Self Care School: Agency, Community, and Changing the Stories We Tell Ourselves

Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 208

Anna: Today is a little bit of a different call. I am here with the brilliant Jo, who's been in www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk for three years. And today, this episode is our four-year anniversary of having the podcast. I have been putting out these podcasts every week for the last four years, and I wanted to have a moment and an opportunity to bring another voice into the room.

I'm always talking about how brilliant I think www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk is and the people inside it, but I actually wanted to bring in one of the voices of the people who is there on the community calls every week. So thank you for joining us today, Jo. I'm really grateful that you're here.

Jo: It's lovely to be here.

Anna: Oh, thank you. I wanted to invite you in today to have a little chat about your experience of www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk, and be able to put it in your words, because I'm always telling people how brilliant I think you lot are.

But I wanted someone else to be able to have the floor to be able to talk about their experience. So would you be willing to talk about what you get out of www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk, and why you want to carry on coming every week?

Jo: I get a huge amount out of www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk, and the main reason I keep coming every week is because of the community.

Um, I've not found another community like it, where we really get to see each other's vulnerabilities, but also we hold each other with such grace and such care. Big benefit of that is that you find out very, very quickly that it's not just me, which I think a lot of the time we spend a lot of time going, "I shouldn't be feeling this," and I'm in my own head, and I'm running around like a squirrel in my own head.

And it feels like it's just us, and that everybody else has a handle on it. And that combined with a toolkit that you can use on your own, and you can bring bits of it onto the school. So there's a clever model about how thoughts connect to feelings, and how you can look at that. And then how you can change the way you think, which changes the way you feel.

But it's progressive and incremental, and there's lots of chance to practice that process, and to practice the new thoughts. Because when you've been thinking something for a very long time, decades very often, it doesn't go away immediately. It takes time. And it takes repetition.

I'm also a musician. Wiring anything neurologically takes a fantastic amount of repetition.

So those are the two things. The toolkit works within the coaching, and the community is so supportive.

Anna: There's really, like, the way that people champion and hold each other and, and hold space for not only what someone's going through in the moment, but also remembering.

You know, someone will come with a difficulty to a call, and then hearing someone else in the group be like, "Hang on a minute. Six months ago, wasn't this your dream to achieve?” And you've already, you're in the thick of it right there. Or the way that people show this sort of care and continuity for people, I think is really precious.

I don't think people necessarily understand quite how much learning and growth you can get from watching someone else go through the stuff that you thought was just in your head on your own.

I really love watching everybody's little penny drop moments when they're watching other people get coached as well every week.

That always feels really precious.

Jo: Yeah. Yeah. And I say again, it's it's not just me. And yeah, you learn. Even if it's not, an experience that you've had before, it'll be some- You'll have experienced something similar.

Anna: Yeah.

Jo: And it's such a diverse group of people. It's nice to see that across people whose backgrounds aren't like mine, um, people who have a really different experience, who grew up in different places, who have a different experience of systemic oppression and to all be learning together.

And yes- Seeing people's progress is so delightful because you can see "Oh, you've really been applying this, and you're in a different place."

Anna: And it's so interesting, isn't it, seeing that, like, when you see someone working through their own stuff, how often we can have that thought of like, "Oh, wow, I thought if I had that or I was in that place, then I'd be happy, but that person's still having similar thoughts to me, and I'm all the way over here."

It's really interesting to be able to look at the stories that we're telling ourselves and how those replicate no matter what the situation, because that's what this work's all, all about, is changing the stories that we're telling ourselves no matter what's going on.

Is there anything that you've found in www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk that it offers you that you haven't found elsewhere in any of the other work that you've done?

Jo: Again, the community. When I've done CBT, couple of different forms of CBT, and some one-to-one therapy, it's the community, that you're not doing it on your own.

You're not alone. And that in itself is just brilliant. And there are community versions of those therapies, but actually being on a call and learning with other people and, and hearing other people's stories there's a real sense of togetherness. Um, and it, like, that just feels good in your nervous system. It produces lots of lovely community binding chemicals.

I think recently with CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) the focus has become much more on the behavioral. And actually, I find the thought side of it quite helpful 'cause I'm quite a thinky person, and I think thinking is a passionate activity. A lot of the people I know that feel the most are also the people who are thinking the most deeply about things. And it's a little bit more of the cognitive part of the model.I think it's less judgy than CBT. I'm, I'm gonna go with that because you've got an i- little bit of an idea of, like, that's not a helpful thought or that's a maladaptive thought or something. And, you're going straight to trying to replace that with a new thought. And sometimes that new thought that gets you to the emotion you want is so far away from the original thought that you need some steps to bridge the gap. And I think that the ladder part of the model gives you that, that chance to go, "Okay, I wanna be there, but currently I'm here. And actually I can get to that rung on the ladder before I start feeling resistance." And I think that there's a real relationship between how does that thought actually feel in my body? Almost to the point where I'm now like, "Let me just run that thought through my nervous system and see how it feels.  Okay, that's quite good or that's not. Mm, no thanks." ‘

Cause I think so much of culture and stuff that like there's this idea, and it pops up in a number of places like Myers-Briggs and certain religious conversations that we are heads on top of bodies, and that the bodies are problematic and unhelpful and, and they should be somewhere else, and that we should be able to master our bodily feelings.

