Well look at this.

It's Therapy Natters time again, another half an hour or so of two psychotherapists with some things to say and some stuff to share.

Hopefully things and stuff that is gonna hopefully improve your life somehow.

I'm Richard Nicholls, and as always my co-host here, Fiona Biddle is present too.

How are you doing, Fiona?

How's, how's life treating you, today?

Fine.

And it's a nice sunny day.

That's always a good thing.

Mind you, I, I tend to find, as long as I don't have to go out, if it's horrible weather, that's quite nice too.

There are no rules.

there really aren't.

I've met so many people who not just embrace the rain, which you have to in this country, don't you really?

'cause it is like about 33% of the time it is raining, if not more, But they actually look forward to.it.

They want the rain and they'll go for a walk, oh, it's raining great.

And they'll grab their big hat or their umbrella and they'll put on the waterproofs and they'll go for a splash and they'll just for a big long walk in the rain and they'll feel it and they'll hear it

it's quite something.

Greg was talking about playing golf this weekend with his father, and Louise was saying, choose the time that's less good weather to play golf.

So that we can have the nice time with the baby and everything, when the weather's nicer.

And I thought that made perfect sense.

'cause golfers in my experience, seem to love the fact that it's horrible weather.

And they, they like the moaning.

Well, that's just because a large percentage of golfers are men.

Who like a good whinge.

Well, they got, they got to moan about something.

'cause it's usually their own play that's something to moan about.

Well, gives them an excuse as well.

That, oh, it's not my

fault Oh that shot would've gone in had the green not been so slippery.

Defense mechanisms.

Where would we be without them?

cause we confabulate, we lie to ourselves and we believe our lies.

and I think knowing that humans do this and truly believe the nonsense that we tell ourselves, Round eyed.

Genuinely.

Yeah.

That's what I think and feel.

Yeah.

yeah, yeah.

So it, it, it isn't, and if we can do that, we need to steer ourselves in a particular direction.

because if we can lie to ourselves and believe it and it feels real, What else are we capable of?

If there's somebody you want to be, if there's a character that you want to play, if there's a personality trait that you want, it is achievable.

Not everything is set in stone, your personality isn't really written in the stars.

Sorry.

Um, astrologers that research fell apart a long time ago, and it's just we've never been able to get anything accurate outta horoscopes, unfortunately.

there are aspects of the self that are not changeable, but personality traits absolutely.

We we can change and be somebody different.

We wouldn't have a job if that wasn't the case people tend to come to therapy because they've had things that have happened to them that have nudged them in a particular direction and given them personality traits that make them unhappy.

Well, if that's the case

Most people listening will know of somebody who's gone through something in life.

even giving birth as a really sort of nice example.

And they change, they become a different person.

yes.

When they've taken on a new role, but it could be something traumatic that that happens and, and people become something different.

But yeah, therapy and just choosing to,

Yep.

and I know that sounds, it sounds really simple, doesn't it?

We'll just choose to be somebody else.

you can,

choose to be new

yes.

But that's where it starts.

It's not that simple.

And it is a long path to take to become a completely different person

But, but some, some things that, I mean, I, I've probably said this before, but I would do homework at the last minute, I think I only once didn't do it.

And then I got detention, so I didn't do that again.

But then when I studied therapy, then I decided, literally just decided I'm not going to be that person.

I'm going to be the one who reads everything and I'm going to be.

the one who does it properly and do the assignments at the right time.

The, the time.

That's helpful to me rather than any silly belief structure of, oh no, I do it.

I do it this way.

No, I'm gonna do it that way.

And that was easy.

It was just a decision.

you found a way, that didn't work and it made you unhappy and, and maybe guilty or

Just, just, just,

with yourself or.

yeah, it just didn't, it didn't feel good.

So I changed it to a way that did feel good, easy.

Yeah.

it to make that decision.

What isn't easy is repeating it until it becomes real

yes, and I recognize, I'm giving an example that something that was easy.

Other people might not find that easy but, you know, that's what, therapy and programs like Evolve To Thrive are there for to help you get through the stages and look at why something hasn't stuck or the barriers to making the change.

