Podcast Transcript | Ep. 40

Learned Helplessness

Learned Helplessness | Ep. 40

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Order Within Navigating a world of endless chaos and crisis, many of us are experiencing inner turmoil, insecurity, anxiety, fears, and isolation. These feelings are only being amplified by news cycles. Social media and never ending political madness. How do we find our way out of the chaos?

[00:00:24] How do we find strength within ourselves? How do we find meaning in a world driven by materialism? These questions and many more I aim to answer on the show. My goal is to be a trusted guide on your journey to selfhood. May you find what you seek. Hello and welcome everyone. I'm your host, Brandon Ward. Back with another episode of order within. Episode number 40. That's very exciting. The big four. Oh. Approaching a year here now. In Order Within, I hope you're enjoying the show. The podcast. I love doing it. Especially now that I'm offering.

[00:01:09] Men's coaching services. It all feels so cohesive. Now. I don't feel like I'm living. Some. A dual life anymore. Today's episode, we're going to be covering. Learned helplessness. This is a concept that my good buddy. Matt. Mental Matt, as I call him on Twitter. His profile's mental sovereignty. He focuses around, finding and healing and creating power within ourselves. And I have a very similar approach.

[00:01:39] To the way we handle coaching and the way we think about self development and. Leading with a more compassionate approach. And learn helplessness was something that I didn't know about until Matt had explained to me the concept we, him and I have. Regular calls for the most part. A couple of times a month, usually at least once a month we're connecting with one another.

[00:01:58] And he helped me to understand.

[00:02:01] What this is about.

[00:02:05] And how, why it's so important.

[00:02:09] Today. Because there's a lot of judgment and criticism that can come from. Especially in the self development space, the self-help space is just the growth space. There's a lot of criticism and judgment. That we sometimes deploy in our lives and this is reflected in the way we talk to ourselves or our self-talk track.

[00:02:31] Is layering into this. So there can be a lot of negativity that we lay on to ourselves that we lay onto one another. And we're not, we're missing compassion. We're missing compassion for ourselves, compassion for others. And when we learn to be compassionate for ourselves, we can.

[00:02:51] Apply that compassion to ourselves and also apply it to others. We know how to, once we learn how to be compassionate to ourselves, we know how to do it for other people because we go through the process and our own lives. Of learning compassion and deploying it so that we can benefit from it and feel what it's like to live a compassionate, caring life.

[00:03:11] So learned helplessness. Is, and we're going to cover that in today's show. We're going to talk about concept of learned helplessness. We're going to talk about what it is. We're going to go over some definitions explanations. I'm going to talk about the study, where this came from originally. I'm going to dive into some movie characters that exemplify some of these components and then they overcome it.

[00:03:29] We're going to talk about some signs and symptoms. Of this learned helplessness, some change strategies, connecting all of this to the bigger picture. And then we're going to close out the episode. So getting into it, let's go ahead and start with the definition. I've learned helplessness. And so it's, when you feel like you can't do anything to change a bad situation.

[00:03:49] Even if you really want to, it's like feeling you're stuck and can't get out of a bad place no matter what you do. So there's this feeling of helplessness. Like you feel hopeless. Like nothing you do matters. There's no action. You can take to make change. And this can happen a lot, particularly if people have gone through really tough times in their past.

[00:04:10] There could be traumas. There could be. Wounds that are not yet healed. And because of this, this impacts our brain. And depending on when these things happen, if they happen very early in our life, Our brains can get rewired. They can be wired to behave in a helpless manner. And so it's like our brain is telling you, you can't do anything to make things better, even if it's not true, because our brain has learned helplessness and wired itself to be helpless, even though it's not the case. And we're going to look, I'm going to explain here.

[00:04:44] How this was discovered. And it was first studied. By Martin Seligman. He's a prominent psychologist. He coined a lot of the positive psychology. That's. Growing in popularity today because it's based a lot of it is based in science, which is very important. It's something for me. In the self-help space, the development space, especially with my coaching, I found a lot of the early on in my journey of improvement was just a lot of fluffy useless.

