Revealing 12 Happiness Habits | Cognitive Behavioral Strategies

This episode was pre recorded as part of a live continuing education webinar on demand. CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register@Allce.com Counselortoolbox you I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on happiness habits. A lot of times when we think about counseling and we go to these counseling seminars and CEU classes and everything else, we're talking about how to treat distress, how to treat things that are making people unhappy. Well, but what are they doing if they're not unhappy? Well, part of that is happy. So we're talking about helping people figure out what the opposite of unhappy is for them and what's life going to look like and how can they keep this happiness train going, if you will. So we're going to learn why these habits in particular contribute to recovery from addiction and mood issues. And we know that people with addictions typically have underlying mood issues. And there's been a lot of research out there that has shown that there's about 47% overlap of people who have addiction and mood issues. So we may be seeing people in our practice, in a mental health practice who have some addiction issues, whether it's nicotine addiction or gambling or sex addiction or something else. So we're going to talk about how to help clients implement these, because we can talk about them till we're blue in the face, but they're like, well, being aware and authentic is great, but how do I do that? So we'll talk about that. Awareness and authenticity. Acceptance, gratitude, compassion, breathing. Guess what? You're a lot happier if you're actually breathing. No brainer there. Purposeful action and long term goals. Breath, back talk. And I love back talk when I'm the one doing it, not the one receiving it. Thought conditioning and being sensational. So we'll go into each one of those. Awareness and authenticity. Now this is one of those clinical meta concepts or whatever that we talk about a lot. But what does it mean? It means to help people get their needs and wants met. But in order to do that, they have to first be aware of them. So to live authentically, to live in a way that helps people get their needs and wants met and be true to themselves, they first have to know what that means, what is it that they need and want. So I encourage my clients to practice mindfulness, asking themselves three times a day before each meal. And I like to anchor it with something that they do pretty much every day because, you know, then it's not so hard to remember. It's not like at 10:30 in the morning when you take your coffee break, do this. Coffee breaks. I don't know about you, but for me they don't always happen. And I've got six other things. But if I have something that's kind of part of my routine, like washing your hands before you eat, then it becomes more second nature. And I want people to check in with themselves throughout the day because how they feel when they get up in the morning may be very different than how they feel at noon or how they feel at five. And it doesn't necessarily mean it's worse they could get up. And I know this happens to me a lot because I have allergies. So I wake up in the morning and I'm like a little stuffy and a little groggy and having a difficult time kind of getting kick started. But I go to the gym and after that and getting cleaned up and getting to the office, I'm usually feeling a lot better by noon actually by 10, 10:30 or 11. So you know, what I needed at 8am is very different and what my wants are at that point. At 8am I was wanting to go back to bed. So have clients figure out when they're going to ask themselves these basic questions. What is it that I need right now? You know, there's a lot of things I may want, but what is it that I really need? And you know, for me, like I said, getting up in the morning, I, I know that if I get my blood moving and this isn't true for everybody, but for me, if I exercise in the morning and get my blood moving and then take a nice hot shower, it kind of gets me jump started. So what do your clients need when they first get up in the morning, when they at lunchtime and they can look back over their morning and see kind of how it went, look towards the afternoon, what's upcoming. So what do you need to do right now? Helps people get regrounded and then also ask themselves what vulnerabilities they currently have. And you know, that's a whole different class. But vulnerabilities are those things that make you more prone to react strongly to stressors that come into your path. So if you're overtired, if you're sick, if your nutrition is poor and you're not making enough neurotransmitters so you're feeling kind of depressed, if you've got a million and one balls in the air and you're trying to juggle too much and you feel overwhelmed you may feel more vulnerable. You may be kind of like right on the precipice and the next thing that comes along is going to be the straw that broke the camel's back. If you identify this then, or if you have clients pay attention, then they can figure out, how do you mitigate that? So if a client knows, hey, it's been a rough morning, I don't know that I can take much more. What do I need right now at lunch to mitigate stress for the rest of the day? What can I do? And that may be closing your door so people aren't barging in all the time, or what is it that they need to do? So when you're stressed, what can you do to help protect yourself from an onslaught of any additional stress or negativity? And you can't prevent it, but you can, you know, protect yourself. You can avoid, you know, maybe if you've had a really long day, you can avoid driving home in the middle of rush hour traffic. You can try to get your work done in a timely manner. So maybe you can get out a little bit before rush hour and not have to fight with people. Or sometimes if we work In Nashville, by 3:30, traffic is tied up. So if we're there past 3:30 in Nashville, we'll just stay and eat dinner in Nashville and then we'll come home. So we miss that rush hour instead of sitting for two and a half hours on Interstate 40. So asking people, what is it that you need right now? How can you mitigate any stressors that you're feeling? If you're already feeling tired, what can you do? I'm not going to suggest reaching for caffeine, but a lot of people do. Maybe going out and getting a walk to oxygenate your blood. But encourage people to brainstorm, what are their common vulnerabilities? For me, a lot of times I get kind of this sleepy lag a couple of times during the day. And that's a vulnerability for me. So how can I mitigate that? And I'd make a list of the things that I can do to help myself wake up. How can you prevent these vulnerabilities? So, I mean, ideally we would prevent them and not ever have to deal with them. So helping clients, look at how are they living right now? What are they doing to give themselves the best chance for having a happy day and encouraging them to brainstorm. Why is it important to prevent these vulnerabilities? Why is it important to not watch that last episode of whatever series you're watching? On Netflix so you can get an extra hour of sleep. Why is it important to try to eat healthfully? Why is it important to do these things in terms of managing your stress and depression and everything? So I really want them to dig deep and