Therapy Natters
Therapy Natters
Intangible Goals
Some goals are difficult to measure, so this week Richard & Fiona see if we are able to turn vague aspirations into specific, measurable actions.
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Hi there, therapy fan, and we know you are one because, come on, the podcast is called Therapy Natters and you clicked play. But maybe you thought we were going to talk about massages and candles and things like that. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if we did though, knowing us, we can certainly go off on tangents. Hi there, Fiona, how are you doing today?
Fiona:I'm good. You saying that, the other day I heard somebody talking about their business and they were advertising a CPD program for therapists.
Richard:Mm hmm.
Fiona:But there was nothing on this flyer that they were showing that said what sort of therapy. So I still don't know whether it was physiotherapy, hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, aromatherapy,
Richard:Energy therapy.
Fiona:sorts of things, but I've no idea because they didn't include it in their leaflet.
Richard:That reminds me of our friend Shaun Brookhouse. Friend of the podcast, he's been on here. You'd have heard him talk. He was asked to speak about Erickson, because he was well known for being a big fan of the Doctor Milton Erickson and his famous stories, like the African Violet Queen of Milwaukee, you might have heard me talk about, and things like that. Erickson was great. He was an interesting fellow, a bit odd, but I like a lot of his ideas. And when he got there,
Fiona:a lot of purple.
Richard:He did wear a lot of purple. Yes, yes, he did. And, well, he was colourblind, wasn't he?
Fiona:He said it was the only colour he could imagine.
Richard:But when Shaun got there and started talking about Milton Erickson, somebody interrupted him and said, So who are you, what is this, who are you talking about? Because they were interested in Erik Erikson, a completely different psychotherapist altogether. Very different approach to therapy. And being Shaun, he just carried on. He went, oh, okay, I could talk about Erik Erikson if you like, and did.
Fiona:And not nearly as easy a person to talk about because it's much more theoretical and not a load of stories.
Richard:Yes, I could, I'm sure, I've had similar experiences. One very similar experience, I guess, jumps out at me. And being able to trust yourself is so hard. Because I was asked to speak on a radio program. It was a live national radio thing about phobias. I said, yeah, absolutely, yeah. When do you want me? And they said, Friday at two o'clock or something like that. Okay, yeah, I'm happy to go on the line. And as I'm listening to the presenter, I won't say his name, because he's turned into an odd, very odd sort of character. He starts introducing, oh, by the way, in a few minutes we've got a spider expert who's gonna come on and tell us all about spiders. He'll be on in, after the break. And then there was a break. And I'm like, I'm a what? Am I a spider expert? Am I? Oh no, and it was just because the producer had just googled spider phobia or something and found me and on one of my pages on a website that I had, and still have I think, was just a form. There's a little quiz about how, um, no, it's a desensitization thing. It's there on my website on richardnicholls. net. It's still there. Go and have a look. Desensitize yourself to spider pictures if you like. It's a nice little program. It's great. So they found that and went, oh okay, we'll use this guy because he's got a podcast and he's been on the BBC and stuff. So let's get him on. And I just had to blag it, and I had the ad break of two minutes to do some quick googling of spider facts. And just weaved it into what I already knew, about how to desensitise yourself to spiders, and what the fight or flight response really is. Just did the sort of politician's thing, really, of, well, this is what I want to talk about, irrespective of your question.
Fiona:Well and any journalists or radio people would be so used to that so yes,
Richard:Yeah, I think he probably was. Yeah. And the ability to do that just comes with practice, I guess, with repetition. And it plays in my head every now and again, because it's a proud moment of mine. I'm something to be quite pleased about, that I didn't just go, Oh, no, I'm not here to talk about that. I can't do that. Who do you think I am? I just went with it. And I didn't shame them or blame them. I just went with it.
Fiona:You trusted your unconscious to be able to do what it needed to do. And I've, I remember this in years gone by when I was having job interviews and be asked a question that consciously I would be, I have absolutely no idea. But this is even before I'd done any training or studying in this sort of stuff. And I'd just sort of hand it over. open my mouth and
Richard:See what falls out.
Fiona:and I'd be listening to it and thinking, oh, that's rather a good answer. And I still find it happens now as a therapist, sometimes it happens where consciously you think, I have no idea what to say to a person who's just said this, or, in meetings and things. Just, yeah, trust that the unconscious knows.
Richard:Yes, the unconscious knows.
Fiona:knows.
Richard:And it does. The unconscious only knows because you have primed and trained your unconscious to know by living.
Fiona:your unconscious is training itself.
