Tech Sweat & Relationship Spirals: Embracing the Learning Process.

Don't Cut Your Own Bangs

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28d ago 23:51

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Welcome to a solo cast episode of ‘Don't Cut Your Own Bangs'! In this episode, I dive into tackling my tech nightmares, facing limiting beliefs and how my experience connects to a client’s deeper understanding of their relationship patterns. I share relatable stories and actionable takeaways to help you navigate your own learning process: 1) The consistency of the learning process - a question or obstacle always initiates it. 2) The importance of compassionate curiosity - shifting 'Why' questions to 'How' and 'What' questions. 3) Embracing the spiral nature of progress - each iteration helps us move closer to our goals. Join me in making big feelings feel less scary and more approachable. As I say, 'The process of learning is always the same, and it often starts with discomfort.' Tune in and let's unlearn to relearn together!

00:00 Introduction and Podcast Intentions

03:36 The Learning Process: Personal Tech Challenges

14:45 Client Story: Relationship Patterns and Learning

19:13 Embracing Discomfort and Growth

21:19 Conclusion and Listener Engagement

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DANIELLE IRELAND, LCSW

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Learning Process solocast

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[00:00:08] Hello. Hello, this is Danielle Ireland and you are catching a solo cast of Don't Cut Your Own Bangs. And I wanted to hop on quickly because I had a killer session with a client that had some awesome takeaways that I think everybody could benefit from hearing and I've had a lesson repeatedly coming up in my life that also mirrors what my client was experiencing.

[00:00:31] And I think the. The two stories together may offer something to you. So that's the hope. That's what we're gonna do. And the other thing I wanted to do was reintroduce the intention and the concept of this podcast, which is to make big feelings, feel less scary and more approachable, interpreting the information of our emotions to help guide us.

[00:00:54] Into making the next right step for ourselves. Shrinking the gap between knowing what we feel and knowing what we wanna do with that feeling is where a lot of tension lives. So I wanna help shrink that gap, and then I wanna do it in a way that helps us feel light and. Maybe even have some knowing laughter in the face of our big feelings, because when we are met with truth, there's an opening and expanding clarity, and sometimes there are tears, which I think can keep people maybe stuck from looking at them because we don't wanna cry, which I get.

[00:01:27] But the other thing I wish everyone could experience is the deep, profound belly laugh that happens in therapy sessions, in treatment rooms, in group therapy, in addiction groups, in. The profoundly just meaningful, vulnerable conversations between friends. The feelings we so often run from are the birthplace of a deeper, more meaningful connection and so much laughter and joy, and that's the hope here.

[00:02:03] I want to have conversations like that with my guests. I want to have conversations like that with you.

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[00:03:30] I wanna offer a couple of stories, a couple of key takeaways, and then we're all gonna go on with our day. The process of learning, the process of learning is always the same. The process of learning is always the same, and I'm saying this multiple times for myself as much as anyone else because it seems particularly for me when it comes to technology.

[00:03:55] I have a story about myself in approaching tech. My story is technology is hard and I'm not good at technology and I don't always read directions, and then I get tech sweat and I get in my head and I either want to abandon the tech altogether, I wanna abandon the project altogether. I wanna distract myself with something else more familiar and comfortable, which working from home can be chores or I'll find a way to busy myself to avoid the thing that makes me so deeply and profoundly uncomfortable. This story that I've been telling myself about tech, I have also disproven and I have plenty of evidence to the contrary many times over.

[00:04:34] This isn't about unpacking the story or worrying about where the story comes from. That can be another podcast for another time. But today it is about looking at the process of learning. It is always the same. It is often uncomfortable. And I have a story about a client who has gone through in her own way, a similar iteration with my tech story, with relationships and it's different experiences, but the lesson and the through line of what it really means to learn something new about yourself and carry that information forward.

[00:05:13] It's a simple process to say. It is harder to see when it's happening to you, and that is my hope in sharing it with you here today, is that you can see yourselves and my story or in an aspect of my clients, and then apply it to yourself and it won't be so hard for you when it comes up.

