Therapy Natters

Values

• Richard Nicholls • Season 2 • Episode 1

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It’s season 2 time!
Richard & Fiona are back after a break, with an episode about the importance of using your values to get to know yourself.

If you’re part of their Evolve to Thrive programme many of the episodes in this season of Therapy Natters will support your journey nicely.


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Richard:

Hello, you beauties! Here we are again with another season of Therapy Natters, The podcast series where two psychotherapists natter for half an hour or so about something you might just find tickles your brain a little bit. I'm Richard Nicholls, and in the co host chair, as always, is Fiona Biddle. Hello, Fiona! How are you today?

Fiona:

I'm, I'm fine and excited to be back. It's been longer than we anticipated, hasn't it?

Richard:

It has,

Fiona:

But that's because we've been so busy. Not because we've been off on jollies and doing nothing.

Richard:

No, Therapy Natters has definitely been on my mind. Regularly. And we've been chatting pretty much every Friday about what we're going to be up to and what we're going to be doing in Season 2 and so on. And, yeah, I'm raring to go. Absolutely. Yes, we've missed it. And I think some of our listeners have missed us. I've had a few messages from people saying,

Fiona:

Where are

Richard:

are coming back? It's been ages. And yeah, I've been reassuring everybody saying, Oh, we're not going anywhere. We'll be back before you know it. And here we are. I don't know how many episodes are going to be in season two and when we'll take another break, but we did 101 in season one. So that was pretty much two years of weekly stuff. And.

Fiona:

I we, do really though, don't we know, in Season 2, although there might not be much of a gap between Season 2 and Season 3, but Season 2 does have this specific connection to our evolve to thrive programme., which is six months of four weeks per month. So, six times four is twelve.

Richard:

just doing the maths there. Yep, I got a D for my GCSE Maths. Twice. Because I retook it to see if I could do better. I didn't. I don't like the limiting attitude where people will say, Oh, you've either got a maths brain or you haven't. Because that's not how brains work. But, I did find it quite stressful and I didn't do very well.

Fiona:

yes, absolutely. I mean,

Richard:

And I think those two things are correlated.

Fiona:

That is one of the to me, one of the worst labels that can be put on children is, well, it's almost the confirmation usually of, I can't do maths, so they're struggling and then they get that label stuck on them and then they, of course they can't do it.

Richard:

Yes, it's the weird cultural lie, or metaphor, or however you want to look at it, of being a left brained versus right brained person. Like, oh, you only, you use your left brain. That's not how brains work. We don't have a left brain and a right brain. Brains are brains. They all, all of your brain does everything. Well, there are some areas, not that I'm a neurologist by any stretch of the imagination, but there are some areas that do a bit more of other stuff, but it's not about logic or, well, maybe the, the, you know, the amygdala area of the brain.

Fiona:

think Ian McGilchrist would disagree with you, but the thing is that it doesn't really matter. And that everybody, unless they've got brain damage, can do both. And does do both. And

Richard:

yeah, we made an, we did make an episode about the hemispheric stuff, didn't we? Um, I forget when. Look it up, on there. all there, there in the 101 episodes of season one.

Fiona:

Later on, it was later on, because it took a bit of building up to, as I remember, because it's blooming

Richard:

Oh. big topic. Yeah. think even a neuroscientist would

Fiona:

we, but yeah, I mean, I think that, that, the learning from it is that, useful and interesting though it is. Both sides can do both and it's about balance as so often.

Richard:

Yes, and whether that's important to you or not is going to be different. What's important to you? Well, I need to, I need to understand maths. Why? Is that part of your job? Is that something that was told to you by your teachers, by your parents? Was that their value system and not actually yours? And I'm quite keen on people going into their value system to learn more about what makes them tick, and so on. Which reminds me, we have a question, don't we? We had a question submitted, on this topic, kind of.