[00:05:14] Crap to be honest. And it wasn't, it took me years to find tangible things. That I can learn and leverage in my life that actually made a difference that helped me to heal myself and reconnect with who I am at a deeper level. And live a life that's more reflective of who I am. At the core. And so this study Martin Seligman and his colleagues in the 1970s.

[00:05:37] The most famous experiments they conducted to demonstrate learn helplessness was the three group design study. And in this experiment, they divided dogs into three groups. Now for the animal lovers. This I'm going to warn you. It's cruel what they did. It was just plain and simple. It's a cruel study that they did, but we learned a lot from it. And in spite of the fact that it was cruel, they're now doing these things and more.

[00:06:03] Loving, caring ways now. And this was in the seventies. Things were quite different, but It, it did. It exemplifies what happens though?

[00:06:11] So the first group of dogs. As I said there were three groups of dogs. The first group of dogs were put into a cage with a barrier that could be jumped over to escape. Electric shocks. The dogs quickly learned to jump the barrier and escape the shocks when they came on. So they had a path out. It was obvious to them when they had the, when they got shocked, they jumped out and escaped the shock. They could influence their change. The second group.

[00:06:38] Was put in a cage. With a barrier that could not be jumped over to escape. The electric shocks, these dogs eventually gave up trying to escape the shocks and simply lay down passively. So they accepted the pain and misery the shocks that they were experiencing and gave up. They just. Quit and embraced it. They just accepted that. They're going to be shocked no matter what they did.

[00:07:03] The third group of dogs was put in the same cage as the second group. But after some time the barrier was removed and the dogs were allowed to escape the shocks. However, Even though they were now able to escape the shocks, the dogs from the second group did not attempt to do so because they had learned to feel helpless.

[00:07:25] It's the same type of cruel training.

[00:07:30] That they do with elephants. They attach them to heavy things. And making them believe that the attachment to that chain stops them from moving because it does initially. And then over time they just have the chain attached to their leg and they can put anything on the end of that chain. And it won't matter because the elephant will believe.

[00:07:50] They are chained to a heavy object. The same thing happened here. The same things happen in our lives. If we are children or even if stuff like this happens before we're born. Our brain can be changed, but if we are young,

[00:08:07] And we go through traumatic experiences and we have a lot of challenges that we're faced with and we're experiencing the bad decisions of people around us, because that's what happens when we're kids. We're at the mercy of the adults around us. And when those adults are not responsible, loving, caring, conscious individuals, a lot of chaos can be created. A lot of pain can happen. A lot of wounds can develop.

[00:08:36] So much of us grow up like this. So much of us go through this type of environment. Now this is not to blame our parents. Our parents do the best they can. I'm a parent. Parenting is hard. I have new respect and love for my parents. As a parent myself. But it doesn't change the reality. Of what happened to us and.

[00:08:58] We're going to get into why this matters and how we can, the things that we can do about it, but ultimately these experiments. Showed that when animals, and then later on, they did this similar things with humans. They experience. When they experience uncontrollable and inescapable events. So think back to your childhood of things that you had no control and could not escape.

[00:09:21] They may learn that their actions don't matter, that they can't change their situation and that their efforts are futile. This leads to a generalization of this learned helplessness to other situations. This research helped to establish the concept of learned helplessness and open the door for further research in the field. And.

[00:09:41] This is important because understanding that we can learn to be helpless. We can also unlearn helplessness. We can rewire our brains. Our brains are malleable. That's the upside of this. That's why I'm a coach. That's why I'm doing the things that I'm doing. I've proved it in my own life. Now I did it at a really long clunky. Took me almost 20 years.

[00:10:00] Really about 15 year mark. I started to feel better in my early thirties. I started to turn the corner and it really hit my stride. Once I tapped into my faith again. And I quit watching porn once I quit watching porn. And I leaned into my faith. I was able to really rebalance my brain. From a dopamine perspective, something I can talk about it in another point.

