In this episode of Through a Therapist’s Eyes, we dive into the ups and downs of life’s transitions, with a special focus on the emotional rollercoaster parents face when all the kids head off to college. Change – whether expected or unexpected – can stir up excitement, fear, and uncertainty, and we explore William Bridges’ three phases of transition to make sense of the process: letting go, navigating the in-between, and stepping into new beginnings. From practical strategies like mindfulness, routines, and small goals to the importance of seeking support and practicing self-compassion, this conversation offers both insight and encouragement for anyone facing change. Join us as we reflect on grief, growth, and the surprising opportunities that come with embracing life’s next chapter.
Tune in to see How to Handle Life’s Transitions Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- What recent change—big or small—has left you feeling unsettled or uncertain
- When faced with change, do you tend to resist, adapt, or embrace it? Why?
- What support systems or coping strategies have you found most helpful during transitions?
Links referenced during the show:
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/selfmanagement
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/mentalhealthtips
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
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Episode #323 Transcription
During transitions? So we got the book hanging out there through a therapist eyes. Shocking that, that would be the main title. One on marriage, one on self. John really gets upset if we don’t get five stars. Yeah. And now with
Victoria Pendergrass: him gone, at least for today. Today, just today. Just today. In his honor.
We need to, for him not being here today, that we need to definitely give some five stars.
Chris Gazdik: I mean, it’s a requirement. I mean, it’s only, we don’t only upset the man.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s only, yeah. It’s only the thoughtful thing to do.
Chris Gazdik: It really is your job. We provide you content that we hopefully dispel myths and stereotypes.
Get some information to you about mental health and substance abuse, and hopefully entertain you a little bit with fat lips when we’re sad about something. Victoria. Yes. It wasn’t that bad. [00:02:00] Wasn’t that bad? You’re
Victoria Pendergrass: just, it was that bad, wasn’t it? Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Worst intro ever?
Victoria Pendergrass: Not ever. Not ever. I’m sure there’s been some.
Mm-hmm. Some bad wins in there.
Chris Gazdik: Pretty close though. Yeah. Okay, well
Victoria Pendergrass: and again, we’re gonna move on.
Chris Gazdik: I’ll try harder. Contact it through a therapist eyes.com. Listen, this is the human emotional experience, which we do endeavor to figure out together. You have a current event that I did. Not An
Victoria Pendergrass: interesting one.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Huh.
Victoria Pendergrass: An interesting one.
Chris Gazdik: An interesting current event that I am not even aware of. I did not see this. So what’s up?
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, okay, I will say it. As far, I don’t know all the details, so take with what I’m about to say. What’s slight grain of salt. But it, there has been this woman on social media specifically, I think a lot of like TikTok and stuff, and she has claimed that she has fallen in love with her psychiatrist.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, BHAs.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, and I think in total she was seeing that this [00:03:00] person for like three or four years in total, she claims that like he was manipulating her, that he also felt the same way about her and things like that. But I think she does like a whole 64 part video series on TikTok. If you really want to go listen to like her perspective.
Oh, about this? Yeah. She does like, she like about this topic? Yeah. She spills the whole story. Oh my gosh. About her experience. And I mean, she even says throughout it that like, he maintained professional boundaries and never like these things. She’s quite delusional. Oh, she’s delusion. Yeah. There’s some or something in there.
Okay.
Chris Gazdik: By your assessment or
Victoria Pendergrass: no, eh, yeah. I mean she even, like, it basically feels like she’s in a relationship with her chat. GPT who she named Henry.
Chris Gazdik: Oh boy.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Like by using the vocal, part of it, not the typing part, but like the where, where can actually like talk to you. Right. So, which of course there’s a lot of that, but Yeah.
But I think more, the reason that I bring it up [00:04:00] in today’s context, like for our show, is more to just bring up that, like, it’s kind of brought up a conversation about boundaries. It’s also online brought up a conversation of like, what’s the difference between a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and a therapist, and like, you know, all like these different types of like aspects and things.
Mm-hmm. That I think like play part in this big thing. But yeah, it’s taken TikTok by storm, this girl who’s fallen in love with her. Oh, that’s, that’s wild. Psychiatrist, you know, I,
Chris Gazdik: I’ve never sat on ethics boards before. It’s an area of the field I’ve never really engaged nor wanted to, honestly. Yeah, yeah.
But when you, when you, there’s a lot of this. I mean, there’s a lot of this boundary crossing in our field. Shockingly so. ’cause I just don’t have a category for it myself. I, I don’t understand how you could become sexual or pull, develop full relationships. I mean, you’re, you’re, it’s just, yeah, I mean, by all accounts.
Wow.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like, I don’t know this person’s name, the thera the psychiatrist’s name or anything [00:05:00] like that. Like I haven’t dug into Right. That but from all accounts, even from her own words, it sounds like he never
Chris Gazdik: So he was appropriate. Yeah. It sounds
Victoria Pendergrass: like he never crossed any, any, so
Chris Gazdik: she’s documenting more her experience.
Yeah. Her feelings.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. But even in her own words, she says things like he never, he still maintained professional boundaries and he, you know, he never appropriate all the time Yeah. Was appropriate. And keep in mind one key part of this is almost all of their sessions were via Zoom.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, wow.
Victoria Pendergrass: And I believe if I have this, I might have this incorrect, but I believe they only met in person the la very last session that they met.
Like, and there’s a
Chris Gazdik: big factor that goes into this, that comes to my mind that that is important with like self-disclosure of, of therapists. Mm-hmm. And, and psychiatrists alike. And there you gotta be really, really careful with all that you could be appropriate. But there’s a, [00:06:00] there’s a fancy word called projection that people will come to a session with a therapist.
Well, and there’s also, and they have their own feelings, they have their own experiences and they project that onto you. We’ve talked about that on the show before with relationships. But people will do that with us.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Well there’s transference and then counter transference and what is
Chris Gazdik: that?
Victoria Pendergrass: So transference is.
I might get this wrong ’cause I really haven’t talked about it in a while, but it’s like, when,
Chris Gazdik: why would you discredit what you know? Come on. You know?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Well I know countertransference is, we put our stuff onto Yeah. So transference is the opposite. Yeah. Is when clients put their stuff onto us.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Which is similar to projections. Yeah. So
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, it, there were to be examples, like at one point she asked her psychiatrist if she can call him by his first name. And she, and he is okay with that. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: sure.
Victoria Pendergrass: Right. But she takes it as like this whole other thing that, like, that was him saying that, you know, whatever.
[00:07:00] And, but yes, I mean, I think it also brings into account of lots of different things. So I think it brings into account, like for me, I don’t know. For me, I see. Like it. I think this would’ve been handled differently by the psychiatrist. If the psychiatrist was a female and it was a male client.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, you see, think there’s a gender?
Yeah. Sort of what disparity or difference or what? Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, and this might be more speaking for me personally, but like if I feel like there’s a, like a threat of harm towards me. Mm-hmm. If I decline this person’s
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Things,
Victoria Pendergrass: thoughts or whatever, then, but I think that like as I, and I think that’s part could be so you’re
Chris Gazdik: assessing risk.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And part of it could be why this [00:08:00] lasted, lasted so long for this, like while this therapeutic relationship lasted so long for them is because if he didn’t necessarily feel any harm. Or any risk of harm towards himself. He prob and, and he was maintaining professional boundaries and they can’t
Chris Gazdik: control what she’s Then
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah.
Then like, you know, but then I think it did for what it seems like is it did reach to a point where then services were,
Chris Gazdik: that had to be discontinued. Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Again, don’t all the details, you can go look it up for yourself to get more information about, at least from her perspective of like what was happening.
