Hello, hello. This is Danielle Ireland, and you’re catching a solo cast of Don’t Cut Your Own Bangs. I wanted to hop on quickly because I had a killer session with a client that had some awesome takeaways that I think everybody could benefit from hearing. I’ve also had a lesson repeatedly coming up in my life that mirrors what my client was experiencing. I think the two stories together may offer something to you. That’s the hope. That’s what we’re going to do.
I also wanted to reintroduce the intention and concept of this podcast: to make big feelings feel less scary and more approachable—interpreting the information of our emotions to help guide us into making the next right step for ourselves. Shrinking the gap between knowing what we feel and knowing what we want to do with that feeling is where a lot of tension lives. I want to help shrink that gap—and do it in a way that helps us feel light and maybe even have some knowing laughter in the face of our big feelings.
When we’re met with truth, there is an opening—an expanding clarity—and sometimes there are tears, which I think can keep people from looking because we don’t want to cry (which I get). But the other thing I wish everyone could experience is the deep, profound belly laugh that happens in therapy sessions, treatment rooms, group therapy, addiction groups, and in the meaningful, vulnerable conversations between friends. The feelings we so often run from are the birthplace of deeper connection—and so much laughter and joy. That’s the hope here. I want to have conversations like that with my guests. I want to have conversations like that with you.
When I set out to write a book, I only knew two things. One, I wanted to make big feelings feel less scary and more approachable—and bring lightness to the feelings themselves. What I know to be true as a therapist is that emotions are energy in motion. They have information to tell you to inform the next right step to take. Self-doubt, fear, and anxiety live in that space between knowing and not knowing. The second thing I knew was that I wanted to have fun in the process of making this thing.
The result is Wrestling a Walrus for Little People With Big Feelings, a beautifully illustrated children’s book that has a glossary at the end for some of the bigger feeling words. This story, in a light and loving way, creates context for those relationships you can’t change—the people you wish would treat you differently, the things in life we cannot control and yet face that are hard. It’s a conversation starter for any littles in your life who want to create more safety, love, and patience for some of those experiences. Hop over to the show notes—you can pick it up at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or my website. I believe in this little book. I freaking love this little book, and I can’t wait to hear your experience with it. Thanks so much for listening—and back to the episode.
I want to offer a couple of stories, a couple of key takeaways, and then we’re all going to go on with our day.
The Learning Process: Personal Tech Challenges
The process of learning is always the same. I’m saying this multiple times for myself as much as anyone else—particularly when it comes to technology. I have a story about myself in approaching tech. My story is: technology is hard, I’m not good at technology, and I don’t always read directions. Then I get “tech sweat,” I get in my head, and I either want to abandon the tech altogether, abandon the project altogether, or distract myself with something more familiar and comfortable—which, working from home, can be chores. I’ll find a way to busy myself to avoid the thing that makes me so deeply and profoundly uncomfortable.
This story that I’ve been telling myself about tech, I have also disproven—with plenty of evidence to the contrary many times over. Today isn’t about unpacking the origin of the story. That can be another podcast. Today, it’s about looking at the process of learning. It is always the same. It is often uncomfortable.
I have a story about a client who has gone through, in her own way, a similar iteration—my tech story, but with relationships. Different experiences, same lesson, same throughline of what it means to learn something new about yourself and carry that information forward.
It’s simple to say, but harder to see when it’s happening to you. My hope in sharing is that you can see yourself in my story or an aspect of my client’s, and then apply it to yourself so it won’t be so hard when it comes up.
The process of learning starts with a question, a problem, or an obstacle—the question of “How do I figure this out?” In my case, I’ve been converting my podcast to video (very exciting—hello if you’re watching!). Converting to video has added many layers of new technology—cue me, excessively sweating in a corner, thinking: How in the hell am I going to figure this out?
Every podcast has had a new challenge. I’ve met the challenge and figured it out. And also, every podcast I look at the previous one thinking, “I could have done that. I could have done that.” Earlier this week, I recorded in Zoom. There was an issue. I didn’t save it in a way that made it manageable and malleable. I was left with a block of video—a very thin landscape within a landscape—not ideal. I had to find several workarounds to make it look correct for YouTube.
And then, of course, social media wants vertical, not horizontal. I’m kind of embarrassed to admit it, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t an exaggeration: it took about three hours to figure out a workaround with the raw video—how to fill the horizontal space for YouTube correctly, then flip and reformat for vertical. I was grinding my gears trying to figure this out.