see that prevention is a lot more effective than intervention. You know, let's avoid getting stressed out to begin with and then we can avoid a bunch of other problems. What else do you do to encourage awareness and or authenticity in your clients. While you're thinking about that? Living authentically means living in a way that's true to yourself. So like I said earlier, before clients can be authentic, they have to know what everything means to them, what makes them happy, what are their needs. So I have clients define what makes them happy. How will their thoughts and outlook change when they are happy? So it's a matter of talking about, imagine you woke up tomorrow and you had achieved your goal of a rich and meaningful life or happiness or whatever they're calling it. How are your thoughts and outlook different? I know for me, when I'm in a good mood, my thoughts tend to be more positive and rose colored and, you know, whatever. And when I'm in a bad mood, I tend to be much more introspectively negatively focused and I focus on all the things that I'm not getting done. What's the impact of happiness on your health and body? So, you know, I want to look at. When somebody is, you know, we can start with when you feel depressed or anxious, if you want to start there. What's the effect on your health and your body, your energy, sleep, weight, pain, illness. But then I want them to look and see when you're happy, what's the effect? Because a lot of people find they have more energy, they sleep better, their weight normalizes, they feel less pain because they're not having a lot of muscle tension and they get sick less easily because their immune system is stronger. Since they don't have their HPA access constantly engaged. This is where I hope they're going to go when we start talking about this. But I try to do it through Socratic questioning. When you're happy, who do you see in your support system and what will your relationships be like? So thinking about, you know, you have the support system of these people right now, when you're happy, is it going to be the same support system or are there other people that you're going to bring into it? Are there people that are going to leave? Who's important in your happy support system and what are your relationships Going to be like thinking again about the impact of being depressed, anxious, angry all the time on relationships and communication and all that stuff. How might your relationships improve? What will be different in your day to day life? Hobbies and activities when you're happy? Because if you're freeing up all this energy, you're probably going to want to do something with it. I know I have a real bad habit of doing that. When I free up some energy, I end up taking on another task. I got two of the most adorable fosters yesterday, adult cats actually. But anyway, I digress. And how can you start making these things happen? And I talk about the principle of reciprocity. When you start doing things positively in one area, like putting in relaxation time or eating better or sleeping better, it's going to likely have reciprocal positive effects on every other area of your life. And when those things start going better, guess what? You're probably going to continue to sleep even better and feel better and feel happier and stay moving towards your goals. So I had asked you guys what you use for to help your clients with awareness and authenticity. The client, somebody said that they had their clients share experiences of happiness and what specifically contributed to that experience. So look back in your past and think about when you were happy before, what was going on, what was different? You know, was it the people? Was it the place? Was it what you were doing? Was it your priorities? Was it your health? You know, let's look at what was different and what made you happy. What triggered that happy reaction? And can we do that again? I've shared before that for me, and I know we waste a lot of bandwidth on it, but cat videos, you know, make me smile. There's this one video with a, I don't know what kind of bird it is, it's a big bird and he has these wings and he covers his head and the voiceover says nighttime. And he opens his wings and it says daytime, nighttime, daytime. I don't know why I find that so freaking amusing, but I love watching him do that. So sometimes it doesn't take much to make people laugh. And if you're laughing, you're reducing or you're introducing those happy chemicals. Another person suggested connecting to trees and their roots. The sun sometimes work wonders. Well, we know, we don't know how it works, but we know in the parts of the brain that are responsible for mood there are a lot of vitamin D receptors. And sun is our vitamin D producer, so to speak. So sun is definitely helpful. It also helps set circadian rhythms and connecting with Nature, the trees and the roots are important. And even thinking meta concept wise about the trees, you know, they grow up and they need the sunlight and then. But they also eat. You know, they get their food from where they're grounded. So what kind of food are you getting where you're grounded right now? I mean, you can do a whole talk, you can do a whole hour on that, probably, if you, if you draw the. Draw the tree out. That's a cool idea. I'm going to try that. So. All right. Okay. So other people watch cat videos. I do feel validated. My husband looks at me like I'm nuts. Fighting against things that are unchangeable or not realistically changeable by you wastes a ton of energy. So, you know, yes, people can change. Yes, we can change. You know, the Republicans are all infighting right now and about who's voting for what and all that. You can get all caught up in that. But in reality, is one person probably going to be able to change that right now? Maybe not. So what can you do and then leave it at that? You can make sure you vote, you can educate other people about your opinions, and then they can decide for themselves, but you can't change them. They have to choose to do that. We can't change feelings. And I know you're like, well, what do people come to counseling for? Feelings are a natural reaction. Your body tells you there may be a threat or that was really awesome, let's do it again, or sucks that we lost that. So you got anger and anxiety, happiness and depression and the permutations therein. We feel those. We can't change them because they were kind of an automatic reaction. What we can do is improve the next moment and maybe change how we react to that situation the next time. We can't change other people. I don't need to belabor that point. And there are certain situations we can't change. So we want to look at it and say, okay, how can we work on accepting that this is. Maybe you were diagnosed with Lyme disease. You know, I try to stay away from cancer because that's. That can be devastating. Well, that is devastating. But, you know, let's stay a little bit more up and let's talk about Lyme disease. People with Lyme disease have to be careful to get plenty of rest, not tax their immune system. They sometimes have some swelling in their joints and stuff, so they have to follow their treatment protocol. Now, you can get upset about it, you can be ticked off about it, but it's not going to make it any better. Matter of fact, it's probably going to make you have an obsurgence of symptoms. So how can you