Fiona:

Sort of, but it's going to lead to this topic because I think that's sort of rather important. Yes It's Jay from Bradford who says that he says I've just started therapy and my therapist has told me that I need to get to know myself But I have no idea where to start. Can you help? That is our intention, Jay, to start, by helping you to know what getting to know yourself means. And what you just said then, Richard, about people getting to understand their value systems, I think it's one of those things that, obviously, if you think about it, everybody has a value system. But it's not something that we generally think about. It's sort of like the back of your knees. You've got them. I don't know where that came from, but you've got them.

Richard:

And they've probably got a name.

Fiona:

Individual or generic?

Richard:

I dunno it's probably got a funny name

Fiona:

knees.

Richard:

Not like John and Jeff, but it's probably got a biological name. I'm thinking of the area, you know, this bit of your elbow. That's got a name. That's got a funny name.

Fiona:

Yes, I mean, everything does, doesn't it?

Richard:

It's called a wenis

Fiona:

Is it?

Richard:

W E N I S. Wenis Rhymes with penis. I mean, I might be nearly 50, but I'm still a child. Knowing that a wenis yes.

Fiona:

So being childlike is one of your values. It's important to you.

Richard:

It is. There's an innocence to it. There's a fun to it. I do value, do I value being serious? No. Well, there's a time and a place for it. I value it in the, and that's interesting, because I value it in the consulting room, in the therapy room. That's,

Fiona:

what I was going to say.

Richard:

but I'm congruent.

Fiona:

yes.

Richard:

I'm still me in the therapy room. And sometimes I bring silliness and humour into the therapy room if it's appropriate. And I guess that's the key. If it's appropriate. Is this in the benefit of the client? That you make this silly noise or joke or face or whatever? And if it's not, then

Fiona:

would be, that would be a real clash, wouldn't it? I mean, I said to somebody just this morning, about a project that I'm working on, I said, let's continue to have fun while we get things done.

Richard:

I like it because it rhymes.

Fiona:

I quite liked it. It just came out of my fingers as I was typing it. But, I thought that, for me, that is a really strong, well, two values combined. In that I like to have fun, that's why I prefer my pub quiz nights to my bridge nights, because it's much more fun. Uh huh. But

Richard:

That's interesting.

Fiona:

getting things done is a very strong value

Richard:

But if you didn't know that you value having fun more than winning at bridge or the,

Fiona:

never going to happen, so don't have to worry about that one.

Richard:

But it might be that underneath all of that there's a value of belongingness and connectivity. Connections with other people. I'm very much a people person. I'm quite the extrovert, and I do like people, but if I thought that it was alcohol I valued, then I'd just go to the pub on my own and drink. No, that's not what I value. What I value is the company, and the people, and the conversations, and the sharing. Which means, I don't even need to drink alcohol. I can drive and drink Guinness Zero, which is absolutely the best alcohol free drink on the planet.

Fiona:

Oh. I've got a better one.

Richard:

Water. Yeah, I mean that is, from a health perspective, far better. But Guinness Zero is blooming good. And Stella zero, that's

Fiona:

water with a slice of lemon. But we go off at tangents. That's another value. I quite like going off at tangents. I saw something going off on one. I saw somebody the other day saying that, Going off on tangents is a sign of ADHD. But doesn't everybody go off on tangents?

Richard:

Um,

Fiona:

a question of whether you can come back from them, perhaps.

Richard:

well, it's not for me to diagnose Fiona, you know.

Fiona:

knows? Who knows? Who knows? But anyway, coming back to Jay and his question. Yeah, I think the essence is that one of the things that really is necessary for learning who you are, which is the starting point of Evolve to Thrive, is knowing who you are, is to dig into your values. I heard somebody else recently say, this was a business coaching scenario, and he said, you all know who you are, and, I thought, ooh,

Richard:

No, we don't. No. remember the Looking Glass Self from,

Fiona:

Go on.

Richard:

what was the guy's name? Early 1900s, 1902, 1903, something like that. Charles, somebody. We did speak about it once in one episode. The Looking Glass Self. I am not who I think I am, and I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am. And I know there's a few layers there to get your head around, but that is who we are, unless we really get to know ourselves. How we are. And I think that really does come from our value system.