[00:05:30] The process of learning starts with a question, a problem, or an obstacle. The question of how do I figure this thing out in my case? I have been converting my podcast to video. Very exciting. Hello, if you're watching, thanks for watching. Converting the podcast to video has added many layers of new technology and excerpt cut to me excessively sweating in a corner, thinking about how in the hill am I gonna figure this out?

[00:06:00] Every podcast I have had a new challenge. I've met the challenge and I figured it out. And also every podcast I'm looking at the previous one, thinking, oh God, I could have done that. I could have done that. And this particular challenge for me earlier this week was I had recorded it in Zoom.

[00:06:18] There was an issue I didn't save it in the way that I needed to save it, to make it more manageable and malleable. So I'm left with a block of video that is a very thin landscape within a landscape, which is not ideal, and had to find several workarounds to make it look correct in the format of.

[00:06:42] The YouTube channel. And then of course it can't be the same like every credit card machine has its own freaking process. Had to figure out how do I then get it to convert into clips that look appropriate for social media? Because social media doesn't want it horizontal, they want it vertical.

[00:07:02] I'm kind of embarrassed to admit it, but I'm pretty sure this is not an exaggeration. It took me about three hours to figure out a workaround with the raw material of the video I had and how to get it to actually fill the horizontal space for the YouTube channel correctly and then figure out how to work around, flip it and reverse it and make it work for the vertical.

[00:07:25] I am just grinding my gears, trying to figure this out, but to bring it into the process of learning is the same every time. It started with, I have a problem and my problem is my video isn't filling out the view of the format correctly.

[00:07:42] How do I do that? How is a great question. Not, why can't I figure this out? Why isn't this working? Why does this always happen to me? But once I'm in the process of learning, it almost always starts with a what if? What if this were possible? How could I make it possible? What do I need to do?

[00:07:59] What And how are great questions to activate this process if you're stuck in a spiral? But since we're in the process of learning itself. It starts with a how? How do I figure this out? That led me to a series of Google searches and YouTube videos, and then my brain was saturated with information. Then I try to take that information and distill it into figuring it out one slow, heavy click of the keyboard at a time. Little by little, I'm actually starting to get something that looks closer to the way that I want it to look and.

[00:08:33] Just side note, it still looks like amateur hour in comparison to people who have been doing this for a really long time. But I'm also super proud of myself. Both things can be true. I can be an amateur and a novice, which I am in many ways, and I can also be really proud of what I've learned so far, which has been a fuck ton.

[00:08:49] I have something that's much closer to what I wanted the end product to be. And I figured out actually some really cool functions within the software that I use called D Script to try to record my video podcasts.

[00:09:03] I figured out a lot of interesting workarounds and tools and functions that I would've otherwise never known existed had I not tried to solve this problem. So the process of learning is always the same, only always the same. Forever. It starts with a problem, an obstacle, a need. Then it leads to a question, a form of curiosity.

[00:09:26] How would I approach this? How could I figure this out? What if I was able to do this? Is it possible for me to do this? And then I go through the process, the next step after the question is where 90% of the discomfort lives. Because you're actually muscling through something brand new that you've never done before.

[00:09:47] Postulating a question that actually is almost more romantic and fun. It's brainstormy. Not that there can't be energy and output put into the question, but in the actual execution of trying to do the damn thing, it's awkward and uncomfortable. And sweaty, and at the end of that three hour chunk after already having worked several hours on other things that were a little bit more practiced in me, I was spent, but then I immediately, and this is new for me, after shutting the computer down, sitting back, I had one thought, which was, damn.

[00:10:27] That took. Forever. And then the other was, I know a lot now. I was able to, almost in the same moment, think, oh, that was really freaking hard and. I know so much more about this. I bet I'm going to be able to do the next one that much better. Knowing what I know. I know how to save.

[00:10:52] I know how to record. I know how to set up my guest. Better for success I know that if, God forbid, all these other things fall apart I'm also able to now carry this workaround into that with more confidence because I know how to do it now.

