5 Human Truth Bombs

Welcome to the B Spot! A place that's almost like therapy, but not quite therapy.  Join Licensed therapist Brian Heller as he introduces himself, the B Spot, and what he calls 5 Human Truth Bombs! Your participation is welcome so listen in, take it in, and if you feel led to do so, join in! Send questions, comments, concerns, dilemmas, challenges, etc to bhellercounseling@gmail.com

Transcript

00:00:02

Hey, everybody and welcome to the B spot where it's almost therapy but not quite therapy. Thanks for joining me today. I'm very happy to be here and happy to have you here. I'm Brian Heller and I'm a therapist and I've been doing this type of work for about 18 years and I decided to start this podcast.

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To share some of the things that I've found to be helpful for people over the years and also to hear your concerns about what's been going on for you.

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Maybe you'd like to get a neutral and hopefully rational perspective from a counselor on some issue or challenge that you're working your way through. You know, we don't always have time to set up.

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A session with the counselor. But sometimes we have things that are going on and we want a little bit of constructive helpful feedback.

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Even if it's just to figure out what we actually think about a situation.

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So welcome to the B spot. I'm going to give you a little information about myself. Just so you know who you're listening to. And then I'm going to jump right in and start talking about 5 human truth bombs that I think will be helpful to you as much as they've been helpful to me and to the people that I've worked with over the years.

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I will tell you a little bit about each one today and then cover each one in depth over the next 5 episodes. So I hope you'll join me for that.

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And I also want to invite you to participate and share concerns if you are willing to forgo confidentiality enough to have your situation discussed. Of course, without mention of your name or any identifying information, you can e-mail me topics if you'd like for me to talk about.

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Or specific situations you'd like for me to process out a bit.

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My e-mail is b.hellercounseling@gmail.com you can find that in the show notes as well. Also feel free to reach out with any comments or concerns, even criticisms. I can handle that we'll talk about Ego later, but feel free to share any feedback with me that you have, you know ideally.

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Feedback that you think will be helpful for me, but any feedback is good feedback. Often times the things that are hardest to hear are the most important things to hear.

00:02:27

So let's jump in. So who am I? I am Brian. And over the years I've worked with individuals and families dealing with all sorts of challenges, anxiety, addictions, depression, relationship issues, parenting and and all the other fun challenges.

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That we get to experience in one way or another.

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Throughout that work, patterns have emerged. You start to notice that the same kinds of issues are being experienced by many different people and just manifesting in slightly different ways. Of course, everybody's unique, but we're all basically the same going through the same struggles.

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In this thing called life.

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I've been in.

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Private practice since 2011, and I really enjoy them at work, but wanted to see if I could reach out to a few more people and do it this way.

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And ideally you'll reach back and share challenges and dilemmas that you're experiencing, and and then things will get really interesting, because if there's one thing I've learned is that people are very interesting. People have interesting stories and experiences, and getting to learn through those.

00:03:42

Experiences is a great gift that we can give ourselves, but there are some things that can get in the way, and today I'm.

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Going to talk about five of them.

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I call them human truth bombs because they are truths about the human experience and they are powerful. So let's just dive right in.

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Truth bomb number.

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One is you are what you think.

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I found that most people do not fully appreciate the power of their thoughts. We go through life and we experience life through events and we forget that how we experience those events is actually up to us.

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Right.

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It's the story that we tell ourselves about anything that's happening. That's what determines how we feel. People, places and things do not cause me to feel any kind of way.

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People, places and things cause me to think. And when I think I can either think about those things as positive experiences, or I can think about them as negative experiences.

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One of the ways I used to really enjoy conveying this point was when I.

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Would have court ordered.

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Adolescent clients in my office for anger issues and all sorts of other things. And I I would ask them, let's say, you know, Can you imagine a way that I could throw a coffee cup at your head, hit you right in the forehead?

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And that you would be you would be happy.

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About that.

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And most of the time, they hem and Haw and say no, that's not what would happen. Here's what would happen. You know, they toughen up and tell me about how they would throw it back at me or stand up and hit me or do something worse than me. And we kind of laugh about it.

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Nervously, and then I would say, well, how about?

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If I told you.

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That just by changing the way you think about the situation, you can change the way you feel. Indulge me. Let me. Let me tell you. And they sit back and I say, well, what if you said to yourself, you know what? This guy's a professional counselor and he just threw a coffee cup at me and hit me in the head.

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He's not allowed to do that.

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You know, there's a phone number on that form he gave me. I'm going to call and I'm going to complain. And and also, I bet he's got liability insurance. And you know what he hit me in the head with that mug and and now every time the phone rings, I'm going to pee on myself. Lifetime, disability.

