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“Where in your life are you waiting for your circumstances to change before you feel better—and what could happen if you chose to change your perspective instead?”
Grundy Eunoia Wellness Center’s podcast dedicated to empowering parents and their kids as they navigate mental health challenges. Through insightful discussions, expert advice, and engaging storytelling, we provide the tools and support needed to foster resilience, self-discovery, and emotional well-being.
Each episode features two segments:
🦸♂️ For Parents – Practical strategies, expert insights, and real conversations to help caregivers support their child’s mental and emotional growth.
🌟 For Kids – Interactive storytelling and discussions centered around unlocking their inner hero, overcoming obstacles, and building confidence.
Together, we break stigmas, encourage open dialogue, and equip families with the knowledge to thrive. Because every hero’s journey starts with a conversation.
#CapesAndConversations #UnlockTheHeroWithin #MentalHealthMatters #ParentingSupport #BuildingFutures
00:00:00
Welcome to Capes and Conversations, the Grundy Eunoia Wellness Center podcast. I'm Adam Kotowski, Clinical Director. And I'm Megan Rose McMullen, MS. This podcast is a conversation about mental health and wellness. So I've always liked this saying that says, you're going to get frustrated if you have circumstantial power versus personal power. And it feels like when you have circumstantial power, it means like the wins. It means when I lose weight, I'm going to feel good.
00:00:32
When I get a new job, when I get more money, when I win the lottery, and then when that situation doesn't happen, or even if it does happen and you don't feel better about itself, you get this like frustration, this buildup, this disappointment. And then there's like another goalpost, right? And like personal power is when you go within and you find this power within. And so it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what's happening on the outside. if you kind of get steady, right?
00:01:02
And so I feel like what we're talking about today is, you know, it's better to have choice than no choice. I would absolutely agree with what you just said. I think so many people, I work with a lot of student athletes, and so many kids I work with will go to the plate in baseball or softball with the intention, if I get a hit, I'll have confidence. And I say, absolutely not. You go to the plate confident and you'll get a hit, right? Now, it might not happen on that exact attempt,
00:01:33
but when you are definitely more putting yourself in a position to be productive, let's say, to get a hit, if you are confident. Yeah. Okay. Or confidence, and confidence in that situation comes from showing up every day at practice. Yes. Making sure you put in the time and effort, effort, to be the best that you can be up until that point. Correct, correct. And part of that, of how you do that, is freedom of choice, right?
00:02:06
Choice is absolutely better than no choice at all. The first part of, I'll go to the plate and look to get a hit. If I get a hit, I'll be confident. That's no choice because you're basically saying, I'm waiting for something to happen for me to get any kind of attitude or behavior or perspective. Right. And you have no control over that circumstance, too, because, one, at that point, that pitcher might have a little bit faster than the one that you were practicing with, so you're not going to have as fast of a swing.
00:02:37
Or maybe the wind is just a little bit off that day, or maybe you didn't sleep well the night before. There's so many things that can go into that one scenario that basically puts all the power in that circumstance. Yes. Versus if you choose, if you choose to be confident, then that is the freedom of choice going into a behavior. You're going into an action, and you are well more equipped, well more in favor of actually getting results. Now, you've got to lose sight of what you want as results,
00:03:11
meaning that you've got to basically be confident and kind of let the results surprise you sometimes. So many people think – my classic example of baseball, since we're on it, if you go to the plate thinking you're going to hit a home run to left field, well, that's great if the pitcher throws you a strike right down the middle or a little bit inside. But if they throw you three outside sliders and you try to pull it off the pitch, you're going to look foolish. And if you do hit it, it's going to be back to the pitcher on a little slow roll. So instead, go confident to the plate and look to drill it in the direction that the pitcher puts it, okay?
00:03:44
We won't talk any more baseball across. Choice is always better than no choice, meaning you're going to choose the attitude towards anything that you have no control over. Victor Frankel has always been the person I've admired. He's someone I've – learned through learned so much from uh he was a psychiatrist who went into the holocaust camps for four years survived and then became a psychiatrist again wrote many books uh one of.
00:04:14
them was man's search for meaning doctrine so the one thing that he always said which i feel like i have to now teach to these generations today is everything can be taken from us except the one fundamental freedom which is our freedom to choose our attitude attitude towards everything outside of our control and that's where choice is better than no choice because regardless of what's happening to you what has happened to you what you're experiencing you are always free to choose your attitude and your choice of attitude towards anything outside of your control and.
