surprises my clients every time. They'll go, oh my goodness, where did that come from there? It was if you've lived a life, you have stored info right, that's how we survive. What if we didn't store any information, can you imagine? Right? 

We really take for granted that we can store information that we need to live right? Like people with memory of disability. They can't do a lot of things right? They can't drive often because it wouldn't occur to them to hit the brake or to know what a stop sign was. Right. But we take for granted that we can do all of these things because we have memory in the brain that our brain holds this like a little you know roller decks little card. That is not an updated image. I recognize it's like a computer hard drive. How's that? Right? It's the memory bank but I really want us to remember that the body too holds memory, it holds insight, it holds images that we need for living. We need these for living. 

So take a moment even now even now as you hear my voice take a breath and send it towards your heart and actually as I do that right now my heart calms. It really feels rested and like ah you said what you wanted to say I get you. But take a minute with some curiosity and some compassion and just notice your heart, you know that beating thing in your chest and all the surrounding sensations maybe up high into your throat, maybe down lower towards your diaphragm all of that. I think you're going to find it if you haven't done it lately it's kind of amazing. And maybe if you're committed to just doing it a little bit more. You know, maybe before you make a decision, or if you're feeling some kind of confusion in your mind, you take a minute and you recognize I've got another resource here, hang on. And you take a breath and you breathe into that beautiful beating heart space. Ha! And hopefully like me, you won't feel like you're having a heart attack and perhaps you should call 911 though. If you do and you are then do. But in my case, I was fine. I'm gonna hope that in your case you're fine too, have a wonderful week. I'll talk with you next time and in the meantime, notice that heart, be a little more seriously yourself in your heart space, right? And let me know how it goes for you. I really look forward to hearing from you. Thanks so much for being here. Talk to you soon. Bye bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 



]]> Thu, 25 Aug 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 866 Our hearts are a sophisticated and magnificent part of our minds. They hold so much information if we are quiet enough, and brave enough, to listen. And if your curiosity takes you further, your heart might let you know something about yourself - longings, constraints, needs, memories and more. Our hearts are a sophisticated and magnificent part of our minds. They hold so much information if we are quiet enough, and brave enough, to listen. And if your curiosity takes you further, your heart might let you know something about yourself - longings, constraints, needs, memories and more. No No Feeling Invisible? https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/28xmql1n-feeling-invisible Feeling Invisible? 30 No No 60m53yl0 The things that make you feel most vulnerable, that you consider to be shortcomings, can be an enormous source of power and gift to the world. If you're wanting to start a business, new project, and or just be more authentically yourself everyday...this is for you! Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hello, how are you? Come in, have a seat relax, kick off for 15 minutes or so, just enough time just to get a little boost today. I'm so glad you're with me. Thank you, thank you for joining me this month and seriously yourself, the community, we're talking about visibility, visibility, meaning the ability to be seen, right? And along with that, the ability to see ourselves in all of our fullness and wonder, and then to allow ourselves to be seen in the world, right? How hard is that? How hard is that? You know, we're, we're so taught to ego up, create the alter ego that can be seen and often we need those, you know those little impressions that we bring along with us to be in certain groups of people, certain spaces, right? Like how do I show up and do this podcast? Well, I hope I show up with as much authenticity as possible, I hope you feel like you're seeing me that is a goal. And some days, you know, it's like maybe you're hearing the therapist hatted person or the, you know, person who is playing with the microphone or something like that, maybe I'm hiding behind something, it's good to check, you know, even when I come onto the mic, it's good for me to stop and check who's talking, who's talking to you.  So I would say I'm here, I feel pretty here today and usually do, because I like to talk to you, it's really fun and of course it feels pretty simple. I'm not seeing your faces in return though, I would love to. So visibility requires vulnerability, right? It requires that sometimes tender looking in noticing what is present within and sometimes on the outside of us too. And then letting that sometimes be seen if we so choose or at least seeing it ourselves and then deciding about it right, visibility requires vulnerability. And you know, the queen of vulnerability, I don't know if she's called herself that yet, but Brene Brown talks about that quite a lot. In her book Dare lead, She says vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path, wow, I mean really makes me feel like, okay, so worth it. Right, so worth being vulnerable. Which is why it is the topic of the month for august in the community, so worth being vulnerable so that we can be visible. You know, and maybe not just visible with the eyes but visible energetically around people. 

Recently, I read a post by a philosopher named Charles Eisenstein and he was talking about the difference that makes a difference for what the world chooses to change, right? To help really comes down to love, right? We can know that the monarch butterflies are suffering right? And becoming now endangered. We can know that. But until we recognize that we love them and that we would desperately miss them in our world, not only because of the ecosystem being offset right in a negative direction, but just missing them. Until we can feel that love right? That vulnerability, we won't make a difference. There will be no collective movement, which is probably what it requires of each of us somehow to call upon anything that needs to make the changes.

 So vulnerability, the ability to be seen, felt, known really is not only important personally. So that you can come to the end of your days and go, you know, I was here, you know, I was here, I lived, I made a difference somehow doesn't have to be big can be like the beating of the butterfly wing that connects to the rest of the world. But it needs to be you, right, needs to be you. So how do we take a breath and just notice? Oh, here, here I am. I am imperfect. I am confused sometimes. I am tired often. I'm impatient, I am all of these things but darn it, I love, I have love, I have energy, I have import. You do you see, you do you see that? Right? I've worked with a lot of people, a lot of people. Everyone does matter somehow. And it's interesting because the things that are most vulnerable in a person or maybe they consider to be the shortcomings or the pain of life or the difficulties are exactly what holds the power almost if I can use that word, the consequence of that person in connection to other people. When you have had things that have happened in your life that you have been able to somehow come to some kind of understanding about. Maybe you've really been able to take the constraints out of them and and notice them with a full embrace, whether it's loss or pain or yearning, frustration, longings, clarity's, courageous moments when you're able to get clear with those because you are able to be vulnerable both with yourself and with others, right? Those can all be seen. 

I'll give you an example when I was working with interns in the field of family therapy. Often, often someone would come in and the new student who was a Master's level students a grown up would come in and they would say, just please don't give me X kinds of clients because that was my story and it still feels a little raw or I might not have perspective about it. And I would listen. And okay, so maybe that maybe it would be please don't give me children whose parents have cancer because my mother just died of cancer. Or please don't give me young girls who have been molested because that's my story or please don't give me families who are dealing with addiction because that's what I just came out of, right? And in all faithfulness. I would say sure, I will certainly keep an ear out for things that might be too triggering in your first year of working as a therapist for you to manage. And I would honestly, I would we did lovely intakes and I would try to get as clear about what the client was bringing to them as I possibly could. And I would say nine times out of 10 the clients that they were most close to would pretty quickly disclose to them that they were dealing with. Exactly the thing the therapist had asked me to avoid and it blew my mind because it was like, no, really, I was trying to not give you that I was really trying to be respectful of your needs at that time. But in truth, I think that it is those very things that when they've been vulnerably addressed, right? We've taken the time to break down our own internal walls and be with parts of us that have been through hard things. It just gives us a connection to our human family that we don't have to hide. And pretty quickly in each of the cases I'm thinking of, the therapist would recognize, oh, I don't have to hide this. I don't have to feel like I'm incapable because something happened to me, right? I can know that I am a survivor, that I can listen to someone else's story and have compassion. I don't have to relate to it identically to be an agent of comfort and I can be seen, I really can be seen. It's okay. 

So I'm wondering how would you like to be seen even just a little more this week, right? Just a little more. How would you like to be seen? Would you like to be seen more fully if you've caught yourself being in maybe sort of a stereotypical pattern? Right? Let's say you feel like you're only being seen as the mom or the worker bee or the addict or the faithful few, right? Or the creative, if you're only being seen in one light, are there other parts of you that would like to be witnessed? Maybe there are some of the ones that you tend to push back a little, you know, those might be the very ones that you could be with get clear about and then notice who who comes who comes when you're more easily seen in these ways. 

I was talking with a wise woman this morning and she said, you know, one thing I know about addiction, we were talking about addiction at the time is that the cure for addiction is community, right? And of course, one will notice when there is someone who has an addiction, one of the, one of the things that happens more and more is they fall out of community, right? There's so much shame and hiding and isolating that goes into that. And there's something about visibility, right, That opens us up to community. We can be as much exactly who we are in that vulnerable way as possible. Yeah, so take the challenge this week, if you'd like, take a moment and just notice where's the moment of vulnerability that will help you be more visible first to yourself, and then as you open that up, how would you like to be a little more visible to those around you? I'm so excited to see what you come up with and I'm grateful that you have been here with me today. Look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks so so much. Ke being you okay, bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 




]]> Thu, 18 Aug 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 907 The things that make you feel most vulnerable, that you consider to be shortcomings, can be an enormous source of power and gift to the world. If you're wanting to start a business, new project, and or just be more authentically yourself everyday...this is for you! The things that make you feel most vulnerable, that you consider to be shortcomings, can be an enormous source of power and gift to the world. If you're wanting to start a business, new project, and or just be more authentically yourself everyday...this is for you! No No Not Just An Emotion! https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/p8mykq78-not-just-an-emotion Not Just An Emotion! 29 No No 70v46v50 We're often told to trust our thoughts more than our emotions. But emotions are a rich source of information about how the world is affecting us. Have you considered the intelligence of your emotions and the compass of clarity that they offer? Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hey there, Welcome, come on in, How are you, my friends? Have you ever caught yourself saying, "oh but that's just a feeling or that's just my emotion speaking"? I hear that a lot in therapy sessions which is interesting because I think one of the reasons that people come to therapy is to get in touch with their feelings. At least often, that's what people would say they've come for. But there is a distinction for people between getting in touch with and really listening to the feeling, listening to even the part of us that holds the feeling or the sensation. And I think that we really do have a bias against listening to feeling. 

You know, I'll name up front that there are schools of thought in therapy that really want to get you out of your feeling mind, right, out of your what might be considered a more reactionary or unthoughtful type of mindset, right? So I feel upset and then I just go off, right, I act on that and so they teach you to sort of set that back and almost be in my words like suspect of the feeling and then you know, proceed with a more logical, thoughtful, together, kind of a response and there's value in that there really is value in not acting from every last little feeling we have. 
But today that's not really what we're talking about, right? We're not talking about the reactivity that comes from spontaneously behaving out of an emotion. What I'm talking about is the ability to communicate with the emotion, to sense the feeling, to get information from the feeling that you have and to even know that you're having a feeling. I think so many of us have been taught to live in our heads, like we are just heads with feet walking around and you know, unless you get a bunion, there's nothing happening in the body that you could possibly feel and get information from or if you do, you should really be sort of suspect of it, right? It could be scary. It could lead to pain, could lead to you feeling too much. And so we tend to just, oh, that's just a feeling. 

And it also, I think reverberates through our society. If you're a woman, we are sort of granted by culture and society the ability to be the emotional sex, right? The emotional gender. And so, you know, because of that, the idea that emotions are lesser that they are not to be considered as important, I think carries on through that patriarchal concept, right? Yeah. 

But it's so essential, like beyond important that you are able to feel your feelings, to feel the sensation of the emotion in your body, in your mind, or around you. This is not just some abstract made up fairyland concept, right? There are all kinds of neurological tests that can show when you have a sensation, it's lighting up in your body, in your heart, right? In your gut and in your brain also. So this is real folks, this isn't made up. It's not to be left aside or thought of as a lesser thing. And it's not something that will lead you down a merry path to nowhere. I really want that point to get across today. Like paying attention in a witnessing way, in a compassionate way, in a fuller way to your body, to your feelings, to your emotions is not something to be taken too lightly. It matters. It really makes a difference. Have you felt that way in the past? Do you have that sort of dichotomy between important things and then just your feelings? Do you treat your kids that way? You know, stop being so emotional and tell me what's really going on or that's nothing to cry about. That's just a feeling. You just got your feelings hurt, right? We were all raised on right, that sticks and stones will break your bones. Well, names hurt and feelings hurt and that is an actual bona fide sensation. It is a neurological event. It's not made up. It's not imaginary and it's not located nowhere often, right? Sometimes it's a memory of an old pain and it's still doggone it right there in the body, you know, I can be working with someone or with myself and go back to a memory and you can feel it as clearly in your body maybe as you did the day it occurred, That is not nothing, that is important. 

And there's even thought that not only can we feel in our own lifetime, but we can feel what our ancestors dealt with due to epigenetics passed down. So we we carry the body sensation, right? They talk about the little brain and the heart, they can show it now on scans right? Where the neurology of the heart, the neurons light up there firing and you're feeling you're really feeling, we're going to talk about that more in a couple of weeks. 

But today I wanted to think about this in terms of being seriously yourself, right. It is important to take a moment and really notice the feeling parts within and around your body and mind. So if you say I'm feeling upset. Okay. Gotcha. Where? No, really? Where are you feeling upset in around your body? How do you know you're upset? Well, I think I'm upset maybe check around. Is it a brain thing? Like I thought upset And so somehow based on that decision, I have a knowing that I'm upset. Is it really cause maybe not, you know, check check check. Is it that I had a thought or a memory or I heard something or I saw something and my gut just tightened right up. I almost felt a little nauseous. Oh and I got that crawly feeling up the backs of my legs and I started feeling kind of weak in my hands as if there wasn't enough blood flow and then my heart sort of dropped. Yeah. And then my face turned red and then I got all kinds of protective like I just needed to defend myself. Yes. That's upset for me in this moment. You see how amazingly different that is from? Yeah, I'm just kind of upset. Well what's upset? I'm frustrated. What are you frustrated about? Well so and so did such and such and I feel frustrated. Well how do you know you feel that way? Right? It's so much more nuanced. 

The body is amazing when you start paying attention to it. It has this distilled brilliance. The feelings are just the feelings. And they give us indicators with this clarity of oh this is exactly what it is and maybe it's not immediately evident to the brain because it's not in the brain. But if you give it a minute and you listen and you pay attention to that feeling. That emotion, that sensation in the body, the brain, it will speak through the vagus nerve up to your brain and you'll be like aha, oh I see now and then you'll have a fuller way of moving forward than had you just shoved aside the feeling for the more preferential logic or knowledge or thought and move forward. Does that make sense? 

So if you don't do anything this week, make any changes. If you can start questioning any preconceived notions you might have, that lessen your experience of your emotions. Not that make them too much for you to experience or overwhelm you. But that place them on a lower category or lower on the hierarchy of importance than your thoughts. Because they all work together to make you, you. And they all provide such amazing information for you to help yourself to be with others, to share with your children, your families, your coworkers. And so that you can show up a little more fully, a little more competently with more confidence. So take a deep breath right now, what are you feeling inside? What are the feelings? Mm hmm. 
Right now my heart feels happy to be with you. Thank you again for joining me. If you'd like a little more wonder, please hop in my inbox and let me know you'd like to get the newsletter. If you don't receive it now. Or if you'd like even more, please join our seriously yourself subscription. I'll be opening up a new cohort. That's a fun word cohort, in October, and it's going to be magic. So, looking forward to having you there. Talk to you soon. Take good care by now. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 




]]> Thu, 11 Aug 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 824 We're often told to trust our thoughts more than our emotions. But emotions are a rich source of information about how the world is affecting us. Have you considered the intelligence of your emotions and the compass of clarity that they offer? We're often told to trust our thoughts more than our emotions. But emotions are a rich source of information about how the world is affecting us. Have you considered the intelligence of your emotions and the compass of clarity that they offer? No No Choosing Your Choices https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/r87m2yw8-choosing-your-choices Choosing Your Choices 28 No No k08wpmk1 It can take a lot of unlearning to remember that we have choices, even in a world that seems determined to undermine our agency. So what do you want a choice about today? What do you not realize you have a choice about today? What would be thrilling? What would be authentic... Invigorating, true for you? Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Oh, hey there, come on in. How you been? I hope you've been having a good summer if you're in summer weather and that you're feeling curious and ready to dive into a new curiosity, a new creative question. Today, you know, last week we talked about control, what it's like to feel out of control, some of the strategies that are parts inside, used to regain a sense of personal control and how tricky that can be, and today we're kind of following that up with the topic of choice. You know, like what kinds of choices do you make? When do you feel like you have choices and how do you feel about making choices? I'll tell you what this topic grew out of a wonderful conversation we were having in the seriously yourself community membership and we were on a coaching call and you know, the neat thing about the membership is having the experience of learning and sharing with each other, it's just way more than I would ever actually have imagined. I've never been a real groupie kind of a person, I don't think I was a real groupie girl, I like to be a little different. I, I ride on the edge between extrovert and introvert and so sometimes I would feel overwhelmed by groups, so I would tend to move away from them a bit. Which is odd because at the same time I have this deep, trusting faith in the power of community, being with those who are safe and who care about you in a loving way. And so it's really been exciting to watch that kind of sensation reverberate through the group and the strengths and the ideas that come out of it are rich and rewarding and wonderful. 

So in the group we were talking about freedom and one of the women mentioned wanting freedom but feeling better when she didn't have as much and especially in terms of eating and you know, the kinds of foods she was choosing and that kind of thing. Which, I think many of us as especially as women can totally relate to, right. We're raised with such a strict confines of what is the quote unquote, right? Food to eat or not eat and why and when and how and so on. So she was saying that when she had been in sort of a restricted diet, she physically felt much better. But emotionally, she felt very stuck and very out of control in a way like things were being forced on her which of course everyone can relate to. And it came to her during the meeting that it would feel great if she was choosing if she felt like she was choosing what she felt would be healthier for her. In other words though, she wasn't eating certain foods or a certain way she was choosing a path that felt happy and inviting and healthy for her, see what I mean, really brilliant, right? And so that's kind of the truth of it. I think like choice tells us we are really still present with ourselves. Choice says this might not be the easiest thing to do, but it is what I choose. It's what I desire, whether it's the results I want or the lifestyle I want or the pleasure I want. Right?

 And if you think about it, there are so many things from the time you open your eyes in the morning until you close them at night that you have to choose. And I wonder often even with myself, how much do we really feel like we are capable of choosing and what sort of feels like it just is a must or comes at us. So let's take waking up in the morning for example. Alright, you wake up and what do you have on your list that you feel like you're going to do? Right. I'm gonna run to the bathroom. I'm going to check my emails. I'm probably going to check the news. I might check social media. Yes. I'm admitting it here. I might see if I've had any phone calls or text messages. Right. I might do this before I even get out of bed. Right. I'm going to make some coffee. I'm gonna drink some coffee. I'm going to walk my dog. I'm going to brush my teeth. I'm going to, you know, take a vitamin gonna wash my face. I'm gonna put on some makeup or I'm going to, you know, take a full shower and do my hair. I'm gonna do all those things. And often I'm gonna do all those things without even thinking about it and I'm going to do them all before, you know, 8:30 AM. So how much of that do I embrace as my choices? Right? Sometimes I don't, you know, sometimes I'm like, you know, I have to take this vitamin, I'll be honest with you, I don't like taking the vitamin and I don't have to take it. It really is a choice. So there's a great example of like I'm taking something almost as if someone is forcing me to do that, right? Like someone is standing over me wagging their finger, you know, come on kid, you got to get this done and I don't really have to, I eat pretty well. I don't really know that the vitamin has any particularly effective properties for me though. I think you hit a certain age and you feel like you need a certain amount of calcium or magnesium or vitamin D, or C, or B you know, be whatever is going on in there. So I've come to believe that it's sort of a necessity and then I sort of believe it into, yeah, this works, this keeps me healthy, but I don't really know. So where does choice fit into that? Right? Where does choice fit into that? I guess it fits in that there are some days that I look at it and I think, no, I don't even I don't want to take this, I just don't want and I don't, right.
Or maybe it's the choice of how the world will see you on any given day, Right? If you are a woman of a certain age and I honestly don't know what the certain age might be or a certain culture even you might not ever, ever, ever leave your house without making up your face right? Without putting on makeup without, you know, wearing mascara, maybe lipstick, right? I've known women that would not leave their house without lipstick on. I've known very young women that would not leave their house without a makeup or a foundation on their face. I remember I always have worn mascara since I was in high school and I have very light and you know, relatively thin short eyelashes and it just, you know, made me feel better. Which is silly if you think about it like who cares, this is my face. But it would make me feel better to have my eyelashes covered, still does, I'll be honest. But that's a choice, right? It's not a must. So if I look at the flip side, if if I could feel better right on the days that I don't wear makeup, if I could choose how I want to feel about that. If I could talk to the parts of me that are like, oh, you're gonna look ugly or someone's gonna comment. I remember one time my many years ago, I was in my twenties and my father in law came to visit and I had just not put on any makeup and he looked at me, he goes, oh, are you sick? And I was like, no, I feel great. Why? Well, I don't know. I thought maybe you had the flu or something and it was because I didn't have mascara. I hadn't done my eye makeup. How weird! But that definitely stuck with me. And I thought, sheesh, I don't want to be walking around with people thinking I'm sick. So I guess I don't have a choice but to put on makeup, which is not true. Of course I have a choice. And when people begin to see this is my face, not that, this is my face, that might be my face on a fancy day or a different choice day, right, then I would look normal. I would look like me, I think, right? Yeah. So everything is a choice. Ultimately. 

Often we are raised without choice. You must do this. You must do that. You must believe this. This is the way our family believes, right? I was raised, you went to church every Sunday unless you were ill and I mean sick. So that kind of teaching can have lots of benefits. I'm not not trying to be critical, honestly, of my, even my own upbringing, but it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for personal choice or autonomy or the sense of that this life belongs to me. I am in control of myself within a very out of control whole system, right? What can we trust? The sun rises and the sun sets? Yeah. And we watch everything else sort of unfold and we try to stay within ourselves in our own grounding and trust that we can make choice around everything in life. But if we're not given that opportunity, right? If things are told to us by family or society, it makes it really tough. Doesn't it makes it really hard to do that to relearn that we are not constantly children or owned by someone so that we don't have a choice. Yeah. So what do you want a choice about today? What do you not realize you have a choice about today, what would be thrilling, What would be authentic? Invigorating True for you? One small thing today that you could step into and say, I choose this. It can be something you're already doing, that you're kind of not liking. But you recognize, oh, this isn't some young part of me that has to do this. This is my grown up self that wants to, you know, exercise or eat right or call that friend or have this kind of pleasure whatever it is, right? If you question where you're already with compassion for yourself and patience for why you're feeling that way, then I think you can recognize that within any given thing, there is more choice and make that happy choice for yourself, right? Let me know how it goes for you. I know in our group it was really exciting to hear the participants say, you know, I'm going to really notice this as a choice for me, not a must or a pressure or a prescription or a duty. Maybe you could do a little of that for yourself today. Thanks for joining me. It's really so wonderful to have you here and let me know what your new choices are looking like or how you're feeling about your old ones. We'll talk to you soon be well, my friends and um remember to show up, you matter, bye now.

 Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 







]]> Thu, 04 Aug 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 939 It can take a lot of unlearning to remember that we have choices, even in a world that seems determined to undermine our agency. So what do you want a choice about today? What do you not realize you have a choice about today? What would be thrilling? What would be authentic... Invigorating, true for you? It can take a lot of unlearning to remember that we have choices, even in a world that seems determined to undermine our agency. So what do you want a choice about today? What do you not realize you have a choice about today? What would be thrilling? What would be authentic... Invigorating, true for you? No No Control Freak, Out! https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/q809r02n-control-freak-out Control Freak, Out! 27 No No p0kyq6r0 Do you notice, sometimes, parts within you that are out of control? Can you take a moment even now and breathe and get really curious about them? When does it happen?And what do you hear yourself say inside and how do you feel towards that? Do you feel like you always need to be on, calling every shot? What are your calculated means of knowing I am safe and sound? Let's explore that this episode. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hi there. Hello, hello, come on in. Hey, this week, I'm laughing at my topic and it's not about humor. That was the last time, right? So why is this topic funny to me? Because the topic for today is control. The feeling of having control. You see it's funny to me, why is it funny to me? I think because honestly here I am, it's a beautiful, actually very warm, humid summer Sunday in New Hampshire where I live. And I am feeling so much vibration, reverberation if you will of lack of control in life. So much feels out of control, maybe it's the heat, right? And so many warnings about the heat waves all over the world. I just read an article this morning that was saying, you know, we think we'll accomplish things by 2050, but the things that they thought would kind of be happening by 2050, are happening now climate wise, and so we can't plan to have things up and sort of helped by 2050 when we're so much more ahead in terms of climate change, right? And that made me feel as it might make you feel incredibly out of control, like my gosh, well what can I do, right now? And does it matter what I do right now? 

If we really take a minute and we think about control that's kind of the key, The key sensation. What can I do? And does it matter? Is there something I can do? And does it matter? We are doers aren't we? We are people of doing. Many of us have learned that that is our worth and responsibility on this earth is to be people of doing and so we gained parts of us that protect us that lead us along, that help us to navigate our lives by doing all the time. Do do, do get it done, change your behavior. That's all about doing, right? And certainly we need these parts of our lives. We need these aspects of our personality because there are things that we need to be about doing. 

I was watching the birds outside my window the other day which I love to do. It is the most happy enlightening thing for me to watch these birds. They're just simple. You know, outdoor backyard kind of birds. I don't have any special homing pigeon pets or anything out there. So I'm watching these birds and you notice they are so much about doing, right? They hop from tree to tree, they fly. They're singing, their songs seem to have purpose, they call to one another. The other day when I was feeling especially lonesome. I was watching outside and I've never seen this before though. If you are bird enthusiasts and you've seen this a lot. I would love it if you would shoot me a little message and let me know about it. I saw three different, well I think it was actually two different birds and three different moments in the day where I saw one bird feeding another and the other was not a baby in the bird nest, right? So the bird which I'm guessing was a parent, a parental bird was going over to the bird feeder and taking some stuff. And then there was another bird of the same breed standing there and they would feed that bird beak to beak rather than the younger I'm assuming bird going over to the bird feeder. And I saw this happen three times and like I said, it wasn't always the same birds and I was like so taken with that. Like I had never really seen that in backyard birds before and I really I loved the message of it. Like I was feeling sort of lonely. I was feeling kind of out of control and I thought, yeah, sometimes we do just need support, right? Sometimes we need to take a breath and stand and allow ourselves to be fed. Sometimes that letting go of the doing offers the greater sense of grounding control about life. Write the message that we don't have to be the ones to do to be in control all the time. Nor do we have to demand or call the shots for anyone around us by controlling them. 

It didn't appear to me that these younger birds were making any particular claims of the other bird that was feeding them. It didn't appear to me that they were like get over here and feed me though, I don't speak Sparrow. So perhaps that was what was happening. But it really felt like the bird was waiting and then they were being fed, right? 

So do you notice sometimes within you, parts of you that are feeling out of control and can you take a moment even now and breathe and get really curious about them? When does it happen? And what do you hear yourself say inside And how do you feel towards that? Right. There's that lack of control that can sound really panicky. I used to wake up often having nightmares and people that were sleeping near me. My family would be saying you go, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no fun to wake up to for partners and siblings and that kind of panicky? That's that's really the panicky sense of I am out of control, right? Like ah, there's nothing I can do! And of course we know when we're there, that's that's that sympathetic nervous system. Just kicking in big time. But there are much more subtle ways of feeling out of control, right? You might notice all of a sudden that you are feeling really critical of a lot of folks around you or that you are more sensitive to their words, right? So, hey, could you pick up your shoes? And it's like, what do you think? I'm not picking up my shoes. You think I'm a slob? What do you think? Right, maybe that's part that feels a little out of control or again, watching the news, or being engaged in this great big world that we have a front row seat to much more than we have ever in history. In fact, now we have a front row seat to the Galaxies. Thanks to the really quite amazingly gorgeous web telescope pictures. So isn't that amazing? 

And yet boy, it can make you feel a little out of control. And I would say in those instances for me it's kind of in a good way, you know, like it lets my more responsible parts, my more egocentric parts let go and recognize, oh you are really tiny here, you know, you are beloved, you are loving, you are, you are important in your world, but you are really, really infanticide family small, relax for a moment. Yeah. So just consider for yourself what happens for you when something inside begins to feel out of control and then what parts of you step up to react to it? Maybe you go into cleaning frenzy. Maybe you go into more numbing behaviors, maybe more addictive behaviors, Right? Maybe you drink or you smoke or you go shopping or you run like 20 miles a day just cause I don't know anybody that well that's just my circle of friends anyway, whatever it is you do that numbs you out. Do you do that when you are feeling kind of out of control. And is it helpful? Right? What's it like to just stay in your body and get curious and kind of ride through it. 

