Therapy: Deconstructed: Recent Episodes
Dr. Bonnie Wims
Society has led us to believe that therapy is for those with deep-seated issues and that it’s not for those of us who are “successful and stable”. The Therapy: Deconstructed podcast, hosted by Dr. Bonnie Wims, debunks the myths and societal beliefs about therapy and explains not only what therapy is, but also how it can help anyone who’s facing obstacles in their lives.
As a therapist, coach, and a UK Chartered Counseling Psychologist specializing in helping the global community, Dr. Bonnie has helped innumerable people get from where they are to where they’d like to be. She’s “your someone else” who is there for you when you need to bounce things off of so that you can better understand yourself. And she does it in a warm and intelligent style that’s peppered with levity.
Listen in each week to Dr. Wims if you’re therapy-curious and get answers to all your questions about what therapy is, what it is not, and how therapy may be the x-factor you’ve been searching for.
Fully processing our losses is essential for overcoming prolonged grief. When the grieving process is disrupted, and we can't properly acknowledge our loss and integrate them into our lives, we can get stuck in prolonged grief. When we have unresolved grief, memories can bring back strong fight-or-flight reactions and cause emotional responses that can be hard on our bodies and our lifestyles. Grief is something that we all have to deal with, and it can be a very difficult emotion to process, but it's essential that we take the time to deal with it in our own ways and create the remembrance and reverence for our losses that we need so we can move on in a healthy way. Honor and talk about your grief, and don't get stuck with a 'grief brain'.
Show Notes:
▶️ We all experienced grief: unresolved grief can impact your life negatively. 01:14
🤕 A story about Bonnie’s friend: the prognosis of her illness was not good. 02:41
😢 Traveling to say goodbye: the difficult and beautiful moments in life. 05:32
🧠 Foggy details and ‘grief brain’. 07:19
👉 Grief can be felt emotionally, physically, behaviorally, and spiritually. 08:16
🤷♀️ What prolonged grief is, and how to recognize it. 08:54
⚠️ How grief affects your brain: trauma and fight-or-flight mode. 10:10
⚱️ Difference between the initial grief and the grieving: traditions that help and differences in the process. 11:34
😭 Six months after her father passed, Bonnie had an emotional reaction while donating platelets at a hospital. 13:21
📕 Unresolved grief can extend the grieving process. 17:35
🛐 With ambiguous losses, a lack of rituals and support can be difficult. 20:20
‼️ How to help someone who is grieving: a fear of stopping grieving, so we can hold onto loved ones. 21:19
🎯 Grief in therapy is handled like all emotional trauma: it needs to be honored. 23:05
Links
Connect with Dr. Bonnie Wims:www.bonniewims.com
Book:https://www.amazon.com/Called-to-Lead/dp/B094RF5K9L
Follow Dr. Bonnie Wims:www.linkedin.com/in/drbonniewims
Book a free call with Dr. Bonnie Wims:calendly.com/bonnie-96
Your childhood experiences can elicit emotions and behaviors in your adult life. Many of us have characteristics that we brush off as being "just the way we are," or we may experience emotional responses and triggers to seemingly mundane activities. To get in touch with our feelings, we must challenge them, and attempt to gain insight into why we respond this way. If we can find the root cause of our emotional responses, we can give ourselves the grace, compassion, and understanding we need to heal and begin moving forward. You have the power to reclaim your self-worth and to stop letting your irrational emotions dictate your adult life.