You want to make.

we, We do have to look at those barriers because as a lot of people when they're training to be therapists,'cause it's quite a long psychotherapy anyway, and counseling, it's quite a long road.

Years, people's personalities change, in that training, it might be three or four years and it might be.

gentle,

But you change

because even their values can change'cause they're given loads of information that they didn't have before that helps them to understand other people and the world, and they change.

I've seen that in, in therapists in training.

But people need to know that they can change, that they are plastic, as the the word is plastic nowadays, people tend to think of it as being something rigid and solid, but plastic means shape.

You have plasticity

We are not talking Lego plastic

No, it is more, Play-Doh.

Pla.

Yes.

yeah, So people are Playdoh not Lego.

Yeah.

Stick that on a t-shirt.

So if somebody does want to change because they've got to a point in their life where they've realized this isn't who I want to be, this isn't how I want to be.

There's things about me that need to change.

What do we need to do, Fiona?

Well, guess what?

We are getting to our topic.

cause this is about modeling.

Looking at other people that you know or you know of.

Doesn't matter how well you know them at all.

But looking for people that you admire or people the opposite.

And we treat those two differently.

So we've got sort of positive modeling and negative modeling, but let's do the positive first.

So that's to look for people that you admire.

So anybody who's listening to this just have a think about whoever just pops into your mind as to somebody you admire.

It doesn't matter if it's somebody you know, somebody you know really well.

Uh, somebody you've got a vague knowledge of, the person down the road or, um, somebody you used to work with or whatever.

It could be somebody famous.

Or it could be somebody fictional

even.

It could be somebody fictional.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So anybody that you admire.

And then the process is to think obvious really, what is it I admire about them?

But this is where it gets sort of a little bit more complicated in that it doesn't matter whether that's real, it doesn't matter if they really are that thing

Hmm.

and.

somebody on a pedestal.

It's fine.

Yeah.

And in this, in this context, we are putting people on pedestals and it also doesn't matter if other stuff about them you don't like, so I'm hesitate to even say it.

But you could put Hitler as somebody that you admire for his oratory.

Yeah.

and you just, it, it's hard, but just using it as an example, obviously, uh, because It doesn't matter about the bits you don't like about, and what you are looking for in, in this positive modeling is the thing you do admire about somebody.

Yeah.

I had a student once we were doing this exercise and, and she said that the only person that she could think of to model positively was Jesus, because everybody else has flaws.

She hadn't got this bit.

About the fact that it doesn't matter if they've got flaws.

And it also doesn't matter if those bits are real or not.

So you could be admiring, somebody who's on TOWIE or anything, and you might be thinking, well, this person's really authentic and sincere.

And, in touch with the world and good at communication, for example, they might say that about someone.

That person might not be any of those things.

It doesn't matter.

It's what you are seeing.

Yeah.

So you go through that process and think, what is it about that person that you really like?

And there are typical people who pop up when we say this.

It used to be Richard Branson, but he sort of, yes.

So, so many people would say Richard Branson when doing this modeling exercise.

Huh?

The sort of free spirit and successful, that sort of thing.

I mean, he sort of faded out of the zeitgeist, I guess, a little bit.

Um,

he was certainly a, a, confident, charismatic character.

yeah.

Who didn't, who, yeah.

He didn't, follow all the rules.

He, he found his own way.

and he went to jail because of it.

Did he?

Tax fraud.

Yeah.

That was when he was young.

It was when he is very

Oh, right.

was bit of

I didn't know he actually went to jail.

we'll let him off.

He's a charismatic character.

Another one who would still be current people would often come up with is Stephen Fry.

And he's been in trouble, he's been in trouble, he's been in jail.

Yeah.

So there's, you know, we don't have to take Stephen Fry's credit card fraud as, as part of the bit that we are admiring.

but we can take the other stuff about him.

we can, well, I can because he owned his mistakes.

Apologized for it and dealt with it and said yeah, I'm not gonna talk my way out of it I did it.

