Increasing Positivity in Relationships | 6 Weeks to a Happier Healthier You Quick Start Guide

Good morning everybody and I hope you are having a fabulous start to your day. Welcome to this episode of Integrative Behavioral Healthcare. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. And today we are talking about positive relationship influences, specifically people and pets. Positive influences help you be more optimistic, recognize that unfortunately pain is a part of a rich and meaningful life and help you live in the end. So what does that mean? Well, we know what optimism means. That's self explanatory. But recognizing that pain is part of a rich and meaningful life when we have things that are important to us, if we lose them, that hurts. However, if we didn't experience that pain, we that also means we wouldn't experience something that was important to us. So love and having things that are important to us can mean that, you know, we may experience some transient pain, but that is part of a rich life. And positive influences help us recognize that and help us deal with that. Positive influences also help us live in the and recognizing that we can experience pain and still have a rich and meaningful life, we can experience change, changes or distress in certain areas and still be able to embrace and appreciate the other things that are going well in our life. Positive influences are great buffers for us against stress. They can help us see the bigger picture because they're not immersed in that fight, orf flight neurocognitive soup that you're that you are in when you are stressed out, when you are feeling distress. Positive influence can be there to help us. It doesn't mean that they are toxically positive, doesn't mean that they're going to tell us to get over it or tell us to always look at the bright side. Positive influences are there to be empathetic. Go back to our mnemonic device for attachment. Positive influences are consistent. They are there when we need them to be. Positive influences are responsive when we are upset, when we're experiencing distress. They are there for us. They are there to, you know, be empathetic and to help us cope with the situation. Positive influences are attentive. They don't just live often, never never land and never interact with us. Positive influences touch our life on a regular basis and we'll talk about different types of positive influences. But it is important to recognize that V positive influences validate our feelings and tell us that or help us recognize that our feelings are our feelings and they are what they are. Accepting our feelings non judgmentally is really important and positive influences often help us do that. It doesn't mean they are encouraging us to hold on to those feelings and nurture them and stew in them. It means they're validating our feelings as, you know, as ours and helping us to cope with them. E stands for encouragement and S stands for support. So craves consistency, responsiveness, attentiveness, validation, encouragement and support are all things that you're looking for in positive influences in your life. So, you know, really consider that. But how can you get these positive influences in your life to help you deal with stress, deal with distress, so you can have a healthier body, downregulate that HPA axis, have more energy, you know, be able to think more clearly. All that stuff that happens when we address our, our, our stress and our distress, well, try to be positive most of the time to attract positive people. Again, this does not mean ignoring your distress. It means using the energy created by the emotion. When something triggers that fight or flight response. When something triggers your HPA axis, your body dumps blood sugar, your body dumps glutamate, your body dumps cortisol and norepinephrine. All of these things are designed to help you get up and go to fight or flee from the threat. And, you know, and I take, tell people to take a step back before that. All of these chemicals that your body is secreting is giving you energy to first take note and evaluate whether there is actually a threat in this context at this point in time. Instead of being reactive and assuming that, oh, I feel scared, therefore there must be a threat, say, I feel scared, let me see if there's a threat. So when we feel distress, positive people will help us acknowledge, they'll validate our emotions and they will help us figure out how to use that energy to help us survive and figure out how to improve the next moment. And that is really the difference between being stuck in the quicksand of misery and as, as Hayes calls it, dirty discomfort, and using that energy, using that, you know, rush of adrenaline to take positive steps so you don't get caught being positive most of the time. To attract positive people requires mindfulness. It requires us to think before we speak. If you remember the other mnemonic device that we have for remembering what to say or, you know, whether it's necessary to say things is think, is it truthful? And, and obviously we want to be truthful in things we say. Is it helpful? Well, when we're saying something, if we think it's necessary to say it, then we want to make sure that it is truthful and helpful. Is it inspirational? Try to say things even if it's constructive feedback in a way that inspires people to grow and to be better instead of making them feel, you know, pushed down. So truthful, helpful, inspirational. The next one is N is necessary. Sometimes there are things that are truthful. They might be helpful and, you know, you could probably couch them in a way to be inspirational, but are they necessary? And you know, sometimes people will give unsolicited advice to other people trying to be helpful, but in the big scheme of things that pro the information wasn't actually necessary. And, and people can feel very offended or criticized