00:04:47
that's where the concept of choice is better than no choice you have that absolute freedom by doing right and i think one really good practice, is if you can't get a good attitude about something then you need, change your perspective because if you think of it as my the story I tell myself is that when I lose weight I'm going to be happy and that's the only perspective right of like you're really.
00:05:17
probably never going to be happy then because there's so many factors that go into losing weight or feeling good right and you see it a lot of times specifically in weight loss or whatever is that people go into it and then they have to that two things happen they start to feel good because they're actually taking care of themselves and it doesn't matter what the scale is because they just feel better right they put the effort into I like going to the gym I like running I like doing these things now I like feeding myself and nourishing myself and then they start to feel better or they have the perspective like this is I have to do this and if that's it they become.
00:05:51
miserable it's punishing I mean I've had that experience and that's like really the thing that like really changes your life. Your attitude is what perspective. perspective you're looking at, and so if something's giving you frustration and you can't seem to change your attitude about it, right, because the thing about attitude is that attitude can happen for that day, but as it longer holds, it's more of a mood, and then the longer that holds, it becomes a personality, but, like, it's still a choice. Correct. Well, remember, there's a difference between perception and perspective. Perception is always how you've been conditioned, you've been trained, you experience thing after thing after thing in your life, and you get this perception of how life is based on that map of reality.
00:06:35
Perspective is exactly what you said. It's freedom of choice. You get to choose your perspective, saying, wow, I never thought about that, and I think when you go into the difficult things, like politics, right, nobody really likes to discuss it, or it's usually the professional statement. You don't, but if you really go into listening to somebody about their viewpoint without trying to change their mind and you gain a new perspective from it, major success, and I really think that that's, everything in life is you if you choose your perspective based on somebody or something.
00:07:05
sparking a new idea or concept in your mind victory absolute victory and that's where the freedom to choose is is you can create a perspective versus perception is perception to me is no choice at all because you've already been labeled that you've already conditioned yourself to believe that it's based on life experiences um so i i love that idea and the perspective is that freedom to choose yeah and i and i feel like um this goes relates a lot to the previous episode where we don't expect you from others like you also need the.
00:07:37
perspective to that as an autonomous being going through experience in life i was actually listening to the book psychology of money or whatever and it was talking about how if you grew up in the recession spending money is quote unquote bad but if you grew up in like the 90s where there wasn't like, a recession then spending money was like a thing that you did for fun, Right. And then like, if you grew up in a place where there isn't an economic system, and you had to learn all these things, going to the store and buying produce or a farm, right? Like you grew up on a farm, then going to the store and buying your stuff instead of making it is a little bit different and like not seen. So it's literally about perspective, because how I grew up in my life is completely different to you.
00:08:25
So my life shaped my thoughts, my feelings, my beliefs, what I value. And so then when I am interacting with someone else, and they don't put the same values at the top of their priority list, I'm confused and frustrated. So like, the perspective is, goes back to that as well, which is like, you can't expect you from other people, because you're totally different. And the only way that you're gonna be able to is just shifting your perspective, right? Because you have.
00:08:55
no control over circumstances or other people. No, you don't. You don't have control. over their attitudes or beliefs or perceptions or personalities ever you know that's all and that's fine when you come from that operation of i don't expect me out of them total peace there and then number two is let me see if i can still gain a perspective let me still see if i can actually gain something from them even though i don't agree with them and they don't have to know by the way that you disagree with them like there's more people i agree with just to gain their perspective and say wow totally and it is it's a whole new way of looking at things yeah.
00:09:29
so i can value and appreciate that um so yes that's where the freedom to choose is always ours yeah i feel like too um sometimes having too many choices can lead to paralysis but i do think that if you can think of multiple options you're more likely to feel more expansive than if you would be like well this is the only way of thinking about this thing this is the only choice that i have because that's not really a choice then so if you.
00:10:00
can expand I think it's Tony Robbins who talks about like we it becomes a dilemma if you can't think of more than two options but if you can think of three then you can think of four if you can think of four it's infinite at that point and you have infinite possibilities and maybe you haven't just thought of it yet so then like the next practice is to be open up and kind of go to your tribe and ask them for their opinions and you might not have to agree with them right and it also might feel I think a lot of people have like this like resistance to like asking their.
