How To Deal With Unsupportive People During Retraining | Ashok Gupta |

Yeah, all, all good. Fantastic. So, yes, just coming back to what I was talking about. So we were talking about how today's webinar is all about dealing with unsupportive people. So that's doctors, physicians around you, but then also your friends, your family. And often what happens is when we have those people be unsupportive, this can impact on our sense of self.

Yeah.

So if you think about when, before we had a condition, before we had a chronic illness, but a certain identity, and that identity was about being self sufficient as a human being, being perhaps productive in society or autonomous or confident in one's own abilities. And when we get a chronic illness, which then stops us from perhaps working or studying full time, that becomes a new identity. Yeah. And that new identity is often related and connected to the condition. We can't do as many things in life. We're needing to be supported by others around us. And that new identity, unfortunately, is not as supported in society as the old identity that you had. And that then means that with this loss of identity and not feeling supportive, supported, that can lead to kind of lower. Self esteem. And what can make this worse is doctors or family around you not believing that you have the condition, for instance. And if that leave you, then that can mean that, that once again you feel judged. Okay. And your inner approval seeker, your sense of approval starts reducing. And here at the Gupta program, we actually use certain puppets to remind us of these different parts within us, that we have a certain part within us which is the approval seeker. And we represent this with Tina the ballerina. So this means that Tina the ballerina, our approval seeker part within us, starts feeling much more lower and rejected because doctors and family members aren't believing that this is a real condition. I'm thinking, just snap out of it, you'll be fine. Or they just say it's in the mind. There can be a sense of pressure to go back to work. Yeah. Feeling I need to be a productive member of society to have a stronger sense of self. And this can be related to the achiever part of us.

Okay.

And so the achiever part of us is represented by Leo the lion here, the part of us that feels that I should be working, I should be productive in some way and so on. There can be pressure to do activities so we can feel like from family and friends, they want us to do certain things at weekends with them or go for dinner, and we can't. And often we can't commit to doing things because of the unpredictability of These types of conditions, you know, long Covid, chronic fatigue. And therefore we feel like we might be being judged by those around us because we're not able to actually engage or commit to those types of activities. And there can be a worry about burdening others. So especially if you have what we call the helper trait. So we represent the helper within us as Anita, the doctor that represents the part of us that always wants to keep helping others and supporting others. Sometimes we get into that identity and we can't then accept support and help from other people. And we worry that I'm burdening other people. I don't want other people to feel that burden. But in doing so, once again, that reduces the sense of self esteem through this helper trait because we feel like we're not supporting others, others are supporting us. And in those situations, it's really important to realize that it's okay when we have a chronic illness to gain the support of our family, our friends, our loved ones, because we all have a time of need. And in the future they may have a time of need that you're going to support them with. And it's perfectly okay in this juncture with this condition to get that love and support that you need to help you through to your recovery. And then finally, sometimes we may have family members or doctors who expect the brain retraining that we do here at the Gupta program. They expect that brain retraining to give overnight results. Yeah. And for some of our patients, within days and weeks they can reach a really good recovery. But that's not for everyone. And therefore it can take a little time. And so sometimes it can be ongoing judgments from people saying, well, you're doing the brain retraining, you're doing the neuroplasticity. What's happening? Are you better now? And it's about helping them realize it's a step by step learning, a step by step process that can be very quick or it can take a certain amount of time as well. And so this is what's happening. It is reducing our sense of self and our sense of self identity because we now unfortunately are identified with the condition. And some people refer to this as ableism, which is when able bodied people devalue people who have disabilities and they may even be dismissive and say, oh well, everyone gets tired or you know, just, I'm sure if you just eat healthily you'll be fine.

Right.

And that can once again impact on our sense of self because people aren't taking it seriously. And we feel like we're being judged for a disability, especially if it's an invisible illness. So a lot of these conditions that we've talked about, so we've talked about chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, main long Covid mold illness, Lyme disease, pots, dysautonomia, all of these conditions that we treat, there are invisible conditions in the sense that someone can look perfectly fine on the surface. And this type of ableism and devaluing people with these conditions is something to watch out for. And what are the consequences of all of this? Well, we're very lucky to have with us today Francis, who's one of our coaches, one of the Gupta program coaches. Hi there, Francis. How are you?