[00:10:21] But many of us learn learned helplessness at young ages. I learned a lot of that when I was a kid. I had to unlearn those things as an adult. And that's a lot of where we are today in our world. Is if we don't realize that we can learn these bad habits, we can learn to be helpless. You can start to understand how people seem to be attached to being victims. People don't want to be victims though.

[00:10:49] People do want change, but sometimes they just don't think it's possible. They don't realize it's possible because their brain is telling them differently. And our brain is a very powerful machine, but we are creators. We influence our mind. We influence our experiences, do our beliefs, our stories, and we have impact on what lives within us. So that's the upside is we can adjust these things, but.

[00:11:11] The concept of that is understanding that a lot of people desire to change. They don't believe they can, their brain has been warped around that idea. And so there's work that has to be done to get them back to the point to where they can start to realize. They do have influence over their situations.

[00:11:28] They do have impact on their life and the actions that they take do matter and can change the circumstances that they're part of. But sometimes getting to that, we have to start small to start to build those muscles. To start to build those new habits.

[00:11:44] All right. Let's look at some movies and movie characters. Now, Rocky is a movie that I've mentioned multiple times on this show. I think there's a lot of life lessons in the new ones and the old ones and Rocky, the original Rocky franchise in the original movie. Rocky Balboa, the main character.

[00:12:08] Feels super low on himself, he doesn't believe in his abilities. He doesn't believe he can change. And he doesn't believe that he can ever be a successful boxer. So he's just in that learned helplessness. The movie, obviously he goes through realizes that's not the case. Recognizes the effort that he can do to put in he's putting in the work. He's seeing the improvements.

[00:12:29] And he's getting victories and eventually becomes a world renowned boxer right in this incredible. Underdog story. That beginning phases of that movie. Are the essence of learned helplessness in the sense that we don't believe we can change. And we're in a very low state, a low sense of self that we're feeling.

[00:12:48] Driven by the negative self-effacing dialogue that often we learn. As kids or when we're young, so we can adjust that. Rocky goes about doing that in the movie. Another movie character. And movie that exemplifies this. Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump was a low IQ bullied. All those things that he had happened to him when he was young, he had the problems with his legs. He had those braces that he had to wear.

[00:13:16] Kids made fun of him. He spoke slow. He talked funny. And so there was a lot of judgment, a lot of criticism, and he had that. I can't do it type thing, but over time again, he builds himself up. He goes on to be this incredible character in the movie. He becomes a very powerful force of good in the world.

[00:13:35] And he builds himself up to be this incredible person, eventually getting the medal of honor from the president at the time and the fake scenario based on his heroic efforts. In the war that he participated Vietnam, I believe it was it was Vietnam. Cause of the time timeline of the movie,

[00:13:51] So he goes through an incredible journey of that learned helplessness, very early, a lot of abuse, a lot of bullying, a lot of things that happened to him young. And then over time he changed and reframed himself rebuilt himself into something differently. And then the last one. Is from the movie Goodwill hunting will hunting is a genius with a troubled past.

[00:14:14] He struggles with feelings of worthlessness and helplessness, but as he goes through his therapy and starts to understand his past and his traumas, he's able to overcome that, learned helplessness and break those bad habits because he self sabotages a ton. In that movie. And it's because of those underlying beliefs that he inherited at a young age, based on the traumas that he experienced as a youth.

[00:14:37] And he was playing those traumas out because that's what ends up happening. Those. Painful memories become part of our subconscious brain. We're not aware of them, but they're still operating. So they're actually ruling our lives. Without us being aware of it. The concept of learned helplessness can help us.

[00:14:55] Uncovered these things and begin to work towards change. And that's the whole point of all the things that I do is not for us to be in a state of victimhood for our whole lives, but to realize the power that we do hold. And the things that we can do to make changes. All right. So moving into the next section here, we're going to move into to signs and symptoms of.

[00:15:18] Learned helplessness. Now something that's common is just a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. Now that's obvious in the term there. But they may have a very negative outlook on the future and believe things that will never get. Better. It's a very nihilistic approach to life. And that's the general feeling that we have every day, right? Like we can have moments where we're excited about something. We may feel good about something.

