What happens when your sense of worth depends on being wanted, needed, successful, attractive, approved of, or reassured?

In this episode, Piper explores contingent self-worth: the often subtle ways we use relationships, achievement, social media, and even therapy to answer the question, Am I okay? She examines why reassurance provides relief but rarely resolves the underlying problem, how harmful behaviors can persist even after we understand them, and why repeatedly changing therapists may sometimes preserve the very pattern therapy is meant to change.

Therapy can help us understand where our patterns came from. But eventually, insight has to become action. The goal isn't to stop caring what other people think. It's to stop requiring their verdict before you know what you think of yourself.

#untangledmindllc #UMPodcast #contingentself #selfworth #psychology #counselingtools

Read our blog: https://www.untangledmind.net/post/10-signs-you-ve-outsourced-your-self-worth

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What happens when something true becomes the very thing keeping us stuck?

In this episode of the Untangled Mind Podcast, Piper Harris explores the psychology of half-truths: beliefs that often begin with something very real- a betrayal, loss, painful relationship, frightening experience, or lesson learned through necessity- but gradually become conclusions about ourselves, other people, and the world around us.

We’ll look at how half-truths form, why they’re so convincing, how they become reinforced through our own behavior, and how to separate what happened from what we concluded because it happened. Most importantly, we’ll explore how living according to only part of the truth can interfere with the very thing we’re seeking: healing.

This episode was inspired in part by Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and a passage that asks an uncomfortable question about suffering: What does it feed?

For a deeper exploration of that question, read the companion Untangled Mind blog, “What It Feeds”

https://www.untangledmind.net/post/what-it-feeds

#untangledmindllc #UMPodcast #Dostoevsky #BrothersKaramazov #halftruths

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Therapy has developed an impressive vocabulary for some surprisingly straightforward things. Resourcing. State recognition. Emotional regulation. Distress tolerance. Generalization. Sometimes the terminology is useful. Sometimes we have simply put a tuxedo on a coping skill.

In this episode, Piper translates common therapy jargon into regular-human language and looks at what actually makes those concepts useful outside the therapy room. Because understanding why you do something is important, but insight alone does not create change.

Good therapy provides assessment, direction, tools, practice, and accountability. Then comes the part your therapist cannot do for you: taking notes, following through on between-session work, practicing skills before you desperately need them, paying attention to your patterns, and learning to use what you've learned without your therapist sitting beside you.

Counseling isn't magic. It's insight, skills, practice, and repetition. The goal isn't to become exceptionally good at therapy. It's to become increasingly capable of living your life without needing it.

#untangledmindllc #umpodcast #UntangledMindInnovations #therapyhelp

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