Overcoming Adversity: Resilience Tips Unveiled

Hey there everybody, and welcome to today's live presentation. I see a lot of new hash handles or whatever we call them now. I don't know, you can tell I'm not super techy. So welcome to all the new people. All right, we're at that time, so let's go ahead and get started. Foreign welcome everybody to today's presentation on enhancing hardiness and resilience. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. We're going to start out by defining resilience and hardiness. Go figure. Examine why hardiness is important for resilience and identify characteristics that make you more resilient and ways to enhance those characteristics. Resilience is the capacity to bounce back. Just like when you were a kid if you would take a beach ball and you'd push it under the water and it would pop back up. That's what we're talking about. But it takes a lot of energy to pop back up. Resilient people have a certain set of common characteristics, but you gotta ask yourself, did they have these characteristics which made them resilient or did being resilient help them develop these characteristics? Or both. So it doesn't really matter. Ultimately these are all characteristics that can be really helpful for people in coping with distress, in bouncing back from hardships or whatever. So these characteristics, awareness of an ability to minimize vulnerabilities. And we're going to talk a lot about vulnerabilities. Secure attachment with themselves and others, a healthy self esteem so they're not relying on other people to validate them and tell them you're okay, you're worthy of breathing the air and a strong social support system. I know you're going. Doesn't that contradict. No, it doesn't at all. Most of us try not to say everybody, but most of us benefit from a strong social support system. It may be two or three people or it may be 20 or 30 depending on the person. But yes, we need to be able to self validate. We need to feel good about ourselves independent of other people's opinions. But it's also helpful and important not to feel like we've got to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders by ourself. Self awareness is another characteristic of resilient people. If you are driving your car and not paying any attention to the rattles and the squeaks and the whatever, you're more likely going to break down on the side of the road and that's a problem. It's going to be harder to address the issues. Whereas if you were aware of the sounds your car was making, you'd be able to take proactive steps so you wouldn't have that problem. Self efficacy is another characteristic of resilience. When people believe that they can bounce back. When people believe that, hey, I can affect this situation, I may not be able to change everything about it, but I can bounce back. That is really important. It helps people feel safe and empowered. And a lot of times, I know you've heard this from me before. People who've experienced trauma and that trauma is unresolved continue to feel unsafe and powerless. So it's important that we nurture those characteristics in people and help them develop a sense of competence and confidence in their own abilities. Then problem solving skills is another thing that is important to for resilience. Sometimes something happens around the house or whatever, and I may not have the tool that I need to solve the problem. Okay, no big deal. I can think outside the box. I can try alternate problem solving skills to address the issue without feeling stuck if my one solution didn't work or if I didn't have any solutions, feeling like I was spinning out of control. Resilience or resilient people practice acceptance of what is and recognize what they can and cannot change. They can tolerate distress. None of us likes to feel distress, whether it's emotional or physical pain. But they can tolerate distress and tend to have an optimistic viewpoint. Now, this is not toxic optimism where they just put on a happy face and say everything's going to be fine. They recognize what's going on in the moment and are able to also see how they can improve the next moment. They're able to tolerate the distress and figure out what to do next. Hardiness is a tool that Kabasa developed in 1979. I actually looked it up. I always said 78, but it was 79. And it's a tool that can help us develop resilience. There are three Cs in hardiness. Commitment, control, and challenge. And this actually sort of laid the foundation in early cognitive behavioral therapy for what ended up developing into acceptance and commitment therapy. Now, there's a lot more to act than just this one concept. But in ACT, we talk about defining your rich and meaningful life. And in hardiness, Cabasa talked about recognizing what things in your life are important that you're committed to. I'm committed to my job. I'm committed to educating people about how to live healthier. I'm committed to my family. I'm committed to my animals. I'm committed to a lot of Things, but most of us are. We have interests, we have things that we care about, people, things, experiences that we want to use our energy for. And Cabasa says, okay, one aspect maybe going kind of crappy right now. All right, what else is going well? What else that I am committed to, that I use my energy for is going, okay? It helps us step back and look at the bigger picture. If you, for example, get sick and you have to have surgery. They found they actually did a lot of research on hardiness with people who had, who had. Had open heart surgery and who had diabetes. Two different studies, but they found that people who recognized that there was more to their life than just their physical health tended to recover a lot faster. Why? Because their stress response was not hyperactivated. They were. Were not feeling like the world was coming to an end, like this was catastrophic. The second thing is controlling those things you can recognizing, all right, these are these things that are important in my rich and meaningful life. These are the things that are going well. I'm going to continue to put some energy into those. This