Barack Obama often comes up.

He was one of the first people that popped into mind when you said it.

Was, There was, three, but yeah, certainly Barack Obama, there's something about the way that he would speak, the compassion that he had, the understanding.

Yeah, I admire that very much.

but then we have to recognize that what we are saying here is what we feel and so on.

Other people would come up with other people and, if we think about our friends across the pond, lots of them would put Trump there as one of the people that they admire

Mm-hmm.

Now, most people on this side of the pond are more likely to put him in the other camp.

Yes.

That's interesting.

most people would put him in one or the other.

He's rather divisive.

Let's say he's a divisive character.

very much so.

But there's something very non British about him, despite his slightly Scottish roots.

I dunno how far that goes, but there's an arrogance that doesn't feel right this side of the pond, does it?

And some might admire that, that confidence.

They might not see that as arrogance.

They see it as

Yeah.

He's just asserting his, his, his beliefs, he's asserting his opinions, and that is something to admire somebody who can, who can stick to their beliefs.

But what I admire in people is the ability to examine their beliefs, And if they're wrong about something, own it And go, oh yeah, that was wrong.

That, that, that right at all.

I, I made a big mistake there.

obviously the use of language with regards to women and his behaviors in that context.

I would hope that most people would have him in the negative.

But let's, let's talk about that negative side, because we've got the positive and finding out what, what it is that we are admiring about people.

and then if we look at the negatives, thinking about people you don't like, and Trump would often be up there for Brits anyway, moment.

And quite a lot of Americans, of course.

But again, it's to look at what it is that you don't like about somebody.

in this context it's saying something about your shadow side.

So the shadow being a Jungian term for the stuff within us that we don't really want to recognize or look at.

It is important to recognize that some of our shadow stuff is things that we fear.

Rather than actually being, so we could have, all sorts of, negative elements to the self that are in the shadow.

Like, you know, being lazy or being arrogant or being judgemental.

All sort, all sorts of things that we might not want to be admitting to and sort of want to keep them away.

But there's other things that we are just not, but we would just so hate being.

Mm.

that they're there in the shadows, sort of.

Oh God, no.

No, no, no.

so it's that they're either there to some degree or they're things that we would, fear being, so it doesn't mean that if you, if you hate somebody, then that means you are that thing.

Mm.

just means that that's so contrary to your values that you don't want to be It So

it.

it.

stay away.

you, it shows you your values, It shows you more about who are.

When were talking there about Donald Trump and the aspects of him, that I don't like It's the pain that he might cause other people.

The unfairness that some of his speeches have created such agony and fear in people.

I don't, I wouldn't want to create those emotions in somebody else.

Now, some would, because they wanna feel powerful.

They, need that.

I don't, that's not a part of me.

One of the things that I dislike about him is his seeming obliviousness to what he's causing.

And It.

It is something that I would fear.

I stop couching this In soft terms, Fiona, this is something I fear that I might sometimes not see what's going on for somebody else.

as a therapist that is the right value to have.

Yes, I dunno about you, but there are bits of me that are more prevalent when I'm a therapist than when I'm a real human being.

So, the empathy might slip sometimes when I'm not wearing my therapist's hat

yeah.

Yeah.

and I can get a bit judgmental But you know, We we're human beings as well, and so it's, it's okay, but it's this process of examining.

So there are things about others that we dislike because they might poke a button in us that says, this is a part of you that you don't like.

Yeah.

And there are gonna be things about other people that we do.

admire and we do like because we want that part of us to grow.

So if I think about people that I do admire.

People who have characteristics that I maybe wish I had.

It is gonna be different for me than it is for many of the listeners.

For me, I'm interested in performance.

I make podcasts.

It's what I do.

I work on the stage.

Uh, It's, it's what I do.

And to have that skill of communication.

Calm, because I speak quite quickly.

My brain runs way too quick and sometimes things fall outta my mouth way before my brain has said stop.

And although I'm quite, I'm not, I don't embrace it.

I don't mind it so much anymore.

I I don't have any shame about that anymore.

