#40 Living With PTSD in a Negative World | Recovery Secrets Series

Welcome to the Overcoming PTSD Podcast. My name is Brad Schipke, and this is the limited series called Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. Now, these were private sessions that I originally ran as a paid coaching program, but now for the first time ever, I'm making all 100+ sessions available for free for all of you podcast listeners. And this series is over 100 days of practical strategies that have helped thousands of trauma survivors fully heal. So make sure to subscribe because I'm dropping a new episode every single weekday until the archive is complete, and you definitely do not want to miss it. So without further ado, let's dive on in.

All right, we are live here. Welcome everyone to our Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. I'm so glad to be here with each and every one of you. We have an awesome topic planned for today. Now we just finished up an awesome, awesome week, right? So we just did 5 days and we continued into this week on Monday, but we did 5 days of processing Our processing boot camp, our first ever processing boot camp. So that was a ton of fun. It was a lot of information. And what I really want to press on is now that you know that information, no matter what level you're at, if you're just starting or if you've been doing processing a while and you're taking the next level kind of information that we talked about, no matter where you're at now, the power is in your hands. So it's up to you to do the healing. It's up to you to put the time in to now start to make real true permanent changes in your life. There's a lot that we can do with Recovery Toolbox tools. There's a lot we can do with mindset. There's a lot we can do with thoughts and affirmations and beliefs. Today we're talking about a topic that you've all heard at some point before. Absolutely from us comes a lot about a lot during mindset, and it is a mindset topic, but it's something that needs to be continued or needs to continue to be reiterated again and again because it's so important and it's so easy To let it kind of slip through our fingers. So today we're going to talk about, you know, living with PTSD in a negative world. So we're going to talk a lot about negativity and a lot about positivity. And so just kind of to start out, right, what I want— the question I want you to ask yourself is, where is the negativity? So what are some negative things going on right now? But I'd have to guess that when I asked you that question, your brain rapid-fired a handful of negative things going on at this moment. Negative things that you've seen on the news, negative things that you've seen in politics, that you've seen maybe in your community, your brain is going to rapid-fire those things towards you. Now, when it comes to having PTSD, the negative that we see in the world and the negative that kind of happens around us is going to weigh heavier than someone without PTSD. So it's not this— what we're going to be talking about today is not denying the fact that that negativity is out there. It's not denying that there are some issues that need our attention. It's nothing like that. It's all about—

Yeah.

where you focus your attention and changing where you focus your attention so that you can live your best life. Now, negativity is going to come from the outside world, and it's also going to come from the inside world. And so our ultimate goal is to control as much we can of the inside world so that we can heal and we can live our best life. And if we so choose down the line, we can put ourselves in front of some issues that we would consider negative, But we can approach them with the right mindset. We can approach them whole. Okay? And so that's the kind of the ultimate goal. So negativity. So living with PTSD in a negative world. Now, the primary source of negativity, any ideas? Where do you think your main source, your mainstream, the main line of negativity is coming from? Mimi says news. That's one place it could be coming from, news and media. So here's some options. Lorena, nice. I like the track. Helene saying internal. Larry sharing social media. Now, what we've stumbled upon here are the 2 biggest ones. So we have news and media. We can clump news, media, social media all together. And then we have what's going on inside our mind. And now our mind is going to be the ultimate source of negativity for us. Okay. I'm gonna say that again. Our mind is going to be the ultimate source of negativity for us. Because it's one thing to hear something negative, it's another to continue that conversation in your mind. So there are negative things going on all around us at all moments, just like there are positive things going on all around us at all moments. What continues to make it negative, what continues to make that negative news or that negative whatever's going on hurt more and more, is what's going on internally. How we interpret that event, how we see that event, and how we basically continue the conversation Of what we heard in our head. Okay, so I have a fun game I like to play with a cousin of mine when we, you know, when we're hanging out in the summer, maybe we've had a few drinks and we play this fun game and we mostly agree politically, but there's a handful of people that we hang out with that we don't agree with politically. And so what we'll do is we'll go through the news and we'll just read a headline. So this is a secret game that we play together. We look at each other and we go down and I'll just say, oh, interesting that blah, blah, blah. And I'll just read the headline. And then the conversation starts. Okay. And so it's not actually the news itself that hurt or that made it negative. And you can see this externally as well as internally. Once that news is presented, it's the conversation that happens. Now, sometimes this is with other people, but very often it's in our own minds, the conversation that happens in our own minds. And we just do that to push people's buttons, right? And we just do that to get a kick out of, you know, how people react and get all riled up and stuff like that. But the point being, It's what we carry on in our mind that is really the most negative. Now, when it comes to PTSD, like I had mentioned before, it's tricky to live in a negative world. Now, it's tricky as a human being to live in a negative world. And when I say a negative world, I don't necessarily mean that the world is this negative, horrible, mean, awful place. When I say that, what I'm specifically referring to is the fact that our brains seek negativity, and that's a survival instinct. And—

Yeah.

