Beliefs

Is Richard too old for a mosh pit?
Can Fiona ever win a game of Bridge?

All these questions and more in this week's Therapy Natters.

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Transcript

Richard: 0:10

Hey there, podcast fans! It's Therapy Natters time! How about you chill out for half an hour or so with two psychotherapists who've got a real need to get all this stuff that's in our head Out into the universe, and ultimately, into your head instead. I'm Richard Nicholls, and with me, as always, is Fiona Biddle. Hello, fiona, how are you?

Fiona: 0:33

can I just say that it's not instead of in our heads, because I don't think it's going to leave our heads, but it would as well as our heads.

Richard: 0:41

Well, uh, yeah, hmm.

Fiona: 0:43

would quite like my head to be empty, but I don't think that's going to happen.

Richard: 0:47

Well, I did see some studies a few years ago, into why we can get stuff stuck in our head. And there was a psychologist who had an experience in a restaurant and he found that the serving staff, they could remember absolutely everything that everybody had had. So if anybody questioned anything they'd be like, nope, you had this burger, you had that steak, you had that salad and they just knew it. And he was amazed that they could remember. The moment they paid the bill it was instantly forgotten by the serving staff, what he discovered after some experiments, is that when you know, I don't need to remember that anymore, your brain gives you permission to let it go. So if somebody queried it after they'd paid, they went, Oh, hang on a minute. I'm not sure if I had two beers. And they go back in, the staff just scratch their head and go, I don't know. I can't remember. I've got to go. I've got to go and check everything. But you were so on the ball 30 seconds ago. But their brain gave them permission to just let it go. And that's because there's just something in our brain that says I know what's right, and I know what I need to hold on to. And I think that's why therapy can be helpful, because it gets stuff out of your head, dumps it on the therapist, and you don't have to think about it

Fiona: 2:05

Absolutely true, and I'm thinking the other way round, that the times when we are not remembering things that we do want to remember, perhaps we need to be talking to that part of the brain and saying that actually you can't let this go, please don't let this go.

Richard: 2:18

Yeah, uh, many years ago I saw a headline, well not a headline, it might have been a headline, certainly it was internet based, ironically, that said, google is making you stupid, or something like that, because having access to information so easily means we don't have to remember stuff. So therefore, googling stuff makes you stupid. No, it makes you more efficient because that's just how the brain works. If you don't need to remember something because you've got it written down on a note in your pocket, or in your phone, or on the internet, you, will find it harder to remember it. That's just how the brain works. It's not that the internet makes us stupid or the modern world, or smartphones. Oh, you hear that a lot. Smartphones make children stupid. No, they don't.

Fiona: 3:07

calculators.

Richard: 3:08

yeah!

Fiona: 3:08

You know, you can't possibly use calculators because you need to know maths, but how often do you actually need to be able to add things up?

Richard: 3:17

I just said, oh, I can't do that. I'm sure I could.

Fiona: 3:22

It's funny, started both our first two with talking about maths.

Richard: 3:27

Oh yeah, yeah, we talked about that last didn't we? Oh, I can't do that. Well, that? bringing us on topic, is a negative belief. Why would you say to yourself, I can't do do that?

Fiona: 3:41

Then, by extension, the belief is maths is difficult.

Richard: 3:45

Yes.

Fiona: 3:46

And, like I would say with any subject, there's a grading. Adding one plus one is not difficult for most people. Other end, which I can't even go to because I don't know where the other end is, I did apply do maths at university but decided it was too much like hard work.

Richard: 4:05

yeah.

Fiona: 4:07

and it was, because we combined honours. Maths and Latin. And I thought, no, no, no, no. No, I did IT instead. Much easier. the belief system, of course. You know, some people would not find IT easy.

Richard: 4:19

That's true. Absolutely, yes. How many, I've met so many, so many people who struggle with their parents, because technology has just passed them by. Or, I've met those people and, and, and, maybe they've been clients or something, and I've said, oh, I have a website where you can create an account, and I've got some things that are stored on there. And they go, oh, the internet. Oh, I can't do that. Can you show me? And they'll get their phone out and say, can you show me how to do it? And, yes, I'll show them how to do it. But I can almost guarantee I've got to show them again the next time.

