10 Weeks to Love and Abundance | Book by Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes

Foreign. Everybody, and welcome to this presentation. Today we're talking about my new book, 10 Weeks of Love and Abundance. Available on Amazon, Kindle now, but you can also save 30% and buy the PDF for $1.99 at docsnipes.com books. You may be thinking, well, what's in the book? In 10 weeks to love and Abundance, I help you recognize that anger, anxiety and stress keep you from being abundant in all areas of your life. Physically. When you are angry, anxious, stressed, it's exhausting. It contributes to inflammation, it reduces your immune system, it keeps you from getting good quality sleep, you know. So all of those things add up and can make you feel unhappy affectively, which is our emotions. When you are angry, anxious, stressed out, it's hard to also be happy. It's hard to celebrate the good things that are going on, even when bad things are going on. So when you start changing your perspective and working towards an attitude of love and abundance, it's easier to do what I've talked about before called living in the and that means recognizing the good that's going on and feeling happy about that, even if you're upset about other areas of your life. So sort of compartmentalizing things. But when you are anxious or or angry, that is your body's fight orf flight reaction. And when you are in that fight, fight or flight mode, your body is much more likely to pay attention to negative things in the environment and much less likely to pay attention to good things in the environment. So part of the affective steps for improving love and abundance include doing things to notice the good, actually turning your attention, and forcing yourself for a brief period of time to notice the good in things that are going on. It doesn't mean toxic positivity, it doesn't mean being happy all the time about everything. It means recognizing that, yeah, some things can suck, but I have a lot of other things in my life that I am really grateful for. Cognitively, when you are angry, anxious, stressed, it's harder to think clearly. When you're in that fight or flight mode, your brain is trying to figure out how to protect you. So it's harder to remember things, it's harder to learn, it's harder to focus during that period of time. And that's just kind of your brain's way of saying you need to be acting, not thinking. So as you start addressing some of these issues that are preventing you from experiencing love and abundance, that are preventing you from feeling happy and relaxed, you're going to have improved health. You're going to experience hopefully reductions in inflammation, improved sleep, improved mood. Not all the time. I mean, like I said, some days are going to suck, but hopefully it'll help. You have an attitude that this too shall pass. This is a temporary thing. Environmentally, when you are angry, anxious and stressed, you know, it tends to be contagious. Negative energy tends to permeate other people around you, even if it doesn't attract negativity, which it actually kind of does. When you are in one of those states, it can be draining and exhausting on those around you. It can be evidenced in your environment because you're not cleaning as much. You're just too stressed and preoccupied with other things to worry about keeping your environment clean. And we know that, you know that they've done studies and they've shown that clutter and disarray and filth can contribute to feelings of depression and anxiety and all of those things. And finally relationally, you know, I talked about in environmentally the energy that we're putting out and we can have a negative energy environment or a positive energy environment. But relationally, when you are in a bad mood, a lot of the time, when you are stressed, a lot of the time, people may not want to spend as much time around you because you're a downer. Let's just be frank. Relationally, when you build up your relationships, when you strengthen your relationships, when you have the energy and desire and focus to enhance those relationships, they become a source of support for you. They become a resource for, for you to draw on. They can help you out when, when you need help with time, with feedback, with, you know, anything. So as you build up your support system, and this is where abundance comes in, as you build up your energy, you have, it's easier to get things done so you can be more effective, you can be more efficient. As you build up your relationships and your support system system, you also have other people in there who can make life easier for you, who can help you more efficiently, effectively accomplish your goals. You know, I know, for example, when I write Grants that I am a big picture person. I am not a detail oriented person, but I have colleagues that are detail oriented who do better with reviewing and going point by point to make sure that everything is covered. And literally editing would take me three times as long to do what they do as it takes them. So when we work together, we achieve this goal a whole lot more effectively. So instead of one plus one equals two, it's like one plus one equals six. Remember that emotions are designed to give you energy and unpleasant emotions. Anger, anxiety, stress, and all of their permutations are designed to give you energy to assess if there's a threat. It's based on the way your brain interprets a situation. Doesn't mean your brain's always right. So it's like a smoke alarm. It's designed to give you energy to determine if there's a threat and then if there is, to take steps to eliminate it. Other emotions like happiness are designed to give you energy to do something again that hopefully was healthy and helpful. And in the book, I talk about a lot of different steps that you can take in order to start working towards this lifestyle of love and abundance. And I break it down into a framework that I call perfects me. And these activities can be used for self help by individuals. You can use it with your family. Most of the activities are very straightforward. So there are things that you can talk about at the dinner table or during family time or whatever you want to do. And they can be relatively easily modified, a lot of them even to use with younger children. The activities can also form the foundation for group counseling. So if you're working with groups in residential treatment or outpatient treatment and you need some discussion prompts, this book has a lot of them. I've broken it down into 10 sections, hence 10 weeks to love and abundance. And each section has five activities. Now, I could have put tons of more activities, but you know, let's be realistic. So each week is composed of five week days, just in case you want to use it in group therapy. And the first one, for example, starts out with patience, thinking about what we, what I just talked about, about the different aspects of your health and wellness. How can patience improve your physical health, your ability to sleep, your energy levels? You know, how can it keep you from wasting a bunch of energy stewing on anger and anxiety, for example? Enjoying the moment is another aspect, and I mentioned that, that we need to focus on force our brain when we're in a period of distress for some reason, sometimes we have to force our brain to recognize that, hey, you know, yeah, today was not the best day, but there are things that I am grateful for. Instead of waiting until I get that promotion, until I make so much money, until I do whatever to be happy. Enjoying the moment right now, what recognizing and sort of reveling in those blessings that you have respect of self and others and I have self and others a lot. Because if you pay attention to