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Speaker 1: Hi guys, and welcome to a new episode of couch

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Speaker 1: Talks on a You Need Therapy podcast.

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Speaker 2: My name is Kat.

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Speaker 1: I am the host, and if you don't know what

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Speaker 1: couch Talks is, it is the special bonus episode of

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Speaker 1: You Need Therapy where I Kat answer questions that you

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Speaker 1: send to Katherine at UNI Therapy podcast dot com. And

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Speaker 1: quick reminder before we get into the episode that although

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Speaker 1: this episode is me answering your questions spoiler alert not today,

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Speaker 1: this podcast still does not serve as a replacement or

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Speaker 1: a substitute for any actual mental health services. However, we

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Speaker 1: always hope that it can help you in some way. Now,

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Speaker 1: like I said, I'm not going to be answering your

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Speaker 1: question today. Usually that's what I do on couch Talks. However,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to take a little bit of a beat

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Speaker 1: from the q and as because I was talking about

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Speaker 1: something recently that I feel like I talked talk from

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Speaker 1: time to time a good bit about and I wanted

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Speaker 1: to just do a quick episode, which the couch Talks

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Speaker 1: tend to be shorter than the normal You Need Therapy episode,

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Speaker 1: So I wanted to take a quick episode to talk

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Speaker 1: about this because I think it is something that many

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Speaker 1: of you might be able to relate to and maybe

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Speaker 1: somebody out there just needs to hear a little bit

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Speaker 1: about this. And so obviously I'm a therapist. My job,

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Speaker 1: in part is to help people find or make meaning

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Speaker 1: out of their lives, their circumstances, what have you. And

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Speaker 1: what I do is I don't ever tell anybody what

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Speaker 1: their truth is, but I do help people uncover their

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Speaker 1: own truths and kind of see their own stories and

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Speaker 1: lives more clearly.

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Speaker 2: I help people answer the.

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Speaker 1: Why question a lot in their lives and different parts

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Speaker 1: of their lives, and a lot of my job is

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Speaker 1: kind of putting puzzle pieces together, emotional and psychological puzzle pieces.

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Speaker 1: And as someone who does this and believe in this

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Speaker 1: so much that I actually made a career out of

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Speaker 1: doing this, I also think that sometimes we try a

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Speaker 1: little bit too hard to connect the dots. And what

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Speaker 1: I believe is that some things are just because that

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Speaker 1: they are. It doesn't matter so much as to why

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Speaker 1: something is as to what it is. In a lot

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Speaker 1: of circumstances in our lives now, sometimes it is very

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Speaker 1: important and very helpful to find the why. Sometimes the

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Speaker 1: why is there and we need it, and we need

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Speaker 1: to dig into it. We need to make the meaning,

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Speaker 1: and we need to explain ourselves, and we need to

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Speaker 1: find ways to understand ourselves better. And sometimes things just happen,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes things just are because period, and that is

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Speaker 1: really hard for some of us to sit with. I'm

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Speaker 1: included in that. Sometimes I need to uncover something deeper.

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Speaker 1: I need to understand this part of my story. I

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Speaker 1: need to know whether it's why something happened to me

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Speaker 1: or why I'm doing something, or I need there to

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Speaker 1: be some bigger picture explanation for something in my life.

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Speaker 1: And in some circumstances that is very true, and that

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Speaker 1: meaning is there, and it's so helpful. Sometimes we get

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Speaker 1: so attached to finding the meaning that we actually take

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Speaker 1: ourselves out of what actually is in our life, we

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Speaker 1: remove ourselves from our lives. And I resonate so much

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Speaker 1: with the phrase it's not that deep, because sometimes even

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Speaker 1: if it is deep, digging into it becomes more of

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Speaker 1: a distraction than anything else. And we become so obsessed

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Speaker 1: with digging into and looking into something and finding the

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Speaker 1: underlying meaning that we aren't present in our lives and

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Speaker 1: we don't get to enjoy or really acknowledge what is

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Speaker 1: what is in our life. I think we do that

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Speaker 1: for a couple of reasons. But I actually was reading

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Speaker 1: a Psychology Today article today during a little break in

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Speaker 1: my time seeing clients. I had an hour free, and

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Speaker 1: so I was like, oh, I'll just scroll the Internet,

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Speaker 1: and I found an article that was talking about how

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Speaker 1: our drive to make meeting can sometimes encourage us to

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Speaker 1: see things that are not there.

