This is an iHeart Podcast. Hello, my lovely listeners.
By now you know the more knowledge we have about ourselves and the way our bodies work, the more empowered and in control we are.
And this is also true when it comes to our sexual health and what to do after unprotected sex.
That's where Plan B comes in. It's emergency contraception with no age requirement that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts.
And because it works by only temporarily delaying ovulation, it won't impact your ability to get pregnant in the future.
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Learn more at planb1step.com, users directed.
I'm Jordan, and I'm here to talk about my breasts.
We've been through some big changes. Divorce, a new grandkid, and just as I was starting my next chapter, metastatic breast cancer.
That's when my doctor recommended Kiskali.
Since then, I drove cross-country, earned a degree, and saw my favorite band.
Because I'm more than just breast cancer.
Cascali Ribocyclib 200mg tablets with an aromatase inhibitor is for adults with HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.
Cascali may cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in serious infections, life-threatening lung problems, and abnormal heartbeats can occur. your doctor should test your heart and blood before and during treatment tell your doctor if you have new or worsening cough chest pain or dizziness Before taking Cascali, tell your doctor all your medical conditions, medicines you take, and if you're breastfeeding, pregnant, or planning to be, as it can harm an unborn baby.
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Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s. the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show.
Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. wherever you are in the world.
It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we, of course, break down the psychology of our 20s.
I want to firstly, just before we get into it, thank you all for watching. the love that you have been showing my book recently.
If you didn't know, I released a book earlier this year.
It's called Person in Progress. And in the last month, I have just been receiving some of the kindest reviews, kindest comments, kindest messages from you all out of nowhere so I just wanted to give you a formal Thank you for just being so kind about this thing that I put out into the world.
If you are yet to get your hands on a copy, the book is basically... well, like the ultimate and extended guide to the psychology of your 20s.
So if you like the podcast, I think I can make a fairly...
Certain assumption that you will like the book as well.
I will leave a link in the description But again, you have all of my gratitude.
Thank you so much to you all So for today, I can't speak for you guys, but recently I have been going through...
I would say a few periods of feeling very alien, very unlike myself.
It's been this strange experience where The best way I can summarize it is that people will ask me, you know, describe yourself or they'll ask me what I'm interested in or who I am beyond that. work or beyond my immediate relationships.
And I'm kind of in this situation of grasping at straws at the moment. interests, values, hobbies, like I know I have them, but there's this strange wall between between me and the things that make me me that means that I feel kind of strange and unoriginal and a little bit bland and very detached from myself.
I remember this period right after my last boyfriend and I broke up where I felt very similar you know that relationship rocked my confidence so much that for like six months afterwards I just felt like I was living outside of my body in a way and all the things I knew to be true about the person I was felt impossible to feel and I also had moved cities at the time and was trying to make new friends.
And I just felt so detached from my spirit.
I couldn't hold a conversation. I couldn't. really engage with people on a deep level, it seems like this Detachment is the best word.
This detachment from our sense of self is a fairly common experience for a lot of us in our 20s.
I think actually it occurs in quite a cyclical manner.
We go through periods of feeling very confident, feeling very alive and then Suddenly out of nowhere, we just don't feel like ourselves anymore.
And it kind of serves as a reminder of when we need to reconnect with the deeper parts of ourselves when we need to re-identify what we care about.
But it's also... kind of a really scary and uncomfortable feeling.
So today I want to dissect and kind of break down that feeling.
I want to give you As well, a bit of a guide as to how we can feel like ourselves again or how we can perhaps connect with a newer version of ourselves that's emerging. when we are feeling kind of like a stranger in our own life and a stranger in our own body We are also not just gonna talk about things that are run of the mill, journaling, meditation,
Spending time doing your hobbies are all fabulous, fabulous ways to combat not feeling like yourself.
But I feel like we all kind of know them.
I want to just go a little bit deeper and a little bit broader and give you some tips and advice that you probably haven't heard before.