Richard:I get, well,
Fiona:Yes. who's you?
Richard:Yeah, it depends who you? are. Yes. Yeah.
Fiona:But I wouldn't want, my unconscious would respond negatively, well it just did, to the idea that it was the conscious bit that was training it. It's saying, it's saying, nope, nope, nope,
Richard:no, it was me.
Fiona:Me.
Richard:But we have to live, we have to have these experiences to be able to trust our unconscious mind. To let us open our mouth and just see what words come out.
Fiona:Yes, but I think we have far more experience than we know that we've had.
Richard:Anybody listening to
Fiona:So, yes, Yeah, I mean this isn't something for a five
Richard:Toddler. Yeah.
Fiona:But The unconscious is taking on, I mean, I'm not a fan of the idea that we remember everything we've ever seen and whatever. I don't think
Richard:Yeah, there's no, there's no studies
Fiona:No, no, that's not right. But I do think that the unconscious is processing an awful lot more of what is going on around and taking it in and putting it down, writing it down in the sort of journals in the mind.
Richard:Mm.
Fiona:And is able to access it when necessary, even if we've not got any conscious awareness of that going on.
Richard:We're a very complicated species, and anybody who claims to fully understand us is either lying because they're trying to sell you something, or they are deluded, or both.
Fiona:Yeah.
Richard:Because we don't, there is always more to learn about ourselves, about each other, about the neurology of the brain and how it interacts even with the rest of our body and the neurons in our stomach. We are an extremely complicated species and I wrote a self help book, I suppose, about happiness and some of the research into what makes humans happy. But, spoiler, you can go through the whole thing and go, and it's quite interesting. I'm sure you'll find. But, at the end, the last chapter is all about how you've got to do it your way, that there aren't really any rules. And maybe The reason for people being so unhappy is that we're trying too hard to be happy in the first place and it was that that was causing the barrier. That's no secret, at least it shouldn't be, anyway. And I know I'm not alone in absorbing, when I wrote my book I absorbed a lot of Self help books, all with these rules, things to do. Oh, you see these clickbait ads online all the time, the You'll never guess what this teenage girl did to cure her depression. That's interesting, what's that? She cured it in two minutes, did she? That's fascinating, what did she do? She took a deep breath and put her fingers in her ears. I'm like, ah, thanks.
Fiona:But I also wonder how much happiness is a modern construct. You know, was a person living an ordinary life 300 years ago Even thinking about happiness or what they were. I don't know. Obviously, I don't know because we don't have time machines.
Richard:Well, we've got a lot of records. Robert Burton and his Anatomy of Melancholy. It's a fascinating read if you want to read.
Fiona:Indeed, I mean, it goes back to the ancient Greeks certainly talked about these things, but whether that was everybody. Or whether it was the people who had a philosophical bent who were thinking about it. And I think it's still the case now that a lot of people don't think about their feelings.
Richard:No, no they don't. Um, we had a message in which weaves us into this episode quite nicely. It was from Lisa from Kent and Lisa says, I've been reading quite a few self help books over the last few years and so many talk about smart goals but my goal is just that I want to feel better. How does this fit with smart goals? Hmm. Well, in a way, it doesn't, but in a way it can. And, yeah, we can certainly, in a way, measure. We can certainly have realistic things. We can turn the intangible into tangible, to a degree, can't we?
Fiona:We can, but let's, first of all, we'd probably better say for the 0. 1 percent of people who haven't come across smart goals, because they seem to be everywhere and offered as a panacea for life. Smart is an acronym, specific, measurable, attainable or adjustable, talk about in a minute,, realistic and time orientated. So when you say to feel better, well that's not specific, it's not measurable or we'll come onto that. Presumably it's attainable, because to feel better might be 1 percent better, so it's attainable. Adjustable, I feel is a better use of the letter A because goals very often, you don't need exactly what the goal is. Let's say your goal was to own a Porsche. Well, would a Ferrari do? I think that's okay. So adjustable is quite useful, whereas attainable is actually really rather like realistic. So if the goal was to fly to the moon unaided, that's not realistic or attainable. So. maybe have the adjustable and make it, fly to Spain on a plane. That's attainable and realistic. So let's have the adjustable. And time orientated, meaning you've got a time when you want to do it, so that it's at some point, so not just a nebulous thing in time. So, yeah. taking the idea of feeling better. We will look at some other examples in a bit, I think, won't we? But that one Lisa needs is to work out, and you can do this on your own, but with a therapist would help, but to think about what that better actually means. So really pull apart that word better and what. What would symbolise that? What would show that you feel better?
