Podcast: E4:25 - Right or Effective

Listen to the episode here: E4:25 - Right or Effective - https://apple.co/3Kse6XB

I want to welcome you to my podcast Integrative Mental Health Therapy with Dr. Tiffany. This is episode 25 and the title is "You Can Be Right or Effective." This will be a shorter one. This is related more to the psychological leg of my treatment process, which many of you know is neurological, psychological, and physiological in no particular order.

For the longest time, this particular podcast was a private podcast for my practice exclusively. So, listeners knew about my three-leg stool of healing. Now that this is a public podcast, if you are not aware, please go back and listen to previous episodes and get to know the three legs of the stool, because I do believe wholeheartedly that for true healing, especially in the psychiatric psychological domain, you need to do things holistically. You really do.

Many people, including myself, have suffered from depression when I was younger. I suffer from anxiety and overwhelm as an adult, and sympathetic kind of overwhelm. You have to look at the holistic piece of things to truly heal and recover. Often, families will say a couple of different things to me. One thing that's shown up is this idea of the other person winning. When somebody says, "This is going on with this person in my life," and I say, "Have you considered this approach?" or "What have you thought about going this direction?" they'll say something like, "I don't want to do that. If I do that, they'll win." Or, "I've thought about doing this X, Y, Z, but I don't want that person to have won. He or she will win, they will win."

This idea of tug of war, battle of wills, winner versus loser is really not the way we need to look at things. Dominating, dominance is what that speaks to. Consider that if you are currently in conflict, neither of you are winning. If the other person is instigating conflict and you have been pulled into that, have you really won? Haven't you lost already?

Another thing people say to me is, "I shouldn't have to work that hard. Why do I always have to be the one to do everything?" Literally in this tone, "Why am I the one who has to initiate healing and go to them and they never come to me?" I often say to people, "You're the one in therapy. You're the one getting all the healing."

Effective connection and relationship involve being glad that somebody is getting some healing and can initiate that healing within the system. That not only saves you because you have the tools to initiate the healing, but it changes the lives of everyone that comes in contact with you, and it changes the lives of generations to come. It really does. I'm just grateful that God gave me access to all the knowledge and healing and therapy tools and all the things. If I need to go to somebody in my life and initiate repair work in the relationship, I'm just grateful that one of us knows how to do that so we don't stay stuck in stymied cortisol and stress. Because then we're both sick, then we're both stuck. It doesn't serve either of us.

It's a different perspective, right? Sometimes parents will say, "If I go and do X, Y, Z, if I let go of the rope, stop fighting with the person and do X, Y, Z, my child has won." Oftentimes, if you're seeing me, your child has mental health issues, your child is sick, and what you're trying to do is effectively win. You're trying to get to healing. If healing looks like not arguing, not battling, and reducing stress and chaos, trust me, you are winning. But more appropriately, you are effective. We need to make decisions that are effective when it comes to healing, de-escalation, recovery, and getting to the new normal that I spoke about in my previous podcast. We need to maintain relationships.

Now, if somebody's abusing and hurting you, I'm not saying that that's what you're supposed to do. You're not supposed to be relational with that person. However, I do want you to seriously consider what that looks like. What does effectiveness in relationships truly look like for you? Oftentimes, we're defining things incorrectly. I want you to think about this. This is a short message today. I want you to think about this idea of right or relational. Right or effective.

I need you to be effective. You need to be effective. That is what we're going for in our relationships, to be effective. Winning looks like maintaining relationships. Winning looks like being effective. It does not look like overcoming the other person. It does not look like pulling harder on the rope. It doesn't look like showing dominance, being the alpha in the relationship. That's not winning.

Winning is strategic, and effectiveness is good strategy. Relationship and healing down the road is good strategy. Again, if this is an abusive relationship, I'm not saying strive for being relational. I think it is actually quite effective to let go of the rope. Sometimes that's what it looks like to be effective.

I hope this message has found you well, and until next time, I'm Dr. Tiffany. Be well.