But
Chris Gazdik: it happens more than you would think. Like I said. Yeah. I, I was giggling as you were talking ’cause I remembered. A colleague of mine had a nudist in therapy and it was expressing that he would be more comfortable even, you know, to be nude, you know, in session, in session. And of course she was like, well, we’re not gonna do that.
Right. That’s not gonna happen. We’re gonna keep all of our clothes on. Right. That’s just, you know, but I mean, it’s like, wow. Like people, but anyway, to get back and then we’ll get [00:09:00] off of this, the, the self-disclosure thing is something that is important, particularly for younger therapists. It’s a, it’s a really a little bit of an advanced skill in what it is that we do from our perspective, and Right.
The standard is really that you only self-disclose anything, even mundane, simple stuff if it’s to the benefit of the person that you’re working with a hundred percent of the time. And that’s a tough standard. But I use self-disclosure. I have no problem with that. Yeah, I do do my, my hope is that, that it is meeting the standard of.
Even if it’s a social component, you know how we chew Yeah. The fat a little bit in the beginning. Yeah. To self disclose that I’m a stealer fan. I mean, you’re building
Victoria Pendergrass: rapport.
Chris Gazdik: It’s all about that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And that’s why I think that, well, it’s not all about
Chris Gazdik: that, but
Victoria Pendergrass: Right. But, and that’s why I think, and maybe it is more younger therapist type thing, is that I do think people are a little bit more lax on that now, that like, yeah.
I mean, I’m not sharing like, oh really? I’m not sharing intimate details about like [00:10:00] my life.
Chris Gazdik: You think there’s been an a, a, a industry change
Victoria Pendergrass: subtly really. I think maybe, and maybe it’s more in the L-C-M-H-C type of thing than specifically like social workers. But I mean, I personally think that. Like it can be extremely helpful in a therapy session and a lot of times, but it can also be dangerous.
Yeah. And the reason
Chris Gazdik: why it’s dangerous is because the boundaries aren’t protected and you share in a way Yeah. That isn’t really to the other person’s benefit. It has to be the client’s benefit a hundred Yeah. Percent of the time. Otherwise you get yourself in sticky waters. Yeah. And I’ve seen that happen.
Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: and I mean, I’ve had people come to me saying, oh, my previous therapist turned every session into some about them. Oh
Chris Gazdik: God, I’ve heard that too. And I’m like, nuts. I’m,
Victoria Pendergrass: oh, how could that happen? If you think I’m, please tell me if you think I’m doing that. How can that happen? You know, it’s like, well how do you,
Chris Gazdik: I would, I think
Victoria Pendergrass: you, I would be self-aware before that would happen, is like, yeah.
You know, and I [00:11:00] might, you know, we might get on tangents and go down rabbit holes or whatever, sometimes in therapy, but it like, I don’t know. It’s to that extent, I just
Chris Gazdik: wanna say the standard one more time and let’s get to the topic today. Yeah. The standard is if you’re using self-disclosure. You have to be very careful about the boundaries.
’cause things like romance or whatever can be portrayed or perceived. It has to be a hundred percent of the time for the benefit of a person that you’re working for, which is the client. Right. Alright, so these three moving questions, did I even say them earlier? I think I did. You did. Good. So,
Victoria Pendergrass: rewind, question, rewind if you wanna, if you wanna hear him again.
Really good
Chris Gazdik: questions. I think this time what recent change, big or small, has left you feeling unsettled or uncertain? And part of the genesis for this particular show is we are now in the season. Neil, you know it well, right? What, what, what Actually, yeah. Pop on there. He is grabbing from the mic. What did you just do recently?
Neil Robinson: Well, we took our kid back to his second year of college, so it’s not as big of a transition this year, but last year was huge, being his first year of college. Oh, he’s
Victoria Pendergrass: already a [00:12:00] sophomore in college.
Neil Robinson: Sophomore, yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: I had a, and we have a
Chris Gazdik: mutual friend that followed up. You last year being this year was his first time his daughter’s going to, yep.
To college. So across the country, at least in the states. Probably around the world. I think
Neil Robinson: actually even the other guy has his, his one kid went to college. The other one’s military. Like, there’s, there’s all sorts of changes right now.
Chris Gazdik: There, there really are. Of course, my son’s in Japan and you know, transitions are tough and, and there’s a lot that goes into ’em.
So part of what we really wanna get to today is, is, is how do you cope with this? I mean, this is, this is perilous stuff. When you start losing your kid to moving out and, you know Yeah, of course separations and divorces and, you know, moving with John and, you know, graduation from high school. Now the kids are like, what do I do?
This really just got very real,
Victoria Pendergrass: my kid’s moving through the, to the threes class on Monday.
Chris Gazdik: Oh gosh. [00:13:00] Okay. I’ll bite. And so how’s mom, you coping with this change? A little kid getting big? Well, I mean, he’s
Victoria Pendergrass: been three for almost. Half a year now. So like just close to the threes class. But he’s now finally potty trained at least enough for them to move him from Tub B to three A.
Oh
Chris Gazdik: boy.
Victoria Pendergrass: So we’re getting closer to more of like the preschool type I schedule. Like he
Chris Gazdik: coordinate that far away, right? Like
Victoria Pendergrass: they, yeah, I mean they like, he’s gonna follow a more stricter schedule. Like he actually has to bring in some school supplies. It’s not a lot. It’s like some crayons in a pencil box, but
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Right. But
Victoria Pendergrass: still it’s good. That’s significant. Yeah, he even told my husband today what’d he say?
Chris Gazdik: Hold on, your kid told your husband. He said,
Victoria Pendergrass: he said, daddy, I’m so smart. You are smart little man. We love you.
Chris Gazdik: That’s cute. That’s cute. Understanding life transitions are periods of change that can either be of the anticipated type.
We’ve given several examples. [00:14:00] Moving is an you, you choose these things sometimes. Yeah. But there’s still major transitions or unexpected job loss. I sometimes
Victoria Pendergrass: you don’t. Yeah. Sometimes you don’t
Chris Gazdik: unemployment,
Victoria Pendergrass: have any control over them.
Chris Gazdik: You know, your boyfriend dumps you or whatever, you know? Yeah.
And these transitions often have so many emotions. Do you know why? Because it’s a grief and loss experience, and we’ve talked about that last week. You see a correlation.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. It’s also what I said last week is change. People hate change.
Chris Gazdik: It’s,
Victoria Pendergrass: for the most part, for some, a lot of things, even
Chris Gazdik: when you are choosing to deal with this, I mean, you’re close to becoming a new parent.
My gosh, that’s the biggest life change you can go through. I think it is the biggest before and after life event is becoming a parent,
Victoria Pendergrass: probably. You know, I mean, I don’t know if I’m that far into it to be able to agree with that or not, but yeah,
Chris Gazdik: three years in, I mean, you probably, honestly, you probably can’t even remember being, you know, kid less.
I mean, you know what that would you really like? Yeah, my time.
Victoria Pendergrass: My time, my time. Ho helps with [00:15:00] that. Your what? My time. Hop helps with that. It’s an app. It’s an app that shows you pictures and stuff from your social medias and from your photo album. Like on this date, however many years ago, like so sometimes some things will pop up.
It’ll be like four today, 14 years ago. Facebook
Chris Gazdik: memories or whatever. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Pictures, posts, things like that. And so that helps some kind of remember, but yeah, like on the day to day, I usually, I’m like, I don’t, I would argue
Chris Gazdik: you have no idea what it was like before you have a kid. Just because it’s such a unique experience.
You mean
Victoria Pendergrass: remember what it was like or know what it was like to have a kid
Chris Gazdik: remember what it was like prior to, to not having that from the day to day. Yeah. I’ll tell you, for example, when Adam, my buddy was coming home from Japan, from the military, and he spent a month with me, I was blown away. I was like, my gosh, this house is very different with him here.