Fiona: 4:52

Because they're not doing it.

Richard: 4:54

Because, they're doing it.

Fiona: 4:55

So they believe they can't. What's that phrase? Whether you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're right.

Richard: 5:02

Henry Ford, yes, slightly paraphrased, I forget exactly what he said. It wasn't quite so eloquent, so we've sort of changed it as the years have gone on, but he was right. Henry Ford started designing and getting ready to build cars before there were roads. There were not enough roads to warrant having such a passion, such an interest in cars. That just wasn't enough, but he knew

Fiona: 5:28

you wouldn't build a road until you got something to put on it, would you?

Richard: 5:31

exactly. Exactly!

Fiona: 5:33

But the Romans built roads for their chariots and their troops, so I suppose Well, they had roads for a different purpose, different

Richard: 5:40

not in the States, but yeah,

Fiona: 5:42

No, they didn't, Romans didn't get to the States. Well, I believe they didn't.

Richard: 5:47

I'm not a historian, I don't know

Fiona: 5:49

But that raises the inetersting thing about what's the difference between a belief and a fact. I think we can say, as facts are, that could change. There could be some evidence that comes around to say that they did, but at the moment we, we believe that the is that the Romans didn't get to America.

Richard: 6:09

And there's a lot of fact checking, let's check for evidence on that, stuff that goes on in the therapy room, certainly with cognitive behavioural therapy or cognitive therapy particularly. Let's challenge that idea, that core theme, that schema that you've got running through you that might say, I'm not lovable. Is there evidence for that? Well, yes, I was treated like absolute dirt when I was a child. Is that evidence that you are unlovable, or is it evidence that your parents didn't know how to show love? Let's challenge that, and learn that you are lovable, because you can't have, well, we can have, we can have two opposing opinions at the same time, because we can say that everybody deserves love. Except me. Okay, but that's everybody, so you're not part of everybody, then? Part of the what's the first page of, um, the UN declaration of Human Rights? That everybody is entitled to feel safe, and so on. That's including you, too. That is everybody. And a lot of countries in the world sat down and went, yeah, we agree. You can't be an exception to that. But people believe, maybe, that they are. They might believe that they're stupid. Well who defines what that is? What does that even mean? Well, I can't do that. What's that got to do with it? I'm not very good at maths. Does that mean you're stupid? Or does it just mean that you find maths harder than some people do? Just like I find so many things more diffe I, um, put my back out at the weekend.

Fiona: 7:51

Oh, join the club.

Richard: 7:54

I've got to that, this has happened to me multiple times over the last 20 years or so, but it's recovering a lot better. Um, I was in a mosh pit and I am nearly 50. And although I was, so was everybody else, to be fair. It was that sort of mosh pit. This is Celtic Punk. It was proper proper full on. It was a lot of fun, a lot of fun. It really was, but I got an injury on my elbow. Look at that! I was jostled to the ground multiple times. You know, I'm five foot, I'm not even five foot seven, so maybe maybe I'm not even five. Oh, that's a belief. Yeah, how tall am I? I forgot again. I do remember about 10 years ago, mentioning to my wife, I think I've spoke about this before, that I'm, I'm, yeah.'cause I'm the same height as Declan Donnelly. I'm the same height as him and he's quite little and I thought I was taller than him. I truly believed I was just because I told myself I was year after year after year, just slightly adding on half an inch each time until I'm five foot eight. My wife's like, you are not 5 foot 8. You've never been 5 foot 8. Well, I am, I am. I truly believed it because I just started adding little bits on every 10 years or so until I'm 5 foot 8. What? How easy would it be to do that the opposite way around and just demean and diminish yourself in some way, every year, because you only look for evidence that supports this schema that you've got in your head.

Fiona: 9:33

Absolutely, we'd just like to say that being small is not a diminishment, it's literally smaller but it's not any worse than being tall. says she at, I don't know what I am now, but it's not what I was and it was never very much, but it's not a problem. Anyway, that's beside the point. just going back to heights, you were saying about Dec, and Ant always teases Dec about being little, and Ant's probably two inches, if that, bigger? I wonder if he actually believes, I wonder if Ant actually believes that he's tall in comparison, or if it's purely an act.