Some research that you probably haven't heard before. so that this episode is as practical, informative, and as original as it can be, so that it is as helpful as it can be as well.
We're also going to talk about why you may be experiencing this at this chapter or point in your life, but also. why it's maybe not a bad thing to feel a little bit lost within yourself sometimes so Without further ado, we have so much to cover.
So let's get into my guide to how to feel like yourself again.
Before we get into the seven plus strategies I have for you today, let me just say, The best thing you can do before you implement any new habits, before you try any new 30-day reset, any 75 hard program, anything like that, basically before you add anything to your already busy life,
It's just to understand why this disconnect may be occurring.
There is no growth without self-knowledge And the thing is, this feeling probably isn't an accident.
It is stemming from somewhere, something in your life that is creating dissatisfaction or disconnect.
The most likely explanations are as follows.
Firstly, you may be feeling unlike yourself because you've just become a little bit stuck.
You are in a period of stagnation where nothing feels new.
Nothing feels different. Your days are the same.
Your routines are the same. As a result, your sense of self, your soul, whatever you wanna label it, This core part of who you are is not being given the opportunity to expand.
The thing is, our sense of self is not a static thing.
It demands constant evolution from us. Your sense of self, and it's going to sound so silly, like the way I like to describe it, It's kind of like a dolphin.
It's kind of like a shark. You know, the moment a dolphin or a shark stops swimming... or stops moving forward, you might know this, but they die.
And it's kind of similar for your soul. The moment your soul feels like it's not moving forward, It's not experiencing new things.
It's not being allowed to grow. It also kind of experiences a similar kind of death.
Psychologically, we thrive when we have a sense of forward motion.
This is what the psychologist Abraham Maslow, you might know him, called self-actualization.
So... Maslow, I don't want to say created.
Maslow... He founded not even a worse word to use.
Basically, he's most famous for his hierarchy of needs and this idea that the very top need that we want to achieve is a state of knowing ourselves and a state of challenging ourselves.
That is self-actualization. But he was not the first person to understand this or recognize this.
In fact, this core part of human psychology has been understood and practiced by indigenous cultures long before Western psychologists gave it a name.
Particularly, Maslow really identified self-actualization as a core priority of the self when he was living with members of the Blackfoot Nation in England.
Canada and in America during the 1930s. And he saw that this community really kind of understood that if a human was to thrive and was to flourish, they needed a sense of movement of purpose they needed to be doing things I think it's really important to talk about where these concepts in Western and modern psychology come from way back when and at their roots, because that is a part of history that is often missed.
And it's a part of history that I actually didn't know when it comes to self-actualization and the hierarchy of needs. until one of the listeners told me.
So very interesting that this idea of forward movement is one that cultures and societies have had longer than we as a modern society could put a name to it.
So back to what we're talking about. If you have found yourself stuck in a routine, doing very monotonous things, finding that you've outgrown your environment without realizing it.
This may be contributing to a deeper detachment from core parts of you.
It could also be that you've kind of been stuck in survival mode for longer than you realize.
You may be so focused on prioritizing the busy and urgent parts of your life that you there hasn't been much room to slow down and to observe and to learn.
If this is the case, no wonder you feel disconnected.
It's almost impossible for your brain and your body and your mind to pursue growth and expansion when your nervous system has been hijacked by stress, by burnout, by anxiety, maybe even by trauma.
Additionally, you know, another very valid explanation is that you're just straight up overwhelmed by the state of the world and the state of the news and the tragedy of life at the moment.
And because of that, that doesn't feel like there's much worth in prioritizing yourself or your wellbeing when you're everything else is falling apart and millions of other people are suffering. it's a very difficult line to cross.
You want to be empathetic, but I also beg you not to fall into this trap as awful as the world feels of not taking care of yourself.
It's not selfish to take care of yourself and to feel a connection to the deeper parts of you.
It's actually incredibly crucial. Just as a little side note to mention that.
Secondly, our second explanation for why we may be feeling a little bit lost from ourselves is that we're just bored.
