When Quitting is Healthy (Survivor 45 Edition)

Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Hannah Talks About Things. So I'm currently in Vail, Colorado for a wedding, and I was doing some work in my hotel room, and I was uploading a video that our wonderful therapist here at Rose Wellness, Sarah Shephelin, um, recently sent me about movement and therapy and walk and talk and just the importance of that and all of these benefits and insights regarding that. Go check out Sarah's videos, she's amazing. But I uploaded the video and it took 3 minutes. Now I recently moved to Asheville, North Carolina, and the Wi-Fi is not the same as in Baltimore. So basically, um, uploading videos takes about 5 hours. And so I figured while I was here and had this good Wi-Fi, I would use this time to kind of impromptu just record a video and upload it, because uploading videos at home is so freaking hard. So yeah, if you are new to my channel, welcome! I'm really changing this channel to be more of a Rose Wellness place for the different therapists here at this practice to, you know, collaborate and provide their insight and wisdom on such a wide range of topics and knowledge. But anyway, I miss talking about things. As many of you know, my absolute passion is public speaking or even just performing in any capacity. I love musical theater. And yeah, so I was thinking about what to talk about, and I was looking at a list of ideas that Sarah and I had come up with, and one of them was about when it's healthy to And so I'm gonna loop this into my experience with Survivor because I know, you know, that is something I have not talked about on this channel at length, although I've talked about it on other podcasts. And I, you know, I wrote an article for Johns Hopkins Magazine called The Art of Quitting, but I wanted to loop it into when it's time to trust your gut. It's always time to trust our gut. When it is a healthy time to leave something that no longer serves you. So I'll start by talking a little bit about my Survivor experience. If you don't know, I competed on season 4— compete is a strong word— I happened to be cast on season 45. Yes, that show is still on, of Survivor, you know, a reality competition show where 18 people are basically marooned on different islands with their tribes and have to fend for themselves and are in a full state of deprivation and starvation and fatigue and dehydration, and then have to compete in physical challenges, voting each other out. It's very psychological. I fell in love with the show while watching it during COVID And what had happened was I had the delusional thought while watching from the comfort of my couch with my snacks, with my sweatpants. Oh, I could do that. I feel like I've always been destined to end up on a show. Um, not because I am some amazing human, but because in college I applied to be on The Real World back when that was a thing, and I got an interview. And right before COVID I applied to go on Big Brother, which is one of my favorite shows. And I had a couple of interviews. I was making it through the rounds of casting and then just decided, you know what, like, I have a full caseload of clients. I just don't think this would be a good idea. For me to live in a house for up to 3 months and be filmed 24/7. So, you know, COVID happened and then yeah, I got really into Survivor. They put 2 seasons on Netflix and I started watching it and I was like, this show is amazing. If you haven't watched it, I personally wouldn't recommend going on it, but seemingly, you know, 18 people do it every single year and people typically don't quit. You know, like there's a short list of quitters My mom is sure to text me. She's rewatching all of the seasons and she texts me every time there's a quitter. I feel seen. But even just saying that, right? Like a quitter. I was watching a show on Netflix and someone said like, "I wasn't raised to be a quitter." And I hear that all of the time. This notion that quitting is weak, quitting is, I'm not gonna give up. And I thought about it, especially during and after my time on Survivor. Actually pause, I'll get into that. But anyway, this shame-filled notion of quitting is bad. I ain't no quitter. Ugh. It's like drilled into us. And so basically I submitted a 30-second video just like this on my phone. I was like, hey, I'm Hannah. I feel like I'd be great on Survivor. I wasn't. And I got, you know, a callback from casting and I got an interview and this proceeded to go on for 7 months of medical evaluations, psychological evaluations, interview after interview. It was really a rigorous process, and I had just said the whole time, there's no way I'm getting cast. Like, this is, this is, this is too surreal. And I just made a pact with myself and my now husband to just be myself. Like, I'm not gonna try to be something that I'm not. I'm not gonna try to get on the show. I'm just gonna show up authentically, and whatever happens happens. If I don't get cast, it wasn't meant to be. I got cast. So I