Self: Forgiveness, Sabotage, & Worth

Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of Hannah Talks About Things. So as you can see, today I'm testing out my brand new microphone, and I'm wearing headphones just to make sure that I'm not yelling into it, but I don't think I'll wear headphones every time moving forward. So I haven't done a YouTube video in a while, I've been pretty busy. Um, some updates for you if you're interested: I officially handed in my resignation, and my last day at Ashley Addiction Treatment as a full-time case manager and counselor will be on October 31st. So beginning November 1st, I'm going to be full-time self-employed, which means making YouTube videos, but mostly private practice mental health counseling, um, public speaking, training, consultation, and freelance writing for Psychology Today, psychtimes.com. Um, I actually have an interview coming out in Counseling Today, which is the magazine for the American Counseling Association, about helping clinicians to help their clients with smoking and vaping cessation, which is really interesting 'cause it's been 5 months since I have used nicotine. So today I wanted to do, I always say brief and it's seldom brief, but I wanted to talk about core issues and the ways that our untreated core issues get in the way of us being our most authentic selves. So my birthday was last month and a very close friend of mine, Allison, who is a counselor at Ashley with me, got me this beautiful picture, and it's Brian Andreas, and it says, "Someone asked me the other day, 'What is she like?' All I could do was smile and say, 'She is entirely herself. There is nothing more I can add to that.'" And the title of the piece is called "Entirely That." And it really— I mean, I teared up. It's like one of the most beautiful presents I've ever received, because to me, that is the highest compliment, right? Like, you are able to be yourself. Now, for me, that definitely wasn't always the case. And there's a lot of things that get in our way from authenticity because it's fear. There's so much fear about what other people think. And there's a couple points I really wanna make here. And the first one is that no one on this planet, no matter how much they love you, no matter what role they play in your life, no one on this planet thinks about you as much as you think about yourself. And we can take that to be ego-deflating, or we can take that to be entirely freeing. You know, as much time as we spend thinking about what we look like, what we sound like, what people think of us, should I post this? Should I say that? Should I do this? No one is spending nearly as much time thinking about us as we are. And that's because we're human beings. You know, it's not because we're inherently selfish and self-centered and egotistical. I mean, you can say all of those things if you want to kind of have more of that shame-based mentality or pathologizing. But the reality is that human beings are wired to put themselves first. Um, human beings are also wired for connection. So how can the two coexist and how are we able to have healthy connections? In a recent article I wrote about loneliness on Psychology Today, I said that I believe that loneliness stems from a lack of authenticity in our relationships. And it sounds really simple, right? Just be authentic in all of your relationships and you won't feel lonely. But how many of you have ever laid in bed next to your partner and felt completely alone? You can be physically with someone or in a group of people and just I feel like no one knows me. And the reason is because we wear masks. And so I'm going to talk about some of those barriers. Now, this coming Wednesday, I'm giving a training at Maryland Addiction Recovery Center called Core Issues and Self. Now, this training is geared towards clinicians, but I just wanted to touch on some of the points I'm going to make and gear it more towards just regular people. Because here's the kicker, people that work in the mental health field or any profession are regular people too. If anyone who's gonna be in that training on Wednesday is watching this, I encourage you to stop now because I'm going to shed light on some of the things that I'm gonna talk about. So I have this PowerPoint up. If you've ever been in one of my lectures at Ashley, you'll know that I don't use PowerPoints really. I mean, I'll see the slide and then just go off on a tangent because I'd rather it be, you know, somewhat structured, but I wanna speak the language of the heart. And if I rehearse what I'm gonna say beforehand, it's just not the language of the heart. And that is a barrier for me to be authentic is when I try to plan, rehearse, make something sound a certain way. So the PowerPoint is called Core Issues and Self, and underneath Self it says Forgiveness, Sabotage, and Worth, because those are things that we struggle with the most as human beings. And so I want to talk about why we need to address our core issues. And so if you're sober, right, in a 12-step fellowship or not, and you're just recovering from drug addiction, from grief, from, from anything— I think as human beings we're all recovering from something. Maybe the first trauma was being born. That is, that is heavy. Okay. Whoa. We'll go, we'll come back to that