But the process of learning is the same every time. It started with: I have a problem—my video isn’t filling the format. How do I do that? How is a great question—not “Why can’t I figure this out? Why isn’t this working? Why does this always happen to me?”
Once I’m in the process of learning, it almost always starts with a “what if.” What if this were possible? How could I make it possible? What do I need to do? What and how are great questions to activate this process if you’re stuck in a spiral. For me, it started with how. That led to a series of Google searches and YouTube videos. My brain got saturated with information. Then I tried to distill it—one slow, heavy click of the keyboard at a time. Little by little, I started to get something closer to what I wanted.
Side note: it still looks like amateur hour compared to people who’ve been doing this a long time. But I’m also super proud of myself. Both things can be true. I can be an amateur and a novice—and also really proud of what I’ve learned so far, which has been a ton. I now have something much closer to what I wanted the end product to be. I figured out some really cool functions within the software I use (Descript) to record my video podcast—workarounds, tools, functions I never would’ve known existed had I not tried to solve this problem.
So, the process of learning is always the same. It starts with a problem, an obstacle, a need. Then it leads to a question—a form of curiosity: How would I approach this? How could I figure this out? What if I was able to do this? Is it possible? And then comes the process. The next step after the question is where 90% of the discomfort lives—because you’re muscling through something brand new you’ve never done before.
Postulating the question is almost more romantic and fun—it’s brainstorm-y. But the execution of trying to do the thing? It’s awkward, uncomfortable, and sweaty.
At the end of that three-hour chunk—after already working several hours on other things I’m more practiced in—I was spent. But then, and this is new for me, after shutting the computer and sitting back, I had two thoughts: “Damn, that took forever,” and “I know a lot now.”
Almost in the same moment: That was really freaking hard, and I know so much more about this. I bet I’ll do the next one better knowing what I know. I know how to save, how to record, how to set up my guest for success. If things fall apart, I can carry this workaround forward with more confidence because I know how to do it now. I know the functions. I know the mistakes I won’t make again. And I was really proud of myself.
The elements of the learning process that have always been true: it starts with a question and curiosity, then the discomfort of figuring it out. The part I’m excited about—because it’s newer for me—is allowing that effort to inform a new sense of confidence moving into the next project.
And do you know what? The uncomfortable day was three days ago, and I proved myself right yesterday. Now I’m sitting with new raw editing material, doing the exact same workaround I did on Monday—but I know how to do it. I’m halfway done, and it’s taken a fraction of the time. It’s only the second time I’ve had to do this.
Knowing what I know now, I have a deeper, more profound sense that I am capable of figuring this out. My old tech story is just that—an old story. It’s old news. I have new information now that I need to allow to exist because it’s true. At one point, technology was really hard for me. I don’t know where that origin story came from. The new element to this process of unlearning is adding the other truths in a kind, compassionate way: Hey, you figured it out. It was hard and uncomfortable, and no, you don’t want to do it that way again—but you figured it out. The discomfort of this moment will inform future setups and give you more of a push to follow steps that make your life easier. That’s good information. That’s good experience. And the process of getting there was uncomfortable.
I share this because it’s so easy to look at lessons in hindsight and only reflect on the learnings and takeaways—not on the sweaty, uncomfortable, “Is this ever going to come together?” moment when you’re in it. It’s easy to feel alone and incredibly stuck—because in some ways, you are stuck. It’s like trying to move through mud up to your knees, trying to get one foot in front of the other—it feels so slow. That’s not a personality trait. If you’re having a hard time in that active learning process, it’s just true that you’re forming new neural pathways. It’s a new pattern. The neurons haven’t fired in the same way yet.
The practiced behaviors or stories in you are like a superhighway—freshly paved, perfectly smooth. Your mind knows how to operate in that pattern. It doesn’t know how to operate in this new way. So, compare that smooth blacktop to a little pebbled path in a patch of woods behind your house—you might get to your destination, but the path will look and feel different. Having that information in my peripheral vision as I was experiencing discomfort helped me a lot.
Client Story: Relationship Patterns and Learning
I had the benefit today of sitting in session with a long-term client. There’s a relationship pattern this person has found themselves in where faces and names change, but the way they’re treated—particularly in conflict—feels familiar.
