Safety 6 Weeks to a Happier Healthier You

You. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on integrative behavioral health. I AM your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. And today we are talking about safety. Remember, this is part of the six weeks to a happier, healthier you. Why are we talking about safety? Well, when people feel unsafe, when they feel a sense of powerlessness, hopelessness, or vulnerability, it causes their HPA axis, their threat response system, to stay activated. And you remember, when that stays activated for too long, it starts causing HPA axis disregulation. It will impair your thyroid hormones, your gonadal hormones, your pain, p. Pain threshold, your immunity. You know, the list goes on. So we really want to help people identify how to feel safe. Additionally, in. In order to, quote, recover from anything that people are dealing with, whether it's mood disorders or even physical health disorders or addictions, people need to have a sense of safety. If they don't feel safe, then they're not going to be as open to addressing the things that are causing their unhappiness, because that means they're going to have to be vulnerable. And we don't make ourselves typically vulnerable when we. When we are feeling unsafe. So a lack of safety means that you feel vulnerable to an attack, and this could be an attack of physical harm. You know, obviously that's a big lack of safety if you don't feel safe from other people harming you or even illness. A lot of people have a significant lack of safety right now because they are worried about illness. So we want to talk, talk about how can you feel safe as much of the time as possible? How can you feel safe, for example, in your own home? Emotional distress can also contribute to a lack of a sense of safety. For people who have episodes of clinical depression, for example, or panic attacks. Those things feel sometimes like they're not controllable at all. And it can contribute to people feeling unsafe. They don't want to go out into public because they're afraid they're going to have a panic attack. And isolation and rejection can also contribute to a sense of lack of safety because we need other people. We need our social support. That's just how we're wired. And if we're afraid that people will reject us, then that feels very unsafe to us. It feels unsafe to be authentic, to be who we are. How do we develop this lack of a sense of safety? Well, there's a lot of reasons, and obviously, in 30 minutes, I can't go into all of them, but some of the highlights, prior traumas, prior times when we have felt powerless can contribute to a sense of lack of safety in the present. Prior failures can also make us feel unsafe and hopeless. If we've tried to recover before, whether it's addressing our depression or our addiction or even, you know, our autoimmune issues, we may have not succeeded at that which contributed to failure. Or you may have perceived it as a failure. And you see trying again, being vulnerable again as setting yourself up for disappointment. And we don't want to feel disappointed, we don't want to feel hopeless or depressed because that is not, that is kind of an attack. That, that's that emotional distress that I was talking about. Failed relationships can also cause us to feel unsafe. We may not want to put ourselves back out there because it hurts so much when we were rejected in the past. And then just plain old fear mongering can contribute to a lack of safety. Whenever it seems like everywhere you turn, someone is promoting the idea that you're not safe. You know, you start wondering if that's actually true, if you're ever going to feel safe again. It's important to start thinking about what things or experiences from your past keep you feeling unsafe. What things have have gone on that play through your mind? What memories do you have that tell you you are not safe? And a lot of times those things are being overgeneralized into the present. Things that happened when you were six, you didn't feel safe, you couldn't protect yourself as a 6 year old, as a 26 year old, you have a lot more power, you have a lot more ability to escape unsafe situations. Examining those things that keep you unsafe. Because in order to feel safe, you first have to understand, why don't I feel safe? You can't fix something if you don't define what it is. And then what things in the present make you feel unsafe? You can have memories, you can have experiences, but maybe there are people, places, things in your current life that make you feel unsafe. Maybe you are around a person who has a hair trigger temper and that makes you feel unsafe. Whatever it is, recognizing that and then you're going to start figuring out how to cope with it, what you can do, what things are within your control to deal with it. Which takes us down to moving from a powerless victim mentality where you don't feel safe, you don't feel like you can defend yourself, to a powerful survivor mentality. And starting out, one of the things that you can do, and this keeps coming up presentation after presentation. Facts, control and probability. So what are the facts in the current context that I am unsafe, you know, examining that is really important. You may have been in similar situations in the past when you were unsafe, but looking at this current situation, you know, what is the evidence that you are currently unsafe? What aspects of that, this situation right now, can you control? You know, what things can you do to improve your sense of safety in this current situation? And if you undertake the things that are within your control based on this current situation, what is the probability that you're going to be able to create safety for yourself? And a lot of times people will find that they do have a lot more control over the situations than they may have originally thought. You know, for example, if you're in a, you know, you're at home, it's nighttime, and you hear, you know something, go crash outside. You know, that can be startling, intimidating for just about anybody. Looking at the facts in the situation, you don't know what it was. It could have been a raccoon or it could have been a burglar. You don't know exactly what's going on. What aspects of this do you have control