Not only are we stuck, we're bored. And so therefore, we're not very interested in the world and we're not very interested in our own development.
Now, this boredom and this apathy can sometimes take years to take a hold.
And you don't really realize how just simply uninterested in life you are until You have a moment, perhaps like the one you're having right now, where you realize like, hey, I don't even know what it means to feel like myself anymore.
I don't even know who I am. If someone asked me I wouldn't know how to answer.
This also of course has a bit of a clinical name.
We know it as depression. Feeling like you don't know yourself anymore.
Feeling uninterested in life, feeling unmotivated is a large thing. sign symptom criteria for a diagnosis with either a minor or major depressive episode.
If that's the case, yes, you will still get something out of this podcast, but you'll probably get more out of seeing a therapist who can really you know get to the core of your own individual issues so I would encourage you to see that out as well.
The final explanation has to do with you are not living a life in line with your values.
That is why you don't feel like yourself.
This matters so much more than we think.
Our values, although we probably, I don't know about you, I don't think about them day to day. they are still there and they are my compass.
And if we throw out the compass, if we ignore the compass, we're obviously going to get very, very lost.
If you really value creativity and curiosity, and yet you're doing something in your life that is very... systems-based or you're working a job that doesn't really allow you to express yourself and you don't have an outlet elsewhere you're not going to feel like yourself are you If you value the outdoors and you value adventure and, you know, it's been a while since you've hit the road, same thing.
How I explain this is like taking an animal out of their natural habitat and expecting them to thrive. taking a human away from their values and expecting them to feel like themselves.
It never works. And when you take yourself out of environments or situations that reflect your values, when you don't have opportunities to live your values, you are not going to feel amazing psychologically or mentally, emotionally, even physically.
So these are the three major explanations for this feeling. regardless of which one you relate to more, maybe relate to all of them.
The path back to yourself really involves a simple process of A, remembering what you care about, B, remembering what you like about yourself and what you like about being alive and And C, finding ways to practice that as much as you possibly can.
So that the gap between you and your truest, purest, highest self gets smaller and smaller.
Let's talk about how to do that exactly.
I will say some of these strategies may sound a little bit woo-woo, a little bit... enlightened, but I promise you they work.
I promise you there is science behind that.
And also what do you have to lose? You know, if you're feeling very lost And I don't think it can get worse than that.
And here's a hard truth. You know, if you are at a point of wanting to change, well, that's not just gonna happen by thinking about it.
You've got to try things that you haven't tried before.
And you have to try things that maybe you don't think that will work and be surprised.
So we're going to start with this first exercise.
If you want to feel like yourself again You have got to identify, even just loosely, what you mean when you say yourself.
Who are you? What does that look like? What does that feel like?
What does that version of you behave like? you have to perform a bit of a identity re-evaluation.
There's actually heaps of ways to do this, you're in luck.
And it's not as hard as it sounds, but the best exercise that I found to do this is something that I call the identity inventory.
And it basically just asks you to really just put a spotlight on yourself for a second in a way that you're not used to. sit down and write out 10 phrases, 10 words that reflect different parts of your identity.
Do an inventory. These can be formal roles.
So you could say of my 10 words, I am a teacher, I am a student, I am a mother, whatever.
Personal traits, I'm an optimist, I'm an introvert.
Passions, I love nature, I'm a rider. Or it could be relational roles.
I'm a friend. I'm a good daughter. Think of it as like listing the different hats that you wear in your everyday life.
The parts of you that are going to show up in different situations, in different relationships and moves that all kind of come together to create your sense of self.
Some of these things can also be aspirational, things that you haven't quite achieved yet, but which you know will be in your future and that which you really want to achieve. have happened and that you're working towards.
So for example, I actually did my identity inventory the other day when I was writing this episode.
And my list includes things like podcaster.
It includes things like writer, extrovert, explorer, empath, sister, And when I write these words down, yes, they might just be words, but altogether, they create kind of a unique message. a unique vision and a unique kind of, I don't know, a unique board, a unique mood board, I guess, splattering of who I am that makes it easier to live that truth.