[00:15:43] Something great can happen and we feel good in the moment, but what's our baseline. That's what we're looking at here. So if we have a baseline, if what's consistent to us, is hopelessness or helplessness. It's a good indicator that there's some internal stories we've accepted as truth that are not truthful and are misaligned with the life that we desire to live versus the life we are living.

[00:16:08] Alright the next piece here is going to be low.

[00:16:12] Motivation and apathy.

[00:16:15] People with learned helplessness may lose interest in activities and hobbies that they once enjoyed. And may have difficulty starting or completing tasks. They may also have a lack of motivation and energy to make changes in their life. Again, Low motivation and apathy are symptoms. They're signs that something's off within us. We often talk about getting motivated, being motivated. I need to motivate myself. I want to have motivation and energy. Having energy is great. Being motivated is phenomenal.

[00:16:44] But when we're aligned, when we're healed, when we're, when we are United within ourselves motivation and energy and zeal. Come natural because the universal life force is flowing through us freely. And it's aligned. So we're now executing with that alignment. And naturally energy flows through us and gives us more force and power to whatever we're doing. But when we're out of alignment, when we're wounded, when we're struggling.

[00:17:11] That energy struggles to flow through us as well. We feel stagnant. We feel unmotivated. We feel apathetic, especially if there were things that you enjoyed when you were a kid that you remember that you no longer can enjoy them as an adult. There's probably some inherent stories that you're telling yourself that we tell ourselves that are inhibiting our ability to be present and healed and whole in the moment we are always whole, we are always whole, it's just the perception that we are not. When we recognize that and we begin to work on our perception.

[00:17:42] That's why mindset is so crucial. We can begin to heal. The falsehoods that we've accepted as truth. So low motivation and apathy could be another symbol. Now, again, this is. A lot of this stuff, particularly in the psychological world can overlap. There's a lot of overlapping pieces here. These signs and symptoms at the end of the day are leading us back to ourselves. And that's the goal that I'm hoping to get us to is to look at these as signals.

[00:18:11] Not to be ashamed of. But as indicators that we have work to do that healing needs to be done and we have to explore what's happening within us. And that we have the power to make that change, that we do have the power to heal ourselves because. We are the only ones that can. No one can do it for us.

[00:18:28] I used to believe that, but I realized through hard work and effort and grinding through a lot of this stuff for years. That no one could do it for me. I had to do it myself. And so the same is true for you. You hold the power. That's the beautiful thing. You have the power now, but you have to execute it.

[00:18:48] And act on it.

[00:18:50] Another aspect. This is a common thing though, but depression and anxiety. Learn helplessness is often accompanied by symptoms of depression and anxiety, such as feelings of sadness, low self-esteem and a lack of self-worth. When we believe that we have no influence over our lives and no matter what we do, nothing can be changed. It's naturally to feel depressed and anxious.

[00:19:12] When we feel and believe we have no control over anything that we're experiencing. Depression and sadness is a natural response. Be kind to yourself, be gentle, right. Do your best to be compassionate, understand that these feelings come from something. They're not to be ashamed of, but they're signals. This is your body working. This is your emotions, communicating to you. This is the wisdom.

[00:19:37] Of our existence. The material world indicating us where we're off, where we may be out of alignment where healing may need to happen. And. In particular, if you've, if you have tried to change your environment and nothing works, this most likely is linked to us internally. And so learn helplessness.

[00:19:57] Can it be connected to this because naturally it's a natural state to feel depressed and anxious. When we believe we have no control over our circumstances.

[00:20:07] Another piece is going to be difficulty making decisions. People would learn. Helplessness may have trouble making decisions, even small ones because they feel overwhelmed and unable to see a positive outcome. Again, if we all, we believe. Is negative outcomes. Nothing good of this can happen. Nothing good will ever happen. It's only negativity. It's only pain. It's only suffering.