Hi, I'm good, thanks. Yeah.

Yeah. I've just given that introduction around, you know, some of the challenges that people may face and anything you want to add in terms of some of those challenges and then secondly, you know, some of the consequences of, you know, this judgment as people may experience or the sense of a lack of identity.

Yeah. I just want to briefly just say it's just so hard at first, I think, when all the identities of what you are doing in your life previous to illness have to drop away and can be very challenging to work with that the parts work is great for that. And then of course, yeah, if you're not seen and understood by doctors or friends or family, it can also add on new layers of challenge. Yeah. So there's many ways you can sort of work with that, know, give yourself all the love and compassion you can and find people around you who, who can see you, who do support you, do understand you, and, and finding your best way as well to communicate your needs and your truth with. With the medical community or with friends and family as well.

So, yeah, absolutely, Frances. No, that, that makes sense. And for everyone who's watching, we'd love for you to share this content with other people on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. So please do just take our stream, please share it with your friends and family, with other groups who might benefit from this and do give us a, like a thumbs up. The hearts always be lovely to see those coming across the screen. And so moving on to. As Francis has touched on some of the solutions, some of the ways that we can actually deal with unsupportive people. And I think the first point I want to talk about here is sometimes it can be disempowering when we are feeling judged by people, our doctors, our friends, our family members who don't understand us. That can lead to a certain Part coming up, which we call Jess the princess, which is our victim part, our victim can feel like we are a victim of other people's responses, their lack of support. Okay, yeah. When that gets triggered, that's disempowering. So how do we re empower ourselves? Where is that self empowerment? I think the first port of call is really understand that you cannot force other people to change. And that's a universal principle in life. You can share things with them, you can try to educate, but ultimately you can't force other people to see your point of view is that what you can do is inspire them to a new possibility. So I think we're going to go through six ways that we can handle people who don't understand what we're going through or who are unsupportive. And the number one thing is really to let go of trying to get them to understand. And I know that feels quite difficult because we want our parents to understand, we want our siblings to understand, we want them to understand, understand and empathize with us. That's totally understandable. And at the same time, one thing that can help us let go of that is recognizing that when they say things like, oh, you'll get through this, or you know, is it a real condition? Everyone feels tired. You know, maybe you just need. Maybe it's in your mind when they say these things. They can feel hurtful.

Yeah.

And they can make us feel alone. But it's recognizing they may not be coming from a bad place. They don't necessarily have the intention of hurting us. And they may not realize how much those types of comments may hurt us. They are only trying to help from their perspective and recognizing if the tables were turned and we had never had the chronic illness that we have, would we be as understanding as we would like towards other people if we didn't really understand the condition? So I think really the first port of call is letting go of needing them to be a certain way. And how can we facilitate that is really just releasing and dare I say, forgiveness. Sometimes if we're very angry or upset at how people are treating us, what would help us move towards letting go, releasing that resistance to them, or indeed going that final step of just being able to forgive the doctors, the friends, the family, and say they know not what they speak about because they don't understand this condition. And that can be incredibly empowering to us because we're no longer reliant on their approval or their understanding to feel good about ourselves. And another way that can be supported is by sending them the research. So we always encourage retrainers to send your doctor. We have a three page medical PDF which you can send to doctors that helps them understand our hypothesis. And perhaps, Jess, our team can just put that link in the comments as well. So if you want to send something to your doctors to help them understand what may be causing this condition, that's a really useful document and sharing other types of research. So Gupta program session three videos. They're all on YouTube. They can be interesting videos to share with your doctors, your family members and support groups to help them understand how this condition occurs and helping the brain understand it's not in the mind, but we do believe it's in the unconscious brain. So it's not your fault that you have this condition. It is in the unconscious brain. It's beyond our conscious awareness. And there are ways that we can retrain the brain to get back to health. Francis, anything you want to add onto that in terms of that resistance that a lot of people may feel and how they can overcome that?