is the thing that's not going well. All right, how do I address it? Can I change or control the situation? Sometimes the answer may be yes. If you've got diabetes and you need to control your blood sugar, then there are things you can do through nutrition to manage that blood sugar and how you feel about the situation. If you've got diabetes, you probably can't make it go away. And I say probably because some people can address type 2 with diet and exercise if they catch it early. But for this example, we're going to say you can't change it. You can't make the diabetes go away. So staying angry about it is just going to throw your blood, blood sugar further out of whack and continue to help cause you to feel powerless over the situation. So it's important to recognize what aspects of any situation you can control and what aspects you can't control and how to address how you feel about that. Yeah, when you're diagnosed with depression or depression or diabetes or any of those things that you feel you don't want, which, you know, diagnosis generally implies, we don't want them. There is a grieving process, there is a, an adjustment process where we have to recognize that, okay, things aren't as perfect as I would have hoped, and, and we need to help people not only focus on how they can address the situation and what they can change, but also how they can move toward acceptance of the things they can't. And then finally Challenge, this is a big thing for people. Things that are too easy. A lot of times people aren't motivated to do if it just seems like it's a no brainer. They may not be motivated to do it in order to bounce back. People also may not be motivated if it seems too hard. They need to view hardships as opportunities for growth. It's really important that instead of viewing what's going on as devastating and the end of the world, seeing it as a challenge, you see if you have ever done challenge courses and, or tough mutters or something, you may come up to obstacles that are challenges. And instead of looking at that big old wall going, there's no way I'm getting up at that. I give up. You look at the wall and you think, how can I solve the problem? It's a challenge, it's an opportunity. Reflecting on past successes can help people feel challenged instead of overwhelmed. And recognizing failure is about behavior, not a person. Yeah, sometimes you're going to see something's wrong, you're going to perceive it as a challenge, you're going to try to address it. Not going to work. Okay, that doesn't mean you're a failure. It means that particular strategy failed. When you experience stress, it triggers that stress response, that HPA axis that we've talked about so many times. And people will respond with either fight, flight, fawn, freeze or forget about it. And fawning is when you are doing, you know, I'll do whatever, just, just make it stop. And you just try to do anything to make it stop. But there are a lot of different ways people respond. Some people flee by just kind of checking out. They pretend it doesn't exist, they ignore it. So there's a lot of different ways that the stress response can manifest. But we do know when people have an activated stress response, they are not thinking clearly. They're in an adrenaline haze. Now if it goes on for a while, it may not feel like that rush of adrenaline. It may kind of fall to the background a little bit. But what's happening is energy is being diverted away from your executive functioning and your wise mind, as Linahan would say to your amygdala and to your emotion and instinct saying, we need to survive, there's a threat, we need to do something to survive. And people don't learn effectively. People don't think clearly. People have difficulty solving problems when they're in the throes of the stress response. So resilience requires people to get into their wise mind and their thinking mind so they can figure, figure out how do I solve this problem? How big of a deal is this in this context at this time, People who are vulnerable have more difficulty dealing with stress. And that's one of the places where awareness comes in. There are two types of stress distress, which we all know about, and eustress. And that's good stress. Stress itself is anything that requires energy. If it's digestion, if it's walking up and down the stairs, if it's, you know, calling your best friend. It takes energy. Not all of our stress is bad, but we need to recognize that just like our phones, our body only has so much energy and anything you do drains that battery a little bit. Okay, that's fine. Remember we go back to Kobasa and all of the things that you're committed to. You've got to figure out which apps on your phone you're going to continue to let run throughout the day and which ones you're going to pause so you can conserve your energy to make sure that your phone is available if you need it. Vulnerabilities deplete energy and as a result may prime the stress response and, and make it difficult to bounce back. If you're already exhausted or even tired, you know, that is telling me that you have less energy. Your battery is already somewhat depleted, so the energy required to bounce back may not be there. People who are not self aware or who have a lot of ongoing chronic stress may think I'm too sick or too tired or too mentally drained to cope with this. I see there's a problem and under other circumstances probably could handle it, but I can't right now. It's just instead of me bouncing back, it's just squishing me flat like a pancake. Balance is key. People, as I said, only have a certain amount of energy. There's a song by Leanne Rimes that I really like that's called Something's got to Give. And it's not really on par with what we're talking about, but I love the song anyway. But something's gotta give. You've got to decide if you've got a new baby in the house. That's wonderful. That's Eustress. You know, you're happy to have this kid. It's a joy. You enjoy spending time with them, but it takes time and energy. So some of those things that you used to do before the baby came into the house may not happen right