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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 think one of the things that we just talked about was effective communication. And so now let's talk about this thing that's like internalized shame, because I think a lot of people like think about their past and like feel like cringe.
00:00:30
or like feel remorse about what they did. And I think it's important that we make sure that we know that we made the best choice available at the time. Yes. So internalized shame. I need an example of that. So thinking that we are we should have done better. Right. So like any time that you've done something in your life and you reflect back on it and you say, oh, I should have known better. Right. Or like you flinch almost and like cringe when you. think about it like it's kind of like a PTSD response right where you have like a flashback.
00:01:05
of this thing that you did and you're like oh I can't believe it's like remorse and I feel like when we make mistakes that we think are just like make us bad and wrong like not that the action was just a mistake but like we ourselves and a lot of times we think that we could have and should have done better you know what the problem is we constantly say should have and could have done better as we eventually should all over ourselves should hit it yeah anyway uh that's my dad joke.
00:01:39
for the day um here here's what I know is I always when I do demonstrations at schools or organizations I always pick out one person from the crowd and I say hey do me a favor show me your past okay and naturally they'll be like well it's behind me perfect so then I have them turn around and face the crowd naturally you're looking at, their backside, and I said, show them your past. Well, after some logical thinking and some critical thinking, they're like, well, I can't. Exactly. Why can't you?
00:02:09
Because your past doesn't exist. Then I'll challenge them a little bit more. I'll say, hey, show me your future. That hasn't happened yet. They realize that. Well, what I'm getting at and through this process is your past and your future are not tangible. Your past doesn't exist anymore. Well, thanks to smartphones, you can find a lot of your past because people are recording. But at the same time, the only place for your past to exist is up here in your memory banks. So since that's the case, you trying to worry about what's happened in a past that doesn't exist, it's an illusion anymore, and you getting anticipatory anxiety about a future that hasn't.
00:02:43
even happened yet, both are a waste of time. The only thing that matters is the present moment. Your present is what drives the future. Therefore, what you can do is learn from it, though. So realizing that you are in the present moment, your past doesn't exist. It doesn't exist anymore, but you're present. still hasn't happened. You are given such an awesome responsibility to realize that you indeed did make the best choice available to you at that time. Now, reviewing things, learning from things. Could we have made better choices? Probably. And that's the idea of learning.
00:03:19
But beating yourself up about the fact that you made a decision that you chose. Okay. It was the best choice available at that time. That's what you chose. That's the direction. Great. Now let's learn from it. Let's move forward. Yeah. I think the key thing that you said there was like beating yourself up. Like I really liked that like cliche that's out there. That's like, and cliches are cliches because they actually work. For that reason. For that reason. But you can't beat yourself into somebody you love. Like you can't be, give yourself like hate and shame and yell.
00:03:49
and like do these things into somebody you love because it's not very loving. There is a difference though, like then holding yourself, like a holding a line and like a value and course correcting. As opposed to. um, shaming yourself into trying to do better. Correct. There is the accountability factor, which we'll talk about throughout the podcast is yes, you and others are allowed to hold you accountable for decisions. Oh, great. But at the same time, the accountability is a redirection say, okay, this is how you're going to move forward going forward. This is how you're going.
00:04:20
to change course. Um, my greatest teachers, professors in my life because of my ADHD and dyslexia were told people who were like a sports mentality coach, right? I needed direct, honest, and I didn't even mind a raised voice or even a yelling at times because it got my attention. It got me focused. However, people who are not student athletes, people that don't take the route of sports, you don't want to give that approach to what works for you is what works for you. But you have to realize that getting you on task, holding you accountable is a good thing.
00:04:52
And it's okay to hold people on task. Um, to your point and rewinding, a little bit learned. It goes back to another podcast we already did. You produce results. You don't fail. There's only feedback. There's no failure. You did make the best choice available to you at that time. It is often funny or interesting, we'll say, when people are playing in sports games and they say they win the game. Oh, but if I would have done this. Oh, but if I would have done that, you won the game. It's done, right? And it's the same thing if you lost the game. Yes, if you would have, but you can't.