Fiona:

Yeah, and I think it's also worth saying that it's a never ending process.

Richard:

It's not like a game where you complete it. Oh good, I'm on the boss level

Fiona:

I, I know, I know exactly who I am now. Now, I've been doing therapy on and off in various forms for 30 years. I still surprise myself.

Richard:

yeah.

Fiona:

Didn't know that about me, or didn't know why that was, and suddenly get a realisation of, oh, that's why I'm that.

Richard:

And our values can change over time. What we might have valued when we were 19 or 20, Could be very different, given some of the experiences that we have. Now, we might revert to that, because it might be that that value system back then, when we were a teenager, was based on some innocence, maybe. I forget who it was that said it. Might have been Winston Churchill that said that if you, if you don't start as a, as as a liberal, then there's something wrong with you. But if you don't then become more educated and then become more conservative, then there's something wrong with you. He didn't quite say it like that. I'm paraphrasing and I think he was wrong now, aged, probably the age that he was when he said it, maybe. No, I'm still very liberal, I'm still very much about people and equality. And fairness. To not be into that? I mean, you can be a, you can be a conservative kind person. They exist. That's not nothing unusual, of

Fiona:

Yeah, exactly. I think there's probably quite a bit of, definition of words that's going on in that.

Richard:

Yeah, we do have quite a dichotomous world at the minute, between left and right, as if there's nothing in the middle, and as if anybody that's not got your value system is a Nazi. Or, no, a fascist, is what everybody says, that unless you agree with me you're a fascist. Because they're just looking at the worst elements of a different ideology, a different value system. Well, capitalism has got its problems, but it's the best we've got right now, and I'd rather,

Fiona:

one, isn't it? That democracy is a terrible form of government, but it's the best we've got. Which is similar to capitalism, but

Richard:

yeah, 60 years later or whatever, things haven't changed a great deal, because we haven't come up with a better system that is gonna work. Maybe other countries have, and we haven't jumped on that bandwagon yet, but we'll figure it out. But, I'd rather be on the inside of something, working with it, trying to fix it if there is a problem, than on the outside rejecting everything,

Fiona:

everything, yeah, and that's almost certainly going to come from a position of not really understanding what's going on, in the same way that if I was to criticise you, that's coming from my perspective of you, not from your perspective of you, so that's not terribly helpful.

Richard:

Agreed. So how can Jay and other people like them get their head around and find out their values so they can get to know themselves and connect with that maybe inner child or the real them rather than a persona that might cause a problem?

Fiona:

What we've actually done as part of the program is to get a list. So, there's a lot of values on the list and we've got a values exercise which, the idea is to go through, look at each one and see how relevant that value is to you. and, then also to be looking for conflicts between them So there'll be loads on the list that really just don't resonate and that's absolutely fine but what happens when two of them really do resonate but they're in conflict or if one of yours is in conflict with your partners or somebody close to you or in work if you're employed and your values don't coincide with the values of the company and so on because that's, also worth thinking that every organisation has a value system. Every country, every grouping. Whatever that group is. Right down to couples, so couples, families, tribes,

Richard:

Hmm,

Fiona:

countries, yeah, all groupings have their own value system. So the the idea is to is to dig down and say this is important to me and then look for those conflicts. Once you found those then you know what can be done. Well, maybe you don't know what can be done, but you know that something maybe needs to be done or doesn't.

Richard:

yes,

Fiona:

You know, if you've got a husband and wife who, one person really values Oh, I can't think of an example now. Maybe we'll find it when we go through some some lists. So, Richard, give me a letter of the alphabet and I will tell you the values that we've got on our list that begin with that letter, just as a way to express how many values there are because I'm not going to go through all of them.

Richard:

No, I can't remember how many's on the list but I think I found 150 or something

Fiona:

There's Yeah, there's 12 pages in this document, but they're spread out so that people can write in the, in the boxes. So, give me a letter.

Richard:

S

Fiona:

S.