now. Exercise, for example, is also important. Over exercise is a vulnerability. Exercise depletes energy. You know, we all know that we've all exercised before and that's fine. We recognize I'm going to give exercise this dose of this amount of my body battery today. That's okay. And I recognize that if I give my, but my, I use my body battery to exercise, I'm going to have less energy to spend on other things that are important, but that's okay. And it's all about portioning, if you will. Nurturing relationships are also important, but so is not overspending resources when you also need to do other things. If you've got this friend who is constantly in crisis, then nurturing that relationship is important. But figuring out where do I set boundaries, where do I set limits? So this relationship, this person is just not sucking all of my energy most days. Becoming aware of how you're spending your energy when you're not in distress is just as important as how you spend it when you are in distress. So as we go through the next few slides, I want you to think about how these different stressors impact people's ability to bounce back, impact their, their body battery nutrition. If somebody has poor nutrition or they're dieting or if they have too much caffeine, it can stress it. That turns on the stress response, the HPA axis. The brain's going, something's not quite right here, or I'm deficient in these nutrients. We know that what you eat is converted to hormones and neurotransmitters that help you feel the emotions that you feel. It helps you function, it helps you stay healthy. So poor nutrition is a stressor on the body, which is likely going to make it more difficult to bounce back. Sleep deprivation is also associated with difficulty bouncing back because when people are sleep deprived, the stress response is triggered. The body's going, hey, you're tired. I need to help you stay awake so you don't get eaten by the hungry lion. Let me give you a little shot of adrenaline. Well, you know, in theory that's good, but when you are chronically sleep deprived, you're going to have more stress chemicals flowing through your system and it may field harder to bounce back because you're tired, you're exhausted. We also know that sleep deprivation is associated with increased ruminations. Exercise, as I mentioned earlier, takes some energy and it can be really helpful for reducing pain by increasing range of motion and all of those things. But it can also, when overdone, can lead to pain, unnecessary pain and exhaustion, pain and illness. When we don't feel well, it triggers our stress response. And that stress Response drains energy. That stress response is saying, we need to make this go away. I don't have energy to focus on whatever you need to bounce back from, because I want this to go away right now. Physical use Stress is also a vulnerability. You can get exhausted from happiness. If you will think about the last time you went on vacation and you came back and you're like, oh, I need a vacation from my vacation. Nothing wrong with taking a vacation and really just being wide open while you're out there. But recognizing a lot of times people don't come back recharged from their vacations. They come back just completely worn out. And that's okay. Pace yourself as you get back into it. Moving, if you're moving to a new place that you're excited about, takes a lot of energy to move. But it's also a positive thing paying attention to how much time and energy that's taking. And finally, Addiction and post acute withdrawal syndrome People who have addiction and post acute withdrawal are more vulnerable to distress and have more difficulty bouncing back when stress comes their way because they're already stressed out. Interpersonal Distress and the ability to bounce back. When people have low self esteem and low self efficacy, they often don't feel good enough, which makes it harder to bounce back because they are already feeling unsafe. They're already feeling like they need other people to approve of them. And that takes a lot of energy to constantly be hyper vigilant, seeking and scanning approval from other people. And if they don't feel confident that they can actually address a situation, that's another problem. So we need to look at people's sense of confidence and self esteem and their self efficacy. Interpersonal trauma can also contribute to vulnerabilities. If somebody's experienced abandonment trauma or interpersonal trauma of another sort, it may cause them to feel unsafe around others, which means when they're around other people, they're hypervigilant and that drains their energy helping them figure out how to stay safe. Another vulnerability that goes along with that is projection. People are more vulnerable to stronger responses towards somebody if that somebody reminds them of someone from their past that hurt them or if the situation reminds them of a time when they were vulnerable in the past. And we want to be aware of how thing things such as projection and transference can cause people to be more vulnerable and have more difficulty bouncing back, have more difficulty being able to get in their wise mind to evaluate the facts in this context at this time. Negative self talk also makes people less resilient. If you're telling Yourself. I can't do this, I can't bounce back. You're going to start believing it. So people who believe that they're incapable or incompetent or not lovable may feel unsafe and powerless and completely inept at solving particular problems. And insecure attachments with self and others kind of goes along with all of this. When people are securely attached to themselves, I know that's kind of a mind shift for you, but when you've got a good relationship with yourself, you've got good self esteem, you're consistently aware of your thoughts, wants and needs, you pay attention to yourself, you respond when there is distress instead of just ignoring it. You provide encouragement and you know how to do what is necessary so you feel safe. The same thing is true in secure attachments with others. When people are securely attached to others, those other