108. Sarah #27: Willful Blindness

Doug and Sarah reflect on how growing up in a cult stripped her of agency and individuality in her own life. She is reclaiming her individuality and feeling strength in her sense of self now. Doug and Sarah make the link from this to the issue she has with control. Sarah walks through a specific example when one of her sisters was driving her car. Sarah processes the anxiety and feelings around letting go of control and spoke up for something selfishly – meaning she was taking care of herself. Doug and Kenzie break down how we can process anxiety when it hits for all of us by staying mindful and present focused instead of going back into our past or future tripping. And they actually go over a couple of tools that we can all take with us.   Doug’s Group Therapy Practice YMB Webpage   Join Us on Social Media:  YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok   Jennifer Lawrence on Hot Ones – What do you mean? Relax, Nothing’s Under Control – T-Shirt

Drew has a birthday coming up and a few doctors’ appointments on the horizon. He is able to organize his thoughts and come up with a plan both for addressing his medical health and for celebrating his birthday. Doug helps Drew acknowledge that he is not responsible for his parents’ response to him and his boundaries. Drew is adulting! Doug and Kenzie are feeling it – literally – as an earthquake hits during recording.   Doug’s Group Therapy Practice YMB Webpage   Join Us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok

Sarah acknowledges being in a constant battle with herself because of how she wants to hear feedback from others for things she has done. She has a hard time accepting praise; and, she doesn’t mind constructive criticism if it helps her grow. Doug helps her make sense of getting comfortable without having feedback be the validation. Doug and Kenzie break down external versus internal validation and the drive to be perfect versus doing your personal best. They discuss what it is to be good enough and how “meets expectations” isn’t a negative thing. Striving for perfection is about doing your best, which can be “good enough” if we allow it to be. However, many of us feel that we’re not doing enough unless something is done perfectly, especially when there’s a historical experience of criticism and an internal voice in our head constantly criticizing us. What does doing your personal best mean to you? Can that be good enough or does it need to be perfect?   Doug’s Group Therapy Practice YMB Webpage   Join us on Social Media: YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok Mentioned in the Episode: Link to Rapper’s Delight from “Happy Feet” Link to “Spinal Tap” These Go to 11

Drew is feeling independence and individuation from parents, especially when he signs a lease on a new place without using them as the guarantor. He had a breakaway moment after mom didn’t show up the way he wanted her to on a phone call. He felt solitude and the “solid-tude” of relying on himself not on his parents and the anxious-attachment style that often lets him down. Drew is experiencing what it’s like to choose himself and put his needs first ahead of everyone else, instead of his old pattern of putting his needs last. Doug helps him understand what it means to show up for someone the way they want, rather than the way he wants them to show up for him. It’s not about mind reading - it’s about communicating what would be supportive to you and asking someone what feels supportive to them.   Doug’s Group Therapy Practice   YMB Webpage   Join Us on Social Media:  YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok

Sarah is going through all the emotions with her teenager and the situation he got into at school this week. While she continues to practice using natural consequences to parent her kids, she is also allowing herself to have her own emotional experience. Sarah is re-parenting herself by letting her kids to come to her and giving them the space to feel their feelings and sit with it (something she didn’t have growing up). She acknowledges the challenges of not acting on her instant reaction in these parenting situations, especially when interacting with her ex-husband. Sarah is able to stop and process before just going to her default protective mode to either fix the triggering event right away or bear the brunt of the consequences herself to shield her children (like she did for her siblings growing up in a cult). Sarah is healing her inner child!   Doug’s Group Therapy Practice   YMB Webpage   Join Us on Social Media:  YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok

Doug helps Drew focus on himself, not just the baby on the way. Drew admits that he isn’t feeling joy in things the way he’s used to feeling it and that it’s taking him out of the present. Drew realizes that he’s looking for the joy instead of being in the moment and letting the joy find him. This leads Drew to acknowledge the existential anxiety that he’s also been feeling. Doug and Kenzie discuss anhedonia and sitting with clients when they are experiencing this feeling. They also talk about what happens when we may have missed something in a session as a therapist or feeling like our therapist missed something as a client. Have we missed something else, let us know… or if you’ve missed something, check out the podcast archives and listen to Drew and Sarah from day one of their journey in therapy!  Doug’s Group Therapy Practice  YMB Webpage  Join Us on Social Media:  YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok

Doug helps Sarah move forward along a path toward her emotions. They discuss her learned pattern of being dismissive of herself and her feelings. The pursuit of data and facts that turns Sarah into the “justice warrior” is a defense mechanism to not feel the feelings. Doug uses an analogy with Spock and Kirk to highlight a spectrum of being logically driven versus being emotionally driven. Sarah connects this to how she can sound like a robot sometimes while suppressing and invalidating her own feelings. Doug invites Sarah to give herself permission to bring out her inner Captain Kirk so she can practice allowing her emotions to come up and out.    Doug’s Group Therapy Practice   YMB Webpage   Join Us on Social Media:  YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok

Drew is feeling like an adult and living in the world. He acknowledges feeling strength where he used to feel weakness in asking for help. He’s getting support in his life by virtue of actually asking for help from others rather than doing everything on his own. Doug and Drew talk about the subtle differences between being an individual and being independent. Doug and Kenzie discuss the therapeutic relationship as a secure attachment. With this secure base to jump off from, Doug is able to challenge Drew, and Drew is able to explore his independence.    Doug’s Group Therapy Practice   YMB Webpage   Join Us on Social Media:  YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok

Sarah is experiencing the difference between being of value at work and being the singular essential piece that also carries with it all the responsibility and pressure. She notices how she’s starting to relax a bit and soften her edges when she isn’t in complete control. Doug helps Sarah acknowledge how the control issue arose to protect herself as a child growing up in a cult, but it isn’t serving her well now in her adult life. Doug invites her to come out of the protective shell to feel her own emotional experience rather than stay “safe” inside and keep her feelings internalized. Kenzie presses Doug to break down the abundant use of analogy and personal stories in session rather than stay in Sarah’s own personal experiences and emotions. They find that the analogies, especially the airplane one, really do land for Sarah… do they land for you too?   Doug’s Group Therapy Practice YMB Webpage   Join Us on Social Media:  YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok

Doug and Kenzie talk about connecting to your inner child. Then in the session, Drew is adulting and creating distance from his parents while preparing to be a father himself. Doug digs deeper with Drew in the session to get to the emotions underneath all the progress we see and hear on the outside. Doug explains an analogy of photographs to show how we often perceive (and misperceive) people. There are polaroid snapshots from one instance in time and there are “Harry Potter” pictures that constantly move and change - but neither is a true moving picture of our actual life now. The images someone has in mind of us don’t necessarily line up with how we really are now. We want people to see us and know us for who we are, but we are constantly changing. This gets murky when we put up walls and present false pictures to people, especially family members. Doug’s Group Therapy Practice YMB Webpage Join Us on Social Media:  YMB The Facebook Group YMB on Instagram YMB on TikTok