Each time this is experienced, my client lives another iteration of the learning process. Once we move through the shame- or stress-inducing questions—“Why am I not enough? Why isn’t this working? Why is this always happening?”—we shift to: How do I want to be treated? How do I want to feel? Am I treating myself with the kindness and respect I’m expecting of them? Am I treating myself the way I want to be treated?
Each step positioned through the lens of compassionate curiosity is more actionable. It leads to tangible steps and new understanding. When we make progress or come out of a hard situation, we want to think relationships look like stair steps—we move up, learn something new, move forward, and never have that mistake again. Wouldn’t that be great?
But the truth—with a capital T—is that learning something new feels more like a spiral. Each time we go through the same situation, for me with new tech, for my client in a romantic relationship, what I’m measuring isn’t, “Oh, I’m confronting new tech and feeling stress—I’m failing.” From the spiral perspective, each time I go deeper into the spiral I can make the connection sooner, see the situation clearer, and the fear spike shrinks because I have more experience—and therefore confidence—behind me. I’ve done this before; I’ll probably figure it out again. It shrinks the gap between having the feeling of discomfort and knowing what to do with it.
My client had this experience today. At the end of a relationship with someone they love and loved dearly—the love doesn’t just go away—they realized with a new sense of clarity and confidence that this relationship was progress by every standard of where they’d been before, what they know now, and how they want that information to inform their life moving forward. This relationship no longer serves them now—just like my old tech story doesn’t serve me anymore because it’s not true.
Sitting in the discomfort and allowing compassionate curiosity—How do I want to be treated? How do I want to feel? What if I treated myself with the same respect I want from someone else?—moved them forward with new information. The relationship ending, while hard (it always is), was a beautiful, tender goodbye.
Embracing Discomfort and Growth
If there’s anything to take away from either example, it’s this: if you’re in your own version of a struggle or very active learning process that feels slow—like moving through mud—remember the perspective. That’s why I try to hold the image of the spiral as often as possible. Maybe grab your own Post-it and draw a little spiral that gets tighter and tighter. Seeing the struggle as a moment in a process versus a problem gives me relief. My fear often tells me my pain and discomfort are permanent: This will always be hard. This will never get easier. Remembering that this discomfort is part of a larger process leading to something new—something that will hopefully help me make a better, quicker, more gentle decision in the future—helps.
I hope my story is proof of progress. Your old stories may always be a part of you a little bit. “Oh, there’s that old story coming up. There it is. I’m feeling the discomfort of that.” Then ask yourself other questions: Is it true? Is it really true? Is it exactly the same as last time? How is it a little different? Those compassionate questions—how and what: What if this worked out? What could I do with this information? How is this maybe working for my benefit? How is this serving me? How can this help me in the future? The how and the what are much better in-process questions when you’re trying to figure something out.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
Thank you, thank you, thank you for joining me in this solo cast on Don’t Cut Your Own Bangs. Sharing this space with you is something I treasure deeply. There are so many places you could be, and the fact that you’re spending time here means more to me than you could possibly know.
I’d love to invite your questions—especially for the solo casts. You can email me at danielledananielland.com (subject: “bangs”) and send me your question. This isn’t podcast therapy—I can’t diagnose or therapize you here—but I can answer your questions: therapy questions, relationship questions, process questions. Wherever you’re hitting a stumbling block with big feelings, I’ve got you. This is a container and a community for you. Let’s dive in.
Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast—particularly subscribe. It makes your life easier and helps the podcast grow. Any way you choose to interact helps other people find it. Thank you for being here. I hope you continue to have an incredible day.
If you’ve ever wanted to pick up journaling but didn’t know where to start—or you’ve journaled off and on and want to go deeper—I have something for you: The Treasure Journal. I originally made it for my therapy clients. I’d give homework or prompts to process in their own time, and they’d come back with enriched insights that helped us take their work to a whole new place.
Journaling is something I believe in deeply. I use it personally and with clients. If you don’t need a tool like this, I still hope you access a journal somewhere in your life. I made this with you in mind if you’ve ever felt stuck in the process. You don’t have to feel stuck and you don’t have to be alone.
The journal is broken into seven key areas of your life, with stories, sentence stems from my practice, and questions I use with clients—all intended to guide you a little deeper with a little more safety and context. There’s beautiful blank space at the end for your own processing at your own rate and speed. Hop over to the show notes and grab a copy of The Treasure Journal today.