end up in Fiji, and I am not survivorly. I said that on the show. I am not survivorly. What I learned from my experience is while I'm a huge Brené Brown fan and she has this notion of courage over comfort, I was like telling myself that the whole time, courage over comfort, courage over comfort. What I realized is that A, courage for me manifested in a really different way. And I said this during the third day tribal council, but it got edited out. You know, courage for me became trusting my gut and doing what was right for me. What I thought courage was, was braving the wilderness, another Brené Brown book, it like literally braving the elements and, you know, backstabbing people, slitting their throats, you know, making it to the end and being this competitor. Because I am competitive when I play Monopoly. So I thought I would be competitive. You know, I used to play sports, but I'm also very active, very physically active. And, um, What I did not anticipate was the level of like paralyzing anxiety that I experienced, which is so real, like very dissociative out-of-body anxiety, which is new for me because I'm very much someone who likes to be in touch with and live in my body. We hold trauma, we hold distress on our body. I'm a trauma-informed therapist. I mean, and I was like, Survivor's not trauma, right? Survivor is just a show. I still have a hard time going to a beach. If I feel sand, I have a visceral reaction. So I'm gonna do my best to not minimize my experience and say like, "Oh, I was only there for 3 days." Like, you go 3 days without eating or sleeping or bathing or brushing your teeth and being paranoid and lying to people. I mean, just the not sleeping enough was so hard, right? The not eating at all. I mean, my body was in shock from starvation. What I learned from other cast members is that your body actually your body gets used to starvation after 5 days. I didn't know that. So what I learned is that courage for me became, I'm going to trust my gut and be authentic and stick to who I am and how I am, even though millions of people are gonna hate me. And they did. Survivor fans love Survivor. And I represented, you know, this privileged, spoiled girl who came on the show and took a spot from someone else and took it for granted and quit. Which is not how I felt. And anyone that knows me knows how long I prepared and how it was just such a psychologically, you know, mindfuck— sorry— of a process. And so anyway, I get out there and it's awful, awful. My body is like having a reaction. I also become incredibly close with the people on my tribe. In a 3-day period of time, you're with them 24/7, and I didn't want to vote out someone on my tribe. And so a mix of hunger, sleep deprivation, anxiety, and also not wanting the person that was going to go home to go home. You know, it was their dream to be on the show, and I didn't want to be there. And I said this, I said, the only reason that I would keep my mouth shut right now is to save face on national television. And if I am one thing, I am authentic, and so I'm not going to do that. And so I begged my tribe to vote me out, and they refused, and I threatened to quit And so they voted me out. So obviously that did not go over very well with the public. And yeah, so for me, courage just became trusting my gut and saying, this is not going to be received well, but it's not about being received well. It's about being true to me. And I stick by that. There is zero part of me that regrets my decision. First of all, and this might feel minimizing to Survivor superfans, and I don't mean to do that. It's not that deep. Like, read the news. It's not that deep. It is a TV show. And I was grateful to be there, but at the end of the day, it was not for me. And I figured that out very quickly. And instead of dragging someone else down with me and letting someone else go home first or someone else go home second, I said, please, please, please, please, please, my heart's not in it. And I don't regret that at all. I'm actually really proud of myself. What was tough was dealing with the backlash from the public. I recently did a podcast with a former survivor named Tyson. And then the next day I did another podcast with Rob Has a Podcast, which is like this phenomenal, just like smorgasbord of podcasts about things. Anyway, and I looked at it and someone commented, "I still don't like the quitter," or something like that. And obviously this is a very different experience, but Brené Brown talks about how her first TED Talk about vulnerability went viral. And it was like every single source of insecurity and shame is what came up in those comments. People commented on her weight, they commented on all of these things, and it was just like this, all of these shame triggers. And for me, the same thing happened. A lot of the comments— and I'm not even on social media, like I'll pop on for a second and then like leave, um, watch the video How to Break Up with Your Phone, That book changed my life. Not having a social media