Our outlets, our media, of which we spend so much time on these days especially, is negative focused. Always is a strong word. It's 99% of the time negative focused because negative gets your attention because of that survival instinct. So that's what I mean when I say negative world. Now, we really don't live in a negative world. It's just what we see. We see all these negative things, which is why when I asked you at the beginning, you know, what are some negative things that are going on right now, your brain probably rapid-fired those answers. Now, if I ask you, what are some positive things going on in the world right now? Probably a little bit slower to answer that right now. It doesn't mean they're not there. It's just those aren't the things that we're seeing. So if you turn on the news and the news was just like, here's this positive thing and this positive thing and this positive thing, it would be a lot easier to answer that question. Okay? And the conversation in your head would look a lot different too. So when it comes to, you know, living with PTSD in a negative world, on your recovery journey specifically, I want you to eliminate as much negativity as possible. And what I mean by this is external negativity. So there's something we call internal inputs. That's what's happening in your mind. And there's something we call external inputs, and that's what's going on around you. That's your environment, the people you spend time with, the media channels that you watch, all sorts of stuff like that. So because PTSD is going to make that negativity weigh so much heavier than it would if you weren't hurt, that those neural pathways, when we're traveling down those negative neural pathways, when we're always going to the negative, the worst case scenario, With PTSD, what we're working to do is change those neural pathways. We're working on healing. We're working on seeing that there, there's a positive route that we can go, taking a healthy route. So it's really important that as much as we can, while we're on the journey specifically, we eliminate those negative external inputs. So let me know right here in the chat, what are some negative external inputs just based on that short definition there that we can start to eliminate or lessen, eliminate or lessen? What are some ideas? So we shared the 2 biggest kind of forms of negativity, and that's gonna be news and media, social media and news. And that's gonna be what's happening in our mind. And so internal is what's happening in our mind, internal, and external is gonna be those external kind of sources. So what are some external things, and we call these external inputs, that we can start to eliminate or lessen right now, today? What are some things we can lessen? Now, I know we're on social media. Okay. I know we're on social media right now, technically, but maybe some scrolling on social media. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, news outlets. I used to have news alerts on my phone. So like when a big story broke, it would show up. I think it was the New York Times I had on my phone. I remember one time I was teaching, I was out on the water, I was teaching sailing. And I remember when I always have my phone on me out on the water. So I had my phone, you know, for pictures and stuff. I remember an alert popped up. And it was about Robin Williams. I was like, oh man, like I love Robin Williams and I love every movie that Robin Williams did. And I remember reading that news and like just feeling a real big shift in my energy. I wish I didn't hear about that news until after I was done with my class because my energy changed. And it was one of the first times I started to kind of notice how my energy was affected by news and by negativity. Now, in the case of what I was talking about here, or what that example— there's nothing I can do about that. And typically with news, there's nothing we can do about it. And typically people's biggest objection to eliminating news, eliminating media, is something along the lines of, you know, well, it's important for me to stay involved. It's important for me to stay up to date because my vote matters, right? And it's important for me to know what's going on in other places so that I can support the people having issues in those places, or Something along the lines like that. And we're going to talk about that in just a second, but I want to circle back here to some things that— some external things that we can start to eliminate. So Leah sharing certain conversations, Carla sharing negative news, Jen sharing I've had news blackout days. That's awesome. Lisa sharing select positive content, which we're going to talk about in a second. So there's— when we're thinking about optimizing for a goal, there are 2 things that we can basically do. We can do something Or we can stop ourselves from doing something. So we can take action or it can be inaction. So in the case that we're talking about here, what we're talking about is inaction. What can we start to eliminate? We can start to eliminate news. We can start to eliminate social media. We can start to eliminate certain people, certain conversations, certain topics that we bring into conversations. Now, I was just sharing a story where my cousin and I'll hang out and we'll start to get, have a lot of fun. And, and then we'll start to poke. We'll start to bring up certain topics that we know. will push people's buttons. You can eliminate those topics and not bring up those topics, whether it's politics or whatever it is, to not bring those things up. Carla sharing scary movies, that's another great one. Now, when it comes to PTSD and it comes to external inputs, you also want to think about what are some things that trigger me. And now this can be super obvious to eliminate if you can, but sometimes this advice just kind of— people miss this. If there are things that trigger you that you can eliminate, or you can avoid spending time with certain people or in certain environments, absolutely do that. specifically for your recovery journey. This doesn't have to be a forever thing. You just wanna keep your external space sacred so that you can be most in control of your internal space. All right? So these are some awesome things to eliminate. My partner always gives that same excuse. I have to stay informed and then he wants to tell me. So a conversation might have to happen there. I had that situation, Jen, with my parents where like the first thing in the morning, the news is on and then it's going and I would just shut it off, right? Now, these are my parents, so I feel comfortable enough to like turn their TV off, right? And, you know, they turn it back on and then I'd be like, nope, I don't wanna hear it. Can we do something else? I'd say it a little bit nicer than that, but would you mind if we just put some music on or something? And they'd be like, all right. But then when something big happened, they tell me, they call me up, they go, oh, do you believe this happened? Or I said, listen, listen, I'm glad that you stay informed. I don't wanna hear about it. And now they know that and they were able to eventually kind of respect that boundary. And actually, we're gonna talk about boundaries a little bit later in the week, not specifically boundaries like that, but the first step. to boundaries like that. So that's a common objection that happens. So my question to you right now, so for those of you who have answered here, and this is awesome, great stuff here, why haven't we eliminated those things? Right? Now I asked you, what's negative in your life? We said, Carly, you mentioned scary movies, certain people, certain conversations, certain topics. So the question is, why haven't we eliminated those things already? And this is an important question to ask. Why haven't we eliminated those things already? Why not? So I want you to answer that there, because once you answer that, you're gonna understand what your next step needs to be. Okay? So why haven't we changed those things? Because we can't get away from situations because it creates familiar feelings. This is an interesting one, Barbara. So Jen sharing, I've had conversations and certain agreements with partner, but it slides a lot.