Richard: 10:14

yeah. I'd be interested to, get him on and find out. I, I, I doubt we'd get them on as guests, but

Fiona: 10:18

think that's highly unlikely, but if you happen to be listening, yeah. It's an interesting thought though about how other people perceive your beliefs. Because, you know, you know your own, or do you? We talked last week about the fact that people don't know themselves, and we talked about values and people don't necessarily know their values. I think the same thing does apply to beliefs, that we develop them through childhood, and a lot are imposed, and so they should, if you tell a child that cars are dangerous, and therefore they shouldn't run out into the road, we want a child to believe that. But for any belief system about them as a person, you know, you're stupid, you know, you'll never amount to anything, we want them to challenge it. But we also want them to challenge the other way around. So, you know, when a parent says, you're perfect, you don't want the six year old sitting there and thinking, well, am I really perfect? But at some point, they need to be going through the Who am I? What do I believe about the world, myself, people in it? Do that sort of exploration rather than just taking on the beliefs that you've been given. There's a big overlap with values.

Richard: 11:36

Yeah, there is absolutely because we can be given our values that says this is what makes somebody valuable. And that in itself is a belief. But we can be given beliefs through, through our culture, Through our school. Through our family system. Family system particularly, because that's obviously where we spend so much time. And when we're born, we really do look up to those caregivers that are around us for feedback and information. We're clueless. Let's be honest. We're an absolute absolutely, clueless blank canvas, just waiting to be created and moulded and, depending on our start in life, maybe we do get moulded into a shape that isn't who we want to be. And that can be challenged at any age, it really can.

Fiona: 12:25

Eric Erickson, psychosocial stages.

Richard: 12:28

Of course.

Fiona: 12:29

Which, I know we talked about that a little bit in, Series 1. Quite early on, I think, we did talk about stage of that, which is trust versus mistrust. And I was talking about that to Rory the other day

Richard: 12:41

Talking about it to Rory, Rory your grandchild, who is like 4 months

Fiona: 12:47

he wasn't, responding, verbally, but, you he was looking at me

Richard: 12:52

How old is he now? At time of recording?. Ten weeks.

Fiona: 12:55

Ten Weeks at the time of recording. He was about eight weeks At the time of conversation.

Richard: 12:59

Good to, know.

Fiona: 13:00

but it's never too early. So I was explaining to him that the task for this first year is to learn as to whether people in the world are trustworthy or not. And he, looked as if he understood, and his parents, are doing a very good job, I can see it, of making him feel that his needs will be met. So hopefully he will grow up with that sense that people are trustworthy, but he needs to also understand that not everybody is. Because that's realism about the world. And so, that's one of the things about challenging your beliefs. It's, it's just a really helpful process to see. It's like fact checking. And when you were talking about it earlier, I think that, the use of that, and how it's happening, you know, on the news, they have a debate between politicians and they fact check it. We can do that, too. We can take on that process and say, is this a real fact?

Richard: 14:04

A real fact

Fiona: 14:05

A real fact. Because, you know, the difference between a fact, a belief, an opinion important to be able to differentiate between them.

Richard: 14:16

Yes. Opinions are not facts.

Fiona: 14:21

So, question for you, Richard, what's the difference between an opinion and a belief?

Richard: 14:29

I mean, it's just language, isn't it? But maybe, would you say that the beliefs are just a bit more core, a bit deeper? Whereas an opinion is quite surface level?

Fiona: 14:38

it's actually in the document called Beliefs in Evolve to Thrive, But I have actually had to check it. An opinion is a personal view that may be unrelated to facts. So, the fact that we give in this document is that Donald Trump has served as President of the USA. And by the time you listen to this, lovely listeners, he might be again. We don't know at this point. Uh, So, it's a fact that he has served as president, and it's also a fact that he did not receive universal approval. Would you agree, Richard, those are facts?

Richard: 15:14

yeah, There is yeah evidence to say that, yes.

