Welcome to the Stuck Stops Here,
A podcast devoted to cycle breakers.
We want to celebrate and empower those who have woken up and decided that toxic,
Generational dysfunction can end with you.
My name is Tammy Atman and I hit rock bottom in 2014.
And during those moments of despair,
I decided change was my only option.
Emotional abuse,
Both covert and overt,
Is contagious and leaves invisible scars.
The next generation deserves better than what we got.
Join me and my amazing co-host and producer,
LW,
As we have raw and real conversations infused with bad words and humor,
Designed to inspire awareness,
Acceptance and strength.
We are not therapists and have no clinical training.
You are not alone.
Healing does not happen in isolation.
Together,
All of us can break the familial chains of shame,
Guilt,
Fear and blame.
Our Stuck can stop here.
Recently,
I stumbled across the work of American psychologist Albert Ellis,
The founder of REBT,
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.
Albert Ellis is considered the second most influential psychotherapist in history.
He died in 2007 and he believed psychological problems are due to pervasive patterns of irrational thought.
It is not events that create emotional problems,
But the way we interpret them.
Chronic unhappiness is not caused directly by adversity,
But by us.
It is our irrational beliefs and thoughts that cause the suffering,
Not the actual adversity.
I quote,
There are three musts that hold us back.
I must do well,
You must treat me well,
And the world must be easy.
These three musts are illogical.
They distort reality,
Prevent us from achieving goals,
Lead to self-sabotaging behavior,
And make us miserable.
His list is 12 irrational beliefs,
But I'm going to focus on 8 that I was really good at for way too long.
Number 1,
I must be loved and approved by everyone I know.
If I am not,
I am worthless.
Number 2,
It is essential to be competent and successful in all aspects of life.
I must be able to do it all.
Number 3,
Bad people must be punished for their bad actions.
Other people should follow the rules that I know to be right.
Number 4,
It is awful and terrible when things don't go exactly how I planned.
Life should never be this frustrating.
Number 5,
Misery is externally caused,
And there is absolutely nothing I can do to avoid or control pain and suffering.
Number 6,
When faced with something frightening or dangerous,
I must worry and obsess about it constantly.
Number 7,
I will always be held back by negative things that happened to me in the past.
Number 8,
You always have to maintain control,
Be certain,
And aim for perfection.
His list highlights that we take exaggerated and rigid views.
He called this approach awfulizing,
As we tend to pessimistically generalize everything.
This harsh way of evaluating ourselves and life leads to depression,
Repression,
And avoidance of change.
Irrationality and rigidity are camouflaged behind traditions and beliefs transmitted from one generation to another,
And then further intensified by messages that society sends us,
And we accept these irrational beliefs without ever questioning them.
I read through a lot of his work.
I watched many of his videos.
His candor and direct style really resonated with me,
And so does his use of bad words.
I had a lot of random aha moments that I will share with you now.
Seeking social approval for me was exhausting.
I was always at the mercy of other people's opinions.
This contributed to my depression and anxiety.
By refusing to acknowledge or accept that I do have limitations left me frustrated and totally disconnected from reality.
I now see that I was not brought into this world to compete with everyone all the time.
People are often unaware,
Unaware as I was,
That their bad behavior has consequences.
They are only focused on themselves and how they feel at that moment.
I was totally guilty of that for a long time.
Making someone feel guilty for their bad behavior does not make anyone a better person.
It only adds more anxiety on top of existing anxiety.
Life is not fair,
And things don't go as planned.
We cannot control everything all the time.
Albert Ellis stated that the emotionally mature individual should completely accept the fact that we live in an unpredictable world,
And there will never be any absolute certainties.
An emotionally intelligent person knows that it is not always so horrible when things don't go as planned.
If we choose to stay addicted to certainty,
Our perception,
Our perception of and reaction to life experiences will be self-defeating and counter-productive.
When we are overly concerned about what might happen,
We cannot view experiences clearly or accurately.
Worrying is like a merry-go-round.
We are moving but not going anywhere.
The fear generated by hyper-anticipation has a bigger mental health cost than the actual situation you are so worried about.
Albert Ellis said,
The great majority of things we panic over are self-created dangers that exist entirely in our own imagination.
Our early childhood forms our personality.
There are experiences that scar us and traumas that are very difficult to overcome.
But we have a choice as to whether we carry that burden forever and let it stop us from becoming the person we want to be and that we were meant to be.
The past should only be a valuable life experience,
Not a place to unpack and live forever.
The hate for uncertainty trapped me in a chaotic,
Never-ending loop of anxiety,
Despair and frustration.
Because the more I tried to control everything,
The more control eluded me.
The harder I tried to be perfect,
The more dissatisfied I remained.
I've attached a link to Albert Ellis' website in the show notes.
Check it out.
I found it very helpful.
Enough scar,
We're on our knees again.
Living in the same dark places.
One light and a thousand faces.
Another lie gets resurrected.
Another soul gets disconnected.
The monster says,
Get down and crawl.
The monster says,
Stay down and fall.
The child screams,
Wake up,
Wake up.
The child screams,
Get up,
Get up.
Finish what you didn't start.
Begin what needs to end.
I'll meet you on the other side.
And never look back again.
Living in the same dark places.
There's no scar,
We're on our knees.
We have one life and a thousand faces.
We fall apart and no one sees.
Another lie is resurrected.
Another soul is disconnected.
The monster says,
Get down and crawl.
The monster says,
Stay down and fall.
The child screams,
Wake up,
Wake up.
The child screams,
Get up,
Get up.
Ooh,
Ooh,
Ooh.
Ooh,
Ooh,
Ooh.
Ooh,
Ooh,
Ooh.
Ooh,
Ooh,
Ooh.
You have been listening to The Stuck Stops Here.
This is LW Nolai.
Join us again next time where we continue to dig deep and dive in so we can stop the stuck.