You know, we know that people really can enjoy sensations of being a little bit out of control, right? Think about it. How many things do people do to feel at least a little out of control? Maybe, you know, that's the thrill seekers in our world, right? They love to surf or they love to go on roller coasters or skydive or go on those ropes courses, Right? And those can be really great little techniques to discover what happens for you when you feel a bit out of control, What can you release? What can you go with? What are your calculated means of knowing I am safe and sound though. I don't necessarily feel like I've got every capability to call every single shot here. I actually think that was a really good little techniques to do right, in a, in a safe way because we realize that we can rest up some of those parts of us that so deeply feel like they need to be calling every single shot and it's just not possible. We just really can't, we can't do it for other people, right? We can't do it for our Children. And I'll tell you what, we can't do it for our Children? I don't care how little they are. Well, maybe when they're infants, but much beyond that, we can't even do it when they're infants. Let's face it, we can't control if they wake you up in the middle of the night or they're hungry, right? You know, we we think we have control over others. We think we have complete control of ourselves. We think we have control of the world and we just don't. But we can stay with ourselves anyway. That's the key, I think.  We can stay inside and with the parts of ourselves that are trying and let them rest that are numbing us and let them know it's okay, I can feel, I'm okay, right? I might need to take it easy a little bit, but I can get through tough things. I can feel it. I can be with it. I can get some space. I can talk to someone. I can allow myself to be nourished and fed and supportive. Like my bird friends.

 Byron Katie, who is an amazing woman and has a program called the work. She talks about The business of life. And she says, you know, there are three kinds of business. There's your business, My business and God's or the universe is business. And you want to always stay in your business because when you get out of your business, you're sort of lying to yourself as if you have some control there that you don't have. So if that's true. And I think it is, it's really helpful to begin to just be curious inside a little inquiry about, well, what really is my business and how can I tell? How can I tell when I'm migrating out into the other two kinds of business? And what can I do to come home to me? I hope that you find that may be trusting yourself rather than controlling everything so deeply inside right, will help. I hope that you will find that listening to even the young parts inside you and listening to even critical places inside or domineering places inside you. I hope that you can find that that helps because I know it does. And as you do this, do it with great love and patience for yourself. Because let's face it, we love to be in control when it feels like we got it all together, don't we? Many of us. And I would say there is a beauty to this ride of a little more risk, a little more release, a little more authenticity of what we really do hold within our own capability. You are probably more competent and capable than you know. But you might be looking at it from the inside and looking out for the control rather than understanding you have great capability within you. Have a really wonderful week by friends. I look forward to joining you next week. I think we're going to talk a little more about choice, which certainly fits the topic of control. And I hope that you take great pleasure in all that life brings. I'll look forward to seeing you then take good, good care Bye. 


Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 




]]> Tue, 26 Jul 2022 18:33:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1077 Do you notice, sometimes, parts within you that are out of control? Can you take a moment even now and breathe and get really curious about them? When does it happen?And what do you hear yourself say inside and how do you feel towards that? Do you feel like you always need to be on, calling every shot? What are your calculated means of knowing I am safe and sound? Let's explore that this episode. Do you notice, sometimes, parts within you that are out of control? Can you take a moment even now and breathe and get really curious about them? When does it happen?And what do you hear yourself say inside and how do you feel towards that? Do you feel like you always need to be on, calling every shot? What are your calculated means of knowing I am safe and sound? Let's explore that this episode. No No No Laughing Matter? https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/286959zn-no-laughing-matter No Laughing Matter? 26 No No j12npn81 The ability to look at ourselves with humor lets us see our lives from a greater perspective. We can gain ease, we can find joy. We can delight! Now imagine the gifts that could come into your life because of this little shift in perception. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hello, Hi, come on in. I was just thinking about things that make me laugh and I was thinking about it because last month in June in the seriously yourself community, we were talking about humor. And humor and laughter tend to be thought of as maybe trivial or unimportant or things that are saved for when all the tough stuff is out of the way. And I'm here to tell you this absolutely not true. 

In fact, I would imagine that people who have been through crisis and difficulty and you know, really scary survival kinds of things in those moments, if it goes on very long, find amazing refuge in humor, right? In laughter in the ability to get a kick out of anything at all. 

And so you know, we know that laughter makes for healthy people and yet we tend to ignore the absolute respect that laughter and humor deserve and I was trying to think of a joke to tell you and I'll be darned if I can think of one and I'm not going to remember them, I like them. Only joke I could think of is when, when is a door? Not a door, You know this one when it's a jar. Yeah, so there's that, but what do you find humorous? What makes you laugh and when and why? You know, we asked that in our group and we got a lot of interesting answers, you know, people love to hear people that are, they find sort of the humor and irony and everyday situations. Some group members absolutely cannot stop laughing at these like fail videos where people are falling and tumbling off of bicycles and plopping over on segways and right? You know those, they don't actually die or nothing terrible happens, but it just looks so darn funny when, when they're falling. And I think it's probably because we know that feeling right of tripping and falling and parts of us do want to sort of giggle and laugh about it and that's good for us, right? So good for you to laugh. It lowers your stress levels and your blood pressure and it connects you to other people, right? And it helps you to breathe more deeply in a really great way. 

I was thinking about, oh my kid, I think it was the very youngest. When we were traveling, we had like a 24 hour ride from the northeast down to Florida and he had taken up this little thing he would do, where he did this forced laugh, and it was so annoying. It was like "ha ha ha ha", and he would do it and do it and do it. And at first to be like knock it off and then he did a little more, you know, without being offended and we'd be like, stop it. Really, no kidding, stop it, we're in a car together, please stop. And he would do it some more and some more and some more until finally you couldn't not laugh. You couldn't, there was just no way. And once we all got going right, then his laugh would become more like a real laugh because he was sharing it with us and receiving it back and then we would be just crying and snorting and howling altogether. It was so hilarious to us and it started out being so annoying, right? Just irritating. Like a, like a fly, a bee buzzing in your ear. 

So what do you find humorous and why does it matter? Well, what would you be if you had no humor? The ability to look at ourselves with humor. It's the same route as humility. I think we can see our life in a greater perspective. We can gain ease, we can find joy. We can delight. One of the women in our group said this amazing thing and I love it so much and she said, you know, I think if when my kids are bugging me, if I can step back for just a second and I can find the humor in what they're saying, not in, you know, a day or two or a week or a month or a year, but now if I can get enough space to find humor in this thing they've done or this space there in. I think I would be a far more calm and patient parent. I think she's right. I think she's right on, if we can find a little bit of genuine humor, good humor, a sense of humor about our circumstances, about others around us. About the things that feel absurd to us or about things that we feel like we need to mm fix right? Lots of times with our Children. It's like, well if I laugh, they're going to take this to the endth degree. 

I think that's why I love the example of my kids so much because the truth is he was gonna do that till we laughed. He's going to keep trying that until it is successful, right? So by ignoring it, we were prolonging what was agony to us and by joining it, it stopped. We all got a good laugh. We were all done satisfied snotty and tearful and happy as can be. Right. So when something in part of you pulls your natural humor, your natural sense of this is goodness. Then you should share that if possible, right? Even if you have to change a rule or or change a system or pick up a mess later. If you can find that space, that moment of oh, this is really kind of charmingly funny. It's gonna help you. 

You know how about a fender bender? What if there was something funny about it? I remember my Dad asked if he could drive a brand new minivan. I had gotten, this was back in the 90s and I was like sure of course you can. And we drove to the mall and he was appreciating it and I was feeling kind of pumped that my dad liked my nice new car and he backed into the parking place and there was a light post and unbeknownst to us, the lower portion of the light post was probably a cement or like a steel holder, right? And it stuck out from the post itself, but he couldn't see that they didn't have those nice backup cameras then and I think it's got his name on it. The backup camera actually now it was discovered maybe for him. No, it wasn't. But so he backed up and I hear this and man my brand new, I mean I had driven it three times brand new car and it was perfectly clear that when we were going to step out of this van, there was gonna be a big gash in the back and my heart just kind of sank and my dad was like horrified. Of course, you know, he just felt terrible instantly. And for some wonderful circumstance, this sense of like humor came over me like welp, there you go, what can you do, what can you do? It was just a pure accident. It was just a tiny error. It was just, oh well, we got a big dent here. And you know, I knew I probably wouldn't be able to get that fixed because I didn't have extra money to get things like that fixed and insurance wasn't gonna cover stupidity. Oh, that was a stupid way to have a pole there and it's stupid. There's no cameras and that was a stupid move. No, it didn't matter. So it was just one of those things that was gonna be and I was like, oh dad, it's fine. It was either gonna be you or me, You know, it was gonna happen. I've never owned a car that didn't at least have a ding or dent or you know, sometimes my fault, sometimes someone in the parking lot doesn't matter. And the sense of just peace and funniness and positive came over me and it was like, yeah, oh well. Oh, crap. Oh, funny. 
Yeah, that's what I mean. It makes space for us when we appreciate a sense of humor, when you have a sense of humor about yourself, when you have a sense of humor about those you love. And even when you have a sense of humor about those you don't like and probably especially. That's so essential right now. And humor doesn't mean we make excuses for people. And humor doesn't mean that we ignore things, humor just means we come at things from a place of, you know, we're all human and this is a pretty funny circumstance we're in, yeah?

 So hey, it's summer. Summer is supposed to be fun. Go out and find yourself some humor and the first place to look is right inside you, go right to your heart, go right to your belly and indulge yourself a little bit. What's funny? Let yourself see it, love it, and appreciate it and just watch it's contagious, you know. See you soon. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 


]]> Thu, 21 Jul 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 774 The ability to look at ourselves with humor lets us see our lives from a greater perspective. We can gain ease, we can find joy. We can delight! Now imagine the gifts that could come into your life because of this little shift in perception. The ability to look at ourselves with humor lets us see our lives from a greater perspective. We can gain ease, we can find joy. We can delight! Now imagine the gifts that could come into your life because of this little shift in perception. No No Freedom's Inside Job https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/q8099xmn-freedom-s-inside-job Freedom's Inside Job 25 No No p0kyyjk0 It's hard to have freedom when you have to edit every single thought. This week on the Seriouslyourself podcast we explore an antidote to perfectionism: what true inner and relational freedom feels like and what conditions may have birthed our inhibition & perfectionism. And how to move forward. Please go check out this one! You're not going to want to miss it! Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 


 Hey hello, come on in. You know I've been a therapist for many years, many, couple of decades now actually, seems impossible but true. And I was talking to someone the other day and they did this thing that I am aware of because it's happened many times and I will describe it to you.
I asked them, what do you feel right now? Like what do you hear yourself say? And then I watch and it's like they start to answer and then they stop and then they start to answer and then they stop and then they start to answer and then they stopped and I'm like huh what's going on? Well I know what's going on generally, they're editing inside, right? They start to say something and then they think is this accurate, is this the whole truth, This sounds bad, I shouldn't say that whatever it is. And this can be a really simple question like you know, what did you just hear yourself say, or what do you feel about that? 

And I realize because this happened so often that probably most of us do it sometimes, right? I also realized that I can have some benefits. There are times when of course we should stop and really consider what we're saying. But here we are, you know, it's just me and the client and there's no need in my mind to please me or to change their position on anything or just say anything differently. I am really very curious of about just what is happening inside you. And there are parts of most of us that have learned, don't say it, don't let anyone know, it might not be okay. 

So it's July 2022 and in the U.S., I think most of us are raised to think about July as a holiday month, mainly captured by fireworks and symbols of freedom. The Fourth July, right, independence day. Now we know for many of our population there there was no independence when independence day came around. However, it certainly has been a part of our national culture and tapestry for as long as I've been alive and it is a time to really think about freedoms and liberties and independence. And I was thinking about it for us here in terms of like, well you know, maybe one of the places that we stop feeling free and independent and full of liberties is internally, you know. 

This is one thing I really love about working with Internal Family systems model in therapy and that is that you can learn that there are many parts of you that say and feel many different things. In fact, most often they say and feel the opposite of one another for example and we've talked about this before, but just to refresh your memory, you know, if I ask you, how do you feel about broccoli? You might have a part of you that says, you know, I don't really like broccoli, this is not me because I really do like broccoli, but if you did, "I don't really like broccoli". And then pretty quickly after saying that you might have a part of you that says, well, you know, "now I feel dumb because I know you're supposed to like broccoli because it's good for you", right? And then you might have another part of me that says, well, okay, like I like it when it's raw, but I don't like it when it's cooked or I like it when it's in the salad with bacon, but I don't like it when it's just plain, alright? So here's this tiny little non provocative topic of broccoli and we can imagine that inside us, we might have parts of us that feel very differently about broccoli and that can be really confusing. 
And if you think about it when you're a little kid, if you're asked about something and you are not great at really being savvy about your words, you don't maybe know how to edit yet. You might have said or done something that caused you later to feel embarrassment or shame, right? A friend might say, you know, when you're in first grade, how do you like my dress and you hate blue? So you say, oh, I hate it. And you learn pretty quickly, you know, after the kid has started crying and the teacher has made you go sit in your seat that you probably should have edited those words, right? I remember being in the back seat of the car and I was you know, certainly old enough to quote unquote, know better. But I said something that hurt a family friends feelings. And I remember my mom turning back to me and saying, you know Ingrid you need to learn some tact. And I'm sure she was right honestly. And there are many times when some editing and some tact is a good tack, it's a good way to go. But if you're really in a position where you are alone, right? You're with a therapist, you're with someone who loves you, like a partner, right? Very good friend. It's so important to be able to name. Well, a part of me is feeling this way and then, you know, a part of me is also feeling that way. And then I have this strong reaction to both of them that says this because I'll tell you right now, that is more the true experience of what's happening inside us. 

It's hard to have freedom when you have to edit every single word that comes out of your mouth. And sometimes every single thought that is in your mind. It is hard to have any freedom when you have to do that. And it is exhausting to have to hold all of that. It is exhausting to have to hold back, right. I look at my clients who are doing that little internal edit, It's like a shake off. You know, it's like that shake off don't say that. No wait. She asked what did she asked me? She asked me how I felt. Yeah, Well, I kind of feel, but no, I can't say that. Well, it's not exactly this. Well, it's not how amazing, if they were free, right? If they had the liberty to just say, yeah, it's kind of like this. And it's also like that I hear myself saying this really harsh and rather embarrassing thing. I hear myself wanting to just quit. I certainly have parts that don't want to quit and so on. Just all of it, right? Hey, I got time. I can hear all of it. It's okay. 

In those moments, what I tend to do, it's just stop for a second and first notice there is a part of you that's working really hard to get it just right, isn't there? And the response to that answer Is almost 100% of the time a resounding. "Yeah, I'm really tired. I'm really tired of trying to get it just right". And then when you say, let's acknowledge that part for really trying so hard and let's look at parts of you that we're speaking. We can even hold them lightly, right? Like there's the silly part that was like, oh screw this and there's another part. Like I'm just so mad. We can even hold those lightly and lovingly because I'll guarantee you at some time in life they were not, they were not looked at lovingly or lightly. You know, we need to be able to hold parts of us in this free manner without constantly check, check, check, check, check. And one way to do that is to be aware of them personally because when we're not, they tend to come out when we are tired, when we've had a drink, when we're frustrated, when we've kind of hit the last straw and instead of being able to be spoken for in that way that is light and precious and to say, oh, there's a part of me that just goes yuck, I hate that. Instead they come out like "I hate you, you stink. You're so mean to me, why would you do this" and so on? Right? 

So where can you find a little more freedom? This July right. A little less personal editing when you are in personal space, that's the place to practice folks and it is a practice after you turn off the podcast today. I would say take a couple breaths and just notice how many opinions ideas critiques, comments, thoughts you have. There are many and many parts of you are also so very, very tired of editing them all the time. Even when you are 100% perfectly safe. That's part of liberty, isn't it? That's part of freedom and independence, knowing that we are safe, right. Now, there are many settings when I know you don't feel safe. I'm well aware many settings wherein I don't feel safe. That is not the place, right, to let these parts of you just rip because you're going to get hurt again, right? And then all that protection, all that lack of freedom comes back in and it locks you down. It says it's all because of everyone else. And it puts the key down and it says there, I have no control over this. But inside you you can pick up that key anytime you want and you can listen to all of you and if you need help doing that, you can always find a really good therapist, yeah?
 So how are you going to be a little more independent and free this July. How are you going to be a little more seriously yourself? Especially with yourself? Yeah, let's do it with humor. Let's do it with lightness. Let's do it with respect. Let's do it with love. 
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. You can DM me on my social media at Ingrid L. M. F. T. You can send me a message here and for sure follow and share this with friends. It would be a great topic. How much do they edit every day, especially with themselves? Talk to you soon. I hope you're feeling some freedom be well guys, Bye. 

 Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time



]]> Thu, 14 Jul 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 901 It's hard to have freedom when you have to edit every single thought. This week on the Seriouslyourself podcast we explore an antidote to perfectionism: what true inner and relational freedom feels like and what conditions may have birthed our inhibition & perfectionism. And how to move forward. Please go check out this one! You're not going to want to miss it! It's hard to have freedom when you have to edit every single thought. This week on the Seriouslyourself podcast we explore an antidote to perfectionism: what true inner and relational freedom feels like and what conditions may have birthed our inhibition & perfectionism. And how to move forward. Please go check out this one! You're not going to want to miss it! No No Defying Age and Other Lies https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/qn09jl78-defying-age-and-other-lies Defying Age and Other Lies 24 No No p1kyx2w1 Aging is a natural part of life. Why do we spend such enormous time, energy, and money fighting it? Let's flip the script! Aging is something we GET to do if we live! Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Oh hello, how are you? Nice to have you joining me today. Come on in and get comfortable. I wanted to talk today about something that I think really is important when you're considering being seriously yourself. And that is that if you are listening to me right now, you are getting older period. Right? We know that, everything inside us knows that time moves forward, and sometimes it kind of loops around but our life has a certain forward pathway from being a baby to hopefully being an elder, right? That's our life here on this planet. 

Unfortunately, at least in the U. S. Where I live and I think in a lot of countries we're told that that's not the goal. Isn't that weird? The very thing that is, is not the goal, or if it is the goal to get older, you must do it without appearing to age at all. And especially women are targeted. Girls are targeted. Can you even imagine I was thinking the other day like how many ads with messages have I gotten in my life, not even to mention in a month or a day, right. About anti aging or age defying or wrinkle resistant or age erasing, how ridiculous is this? How absurd is this? This contradiction of what we know is exactly right for us, right? I've listened to girls in high school complaining about getting wrinkles and saggy things and they're using creams and makeup and solutions and I'm not criticizing them because I'm absolutely certain I did the very same thing. 

And now I look back at pictures and I think, oh, good grief, what in the world was I worried about? And I like to think that maybe my 100 year old self would look back on me right now and think, oh good grief, what on earth were you worried about? You could try that yourself. Imagine yourself 20 years in the future and even if that 20 years seems like a time when you may not even be on the planet, that's fine. Just imagine that one looking at you now. I bet the first thing she would say was not, "oh my you really should be getting some kind of treatment for those crow's feet". It just seems kind of ridiculous, doesn't it? Yeah, it is ridiculous. And yet we spend a great deal of money, a great deal of time, a great deal of energy of mental health pursuing this lie and fostering it. Oh my gosh, doesn't she look fabulous for her age, right? Doesn't she look great? I bet she's had something done, right. Now make no mistake if you have something done alright. If you get a little Botox or whatever, you know, is the thing that's fine, do what you need to do, feel good about you. 

But I want us to imagine for a minute that this lie that we carry around that this myth, that skin that has been out around the sun skin that has been in the fresh air skin, that has been lived in skin that shows years is a dead thing, right? Is a scary thing, right? It's something that leads to death. That's what we think, right? And I suppose that's true, but that isn't what leads to death, that is just the result of living, ha, It's just the result of life, right? Death follows life. So if we take that stigma away from it, how amazing could it be if from the time you were little, you had this realization that you got to live and as you got to live, you got to live into what every little kid wants when they're very young and that is to be a grown up? Oh my goodness! Little little kids can't wait to have homework and to drive a car and generally speaking some some don't, but you know, they wanted they play grown up, right? They want to they want to age, of course they do, that's their job. And then we forget and we start thinking, oh we're supposed to anti age, we're supposed to age defy we're supposed to trick time. All of these little catchphrases that we're seeing all the time, in magazines and on television, and social media. 

Yeah, Is that why you're here, are you here to fool, fool the world, are you here to express that the only vibrancy comes from the kind of vibrancy we see in youth? That without smooth skin, we have no light, we have no life? That with gray hair, we have no shimmer and shine that with any signs that we have been here more than a couple of decades. We should be hiding? I don't think we want to live that way if we are really wanting to be seriously ourselves. You know, the first thing we have to do, if we really want to feel good about being every age we are, the first thing we probably have to do is shake our heads really hard and get out of the mindset that we've been swimming in, right? We have to get out of this idea of what is right of what is appreciated of what has value of what is beautiful and recognize that those things are found at every single age and stage of our lives. They have to be, they have to be because they are inevitable and what and who we are is not disposable, right? And what and who we are at our fullness that are most comfortable is not to be tethered to ideas of shame, right?

 If you look at your knees and your knees are wrinkly, why should that be a shame if you're really considerate, like, so what, you know, like maybe that's where your skin has wanted to be now. I've known people that were extremely fit and they'd stand up and they go and look at my look at my knees and they're just covered in wrinkles. Yeah, that's where that skin went. Okay. You know, what are you gonna do have have a knee lift? I suppose you could. But what's the message? What's the thing you're responding to that you were never supposed to get here, that you aren't worth being in your fullness at every single stage. 

I'm sure that there are forces. Maybe it's about capitalism, right? Can't sell what actually happens because nobody would pay for what actually happens. Imagine if we were selling wrinkle cream, people be like, well, if you just wait, you're going to get that anyway. I mean, like make you wrinkle cream. That'd be hilarious. If I think about it, what if wrinkles became the mode and everybody was, you know, buying creams that would pucker up their skin, they probably couldn't get the, you know, the exact precise look that you would get with true aging, right? And so that would become really wanted and desired. That's all that is, you know. You know, if you really allow yourself to look at what is real, all that is is being sold a bill of goods that somehow you are not supposed to be here past how you looked at 25. And of course, we know that's not true. You know, that's not true, my dears. 

So, imagine what it's like to be born. You know, you're born, you're here and you have this amazing gift. And if you're really, really lucky, you get to be well and feel pretty good through most of it and I know a lot of people don't, but a lot of us really do get to feel quite well and if you're really, really lucky you might get 70 80 90 some people are getting 100 good years. Isn't that incredible? A century of life. And what would it be like if during that century of life you were not believing that aging should be happening to you from the time you were 10? You know, my granddaughter, not too long ago, she asked me, well grandma when I'm 25, how old will you be? And I kind of chuckled and I said, oh Lucy, I'll be an old lady. And she looked at me, she goes grandma, why would you want to be an old lady? And I'm like, well because I'll just be older and I'll be a woman. So I guess I called that an old lady and she kind of shook her head and look at me and I thought, you know, I believe she's imagining something she's seen in a cartoon, right, where the old the old lady witch? And she was like why would anyone want that, right, old lady? She was imagining something she had been taught and she wasn't even five, she wasn't even five years old. 

So you know, we could talk about this in terms of everything, right? We could talk about it in terms of body image. We could talk about it in terms of the value of each individual. We could talk about it in terms of control, right? Who and what controls your body. We've been thinking about that a lot. Especially, you know, in the month of June here in the United States in 2022, we've been thinking about control and who controls bodies and what that means. Who has a control on life and bringing life into the world and what that means. 

And I think what makes it really hard inside is when a basic obvious truth is denied. And that basic truth in this case is that people are here to grow old if they are lucky and it is not a bad thing. And it is not fair to re-violet, to try to polish it, or change it, or eliminate. It's not fair to anyone. And I would say just to align those two concepts and I think I'm talking about control later in the month. So hang on for that one. But you know, we don't control anyone's body. We really barely control our own. If you think about it, we barely control our own body. And we can do these jokes right of it. Like, well, we can get any plastic surgery we want and we can do as much attending and exercise and changing as we want and we can. But ultimately, our bodies keep the score. They know they need to be fed, watered, tended, and loved and we don't control others bodies either. That's even more obvious. We don't even control children's bodies. Trust me, I've worked with so many parents who were so frustrated that they couldn't help their kid to be eating or potty trained or obedient. We don't control, we just don't control what it matters of the body. We don't. So I would say release that lie. 

And today really look at how can you step out of the myths? How can you step out of defying what is beautifully laid out in front of you from the day you were born and live into its fullness and its vibrancy and it doesn't matter how old you are. You can step out of that today. You can start seeing where your believing lies and embrace where you know it is good to be and that is in your truth and in your beauty and in your age.
Thanks for joining me. I hope that this has been helpful for you and I really look forward to more. If you agree, disagree, like it, don't like it. Please message me and let me know what you think. And I'd love it if you would follow me and leave a review, those reviews people actually pay attention to not just me, but when they're looking for a podcast, they want to know what do you think? So, let them know if you like it. As Glenna Joy would say, "if you don't yeah, well, you know, you can just move on". Thanks for being here. I'll see you next time. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 


]]> Thu, 07 Jul 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1121 Aging is a natural part of life. Why do we spend such enormous time, energy, and money fighting it? Let's flip the script! Aging is something we GET to do if we live! Aging is a natural part of life. Why do we spend such enormous time, energy, and money fighting it? Let's flip the script! Aging is something we GET to do if we live! No No Getting Heated https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/r8kwpyk8-getting-heated Getting Heated 23 No No 71w4lvz0 Let's take a moment to consider the many overlooked nuances of anger. It is not meant to be an action. It is meant to be a signal in my opinion. Yeah. So what is your anger signaling to you today in the past? When do you feel angry and why does it mean something to you and what you want to do with that? I think it could be something wonderful and I'm here for it. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hello, hi, welcome and come on in. I hope that you are feeling today, I hope that you are feeling, not that I hope you're feeling badly, but I hope you've got some feelings that we can tap into in a seriously yourself kind of way. You know, we've talked about lots of different feelings, I think in the last several episodes and today, because it is summer and we've had a few stints of some heat. I know some of you in the country have had massive amounts of a really, really hot weather and when I think of hot weather, one thing I do consider is hot emotions, emotions that heat up, right? I find myself more in touch with those, I think when it is warm outside and you certainly can see that people's tempers, we talk about their tempers kind of boiling over, right, and really less patience with one another possibly, and stronger feelings, a little more yang, the yang of things rather than the yin, the, the sort of fiery energy. 
So today we're considering that most common maybe, that most prevalent feeling of anger, right, anger. And I think that anger is often kind of a disrespected overlooked emotion, you know, there are people that come in and they'll sit on the couch across from me and they'll be like, you know, I don't really get angry and I think, well it's kinda everyone's birthright to have anger, you're allowed to get angry. In fact, it's probably pretty essential, but what happens is a lot of us grow is that anger is not an okay feeling, right? If I say, what do you think about anger? Just notice the kinds of words that come up for you, you know, and see what you get because they probably often come from your upbringing. So you might hear yourself say things like, oh anger that is weak, or anger is powerful, you might hear yourself say anger is for the stupid, the foolish, the immature, you might hear yourself say anger is an out of control, kind of a thing you might hear anger is bad, anger makes me feel numb. There are so many different nuances about anger that we don't even consider. So let's take a minute today and consider them because you know what anger is a real thing, it really does happen and it is not this most basic of things that we consider it to be. 
I don't know, I think people often characterize anger as sort of juvenile, right? Kids get happy, sad and mad. I used to work with a lot of Children and I'd say, well what are your feelings happy, sad and mad, happy, sad and mad. Okay. Yeah, yeah, those are some of your feelings, but there's nothing particularly basic about anger at all. In fact, I think anger is complex, it is nuanced and it's energetic. If I'm talking to someone and they're expressing anger and they've been really depressed in the past or there is a risk that they could become depressed. I'm sort of happy to see anger. It's got energy, it's got fire, it's got verve, there's some life to it. It is not this horrible thing. 
Now, if it comes up and you've been raised to believe that it's terrible or you have witnessed people being terrible out of their anger behaving in ways that are really hurtful, then, you know that energy might be significantly dampened or feared right? Or create extreme anxiety and that makes a whole lot of sense too Yeah, of course she would feel that way. So, some ideas, what do you do when you're angry? What can you do? One of the things I think we should always do if we get that twinge of anger. And again, if you don't like to call it anger within yourself, you could look for things like twinges of frustration, annoyance, feeling disgusted, resentful, perturbed, upset, Right? These are other ways that people describe these variations on the theme of anger, right? Disrespected, I hear that a lot. I felt so disrespected. Yes. And what did that bring up inside you? Maybe anger. What anger is generally doing, and again, it can lead us down many different paths, but it is telling us something is wrong, something's not right, right? Something has rubbed me the wrong way, just like you when you take the fur on a cat's back and you go the opposite direction and the snarl and kind of hiss and go away, right? That's anger I'm rezzed up. So when you feel angry rather than going into all kinds of moral stance about it, like, oh, this is bad, I'm feeling this way or rather than acting from it right, flipping someone off, or yelling at them, or being harmful. Take some time and listen to the part of you that feels angry, right? And if it's hard to do alone, you could find someone you really trust and just say I would love for you to without worrying about fixing it or getting afraid of it. I'm not going to act from it. I just want this part of me to be able to speak, right. And so anger will start going, you know, and again with its that special energy that only anger has it could really want to say a lot. This makes me furious. I am so mad about this. I cannot stand that, you hear it, yeah. And then listen, what's so upsetting? What's so upsetting? Something is wrong. 