Richard:

Keep scrolling.

Fiona:

Keep scrolling, right? I've to S. Okay, so, go through them slowly ish so that people can think as we say them, and if you want to say anything about any of them, do jump in, Right, security.

Richard:

Oh.

Fiona:

Self actualization,

Richard:

Mm

Fiona:

Self control,

Richard:

Ooh.

Fiona:

Self reliance, Self sufficiency, Selflessness,

Richard:

Ooh. Ah,

Fiona:

Sensitivity, Serenity, Service, Shrewdness,

Richard:

shrewdness.

Fiona:

being shrewd,

Richard:

Okay. Yeah, that's a value.

Fiona:

Simplicity, Social status,

Richard:

Ooh,

Fiona:

Speed,

Richard:

Speed?

Fiona:

Speed, get going, get on with it.

Richard:

Okay. I was thinking of a different speed. Don't value that. That's

Fiona:

Oh well, I mean, that reminds me of a time when I was doing a course and one of the tutors on the course was so slow.

Richard:

Ah, so if like efficiency, absolutely.

Fiona:

Yes. spontaneity. That could be a clash within a couple. One likes everything to be planned. And one likes to be spontaneous.

Richard:

That's a familiar story. You've been reading my diary again.

Fiona:

But it is actually quite an interesting one because do you need to do anything about it? Or can you, once you've recognised it, work within it? It's the fact that if it's not identified

Richard:

clashes can, even, I think clashes can even happen if you value two Different opposing things. Like, I'm thinking of my wife here, who both values planning, very much. She knows sometimes what exercises she's going to be doing two weeks in advance on a Thursday. She knows exactly, she knows exactly how much protein is going to be in a meal the following day. She knows, because she sat down on the Sunday and worked out for the next two weeks what we're going to have for our evening meals. I offer, I get choices as well, you know, I get stuff in there, but she really values knowing what's going to happen next. But! She does value spontaneity as well, because life like that could be quite boring. So to find that balance between both having some positive expectation of what's going to happen next in your mind, but also having some sort of spontaneous, oh let's just do this, and it not be too jarring, so life isn't too boring. Finding that balance is difficult, but if you don't know that actually you value both of those things, then you can't find the balance, because you might think, But I know I'm somebody who has to. That label of, I'm somebody who I might need to question that.

Fiona:

If the clash was between two of you as opposed to within the one, then it would lead to arguments, wouldn't it? You know, if one person is planning to go on holiday, one person needs to have got every night booked into a hotel. Let's say it's a touring holiday. Every night needs to be organised and know what they're going to see in that town. Or whatever they're going to do.. And the other one wants to just go and see what happens, then that's not going to work unless they realise that this is the issue, in which case they can come to some sort of compromise and say, well, we'll have every other night organised and we know that we'll go to that town and so we know that we will find something. That sort of thing.

Richard:

You have been reading my journal. Because me and my wife have had these, These conversations, exactly those things. We went to, okay, it was a big trip, it was a few years ago now, it was 2019. We went to Australia for six weeks and because it was going to be, you know, potentially a once in a lifetime thing, she wanted to get it right. These are the things I want to do. I've been saving up since I was a nine year old girl to do these things. So I'm going, we want to, I want to do these things. And she just didn't want to go for a walk and just see what happens. Whereas I value spontaneity, and I value the outside world, and I value surprises. I don't know what's going to happen next, and that's okay. My wife feels differently. She wants to know what's going to happen next, because if she doesn't, that's not okay. And knowing that we've got those conflicts is absolutely vital in making sure that we are happy and contented with each other. We need to know each other, not just ourselves. But I think in learning about other people, it does start with learning about yourself first.

Fiona:

But as you, say, once you start this with yourself, you get to understand others by default.

Richard:

Yeah. Yeah.

Fiona:

go back to the S's. You picked a good letter here. Stability, strategy, strength, success, and support.

Richard:

Success.