You know, for example, sometimes I feel kind of distanced from the creative side of me, I know when I'm not doing something creative, I feel less like myself.
And so having that word on this list forces me to basically acknowledge like, hey, if this is how I see myself, I also have to actively express this and I have to actively work on this side of me.
Your identity is not just made of words, although there are words on this list.
It's made of actions. It's made of doing.
It's made of behaviors. At your center, how do you see yourself?
Who are you? What parts of your identity feel valuable to you?
What are you neglecting? how can you act in a way that aligns the part of you that feel important more towards yourself and that distances you from the behaviors that perhaps aren't reflecting this core inventory of pillars or I guess, the core foundation of how you see yourself.
Secondly, as important as it is to of course identify what areas you need to love more or need to prioritize more, It's also important to identify the things that you are doing just because you feel like you have to do them.
These small choices chip away at our sense of self day after day if we're not careful.
It's so easy to say, okay, well, I'll say yes to this thing at work because no one else will or I'll do this kind of exercise because it's apparently good for me or you know I'll hang out with this person even though I really don't enjoy that company because I feel a sense of loyalty.
And I should. I'll post on LinkedIn or social media because that's what I should be doing.
Doing things purely out of obligation rather than out of an actual sense of choice and a desire to do them. is a subtle form of self-abandonment that over time accumulates and means that you feel more and more disconnected from that compass that should be at the center.
When we repeatedly act out of shoulds rather than genuine desire or personal values, our sense of autonomy is very quickly eroded.
This disconnect between what we do and what we want to do and who we are, I guess, it's what psychologists call incongruence.
It's a mismatch between the self we project and our true self.
Carl Rogers suggested – he's a very famous psychologist.
You've probably heard me mention him before –
He was the one who suggested that this incongruence is what creates a great deal of psychological distress in the modern day human.
There was a 2016 study in the journal Motivation and Emotion.
And it found that when participants were given the opportunity to do something they wanted to, the way they wanted to do it, versus doing something out of pressure or guilt.
Of course, naturally, they reported being overall more happy at the end of the experiment. when they had the choice to guide their own behavior versus those who were made to do something out of obligation.
It wasn't just that they were less satisfied with their experience in the experiment, they were less satisfied about their life in general.
A lot of them gave much more pessimistic outlooks about their life, the life that existed beyond the lab having done that experiment so those choices although they might feel quite I don't know like innocent over time, when you continuously do things that no longer serve you, you do risk becoming a bit of a stranger to yourself.
I think it's also the right time to point out another central point here.
Sometimes getting back to yourself isn't about adding more to your plate.
It isn't about adding more to your life, but thinking about what you can do Subtract.
Imagine how much time we would have for ourselves if we were a bit more selfish and just said no more and we said no.
Yes, only when we really wanted to. It's a wild thought for some of us.
Especially if you're a people pleaser. Especially if you have a really ingrained sense of obligation to family or to friends.
Especially if you... think that saying yes will make you more successful and saying no will make you a pill to work with.
But who benefits from you continuously saying yes when you don't want to?
Who is getting something out of that? Because it's not you.
It's someone else. It's other people. It's society at large, whatever you want to call it.
But you are not being served by that decision.
My third tip for us today is more of a daily exercise and it's one that I personally do.
I have spoken about it on the podcast before.
In your journey back to yourself, it is so valuable to set intentions for your day every single day. that relate to what you want to get out of that next 24 hours.
Let me explain the premise behind this. So Recently you may have seen a TikTok of a girl who basically said that every day the moment she wakes up she asks the universe, show me how good it can get.
Show me how good it can be. And when she does that, she reports almost every day at the end of the day, She reflects back and she's had like the most amazing 24 hours.
The reason why... is that your thoughts about your situation and your life shape how you view opportunities How you view good days, how you view bad days, they shape how you behave, which in turn shapes your reality.
