In a day and time where everyone is looking to get social media attention, we discuss the topic of How to Accept Yourself. They look at how addressing this can help you attain the goals you are trying to attain in therapy. While this seems simple, there are barriers that you will face with trying to deal with acceptance of yourself. After addressing the barriers, the panel provides some solutions that you can use to help you.
Tune in to see How to Accept Yourself Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- Do you really like yourself? Why or Why Not?
- What makes it hard to overcome the critical self?
- Do you know how to achieve self acceptance?
- This question is a common theme with a lot of newer clients.
- What are some goals that people try to achieve when starting therapy?
- Imposter syndrome relates to accepting yourself.
- Psych Central has an article about why self-acceptance can be so hard.
- Self-Acceptance is a lifelong journey.
- Another good Psych Central article about How to accept yourself in 8 steps.
- Remember…You have permission to feel good about yourself.
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Episode #205 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello everybody, to Through a Therapist’s Eyes. This is November the third, 2022. When we come to you. Yeah. Arrived. You see that? That wasn’t bad. Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely not bad. . So, hello, we are, tonight we’re gonna be talking about how to accept yourself. Is is the topic that we’re gonna be kicking on with?
We’re gonna be missing Kasie, Unfortunately, we are. We are. Yeah. Her acerbic wit the the what? Her acerbic wit. Acerbic wit. Oh, has it. Holy cow. Twice awards. That is fantastic. What is acerbic?
John-Nelson Pope: A Ceric is kind of a biting wit, but not in a
Chris Gazdik: negative way. A positively biting wit is what?
John-Nelson Pope: Sharp. Sharp wit.
Chris Gazdik: Sharp, witty.
Sharp and witty or sharply Witty.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, sharp and witty and sharply witty.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. That’s cool. You had to, I love, I love new words. That’s [00:01:00] a, that’s a good one for us.
Victoria Pendergrass: I wasn’t quite sure where you’re going there.
John-Nelson Pope: Hey, you gotta understand, I, being a baby boomer, we had a Reader’s Digest vocabulary words for our English course from the seventh grade to the 12th.
Wow. Cool.
Chris Gazdik: Impressed. We said, Well, and I know you’ve done a lot of academic work. Taught. And you know, you’re like the professor. He’s the pope. He’s the professor and therapist. He’s the preacher. It’s a lot of stuff. Yeah. The
John-Nelson Pope: professor and Maryanne ,
Chris Gazdik: I think her name’s Victoria though. Victoria. Anyway, we are missing Casey today.
So we’ve got our routines together. We’ve got our schedules together. If you’ve been following the show for a while, we’ve been kind of adjusting, trying to get organized around, you know, when we record and how that works. And unfortunately she felt ill so she wasn’t able to be with us. So we have Miss Victoria over there.
How
Victoria Pendergrass: are you? Hey, I’m good. I’m good. Just gonna apologize if you hear me cough. [00:02:00] It all throughout
Chris Gazdik: this. Have you and Casey been hanging out? No, I’m just kidding. and John, Mr. The Pope is here with us. How are you, sir? The Pope. A pleasure being here. All right, so think about these questions as we go in. The idea of how to accept yourself, it’s something that I think a lot of people think about and really get a lot of questions about.
Do you really like yourself? Why or why not? That’s an interesting question. And immediately you might think, Well, of course. But dude and duets, I’m thinking that there’s a lot of us that truly, really struggle on that on a basement bottom foundational level. Also, what makes it hard to overcome the critical self, because that’s something that absolutely blocks us from liking, accepting and appreciating and celebrating ourselves.
Right? And then, do you know how to achieve this idea of self-acceptance? Cause we’re gonna be talking about it tonight. So through a therapist eyes where you get personal insights directly [00:03:00] from now, a panel of therapists and personal time in your car or home realizes not to deliver a therapy services in any way.
A contact at through a therapist’s eyes.com is where you can contact us, questions interact with us. That sort of a thing I’ve been talking about lately. We are switching, or Neil is teaching me adding to our platform of YouTube live, which is gonna be cool. Not available yet. Should be soon. Hopefully soon, somewhat soon.
Where you get to subscribe? Hit the little Blue Bell deal. I think it’s Blue Neil, right? No, he says no. I don’t know. That’s Twitter. There’s a, Oh, is that the blue bell on Twitter? I don’t know. . Neil’s just laughing at our ignorance. John tick. Tick. Is TikTok blue? No, TikTok is not blue. How about Snapchat, Instagram, Periscope?
There’s gotta be a blue bell somewhere. I’m telling you.
Victoria Pendergrass: I don’t know. I mean, there’s a blue check mark on an Instagram, but that’s all I can [00:04:00] think of.
Chris Gazdik: So re-understanding emotions and becoming your best Self is the book that I still have out popping out a new book sometime, I’m gonna say 2023. Is that the goal you’re gonna put for yourself?
Oh yeah. It’ll be out 2023. Sure. Okay. Apples, iTunes reviews are really helpful for us. Five star reviews, all that kind of stuff, guys, this is a human emotional experience, which we endeavor to figure this out together. That is the deal here. So why did you say you were excited Miss Victoria, about the topic?
I thought that was cool. Like what, what? We didn’t go into it too much when,
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, I, you know, live, I just noticed a piece of like what this episode is referencing and I was just talking about that with a client this week. But I just think this is such like a, it’s such a big thing to accept yourself and so I think that it’s exciting to kind of talk about like the different aspects of that, how you get towards that.
How. What are some of the barriers and the things that prevent you from [00:05:00] reaching that? So,
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting that you would say that because I sorry I got distracted there. I wanted to pull Facebook live. Neil, if you could pull it up. I, I would like to check that out on my phone anyway.
It’s funny that you say that cuz I’ve had this conversation like two or three times this week as well. As a matter of fact, it’s kind of why I popped the topic. I was kind of like, Dang, that’s one. And then I had it, I was gonna actually putting it on my list of show ideas and whatnot and I was like, Oh my God, it’s already there.
So, boom. That’s, that’s how we did this one, right? Yep. Which is maybe a good transition into the first segment that I wanna do. I feel like that in the context of this conversation or topic, Is this not a part of the therapy goals that people come into our office with? Like all the freaking time. Oh yeah.
Oh yeah. Right. Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: definitely. Well, and that’s usually the first one. We, we’ve got [00:06:00] three goals that we want to have. We do our intake form our, Yeah. And it’s to accept myself, to like myself, to to, to be able to be free. To, To to
Victoria Pendergrass: be me to be mean. Yeah. All that stuff. Well, and even like, I have a client right now who we’ve been meeting since August, and that wasn’t like one of her initial goals or one of the initial things that they said that they were like struggling with.
And it’s just now they’re starting to realize like, Oh, I think this is what my problem really actually is. Like, I think that I just like am having some self-esteem, some self-confidence issues.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. They’ve had to, they’ve had to dig right and dig to get to that point. To get to that point. And so they were doing a lot of superficial stuff.
And I, I see that with my clients.
Chris Gazdik: It’s, it’s funny, right? Because I thought when I was, when I was thinking about this, I listed out, I actually got on our intake forms and looked out mm-hmm. just popped until I started seeing [00:07:00] commonalities on, you know, and I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. Like what?
Presenting problems. What are the chief complaints? That’s what we call it in therapy world, right? Mm-hmm. . But what do people come in and say that they wanna accomplish is what those, what those things mean. Mm-hmm. and I listen to these things because if you, if you look at the things that I found listed and we’re, it sounds like we’re all really agreeing and seeing that, like underneath a lot of that, what you really get to is this foundational of like, do I really like myself?
And, and how do I get to a place of self-acceptance and battling through the barriers to what those things are. So here’s, here’s, here’s what I, here’s what I came up with. Deal with stress. I, I saw that oftentimes, Oh, yeah. In our chief complaints, communication. So look at those things and deal with stress.