Richard:Hmm.
Fiona:There's a technique that we often use in therapy called the miracle question.
Richard:Oh yeah.
Fiona:Which is where we say imagine that when you go to bed tonight, that overnight there's a miracle happens. And your issue, whatever it is, is resolved miraculously overnight. So when you wake up in the morning How do you know?
Richard:What's the first
Fiona:you notice, how do you know that this miracle has happened?
Richard:It could be that they've just got a bit more energy. They bounce out of bed with a bit more, Ah, come on, let's go, let's face the day. Okay, well, we can look for that. We can look at how to make that happen by going to bed earlier. It might be that simple. we can highlight what the issue issue is that you had disturbed sleep. Okay, well, we can work with that. Or learn to have an acceptance that the mornings sometimes are a bit slow. And learn to accept who we are right now. But we're grateful that, you know, we got through the night and we can have a stretch or whatever. Yeah. Cause it could be. What somebody says when you ask them the miracle question. They open their eyes and it's about the external world. It's about somebody else. It's about their partner. Their partner is there, rather than they've gone to work. Then they know themselves a little bit better that what they value is a bit more time with their partner. It's great information. It really is.
Fiona:Yeah, because oviously better might mean, physically better, it might mean emotionally better, it might mean sort of socially better in a sort of sociological, way could be all sorts of things. So Lisa really needs to do this exercise. It might be very easy for her because it's sort of there within her. but when you get a grip of what your intangible goal actually is saying to you, then you can make it. specific or quite likely have a few specific goals. it's not likely to be, just one thing.
Richard:No, it's likely to be I want to feel calmer, or I want to feel happier. And it's about emotions. I think a lot of intangible stuff is. I want to feel like a better person. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean you want to feel like a better friend? A kinder human? these are intangible. And if that is somebody's New Year's resolution, to be a better version of themselves, to be the best they can be, then that's okay. Whereas, if somebody does feel that they are not at their best, and they know there's a version of them which can be happier, calmer, more relaxed with their friends, more polite, if that is necessary, because it is. We have clients that come to us all the time that say I feel like a bad mother, for example. I shout at my kids. Depends how often you shout and the meaning behind it and how you apologise and stuff, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to screw up your family and damage your children because you shouted at them. It could, obviously. We wouldn't have a job if that didn't happen.
Fiona:that's true. That really does depend on, yeah, those elements of sort of where they are on the continuum Never shouting at children. is not going to do them any favours, because when they get shouted at by the boss, and when they get their
Richard:They'd crumble.
Fiona:Week one, they do something wrong, get shouted at, they're going to go to pieces. they need to learn to deal with, these things. Also, just whilst we're on it, being inconsistent as a parent isn't always a bad thing, because there's inconsistency in the world. So, again, children need to learn that even the I was going to say the best people, that's not really the right
Richard:Oh, well, it is to a,
Fiona:it would to a child, yes, yes, yes, their parents or primary caregivers, whoever they respect the most, whoever they get their needs met from if
Richard:They're attachment figures.
Fiona:attachment figures. if they're inconsistent, that teaches them that that's normal.
Richard:Yes. Obviously, too much inconsistency. That's what causes problems. As with so many things, it's the balance.
Fiona:about, it's balance, continua, where you on those?
Richard:Yeah. And if you, for example, want to be a kinder person, We can set goals for that. That might sound intangible, but that might mean, okay, I need to think before I speak sometimes. Well, that's a goal.
Fiona:I think the thinking before you text, thinking before you email, before you post on social media, is such a valuable, routine to get into. But going back to the, what you were saying then about being kinder and how you could set specific tasks to do that, it's quite often these intangible goals come from outside. So, for example, on work appraisals where people get told things like, you should be more of a team player. And I've heard people say, but I don't know what that means.
Richard:Mm.
Fiona:It's just a sort of, a what?
Richard:Yeah. How do you measure that? How much of a team player have you been this
Fiona:how is that specific? How is that measurable? Realistic? If you knew what it was. Time? Well, it's sort of now. but, it's not even adjustable, is it? More of a team player? A little bit more, a lot more. it's very woolly.
Richard:yeah. And it would need to be, in that case, we need to look at the specifics. How do I show that I am a team player? I wouldn't want a client of mine to say I've been given this goal of become more of a team player, so I guess I've got to take on more work. I've got to say yes more. Nah. No, I don't like that.
Fiona:I think one thing that would be a good idea is to ask the person who has set you that as a goal, how would they know you were achieving it,
Richard:Mm.