[00:20:29] That means any decision that we make will ultimately bring us to more pain and suffering. Therefore, we delay making those decisions because we are afraid of the decision. If we believe pain and discomfort and sadness and isolation is the only way. We're going to delay and procrastinate and drag our feet on pretty much anything in our life that could potentially help us because we believed.

[00:20:54] And we believe in our minds. Even though it's not true. We believe them to be true. And our belief of something. Is far more important than the actual truthfulness of something, whether we believe it to be true is what matters more, not whether something is true or not.

[00:21:12] So difficulty making decisions can become a part of that. Another thing is going to be avoiding challenges and that kind of ties into the last bit. There. They may, we may avoid new challenges and opportunities, even if we have the ability to succeed. Because they don't believe that anything can be changed, nothing matters. Nothing can be done. We can't overcome anything.

[00:21:37] And so that change. Avoiding those challenges becomes just a natural way of existence because. Why do we want to be challenged? If we believe there's no influence to it or it doesn't matter what we do, it's going to be. The same regardless. That's true with seeking help and support as well. We don't think anything can help us no matter what, I believe that for the longest time that no one could help me no matter what. And I was very wrong.

[00:22:05] Because I did find people that eventually helped me. And you can.

[00:22:10] And you can too, if you're in this similar situation. All right, the last bit here. And then we're going to get into some change strategies is going to look at the connection to the bigger picture and then conclude this episode. Physical symptoms are the last bit here sometimes would learn helplessness. Can you can experience physical symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, muscle tension.

[00:22:29] This is simply because of the overwhelming anxiety and depression that we may be feeling from. The beliefs that we hold. So it can. Impact our physical. Existence.

[00:22:42] So physical symptoms can manifest themselves. As well now. It's important to note that these symptoms can vary in intensity and duration and can be influenced by various factors, such as past traumas, negative thought patterns in life events. So it's not always.

[00:22:59] It can be murky sometimes pointing to what could be causing this type of stuff. There's. Like the psyche of the self is very intertwined and interconnected. So looking at these as symptoms and signals to progress within ourselves. To find healing within ourselves. There are signals.

[00:23:18] Is a more positive frame as opposed to I'm messed up. I'm broken. I'm more, I'm all those things. And. I was talking to. A friend the other day. Shout out to Cindy. She runs a. Nice little platform called Olympus with an a it's a learning platform. She's getting up and rolling. And she talked about the difference between being broken and wounded and broken is a concept where normally when something's broken it, can't be put back together.

[00:23:47] But a wound can heal. So we have to realize that we're not broken. We may be wounded, but we're not broken. We can heal regardless of how hard things may have been in our past. And how much struggle we feel now we can heal. We absolutely can. And belief just the tiniest amount of belief that's possible can change things for us.

[00:24:11] And that's what we're getting at here.

[00:24:13] All right. So look at it. Let's look at some change strategies because ultimately that's the biggest, like we have to how we heal ourselves and how we overcome this negativity in these experiences that we're having this. Dark experiences, this dark state of being. Is by engaging through action. And the first thing we need to do is challenge those negative thoughts.

[00:24:38] What I want you to do is begin, becoming aware, start with awareness, observing yourself. And journaling is key here. I will. I'm going to beg you to start a journaling practice. If you don't. And start exploring what's in your head. Just extracting the cycle. That's happening in your mind. This self-talk.

[00:24:58] Uncovering what that is. And so we have to go about looking at that. Noting them writing them out and then challenging them. If I have a negative thought that I'm dumb, I'm stupid. I'm incapable. I can't do anything. Step back and honestly ask ourselves, is that really true? Of course it's not. We all have talents. We all have abilities. We all have.

[00:25:22] The ability to learn and grow. And do things in a great way. We all have creative abilities and capacity for things. So, no matter what we're telling ourselves, It's almost. Guaranteed not to be true. So start challenging those negative thoughts and start reframing them. Just challenge them, call them out and challenge them. That's actually not true. Actually. I do have creativity, maybe not all the creativity in the world, but I am creative.