Okay?

So there's, when we're talking about sliding, talking about a boundary that we're not super clear on. It's no one's fault that we're doing this, that these things are happening. Sometimes when I say, okay, so we need a stronger boundary. People can hear that and feel like, I'm not doing a good enough job setting boundaries. And it's not your fault that your boundaries are a little bit sliding, but we have to start to kind of recognize where they're sliding, when these things are happening, so that we can start to change them and firm up those boundaries and see how important getting this negativity eliminated and adding this positivity, which we'll talk about in a minute, truly is. So Mimi's sharing, I only watch news when needed, no local negative stuff. I think that's awesome. So for those of you who, you know, want to stay informed, here's what I recommend to everyone on the journey is eliminate it completely. Because when you're on the journey, the way that I think about it is you're working to become whole. And so anything like that is going to set you back. As much as we wanna help people going through things and we wanna be involved and we want our voice to be heard, there's a time and a place for that. When it's gonna do more damage to us than good it will do to the world, We need to reflect on that. Okay? So we need to see, because the way that we can serve the world at the very highest level is by first serving ourself at the highest level. So we need to become whole first in order then to be able to go out and help the world and help other people and be an activist, whatever it is that you wanna do, or just stay informed. So what I recommend to everyone on the healing journey in the beginning is eliminate as much as you possibly can. And it's a lot more typically than you realize that you can eliminate it. You're going to notice how much you don't need it, how involved you don't need to be. And all of that time, not only will it not be dragging you down because it's heavy and negative, but also you get to free up that time. Okay? So you get to free up that time to focus on yourself. So only when you're whole, there's this saying, you can't pour from an empty cup. Only when you're whole do you have a cup that's overflowing. Okay? Only when you're whole. Now, we need to put all of our focus on becoming whole. So if you're someone who likes to watch news and you're an activist, maybe politically or other things, and you're looking for ways to help people, maybe in other countries or going through certain situations, I want you to first focus on yourself. And to be honest with you, eliminate as much as you can, if not all of it, especially while you're on this journey. Okay? And so I call this leading by example. If you want to change the world, you have to change you first because that's the biggest objection I get to this. It's like, You know, people used to tell me, Keeling, you're so— what's the word? I don't know if the word was selfish, but something along the lines of that. You're so selfish. Like, how could you not care about what's going on in the world? And I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. I never said I didn't care. I care at such a high level that it negatively affects me. I care at such a high level that I'm willing to put it to the side for now with all these political issues, whatever it is, to actually put it to the side, to pull that car back so that I can be whole. When I step into this and I can lead by example, by putting myself first, by making myself whole, by healing fully so that I can go into this and not get hurt by it, that's an amazing thing to be able to do. So I can watch the news, I can care about what's going on, I can be involved as much as I choose to be and not get hurt by it because I'm going in whole. And there are so many years where I didn't look at it at all. I didn't know what was going on in the world. Because there was nothing that I could do about it. Even if there was something I could do about it, I couldn't because I was hurt, because it would do more damage than good in the long run because I was hurt. So if that's kind of your concern, if that's your objection, I want you to think about that. Only when you're whole can you serve at the very highest level. And again, just something to think about. So now what I want to ask you, right? So we've talked about what can we eliminate? We can eliminate news. We can eliminate Media. We can eliminate certain people if we want, certain conversations, certain topics, right? We can shut those topics down. That is elimination, right? And so that's external. What can we do about the internal right now? Once we eliminate the external, that's going to be a tremendous help. But what can we do about the internal? What are we going to do about this internal negativity? Two biggest things here: news media, right? Huge, huge source of negativity. And then what's going on inside our heads. So what are we going to do about that? Any ideas? Jen sharing, my partner and I have agreed to unsubscribe from Netflix. Over the last months, I've been spending time on books, workshops, and healing work. It's amazing what happens when you free up time. When you free up time and you stop numbing, you stop running. And a lot of us like to— we don't like to think of it that way. And I'm being honest with you, all right? This is a little hug and kick in the butt. If you know you're watching TV every day and sometimes even news And it could be food, it could be TV, it could be pornography, it could be video games, it could be anything. Alcohol, drugs, running, numbing. We're running. Guess what happens when we stop running and we stop numbing? Whatever it is catches up. We are just delaying the inevitable. And the inevitable is we have to deal with it. Okay? That's the cold hard truth. We have to deal with it. Running and numbing are not going to get you anywhere. You will be running and numbing on a treadmill, and the second you step off of that treadmill, you are exactly where you started. So you can spend days, weeks, months, years running and numbing, or we can step off that treadmill right now and we can face whatever it is. So mindset, meditation, swapping thoughts—

I love it.