Oftentimes the things that make us the most angry are the most helpful at telling us exactly what is happening inside us that we don't like about ourselves or that we are doing to ourselves. So if I am really angry at someone for ignoring me, that's probably true in the outside. But on the inside of me, I might really want to start searching around for parts of me that I'm ignoring or parts of my life that feel ignored, right? So this can be a really wonderful trailhead. If I'm angry that someone is being foolish or being fooled, I have to look for parts of me that I worry are being foolish, fooled, or that I'm fooling. If I am mad at someone for being hypocritical. You know, it's a good time to look in and find what parts of me feel hypocritical to myself? And it doesn't hurt to do that, it's okay. That doesn't mean you're a bad person or you have to be throwing yourself on the floor or something. It just means you're human. And it's always a good thing to find. 

And if you're expressing this anger out towards a friend and they're they're just doing this lovely job of, you know, taking notes or something all of a sudden you might notice. Wow, I feel a lot calmer. Yeah. Anger likes to be heard. It likes to know this that it's not there for nothing. Now, on the other hand, if they fight back with you, the anger goes, see, I'm not there for nothing and then it starts reacting and that's not what you wanna do. You just want to listen. So it knows, yeah, I hear you anger. The other thing about anger that you might notice is it is often very, very protective. You know, anger will come up in response to parts of us that feel hurt or feel like we're lesser, right? Anger will come up and you know, it's a signal to us who something underneath got trampled, right? If I, if I get scolded at the grocery store for, I don't know, stepping in front of somebody or bumping into someone, I'm going to get angry. I might have a sense of anger first and it's because I'm embarrassed, right? The anger will come up to sort of protect little parts of me that are feeling embarrassed and you might have similar, right? So that's another great thing to look for. If the anger wasn't there, what might I feel instead? And again, this is very internal family systems model, right? So if the anger didn't do this job for me, what does it believe would be the worser thing I'd have to feel and that might be embarrassment, hurt, shame, pain, rejection, etcetera. 

Brenee brown, one of her quotes is that "anger is a powerful catalyst, but a life sucking companion". Yeah, and it's true if we sit around with anger too long, it really can feel exhausting and embittering and really sort of turns in on ourselves, right, that we lose our humor about us. We don't want to sit with it and be have it be us very long. It is kind of life sucking. On the other hand, this catalyst thing is kind of a big deal. I remember hearing Ken Hardy, who's a therapist speak and he, he talked about people do things, big things out of being dissed, pissed or blissed. So this is the pissed part of it, right? Like I'm so angry that if I listen to the anger and I recognize yes, it really is showing me that something is very, very wrong. What can I do? Not, what can the anger do? What can I do, to respect what that anger has noticed is wrong, to give it what it deserves, to use that energy, to use that energetic, passionate anger. People have run for office because something angered them. People have changed communities, right? Set of things that people needed, helped people, fed people, clothed people, educated them, right, loved them big because they were first angry because something was wrong. So hey, it's summer, it might be heating up where you live or not if you're in Australia might be cooling down, but pay attention to the heat within you. That anger notice its beautiful nuances. Notice the subtleties of it. Ask the parts of you that might feel shame or embarrassment about it as a base or instinct to step back. It's not a small thing. This anger and the more you can listen from it, the more honor it takes on because you are not just flying off the handle from anger. It is not meant to be an action. It is meant to be a signal in my opinion. Yeah. So what is your anger signaling to you today in the past? When do you feel angry and why does it mean something to you and what you want to do with that? I think it could be something wonderful and I'm here for it. Thanks for joining me today. As always, it is my joy and pleasure to be with you. And I would again just ask that you share, share, share the podcast with people that you love and care about. Feel free to drop me a line to send a review or to ask a question. I am happy to hear from you anytime. Take good care. See you soon. Bye. 


 Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 




]]> Thu, 30 Jun 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 966 Let's take a moment to consider the many overlooked nuances of anger. It is not meant to be an action. It is meant to be a signal in my opinion. Yeah. So what is your anger signaling to you today in the past? When do you feel angry and why does it mean something to you and what you want to do with that? I think it could be something wonderful and I'm here for it. Let's take a moment to consider the many overlooked nuances of anger. It is not meant to be an action. It is meant to be a signal in my opinion. Yeah. So what is your anger signaling to you today in the past? When do you feel angry and why does it mean something to you and what you want to do with that? I think it could be something wonderful and I'm here for it. No No Yes, Yes, Yes! (Or not...) https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/p8my9v68-yes-yes-yes-or-not Yes, Yes, Yes! (Or not...) 22 No No 70v4w3p0 What would it take for you to be all in to say YES! to yourself? Do you want to know some practical yet magical steps that you can take towards creating your dreams? This week we go into honing your intuition to bring this to fruition. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander.  

Hello, welcome, welcome back in. I still have my croaky little bronchitis voice and I'm feeling a little bit better. But just so you know, if you hear some cracks and rattles, that's just how it is right now. You know, I feel for people who have been suffering with lots of pulmonary stuff from covid and thinking of you all right now, as I'm dealing with bronchitis because how horrible, it is to feel like you can't take a lovely deep healing breath. So in my mind's eye I am sending that out to each and every one of you. 

Today I have a really fun topic that came to me out of a training retreat that I was on about a month ago and the topic is do you know your yes, do you know your 'Yes', you know if we want to be more seriously ourselves knowing our 'yes', knowing are absolutely 'nots' is really important. But it's not easy. I grew up in north central pennsylvania. So football, stay with me here, this does make sense, football was sort of our, you know, hallowed ground, It was the game of choice. And so at home we watched a ton of football and I was a cheerleader for football and went to the games at home. And so I knew all the rules and the nuances. And then when I was a young adult, I met this lovely fellow from Chicago Illinois who was a huge cubbies and also white sox fan. So I began watching a lot of baseball and there's this little moment that happens in baseball and it happens every time and I love it so much. And the first time I saw it, I remember it just cracking me up. It just made me laugh so much. I don't know quite why, but I'll describe it and you can see if it's sort of tickles you too. And that is the moment when the catcher signals to the pictcher, "How about this one?" That's what I imagine he's saying. Anyway, he's got his hand in some sort of configuration of fingers that indicates a particular pitch. That is their little secret signal. I assume it's a secret. And the picture takes a look and then he does this little thing that cracks me up. If he doesn't like that idea, he shakes it off, right? He gives this little almost imperceptible shake of the head. The first time I saw it, I was like, wait, he can do that. I mean right then and there he can disregard what the catcher wants and maybe the coach has told the catcher, I didn't know. And my husband's like, yeah, that that's how they do it. I'm like, oh, this is fun. And then you'll watch and the catcher will give him another little dude whoop with his fingers. I'm pretty sure that's the technical baseball term. Anyway, and he'll do that and he might get another little shake off like, "no, no, thank you" to that one and then he'll finally land on one and the picture will give an almost imperceptible yes, nod. It's almost like the head just slightly bobs up, almost like he didn't do it. And then bam that's hopefully the pitch that is delivered and works. 

So I'm wondering if you have a sense of that within yourself, right? Something comes to you thought, idea, an impulse, or an offer from something in the outside world, and you have the ability to notice. Do you get a little 'uh huh' that little imperceptible "No, thank you" or do you get, you know, a little, 'okay'. Often times when I've been working using internal family systems model and connecting with a part inside. What's lovely about it is oftentimes I think a misconception of the model is that people are making stuff up, right? They're using their imagination to a point where stuff is not true and what I really love about the model is it's always true. And if you're wondering if it is true or not, real happening inside you, all you do is ask, you know, you give a little signal so it might look something like you've reached into this sensation that you feel very strongly in your body, very familiar in your body, and you get this kind of idea, Oh my gosh, this part's been around since I was like nine and you wonder, did I make that up? And all you have to do is sincerely breathe in and just ask the question. I'm getting you're about nine, is that right? And you get, I get what's funny is I get kind of either the baseball yes or no, I get the little mmhm or uh huh, and I know right away. So it's really a wonderful, a wonderful feeling to have this confident intuitive sense inside.

 I think about so much of life when you don't have that feeling, when stuff is coming at you from with outside or within you and you just don't know. I mean, I used to feel like that a lot. I'd say yes to stuff that, you know, I was either really excited about or felt obliged about or thought would be great and I'd get maybe a little signal that this isn't great or I'd feel too tired or wrapped up in something else to do it and I'd just be kicking myself later, really anxious about it, worried about it. Like why did I choose that? Can you relate to that? Why did I say yes to this? And conversely, there have been times when you know, I think everyone goes, why did I say no to that? You know, why didn't I go on and get my degree at that time? Why didn't we buy that house? Why didn't I say yes to that engagement proposal, right? Why did I not take that trip and so on. 

So yeah, it's an imperfect world And of course we make imperfect decisions all the time. It's okay. Many of those turned out to be incredible blessings, I would say. So what is your 'yes' and how do you know? 

So, back to about a month ago, we're working on this training, this retreat training and there was an exercise that we all got to participate in and in it. We kind of chose a vision, if you will, a goal but deeper, right, an intention, or a hope almost that we would love to make come into fruition or into a bigger part of our lives right now. And I knew immediately for me what it was and it was to really expand and deepen and enrich 'Seriously Yourself', not only the podcast that you're listening to right now and thank you from the bottom of my heart, but also the membership, because I'm just finding it to be so nourishing and such a sense of joy not only for myself, but for the participants. So I had drawn on a paper that was part of the assignment. This image of what seriously yourself, the community would feel like from my perspective. And it just felt wonderful even though the artwork was, you know, stick figures and then the assignment and you can do this at home, I would say actually do this at home with anything in your life, right? How you like your life to look in a year, draw that on your paper, something that you really would love or want for yourself or feel is a calling or you're being sort of guided to do something, get that down on your paper, draw it out use colored markers and make it big like a poster size and then in the assignment and I've done these kinds of things before, so it wasn't too foreign to me. You you put the image down on the floor in front of you and then you notice what comes up, you know, what keeps you from this? How do you feel toward it? Do you have, you know, a little hesitant about it in some ways, maybe some fear, maybe some criticism, you know, or a feeling of like I could never or that's not, you know, I'm not good enough for this or that's a pipe dream or um it's too big, it's too small, whatever, right? And then you step into places so that you can represent those feelings for yourself, those parts of you, right? And then you get clearer, you get clearer and clearer about what is within you, that's responding to this very thing that you so desire that you so long for. Now I've done this in the past with things and typically I'm all over the place, right with all of those kinds of things that I described and I'm sort of stepping all over and often never really get quite too that dream that desire that love. But I had a very different experience this time, the person who was leading it asked you know, "where do you want to be in relation to this? What do you feel the most comfortable, where are you? And the only way I can describe it?" 

And it sounds silly and it is I love to laugh at me if you know me, I love to laugh at me more than I love to laugh at anything. But I literally felt like my heart was pulling me straight down into the picture and that's what I said. I said, there's just nothing between me and this picture. I love this, I'm all in. And so someone said, well go for it. And I just kind of sort of fell forward onto the picture and laid on it with my whole heart. I know I go to weird retreats, what can I tell you? But it wasn't that weird weird meaningful of doctors and phds and healers and therapists and amazing people. So I guess that's weird. 

But can you imagine that feeling? I really long for you to have that feeling where what you desire. So, a part of your heart and you have helped all of your parts to trust you enough so that your yes is all in. And you trust yourself enough to allow yourself to fall, float, fly, whatever face forward, heart forward into that dream. It can be the tiniest thing, It can be the grandest thing. And I feel like when we're all able to do that a little more, it all goes a little better, right? We show up more, we offer more gifts. We are happier, more joyful, not as exhausted. If there had been exhausted parts that felt like it's too much work to do that vision, I would never have moved face forward down onto it, I'll guarantee you, but there weren't, it's not just that little shake of the head. Yeah, this is the right pitch, it's an emphatic, "Oh yes, Oh yes, I'm in". So take a moment today. Take just a moment. Imagine what's your pitch? What's your next step? What allows you to feel all into your life? And then let's see what happens. Hope your next pitch is a strike. Take good care of yourself, let me know what you think. What are you dreaming about? What do you need help with? What keeps you from it? And I'll see you next week right here. Hopefully with a little stronger voice. Take good, good care of yourself. See you then. Bye. 


Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 




]]> Thu, 23 Jun 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1004 What would it take for you to be all in to say YES! to yourself? Do you want to know some practical yet magical steps that you can take towards creating your dreams? This week we go into honing your intuition to bring this to fruition. What would it take for you to be all in to say YES! to yourself? Do you want to know some practical yet magical steps that you can take towards creating your dreams? This week we go into honing your intuition to bring this to fruition. No No Whoa, Whoa, Whoa https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/v859xpx8-whoa-whoa-whoa Whoa, Whoa, Whoa 21 No No 81ql6p60 The key to deeper intimacy is communication. This podcast lays out clear steps to create the intimacy you truly yearn for. The real magic happens when we slow all the way down, relax our nervous systems, get present, and allow the truth to emerge. From this centered place, we can actively listen and feel truly heard. Can’t wait for you to get a taste of magic this week! When we are in the present moment, the truth emerges. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander.

Hi hello, come on in, I am really glad you're here today and I want to tell you that I probably sound a little different and that is because I've been dealing with this crazy bronchial virus and I think a lot of people have it right now. It's not covid, but it's just very long lasting and doesn't seem to want to leave me, so I have to do the podcast with this voice which is probably okay. So that got me thinking a lot about speech this last week. Of course I listen and talk for a living. So speech is kind of a big deal, right, do you have to speak a lot in your work? Maybe at home?

I was listening to my husband talk on the phone the other day and I know that sounds bad, but I wasn't really interested in what he was saying and I couldn't hear the other person. But what I noticed was when he would say something, he kind of would be left hanging and he would start to offer a little anecdote or a shared topic from his life and whoever he was talking to was just kind of kept on going with whatever they were talking about and I noticed that pretty soon he just sort of stopped offering and ended up saying a lot of "Oh yeah, right, yes, yes, I hear you. Oh sure, yeah", so he had to switch into full on listening mode. Which is not a bad thing, but I think he probably didn't feel very seen or heard by his friend and you know, this happens a lot, doesn't it?

Do you feel seen and heard? Do you feel like you're able to get your point across or to go a little deeper if you need to with your friends or family, with your loved ones? Yeah, it's a big deal. It's a really big deal. And I think that there are steps that you could take today, like when you get off this podcast or in your next conversation, to examine and maybe adjust your speech so that you can be not only better heard, but that you can be a better listener for people that you really care about.

I got to thinking about watching television when I was growing up and of course television grew out of other types of media, right, before television, it was either what written or live plays or film. And so television was done a lot like all of those things, especially plays. Um, it was just a filmed play essentially in many cases. And I don't know if it was just that or if it was the era, but people spoke a lot more slowly, a lot more clearly. And I remember when I think it was West Wing, so it could have been another, um, similar show came on the air. You know, the big deal was how quickly they spoke and how over the top of each other they spoke and how real that was, how real that was. So we do that a lot. I do that a ton. I've always spoken pretty quickly and sort of glided over my words. It takes a lot of effort for me to enunciate for you here on the show and probably often, well, I wonder if you're feeling like, what did she just say there? So I'm trying to speak up and be clear.

How can you today slow down your own rate of speech even just a minuscule amount to include more breaks, pauses, breaths and listening, moments, lots of times we want to get in there because we've already got a new idea and we don't want to forget it. And I think especially as we get older, we know we're gonna probably forget it and that's frustrating. So it's like we want to say it, say it now before it's gone because it's such a great thought. I would say probably try trusting that if it's such a great thought it's not likely to get lost, it will come around back to you. It'll come around, trust yourself a little more. You know, that's the neat thing about slowing down our speech is it actually can create a calmer nervous system. You could try that right now. Well don't try it right now, but when you're done listening, just start talking very, very, very quickly. So if I'm going to do it right now, I'm gonna actually kind of increase my rate and I'm gonna talk like this? And I'm going to say, you know, I was just really really thinking about this and I couldn't help myself and I just kind of ran outside and just ran outside and ran around the rain and you feel it? Notice your body right now, yeah. Whether that speech comes from outside of us or inside of us I think has a very similar impact. It revs up the nervous system and there are times when that needs to happen. If I was going to go for a run, I might need to talk like that for a minute, even in my own head to get myself to have the energy to get up and go.

But generally when I'm in a conversation it's so much nicer to just take a pause. So what does that enable you to do? You can stop and just imagine what you're hearing from another person. What are they trying to convey to you? What does it feel like for them? Why do they care if you understand it? How close do you feel to this person? What other emotions are coming up? Just feel it, just tiny little notes. Again, you don't have to worry about what will be your next statement. Your next statement will come and if it doesn't you can take a pause and it will come, what else can that do for you? We've already said it can help you be a better listener. It can help you feel calmer. It can help you get clearer, right? How does it do that?

Well, we know that if the nervous system is sympathetically charged so that it is ready to go, it's revved up and ready to go, maybe has a little fear or a little activation. Yeah, that it's possible that we won't think as clearly, as fully as spaciously and as inclusively, right? That's a private moment in our bodies. That's our body going, this is about me and I need to do something, even if that something is stand here frozen, but it's not a great thinking space and it's not a great community space. It's not really relational. Does that make sense to you? It's not really a place where your heart feels full of love and warm and open and ready to, um invite somebody in deeper. So from that perspective, if you become more aware of your own speech patterns and your own breathing patterns and I'm a little frustrated today because typically I would be taking more deep breaths during this conversation, but I can't because my option is to breathe a little more shallowly and still be able to do this recording or to breathe deeply and cough through the entire thing. So I'm going with A, um but you can do that, right? You can take those breaths and you can even notice if you're with somebody that their breathing will probably relax, right? That that gives them permission to slow down. They won't be feeling like, oh my gosh, I got to get this idea out before she jumps in and takes over and I've lost my moment and I don't get to talk to her and tell her what I'm really feeling. No, the other person will feel like, oh there's time.

And I would say even if you don't have time on the clock, you have time make time what's more important, what's more important than being heard and seen and listening? Nothing. This goes for your kids. You might need to get a lot of information across, write them a note if you can and then spend more time in calm speech with them, right? Use one word to signal something they need to do and then take the time that you would have spent over explaining that thing. You know, brush your teeth. Because if you don't, you're gonna have cavities and you have to get the sugar off and you had that soda tonight and blah blah blah. No go brush and then spend the rest of the time listening, breathing, calming. It could change everything.

What would happen if just in our communities we could slow down not have the most immediate retort, take a breath. So I hope that's helpful. See what you can do with that. I'm really excited to hear what comes of it for you can you notice a difference in your relationships, in your phone calls with people you love? Can you notice that you can also give yourself permission to be heard more? Maybe if it stops being sort of a game show competition between who can insert the most interesting little stories and becomes more about, I really want you to hear me and see me right now and how neat to recognize that you kind of feel what I'm feeling too. Yeah, that's good stuff. So let me know how it goes.

We're in our I think this is the 21st episode and it is so much fun to share with you. I have loved hearing from you and so appreciate when you reach out and let me know how things are going and when you like to listen and if you do enjoy it, please share with a friend. We have over 50,000 downloads now, which kind of blows my mind and you know, let's double that. Let's, you know, help a few more people that we really care about call them in and if you really love this, I would really love to share my subscription membership with you when you join seriously yourself, you get incredible goodies that are all outlined for you on my website and I'd love to have you along. It is great fun, talk to you soon. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 


]]> Thu, 16 Jun 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 898 The key to deeper intimacy is communication. This podcast lays out clear steps to create the intimacy you truly yearn for. The real magic happens when we slow all the way down, relax our nervous systems, get present, and allow the truth to emerge. From this centered place, we can actively listen and feel truly heard. Can’t wait for you to get a taste of magic this week! When we are in the present moment, the truth emerges. The key to deeper intimacy is communication. This podcast lays out clear steps to create the intimacy you truly yearn for. The real magic happens when we slow all the way down, relax our nervous systems, get present, and allow the truth to emerge. From this centered place, we can actively listen and feel truly heard. Can’t wait for you to get a taste of magic this week! When we are in the present moment, the truth emerges. No No Question It All! https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/6nr39mw8-question-it-all Question It All! 20 No No 815xqyl0 It can be tough to examine our long-held assumptions and beliefs, but the benefits are enormous! We are raised with old stories, old truths, things that don't always fit, or that aren't even true. This episode we compassionately turn towards questioning and updating outdated belief systems. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hey, hello, happy new week and come on in. It's really good to be with you. I have an interesting topic today. It's really I think very important for growth and for living feeling alive and that is about questioning and revising and seeing what you might not have seen before. You know, if you can imagine when you were a little kid that you just kept the same set of beliefs your entire life, right? So you still believed like many kids do that, your parents could read your mind or you still believed that the easter bunny actually was your height and walked in your house with a big basket and if you do believe that I'm very sorry. Or you know whatever it is that you believed that the world really revolved around you. I mean to be honest, that's what little ones, that's what babies believe, right or that they are their mother, right? If you still believe those things, your life would be highly limited, wouldn't it? I mean it wouldn't be a good thing. You would not walk around behaving in ways that made sense to people or yourself. So that's easy to understand that we want to grow and we really want to look at our belief system and and change it as we get older, right? 

And I think as we become adults, it is equally important to do that but often we forget that we can and absolutely should do that. The hard part about it is to have to question what we've been believing as an adult can evoke a lot of pain. I remember In my 30s, my young 30s, really having to look at what relationships were, you know, whether they were family relationships or my relationship to particular communities that I had been engaged in and the the pain of having to re-imagine those more accurately for where I was in my life and what what that meant to me, right? 

And I realize this sounds kind of cloudy and fuzzy probably, but when we stop and take a look at every little thing, it can feel yucky. For example, on Mother's Day, you know, I mean mother's days, you know, whatever, it's fine. I have kids and they're always kind and you know, have grandkids and they're very sweet around mama, mama kind of things, and that's fine. But I just caught myself just again questioning questioning like why do we do this? And what are we supposed to believe about women and Motherhood and why do we why is it just hallmark that has sold us a bill of goods or what has happened? Um, actually learned that Mother's Day started as the women's response to warring and war and the endless wars of men and saying we want more of a say, we don't want this to keep happening, which I think is tremendously cool by the way, but not what we're being sold now. So I caught myself questioning that and then I had a critical part inside me, a voice that was like, well, "could you just stop analyzing everything and maybe just enjoy yourself? Would you cut it out quit being critical or harsh or or not believing in, you know what you could believe in?"

 Yeah, I could. And I did for for some time, but I really think it's good for us to stop and go, oh, this thing that I say or do or believe does need to be reanalyzed. And of course, the last 2.5 years, three years with pandemic, we've really had to rethink a lot, you know? And so we might be a little burnt out of doing that and I understand that. But if you can stay calm and just look at alright, why do I accept things in my life that I always have? Maybe it's the way you're treated when you're allowed to speak up, how you feel. I mean, some of us really accept that we're just going to be people who suffer. Believe me, if you're not one of them, I will tell you there's many out there many people who believe, you know, I'm probably just here really to suffer and how sad is that, really to suffer? But if that's the way you were raised right, then maybe you had a reason for believing that. And yet just because you were raised that way doesn't mean you have to hold that belief. 

I've talked to people who were really treated poorly as Children. Well, I should say sometimes treated badly as children, whether they were beaten or abused or neglected and other times treated well. How confusing is that for a kid, yeah? But as an adult, it can be really intimidating to take a step back and really look at it for what it is and get enough space to be able to see it. You know, there are parts of us as kids that when things happen that are terrible, we tend to take them on as if, well, this was me, this was my fault or I deserved it or I was too much or too little, right? And rather than just taking that sensation in as an adult, it's better to review it and give yourself a little peace and patience about that. Just because a parent taught you something doesn't mean it was correct, right? And it doesn't mean that it didn't hurt and it doesn't mean that it was worth keeping for the rest of your life. 

This also goes to bigger things, right? So many of us are raised with certain concepts about society who's important and who's not, right. We discriminate against others and we think that that's just fine because that's just the way it is right, well that should be questioned. Let's question it and it can feel uncomfortable and embarrassing and hard to do, but if we don't question things like racism and genderism, and speciesism, and all those sexism, ageism, all those things, then we just perpetuate them and we cause ourselves and others pain. And then because we haven't questioned the original concepts at all in a, in again, like I said, a very patient and compassionate way. Then we justify it over and over and over again. We justify our own pain. We justify our own suffering when really we could take a step back and go on what am I basing this idea and what am I basing this? 

So if you were taught, say, you know, women were supposed to be sweet and pleasing and gentle and light and you were a normal woman or a person and you weren't always sweet and gentle and pleasing and light, you might have taken on a story that you were bad or too much.  Apart of, you could still believe that that's not yours to carry, right? So it's not that easy of course to just say, oh, I'm going to think differently about it because it really is very finely grained, ingrained in you, right? But man, when you can start seeing, oh, so when I would be upset and someone would say, well you're kind of a hater, aren't you? Or you're a quitter or you're lazy. I took that in like part of that was true. Even though maybe part of me didn't believe it, right? 

What are you needing to review, what traditions, thought patterns, habits, givens are you ready to not just take at face value as if they really are. And if you can do that without frightening, frightening your insides, frightening any young parts of you that might feel like, oh, it's really important for me to believe that there's always snow in December. I'm trying to take things that are very not too evocative for you honestly, but you can think of the evocative ones. This sounds crazy I suppose. But a lot of people in my parents generation have had to rethink burial, right. Everybody was taught you were embalmed, you were put in a casket, you were buried that way and that was the best way, without even questioning it, right? It became associated with the afterlife and all of that and I've watched, you know, not only my parents, but others go through the question of wait a minute, is that accurate or was that something I was kind of sold by the funeral homes back in the sixties?

 So there are things like that almost every day, almost every day and new ones coming online, like the right way to be on facebook or the amount of times you should text someone before expecting a re-text back, right or the, you know, some of the political concepts like if you consider yourself liberal, you have to believe this or if you consider yourself conservative, you have to be this way and I think we can bring so much more to ourselves, our families, our communities and our planet if we just stop for a minute and say, well where did that come from? And can I rethink that? Does that really honestly sit well with me? It isn't easy, but it sure is nice and it sure is freeing. 

I remember a woman telling me that one of her grandparents had abused her and she told one of her parents. And they kind of stopped for 1 second and said I'll take care of it. And I remember feeling so badly and and I remember thinking about, wow, if that were my kid, well what I've done right? If it weren't for the idea that the parents obviously had which was, well, this kind of thing happens in our family, and I think that led to this nonchalant almost way of shutting it down, right, I'll take care of it. And when I turned to this person, I said did did your parents ever ask you if you were okay? They were like, oh my goodness, I didn't even think of that. But if it were my kid, that would have been the first question they said, yeah, of course, of course, we are raised with assumptions. We are raised with old stories, we are raised with old truths and things that don't always fit or aren't even real and it can feel really scary to question them. But I would suggest gently and with patience and care that every now and then you just take your day and you write down all the things you're assuming have to happen are true and question them just a little because that is one way we grow. I'd love to hear what you're questioning. I'd love to know what you take as an assumption and what healing has come from you going, Is that true? Mmmm. And remember that, what you feel, sometimes it's the truest thing in the room and your thoughts may not be. Take really good care of yourself. I'll see you soon. Bye 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 




]]> Thu, 09 Jun 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1010 It can be tough to examine our long-held assumptions and beliefs, but the benefits are enormous! We are raised with old stories, old truths, things that don't always fit, or that aren't even true. This episode we compassionately turn towards questioning and updating outdated belief systems. It can be tough to examine our long-held assumptions and beliefs, but the benefits are enormous! We are raised with old stories, old truths, things that don't always fit, or that aren't even true. This episode we compassionately turn towards questioning and updating outdated belief systems. No No Good Regrets https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/lnqryrj8-good-regrets Good Regrets 19 No No 81nj5jz1 It's natural to regret times spent struggling with sadness or depression. If this sounds familiar, it's okay. It's a normal part of feeling better. But did you ever consider that that's a great thing to have happened to you, it will be a beautiful, complete part of your growth and healing process. This helps you keep from owning an identity of suffering of regrets all the time. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hello, Come on in. I'm thinking today about the words regret and grief, kind of grieving regretfulness. You know this is a little different than the topic from a few weeks ago when we talked about um the slimy strawberries and sharing what you have to offer your gifts and how we can regret when we don't do that. This is different. This particular little brand of regret is when I often see with my clients and I have experienced myself and I bet you have to, and that is when you are feeling better, right? Something has shifted for you and you're not feeling either depressed or down about yourself or anxious or a part of you has really healed and believe me it happens all the time. So if you worry that you have parts of you that couldn't heal, I want to assure you you can.  But often there is this pretty immediate sensation of grief, sadness, and regret and when we look into it, it's like why? You know when you are just feeling really good like ah I feel so much better. It's so much better now I'm not suffering with that sadness or with that pressure or that self criticism or whatever it is that burden. But then just as quickly it's like ugh such sadness and grief and regret and I bet you know already what it's about right? It is the regret for the time lost. The regret for the parts of you that felt so sad often for what feels like far less reason than they thought and just really feeling bad about that. 