Communication. How do you communicate if you can’t accept yourself and be in a good place? How, how do you cope with life and life around you if you’re not comfortable in your own? And your own skin. [00:08:00] Self acceptance, and then all the tools that we want to get. So they have healthy coping, anxiety, and stress management.
Right? How do you use skills? How do you even have conversations? How do you learn about the things that are going on? If you’re not comfortable in your own, like that’s, you get in what I’m saying, like, this is so
Victoria Pendergrass: foundational. Yeah. And the next one, decision making. Like that’s a, like making a decision if you’re not really confident in yourself and who you are
Chris Gazdik: like’s impossible.
And actually, somebody literally said, and I put it in all bold there, right? Feeling better about yourself was a specific therapy goal. I thought that was so cool. Right? Whoever that was. Whoever you are out there, I’m sure you’re listening. Fantastic. Starting spot for what it is that we’re, we’re trying to do, right?
Same thing with, you know, you said decision making, setting boundaries. That was another goal. Motivation. Feeling better overall about mental health, which is also an excellent therapy goal, by the way. Mm-hmm. really cool when I hear things like that. Lower [00:09:00] anxiety, managed depression, understand self.
Mm-hmm. , how do you understand self if you’re not dealing with this as, as an issue? Mental wellness, clarity, focused life life together. That, yeah, those, those are, And then it started repeating with a lot of the themes that I, I started seeing that people come into. Incidentally, just sort of a side note, what do you guys think about the goals you see when people come into therapy?
You ever notice things or think about that? Particularly you, Victoria was seeing some of the newer forms over the last couple, few months, right? Like, What people are saying that they want to do when they come into therapy. Because before, with kids and schools and stuff is a little bit
Victoria Pendergrass: different. Yeah, definitely.
I mean, a lot of times with kids in school, it’s just, I’m here cuz my parents send me up . You know, like, my parents wanted me to see you, which I mean, and then I get the occasional ones that are like, Okay, I actually know what I need to work on, you know, blah blah, blah. But I think I mean I see a lot of like repetition, repetition,
Chris Gazdik: [00:10:00] repetition.
You see a lot of reputations, Sorry of the
Victoria Pendergrass: same, that’s
John-Nelson Pope: a kind of bad reputation.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, Taylor Swift is like going on tour. So play, insert that song here.
Chris Gazdik: Listening audience as we get to know John , he evidently is the musical, the vocal musical person of the group. I love
John-Nelson Pope: it. I don’t know, I just, I pick it up, it just pops out
Chris Gazdik: before you know what happens.
I know.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. But I see a lot of repetition of like the same. They, I mean, anxiety, depression, and they may not label it those things, but like that’s what like it is, you know, like I really wanna figure out why I like shake and tremble all the time. Well, cuz you’re probably dealing with some anxiety like, you know mm-hmm.
So I see a lot of that. And then a lot of I’ve had recently in like the last few weeks or so, I’ve had a lot of people that just come in because they want to over treat their overall. Mental
Chris Gazdik: [00:11:00] health. Mm-hmm. , I think that’s what I’m getting at. I’m glad that you landed there because John, I’m curious what you see in so far as the length of time you’ve done this.
First of all, two points. One, yeah. We’re on a topic tonight of how do you accept yourself. Mm-hmm. , which is foundational to a lot of the things that you, you see people wanting to accomplish. But I’ve noticed this switch, Victoria, it’s cool that you landed. Yeah. Because now people are coming in a lot more with like, I just want to figure myself out.
Like really? Do you, do you
John-Nelson Pope: think part of that might be from the Covid pandemic? In other words that that part I would agree. Yeah. Y you know, you basically sequestered in your homes for at least six months, and some people a lot longer than that, and they’re alone with themselves and they’re looking in and inward and they’re thinking, I don’t like myself so much, or [00:12:00] Why do I feel so empty?
Mm-hmm. , they want, and they didn’t have the opportunity, They weren’t busy to fill their lives up
Chris Gazdik: with busyness. Well, it’s, it’s, it’s exploded mental health that it just exploded mental health issues. But I’m, I’m, I’m surprised a little bit, you, you think it’s, you sense that shift being. Much more recent, Only in the
John-Nelson Pope: last couple few years
no, I, I think it’s been going on for a while. I think people have felt alienated from themselves for a long time. It just exacerbated or, or made it more in intensified it. Yeah, I think, think that’s, but I think, I think you could, I’m so old, I remember let’s say nine 11, you know, in terms of what that did for us as a nation and,
Chris Gazdik: Definitely what really the world.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, it’s just, it, it’s been a process. I, I think in terms of, of our culture Okay. Has changed quite a bit. And,
Chris Gazdik: I guess I’ve changed my view a little [00:13:00] bit cuz I’ve seen a, a progressive increase in people that are really wanting to address their whole lives and improve mental health, understand themselves better.
Thus they’re getting more directly at this goal, which is self-acceptance, which was a foundational thing for a long time and what people wanted. But now people are kind of going there progressively more so maybe exploding. So in the last couple, few years, and I
John-Nelson Pope: think there’s, I’m gonna go back. We live in the age of.
Back when I was in college, it was the age of anxiety. We talked about that there were books that were written about this or the lonely crowd. And so there were people talking about alienation. Okay. Okay. And I think it’s only increased and it’s accelerated and it’s, it’s kind of a contradiction, but the more things that seem, that you would think would bring us together have actually caused us to feel more separate.
Feel more
Chris Gazdik: [00:14:00] separated. Exactly. Yeah. No abs and Yeah, absolutely. Which I think that we’ll touch on in shows to come particularly with the, the political trauma shows that I’m going to uhhi Well,
John-Nelson Pope: I, I, I’m, I’m traumatized from that too. .
Chris Gazdik: It’s, it’s, so, I may, I may say You’re of it,
John-Nelson Pope: man. It’s doctor. Doctor. Give me the
Chris Gazdik: news.
Victoria Pendergrass: But I think like, even on to add kind of what I. Was saying earlier is like, I feel like I’ve seen a lot more people my age, like my generation come in as like a preventative measure. True too. Yes. And so like in, I mean, that brings up a whole nother thing. Like what do I diagnose you like, I mean, I’m sure I can diagnose you with something, but like, they’re coming in literally so that they can, like’s unspecific, but
Chris Gazdik: so that they can, DW will let you know.
Victoria Pendergrass: But they’re coming in as like, like I have a kid whose mom literally signed her up because she’s like, I just wanna take precautions. [00:15:00] Like, I just wanna make sure that she’s set up for success with like, dealing with her emotions and, you know, all the kind of stuff. No, I think you’re right. I’ve
Chris Gazdik: actually done some premarital counseling
Victoria Pendergrass: lately.
Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Which, I mean, still think, I still think that leads into this topic of like, it’s refreshing. It’s very refreshing.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. That is, it’s very refreshing to, to say the least. So I do wanna also highlight the episode that we did 51, although Neil. I learned something. Maybe you don’t have to pick the mic if you don’t want to, but evidently did you know man, like you can’t get to episode 1 0 4 and earlier on, all of our old podcasts are like not on Spotify and whatnot anymore.
Did you know that?
Neil Robinson: I believe Spotify wasn’t around like really allowing podcasts at that time, so we would have to go back and retro publish them. No, they de that would’ve been something before me.
Chris Gazdik: Is that
Victoria Pendergrass: true? YouTube is the same way. I think if, if That’s interesting. I’ve had other podcasts where I literally, like even on Apple podcast app, like I can only go so [00:16:00] far back that, and that could be
Neil Robinson: them taking it off to put in a premium section or something too, right?