It's just who I am and that's fine.

I'd like to speak slower, calmer, which is why I like the hypnotherapy work that I do'cause I then deliberately change state.

I become somebody different and go, okay, now just slow

So that's good for you as well as for the client.

It is.

yes.

Yeah, it, is, it is.

I, I enjoy that.

so yeah, I admire people who can speak confidently, calmly, assertively, And I think that's why Barack Obama jumped out at me When I was a youngster it was Billy Connolly.

a very different style.

Yes.

very quick.

Very, very tangential.

And I think maybe there were things in him that I admired because I saw them in myself too.

But he could do them with great skill

actually, that's a point there is the idea that if you are seeing something good in somebody else, you must have a bit of it in yourself in order to be able to recognize it in the other.

That makes

So, you know, we are not going to admire somebody else that's just completely not who we are.

It would just pass us by.

Yeah.

Yeah,

too much of a clash Yes.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And I think maybe that was that was the case about Billy Connolly, that he could tell a story and entertain and do it with such authenticity, even though it's an act.

Billy Connolly had a phrase.

I'm a liar for a living, and He would say on stage because he knows, and the audience knows this is an act.

He's telling a story that probably didn't happen.

Or exaggerating something small for comedic effect.

And there was a big part of me aged nine watching that sort of comedy going, I wanna be that.

I want to do that.

And there are, there are several who specifically have done that.

Al Murray is one, you know, he, that's his pub landlord is completely an act.

It is not, not him at all.

Jimmy Carr as well.

Jimmy Carr, um, James Acaster, I saw him, um, live and then I saw him when I was leaving and I thought, oh, completely different person.

Completely different.

He was just a normal guy.

He was leaving not this wacky person stage presence.

And there is it, Stuart Lee.

Oh, yes

It's this exploration that's really key.

Finding things about yourself that you could be more of.

And, then just doing it, maybe getting some help to do it, but you can just do it and finding things that you fear being or don't want to be looking then more extensively at why do you not want to be it?

What's, what's the problem?

And quite often there is nothing actually wrong with the things that are in our shadows.

yeah, I mean, obviously there are, there are some that, you know, we would, would want to keep away, like feeling murderous intent or something.

But you can still look at it and think, why, why am I feeling that?

But a lot of the time, there are things in the shadow that really aren't bad anyway, like being arrogant.

That's a thing that you need to work with and deal with how you do it.

You can come home from a day at work and sit with your cup of tea or your glass of wine or whatever it is, and feel really good about what you did today, you don't need to worry if that's arrogance or confidence, just go for it have it, it's okay.

But you might not want to be behaving in such a way that it's showing, that other people would say that's arrogant.

But then it also depends on the circumstance anyway.

You know, if you, if you're not arrogant when you just won a, an Oscar or an Olympic gold medal,

Yeah, there's a time and

there's a time and a place.

proud of

Yeah.

as long as you don't make somebody else feel stupid.

Exactly.

So these are all, yeah, they're all in combination anyway, but I think with the, you know, finding out what's in your shadow, it's, it is to, to lessen the fear of it, become more accepting of it.

and yeah, just exploring.

Yeah, I, I remember I've had this a couple of times over the years where clients will come back for a session and they'll talk about an experience they had and how they were challenging, how they were behaving, and what they were doing.

And, and they was, and they're said to themselves, what would Richard do in this situation?

And they bring that into therapy and say, well, you, you, you're clearly doing something to me because you popped into my head and well, would Richard do?

And I have to go, whoa, you don't really know what I do.

You might know.

This is what I might suggest or might offer some ideas, but you don't know what I might do.

They go, I know I, you'd be able to handle that better.

Maybe, but maybe not

but it's, it's a perfect example really of, of how it doesn't matter what you would do, it's what they perceive you would do.

And then they can model that and do it that way.

I, need to do this in terms of the gp.

I need to find somebody to model, think, how would so and so deal with that and then do it.

but nobody's, nobody's springing to mind at the moment, but I'll work on that.

Helen Mirren popped into my mind.

