Love as a Strategy for Health and Happiness

Foreign. Everybody and welcome to this episode of Integrative Behavioral Health. I AM your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Today we are talking about love as a strategy for health and happiness. I really wanted to continue on a positive note talking about things that we could do or as we've talked about them before, toward behaviors in order to help us live a happier, healthier life. I created the mnemonic because, you know, I am so crazy about those perfects me in order to help us remember some of the characteristics of love that may be able to help us feel happier and healthier. Being patient with myself and others, well that is a really important behavior that we can do because patience is the opposite of anger and anxiety. Patience enables us to step back, to take an objective look at what's going on. Patience is can occur when we get into our wise mind, so to speak. When we are patient, then we are acknowledging when we feel anger or anxiety. But we're also willing to take a step back and take a breath before acting or reacting. So we are not on autopilot as much. E stands for enjoying the blessings in life in the moment instead of being worried about, you know, what you want or what you hope to have. Being mindful and aware of all of the wonderful things that are going on in your life right now and treasure them is really important. R Being respectful of myself and others. You see a theme here where I keep saying myself and others, sometimes we are respectful of ourselves but not of others. Or we're respectful of others but not of ourselves or patient with or you know, we do a lot of things with for others that we don't necessarily do for ourself. So it's important to be respectful, acknowledge our feelings, validate our feelings, wants, thoughts and needs, and be respectful of those. Living authentically is an example of being respectful to yourself, being assertive, being open to hearing others perspectives. It doesn't mean you have to agree with them. It just means being respectful and being willing to be tolerant of differences as well as similarities. Forgiving of myself and others is another characteristic of love. And when we're forgiving, remember that doesn't mean saying this is okay. That doesn't mean saying that we agree or we concur with whatever somebody did. We can still love them and dislike their behaviors. When we forgive people, when we forgive ourselves, we're saying I am choosing not to keep energy tied up in the past over something I cannot change. I can learn from it. I can guide my future actions accordingly. But holding on and nurturing that anger Is. Or that guilt or that resentment is just leaving some of my energy locked up in the past. So forgiveness is a power move. Forgiveness is saying, you know what? Staying angry over that is not worth my time. I'm going to learn from it, but I'm not going to continue to nurture that anger. E stands for being earnest. In all my endeavors, I needed an E here. So earnest is not a word we use a lot, but it worked. Earnesty means focusing and being mindful and dedicated in everything we do. So whatever we do, we give it 110%. We are focused in trying to be the best that we can be. And when we do that, you know, giving ourselves credit for progress, not perfection, goes along with earnesty. If we are trying our best, giving ourselves credit for that, when we do try our best to be loving, to be patient, to be tolerant, to be a good employee, to be whatever we want to be, people notice. And we often can garner a lot of support when we are earnest in our endeavors because people say, you know, that that person really goes the extra mile. They try really hard. So I'd like to be there to support them. Being compassionate to myself and others. And we've talked about this one a lot before. A lot of times we can be compassionate with other people, but we are very critical and mean to ourselves. When we are compassionate and kind to ourself and others, it helps us let go of some of that anger, some of that guilt, resentment, criticism, so we can free up that energy to do something positive to move forward. If I make a mistake or maybe I'm having a bad day and, you know, I'm just. I'm not a hundred percent being compassionate with myself and saying, you know what? That's okay, nobody is 100% every single day. How much pressure does that take off of me to say, you know what? Okay, today is going to be a B day instead of an A day. I will do what I can do to the best of my ability instead of holding myself to this standard that is unwavering. Being compassionate can go a long way to reducing stress. Being truthful with myself and others. Obviously we want to be honest with other people to the extent appropriate and necessary. But a lot of times we are not truthful with ourself. We are not authentic. We tell ourselves that maybe we don't need something or we don't want something, even though we know that it's something that we want or we need. So we need to be truthful with ourselves about our thoughts, wants, needs, feelings in the moment, being mindful of what we need and being