Very different. I was like. You forget. Yeah. And it’s only been a year and a half. Well, it’s
Victoria Pendergrass: like another great example, and I don’t know why I just thought of this. It’s like when [00:16:00] my parents, their neighborhood is across from like a shopping center that used to not be there. And for the life of me, I cannot remember what that land looked like.
Totally different. Can kind of remember it. Mm-hmm. Being just like flat ground and like trees. But it is very hard for me to remember even like after the Target had and shop other places, had only been there for like six months. I was like, wait, I can’t really remember what these two still look like before that.
No, it’s real.
Chris Gazdik: I, I get that when I go home to, so yeah. I mean, you’re not West Virginia
Victoria Pendergrass: off base there. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Stuff. When I go to Morgantown or my hometown of Wheeling, it’s like, wow, this is. This has changed, this is different. And you know, you have to kind of move with it. Yeah. So this is a natural part of life that we’re really trying to figure out how do we cope with, and the dangerous is when you actually have one of these types of anticipated and even chosen changes, and then you’re not, you’re not looking out for it or aware and you get hit with all the emotion.
I think that surprises people. Like how many times in therapy have you helped [00:17:00] people understand, Hey, you know what, you’ve just had a major transition and there’s a lot of grief and loss in here and you have to cope with, even though you chose this. Yeah. As a decision. You know, like
Victoria Pendergrass: every day. That’s a lot, every session basically.
I mean, it feels like,
Chris Gazdik: well, that’s a lot. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, I mean, you, I’m exaggerating a little bit.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, maybe Go ahead. But I do,
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, no, but I think, ’cause even like small things, transitions can be small. Like my kid going from two A to, I mean from two B to three b, I mean three a good God. Anyways, changing classes, like, I mean,
Chris Gazdik: progression of age and purpose.
Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, so even, I think even small things. So then I think, yeah, we see these transitions and things in people’s lives probably on a daily basis as, at least as a therapist. We see it in our office on a daily basis
Chris Gazdik: maybe. So yeah, maybe. So I thought this was interesting. I come across this guy William Bridge’s material evidently a [00:18:00] renowned expert on change culture outlines three phases.
And I, I, I think this is an interesting. Way to look at like what’s really happening to you in your life if, if your kiddo has just gone off to college or you’ve had something else, you know happen. The first step is really the ending of something. This is
Victoria Pendergrass: Yes.
Chris Gazdik: Over there’s a finality and end
Victoria Pendergrass: and it’s not coming back.
Chris Gazdik: And you have a loss with that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And you have a primary task of letting go.
Victoria Pendergrass: Let it go.
Chris Gazdik: Are you gonna pull a John song? Let it go.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. I’m not gonna sing that song. ’cause everybody would run away
Chris Gazdik: losing things. Letting it go equals ends. Yeah. And finishing. And boy, you know, people do not like to feel outta control.
I think the major task there of letting go, I mean we’ve done whole shows on that too. You know, these shows build on each other. So by the way, listen, go to the website. Yeah. Check out these older shows ’cause they build on each other.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, I was literally just talking to [00:19:00] you the other day about how I hate win a series.
Gets to end. Oh, you were,
Chris Gazdik: go ahead say that. That’s, yeah. That’s awesome. So
Victoria Pendergrass: look, hi, my name is Victoria and I have anxiety. And because of that set anxiety, I literally like if a se TV series or a book series or any kind of thing, like even like a movie series like trilogy type thing comes to an end.
I literally feel sick to my stomach. I like, I have a book sitting at home right now, that’s the last book in a series, and I have not, it came out like three or four months ago and I have like the physical copy of it and I have not picked it up to read it because even talk about it makes me wanna cry because I like cannot deal with things ending and like transitioning of like, what am I gonna do when there’s no more books in this series?
What am I gonna do when there’s no more Grey’s Anatomy episodes? What am I gonna do like. I’m just going to rewatch it from the beginning and watch it over and over and over again, and I will cry every time at [00:20:00] the ending. The
Chris Gazdik: thing is, is if you’re not allowing yourself to pay attention to what you’re feeling.
Yeah. If you’re not tuning in with yourself, you could literally even think of this conversation and think, that’s a silly example, the ending of a show. But when you pay attention to what you’re feeling, you really make a connection with the characters. You really make a connection with the invested time.
Mm-hmm. We have this with video games. I am playing Star Wars Heroes, and I, I, I, I have put so much energy into Yeah. You know, gearing up my players and getting the teams together, getting it just right. Yeah, man. And if it just crashes, which it does from time, time, it’s like, oh my gosh, I just lost four years of a thing with this.
You know, it takes a long time. These, these games suck you in Victoria. But the other thing with that is like, you know, it’s just the emotions. It’s just that the transitions. Yeah. That that, yeah. That. Go on. But, but back to this guy, William Bridges. So letting go. Letting go. Then [00:21:00] you move into this weird space of what he calls a neutral zone.
And I think that’s like a, in the process of like acceptance. Okay. You know, you haven’t Yeah. Fully accepted this. You may have even let go a little bit.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, it says a period of ambiguity and confusion where the old has ended, but the new has not yet fully begun.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It, it’s like this. So yeah. Like that strange’s like,
Victoria Pendergrass: Limbo.
Chris Gazdik: Mm-hmm. Like
Victoria Pendergrass: in limbo. You’re like not, you know.
Chris Gazdik: Haven’t been able to move yet. Yeah. Haven’t been able to get it yet. And But you’re in it and you’re moving. It’s just like through a time warp or something. Yeah. Maybe
Victoria Pendergrass: it’s like you sold your house but you haven’t quite been able to move into your new house yet.
Oh, totally. Being so then you’re like in this, like
Chris Gazdik: I have a client right now that’s stuck in an apartment because they’re building a house, they sold their house and they’re exactly in that neutral zone and now they’re
Victoria Pendergrass: waiting for that house to be finished or whatever. And he talked
Chris Gazdik: [00:22:00] about the sadness because this was their first home together.
Yeah. This was their first married home. And it was like weird to see it without any furniture or whatever. Yeah. These transitions are real. I got my thought that I kind of lost before. ’cause if you’re not paying attention to that mm-hmm. You’ll miss it and you’ll think, oh, it’s fine. Like I don’t, I don’t care.
Yeah. And it’ll feel that way. But if you pay attention and you look at it and you, like I said before, do some self reflect, those emotions come in. Mm-hmm. Self-reflect. You will find all kinds of this stuff.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Like. I wish I could go back and watch The Sons of Anarchy for the first time.
Victoria Pendergrass: I’ve never seen it.
Chris Gazdik: It is, I’m so jealous of you. You wanna watch it together? That would be great. I would enjoy the heck outta that. I would enjoy the crap out of it. It is a such an emotional series and it’s got like six, seven seasons. Yeah. And I mean,
Victoria Pendergrass: I see clips of it on the TikTok. A couple of things happen.
Chris Gazdik: You’re just like, oh my gosh.
Like Yeah. You know, in good series make you really feel
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, that’s what I’m saying. And then you gotta like, go to the next episode.
Chris Gazdik: Mm-hmm.
Victoria Pendergrass: You know? [00:23:00]
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Or you get the tra the, the, the trick to, to turn it off in mid episode rather than get to end. Because there’s always, yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Let me avoid the trauma of finishing this episode.
So this just provides
Chris Gazdik: you a little bit of a framework, a little bit of an understanding. Like, you know, how do we, how do we understand where we’re at, where we’re in with these things? And, and these phases are important, you know, letting go. Things actually end the neutral zone maybe. Mm-hmm. He didn’t say it.
I’m adding the, the issue of of missing it. Yeah. I’m distracted with my, my fan. Yeah. I dunno. That was weird. It just started making it, yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: it good. Gosh. Or even safe
Chris Gazdik: remote. Yeah. It’s better. It it, correct. I think the neutral zone is acceptance, you know, really landing in acceptance in the last you transition, you have a new beginning.