[00:11:09] I know what the functions are. I know all the mistakes I made that I won't make again and. I was actually really proud of myself. The elements of the learning process that have always been true, they start with a question and a curiosity, and then the discomfort of figuring it out. The part that I wanna share and because I'm excited about it 'cause it's newer, for me, is I really allowed that effort to inform my new sense of confidence.

[00:11:38] Moving into the next project. And do you know what, the uncomfortable day was three days ago, and I was able to actually prove myself correct yesterday, like this is very, very recent.

[00:11:51] Now I'm sitting again with raw material. Raw editing material that I'm gonna have to do the exact same workaround that I did on Monday, but I know how to do it. I'm halfway done and it has taken a fourth, like a fraction of the time. It took me the first time, and it's only the second time I've had to do this.

[00:12:10] Knowing what I know now . I know with a much deeper, more profound sense of knowing that I am capable of figuring this out. I am working with technology that my old story is really just that an old story.

[00:12:24] It's old news, and I have new information now that I also need to allow to exist because it is true at one point in time technology. Was really hard for me. I don't know where the origin story came from. But the new element to this process of unlearning for me is adding the other things that are true in a way that is kind and compassionate to myself, which is, Hey, you figured it out. It was hard and uncomfortable, and no, you don't wanna do it that way again, but you figured it out.

[00:12:56] You know the discomfort of this moment will inform future setups and give you that much more of a push to ensure that you follow the steps that can make your life easier. That's really good information to have. That's good experience to have, and. The process of getting there was uncomfortable.

[00:13:16] I share this because it is so easy to look at lessons in hindsight and only want to reflect on the learnings and takeaways and not actually when you are in that sweaty, uncomfortable, is this ever going to come together? Am I ever gonna get their ?

[00:13:34] It's so easy to feel alone in that process. It's so easy to feel incredibly stuck because in some ways you may be stuck. It's like trying to move through mud, up to your knees and trying to get one foot in front of the other. It's just feels so damn slow, and that's not a personality trait if you are having a hard time in that active learning process.

[00:13:56] That is just true of you're forming new neural pathways. It is a new pattern in you, and so the neurons haven't fired in the same way the practiced behaviors in you or the practiced stories in you. They're like a super highway. that's freshly paved, blacktop, and perfectly smooth.

[00:14:14] That's just your mind knows how to operate in that pattern. It doesn't know how to operate in this new way. So comparing, smooth blacktop, super highway to a little pebbled path in a patch of woods behind your house maybe gonna get to your intended destination, but the path of getting there is gonna look and feel a lot different.

[00:14:36] Having that information in my peripheral vision as I was experiencing the discomfort earlier this week helped me out a lot. I then had the benefit of today sitting in a therapy session with a client that I've worked with for a really long time, and there is a relationship pattern that this person has found themself in, where faces have changed, names have changed, but the way that they're treated and the relationship has, and particularly in conflict, has felt very familiar and.

[00:15:12] Each time, and I wanna highlight this image 'cause it's important. Each time that this is experienced, what my client has done is another iteration of this learning process.

[00:15:23] The process of once we get through either the more shame or stress or anxiety inducing questions like, why am I not enough? Why isn't this working? Why is this always happening? When we shift that type of questioning to. How do I want to be treated? How do I want to feel?

[00:15:40] Am I treating myself with the kindness and respect that I am expecting of them? Am I treating myself the way I wanna be treated? And each step that is. Positioned through the lens of compassionate curiosity. It's more actionable. It also leads to a more tangible step it leads you to a new understanding. The progress with that type of questioning and self-examination.

[00:16:10] When we make progress or we come out of a hard situation, what we want to think is that relationships look like stair steps just like this. So if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the Post-It note I'm holding up. But if you're listening, we want it to be like a stair step. We move up, we learn something new, we move forward, we never have that mistake again, and then we move up and learn something new and then we move forward.

[00:16:31] We never have that situation again. Wouldn't that be great? But. The truth with a capital T, is that learning something new feels more like this and I'm holding up a post-it note that shows a little spiral. Each time we go through the same situation again or the same learning again. For me, it's every time I'm approaching a new piece of technology.