[00:25:48] I can do things. So start to get a read on what's happening. And challenge those ideas as much as we can.

[00:25:55] We can help change our patterns in that way. The next bit is going to be taking control of small things. So small actions. Can be huge. And that can be something as simple as making your bed. Every day. Having that as a means. Too take action in a small way, commit to something small each day, we can start a small journaling habit practice every day.

[00:26:23] You could start out in the morning and plan your day. What are the top three things that you want to make sure you get done today? What's one thing you want to make sure you get done today. One task, whatever it may be. Start small. Make your bed start a journaling practice. Have one task you want to make sure you get done every day.

[00:26:42] Just to start very small. That's what needs to happen? That's what can happen? It doesn't have to be complicated, but starting small.

[00:26:52] This next one, ties into the first one, learning to set realistic goals. Set small reasonable goals for yourself again. If that means I'm gonna start a journaling practice, I'm going to set up a habit tracker. And I'm going to commit to doing 10 minutes a day. Of journaling Monday through Friday. Very simple.

[00:27:11] Very realistic. Very small. Make it doable when you're starting like this, and you're trying to unpack these things. Starting small is key. This allows you to make momentum. And compound your efforts. Eventually your goals get bigger. As you get better at this, as you begin to heal and find your own power, these things grow and evolve and expand. That's the upside of it.

[00:27:37] The next piece here. Is practicing self compassion. Self-compassion. Is critical in all of this being kind to ourselves, realizing that. Instead of criticizing ourselves, that things that have happened to us have put us in a place to where we are and that's okay. No one's to blame for that. It's not about blame. It's about taking responsibility.

[00:27:59] And caring for ourselves being kind to ourselves, understanding that stuff happens. So many of us are wounded. And need help and that's okay. Recognizing that is okay. That's how you're kind. That's how we can be kind to ourselves is by. Being compassionate, gentle and soft as we're going through this process.

[00:28:20] Another one is get professional help. If you need it.

[00:28:25] Professional help. Can go a long way. If you want some support, whether it's a therapist, a counselor, or a coach. But having someone to help you through work through these feelings of helplessness. Develop effective coping strategies, changing new habits and anchoring in like breaking the old habits and anchoring in new habits can go a long way and having a third party objective support group, like that can be a big help to this process.

[00:28:51] There's nothing wrong with getting help. I thought that I was wrong about that for a very long time. And I realized that I could have made a lot more progress. Had I got help earlier on in my journey of healing.

[00:29:02] Mindfulness being mindful. Meditation, yoga, deep breathing, just awareness, walking and being mindful, being aware of your state. Focusing on your mind, what's happening, going out and doing mindfulness walks where you're literally not on your phone. You're not listening to music. You're just observing yourself, observing the environment.

[00:29:23] And just being present. Mindfulness is, can be convoluted, but really it's just being present with ourselves, wherever that is listening to the sounds of outside our breath. Our movement. Just becoming aware of who we are, how we move. And what can happen and just being present in the moment.

[00:29:42] Connecting with others is another great way to do that. Sharing that same sense of support. Finding Growth groups that we can work with people that are doing similar things. That can help us. Is by building a community of support around us, especially now with the internet. We can really create and find our own drives everywhere.

[00:30:03] It's totally possible.

[00:30:05] And then the. Getting enough sleep and exercise is really important too. We don't realize how much that can impact our mood. I know people talk about this a lot, but trying your best to get seven, eight hours of sleep and some sort of regular exercise topping at the yoga even is fine. Lifting a little bit is fine. It doesn't have to be complicated, but just moving regularly. That's why I'm a big fan of walking

[00:30:27] just for most people it's very accessible. Getting out every day in fresh air can be helpful. Or even if it's on a treadmill. But just getting enough sleep and exercise can go a long way and keeping balance in our brain. So our brain chemistry is operating at a high level.