accept the fact that this is the way it is? I have a friend who has Lyme disease and we were talking about it one day and he's like, you know what? I just know that when I start feeling like I need to rest, I need to rest, or it's going to knock me on my ass. And it just is what it is. And if I pay attention to it, then I don't have major problems. It's if I start trying to ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist, that it rears its ugly head. So it's easier said than done to help clients accept, have them accept the situation by saying, okay, it is what it is. What now? A lot of times when I tell them that, they look at me and like, no, that's not the answer. I want, I want you to fix it, or I want to be able to fix it. Sometimes some things aren't fixable. So we look at the situation and we take a breath and we say, okay, what now? How can I either change the situation, which sometimes we can, or change my feelings of the situation so I'm not fighting against it. Some examples if when people break up, you know, sometimes a breakup is a breakup and you can't control that other person, you can't make them love you again, and you can't necessarily make it go back. So instead of staying stuck, I mean, there's a grieving period, don't get me wrong, because it is a loss. But once you move through that grief period, the last part of depression or last part of the grief process is acceptance. The person says, okay, this really happened. What, what now? What can I do to improve the next moment and continue working on the things that are important to me that I can control? The same thing can be said if you had a fight with a friend. We talked about if you have a disease diagnosis. Another example is if you have a pet pass away. You know, some of us, our pets are our kids and when they pass away, it is devastating. And so when that happens, we need to figure out, okay, what now? You know, this pet has passed on and it sucks. We don't want to accept it, go through the grieving process, yada, yada, yada, fast forward, how do we accept it? And I know with mine, I have a catalog of pictures and I keep it to remind me of all the wonderful things that that animal brought into my life. And that that animal taught me, because all my animals teach me something. But that's how I work towards acceptance. When I have a loss, I look at what can I learn from it, and how did it enhance my life in some way? And then clients need to decide whether they're going to change part of the situation to make it more tolerable, and if so, how can they do that? You know, if they don't like where they work and there's a really crappy situation, high stress, high infighting, all that kind of stuff, all right, you may not be able to quit that job right now. So how can you change part of the situation to make it tolerable? And how can you change your reaction to the situation when there is infighting? One of my clients had a place where there was a lot of infighting, and she ended up just getting a ball cap, a plain ball cap, and writing on it in permanent marker. Made this picture of a road and put it on her head whenever she'd start feeling stressed out because of the infighting at work, because she felt like she was getting thrown under the bus. And nobody really knew what that meant, but it made her feel a little bit better. And she wouldn't, obviously wear it around the office, but, you know, it would be her five minutes to be like, all right, it's all good and moving on. That's not going to work for everybody, probably not a lot of people, but it worked for her. So how can you change your reaction to the situation so you don't take it so personally, or you can look at it in. In the context. How else do you help your clients work towards acceptance? Acceptance is also one of those things that, you know, kind of goes along with forgiveness. A lot of people feel like if they accept something, that means that they're giving their power away. They're saying it's okay. Again, acceptance doesn't mean it's necessarily okay. Acceptance means that you're choosing not to devote a bunch more energy to it right now. So sometimes we need to talk about what acceptance means. You don't have to like it. You just have to accept that it happened or it is, and you may not be able to change it. Gratitude is another happiness habit. It can be easy to focus on all the things you don't have or what's not going right. And I think all of us, or most of us, fall into this trap every once in a while. We're like, I wish I had the CEO's job, because then I could do all these different things. To improve the organization or I wish I had a million dollars or I wish I had and you know, we can get into that. But if you stop and look at what is it that you do have right now and are you getting your needs met? So gratitude for what's available is definitely important. An attitude of gratitude helps people refocus on the positive so they can see that, alright, I may not be exactly where I wanted to be in life right now or in this project right now, but I do have all these things going for me. Or I may not be a millionaire movie star, but look at all the awesome stuff I've got in my life that they may not even have. Appreciate the simple things. Flowers, butterflies, whatever it is. I saw in, in Florida, we had lots and lots of lizards and I love lizards. We had fence lizards and skinks and little green anole lizards. Love those lizards. I'm strange. It's okay. In Tennessee we don't really have many lizards. And I saw two blue tailed skinks the other day and they have another name like seven lined something. But in any event, they have this really neon blue tail. And I saw them the other day and I was just so happy to see these two little lizards for no other reason than that they were, you know. And they're pretty awesome little critters. So encourage people to look for and appreciate the little things. You can have them keep a list each day of the simple things that brought them. You can have them brainstorm and this is a fun one to do if you want to play the song from Sound of Music. Raindrops on roses and yada yada, what are your raindrops on roses? What are the little things that make you smile? They don't have to make you belly laugh, but you look at them, you're like, wow, that's cool. Rainbows, fluffy white clouds. What is it? And in a group, this can be a really fun activity because people start talking about it and you know, when I say lizards, they usually like bust out laughing and that's okay, you know, it made them happy. One of the things they're grateful for is the ability to laugh at me. And I'm grateful they can too. But it helps a lot because we start seeing. When you start paying attention to it, you start seeing all the awesome little things. Letting go of envy and jealousy is also a nice little side effect of gratitude. If you're grateful for what you have, you may be able to look at, you know, the movie stars or whomever on TV that are supposed to be you're supposed to want to be like. And be like, you know what? I have my needs met right now, and I am really stinking content. So it's all good, good for them that they've got whatever they do, so it can help. Now it's again, sometimes there's self esteem, work, and other stuff that needs to be done. But gratitude goes a long way to increasing happiness, because even if one area of your life is a mess, it's likely that