Fiona:and also ask the other team members. The boss has said I should be more of a team player, What would you like from me? Could be rather challenging.
Richard:Yes, but then you know what you're working with. Because if somebody is a little anxious about what people sensitive to criticism, sensitive to rejection. Rejection sensitivity disorder is a real thing for a lot of folk. And if that's the reason why people might come across as not much of a team player, I'm thinking of I did take an autism assessment and Quiz. Procrastination. Why not? Something to do, isn't it? Just to see, huh, I wonder where I am on this continuum I'm not. It said. But one of the first questions was, uh, do people often tell you that they think that you're rude? And you might not realize that you are coming across as rude, but it doesn't mean that you're a rude person. Because these social constructs of being a team player by having a particular expression on your face when somebody's talking to you, who set that up? Should we have to do that? These are the rules of being a human in a tribe.
Fiona:Those sorts of things will be very dependent on the team and the culture of the workplace. So, it just popped into my head that it could be that you're not a team player because you won't go to the pub after work on a Friday.
Richard:Yes.
Fiona:So, these things aren't necessarily what they appear to be on the surface.
Richard:Yeah.
Fiona:Another one is, and this used to be, I think they've sort of ruled it out these days, but it used to be a lot on school reports of try harder. What does that mean?
Richard:Oh, my school reports were full of that.
Fiona:One of the things with that is how does anybody from the outside know how hard you're trying?
Richard:Yeah, I mean, imagine asking someone with dyslexia, undiagnosed and just didn't know, because, yeah, I can read, it's just, my reading's a bit difficult. I have to put in a lot more work than everybody else does, and it makes them feel stupid because no one's ever noticed. I mean, maybe they'd notice in this generation, but in my, in our generation, absolutely not. There are lots of 40, 50, 60 year olds. Getting diagnosed now. And they go, well, this has been a problem all my life. I've never enjoyed a book. I love stories. Audiobooks. Fantastic. I love films. Oh my god. Yes, but actually reading them takes me too long. It's quicker to watch the film when that comes out, even if I have to wait two years. Because it will take me two years to read the book. I might as well just wait for the film version.
Fiona:yeah. I think that leads, to the thought that whatever unimposed intangible goal is, it needs to be translated into something that's internal.
Richard:And likely, a lot of people's New Year's resolutions, if that's what they're doing, would be usually tangible, but I prefer the intangible ones.
Fiona:What, why, what's
Richard:Because they're about feelings, because they're about emotional states, which I think are better goals
Fiona:Right, so we're going back to last week when we were talking about the huge goals. If you get the feelings that are associated with the huge goals. So you could do that the other way around, couldn't you, with this? In terms of, you know, you start with that intangible, so, Lisa's feel better, or, the appraisal saying, be more of a team player. Take that to a huge goal and think, well, What does that mean for me? What would I get? And I was going to also ask you, Richard, if you think back to when you were told to try harder at school, using what you know now, what could you have done then that could have helped with that? Or do you just think, I was trying hard enough and they were wrong? What do you, what do you think?
Richard:Um, oh, we're turning into a therapy session now. I felt very stupid. Because I was trying hard. I really was and for that not to make a difference.
Fiona:It wasn't recognised.
Richard:absolutely, I mean I then created a big, huge defence mechanism of bravado, of, doesn't matter, this is me, I don't care. I did. I absolutely did. But, yeah, I carried that with me for decades.
Fiona:So now, with what you know, what could you have done differently? If anything, maybe you couldn't do anything differently.
Richard:Ooh, what could I have done differently. Um, I wouldn't have done anything differently, but my self compassion would have been different. My level of self compassion. My acceptance of self. And that's a great goal. I think that is the foundation to pretty much everything. Acceptance of self. Even if it's unacceptable. I don't want to be this unwell, for example. Lisa said the word better. Could mean physically healthier. Could mean emotionally healthier. Could mean happier. But unless we accept, well, this is where I am right now, when we work with weight loss clients, we know that they've spent years, probably, desperately trying to lose weight because they're so unhappy with who they are right now. And it gets, that unhappiness gets in the way, that, that, I can't accept that I'm overweight. Well, until you accept that that's okay. Who you are right now is okay. You're fine as you are. It's then that it's easier to leave a bit of food on your plate. It's easier to give yourself smaller portions. It's easier to give yourself permission to choose something healthier because actually I want to. Because I like me. So I'm gonna treat me with respect. so I will choose these vegetables over that mashed potato full of butter and cream. I will because I deserve it. Whereas prior to that, no, I deserve this stodge. I deserve this unhealthy stuff because it'll make me feel better because I deserve it. I've had a bad day. Well, you deserve the healthy stuff because you've had a bad day. And it starts there with acceptance of self. I think that's what I bring to therapy as a therapist.