The, if you, if you conceptualize the way that it’s, that it’s gonna work that way. You, I
Victoria Pendergrass: just need to unplug it. Hold on. Okay. Pause.
Chris Gazdik: It’s going down. It’s going down. Okay. You’re good. Sorry. Anyways,
Victoria Pendergrass: so then the last being what the last [00:24:00] stage,
Chris Gazdik: Which is where you’re transitioning Yeah. When you’re actually being the new beginning in something new.
Yeah. Embracing, I mean, I remember, you know, it’s crazy. I, I remember it was, it seems like things when they rain, it rains, it pours, you know, I graduated. College became a newlywed person. I moved outta West Virginia for the first time. Mm-hmm. And I started my first professional postgraduate job
Victoria Pendergrass: All within How much time?
Chris Gazdik: Like now? All right, now all at the same time. Yeah. Like it was like, yeah. What the heck? Yeah. Right. It just. It piles together. And I’m no longer living in West Virginia. I’m no longer in school. I’m now married. I’m no longer single. And then there’s the door side of it, you know, and that happens. Yeah. You know, I don’t talk about it a whole lot, but it was so long ago and whatever.
But I don’t know. These things are, they just pile up. They pile up on you, and when it rains, it pours. And oftentimes you’ll have multiple [00:25:00] transitions. So then you’re kind of doing these process for four things all at once.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And then people wonder like, well, why am I like eating my feelings well, or why am I, why is this happening?
Well, you know why am I crying all the time? Well, right. Like, you know. Right, right. You’re either pregnant or you just went through a lot of transitions. And the
Chris Gazdik: therapist oftentimes, right, Victoria, we help people see like, well, that is an impact of, right? I mean, yeah, let’s break it down. Let’s advance,
Victoria Pendergrass: like let’s talk about it, let’s, you know.
Chris Gazdik: And do you find that people are shocked at that?
Victoria Pendergrass: I think it’s, I think it’s sometimes like a forethought or like an afterthought for people. So they just don’t attribute the symptom that they’re feeling to the fact that they just went through like seven transitions in a six month period or something, you know?
Haven’t put it two together. Yeah. Haven’t put two, two gotcha. Two together. And then we put a, put a
Chris Gazdik: title on it. We put a, yeah, we put a name to
Victoria Pendergrass: it. We put a, yeah, we’ve gotta give [00:26:00] them a space to process it. A place to talk about it. All this stuff. So, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Well, what do we do, Victoria? How do we manage this?
I think there’s so much in. That question and how do we manage transition, you know? Yeah. We ignore it. When faced with change, do you tend kidding to resist? Don’t do that. Just kidding, Don, do that. That is not suggestion. But the question number two, when faced with change, do you tend to resist, adapt, or embrace it?
You know, in my book, I have a, a chapter title. I forget the exact title, but it
Victoria Pendergrass: Which one? First, second.
Chris Gazdik: First one on self. It, you know, it’s like, don’t fight against change, like resist fighting, because I think that a high percentage of the time, like you said, people don’t like change. There is a major battle in resisting this change.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, has anyone ever told you that change is the only thing that’s constant?
Chris Gazdik: It’s a true phrase and people love to, yeah. Point that out. The only guarantee you have is that things will be different, you know? Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Or, [00:27:00] yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Can you flow with it? Can you go with it? Can you, I don’t know that book
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s sitting on my shelf that hasn’t been read yet would say that I struggle with that.
I resist it because
Chris Gazdik: What book is that? Victoria?
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s actually called Rewind It Back. It’s by Liz Hum Forte. Oh, cool.
Chris Gazdik: And you haven’t started it yet?
Victoria Pendergrass: Nope. I look at it every night when I go to bed. ’cause it’s right there next to my bed
Chris Gazdik: with all the other, okay. Can I give you, can I give you a direct suggestion?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Read that book before Lucas goes to kindergarten. Okay. Do yourself that favor.
Victoria Pendergrass: Why?
Chris Gazdik: Because that’s a, that’s a tough, that’s a weird day.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh,
Chris Gazdik: the transition to kindergarten?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. That’s a big
Chris Gazdik: day.
Victoria Pendergrass: Why would I need to read the book before that? So
Chris Gazdik: that you can accept the change, deal with it better. Oh, right.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, rewind it back is not,
Chris Gazdik: how did I just lose you? What happened here? I don’t know what happened.
Victoria Pendergrass: I don’t know. I mean, why, I’m sorry. Is it the book title?
Chris Gazdik: No. I’m assuming this is a book [00:28:00] about adjusting to change and no. Oh,
Victoria Pendergrass: it’s a romance book. It’s a,
Chris Gazdik: it’s
Victoria Pendergrass: a
Chris Gazdik: Neil. Help me, brother. It’s about,
Neil Robinson: it’s not, you’re on your own. You’re on your own,
Chris Gazdik: man. I need help. I’m reaching out for help Now.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s about a, it’s about a guy who like reconnects know his long lost love or whatever. We don’t rewind it back. Like,
Neil Robinson: this is what happened when John, when John leaves. This is what happens to the show. Utter
Chris Gazdik: chaos. Victoria, I love you. I just gonna say that,
Neil Robinson: you know the type of books, Victoria, he, I, it’s not gonna be a deep type of book. This is gonna be,
Chris Gazdik: I actually thought it was an academic self-help processing book about life changes.
Oh
Victoria Pendergrass: my gosh. Anyways.
Chris Gazdik: Alright. You need to take a breath. We need a drink. No, I’m fine. Music, you could talk. I need to talk now. Okay. Let me [00:29:00] take over this next segment, girl.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh my gosh. Wow. Wow. Anyways,
Chris Gazdik: lovesy. Alright. What do we do with these transitions? Let’s get us on track. Oh, how do we cope? How do we do Well, I mean, think, think the first thing
Victoria Pendergrass: is just accepting it or acknowledging it.
Maybe not accepting it, but at least acknowledging that like, Hey, I am going through change. I’m going through transition. There are new things happening in my life. You know, and just having that realization of like, okay, this is happening.
Chris Gazdik: I’m really glad you said that, that way. I, I, I don’t know. I have a, a strong sense about identification in, in, in what we do with folks like, I, I, I really feel like if you don’t.
Spend time to really reflect on your, what you’re feeling, what your emotions are, and identify what’s happening with you. Mm-hmm. And then sometimes to you or around you, you can just kind of subterfuge [00:30:00] yourself in your own world and refuse to even look and identify things.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And
Chris Gazdik: then it’s just gonna happen subconsciously.
Then it’s just gonna happen under the surface, and then it’s just gonna affect your behavior and your perceptions and your insecurities. And you don’t even know it if you don’t identify it. So I totally agree more. Well, I mean, yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: That goes back to your whole thing of like, you miss it.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. You, it just, you don’t even, you know,
Victoria Pendergrass: and then you’re confused like months later when you’re like crying for whatever it laid.
I love the
Chris Gazdik: way, a little bit ago you laid out the real responses. Like, why am I angry all the time? Yeah. Why am I crying? Or why, why am I
Victoria Pendergrass: stress eating? Or like, why am I eating everything that I, those, those are blow my eyes on? Or those are
Chris Gazdik: perfect because they really identify, person hasn’t identified.
This change.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Person’s not aware that their emotional system is very aware.
Victoria Pendergrass: Right. Because like you said, even when you’re voluntarily choosing this change to come about in your life [00:31:00] that doesn’t negate emotional feelings. Like you can still feel emotional things and still have feelings about it and thoughts about it, even if it’s something that you’re welcoming
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Into your life.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Also things like having a routine.