Oh.

I've only seen a handful of interviews with her, but she seems quite a a confident, assertive.

I know my mind and these are, these are the things I need to say, sort of character.

I'd step that.

Yeah.

I, I have a feeling that.

she might be a bit too forceful for what I want,'cause I do not want to upset said gp.

So it's a difficult balance.

Fair.

Yep.

Yep.

Absolutely.

balance,

So, how do we do that How do we embody the characteristics of somebody else that we admire and begin to become a bit of that?

I would say, Awareness.

but thinking about it and then just going for it.

It's not gonna be perfect.

But I'm quite a big fan of sort of putting yourself into a, a state before you mentioned about going into state when you are doing your hypnosis.

I often, think of a bubble around me and I have different colors for different states that I want to be in, so I'm not doing it anymore.

But when I was doing conference presentations, I'd have a particular color bubble that represented the state that I wanted to be in whilst I was presenting if I was going into a difficult meeting and a different color bubble.

Represented a different state, so perhaps that's what I should do.

But I need to find, I need to find the person to model first.

Maybe Helen Mirren.

It's not quite resonating, but I'll find it.

So then just bring it into the self.

and we do that by looking at that person's body language, maybe copying it.

And, And, that's okay.

You're not, pretending to be somebody you are not.

You are learning how to be somebody you want to be

Yeah.

like a 2-year-old would do.

I remember when my son was very young he wanted a hat and I used to wear hats.

Oh dunno why.

I went through a phase of wearing hats.

Maybe it was when I started losing my hair, I thought, I'll wear a hat instead.

And he wanted a hat and we found one in the h and m or whatever it was, and he wore it.

We walked around the town and I said, out of interest, why the hat?

He was very young.

He must have been six, something like that.

He went, I want to be like you.

I'm like oooh.

Not all of me, I hope.

But there were bits of me that he admired.

yeah.

'cause he doesn't know anything else.

Hopefully I'm a good guy and set him on the right course, but what wasn't, the 6-year-old doesn't know what's right and wrong.

They have to look externally to learn how to be

And children are modeling their parents and significant caregivers because They have to what else are they gonna do?

They've got to.

Because they've gotta learn from somewhere.

But that neuroplasticity, that ability to change our brain, that doesn't stop.

No.

When we're 21.

Otherwise people never be able to recover from a stroke and they can.

But guess what?

It's hard.

And the way we deal with strokes nowadays has changed.

You go back 10 years, 20 years, somebody would have a brain hemorrhage.

Neurons would blow.

That's it.

Those neurons are dead.

And half of their body just goes down.

Well, That's it.

That side doesn't work anymore.

And what they used to say was Right.

You were right-handed.

Now you've gotta learn to be lefthanded'cause your right side doesn't work.

So we've gotta put a lot of effort into learning how to use the left side.

They don't do that anymore.

Ah.

Instead the side that isn't working, they try to make you use that side because your brain will rewire itself.

And you will get those skills back But only if you force it to.

Only if you make it.

What they do is the side that does work, you strap it up, so for a few hours a day.

Gosh, do they?

I didn't know that, but yeah, people do Um, my father had a stroke a couple of years ago, and I've seen that in him.

and he's, he's fine with me saying this, by the way, so, I'm not talking outta turn.

he didn't bother.

I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't, um, one side or another.

It was in the middle.

It was the pons of the brain, so it was in the middle.

But he didn't put the effort in to regaining mobility.

and, you know, that's, that's the choice.

I mean, he was 90 when he had the stroke, So you know, give him a break.

By the way, you have inspired me, because you're talking about learning Welsh.

I've, I've downloaded Duolingo now and I'm learning Ukrainian.

Ooh, nice.

Yeah.

it's nicely done.

They do the praise levels nicely as well.

yeah.

I like It, it is fun.

so, if we can learn language at 63, If we can learn the clarinet at 65 and people can.

And people do.

we can learn.

confidence,

Yes.

learn assertiveness, We can learn to feel the fear and do it anyway.

'cause I think that's where a lot of people need.