I don't know about you, but I will go back and look at pictures of when I was younger sometimes and I get this feeling this sort of sad grieving regret because I remember when I took the original picture or it was taken that I probably was criticizing myself about the picture, right? I've got a wrinkle there or I'm too heavy there or my clothes don't look just right or you know, whatever it was at the time that I was picking at right, being mean to myself in a way, just perfectionistic and and also fearful I guess of just seeing oneself without noticing every detail that might be a problem. And I would look back on these pictures and I think Wow, I look great. I'm really, I mean what would I give to look like I did at 20 and 30, I mean I'm not going to do that. I feel really happy now. But the point is I regret not feeling happy then, right? I regret carrying the burdens that I carried about some kind of way of being that took away from my happiness in the moment. That's what it is. Those things that take away from your being present to yourself to your life to those you love because you're so busy worrying about something else or you're so unfortunately down or or depressed about something, right? I can look back on family vacation photos that I just long for my kids are little the sun is shining, my body is youthful and well my husband's there, my family maybe and I can remember I was probably depressed, haha. At least part of the time and not able to really just luxuriate and how fabulous that time was. And then that feeling of regret comes up and sadness about why, why couldn't that part of seeing how good it is and why couldn't I just have felt better and and appreciated, right? That's why the practice of gratefulness is so powerful when it is authentic, it can help so that you don't have those deep moments of regret for not appreciating all the goodness is in your life. 

But I want us to look one other way at this because honestly I believe that every bit of your life is inside you somewhere, right? Things don't just go into nothing. Even if you don't remember them with the front of your mind, they're in there. All those experiences and happenings and uh impacts they still exist. And so regret comes up about the past, right? It's really about and experience of our past and if you have had a discovery that allows you to let go of something painful from the past, right? To really feel better. Like when depression lifts or when you unburden a part of you that has been making you feel in some way to suffer. When that changes, a moment of regret or of sadness and grief for the pain that you had carried is normal. And so if you get that kind of sensation of regret, there is a tiny bit of good news in it and that is from here on out, this being that holds all of this, that is you, gets to go forward with this new insight and this new spaciousness of knowing. I don't have to feel that way now, I don't have to drag that along with me and I have changed and I've grown, you know, we can't change and grow unless we recognize something that was feeling off, if we're afraid to look at that because we're afraid of feeling some kind of grief or regret about having lived a certain way, then we won't make those shifts, we won't make those changes that help us to change and grow and feel better, right? To be more ourselves, to be happier, to be more true. If it's always like, oh, but then I'm going to feel so bad about the way I've lived up until now, you see the flaw in the, in the thinking there? I'm sure you do. 

So if you're feeling fearful that you might regret having lived a certain way, just know that's a great thing to have happened to you, it will be a beautiful, complete part of your growth and healing process. If you come up cross apart, that's like, oh I feel really badly that I was so down during this whole decade of life when I could have been happy. Well maybe, maybe you could have been, but you are now and you see it and thank goodness that part doesn't have to keep suffering anymore, and you can move on knowing you get to celebrate those times now. Rather than continuing the feeling of regret and regret and regret, I regret that I didn't have more fun then, so I regret wasting the time, so I'm going to bring that regret right smack into today. Then you have a whole new burden for today, rather how wonderful that I can look back and grieve for my younger self not having felt better or been aware of the kinds of healing that could happen for myself then I realized it now I feel a bit of regret, I can offer myself a big hug around that. Of course I feel sad about that and now I get to feel good about it. You see that helps you keep from owning an identity of suffering of regrets all the time. So play with that. What do you regret when it comes to times of your life when you didn't feel so well and can you appreciate the sensation now of oh I see and I can move forward, not carrying that regret around with me all the time. I hope that makes some sense for you and I look forward to talking to you really soon. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them and I'd love to see a review as well, then I know what you're wanting and what you're, what you're interested in. I hope you stay well too, take good care, bye!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 



]]> Thu, 02 Jun 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 732 It's natural to regret times spent struggling with sadness or depression. If this sounds familiar, it's okay. It's a normal part of feeling better. But did you ever consider that that's a great thing to have happened to you, it will be a beautiful, complete part of your growth and healing process. This helps you keep from owning an identity of suffering of regrets all the time. It's natural to regret times spent struggling with sadness or depression. If this sounds familiar, it's okay. It's a normal part of feeling better. But did you ever consider that that's a great thing to have happened to you, it will be a beautiful, complete part of your growth and healing process. This helps you keep from owning an identity of suffering of regrets all the time. No No Shift Happens! Small Changes & Why They're Often Best https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/lnqpqw48-shift-happens-small-changes-why-they-re-often-best Shift Happens! Small Changes & Why They're Often Best 18 No No 81n8yvx1 Small shifts can often be more effective than big, drastic changes. This is what actually moves the dial towards the change that you are really wanting. I've learned what is most essential is making these tiny little changes. Things that seem like no big deal to make. But it can make all the difference in your body, in your psyche in your day, in your week and how you feel about your life. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hey there. Hi, come on in. Nice to see you today though. I can't really, but I'm imagining you ,with lots of love and affection. Today we're talking about change and a lot of us don't like change. I've heard that 1,000 times in my office, I don't like change, don't ask me to change. Change is hard and it is, but I prefer when I'm thinking about change the word shift, you know, to shift.  If you try to shift a car if you've ever driven a standard, is that the word standard, right versus automatic? You know that if you don't shift correctly, you can actually wreck the whole transmission, right? It's like stripping the gears. If you you go from reverse into drive without maybe hitting the clutch right? Or going through neutral. You make too swift of a change and you ruin things. 

So today we're really looking about this on a personal level because when we think about becoming seriously ourselves, we want to make some change probably from the things that are holding us back. Constricting us not being true. You know, the things that are not really us to being more truly seriously yourself. 

So change, let's look at the word shift. The biggest lesson I believe I ever learned about making changes came from a woman named Sue Bush and she was my youngest son's second grade teacher. Sue died much too young and is no longer here with us. But she really taught me this amazing little lesson and I'm going to share it with you. When my son was little he was having some trouble in school because he felt very very rushed and pushed to get things done a certain way in a certain time. He also had to deal with having type one diabetes and would have to test his blood sugar often. Sometimes that would take time for him out of things that the other kids were doing. Because of course the other kids didn't have to stop and do that. And you wouldn't think that would be a big deal. I mean I wouldn't have honestly because it takes you know 30 seconds to do that. And I remember talking to Mrs.Bush and saying how he was feeling so stressed out though, he liked her class and he basically like school and he was having fun with his friends. There were no major issues. But you know, how could we possibly help him then? You know what can we what can we do? And she looked at me and said, well it sounds like he's really struggling right before lunch. Everybody is getting to go to lunch and he's having to wait an extra minute to check his blood sugar. 

And I thought well yeah that's true, but big deal. You know it's a minute at the most. And she turned to me and she said you know I've worked with lots of kids and lots of kids with special considerations and needs. And one of the things that I've learned that is most essential is making these tiny little changes. Things that she said for me are absolutely no big deal to make the change at all doesn't matter to me. But it can make all the difference in their body, in their psyche in their day, in their week and how they feel about their lives. So uh, there you have it. She let him go like two minutes early, maybe not even that long to go check his blood sugar so that he could line up for lunch with everybody else and it made all the difference. He was calmer, He was more content. He felt more part of the gang and like she said, it was no skin off her teeth. It just didn't matter to her. 

That tiny shift was enough to make a huge change. So often when we want to make change, we think we have to do something grand, something large or something perfect. What I've learned is that that is often exactly the opposite of what we need to be about. Here are the kinds of things that I, I hear, not only from my clients, but in my own body, in my own mind, there are things like this. Like, "I don't want to feel affection for this person who has hurt me. So I wish I could hate them" or "I don't want to fight anymore. So I'm just going to roll over and accept whatever comes my way". Or "I'd like to change that I really care about this because I don't feel like I can do anything about it, so I'm just not going to care about it anymore". Those we think are changes, but they are actually still exactly the same parts of us, They're just the inverse, right, same part other side. And I know I've talked about this before, but it's so essential that I'd love you to get a sense of it. 

So imagine something right now something in your life or in your body or in your being this thing you call yourself that feels uncomfortable, not just right, a little off balance and then notice maybe what you feel would be helpful to do to change it. And if that idea, A is kind of big and, B is diametrically opposed to the first thing that was bothering you. That's not the way to go, it's still the same part of you. It's just the inverse. Now stop and imagine what's it like to dream just a tiny dream of what would make you feel a little better, a little more complete, a little more true, a bit more in your body, a bit more authentic, happier maybe. 

Just a tiny bit, you could change something small and sometimes that's something small is something you can actually help someone else with, for example by being willing to mention this sort of seemingly innocuous thing too. My son's teacher, she was able to make a seemingly inconsequential shift. A 3o second change and he was lighter. He was happier. And guess who else was mm hmm. Me and probably her. If you're able to make those changes for yourself or for others, they can make your life feel a whole lot better. So if you imagine today you're unhappy because maybe you want to travel and you haven't been able to travel in a while. Either, you know, you've been staying in for the pandemic or it hasn't felt safe to you or you can't afford it or you don't get time off or you have little kids and you can't go whatever it is and you want to travel at least give yourself five minutes in the morning to dream of that travel, you know, without shifting into. Oh, it's all or nothing, right? I have to go or I can't enjoy it. Or if I think about it, it just makes me so sad. Oh, what if you let yourself have just a bit, right? 

What if you let yourself shop online for groceries or foods from that country or that space, that area you'd love to travel to and you cooked i? Or what if you found some images of it online and made a beautiful board for your room or what if you listen to the music or the language from that country, tuned into one of their radio stations online or from that state you experimented with following their newspaper for a week? Probably wouldn't want to go there then you'd have heard every bad thing. But you know what I mean? Tiny shifts can make a big difference. Say, for example, you want to improve a relationship, but you don't know how and you feel like I either have to completely convert myself into someone. I'm not or I have to cut that person off. That might be true. You might need a really big boundary, but on the other hand, you might need to just go, what would make it easy? What if I let the expectation that it had to be a certain way go and I let myself enjoy what I do enjoy about the person and see what happens and be patient with the parts of me that don't enjoy this person. Or what if I, I decided I would reach in to discover something new about myself and I didn't have to do it perfectly? But I made a small shift toward what I love, what delights me what lights me up just a little bit more. Do you see the difference? If we make huge changes, we're going to blow our minds and we're not going to want to do them and then we're going to feel stuck because all of our critical parts, those voices in our head that say, "you never will do it. You don't do anything. You don't make any differences. You know, it's not good enough. You're not good enough". They step up and they get loud probably to protect us from the disappointment we feel from not having made the difference when all we have to do is make a tiny shift. 

So what are your tiny shifts today? What little changes do you want to make? Do you want to exercise more? Maybe you just walk everywhere in your house? Mhm. Do you want to have more friends? Maybe you write a letter to somebody you miss? Do you want to have more time? Hmm, maybe you look at what is sucking your time away and you put it down for an extra 10 minutes today, as I'm looking at my phone. Yeah, tiny tiny shifts. They're the stuff that life is made out of. Did you know that? All those little changes, I want you to hear that you're doing great. By the way, if you've listened into this podcast today, that tells me that you're interested in making tiny shifts and that interest will draw. We'll draw that to you. If you don't believe me, start thinking about something anything. And then notice how often you see it around you, right? That's that bias that we have. That when we're paying attention to something, we notice it then. So you're ready to make some shift. Yeah, one tiny 1. Don't blow your mind and see how it feels. And then give yourself credit, okay? Thanks Mrs Bush, You were a good one. And all of you take good care of yourselves. I'd love to see you sometime in my membership group. I want you to know you're invited. You can shoot me a message or look for me online at https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/. You'll see it there. Take good care of yourselves. Talk to you soon. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 


]]> Thu, 26 May 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 945 Small shifts can often be more effective than big, drastic changes. This is what actually moves the dial towards the change that you are really wanting. I've learned what is most essential is making these tiny little changes. Things that seem like no big deal to make. But it can make all the difference in your body, in your psyche in your day, in your week and how you feel about your life. Small shifts can often be more effective than big, drastic changes. This is what actually moves the dial towards the change that you are really wanting. I've learned what is most essential is making these tiny little changes. Things that seem like no big deal to make. But it can make all the difference in your body, in your psyche in your day, in your week and how you feel about your life. No No I Don't Wanna!!! https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/18pp9q38-i-don-t-wanna I Don't Wanna!!! 17 No No z1rvw8x1 Lots of different parts of us have been trying really hard recently. Quarantining - new transitions - parenting - working - socializing - pleasing. What can you learn about yourself when those parts draw a line? Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hi there, come on in. This is gonna sound a little strange maybe, but I'm hoping I've caught you at a bad time. I really am. I'm hoping I caught you at a time when you're like ughh, because that's what I'm talking about today.  The other morning I woke up and I had a list of things, you know, things like fun, things really like I'm going here, I'm doing this, I'm planning this trip that I'm doing or I've got some projects to work on. And loud and clear in my head, I hear, "I don't want to, I don't wanna" do you ever have that part? "I don't wanna" and it kind of got louder and more, I would say almost childish, right? Like "I don't wanna". And I'm thinking, wow, my first reaction is boy, I'm in trouble today. I really don't want to do things. And then I took a breath and I practice what I preach. And I stopped for a second and I'm like who's that? Who the heck is this voice? It sounds oddly young and really negative and frustrated. I don't want to. And so I started getting curious in that moment like what don't you want to? And it's like, "I don't wanna be a certain way. I don't want to do things. I don't want to try. I don't want to care. I don't want to look a certain way. I don't want to look the way I do. I don't want to be my old self. I don't want to be something new. I don't wanna", whoa, that'll leave you feeling stuck. That'll leave you feeling really stuck. There's nowhere to go. 

And later on the day, of course I didn't not want, I got up and I did my thing and later when I had some time I was able to meet with a good friend who also does this internal family systems work that I adore and this, I don't want to came up again and it's like, well let's, let's really get with this. Let's get curious about. I don't wanna, who's that? Oh, and I couldn't get it, you know, because of course inside the energy of idol wanna will block you. So it's really hard to get curious about because guess what? You don't wanna, right? So it's, it's the same inside. 

So the guy I was working with was so wonderful and he said, well what do you want? What do you want? Mm hmm. And I just was able to breathe into that, wow, what do I want? And I imagined in the same kind of childlike way, one of those cartoony, almost white sand islands that's, you know, maybe a few yards. I don't even think it be miles, maybe a couple city blocks across and wide, a little circle in the ocean. Blue water and on that island is a palm tree and one nice lounging chair and some shells and that's about all and it's not too hot. And it's not too cool. Oh and that was what I wanted. And he said, well, you know, why don't you go there? Okay, sure. I'll go there. I do wanna. So in my minds eye was able to imagine going there but I couldn't rest. I couldn't rest. I couldn't something inside my chest felt all tight. Ahhh and frustrated like god darn it. I'm in my imagination in the most perfect place I can imagine right now. And he said to me, what would make it a little better? What would you like to be there? I don't know. I don't know.  I said I can't think of anything. Nothing was coming. And then suddenly it was like a book. I would love a book. Mm hmm. So I had a book I got to just sit and read a little more shades. So it didn't bother my eyes. That was nice. And yet still I don't want to. 

And then I noticed this feeling of like the idea of going any deeper below that surface. Mm hmm. Imagination play in my mind was kind of scaring me. I didn't want to go any deeper. Felt like it might be too much. And I was able to notice that part of that fear was fear of disappointment. Which is a big one for me. I don't know if you can um relate to that. But I have parts of me that are deeply fearful of being disappointed, which sometimes I have parts that criticize that because of course we're going to be disappointed, right? But at any rate, that fear was present with me on my little island there it was and actually, you know, I asked it if it would just kind of you know, take a little dinghy out to somewhere else and it did, but left behind this little sensation of trying, like I'm trying all the time and it was pretty clear the sensation that this was the part that didn't want to, this part of me that had been trying and trying and trying and trying to do to be. And I imagine that many, many, many of us have parts of us inside that you know are are really great at managing our lives right? We have these aspects of our ourselves that keep us going, keep the world going, behave in responsible ways, especially those and I really think through the last several years for me and I think for many of us these parts that have been trying to do things well, to do things right, to get clear to understand, to help, to be responsible, to stay well so on and so on, to work to parent to communicate, to stay in engagement with people we love have been trying like crazy so much, so often so hard, so if you hear yourself saying, I don't wanna right think of the sounds you make, we didn't wanna write, I don't want to even if it's pleasant stuff, I don't wanna or maybe yours is similar but different find it and just notice do you have parts of you that have been really trying over time? 

I'll tell you what I found when I found mine. I found first of all invited with the help of my friend, I invited this part to join me in another lounge chair on my little island. Inside my imagination. And she did. But when I turned to see how she was doing, she wasn't there. She had moved instantaneously from that other lounge chair, directly curled up in my arms, sound asleep and she was about two years old. Now if you've never experienced your internal world this way, I know it sounds crazy. I know it sounds weird. It does to me too, but when you've experienced it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And I was sort of taken aback by this tiny little me lying there and it brought me to tears because I realized some parts of me have been trying my whole life. They are the parts that tried to keep up with older siblings. They are the parts that tried to carry being the youngest in the family. There are the parts that carried expectations from people that loved and cared about me. There are the parts that try to live up to the naturally responsible person that I am and they're tired And this little one rested in my arms gave me the most amazing sense of peace and contentment and rest that I've had in a very long time. I

 don't know that you will have a similar experience. You'll have your own. But I really want to encourage you when you catch the voice of "I don't want to, I don't care, I don't like it. I don't feel like it", take a moment, take a breath and just notice what it's like to be with those parts of you. That little one needed me. She needed to know that she doesn't have to keep trying. I got this. She's okay. And when she calms, I calm, what do you not want to do lately? Have a listen inside. There's probably a good reason for it. Thanks for joining me. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to drop them. You can go to my instagram or my web page Ingrid y highlander LM FT dot com. You can join my seriously yourself community where you'll have lots more ideas. You can comment and give me a review where you get your podcast. Thanks so much for being here. I hope that you and your I don't want to parts have a great week. I'll talk with you soon. Bye bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 


]]> Thu, 19 May 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 819 Lots of different parts of us have been trying really hard recently. Quarantining - new transitions - parenting - working - socializing - pleasing. What can you learn about yourself when those parts draw a line? Lots of different parts of us have been trying really hard recently. Quarantining - new transitions - parenting - working - socializing - pleasing. What can you learn about yourself when those parts draw a line? No No Wasted Offerings and Slimy Strawberries https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/v8512m08-wasted-offerings-and-slimy-strawberries Wasted Offerings and Slimy Strawberries 16 No No 81qw2zy1 What parts of ourselves are we holding back, and why? What gift excites you to give that you are hiding away? And why? This week on Seriouslyourself, we explore inspiration, your gifts, and the underlying beliefs to why you may hold back on your precious offerings to the world. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hi there. How are you? Come on in. I'm so glad you're here today. Today's offering on SeriouslYourself comes from some soggy strawberries in my refrigerator. See there's inspiration everywhere right? Soggy strawberries in the fridge.  I'll tell you why the other day we had family over for dinner and I made, as I do, enough food for probably three times as many people. I don't mean to do that. It's just if you cook at all and you're like me, you know, it's hard to cook for a different amount than you might be used to. So on this particular occasion I made way more than I needed and as people were leaving, my sons and families, I thought I'll make sure you grab some of that food and send it with them because they are more likely to eat it. And I did actually offer a couple of things but I got distracted and kind of forgot about it. And uh several days later I looked in the fridge and there was a big beautiful half bowl full of lovely organic sliced strawberries just sagging away in there and they made me sad. I hate to throw food away. I really do.  And I'm, I'm getting more like that. I think as I grow older and I think as I realize, you know that we really do have to care for our resources and resources around us. 

So it bugged me, you know, but I got to thinking about it in another way, on another level. And that reminded me that we're always probably going to have things in our life that we look back on and we wish that we had given or offered. That makes sense to you. Yeah. There are always going to be things in our life that we wish we had given or offered to someone who would love or appreciate those things, those offerings. And I believe that is really one of the most critical reasons that I decided to do this podcast. Not so that I could be giving and offering, although in part that's very true, but so that I could help you to really show up and offer what you know you have to offer. 

And I need to make a little disclaimer there because I think there are some of us that perhaps we offer from a place of responsibility, over-responsibility or pleasing or because we're not enough. Like there are parts of us that feel like they're not enough and so we want to offer in order to bolster our sense of being okay. And that's a very different thing. That's sort of like a burdened offering if you will, that comes from a place of pain. And I'm not saying that those offerings can't help someone because I'm sure they do and that's great. But that's not what I'm talking about here. 

What I'm talking about here is those things that are in the moment beautiful, vibrant nourishing alive and ample, that we could be easily offering. I think about those strawberries right? The day that I purchased them, slice them. You know, put them a little lemon or something and then put them in the bowl. They were gorgeous. They were really a worthy beautiful gift. But after they had sat in my refrigerator for four or five days, they were just compost. I suppose. 

What do we hold of ourselves that could be offered from a really fresh, vibrant nourishing space and would do someone good, right? That would be an inspiration to them, a help ,an aid, a community connection. What do we hold back and why? So think about that for a moment. Like what do you kind of sit on? What do you kind of retain? What do you hide away? What do you hold back about your very being, your own gifts, your own beautiful self. Those fresh, vibrant strawberries that are you, what do you hold and hide and stow away and forget about and neglect and not bring out to gift others with. Right and why? 

So take a moment and really you grab a piece of paper, take a few breaths and go to that. You know, what are those things that you know are within you that maybe you just love? You just love but you really haven't shared them or you don't share them fully or you're fearful of sharing them? I'm not saying you should run right out and share them because it seems like when we do without the permission of everything that's going on inside us. The permission of the parts of us that have withheld those things for a good long while. If we just rush out and you know, here's my new song I wrote and I'm gonna sing it on the corner of the, um street and hope, well you could do that if you feel really in tune inside like that's okay with all of you. But if you don't slow down and just get it on paper with no judgment and no sensation that you have to do it, okay? You don't have to do anything to put something down on a piece of paper or in a voice memo. If you don't like to write things down, you just are noticing, right? Like, oh, I I love to write letters but I almost never do. Or you know, I want to write a poem or I want to share my cooking ability or my guitar skills or my ability to balance a ledger, right? Whatever it is and just get them out and then notice them. Taste them a little bit like I would have tasted those berries. 

See if they still delight you and then notice why you don't share them. Why you don't offer. Why they're not given. Is it because they are absolutely personal and private and only for you and that's the gift of them, that's great, right? We need those things hold those their treasures. But if it's fear, fear that there won't be enough, right? If I had gotten worried, "oh gosh, what are we going to do without strawberries for the week"? Um which I didn't then I would have maybe needed to look at that and go, well, wait a minute. How many strawberries can I eat? Right, and shall I put those in a small dish and give the rest? So if you're afraid you won't have enough time, talent, resources in any way... really, take a look at that and notice where you can keep some back for you. It's okay, belongs to you to begin with. But then what would you like to offer? Or maybe you're afraid? And I think this actually came up for me with the strawberries, oddly. Maybe you're afraid that that offering will be rejected. Oh, we don't need strawberries. We don't need your strawberries. We won't eat them. We don't like them. We have enough, right? 

Think about that. In terms of the gifts that you've identified. When do you think they'll be turned down? And what does that mean to you? How do you make meaning of that? And then be with that and notice. Could you give a drop? Could you show up just a bit more? Could you offer it in an invitation? That sounds something like, you know, I've written a new song. Would you be interested in hearing it? Or I have a little extra time on the weekend, would you like to go for a walk? Or I know a little something about making bagels. I don't know where that came from. Would you like to learn it too? Right? Or here's my sense of humor. I'm going to share it a little more. There are many ways that we forget that we have so much to give and offer in ways that aren't painful in ways that are plentiful. And I hope for you this week that you can really think about... What will you wish that you had given or offered later? And when you land on those things, don't wait, take a moment, get a green light, notice what's the right amount, and go forward. 

So good to be with you as always, I love these times together and I hope you do too. And if you do drop me a review wherever you listen to podcasts, that would be so helpful for me. And remember SeriouslYourself the membership, I'm going to be opening up more slots more to give more to offer. And I think you will love it. I'll talk more about that later. But you can go to my website today and find out more for yourself. I'll be anxious and excited to see how you're going to show up. Let me know! Talk to you soon. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 


]]> Thu, 12 May 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 841 What parts of ourselves are we holding back, and why? What gift excites you to give that you are hiding away? And why? This week on Seriouslyourself, we explore inspiration, your gifts, and the underlying beliefs to why you may hold back on your precious offerings to the world. What parts of ourselves are we holding back, and why? What gift excites you to give that you are hiding away? And why? This week on Seriouslyourself, we explore inspiration, your gifts, and the underlying beliefs to why you may hold back on your precious offerings to the world. No No Balance, Brain, and Body https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/mn4kv058-balance-brain-and-body Balance, Brain, and Body 15 No No x06w4731 Your brain is important, but it's not the whole you! Sometimes certain parts can take over and run the show. But they don't have too. This week we are exploring how to come back to your central energy. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hello, hello, come on in. Welcome to Seriously Yourself. I'm happy you're here. I'm sitting here and I'm looking out my window in my office at still bare trees of New England. I think they should be popping out with some leaves pretty soon. I see buds but they're not quite there yet. And they're reminding me of what I wanted to talk with you about today, and that is something that we've been talking about in the seriously yourself community. 

And it is the idea of balance, balance. How do you balance your life? How do you balance your well being? How do you balance your time, How do you balance your emotions? And do you even think about that? As I was imagining talking to you? I was thinking like "I can't honestly recall very many men walking into my office and saying I just feel like I'm out of balance", right? Sometimes they quite certainly are and maybe I bring it up like it seems like your life is a lot of balance, but it's not something that I can picture men saying I'm even trying to think of, do they say it in another way? And they probably do, I mean like "I'm just so exhausted" or "I'm working too much, you know, or I don't have time to do my work", Something like this? But I'll tell you many women will often come in and they'll say, "you know, I just need some balance in my life" and I think that's kind of interesting. It's maybe a little more of a feminine wisdom concept? You know more the, yin of things that we feel like, that energy that we want to feel both grounded and alert. We want to feel um that we're not gonna suddenly tip over in any direction. We don't want to feel kind of pulled apart from the center, sort of strung out with too much to do and too many ways to go. We want to feel balanced, right? Like we can stand on our own two feet and be well. 

So looking at the trees, these April bare trees, still.  I am thinking about what it's like naturally to have a sense of balance, right. The environment here in the Northeast Can feel incredibly unbalanced. And, and I think Midwest, well, all over the country, I think lately, you know, you hear about one day, it's in the 70s and the next day people will get 14" of snow. I think that happened in upper New York state last week. It doesn't feel like, well, it feels like balance, but balance of the extremes right. Which is of course, one way to balance it is one way to balance. That People, many people actually prefer. They love the sense that they can have very high highs and very low lows. 

And of course in the field of psychology, we sort of demonize that right? Then you're bi, bipolar, you are bipolar and you know, in fact there are bipolarity symptoms that can be really debilitating. So not making less of those, but you know, for some people to have some higher highs and lower lows feels entirely natural and completely balanced and without them they feel unbalanced, stuck. So the feeling is not grounded and centered. The feeling is trapped and stuck for certain kinds of personalities. You may be one. For others of us, It's more of like a, do you remember the game Tippit? Do you remember that game growing up? If you were my age, you remember Tippit and there was a little circus performer on a wire, little plastic guy, and he had rings and was holding a stick kind of thing that balanced him, little rings on the side and I can't honestly remember what you were trying to do, but you were trying not to tip him. And I think sometimes my sense of balance is sort of like that like micro adjustments. You know, I don't like to get too far a field from my center. I like to catch, oops, I'm a little off there and make a micro adjustment. And this could include almost anything. For example, if I've been eating in an unhealthy way, I might do a little tiny tip on that side and um plan my meals more carefully or shop for more vegetables or get more healthy, right? Or if I'm indoors too much haha. I'm gonna tip that a little bit and go out and try to take a walk or get some sunshine or spend some time breathing fresh air anyway, I can. If I'm to social, I'm gonna absolutely pull in and find moments of quiet and solitude because I love community, but I'm not an extreme extrovert. There again, if you are, your balance is going to feel different. There is sort of a give and take to balance. So if you feel you are giving more of yourself than you are allowing to come in and receive, you're going to feel off balance right, you're going to feel depleted. 