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: Sorry. When are we done with that? I’m moving on. I mean, sorry. Well let,
Chris Gazdik: let’s, let’s stay a moment with the, the buzzword
Victoria Pendergrass: of
Chris Gazdik: mindfulness.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh, okay. Gotcha.
Chris Gazdik: Lots of people talk about, you know, how do we really get, that’s my thing. I
Victoria Pendergrass: love mindfulness.
Chris Gazdik: So why would you want to skip over the mindfulness
Victoria Pendergrass: part? I’m sorry, I kind of zoned out there for a second.
Chris Gazdik: So tell us about your favorite thing, mindfulness.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh well, I mean, all my clients at end of every session, as long as they’re willing, I do not make anyone for force. Anyone. Do you still do that?
Yes.
Chris Gazdik: That’s cool. Yeah. Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: Unless they tell me otherwise. I take a deep breath with every single one of my clients at the end of our sessions. Like I do it too. I don’t just stare at you while you take a deep breath. We go [00:32:00] and through the nose, out through the mouth.
Chris Gazdik: Mm-hmm.
Victoria Pendergrass: And sometimes cli honestly, it’s turned out to be a great thing.
’cause some clients will be like, actually I need a couple more. You know. Oh, wow. That’s cool. And so they will, I’ll sit there and I’ll, it’s a teaching moment. Keep, yeah. I’ll keep breathing with them. If they have a fin app, usually we do three because then they can check off their three deep breath skull for the day on, on their fin app, if you know what that is.
Well, since you’ve
Chris Gazdik: said it, you have to explain it.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, FIN app is just a app that you can use where you have to take care of a bird by completing tasks throughout the day. It can help with self care and goals and things like that. Straight up Finch, like the bird, F-I-N-C-H. But anyways, so I think that like and actually even on the app, they provide some mindfulness exercises and like breathing exercises that you can do.
So I mean, it’s, I always relate it back to like our nervous system and when we’re like super emotional and our nervous system is like on edge, taking things like deep breaths, [00:33:00] literally, like, it allows oxygen to get into your brain so that your nervous system can calm down. And so like being mindful, like being present of that.
’cause being mindfulness is really about being present, being in the here and now, like not focusing on like what was going on five years ago. Not focusing on what’s gonna happen in five years, but like what’s happening right now.
Chris Gazdik: There’s, and there’s lots of ways to go through this. And I was just listening to you sit and describe mindfulness, and I thought, you know, I, I, I, I don’t, I’m not the type of person that would just sit and listen to music.
It’s just not like a pastime for me. I like it when I do it. Mm-hmm. But I don’t do it regularly, but be purposeful here is what I think I’m getting at. Yeah. Because I remember like two different times in life that were rather bigger changes for me. One, I had just said. Mm-hmm. You know, the, the time that I was graduating [00:34:00] college and really we, and all that, I really needed to go back to West Virginia.
And, and then I also remember dealing with separation and divorce issues. Right. And, you know, in both instances, I do recall I love this you might not remember, do you do you remember Neil c Chabanga? Have y’all ever heard of C Chabanga? There’s a awesome song. Oh I get knocked down Mbo, Womba, MBO Womba.
Oh, I said it wrong. Thank you Neil. Mbo. Womba. I get knocked down and I get up again and that’s basically the line of most of the song.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. I get knocked down
Chris Gazdik: and I get up again and you’re never gonna keep me down. Like I I know that one. Yeah. And in these two big experiences in life, man, I remember pairing that song with a few other songs and it was just, I was just sitting in it.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And the one, when I was going to West Virginia, I was in my car and it came on naturally. Oh really? Oh, that’s a, that’s a universe. Oh god. And I just, tears were streaming. I was really like, just like, [00:35:00] wow. And I’m like,
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s right.
Chris Gazdik: That’s what I’m gonna do. And I went home to West Virginia. I came back and the rest is story.
You know, the rest is history. It’s a powerful purpose of mindfulness activity.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. We can definitely use things like music and sounds and other things to help keep us grounded or help us to like remember a certain time in our lives.
Chris Gazdik: So moving on a little bit, you know, like, yeah. Like I said, developing a
Victoria Pendergrass: routine.
Chris Gazdik: You mentioned the routine on our brainstorm, you know, that’s, you wanna talk about it. I almost feel like that’s a, a play on mindfulness. You know? It’s
Victoria Pendergrass: innocence. Yeah. Because you’re like creating the sense of normalcy, the sense of like the control.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like controlling the chaos or like, whatever the serenity prayer.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. We’ve talked about that a little bit. Yeah. But the courage to change the things that I can, the third line, of course, the wisdom to know the difference. Difference. But this is a purposeful [00:36:00] activity that you, you really trigger and it does it, it activates, yeah.
An element of agency and internal resiliency allows you to resiliently, create new routines. Mm-hmm. Wrapped around. Yeah. The old, I mean, I am completely empty, nested now. It is like. Yeah, talk about routine changes. Mike, does your house
Victoria Pendergrass: echo?
Chris Gazdik: Huh?
Victoria Pendergrass: Does your house echo at this point?
Chris Gazdik: Pretty much.
Victoria Pendergrass: Pretty much, pretty
Chris Gazdik: much.
It also stays clean.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Well,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. That’s you and the dogs. Lovely. That is lovely. So,
Victoria Pendergrass: But I mean, I think even things like, okay, for example like if you have a go-to night, nighttime routine night, we’ll say, be specific and say a go-to nighttime skincare routine. Right. You do the same thing every day.
Okay, look, here’s what I’m saying, but you have some transitioning going on in your life.
Chris Gazdik: Do, wait, hold, lemme say. Do whatever you want with that. I would love it if you said more about the skincare [00:37:00] routine. I thought you were going to sleep routines. If you’re not gonna do sleep routines, let’s add that. Go.
Victoria Pendergrass: Go. Yeah. If you have a night, a, a particular sleep routine, getting ready for bed routine, sleep routine, skincare routine. Is that what you meant by skincare? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. A nighttime routine. We’ll say I just went skincare to like a specific part of nighttime routine. But yeah, if you have a nighttime routine and let’s say like you’ve had some transition in your life, like you were forced to move or something like that.
Even if you chose to move either one, like keeping that same routine, even though you’re in a new space, even though you’ve experienced this transition, like it keeps you somewhat grounded in like uncertain times or whatever, like. Does that make sense?
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well you’re looking at me like I’m
Chris Gazdik: letting you go.
Letting me listen. Yeah. Remember. But
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah, I mean, so keeping those same types of, it might be different. Like you might be doing it in a hotel room instead of in a ha in your [00:38:00] house, normal house. Or you might be, you know, doing it with three other people around you doing whatever. But like keeping some sort of like that normalcy and routine and like, yeah, you might have to make adjustments or something like if, you know, if half of your stuff is still packed up, but still trying to maintain some sort of like routine I was just, or whatever.
Chris Gazdik: I was just reflecting and again, I was laughing at Victoria at another example. I don’t know, I’m like full of like personal examples today, I guess because we talked about personal disclosures. Oh, it was different on the show. Yeah. I was just laughing at my brother’s. Okay. Separation when he went through his separation.
He shocked me because let’s just say he’s not the, the cleaning type person. Yeah. He is out there scrubbing the shower, like scrubbing all the whole thing, like with a freaking brush and, and yeah. Everything, detail, everything. And, and it was, I was aware and I, I went up to spend [00:39:00] time with him and be there for him and through that, that transition for him and all you know, and it was just, that was his, I need agency.
I’m going to, I, you know, this is what I can control.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: This is what I, you know, I can control the
Victoria Pendergrass: stuff I put on my face for my nighttime routine, for my skincare nighttime routine or whatever. And we don’t need to be bashful
Chris Gazdik: about that, like Yeah. No. Controlling the things that you can control. You know how love people, the word control really gets a bad rap.