another time. We're all recovering from something. And so I was taught once in a relapse prevention training in Fort Lauderdale by Terry Gorski that if your recovery doesn't address your core issues, it's just busy work. And that really hit me like, huh, what do you mean core issues? Most people in recovery think I just need to stop drinking and using. Let me reframe. Not most people in recovery, but most people that struggle with a substance use disorder that haven't been exposed to true recovery may think You know, alcohol is the problem, drugs are the problem. If you struggle in your relationships, maybe you're thinking codependency is the problem, this relationship is the problem, the fact that I always date people who are abusive, maybe that's the problem, right? Lack of money, too much money, ego. So we have these things that we identify as our problems, but they're typically the symptoms of underlying problems. And so this is why core issues are important. And so oftentimes if I meet someone that's trying to get sober for the first time, they'll say, "you know, why are core issues important? I know that I just need to change people, places, and things. I just got to separate myself from that stuff and I'll get better." And I'm like, "Oh honey, no." I don't say, "Oh honey," because that's really passive-aggressive. But so yeah, so what are core issues? They're essentially any unresolved underlying emotional and mental process that can lead us into emotional distress. So the human experience, right? I always joke, not really a joke, but that time does not heal all wounds. And I'll provide an anecdote from, you know, getting dumped when I was 16 years old. And how as much as I can minimize it and say, "Oh, I was so young. Oh, it's just, I was just a kid," et cetera, that breakup experience led me to construct some really intense core irrational beliefs about myself, right? Being unlovable, unworthy, which just completely sprinkled my relationship history for the next decade of my life. And I work with people who are in their 60s, 70s, 80s who have said, "Oh my God, I never realized that that experience led me to X, Y, and Z, led me to have the schema, right? The worldview that I can't trust people, led me to have the schema that I'm gonna get hurt, which means I need to push people away first, right? Self-sabotage, which comes later, led me to the schema that I'm unlovable and anyone that says they love me is lying for their own personal gain, et cetera. So we all have these schemas, these worldviews, and most of them are constructed in us, or we construct in childhood and adolescence. And just because we get older, And some people say with age comes wisdom, and this may piss some people off, but I totally disagree. I know I'm young, so that maybe there's a personal bias there, but I think with— how do I say this? No, I'm not going to filter. What am I doing? I don't think age equals wisdom, just like I don't think that time sober equals quality sobriety. It's not about how much time you've been on this earth or how much time you've been sober or how much time— it matters what you're doing, right? That experiential learning rather than intellectual learning. And we are bound to recreate the same patterns over and over and over until we learn from them and actively stop. I learned recently in a training for treating anxiety that while habits are formed automatically, so for example, if my phone lights up and I pick it up and I get immediate dopamine rush in my brain because someone wants to talk to me or whatever it is, that habit is formed, right? Every time my phone lights up, I reach for it. I'm reading this book called How to Break Up with Your Phone by Catherine Price, and it's all about— the first half is like neurologically what our phone addiction is doing to us, and it's really disturbing, but that's an aside. And so while habits are formed automatically, to learn new behaviors and unlearn old maladaptive ones is deliberate. So that's tough when we are kind of working on autopilot for most of our lives, is that these habits form and we tell ourselves, this is just who I am. This is just who I am. This is who I am. I hate that narrative because it's like, no, this isn't who you are. This is how you've been. And when are you gonna have the courage to break some patterns and lean into the discomfort of new, potentially healthier patterns and behaviors? So, okay, what are core issues? Uh, co-occurring mental health concerns, right? So if you have untreated anxiety, depression, a personality disorder, mood disorder, it doesn't even— not pathologizing it, but just chemical imbalances in the brain, period, right? If you have those, it's core issue, right? How about the internal narrative, the self-talk? What's the story that you tell yourself about yourself? Are you constantly beating yourself up? Are you practicing self-compassion? Probably not, right? Abandonment and victimization. Even if there was a time that you were abandoned or you were a victim, Are you inadvertently creating scenarios in your current life where you feel abandoned and when you feel like the victim? Now, these are two really different things, right? Real or perceived real victimization. If you have ever been a victim of something, I'm not victim shaming here, but often