Creating Secure Attachment Part 5 Encouragement and Support

Pacers. Integrative behavioral health. We are finishing our series on attachment and mental health, talking about encouragement and support. I AM your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. So what's the difference between encouragement and support? Well, it's a fine line, and just like everything else in attachment, it overlaps a fair amount. But encouragement is essentially cheerleading. Think about when you were younger, or maybe not, maybe right now, when you are getting ready to do something and somebody encourages you. Encouragement is essentially cheerleading. It's saying, I believe in you. I know you can do this. So encouragement is an attitude more than something tangible. Support, on the other hand, is providing resources necessary to accomplish a goal or live a rich and meaningful life. And those resources can include knowledge, advice, time, and, of course, money. Thinking about my children, both of my children are in college now, and I encourage them to do as much as they can, be the best that they can be, so to speak. And I encourage them to pursue goals in life that make them happy. Now, I support them by providing the resources necessary, obviously helping them with tuition. You know, right now they still live at home, so providing a roof over their head so they don't have to work in addition to going to school full time. So support can include resources. Encouragement, again, is more of a cheerleading aspect. Encouragement and support communicates to a person that, you know what? I believe you can do this. I believe in you. I believe that you are strong enough. And it encourages people's sense of self efficacy or self empowerment. It also helps people feel safe. When someone is encouraging you, it feels like they're the wind at your back. They've got you in case you start to fall. They're there to help you, to catch you, to comfort you, to nurture you, whatever words that you like. It's important to think about. As we've talked about in all of the other instances, how can you encourage and support yourself? You know, let's think about what you want people to do for you. When you are having a bad day, when you are getting ready to do something that you're a little stressed about, you know, how can people encourage you? Well, whatever you want them to do for you, do for yourself. If you want them to say, I know you've got this, then look in the mirror or not and tell yourself, you know what? I know you've got this. It's important to be able to encourage yourself and not rely exclusively on others to do it. Not because others are going to fail you necessarily, but other people get caught up in their life and life happens. So they may not be paying attention to you all of the time. And as we get older, it's even more important for us to be able to provide our own encouragement and motivation to remind ourselves that we are extremely able to accomplish our goals. We can also provide support for ourself. So when you think about a goal that you want to accomplish, what is it that you need to accomplish that? And how can you make sure that you have the resources necessary to achieve that goal? For example, if you want to go back to college, you know, that takes a lot of time and it is expensive. Even if you've got scholarships or whatever, it's expensive. So what kinds of support do you need from your family? What kinds of support do you need from yourself in order to be able to accomplish that goal? For example, you know, maybe even if, let's just say you live alone by yourself, you work full time. Okay, well, that takes a lot of time already. So what do you need to do in order to help free up some time for yourself so you can go to class and you can have time to study. What types of things do you need to do to support yourself in achieving that goal? And then thinking about, how can you encourage others? You know, those people in your life that are important in. Important to you, what can you do to encourage them? And part of that comes back to some of those things we've already talked about. Being consistent, you know, showing up, being responsive, listening to what they want, what they need, what they're feeling. Fears are giving attention to that relationship and validating how they feel. You can validate somebody's anxiety about something and encourage them at the same time. I hear that this is really stressful for you, and I know you can get through this, and I'm here to, you know, support you in any way I can, you know, so that provides encouragement, support and validation. Recognizing, you know, there are a lot of things we go through and, and Hayes, in acceptance and commitment therapy, refers to this as living in the end. There are a lot of things we go through that cause anxiety and, and we do them anyway. So by providing that support and encouragement, we're not taking away that person's anxiety. We're not saying you shouldn't feel anxious about this. You know, it's perfectly natural to feel anxious about this. However, I have faith that even though you feel anxious, you can do this, and I'm here to support you in any way possible. So those are things that we really want to examine with encouragement and support. And a lot of times, unfortunately, and, and I know I'm guilty of this. And I've worked really hard over the years with my staff as well as my family, my children, my friends, to be more encouraging and more supportive, actually proactively going out and noticing positive steps. A lot of times when we do things, we minimize our accomplishments. We don't notice the little baby steps forward that we take. And when somebody else comes in and says, wow, look how far you've come, then it kind of puts everything into perspective and you step back and you go, well, yeah, you're right. I actually have made a lot of progress. So being encouraging and supportive isn't necessarily just reactive. It can be proactive, recognizing the things that people in your life want to do. You know, going back to my kids, acknowledging how well they're doing in their classes, acknowledging that some classes are harder than others and some professors are better than others. You know, acknowledging that and encouraging them to figure out how to make that situation work as well as they can for themselves. My daughter really hates E learning and a lot of her professors are teaching in a way that