Fiona: 15:17

So an opinion would be saying, for example, that Donald Trump was the best president ever, or Donald Trump was the worst president ever. Those are opinions. Then a belief is somewhere in between. It's an acceptance that something is sort of true without the evidence for it. So if I was to say that, um, let's just pick best because it's not the one I would choose, Donald Trump was the best president ever. If I say that as my opinion I'm not actually thinking that that is true, I know it's an opinion. But if I had a belief that Donald Trump did a lot of good or bad for the USA because dot dot dot, that's the belief level. It's somewhere in between. Make sense?

Richard: 16:12

Yeah, it does. And how that applies to our mental health, or rather how it applies to our sense of self, I guess, I think is quite important. Because it does. We can have a different belief or opinion about ourself than other people. Say other people are worthy of love or deserve love. You might believe that you don't, for some reason. And that I think holds us back. It holds us back from feeling loved when we are, holds us back from finding love if we want it, and just lowers our self-esteem and, and, self-esteem is, i, I think something that everybody if they struggle with, it could do with working on, because the, benefits to our, physical and mental health, if we truly believe I'm a, I'm a good person, even if I've made mistakes, I'm still a good person and I deserve to be treated fairly. We're more likely to stand up for ourselves, more likely to say no to things that we shouldn't be saying yes to, more likely to say yes to things that we used to say no to. That's really important.

Fiona: 17:22

And there can be quite a lot of subtlety in this. So you're talking about being unloved in the core beliefs inventory that we provide, in Evolve to Thrive, there is how many is it? 100? 100 statements that you go through see pages of stuff. Yeah, hundred of them. so, it starts off with I am worthy of love and respect and so you, you mark these just basically as true or false, which is a little bit dichotomous, would be nice if we could have an in between, but there we go. But there's sort of more subtle ones like I can rely on myself I have very little control over my life. I am basically incompetent. I feel okay about myself. So there's subtleties within the questions that lead to subtleties in the computations. So this, it just gives you a value, as to how, where you are in terms of your feelings on, whether you have worth, whether you're safe, whether you're competent, whether you're powerful, whether you're loved, autonomous, whether you're treated justly, whether you belong, general feelings about whether people are good and whether your standards are reasonable and flexible. So these hundred questions lead to you getting a score on all of these things. We didn't create this, somebody else did, but

Richard: 18:48

I adapted it

Fiona: 18:49

adapted yes, so it gives you a score and then the thing is you can then look at that score on a scale of 1 to 10 they all come out as a scale of 1 to 10 you can look at those and see I believe that that is okay, or I believe it's not okay, and then you can do something about it. And that's, to me, a really important thing about beliefs, is that they don't have to be fixed. We can change our beliefs. If we have evidence to support something other than what we are currently believing. Or if we realise the evidence that we have been using to support the belief, either way round, we can change it. And that applies to something huge, such as the creator of the universe, right down to how you should cut up a bacon sandwich.

Richard: 19:43

Well, I, had this belief at the weekend I was too old for a mosh pit, um, and

Fiona: 19:49

I think that's a fact.

Richard: 19:53

No, I was certainly not the youngest person there.

Fiona: 19:58

I'm too old for mosh pit.

Richard: 20:00

Honestly, there were mostly

Fiona: 20:02

I've always been, my belief is I would not like it. That's my belief. Actually, now I say that. That is my belief. I'm probably wrong.

Richard: 20:12

I mean, I I could show you some videos of what was going on there. was was pretty, pretty full on, but it was a lot of fun.

Fiona: 20:19

not gonna, I'm not gonna try it out.

Richard: 20:20

But it's only fun if you like that sort of thing. My wife, Dawn, really would not have found that fun. that's her idea of hell. It's a room just crammed full of people just jumping up and down and screaming at each other. But that's not fun. Why would you do that when you can go for a nice meal?

Fiona: 20:38

But even with that, that's a belief that might change with experience. I mean, I think from what I know of Dawn, probably not in this case. But what about all the beliefs that we have of, Oh, I don't want to do somebody that I travelled with, would say, Oh, I can't just sit on a sunbed and read a book for a couple of hours. Oh no, can't, can't do that. I, I don't believe that that's a good use of time. Till trying it.