Fiona:

Some of these are fairly obvious. Like, so shrewdness Well we know what shrewd means, so we know what shrewdness means. Success is one that is so variable. And another thing to think about when you're thinking about your values is to what you mean by it. So, Success. Most parents, I would say, am I generalising too much? I don't think so. Most parents would say they want their children to be successful, but the parents' definition of success might be different from the child's

Richard:

Because of their value system. Because what they might be, if you play with that, play with the layers of it, what they mean is, I want my child to be happy. And if they value success, because that makes them feel proud, well, they value pride, why not? And they want that for their child, but that child might not value success. Or, rather their success is in a different place, because financial success or promotional, you know, work success, always going up the ladder. They might not value that, but they might take on their parents values for the first 20 years of their life. The first 40 years of their life, maybe, until they challenge it and go, what am I doing? I remember, the author's name, her real name I think was Anne Puddicombe. But she went under a man's name, I think Alan, I was going to say Welsh, but that might not be right, because she was Welsh, that might be what I'm thinking of. And she had a phrase that, I paraphrase a few times, that there's nothing worse than climbing the ladder of success only to get to the top and realise you had it lent against the wrong wall. She didn't say it quite like that, but that's my spin on it. Because you can spend decades climbing the ladder of success, and you get to the top and go, this isn't where I want to be. Because now I've lost touch with all my friends and family because I've spent so much time in this career.

Fiona:

If I think back to my school days. And I do recognise that I am older than probably the majority of our listeners, but not all, I hope, I went to an all girls grammar school and one of the underlying values, well it's a sort of combined thing, so not necessarily one. But, there was an expectation that most of us gals would go to university. So there was that value system. And if you didn't, you had to have a jolly good reason. I mean, one of my friends studied accountancy rather than going to university, and that was just about tolerated. But, the overarching thing was once you'd done that it really was to get married and have babies. So the the success label. This is never written down anywhere or anything, but a lot of the time with values. It's it's feeling based. You just get that feel of what it is. So the success there would be that combination that's what makes you a success And if you actually look at what? My class, for example, have achieved compared to what the equivalent class in the boys school over the road did in terms of a measure of success. If you were to use the one you've been hinting at, which is career success, big difference. Because they didn't have get married and have babies as part of their success value system.

Richard:

So our culture, of course, plays a big role in defining what we should value. And we can get steered in different directions if we're not careful. It wasn't that long ago, and I think genuinely it was the 1970s. I don't know if we've got any listeners in Ireland. We probably do. I should check the stats. But it wasn't that long ago where there was a law that if you were a woman, once you got married, you had to resign your post. You weren't allowed to work. It was illegal. It was illegal to work if you were a married woman. And that didn't stop until, I'm sure it was early 70s, maybe late 60s. No, I'm thinking 70s. Different over here, and the law changed in the end because we've got to catch up here. So there were so many women in the 70s that wanted to work, but it was illegal to. And they might have been given some value system by their culture and by their family. And that could have been passed on to the next generation. And it means then their daughters, maybe, have got a challenge there. Because they might have picked up their parents value system and gone, but I live in a culture now that doesn't suggest that. But they've still got those, those values being given to them by their parents. And man hands on misery to man. It just gets down the generations.

Fiona:

you think about that example, if, let's take that it was a man who had grown up within that cultural environment and then moved somewhere abroad where it was a completely different expectation for women, you know, Yeah. going to take some working through.

Richard:

And it means checking, are these my values? Or were these given to me by culture? Were given to me by somebody else? What do I feel about this?

Fiona:

And it's, it is a fundamental, but it's almost by definition. You're going to think your own values are right because well, how can you not think your values are right, but by Analysing it you could decide you're going to change something, and you can change values That's really important to know you can change them. But that's a thinking process, but you're always going to have settled on, one way or the other, values that you think are right. A politician recently said not all cultural systems are the same. They were talking about immigration. And, the example that was given was that, We don't want, this is British of course, we don't want people who believe in child marriage coming here. Which, I mean, I just get very uncomfortable when anybody says anything about don't want people coming here for particular reasons. But there's not many people in the UK who would think, yip dee doo, child marriage, that's okay, yeah, that's alright. Because it's such a strong value within our culture. But in the cultures where It is part of their value system. They would be saying, but that's right.