[00:16:55] In my client's case, we're reflecting on a romantic relationship. What I'm actually measuring my progress on is not that, oh, I'm confronting new technology and feeling stressed. Ugh, I'm failing. Because if I'm looking at it from the stair step point of view, that's when it's gonna feel like I'm sliding backwards.

[00:17:13] But from the lens of the spiral, each time I go deeper, deeper into the spiral, I am able to make the connection sooner. I'm able to see the situation clearer, sooner the fear spike that I may have when approaching this new project because I have more experience and therefore confidence behind me to know that I've done this before, I'll probably have a better chance of figuring it out.

[00:17:39] It shrinks the gap of. Having the feeling of discomfort, and knowing what to do with that feeling of discomfort. And in this case, and if you're not watching on YouTube, I'm holding my hands together. And so each iteration of the spiral, my hands are getting closer and closer together.

[00:17:53] That gap is getting smaller. And my client had this experience today at the end of a relationship with someone they love and loved dearly, the love doesn't just go away. They realized with this new profound sense of clarity and confidence that this relationship was progressed by every standard of where they had been before.

[00:18:19] What they know now, the information they hold now and how they want to that information to inform their life moving forward. This relationship no longer serves them now, just like my story about technology doesn't serve me anymore because it's not entirely true or nor is it true at all. And in this case, with my client sitting in the discomfort and then allowing that compassionate curiosity of.

[00:18:43] How do I wanna be treated? How do I wanna feel? What if I treated myself with the same respect that I'm wanting this other person to treat me? Moved them forward with new information. The relationship ending while hard, because it always is, it's never easy. The relationship ending was a beautiful and tender goodbye. If there was anything to take away from either my example or the example of my client, it's that if you are in your own version of a struggle or very active learning process right now where it feels so slow, like you're moving through mud, remembering that. The perspective.

[00:19:32] That's why I try to hold the image of the spiral up as often as possible. So maybe grab your own post-it note and just draw like a little spor spiral circle where it just gets tighter and tighter. 'cause for me, seeing the struggle as this is a moment in a process versus a problem, that this is a challenge that I'm meeting in a much larger process that is going to lead me in the end to a new outcome.

[00:20:00] Whatever that outcome is. I don't know. I'm not there yet because I'm in this part of the process, but knowing that that's all this is, gives me a sense of relief because what my fear is often telling me is that my pain and discomfort are permanent. This will always be hard. This will never get easier.

[00:20:20] This will never work out, and remembering, okay, this discomfort. Is very real and it is a part of a larger process that's gonna lead me to something new. And that new something will hopefully help me make a better, quicker, more gentle decision in the future. I hope my story is proof of progress that. Your old stories, they may always be a part of you a little bit. Oh, there's that old story coming up. There it is, and I'm feeling the discomfort of that. But ask yourself some other questions like, is it true?

[00:20:55] Is it really true? Is it the same as it was last time? Is it exactly the same? How is it a little different? Those compassionate questions, how and what, what if this worked out? What could I do with this information? How is this maybe working for my benefit? How is this serving me? How can this help me in the future?

[00:21:13] The how and the what are much better in process questions when you're trying to figure something out. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining me in this solo cast on Don't cut your own bangs. Sharing this space with you is. Something I treasure deeply. There's so many places you could be, and the fact that you're spending time here means more to me than you could possibly know.

[00:21:35] What I would love to invite is ask me some questions. I wanna answer your questions in the solo cast specifically, so you can email me at [email protected] and just put in the subject bangs and just hit me up with a question you have. This isn't podcast therapy. I can't diagnose or therapize you through this, but I can certainly answer your questions.

[00:21:57] I can answer therapy questions, relationship questions, process questions, wherever you're finding yourself hitting a stumbling block when it comes with big feelings. I've got you. This is a container and a community for you, so let's dive in. Remember, please, please, please to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast, particularly the subscribe one.

[00:22:16] It makes your life easier. Two, it helps the podcast grow. But any way you choose to interact with this podcast helps other people find it. Thank you for being here. I hope you continue to have an incredible day.

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