you have other things to be grateful for. So you can look around and go, all right, my work life right now is. Is kind of in the toilet. But, you know, my relationships with my family are good. I've got good health. You know, the bank is not threatening to take my house away or whatever the case may be. And I use work as an example because a lot of people, that's one of their main stressors, not to say that everybody has crappy work. You know, work can be really awesome, and some people love their jobs. But other activities, having people keep a gratitude list, encourage them to write at least one thing down each day that went well. So, you know, and sometimes they got to dig deep and be like, well, I didn't get into a car accident on the way home. Well, that's a good thing. You know, instead of taking for granted that you didn't get into a car accident, you're acknowledging it now. Hopefully other good things happened, but you don't know. And one of y' all shared that one of their favorite groups to do, especially around the holidays, is an attitude of gratitude. And that is so true, because a lot of people, I was even watching a show yesterday, and they were talking. It was. They were talking about Thanksgiving, and everybody. They were trying to figure out where everybody was on Thursday. And everybody kept saying, well, I was at home with my family. It was Thanksgiving, wasn't everybody else. And I kept thinking to myself, no, there are a lot of people who don't have family to be with. So somehow that got me depressed. But encouraging people to focus, you know, instead of looking at what they don't have, maybe they don't have that Warden June Cleaver family. Most people don't. So we can normalize that. But what is it that they do have? For me, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. And I never want people to be alone on Thanksgiving. So I always open my doors. I'm like, if you have nowhere else to go, feel free. And, you know, I usually have, you know, two or three of my friends end up at our house on Thanksgiving, because that's what I do. You know, it's my favorite holiday and I hate to see people sitting alone and feeling bad. But not everybody necessarily feels bad. You know, if they work on that attitude of gratitude, they might be just fine. Going to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner, other activities. Look around and compare yourself to others who are not doing as well and. Or are they you in the past. So sometimes clients start getting frustrated. They've hit a plateau. They're not hitting that happiness mark that they wanted. Encouraging them to look backwards and say, you know, what was it like six weeks ago? Look how far you've come. So they can be grateful and they can pat themselves on the back for how much, how far they've come, or six months ago, or whatever it is. And looking at other people who are struggling with depression or anxiety, there are some people who can't leave their house. As my grandfather got older, he developed wicked agoraphobia. And it was always painful psychologically for me to kind of witness that because my grandmother would go out to the store or whatever and he would lose his stuffing. He would paste the floor until she got back. And he had it down, down to the minute. And if she wasn't back in 27 minutes or whatever it was, he would, his anxiety level would go through the roof. And you know, of course I'm not going to try to talk him down and you know, do therapy, but you know, trying to talk with him during that period, he was just in a tizzy. So recognizing, not that I'm saying that was good, but helping people recognize that, yeah, your anxiety, it sucks. Your depression, not where you want to be. I hear that. However, look how far you've come. Or maybe they're just starting treatment. Let's look at other people who aren't doing as well and think and try to be grateful for, you know, having the energy to get here this morning and the mental faculties to drive and operate a vehicle and that kind of stuff. So sometimes you have to dig deep to help people find that gratitude, partly because they're out of the habit of gratitude. Now compassion is the next one. And compassion means being, means a sympathetic awareness of others distress and a desire to alleviate it. Well, I'm going to add to that a sympathetic awareness of your own distress and a desire to alleviate it. Because a lot of people compassionate with others and not compassionate with themselves. But so we talk about what does compassion mean? And many people were raised to think that if they were compassionate with themselves and they cut themselves some slack, it meant they were lazy, weak, or a failure, or they thought other people were judging them, maybe in their family of origin, if they cut themselves slack, they got a lot of heat for it. You know, that wasn't acceptable. And not to say that that was right or wrong. But then we want to look in the present and say, what does it mean to be compassionate with yourself? And look at whether you're being compassionate, as compassionate with yourself as you are with others. One activity I have them do is to think of three times they've been compassionate in the past week. Who are they compassionate to? Why? Why did they deserve your compassion and how did it impact them? You know, and it may not have impacted them at all that they noticed. If you were nice to a cashier or you held the door open for somebody, it doesn't have to be a big thing. But just little acts of compassion can go a long way to brightening someone else's day or at least keeping it on the right path. And then I ask clients to think, how are you compassionate to yourself? And if you're not, how could you be? And this is one of those kind of sticky things that we get into because a lot of clients have never really thought about being compassionate with themselves, being kind to themselves. So sometimes we have to revisit this in repeated sessions. When they start in, when we're talking and counseling and they start beating themselves up and being critical and non compassionate or uncompassionate. I go back to this and the happiness habit. How would it change your mood and your feeling if you were compassionate with yourself? What would it mean if you were compassionate to yourself in this situation? What else do you do to inspire compassion for self or others in your clients? And do you have a better way of teaching it about what is compassion and how can you be compassionate? Breathing and laughter, like I said earlier, breathing, definitely a happiness habit. You're not going to be too happy, you ain't breathing. But deep breaths help oxygenate the blood and reduce fatigue. A lot of us, and I can kind of speak more of American culture, I don't know about other cultures, but a lot of us tend to be chest breathers. We take more rapid, shallow breaths. We don't take those really deep inhale breaths which are good at helping oxygenate our blood. And when we get oxygen deprived and our body needs more oxygen, you know what we do? We yawn. One of the main reasons people yawn is not because they're actually sleepy, tired, but because they're feeling groggy, because they don't have enough blood oxygenation. So encourage people when they start feeling tired to take some deep breaths. But, you know, sometimes it just helps to take deep breaths because it, you know, gives you a little. Gives