We can do this same exercise, this same thing to reconnect with ourselves by setting self-directed intentions.
Today, I'm gonna go only where I feel I can find joy.
Today, I'm going to really listen to myself.
Today, I'm gonna say, No more than I say yes.
Today, I'm going to let the universe show me where I need to be.
I know I'm gonna have a great day. I'm going to be excited by life.
Today is going to be excellent. I'm gonna feel amazing.
Those are just some examples of those affirmations or intentions that you can set. psychologically, this also taps into a concept called priming.
This is the idea that what we focus on, especially When our mood is really malleable, like at the start of the day, that can shape how we interpret the world around us.
Two people can be experiencing the exact same situations.
But if one of them has an intention that they're going to only engage with things that align with them and the other person doesn't have an intention like that, how they finish the day is going to be very different.
So basically, setting a daily intention shifts your cognitive filters.
You don't see everything that sucks. you focus on the areas where you can expand, you focus on the areas that you want to and the areas that make you feel good and that make you feel more like yourself.
So the world does start to reflect what you want to see and because you're being more intentional and you also get to be more in touch with what you actually want because that's the only way that you can actually express or set an intention is if you have a desire for a certain outcome in the first place which as a consequence means you have to feel You have to have better communication and be better able to listen to your internal desires.
This is our starting point. And I know all of these tips have been very I guess like thought-based exercises, thought-based activities.
Enough of that. We're done. We're done with that.
We're done with the thinking component. We're going to move on to the doing component.
We're going to move on to the fun side of this episode.
So if you want some practical things that you can do right now, right at this moment, in the next...
24 hours in the next seven days that aren't going to feel like a chore.
Stay with us. We're going to talk about all of that and so much more after this short break.
Hello, my lovely listeners. By now you know the more knowledge we have about ourselves and the way our bodies work, the more empowered and in control we are.
And this is also true when it comes to our sexual health and what to do after unprotected sex.
That's where Plan B comes in. It's emergency contraception with no age requirement that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts.
And because it works by only temporarily delaying ovulation, it won't impact your ability to get pregnant in the future.
We love a backup plan that puts us in control because the more we know, the more power we have.
Learn more at planb1step.com, users directed.
I'm Jordan, and I'm here to talk about my breasts.
We've been through some big changes. Divorce, a new grandkid, and just as I was starting my next chapter, metastatic breast cancer.
That's when my doctor recommended Kiskali.
Since then, I drove cross country, earned a degree, and saw my favorite band.
Because I'm more than just breast cancer.
Cascali Ribocyclib 200mg tablets with an aromatase inhibitor is for adults with HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.
Cascali may cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in serious infections, life-threatening lung problems, and abnormal heartbeats can occur.
Your doctor should test your heart and blood before and during treatment.
Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening cough, chest pain or dizziness Before taking Cascali, tell your doctor all your medical conditions, medicines you take, and if you're breastfeeding, pregnant, or planning to be, as it can harm an unborn baby.
Learn more at cascali.com. Let's talk about something that most people in their 20s overlook or just straight up are confused by health insurance.
Many people don't realize that health insurance wasn't designed to cover everything, which can leave gaps that you end up having to pay out of pocket.
This brings me to Aflac. You know the company with the very cute duck?
We should all know by now that illness and injuries can hit... at any time and dealing with them can be stressful enough without the added worry of additional expenses.
That's where Aflac comes in. They pay cash to help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. like copays, deductibles, even non-medical expenses like rent or groceries.
Whether it's a sudden illness, an injury, or even an unexpected hospital stay, Aflac can help provide a financial safety net so that you can worry less about how to cover those unexpected expenses, especially if you're having to miss work as a result.
It's added peace of mind in a very busy world.
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So there is this common saying, perhaps you've heard of it, how you spend your days is how you will spend your life.
How you spend your days will also determine how you feel about yourself.
So spend your days, I don't know, glued to your phone or, you know, your weekends kind of doing the same thing.