we can carry that mentality into our adult lives and inadvertently create scenarios where we feel victimized when in reality we are not being victimized. Unresolved trauma, that's a really big one. Unresolved grief, unresolved anything, right? I got to move this so I can look at my slide. Shame, I talk about shame all of the time. You know, guilt, I feel bad. Shame, I am bad. Low self-worth, self-esteem, self-efficacy, codependency, and many, many more. So we all have a lot of core issues. And the thing is, is that often we try to seek outside of ourselves to heal. There's a quote by the Persian poet Rumi that I use in every lecture that I give, and it says, your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. So substitute the word love with literally anything else. Your task is not to seek a healthy relationship or seek self-esteem. Your task is not to go seek a connection with a higher power and spirituality. Your task is to look inside and say, what is blocking me from this? When we start to do that, what is blocking me from the ability to be authentic? That's how we're able to identify some core issues. Is it fear of what other people think? Is it people pleasing? Is it a lack of identity and a foundation of self? For me, there was years when my identity was contingent on external things. So what happens if I lose any of those things or I move or I change, right? When our identity and self-worth and self-esteem is contingent on things outside of ourselves, that poses a big problem because we are always changing. And if we try to cling to this finite thing, we can't. So Uh, let's see. So self-forgiveness, um, first and foremost, and these, I'm just going to ask a bunch of rhetorical questions. Obviously you can't answer, but if you have a notebook or if you're just watching, I mean, make a note in your phone and try to come back to this later, right? What do you need to forgive yourself for? What are you holding yourself hostage about? Um, you may have never thought about this question before. You may think about it every day. I don't know, but what's there, right? The first part of this whole process is simply identifying what's there. And to the best of your ability, doing it non-judgmentally. Like, oh, okay, I'm just gonna notice. The acronym RAIN is really helpful with mindfulness practices. Recognize, okay, wow, I haven't forgiven myself. Accept, okay, it's not I should forgive myself and I shouldn't be feeling this way. Just accept, wow, okay, I haven't. Identify, hmm, no, maybe it's inquire. Yeah, inquire. Like with that childish curiosity. Like when you're a child and you're just kind of curious and non-judgmental. Like, oh, okay, I wonder where this is coming from. Non-judgment. Recognize, accept, inquire, non-judgment. I think that's right, at least. So what do you need to forgive yourself for is the first part of this question. The second part is, so what's blocking you? What's blocking you from forgiving yourself? Often it's one of two things— one of three things, excuse me. Let me take a sip of coffee. Water first, coffee second. I don't know how to edit videos yet so I can like edit out all these little weird things that I do, but it's fine. Also, it's not weird, it's totally human. Okay. What do you need to forgive yourself for? Okay. What's blocking you from self-forgiveness? Usually one of three things. Uh, one, I don't believe I'm worthy of forgiveness. If that's the case, ask yourself, what would make you worthy? What is that? Where does that, that kind of concept of worthiness come from in you? Two, hmm, so much harder, like doing a lecture in front of a phone than it is in front of an audience. Hmm. So I don't believe I'm worthy of self-forgiveness. I fear that if I forgive myself, uh, I'm just going to keep repeating the same actions. And number 3, I can't forgive myself because I have in the past and I've ended up doing the same thing again. So my forgiveness isn't authentic, right? So what's blocking you from forgiving yourself? Is it the core belief that you are unworthy or undeserving of being forgiven? Oh, here's one. I messed up. And this is all just my opinion, by the way. I believe it to be true, but if it's not true for you, that's cool too. One barrier to forgiveness is this irrational but very common belief that I can't forgive myself until you forgive me, right? When they forgive me, I'll forgive myself. Here's the thing, bucko. Have you ever been forgiven by someone and then still held yourself hostage? With your own internal resentment itself? Yes is the answer. Because the reality is that I believe self-forgiveness begins and ends internally. Whether or not other people forgive us is this really awesome byproduct. So if you're waiting for someone else to forgive you, and that's the only way you'll let yourself off the hook of whatever it is, or truly practice self-compassion and acknowledgement of shortcomings, that's not good, right? Our worth is becoming contingent on others. And even if everyone in the world forgives you and loves you, we accept the love we think we deserve. Right? Which means I accept the forgiveness that I think I deserve. So that brings us back to that first block, right? If I don't believe I'm worthy of forgiveness, it doesn't matter how many people forgive me. I'm not