So I was just going to say that everyone's doing the best they can with the resources and understanding they have at that time. So that in terms of supporting that, moving towards forgiveness, that can really help to know that. Yeah. And like you said, they're not trying to hurt you. And I have had clients even say to me, I'm quite humbled by getting this condition because I used to judge it previously. So it's. Yeah.

Yes. You know, it's really interesting you bring that up, Francis. I've had friends who've said to me, you know, when people tell me they had depression. Yeah. Or anxiety, I just think, oh, they're weak or they don't really understand. And it was only when I went through myself that I was able to really empathize.

Yeah.

And that's the thing. Until somebody has this condition, we wouldn't wish it on anybody. And so they have the condition. It's very difficult to understand what it feels like or what's causing it. So, as you say, everyone's doing the best they can given their model of the world. And rather than trying to force it on them, we just need to forgive and let go and just focus on our own health. And by doing that, we come out of this victim stage of feeling like everyone's out to get me to say, I focus on my recovery, I maintain my health, I look after my health and energy to focus on me rather than trying to spend my energy persuading others. And I see this a Lot in support groups where in support groups, which are fantastic, by the way. Sometimes there can be a lot of energy spent on advocacy which is required. But a lot of people are draining their energy and getting so upset just focusing on advocacy rather than focusing on their own recovery. And so that's our first tip on dealing with people around us is to just forgive and let go. Share resources with them where you can and understanding, don't expect them to change. And then I think a second one is, is really about when we talk about empowerment, stepping into your power and communicating clearly with your loved ones about how some of their communication may be affecting you now. And this is all about non violent communication. So often what we do when someone doesn't understand how we feel, we feel angry, we feel upset, we feel hurt, and that hurt or that anger then responds, in fact, it reacts, we react rather than responding and we accuse back and we say, you don't understand, you're not supportive, you're really hurtful, etc. So we start creating a barrier between us and them and that often makes the other person retrench their views and creates more tension if we keep accusing others and it creates this separation. And I wonder if we can try a new way of assertively communicating through what we call the abc that when someone may say things to us about our condition that are hurtful, like, are you sure it's real? Perhaps you're just tired, you know, maybe you just need to snap out of it or any other things where they don't understand what's going on. ABC A stands for acceptance. So accepting your own response, observe the anger that's coming up, observe the hurt that's being felt within your heart. So that's an acceptance of what's going on and perhaps taking yourself away from the situation and just breathing for a moment and being calm. So B is breathe and be calm. What do you need to do? Meditate, breathe to really still and center yourself. And then once you've centered yourself, C stands for compassionately communicate. And you might say, well, Ashok, they're not compassionately communicating with me, so why do I want to compassionately communicate with them? We all have to start somewhere to start the healing. And this is about, rather than accusing the other person of being bad, you're a bad person for saying this. It's bringing it back to yourself and saying, when I hear you say this, when I hear you say X, it makes me feel Y. And instead could you do Z? Because that then makes me feel more positive. So as an example, when I hear you say that this is perhaps all in the mind. It actually makes me feel unheard and misunderstood and hurt. Instead, could you just support me in the work that I'm doing to retrain my brain? Because that then makes me feel. Support it. So this is about inspiring the hero. You know, people around us, our partners, our family members, when they see us with these chronic conditions, they don't intend to hurt us. They want to help in whatever way they can. And often if we accuse them of not understanding, it pushes them away. But if we can inspire the hero within them, say, you could make me feel better by doing this and communicating in this way, then they understand what it is you need. So it's about being assertive about your needs. It's about helping them understand that you want to feel listened to and be taken seriously. But at the same time, you can only communicate this. You can't force it upon the other person. Once again, Frances, anything you want to add in terms of this communication?

Well, I think that's a great method of communication, that sort of nvc, nonviolent communication or compassionate communication. It's really amazing. And it's often a skill, I think, that many of us actually who end up with chronic illnesses need to learn anyway, and it will actually support our recovery to speak authentically and to. And it's also including checking in with yourself and bringing compassion to yourself and the feelings that are brought up as part of that process. I know you're going to speak to that more in a bit, but as part of that process, that can also support you to then communicate compassionately if you've been compassionate to yourself first and foremost.