You're going to feel very one-dimensional because all you're doing is passively consuming or passively kind of following a routine that was laid out for you.
If you spend that same time making things, exploring, pursuing goals, looking up at the Therefore, you as a part of the world is going to feel more expansive and well, I guess just rich, rich in experience.
It's not just thinking exercises that are gonna get you back to yourself.
Experiences are gonna do the same for you as well. starting with your weekends.
Here's how I think a typical weekend goes for many of us, you know, Saturday you sleep in, maybe you see a friend, then maybe you like go out drinking or like you do something in the evening.
And then Sunday, you know, you're so tired from the week before, understandably, and also maybe from the night before that you don't really do anything.
Maybe you're like, do some chores then the sunday scaries hit and like that's it it's monday again Typically, it is the same stuff every weekend and then it's over.
No wonder we feel so disconnected because you have nothing to actually connect to, nothing to look forward to in your free time.
So here is how you are going to reprogram your weekend.
Firstly, you are going to choose one day of your weekend and it's going to be a should free day. no i should do my chores i should go to the gym i should see this person None of that.
This day is for you. You are going to go where your feet want to go, where your heart wants to go.
Your only should for that whole day is to get out of the house and do something that you normally wouldn't.
That's it. Leave the house. Experience something other than your day-to-day.
That is your only should. The reason this is so important is because new and novel experiences that we feel intrinsically motivated to perform are stimulate the brain's reward centers and promote a sense of expansion, but also openness to new experiences.
I think as well, you just give yourself the space to breathe and to be present in the moment that is perhaps not available to you when you're working. when you're stuck in like the monotony of the day-to-day, when you actually have an open perspective and an open mind towards your weekends and you want them to be expansive days for you you have more opportunities for happiness and to feel joy and to feel like hey, this is a good life and this is a good feeling.
And when you feel that way, when you feel relaxed and open to new experiences, that also signals your nervous system that it's safe.
All is calm. You relax for a second. And that's when you can really hear like the call of your true self better when you're You're no longer in survival mode when you're no longer kind of crowded out by urgency and busyness.
Alongside this, I want you to create a bucket list.
And yes, we have talked about this before And you know why it's come up in a few episodes is because it is so darn important as an adult.
To have things to look forward to and to have ambitions that have absolutely no purpose other than that they make you happy. you know remember when we were a kid and we would like make our summer bucket list and it would be like have a sleepover like Make s'mores, go to the amusement park, lemonade stand.
Like we need to bring those back as people in our 20s and 30s and beyond.
We need to bring back adventure. Also, it means that when you have one of those days of being like, I don't know what to do.
I don't like I feel bored, but I want to do something instead of just like wasting your time thinking about which fun thing to pick.
Or trying to search up and find or seek out inspiration.
Like you have your list. You have your bucket list.
You don't have to waste any time. you go out and you make new memories.
And in those moments you get to see yourself in different spaces, different environments, different situations. learning kind of who you are on the job, I guess.
One thing on my bucket list right now that I think I'm going to do when I'm in Chicago later this week is the 12 hour walk challenge. side quest here i recently read this book it is called actually very aptly the 12 hour walk and And in it, the author, he is a professional endurance athlete.
He talks about this personal experiment that he thinks we should all do where we're when we are feeling disconnected from ourselves, when we are feeling a bit lost, You need to commit to walking for 12 hours straight alone and in silence with nothing about your thoughts through your city or through a city wherever you are and during this 12 hour period you can stop as much as you want you can take breaks you can sit down you could literally walk for an hour and then like sit in a park for the rest of the 11 hours but you can't be on your phone you can't listen to music you have to just be with your thoughts And obviously, yes, you can sit for 11 hours.
The idea is that you don't typically do that.
He wants you to keep walking and keep moving forward.
And he argues that this is a really easy way to reset, I guess, your spirit because you You have to face so many internal fears and doubts and be alone with your thoughts and notice more about the world that we are kind of unable to do anything. on our day to day and in our day to day life.