Jen sharing, when we have internal negativity, we can interrupt those thoughts and change them to positive. These are all amazing things. Now, there's not necessarily one answer, one thing. All these things. A combination of these things. For me, most importantly, what I want you to walk away with in regards to this topic today is that self-talk, that internal dialogue, that internal self-talk. Watch what's going on up there. That self-talk is gonna lead you down a bad road. It's going to lead you to running and numbing. It's gonna lead you there. I want you to think about this. The headspace that you're in is a result of the path that you have let your mind travel down. If you are in a negative headspace, maybe you're angry, you're frustrated, you're annoyed, you're blaming people. You didn't just appear there. Something started. Now, it could have been a trigger. You got triggered. And then from there, you let yourself go down a certain pathway to get into this certain headspace. The good news is, because we're in control of our thoughts, we can get ourselves out of that headspace. We can put ourselves in a different headspace by doing different things, by thinking different things, right? So Larry, I love this too. Positive affirmations. Awesome. All of these ways are gonna help us get control over what's going on in our mind. So you wanna notice negativity, become aware of negativity, change the negativity. Think about the good things. We're gonna talk about that next. Intentionally add, look for the positive, look for the good moments, look for the little things. Life happens in the little moments. Look for those little moments, right? And a lot of times it's easier to look back and say, wow, that was so amazing. But we forget to be there when it's so amazing. And right now, it can be so amazing if we choose to look at it, if we choose to change our mind, to change our focus. Things are hard, yes, and things are great. Think about how great things are. Okay, that's why we wanna lay on the gratitude. One of the very first things that we ever talked about in Recovery Secrets was gratitude. We did our entire first session on gratitude. So now I want you to think about what are some ways that we can add positivity to our life right now? We can think about it. We can switch the negative to a positive. We can look for silver linings in situations, right? With all these things going on in the world, with all these things going on politically, what I, I'm challenging you to do is look for the silver lining. Why is it good that we're having this conversation politically? Why is it excellent that this is coming up for, for debate? Why is it special what's going on in the world right now? What's the good that's going to come out of it? Remember the very first thought I had about the pandemic when everything was shutting down was we're gonna have a global camaraderie. Okay? Now, that's not me denying the negative things that are going on. That's not me taking away from anyone's hard experiences. That's me seeing the good. The good's there. The bad's there. It's all about how you choose to look at it. All right? Visualization. I love this, Larry. Sharing recovery secrets is helping me to shift my thoughts to more positive. That's awesome. Sharing gratitude for this program, for Keenleen here this morning. I mean, that, that's a great thing. Here you are right now. What I want you to do right now is express some gratitude. What are you grateful for? And don't let yourself shut your thoughts down. And Jen sharing that too, we can take a few minutes to think about what we are grateful for. When you find yourself in a negative space, when you find yourself blaming, running, numbing, pause yourself. So if you wanna take it a step further, think about what am I grateful for about this specific situation? And I used to do this when I was angry, right? I'd be really angry at someone or something. I'd be blaming them. I'd be like so mad that I got dealt these cards. And I'd say, you know what? Let me pause for a second. I would say, I am grateful for this person or the situation that just had me feeling so down and angry and upset. I would express gratitude for that situation. Okay? That's where some real true power can come in. When you are upset about a situation, maybe you're upset with your relationship and you're thinking about, what are some things I'm grateful for in my relationship? I'm really mad at this person right now and things aren't going so well, but What are some things that are going well? I'm really grateful that we're willing to stick it out. I'm really grateful that we're willing to have conversations about it. I'm really grateful that I know they'll be there at the end of the day. I'm grateful for their personality. I'm grateful for their laugh. I'm grateful that they're always trying to make things better, whatever it is. And the more specific you can get to the situation, the stronger that swap is going to be, right? Because what we're working to do in our brains with a lot of this work, and this is manual work, it adds up. Is change the pathway that our brain is going down. So our brain very often is going negative, right? So we wanna change from the negative neural pathway to the positive neural pathway. And the more that we add positivity, the more that we swap from negative to positive, the stronger that positive path is gonna become. And what you're gonna see over time is that's going to become automatic. This happens with all things, including addictions. You stick with this long enough, you continue to make these choices long enough, You continue to focus on what's going on up here inside your mind long enough, watch yourself talk long enough, it's gonna become positive