when somebody else is regularly giving them unsolicited advice. So truthful, helpful, inspirational, necessary, and K stands for kind words. When we say things, no matter what we're saying, trying to couch them or phrase them in in ways that are kind, inspirational, and helpful will help other people hear us and help other people be inspired by us and feel supported and encouraged by us instead of criticized. So the mnemonic device there is think so we've got two of those that we've talked about so far today. Attachment mnemonic, which is craves and language. I don't know what you want to couch that as, and that is think. When you are positive, most of the time when you think before you speak, you will find that you attract positive people. People want to be around you because you are helpful, inspirational, and kind. You're not always nitpicking. You are trying to see the positive. When something unpleasant happens, you know, again, you are acknowledging the distress that comes along with it. But you're. You are also acknowledging hope, courage, and strength. Seek out positive people. Positive people are attracted to other positive people, but you got to be around them. You can't just hold a magnet up in the middle of the room and expect other magnets to pop out of nowhere. You know, you've got to go find other positive people. So where do you find them? Pro social activities, whether that's volunteering or church or sports leagues, wherever it is that people gather, and not every volunteer organization, not every sports league, not every anything is going to be filled with pro social people. Generally, when you get a bunch of random people together, there are going to be some that can be a little bit challenging. Positive Social Group Social Media Groups I am a member of several positive social media groups and you know, I have my issues with social media, but I have also made some really good friends in some of my social media groups that are centered around positive topics and community education. A lot of times people who are out there taking community education classes want to Learn. And when they have that thirst to learn, it often means that they're positive. You know, if they're wanting to enhance or improve themselves, that is positive. So surrounding yourself with people who love to learn, who love to grow, who seem to love life and want to flourish in it can rub off on you or it can help you when you are starting to, you know, falter a little bit. They can pull you back up. My best friend from graduate school, I remember there were days where I wasn't sure I was going to get through my, my dissertation. And I remember her saying, you know, yeah, I know it sucks. Been there, done that. And, and she would give me tips that helped her. And some of those were also very useful for me. But it was helpful, helpful to have her around to help buffer against some of that. Block unnecessary negativity on social media and in the news. If you have a lot of connections on social media and some of your connections tend to be disgruntled, let's just use that. Or negative. You know, you can block them or you can take a break from them, or unfriend, unfollow, whatever platform you're on. They have different words for it. But I have started paring down my social media to restrict so I don't have to see people who are posting, that are calling other people names, that are being verbally aggressive and blocking people who just intentionally go around and troll other people's posts. You. That is my choice in my social media account. It may not work for you, but it's important. If you spend a lot of time in your social media account, think of it kind of like a virtual home away from home, if you will. And do you want to let those negative people, that negative energy into your space? Because social media does invade your space. You're sitting in the living room and reading posts, and if you start getting upset about what you're seeing, then all of a sudden it has invaded your sanctuary. So be willing to block unnecessary negativity in social media. The same thing in the news. If the news seems to be promoting a lot of what I call fear porn, then know, maybe you need to turn it off and find other types of news that you know, like printed print media or even online, you know, newspapers and things that aren't quite as extreme in their promotion of fear and anxiety. Remember, fear and anxiety keep people coming back to the news so they get better ratings if they make you hang on their every word. So unfortunately, we've set up a situation where that can be difficult, limit Your news time, what you see back in the day, you know, and I will date myself here. Back in the day when we only had three television, television channels and the Internet didn't exist, the news came on first thing in the morning and then again in the evening. And you could watch it in the morning or in the evening. And generally if you just watched it one of Those times for 30 minutes, you got everything you needed. This culture that we've devised where we need to saturate ourselves, hearing the same horrors over and over again just keeps us stressed out and feeling powerless. Turn other things on. Find positive mentors and consume their knowledge. Find, find authors that have positive things to say. You know, I love C's books, the Seven Seven Habits. Those are great. The Don't Sweat the Small Stuff series is really good. There is an author by the name of Sark, who I think her first name's Virginia, but she goes just by Sark, S A R K. And she has some really avant garde creative books in there that can be very inspirational and somewhat spiritual in nature. And I love reading those things. I love learning about myself, learning about other people. I love learning about how other people have found their happiness and success in life and how they define it because it may give me a different