you a little boost of energy. And I don't know about you guys, but if I take four or five deep breaths, like when the doctor's listening to my heart, I am dizzy, and I'm like, oh, that's fun. Anyway. Slow, deep breaths also help lower heart rate and trigger the relaxation response. If you're breathing slowly and your heart rate slows down, then your brain goes, oh, I guess we're in relaxation time now. You know, it kind of catches on and starts sending out the GABA and the serotonin to help you chill. Laughter not only makes you breathe deeper. Think about a good belly laugh. You may laugh until you can't breathe, but then you have that big and you start laughing again. It not only makes you breathe deeper, but it also releases endorphins. So encourage clients to laugh, whether it's at you or with you. And I tell them to take that same attitude to help people laugh, either at them or with them. Whatever it is, just make the world laugh. How much more awesome would it be if we were focused on trying to make each other laugh? Activity. Practice deep breathing after each meal. That'll kind of help you wake up a little bit after you eat. Your body tries to slow down a little bit so it can digest. It's called rest and digest. But if you got to go back to work, you don't really have time to rest. So deep breathing can help a little bit and schedule in. Yeah, make an appointment with yourself to laugh for 10 minutes every day. And what makes you laugh is going to be different. It can be comedy skits. It can be television shows, books you're reading. I don't really care. Sometimes when I'm. When I'm in a situation where I can. I will go observe animals that are at the rescue, because when they play, it's funny. I mean, they're just. They're cute little kittens and puppies and dogs and whatever. I had a therapist that worked under me at one place that I worked who would put on, like, clown garb if things started getting too stressful. It was a residential unit. If things started getting really stressful or unpleasant for whatever reason around the unit, he. And normally he was squared away former military. You know, he put on his clown wig and his big clown shoes and his medical jacket, and he would just go walking down into the Main, main area of the day room. And people would bust out laughing. Oh, he also had a little horn that he'd squeak at people and they'd be like, Anthony, what in the world are you doing? But it made people at least smile. So encouraging people to figure out what helps you laugh, what helps you smile. Purposeful action and long term goals. When you see that you're moving toward your long term goals, it inspires hope. You're like, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. Each small step toward a rich and meaningful life can make you feel happier. You're like, alright, I'm making progress. It's not perfect yet, but progress, not perfection for one of you. Shared Having clients speak to their own intrinsic values about what's most important to them in life can help them identify what is worth spending their energy on, what is purposeful to them. Purposeful action means using their energy to do things to achieve their goals, not just because. And focusing on the things that they can control. So thinking back toward like social media, you know, you get on there, somebody is posting and just kind of being ugly, you can use your energy to get into a posting war with them. But is that helping you move towards your goals? Is that serving a functional purpose? And can you control that person? Because it's probably just going to be back and forth until one of you blocks the other. At least that's what I seem to have, seem to have witnessed. But so it's important to figure out, is this worth my energy? What can I use my energy for right now instead that might help me work towards those things that are most important to me in life. So having them define what a rich and meaningful life means, you know, what does happiness mean? Label it whatever you want and have them identify three small changes they can make today to move closer to that life or even one small change, I don't care. But I want them to have the inspiration and the excitement of there is something I can do, I can start moving forward towards this, which will start getting that motivation train going. So back talk and we are talking about internal critics here and negativity. So think about how you inspire your clients to talk back. The internal critic and ingrained habits can cause people a lot of distress. So it's not just that critic inside that is telling you you're not good enough or you're lazy or you're stupid. It's also the ingrained habits that people start to get ready to smoke a cigarette or go stress eat or throw a temper tantrum about something. And back talk means telling yourself or telling the critic, we're not going there right now. Choosing happiness means quieting the negativity and changing the behaviors. So in terms of the internal critic, it's possible and people feel a little weird doing it at first. You don't have to do it out loud or you can, I don't care. Telling the internal critic to be quiet, Just pushing away those negative thoughts and going, you know what? I'm not thinking about that right now. And I think a lot of us, when we start thinking about, you know, I'm not thinking about that right now. We do do the push away gesture. So have clients practice doing that. I'm not going to think about that right now. And telling yourself no when you start to engage in unhelpful habits such as unnecessary conflict or smoking or stress eating or whatever it is. So encouraging clients to talk back to themselves and go, no, this is not going to happen or I'm not going to think about that right now. Maybe you've got, you're waiting on test results to come back. I always hate that when you go to the doctor and you have tests run and then they're like, okay, we'll get back to you in three to five business days. And I'm like, no, no, not three to five business days now. But then you start perseverating. Or you can start perseverating over it for those three to five business days, which does no good, but wastes a lot of energy and causes angst where there may not even be a need for any. So encouraging clients, when they start finding something they're perseverating on that they can't control to push that thought away. You know, I. There's no point thinking about that for right now. I'm going to push it away and I'll deal with it when I get the test results back. Thought conditioning, most of us. Oh, are there any ways, other ways that you guys have thought of for helping clients encourage themselves to change behaviors or quiet that internal criticism? Thought conditioning kind of goes along with quieting the internal critic. You know, choosing not to think about the negative stuff. But thought conditioning encourages people to see the bright side or the silver lining instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop. So just like conditioner softens your hair, thought conditioning softens your thoughts by. Don't you love that metaphor? Sorry, I couldn't resist. It helps you look for the positive in things. So, yeah, there may be some really stuff going on right now. And we'll Go back to the test results, you're not feeling well, the doctor took, the doctor took blood or whatever, ran a bunch of tests. You're not going to find out for three to five days. So, you know, you're worried that something might really be wrong, yada yada. Well, look for the positive. You've gone to the doctor, you've started taking steps, and hopefully the doctor has enough bedside manner to assure you that, you know, whatever it is is most likely treatable, yada yada yada. And stay off the Internet, because the Internet always comes up with the worst possible scenarios for what it could be. So encouraging clients to look for the positive in it. You know, it's unpleasant, but there are things and how can you embrace it as a challenge? Walk the middle path looking for. And this goes with looking at the positive, accepting both. And this can really suck now. And I can get through it and eliminate cognitive distortions. I encourage a lot of my clients. I have a list of cognitive distortions that we go through and we talk about. I do a psychoed group on it. But then I encourage them to keep that list with them. And when they start having a stressful moment to review the list and think, am I personalizing? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? Am I using emotional reasoning instead of factual? And they just go down through the list and a lot of times they'll hit on one and they'll go, yeah, you know, I am doing that right now. Then they can intervene. Thought stopping is another good technique to silence the internal critic. Or if there are things that are out of your control, practicing techniques to help you stop thinking about it. Another technique that I use when I drive over bridges, because y' all know I'm afraid of them, is I sing the ABCs or I say Hail Marys. You know, those are two things that I can pretty much say in my sleep. But they get me across the bridge so I'm not thinking about, oh crap, you know, if the bridge collapses while I'm on it, yada yada. And it helps me get over the bridge intellectually. I know it's an irrational fear, but for whatever reason, it's still there. And be sensational. Your moods are largely impacted by, by your environment. And this one I really want you all to think about different ways you help your clients improve their environment in order to improve their mood. I am always open for creative suggestions. What smells make your client happy? And it doesn't have to be just essential oils, memory related smells. When I was little, we Used to make these little sachet things with an orange and cloves that were stuck into it and they would dry and I don't know what they're called. I finally found a recipe for them online the other day, and we're going to make some of them. But the smell of the citrus and the cloves together reminds me of my childhood. The smell of Pine Sol reminds me of my grandma's house. So there are different smells that you can put in your environment to make it. So when you smell them, you're like, I remember that. That's a good thing. And it makes you smile. When you smile, your body is triggering a happy response. Your brain is going, oh, there's something pleasurable because the corners of the mouth are drawn up. So, you know, let's put in a little dopamine here. It's not going to make people feel elated, but it's definitely a good place to start. What sites make you happy? And I kind of. I'll go backwards here. Some people, you know, they can have disorganization. It doesn't bother them. Drives me nuts. So organization helps. It may not be the whole house, but if it's what I can see, I'm good. So, like, my kids just keep their door closed. And I'm okay with that as long as they can live in their respective environments. But the common areas need to be straightened. What colors make you happy? My daughter gets on me a lot because I am an earth tones and more to that, I'm a brown tones type of person when it comes to decorating. I don't do bright colors. I don't do splashes. And she's like, mom, you gotta put a little jazz into it. And, you know, she's right. I mean, she's great at interior design, but it's hard for me to move past the brown tones. But that makes me happy. So. And it helps me feel calm. I couldn't. I wouldn't want to be in a room that was painted navy blue or canary yellow. So thinking about what colors make you happy and how you can introduce them either through throw pillows or vases or pictures. You don't necessarily have to paint the walls or change your furniture. And what pictures can you put around that make you smile? Whether it's, you know, sayings that you put on the wall. A lot of people are doing that now. Or, you know, pictures of your family, pictures of your kids. Maybe you like hiking, so you could have pictures of different hiking trails all over the world. Whatever makes you Happy. And you look at it and you feel relaxed and content. What sounds make you happy? Birds chirping. Okay, music. Certain types of music. You know, maybe you can pipe that through the house. Does the sound of water make you happy? Water running through a brook. You can actually go online on YouTube and find several, like eight hour tracks of babbling brooks or waterfalls or thunderstorms, you know, monkeys in the jungle. Whatever background sound you like, if you don't happen to have a noise machine that does that. But pay attention to all your senses. What feelings or touch makes you happy? Like a warm fireplace. I always like the feel of the warmth from a fire. A thick angora sweater. Not a thin one, but one of those real big, fluffy, super soft sweaters that you just want to hunker down in or cool silk on a warm summer day. So thinking about what things make you happy? I know if I wear a wool sweater and it's itchy, it makes me irritable. So even things that are just, you know, tactile can influence our mood. Encourage clients to pay attention to that and play to those strengths. So I have people talk about how they can integrate these things into their home, their car, and their workspace. And we pick one in group, usually. And then I have them do the other two as homework. But talking about, like, smells. You can put air freshener sheets in your drawers. You can put essential oils on cotton balls and put those in your drawers. You can put sachets on the door handles. So every time somebody opens and closes a door, it spreads the odor. I mean, there's a lot of things when I put my sheets away, I usually put a towel that has a little washcloth that has essential oil on it between the sheets. That way, when I pull it out, they're kind of still scented because the fabric softener is long worn off. What else do you do to have your clients improve their environment? One thing I didn't put on here is feng shui. And you can do feng shui for dummies. You can Google it and find a lot of tips and techniques for improving your environment to help improve your mood and improve your energy. And a lot of the things kind of make sense. I mean, some of them you may not do, like putting the seat to the toilet down, or not just the seat, but the lid to the toilet down and closing doors. So there's open flow of energy throughout the space. But there are a lot of. They talk a lot about color as well in feng shui. So it's something that clients can Latch onto. It's something that they can do pretty simply. I mean, they can get really involved and get consultants and everything. But a lot of times it's a matter of looking at their environment and figuring out when I walk in this environment, what is it that makes me go