addiction is so freeing and I have a better relationship with myself and others because of it. But that's just me. But basically like I was getting personal emails like to my work email. I was getting 1-star Google reviews on Rose Wellness and it was like, "I would never take advice from a quitter." Therapy is not advice, by the way. Side note, I don't see clients anymore. I transitioned into a fully administrative and supervisory role. But anyway, a lot of the comments were like, she's never had to work hard for anything. You know, she's super privileged and spoiled, you know, oh, she's a therapist and she can't handle her emotions 3 days into Survivor. Like all of this stuff, quitter, quitter, quitter. And like the word quitter was just thrown at me. And, um, you know, walking through that was super empowering and really hard and really scary. And it made me question a lot of things about myself. Am I weak? Am I not courageous? You know? And, and, and all these things. And so for me, being honest about it throughout the whole process has been integral, right? Instead of rationalizing or denying or whatever, like my truth is that it didn't serve me and I quit. And what I wrote in this article for Johns Hopkins Magazine was that, you know, thankfully when I wanted to quit lacrosse and pursue musical theater, my parents didn't say, "We didn't raise a quitter, stick with lacrosse." They said, "Yeah, cool, do that. Awesome, musical theater." And I loved musical theater. When I wanted to, you know, do ski team, again, quitting lacrosse, they were like, yeah, do that. When I changed my major from pre-med to psychology, no one shamed me for abandoning my initial decision. No one shamed me for saying, you said you were gonna do this, so you have to do this no matter what. And I think about how that permeates into our culture and this idea of I'm not quitting. I mean, as many of you know, I am sober. I got sober in 2011. I just celebrated 13 years sober. And thankfully no one said to me, me, "Oh, you're quitting drugs and alcohol? That's so weak." But I've seen people with the t-shirt, and I know it's a joke, but still, that rehab is for quitters. And I'm like, "Bro." Like, I'm sorry, if someone chain-smokes cigarettes and they quit, are you going to shame them for quitting? And so this notion of choosing to walk away from something that no longer serves you. And again, to me, Survivor is a silly example of that because it's a TV show. But I think about how often we are conditioned to stay in relationships that no longer serve us. And if you look at this channel, so many of the videos are about relationships. And the reality is we get into relationships for whatever reason. There are so many reasons that they can just not be working or not be right for us, but we tell ourselves, "Well, I can't leave because I committed to this person." It's like I recently got married and he and I were talking about it and it's like, To me, and this might be controversial because it kind of goes against maybe the idea of marriage and also like religious ideas and beliefs, but like, if I marry someone and so much changes or a person really changes in a way that is incredibly devastating to the relationship, or like the rules, the values that we went into this relationship with fundamentally change, like I'm not going to stay with that person just because I married them. That's just me. And he knows that too. Like, I don't know, I just think this idea of stick with it, stick with it no matter what— now listen, I think there is so much to be said for, you know, sticking it out and learning from sticking something out, but at what cost? And that's where I think trusting our gut and really doing like a cost-benefit analysis in our heads— like, for me, staying on a TV show so that fans would like me was not worth what I was experiencing internally and physically. It just wasn't worth it. I also realized really quickly I didn't want to be a cutthroat, backstabbing player. Like, I just couldn't compartmentalize my integrity and values from the game. And a lot of people can, and I give them credit for it because they're awesome, but I couldn't do it. And so yeah, I just wanted to make this video and talk about kind of the intricacies of quitting and asking yourself what that word does for you when someone says like, oh, this person quit. You know, if you choose to leave a job that is toxic or abusive, is part of you going to shame yourself for quitting? Maybe because societally, culturally, like that's what we do, you know? And I also think generationally it's like sticking with a company and working the same job for 40 years. There is so much I respect about that. And I'm really vibing with like millennials and Gen Z who are saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, this doesn't serve me, and I'm going to protect that which needs to be protected. And I think extremes in any scenario can be unhealthy. So I'm not just saying quit everything, quit your life, but like, ugh, I just think