Absolutely, Absolutely, Francis. And I think we certainly notice that people who get these types of conditions, there's a certain conscientiousness there, and sometimes there's a lack of assertiveness, not speaking up for our own needs, which once again comes from the approval seeker part of our personality that we want to people, please. We don't want to speak up for our own needs. And so actually speaking up in this way enables us to feel stronger within ourselves, which can also, as you say, be born from that self compassion, that self love, that respecting ourselves and encouraging other people to respect us in a similar way. People would treat us often the way that we feel we deserve to be treated. Okay, so so far we've covered two things that we'd like you all to kind of think about. So one is forgiveness and release are really letting go of trying to force the other person to understand and just Accept that they may not understand and that's okay. And secondly, you know, abc, when you're feeling hurt by the way that they're treating you, including your own doctor, just accept, breathe and be calm and compassionate. Communicate, say, when I hear this, it makes me feel like this. Instead, could you do this? And that would make me feel like this. And then you inspire the hero within the other person to really listen and understand and understand what's going to make you feel better. A third point here is when you have a chronic condition, certainly the Gupta program, we encourage regular breathing and meditation, healthy eating, you know, anti inflammatory diet. Could these be shared activities? So with your partner, your family members, even your friends, the things that you're doing to support your health, could you make those shared activities so that your, your family members are engaging with what you're engaging with and that will help them as well. So if they see that you're meditating and they meditate and they find a benefit in their lives, then they'll take your condition more seriously and the processes you're engaging in to get better, perhaps they'll take those more seriously as well and you don't. And then you feel like you're being supported. Perhaps even self reflection for the day or your gratitude diary, which we encourage you to do in the Gupta program. Those could all be things that you share with others. And most importantly, it's important to ask for support. So fourthly, inspire the hero in those around you. People love to help others as long as they aren't being accused and blamed of not supporting. So inspire the hero in those around you saying, look, if you're able to just help me with this, this, this, it would really make me feel supported, it would really help me with my health and give me space and time with the brain retraining. So ask for support where required. Fifth, with something we've already mentioned is the self love, the inner child work that. What empowers us to feel stronger despite people doubting us around us, is when we feel that sense of self love. So rather than relying on the outside world to support us, we have that love within us once again. That's not overnight, but through some of the programs on the audios in the Gupta program, we begin to start loving ourselves, connecting with ourselves, feeling stronger inside. And then we get to that phrase of I have all the love for myself inside. Anything from the outside is a mere bonus. And then finally, what can really help us in terms of empowering ourselves when we've got difficult people around us is to make new connections. And so in the Gupta Program family, we have a very supportive support group. It's a Facebook group where you can make new friends, you can make new buddies. There's lots of interaction on those support groups. And in that way, you start connecting with people who understand what you're going through and, and not only understand what you're going through, but they understand why you're engaging with brain retraining and how it's supporting your health. Okay, so we'd love for you to join us on our program. And in order to get onto that particular forum, we have something called the Gupta Program. And the Gupta Program is an online interactive brain retraining and neuroplasticity program to support people with chronic illness. And just to be clear, sometimes people call this limbic retraining. Now, that's kind of entered the lexicon, as it were, about these illnesses. Now, limbic retraining isn't strictly accurate in our minds because the limbic system includes the amygdala and the insula, which is what we're sorry, the amygdala and the hippocampus, which I believe we're retraining. But the insular part of the brain where we believe the immune conditioning occurs, the immune system starts overreacting. That part of the brain is outside the limbic system. So we'd like to move people away from calling this limbic retraining. And really, it is neuroplasticity, brain retraining overall. And we have a new webinar series starting on Monday, the 26th of September, so literally this coming Monday. And there's a 12 week program of webinars with myself where I take you through the Gupta Program and I give you different exercises and videos to watch during the week. You're supported through your journey. So we'd love for you to join us for that Monday, 26th September, and our team will put the link to the Gupta Program where you can find out more and to join us. So I think, in summary, what I'd just like to say is, however bad others make you feel, please, number one, stop trying to force them to understand. But instead, can you get to a place of letting go and forgiveness because they are doing the best they can, given their knowledge. Secondly, can you compassionately communicate about your needs and how you'd like them to respond and react, and how it will make you feel, rather than accusing or blaming and feeling resistance to those around you. Thirdly, can you make your activities that help you, your healthy meals, your meditations your gratitude. Can you make that something you share with others and can you ask for support when you need it to inspire the hero in people around you? Finally engaging in self love can make us stronger inside. And finally making new connections, connecting with people who are brain retraining themselves who can support you on your journey so you don't feel alone because we never want people to feel alone with this condition. We want you to feel like there is a supportive community that can take you through. Francis, anything that you'd like to add in terms of what we've covered today and those types of solutions?