Yeah. They, and what I mean by that is people are controlling, or you’re supposed Yeah. That’s what people supposed be accepting of change. You don’t have to fight to control things. It’s like. That that’s not to have agency and exercise, the courage to control the things that you can Yeah. Is something that people really struggle with.
I think as much as accepting that this is really finally done. Yeah. This is ended. You’ve reached I agree. A, a, a, you reached a cliff that, you know, you’re jumping off it feels like sometimes, right?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You can [00:40:00] embrace that. It’s, it’s really okay to control it. Embrace change what you can control. Change.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Trouble is when you try to control things that you can’t control or when you don’t accept things or control the
Victoria Pendergrass: things that you can’t change
Chris Gazdik: and you stay stuck.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Now you’re just gonna pound your head against the wall. Yeah. If, if, if you got a life transition, if your kiddo is going to college, you’re going to cry, you’re going to be upset, is going to be turmoil.
Go with it and, and allow that feeling to be there. But now we’re talking about like, take control. What are you going to do with your time, mama? You don’t have a kid that’s in the house, or maybe you got a couple kids left over. Right. But like, Hey, here’s an idea. Go on a date with your husband. Right? Yeah.
Or if you’re a single mom and you haven’t done that, go on a real date. Yeah. Like life opens up and you, and if you’re not paying attention and you’re not controlling what you can control, that will just be a missed void, a missed opportunity. And you don’t get the beauty of the other side of the change.
The [00:41:00] new, you don’t get the new beginning part.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You just stay stuck.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. I actually have a client who’s kind of currently in that stuck. They, well, not necessarily stuck in a sense, but they’ve had a lot of transition in the last like five to six years in their life. And things are kind of now trying, like not, they’re not always at like.
On 10 all the time. And now they’re having this, like, who am I outside of being a mom, outside of being a wife, outside of being a, you know, all these things. And it’s because like all these transitions and change are, well, didn’t you just got stripped? Yeah. There, well, I mean, it’s been some time, but now that it’s finally starting to like, there’s been some calm, right?
And now they’re like, okay, well who the heck am I? Like what? You know, what do I really want out of life? Like, all these things and [00:42:00] profound, and we’re working through that, you know, existential, but yeah, like
Chris Gazdik: existential crises.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. But that’s because like, you know, they weren’t able to do that or think about it two, three years ago because of everything going on in, in this person’s life, you know, or whatever.
Like, and now it’s the time, you know? So now we’re focusing on it now,
Chris Gazdik: right?
Victoria Pendergrass: Sometimes it is better. I mean, better late than ever. With some things.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, I, yeah, and I’m listening to you and I got examples. I don’t
Victoria Pendergrass: you’re like popping full of examples today. I really am.
Chris Gazdik: I, I’m telling you. But I, you know, it’s, I’m, I’m working with somebody who’s, who’s got just multiple double digit years ago went through a major transition and still has all kinds of resentments and feelings and emotions, and the more and more we talk about this particular change for them, it’s like she’s realized and I’m almost needing to keep my brain into like, okay, this has been a long time ago for this person, but it might as well be right now.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Right. [00:43:00] Oh yeah. Now it’s in the room. And that’s very
Victoria Pendergrass: similar to what we talked about with grief. Last week, right? When we were like, if you’re not dealing with this crap, then not that it’s crap. Sorry, that might have been the right word, but if you’re not dealing with it, then yeah. A death or a GRE something, a loss that happened 15 years ago now feels like it happened two days ago.
Chris Gazdik: It’s still there.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s still there because you’re not dealing with it and you’re not working your way through it.
Chris Gazdik: But the converse is also true. It occurs to me that if you really are being mindful, paying attention to yourself, aware of what you’re feeling, allow that feeling to be there, cope with it and deal with it with some of these things that we’re talking about, those transitions can also be pretty quick.
Yeah, big ones. Yeah. Can be fair. There’s no hard and fast rule, you know about how long this is supposed to take or what you’re supposed to do. Now. People have opinions about that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, but
Chris Gazdik: be careful about that [00:44:00] because it really is a unique process for people.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Well, just like grief, how we talked about how everyone experiences grief differently, everyone experiences transition differently.
I did. You and I could go through the exact same thing and we’re, we could have two totally different reactions in dealings with it.
Chris Gazdik: We are, we are experiencing the loss of John in the office. Yeah. And I would imagine if we went into the weeds with it, you and I are having different experiences with that.
I know some of ’em are similar. ’cause we connected on it this morning other day what? Sometime this week. Yesterday morning. Yeah. Right. We were commiserating, but yeah. It, it really is a different experience. Yeah. And, and how long or how short or, you know, what the emotions are that are felt Yeah. How it plays out in our own life experiences.
You and I have a very different experience with John. Right. Transitioning.
Victoria Pendergrass: But I think that kind of leads us to also like another thing to do
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: Is like seeking support. That’s my
Chris Gazdik: big one, man. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: We don’t like, you don’t have to, just like how [00:45:00] you don’t have to go through grief alone. You don’t have to go through transition alone.
Please don’t like, okay. Yes. Theoretically speaking, you might not, there are times where you might not be able to find someone who has been through the literal, exact same thing as you, but still we can still lean on others for support. Like even a therapist is seeking support like God, or going to therapy is seeking support.
If I use the word
Chris Gazdik: friend in relationship to you, you are going to get my reality, my genuine experience in the moment. Yeah. What’d you say, Neil? Mm-hmm. You don’t know that, you know that Well, yeah. He knows that. Well, yeah, because man, of all the things I, I made that hopefully a big point last time too.
Mm-hmm. Last week with grief. Like thi this is the biggest piece. I, I don’t, I really don’t know why people just end up being alone with things. I mean.
Victoria Pendergrass: I end up being what? Sorry? I didn’t catch you alone
Chris Gazdik: with things. I mean, I understand it. You know, one of the things I added on our, on our list here, you [00:46:00] know, I know the clinical reasons, but it’s just, I guess I’m trying to convey that it baffles me that people will allow this for
Victoria Pendergrass: themselves.
Well, do you think you do, you have a lot of people who, when they’re going through times like this, they have this thought or feeling like they don’t wanna be an inconvenience to other people or a burden? Burden,
Neil Robinson: yeah. A hundred percent.
Victoria Pendergrass: Because, so I have a client who, we literally just talked about this Tuesday.
Yeah. Tuesday. And one thing I was talking to this person about is that like when you have these people close to you in life that you are feel comfortable enough to go to for support, you also have to be trusting that they will tell you if they can’t handle it, if they can’t be there for you. Okay. Let’s try something
Chris Gazdik: on this.
Yeah. Play the part. Of, I don’t wanna be a burden and talk to Neil about my things. Okay. So I’m gonna say, Hey, have you talked about to about your transition? No. You are gonna say no. And why have you not?
Victoria Pendergrass: Because I don’t wanna be an [00:47:00] inconvenience to anybody. Okay. I don’t wanna bother anybody. I feel like you’re a burden.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. This is the way I like to turn this around on people. I, I literally take joy in this because I will ask the person, Victoria, you know, I mean, have you ever had a friend come to you that you trust? Not just a random person, but somebody comes to you, Victoria, and they, they, they open up their heart a little bit or a lot.
Yeah. And they, they, they become very vulnerable and and genuine with you. They’re straight up and they, they really wanted your support, honestly. Have you ever, I don’t even like permanently words ever forever. No one. Always. Yeah. You don’t like
Victoria Pendergrass: absolutes? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Have you ever had that happen where you felt and wished genuinely that that person wouldn’t confide in you?
Victoria Pendergrass: No, I don’t think so.
Chris Gazdik: Not ever.
Victoria Pendergrass: No.