we need to take a look at quitting culture and what that means and how it manifests. And for me, I mean, like being the receiver of so much abuse on the internet, And it just kind of got me thinking about quitting. And so I think I invite you to look at what parts of your life don't serve you. And obviously we can't just like quit our jobs and like not do anything. Like we have to think about the implications and who it's going to affect and like financially, you know, stuff like that. But when we are, whether or not we know it, because learned helplessness is super real, what are we signing up for in our lives that we don't want to be a part of? I think about relationships that no longer serve us. I think about friendships that have turned into obligations. Relationships. You know, there's just so many pieces of our lives and really asking yourself, if I were to get a terminal diagnosis today and I had one week to live or one day or one month, what would I do differently about my life? And, and you know what? I want this documented because I have told my family members, my close friends, my husband. I, this is like something I say a lot, but I want it to be on the internet in case something happens and you Google my name, even though you won't know who I am because I'm not famous. But like, if you already knew me, Let it be said for the record that if I were to get in a car accident tomorrow or a plane crash or something, you know, or get a diagnosis and terminal, I want it known because I know it. And I think it's so powerful to say it, that there is not one thing today about my life that I would change. There is not one fucking thing. You know, I had a health scare. Maybe 2 years ago, and I was waiting on the results, and I went through all of the different phases that come with waiting on medical stuff, and I was scared and I was angry, and I kind of landed at this place of acceptance and was like, I really like my life. I really like myself. I feel like I have positively impacted others. I have fun, you know. I feel like I take life and soak as much as I possibly can out of it and try to give as much back. And if you know me, I think you'd be able to say, yeah, that's Hannah Rose. Um, and I live with integrity. And if I were to find out that I had X amount of time to live, I don't know what I would change. Not the people that are in my life, not who I spend my time with, not what I spend my time doing. I don't regret my past or any decisions. And like, I think it's important to say that, not just because we could all die at any freaking moment, but also like Let us look at our lives and take inventory and say, what no longer serves me? And are there things I can do about that? I've recently been reading The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer, and another book of his called Living Untethered, and another book of his called The Surrender Experience— or Surrender Experiment. And I'm like, really? Whoa, this is totally impacting my life! Ah! And he's like, it's very spiritual. Spiritual, and you know, about like sitting back in the seat of our consciousness and just witnessing, not trying to interfere with our thoughts or feelings or other people. Like just notice, you know, this idea that acceptance is non-resistance and how much of our lives are we in distress or discomfort or pain or because life isn't going our way. And he's like, it's taken 13.8 billion years to get here. Why would life be bending to your will? Like, of course it's not going to go your way all the time. And I mean little things like traffic or rain, you know, I, I always marvel when someone is like, "Oh my God, it's raining and I'm so upset." And it's like, but that doesn't have to do with you. Like it raining is not personal. And how much of our lives can we change by just slightly altering our reaction to it? So cliché, but life is 99%, wait, life is 1% what happens, not even, and 99.9% how I react to it. You know, how empowering. I get to choose how I wanna react to life, the adversity and the good stuff. And so for me, remembering like we are human beings for a finite amount of time on this floating rock in space, how important is it really? You know, what you think of me, what I look like, what this person said, how important is it really? I really recommend The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer. Also The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I mean, I'll do another book haul about like books that have changed my life. Oh, this has been 20 minutes. Oh my goodness. I have to— What am I doing? I gotta get ready for this wedding. But anyway, food for thought. What in your life should you quit? And maybe just changing the words, right? Changing it from quit to walking away from, choosing to leave. I just think there's a lot of wisdom in that. And for me, it took kind of falling on my face in front of a national audience to realize that. Fuck yeah, quitting. That's how I feel. Okay, thanks for all of this. I hope you enjoyed this video. Bye.