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Speaker 2: And the article was titled the Psychology.

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Speaker 1: Of Seeing Faces in the Clouds, and it was written

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Speaker 1: by Matt Johnson, and it started off with telling the

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Speaker 1: story of a woman that sold a parogee for one thousand,

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Speaker 1: seven hundred and seventy five dollars.

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Speaker 2: And if you are.

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Speaker 1: Wondering how in the world did she do that and

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Speaker 1: how in the world do I do that? I'll tell

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Speaker 1: you the long version of the story. It's not very long. Basically,

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Speaker 1: this woman, her name was Donna Lee. She made parogies

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Speaker 1: every single Easter. That was part of their family tradition.

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Speaker 1: That was what they would have. But in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and five, she turned over one of the parogies and

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Speaker 1: she saw Jesus's face in the progy. And I guess

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Speaker 1: the way that it cooked. We've heard stories of that, right,

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Speaker 1: we've heard stories of somebody seeing like toast with Jesus

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Speaker 1: in it, or was it the Virgin Mary, there's something

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Speaker 1: I feel like there's a story similar to that. But

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Speaker 1: there's a bunch of stories that we have, and there's

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Speaker 1: probably a bunch of stories that you have yourself when

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Speaker 1: you see something, whether it's you're looking in the clouds,

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Speaker 1: you're looking at toast, you're looking at the paint splatter, which,

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Speaker 1: if you were familiar with what a Warshack test is,

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Speaker 1: that is those ink blots. I feel like it would

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Speaker 1: kind of like an old therapy trope. You would see

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Speaker 1: people doing that in movies and TV, where they would

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Speaker 1: make you look at the splatter of ink on a

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Speaker 1: page and tell them what you see and then they

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Speaker 1: analyze it. So there's lots of stories of how we

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Speaker 1: do that. But this woman did that with our progy,

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Speaker 1: and she saw Jesus and instead of eating it, she decided,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to put this on eBay and lo and behold,

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Speaker 1: somebody bought the progy, which is very confusing to me

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Speaker 1: for over almost two thousand dollars. And why somebody might

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Speaker 1: ask is because people make meaning out of what they

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Speaker 1: see so at first they're making meaning out of what

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Speaker 1: they're seeing in this parrogi, and they're putting all these

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Speaker 1: pieces together in their brain, and now that is Jesus.

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Speaker 1: And then the other part is what does it mean

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Speaker 1: that Jesus was in this parogy? Does that mean this

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Speaker 1: progy has special powers? Does that mean this progy is

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Speaker 1: going to bless me? Does that mean that this is

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Speaker 1: something we should take care of in honor and pray around.

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Speaker 1: We just have a natural tendency to make meaning out

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Speaker 1: of things. That's how our brain works. And the author

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Speaker 1: wrote in this article, we have such a drive to

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Speaker 1: find meaning that we often see things that aren't there.

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Speaker 1: When a scene is ambiguous, devoid of clear and obvious meaning,

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Speaker 1: we bring the meaning. And as I'm going to Butcher,

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Speaker 1: how do you say this name? Anas Nin once said,

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Speaker 1: we don't see the world as it is, We see

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Speaker 1: it as we are.

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Speaker 2: This is the truth.

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Speaker 1: Both mephor as well as psychologically randomness is ultimately unsatisfying.

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Speaker 1: We find meaningful explanation for what we see, even when

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Speaker 1: it's a stretch. And I just wanted to take a moment,

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Speaker 1: like I said earlier, to just talk about that because

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Speaker 1: we have such a drive and innate drive in our

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Speaker 1: brains to make meaning out of everything we see, here, know,

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Speaker 1: and do that sometimes we create stories that are not there,

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Speaker 1: and those stories sometimes aren't very helpful. Sometimes it is

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Speaker 1: okay to just be. Sometimes it's okay to not know,

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Speaker 1: and I think that is probably the most important part

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Speaker 1: of this. Sometimes it is okay to not know. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: it is okay for us to not understand everything. We

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Speaker 1: don't have to connect all of the dots, because connecting

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Speaker 1: those dots sometimes encourages us to fill in blanks that

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Speaker 1: are not true, that are not real, and that we

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Speaker 1: don't need, and oftentimes can confuse us and take us

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Speaker 1: out of our lives more than bring us into them.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes it is okay to just be, to just let

