It's Not That Deep Adrienne Kirk and Lucy Woods

In this episode we discuss the feeling we all have sometimes of not really knowing how to be a ‘grown-up’, and the sense we have that other people don’t have that struggle. But we all do at times! How to be a parent, an employee, a human. Our brains like to make sense of the world, so we tend to think there is a ‘right way’ to do life and yet there isn’t. All we can do is the best we can with our available resources – physical, mental, psychological. And the work is to accept that is good enough!
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Some people, (like us two!), are quite risk averse, but we are drawn to people who look like they are having more fun than us. If we want to be seen as fun, or popular, not to miss out then we can find ourselves doing things that we don’t feel comfortable with. If we aren’t aligned with our values then that really feels uncomfortable.
We can also find ourselves staying in contact with family members who are not good for us, who may be abusive. There can be lots of societal pressure on what it means to be a family, and that can make it really hard to put in boundaries that can support us.
The start point here might be to ‘zoom out’, to get some perspective on the impact of this relationship. This can help us to feel a sense of control, to be able to act in a way that is congruent with our needs, values and beliefs.

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In this episode we explore that satisfaction is more about being content rather than trying to be happy all the time. As humans it’s hard for us to be OK with that – we seek out and crave the highs. Lots of what we learn from the world is that we ‘deserve’ a happily ever after’, however life is made up of all kinds of moments and ultimately ends for all of us with death! Often we have little control over how our life is, this is just how it is right now, and the work is to be OK, satisfied, with that. The things we think will satisfy us are usually external – shopping/drugs/food/etc. and these things are fleetingly pleasant at best. We discuss that satisfaction has to come from within, and how we can develop the skill of paying attention to the small things to support a feeling of satisfaction.  
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In this episode we discuss how we can sometimes have a sense that we are about to be in trouble, without even knowing why. This can come from different sorts of parenting/authority figures and is a mechanism to keep us safe, it’s just a maladaptive one, and seems to come from a sense of loss of control. We are primed to get into a fluster, and then our inner critic can kick in and we start to catastrophise. 
We discuss ways of managing this like noticing the sensations that arise in those moments (which is easier said than done) and then to ask ourselves whether it is true or not. ‘It’s probably ok, it usually is’ has become a bit of a mantra for us both, and something we share with our clients.

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In this episode we explore that others don't view us the way we see ourselves. The fact that we change over time is one of life’s great certainties, so family may have a very different view of us than friends do, and older friends a different version to the friends we have met more recently. We show different parts of ourselves to different people in different situations and yet all those parts are parts of us.
This conversation got a little existential – is there even a ‘real me’?! We discussed the idea that we amplify different aspects of ourselves with different people, in different times. And even with ourself when we are on our own. It can really support us to know that we are ever-changing, that everything is in flux, that there are different parts to us that show up in different amounts in different situations. And that’s OK, as long as we are true to our values!

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In this episode we discuss how boundaries, rather than putting up walls between us, are in fact about connecting us to others. They are also needed for taking care of ourselves and teaching others how to treat us. There are several different sorts of boundaries and we explore what these are and how they might show up. We talk about how we can use these ideas to take a step back, not to retaliate and to consider whether this is a ‘me thing’ or a ‘them thing’!
We also compare how we use the idea of boundaries in our respective client-work, and indeed in our own lives!

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