Notes
🎙️ Getting a cassette recorder as a gift: the sheer terror associated with the sound of Bonnie’s own voice. 01:06
👧 Our early experiences and our adult decision patterns: we are rationalizing behavior to cope with difficult emotions. 05:46
🤔 Procrastination and avoidance in recording a podcast: owning your voice vs. being silent. 08:01
😇 Scary things are leaving marks: we get upset about the behaviors, but there is insight behind that. 10:47
⚠️ Seeing things through the prism of fear evokes emotions: challenge your emotional responses. 11:56
🎯 Why is it so important to challenge some of your “I'm just that way” characteristics? 14:18
👉 Integrating the fear into your conscious mind: our sense of self-worth might get damaged by the ‘safety’ and fear issues we lived through. 16:12
🤓 Bonnie’s solution to her fear: you can’t fix it all in a day, but knowing the root cause will help you heal. 17:36
✨ Do you have something you would like to work on? 18:51
Links:
Connect with Dr. Bonnie Wims: www.bonniewims.com
Book: www.amazon.com/Called-to-Lead/dp/B094RF5K9L
Follow Dr. Bonnie Wims: www.linkedin.com/in/drbonniewims
Book a free call with Dr. Bonnie Wims: calendly.com/bonnie-96
Your personality is not hardwired into your brain. Many people believe that some of their behaviors and beliefs are a default setting in their brains, but this is simply not true. Our personality has grown and evolved with us throughout our whole lives and continues to be shaped by every experience we have. Therapy works on this principle by helping us to learn new ways of thinking about and understanding our past-experiences so that we can evolve new positive mindsets. You are never finished growing and experiencing new things, so embrace your change and continue to challenge and counteract the negative!
Show notes:
😟 Therapy is misrepresented in the media, movies, and TV shows. 01:13
🆚 “I’m hardwired”: cemented view of ourselves vs constant change. 02:21
📚 Science reveals how meditation and trauma change your brain and body: Dr. Bonnie recommends three great books. 04:08
🧠 Your identity is a moving target because neural patterns are constantly changing in our brains. 05:21
🤓 There is no fixed personality: the brain is learning and changing - the silly behaviors we had as kids vs our adult behaviors are proof of this. 07:47
🧱 You can’t undo your experiences, but you can build new and better defaults: what really works in therapy. 10:14
😍 What happens in therapy that helps people: thinking about our thinking and being aware of our self-talk. 13:52
⭐ We can change, and that is excellent news: you are not stuck and born this way. 18:33
Links
Altered Traits: www.richardjdavidson.com/altered-traits
The Brain: www.eagleman.com/books/the-brain
What Happened to You? www.amazon.com/dp/B08VVWW192
Connect with Dr. Bonnie Wims:www.bonniewims.com
Book:https://www.amazon.com/Called-to-Lead/dp/B094RF5K9L
Follow Dr. Bonnie Wims:www.linkedin.com/in/drbonniewims
Book a free call with Dr. Bonnie Wims:calendly.com/bonnie-96
Calming activities are not a replacement for real therapy. Activities like “goat yoga” can offer a relaxing and decompressing experience that can help manage stress, but calling them therapeutic is a mistake. If you are suffering from trauma that is negatively impacting your sense of self and your ability to cope, it may be best for you to seek out genuine therapeutic help to overcome those struggles. Therapy is not a quick fix, so start the journey as early as you can, so you can learn to understand yourself and enjoy the benefits of a life with positive mental health. It’s never too late to ‘think about our thinking’ and integrate our joy with the understanding of our trauma from the past. Goat & puppy yoga may be cute and calming, but if you are struggling with anxiety, depression, or a skewed sense of self, consider speaking to a therapist today.
🐐 Goat yoga is not therapeutic in the real sense of the word. 01:50
🥺 Four of Bonnie’s older siblings left home because of their abusive father: why running away from home at age 15 was the only choice. 03:07
🤯 Bonnie survived trauma: reconstructing life in school, relationships, and work. 10:55
👱♀️ Mood swings and anxiety: looking back - if Bonnie had therapy at a younger age, it would have helped her tremendously. 13:08
🧒 Children blame themselves for abuse: self-blame that tangles with fear and affects all relationships. 14:05
🥃 Alcoholism is not the excuse for horrible behavior: PTSD is real for non-military people, too. 16:22
👉 Trauma response is real: Bonnie’s triggers and how they impacted her choices. 18:08
✨ Understanding and connection to oneself can deepen through therapy. 21:17
🎯 What proper therapy with a therapist can provide you. 22:06
Links:
Connect with Dr. Bonnie Wims:www.bonniewims.com
Book:https://www.amazon.com/Called-to-Lead/dp/B094RF5K9L
Follow Dr. Bonnie Wims:www.linkedin.com/in/drbonniewims
Book a free call with Dr. Bonnie Wims:calendly.com/bonnie-96