Yeah. So, but yeah, they, I think because it was iTunes originally with you and Craig, I think Spotify was added on later. because Spotify is relatively new compared to some of the other ones that they
Chris Gazdik: used to. Oh wow. You might, I have to look. Yeah, we’ll have to look into that. So yeah, that’s,
Neil Robinson: that’s why cuz like, YouTube only has through certain versions
Chris Gazdik: of Spotify, which is important because I’m about ready to, to, you know, highlight episode 51.
And so if you can’t get it on Spotify before we get to it our website is really gonna be, It’s on the website. Yeah, yeah, exactly. What, what is our website? Through a therapist eyes.com . So that’s where you need through. Go through therapist eyes.com. What did I do? Victoria? What the heck? Or did you just have a, a coughing spell over there?
Re episode 51 was the imposter syndrome and that really fits really well. Craig and I did a deep dive on, does that even exist? What is it? How do you manage it? Mm-hmm. I thought that really kind of coordinated. A lot with with what we [00:17:00] do.
John-Nelson Pope: Well it certainly captured a lot of people’s tension. It seems to be something that The imposter syndrome.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I mean Oh, I did. It was very vogue.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Very vo. Even now I’ve noticed that more people are talking about it, like recently, like even on like platforms. Like I’ve seen like several, the imposter syndrome. Mm-hmm. like videos talking about it and saying like, Hey, this is a real thing. Like if you’re feeling this way, like you’re not alone.
Like other people feel this way too. I’ve literally just talked to a client about this on Wednesday. Yesterday. Oh, interesting. Really?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So that, We may need to, to redo that. You got your mic? What’s up man? Well, I mean, I’m
Neil Robinson: Imposter syndrome is that people find out that you’re fake and you look at social media.
Think about all the people that are out there that really aren’t real. And so it ties together cuz the idea is that, that fear Yeah. Low self-esteem of am I doing things correctly? Am I really, is someone gonna say as smart as I am? Yeah. Yeah. And so, well it goes hand
John-Nelson Pope: in hand. And I think you saw a lot of that with my elderly generation.[00:18:00]
You’d see people that would be in a lot of competition and they would really work really hard and they would say, How did I get here? And,
Chris Gazdik: I wouldn’t have thought that. Yeah, that’s that’s interesting. . Yeah. Say, say a little more about that. That surprises me. I didn’t, I didn’t see that well
John-Nelson Pope: when I was in high school, we were all very, that was a long time ago, but we were all competing to be number one and that’s, that was very, very important, number one.
Academically or athletically.
Chris Gazdik: And why did you find out interesting? Because with the connectedness that we have and the comparisons that we have now with really the social media and how everybody’s really knowing everybody else’s business all the time, and seeing a little dot on your dham phone, knowing where your friends are, it’s almost kind of like you, you literally are tracking it constantly as well as trying to compete.
So it, Well, I think
John-Nelson Pope: that’s interesting. I think every generation probably has its way of, of doing the same, of doing the same stupid stuff. I think that’s true. And comparing [00:19:00] yourself to other people who’s the most popular. He’s, It’s only we’ve got sophisticated. Ways of doing it,
Chris Gazdik: but it evolved. I’ll tell you where you just took me back to John is when I was in grade school, oh.
It was a horrible thing. So I was probably like the fourth or fifth grade or whatever, right? And they did these surveys. So we were learning about in math, you know, how to take the surveys and tabulate your findings and do your graphs and whatever. And all the people were interested is the most popular kid in the.
The most athletic sound person and that type of thing. So Tommy Burgo, Love you, man. You were a good dude. We’ve connected on Facebook, although not on Facebook anymore. He was like, I think voted the top popular kid or something. And there was this big, like, and then there was the rest of us. . Well, . And it was just about 20 years ago.
Didn’t you make
John-Nelson Pope: the list ? More than 20 years ago, maybe [00:20:00] 22, 23 years ago, there was a South Park episode about somebody that they would talk about who was the most handsome. The, the girls, the South Park girls had said that in one of
Chris Gazdik: the, the girls that were the most handsome. Is that what you mean? No, no, no.
The girls were
John-Nelson Pope: talking, talking. Did you see
Chris Gazdik: that episode? No, I’m just
Victoria Pendergrass: listening to what you’re saying. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: And so, and. And the guy that, I think it was Craig or not Craig, who was the one Craig was, was determined by the girls to be the most handsome and popular. That was a character in South Park, but the boys, none of them were on that list.
And so they were like crestfallen and their self-esteem just went all the way to the bottom.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Right. I mean, that was, that was late 90. Yeah, I, I think I can see that because, you know, isn’t that a major challenge, you know, in understanding what your place in the world is in relationship to other [00:21:00] people.
Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . And I hadn’t really thought about that in my list actually, Tommy, per,
John-Nelson Pope: but going, Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: right. And, and, but boy, that pressure that you got is not a new pressure that we put on, you know, people. It’s, that’s age old, isn’t it? Yeah. And that’s, Yeah, we had that, I had to measure up to Tommy Burgo somehow to make it on the list some, some way.
And you know, Gosh, that’s so unrealistic. Yeah. And, and, and difficult to do. I mean, he was, you know, he was awesome at basketball. I wasn’t yet anyway. Mm-hmm. I’ll say yet just to protect my ego, just a. So, so let’s switch over to, to that. That’s a good transition, John, too. What are the barriers, what, you know, I had the chance of pre-thinking this of course, but what do you think really leads into some of the things that really prevent us from getting outta place of feeling acceptable [00:22:00] in our minds or, you know,
comfortable in our own skin and Okay. With ourselves? And, and I’ll start us off because I, I have one that I think is so solidly clearly in my mind, head, head, and shoulders above the, the rest of the things I was thinking about. What is it? Incidentally, we have awesome show links on this, this show to check out a couple articles that I think will help you think about these things.
And, but it, it was one of the conversations that I had about this topic this week, and it’s having a critical person in your life. Mm. Okay. Right. like when you, other than yourself, when you have a critical person in your life that just diminishes things that you do, feeling that you do things right, like coming at you with feedback, and you could have done this that way.
You could of done that this way. Like, I, I really wish Casey we’re here because I’m gonna quote her and I’d love to hear her kind of [00:23:00] go into Right, right, right. This quote that I, I think is, is the bomb from her. And the quote is you, you, you don’t stop loving the person that’s critical to you in your life.
Mm-hmm. , you stop loving yourself. Mm-hmm. . Wow. And I think that’s her own thought, her own quote. And I wanna credit her with that because isn’t it brilliant? Right? It’s, I mean, Yeah. Pithy. Huh? It’s pithy. Pithy. Oh, we’re back to that word. You’re gonna have to explain what that, This different word. Oh, it’s a different word.
It’s concise. Okay. Pithy, piy. Concise.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Okay. So in other words, she said paragraph fools. And
Chris Gazdik: just with one sentence and like one sentence. Yeah. Right, right. And I don’t know about y’all, but that’s what we say South Neil. Y’all, y’all, It just came out, didn’t it? It means you all are yous. I guess I see this all the time.
I think it’s a very, very powerful [00:24:00] component of something that destroys like a cancer within the insecurities that we have get created by a, a, a serious level of critical sources in our lives. Especially when you have someone so close to you as to having, you know this go on. But you know, Being stood up dating you know, the, the tough things we were just talking about with listing things out from our peers, you know, the peer pressure doesn’t end when we’re adults.
We get. Information from all sorts of people around us that we wanna do things differently, We should have done this, should have done, That’s a key word, right? Mm-hmm. , I don’t know. I could go on rail with this. Do you think
Victoria Pendergrass: that that, so that critical person in your life, do you think that that, like they do that to others because someone is doing that to them?
Hurt people? Hurt people? Like how, Yeah, like how they say people that bully are usually also being bullied, but like, it’s usually like a, [00:25:00] you know, or,
John-Nelson Pope: or they’re playing tapes from years ago. Like, and in, in other words, things that they received when they were children. And then received a criticism and the person sort of internalizes it so much that the person becomes overly critical of let’s say another person that they love and they think they’re
Chris Gazdik: doing, they’re projecting it.