Richard:

But you can play with those layers and say what I value is children being safe. Well that's good. Please keep those values. That's really important. It doesn't mean you have to hate brown people to do that. You can still keep your values. You can still keep your shape. Without being racist.

Fiona:

I'm wondering why you were jumping to the fact that they would be brown people, but

Richard:

Fair point. that was what they were hinting at, wasn't it, when she said it,

Fiona:

um, probably, probably they, they are, but I don't know that that's necessarily the case. I just I don't know, but without getting into the weeds of a specific dilemma, I think this leads to the thought that, going back to Jay's question, partly you can find out who he is by going through exercises like the one we've got in Evolve to Thrive, but you can also do it by discussion And by listening to other people, and that doesn't necessarily mean one to one conversation, but getting out of the echo chamber that social media provides for us. I mean we've talked about this before, but it will give you reels and so on of things that are aligning with your value system because those are the things that you've concentrated on so it knows you want it.

Richard:

Yes. Or the things you fear?

Fiona:

Yeah, go specifically outside of it yourself Think I don't know much about cultures where dot dot dot and go find it and listen and think about it and then think how does that relate to me? How does that relate to the groups I'm in the dynamics I'm part of? See where it takes you. Fascinating stuff.

Richard:

yeah. And if somebody isn't, because obviously plenty of people listen to this, not everybody's going to be a member of our Evolve to Thrive program. But you're welcome to sign up for it, link is in the show notes. But those that aren't it's not difficult to find a list of values. Do have a Google, and just get your head around all the different words that are out there, and get to know yourself through that.

Fiona:

yeah, what they mean to you. how much of it has been imposed on you, how much is your choice.

Richard:

That's a great start. Well, we need to love them and leave them, Fiona, because we've been nattering for long enough, I think.

Fiona:

Funny how we just got back on the horse and carried on as if we'd never stopped.

Richard:

Yeah, we haven't done this for ages, and, you know, we could keep going for hours, couldn't we? but we won't because you might value your 30 minute drive to work, and we've overran.

Fiona:

Yes, imagine somebody sitting on a train and thinking, Will they shut up because we're nearly at the station?

Richard:

We don't know exactly how long your journey is, but I bet it's about done right now. So, let's go for now. Have a super week, everybody. We will be back next week. I don't know what we're going to be talking about, because we haven't decided that yet, we'll work through something. Well,

Fiona:

being prepared.

Richard:

you value being prepared, and so do I. I just haven't checked the schedule that you made and emailed me about.

Fiona:

Yes.

Richard:

Sorry!

Fiona:

It doesn't

Richard:

Okay.

Fiona:

need you can be spontaneous.

Richard:

Oh, I am. What are we talking about it next week, then?

Fiona:

Oh, I can't actually remember.

Richard:

But you value the plan. Oh, that's fine.

Fiona:

it's beliefs. I think it's beliefs.

Richard:

Oh, that's good.

Fiona:

but I think it's beliefs.

Richard:

We'll be talking about it at some point anyway, and it'll follow on quite nicely from this. And from Jay's question as actually, getting know Yeah, it really, really will.

Fiona:

part of that month one. Who am I?

Richard:

Good stuff. Right, let's go disco! Have a super week, everybody. If you need anything, you know where we are. Submit some questions, give us some topic ideas, and we'll weave your questions into our episodes quite easily, I'm sure. Have a good one,

Fiona:

and we we do now have, um, a WhatsApp number specifically. Richard will be putting that into the show notes.

Richard:

I absolutely will. There is a text thing in there anyway that comes through a website,

Fiona:

Yeah, but

Richard:

you can whatsapp us.

Fiona:

whatsapp a question can. And you will get a reply. Okay.

Richard:

I'd love to hear from you. Bye for now, everybody. See you.

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Fiona Biddle

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Richard Nicholls

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