Chris Gazdik: And in matter of fact, do you not feel a sense of honor that this person’s like, wow. Like they, they’re willing to talk to me about something so hard. That’s a position of incredible honor. Right? Do you not feel honored by that? [00:48:00]
Victoria Pendergrass: Yes.
Chris Gazdik: Stay with the client thing because then I’ll turn it around, right?
And I’ll say, Victoria, why would you not think the other person feels that way when you are going to them? And it just stops people in their tracks
Victoria Pendergrass: usually am.
Chris Gazdik: You’re just not a burden. It’s an absolute honor that you bestow in that person. Yeah. And they feel grateful for it. Also, and I’ll follow this up, the emotion that you are feeling is because it’s your emotions.
They are not my emotions, even if I’ve had similar experiences. So there is a fundamental reality that the intensity level of what somebody experiences with other people’s is way down the intensity level to what you’re feeling being way high. But it’s just a fact. It’s an emotional fact. And I,
Victoria Pendergrass: and kind of where I was going with what I was saying is that, and I don’t know if you if you agree with this, but I do think like if some, like if you did come to me, what, you know, like if say it was the other way, Neil [00:49:00] tried to come to me with his problems or something.
Okay. And I wasn’t in a mental head space too. Like, like I also had my own crap going on. Yeah. Like, then it’s up to me as the grown adult to be like, okay, Neil, I wanna be there for you. I wanna help support you. But like, now’s not a good time for me. Like, yeah, you know, that’s fair, totally fair. But like, but, but then that’s also part of it is that like you have to be able to trust that the people that you choose to have in your lives, well.
Say that. And if they’re not telling you that they don’t have a problem with it, then you can still go to them and be like, oh my gosh, I need help. I need support. I need to that,
Chris Gazdik: you know what breaks my heart?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Is when people are in the transition. I actually had a handful of examples today. My gosh.
Victoria Pendergrass: You are
Chris Gazdik: another, another client this time though, was going through what was his thing? Yeah, it was a separation, right? Yeah. And he had no friends. Yeah. None. Is there anybody that you could talk to? No. Like literally none. Except
Victoria Pendergrass: for me. The therapist. Like
Chris Gazdik: Right. And I’m sorry. The reality of it is we are completely [00:50:00] woefully inadequate for that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Purpose.
Victoria Pendergrass: We are not your friend. It’s an
Chris Gazdik: hour in a time. We’re not
Victoria Pendergrass: your friend. Keeping those professional boundaries. We are not your friend.
Chris Gazdik: It’s an hour in a week. We are your therapist. It’s not two o’clock in the morning.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You know, that’s when you need, so when that’s the case, let me, let me step into like make achievable goals.
Yeah. Set purposeful. Things in place in your life. And we’ve got him in meetups. He’s going out with groups of people. Good, good. He’s got a new person at work that he actually confided in. Yeah. And talked to like, man, he’s, he’s clipping and yeah. And he’s doing so
Victoria Pendergrass: much better than when he, yeah,
Chris Gazdik: he got here.
Victoria Pendergrass: Gotta do some smart goals.
Chris Gazdik: What are smart goals for those that haven’t heard?
Victoria Pendergrass: So SMART is an acronym for specific. Measurable. Attainable. Oh crap. What’s the R?
Chris Gazdik: I’m not sure. Neil probably got it though. That’s your real, he’s gonna look it up. Is
Victoria Pendergrass: it?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Relevant. Oh, relevant. Relevant. [00:51:00] Relevant. Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: And then like timely timing.
Timely, yeah. Okay. Sorry. It is relevant, isn’t it? Okay. Yeah. So is it relevant to actually what you’re working towards? But yeah, like, I mean. Yeah. They teach you smart goals for a reason
Chris Gazdik: and, and, and make ’em small. Do not diminish. Yeah. If you’re, if you’re setting a goal for yourself that I am going to increase my nutrition and eat a meal at the end of the day at six o’clock, and that’s my routine, then set that for yourself.
It, it’s an amazing thing when you do something for yourself. An action, I mean, an action point, something that you could take action with is, is, is huge.
Victoria Pendergrass: But with that, we also can’t be super hard on ourselves and beat ourselves up if you miss a day.
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like, yeah. Say you had a rough day at work, you didn’t even make it home till, you know, 5 45, 5 50.
Well, that logistically you don’t have enough time to cook your [00:52:00] healthy meal and eat by six. You know, it’s okay if you like. So this is one of the things. There is some, there is some flex, there can be some flexibility in these things that we set for ourselves.
Chris Gazdik: So this is one that I actually struggle with a lot when I’m in transit.
The flexibility? No, the, the keeping goals. The self-compassion.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh, self-compassion. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: The, the, the, the, the grace for yourself.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh gosh. My clients now talk about grace all the freaking time. Giving yourself grace. See, I have
Chris Gazdik: this thing where I hold myself to a standard of really like, you know, charging through emotions, like managing them, being on point with it.
Like I,
Victoria Pendergrass: is that because you’re, do you feel like you should because you’re a therapist or because you’re a man but lose
Chris Gazdik: the word. Yeah. Not, not using the word should. It’s not like I don’t feel guilty or I don’t struggle with shame with it all. Yeah. I just feel like, look, I want to do well. I mean, bad things are gonna happen to me and I want to be able to even model [00:53:00] and be able to talk about like practice what you preach and, yeah.
And that I can’t tell you like that has really, I mean it’s been a double edged sword because it’s really, really helped me when things are tough. Like I am pretty resilient. I’ve developed yay. And I’m proud of that. You know? I mean, I’ve developed an internal resiliency that’s pretty strong, but that’s not easy to develop and I don’t hold myself a lot of compassion.
I push myself to, to journal. I push myself to deal with the emotions. I push myself to allow that to be there. And I probably need to be just like graceful and be like. It’s okay. I mean, whatever, whatever it is. You know, I look,
Victoria Pendergrass: I’m full of examples today too. I’ve literally had a couple this morning and one of the things that they have implemented is quiet time.
Chris Gazdik: Love that.
Victoria Pendergrass: But like with each other.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: And one of the one spouse brought up, well we were gonna do quiet time, the, the, you know, this other day, but we ended up watching a TV show instead. Okay. And they looked at me and I think they knew what I was gonna say. [00:54:00]
Chris Gazdik: Did really? What do you mean
Victoria Pendergrass: that that’s okay.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Like,
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s okay. Quiet time can look different. It doesn’t always have to be. We sit here and have a deep, soulful dig into your deepest, darkest soul, whatever, deep conversations. Mm-hmm. It can be, let’s go to Mount Holly Friday nights, or whatever they call that thing. Like it’s a, you know, let’s go on a date.
Let’s go for a walk. Let’s watch a TV show. Still quiet. Yeah. Let’s, you know, sit on the porch and Dr. Share a beer or drink or whatever your choice is. Like, and I mean, I feel like as soon as they said it, they looked at me and I was like, yep, you, you know where I’m going with this. And so, yeah, like it doesn’t have to be this rigid expectation that it always has to be something or that it al like, yeah, if we’re doing this dinner at six, well, like, if it’s six 30 or seven, it’s still fine.
You’re still getting your [00:55:00] healthy meal. It’s just, I love that you Right. Six flexibility. Six. You
Chris Gazdik: know, flexibility is really important. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: And I’m not saying I’m. Miss is perfect over here with that either. ’cause I struggle with flexibility too sometimes, but like, it is, I mean, it’s, it’s part of like a, it’s part of navigating transitions because a lot of times, even transitions that we choose, that we volunteer for don’t go smoothly.
Like, it’s not always a perfect thing.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: You know,
Chris Gazdik: and it’s not step by step. Yeah. Like, do this, do then do that and then do that. It’s not neat and tidy. Yeah. You, you really gotta go with it. There’s so many things that, that, that happened with it. And I think, you know, it occurs to me too, just talking about this in the different elements that you go through transitions.