your own thoughts, you'll recognize that a lot of times you are probably disrespectful or inauthentic. When you are dealing with yourself, you know, you say things to yourself you wouldn't ever say to anybody else. You ignore your own feelings, wants and needs, whereas you would probably pay attention to others. So respect of self and others is another aspect that we talk about in order to increase love and abundance. When you start loving yourself, when you start respecting yourself, you show others how you want to be treated. When you respect others, you're strengthening those relationships, you're strengthening those resources. Who can. Or that, who that. I'm not sure which word to use can make life easier for you. Forgiveness is another aspect, and I've done a lot of other videos on forgiveness. Remembering that forgiveness is a power play. Forgiveness is saying, you know what? I choose to use my energy because I'm angry about something. I choose to use that energy to learn from that experience so it doesn't happen again, so I can keep myself safer. And then I choose to stop giving that person or that experience my energy. I choose to keep my energy and use it to move forward. So forgiveness is really a power play. It doesn't mean it's okay. It means it happened and I'm going to learn from it. And forgiving ourselves is just as important as forgiving others. Earnestness or dedication in things Think about the message that you send to others. Whether it's earnestness in your work, you know, if you go and you give 110%, or earnestness and dedication in your relationships, earnestness in whatever you do, people tend to start recognizing that you say what you mean, you mean what you say. And when you make a promise, when you say you're going to do something, you don't halfway do it. You really give it a hundred percent, whatever it is you commit to. And part of earnestness is also time management because you can commit to too many things and then start feeling overwhelmed. But people recognize that you have integrity and they want, they're attracted to that and they tend to want to support you, you when they know that what you say is what you are going to do. Compassion goes along with forgiveness, but compassion is more proactive. Forgiveness talks about something that happened already. Compassion is acknowledging what's going on in the moment and trying to improve the future. But being compassionate with yourself and others, recognizing that nobody has an A day, every day, cutting yourself some slack, having compassion when you make mistakes. And, and we talk about really nurturing compassion for yourself and others and how that impacts the way you view everything, the way you view people's behaviors, the way you view the world, when you have more compassion and maybe sometimes pity instead of anger, it puts a different spin on it, it puts it in a different light. Truthfulness is obviously important, but I talk about truthfulness not only in terms of honesty with other people, but in terms of mindfulness and honesty and authenticity with yourself. Being true to yourself in what you say and do. First you have to be mindful. You have to be aware of what your thoughts, wants and needs are. And then you have to be assertive to be able to state your thought, thoughts, wants and needs because others can't read your mind. Part of one of the activities in truthfulness is encouraging you to stop expecting other people to read your mind. Know what your needs are, be able to assertively communicate those needs in order to give people an opportunity to even meet those needs for you. Selflessness is a characteristic. And you know, being selfless doesn't mean being a doormat. Being selfless means sometimes being willing to step back and go, okay, you know what? Today I am choosing to put my preferences aside and put you first. You know, selflessness, if you do it all the time to everybody, under every circumstance, yes, it can be pathological. But there's also a time where, you know, you want to celebrate others victories and you know, let them have the limelight or the spotlight for, for the moment, and that's being selfless. Meekness and, or humility is another characteristic. And what that means is not being a dormouse or house mouse, whatever they're called, but it means recognizing your strengths and your limitations. You know, being willing to say, you know what? I don't know. That was one thing. When I was being coached for my dissertation defense. You know, many, many ago, my best friend told me one of the things that they're going to do is make sure that you're willing to identify the things that you don't know. They don't expect you to know everything, but they want you to know that you don't know everything. And you know, that lesson stuck with me. You know, just because I was defending my dissertation didn't mean that I had to know absolutely everything that they asked me. But meekness is true or an important quality in life because if you recognize others for their strengths and how they complement you, then it's easier to synergize. If you are willing to acknowledge that you don't know something, if you are willing to not try to be the one that's always perfect, always in control, then it gives other people an opportunity to be helpful and People love being helpful. That strengthens relationships, believe it or not, it strengthens relationships when you give people an opportunity to help you out. And finally, exuberance, just really, whatever you do, do it 100% and try to be as excited about it as you can. You know, people, a lot of people love being around people that are energetic and enthusiastic. And if you've watched some of my other videos, you've heard me talk about my best friend from college who, I don't think she ever used the word good or fine. Whenever she talked, she used these very colorful, powerful words like amazing and awesome and wonderful and, and she was fabulous. That was, that was her key phrase, fabulous. But when you were around her, her enthusiasm for life was just palpable. Even when things, I mean, she didn't have a perfect life. She, you know, she was a single mother. She, you know, worked really hard, but her enthusiasm for life and what she was doing really showed through. And it's important to reflect sometimes. Just stop back and ask yourself, you know, remind me again why I'm doing this? Why is this important to me? And when you increase that motivation again, you start to increase your enthusiasm and go, oh yeah, that's exactly why I started doing this. In the book, each section explains the benefits of the strategy. Kind of like we just talked about, encourages you to do a self assessment to see where you are, you know, roughly in terms of things like, you know, patience, enjoyment of the moment, respect of others and yourself, etc. Provides five activities to enhance that strategy in your life, and then contains links to YouTube videos that can provide additional information and activities. So if you want to learn more about forgiveness, for example, or mindfulness, I've linked to videos that I've done that are longer form videos. So if you want more activities, if you want more knowledge, you can get it there. And you're also going to learn some new techniques. I've talked in other videos about thinking and I've talked about distress tolerance strategies, as you abbreviated in the mnemonic tag. But you're also going to learn about things like beta testing. So, you know, I like to use mnemonic devices to help you remember strategies and steps. So in this book I introduced the new one, beta testing to help you become more mindful in your daily life. Again, this book is available now on Amazon.com in the Kindle version or you can get the PDF@doc snipes.com books.