Fiona:That reminds me of somebody the other day, and I actually can't remember what their issue was, or their goal was, because it was a supervisee's client, not mine. I would remember if it was mine, just to make that point. but the bit that, I recall was this client saying that, she couldn't love herself all the time. And it was sort of a, okay, nobody loves themselves all the time. You know, you don't have to just sort of say to the mirror in the morning, I'm wonderful, I love me. you can have times just the same as with, anybody else, a, partner, child, sometimes you're, you're going to be a bit cross with them and be a bit fed up. There's always going to be times. And so that's, that's an impossible, that's not an attainable goal to love yourself 100 percent of the time, but you can have self compassion to see. Yeah, I really messed up yesterday. I didn't do the things that I had set myself. I intended to do this task, that task yesterday and I sat and watched TV all day instead. Have some self compassion and then just start again.
Richard:Because despite that, you're still lovable, despite not exercising today. You're still lovable, deserving of love. You're still likeable. You still have value.
Fiona:And it can help to think of a parent and child sort of situation with this. Because a parent who's crossed with their child knows that that child is still lovable. They know that they still love them, but in that moment they're not feeling that, feeling the frustration or the anger or whatever it might be. But they still know that they're lovable. And if you can do that with yourself, it's rather helpful.
Richard:It really is the foundations that then makes everything else fall into place. Because then it is going to be easier to turn the intangible into some tangible exercises that, mean, it is easier to take a few deep breaths and pause before you send a text message that says, Where the hell were you? Or, why did you say that? Hang on a minute. Maybe it's okay that they were around the corner, or late, or talking about their sister instead of talking about me. With self compassion and acceptance of self comes an understanding of self. And with that greater understanding, the awareness of our needs, our values, our likes, our passions, our interests, our self, so we can open the I guess, the room in our mind. If you ask somebody to go to the, you know, imagine a room in your mind that is all the things that make you you in that room, people go in in their imagination and go, there's nothing there. Because they've never looked. And it's probably full of stuff, but they need to turn the light on. Because they've never done that before, to know what's in there. Well, you get a torch, don't you? And you shine it into the corner and go, there's something there. Let's have a look. I encourage everybody to do that sort of thing.
Fiona:Yeah. and awareness is the start, and then looking at what you want to change, how you want to be, which of course is what we're doing in this programme, and we do go on about awareness rather a lot, and it's one of the things that I think people will get fed up of us saying, but it's, it's so crucial, it's so important that, we don't rabbit on about it just for the hell of it. We do it, we mention it because we think it's important.
Richard:Yes, I like saying to clients that they are lovable. I have to remind clients all the time. And I'll do it in every session if I have to. And very often, clients will have forgotten. Oh yeah, I forget. I sometimes forget. And thanks for the reminder. Yeah, because it's so easy to forget. It really, really is.
Fiona:And don't you just love the clients who say, yes, but?
Richard:I do love it, but also at the same time I wish they weren't in that place. But then you've got something to work with.
Fiona:Yeah, absolutely.
Richard:Good to look at our buts. Anyway, we need to bring
Fiona:You didn't say anything inappropriate. It's if other people heard that differently.
Richard:Yeah, that's on you.
Fiona:Yeah.
Richard:That's on you, dear listener. I spelt it with one T. Yeah, do look at your buts. Yeah, I would do that but. I am deserving of that but. Yeah, then you can, you can examine your but. Shall we bring the episode to a gentle
Fiona:this seems like, like a good time to
Richard:I think so too. Okay. You know where we are, if you need us. There are multiple ways that you can get in touch with us. If you are, you might be part of our Evolve to Thrive program, in which case actually it's the same, same route to get in touch with us that any podcast listener could. You can WhatsApp us. You know the number it's in the show notes. You can send us an email from the website. You can text us anonymously through a form in the description of the episode. There's lots of different ways you can get in touch. You can send a pigeon with a note on it. You could write to us at my clinic in Hinckley, if you really wanted to. That'd be weird. If you do, send us a box of chocolates. That'd be amazing. I'm going to get a load of fudge now, aren't I, again? Oh dear! I did get some fudge. A listener did send me some fudge a couple of years ago, which was quite nice.
Fiona:Sounds good to me. Like fudge.
Richard:Okay, well, if we do get any, I'll share it with you when I see you. Right, that's enough for today. Have a lovely week, everybody. Speak to you soon. Bye bye!