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Speaker 1: something be something period. I think often it's our inability

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Speaker 1: to trust ourselves. It's the fear of the unknown, and

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Speaker 1: it's the difficulty of sitting in the present, of accepting

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Speaker 1: our present moment, mainly because of the unknown and what

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Speaker 1: can happen after that the present, we're just so worried

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Speaker 1: about the next step or our future or whatever that

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Speaker 1: we have to have all of the information in order

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Speaker 1: for us to feel settled and I want you guys

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Speaker 1: to know that you don't have to have all the

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Speaker 1: information to feel settled, and you don't have to always justify,

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Speaker 1: you don't always have to explain, and you don't always

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Speaker 1: have to understand to enjoy your life and to live

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Speaker 1: a fruitful life and to live a healthy life.

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Speaker 2: I'm so grateful.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I say this all the time, to

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Speaker 1: the point where it might be annoying to some of you, guys,

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Speaker 1: But I'm so.

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Speaker 2: Grateful for the transition.

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Speaker 1: We have had in the mental health space where it

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Speaker 1: is so much more accepted to talk about our mental health,

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Speaker 1: to go to therapy, to work on ourselves.

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Speaker 2: To have even mental health disorders.

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Speaker 1: It's more accepted and we can accept that and talk

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Speaker 1: about that, and there's less of a stigma on that.

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Speaker 1: I love that, and I'm so grateful that it's okay

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Speaker 1: to do that and be who we are. And at

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Speaker 1: the same time, I think we can overdo it. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: we are allowed to understand parts of ourselves and dig

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Speaker 1: into things and not just accept that it is what

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Speaker 1: it is, or we're doing this because your mom told

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Speaker 1: you so, or because it's always been that way.

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Speaker 2: We have taken that.

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Speaker 1: I guess opportunity or allowance, and we've kind of taken

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Speaker 1: a couple steps too far sometimes where yeah, we get

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Speaker 1: to understand ourselves and dig into our stories and find

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Speaker 1: meaning in our own ways, and it feels like we

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Speaker 1: have to do that all of the time, almost like

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Speaker 1: when you get like a new privilege, like when you

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Speaker 1: start to drive, right when you get your license. It's like,

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Speaker 1: I want to drive everywhere when I got my Well,

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Speaker 1: not me, because I don't like driving. I never have

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Speaker 1: always been a kind of a nervous driver, so that

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Speaker 1: metaphor is kind of lost on me. But you can

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Speaker 1: understand where I'm going with that, is when you get

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Speaker 1: a new license, like you want to drive everywhere, You

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Speaker 1: always want to be the one to drive, when in

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Speaker 1: the reality, you don't always have to be the one

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Speaker 1: in the driver's seat. Just because you can drive now,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you always need to. And I think

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Speaker 1: that is what I really want people to understand it.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's easy to understand that, but it's hard to

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Speaker 1: put that into practice. Or we just needed to take

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Speaker 1: a pause and a beat and say, oh, I didn't

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Speaker 1: realize I was doing that, but now that I'm hearing

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Speaker 1: about this, phenomenon where we're always trying to meaning where

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Speaker 1: meaning might not actually be and we end up making

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Speaker 1: things up and making life more difficult than it has

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Speaker 1: to be. Now I can take a pause understand that

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Speaker 1: I don't have to do that all the time.

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Speaker 2: So that's really all I wanted to say today.

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Speaker 1: I just wanted to put that out there that if

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Speaker 1: we are somebody who is digging into everything all the

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Speaker 1: time and we are feeling overwhelmed or we're not feeling

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Speaker 1: worth we're able to be present in our lives or

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Speaker 1: enjoy things the way that we might have used to,

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Speaker 1: it's okay to take a pause from that, and it's

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Speaker 1: okay to focus more on discerning when and where we

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Speaker 1: need to find that meaning and when it is helpful

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Speaker 1: than actually always finding that meaning.

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Speaker 2: So I hope that that was helpful.

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Speaker 1: And if you have any questions, feedback, comments, concerns, any

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Speaker 1: questions for couch talks, you can send that to Catherine

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Speaker 1: at You Need Therapy Podcast. You can follow me Cat

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Speaker 1: van Buren and at You Need Therapy Podcast on Instagram

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Speaker 1: And until Monday, I hope you guys have the day

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Speaker 1: you need to have