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And they start laughing and they think about all the millions of dollars they're going to get from it. And they look at me and they say, well, I can't believe it. But yeah, there is a way that you could throw a coffee cup, hit me in the head, and I would be happy. And so if nothing else, that demonstrates the power of thought.

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Right. It isn't whether or not I throw the coffee cup or how hard I throw it.

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What I say when I throw it, your experience of it is based on your thoughts about it. You have all the power over the quality of your experience, how you think about it, what you tell yourself about it is going to determine how you feel.

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And despite what you may think, you are under no obligation to tell yourself negative things. Sometimes we feel like it's a a universal cosmic responsibility. We have to assess things negatively, but we actually don't. It's optional.

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And so that is the first human truth bomb.

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Now the second human truth bomb is that function becomes.

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OK, we learn to listen to old tapes. Now. What do I mean by that?

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Well, throughout life we have to figure out how to survive in our environments.

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And we develop tapes that play in our head that tell us how to handle situations.

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How to respond to keep ourselves safe when someone's angry?

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How to get the attention we desire? What our value is, and we often base that on the way that others treat us.

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And those tapes help us survive. So they're functional at some point in our lives. They are functional. They serve a real purpose. But once we get out of those dysfunctional situations that cause those tapes to be created in the 1st place, they no longer are functional.

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They become dysfunctional, so the things in our lives as adults that are areas of dysfunction most likely began as fun.

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And one of the processes that I work with, people and sessions on is learning to let go of old tapes because while they were once functional, they no longer are and they are now keeping you from being able to have successful relationships to have a successful life.

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To have peace, to have joy. So one of the things that happens on the path to Wellness is learning to let go of those old, no longer useful tapes.

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Human truth, human truth bomb #3 awareness creates energy.

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Right.

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Human truth. Mom number three is 1 that I have been really stuck on for the past year. Any of my clients know this because I talk about it all the time. My family too. I talk about it all the time and it is this awareness creates.

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Use that energy for action or pay the price once we become aware that something needs to change, our brains produce energy. It's like magic. We are magical creatures and this is what happens, so I become aware. Hey, I've got to live healthier. My brain generates energy to help me accomplish that.

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Goal to help me make the changes that are necessary so I've got this energy that will help motivate me to go exercise or eat healthier or cook at home instead of eating out or eat Whole Foods.

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But if I don't, if I sit there and think about that awareness but take no action, the energy that's created has to go somewhere. So where does it go? Well, it manifests as anxiety or dysfunction.

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So if I'm aware that I need to live live healthier, I'm thinking of all these things I could be doing to live healthier. Yet I'm not doing anything to live healthier. I will start to feel anxious. That is because the energy that my magical brain created for me to make this change is not being used for action.

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So this becomes really important because most people know what they need to do.

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Most people know.

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What they want to do, how they want things to be, but when their actions aren't lining up with that, they are going to experience dysfunction.

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So what does all that mean? It means that once you become aware, you have to act, and that's another area that I really try to help people with, including myself, to remember that once that awareness is.

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There, the longer I sit with it, the worse I'm going to feel. I mean, that's why I'm here recording this podcast. It's because I was aware it was something I really wanted to.

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Do and the.

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Longer I sat with that. The more anxious energy I had, and so I needed to take action. And here I am today, taking action.

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Which will hopefully lead to a reduction of anxious energy and a good positive feeling for.

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So awareness generates energy, and that energy can either be used for action or it will be experienced as anxiety. It's your choice now.

00:11:35

Human truth bomb #4.

00:11:40

An untamed ego will destroy your happiness.

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Ego is that part of you that tells you people are supposed to treat you in a certain kind of way.

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People need to respect me and treat me the right way all the time, or I have to act out or feel negatively about the situation. I have to show them.

00:11:59

That what they did was wrong.

00:12:01

Ego will tell you that you shouldn't apologize to someone who you think has also done something wrong to you, because they should apologize first.

00:12:08

They should have known better. My partner should have done this or not have done that. How could they?

00:12:15

And untamed ego will cause problems in anyone's life. Ego has the power to cause you to behave in ways that actually go against what you truly want. Think about that. Ego is so powerful that it can make a person turn their back on their partner on their child.

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On their peers.

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Knowing that it isn't going to lead to the outcome they truly desire, all it will do is make their point. So ego is great if you want to make your point.

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But if you're trying to live a peaceful and joyful life, ego must be tamed.

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Ask yourself, what do you truly want out of any situation?

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It takes true humility to ask that question before reacting emotionally. But asking it gives you the chance to see what actions give you the best shot at achieving it.

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For me in my life, I've come to the conclusion that what I want out of most situations is peace and joy and love.

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Those are wonderful things. I'd love nothing more than for every day of my life to be filled with those things.