perspective on how to define it. There's a YouTube channel I follow, it's called Roots and Refuge. And she does a lot of organic home gardening. And she is positive. She is one of those inherently positive, optimistic kind of people. And you watch her channel and it's just like, okay, you know, not everything goes right. But you know, she has a way about her that helps you feel encouraged about life and about the world. You can find positive mentors. You know, back in the day, I know everybody, almost everybody, used to watch Oprah. And Oprah really did have a lot of good stuff on there, I will admit, but. And you know, some. I think there's a show now called the Doctors and occasionally it. I've caught that and it seems to have reasonably helpful positive things on there. So you can also find things on television to watch that are positive. Remember, if you are watching it in your house, basically you have invited that person into your sanctuary. So whatever you're inviting into your space, make sure it's positive. Whether it's print media, television media, audio, whatever, or actual human beings. Work on your self esteem and stop self deprecating. Stop beating yourself up or trying to. Well, self deprecating. I don't know of another way to say it. When you are, when you Have a good self esteem. When you feel positive about yourself, then it's you project that, you project courage, you project confidence and that is attractive to other positive people. When your self esteem is low, you fear abandonment, you fear rejection. It increases your stress, it increases your distress, it makes you more hyper vigilant to the negative. So working on your self esteem, you can be your own positive influence. You can be your best friend. And I know that sounds weird, but it is important to treat yourself the way you expect to be treated. Because people look at you and they see how you treat yourself and they often will mirror that. You find positive or inspirational documentaries or books. Enhance positivity in your relationships through compassion. Focus on your similarities instead of your differences. You know, there are a lot of things out there, a lot of people out there that are very different, but we all have certain similarities. When we focus on our differences, it can be divisive. Now if you identify somebody's difference and you want to learn about it, well that's cool. But if focusing on their differences seems to put a wedge between you or seems to create divisiveness, then try to focus on your similarities. For example, you know, your family members or your in laws, they are relatives and you may not love or well, hopefully you love them, you may not like all of them. Okay, you got to go to a family reunion and you got to deal with annoying Uncle Bob. All right, well to bring in positivity, let's focus on your similarities with Uncle Bob. What do you have in common? And it may just be that you're both human beings trying to do the best you can in this, this crazy situation we call life. Try to focus on whatever you can that is brings out the positive similarities. Replace frustration with compassion. Recognizing that we all make mistakes and we're not all each other's cup of tea. Not everybody is going to to gel with you and that's okay. You're not going to gel with everybody else. And instead of getting frustrated that you're not gelling, be compassionate and go, wow, you know, we are very different people and, and moving on. Or if somebody does something that irritates you or says something that irritates you, you know, that triggers that fight or flee, triggers that anger response for a minute. But then have compassion, you know, replace that anger with compassion and figure out what to do from there. Recognizing. Try as much as you can empathizing with where they're coming from to try to understand their point of view. Proactively nurture your relationships. If you don't want to be on social media, and I know a lot of people are getting off of it now. SMS group messages go old school, where you have group text messages that maybe, you know, you and your five best friends are all in a group text message and you send each other, you know, positive messages or you check in with each other with regularity. You can also just do individual messages, you know, so it can be more personal. But do what you can to proactively nurture your relationships. Use people's love languages to proactively nurture those relationships and elicit positivity instead of saying, you know, how was your day? You know, which is often going to get a fine response because that's just how we're conditioned in our culture. Ask more direct questions. A lot of times when I start these presentations, I will ask you something like, what? What is the best thing that happened to you this week? Or what are you looking forward to today? That in encourages people to look back, to reflect on something good that happened or something they're looking forward to. It doesn't mean that you don't want to also hear about the other stuff, but that al encourages a positive tone because you know what, in life, a lot of times we all have stuff that's going on, but it's not necessarily something that we want to talk about. You know, sometimes it can be refreshing to have somebody encourage us to turn our attention to the positive things for a few minutes. And pets. We've talked a lot about people, we've talked about media, but we also need to talk about pet pets. Pets promote the release of oxytocin. When you pet your pet, it can. And whether it is a sugar glider or a Great Dane or a horse, when you pet your pet, it can promote the release of oxytocin, your bonding hormone, which also can help you feel more relaxed. Pets help reduce blood pressure when you're petting them, not when they're pooping on the floor, that increases blood pressure, but when you are petting them, when they're sitting