truthful with ourself so we can figure out. Once you're truthful, once you've got all the cards on the table, then you can figure out the best way to improve the next moment. When we're truthful with others, we give them the opportunity to understand us better. When we tell others what our thoughts, wants and needs are, we give them the opportunity to know instead of having to try to read our mind so they can have the option to, you know, agree with us, to validate us, to help us out in any way that they want. But if we either lie, you know, we try to tell them whatever we think they want to hear, then that's what they're going to hear and they're not going to know what we really want. If we don't tell them what our thoughts, wants and needs are, and we expect them to mind read well, that's setting us both up for disappointment and failure. S stands for selflessness. And there is a, in all of these things there is a continuum. You can be too not selfless enough and way too selfless. You can be not compassionate enough and way too compassionate. So we're really talking about, you know, middle of the road here being moderate because moderation is really the key to happiness. But it is true that when we're selfless, when we stop and think before we act and we think of others and how is my action, my thoughts, what I'm getting ready to do, how is that going to impact others and, you know, my environment and the world around me? Is it going to make it better or is it going to make it worse? And selflessness kind of goes along with compassion and all these other things we're talking about because they're all grounded in love. But selflessness is important because it encourages us to step outside of ourself and recognize our impact on others. If we do things that are selfish and we create a stressful or negative or not loving environment in our immediate surroundings, then that is going to often impact us negatively. If we are selfless and we do things in a way that we think is going to improve our environment, then that is going to help us be in a place where we can feel happier and healthier. We've talked before about the mnemonic device Think before you speak. Think. Is it truthful? Is it helpful? Is it inspirational or encouraging? Is it necessary and is it kind? If you have to say something, provide constructive criticism. Sometimes it is truthful, helpful and necessary. But it's Important that if you're going to say something, that you couch it in a way that is encouraging or inspirational and say it as kindly as possible instead of being excessively critical or judgmental. So that's just one example of how being selfless, how taking a step back and thinking before we act, how is this going to affect the world and those around me can improve our life. You know, think about what would happen if everybody around you just embraced that one thing and they thought, they thinked before they spoke. That would reduce so much anger and hurt feelings. Because there's a lot of times that things can be said a lot more nicely than they really are. The next aspect of love is being meek or humble, which means not being arrogant or proud or aggressive. It doesn't mean being a doormat. It means being assertive. It means recognizing the impact that others have on what is happening in your world. Recognizing like Tim Tebow and Danny Werfel regularly did when they were with the Gators. Go Gators. That it was not just them that won the game. It was a team effort. And they gave credit to God. They gave credit to their teammates, they gave credit to their coaches, recognizing that they couldn't have gotten to where they were at without the support of all of those people. And that is sort of the crux of humility and. And meekness. Recognizing that while we have gifts, we are the world does not revolve around us. We are not all that. And. And giving credit where credit is due. Being assertive instead of getting aggressive and bringing in aggression. When we're assertive, when we are meek, it also means we're patient. When we feel anger, we acknowledge that anger. And then we step back and we take a look. Instead of reacting in rage, we step back and say, okay, what is the loving way to respond to this situation? And exuberant. I love that word, exuberant. Being enthusiastic but passionate and awe inspired in all that we do. When we are operating from a position of love, when we are operating out of love, then it's easy to be enthusiastic and exuberant because we are growing something positive. So love Perfects me can help you remember some behaviors that can be helpful in dealing with life on a daily basis. When our actions are guided by love and acceptance for ourselves, our world and others, instead of hate and anger, it impacts us totally physically. It can help us reduce our stress. If instead of fighting against something or that we can't control, if we are patient, if we are, you know, meek and we're willing to think, okay, Well, I can't control that. What is the next best way I can improve the moment for me and those around me in, in this time? That can help reduce our stress. As we reduce our stress, we improve