I have a real distinct memory and it's not one um that I feel good about, but I remember when my oldest son's were very young, I remember I was driving home from yet another meeting somewhere and I was volunteered all over the place and I was young and I remember this feeling like I was sort of bleeding out, right? I just had this image of, you know, blood coming from my, from my hands gross, right? But that feeling like there's not enough replenishing here, It's all going outward. That's imbalance. Yeah, right? Or for people who have been so busy and they sit down at the end of the week and think I didn't get to, you know, see my little child all week or put them to bed or feed them a meal that's heartbreaking, that's imbalance. Or you know, especially after 2.5, 3 years of covid to feel like I haven't been with people. First of all, I haven't been with people that I dearly love and appreciate as family and friends. And also I haven't been with just people face to face side by side, imbalance. 

And parts of us inside can get imbalanced as well. This is always something to consider if you are feeling out of balance. A little tip from internal family systems, check in and notice if there are any parts of you that have sort of taken over your driver's seat. Maybe there parts that are overly managing your time or trying to please or parts that are even down, angry, depressed, whatever it is.  If you feel out of balance, it is quite likely that you're sort of central energy, yourself energy, your higher energy has taken a backseat. That doesn't mean it's gone and that doesn't mean it is lesser. It just means that you're out of balance. So it's a great time to take a breath, slow down, feel your body and allow your nervous system to present back to your brain what is going on, right? 

We often think and this is a very unbalanced thought. We often think that our thinking parts are all of us, I think therefore I am, my mind comes up with this idea. Therefore it's true. My brain knows what's going on with me well sometimes and sometimes that is absolutely not the case. Oftentimes our bodies know whats happening well before our brain and they have more clear information. Our bodies do. The parts that are in our Soma, the nervous system, all those nerves that run through your body, without connecting the brain is left to interpret without the whole story, right or information. I'll talk about this later. There's a whole lot there. 

But in the moment, if you are feeling out of balance, you could be relying too much on your brain. Your poor brain, it is not you and it is not all of you. It is important and vital, but allow it to receive. So if you're thinking parts are trying to figure stuff out and figure stuff out. That is a way of being out of balance as well, yeah. 

So take a moment to feel into your body. Notice what feels maybe not quite like you or heavy or congested or stuck or uncomfortable and give it a little bit of your time and attention, allowing the reality of what it's experienced to come up to your brain and that will help you rebalance. 

How are you balancing this spring? I'm encouraging you if it's spring where you are to get out and look around and notice not everything pops out all at the same time and quote unquote comes back to life. You know, not everything has the same schedule. Many, many, many parts of nature are waiting, holding many parts of nature are ready, Some are dying right. Some are leaving pay attention and notice you are not different. You too are searching for balance, right? And then stand up, feel your feet take a breath, notice what's inside... you have options. Let me know what your thoughts are. If you need help with this, I can talk more about it. I hope you're finding your own real balance and remember it doesn't have to be perfect to be balanced. Thanks for joining me. I love being with you and I'll talk with you really soon. Bye now. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 


]]> Thu, 05 May 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 837 Your brain is important, but it's not the whole you! Sometimes certain parts can take over and run the show. But they don't have too. This week we are exploring how to come back to your central energy. Your brain is important, but it's not the whole you! Sometimes certain parts can take over and run the show. But they don't have too. This week we are exploring how to come back to your central energy. No No A Little Skill When You're Unclear https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/qn0jyk4n-a-little-skill-when-you-re-unclear A Little Skill When You're Unclear 14 No No p1kx79m0 This week I'm offering what my clients call "A Real Gamechanger". When you're feeling upset or anxious, do you notice how you hear every negative message in your head? "She doesn't really like me." "I'm being ridiculous." "No one really cares." (Insert yours here...). This week on Episode 14 of Seriouslyourself, we talk about ...The Art of Zooming Out! Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Well, hello everybody, I'm so glad you're here. I hope you're comfortable. Come on in and take a seat if you want or if you're out and you're in your car, you know, just soften your shoulders a little bit. Maybe you're taking a lovely walk outside. That sounds like a great place to be. Though, It is quite rainy here this spring in the northeast of the US from where I'm speaking. So I am indoors nice and dry. 

Today I thought it would be helpful to talk about a little technique that I use a lot and I use a lot with my clients and I love it so much because I think there are parts of my life that it feels like it's kind of saved different relationships and whatnot. And like much of what I do, it is based in Internal Family Systems, a model by Richard Schwartz, which is truly healing and um amazing for anyone. And what I call this technique is the zoom out... zooming out, which is different than zoning out. Though, There are certainly times when zoning out can be lovely, but we're not going to zone out today. We're talking about zooming out. '

So here's what I mean, I was talking to a woman the other day and she was naming how confusing it was at work and as she began talking more, you could hear that she could not get any clarity about what was going on and it was sort of triggering her, right. You know, that feeling when you're being told one thing over here and another over there and you just feel like, "oh man, maybe it's me".  And I think we're sort of wired to feel like it might be us in those situations because we are being managed by our bosses, right? Or our superiors, if you will. And so the tendency is to think, well, I must be unclear or thinking incorrectly or not hearing right, and it's okay to have that humility about things that's fine. But when you're feeling really tangled up, what can happen then is you start creating a story in your mind. You know, a part of you starts trying to make sense of this and the story might sound like "this person, thanks, I'm incapable or foolish or doesn't value me", right? "This this manager really doesn't like me or they talk about me behind my back", right? It can get almost like a a little paranoia to the story. We can begin feeling tremendously insecure. I don't know if you can imagine a time when you have felt this way. Maybe you imagine that your your family is thinking some kind of way about you, you get really hooked by angry or frustrated feelings and you can't release them. And so you keep telling the story about what's going on and how wrong you have been over and over again. People with a little more anxiety tend to have a very honed toned system that will repeat and repeat the stories and that's really frustrating. 

So what I love is to take a moment and to zoom out, and what zooming out does is it helps you to gain perspective and clarity and you can use this technique right away any old time. And once you get practiced at it, you're probably going to find that it's really not that hard for you, but it does take some practice. So be patient with you. Okay, so you can use this method to suit your own style, right? So for example, some of us are more visual. So when I say zoom out, you can imagine maybe a wider camera angle, you know, you picture someone shooting a movie and they're on one of those rolling camera seats and they pulled back from the scene so that that you are seeing more of what's in front of them. Or you could imagine visually that you are looking through a microscope and you want to see more of the field that you're looking at. And so you you change the uh focus and so you can see more of what is under there or with a camera. You know, we all have cameras on our phones and you can get up real tight to something by just standing there and tapping the focus on it. Or you can pull back. So in that way visually zooming out is a way to pull back, okay. 

If you're more of an audio type person, an audio learner or experience or you can do this with your audio range. So in this way it is like you're listening to one bird outside your window and then you expand to hear all the birds and then you expand to hear the birds and the breeze and maybe the truck going down the road. Or in another way you're listening to a voice in your mind and your hearing just that one, and then you take a breath and you expand to hear, oh, there are actually other opinions and other sensations that I'm hearing come up inside me. Maybe there's a part of me that says, "my boss thinks I'm a jerk". And then there's another part that says, "I don't like my boss". And then there's another part that says, "I wish my boss liked me", so you can play with that. 

The third way is kinesthetically so in the body, you know, when we back up from something, we can often get a broader range of what's going on. If you ever had to do that. If you were say looking for someone in a crowd, you try to get up and above and you so you move your body so that you have more space from it. Or if you take your hand and you place it right in front of your nose, right on your nose and then you try to tell me what your hand looks like, You're not going to be able to tell me right? But if you pull your hand back then you can see it quite well. And you could give me a great description. So kinesthetically you might zoom out that way. So how does this work? 

Well, it gives you a sense of there is more going on here. Then either what I'm seeing right now, I'm hearing right now, the stories in my head, right? There is more going on. And I don't have to attach to the thought, the one image in my mind, the sound that I hear from my own voice or the imagined sound of another's voice. I don't have to attach to that and assume that that is 100% the truth of what is happening, right? And I can also find more of me and that's why I presented to you today because here at seriously yourself, we are really all about being more of who we really are. And if you zoom out, you can see more of what's around you. But the beautiful thing is you can also find more of yourself because you're not just attaching, holding on to either the beliefs, the visions, the sounds or the feelings of one part of you. When we do that, It can be really damaging because then we will also tend to respond from either that one part of us that probably isn't feeling great or from some protective state, you know, defense or you know, I'm going to tell you, um if you're really angry, it's a great time to listen to the anger and then zoom out. That's why I like journaling so much because it helps me to zoom out. 

I want to give you one caution about zooming out and it's really, really important. Okay, and that is that zooming out is not the same as detachment, right? You know, there are so many new books now and and they're great. They have their own view that is helpful. But you know, like, you know, "The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck" and others such. But what I'm telling you to do is not to go, "okay, I care about this, this is hurting me. I feel strongly click, I've zoomed out. I feel nothing. I'm detached. I don't care. Nothing matters", because I'll tell you that is not a zoom out. That's just the flip side of the very same coin that you were already experiencing, right? So a zoom out, you're still going to be able to be engaged. In fact, you're going to be more engaged. You're going to be more intrigued, more curious, more patient. You're gonna expand. You see zooming out expands where detachment to say zoom out means to just not care. That still is tight and it doesn't allow any more space. It just says I don't care, that I feel hurt inside, or that I'm worried about this, or that this looks this kind of way to me. Does that make sense? 

Yeah, so take a breath right now and notice what it would be like if the next time you are experiencing a steady, strong, possibly, you know, kind of negative or argumentative sensation inside you, if you could just take a break and rather than denying it or pushing it away or telling yourself that you're bad or wrong or hurting suffering, you can simply move back, pull back, pull out, open up, expand, zoom out and see more of what is really going on. Do a little journaling around it, spend some time even just practicing it with your senses. So if you're outside and you are very audio, try to do it with your ears, zoom out and open up to more, then zoom in. See what that feels like. Try to do it with your eyes. If your visual, try to do it internally with your emotions expand right, there's more there than you know, there's always more than you know. Most often I swear what is happening to you, if it's from another person has nothing to do with you or very little or the confusion in it does not belong to you. It often will belong to them or you are only using one part of yourself in a relationship and you feel really bad about that and you want to be able to bring more of you into the relationship zooming out, helps with that. I hope that's helpful. 

I can't wait to hear what you think about zooming out. So let me know. And I also really want to thank you so much for listening. You know, we have, oh, I don't know, I didn't even count recently, but well over 35,000 downloads, which is so exciting to me. And I feel just tremendously grateful that I know I'm not just talking to myself here on this rainy day in New England.  Be well my friends take some time to zoom out and then when you come back in, give yourself a big hug for me. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks bye 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 
]]> Thu, 28 Apr 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 932 This week I'm offering what my clients call "A Real Gamechanger". When you're feeling upset or anxious, do you notice how you hear every negative message in your head? "She doesn't really like me." "I'm being ridiculous." "No one really cares." (Insert yours here...). This week on Episode 14 of Seriouslyourself, we talk about ...The Art of Zooming Out! This week I'm offering what my clients call "A Real Gamechanger". When you're feeling upset or anxious, do you notice how you hear every negative message in your head? "She doesn't really like me." "I'm being ridiculous." "No one really cares." (Insert yours here...). This week on Episode 14 of Seriouslyourself, we talk about ...The Art of Zooming Out! Yes Yes When Your Depression Holds On Too Tightly https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/p8mm7468-when-your-depression-holds-on-too-tightly When Your Depression Holds On Too Tightly 13 No No 70vr5mp0 The embrace of depression can seem overwhelming, but your other parts need attention, too. Here's a new way to view those mildly depressing feelings that can take you down (and into deeper depression). Seriouslyourself this week notices there are other parts too - and helps you find even small light spots within. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hi there, come on in. Welcome to Seriously Yourself. I am kind of excited to talk to you today. So I hope I don't ramble in too many circles.  If you've been listening, thank you: number one. And I also want to let people know if you're looking for someone who talks to you from a scripted place, like they're reading to you, I'm not your girl. I thought maybe at some point I would do that, and I have no interest in doing that. Though, I know I'm quite certain I know where I'm going when I talk to you. So bear with me and allow your mind to kind of play in these loops and circles that sometimes I create. I don't think I'm a very linear thinker though. I know where I'm going. Anyway, today I'm reflecting on depression. Depression. The reason I'm doing so is because I'm hearing it from a lot of people. It comes out in one of two ways. Usually, either a statement like my depression is bad or I have depression and it feels really hard for me that's kind of one way or I'm feeling really depressed or this is depressing. 

So you see how they're a little bit different. One is talking about. Here's something that is a part of me that I kind of own and know and it's maybe worse right now or more noticeable? My depression or I have depression and the second is more almost oh hey, I just noticed I'm not feeling great, kind of more circumstantial, I'm depressed or this is depressing. I think if you're in the camp of the second one and you've never gotten any advice about it or had any therapy or um, talk to anyone about it and you're feeling depressed right now. It might make sense to get ahold of someone and have a word with them just so you could get clearer on. Is this circumstantial? Uh, something about the way life is right now, that's just hard for you or do you need some care and it's always good to get care? That's why I do this. 

If you're in the first camp and you find yourself reflecting upon your depression. You know, if you hear yourself saying ah my depression or I live with this depression or have really been very depressed. That's a good signal, to take a minute and get curious about it before you continue to have that be kind of a leading part of you. You know, in other words, if everything that you are going to think or do starts with uh "my depression feels or I am so depressed that or I would except for my depression", it's a really good time to get a little step back and I'll tell you what I mean. 

Imagine that you are in a room and there's all these people that you know, and care about in the room with you and you know, you're you're all vaccinated and boosted if you are and you feel really safe and you're going to embrace these people. And you select the one that sort of stands in front of you the most, and that person walks up to you and you hold them. But when you hold them they kind of engulf you. They won't let go. My nephew Aaron used to do a little joke with us when we'd hug him and he'd he'd hold you and then when you get to that moment of natural release he would say "say when" but he wouldn't let go. And it always brought a giggle like uh yeah "when" was about three seconds ago. And then you get into that thing of almost like defying each other like well who's going to say when first like playing hug chicken or something. But in this case you go to this one that often gets your attention and they hug you and they don't let go or you don't let them go and you can't get any perspective on anything else that's going on in the room, right? Because this one is holding you so tightly and it's probably like your aunt Agnes or something that you know, she's always wanting to hug you and you're like you know really a quick hug would be fine with you Aunt Agnes. 

So I want you to imagine that you're depressive parts, the parts of you that feel this depression in your nervous system in your mind, for some of us in our personalities even, are kind of like that. And there are times of our lives, of the year, when they are maybe a little more up - like wanting us to to know a little more of themselves.  You know, like Aunt Agnes hasn't seen you in awhile and she just really wants to share some new recipes, and you don't really want those recipes but you feel kind of stuck with them anyway, even though they're familiar.  

So if you could get a little space from that depression and just take a minute and notice all right, this part of me is kind of leading my thought processes, how I'm approaching the day, maybe kind of sapping my energy, maybe making me feel a little less like myself when I'm in a group, or with a friend, or even a partner loved one. Maybe this energy of depression tells me that I don't have the ability or resources to do the things that I kind of feel like probably would make me feel kind of good right now, or that I don't deserve to feel good right now because the world is difficult or you know. Whatever other story this Aunt Agnes, and my apologies to any Agnes out there. It's a nice name. Any aunties, that depression want to share with you. 

I was lucky, lucky, lucky enough to be at a retreat this weekend and I got to hear, Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote "Eat. Pray. Love" and many other things, and Rachel Cargle
who among other things does the Loveland foundation and "The Great Unlearn", and they were fantastic and I feel more than grateful for the opportunity to have been there.   And Elizabeth was talking about a time in her life when she was just extremely depressed. You know, when our stress rises to a level of impossibility in our body, it's not compatible with life, depression will take over and knock us way into a low state just to keep us alive. That's just an aside if you're feeling that way. But she said when she felt like there was nothing in her but this low, low level of you know sadness, depression, you know grief, you know just horrible feeling for her. She did what she called kind of reverse M. R. I. When an M. R. I would typically scan for disease right in the body. She used her sort of intuitive M. R. I to go in and scan for any spots of light of happy of joy of enchantment of bright any tiny tiny spots. And I love this example because what she actually did then was she took very small steps to make those spots larger. To give them more of the attention that they needed and deserved. And in her example, one of those spots was that she loved hearing Italian, she loved the language and so she began studying it just a bit and then just a bit more and as she learned it, she felt like those little bright light spots were growing within her, creating more joy and more enchantment which were not congruent with the overriding sense of depression. 

So if you go back to our room with all of your friends and loved ones gathered there who want to embrace and you're hanging on with your aunt depression, I'll call her now and it feels like she won't let go. You know, take a minute and look up and look around the room because you're probably going to find other parts of you that I really not like that depressive state at all. You might have parts of you that are waiting over in the corner with your favorite fun thing to do. Maybe they're holding a paintbrush or a pen or a cookbook or auto mechanic tools, haha. Whatever it is, you love, maybe you have a little part over in the corner going, hey, hey, it's been a long time. I miss you come over here and give me a hug or a picture in the other corner. There's maybe a teenage kind of a part of your personality from way back who loved to dance and maybe that part is standing by the old record player or holding a boom box on its shoulder or has on headphones attached to a walkman or is listening to an Alexa playing their favorite music and their dancing and having a ball. Does this make sense to you? Those little spots of light within you that when you can get a little space from this big auntie hugging you, this one of depression, they're still there. But they kind of get eclipsed, you know, they get pushed away. They are absolutely 100% as true as the depression and yet how often during the day do you find yourself going? My creativity, you know, blank, blank blank. Even if you say my creativity is struggling just a bit, but I love it anyway and I'm curious about it anyway. Or my dancer has felt a little out of shape these days. Mmm, but I can still drum up the feeling of that part of my body and maybe I'll hop over into a room by myself and listen to my favorite song and move a bit, right? Or my child imagination over here that is fascinated by tree bark and loves to go for a walk in the woods and just feel the different bark on the trees and notice what it's like to be a tree, maybe even touch or talk to those trees today. That part needs a little more embracing from me, right? A little more attention, a little more time. 

And that's sort of keeps that auntie of depression, the one that can hold you so tight, you know, with her big bosom and her soft mushy arms that make you wanna cry and sink into the sofa and have no energy and just eat macaroni and cheese. You know that one? Yeah, she can get a little space from you. You're still embracing her, right? You still want to hear what she has to tell you. Maybe she's looking around going, you know, I could use a change too. It'd be nice not to have to hold you so tightly. Wouldn't it be cool if if some of these parts in here step forward just a little bit more for you in your inner world. So that's what I'd love you to try. 

Take a second and notice how much air time, thought time, ownership time are you giving to your parts that might feel depressed and do not push them away. Rather ask them what would feel just a tiny bit more balanced and then look around and own even the tiniest ones that hold some light energy, love, enthusiasm, inspiration for you. These parts are every bit as important, but they don't get the airtime. And when you do just like Elizabeth Gilbert did maybe you give them a little more love, care, emphasis so that they too can grow just a bit and be more with you, more in your presence.  For me when I start feeling low. I mean, first of all, I really have to make sure I'm taking care of my physical body, you know that I'm resting and that I'm breathing and that I'm noticing the stories I tell myself in my own head and then I need to give myself a little tastes of light. So I might grab a pattern and, you know, create something with my sewing machine, or I might pull up a cookbook and make a really great dinner, or I might take a walk outside, or read a book, or take a lovely bath and so on and so on. These parts are not lacking for ideas. Trust me, if you just listen. Well, I'm really interested to hear how you're feeling and I'd love to hear if you could practice when you notice yourself say, "Well my depression or I'm depressed". Then notice are you giving a little bit more airtime to my creativity tells me this or feels like this or my playfulness wants this and make sure that gets some equal airtime in your world, just a bit. Take good care of yourself. Take good, good care of yourself. I'll see you here next week and thank you so much for joining me. I am delighted that you're here. Be well, bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 


]]> Thu, 21 Apr 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1150 The embrace of depression can seem overwhelming, but your other parts need attention, too. Here's a new way to view those mildly depressing feelings that can take you down (and into deeper depression). Seriouslyourself this week notices there are other parts too - and helps you find even small light spots within. The embrace of depression can seem overwhelming, but your other parts need attention, too. Here's a new way to view those mildly depressing feelings that can take you down (and into deeper depression). Seriouslyourself this week notices there are other parts too - and helps you find even small light spots within. No No Stressed Out Scripts: A Love Letter https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/r8kpmm7n-stressed-out-scripts-a-love-letter Stressed Out Scripts: A Love Letter 12 No No 71wl7760 What are the familiar stories your mind tells itself about stress, and what are they trying to do for you? How can you take a step back, really listen, and realize that maybe it isn't really about what's going on in the outside world. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. 

Hi there. Come on in. Nice to have you with me today. I'm inviting you to hear our talk as a little love letter to the parts of you that felt during covid quarantine... And the modifications that many, many, many, many of us made during the higher levels of pandemic and the beginning of pandemic, the parts of you that sort of moved into those with a certain amount of satisfaction, peace, calm, permission... maybe? To just not do some of the other stuff that really stresses you out. So, this episode is a love letter to those of you that are feeling like oh dear, are we going back to what we had? Because though I missed many, many things. I do not miss the feeling of being chronically stressed out. 
So first of all, let's express a little gratitude and affection. That's what we do in love letters, right? Dear Love, I think you are the most beautiful dear part of me that does not want to return to stressed out living. I think you are wonderful. I think you are true. I think that you have deserved to appreciate long hours on the salsa. I think that you deserve to not feel guilty for any social engagement you did not have to do during the pandemic quarantine. I think you have a right to feel fantastic about every single day, you didn't have to return to the office. I know you were grateful when you didn't have to attend the family holiday celebration because you simply could not and I appreciate you. 
There's your love letter fill in the blank for what makes sense for you. I appreciate that you got to wear comfy clothes and no makeup and leave off your shoes and eat what you felt like. I appreciate you. 
But, these parts of you might be feeling kind of stressed out right now because as we know there is the ability, from what I'm gathering anyway in the northeast of the United States, to have a little more freedom. Quite a bit more freedom maybe to be face to face with others out to dinner, attending work events, traveling, even just walking in a store without covering most of your face. Now if you're still doing those things there's no ,absolutely, no shame from my perspective. None. And many times I am doing those things. But if you like many, many of us are feeling like there is a modicum of normalcy from 2018 that is returning if that's a possible thing. And you're feeling inside a certain pressure, like oh no, Uh huh. And you hear little scripts, S. C. R. I. P. T. S. Scripts like you would have in a play come up in your mind, and they're saying familiar things to you. And I'll give you a few examples, like "Oh my gosh I'm just so busy", or "I am so stressed out", or "This is just too much. It's too much, I cannot", or mm hmm "I don't want to have to do that". "I don't want to have to go" or "I don't even have time to take care of myself" insert ears here. What do you hear your scripts say? You're stressed out scripts. Right? "Everybody wants something from me". That's when I hear, "I do everything for everyone else". That's another. I hear "There's never enough hours in the day". How about that one or "Enough days in the month. Enough months in the year. Enough years of my life". How about that one? How about "It's really so important that I stay on top of things. I have to stay on top of things. If I let it slip for a minute, I'm just gonna lose it" You feeling me? Do you feel the stress just rising in your own body as you hear these scripts?
Well, that's kind of the point. You know, I noticed as I was listening to a client the other day, who I love and I've known for quite a while now. She had returned to some old scripts and I hadn't heard them in some time and they sounded like "There's just no time for me", even to do the most necessary of things like go to the dentist or to the doctor for a certain complaint or to eat well or brush my teeth. Sometimes these kinds of complaints. And I thought, huh, interesting. I've heard this before. Maybe several years ago. And then I got to reflecting on my own stress scripts which have come up lately more too. And I thought these are not new. These are not necessarily because I'm coming out of pandemic quarantine situations and into a more normal schedule. These are old. I bet some of these statements like "I'm just too busy or I'll never get there or there's always a list of stuff or I'm so tired, so so tired". They've been going on since I was really young, certainly since junior high and probably before my guess would be fifth grade when homework and going to school started feeling like an issue for me. So I don't want you to challenge your scripts. I don't want you to get antagonistic with these voices in your own mind. Really, That won't help. Might make them get louder frankly if you deny them or you criticize yourself for those things, don't do that. But when you do hear a message in your own mind, that is a message of stress. If you could just take a second and go, okay, okay, I hear it. Hahaha. And that's a bit of a story. It's a little stress story that I've been telling myself, mm hmm, probably a really long time. Even though now it has to do with my children and back then it had to do with what my parents expected of me or, my teachers or my friends, right?
I want you to take enough of a step back from it to recognize that it maybe isn't exactly about what's going on in the outside world. That's just a little trigger to start the stress story, the script.  And that once you recognize, "oh now I've just hit the tape button, the replay" and my body goes, yeah, this is what we do when we're stressed. Take a minute, take three long breaths and just get enough space between you and that story to recognize it as such, a story. A worthy story. An honest story. Probably something that has been true in your life and may even be now, but a story nonetheless a script. A set of words put together that you have repeated possibly for decades, different situations, different scenarios, different pressures, same stories. And if you can find a couple of those, write them down and I want you to notice when you hear them, "I'm just too busy, I just can't take it anymore. I just can't do it. I am so tired. It's too much", right? When you hear them, what happens in your body? What happens in your body? And I would be willing to bet the farm, that what happens in your body is not calm, it's not helpful, it's not relaxing, It's not even clear. In fact, it probably feels a little more like either franticness is that a word franticness?Well, you know what I mean? Or shut down and neither of those things, is particularly helpful when you're experiencing a world that may have gotten a bit more stressful, or more pressured, or busier for you. 
So today's message really is, examine those messages that you're telling yourself at this time especially, and especially for those parts of you that we've sent our little love letter of "I know it was awesome, it was so awesome not to have to".  If those parts of you are especially stressed let them know, we can still we can still spend hours in our sweatpants if we want to, we can still modify our schedule and say no to more than we used to. We can still expect others to maybe take a little more personal care of themselves in our world and not expect our caretaking parts to take care of everyone all the time. Do you hear it? We can still maintain some of the things that were fabulous.  And then look at those stress stories and when you hear them, notice them as stories, as a script and let them know that you're going to pay attention to the details that they might be concerned about which are real, but that you're not going to let your body be taken over because really they don't want that, rihgt? The stories in your head that are saying, "you know, I'm too tired and too busy". Their job is not to get you revved up, but that is exactly what will happen in your body. So if you can notice them and then say, yeah, "I bet you'd like this better" and take a breath and allow yourself to sink into calm clarity, a sense of sweetness about the possibilities that you have learned In this life in the last year or two and let them know you can bring that also. You don't have to just believe every last old fashioned stress story. I hope that makes sense for you. I'm gonna end the love letter by saying, I wish for you long contented loving moments when you really, know what you desire and you give that to yourself just a little bit more. And I'm wishing that your moments of socializing and family time and friend time are handled with, love and discernment for what feels really good to you. And that you celebrate each and every part of you inside. Thanks for being here with me today. I'll see you really soon. Bye.