Richard: 21:08

Yeah. Because I love that. I mean, I can be I can be full on, and I will leap around a mosh pit. But I'll also sit on a beach and just read for two hours. Just sit there, engrossed in a book.

Fiona: 21:25

I'll do that for eight hours, no problem. I couldn't do it without the book. I couldn't just sit on a beach.

Richard: 21:35

It's very mindful,

Fiona: 21:36

People do.

Richard: 21:37

Yeah, they do. Just stare into the distance, just watch the world go by. Yeah, my first thought was, I couldn't do that. But I could, but do I, do I want to?

Fiona: 21:46

Yeah.

Richard: 21:47

Do I value that?

Fiona: 21:48

That's not, one I think we need to test out, but it could be the other way round. I'm sure there's plenty of beliefs that, well, everybody will have plenty of beliefs that are challengable and might be helpful.

Richard: 21:59

Hmm. Yes. I'm gonna flick through this document. let's have a look. Yeah. I have the power I need to solve most of my problems. That sort of thing. If that's a belief that, Oh, I don't have the power, you don't have the power? Are you not He Man or She Ra? I'm sure you have the power. But how many people will go, No, I don't have, I don't feel powerful enough. Well, how fantastic to work on that and change the belief about what power means. Because if somebody associates the word power with aggression, it's a really aggressive strength of character, then no, I might not identify. I don't identify with that, but I believe I'm assertive. That if somebody says, could you do this for me, and I can't I'm in a much better position now than I was 20 years ago to, go, I'd love to but I can't, I just don't have the time unfortunately. Anyway, take care, bye. And that wasn't who I was until I became a therapist and had so much therapy and worked on myself and studied and thought and changed and challenged all my beliefs that said, but your opinion of me is too important, I have to say yes. Because that was a belief Somebody else's opinion of me was more important than than my own mental health.

Fiona: 23:22

There's also the subtle belief within that, is that if I say no, they won't like me. Which sometimes that might occur, but then that's their problem, isn't it? but usually they'll just go, oh, okay. And go on and find somebody else

Richard: 23:36

But even if they don't, the, belief there, well, they won't like me. And what does that mean, somebody not liking you? And ultimately, people, when you play with it, you chunk it up and chunk it down, or whichever way you want to phrase it, and they'll say, I'm in danger. It doesn't feel safe. And if you can challenge that, like, okay, but are you actually safe? Yes. I am actually safe. I just don't feel safe. Okay. Sometimes we don't. Because the brain doesn't know the difference between a threat to our emotional safety and a threat to our physical safety our brain is not as smart as we like to think it is. It's pretty dim sometimes and and short circuit, not Short circuit not short circuits because it's maybe it's not dim. Maybe it's really efficient That says oh, we've already got a bit of the brain here for making you feel uncomfortable. We'll just use that for being ostracised, just use that.

Fiona: 24:36

An element of beliefs I wanted to make sure we covered is we're moving forward to looking at goals later on. not today, but later on. But one of the things that when we're looking at goals in terms of beliefs is that when you think about the actions that need to be taken Sometimes you can think, yep, I need to do X, Y and Z in order to meet goal, whatever. But internally you don't actually believe that doing X, Y and Z will result in that goal. Even though you sort of know that they will, you don't believe that they will. But there's something deeper down, which I know I need to work on, otherwise why am I talking about this? There's something deeper down that thinks, no that's just, it's just a waste of time because it's not going to make a difference. And people do this a lot in terms of their goals. They know, they think, if I do all these tasks in order to make my business successful, it's not going to be successful anyway so why bother?