eh? Instead of ah. When we talk about the car, a lot of people spend a lot of time in their car. So although you may not be able to change everything, making sure it smells good, making sure that you know the sight is appealing, and anything else that can make you happy. Like I always have playlists on my phone that I play whenever I'm driving so I don't have to listen to commercials and stuff I don't want to listen to. But encouraging them to figure out how to make their environment awesome. Peer pressure Surround yourself with positive people. Positive people can often help you condition your thoughts, provide support, and are more encouraging. So if you're around a positive person and you're like, oh, this day sucks, a positive person is probably going to help you reframe that. And likewise, positive attracts positive. So if you're in a positive mood or if you're around someone positive, you're probably more likely to try to present things more positively. Another thing that one of you has suggested for being sensational is that soft lighting can help create a calming, peaceful mood. Harsh fluorescent lights, not so much. Now there's a time and a place for bright lights to help keep people energized, especially when the days are a lot shorter. But you know, definitely the soft white bulbs the calming light can be can help people relax more, feel more peaceful. And you also suggest having clients identify a happy place like the beach and how to recreate that in some different places. So if you one of your happy places is the beach, how can you decorate your bathroom or your bedroom in a way that reminds you of that place? What kind of pictures can you put up? Maybe you can have a little basket of seashells. I'm not an interior designer, but you can figure out what does it for you to help you recreate that. And maybe if you're lucky, find something that makes a smell that's similar to similar to that. And you suggest having some beach sand there. So true. Beach sand does, you know, kind of retain a smell. So that's another great way if you have, if you can associate back to something and use as many senses as possible, sight, touch, smell, etc. Going back to positive people, positive people can condition your thoughts. Negative people tend to drain energy and enhance a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. I have a couple people in my life that are negative Nellies, and, you know, I just have to take a deep breath before I go interface with them because they just see the world as going into a hand basket. And, you know, everything is death, doom, and destruction. And I'm like, you know what? Not so much. But with these particular people, it's not the time to be Pollyanna and go, well, let's look at the bright side. Or let's look at the other options for why this might be happening. Except for people are awful. Energy in conversations and relationships is contagious. Think of a person, you know who's extremely negative. How do you feel when you see them calling? And how do you feel after spending time together? Likewise, I have people think about a person they know who's extremely positive, and how do you feel when you see their calling and after spending time together? Encouraging clients to really recognize how the person in the room that they're interfacing with can affect the entire environment and affect the energy. The environment and their energy. Forgive resentment, regret and guilt are natural responses to a threat. So it is. But what can we do to improve the next moment? Holding on to these feelings drains your energy. Just like trying to get hold of a dog who doesn't walk well on a leash, you know, And I have been drug around by my fair share of very large dogs. The feeling is telling you something bad happened and you need to fix it or protect yourself. But then you've got to decide, okay, what now? What do I do to address this situation? Instead of being stuck on this happened and it stinks. This happened and it stinks. Okay, what now? So I encourage clients to think about something they're resentful about and think about, how does holding on to the resentment help protect them? They're holding onto it for a reason. It's usually a protective reason so they don't get hurt again. What would happen if you let go of the resentment? What are you afraid of? And how can you forgive the person or yourself so it stops draining your energy and we talk about again, forgiveness being a power move. You are choosing to tell this person, you know what? That's not worth my energy anymore. Instead, you're not saying, it's okay, you know, never mind, no big deal. You're saying, I'm choosing not to give my precious energy to that issue anymore and project happiness or fake it till you make it. When you walk hunched over, looking at the ground, they've done studies, you feel more depressed but you also miss some of the simple pleasures. Except the lizards. The lizards are on the ground, but you miss the birds, you miss the flowers, you miss the bumblebees. And you miss opportunities to positively engage with people. Because you're not making eye contact. You're looking at the ground, or you're looking at your phone and you're hunched over. Your body just kind of senses distress. So sit and walk sitting up. Try to practice your posture. Look up from your phone instead of always being down like this. Look up and around, meet people, make eye contact and smile. You know, not everybody's going to smile back, but for the people that do smile back, you made a difference in their day. And even for the ones that don't smile back, you probably got them thinking. And I asked people to think for themselves. How else can you project happiness so others can tell that you're happy? Because happiness is contagious. It doesn't magically happen, though. By choosing habits, choosing habits that promote happiness, people can start feeling happier. They're choosing happiness over distress. Their thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations and environment all contribute to their mood. So in order to choose happy, it's important. Just like when we treat issues, we look at it biopsychosocially. When you're choosing happy and trying to get more out of it or get more, get more out of your treatment, be less depressed. It's important to look at your emotions, your physical sensations. How are you feeling? You know, it's still kind of biopsychosocial. Happiness is multifaceted. So choose happy. Okay, So I appreciate Yalls participation. You had some great suggestions. The PowerPoint is in the class. If it's not, it should be. If it's not, it will be in about two minutes. And then you can, you can print that out. The replay, if you want to go back and look at this again, will be uploaded optimistically tomorrow afternoon, but definitely by Saturday morning. So, you know, if you want to retune and whatever, then you can do that. Are there any other questions? Hang on. Told you I was going to try this today. Let's see how, how it works. And for those of you who are needing to go, you don't have to stay for the Q and A section. There we go. I'll get shorter. Okay, you should be able to unmute yourself now if you have anything else that you want to say. Otherwise, everybody, have an awesome weekend. And I hope fall is starting to reach its little fingers to where you are. And I will see you on Tuesday. No, I can't hear you yet. Let's see.