our sleep. As we improve our sleep and reduce our stress, we improve our immunity, we improve our energy levels, we improve our neurotransmitter balances which directly go to impacting our mood. Additionally, when we're coming from that perspective of love, it helps us envision things compassionately. It helps us see the positive in things. Being exuberant and enjoying the moment as it is can help us notice the positives and not just focus on the negatives cognitively. Kind of like when we've talked about creating an abundance mindset, love helps us cognitively examine things from a different perspective. Instead of reacting or interpreting from a place of fear or anger or threat, we can step back and say, say, okay, let's take a look at this situation and how can I best react assertively and compassionately? A lot of times, not all the time, you know, granted, you got to keep yourself safe. I'm not saying don't pay attention to your safety, but a lot of times when people react to us with anger or envy or jealousy, they are coming from a place of fear in their minds, they are coming from a place of darkness. And instead of getting angry at their behavior, having pity and compassion takes a whole lot less energy. It really does. I encourage you. When people are having or, or reacting to you or acting toward you in a way that triggers your anger, triggers your anxiety, remember, they're probably projecting what they feel on the inside onto you. So think for a cell for a second. Think about having pity for them. Now, keep yourself safe, obviously. But instead of automatically going into defensive mode, think to yourself, number one, what must it be like to be living in their head where it's that dark and that scary? And number two, what are three other reasons for why they might behaving, be behaving or thinking like this that have nothing to do with me and I just happen to be in the way. And they're just in an awful mood today. So cog cognitions can also be changed or can be changed by love because we are being more patient, compassionate and kind environmentally. When you surround yourself with, with people, well, when you are loving, you attract people who are loving. When you are loving, a lot of times people who are just steeped in anger and hate, they'll distance themselves because they're like, oh, way too many rose colored glasses around there now. We want to be patient and tolerant and welcoming. But a lot of times when we're loving, we indirectly nurture love in other people and they start wanting to. They see how happy we are and start wanting to be more like us. So we slowly create an environment surrounded by people who embrace the principles of love. How awesome is that? Which takes us to relationally, when we are loving in our relationships, not, you know, again, there are limits. You know, we have to keep ourselves safe. We don't want to enable bat inappropriate behaviors. We don't want to go overboard. But when we are loving, when we try to be patient, tolerant, truthful, respectful, forgiving, compassionate and meek in our relations with others, it. It often strengthens our relationships immeasurable. Immeasurably so, you know, I want you to think about this. You know, a lot of times people think, well, if I'm loving, I'm going to be taken advantage of. That doesn't necessarily follow. It's important to protect yourself. And you can be loving. You can love yourself and you can love others and still set boundaries and still protect yourself. You don't have to agree with them. You don't have to let them walk all over you. You know, you can be assertive without being aggressive. You can be patient with them and you can choose how you want to spend your energy. Do you want to tie your energy up in being angry and resentful and suspicious of other people, or do you want to try to see the best in them while still maintaining your safety and your boundaries? And I know I keep saying that, but I know that's going to come up in the comments that, you know, if I'm loving, then I am going to get taken advantage of. And you can be protected, you can be safe, you can be empowered through love and keep yourself in an environment that, that is, that is safe. So I want you to recognize that they are not mutually exclusive. Safety and love, you can have both. Are there any questions? Now, if you are spiritually oriented, inclined, you can go into Galatians, you can go into Matthew, you can go into Corinthians and look at some of the definitions of, in the Bible of what love is, if that helps you find some grounding in it. And you know, obviously some of those are, it comes from Scripture, but it doesn't necessarily mean you have to believe in the God of the Bible, recognizing that there are nuggets of wisdom everywhere. And I am going to harvest those nuggets wherever I can find them. And, and having an open mind like that can also help you be open to possibilities that you may not have considered in the past. Alrighty, everybody. Have a great day. And while you're at it, maybe think about practicing the Loving Kindness meditation and sending peace, contentment and safety to everybody in your world.