It's also just, again, an adventure. So people apparently like finish this walk feeling like an immense sense of purpose, an immense sense of direction.
It's apparently very profound, so I'm going to try it and I will report back.
I think you should also try it if you're feeling uncomfortable.
That that's an inspiring idea to you. If you have any sense that that seems like something fun that you should do, you should do it.
Obviously, the 12 hour walk is something that you have to do alone.
But there are probably a lot of things on your bucket list that would be better with other people.
And yes, whilst spending time alone is vital for reconnecting with yourself, if you feel disconnected, please don't allow that to make you withdraw from your friends anymore or self-isolate.
I get it when we feel bored, when we feel stuck in our lives, when our self-esteem is deflated.
Sometimes the last thing you want to do is like have to conceal that actively from your friends.
The last thing you want to do is be social.
Social withdrawal is a very common coping mechanism when we're dealing with a sense of identity disruption or when we're not feeling like ourselves.
Often because it takes a lot of effort to be socially present, but also because we think more time alone automatically means more time to find ourselves. it's actually quite the opposite it often results in a further exaggeration of depressive symptoms a further exaggeration of loneliness a further exaggeration of
Dissatisfaction. It's this weird behavior that does make us feel a little bit okay in the moment, but actually often ends up worsening our situation.
Whilst I'm very aware that this urge can be very hard to fight, especially if it's connected with a mental health disorder, When you feel yourself slipping into this self-isolation social withdrawal pattern, I want you to remember the findings of this particular study.
The study is from 2014 and it's titled Mistakenly Seeking Solitude and in it These researchers looked at the experiences of over a thousand individuals who, when they were given the opportunity to engage with another person, were either encouraged to lean into the situation or they were told that they could do whatever they wanted to.
So they could engage or they could not engage.
It was up to them, basically, in the second situation.
What they found was that those who were encouraged to talk to someone, who were encouraged to sit with them, to engage with them, They reported much higher levels of connection, positive mood, And they left feeling happier, despite the fact that initially a lot of them thought it was going to be a hassle.
A lot of them didn't actually want to engage anymore. with this other person in front of them.
They thought it was gonna make their mood worse.
The opposite was the case. Interacting with others, even if it feels like it's gonna be agitating, often ends up making us feel better.
So if you want to feel more aligned, it is time to start seeing your friends again.
It is time to start planning fun outings.
It is time to know your neighbors. And if you really want to go one step further, if you have time, it's time to start volunteering.
You really like if you feel disconnected to yourself, volunteering is a very easy way to get back to that version of you who you respect and who you enjoy.
This might sound controversial, but thinking about yourself all the time is probably making you like yourself a lot less.
It's this thing called the self-absorption paradox.
Higher levels of self-focus and self-awareness. can actually increase levels of psychological distress.
The more you try to connect with yourself, the more you try to investigate your behavior, the more time you spend with your thoughts and your thoughts alone, the less happy you're actually going to be.
This was the situation that I found myself in last year.
I spend so much time being like, all right, I'm just going to sit at home and I'm just going to think about my situation and I'm just going to examine my behavior.
And if I think about it enough, I will come up with a reasonable explanation. that will make this all go away.
The moment that I decided to just instead direct that attention that I was putting on myself towards something and someone who needed me and that was bigger than me, the better I felt.
For me, that was volunteering with animals.
I started fostering dogs. I started doing rescue runs for local animal shelters where you basically fill your car full of dogs that dogs that are from kill shelters and you drive them across state lines or to other areas that aren't kill shelters and In those moments, I felt more like myself than I had felt in a while because... focus wasn't on me.
It was on someone who needed that attention more than I definitely did. doing something for others it's so important and it's so valuable and I think as a society it's something that we often neglect especially when we are you know, told to be very individualistic and told to be very self-focused.
But I know this is going to sound ironic for this final tip.
I am actually going to redirect the attention back onto ourselves once more, despite that whole speech about doing more for others.
I know it's ironic, but I do think that this final tip is equally important and bears mentioning.