How about now?

Still looks like everybody has themselves muted.

How about now?

There. Unmute. All worked. Let's see. I still can't hear anything but good.

Can you hear us?

I can hear you. All right, well, typical me and tech. I cannot hear. Hear me. Okay, maybe that's it. Accidentally pulled the cord out. Oh, I can hear now. Hey, what a concept. There we go. I got enough. I got enough length just to choke myself now. Go ahead.

Lisa and Jennifer on the line with you.

Okay. Correct. Do y' all have any other questions?

Dawn, are you able to hear me?

Yes, I am.

Okay, great. My name is Lisa Monica Russ. I'm a licensed social worker supervisor at the Long Beach VA Medical Center. I work with homeless population. And I think our focus, of course, every day is so much establishing permanent housing for homeless veterans. I think that my question or line of thinking is in the area of how do I help my staff get to a different place of communication with their veterans when every day, what is minimally the goal, if you will, is to obtain permanent housing once the veteran is permanently housed. I would have to say that that's what is the goal, the experience thought in terms of happiness. But I think that there's more to it. Then it's not solely the permanent housing, but it's the experience with that housing. And one of our other objectives, of course, is to help the veteran maintain the housing, sustain the housing. I guess one of my questions is how do I work with my staff to embrace these concepts, share them with our veterans that are in the process of being housed and sustaining housing without sounding patronizing, if you will, because their need is, I think, so much greater than the general public. So how do we share these concepts and facilitate communications that then do not prompt a. Easy for you to say, you don't live my life. Do you know what I mean?

Right. And, you know, there's often going to be some blowback from it and helping client clinicians, and I'm sure they already are quite skilled at doing this, at saying, you know, you are right and the strength that you have to have to live your life. You know, I can't imagine how strong you've had to be.

Right.

Encouraging them, the veterans, not by saying, you know, let's look at all the other things in your life that are going well, but hopefully the clinician is tuned into that veteran enough to know some of the things that are going well. So they can say, you know, well, tell me about how things are going with your. With Your spouse right now or with, you know, and there may not. I mean, if they're homeless. A lot of the homeless veterans I worked with didn't have a spouse that they were in touch with, at least, so that wasn't necessarily a place to go. But we also talk in general having them identify one or two things that are starting to go better. You know, I'm really curious as to what might be turning around for you or what do you hope is going to change in the next week? Because my guess is that they're working on some depression, anxiety, ptsd, some kind of mental health issues. So inquiring about how that's going and congratulating them when they make progress. Even if your clinician is not the one providing the mental health treatment, they're the ones that are doing the housing. Showing that you care and that they care and they're involved goes a long way. Has been my experience when the program that I worked at in Florida, the veterans went to the VA for their mental health treatment, but then they came back to our facility for housing and addiction education and stuff like that, and they lived with us. So reaching out and asking how it was going often made a difference. And then pointing out, because a lot of times they minimize their successes and pointing out how well they're doing in treatment or in the process or even dealing with all the frustrations of the bureaucracy and pointing out how strong they are. That's what we did. I can't say that that's necessarily, you know, the best and brightest way. Another thing that might work is to have handouts out and about, or have happiness tips, if you will, posted maybe on the back of the bathroom stalls. So I guess so people can see them somewhere that they can see them and it hits their brain and they read it. And they may not engage with it right away, but it may be something that, you know, at one o' clock in the morning when they're awake, they start thinking about that stupid thing that they read when they were at the clinic and then they go with it at that point when they're, you know, got nothing better to do. So that's another way to sort of indirectly make it available to them. So they're seeing it all the time. Having your staff model choosing happiness can also be a great thing. And when there's a housing rejection, you know, I know for us, and I'm sure for your people too, I'm making assumptions that, you know, it's devastating. It's like, really, I thought we had that. I was so excited for John that he was going to get housing and then it fell through. But sharing that, sharing that sense of frustration, you know, with the client saying, you know, I thought we had this, I know this is devastating. But then showing them how they can choose happiness from there and walk the middle path, moving them out of that angry place can also be helpful. So actually talking it out while they're doing it, like, you know, I know staying angry about this isn't going to help you get housing. So let's figure out, okay, what next? Let's figure out what to do with the clients.

How do you define what Walk the middle path. When you say walk the middle path.

That is accepting a both. And you can get turned down for housing and still have hope and experience rejection and still turn it into a success. So accepting the fact that, if you will, there's a silver lining or, you know, when there are two opposing opinions that both of you can potentially be right. But in this particular case, I'd be looking for the, the way to help them hold on to hope and motivation and moving forward.

Thank you.

Sure. Anything else, Jennifer? Okay, y', all, well, have a wonderful weekend and if you have any other questions or thoughts, feel free to email me. And it's drperiodsnipesceus.com. And I will see you next week. If you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. You can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing@Allce.com Counselortoolbox this episode has been brought to you in part by allce.com providing 24.7 multimedia continuing education and pre certification training to counselors, therapists and nurses since 2006. Use coupon code counselortoolbox to get a 20% discount off your order this month.