Choosing the Roles We Play in Life

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Education, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2022

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you’re the kind of person who listens to mental health podcasts, you’re more likely than average to get pulled into an impromptu “helping role” with your family and friends. Sometimes we seek out these roles, but they can also be uncomfortable or one-sided. And sometimes we get stuck playing a role for someone else that we never wanted in the first place. On this episode of Being Well, Forrest and Dr. Rick use this situation as a way in to exploring the various roles we play in life, and the profound impact those often unconscious roles have on us. They talk about relationship models, how we select our roles, how familiar roles can keep us trapped in old patterns, enactments and triangulation, and how we can exit unhealthy systems. Watch the Episode: Prefer watching video? You can watch this episode on YouTube. Key Topics: 0:00: Introduction 2:50: The hazards of accidentally becoming a friend’s therapist 6:45: Objectivity, professionalism, and not needing to be liked 11:00: The roles we take on and how they shape us 16:45: Why we choose certain roles, and being crippled by our strengths 21:00: Enactments 25:15: Splitting 30:10: When someone else pushes you into a role 35:10: Triangulation 48:10: Deep listening and a lesson from Carl Rogers 51:10: Practical tips for drawing boundaries in your roles with others 59:40: Recap New Course From Rick! Learn the lessons of a lifetime in the new and improved Foundations of Wellbeing 2.0 program. This yearlong, online program teaches you how to grow the 12 key inner strengths that lead to lasting wellbeing during difficult times. Our New Year's sale is running now, and you can use the code BeingWell25 to get an additional 25% off the purchase price. Sponsors: Wondrium helps you learn anything! Right now, Wondrium is offering our listeners 50% OFF their first three months. Sign up today at wondrium.com/beingwell. Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month! Want to sleep better? Try the Calm app! Visit calm.com/beingwell for 40% off a premium subscription. Connect with the show: Subscribe on iTunes Follow Forrest on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Follow Forrest on Instagram Follow Rick on Facebook Follow Forrest on Facebook Visit Forrest's website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, welcome to Being Well, I'm Forest Hanson.
0:10.8	If you're new to the podcast, thanks for joining us today and if you've listened before,
0:14.4	welcome back.
0:16.0	If you're the kind of person who listens to a podcast like ours, my guess is that you're
0:20.7	more likely than average to get pulled into a impromptu helping role with your family
0:25.6	and friends.
0:26.7	This can range from being asked your advice about a friend's relationship to answering
0:30.6	some questions related to mental health to maybe just being a shoulder to cry on.
0:36.8	And healthy relationships absolutely include offering our emotional support and attentive
0:41.2	listening when it's requested and appropriate.
0:44.0	So this is all really normal.
0:46.8	But sometimes what happens is we find ourselves getting sucked into relationships where
0:51.3	this helping role begins to feel a bit more uncomfortable or one-sided.
0:56.6	Maybe a friend's unhealthy relationship is starting to spiral to a place where you're
1:00.5	functioning as their impromptu therapist or serving as a regular mediator between the parties.
1:06.8	And maybe you even start to feel like you've gotten sucked into playing a kind of role
1:12.5	in someone else's play that you never really wanted in the first place.
1:17.9	Today we're going to be focusing on how we can handle situations like this, including
1:22.2	getting better at recognizing when you've gotten pulled into one of these systems, how
1:26.9	to navigate them carefully and how to get yourself out, and along the way we'll explore
1:31.8	some ideas from psychology that have been really, really useful for me personally, even
1:36.6	as a non-clinician.
	...

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