Someone else. That’s a key term projection. Go further with that though, so people know what that is. Oh,
Victoria Pendergrass: well, projection is just where you’re like, like how like a projector like takes something from a screen and makes it bigger onto like a wall or something. It’s kind of the same thing. You’re taking something that you have and you’re pushing it on like someone else or on other people.
Chris Gazdik: It’s key. Yeah. Really, really a powerful reality. That is a normal thing that we do in life, by the way. But so we all have elements of this, but boy, when that happens, [00:26:00] intent. That is a powerful reality.
John-Nelson Pope: And I’m also thinking that if a person has imposter syndrome or they’re having self-esteem issues, their super ego is getting into Freud,
Chris Gazdik: going back to Freud, and
John-Nelson Pope: Super ego is overdeveloped and not balanced, and their, their ego itself is not developed mm-hmm.
And so it’s not balanced out. So, and I think that may be part of, of an issue with them. In other words, they, they judge themselves very critically.
Chris Gazdik: It just Yeah. Kills self-esteem. It does, and it just crushes seriously a person’s soul inside yourself when you’re trying to feel good about yourself. Mm-hmm.
like, I feel like this is, A tip top number one, no doubt, like the, the biggest part of what prevents us from feeling good about ourselves. Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: and I think that people [00:27:00] that have that critical person in their life don’t realize that that’s what that person is doing. No, they don’t. Until, good point. Until they come here, or some, like, until they come to therapy and the therapist points that out, or like someone else points that out, you know?
Right. Like a family member, you know,
Chris Gazdik: someone, they’re just correcting me. They’re just parenting me. They’re just, you know, helping
Victoria Pendergrass: me. And usually that person is gonna make an excuse for Yeah. Like, Oh, they’re just trying to help guide me. Or they’re trying to, you know, help make me a better person.
Chris Gazdik: But because again, we don’t stop loving the person that’s criticizing us, Casey says, We stop loving ourselves.
You know, there was an awesome meme that really drew this out. I wish I had it. We put it on the show notes because boy, it’s a powerful one where, just a picture. Right. So if you could imagine this, how try to draw it out. There’s this man on the left who’s standing up and he’s just shouting. And you could see depiction of the stuff that they’re shouting at [00:28:00] this, this younger adult man.
And it’s a, you know, a loud picture of aggression. It really, you could feel it. And what this younger but adult man is doing is holding a shield. Mm-hmm. so that he’s kneeling down and in front of the younger man is a small child sitting on a. S chair and presumably watching a TV program or whatnot. And it, to me it was really, really a powerful depiction of like, you know, when you get this, this critical power coming at you to find a way to shield that, then you are going to project that less and care and love for the people that come after you in your life.
And obviously that would be the grandson. Mm-hmm. . Right? Did I do a good enough job? Is it’s, and
Victoria Pendergrass: well, I was gonna say that kind of transitioned into what I was gonna say, a barrier. Okay. Is what’s that? Is [00:29:00] that, I think a barrier is when you don’t have people to, like role model mm-hmm. , that like whole thing of self-acceptance and everything.
So like when, when you’re that child, when you are, you know, a kid of any age and you come from a home where your parents are not, Modeling self-acceptance and like self-love and you know, all those things, then it’s gonna be hard for you to like,
Chris Gazdik: Becomes generational.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. But, so the bravest thing that somebody could do sometimes is to come to a therapist office mm-hmm.
and, and be able to talk and take that first
Chris Gazdik: step. Indeed. Yeah. I agree. Totally
John-Nelson Pope: agree. And I’m also seeing that image, because I’m thinking about that may be part of the conflict that goes into a a, that all three of those people are rep could be represented in one person. In other [00:30:00] words, they might have the voice of a, of an angry parent or a teacher, or a scold or somebody, or a bully.
And they’re, and they are, Trying to be able to fight that and, and, and do that. And then the, the per the person as a child might be able to say, Okay, this is a new life. I’m gonna carry the wounds and the scars and the battle scars from, from receiving all that abuse. But it doesn’t have to go to this other part of myself, which is
Chris Gazdik: growing.
It’s a powerful gift. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a powerful gift when you find a way to change the progression of otherwise what you were talking about Victoria, with projection and the generational reality. Yeah. Doing onto those that you love, what was done to you so that you’re not a hurt person, hurting people.
Mm-hmm. , because that’s what we do. And God listening out there, if you’re think. Look, I don’t do this. [00:31:00] This is not me. Mm-hmm. guys. I hear the laugh. I know I’m laughing. Victoria, I’m not my mother. We all do this. This is something that happens naturally, automatically, just in being like who we are as humans.
So this is pretty universal. Some do it more than others. Right. And the powerful gift that you give is like you say, John arresting this process. Mm-hmm. . So, you know, critical people in our lives do not have to determine how critical we are to others, but it is if you don’t be, get purposeful about changing that.
Yeah, for sure.
John-Nelson Pope: And that’s the other thing, and that is that people don’t have the self examination. And part of therapy is to be able to help you find that. So if you have someone that was very critical of you as a child and you’re, and you’re raised with a very negative self image you don’t like yourself or you say, I’m too fat, or I’m whatever you, how you see yourself, you’re [00:32:00] actually seeing yourself at that age, I believe, and you’re seven or eight years old and you are very vulnerable.
You have to realize that you are gifted, you are an adult, and you can be powerful. And that’s not a false self-esteem. That is Right. That is just growing into your maturity.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. Yeah. We got casts that says the barrier analogy was great. Such a, such a protection. And she says such love. Mm-hmm. I mean, yeah.
Cas absolutely. Right on , did you see Adam’s kind of like put ’em on video? Hopefully we’re on video, by the way.
Victoria Pendergrass: I just saying like, kind of, Okay. So I was on Tech Talk earlier today and I saw a video of this mom and like her toddler, and they’re making like their little coffee or whatever, drink the kids obviously making like a kid friendly one, but she spills the chocolate milk.
Oh gosh. Goes everywhere. Doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t get a drop of it in the cup. . And the mom is calm, [00:33:00] says, you know, says That’s okay. Like, and they continue on, does not make a big deal about her spelling it like whatever. And someone stitched that video and brought up and she was like, Why did I have such an issue?
Like if this, if this were me, like the, my first thought was that my mom would’ve beat my behind, right? Mm-hmm. . And so, and then she said, she said, Now I think about every time I spill something as an adult, I become extremely mad at myself because of kind of how she was raised. Like how that plays out in your Yeah.
And so I think that that can kind of correlate to self-esteem. Like when you’re growing up and you have these things constantly, like, you’re not good enough, you’re not this, you’re not that be better, be this, be that. Then when you, as you become an adult, it becomes way harder. I mean, it almost becomes like second nature.
like when you, you know, these negative thoughts, all that kind
Chris Gazdik: of thing. The relationships that we have truly are [00:34:00] very important in this topic. I think we can agree judging by our comments, Right, Right. Like I don’t do a lot of inner child work. I’m really hearing now kind of looking at how life is like and how life you want life to be like that’s where I focus and I told people that on the first session every time.
But this particular thing, and think about it, it’s one of the foundational things like those early relationships are really profoundly important when we come to this. Cuz as you were talking to Victoria, I was thinking and playing off of that, you know, talking about a gift that you could give John, that you were talking about.
You know, I heard a, a pastor years ago shared the experience that he had, that he did exactly the same with his son. Mm-hmm. . And I’m pretty sure that his son will do with his son because this guy came home from. Wrecking the car. Mm-hmm. , that dreaded conversation with dad, Right. Dad, I [00:35:00] wrecked the car.