people are consistent in their presence. Not necessarily 24, 7, 365, but you know, you can count on that person if you really need them. They're attentive, they like spending time with you and you like spending time with them. They're responsive. When you've got a problem, they can help you process it, they're encouraging and they're safe. So those are the characteristics we want to help people develop in themselves. So instead of having insecure attachments, they're securely attached. And if you hadn't picked up on it, the mnemonic there is cares, consistency, attention, responsiveness, encouragement and safety. Now interpersonal use. Stress can also, as I mentioned earlier, keep you from bouncing back if you care too much or just if you care, even if it's not too much, when you see somebody that you care about struggling, hurting it, it hurts. You know, empathy takes energy, empathy takes time. And we know this as clinicians that it can be really exhausting to do our jobs. It can be exhausting to care and to empathize because that takes a lot of personal energy. Doesn't mean it's wrong, but we've got to be able to help people and help ourselves set limits on how much we care. And I know that sounds bad, but bear with me here. We're thinking about that battery. Do you can take stuff home from work and continue to obsess on it throughout the evening and throughout the next day, where it's diverting energy from the other things that are important in your life. That may be a vulnerability when you're caring, when you're worn down from caring again, less energy to respond to something that comes up and nurturing relationships, well, that's fun talking to people, going out doing fun things, that, that's great, but it takes energy. Now nurturing relationships can strengthen those relationships so they can be there to support you. But it's important not to just take it for granted that it's just something you can do and energy will magically sprout up out of nowhere. Emotional distress, well, we all know, and I just shortened it. Dysphoric emotions, anger, anxiety, depression and all their buddies is exhausting. And if you're already feeling dis. Emotional distress, then when something else happens, it feels like a ton of bricks. Hayes in acceptance and commitment therapy talks about dirty discomfort and how when you are feeling. Let's take anger when you're feeling angry already, and then you start feeling anxious that people are going to reject you because you're angry or depressed because you don't feel like you can change anything. So that anger kind of leads to depression all of a sudden. Now you're struggling with multiple different emotions. And that make depletes even more energy, makes it harder to bounce back if somebody has unresolved PTSD and they're regularly hypervigilant. And I know hypervigilance is more of. Of a physical thing, but bear with me, it takes a lot of energy. If you're constantly feeling unsafe feeling and you're constantly scanning the environment for signs that there might be threats, that takes a lot of attention, a lot of energy away from what you could use to respond if there is a problem. And then emotional dysregulation, which often goes hand in hand, unfortunately with trauma and chronic stress, because that stress response gets miscalibrated. So people go from feeling flat to furious or flat to frantic. When that happens, your body is not just a cognitive thing. Your body is actually dumped a tsunami of stress hormones. And it takes longer for people once they emotionally dysregulate to get back to baseline. And it takes more energy. It's exhausting. After people have dysregulated, they need to catch their breath. It's kind of like after you ran a marathon. It doesn't mean they can't recover, but during that recovery period, it's important for them to recognize that they are depleted. They're not helpless, but they. Their energy is depleted. So how can they deal with life on life's terms while they recharge, while they get their energy back and emotional use stress. This kind of goes back to that vacation thing. If you're elated, think about going to a theme park or something. Oh my gosh, you had so much fun. But then you come back to the hotel at night and you just flop on your bed and you pass out of going to sleep. Because feeling that much excitement, feeling excitement, takes energy, doesn't mean we don't want to feel that way. We need to feel happiness. We need to feel elation. However, it's also important to recognize that it does drain the battery and ideally save some energy to, to direct or to dedicate to happy feelings like elation and excitement. We don't want to save all of our energy just to deal with distress. We want to be proactive and help ourselves get into a state of mind where we feel content, safe and empowered. Think about how you feel after a 10 day vacation, quote unquote with your kids. I know for us I was happy to be home and be back in my own bed. It was a great vacation, but I was tired and if something were to happen at that point you, it was a little bit harder to shake out the cobwebs and get into my wise mind. Cognitive distress. And this is what we talk about a lot in cognitive behavioral therapy because remember, thoughts, feelings and behaviors all interact. What you do impacts how you feel and what you're thinking. What you're thinking impacts what you do and how you feel and all vice versa. So it's important to recognize it's not just cognitions that impact people's resilience. It's their physical energy, it's their physical health, it's their neurotransmitter balance. It is how safe they feel in their environment. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So brain fog. And that is poor attention, difficulty with recall. That can make people feel more vulnerable because they're trying to solve this problem, but they can't focus on it. People who are in crisis, people who've experienced a trauma, have brain fog. That's part of the stress response. That's a different video. But knowing that, knowing that if I have brain fog, I need to write things down because I ain't going to remember it in an hour, let alone tomorrow. Providing supports for yourself, figuring out okay, when it happens. Because brain fog happens, whether it's because you're exhausted or you're sick or, or you're going through something. All right, how can we address this so it doesn't take as much energy? You're not trying to mentally remember all of these things. And how can we address that in order to free up some energy for the person to be able to respond to life on life's terms? Poor problem Solving skills also make people just more vulnerable. If something happens and you have a particular response, when X happens, I do Y. All right, that's great, but what if you can't do Y? And people with poor problem solving skills sometimes get stuck. They have difficulty getting out of the box and thinking, all right, well, that didn't work. What else could I try encouraging people to think about things? You know, what are three different ways you could solve this problem? We used to do an activity in my class at uf. I would give break them up in groups, and I would give them different things. One group got duct tape, one group got chewing gum, another one got a paperclip, and another one got a coat hanger. And I'd say, okay, you've got 15 minutes. Make a list of all the different things you can do with this particular object. And it was always amusing to figure out what they came up with. Yes, they weren't solving a problem, but they were getting their brains outside the box thinking, all right, well, how can I. How can I use this? What types of problems might this be useful for? With people that we're working with in counseling, for example, if they have poor problem solving skills, we can ask them. Okay, there. There's a radical idea. Ask them in the past, when you've encountered a similar situation, what's helped, even if just for a minute, and what hasn't worked? All right, let's start making a list of those things. In the past when somebody you know has encountered a similar situation, how might they have responded? How did they solve the problem? Or what do you think might work? Let's just brainstorm. Sometimes people's cognitive energy bank is just empty. And I'm getting ready to go to a couple of board meetings this weekend or this week, and I'm pretty sure that at the end of the day, my cognitive energy bank is going to be done. It's going to be completely depleted. So asking me, and I think we've all had this. When we've been had a really intense day at work, you come home and your brain just kind of feels like jelly. Well, your brain uses a lot of energy, and believe it or not, it gets tired, too. Being aware of that and saying, all right, I had a really mentally draining day today. What can I do to make it easier on myself for the rest of the day so I can conserve as much energy as possible in the event that I need it? And then distorted thinking, and I use distorted. I don't like that word. But that's what we use in Cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive distortions like personalization, minimization, catastrophic thinking, emotional reasoning, all or none thinking, you know, the list goes on. That makes people more vulnerable. If they typically think in distorted ways, if they typically interpret events as catastrophic, if they typically personalize things, then when things happen, that makes them feel unsafe and triggers that stress response. So we want help to help people recognize thinking errors and, and be better able to evaluate the facts in this context at this time. And cognitive use stress, that kind of goes along with that Cognitive energy bank. When we learn new things, it can be elating, it can be exciting, it can be wonderful. But it also takes energy not only to take in this information, but then your brain's got to figure out, okay, what do I do with this? Where do I file it? There's actually a lot that goes on behind the scenes when you're learning something new. Being kind to yourself and, and again remembering to write things down or do whatever you feel you need to do to make it easier on yourself. When you're learning new things, maybe you're learning how to run a new electronic medical record. Bless your heart, it may be important. It's something you're, you need to learn and you're gaining knowledge and theoretically that's awesome. How can you help yourself do it in the least exhausting way? What can you do to make it go as smoothly as possible? Environmental distress. When you feel unsafe, that's a stressor. You're going to be more hyper vigilant. It's, you're going to probably respond more like a spring when something happens than something that's not a spring. Encouraging people to figure out what can I do in my different environments that can help me feel safe and empowered and recognizing. Well, I'll get back to that in again in a minute. And then sensory overload or underload or overstimulation or under stimulation. If you are neuroatypical, then you may struggle with this where certain environments that neurotypical people don't have a problem with are completely overwhelming or underwhelming. And then there's also people who are just sensitive. Particular noises, particular decibels, whatever it is, if you're experiencing that, and I know I sound like a broken record today, it's a stressor. That stressor is going to make it harder to think clearly because your brain's going, this is uncomfortable, this is unpleasant. I need to get out of here. So part of your brain is going, we need to get away from this stressor. And the other part of your brain is going, but we need some energy over here in order to do whatever we're doing. Environmental, use, stress, cleaning, organizing. Yeah, I have an under use stress because I think it's wonderful when you step back and it's done and you can say, oh my gosh, I can find things now that can relieve stress. But it takes energy. It takes energy to put things away, everything in its place. And what, however that saying goes. And then addressing triggers in the environment. Remember, triggers can be both positive and negative. Negative triggers cause people to feel unsafe, unhappy, distress. So we want