00:10:36
questions because most time we know what we want to choose right so when we go to something they give us opposite it feels like they're judging us but a lot of times it's going to open yourself up to things that you didn't know and explain and I and I think it's it's helpful because then you get to like organize your thoughts a little bit more when you do get to ask your family what they think or your tribe what they think and then you get to like organize your thoughts a little bit more when you do get to ask your family what they think and, Make those choices from there. Yeah. Well, you hit on something that I love to talk about is the tribe. And I think we did this on another podcast, but it's good to reiterate. You have your acquaintances, your friends, and your tribe. Acquaintances are people you see in the grocery store. You say hi, bye, and then on with your day.
00:22:13
because you are disappointed in what your look like life looks like whatever that like negative emotion even happy emotions like it can do two two things that you can consume you and cause you to be stuck or it can be a catalyst for trying um change and transformation it's not easy right but, we can help we can't the change process the transformation process is never easy but it goes back to the title of this podcast and everything that's involved you do have choice you have.
00:25:24
You'll never have despair. And that's a choice. Yes, that is a choice. He was a game changer in my well-being too, because I realized it was a choice. Every day you can choose to get up. Every day you can choose to transform, your thinking and your habits and the way you do things, your lifestyle, what you eat, how you work out, all the choices. If you work out. Well, yeah, if you do. And working out could be 20 minutes of walking around the neighborhood. That's a workout. That is your choice. So if you have choices, utilize them. And that's.
00:25:58
where he taught. He taught me so much. Because he never once said anything bad about a Nazi. Not a little thing. And a few people know this. I'll just share this. When I watched his documentary by his grandson, there was a former Nazi soldier that came to his house every Christmas Eve and delivered a wreath to him and his wife. And when the Jewish community found out about it, they went nuts. Because, like, how dare you? How dare you? And he said something I'll never, ever forget in response to that that his grandson documented in the documentary. He said he might have joined the party, but in his heart, he was never a Nazi.
00:26:32
I was like, wow. I mean, talk about your choice of perspective. I mean, I can't even fathom that level of forgiveness when you went through everything you did through four years of high school education of the Holocaust camp. I mean, choice. It comes down. Choice is better than no choice. Yeah. And one of the things that you do have a choice is choosing us. Correct. You do. Go to the Illinois Wellness Center. Yeah. And we'll help. If you can't see more than one. choice we help with um you know if you're a kid or if you're a parent or your family's.
00:27:07
relationships like we're here to help you expand your viewpoint and perspective shift your attitude transform your life find identity what else what else we do mission purpose um you know i always say the two biggest questions you could always ask yourself is who are you and why are you here yeah one's identity one's mission and purpose uh values belief systems with a lot of times we. discover when imprinted beliefs began yeah you know a lot of times it's when you're a child um a lot of times it's emotionally or through trauma or tragedy um so we have the opportunity.
00:27:41
to discover when they began and more importantly how to uplift them into something more positive yeah i think one of that belief like belief work is one of my favorites because i think like one of the things that limits our choice is that like i believe that i don't have a choice or i believe that this thing is only gonna ever be this way absolutely and a lot of people don't even know where they're you, leaves came from. Right. So we imprinted them. All right. Well, until next time. Until next time. We are going to change our hours to summer hours now. Summer hours, yes. So Monday will be 12 to 9. Tuesday will be 10 to 7, central standard time.
00:28:14
And then Monday, or Wednesday, Thursday, Friday will be 9 to 5. We will work with exceptions for people that might need a certain, you know, evening. But we'll be off on Saturdays and Sundays. You know, thankfully, we've had a tremendous amount of support. Yeah. And something off our schedule. Yes, we are full of schedule. We are flexible. I mean, we'll make amends, obviously. We have family allegations, too. But, yeah, that will be summer hours, May 19th. We hope to see you soon. We'll see you then.
00:28:46
Thank you for listening to Grundy Eunoia Wellness Center Capes and Conversations. We are a non-for-profit 501c3. All donations and sponsorships will be utilized to serve those who may need it and our services through collaborative care with our, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner and or our clinical social workers, yet are unable to afford it. If you would like to sponsor these services, donation links are in the show notes on our website and in our social media outlets. If you have any topics of conversations or questions that we should talk about, please contact us, and if you choose, you will remain anonymous.