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 




]]> Thu, 14 Apr 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 977 What are the familiar stories your mind tells itself about stress, and what are they trying to do for you? How can you take a step back, really listen, and realize that maybe it isn't really about what's going on in the outside world. What are the familiar stories your mind tells itself about stress, and what are they trying to do for you? How can you take a step back, really listen, and realize that maybe it isn't really about what's going on in the outside world. No No It's a Man's World. Might As Well Get Used to It? https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/1830mkzn-it-s-a-man-s-world-might-as-well-get-used-to-it It's a Man's World. Might As Well Get Used to It? 11 No No m0jk2v61 Anyone who limits us from being our full selves does a wrong, not just to an individual, but to all of us. What did you learn from your parents, teachers, authority figures, role models as a kid that was limiting to you? Hi there, come on in. This is Seriously Yourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. Hi there. Welcome. Come on in. Nice to see you. I wish I could see you. I'm imagining you. 
It's a very rainy, dreary, drizzly day here in New England...in the northeast of the United States. It's springtime, and we get a lot of that here. So I'm kind of just feeling cozy and comfortable and happy to be in my warm house, and happy to be here with you. 
I thought it would be interesting today, as I was thinking cozy thoughts, I got thinking about being little, being a kid and you know, some of the things that happened or I learned about as a child. And one of the things that's been coming up for me lately, and I'm not really sure why, but I figured, hey, if it's coming up for me, maybe it's coming up for you?...Are things that my mom taught me. Maybe not so intentionally, but through little comments or facial expressions or quips that she had. I mean, one of the things I definitely remember was her frequently saying, you know, "Who do you think I am superman?" That must have been popular at the time because my husband too, reports that his mom would ask if he thought she was superman. But what I'm thinking of today... is that I don't know how many times it happened... Maybe a handful, I have no idea honestly, but my mom on occasion would make sure to tell me... that...
Well, let me say it this way. I'll say it like she used to say it, "Ingrid, It's a man's world and you might as well get that right now".. phew... "Ingrid, it's a man's world and you might as well get that right now." And lately I've been kind of breaking that down a bit. Trying to hear what was in that for her? What did it come out meaning to me? What have I made of it? What difference has that made in some ways? 
It feels like she delivered it in the same way that you would say to a kid who was sulking because they could not or didn't want to go out and play on a rainy day. Just like I'm experiencing today. And in some ways it's like she was saying, "well you can't do anything about the weather", and of course she said that a lot too, "well you can't do anything about the weather." So when there are things you cannot control, don't let it trouble you, really is what she would say about the weather.  When there are things that are beyond you that you really can't do a darn thing about there's no sense in being upset about them, or perhaps in bothering your mom about them, or whining to her, right? Did your kid ever whine to you about stuff that you know, you couldn't do anything about it? "I don't want to ever go to school." Well, sorry, guess what? So this statement... this..."It's a man's world Ingrid. You might as well get used to." It was delivered I think with some of that kind of energy, you know, why make yourself miserable over a fact Jack? If she were superman, I suppose she could have fixed that. But she taught us very clearly that, that was not the case. 
As I remember, you know, there was another tone in her voice that was very different though. There was a very different sound between "it's a man's world Ingrid" and "there's nothing you can do about the weather." And as a kid, I was really able to pick up that tone. I know I was and I think most kids are able to be pretty great detectors of the tone and the energy and the feelings behind the voices that come out of their parents mouth or their caretakers. And so there was an edge. There was a little edge to that tone, different than it is as if she was talking about the weather, an edge of frustration, of a sense of a wrongness maybe...you might as well get used to it... as if the rest of the sentence was...as I've also had to get used to it. And that edge kind of makes me sad. It makes me sad to feel like my mom had to pass on this word of caution or... resignation to me. Really how sad to have to resign to something that maybe bigger parts of you or even a logical piece of you says, well that's just not right... right. How much of our population is made up of women? I think it's like 51%. Yeah? And yet someone raising a child in the United States would say to their kids, well, "it's a man's world", and who is this man? What about being a man? Made it the man's world. 
I mean, my dad certainly didn't run the world, although maybe he did run our home a bit. I think people always thought my mom did because she had a pretty...direct way, a pretty big personality. She could state her mind. I don't think it was really until I was in my twenties, that I actually realized she check, check, check, checked with dad. She kind of ran everything through that and she would try to change maybe how he would think about things sometimes in really hilarious ways. But I think ultimately it was her sense that it was, yes, a partnership, but one where he had a lot of say...and maybe that was fine, you know, it was certainly, I wasn't unhappy there. 
But back to the being a man's world, what is she trying to say to me? I mean, I probably wanted to do something that maybe my brother had been allowed to do when he was my age, you know, go sleep out on the hill or... I don't know, pee standing up? I have no idea, go somewhere, do something, be in charge of something, be able to have some kind of power in some kind of way. I don't know what I was talking about that she would react to me that way. And I know it didn't come out of nowhere. She didn't just walk up to me and say "Sit down, I have news... it's a man's world." No, it was a reaction. It was a reaction. It was a way of getting me pacified, calm down and quieter. And yet it was an edge of "You might as well get used to it." Yeah?
So what difference does it make now? Here I've been alive on this earth for many decades. And what difference has it made to have to sort of, sit back and maybe except just like I have to accept the weather? That the systems, the organizations, the loss, the considerations, the writings, the history, the documentation of things... The first thought, the language, the premise of who you're talking to... is based on masculine. It's based on male. Right? Every song I sang in church was to a he and in many, if not most churches, it's the same. Every history book was written from a man's perspective. Every bit of government was run by men. Men were allowed to do things that women were absolutely not allowed to do in my lifetime and still are. So this was to be something that in order not to lose my mind with frustration. I was to accept, says my mom, you might as well get used to it. So that is to be resigned to the status quo. You know, I think anybody anytime who tells us something that limits us in any way... doesn't allow us to kind of come into the fullness of who we're to be on this planet... is doing a wrong. I think it's doing it wrong. And the thing is, I don't think it's just doing a wrong too. The person that is happening too, it's doing a wrong to the whole right. If this, 51 % of the population does not have a steak, a say, a hand in a power toward the earth the world, right? It's a man's world. Don't we all get limited? Don't we all suffer? I think that while it offers, you know, privileges to men, I think it's just a terrible tragedy to men. I know in my own home, if I feel like something is all about me and all on me, especially as I was raising children. Like, you know, no one else could possibly offer any ideas or use their talents, or you know, be a true partner, it hurt me. And it kind of surprises me in this man's world, that many who adhere to that kind of concept in a not, not a resigned way, but like a "Yes, and that is how it should be." I'm always kind of surprised at that, that that they don't feel the pain or the loss of allowing others to be fully... represented and full equal with them and not living in a world that is biased or turned only to them even on a small scale like a family or a workplace. 
And I wonder about you, what were you taught growing up whether you were male, female, non binary? What what were the messages that you received about the world you lived in, whose world was it? Was it a man's world? Was it your world? Were you taught to accept things just the way they were? Or were you allowed to question them, and maybe even place them aside and move forward? Get off of the ladder. That's what Sonya Renee Taylor talks about getting off that ladder, of white male supremacy so that you're not even playing the game on that board anymore. I just mixed metaphors, ladders and boards. You know what I mean? If you stay in that system, fighting that system, you are still in the system. 
So maybe take it down to a personal level today? What world do you want to live in? How do you want to be in this world? What do you know is true for you? And does it require standing up? Does it require courage or maybe acceptance? I have to accept the rain today and I'm happy to do. So It feels lovely, but...I don't have to... extend the grimace of resignation when things are wrong. When things are unfair or slanted or hurtful. They don't have to extend that resignation of hopelessness to my children and my grandchildren. I hope I can let them know that all of who they are... is available to them in this very world right now. Let me know what you think. I would really love to open the conversation and hear from you. You can drop me a DM or you can put a comment in and let me know, what do you think? Is it a man's world? Even if you're a man, I hope you'll be well, thanks for listening. I want to remind you that if you love seriously yourself and you'd like more seriously yourself. The membership is also open. You can find it at ingridyhelanderlmft.com or in the show notes. Take good care of yourselves. I'll see you soon. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 


]]> Thu, 07 Apr 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1028 Anyone who limits us from being our full selves does a wrong, not just to an individual, but to all of us. What did you learn from your parents, teachers, authority figures, role models as a kid that was limiting to you? Anyone who limits us from being our full selves does a wrong, not just to an individual, but to all of us. What did you learn from your parents, teachers, authority figures, role models as a kid that was limiting to you? No No Venting, Raging, Ruminating, and How to Get It Out https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/286wmw2n-venting-raging-ruminating-and-how-to-get-it-out Venting, Raging, Ruminating, and How to Get It Out 10 No No j12j7jk1 Sometimes, when we have a strong persistent feeling, we just need to get it out! We just need to be heard! Let's talk about how to do it productively. Hi there, come on in. This is Seriouslyourself, the Podcast, and I'm Ingrid Helander. Hey there, how are you today? Come on in. Do you ever like to just vent about something? Maybe there's a pet peeve you have or you're feeling frustrated and you just can hear yourself like I just want to vent about this. I want to complain. Or crab or maybe have a little tantrum. I might want to kind of express some exasperation, frustration, disgust, irritation. Yeah, that's venting, right? And I think we all do it, and I have parts that really actually like venting. I think it's kind of fun. And there are times of venting, I think, can actually be super helpful. But you have to have some concept of how to make it be helpful. You can't just start venting and expect it to work well for you, I don't think. But certainly there are times when we vent and it's not helpful and we can talk about that. Like why is it not helpful? That's what we're gonna do today. We're going to look at, you know, what can you learn from venting. And when does it transform into something maybe unhealthy like raging or discharging yucky energy at somebody else. And how can you avoid that stuff? Right?

So let's get started. Take a minute. What do you vent about? Let's think of all the things that we like to vent about...Maybe we like to vent about technology that doesn't work. Well, we've had to be on our technology a lot lately, whether it's our phones or computers or different apps or systems. You know when you try to pay that bill six times and it doesn't go through: do you ever just feel like venting about that? Or you get on a hold line, and you sit there for an hour and a half and then you get disconnected or you get sent to another hold line? Yeah. Yeah. I got parts of me that can vent about that. Maybe I am. How about politics? You like to vent about politics? Yeah. I think that's kind of a fun one. You know, even about things that feel incredibly unjust or wrong...racism. Species-ism, climate change. Just all kinds of pain and stuff that we just sometimes need to get out. Maybe it was that last interaction you had with a friend or a child or your partner and you just want to get it out? Yeah, that's venting.

Sometimes venting is really great. Makes you feel calmer. Makes you feel heard. Helps you to just rest. And other times it causes the person that you're with that's hearing the venting to erupt or start venting themselves and can even create arguments. And there are even other times when you might think you're venting in a way that's going to help you feel better, and all of a sudden you realize, Oh no, I don't feel better at all!  In fact, I'm revved up and feeling worse. Yeah? That's like that rumination, that venting that goes around, around, around and around and around and around. And that's the one where if you're doing it out loud, your family looks at you like: Yeah, we've heard this before about 100 times, and we're tired of it! And then of course if you're the one venting. It's easy to feel embarrassed or ashamed or unheard and certainly not validated.

So what could you learn from your venting? I would say really to take a minute and just look at what you're venting about, because it probably tells you what you care about or what you're not taking care of inside. You may be something you really need. Maybe you need help, right? Maybe you've had to deal with the system of being on the phone or trying to get your needs met alone too long and you really could use a little help. Or maybe you just need to take care of yourself so you don't feel out of control. Maybe you need to make decisions that feel powerful. And they could be small. Like: I'm deciding what to have for dinner tonight. Or I'm deciding when I want to get up tomorrow, or when I need a day off.

You see, sometimes we don't give ourselves those things, and then we start venting about all the ways we feel out of control because of other things around us when the message is really: Hey, you need to take a little personal autonomy and some control where you can.

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, who is a neurophysiologist, I believe... something like that, and she talked about this experience. She had a stroke, and so part of her brain ceased to work for some time. And because she was an amazing scientist, she could track what was happening for her. But there was a lot of time that she was unable to filter people's energy coming at her. So doctors and nurses would come into a room, and where you and I probably wouldn't pick up any - "negative energy" is the best word, but really attitude or sensation or tiny cues. -We wouldn't maybe pick that up, or if we did, we'd be able to just process it, let it go. You know? Well, because her brain had been harmed by the stroke, she was unable to do that and she knew it. And so she knew right away what they were feeling and it would impact her inside. And if they weren't on her side or were having a bad day and bringing that in her room, it was really detrimental for her. And so she put a sign on her hospital door that said, 'Please take responsibility for the energy you bring into the space." Please take responsibility for the energy you bring into this space.

And so I think that that makes sense for us. If we're going to vent right, we have to take responsibility for our venting. It's okay to do it, but we shouldn't do it just at someone, especially not without their permission. Now, you might have people in your life that you automatically have permission to vent to. I think this happens between my husband and I honestly, I think there's a particular voice that he'll hear me using And it seems like he slides almost automatically after 40 years into a place of ah ha. This is not to be taken personally. This is not to be ignored either. This is just something that I can be with for a moment with Ingrid and she'll get to the bottom of it. So I might start off: I am exhausted. I had to do this. I have to do that. There is that this person didn't answer this thing didn't happen. And this system makes me so mad. And why is it this way? And why is it that way? And he'll be going, Yeah, Yeah, right. I'm sorry. No kidding. Yeah. And then I'll hit a point where I go, I'll just say: Maybe you could make dinner tonight? He'll be like, Yeah, no problem.

Now, it doesn't always go that way. There are days when he's having a hard time and maybe my ranting or my venting doesn't start with talking about other things, but goes directly at him. You you didn't do this or you promised you'd do that. And there's no bucket of support to be had for me. He's on empty. And in that situation, it doesn't go so well. He'll begin venting right back at me or claiming victimhood instead of fighting back. It sounds more like: I know I'm terrible. I'm a terrible wretch. And I do nothing around here.

Do these conversations sound familiar in your life? I bet they do. So, really you want to get permission is what I'm saying. You want, you want - even if it's unspoken, you want to know that the other person is able to witness or to stand present to your venting without getting hooked or hurt by it. Now, all saying you should never vent to children, because that's really hard for them. It isn't their responsibility to witness adult venting. If you need to vent at a child and I believe me, we do. I get it. You know - okay, kids get in here. None of you have picked up your room for three days, and I've just had it. I'm so tired. Mommy's just like - having you home all the time because you need to go to school and so on, right? You know later that's probably going to feel terrible to you. And if you can take a break and go, Hey kids, do you ever get a list of complaints and you don't know what to do with them? So you talk about the venting if you have to. Or you vent to another adult or just to yourself. But venting to children, uh it's kind of hard on them, okay? If it's coming from that part that really wants to let them have it. So, I would say avoid that. Okay? Venting at someone who is really anxious also is really hard for them. It's kind of like when Dr. Taylor was laying in her hospital bed, you know? They can't filter and they can't separate what you're saying about, you know, Vladimir Putin from what you might be saying about them. And it's harmful. It hurts them. So, take a pause and just let yourself know it's okay that you have those venting feelings, but now is not the time. Let it come out somewhere else. You know?

You also want to vent with a purpose. Okay, So what does that mean? Having listened to tons and tons and tons of people vent about things throughout the years, they can vent in a way that is so beautifully productive. You can see just the anger coming out, and they're being seen and heard, and they're seeing and hearing what they're saying, and all of a sudden you find that they are either laughing or crying or just calm or breathing or have shifted in some way. Because the purpose of a vent, if you think about the term, is really to release, right? To make a space, to get something out. It needs to come out. And when it comes out, there's like a bottom to it. Though, what they're venting about can often not be resolved, right? Which is why they're venting about it, because it's beyond their capacity to control it. When it's heard, they can go, All right now, I can start over from fresh. It's like getting to ground level again. It's lovely. That's when venting is really productive.

The other kind that doesn't work so well is the venting that's called - I call it ruminating, or just repeating story. So you go over and over and over and over that thing that bugs you. And you insight yourself into more bug, right? You're more bothered and then you just leave feeling hopeless. Or the person that you're venting to joins in maybe a little too much actually: You're right! Oh, this is so terrible. But you both start rising up in energy until at the end you don't even know what to do with yourselves. Right? Instead of going, yes, this is good because we share it. We see it's real and now we can allow that space to just clear it, clear those difficult feelings. 

So, here's a suggestion for right now, and it comes from this awesome girl. She's a grown woman now, but she was a little girl and she used to come in for therapy. And she was having a really hard time, and oftentimes she would come in and I'm sure she didn't want to be sitting in my office. Probably made her feel worse. Like, why do I have to be here? How about you bring in all the adults in my life that are making me nuts? I wouldn't blame her. And I was sort of encouraging her to talk to me, to get it out. And I think parts of her just didn't even want to own any of that stuff - it really didn't belong to her. A lot of the stuff that she was having to live through - parents fighting. neglect, alcoholism, all kinds of things -it was awful for her and she was just a sparkly brilliant child. So one day she was sort of letting me have it, and she was mad and sullen. And I said, "Here, take a piece of paper and just just draw it out." And I honestly think that her drawing was more an attempt to hook me and to say, "I'm not going to draw you something that's pretty and that tells my story and lets you in." And so she grabbed a black crayon, and she just started scribbling hard. I mean, it started out just like some scribbling circles, but pretty soon she was pressing so hard into the paper that the little bits of crayon shavings were sort of flying about, and the crayon was getting worn away, and the paper was becoming thick with black wax, and it was covered from corner to corner and edge to edge with just black scribble. And she did it and she did it and she did it. And she started crying. And she did it and she did it some more. And I just stood there and watched and we breathed and she calmed. 

You see, that's venting. That's venting. We let it go. We let it out if it can be witnessed by us or by another. It's beautiful, and it comes. I've always been so grateful to that kiddo for sharing her venting. Even if it started out as a, Screw you lady, I'm not drawing you a picture. It was beautiful. 

So I would say in the same way you can vent on paper too. You don't always have to do it that way. But especially if you're home alone and you don't have anyone that you think is available to call, grab your journal piece of paper and a pencil and just let it go, and then read it and let it go some more and just find that space where you go:  I'm letting it out now. It's done now. It's there. Can't solve it. But I'm not carrying it. 

So let me know, what's your favorite way to vent and what do you like to vent about? And when does it become raging? Try it on paper, or try it with agreement with someone who loves you. Happy venting! Get to the bottom! And I'll see you soon. Thanks, bye.
 
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: https://ingridyhelanderlmft.com/seriouslyourself-the-membership/. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 



]]> Thu, 31 Mar 2022 10:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1165 Sometimes, when we have a strong persistent feeling, we just need to get it out! We just need to be heard! Let's talk about how to do it productively. Sometimes, when we have a strong persistent feeling, we just need to get it out! We just need to be heard! Let's talk about how to do it productively. No No How Can You Trust? https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/2nx53wq8-how-can-you-trust How Can You Trust? 9 No No 61mw4831 In a world that's predictably unpredictable, trust in anything starts with trusting yourself. Hi there! Come on in. This is Seriouslyourself, the podcast, and I'm Ingrid Helander.

Hi, how are you? Nice to have you back with me. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm bringing in a topic that we're looking at in Seriouslyourself, the membership, and it is the topic of trust and trustworthiness. And I was laughing because before I started recording it I was feeling like I'm a little leery of what I might say, which is all to say when you start looking at trust, it's easy to stop trusting. And I really was feeling like: oh, I could bring up something, but I'm not even sure what's going to come out. So I guess I'm gonna just take a step back and let you know that. And trust myself to say what you need to hear. And hopefully that's how it lands for you too.

So trust and trustworthiness...you know, no one can tell you that they can make your life something that you can absolutely trust. I don't really care who they are. Which is not to criticize people that are working with trying to help the world be more trustworthy. And I think those that come from a spiritual background or organized religion even, you know, that's certainly sort of a... I don't know if it's an end goal, but part of the process to learn how to trust, right? Trust your higher power, trust God trust the Universe, trust the nature of life, what have you... trust in love. But the world is not predictable. If anything, it's predictable in its unpredictability. And much of what is predictable about it does not sit well with us. Last month in the group, we were talking about really feeling deeply and being able to feel into things like sorrow. Well, one of the things we discovered is that we often feel betrayed by the very life that we love so much and, you know, the experience of change and irony and ultimately of death. You know, you grow to love this world, this life, your people and this place, and you will die. So, yeah, it's hard to trust that stuff, right? It's hard. It's hard stuff. You want to get a puppy. Boy, you love puppies. But guess what? You can't trust that puppy is going to be a puppy. It becomes a dog. And of course, all babies grow up to be people and adults. And that lovely little uh sapling that you have out front will someday have to be chopped down before it takes over the whole house. Yeah. So, uh, without getting too Alanis Morissette on us here, it could be start singing, you know, Isn't it ironic, right?

But how do we trust then? How can we really trust? And when we can't trust, it's a terrible feeling. I have many people who have walked into my office and sat down on the couch and they are struggling with trust. And it is like seeing them torn apart from themselves, like they are blown into a million little bits that they're trying so hard to pull together and not feel as if they're going to just float away. It's really a terrifying feeling. I remember when um watching the news and seeing how the planes had flown into the twin towers that beautiful September morning, and that terror, that feeling of what do I trust? Where do I go? What do I believe? Who do I listen to? What do I have? You know, it's hard. And of course there's that tiny little movement of trust all the time within us. You know, Poly Vagal Theory talks about how you move in and out of these portions of your nervous system; where you are looking and seeking out:  Can I trust, or am I in danger? It's an innate quality. And we go up and down from a sense of sort of calm detachment if you will to that sympathetic, you know, heart beating, things are not safe, to a state of relative well-being all day long, up and down.

So it's not strange to have moments all the time when you don't know if you trust what's in front of you. And that's very triggered by our bodies. You can take in a smell that indicates this is not to be trusted or an energy around you. If you can't see someone's eyes, they've discovered that you are much more likely to have a feeling of like danger and you're not going to trust very easily. Um, something to keep in mind if you're walking around with dark glasses on. So what it is important to me to kind of share with you today is this feeling of trust and taking care of yourself... because ultimately, because we cannot control everything around us, and the nature of life is quite unpredictable, we need to be able to trust ourselves. It's an inside job. It's not an easy job to do either. And frankly, it's tough to even be ourselves if we're constantly questioning ourselves.

So by starting to look at trust and if we trust, that can raise its own issues, right? Because we start getting critical inside. So I would say the first thing you want to do is just to breathe in some compassion, because you know, it's hard to be in a world where betrayal and surprise and shock happen. It's just hard. And if you assume you're either above it or so far below it that you can't possibly understand it, then you're never going to trust yourself. And then really looking into yourself as a human being, right? A being of biology, a being that needs. You know, you're not an air fern, and you're not a robot.  So you have needs. Now, if I bring anything into my home that is living and I don't feed it or I don't look at what its needs are, give it no water or no love and affection. (I guess I'm thinking more of an animal than a plant, though. People would say it's true of plants also.) That being is not going to trust me, right? And it would take some time. I would say, if I changed my pattern, for it to begin to trust me. You know, if I have a puppy that I neglect, it's not going to turn around and trust me the first time I open a can of Alpo. It's going to take some time.

And yet we behave in the most irresponsible manner biologically toward ourselves. It is crazy. And then we actually expect our nervous systems, our minds, our bodies and our being to trust us and to just go on as if. So for example, we don't give ourselves any sleep. And this is a pretty chronic thing I would say, and no offense to them because I get it. But for college students, like, they'll come into, you know, the office and they're so anxious and feeling like, you know, they just are not functioning well and they can't get things done and they can't think and they're fighting and they're angry and they're upset. And I'm asking, "Well, how, how much sleep are you getting,?"
"Well, maybe four hours of sleep at night?"
Well gee, I mean, what do you want? You can't - you can't help anxiety if your body is so depleted and neglected, you know? Or "what foods are you eating?"
"Well, I I live on pizza and beer. " Well, okay, so that's a that's a sort of an extreme example because you know, in fairness to those college students, probably a lot of us do this, right?

We know we need a little more rest, but we have the extra cup of coffee instead. Or we know we need to meditate, but instead we sit and we play crosswords or Wordle or Words With Friends or whatever is your latest addiction on the phone, or we scroll through Insta, you know? Those things tell our bodies and the parts of us inside that they can't trust us. Why would they? Right? The body could be screaming for fresh air and exercise, and we grab a bag of chips and sit in front of Netflix.

So it's kind of an inside job, right? We have to begin to trust ourselves. And we, in order to do that, [need to be] biologically listening and taking care. And this applies to emotions as well. If you are constantly throwing yourself in harm's way, and you know it's harm's way - say, for example, you have a terrible relationship with a family member and they are cruel to you or they bring up all kinds of protectiveness or pain within you, but you feel very, very obligated or even like you should see them or you're going to be criticized if you don't or what have you, and it never goes well. It's really kind of abusive. I would say we learn not to trust ourselves when we place ourselves intentionally in those situations, in those exact same situations, over and over and over again. And pretty soon it's like our body goes, I don't know what to tell you here. I'm going to stop recognizing all of this, right? We just begin to sort of go through life, um, either in this highly anxious state or in this very numb and shut down state. Because you know, it's like, why, why would the body signal something to you when you're not going to listen anyway?

So you know, I think often it's important to look at the tiny things that you do every day. Did you wake up with a sense of gratitude and sufficiency that you gave yourself the best night's sleep possible, even if it wasn't a great night's sleep? You know, even if your baby woke you up four times or the moon was shining brightly through your window or you had a nightmare or your partner snored or you know, you had a little panic attack - Did you otherwise offer yourself a quiet, warm, comfortable space to lay down? Trust that! Yes, thank you. I did as well as I could do.

You wake up telling yourself all the things that you didn't get done and all the things you don't want to do. Or do you wake up just expressing some happiness and gratitude for food on the table and a cup of coffee in your hand and, uh you know, the air that you're breathing. It seems really a little bit trivial. And I don't mean to be all like gushing positivity, but the messages that you give yourself and the things you notice in the way you handle your emotional life also contribute to a sense of inner trust.

So you can reliably take care of yourself. As you listen to what's going on inside you, you respect it. You consider it. You try new ways. You maybe look for support that you really trust. You breathe into your truth. You get that inner knowing. And you can't do that when you're taking care of nothing or very little, because, like I said, the signals get a little scrambled inside and you learn how not to listen. But as you're taking care of yourself and then you breathe in and you notice, what do I say about this? What do I feel about this? Do I trust myself? You will have a sense of intuition really. I guess is what it is, and a sense of foundation and a sense of reliability. And that reliability can just as easily include the fact that not everything is perfectly reliable in your world. That's okay, right? That perfect standard is not necessary for you to be in a trusting relationship with yourself, with the world, and with others. Yeah. 

So that's what I want to say about trust and trustworthiness today. I am sure we'll come back to this one. People always have a lot of questions about it, and it's really super important, isn't it? Take some time to notice what do you trust, and do you trust yourself to go a little deeper, even a little simpler, you know, with eating, sleeping, breathing. Trust those tiny things and begin to re-establish your own sense of you. I'll see you soon. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: ingridyhelanderlmft.com. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 



]]> Thu, 24 Mar 2022 10:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1002 In a world that's predictably unpredictable, trust in anything starts with trusting yourself. In a world that's predictably unpredictable, trust in anything starts with trusting yourself. No No Comparison: The Big Childhood lie https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/28x5jk9n-comparison-the-big-childhood-lie Comparison: The Big Childhood lie 8 No No 60mwp7x0 We all compare ourselves to others, and it starts earlier than you might realize. But does it do anything to help us? Hi there! Come on in. This is Seriouslyourself, the podcast, and I'm Ingrid Helander. 
Hey there, come on in. You know, I am continually amazed at how many ways I feel and how many things I do that come almost directly from my experience of being a child. Things that never sort of saw the light of day to be re-translated or re-made into reasonable life as an adult. And these things also include things that are just sort of innate and biological that we bring along with us that impact our lives and we don't even know why.

So today I wanted to talk about one of those things. (Bear with me, I promise I'll get there.) And that is comparing ourselves to others. Comparing ourselves to others. Do you do that? There's so many reasons and ways that we might. I wonder if women maybe do it more than men. I wonder if people of certain cultures do it more than people of other cultures. I really don't know. I wonder what you think. But for me, I was thinking about it. Like some of the ways I compare myself, I feel, like come directly from things I experienced as a really small child.

I'll tell you what I'm thinking. So when I came into this world, I was born into a family where I was 9.5 and almost 13 years younger than my next oldest siblings. So I was a lot smaller. And we have this tape, this little audio tape of me, and in it I'm talking, and I'm about three years old, and I'm being interviewed by this teenager who was a friend of the family's and staying at the house. And she was asking me all these questions, and I'm just sort of describing my life to her. And it's hilarious to listen to. And one of the things I say there is - I'm talking about how people seem to be just sort of flying past me all the time, how they're so busy and they're so kind of important to me. And of course they are important in my life. I'm three years old. I need all those grownups. But I'm also interpreting it like therefore, I'm nothing. In fact, my words are: I just do nothing all day. Well I'm three, you know? So here I am three year old, me comparing myself to 10 year olds and teenagers and grownups, my parents, and sort of taking the down stance like I'm not as good. I do nothing all day.

And oddly, in the same conversation, I go on to tell this young woman how, you know, a lot of my family, they're Ragamuffins. Now, why Ragamuffins was the word was probably just making it up on the spot, something I had heard somewhere. And that meant that they had brown hair. But the good news, according to my three-year-old self, was that my big brother and I we're not Ragamuffins, because we had hair made of blonde. And evidently in my three-year-old mind, that little comparison was important, made me a little more important, and was a good thing. And this was all in the same conversation.

So comparing, I think, probably begins so early. You know? I think it's based on one of our most innate biological needs and drives -which is to be part of the tribe, to be included, right, biologically, as a surviving species. You don't want to be that one that's left out in the cold, abandoned by the tribe, not fed and is eaten by the wolves. You don't want to be that baby. You want to be right in there in the center, beloved, held, fed and given resources. So biologically we pick up the the habit of comparing to make sure we're safe, right? To make sure we fit and we're okay. So there's that sort of natural capacity to do that.

And then like me, you know, depending on where you land as a human, as a little kid, you take on all kinds of meaning about, well, who is important and who is in and who is okay and what makes me lovable and special and what doesn't. Which is all fine. But if we never take a minute and look at the ways that we compare and where they came from and why we could be doing this for the rest of our lives and causing us ourselves a lot of anguish, really for nothing...

So how do you compare yourself, you know? Like when and to whom and when is it a problem? Some of the things that make it a problem are this idea that there is an ideal. There's a right way to be, right? Growing up, for me apparently the ideal, the right way to be in my family, was to be busy, to have some sense of importance, to be moving about, to be big, and to be blonde. I only had one of those things going for me at the time. But we all do this, and we're all told by different sources what is normal, what is perfect, what is right, what is consistent, what is desirable.