And that connectedness that, um, something you say a lot is thoughts are neurons firing in my brain. And my brain is in my head, which is very firmly attached to my body, thank goodness. And that there's a kind of organic-ness to that that I find really, really comforting.

I used to do some acting, and a lot of the acting training was , "Just don't think.Don't think, just feel." And it's like, that doesn't actually work.

Anna: Yeah.

Jo: Um, it is a two-way street. Sometimes how you feel physically affects how you think and, you can kind of get into that feedback loop from either direction. But it, that connectedness that we do sometimes sit and, you know, how does that actually land in my body?

Or we think about what is this feeling? How does that actually physically feel?

Anna: And also, what are we making that feeling mean? Yeah. So it might be that your, heart is racing and you have a physical sensation first, but if you go, "This is a panic attack," then you have a whole load of stories attached to all of the other times that that has happened or what might have caused it.

Or if your thought is, "I've had too many coffees today," you've got a whole different story going on. And so the sensations can come first, but we still then have thoughts about it, and so it's looking at the thoughts as well.

Jo: Yeah, and I think that it confirmed something that I'd already experimented with before I joined www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk

I'd started looking particularly at anxiety and panic and, and just going, "Oh, that's adrenaline. That's, that's a hormone." And it will take a certain amount of time to metabolise, and that will feel a certain way. But it's, like this is just something my body's doing. That's a hormone. And that was a great way before I even started that I'd started doing, of taking the fire out of the feeling.

But also sitting with it and really investigating what it is.

Anna: It’s a hormone that has served me really well until now. It's a really useful hormone, sending some really useful skills out there. I think anxiety gets quite demonised in current moments. Whereas actually at some point it, it can be really useful. Like, anxiety's probably kept a lot of people alive even though it isn't a particularly comfortable thing.

Jo: Yeah,... I've had a couple of bike accidents, and my goodness, that level of adrenaline really changes the way things unfold, and your sense of time, and it just gives you more time to react in a weird way. And run away. And yes, it is the thing that's keeping us alive, but it's also kind of exhausting when you're constantly trying to run away and there is no saber-toothed tiger.

Anna: Yeah. It's these old stories that we've had for a long time of just trying to check in with which ones are useful and which ones we want to keep, which ones we can choose now.

I just want to circle back to something else you were saying about the sort of the difference within www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk I think about the teachings, and hopefully the way that I teach, um, within the coaching settings that I don't see in very many other places, is the acknowledgement of the socialisation of things.

Because if all we were looking at whether a thought is a maladjustment or a thought is bad or we're not enjoying feeling a thought, well maybe my thought is “I don't have enough money to pay my bills this month.” Now, you can change the thought all you want, but if you don't have that money to pay your bills and the socialisation and the structures and the systems that we're in mean that it is very difficult for you to, earn a living because you're in a disabled body and you are in a town that has very high unemployment rates. Those things are all very real as well. Whereas I think a lot of the things that I have seen in the past take such an individualistic route that it doesn't acknowledge any of the oppressions and the water that we all swim in. And for me, I didn't want to be creating any kind of healing modality or any kind of space that was reinforcing the idea that we should be doing all of this stuff in isolation, and in brackets, that it's all our fault.

I wanted us to be able to look at fundamental social justice change and where that starts within us, and so we can spread that out. And I believe that this work is really imperative for social justice because there's an awful lot of things that come up that we are, are gonna need to have very difficult or uncomfortable conversations with.

And if we can't handle our own emotions, then we are a lot less likely to be able to implement any kind of real sustainable change, I believe.

Jo: Yeah, ... That was my third thing. I wasn't looking at my notes. Yeah, it doesn't shy away from the systemic reasons why we think the way we think.

We think this stuff because we've been taught to think it.

Anna: Mm-hmm.

Jo: And we've practiced it. And you, get to a stage where it's like, so to give a, like, really practical example. You could be often be told you can't control what other people think, and you can’t. But it doesn't land because so much of the narrative is telling us that we can control what other people think if we just say the right things, and do all of the things, and we sacrifice ourself to other people all of the time and don't rest, then we will be good people, and other people will like us. And we'll be safe.