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I try to make sure that every decision that I make gives me the best shot at that as possible.

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And the thing that I have seen most often.

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Get in the way of a person acting in their own true best interest.

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Is ego all the shoulds we tell ourselves about how the world is supposed to treat us, how others are supposed to treat us? Ego says we're different from and better than others.

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Humility puts that in check.

00:14:02

The fifth and last human truth bomb for today is what goes up must come down. And if you're not there, you can't fix it.

00:14:12

Here we're talking about escape.

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Now escape can mean a lot of different things. It can mean using drugs or alcohol. It can mean dissociating, choosing to think about anything except what really needs your focus.

00:14:27

Escape can be other addictions like sex or exercise, or work or screens or anything that has the power to hold your attention enough to provide an escape from reality.

00:14:39

What's actually happening in your life right now is what truly needs your attention.

00:14:44

But we all escape sometimes, and I think that we all need to escape. Sometimes the key is to stay aware that when we are escaping from a situation, we aren't fixing the situation. We're just coping and usually not well.

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If I'm drinking because I'm stressed out by my job, I'm very unlikely to have the energy or sober time to make changes in my situation so people get caught in that cycle of surviving toxic situations by behaving toxically themselves.

00:15:15

Escape can also come in the form of fantasies. Whether we're imagining how we're going to spend those lottery winnings or how we're going to cope with some tragic situation, we get lost in the fantasy our brains actually intoxicate us and create an immersive experience that takes us away from reality.

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So what's wrong with that? Well, here's the problem. The brain doesn't know the difference between real and imagined.

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Think about that. The same areas of the brain light up and the same chemical processes are engaged, whether we are actually doing something or imagining doing something.

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So if we imagine winning the lottery, our brain will create the chemical reaction as if we actually did win. It will feel amazing. We'll be able to imagine all the wonderful things that we would do with the money.

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But here's the catch. Unless we actually end up winning the lottery, we are forced to deal with the reality that we did not win.

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Which would be quite the let down because of our positive fantasy.

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Now, with negative fantasies, we actually create the experience we imagine.

00:16:28

This one really crystallized for me early in the pandemic. I remember that first week when I was going to the grocery store and it looked like a storm had come through the store. Empty produce, meat and dairy departments, people acting frantically in the store.

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Now, thankfully, apparently my standard degree of preparedness is close to disaster levels, so we had everything we needed. But that night I was lying in bed and I started to.

00:16:53

Think about how.

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This was going to be the point in time that we would look back on one day and refer to as back when you could still buy milk in the stores.

00:17:02

I let myself imagine this being the beginning of the end.

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And I found myself floating in a storm of anxiety that I couldn't get out of.

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And then it hit.

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My brain doesn't know the difference between real and imagined. And while those disastrous outcomes were possible, they had not actually occurred at that point. So I had to ask if these things are actually going to happen, how many times do I want to experience them?

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Once, if they actually do occur.

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Or every day while waiting to see what the future holds.

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I decided that once would be enough for me.

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And I've taken that lesson and applied it to so many other areas where I stop myself from imagining outcomes that have yet to occur.

00:17:51

So escape can come in many forms, either through addictions or fantasies, and it can be healthy or unhealthy. I found that most people know when they are engaging in unhealthy escape patterns, and this awareness is one of the main reasons people seek out counseling. So we will spend a lot of time talking about the ways people.

00:18:12

Check out on their lives and we'll work through some strategies to help people check back in.

00:18:19

Well, those are today's 5 human truth bombs.

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I would imagine that on some level you've likely identified with all five because they are all part of the experience of being human. And if you're listening today, I'm assuming you're human.

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No offense to any animals out there, and so those five truth bombs for today are you are what you think.

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Function becomes dysfunction.

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Awareness equals energy. Take action or pay the price untamed.

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Ego will destroy.

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Your happiness and what goes up must come down.

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And if you're not there, you can't fix it.

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I hope you found some of that to be thankful or to be helpful. I hope you found some of that to be helpful. I want to thank you if you stuck with me this long and are still listening. I appreciate your time and hope you've gotten something useful out of this and if not, you know, maybe the next time you will. I would love to hear your feedback about this podcast or about things you'd like for me to talk.

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About in the future.

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I welcome all challenges to anything I share. I believe we learn best through collaboration and discussion, so please feel free to reach out and I've never had a problem with someone disagreeing with me. I welcome disagreements because I think it's.

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Great for learning.

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Also, please join me for the next episode when we will dive deep into the power of thoughts over the quality of our existence. There will be lots of fun stories and examples of how to make small changes in your thinking that will have big impacts on your life.

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I look forward to sharing with you again at the B spot where you can get almost therapy. Not quite therapy, but almost therapy.

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Until then, be well.