over? Well, you can make sure your doors are locked. You can, you know, call a friend. That's what I always do. If I'm home alone and something starts making me nervous, I want to be on the phone with somebody. You know, it's not necessarily one of those times where I need to call 911 and have them come out and look at it. But sometimes if I start feeling uneasy, it helps me to feel safer to be on the phone or texting, but usually on the phone with a friend of mine until I can establish for certain, establish the facts that I am actually safe at this point in time. And if I do all those things, what are the prob. What's the probability I'm going to stay safe? You know, it's pretty good. Additionally, we want to focus on adding, instead of eliminating. When we're moving to that survivor mentality, instead of saying, when I am safe, I won't feel anxious anymore, we want to state it in terms of something that you will have. When I feel safe, I will be able to relax. When I feel safe, I'll be able to get a better night's sleep. So what are you putting in place of the unsafeness and the distress that's caused by that unsafeness? Benefits of safety. Your HPA axis is better able to regulate. You're going to stop having that HPA axis kind of on. On low all the time, which eventually leads to dysregulation. So that'll improve your sleep, it will improve your pain tolerance, it will improve your immunity, it will improve your energy, it will reduce some muscle tension that you have. And all of these things can also contribute to improving other health issues like high blood pressure and autoimmune issues, which are made worse when you are under stress, when that HPA axis is, you know, hyper regulated. And the benefit of safety is survival. I mean, that's kind of why we want to do it. We want to survive. So that's one of those kind of unspoken benefits. Affectively, when you are feeling safe, it's easier to feel happy. When you're not anxious, when you're not stressed, when you're not hypervigilant, it's easier to be happy. You have more energy to be happy, you have more hope. When we are feeling unsafe, we view the world as a negative, threatening place, which means we are noticing all of the negativity and all of the threats. When we feel safe, we are able to let our brain relax and go, okay, you know, I acknowledge that there are these problems out here, but I am safe right now and I can devote some energy to noticing the good things which can improve hope, courage, and compassion. When we feel safe, we believe that we have the ability to affect our situation to a certain degree. We can't fix everything, but to a certain degree so we can have more courage, we have more energy for compassion, and all of this contributes to reduced anxiety, depression, you know, those mood disorders. Cognitively, when we feel safe, when we're not hyper vigilant, when we don't have adrenaline and glutamate coursing through our brain, we are better able to be cognitively flexible. We have improved problem solving. We're more optimistic, or we can be more optimistic because when we're safe, we feel content. If we feel happier, we're able to notice the positives. Environmentally, we're more able to relax. And relationally, there's less fear of abandonment. When we feel safe, we feel like we've got social supports, we feel like we've got enough. We're more willing to form healthy attachments if we're not afraid of, you know, if I, if I try to form an attachment, I'm going to be rejected. You know, that fear can keep us isolated. So we are more willing to reach out and form those healthy relationships and we just have playing more energy to do them. How do we make this happen? Well, physically, physical and environmental safety kind of go hand in hand. So we're going to Talk about them together. It's important for you to identify what causes you to feel physically tense or unsafe. If, you know, my husband was in law enforcement for, you know, many, many years, so was my grandfather. And whenever they would go into a room, they would always position themselves so they could see the doorways. That's how they were trained to protect their own safety. If, and we've talked about in feng shui that one of the things, because there's a primitive part of our brain that doesn't want to be surprised, that wants to be aware of any potential threats, even people who weren't in the military or who haven't had traumas in their past. It does help reduce a innate anxiety if we're able to see any potential incoming threat. So making sure that in your environment you can see what's, you know, approaching you can help reduce a sense of. Of unsafeness. What aspects can you control? So, thinking about sites, think. What do you want to be able to see? What things do you see right now that contribute to your sense of a lack of safety? You know, generally there's not a lot of sites that are going to contribute to a lack of a sense of safety. But what things can you put in your environment that help you feel safer? What aspects can you control in terms of sounds? You know, sometimes too much quiet can be just as bad as too much noxious noise. Because if it's too quiet, then you hear every creek, you hear every pin drop. And it can be unnerving for people who already didn't feel a hundred percent safe. So white noise can be helpful. Dogs barking, you know, that can be something that doesn't bother you at all, or it can be something that startles you because of the sudden loud noise and your association of dogs barking with something bad, with unsafeness. And it's important to figure that out. You may have to decondition that a little bit. I have deconditioned myself to being able to tolerate the dog's barking, because now I know that 99% of the time when they're barking, it means the UPS man has come to the door or one of our neighbors is walking on the street, you know, and. But it takes time to reprogram your brain to say, you know what? All right, I feel stressed right now. Let me check it out. Oh, hey, it wasn't a big deal. And noticing that over and over again, you become that. That threat becomes decongitioned. Smells are our strongest memory trigger. If there is something in your environment that triggers a traumatic Memory triggers a memory of unsafeness from the past. It's important