If you want to feel more like yourself again, you need to set a big goal for yourself. that has nothing to do with your professional identity, nothing to do with external validation. nothing to do with getting ahead or anything like that.
What I mean to say is that it is important that each of us has some kind of a goal.
Yes, we may have a broader goal that is very visible, but it's also important that we have a private goal that we want to accomplish, that we want to meaningfully work towards silently day in and day out.
Setting a deeply personal non-performative goal, one that is detached from social or professional approval, can really restore a fragmented sense of self. because it engages you with your intrinsic self.
When we pursue something for the sheer joy of mastery or expression or the joy of the behavior, When we do that, we reestablish autonomy over our time, over our identity, over our actions.
This is a form of autotelic behavior, which is basically a kind of behavior that engages with the flow of the behavior for its own sake.
It's something that really nourishes our own internal compass.
It's something that really allows us to understand what we want, what we care about. and it fosters something called self-integration.
Basically self-integration means that Day by day, our behaviors align more with who we want to be until we feel like we are a more enlightened, higher version of ourselves.
I think also the ultimate goal of this is that it builds trust in yourself as well.
Often when we feel detached from who we are and we don't know who we are, We don't trust ourselves to get back there and we don't trust ourselves in general.
We don't think that we are capable of achieving what we want to achieve.
We don't think we're capable of getting back to ourselves.
We don't trust that we can take care of this problem or any problem for that matter.
But when you set a goal and you work for it, just... just in your own life, just for your own sake, you silently say to yourself, hey, we are able to go after things that we care about.
We are able to achieve things that we care about.
You can trust yourself. You can trust that you are going to be true to your word.
Here are some examples because I know sometimes they're hard to think of.
Writing a novel that no one knows you're working on.
Training for a solo hiking trip. um growing like a balcony garden just from scratch just because you kind of want to Creating art that you're never going to post anywhere, you're never going to sell, you're never going to put online is another amazing one.
These activities, you know, really connect us with ourselves and they bring our idea of ourself, the one that we have in our mind, in line with reality. how we're acting and how we're behaving.
I think we could all benefit from a challenge as well.
You know, when was the last time you challenged yourself?
This right here, this moment where you're questioning a lot about who you are is a great opportunity.
Again, what do you have to lose? There's so much more that you can gain. and these new experiences are just a really amazing way to kind of find the path back to yourself even if you are kind of blind for the first part of the journey just doing things Putting yourself in spaces where there is the opportunity for self-discovery even if you feel a bit unsure is really the only way to get through this.
So as we wrap up this episode, I just want to say, yes, all these tips are important.
I'm sure that they will be helpful. I hope they'll be helpful.
But just have some grace with yourself. There are a lot of people. in this with you.
There are a lot of people in this world who feel very similar and don't know who they are because I think Modern society and modern culture has made it very hard to spend time with ourselves.
And to spend time on our wants and our needs and not our shoulds.
I think that's where this disconnect really comes from.
We can't really hear the internal voice that's within all of us that is able to communicate with us and tell us what we want.
And we feel that emotionally and we're feeling that mentally and psychologically.
So any kind of activity. that just takes you out of what you think is expected from you or takes you out of your routine or a stagnant mindset and then just into a new space. of novelty like that is particularly luminous and it's particularly incredible and I really do think it will help you out so I'm sending you a lot of love and a lot of empathy I know how difficult it can be to not know who you are right now but there is definitely a way back Send this episode to someone else who you think might benefit from it if you yourself benefited from it.
Make sure that you are following us on Instagram at That Psychology Podcast and leave the podcast a five-star review wherever you are listening. particularly on Apple, if you are listening on Apple and you want to leave a little review.
Those really, really benefit us and help the show grow and reach new people, especially if you feel like there was value in this episode or any others.
Yeah, I would very kindly ask that you consider it.
Also, my book is still available and I will leave a link in the description.
Make sure you check that out as well. But until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle with yourself, and we will talk very, very soon.
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