And those are things that we have been taught, especially if you've been socialised as a woman by the patriarchy and by capitalism. These stories don't come out of nowhere. We've been taught them, and we've been kind of internalising and practicing them all our lives. And the thing that gets me out of the being able to control what other people think every single time is just that really fundamental “You cannot make nurons fire in someone else's brain. And it's like, yeah, okay, that I understand in a way that doesn't seem contradictory with all of the stuff that I've been taught and that I'm trying to unpick.

Anna: It's a really hard mesh, right? Because if we're told that if we can control other people's thoughts and feelings, then we will be safe, there's no way we're gonna want to let go of that. But the reality is it doesn't keep us any more or less safe. However, I think that we are more likely to feel situations where we don't have our own best interests at heart when we're trying to micromanage other people's emotions. Because it's a futile endeavour. We're just not gonna manage it.

Jo: And, weirdly, and possibly counterintuitively, it actually gives me more empathy with other people-

Anna: Mm-hmm ...

Jo: But without having to make myself responsible for all of that. Which I think gives a bit more clarity on how you can nudge conversations, how you might be able to say something that genuinely makes someone else feel a little bit better

Anna: Yeah. Yeah, I hear that completely. I wanted to ask you if you're happy to give any examples that you've got about how your life is different now from when you first joined www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk?

Jo: It's better….. I have been having a hell of a year. I took voluntary redundancy after a very extended consultation process, and then I had a very close family bereavement.

And it was all shit. But it would've been a lot more shit without the tools and the support of people in www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk Um, and I can say that, hand on heart. I think there'd been times where I would really have struggled a lot more. Um, especially I think with the redundancy process. It kind of enabled me to be much clearer about what was going on.

I still got angry. I still got really angry and had days where there'd be an email and I'd be so cross I didn't do anything that afternoon.

Anna: And this work isn't to try and stop you having emotions, right? That's absolutely- Yeah ... not what it's about

Jo: I mean, it was one thought that I stole from you, borrowed from you, got from you about how “I’m gonna ask if I want it before I ask if I'm being chosen,” which just made for me being really clear about the fact that I didn't want to be involved in the new organisational structure, and I didn't want the jobs that were on offer.

I had a massive wobble when it actually came to the point of having to definitively give my answer. I spent a week just going, "Ahhhhh." Um, and then I gave the answer, and, you know, I stuck to my guns. But I think that going into it knowing that made me much clearer about what was happening because I was in some ways less invested.

I'd already established in my own mind that, okay, I was probably gonna get a fairly rubbish set of choices. And they were indeed a fairly rubbish set of choices. Do you want a job you don't want? A job you don't want with less pay? Or do you want to take voluntary redundancy? And I was like, "Well, actually, of those three options, I will take the voluntary redundancy."

But it gave me my power back within that process, and that enabled me to be quite pokey and, difficult in some of the questions I asked in the meetings and things. And I think that that broadened out, enabled other people around me to do the same in their own way, or it helped enable them. They probably would've done it anyway, but I think that together in that community of colleagues that surrounded me, we were able to be more questioning. And those questions, with support from other colleagues, actually went really, really high in the organisation. Um, and I think that for all of us to be able to stand on those foundations, and certainly for me to just be like, I can see what's happening, and I can get myself out of the fire of it in order to advocate for all of us in order to ask questions about transparency.

Anna: What I'm hearing there is thinking that it’s… It sounds like, what you're saying is that there's a sense of agency that you get from the work within www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk that you're able to take into other areas in your life, and that other people benefit from them as well, which is a really amazingly strong message to be able to know who you are and how you conduct yourself and how you can handle yourself in different situations so much that it helps other people around you is really powerful

Jo: And sometimes the behaviour is exactly the same.

If I'm thinking about some of the stuff around caring for my elderly parents, I was doing a lot of shoulding myself. You know, “I should do this, and I'm not a good person if I don't do this, and I need to do this, I have to do this.” And I felt really trapped, and it made me frustrated and resentful and a lot more tired than I needed to be.

And sometimes I was able to look at this and go, "Actually, that should that I'm telling myself, that's actually an indicator of my values." Because sometimes shoulds are from outside and sometimes shoulds are intrinsic, they're internal. And it's like, oh, I'm actually choosing to do this because this course of action is consistent with my values. It is what I choose and I want to do. And again, that gives me my agency back. The outcome is the same, I'm doing the same bit of caring, but I'm not dragging all of that resentment and anxiety and sense of being trapped with me. I'm just like, "Okay, this is difficult, but I'm choosing this, and I'm choosing this with my eyes open."

Anna: It's all about the stories we tell ourselves, isn't it? It's, similar to what you were saying earlier about not, you know, still feeling angry. Anger's completely fine. It's the stories that we tell ourselves about the anger, and hopefully some of the work here enables you and, and other people in www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk to start rewriting some of those stories that you tell yourselves about, even if you're continuing to do the same actions, that it's the stories that go alongside those actions that make the difference.