automatically. The right choice, the healthy choice is going to become apparent automatically. You're not going to wanna watch TV or go for a drink. You're going to wanna do the healthy thing. You're going to wanna have that conversation even though it's hard. You're going to want to, uh, you know, go for a walk or exercise even though You know, it'd be a lot easier to sit and watch TV for the next 5 days. So some things to think about and express those gratitudes in there. Isabella, this is a great thing, right? So success is about what we do and it's about what we don't do. Think about that. I remember a couple of times when I realized this, I promised myself in certain situations that I would not say certain things. You know, maybe in your relationship you have that certain thing that would get under their skin, you know, would do damage, you know, would hurt. You hold that back. You don't say that thing. And so Isabella's sharing something similar, right? I'm really working on not engaging with others, not engaging with my kids in negative ways, but being more reserved in what I say. So I remember at some point, you know, making a promise to myself that I would not say, you know, even if we got into an argument, I would not say this one specific thing. And I didn't. I upheld that promise to myself. And we're actually gonna talk about something we call self-boundaries, really powerful topic. But success is in what we do and it's in what we don't do. So when it comes to negativity, when it comes to living with PTSD in a negative world, it's about what we don't do, which is engage in the negativity. Which is continue the conversation in our head when we do approach negativity. It's about not doing that, and it's about adding positivity. It's about what we do. We add positivity, we express gratitude, we think about things that are going well, we look for things that are going great in the world. I look for those little moments. There was something recently, I forget exactly what it was. Little things. You can look for little things. We have a kid that lives next door to us, and he's just, just graduating 5th grade, I think he said. And he's always running around, and every day when he comes home from school, You know, he takes the trash and the trash next to our house, right? So he's doing this thing, he's doing this chore, and he's doing it in a very positive way. He's having fun with it. There's nothing like having fun with a situation. So I love that one, Isabella. That's amazing. Yeah, gratitude. Let's do some gratitude. Isabella sharing, just the thought of ignoring all TV feels so freeing, like being young again. It's amazing how much time you free up when you're not running and numbing, when you're not choosing to do social media, whether it's scroll on social media or watch videos or watch TV or video games. It is so unbelievably freeing. You have So much more time in the day than you realize when we spend time on those things, because you get sucked into things like that and you don't leave it any better than you started. Now, I have kind of goals for the things that I do in my life. I'd like to leave a situation better than I started it. I'd like to have experiences when I choose to engage in activities. I want it to be an experience. I wanna leave either happier or closer to my friends. So I wanna leave better than I started. You can make these things experiences. So I, you don't have to say like, I'm never gonna watch TV again and I'm never gonna see another movie. Like, if that's overwhelming to you, that's not the goal. Although it can be if you choose to do it. So just think about what your life would be like without those things. Sherry, I love this. Gratitude for everyone supporting me and my purpose. There's a good thing. Look for good moments. Look for people who are trying to lift the world up, trying to make the world a better place. Think about and look for and get and find the silver lining in your situations, whatever it is. Lorna sharing, I'm healthy and strong and have avoided, and miraculously, and us too, Lorena, as well, COVID despite so many people around me being sick. That's, that's amazing. Look for those things. Now, when we don't look for those things, they're not always apparent. What's in your face is news, right? It's literally in your face. Okay. It's on ads. It's on billboards. It's on TVs when you go to the barber. It's on TVs when you go to the dentist. It is in your face. The positive won't be in your face. Until you start to look for it, until you start to grab it and it starts to become automatic to see the positive. Carol sharing, I'm grateful for my kitty, grateful for my friends. I'm grateful for my family. That's amazing, Carol. Jen sharing, grateful to be able to learn and grow. Grateful for being alive. Grateful to have shelter. Grateful to have a dog. Grateful to have enough. That's a beautiful set of gratitudes there. And look at those things. I'm not sure if you expressed those yesterday, Jen. I'm assuming you didn't just get your dog this morning. Look for the good. The good is there. I am grateful that we're able to sit here and I'm in Rhode Island. I don't know where you are in the world. I'm in this little tiny, the tiniest state in the United States, in the middle of nowhere, Rhode Island, basically this really strange kind of area. And here we are all over the world, all over the country, having this conversation together. I mean, wow, like that's amazing. I'm grateful that I did a workout this morning that was a, it's called a boxer The boxing match. My trainer names the workouts. It's called the boxing match. I'm so grateful that I can do that online. I'm grateful that I can do that in my living room. I'm grateful that I can actively