Those are horrible words for anybody to say, man or woman. And you know what? We probably all said them. He said, my dad grabbed me by the ears, pulled me close and said, Son, I love you. We could replace a car. I cannot replace you. Right. Bravo. And I know, right? Yeah. And he said what that did for him was wonders.
And of course, as I said, he did that with his son.
Victoria Pendergrass: And which that’s the kind of thing you would huge, you hope to kind of pass on, right? Yeah. Instead of the, you know, the la More negative. So what do you mean you broke the couch? What
Chris Gazdik: are you doing? Why do you spill the milk? What is wrong with you that you are not paying attention and you’re never on point?
Like, Oh my God, how many. I can just rattle off all these criticisms. Oh, yeah. And they
John-Nelson Pope: just see
Chris Gazdik: failure. I am, I
John-Nelson Pope: am a failure. I’m worthless.
Chris Gazdik: I’m not good enough. These messages are [00:36:00] poignantly built into our worldview about ourselves and what we try to do in therapies, rewire that. Right? And we’re gonna get to that with the segment for sure.
About how do we manage this. But let’s move on a little bit. The second one I came up with was insecurities, which is along the same lines. But boy, we could spend a lot of time on this as a barrier to, to what leaves us to struggle with finding self-acceptance. You know, we, we spend a lot of time on abandonment engulfment as primary insecurities.
I feel like. Yeah. As I do follow the EFT model. Think about it. Abandonment insecurities and engulfment insecurities, feeling judged. For the engulfment versus feeling good enough for the abandonment or feeling valuable for the abandonment people and not meeting other people’s expectations versus, you know, being too emotional, right?
Like the engulfment and the abandonment and the way that those things work. I’ve worked with that [00:37:00] model a lot, guys, and it, it drives our day to day interactions and gets driven more and more as our lives go on because we search out for these fears, you know, whether being devalued or whether being criticized from abandonment in engulfment respectively, and we find them over and over and over again.
And it, like circums, it just perpetuates itself. It, it cyclically gets wider and wider for us if we’re not purposefully managing that. And by the way, there are some healthy people out there that do, do that as a natural course, but there’s the other of us probably in that camp on a lot of ways. Don’t catch those things and just have it build and build and build.
Right. And until you really catch those insecurities, which is part of what we do in therapy Right. To reframe them and rekick at them. Right. Like how big is insecurities as a barrier to feeling acceptable? Well, I think it’s a huge barrier. [00:38:00] Oh, I’d agree. Yeah. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: I’d agree. I mean, when you have something that you don’t like about your, like that you’re insecure about, it’s definitely gonna prevent you from being able to accept yourself.
Chris Gazdik: Comparing ourselves, Right. Others. Yeah. Body appearance and job security and being cool enough and being productive enough and you know, lots of being enoughs come into. Realms of insecurities.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. I have a, I have a client that is wonderful, just absolutely wonderful, but he compared himself unfavorably with his siblings.
Oh
Chris Gazdik: yeah. Sibling rivalry. Oh my
John-Nelson Pope: goodness. And he, it’s really hard for him to see himself as someone that is as very talented, worthwhile. And part of that is he just, there’s that, that sense of emptiness that he has to be reassured. And part of my task, I think is to be able to, [00:39:00] is to help him be able to see his worth wellness, that he could find and identify those strengths that his siblings don’t have, his adult siblings don’t have.
He is unique and wonder.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. And, and, and you know, this is a natural thing which makes us stronger and makes us better. So, you know, I don’t want people to be too wild about like, Oh my God, this is damaged to me for life. No, it also makes you stronger, you know, with siblings and with families and, you know, parents that give, you know, correction and all of that.
But, but yeah, that can really go, like when I was listening to you mm-hmm. , I was thinking of my older brother. Yeah. Oh man. Like, I can get into some touch. I love you, Ronnie. You’re an awesome brother and we’re so much better now than we were, but. I was four years younger trying to keep up and getting just, you know, pounded physically as well as emotionally alive.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, academically. Academically. Oh, I crushed it. My, my, well , my brother crushed me. And but in math [00:40:00] and Mrs. Tinsley said, Well, why can’t you be as smart as your brother? Mrs. Tinsley was, she was teaching
Chris Gazdik: calculus . Right, Okay. Right. But I
Victoria Pendergrass: think something also that people need to realize that like, self-acceptance is like a lifelong journey.
Like I think it’s things like you have to, Oh, good point. Like, it’s not like how I tell people if you have anxiety, like you’re gonna pretty much always have anxiety, but you’re gonna become better with using coping skills and like, it’s gonna become easier, It’s gonna become natural. Like it’s gonna become where that anxiety is still gonna be there, but you’re gonna be able to cope with it better.
So like, self-acceptance and. Loving yourself is, I mean, I hate it’s gonna be a battle all the time. Like you’re all, there’s always gonna be things that kind of, that’s always
John-Nelson Pope: becoming, you’re always becoming
Chris Gazdik: right. We’re on a journey. Journey. Yeah. And you know what I, I, that’s two excellent points that you just made.
I’m glad you brought that [00:41:00] in our conversation because, you know, people do have a little bit of a, About, Hey, and when I get there, I’m, I’ve arrived, I’m good to go.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And that’s just not how it .
Chris Gazdik: No. Life will crush you at some point, even when you’ve gotten secure and built that up. I mean, it’s like such an awesome part of this conversation.
Yeah. And
Victoria Pendergrass: you just changed your viewpoint. Like I saw years ago, there was this post that went around on Facebook of this girl had this photo taken of her and she’s in shorts and she’s like walking with her friend. They’re like smiling, laughing, like you could tell they’re having a good time. And she looks that photo and the first thing she sees is like the cellulite on her thighs.
Right. And so, Oh gosh. You know, and so instead of thinking about like she wrote this whole long thing about it, but instead of like thinking about, Oh, I’m having the time of my life, like, we had such a great night that night. Like, look at our smiling faces and this photo, it’s such a great photo. Like she talks about how it took a lot of work for her to look at that [00:42:00] photo and not see.
The cellulite. Cellulite first. Like, you know, she had debated whether or not she was gonna wear shorts over pants, like getting ready for that night, you know, kind of thing. And so like, and you know what, So
Chris Gazdik: she focuses on that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Yeah. And so it took a while for her to then look at that picture and remember the good times that they had that night or whatever they were doing, instead of looking straight at like her cellulite on her thighs.
And you know what
Chris Gazdik: bothers me about that is, is, and I don’t diminish that at all, cause I think height and, you know, body size, body width, Our glass figure, makeup, hair. Mm-hmm. , I mean, it goes on and on and on. I think, you know, women have gotten recognized for, you know, crushing themselves with beauty and, you know, image and getting insecure about that.
High standards. Here’s my point, Dudes do too. Oh, mm-hmm. a hundred percent. You heard John, right? Oh yeah. You heard John. [00:43:00] Yeah. Like we don’t get that kind of credit though. Or I think, I wanna say maybe there hasn’t been as much progress and progression on relaxing that whether a person does or not. Like I, I, I feel like women have been better at helping, at least to diminish that and whatnot.
I feel like we’re still in the dark ages and people don’t even like to recognize we do it for dudes, for men, for your husband,
Victoria Pendergrass: for your, But you like look at yourself and see all the things that are Absolutely.
Chris Gazdik: What
John-Nelson Pope: we’re, We have them. The macho. Absolutely. And so we don’t, we don’t talk about this. Hell no.
No. We, we we tease at one
Chris Gazdik: another. We jab, jab, we jab, jab. You’re right. You know, figure out the best cutdowns we could give. And, and I don’t, it’s horrible. It’s just missing the point. Tears
John-Nelson Pope: us down. One of the things that my grandmother did, and she [00:44:00] was born in the 19th century, shows how old I am. Okay.