And I would say when we compare ourselves to others were just kind of espousing this lie. This lie. Is blond hair better? No. Is it better to be running about and be busy? No, not necessarily at all. Especially if you're a little child. You know, we get on a track of trying to be that which is valuable when we already are that which is valuable. Brene Brown has a quote from her the first book that comparison is the thief of happiness, right? And she goes on to talk about how, you know, anytime she was feeling good about something, then she'd start comparing it to what other people had or did and it would just, you know, take the joy right out of it. And that's true. Yeah? Iyanla Vanzant says that comparison is an act of violence against the self. Yeah, it forces us two espouse a lie, right? It forces us to accept that there is a better way to be exactly who we are by being like either someone else or some ideal that's been set up in our own minds or by society that isn't true. It simply isn't true.

Flowers aren't trying to be like each other. The maple tree is not trying to be like the oak tree, right? An elephant is not trying to be like a snake. It's not a thing, and it really isn't a thing for people either. Despite the fact that social media and television, movies forever, billboards, magazines, businesses, clothing companies, everything has been saying, look this way, talk this way be this way, do this thing, then you'll be fine.

All of this comparing creates in people, in me, a really deep abiding sense of anxiety, because you can never get it right, right? You can never get it right. And you're always going to be searching for an end goal that is not real. The end goal does not exist. I think about that poor woman, I don't know her name, who had every plastic surgery, trying to look like a Barbie, a Barbie Doll" and she really looked quite monstrous and I think was quite miserable. You know this idea that if I am something normal, something "perfect", then I can stop comparing myself. 

So what can you do today to help yourself to take that moment and recognize, oh, oh my goodness! Where did I take on that? Being busy was so important? Or where did I take on that I wasn't or I should be like someone else? Or what is it about - What that person is showing me or doing that creates this feeling of insecurity or lack or less than in me? Is it something I want that is really within my life? Is it some part of me that I actually have that I'm just ignoring? Or is it just a lie? Is it just the next thing to look to, to perfect myself in some way? There's this place you can find inside yourself where you recognize you're just right. You're just right. If you're a parent and you loved becoming a parent, (that's not true for everyone and that is fine.) But if you did and you recall that moment when you first held your child and you just thought this is the most amazing being that ever was. That's the truth, not just for that baby, but for everyone. And and for you, that's the truth, right? Babies are amazing in their - just their being.  Just the fact that we are, right? 

Use your curiosity too. Imagine, where is my comparison coming from? How could I possibly have learned that I was supposed to be that image of someone else that I'm seeing? How could I possibly have learned that what comes out of me is not as good, and how can I help myself to calm down enough to be really loving and compassionate and accepting of my uniqueness, my sense of me. Every day when we do that, we become more comfortable, more alive, more present and more seriously ourselves. I'll see you soon. Don't forget to be who you are. Thanks bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: ingridyhelanderlmft.com. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time.



]]> Thu, 17 Mar 2022 09:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 898 We all compare ourselves to others, and it starts earlier than you might realize. But does it do anything to help us? We all compare ourselves to others, and it starts earlier than you might realize. But does it do anything to help us? No No Crystal Clarity https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/182k6v6n-crystal-clarity Crystal Clarity 7 No No 209x6w61 Being crystal clear about yourself starts with identifying your patterns. It feels so good to stop doubting and fighting every little thing about yourself. This episode, I talk about how to discover what you, for certain, know is true about you. and to get clear about all of the incredible parts of who you are. Hi there! Come on in. This is Seriouslyourself, the podcast, and I'm Ingrid Helander.
Hey there and welcome back, I'm excited to talk to you today because this is a topic that we were working on in my Seriouslyourself membership, and it's very much a part of being seriously yourself, and yet it's not always clear what we're talking about here, which is kind of funny, because the topic is crystal or being crystal clear. Do you like that idea? The idea of actually being really crystal clear about who you are, what you believe, what you stand for, how people see you? Yeah, I do too. I really do. I like that feeling and I think it's important. You know, one of the things that has been tremendously difficult in the past...I don't know... two years, right? Especially with the pandemic, and especially towards the beginning of the pandemic, the, the non-clarity, right? The confusion and the fogginess and the lack of information. Yeah, we like clarity. We like to have a sense of this is what it is. When I was working on the topic of crystal clear for my Seriouslyourself group, I learned a little physics. And I had not learned it, because frankly and honestly, I was too stubborn to take physics in high school or college, and therefore, I find I'm learning a lot of my physics now. I guess it's never too late. So a little physics here.

A solid is termed a crystal or crystalline if it has long range order, which is a neat word. I love that - long range order. And long range order means that once the positions of an atom and its atom neighbors are known at one point within a crystal solid, then the place of each atom is known precisely throughout the crystal. Right? It repeats, and it is predictable and you know it's there - and it's crystal! And I just love that. I think it's so fun that if you know the lineup of those atoms - and it's not just one atom that makes a crystal, right? It's, I don't know, however many are in the crystal, once you know the pattern, you know the crystal.

So we are obviously very, very complex beings. But it is so important that we look at our lives, you know, what we have been maybe since birth and really own the characteristics, the gifts, the qualities that are crystal for us. And sometimes they're not what we think they are. Right? You may have been raised thinking: Oh you're such a great caretaker, or you're such a good doobie. Good doobies, do things for everyone. But maybe you just had to fall into that role. And so as you're grown now you wouldn't want to look and go yeah I'm going to own that as who I am, as the quality of my crystal nature, right?

Or you might have been raised, you know, to be - well, you have to be very careful all the time. You know? "I know one thing about you, you're so careful!" Well, maybe you don't actually own that. maybe that was placed on you by having to be the structural force in your family or the cautious one when things around you were falling apart, et cetera. You get what I'm saying, Like we might at first blush think this is our crystal nature, this thing I've always been told or this idea that is sort of who I am. But it may not be really who you are. It may not be what feels the best for you, right? I've talked to people who always felt like they had to be the smartest in the room, and I'm not even sure some even recognized that they were kind of coming off that way. And I can relate to that a bit. I've got parts of me that really want to be, you know, intelligent and together and knowing and learned. But you know, that's probably just, you know, something that feels like an insecurity, right? Rather than a true crystal pattern.

So I'm wondering today, like when you think about what's crystal for you (and sometimes it's easier to find out by reading ideas.) For example. I had taken a whole bunch of characteristics and I just typed them up and it was everything from a person's size, you know: big, small, thin, heavy, muscular, weak, tall, round... and it was things like warm and cold and icy, frigid, athletic, you know, sexy, seductive, creative, artistic, you name it. And you know, if you start thinking about every possible way, you could possibly describe anyone, anyone socially or physically, emotionally, talent-wise and you put those all down and then you start looking at them and you go, Would I honestly own this quality? And when I say "own", I don't mean like would I feel great about it, because we learned so much judgment about who we are and what we're supposed to be. So, I would say if you can just put judgment back. Or if you feel yourself judging, you could put, okay I'm a judging individual. Yes, I'm going to own that and then don't make any judgment about it. Yeah, I'm gonna own that, right? Am I a sort of low energy person? Yeah, I'm going to own that. I always have, and I remember that when I was a kid, you might say, right, so take all of that. And Am I beautiful? Am I stunning? Am I thrilling? Am I adventurous? And just let yourself, yea or nay it, right? And if you're having trouble, go ahead and look for ones that you know you would never agree to and notice that feeling in your body. Because that will give you a great sense of well, okay, there's my baseline of "No".

And then see if you can find what you for certain know is true for you. Like maybe you would say I am kind and you know that for certain, and you feel that in your body, you see? So you start developing this little compass about what is crystalline in your makeup. And then I would say own it, cherish it, rejoice in it. Someone had said in my group, "Well, I don't like that I'm a people pleaser." Well, okay, you know there's that judgment in there, and it certainly probably has some merit. But I would say, Are you pleasing? Do you like to be pleasing, to be pleasant? Do you appreciate pleasantness? Do you have a sense of accommodation and fulfillment for others? Can it get out of balance? Of course it could! But is that a bad quality? Probably not. And if it feels kind of innate or natural for you? Well let's own it! Why wouldn't you want to? It is who you are.

So you can start playing with these ideas and really enjoy them. Enjoy being exactly who you are and then see how they line up. You know, it's almost like -- and you see this with really wonderful astrologers, people that do horoscopes, right? And sometimes when you read those, you could read every one and pick out the one that is yours. I swear this is true ,and I'm not even a huge follower. But you could. And I think it's because there are these clusters of characteristics, right? These crystalline patterns that maybe people tend to based on the stars. I don't know, but it's fun to look at them, because you can really get a sense of your place with yourself, your lineup of what is your truth. And then if you can look at them in ways that you can say, you know, I absolutely own this, and I will use it in a balanced way to my best - and probably for the betterment of others as well - in a way that doesn't feel like I've got some kind of a doom or a burden about me. Okay.

And you might come up with some qualities that are maybe not quite looked at deeply enough. So for example, if you came up with the quality, like, well, I just know that I'm misunderstood, (I think that was one that came up in our group.) Well, what's under that? What's under that? Well, I think in unique ways or I have um dyslexia or I have a unique style. Those are the crystal parts of it. You see, the ones that are under. I have a way of calculating with numbers in my head versus anything else. Okay, those are what I would call the crystal patterns, the ones that you can really certainly know.

So I would say to try this, you know, try it on your own, see how it feels. Write down as many descriptive terms as you can think of, and then rule them in and rule them out and then come up with a few that feel like: I own this and use your name. You know, I Ingrid Helander, am creative. I, Ingrid Helander, love beauty. See, I can say those things and my body does not back up at all. It goes full forward. Yeah, that's what you like. I, Ingrid Helander, enjoy thinking about people. Oh yeah, I always have. 

So once you've done that, remember that? That gives you a basis, a very nice solid foundation upon which to celebrate the organic nature of your life, which is that more fluid part? You know, there are actually crystals that have a component that is solid and liquid. So taking that metaphor, remember that as you have this crystalline structure about you, you're still organic growing, moving and being. And while you're,Yes, definitely going to be yourself. You get to play with all of that in new adventurous, exciting, artistic, creative and growth-oriented ways. But if you fight against them forever, you see, you're going to get stuck and feel sad and unhappy, and that's when all that judgment walks in the door. 

So are you feeling crystal clear about you today? Do you know what you want to say out loud along with your name? Do you know how you want to feel about it? Take a minute and investigate a little bit. Write it down. Play with it. Share it with people you love and ask them for theirs .Then each day you've got something to really grow into and grow with: your crystal. Are you feeling that? Am I understood? Mm hmm... crystal. See you soon. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 

If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: ingridyhelanderlmft.com. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 



]]> Thu, 10 Mar 2022 10:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 922 Being crystal clear about yourself starts with identifying your patterns. It feels so good to stop doubting and fighting every little thing about yourself. This episode, I talk about how to discover what you, for certain, know is true about you. and to get clear about all of the incredible parts of who you are. Being crystal clear about yourself starts with identifying your patterns. It feels so good to stop doubting and fighting every little thing about yourself. This episode, I talk about how to discover what you, for certain, know is true about you. and to get clear about all of the incredible parts of who you are. No No Problem Solving and the Pressure of Perfectionism https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/q80jrvk8-problem-solving-and-the-pressure-of-perfectionism Problem Solving and the Pressure of Perfectionism 6 No No p0kxqn91 Sometimes, the routines and rules we make to help us solve problems can turn into problems of their own! So how do we come back into balance with structure and spontaneity, when anxious about doing things perfectly all the time? Hi there! Come on in. This is Seriouslyourself, the podcast, and I'm Ingrid Helander.
Oh my goodness, today I have a kind of a fun topic, I think. And it grew out of this realization that came to me very profoundly during, I think, the last year too, which is: I am not that unique. I want you to hear that. It's so often that we think we are so unique and we are so alone. What we feel is not the same strength or importance or tragedy that other people experience. Or maybe that the way we think and feel is just so nuanced that no one could understand. And somewhere along the line especially I think the last two years of lots of time to reflect, I realized if I'm feeling some kind of way other people are feeling some kind of way to if I'm noticing something that's interesting. I am not that unique, right? It's a thing probably now not to say that I'm not uniquely myself or showing up in my own body. But frankly, the things that happened to me have happened to other people and are happening to other people. And I say that not to be dismissive in any way, but to reassure you that even when things might seem small to you, your feelings might seem bothersome, but in the scope of life, not that big of a deal. Yeah. And yet, it's okay to acknowledge them, because others are probably feeling them also.

So today I'm gonna talk about one of those instances that I find kind of fun and curious and come join me, because I think you'll find it interesting too. So the other day I woke up, and I was kind of doing the things I tend to do in the morning. So I love to grab my phone. Yes, I confess it is my phone, and I'll look through my email, and I'll look through to make sure nothing has changed drastically in the world overnight. And lately I'll maybe grab a little game of Wordle - have you heard of Wordle? Yeah, everybody's talking about Wordle. And if you haven't heard of that, then there's a unique thing, but you probably have, because it's not that unique. And I was playing the game, and I realized there was a certain amount of um intensity and very close to anxiety going on in my body and my mind. And I recalled being a little kid, and I used to love to watch the sitcoms of my youth which were things like The Lucy Show with Lucie Arnez - Lucy and Desi Arnez, and um she was always in trouble. You know, I think most of the, the plot lines of those 60s and early 70s sitcoms and shows like that were just - there's a terrible predicament and it's hilarious, but how is this person going to get out of it? And I remember as a child getting so engaged and just feeling sort of overwrought with, oh no, oh no, how is Lucy going to get out of this now? She is in dire straits, you know...what is Gilligan going to do on the island and um, what even is batman going to do? He's stuck in the Penguin's lair again, and this is going to go horribly wrong. And if they could only see what I see. I've got it all figured out.

And one day I recall sitting on my shag carpet and recognizing, Wait a minute. It's not gonna matter if I figure this out or if I feel all of this flooding in myself. I, if I feel all this pain really or not. And I sort of learned a little moment of detachment, like,
Do your thing Lucy, I bet you'll be fine. I've seen this one before.

So in that same regard, I think I have parts of me that move into even fun things or routine things with an attitude of, I have to solve it and I have to figure it out. And if I don't, it could be a problem. So back to Wordle. While I was playing Wordle, which is fairly new to me, and it's a lot of fun if you don't know it, it's a game where you start by guessing a word, and then you see what letters are in the word and you rearrange them and guess more until you get the word and you get five guesses max, I think it's five, maybe six. And it had become a problem! The first few times I played it, it was like whatever. If I actually get the word, I'm going to be thrilled and amazed. And of course then I got it in less than the total amount required and then I got it and even less and even less and I was like, Wow, I at least have to make it in three guesses. And therein lies the problem. Because if I didn't, who cares? I'm not up for any particular Wordle championships or awards. And so I didn't have to do that. But my body was registering as if this was a problem and I could feel the scowl lines increasing in my forehead. And I took a deep breath and I thought, are you having fun? And the answer was not, not exactly. And I let go of some of the parts of me that we're not having fun. I allowed them to just not worry about it so much. This is not serious. And I think those parts that we're sort of trained and raised on sitcoms to that sensation in my body. It doesn't matter if it's serious, right? I mean, certainly Lucy in the chocolate factory or you know, Lucy getting caught by Ricky in the, you know, performing in the musical was not serious. But I think that I learned it didn't matter. You had to solve it anyway.

Later that morning I was going to get some laundry done, no big deal. But also something that when you're an entrepreneur and you're working from home  - and I know a lot of you have become people that work from home even if you are not considered home working entrepreneurs in the last two years. So, so much of my time is self-organized. I don't ever really have anybody demanding that I do anything that I haven't set up for myself. And that can be beautiful and freeing, and I'm really grateful for it. And it can also be tricky because it is on me, therefore it becomes in some parts of my psyche a problem to solve.

So anyway, I thought I should get some laundry done today before I move on to my meetings. And I'm standing, and I'm dividing the laundry by relatively light clothing and relatively dark clothing. And honestly, that's another question I have, like, does it really even matter? I, I don't know, but I still do it. And so I was doing that, and as I looked at my piles of laundry, I was getting that same kind of bunched up feeling that I had when I was playing Wordle, like I was thinking too hard. I could feel again the scowl between my eyebrows, and I could feel my body getting sort of intense. And it was like, Oh, I'm going to have one of those days. I'm gonna have quite a day today if I feel like this. And then I stopped and I just started laughing. It just cracked me up. It was like, Ingrid, the laundry does not know or care who goes first, this is not a problem, this is not an issue. And I even thought about it. I was like, well maybe it is. Let me see. Does it matter if I do the relatively darker clothes because the pants take longer to dry and maybe I want to hang them up and - no, not really, not really. It's all kind of a constructed in my own mind that there's something right about doing it in some particular way.

And I got to thinking about how when you have a little bit of anxiety, and you try to help yourself by problem solving and by organizing and by structuring and by creating stability and meaning and rules - and how for a while that can help, right? I mean, the first times that you do anything like that, it's like, oh wow, yeah, I'm going to get Wordle in three words or I'm going to divide my wash and so I know how to do it somehow or I'm going to get it done before my meeting and then just like the little kid in me sitting on the floor realizing I'm anxious for nothing, it can sort of take off and become its own problem. These things that originally gave comfort and stability and safety and cohesion and satisfaction. If they're met with anxiety in the sense that everything is a problem and there is a perfect way to do things, then they get sort of um almost taken over by nervousness in the system for me. 

And as I said, I can't imagine I'm all that unique. In fact, I know that I'm not. 

So if you share some of these kinds of feelings and thinkings and tendencies, I would just encourage you to take that moment to notice your body and take that extra breath that we all need every now and then. So we can disengage from something that isn't real, right? Disengage from something that isn't necessary. That doesn't have any basis in truth. So the truth is, if I solve Wordle in one word versus six doesn't make me any better or worse. I get lucky that day. Maybe I should also play the lottery. And the lights and darks did not care who was washed first, nor did I. And I couldn't tell you which I did first now. So don't worry about being so perfect. Don't worry that you're not like others. You are. And take really good care of you. Take really good care of you. You're doing a great job. I know you are. Everyone is just doing their best. Thanks for being here with me. Talk to you soon. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: ingridyhelanderlmft.com. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 



]]> Thu, 03 Mar 2022 10:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 834 Sometimes, the routines and rules we make to help us solve problems can turn into problems of their own! So how do we come back into balance with structure and spontaneity, when anxious about doing things perfectly all the time? Sometimes, the routines and rules we make to help us solve problems can turn into problems of their own! So how do we come back into balance with structure and spontaneity, when anxious about doing things perfectly all the time? anxiety, perfectionism, perfection, problem, solving No No When You Want A Boundary https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/18pppyx8-when-you-want-a-boundary When You Want A Boundary 5 No No z1rvv651 Boundaries are necessary and helpful, but there are some vital things to think about when you're setting them. So this episode, we distinguish when you know you are coming from a healthy, regulated state or fired up response based on your past. And how to pick those pieces apart and find your grounded and clear boundary. Hi there, come on in, this is Seriouslyourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander.
 So the other day I got a request to talk about boundaries, boundaries. Oh boy. And that's what I thought: Boundaries. Oh boy! Because you hear so much about boundaries these days. For me, it can almost become a little wearing. That's not to uh in any way minimize the importance of boundaries or to upset anyone that does a lot of work around boundaries. Because indeed, they are important, essential and difficult. So with all due respect, honestly, to those who are working hard in the field of boundaries, personal boundaries, I'm going to talk about this from a curious standpoint, just to see what it's like for you.

I think the more we can play with topics that are difficult and complicated, like boundaries, and the more we can become our own experts, our own curious contributors to what we think about certain topics, It's really hopeful. So that's what the purpose of our episode today is. And if you've ever wondered about boundaries or caught yourself saying, "Wow, that person has terrible boundaries," or "I really need a boundary around this," or "If I'm going to go into this situation, I really need some good boundaries." Huh? If you've caught yourself doing that? Then this episode is definitely for you! And frankly, if you've never caught yourself doing that, then maybe this episode is for you too.

So boundaries, what are they? One of my favorite description of boundaries in common day vernacular is one by Prentis Hemphill, who is quite the genius from my experience. Prentice says boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously. Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously. Prentis goes on to say: Boundaries give us the space to do the work of loving ourselves. They might be actually the first and fundamental expression of self love. They also give us the space to love and witness others as they are, even those that have hurt us.

So that is, to me, so perfectly descriptive of what a healthy boundary needs to do. And it also gives some concept of how to understand when a boundary needs to be repaired or placed or corrected in some way. This sense of like when we can notice that we are continuously feeling hurt by someone, right? To the point where we have zero respect for that person. That would indicate a time for a boundary. Yeah? Because we're no longer able to be in a loving position with that person. And in fact, when we feel resentful like that, it tends to eat us up and we are, you know, first and foremost from ourselves at that moment, not in a loving relationship, right? Because we are resentful, and we are stewing and angry, and that tends to eat us up. And, we're not in a loving relationship with the other, because they -- we are too close or in too much proximity without a boundary there, so that they can continually create a system in which we feel hurt, harmed or disrespected.

You know, the term boundaries was not even really picked up much at all in this way until the 80's or 90's. When I was growing up as a kid, you didn't hear about boundaries. I I think you heard about the term respect a lot. And you also heard little little quips like: Big fences make good neighbors, which one would say was probably an indicator of a good boundary. Yeah? Or maybe too rigid of a boundary. So when people come to me now and they're saying, "You know, I really feel like I need a boundary," I'll tell you the first thing that comes up for me is a curiosity about what is going on here. Because you can't walk into creating a boundary from an unhealthy space, and you can't assume for another person what a healthy boundary would be.

I'll give you an example. I've been watching the television show, MAID. I can't tell you what network it's on, but it's got Andie Macdowell and her um daughter. And her daughter is the main character, and she plays the maid there. And as I was watching the show, I would so often be like, "Oh my gosh, make a boundary! Just don't let that person do that to you again, Oh please!" And if you watch the show, you'll know what I mean. And then I would realize that she did not have the context in which to make that boundary that I as the viewer would have. So there were parts of her inside that would not allow a strong boundary at that time with, say, her mother or her husband. And so she would fall into these really painful, difficult situations over and over and over.

So when you're talking to someone about a boundary, one needs to kind of step back and examine their own boundaries. Like why would that boundary be so easy for me? You know? And and you might even say, "Well, it's because I'm cold. I've heard this so often  -- excuse my language, but right... I'm a cold, uncaring bitch. That's why I can make the boundaries so easily. Or people would say: You can make that boundary because you're a Scorpio, and Scorpios just bite and and keep people back. I don't know. I don't know if there's any reality in any of that. I think it's fascinating.

So boundaries are really highly personal. Yeah. But if they're coming from a place that is sort of in your sympathetic nervous system, right? That's all fired up. They're not going to wind up being a healthy boundary. And we see this all over the place. We see this from um, personal issues between family members to governments and countries and politics, boundaries being made from a fired-up system which is often not informed by what is currently happening. The danger may have been in the past or may not even be danger, right? But I got to make that boundary! I need that big fence to stay protected.

So in thinking about this, I remembered when I was a kid - and this story comes back to me, and it's so weird to me that it does, because I was probably in fourth grade, maybe fifth, and I was on the playground. So you know, I was little, and I was talking with my friend Susie, and I was mad for her that someone had been rude or mean to her, one of our mutual friends. So I remember saying to her, "Well, Susie, just tell them to go away. Just forget it. I wouldn't play with them." And this little sage Susie looks at me and she says, "Well yeah, you can afford to do that."

I never forgot that. I mean, first of all I had no retort, which is probably why I never forgot it, because if you know me at all, you can imagine I often did have a retort, some kind of answer. I was just sort of speechless. And she really spoke just her truth to me. And what she exactly meant. I think only she would know. But it felt very clear to me at that time that what she meant was: I have a need for that friend that I'm not willing to risk. She was not willing able to make the risk of losing that friendship by making a stronger boundary. Now, of course, the boundary that my little kid self had suggested was pretty uh big. It wasn't like: Tell her that you're not going to play with her as often, or I would, you know, mention your feelings to her, something like that. It was:  I wouldn't have anything to do with her, which is probably how I would have handled it as a little kid. 

But my grown up self, honestly, I look back and I so appreciate Susie. I so appreciate her, her knowing of herself and her honesty. Talk about speaking for oneself! She didn't have to say to me:  Well, you're kind of harsh and you're being a jerk. All she had to say to me was: That's not something that I could afford to do, just because you can, or you think you can. 

So when you're making a boundary, if you feel you need a strong boundary, here are some things you could look at, you could ask yourself: Is there fear involved here, am I afraid? And try to think about times when maybe you've made a boundary from a space in you that is fearful. And often that is informed by the experiences we had as dhildren. And often those solutions, ie. the boundaries look like a little kid would make them. You know, you huff off or you scold loudly or you, you know, sulk, or a very young feeling such as that. And that's a great trail head to go and go, Okay, whoa. What is this fearful part needing from me? before you make the boundary. Or even after, you can always repair it. 

Another thing you could ask yourself is, as a little kid, were you allowed to say no, and were you allowed to say yes and have your opinion honored? And if you were, then it's probably a little more easy for you to create a boundary. Right? A boundary requires No's and Yes's.  Yes to this. No to that. If that was never honored in your family of origin, in your upbringing, it's going to be harder. So give yourself that patience and that moment to go, I see! And update young parts of you, reminding yourself as you breathe in and you feel into your body, here's my age, here's my stage of life, and and welcoming young sensations to be with that ... and knowing you can make choices. That's what finally sort of happened in MAID, if you will. 

And then you can look at, well, do you find it easier to make a personal boundary between you and others, right, a relational boundary, or just between you and yourself? We have boundaries with ourselves, right? Sort of like disciplines, you know, like:  I will allow myself this; I will not allow myself that. And for some of us, those are even harder. They require a certain self love, a certain self respect to be able to get to those kinds of boundaries.

Have you ever made a boundary purely from anger? You know, you're just ripped and you're like, "I will never, ever look at you again!" What is that like later? 

And have you experienced what it's like when boundaries move, shift or evolve? Because they do, they do, they almost have to, especially in families, because people grow and change and develop. And if you have experienced those kinds of boundaries, how do you feel about that? What was it like for you when your kids, say, went from being little kids to being adults or teens? What was it like when you left your, your home and family and became independent, if you did. So these are all really interesting things about boundaries. 

But a boundary is not simply, you know, drawing a line in the sand, then you know, staking your claim there. Boundaries are complex. They are permeable and impermeable. They are open and closed, They change, they evolved and they shift and they're a new concept, really, in terms of our speech these days. 

So if you're hearing it, you know, stop and think: Okay, there's some popularity to this, and there's probably lots of great reasons for that as well. 

If you feel yourself making a boundary and you want to punish someone or you're angry with them, take a step back. 

If you feel you need to make a boundary and you notice that it's feeling tighter and tighter. Check for fear. There's probably fear in there, okay? 

Brene Brown, her quote about boundaries is: Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves. Even when we risk disappointing others. Right? Even when we risk disappointing others, because disappointing someone, pleasing them and loving them are not always the same thing. So there's a lot more we can talk about here, but I hope that's helpful for you. 