move. These are little things that they sound silly. We take them for granted all the time. I'm grateful that I can see, that I can hear, that I can taste. Thank goodness I can taste my coffee. Okay, so all these little things that we take for granted, look at them. They're right there, but you have to See them. Awesome. Lisa sharing, the water view, my coffee, and this unique opportunity to learn and process effectively with all of you right now. That's beautiful, Lisa. Sharing, clearing my mind and being present, being mindful of the present moment makes me feel young again. That's awesome. Look for those things. Add more of that into your life. A lot of times we can work ourselves up and we can think it's this big, big daunting thing to be a positive person, to be present, to be healed. And really, it takes such a small amount of effort in the scheme of things, because all you have to do is be positive in this moment. That's it. Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about tonight. Worry about right now and don't worry about it. Just be right now. Be positive right now. Look for one positive thing, then look for another. Go step by step, piece by piece. You don't start as this positive person and a person that, you know, nothing can bring you down because you're just so positive and it just radiates. You don't start like that. You start typically from a rock bottom, very depressed, negative state. And then you think about, you know what, here's something that's going, or here's something that's going okay. Here's something I could be grateful for. You start there and then you go a little bit further. And here's something I could be grateful for right now. It is so nice out, especially coming off the winter. It's beautiful out. There's something right there. I love May. We have a bunch of flowers out. Beautiful. Little things like that. The sunshine, even if the sun's not shining, we had fog for a couple days, really weird time of year for us to have fog so much we couldn't even have our windows open. There was a fog rainbow. Now, I didn't see it, but somebody sent me a picture of it. Okay. And so even in the fog, something cool is going on, something nice, something beautiful. So think about that. This was just a general conversation about just about living in this negative world with PTSD. I know it comes up a lot. I know it can be a big point of resistance. We can feel Sucked in. We can feel like we have to stay involved. We have to stay informed. It's irresponsible. That's the word I was looking for earlier. It's irresponsible to not stay informed, and it's not the most responsible thing that you can do is take care of yourself so that down the road you can be whole going into those situations if you choose to put yourself in those situations, so that you can be whole and you can be an activist. You can be whole and you can have your voice be heard. And guess what? When you're whole. You are thinking logically. Now you still have passion, right? Certain issues, topics, but you're thinking logically. And when you are thinking logically, that's how you can start to change minds. That's how you can start to change hearts. That's how you can really start to change the people around you by leading by example, by being whole first. Okay, you see from a totally different perspective. So if you have any questions, feel free to get them in. So today we talked about living with PTSD in a negative world. So routines is so important. Now that we have just come off our bootcamp processing week, I want to talk about how to integrate that into your healing routine and what that should be looking like on a more daily basis. Boundaries. Self-boundaries. Now, this is what most people miss about boundaries. Boundaries start here. If you're trying to set boundaries with other people and you don't have self-boundaries, and we'll talk about what all that is on Thursday, it's going to be very difficult. Now, it's not going to be impossible. I'm not saying that. But if you're finding that your boundaries slide a lot, Or break a lot or are very murky when it comes to others. Where we wanna first set ourselves up for success is with those self-boundaries. And then we're gonna talk about how to make the recovery journey fun. It was really hard at first, but important thing to do, and we thought it would be a good thing to do. What I also wanna point out is a lot of times you have the answers. You have the answers, and I'm asking you, what do you think are the biggest streams of negativity? News and media, internal thoughts. You had those answers. What do we think we can do about it? Eliminate some of these things, add some of these things. You have these answers inside of you. Sometimes it's just about asking the right questions. Carol's sharing Ontario, Canada. So other side of the world. It's cool that we can have this conversation from areas that are so far apart. I know we have some people in Australia, some people in New Zealand. There are people all over the country, all over the world that are able to join us for these calls. We're here, we're with each other. That's how I see it. I think about these calls like we're all kind of in the same room having this conversation. That's how I see it. So amazing. Lisa's sharing attitude of gratitude and lean into extreme gratitude. Get radical with your gratitude. For those of you who are master ruminators, who are worst-case scenario thinkers, and you hear me say get radical with your gratitude and you think, well, that's ridiculous. I want you to think about we are already masters of being radical, just radical with negativity. Worst-case scenario, only looking at the negative, only looking at the things that have gone wrong. We're radical that