Jo: Yeah, and you can be carrying something really heavy that's keeping you mired, that takes so much more energy to get through, but it, it, as soon as you feel like it's a choice, even if it's not a great set of choices, you get your power back. Yeah.

And sometimes, you know, anger drives the choices. I joined a political party because I looked at somebody being elected in America and I thought, "I have to do something.” And there's always a little bit of anger in the fire that gets me out into the community. But then you get into a community of people who are all trying to change the world and make it a better place, and it's fun.

Anna: So tell me, Jo, if you were to be speaking directly to someone who was on the fence about joining www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk, or if they thought it might be a place for them but they weren't really sure about it, or they've tried loads of things in the past and honestly nothing seems to stick, what would you say to them?

Jo: It's brilliant and come on in. I think my experience is that other things haven't worked and this has, and that's got a lot to do with it being community, about the tools themselves, and the fact that it doesn't shy away from the political realities that we live in, with politics with a small P.

And the, the people are brilliant, and lots of suggestions come up, and sometimes someone will play us a tune that they've thought of on the way out. Got some DJs. It's not just the terribly serious.

Anna: There's a lot of laughter. It's not the terribly s- I don't think that, I don't think it- There's a lot of laughter. There's a lot of laughing at our own brains as well as laughing at just, like, some of the things that people say in the room, and then listening to themselves back

Jo: And, there've been songs come out of it, collaborative songs. Someone recorded, a verse of a song and I was like, "Oh, I like that," and I , worked out what it was on the piano and I took added another couple of verses. Or people draw pictures of their thoughts

'Cause we've got the campus as well, which is full of these, modules/courses where you get a series of workbooks and some videos that take you through the workbook. So there's lots of journaling prompts that get you to think about your attitudes to different things, like money and body image.

And there's a really fundamental course called The Self-Sabotage Solution, which goes through the actual method in detail that underpins it all, and you can work through that at your own pace.

Anna: there's so much stuff in there, isn't there? I was listing, I was rummaging for something, um, a couple of days ago, and I came ac- It's great 'cause I recorded them. Obviously I wrote the courses, and there's so much in there that it's, it, that there's, like, it's pick and mix to see what to choose from. But there's a whole workshop I did on tidying and how, and how our thoughts about keeping a clean house. So I was going back through going, "This is great." Again, revisiting it after three or four years ...

Jo: I, I keep trying to get the people I know who are really, really down on themselves for having a cluttered house. I'm like, "I know where you can go to get this sorted out." Come on in.

And, we do talk about the deep and heavy stuff, but…..We did one either workshop or one just coaching call where it's like, “just bring the pettiest fucking thing that annoys you, and we'll do coaching on that.” And it's like, there's learning even in that. It doesn't have to be the big things. It can also just be the, like, “oh, there's this person at work, and they just keep chewing in this way that, ugh, it's driving me mad!”

Anna: I think we learn better from some of the petty stuff 'cause we don't have so much resistance to it. We can see, the nonsense that our brain's throwing up at us. But also, you know, people don't have to contribute on the calls. You don't have to turn up with something knowing what you need to work on.

People bring the stuff they bring, and, you know, we work through whatever's in the room. But I think that the Wednesday night calls are a really special place to know that you're gonna have somewhere that you can come to that you feel valued and respected and cherished, and where you can bring your stuff and hopefully leave with a different angle and maybe a few laughs along the way.

But definitely feeling like you're allowed to take up space and that you're really cared for. I think that's a really invaluable thing for us to, to have in our lives every week

Jo: When You do get coached. You feel heard.

I would say go for it. Um, you don't have to be coached to start with. Most people do come round to being coached eventually. Um, but most people do also kind of sit on a few calls and see how it all works and check it out.

And you don't have to have your camera on. It's at 7:00 on a Wednesday evening in the UK, so, you know, we eat on the call, which I almost never see. And people are making their dinner or they're commuting home. Um, and sometimes people are tired, and so they just fall asleep on the call.

Um, that would be me....

Anna: It's such a marker of what a safe space it is that people want to come to the call and are comfortable enough to just go to sleep and just have a little nap, but it's like a safe space to do that I think is really beautiful, actually

Jo: Yeah, I always come out of the calls feeling calmer and more connected

Anna: Oh, that's wonderful to hear, Jo thank you.

Thank you so much for making the time today, and thank you for being there every week and for championing everyone else, and for doing all of your incredible work yourself. It's amazing to see your growth over the years and the way that you treat yourself with so much more respect, and the diligence for which you interrogate your brain is, is, um, a joy to behold.

So thank you so much for all of the work you do, and thanks for being on the podcast this week