to figure out how to address those. Positive triggers have the other effect. They help them feel happy, content, excited, optimistic. Adding those to the environment can also be important. And triggers come in a lot of different shapes and sizes. You can watch the video that I have on triggers because there are physical, emotional, cognitive, interpersonal, environmental triggers that we all have based on our prior learning. So helping people develop self esteem to reduce stress, encouraging them to think, how do you, how do you feel about yourself? How do you validate and accept yourself? And a lot of people, a lot of people have no idea how to answer this question. You ask them and they're like out. I don't know how to respond. Okay, that's fine. What personal strengths and positive characteristics do you look for in a friend or do you think look for in a good person? All right, now we're not talking about necessarily what they do, but what we're talking about their internal characteristics, the things they want to be remembered for, like being compassionate and loyal and whatever. Okay, those are the things you look for in a friend. Now let's go back over that. Which of those characteristics do you have? Oh, okay. We've been taught in our culture, a lot of, a lot of us have been taught that we're not supposed to feel all that great about ourselves and boast about, you know, we think we're all that in a bag of, bag of chips because that's considered arrogant or dare I say narcissistic. It's important to help people navigate that the difference between narcissism and healthy self esteem. What personal strengths and positive characteristics do you have that encompass your values for a rich and meaningful life? If I things in my rich and meaningful life include healthy relationships, well then values that I have that would support healthy relationships include compassion and loyalty. All right. Encouraging people to see the characteristics they already have. Encouraging people to examine what they've been through and how they've survived until now. Encouraging them to separate who they are from what they do I am a good person. I do make mistakes. You know, I can screw up, I can accidentally offend somebody. You know, there are things that I do. It doesn't mean that I'm a screw up. It means my behavior was unfortunate. I'm still a good person. We want to help people explore cognitions about why other people's opinions matter. Where did that come from? And hint for a lot of people is fear of abandonment. They were love for what they did, not who they were growing up. They didn't have unconditional positive regard. They were told that other people's opinions matter. If you want to be loved, if you want to be accepted, then you need to be vigilant about other people's opinions and encourage people to explore those beliefs for themselves. Do you believe that other people's opinions matter? Help people learn how to set boundaries. You can have your opinion, they can have their opinion. And you know, there's a dividing line. You don't have to have their opinions, they don't have to share yours in order to be friends, in order to be compassionate. And we want to explore cognitions about attributions, what we attribute things to. Do you attribute things to a person's goodness or to their skill levels? Or do you attribute things that happen to your lack of goodness and help people address attributions that cause them to feel unsafe, powerless, and incompetent? Social supports are our greatest buffer against stress and can be one of the greatest causes of stress. I think we all know that. 1. Helping people identify characteristics of healthy versus unhealthy relationships is important. Helping them develop that secure attachment, consistency, attention, responsiveness, encouragement, and safety so they can figure out who is safe, who is who. Do I want to be part of my social support system? I don't have enough energy to give it out to everybody that comes my way. Which relationships am I going to nurture and how can I nurture and enhance those healthy relationships, including with myself? For a lot of people, starting with mindfulness is a a paradigm shift because they have not nurtured themselves, they have not paid attention to what they needed, and as a result, they've gotten worn down and less resilient. Help people identify or figure out ways to deal with unhealthy behaviors in other people. And you notice I didn't say unhealthy people. Unhealthy behaviors in other people. We want to separate the behaviors from the person. Now, it's true the person may be unhealthy physically, but what we're really talking about in terms of a social support system is those unhealthy behaviors and learning about temperament and synergy. My husband, for example, he and I are polar opposites on temperament. I'm an extrovert, he's an introvert. I'm a feeler, he's a thinker. But that's okay because we balance each other out. Where I am weak, he is strong, and it makes it work. Too often when people are in relationships, if they don't think the same way, if they don't need the same things, they feel like it's a problem. And it's like, oh, we can't be together because you think this way. Or you're. I'm a judger on temperament wise, I need structure. I thrive on structure. My husband is a perceiver. He's much more spontaneous. So instead of saying, oh, well, we can't be together because you'll find me boring and I find you unpredictable, we said, okay, how can we make this work? How can we compromise? How can we synergize when something bad happens? When, you know, the crap hits the fan? He is so much better at being able to quickly get into his wise mind and adapt than I am. It takes me a minute to say, okay, all right, now let me figure out how to deal with this. So we synergize. He's, you know, the first responder, and then I come along sometime later. We need to help people develop acceptance that sometimes things just are unfortunate, inaccessible, or unchangeable. And addressing how we feel about it, it doesn't mean, okay, it's unfortunate. I shouldn't feel bad about it. I shouldn't be angry about