going to forgive myself. Okay. Moving on. Self-sabotage. Again, I stated it before, but we accept the love we think we deserve. That's from The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. I don't know how to pronounce his last name, which means that I accept the life I think I deserve. I accept the job I think I deserve, the friendships. And so what do we do when We have these great things, these great people, and at our core, we don't feel we're worthy of them. We self-sabotage, we self-destruct, right? We create chaos where there was none. We truly cannot accept love from others. Again, I'm a firm believer that I can love people if I don't love myself. It's not great, but like I can. I'm not a parent, but I have heard that, um, you know, if you're full of self-loathing, that doesn't mean you love your kids any less. And so we hear these things like you can't love anyone until you love yourself, but the reality is that you actually can, right? Like question your sources. Like who first said that? I don't actually know, but I don't agree with it. I do believe that I can't accept love from other people if I don't believe I'm worthy of it. And I've done it before. Um, I've been in an incredibly healthy relationship in the past that was like the best. And I self-destructed. I just ended it out of seemingly out of nowhere. And I've also been in relationships that I knew I shouldn't really be in anymore, just because I didn't feel connected. I didn't feel like we're on the same level, but I I stayed in them for fear that I don't deserve better, that I don't, um, that I can't do better, etc., right? These are all barriers to authenticity. Am I truly trusting my gut? Like, why am I in a relationship? Is it out of obligation? Is it out of fear? Is it out of self-doubt? Is it out of codependency? Why? Because if it's not organic, an organic connection where you just feel like you're on that same wavelength, what are you doing? Okay. Okay. Self-sabotage. Self-worth, super simple. But to have self-esteem, we have to start by doing esteemable things. The more that I gossip and lie and just be a kind of an asshole, the less self-worth and self-esteem I have, right? I don't believe I'm worthy of good if I'm acting like I'm not good. And so again, that sounds kind of simple, but what's blocking me from doing esteemable things, right? For me, gossip can be a really big one. It's just so elusive and I wanna do it. And You know, the biggest thing that blocks me from not gossiping is just potential impulsiveness, not pausing enough, wanting to fit in. I was listening to a podcast with Brené Brown. She was talking about the anatomy of trust and how, you know, if our friendship is based on having a common enemy, she says that's called common enemy intimacy and it's not authentic. Like if I have nothing else to talk to you about than mutual people that we don't like, that's not a real friendship. That's not okay. So yeah. Oh, that's the end of my slideshow. There was a lot of other slides that I'm going to embellish on at length in this training on Wednesday. But yeah, so these are things that can block us from being authentic and true to ourselves, right? If you have a hard time setting boundaries, that's a reflection of a lack of authenticity. If you have a hard time just being yourself without fear of what others think, which by the way is the human experience. To have fear of what others think. At least the American experience. I don't know about some— well, no, I mean, I don't know. These are barriers to authenticity. Do you feel worthy? You know, do you look in the mirror and say, "You're killing it, and I appreciate, love, and am proud of you," or do you look in the mirror and say, "Ugh, I wish I could change this, this, and this and this," right? "I'm not X enough." Living in a culture of scarcity. I'm inadequate. I'm not enough. I'm not tall enough, pretty enough, successful enough, smart enough. Are we shaming ourselves? Right. And so kind of in synopsis, because this is very tangential, what are your core issues? We all have different ones, but we need to first identify what they are if we're going to work through it. What is it that you want? What do you want? Happiness, self-esteem, love, belonging? What is it that you want? And then practice that Rumi quote: Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to look inside and seek everything that you've built against it. Um, do you need to forgive yourself? Do you self-sabotage? Do you have self-esteem? And again, just kind of creating space to look more deeply into these things. Now, this was a very rushed version of a synopsis of a lecture that I usually do for an hour. Um, and I could easily do like 5 hours on this. So if you want to know more about it, leave a comment, feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel. I think we got like 26 people. Yeah. Um, I'm not really a vlogger, but I just think it's important to talk about these things. And if you're watching and listening, awesome. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, like and share. You don't even have to like it because you know what? After starting to read that book, How to Break Up with Your Phone, whether or not you like this video does not determine my self-worth. Awesome. Okay. Enjoy your day. Bye.