00:05:28
So you focusing on that? Absolute waste of time. Learn from it. Know that tomorrow if the same exact play happens, this is what I'm going to do instead. I think that with that, there's a difference. So like if you're on a team and you're thinking shoulda, woulda, coulda over and you're kind of ruminating, right? This play over and over and over again. Man, that was just like wrong and bad and I should have took the shot and stuff like that. You're not actually learning. You're just beating yourself up.
00:05:58
In that sense. But if you were. take the play or the footage and like sit down and like look at it and read and with an objective mind and like say like okay yeah it looks like I need to like work on we were only you know 50% for our free throws we need to make sure that's higher that could have made us win the game or oh yeah like it looks like I am overcompensating on this side for the shooting or whatever like looks like that I'm like not bending my knees enough or something like that like that's.
00:06:28
learning because now you have some objective that's going to help you in the future but just thinking like oh shoot and just like over replaying that is never helpful because that's not actually learning right there's no learning well and learning creates growth right so if you want to grow in life you have to realize if you made the best decision that you possibly could at that time which you did then you grow from it and you get better you know how many hours it takes for somebody to master anything ten thousand ten thousand.
00:06:58
ten, thousand hours, To master something. So I go back, I think I talked about this again in another podcast, the Beatles, right? They had the 10,000 hour rule. They were in pubs and bars all across England and London for years. And nobody knew who they were, but it took 10,000 hours for them to finally get their break. And then they had mastered their skills musically and vocally. And now they created music that will last lifetimes and will last lifetimes. But it took them 10,000 hours to get where they're at. Now, what if they were to say, oh, I stunk yesterday. I was horrible yesterday. I can't believe I chose this. No, you just focus on the next event. You're going to learn from it. Not focus on the next event. You make the best choice available to at that time so you can learn and grow from it. And that's where true growth comes from. By you focusing on, oh, I should have done this or I could have done this. You know, my famous line I tell people is, it's like trying to milk a chicken, right? You can't do that. It's a waste of time. Don't even put the effort in.
00:07:58
That's not what chicken is. Chickens are made for, right? cows, not chickens. So you focus your effort on what's going to get you moving forward, which is, learn from it, grow from it, and present moment energy. Yeah. Maya Angelou is the one that said, do the best you can until you know better and then do better. And I think that this is the thing is, we can always, hindsight is always going to say that we could have done better because we're older and wiser, right? Like if I look back on my past and I say, oh, my 20 year old self that did.
00:08:28
this thing, I feel so bad. I've got 18 more years of experience on that person. Yeah, I couldn't have actually, I've made the best choice available. And even if you think you could have the next day, you're smarter than you were that day. And so like, technically you couldn't because you didn't do that. Like, cause you made the choice with the best, you have all of the things, all of your perspectives, all of your experiences, all of your feelings, thoughts, things that you don't have control over and sometimes do.
00:08:58
And then you made that decision. So I think. that's really important because I think this leads into like how do we forgive ourselves when we don't make the best choices and it's not actually the best choice it's the outcome that we don't like right yes and I you know to I watched several documentaries and I'm just going to name two people whether you like them or not that's fine you are entitled to your opinion but Tom Brady and football and Michael Jordan basketball both of them when interviewed over you know.
00:09:29
documentaries when they talked about their losses and how they didn't win a Super Bowl didn't win an NBA title or you know had certain losses throughout the year and big playoff games when, you ask them both and and by the way you know Tom ring Tom Brady seven rings and in football, Michael Jordan six rings in basketball and two three peats which has never ever been done before and may never get done again with that being said both of them when asked you know what about the.