Okay. But she would say, when you were a little baby, John Nelson and yours, beautiful brown eyes. And she would look at my toes and my fingers and said, This is perfect. This is God’s creation. Yeah. Yeah. But we don’t hear that enough. We, we,
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah. I mean, it is my intention for, to raise my son to be able to like, look at himself.
And love himself. Yeah. And like I literally, this is so, this is so weird that you picked this topic cuz like even yesterday I was like talking to myself about how like he could do no wrong. Like I was just looking at him, like playing in his little playpen and I was like, he is perfect. Like he can do no wrong in my eyes, right?
Like there was not like I look at him and I don’t see any, even like his birthmark, like nothing about him. You’re seeing
John-Nelson Pope: him in all his [00:45:00] potential of what he is becoming and can become, which is same thing and it’s potential and is
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And he’s only seven months. He’s seven months in a day old
Chris Gazdik: like in that wonderful and you know, which it is.
Wonderful. And Victoria, I applaud you for that. That’s, that’s super cool that you can identify that. And, and in addition, I will say for parents out there that’s hard to do. It is because what, Oh, I’m not saying it’s easy, but, and it’ll get harder. And harder and harder as you move through a lot of the different stages.
Mm-hmm. , I would argue honestly about now is probably a relatively easy thing to do because they’re cute, they’re babies, they’re not, Oh, everything he says thinking horrible. Great. Mm-hmm. . And that will change yo. Oh. When
John-Nelson Pope: they’re in their twos and threes and they, threes are way worse than two. No,
Chris Gazdik: no, no.
It’s definitely terrible. Threes. Yeah. And you’re right. Have this, this battle that gets created and this grinding that gets created and as a very natural course of progression. Yeah. [00:46:00] What happens to self acceptance? Mm-hmm. .
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, and that’s what I’m saying, it’s a lifelong thing. Like you’re gonna hit these points where it’s going to the, the road is gonna get bumpy.
Chris Gazdik: Neil, did you have a thought? What you got? I just noticed the microphone. I have a
Neil Robinson: question about, So one of the things that Victoria brought up is that one of the critical things is you have to be better. How do you deal with self acceptance, but still the, not the idea of always improving your.
because that’s a big thing where you see that like, I may not be perfect, but I’m gonna try to be better the next day. Like, you have to have that goal to strive for something. Cause I feel like if you, I love the
Chris Gazdik: question. I’m gonna push a pause to us because honestly, the very first one that I have in my brainstorm about how do you overcome this and how do you manage things, actually directly addresses that.
To me it’s the, the, the self-esteem builder activity that I’ve talked about on the show. So it’s a perfect [00:47:00] question and, and I think we’ll, we’ll address there, but let’s get through this a little bit more. Is there anything that comes to y’all’s mind as far as barriers? So I think we spent a lot of time on insecurities and a lot of time on a critical source in your life and not having a model.
I think those are really the two biggest ones. I’m curious if you guys agree with that and then not having a model. I also thought about trauma experience, possibly divorce or unsettled family relationships. I think it’s a big thing on the list. How about this? A guilty conscience when you have a guilty conscience.
Just something we, You don’t have that at all?
Victoria Pendergrass: No, I do. I can’t do anything without feeling like I, like we’ve done something wrong. I accidentally took a pack of gum one time and I returned it because I felt so bad. You
Chris Gazdik: are
John-Nelson Pope: Bravo. That’s wonderful.
Chris Gazdik: The cvs. You have a point by that. John, you’ve taken this.
Not really. I was just give, I was, Yeah. I think that’s an issue that comes up about things that you’ve lived through and then how you lived that and relive that and you hold guilt about yourself and then how you were taught, [00:48:00] somebody was talking about teaching. I thought it’s important to identify how you’re taught to interpret, cuz you can have teachers that teach you in your life to negatively bias your interpretation or positively bias.
Your interpretation. The
John-Nelson Pope: other, the other math teacher that I taught my brother too, her name was Mrs. Patterson, and she helped me learn how to do quadratic equations. And I never thought I could do those. And she believed in me. And the difference was Ms. Tinsley and Ms. Patterson were both wonderful, wonderful teachers.
But Ms. Patterson drew out my strengths and built on that and didn’t compare me negatively to another person.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And again, what a gift. Yeah, it is a gift. You know, what a gift.
John-Nelson Pope: And so she was seeing all the potential that I could have for me. And so that’s one of the tough things that we have to learn in life is that, yeah, there’s [00:49:00] always gonna be somebody that’s better in terms of like in athletics or whatever, but there’s something that we can offer uniquely.
In our
Chris Gazdik: own lives. We’re seconds away from the segment of how to build up the self-acceptance component. But that’s, that’s one that, I don’t know if it’s on my list or not, but you know, do you have people around you realize you can have people around you actually, I know it’s on the list where, where they give you positive mm-hmm.
loving, guided feedback about you. Mm-hmm. and how crucial it is to have those people that teach you that. Mm-hmm. We used to have teachers that do this. I think that those relationships and schools have been diminished in a lot of ways. I was, I say I go on and on about how Victoria’s jumping in her skin
Victoria Pendergrass: on that, mm-hmm.
how so many, Cuz a lot of the clients I had in school were behavior issues. Mm-hmm. . And I think a lot of times it’s because that was the sole focus instead of [00:50:00] using the kids’ strengths to help them Exactly. In class, to help, to help them build and grow and get better and. Accept themselves more like they, the teachers just focus on the negative behavior and then they just beat, beat on that.
And then they, you know, and then before you know it, the kid is off to a specialized school for troubled kids or like, you know, are, they’re constantly in my office or they’re constantly getting ISS or oss or, you know, whatever it is. And I think it’s, cuz a lot of times the teachers, and I know they have a lot going on, so sometimes it’s not a fall of their own, but, focus on the negative and they like, Why aren’t you this?
Why aren’t you that? Why aren’t you like the other classmates? Why can’t you sit still? Like
Chris Gazdik: crushing? Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: I could go on and on and on about it. Absolutely. I think that that is a major,
Chris Gazdik: and we get that into the workplace as adults too. Oh, we have a Facebook Live quote or or comment that says lifelong [00:51:00] goal is always to learn and improve.
I mean, we get a lot of agreement about, about that. Yeah. So let, let’s move on to how do we build this? Or actually we don’t have time for the section that I thought important conditions in mental health have an impact on this, so we’re not gonna be able to talk about it. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: We could honestly do a part at this episode
Chris Gazdik: and a part too.
Part. Yeah, we probably could. Or should. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll cover it again in, in, in another, from another direction. And probably have already if I were to done a good review on all of our shows. Cuz again, this, this particular show is so foundational. It is. You know, But, but, but when, but I, and I’ve made the distinction on the show before, that people do have clinical conditions and it drives me nuts, John.
I hope, I think it’s gotten a little bit better, but people are afraid to label on our field. Mm-hmm. , they’re afraid to diagnose conditions in our field. And I, I don’t understand it. And [00:52:00] honestly it bothers me. Therapists listening out there, Listen, that is a part of our job that is literally a part of what we’re trained to do and very important that we get into doing that.
I think, and I know that’s a little contr. And I don’t like base what we do on a condition and all that. It’s not,
John-Nelson Pope: you’re not talking about pathologizing someone. You’re, you’re using this as a, as a tool in order to help just make it clear as, as it can be. What your body’s doing. What yeah, what the body’s doing.
I mean, there’s some things like bipolar, for example. Yes. That’s, that’s an organic thing that’s going on inside of you. It’s biochemical.
Chris Gazdik: So ocd. Ocd, just
Victoria Pendergrass: putting a name to it. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: exactly. I get, I get it. And I think people are terrified in our field to do that. I don’t really understand it.
Victoria Pendergrass: I really don’t understand it.