it. Take the shoulds out. You feel how you feel. Let's figure out how to come to an acceptance of the unfortunate things. If you fail a test, that's unfortunate. Okay, it sucks you're angry. Stewing in that anger doesn't solve the problem. How can you accept that? All right, you failed that test. And then figure out what's the next best way to use my energy to solve the problem. Can I ask for a retest? Can I? Is it not a big deal? Because that was just 10% of my grade. Whatever. If things are inaccessible, well, you see it there. You want it, you can't have it. And accepting that we can't have everything all the time but figuring out, what can I do instead if I can't have that over there? All right, number one, why do I want it so bad? And number two, what can I act? What can I access what is accessible to me. And then the unchangeable, recognizing the aspects of a situation that are unchangeable. Aging, for example. Well, you can't stop time. So that is unchangeable. How can I accept that that's happening and instead of using my energy to stew on it, use it to move toward my rich and meaningful life. A willingness to accept life on life's terms without judging is also important for acceptance. Not shoulding yourself. It is what it is. It happened. It's unfortunate. And I'm not going to judge myself for how I feel. And I'm not going to try to change the unchangeable. I'm accepting this is how it is. The loss of a friend. You know, obviously you don't just cut somebody loose the first time there's problems. But if you've tried to work on this relationship and it just doesn't work, or they ghost you or whatever, okay, you can't change another person. You can suggest to them what you would like, but you can't change them. They have to be willing to change themselves. If they don't want to be your friend, you can't force them. So willingness to accept, all right, that person's not in my life. Guess I got an open day on the week to spend with somebody else. Failure to achieve a goal or a dream. It didn't happen. All right, well, I can use a lot of energy being, feeling bad about that, being angry with myself for not achieving that. Or I can say, all right, well, how. What can I achieve? And going along with codependency. Others who are making poor decisions, whatever those poor decisions are, whether they're being mean or. Or they're, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on right now where people are making really poor decisions, and we need to recognize that, again, we can't change them. We may be able to educate them about how their decisions are, you know, not in their best interest, like driving drunk or, you know, driving when you're sleep deprived or something. But if they choose to do it anyway, that's not on us. We are going to be wasting our energy that we could use to be resilient if we try to change them in terms of distress tolerance. Talked about this, and this is more of a Marshall in a hand sort of thing. But this is the ability to tolerate a feeling without having to react. You can say, I'm angry now. In acceptance and commitment therapy, Hayes talks about unhooking and saying, I am having the feeling of being angry when I Say I am. That's part of me. What do I do with that? How do I get rid of part of me? I'm not going to cut off my arm. If I'm having a feeling of being angry, then I've got this feeling here, all right, what do I do with it? Hot potato. Do I hold it? Do I let it go? Do I what? And I feel angry, but can choose whether or not to stew in it. And that's another more empowering statement. Sometimes I'm having this feeling that I'm angry or I feel angry instead of I am angry, but or. And can choose whether or not to stew in it. So I'm making decisions about how to use my energy to bounce back from this situation. Stewing in anger generally doesn't help people bounce back. It generally deflates them. At this point, there are no active attempts to change whatever's going on. The distress is there and you got to tolerate it. You break your arm, and until that arm heals, there's going to be some pain. You can't make it go away. So being able to tolerate it. Same thing when our heart breaks. Being able to say, all right, this is unpleasant, and I'm going to sit with it for a minute. Because feelings are there to tell us something, and fighting them or nurturing them only prolongs them. If I'm feeling, if I'm grieving about something and I start avoiding it and I try not to do it, then I'm not moving through that process. And it's going to take energy. Whether I realize it or not, it's going to take energy to keep that boxed up and shoved into the closet. In the back of my head it is. And eventually that closet gets too full and it just comes pouring out. And people are like, oh my gosh, where did that come from? And the person may be like, oh my gosh, where did all that come from? We need to help people learn how to tolerate distress so they can work through the issue. If you exercise, I guess this might be a better metaphor. When you are reaching failure on, on weight training, it's uncomfortable, but you do two more reps anyway. You tolerate the distress so you can grow. Self awareness is important. Temperament. Knowing what your temperament is, are you an extrovert or an introvert? And remember, temperament is along a continuum. So most people aren't all one thing or all another. But what do you need? How do you conceptualize things? Do you focus on all the details or the big picture? How do you make judgments and get motivated do you focus on facts or feelings? What do you need for time management? Do you need structure or do you need spontaneity? Knowing that can help you create an environment that is supportive of who you are so it doesn't drain your energy. Knowing your needs, your wants, and your values, what are the truly important driving forces in your life? That way you can choose and ask yourself before you make a decision or when you're thinking or feeling something. Is what I'm doing or thinking right now getting me closer to or further away from what's important to me? Being aware of your physical and emotional state in