in your lap, when your cat is making biscuits on you, that actually has been shown to reduce blood pressure and cortisol levels. Dogs often are great emotional support animals because they help people feel safer. Dogs are really sensitive. People who have seizure disorders, for example, may have service animals that are trained to identify the early warning signs of a seizure. So that helps people feel safer. People who have panic disorder often benefit greatly from having dogs because the dogs help them feel safer. Often, again, notice the early warning signs of a panic attack. And will sit with the person if they do have the panic attack until they are feeling better. Horses, donkeys, and some cows and some dogs can be great sources of grounding. Now, why do I say some? Because animals that are beneficial for helping you get grounded when you're feeling distressed, when you're feeling out of control, are the ones that stay calm. I remember my neighbor used to have this mule, 18 and a half hand mule. And if, you know equines, you know, that is really freaking big. And in order to brush Sally's back, I would actually have to stand up on a little step ladder. But when I would be distressed, I. I could go over there and I would pet Sally and she would just stand there. You know, she wouldn't balk. She wouldn't try to run away or move. She would just kind of stand there as if she knew I needed her to absorb some of my energy. That felt sort of out of control. Remembering one particular incident when one of our dogs passed away, and it was a particularly bad situation because we had to wait for the vet to come take care of. Take care of it. But that was very distressing to me. And after everything was done, I remember going over and just crying and talking to Sally and petting her at the same time, and she didn't budge. She was. It was like she knew I needed her to stand there, which is really awesome. We have a donkey now, and she does the same thing now. There's a lot of times she wants to run, but she somehow intuitively seems to know when somebody's upset and will come and just rest her chin on your shoulder. Some cows are like that. Some cows are really skittish, and some dogs will do that. A lot of times dogs, when you get distressed, they start getting stressed out. But some dogs can be trained or inherently know when you're having a bad moment and they will come lay down next to you or lay down in your lap. And that grounding, that other being, that is not running away. That is not, you know, getting all upset and building on what you're feeling can help you de escalate because you can venture and they can almost absorb that energy some. And sometimes when we're upset, all we need to do, we just need to get it out. We need to have a good cry. We need to tell somebody about it. And I can't tell you how many things I've told my dog. Thank goodness, you know, he respects confidentiality. Attend to your pets. Notice their compassion even when you're not upset. Notice how awesome they are and how sensitive they are to you and what joy they bring to your lives. Even if they're just being goofy and, or trying to protect you or doing whatever they're doing. Our, one of our dogs this morning, neighbor was walking outside, down, down the street which totally allowed to do. But Lily was very upset about that because you know, somebody was coming near her property and she had all of her hackles up and was just, she was very concerned that this person was outside. And that's so sweet. I mean she's all of 35 pounds. I don't know that she could actually defend me against anything. But that is her way of protecting her, her family, if you will. And, and that in my mind is a positive thing. I mean she's, she just stood by, stood by the door and raised her hackles and barked. But the fact that she wanted to do made my heart happy. So with animals, not everybody has the time to have a full time animal. You may travel a lot for work, you may be in the military. You know, there are a lot of things that can happen where a full time 24 7, 365pet doesn't work for you. Okay, you can foster. Fostering pets is great. You can go on Pet finder and find a local pet rescue group in your area. You fill out an application to apply to foster. But I don't think, you know, very many people get rejected and then you take in animals until they find their forever homes. And you can do it for a couple of weeks, you can do it for a couple of months. But a lot of times rescue organizations even can benefit from having what we call respite fosters. So you know, if Sally who's a full time foster needs to go on vacation or wants to go on vacation for two weeks, then they need a respite foster to take her foster animals while she's on vacation so that you can do very short term fostering. You can benefit from having the animals around if that is something that you want to do. Obviously you can adopt animals and just nurture the animals that you have that are in your life. If you don't want to have an in house pet animal, you can also nurture the animals that are in nature. We have bluebird boxes around our property and I always have a bird feeder out and a hummingbird feeder out because it is inspirational in some ways, awe inspiring if you will, to have the birds come and, and congregate and you know, that's another one of those things that makes me happy. My relationship with Mother Nature makes me very happy. What other things do you think help you improve your positivity in your relationships? How do you nurture the positivity in relationships? Alrighty, everybody, have a great day. I will see you Monday when we start. Um, I don't remember what we're covering on Monday, but I'll figure it out. And we will be going over one of the physical aspects of health and wellness in the series of six weeks to a happier, healthier you. Everybody have a fabulous day and I will see you next week.