I think, I mean, it might be, this might be a whole other, I mean, I understand the arguments, right, But I mean, a lot of people, and I get this a lot in schools too, is [00:53:00] they were like a, a lot of parents would be weary of. Di of me diagnosing their kid because they quote unquote, like didn’t want them to, didn’t want that diagnosis to follow them throughout their life, especially when it came to something like anxiety or, you know, ADHD or bipolar or something like, and you know, and I get that, but I also get, like what John says is true, like people that have adhd, like they’re, that’s a biological brain neurological, literally
Chris Gazdik: it’s
John-Nelson Pope: wired different.
Yeah. The wet, the wetware is different. And I, there’s a, a, a survival strategy. I think nature gives us four ADHD
Chris Gazdik: people. I love that you guys are joining me and nailing
Victoria Pendergrass: this. Yeah. And so, I mean, I’m totally on board with, with John saying like, and what you’re saying too, I mean, I get it. We naming some of these things is literally just naming.
Putting it aim to something that you’re already experiencing, Right? We gotta get off of this
Chris Gazdik: anyways. Yeah. Sorry. [00:54:00] Yeah. I love the energy on that. And anxiety
John-Nelson Pope: is, is a state of being Yeah. Right. In
Chris Gazdik: the 21st century. So what I have created in my brainstorm was where, where we go with how do we really create this?
So what are the solutions? And I, I lied, I, I, I put a one on, if you see on the list in show notes I’ve created, I, I changed it. I wanted to have self care as the first the first on the list. Yeah. Self care I talk about as the cornerstone of mental health. Being able to prioritize yourself to make that a priority for fun, relaxing, engaging activities that are like hobbies.
They’re not self-destructive in any way and they’re not work related tasks. And that the way that for you for Yeah, not for someone. Nurturing. Nurturing. It’s nurturing to yourself. Allowing yourself that time and that space to disengage, I think is crucial to mental health and therefore crucial to a foundation thing.
Like [00:55:00] I accepting ourselves. Right. Is this huge? Yeah. And then, but then the other thought I had was a one that, you know, is this the first one? The, which goes back to your question, Neil, Earlier in the show, how do you want to improve yourself? Which we want to do that all the time, at the same time as accepting yourself with the idea of I have flaws.
Is that kind of what you said, Neil? Yeah. And, and I think this activity that I’ve created, I don’t know if I’ve, I, I created, I think, but somebody probably did it before me, that’s happened to me before. . You look at a list of things about yourself and you take ’em all off the list that are negative, and usually you just start out with one thing that you like about yourself.
I’ll, I’ll start out with clients. And then you choose one thing that you don’t like about yourself. Great. Mm-hmm. , you celebrate the one that you do. That’s a priority, that’s important. And then you look at changing the one thing, only one, not five, not [00:56:00] 10, not 20. People usually can list those very much easier than the things they like about themselves.
Just the one. And then you change that and you work on that and you manage that a little bit. Maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe months, maybe years. Then you have two that you like when you move on to choosing only one more and so on, it goes to where three becomes four, and you’re celebrating four things that you like, that you’ve changed, that you’re enjoying, that you’re celebrating, and only one that you don’t like, that you’re working to change.
And if you do this for a year or two and you’re really on board and on point with it, what do you think happens after you get 10 to one? Yeah, Chris, this
John-Nelson Pope: is a different exercise, but there’s that, that aspect. It’s really hard for people to name one good thing about themselves.
Chris Gazdik: I know. It’s
Victoria Pendergrass: unbelievable when in my, It is unbelievable, isn’t it?
But we do it. Yeah. In my assessment like that I do with new clients, one of the questions I ask is, Tell me your strengths. And I [00:57:00] standard somebody to know where they’re like, like amazing how people know. I don’t struggle with that. I don’t know. Like, I mean, and it’s all it takes. Sometimes they’re like, I’ve literally had people say like, I don’t know.
And they literally cannot tell me one good thing about themselves. That’s so, or one
Chris Gazdik: common one thing they’re good at. And makes me so
Victoria Pendergrass: sad because it, Yeah, and I mean, which is why I include it cuz it does get them thinking also too, like, you know, I mean then there’s a whole nother conversation.
Chris Gazdik: Let me pop you see if you can answer the question super quick.
What are three things you really like about yourself?
Victoria Pendergrass: About me? Yeah. I’m a good mom. I work hard and. I take really good naps. I
Chris Gazdik: love it. . I love the third one. Exactly. I’ll say, cuz I didn’t think about doing this. I just did that in a moment. I’ll say that I’m, I’m really persistent. I’m very doggedly, persistent.
I’m also flexible in finding different ways about doing things. And I like to laugh and, and I like to make people laugh. Those are, what are you, John?
John-Nelson Pope: I’m a good husband, a good father and I am [00:58:00] dogged. I am an advocate. I will fight for a person for, for something to help. For a cause. For a cause.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: I think we did good with that. My favorite quest to add onto that I will say is a lot of times if people give me strengths, Don’t benefit themselves. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. , no. They give me, or they give me strengths that benefit other people more than themselves. Like, Oh, I, I get you saying like, I’m a good mom.
Okay, well great. Do that for your kid, . Yeah. Like, that’s good for my kid, But like, So what about you? I had one person that was like Profounded. She was like, I’ve never even thought about, like, she listed all these good things and literally everything she listed was like codependant. Yeah. And I was like, Can you, And that was her homework for one session was like, Give me a strength that benefits you more
Chris Gazdik: than other people.
I like that a lot. You look like you have your, Yeah. He had a thought. No, no. I, I did
John-Nelson Pope: because I [00:59:00] was, I was thinking that as therapists, one of the gifts that we give, I think is we, we see the potential in people their strengths when they don’t see it in themselves.
Chris Gazdik: It really is. Yeah. We hold that a lot of times and I, I, I find that I do that, especially loudest Lee oftentimes, honestly, if loudest lee is a word, no, sure.
That’s a good in couples counseling mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Right. I find that a lot of times, particularly because people are so hurting and so late on the draw when you’re doing couples counseling, that you’re right, John, don’t we hold that up for a person or hold that in hope for a person as we’re working with them and, and then to begin providing that environment where they can contain that for them, for themselves in time.
Yeah. It’s, that’s really true. Exactly. So we learn to cognitively reframe as we talk about with C B T, the thoughts [01:00:00] and the critical things that we have. We use friendships for objective feedback. I think we mentioned that earlier. Mm-hmm. , we check anxiety beliefs with other people. Meaning that is a direct skill that I’ve kind of taught or suggested to people with anxiety.
Like when you have your anxiety brain going on, ask your friends, set it up. Let them know that you have that tendency, you know, to, to have negative critique of self. And check that out. Like, Victoria, I know this might be my anxiety, but I was thinking, da, da da da da, This is what happened, da, da da. And I thought, da.
And that, Do you think I’m on a, something important? And they will tell you, Ah, no. Or, Yeah, that’s something you need to pay attention to. But usually it’s gonna be, ah, no, that’s not, no. You know, that’s a, that’s setting up the use of relationships. Yeah, validating and good relationships. I wrote the feel good file, thinking about.
Things that you accomplished. Victoria, [01:01:00] you’re, you’re younger in the field. Do you have some things that you kept that, or accomplishments or school things or awards and this type of stuff? You have, you, have you built a professional file that way? I’m curious.
Victoria Pendergrass: I guess maybe in a sense, maybe, maybe not.
Yeah, I mean, like, I was in the Honors society for I, Yeah, yeah. And and so like, I kept all my, I was oh gosh, just to feel good. I, I can’t remember what position I held, but I held some position and I like kept all my stuff. I got a file
Chris Gazdik: with a letter somebody wrote me when I worked in, Into Crisis Hotline back in 1997.
Mm-hmm. Literally. Mm-hmm. . John, do you have anything like that?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, I do. I have one in my office.