Yeah, just all great. And also just to say that some of these solutions are also great keys in terms of what supports your recovery journey as well overall. So yeah, really important. So thank you for bringing me on today. And yeah, and also if you decide to join the Gupta program, I do have group coaching as well. And I do find that, yeah, many people find that a great resource as well for feeling seen and understood.

Thank you for reminding me of that, Francis. So as we've said, we have this online Gupta program which has 15 interactive video sessions and lots of audios. We have the weekly webinars with myself, but we also have group coaching, small group coaching, small intimate groups of six to eight people. And by having those small groups, you're able to connect, you're able to feel support, supported. And that's a great facility that we also provide as well. And I'd once again love for you to share this video, share this knowledge with other support groups, other family members, people you know who have this condition and hopefully they can benefit from this as well. And the great news is that if you're new to the Gupta program and you're not on the Gupta program at all, we're now going to have an interactive Zoom Call with myself where I'll be answering your questions about the Gupta program, about how it works and how you can benefit from it. And if you'd like to take advantage of that and join us on this free web. Our marketing manager will now share the link in the chat. She will share the link in terms of the link to the Zoom Call. Once again, that Zoom Call is just for people who are not on the Gupta program and they will be answering your questions if you're new to the program and you don't know anything about it or you want to find out more. So that will be in your comments section, the link to the Zoom Call. So that'll be starting in 15 minutes time. They'll be starting at 6:45 UK time, which is 1:45 Eastern time. And in that webinar I'll be going through what the GUPS programme is about and then answering your questions about it. Great. And Francis, just finishing off. Is there anything that you'd like to add in terms of your clients experiences with this kind of thing, in terms of feeling unsupported and what's really helped them? If you've got any examples or things that patients have shared with you that's helped them overcome this.

Yeah, I think you've covered all the really important pieces around it really. But, but yeah, just to certainly know that you're not alone. You know, I definitely experienced this when I was recovering myself, chronic illness. Loads of clients that I work with also bring this theme as one of the issues to work with and get some support around. So yeah, you're not alone. And also sometimes maybe some coaching would help because there might be some like deeper maybe in a child part that's being triggered through what's happening and to get some sort of support with that might be. Might be supportive. Supportive as well.

Yeah, definitely. So I think if you're already on the program or this is a really big issue for you, where you've got family members continually making or you feel they are, you're feeling bad as a result of their judgments, then of course having some one on one coaching on that can really help you work through that and the inner child work that might be there because ultimately we find inner child work so powerful because it enables you to not rely on other people or the outside world to feel good, but instead you have all that wellspring of knowledge and love within you and it's just tapping into that that can empower you. So thank you so much to everybody for watching. Please once again do share this on your social media channels. Share this with other support groups because it's such an important topic about how we can deal with the medical community or friends and family around us who aren't supportive. And hopefully we've shared some knowledge here that you can practically implement straight away. So thank you for watching and we'll see you some of you at 6:45, so in 10 minutes time where we'll be doing a Q and A for those people who are new to the program and how they can benefit from it. So thank you so much to everyone for watching. Hopefully see you in our webinar series starting on Monday 26th September. And thank you to Francis for coming on as well and we will see you next time thank you and goodbye.