00:10:00
losses? What about the things that happened that you weren't proud of? Both of them said, I would never change anything. Because he said, both of them had said, all of those losses or bad things that happened to them, or bad decisions they might have made that they thought were bad decisions, led to something much wiser, something much more important. And trying to recorrect and redirect when it was done, and realizing they just made the best choices available to them at that time, they were able to learn and grow. And that's what got them better. So in hindsight,
00:23:41
the feedback it's how we present the correction and i always say you don't have to start with the buffer um the buffer would be uh well this is not criticism this is just feedback just no i am you, And they tell me, can I ask you a question? Yes. You might not like it or like, don't get mad at me. Oh, that's my favorite. Let's not get mad at me.
00:28:00
I think really there's a key point in one of my previous relationships where someone was like telling me, like telling me, you need to do it like this and you need to say it like this and you need to like, you know, and there was a point where I thought to myself, if I that you're never going to be happy with how it's delivered or whatever, because it's not about me. Right. It's about how like you're uncomfortable with what's going on. So you're requesting me to shift my behavior, my my like whatever. And I feel like that's the thing. So if we can recognize like it's not necessarily about what they're doing and saying, it's about what we're interpreting.
00:31:58
I'm doing dishes, Yeah. Because I think one of the things that we forget about mastering anything is how far we've come. Like having that like ability. And it's easy with like working out or like weight loss or something like that, because you can see the pictures, you can see the difference. But when you do something that's cyclical, because you're, you know, doing dishes or work or whatever, I think that we forget just how like impactful it is. And like, what we're doing every single day to show up for ourselves is building trust that you can't see on the outside. Yep. And so it's super important, right? It's an internal trust that you know, you can do something. And once you get to that point, and I'll close with this story, too, is, you know, Roger Bannister, four minute mile, you know about Roger Bannister, right? He was the first person to break the four minute mile.
00:32:50
What's interesting, and that was, I think, 1940, 50 something. I don't have to look it up the exact day. It was in May. But ever since. Since he broke the four-minute mile, over 25,000 athletes have broken it since. Now, interesting about that is some of them are even high school athletes. Why is that important to know? Because what happens is psychologically in their awareness, when they go to the line, they know it's already been done.
00:33:21
And with practice, preparation, and skill, that means I can do it too. So think of the effect that Roger Bannister had by breaking the four-minute mile towards human consciousness. Think of what you can do, if you're listening out there, once you prove that something that was a very tough goal, not something ridiculous, but I'm saying something that was a tough goal to accomplish, once it's been done, other people now give themselves permission to do.
00:33:53
it. Right. And I also think that you also have that thing saying, well, I did this thing. so why can't I do this thing? Correct. And I think at Grundy, if you come here, we can actually go through, because I think it's important that you ask, like, okay, so this is where I want to go, right? This is the thing that I want to do, but I don't really feel confident in doing it because I'm not really good at it and I don't really know how I feel about it. I'm a little scared, nervous, whatever. Coming here, we can get you into small, bite-sized steps to get better, right?
00:34:25
Because you're always going to – anybody who has ever had, like, a teacher, right, has always done so much work to that point. So asking people who have already done it is really important. And we can do that here. Absolutely. And we'd be honored to. Yeah. Let us know if you have any other topics of conversation. Yes. And that's what we're relying on, too, is for you to reach out. Obviously, these are things we're thinking of that are important for you to hear, but we would love your feedback. We would love for you to tell us what we need to talk about and something that's vital to learning and growth.
00:34:59
Yeah, so follow us. We need more subscribers. Please, like and follow. Yeah, bye. Thank you for listening to Grundy Eunoia Wellness Center podcast, Capes and Conversation. If you or someone you know is challenged, struggling, or needs someone to talk to, you matter, you are important, and please reach out to us via our website or social media, which can be found in our show notes. And if you have a topic of conversation about a favorite character's heroic journey, please let us know, as we would love to talk about it on our show. Until next time, unlock the hero within.
00:35:30
Your adventure awaits with us.