Chris Gazdik: Perfect. Yeah. I’d love to check it out. We should celebrate them one day. We
Victoria Pendergrass: should. Well, I think I also, I mean, I also have stuff that’s not work related, that is like absolutely feel good stuff. Like I, Oh, I need to bring, I need to bring this in and show you.
But I had this professor in college who. Gave out like this certificate. If you went, if you went to Lenore Ryan graduate school, you’re gonna know [01:02:00] what I’m talking about. Okay. And and this professor gave out like this certificate at the end of her classes that was like, I give you permission to like fill all these things and do like, it was a feel goody thing.
I need, I can’t remember exactly what it said, but I have like
Chris Gazdik: held on. So this was like an activity in
Victoria Pendergrass: class? No, this was just something when you completed the class, you Oh. Gave you like this thing sort of a
Chris Gazdik: graduation from my class. I give you
Victoria Pendergrass: this and so, but it was like I gave you permission to like enjoy the things in life to be good at what you do.
Like all these good things. I’m gonna have to bring it in cuz I’ve kept it and like when I need, when I’m feeling really down or something about like how I am in life or career-wise.
Chris Gazdik: Something like, You got an important emotional message. Yeah. That we are re giving. Right now as we speak, as you’re listening.
Mm-hmm. , like you have permission. And sometimes it’s weird to think that, who the hell am I? You don’t know who I am and I don’t know who you are. I’m talking to a microphone and shooting it around the airwaves around the world. Right. But we [01:03:00] need that emotional permission to allow ourselves to feel good about ourselves and to celebrate the things that we do well.
And I
Victoria Pendergrass: that that’s why people come to therapy sometimes is because they need to restrain well and they need someone to tell them like it is. Okay. Yeah. To feel your feelings. To do, you know, to, Yeah. To love yourself to.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, I was just thinking the, the only caveat that I would say is, is that if you’re doing this to be a bragger or, or your own insecurity, that’s,
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
That’s different. That is
John-Nelson Pope: different space. I wanna make sure that people understand there’s, it’s a good difference.
Chris Gazdik: Cause we have, and, and
John-Nelson Pope: this is a authentic, this is authentic self. Well, it’s just a affirmation, right?
Chris Gazdik: Mm-hmm. . No, that’s a good point. And yeah, you do, That is a good point because that is dangerous when you start going the other route of aggressively thwarting others and pushing yourself out.
And, but you know what, we know about [01:04:00] those folks and are doing that. I mean, you know what we know, right? Yeah. They’re struggling hurt people and hurt people, hurting people. Yeah. That’s just what you know, is natural. And so yeah, that would be very, from a very different, different space. D guys, we need to taxi in a little bit.
Did we do a good job in sort of, You know, how do you really help your clients build themselves up? Did we miss anything as we’re journeying around and thought together there, does anything else come up that we, that are big, important parts? No, not that I can think of. Well, I
John-Nelson Pope: think in terms of, of a of a therapist, when you join with a, with a client and it’s authentic and it’s real and you know, you’re just, it’s just your, your bare self, your essential self, that is a wonderful time that a person could hear and know that they are not being judged.
Right. And that’s a judgment free, free zone. And I think that’s a kind of a sacred place [01:05:00] to be in.
Victoria Pendergrass: I tell my clients that all the time. This is a judgment free zone.
Chris Gazdik: You know, it’s funny. You’re, you’re on point, John. I, I appreciate that greatly. And this is not Planet Fitness and you know, Victoria, It’s very true.
Yes. Being, being a younger therapist, I’m curious how you would receive this. It isn’t Planet Fitness, right, John? It, you know, I, I I think oftentimes younger therapists fail to really, in kind of a depthy way, understand mm-hmm. the value of what we’re offering in that, the type of conversation, the type of environment that we create is literally something that our folks experience for the very first time in their entire life.
Yeah. Yeah. Like that beautiful, validating, powerful, safe space where the focus then is on you and your component. Like it’s, you can’t replicate it. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like, one thing I do in session [01:06:00] is I like to. Take off my shoes and like I have a big chair in my office that’s in it. Yeah. And I like, kind of like curl up in my chair.
Okay. And I think that that show, like, I had a client Interesting. I did that and then she, I could tell she You modeled it for her. Yeah. She kind of relaxed more. She kicked off her shoes, she crossed her legs on the couch. Like, and then she did that the next session and then like, you know, And that is fantastic.
And so like, and I love doing that because first of all, I mean, I’m comfortable that way too. Like, I mean, they, they don’t wanna smell my feet now. I usually make sure I have on socks. I think that it shows that like, Hey, I’m open like this. I want you to feel comfortable here. Yeah. I, yeah. And I do that and that’s like a nonverbal way of me saying, Like, Hey, sit back and get comfortable.
Like we’re about to get real intimate here and I want you to feel comfortable in doing so. You know what’s
Chris Gazdik: cool about that Victoria is, is that younger therapists honestly [01:07:00] are, I love that about you and you are such a genuine person, so I really appreciate that. Yes, please receive that as a, I mean, cuz if I go to
Victoria Pendergrass: therapy, I’m getting comfortable
Well,
Chris Gazdik: because you know what? Younger therapists, especially older therapists as well, by the way, we feel like we have to be a certain way or look a certain way or sit a certain way. And I’ve had conversations with therapists where they’re so afraid of not being proper and professional. I don’t think there’s anything unprofessional about, you know,
Victoria Pendergrass: appropriately albeit in school we had in part of our classes, I can remember this vividly.
Females do not cross your legs. Do not cross your arms. That’s do not wear flip flops. Do not, Yeah. Like do not do this. Do not do that. Because you don’t wanna be crossing your arms, shows that to the client that you’re close. I remember those things too. Okay, well, no, and it the, I will say like in the moment I was like, Oh yeah, this makes sense.
But now that I’m like practicing, I’m like, No, it doesn’t
Chris Gazdik: make sense. No. Like . [01:08:00]
John-Nelson Pope: No. They wanna see you. Yeah. That’s they. They don’t want the genuine you. The genuine you. And that’s the thing is the most important person in the world is the person you’re looking
Chris Gazdik: at being full focused, fully
Victoria Pendergrass: focused on this week or last week.
Tell me that they appreciated how open I was to other people’s lifestyles. Cause I said something about how like, whatever, like culture, what happens when you die? Like whatever you believe, like had it specifically say, when you go to heaven. Like, I left it open and they said, I really appreciate, like how accepting you are of like, other people’s cultures and you, and like being open.
And I was like, Yeah, because I mean, if I’m in, I, I do therapy is if like how I would wanna be treated if I was a client, right?
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. So, you know, we need taxi. Anybody out guys, listen. Another cool Facebook contributor we Loving Yourself should be repeated and [01:09:00] repeated until it’s a real habit.
And I think that is Ooh, super, super well said. Thank you for yeah, for the adding. I like that. To that, listen, this is a hugely important component of your mental health, of your mental wellness, and I hope that as you’ve journeyed along with us for a little while here about understanding the barrier. And how to beat the barriers and how then to be purposefully building yourself up that you’ve gotten some of these things that you can really put into your lives.
Because we are all, as it is, human beings and human emotional experience. Whether you’re a man or whether you’re a woman, young or old is, is hard. It’s, it’s a hard, enduring, regular routine and chronic kind of component of finding the peace and acceptance that you have of yourself. It’s the greatest thing that you give to yourself and then generationally thereafter when you [01:10:00] give and teach that to others.
So this is a really important show. It’s a great concept. I appreciate you riding with us, hanging with us, and get some things out of it so you can give to others. And we’re gonna begin to see you next week. Take care. I really enjoyed this session. Thank y’all, and have a great week
John-Nelson Pope: seeing y’all. See you soon.
Thank you.