they would teach in the classroom, but just online. And it's a little bit different, you know, when you're trying to or when you're trying to teach somebody through an online platform. So she, she gets frustrated and she has dyslexia, so it makes it even more difficult for her. So encourag her to figure out to problem solve for herself because I believe she knows the answer. She just needs to be nudged in the right direction. And we talked about scaffolding in in another video earlier this week, but encouraging her to figure out what can I do to make this as comfortable as possible for, for me in this situation? I'm not going to love it. You know, I know she's not going to love it, but how can she sort of make the best out of a bad situation? And I'm there to encourage her. I'm there to validate how it sucks sometimes and, you know, help her recognize that, okay, this semester is going to end. So all of those things can go along with encouragement and support. So just to kind of tie it all up in a big bow. Con attachment. The characteristics of healthy attachment relationships are having people in your life who are consistent, you know what to expect. If you call them and you've got a problem, they're going to listen. If you call them and you're having a happy day, they are going to celebrate with you, you know what to expect from them. Consistency is really important because it is frustrating. If you call Somebody up and you're expecting a supportive reaction and you get blown off. It's like, well, where'd that come from? So consistency is important. Responsiveness goes along with consistency. You've got to show up and pay attention and react appropriately. Again, you know, being responsive to that person or to yourself, if you're doing it for yourself, being responsive to their thoughts, wants and needs in the moment. Attention is being proactive. You know, responsiveness is often reactive. Responding to what the person's thoughts, wants and needs are. Attention is proactive. Telling the person through your actions, through your words. Telling yourself through your actions, through your words, hey, you deserve love, you deserve attention, you deserve my time. So being proactive. Validation is really important to acknowledge how somebody feels, even if you disagree. Acknowledging how they feel and acknowledging that that is their reality in the moment and then giving them time to figure out, you know, how they want to process it and then moving on to encouragement and support and, and being there to try to be as helpful, encouraging and supportive as possible. So I know I broke all of these down. You know, they're kind of little nuggets this week. But thinking about, and I know I've said it like a bazillion times thinking about how can you enhance your attachment relationships first with yourself and then with other people. And I would suggest starting out with, you know, one or two other people in your life, just trying to figure out, you know, am I being as consistent, responsive, you know, all those things as possible in this relationship. And I am glad that to see Morgan that you have emailed me some questions for Monday. Remember, Monday is when I do my question and answer session and you can email those questions so I can look at them ahead of time and, you know, kind of prepare a more in depth response instead of spitballing it. You can email those questions to wellness or underscore1@yahoo.com that's wellness. Underscore1@yahoo.com Are there any remaining questions about attachment? We've been talking about that a lot this week. Remember to next week we'll be doing or I'll be doing a series on living with borderline personality disorder, whether it is in yourself or in a significant other, or if you grew up in a household where someone had bpd. We will be looking at the characteristics, how it influences you and things that you might be able to do to create safety and empowerment in that sort of situation. Morgan asks, can these tips work for a loved one with depression? You know, if that loved one is wanting to address that depression Remember, we want to validate how they're feeling. If they are ready to start taking steps forward to identify what's going on, then some of these tips may work. But part of that is also incumbent on understanding what is causing that person's depressive symptoms. Everybody's depression presents a little bit differently. Not everybody has the same symptoms. And we have to remember that each one of those symptoms, like fatigue or apathy, can be caused by a whole host of things. Can be caused by thinking patterns, it can be caused by a history of unresolved trauma. It can be caused by biochemical imbalances, hormone imbalances, it can be caused by poor nutrition, it can be even be caused by sleep apnea and poor sleep quality. So it's really important for people, if they are experiencing mental health symptoms, to start exploring some of the things that may be causing it. And of course, my first recommendation for everybody is to go to their primary care, get some blood work done, and make sure that there isn't an underlying, you know, hormone or biochemical imbalance that needs to be addressed. Because no amount of talk therapy is going to increase your level of vitamin D, if you're vitamin D deficient, for example. So in order to have the best possible outcomes, it is important to address the physical as well as the cognitive. The way your thoughts are impacting you, your environment, and the triggers for the things that are triggering your depression, as well as things that could trigger your happiness and your relationships. So there are a lot of things that go into addressing depression. You can look on the YouTube channel. There is a playlist that's based on the book that I wrote, 100 plus practical tools to defeat your depression. And, and those are longer videos, but they do break it down into each one of those areas. So if the person is interested in learning about potential things that might help them start feeling a little bit better, they can look there. But if they are clinically depressed, it is certainly important for them to reach out to a professional and get an evaluation. I can add to the video series list exploring different attachment styles. That'll probably be. I think I'm out about seven weeks right now. But remember, next week we're going to look at borderline personality disorder. That's not an attachment style.