way. Let's be radical the other way. And at the very least, it's gonna balance you out a little bit. But at the very most, you're gonna do a lot of good by being radical that way. And just understand that being radical in your gratitude, in your positivity, is not denying other things that are going on. An important part of the processing process is to acknowledge those feelings, acknowledge those negative feelings, those negative thoughts, and work with them and work to change them. Right. And work to heal them. Carol's sharing, I'm grateful that the leaves are opening up on the trees. The outdoors is beautiful. It's outdoors no matter where you are, even no matter what time of year. For those of you who have been with us a while, I loathe the cold, but even in the winter when I'm in it, I'm constantly expressing gratitude. When you see me hammer on the gratitude, it's a great place to start expressing gratitude around your home, the technology that we use, all of those things. Family, yourself, express gratitude for yourself. Great places to start to express gratitude. So Isabella's sharing, I'm so grateful to my mother who passed. Her birthday was yesterday. She left me so many beautiful lessons and wanted me in this class very badly. That's a beautiful thing, Isabella. And when we talked about grief, that's one of the things we talked about was gratitude, expressing I'm so grateful to have had this person, to have spent time with this person, or, you know, if this person isn't gone yet, to have this person right now. I think about that. There's little moments in life that you can be grateful for and you can be in and you could sit there and, and you can look back and be grateful. And that gratitude is an unbelievably powerful thing. And I know we've already done a session on it, but it's gonna come up again and again. So I appreciate you sharing that, Isabel, and that's a beautiful way to have that perspective on it. Larry's sharing, I like when people talk about what they love in this life. Me too, Larry. I like to ask people, what are you interested in? Or even I'll ask leading questions. I'll say, how much did you love that concert you went to last night? Okay. You know, you heard about leading questions maybe when you were in school studying how they do law, how they do things in, in court and stuff. And so you use that to your advantage. How much do you love what's going on right now? I had a friend that used to do that. She didn't even realize she was doing that. And we used to teach sailing together and she used to be like, don't you just love it? Isn't it just unbelievably amazing? She was like that high energy type of passionate person. She just loved what we did. She loved sailing. And so she would kind of, without realizing it, make this assumption. That people love it. It's just about how much, how much do you love this? How much fun are you having right now? Sorts of stuff like that. And you can lead people into that. You know, how much did you enjoy your week this week? Instead of saying, how was your week? Right now, most people typically you're gonna go a little bit negative there cuz that's how we're wired. That's how most people are living their life. But you say, how great was your week this week? So my big question for you, Lena, is why can't you leave? That would be my big question there. So Lena asking, what can I do when I'm in a situation I can't leave the conversation? So it triggers me and I numb myself. I walk away, but the conversation is long and I had to get back. What can I do? All I do is shutting down and that creates, that creates kind of some negativity. So that's my question is why can't we get out of that situation? Why can't we leave that situation? Now, if we're in a situation that we can't leave, there are still things that we can do. And there, what you're gonna wanna do is probably have a conversation. 'Cause it sounds like somebody else is part of this conversation. What I mean by a conversation is you're going to want to ask. For something or start to set some sort of boundary. Like, hey, you know, is it possible that we could focus on a little something else? Like, I like to try to focus on the positive. I'm always working to make my life better. It makes me feel so good to focus on the positive. You know, what's something great that you did this weekend? So you can lead the conversation. You can ask people, depending on your relationship, hey, this is something that I'm working on. I would really appreciate your help with this. And just by not talking about these certain topics or making sure we focus on more positive topics so that I, I can Be my best self and I can bring my best self forward. Isabella sharing, you are so right. We have the answers. Speaking to my protectors is showing me that's what you're going to find with the protectors. You have these answers. It's just about accessing them typically. And then once we have the answer, once we answer it, it's about following our advice. That's a whole nother ballgame. Do you have an opinion on how to separate, quote, judging people as a protector from the part of you that needs to protect yourself and others? I think I have a protector that judges people and myself even, but it also feels like I need this to a degree. So Judy, what I'd recommend is going in and exploring that. A lot of this is gonna depend on like how you define judgment, like reading a situation. In my mind, reading a situation is different than judging someone or something. And so I see, I think I see what you're saying here, right? And so kind of getting a read on, on a certain person or situation. So let's say, you know, we're walking on the street and I see someone and maybe they're dressed a certain way.

Mm-hmm.