Richard: 25:44

it reminds me of an often quoted story. Myself, I've quoted it a few times. And although there's a lot of nuance to it because of the Second World War and athletics and things like that. But there was a time when it was a belief that you couldn't run a mile in four minutes until Roger Bannister did. and there was years, it was decades, about 12 years I think, if not longer, between trying to break that point and then within a couple of weeks loads more athletic competitions were finding well, we can now because they saw evidence that it could be done. Roger Bannister went colourblind temporarily after that race, collapsed and everything went black and white. He pushed himself so far and there was a belief that that's as far as a human can push themselves. No, it, it, it, it wasn't, but we needed the evidence to see, look it, it can be done. and I think if we can all look externally for evidence that the kind of person that you want to be does exist, That a human can do those things. Whatever those things are, can say those things can act in that way. Can be who you want to be. And you can see it because you're inspired by a story on somebody's YouTube channel or podcast or something. Those stories are out there. There are people that, thinking of your back, there are people that have been seriously hurt in, car accidents and so on and they've got this belief, well that's just it, here's me with these sticks, this is who I am now. Until they see evidence that, well actually, you can work on this, we can do some Pilates or yoga, and we can strengthen that, and we can flex this, and we can get you upright, we can get you running again. And until you know the facts, and go, well this is how the body works, and a specialist can go, yes we work on this, how easy would it be just to sit sit down and go, well this is my life now

Fiona: 27:49

it reminds me of an NLP technique that I'd not thought about in ages, but it's called Keys to an Achievable Outcome. Don't remember that? It's a questionnaire that you go through to determine whether the outcome that you're aiming for I think I'm going to get this and go through it for my back strengthening it's, yes, it goes through a series of questions. The one that I can remember in this context is Have you ever done it before? Or do you know anybody who has? And if neither of those are true, then it's ticked off as not an achievable outcome. But of course one of the things that you can do if you get to that point is find somebody who has done it before. So if my outcome is to go to Saturn. I'm not going to find anybody who's done it before, therefore it's not an achievable outcome. Although, it might be next on Elon Musk's list after Mars, I don't know. But, obviously, with these things like the four minute mile, somebody's got to do it first. But, most of the time, we're not doing things first. So, that's quite useful. There's also the bit in, in this technique which says, What will you get if you do it? What will you get if you don't do it? What won't you get if you do do it? And what won't you get if you don't do it? And it gets people awfully confused, which is great fun. I like confusion.

Richard: 29:24

Well,

Fiona: 29:24

That's I play bridge.

Richard: 29:28

uh. that we, it's twice, you mentioned bridge last week

Fiona: 29:30

well. It's a big part of my life.

Richard: 29:33

Oh, that's fine. I mean, but, there's a, there's a, belief sometimes that you are not very good at it.

Fiona: 29:39

Yeah. Yeah. That's a fact.

Richard: 29:42

Oh, okay. Fine.,,there is evidence to support this

Fiona: 29:46

plenty of evidence to support that,

Richard: 29:48

do you believe that with practice you can get better?

Fiona: 29:51

Yes.

Richard: 29:52

There you go. Yeah, because it would be strange if that wasn't the case I think we do, we could put up our barriers up and prevent learning.

Fiona: 30:00

And I have seen people there who do the lessons and then stop because they don't have belief that they can get to a level that's okay for them. and that's, I I do believe that I can get better and I do believe that it's okay to not be very good and still play.

Richard: 30:21

Oh, yes,

Fiona: 30:22

Yeah, but some people don't.

Richard: 30:25

of course.

Fiona: 30:26

I've always had that. I used to play tennis and I wasn't very good. and that was okay. There are things I'm good at. I want to put that in there. It's not that I'm bad at everything

Richard: 30:40

Not at all. We can do with finishing off because we're we're gonna be overrunning if we're not careful here, Fiona. Have you seen the time?

Fiona: 30:49

I haven't, no Oh, yes But I dunno time we started, so that doesn't

Richard: 30:53

been monitoring. I've been monitoring, and we've absolutely overrun. That's that's fine. So, we shall pick up on this at a later stage, I'm quite sure.

Fiona: 31:03

Yes. this will feed through because Yeah, that, as I said, when we get to goals, important. So we yeah, absolutely, coming back to it. Definitely.

Richard: 31:12

Yes, and if you, if you want to go deeper into this and do a little bit more work, and you want to join our Evolve to Thrive program, then links are splattered all over the, our website, and built into the show notes, and the show descriptions, and so on, so. Feel free to hop on board. You might find it absolutely life changing, at least I believe that. So, let's love you and leave you. Have another super duper week. If you need anything, you know where we are. WhatsApp us, message us, email us. We're always there. Have a super time, everybody. See you next time. Bye!