the present. If you know you're vulnerable, then being compassionate with yourself and saying, all right, this is more than I can handle on my own right now. How can I shore up some resources? And again, knowing your positive and negative triggers and addressing them. Self efficacy is believing in one's own capacity to accomplish your goals. Can you be effective in accomplishing what you want to? And that may be just surviving the moment. Encouraging people to reflect on how they've survived similar events. What have you gone through before that is felt overwhelming and how did you make it through? And seeking support from others who survived similar things. If you've been through a car accident, for example, and you know you don't have any idea how to cope with all this stuff, how do you get the car to the, to the mechanic, and what do you do about insurance and how do you cope with all these other things? All right, so it may be helpful to seek advice or support from people who've been there before. That can help. You know what the next steps are. Identification as a survivor, not a victim. And that all goes down to locus of control. A survivor says, it happened, it was awful, and I can move forward. I'm going to use my energy to learn from it and move forward. People who feel like victims continue to feel unsafe and powerless. And then hardiness again. When people wrap their head around the sense of responding to life's challenges with commitment to the things that are important, controlling what they can and seeing it as a challenge instead of something completely overwhelming, it frees up a lot of energy. Problem solving skills we need to nurture them in ourselves and our children, we can get complacent, even, you know, just any old day. So thinking about problems, trying to conceptualize them from different points of view, trying to conceptualize solutions from different points of view. Sometimes it can be helpful to ask a newbie at work, you know, how would you address this? Or ask your child, there's this problem, what would you do? Because they're not thinking about it with all the shoulds, they're like, oh, I would do this. Okay, well, had never thought of that. Problem solving skills also come with a willingness to seek help because we don't. Nobody has all the answers. And people who are willing to seek help are better at solving problems because they recognize where their knowledge ends. Brainstorming and creativity often squelched in people because there's a way they should do it. No, People who are willing to brainstorm and think outside the box can often feel a lot more resilient because they don't feel pigeonholed into one particular solution. My old boss used to say, don't bring me a problem unless you have an idea for at least one realistic solution. And I used that with my kids when they were growing up too. We need to have motivation to actually take action. All right, I know how to solve the problem. Now I gotta get up off the sofa to do it. And engage in rapid cycle change. There's a saying, don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Back in the 1800s, there was a tub and everybody took a bath in it. And generally the head of household took their bath first, and it went all the way down. The baby was the last one to get washed, and by that point the water was pretty murky. Hence the saying, don't throw the baby out with the bath water, which I digress. But rapid cycle change is important. Don't completely change everything all at once. Gradually make small changes, see how it impacts the situation, and then adjust. If it's not working, try something else. If it is working, make your next change. Optimism is finding the silver lining. We have pets, lots of pets, and there's cat and dog fur everywhere. It's kind of like eating Oreos and brushing your teeth at the same time. It's just that way. But without them, my life would be less filled with love. You know, they bring love to my life. If you lose something, you may have the ability to build something new. Encouraging people to acknowledge and accept the pain of the loss or the distress of the situation. Figure out how to deal with that and examine the possibilities. Encouraging people to not catastrophize what's happening. Maximize the negative or minimize the positive. Encourage them to think about what are the actual facts in this context at this time, Resilience is the capacity to bounce back. Resilience can be enhanced while also helping people reduce distress. Helping them accept life on life's terms, and that pain is inevitable. We know we're going to get pushed down a couple of times and we have the ability, we believe we have the ability to bounce back. Resilient people are aware of and minimize their vulnerabilities. They have healthy self esteem, a strong social support system, self awareness, self efficacy, problem solving skills. They regularly practice acceptance of what is and then figuring out what they can change. They can tolerate distress and tend to have a healthy optimistic viewpoint. Not toxic optimism, but what we sometimes call tragic optimism. I appreciate everybody being here today. Are there any questions that I can answer for you? Unfortunately, Sammy, the at least in the US CPTSD isn't really even an accepted diagnosis according to the American Psychiatric Association. And all too often, and this is one of my soapboxes that I get on a lot, all too often people's physical and or mental health symptoms are caused by or worsened by a history of trauma. And we don't. We tend to think of trauma as something like a car accident or a fire. And we fail to acknowledge the significant impact of adverse childhood experiences and abandonment or attachment trauma. So yeah, I'm sorry it took you so long to figure out what was going on and that you had to do it yourself. But I'm glad you finally found the way. No problem. Ella Babellu, I am glad you're here and it will be available in a few days on Demand on the regular channel. So all is not lost. You will be able to watch it in a few days. Okay everybody, have a wonderful rest of your day and I will see you next Wednesday.