And based on that information, or maybe they're saying certain things and I'm reading that situation to decide what I'm gonna do, if I'm gonna go in that direction or across the street earlier, you know, whatever it is, something like that. To me is, so the way that I think about that, the way that I conceptualize that is I'm reading a situation, understanding that I could be right or wrong and it has nothing to do with me or the other person. Again, here's where we're getting a little tricky here and we're kind of going like, there's a finesse to this. I'm not judging that person. I'm not making an assumption. I am playing out, there are a handful of possibilities, and I'm choosing my next move, my next route based on keeping myself in the best position. So I know that can be a little bit tricky, but what I would do is I would go in and I would explore that protector, especially if you feel like that protector is judging you as well. And so if it's having a negative impact where you're finding you're judging yourself and you're judging others. And it's having a negative impact on you and/or others, go in, have the conversation, explore. And what you might find is that as you explore, as you have that conversation, you're gonna learn more about why that judgment is there. And you're gonna— this might be a situation with this protector where you work on it taking a different role. So you see the role that it takes and it taking a different role. Okay. And so calling it something different. So you might have a judgment protector that, you know, you have this conversation, you learn a lot about it, why it's there, what it's, what it wants to make sure that it does for you. And then you work together and assign it a different role, which is we're reading possibilities for the situation. So we're, we're seeing the possibilities now without making a judgment about someone. We're reading possibilities. Here are 10 things that could happen in this situation based on these possibilities. I'm gonna make A decision for myself. Judy, let me know if that's making sense. I know that's a lot because what we're dealing with here typically are concepts and words, right? So the way that— and this is the most challenging part of just mental health in general— the concept that you have for judgment might look very different from the concept that I have for judgment, but we use the same word to express them. So at work, Lena's sharing this at work. So a couple things that you can do here. You can have the conversation, meaning like you can ask, like, or you can direct the conversation in a different way. Mm-hmm. If you know, if you can't leave the conversation, you can try to get involved in the conversation and direct it in a different way. You can try to talk to certain people about kind of setting those boundaries. Just you know, hey, I'm working on being more positive, and you can be honest. You can share certain things like that if you so choose to kind of have that conversation and set those boundaries. You can, and this is what I've done this before too. You can choose to basically not do anything in the situation and do it all mentally. Okay, do it all mentally, meaning. Each kind of negative thing that comes up in the conversation, combat it in your mind. So switch it in your mind and show yourself in your mind why that might not be true or why that's wrong or why there's a more positive angle to this. And so what you're doing there is you're kind of, I think about this like almost playing tennis, but you're playing by yourself in your mind. Each time something comes at you, you're returning it. You're just returning the serve, returning the serve. We play pickleball now all the time over here, right? You're returning it, returning it, returning it, returning it, returning it. But you're doing that all mentally instead of doing it out loud. Now, you're welcome to do it out loud as well. Again, it's going to depend on your relationships and what your goals are with these certain relationships and in this certain situation. But there's another thing that you can do if you choose to not actually say something. If you choose to not either set the boundaries or ask to not talk about certain subjects, you can do that kind of— that mental return is another option there for that. If you've ever struggled to set boundaries, Absolutely make sure that you get the chance to do the replay for that lesson because it is a crucial part to setting boundaries with others is having those self-boundaries. I feel like it's something a lot of people miss when they bring boundaries into the conversation. Yeah. Okay. So Judy, yeah, definitely start to, yeah, I would definitely talk with that protector because anytime you're like, okay, so like this is coming up. So let me just share what she's saying. So I'm having trouble defining judgment. Sometimes it comes up in times that mentally makes no sense. So then since it makes no sense, I feel immediately guilty. So if you're ever finding yourself where you're like, this doesn't make sense, this thing doesn't make sense, having that conversation with that protector can help you tremendously to make sense of that. Because we talked about, when we talked about protectors, we talked about there's going to be an emotional and a logical piece that don't align. And so right now you're like, well, I'm feeling this way, but like logically, I know this doesn't make any sense. Once you have that conversation with the protector, once you do that healing of the protector, that emotion and logic will align. And you'll be able to either not have those things come up or be able to kind of frame it. Awesome. Looking forward to self-boundaries. Me too, Jeanette. Huge, huge topic when it comes to addiction. So for those of you also working on addictions, compulsions, just behaviors, huge, huge thing that's going to happen here. And huge thing when it comes to relationships. Honestly, all boundary setting is going to start with self. So your success in your addiction work, your success with your relationships, your success on this journey, Your success in setting boundaries with others, this is going to be the foundational piece. All right, so everyone, amazing job today. I love you. I believe in you at the highest level. I don't see any more questions, so y'all keep rocking and rolling. Keep working on those protectors. We're talking about those self-boundaries. That's gonna help with addictions. That's gonna help with your relationships. It's gonna help with a lot of different things. And then Friday we're talking about how to make your recovery journey fun. So a lot to look forward to this week. I love you. I believe in you. Keep rocking and rolling, and I will see you bright and early tomorrow. Bye.

Hey everybody, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you want to learn more about how you can coach with me directly, there's a link in the description you can check out. There's absolutely no pressure. The main thing is I wanted you to get value from this episode here, but I hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you in the next one.