I kind of feel like when I said emotional resiliency, internal resiliency, like what an important thing when [00:56:00] you develop that in the past. Mm-hmm. It’s almost like if I got through that, I can get through this. Yes. Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yep. Well, that’s kind of mindset that if
Chris Gazdik: I got through that, then I can get through this.
If you create that as a mantra, even write that on the expo marker. On your mirror. On your mirror in the morning. Yeah. Because you know, I love that. I’ll tell you the transition that I had as a child moving into, you know, when my, my parents split, that was one of the most devastating things that I had to get back up off the ground from.
Mm-hmm. And I mean, there’s almost nothing, you know, I can go back to that is what I’m saying. Hmm. And, and took me years on that one. Yeah. But I built that resiliency and the next big change didn’t take years because I had those skills developed. I had that ability, I had that confidence, I had that knowledge that I did that snaps.
And I can do and I can do this.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yep.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. This is resonating with you as a, if
Victoria Pendergrass: I had my bell, you would get dings.
Chris Gazdik: Really? Okay. Ding,
Victoria Pendergrass: ding, ding, ding, ding. Why
Chris Gazdik: is that so near and dear to your, your [00:57:00] mind? I was just
Victoria Pendergrass: saying, I agree. My client’s not, I have a bell in my office. And when they. Do good things or like
Chris Gazdik: you reinforce with the bell, or they really, yeah, they’re really like happy.
You’re literally doing Pavlov’s dog would. Yes. I have a
Victoria Pendergrass: bell. And like the other day I couldn’t reach my bell during a virtual session, so I gave ding, ding, ding, ding dings. I gave verbal dings.
Chris Gazdik: I love that.
Victoria Pendergrass: With the, the motion. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So yeah,
Chris Gazdik: things can feel so overwhelming when you’re in the middle of them.
Mm-hmm. And so maybe talking to you out there listening that may not feel the confident self resiliency that you’ve developed, just, just realize that it’s just. One little step at a time. I mean, yeah. You know, you, you really, you get consumed with what you’re worked up on and it feels just like it’s controlling you and it’s overrunning you and it’s all over you.
It’s overwhelming you. Mm-hmm. And it’s kinda like, that’s a feeling, but just remember, you can pay attention to the way that you feel. But it doesn’t [00:58:00] have to be true as fact. You know? Feelings will lie. Feelings will, feelings can lie to you. Yes. It’ll confuse you. Feelings are not facts. They become mixed. I you say that a lot.
Feelings are not, I say that a lot. Yeah. Are not facts. Yeah. So,
Victoria Pendergrass: well, because one of the like, I mean, I don’t, we don’t have to get into it, but like with Socratic questioning, like one of the questions is, is this, is this thought based on facts or is it based on feelings and like
Chris Gazdik: mm-hmm. If it’s
Victoria Pendergrass: based on facts, well then facts are facts.
But like, you know, your feelings are always valid, but they can lie to you and. They’re not all, they’re not facts like that. That is a fact. That’s a fact. That is a fact. That part’s factual.
Chris Gazdik: The rest of it isn’t.
Victoria Pendergrass: But yeah, so I mean, keeping those things in mind and like, you know, it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Chris Gazdik: So another personal example, [00:59:00] I. I’m wrapping up, realizing in my brain, you know, I have to manage the time and, and, and, and things and whatnot.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And it’s kind of like, you know, yeah. You know, Neil, this is the last time, or one of the last times we’re gonna be doing this virtually
Victoria Pendergrass: or in person.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Well we, we, I’m sure we will again at some point.
Yeah. But I don’t know. I mean, it’s gonna be very different for our show.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Like,
Chris Gazdik: I enjoy, so this will be a tra this
Victoria Pendergrass: is, we’re literally going to a transition right out.
Chris Gazdik: Like my office is where we’re at. That’s where you see the YouTube version. Yeah. This is my office. This is where I do therapy. Yeah. I sit where
Victoria Pendergrass: your clients sit.
Chris Gazdik: You’ll still see it because I think I’ll do the show here, but it’ll be on our platform. Yeah. Where we log in. And
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s kind of sad. You’ll get to see my office ’cause I’ll probably do it here.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. We’ll, we’ll both be here. Have
Victoria Pendergrass: we have better internet here than at my house?
Chris Gazdik: That’s so,
Victoria Pendergrass: but you know what I mean.
I mean,
Chris Gazdik: Neil, Victoria, you know, and we had this last time Yeah. With John. I mean, it’s kind of a sad moment for me personally for sure. Having created the podcast and this platform [01:00:00] and doing all this, and then we’re going literally through transition ourselves.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: In, in real time.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: So. Yeah.
Interesting. I don’t, I don’t wanna do the, the shrink wrap up. That’s fine. I don’t want this. Can we just keep talking about this?
Victoria Pendergrass: No, because I need to go home to my family, but, oh, and I’m starving.
Chris Gazdik: So it is time for the shrink wrap up. That’s where we end the show with a little bit of a review. Each of us has a fun game.
We compete and Neil gets to choose who, who wins for the week? I won last week. Victoria. You were here. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: I
Chris Gazdik: was here. That’s right. I was thinking it was just John. Well, we’ve had, we’ve had weird summer schedule and you’ve been Yeah, I know. I, this is
Victoria Pendergrass: probably like only like the fifth time I’ve been on this whole entire summer.
Right. If that, if that I’ve been, even people have asked me, you know, my grandma, if you’re watching, Hey grandma, you know, she, she tries to watch like every week. That’s awesome. She’s called me and been like, are you okay? She might do that afterwards. Like, why are you not on the thing? You haven’t been on there in a couple weeks.
I’m sorry, grandma. But I’ve had [01:01:00] scheduling issues. Oh, gotcha. Do you wanna go first? You want me to go first?
Chris Gazdik: Let’s do rock paper, scissor. Real quick. One and done. I gotcha. That means I get to decide. You go first.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay. My shrink wrap up is that we all go through transitions, bigger, small, and they can be, we can go work our words.
I automatically fail ’cause I can’t talk right now, but but we can, or you start
Chris Gazdik: over. Go.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay. So we all go through transitions in life, big or small. We can get through them. It can take time. We can need to give ourselves grace. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it can be done.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Yeah. I, I really feel very strongly about these topics the last week with grief and, and building off of that into transitions.
And we see so much of it in our office, and I know you listening have been through, are going through or will go through [01:02:00] major transitions to your point, Victoria, they could be minor as well. These can really be emotional gotcha moments. And I hope that we’ve given you some things to think about in coping and managing because you really are a resilient person that can handle major things with grace and, and get through.
And then you get the bonus, then you get the new, then you get the rebirth. And that’s, that’s, that’s the beautiful side of this. That’s what we’re after.
Neil Robinson: I think I gotta give that one to Chris. Yeah. I was to another last little bit. Victoria, you gotta step up because ego’s gotta get a play. I up through my words and mine
Victoria Pendergrass: was like short and sweet. But you guys,
Neil Robinson: good job. Good job, Chris. Great, great show guys. Thank you, man. I appreciate
Chris Gazdik: it,
Victoria Pendergrass: Neil. I mean, like I say all the time, I have a sign in my office that says, strive for progress, not perfection.
Chris Gazdik: Love that. Listen, you’re dealing with your transitions. We have one in our office. We will see you next week. Same [01:03:00] time, same place, same method. We’re gonna be using a platform. We will see John and live in the person. So come back next week. Well, maybe he’ll give us
Victoria Pendergrass: a tour of his house.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, that’d be awesome.
Yes, that’d be well, maybe not on
Victoria Pendergrass: air. But
Chris Gazdik: before, before
Victoria Pendergrass: we go, before we record. Take care. Chris Gazdik: Stay well. Bye all. See you next week.