[00:30:41] And then the final thing here is to remember that this stuff takes time. It takes time. It's not going to happen overnight. It's not going to happen overnight. It's. It's a process. It's something we have to build through and rise through and develop these habits that we work on each day. It's the self care habits that we have to establish in our lives and develop so that we can grow into our full personhood and be.

[00:31:09] A balanced fulfilled. And an energetic human being, which is so much of what we want.

[00:31:17] All right. Now the last bit here, and then I'm going to wrap this. Episode, because I always like to pull back to the big picture and. Learned Helplessness, I talked about this a bit earlier, but there's a big connection to learn helplessness and depression. I was deeply depressed when I felt the most helpless in my life and I believed I was helpless and there's a correlation there. And so the more power we find in ourselves,

[00:31:40] Less depressed. We can sometimes feel because we realize that we do have influence over what we're doing. So I think a large. Portion. Of the population who's experiencing depression right now is connected to how many people feel helpless. When you look at social media, when you look at corruption and governments and all these big businesses.

[00:32:02] In the media. It's so easy to feel like we have no power over anything. And to feel sad and depressed about all of life. So it's no wonder that learned helplessness could lead to depression and people feeling depressed. At a societal level. It's also connected to corruption.

[00:32:21] Because again, that's like I was saying a second ago. That sense of powerlessness and apathy that we feel towards societal issues, such as corruption or imbalanced governments and all of this stuff. Financial systems. When we feel like we can't make a difference in our own lives. We don't. Do anything.

[00:32:39] So it can keep our society. Our world locked into a state. Of. Oldness, if you will, I guess negativity. Old patterns.

[00:32:51] Narcissism can also be a result of learned helplessness. When individuals feel like they can't change their circumstances, they may try to exert control over others as a way to compensate for their lack of control in their own lives. So narcissism can rise and create out of that because of. The lack of control. We feel.

[00:33:09] So that can translate to others.

[00:33:12] And this is really these bits here. My biggest thing that I love about it. And it's. This allows us when we overcome learned helplessness and we understand what it is and we do this work. We can reclaim ourself. We can reclaim our inner strength. We can build our inner strength. And so reclaiming selfhood means recognizing one's authentic self and connecting with it.

[00:33:36] To overcome learned helplessness. We can recognize our own power and agency that we have in our life. And really that's what my content and services are all about. Is. Taking steps, regain control over our lives. And the process of self discovery and empowerment is crucial to that. And that's what I do in my coaching. That's what I'm doing in my content is to give you the tools.

[00:33:58] To care for yourself to connect with who you are truly and live a life that's authentically reflected of who you are from within. Because that's where that inner strength comes from. It comes from ourselves. It comes from the universal source of life and energy that we have. All of us have this within us.

[00:34:16] It's a gift that we have to reclaim. It is our sacred heritage. And so activating those gifts is how we find that fulfillment, that power in ourselves. And how we can leverage it first in our own lives and heal ourselves. And move out from there. As we fill our own cup, we then. Have enough to give to others, but if our cup is empty, we can't give to others because we have to give to ourselves first. And that's why self-care is so crucial for changing and balancing the world, because this is so needed.

[00:34:48] All right, y'all. That's all I got for today's episode. I really want to give a huge shout out to Matt for teaching me about these things or bringing it up to my awareness so I can learn about it. I still have a lot of learning to do. There's still more studying. I'm going to do. I'm going to end up getting some training around some of this stuff as well, specifically.

[00:35:07] To ensure that I can handle this in a fully and deep way. With clients. But I hope that you find it helpful. I'm curious if this is new for you too have you learned of learned helplessness before? Have you heard of this before? And if you have. I'd love to hear what you think. If not, let me know if you have any questions.

[00:35:25] Otherwise I'll be back next week as usual y'all can check me out on LinkedIn and Twitter. Brandon Lee ward. And the website's BrandonLeeWard.com. But otherwise y'all, I'll catch you. Next week.

[00:35:41] Thank you for listening to Order Within. If you found the episode helpful, please consider sharing, rating and subscribing. New episodes will be released every Thursday at 11:00 AM Eastern Standard time. Until next time y'all.