Yeah.

cause people will come to therapy and say, I don't wanna feel anxious anymore.

Oh, humans do.

You can't switch it off completely.

You can learn to do anxiety, right.

Yeah, I like that.

Yeah.

I mean, Soren Kierkegaard said whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.

Ooh, nice.

Now these talking specifically about existential angst, but I would believe that he would think that's about any sort of anxiety.

So if you're going on holiday and you get a bit anxious as to whether you're gonna remember to pack your passport, well that's okay as long as you're not awake all night being anxious about whether you've packed your passport when it's in your bag by the front door.

Yeah.

And if somebody's anxious about going into a difficult conversation or a meeting or job interview or something like that, That's the right feeling have.

That's a normal human feeling to have.

Like I say, a lot, nothing's a problem unless it causes problems,

Actually to not have anxiety in a lot of situations is going to be detrimental.

Like you'd forget your passport

yes.

you wouldn't get your speech right.

Or you'd be late for the job interview

Yeah.

it was obvious that you didn't care.

Yeah.

So anxiety's okay.

Yeah, it is.

and if there are people out there who you admire, who can feel the fear and do it anyway because they maybe stand on stage and they show themselves to be somebody who is, in my mind, I'm thinking of the assertive, confidence, calmness that can come from people like Barack Obama and that wonderful video by Sir Ken Robinson that he made years ago.

Still the number one video on Ted, I think still the most watched one all these years later about education.

So funny, so eloquent.

Ah, I wanna be him.

but then, Okay.

Well, how would he handle this situation?

What would he say?

and step into that kind of character.

Close your eyes for a moment and think, What would they do?

Put a bubble around you.

Give it a color that represents how that person would be.

What color would Ken Robinson's bubble be?

I'm thinking of a.

to me it's a, it's a light red, sort of a salmony pink for some reason.

Yep.

It was to me as well.

Huh?

I hadn't quite got there.

It was sort of, it was red, but no, that's too much.

It's not that.

It is not that much.

that's what I thought too.

I'd step into that.

I mean, if you want to really go into the imagination, you wanna do a bit of hypnosis with this, then Yeah.

Spend a bit of time relaxing.

You've probably been, if you're an Evolve to thrive um, subscriber.

By the way, you've probably been practicing a bit of self hypnosis, by now.

I hope'cause it's a good idea to.

Get into that state, into that hypnotic state.

Relax and imagine you are that person.

Step into their body, step into being them, and how it feels to be in their body, their movements, their actions, the way they hold themselves, the way they use their voice.

You can do that.

It's just a trick of the mind.

It's just a daydream But the brain doesn't know the difference between fact and fiction, you can neurologically change by pretending to be somebody else in your, in your daydreams for five minutes a day.

And we know that, we know that from mental rehearsal as well.

So you know, there's all sorts of studies out there that show that people who practice basketball, throwing the ball in hoop.

If they mentally rehearse that, then their results get much better.

Gymnasts, Golfers, Dancers.

Actors, they close their eyes and get into,

when I did trampolining as a teenager, I mean, I'd never heard of the idea of mental rehearsal, but I did it

hmm.

every night in bed.

I was doing my routine in my head

Mm.

back, straddle seat drop half twist was tuck back, straddle front.

There you go.

There you go.

Yeah.

but I was doing, so that's just the words, but I was doing those in my head

yeah.

and helped

It does.

I didn't know,

Yeah.

There we go.

Well Fiona, we need to finish off and let these get on I was gonna say their Wednesday.

'cause Wednesday when these episodes come out.

But it could be a week

If you, if you said, if you said it was Wednesday now I'd probably believe you and get, get terribly confused.

'cause it's not Wednesday

it's Friday morning, afternoon,

Yes.

I was leaving it up to you to tell me what day it was then.

I dunno,

Okay, well whatever it is for you, boys, girls, and everybody out there in listener land um, I hope you have a good day, a good week, and we will be back next week, another episode of Therapy Natters.

So

we'll see you then.

Okay.

Bye-Bye.

bye