And the next time you hear yourself saying you need a boundary, take a look inside, right? And know that you want to get to clarity. You want to not have a strong agenda, and expect yourself to be equally loving to you and to those that you love. I hope that's helpful! Talk to you soon. Bye. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: ingridyhelanderlmft.com. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 


]]> Thu, 24 Feb 2022 10:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 1097 Boundaries are necessary and helpful, but there are some vital things to think about when you're setting them. So this episode, we distinguish when you know you are coming from a healthy, regulated state or fired up response based on your past. And how to pick those pieces apart and find your grounded and clear boundary. Boundaries are necessary and helpful, but there are some vital things to think about when you're setting them. So this episode, we distinguish when you know you are coming from a healthy, regulated state or fired up response based on your past. And how to pick those pieces apart and find your grounded and clear boundary. No No You're Not In Trouble https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/x8y057qn-you-re-not-in-trouble You're Not In Trouble 4 No No l04pyr80 What to do when your younger parts keep you from speaking up because they're worried about getting in trouble. Do you immediately assume, or take on responsibility for things that don't belong to you? This is the episode for you! In this week's podcast, we discuss how to work with this younger part and how to empower your voice.
Transcript: You're Not In Trouble
Hi there, come on in, this is Seriouslyourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander. Hey, hello! Hello and welcome back to Seriouslyourself. I am so happy, so, so happy that you have decided to join me again today. Today I had this idea and it was based on something that happened really recently. So let me kind of weave you in. What I was thinking about was how certain types of our anxieties, maybe ones that have been around since we were little little kids can create situations in which we cause ourselves ultimately more trouble and maybe even other people more trouble than it is our intention and in fact is the opposite of our intention. This comes from this part of me that really, really does not like to get in trouble. And then generally tends to assume when there is trouble that I am somehow responsible. So it's like this aversion to getting into trouble which of course boundaries on that little perfectionistic tendency, which again goes back to this basis I believe of worry and anxiety in the system. How does this cause problems? Well, you know, I picture from the time I was a little kid going to school, that was a real eye opener for me, Let me tell you because at any given moment a child could get in trouble. And certainly when I was attending elementary school it may have been a louder, more aggressive form of trouble or punishment than the kids experience. Now I'm hoping that's true, but at any rate it was very frightening for me to hear other kids getting in trouble At home. I was basically raised as an only child. My siblings were 10 and 13 years older than I was. And so hearing other kids get in trouble was not something I experienced every day and I would come home from school and I would be very upset and saying to my mom, oh so and so got in trouble and I don't really want to go back tomorrow. And she'd say, did you do something wrong? And I'd be like, no, I don't think so. And she'd say, well then I don't want you to worry about it, you're okay. But you see just that idea that suddenly you could get in trouble and I didn't feel like I could control that when it would come at me probably created more trouble certainly did for me than had I just not worried about it. Right. Can you see that? Like I was probably acting funky in the classroom when I would get nervous. I maybe would avoid doing certain things stepping up in certain ways. Um, and I definitely did not like going to school because that potential to get in trouble was always there for me. So how does it manifest today? Because it's a long time since elementary school, let me give you one example that just happened to me, we are renting an apartment, a lovely townhouse. It has a separate room that we do not access where the furnace is kept. And I had noticed that there was a little water in the garage which borders on the wall where the furnaces. Now my trouble part my part that assumes I'm in trouble, I'm going to get in trouble. Also assumed in that moment that somehow the water that I was witnessing on the floor was coming from my car which was pulled in and out of the driveway. Um, both when there was a little snow or rain or when maybe you know how the air conditioning from the bottom of your car condenses and leaves a little puddle. So I go into that immediate thought of this is me. Somehow I am doing something bad or wrong and part of me just sort of keeps it quiet or just keeps going like, well, I guess I'm doing something wrong. My car is making the floor wet in the garage. Now, unfortunately we have a number of boxes and so on in our garage and I don't really want the floor to get wet. But if it's my fault then it's my fault. Right? So recently we discovered that the furnace in this un accessible room adjacent to the garage was actually leaking in quite a bit. And now, as I'm looking, I'm realizing, you know what the furnace leaking has leaked under the wall and into the garage and onto our stuff and is creating some issues there. Now that is also not my fault. But now I feel bad because I didn't mention it to the landlord sooner. So you can see where this little pullback of I'm wrong. I'm bad. I have to be careful. I'm anxious can create situations in which there are problems. Another example might be not calling people back if they haven't reached out to me in a while, right. The assumption there is I did or said something wrong or the person doesn't want to talk to me and so I might not reach out to them and then they feel bad thinking well she doesn't want to talk to me. Which is not the case. The caution is too much right. The taking on the blame is immediately too much. It is that slamming on the brakes when you see a police officer and you're already going under the speed limit could actually create an accident. So I just wanted to throw that out there as sort of a quick comment today that if there are ways that you have young parts that are so averse to getting into trouble that you immediately assume or take on responsibility for things that don't belong to you or you hide out in an effort to avoid being caught for something that you didn't do or because you feel shamed for having created a problem that you probably didn't cause you are holding back is probably creating more trouble than it's worth, not only for you but for others around you going back to the garage. Had I noticed that sooner it would have actually been helpful to our landlord had I spoken up about it more quickly. Um, he could have done something about it to have helped. Not only me, the garage, the stuff in the garage, but the building and his investment there in the building. So if you're feeling anxious, check in, is this a young part of you and if it feels wrote like I've been here, I've done this forever, hug those young parts and let them know, Yeah, you don't like to get in trouble. Yeah. You like to do well and you can do things well and I give you the permission to do things imperfectly. It is all right to step forward a little bit more. Take care. I hope that's helpful. I appreciate you being here. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: ingridyhelanderlmft.com. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 



]]> Thu, 17 Feb 2022 10:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 555 What to do when your younger parts keep you from speaking up because they're worried about getting in trouble. Do you immediately assume, or take on responsibility for things that don't belong to you? This is the episode for you! In this week's podcast, we discuss how to work with this younger part and how to empower your voice. What to do when your younger parts keep you from speaking up because they're worried about getting in trouble. Do you immediately assume, or take on responsibility for things that don't belong to you? This is the episode for you! In this week's podcast, we discuss how to work with this younger part and how to empower your voice. No No What to Do After Biting Your Tongue https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/1nppxqqn-what-to-do-after-biting-your-tongue What to Do After Biting Your Tongue 3 No No z0rv5880 Today we're talking about what you can do AFTER you realize you've bitten your tongue, (held back what you felt or wanted to say.) Biting your tongue can be a great opportunity to gain some much-needed insight. Remember when you do it - it's not done. It's only Step 1!
Transcript: What to Do After Biting Your Tongue

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriouslyourself, The Podcast, and I'm Ingrid Helander. Hello, come on in. Thanks for joining me today. So today on Seriouslyourself, I wanted to talk about biting your tongue. Have you ever used that expression: "I really should just bite my tongue here, because I was gonna say something that might get me in trouble later."?

I was talking to a wonderful guy the other day and he said, "Yeah, I just knew I should just bite my tongue. My wife was saying something that was kind of upsetting for me. So I I did, I just bit my tongue."

And I got to thinking about that. And I think it's probably a good thing in many cases, right? There are things we shouldn't say even if we're trying to show up more and be authentic and be real. But some things need a moment, we need some time to think about them.

I have a little vision of myself kind of with my tongue between my teeth like, "No, I'm not gonna say anything right now," but I think we could take it another step. You know, when we bite our tongue, we're sort of shutting off a part of us that maybe we know can get us in trouble, right? And I don't know, I'm gonna throw out the possibility that a lot of guys think they have to bite their tongue pretty often. Maybe they've been taught they're supposed to be the "good boy". Of course, women are always taught we're supposed to be "good girls", and that if you speak, you're gonna say it wrong, you're going to step in and hurt someone's feelings or get them angered at you. And so you bite your tongue. And what is the song? You know, if you bite your tongue, all you get is a mouth full of blood? Yeah, we don't want to do that, do we? We don't want to do that very often anyway.

So here's an idea the next time you feel like you're gonna need to bite your tongue.

So maybe you do. Maybe you keep what you wanted to say inside. I bet it would be helpful if you take a minute later and go home or grab your phone on your little notes section and write down what you really did want to say. Write it down. In this case it might be something like: Oh, I just really disagree with you when you're saying what you're saying. Or: I am so angry with you right now; I can't imagine what would come out of my mouth if I started talking to you! And let that part out on paper or in your phone -- not your...not your mail. Don't mail this to anyone or text it! This is just for you. Let that part on paper talk about it. "Here's what I was really thinking." "Here's what I want to say about it." "Here's where I want to argue back with you." Okay? Get it all out.

I think sometimes we hold this stuff, and we gather shame because we have these little hidden parts of us inside that never even see the light of day in our own psyche, (right?) our own mind. We want to shed a little light on this for ourselves. This part is speaking for a reason. And then you want to be able to go back to what you've written, take a deep breath, maybe a minute or a day even and look at it with loving eyes, with compassion, that this part of you had something to say. Now, stay out of the story of it. Don't join it and keep going, because, well, it's already a strong thing - enough to make you want to bite your tongue.

But if you can look at it and go: All right, is there merit? Is there merit in what this part was wanting to say? And you're probably gonna find some, because usually these strong parts we kind of agree with, right? We like them. Let it know: I like you. I agree with you. I think it's great that there's more to me. And you know there's more to you...

How do you know? Because you bit your tongue. That part had no ability to bite its own tongue. You were -- some part of you did that. So go ahead and celebrate that. Alright? I had another part of me that said, "Yeah, no, no, no! This could get me in trouble right now!" So you find the merits first and then ask the part that is so right and so certain to just step back, just for a minute. It doesn't have to step back in the outside world. It has to step back, just calmly knowing: Yeah, I agree with my own merits here. So that part could calm down a minute, long enough to go - "okay other places I know I needed to maintain myself," -- is their compassion for what the other person was saying or feeling? It's not exactly like looking for what was wrong with what you're saying, but maybe it's not the whole story, right? And then you can go ahead and write that down - like some part knew to stop you. Was it just because you were afraid you would get in trouble?

Can you take that a step further and know, "No, I actually also have compassion for what the other person was saying ... or who they are or what they were being... and I don't want to blow it."

"I don't want to ruin that that relationship."

"I care about them." So that's another good thing you can do.

You could also then take a minute; look at your first statements, all those arguments, all those things you said, and notice what is the core need of that part that you had to bite back. Does it have any needs? Sometimes those parts need to be seen. Sometimes they need to be held, given some loving care. Sometimes they need to hear that they have some good ideas. Sometimes they're hurt or carrying shame.

Does this make sense to you? So say, for example, a part that got bit back had an argument about, you know, "You're just making a bad decision here." (You want to say to the other person), "I disagree with your decision and it makes me angry that you would take that point of view."

And then when you go back, and you look at those words, and you realize that the sensation in your body is: Whew, I'm feeling hurt, right? I'm feeling left out, alone, maybe accused by this person that I care enough about to bite my tongue. So what's under that? Right? What's under that? Like if I'm feeling those strong feelings, what do I need from that person? Maybe I need to know that they actually love me. Maybe I need to know that though I might feel differently. They respect me too. Maybe I need to know that I have a voice with them, and if I can look and decide, okay what is it in my retort that I bit back that I actually do need to speak for in a way that the other person could hear. So maybe I can speak for it in a way that's just clear or calm. That's not shaming or blaming of the person that I was talking to.

Because though it sounds super clear. It's only clear for that one little part of us. And that one little part of us is trying to do something  - and that is probably defend or protect us. Well, why would it? Why would it need to defend or protect you? Here's a good question, yeah? It would need to defend and protect you because there's something under it ,inside you that a part of you is afraid will get hurt.

And so if you can look under... Oh! that part of me needs to know that the person I was talking to doesn't think I'm stupid or foolish. That part of me needs to know that other people that have said similar things to me, um, that hurt  - that I can help the part without saying a thing to the other person. So you see what I'm saying?

Really, when we bite our tongue, that's Step 1 - maybe a very good decision in the moment, depending, right? Might preserve a relationship. Might keep you from further shame. Might help you to just bide time, just give you time to process what's happening inside you, right? But that's only the first step.

The rest of the steps belong to you. And honestly, they can be so much fun. You can even play with them! If you can find a sense of humor about what this part really wanted to say, and then step back from it, enjoy the humor, and then go: Okay, wait a minute! Whoa, alright.. I wanted to say, "Well, you're just a big dumb idiot, and that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard!" And people do this, by the way, on social media all the time when they don't bite their tongue - and it can be hilarious! But, it doesn't go very far with your spouse, your children, your parents, your loved ones, your friends. Right? Your boss -  (it) doesn't work so well. 

There's about a million ways to go after you start looking inside.  You have many, many choices rather than just biting your tongue and walking away or hollering and yelling and getting in trouble. 

Where have you caught yourself biting your tongue lately? Think about who most creates that sensation in you. Imagine them in front of you and then do some of this writing work, feeling work, using your great curiosity in doing so. You'll be better able to speak for the parts of you that are inside to help them personally, and to really show up more. 

I hope you've enjoyed today's talk and let me know what you think. Are you biting your tongue? .

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: ingridyhelanderlmft.com. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 


]]> Thu, 10 Feb 2022 10:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 785 Today we're talking about what you can do AFTER you realize you've bitten your tongue, (held back what you felt or wanted to say.) Biting your tongue can be a great opportunity to gain some much-needed insight. Remember when you do it - it's not done. It's only Step 1! Today we're talking about what you can do AFTER you realize you've bitten your tongue, (held back what you felt or wanted to say.) Biting your tongue can be a great opportunity to gain some much-needed insight. Remember when you do it - it's not done. It's only Step 1! No No Feelings That Kill You https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/r87wr978-feelings-that-kill-you Feelings That Kill You 2 No No k08k84l1 Some feelings are so intense they feel life-threatening. Unfortunately, this added fear, of course, makes the whole situation feel worse! So how do we be with all that is arising and stay curious in these times?
Transcript: Episode 2, Feelings that Kill You
Hi there, come on in. This is Seriouslyourself, The Podcast, and I'm Ingrid Helander. Thanks for being here. So today I thought it would be fun to talk about something I heard on a podcast the other day. It was a podcast called We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle and her sister (whose name I am completely blanking on. I'll have to look that up for you later.) Anyway, in the podcast she was mentioning how when she was getting sober, she had this sensation that her feelings were going to kill her, that they were actually going to be just too much for her. And it felt deathly to her...so, so dangerous. And I've heard her say this before, and I think when I've heard it, I thought, Yeah, I can imagine how people could feel that way when they're, say, maybe having a major panic attack or have had some devastating news, you know? And the feelings are so overwhelming that it's like: This is going to kill me. And if you've ever had tragedy in your life, or if you do have trauma where you have panic attacks, you can relate to that, right?

But the other morning I got in the car, and I realized I was carrying some very, very familiar anxiety. A really strong, strong feeling in my chest mostly, but also my throat and across my shoulders. And I thought to myself,  This! This is the feeling that at least some parts of me imagine could kill me. And why do I know that? Well, I know that because it's pretty clear in my history that that is the feeling I most want to eradicate. I really want to get rid of that pain, that pressure, that sensation like this low pulling negativity. I used to call it "the rock in my chest" or "the fist in my chest" and it's really uncomfortable. And yet, it is kind of a part of me, and I've worked very hard and use many techniques, (many of which I will share with you here) that helped immensely really. In some ways. If we look at it from the other side of that statement, I thought this feeling was going to kill me. The ways that I work with these parts of me, I would say have saved my life.

So getting back to that, I thought this feeling was going to kill me. Even if you haven't had the massive feeling that you were pretty sure in that moment, "this is going to kill me. I can't stand it," I want you to take a look at the small feelings, those ones that ride along with you all day that have maybe been with parts of you for most of your life... much of your life. Let's take a look at those today.

Many of my clients would come in and they would say, "You know, I just wake up feeling really nervous about what I'm going to do, how to make choices about my life, what people think of me, how I look act". And many others would come in and they would say, "You know, I cannot get to sleep or stay asleep at night. I'm just overthinking everything. My head goes round and round and round and my thoughts don't leave me alone. And I really hate that feeling." My goal is so often for us to be able to take a minute, (might take more than a minute, if I'm honest), but it shouldn't take too long to just step back from that, from the thinking that goes along with the sensation. I think Glennon put it so well, when she said, you know, the thinking was: This is going to kill me.

Yeah, that's if you have a feeling, and then you get a thought that says, "this is going to kill me" - then you're going to get another feeling pretty quickly, aren't you? And that is, "Yikes! Oh no! This will kill me! This is going to kill me!" And that feels terrible too. So then we build on that. We create this cycle of anxiety that happens between the feeling and the thought between the sensation and the imagination. 

So if you can take a minute right now, take a minute and just notice if you have any of those tiny little maybe chronic-type feelings that sit with you and create discomfort. They could be characterized as anxiety, worry, fear, negativity, depressive symptoms, moody. 

Okay. Got it? Just take one and take a breath into that feeling. What it's like from a curious standpoint when we have that feeling? Now, right away, you might notice you also have a part that says, "I can't get anywhere near that. It's too scary. Might hurt me. Might take over." Or - "I hate it or I wish it would go away!" And I would imagine you agree with that. And that's a fine thing. Go ahead and let the part of you that says "I can't stand that feeling." - Let that part of you know: Of course you can't! It's not comfortable. It's not fun. And then asked that part if it would step aside knowing full well that you agree and you want to be helpful. Because I'll guarantee it is that part, that part that says "I hate the sensation. I'm afraid of the feeling. I want it gone." 

That part is complicating the situation even though it's trying to help you. Does that seem clear? Can you see how that could complicate things inside? Make them feel more frightening, more depressing, more anxiety-producing, even more? Ah. So just take that deep breath and see what it's like to be with this little anxious, this bit of uncomfortable, this moody depth of you - with a little more compassion. 

You can get curious about how long it's been there. How long has this part been riding around for me? That part had been riding around in my chest most of my life. And you know, if you're going to carry something around with you, I think it's wise to find ways - true ways, not fakey  - but true ways to love and accept it, to help it to come into a state of being that is not carrying pain, not caring fear - not alone inside your system. 

You see, when we hate on those feelings, and we get so afraid that, say, like in Glennon Doyle's case, she would actually um drink them away or drug them away. And many people do, sometimes we run them away, eat them away, sex them away, shop them away, but ultimately that leaves us feeling less whole. It leaves us feeling like we can't trust this being that we are. And frankly, there are gifts within the very parts of us that actually feel afraid sometimes, or down, or frustrated, or worried. So if you can take a minute today, just take a second to breathe and notice: I don't have to solely rely on my old ways. And the old ways said, you know, "Cancel this feeling. Get rid of it. Get it out of here." I don't have to rely on that now. Instead I can get curious about it, I can write down everything it says and thinks. I can help it. I'm here. 

The more you can be here. The more you can be within [you] in a way that is kind and reasonable and really connected to these parts of you, the more you're going to find that you're showing up in the outside world. 

Maybe you were supposed to have this little bit of moodiness, this little frustration, this anxiety, this worry. Maybe that's okay. Maybe it just got a little distorted through the years and the generations. Maybe it isn't trying to hurt you. Maybe there are strengths within it. I can think of so many strengths that come from moodiness. Let's imagine that for a minute, what are some strengths that could come from a state of being moody? We might say that there is this strength of - (if we don't create too many stories about it), the strength is that we have the ability to deeply feel. We have the ability to deeply emote. We have the ability to hold and share others' pain, sometimes to lament. The poet Rilke talks about lament and the beauty and the gift in that. 

So, today imagine that nothing inside you is trying to kill you, and that with a little tiny practice and some gentle curiosity, you can actually help it. So, you can be more holy yourself, more fully You. More authentic. Hey, let me know how this is for you. I hope it helps. I know it's helped me.  

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. 
If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, The Membership Community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox. Find out more about that on my website: ingridyhelanderlmft.com. 
And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time. 


]]> Thu, 03 Feb 2022 11:00:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 806 Some feelings are so intense they feel life-threatening. Unfortunately, this added fear, of course, makes the whole situation feel worse! So how do we be with all that is arising and stay curious in these times? Some feelings are so intense they feel life-threatening. Unfortunately, this added fear, of course, makes the whole situation feel worse! So how do we be with all that is arising and stay curious in these times? No No Overthinking https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/r87wry08-overthinking Overthinking 1 No No k08k8mz1 Do you consider yourself an "Overthinker?" Lots of us do. But what is overthinking, really? And is it truly bad for you or what? In this episode, we'll re-imagine overthinking - what are its origins? Why do some people feel plagued by it? When does it become a problem? Overthinking is exhausting!
Do you feel like you're an Overthinker?

Do your thoughts, worries, plans, and sometimes just nonsense occupy your mind without your permission? Can't sleep because your mind is running overtime? Waking up worried, sometimes for no apparent reason?

Is overthinking even a real thing? I mean, maybe the pain and self-criticism you feel about overthinking results from unfair conceptions you've gathered throughout your life and even throughout history?

You, my friend, are not alone. Therapists are very familiar with "I can't turn my mind off!" - a common complaint that lands on their sofas and Zoom calls every week. "I just overthink everything, and I never get relief!"

In this episode, we'll spend less than 15 minutes giving "overthinking" some genuine curiosity.

You might say we'll overthink it! But no worries, it'll be brief and calming.

Some ideas to consider:
Is overthinking a flaw?

Is overthinking actually “real” - meaning who decides the “appropriate” amount of thinking?

Is it possible you might have inherited a fear of “too much thinking” from your family or society?

Is it necessary, important, or just habitual to criticize your own mind, your thinking? 

When did you learn to call your thought/feeling combination overthinking and why?

What do you believe, when you ask inside, would happen to you if you simply allowed your thinking and feeling to happen - without the criticism or brake pedal?

Fun journal option:
Answer this question in as many ways as you can imagine💛:
Overthinking is part of my life because….
 
Check out the episode for examples of how to do this for yourself.
Please follow Seriouslyourself, leaving a review or a comment. I'd sure appreciate it!

For more help calming your worry and being the unique human you are inside - check out my website at ingridyhelanderlmft.com
You can also get my ebook/workbook at:
calmyourworries.com

Transcript: Episode 1, Overthinking
Hi there, come on in. This is Seriouslyourself, the podcast and I'm Ingrid Helander.

Today in our chat, our conversation, I'd like to talk about and consider overthinking. Is this a term that's familiar to you, overthinking? Do you ever say "I'm just overthinking it," or "I'm so tired of overthinking, I can't stop myself." Yeah, a lot of people do.

I hear it pretty often in my office and I thought it'd be interesting today to step back from the worry about overthinking and the concern and that it's a problem and just wonder about this thing we call overthinking. You might even say we're going to kind of overthink it. Okay?

In my experience, when someone laments about overthinking it usually means that they're worried or concerned about something and they just can't push those thoughts away, right? So, therefore any thought about this concern, this problem is considered overthinking because they don't want to be thinking about it at all. So instantly we have a little definition in that it's a thought that because it is unwanted becomes too much, right? Something anything is too much.

So, it kind of plays out like this, right? A concerning thought comes up and you might as the thinker also feel anxiety in your body and then you find yourself criticizing yourself for those very thoughts and feelings that you're experiencing because maybe they're uncomfortable, right? They're unwanted. And the criticism inside which is trying to help stop the worry, stop the overthinking in fact may actually increase the sensation right? Both in your body and your mind because now you're feeling criticized and generally we don't like that feeling so much.

So the process then kind of creates this little feedback loop where you feel bad. You think thoughts that you're uncomfortable with, then you criticize yourself for feeling bad and for thinking those thoughts and you get more of them and so on. Does that sound familiar to you?

There are other types of overthinking. They probably have similar roots, but one is kind of hyper-planning. People will say, "I can't stop planning for whatever, a conversation, a vacation," um something that they don't want to do uh whatever it is that they can't stop that feature in their mind. And another overthinking type of thing is ruminating, or we might say obsessing, about maybe an interaction that didn't go so well or an encounter that you had that you didn't feel like you handled it exactly the way you wanted to and so because you maybe can't go back and fix it instead, you go over and over and over it in your head.

So one thing that's interesting to look at with overthinking is when it happens to people, I often hear "I'm fine until I get to bed at night or even an hour after I fallen asleep and then I wake up and I cannot stop myself." It's kind of like the conscious mind combs and the subconscious mind then steps in to think about something that's been bugging. The other time the overthinking can happen and people talk about a lot is first thing in the morning, their eyes are open or barely so and wham, that ruminating thought, that loop of criticism and anxiety will start and we're overthinking.

So let's ask a few questions here first. Do we really overthink? Is it actually a real thing? In other words, whoever decided what was the appropriate amount of thinking? And if we do, what are potential routes of that phenomenon, why would that be happening? I've heard many people in the last, oh, I don't know, decade or to say, "well this is a product of us having too big of brains," and there is some truth to that, but I think we can take it more personally than that.

Let's look at it a little more on a personal experience, but also zooming out of it. So we can see this didn't necessarily just start with one person, namely you. Is it possible you could have inherited a fear of too much thinking from your family or from society, is it necessary, important or is it just habitual to criticize your own mind and your thinking even by using the term overthinking? Is overthinking a flaw?

Let's imagine for just a minute that no part of you, including your overthought or your self-criticism is actually trying to harm you and I think this is true though, it can feel lousy and even if it can cause trouble in our outside lives inside us, these tendencies to do things that we find uncomfortable are always benevolent. They're trying to help you. They're trying to help you avoid a pain or a shame or something that feels far worse than what they actually might be causing (they think, these parts of us) when the truth is they're probably making things worse because they're not listening to the higher energy in the system which is yourself, you. So if we look at this like, maybe the overthinking is trying to help you and maybe it's kind of a learned behavior, right? Then let's not only overthink it, but let's feel it and get really, really curious and creative. It's just for fun. Remember it's just for fun.

Alright, so let's complete this sentence: Overthinking is a part of my life because blank, blank blank. Right, do it with me. Overthinking is a part of my life because... Some part of me believes it will actually help me. I'll figure it out this time if I just overthink it right? That makes sense, doesn't it? That a part of you would think if you keep thinking about it, you're certainly got to figure it out this time. Or how about this Overthinking is a part of my life because I was taught that my worries were silly and unproductive. And so those thoughts, those worried thoughts were always shut down in my system and in the outside world because they were unproductive. And so I couldn't ever actually resolve them, they just learned to circulate and recirculate in my mind. Or how about this one? Overthinking is a part of my life because I didn't have a lot of power to do what I wanted or to make changes in my life as a youngster. And so I learned to voice my powerlessness in this way of just ruminating and worrying. The worry goes around and around without any action at all. Or here's one overthinking is a part of my life because I'm a deeply feeling person who was taught that my feelings, especially those of anger or anxiety were a problem and they were unacceptable. Right? So I just shoved them down over and over and over again. And now what I'm supposed to be relaxed and my brain that says shut him down, shut him down is sort of offline.

Bingo. There they are. We could get even more curious actually, and we could look at the world, right? The eras of the world and society. And we could say possibly somewhere in my biology is the history right of the oppression of say women, right? Not just women, but we'll take women as an example. So women were not supposed to be thinkers or changemakers, right? They were set up at a certain point in history by the patriarchy just to serve. Their thoughts and feelings were discouraged and even persecuted. Overthinking in silence was all they could do, and when they appeared anxious or complained about their status, they were told later on maybe in the eras of history, that they were hysterical or some other equally diminishing term, right? So their thoughts and feelings were deemed wrong. And so any thinking in that context, societally would have been overthinking or we've all been mostly raised to process everything with our minds in Western society, right?

And we are to ignore as completely and as often as possible, the sensation in our bodies, Our brains have been the only trusted source of information and our bodies get dismissed in this way and poor brains, right? Our systems need to work with our wholeness, our mind, our body, our spirits, all sensation. And so this poor brain trying to overthink in an effort to solve a problem that it really can actually not know the answer to, right, because the information is stored in the body, that we've been taught very carefully to cut off. You know, there's so many possibilities for this issue that people call overthinking and I'm wondering what you've come up with. I'm wondering if there's little suggestions or wondering inside you, let's say, oh, I think maybe that's a possible route of my overthinking and maybe it's not overthinking at all. Maybe if I relax into it carefully and with a lot of patience and compassion for myself, I could learn something. So take a second now to really appreciate that you are a wise and complex being, your whole self has been set up for survival from the get-go and remember that you are always more than you know.

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives. If you just can't get enough and you'd like even more goodness, you can become a part of Seriouslyourself, the membership community. You'll receive a monthly magazine, personal gatherings and cool little treats delivered right to your mailbox, find out more about that on my website, ingridyhelanderLMFT.com. And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special. Our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Hollander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive pProducer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time.



]]> Thu, 27 Jan 2022 10:09:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 802 Do you consider yourself an "Overthinker?" Lots of us do. But what is overthinking, really? And is it truly bad for you or what? In this episode, we'll re-imagine overthinking - what are its origins? Why do some people feel plagued by it? When does it become a problem? Do you consider yourself an "Overthinker?" Lots of us do. But what is overthinking, really? And is it truly bad for you or what? In this episode, we'll re-imagine overthinking - what are its origins? Why do some people feel plagued by it? When does it become a problem? No No Welcome to Seriouslyourself! https://podcasts.castplus.fm/e/4n9z52v8-welcome-to-seriouslyourself Welcome to Seriouslyourself! 0 No No v07k8v50 Thank you for tuning in to Seriouslyourself, the podcast! Meet your host, Ingrid Helander, who brings her decades of experience as a family therapist and author to your everyday questions, problems, and wonderings. Learn more about her approach, which encourages you to question and wonder with genuine curiosity. Subscribe to Seriouslyourself, and start your personal journey toward living seriously yourself! Thank you for tuning in to Seriouslyourself, the podcast! Meet your host, Ingrid Helander, who brings her decades of experience as a family therapist and author to your everyday questions, problems, and wonderings. Learn more about her approach, which encourages you to question and wonder with genuine curiosity. Subscribe to Seriouslyourself, and start your personal journey toward living seriously yourself!]]> Sun, 23 Jan 2022 13:07:00 +0000 Ingrid Y Helander Ingrid Y Helander 251 Thank you for tuning in to Seriouslyourself, the podcast! Meet your host, Ingrid Helander, who brings her decades of experience as a family therapist and author to your everyday questions, problems, and wonderings. Learn more about her approach, which encourages you to question and wonder with genuine curiosity. Subscribe to Seriouslyourself, and start your personal journey toward living seriously yourself! Thank you for tuning in to Seriouslyourself, the podcast! Meet your host, Ingrid Helander, who brings her decades of experience as a family therapist and author to your everyday questions, problems, and wonderings. Learn more about her approach, which encourages you to question and wonder with genuine curiosity. Subscribe to Seriouslyourself, and start your personal journey toward living seriously yourself! No No