to figure out how to eliminate that smell. Other things that you can do. Grounding and noticing when you are starting to feel unsafe, Whether you get startled by the dogs barking or you just start to feel anxious, grounding is really important. Noticing where you are in the moment. Five things that you can see, four things that you can hear. Three things that you can smell. Two things you can touch. One thing that you can taste, whatever. Or you can just do 555 or notice, you know, look around and actually narrate to yourself. And you can do it out loud if you want. What you're seeing, you know, I am safe. I'm in my house. You know, it is 2020. I am, you know, so many years old. Whatever you need to do in order to remind yourself that in this context, at this point in time, you are safe. Other things that you can do, you know, you may not feel comfortable, you may not feel safe if people can see in, especially at night. So pulling the blinds, you know, getting some blinds so people can't see everything that you do. Changing the locks, if you are in an apartment, making sure that you have a lock that you can put on so you're not worried about somebody coming in at night, even if it's, you know, somebody with a master key. Getting a dog. I'm a big advocate for emotional support animals. And dogs, yes, they can be ruckus and they can be startling sometimes, but more often than not, they can be a huge comfort to people. I remember even. And my daughter's little rat dog does the same thing. My grandmother had a miniature schnauzer, and Biffer was just the greatest little dog. But when she fell ill, there was one time that they had to call the paramedics to come get her. And biffer, all like 12 pounds of her, was not going to let the paramedics anywhere near the bed. She stood on the edge of the bed and just barked and bounced and carried on until my grandfather got her and, you know, removed her from the room. But Biffer, she was small, but she was fierce. And my daughter's dog is the exact same way. You know, she is very protective, and anybody comes in the house, she will chase them and nip at their heels. And she's like 15 now, but she. She still tries. Think about how you can enhance your intuition. And what I mean by this is a lot of times we have held on to memories from the past when we were unsafe. And it may be time to Start examining those beliefs again about our sense of safeness. So being mindful is the first thing to notice when you're starting to feel anxious. And when you start feeling anxious, recognize that that feeling is normal. Don't tell yourself, well, I shouldn't feel this way right now. You feel how you feel. And so recognizing that as your brain's way of telling you, for some reason, you're perceiving that there might be a threat now. There might be. It's a possible threat. That means it's time to get up and use your energy to do something. Smoke alarms. That's the example I use all the time, because we used to have smoke alarms in our house that when I would raise the windows on a really blustery, windy day, for some reason, the wind would make the smoke alarms go off, bless their hearts. I mean, it hurts the dog's ears, and they would just cower. And so it was, you know, important to figure out how to make that stop. But it was also important to recognize that just because the smoke alarm's going off doesn't necessarily mean that there's a fire. It means you need to get up and check and see what's causing the alarm to go off. And if it's a false alarm, with that, you evaluate the threat. You evaluate the situation and learn from the experience. If it's a faulty smoke alarm, you say, okay, you know, it's still important every time a smoke alarm goes off that I get up and check, but I don't have to have that surge of adrenaline that, oh, my gosh, you know, there's a fire. Nine. Nine times out of ten, it's probably going to be, you know, either steam from the shower or. Or the wind, for our smoke alarms, at least. And it's important to recognize and learn about the probability of danger for things that trigger your anxiety. You know, learning about, you know, how many times when you have felt this way, has it actually been a threat? And there probably were times. So, you know, you can't say it was none of the time. But recognizing the probability is. Is on your side for being safe. A lot of times, affectively, cognitively, and relationally, all of these kind of overlap. What would it take for you to feel safe, to have your own thoughts and feelings? A lot of people are afraid to have their own thoughts and feelings because that's the way they were raised. Don't talk, don't trust, don't feel. And I get it. However, as we grow older, as we become independent, it's also important for us to start being mindful, figuring out what our thoughts, feelings, wants and needs are and creating an environment where it's safe to live authentically, to be ourselves, where we're not afraid of judgment and. And that's easier said than done, don't get me wrong. But it's important to figure out how you can start creating this environment. Start small. How can you create this environment at home, you know, or maybe even at home in front of your significant other and then at home in front of the rest of your family? You know, you can expand from there, but figuring out how can you feel safe to be authentic mindfulness and acceptance, you know, we. Mindfulness keeps coming up today because mindfulness helps us notice when we're feeling anxious, but it also helps us notice and become aware of what we need and what we think and feel. And then radically accepting that, saying, all right, this is how I feel right now, in the moment, now, what can I do about it? It's important to silence the unsafe critic. That pathological critic in our head sometimes can make our own brain feel unsafe because there's always, quote, someone in the back of our head telling us we're not good enough, so we need to silence that critic. We need to create safety in our own head where we have compassion and love for ourselves. When we have intrusive thoughts, memories that keep us feeling unsafe, or, you know, intrusive thoughts, period, that are triggering distress, you know, recognizing, obviously checking, making sure you're actually safe, which is part of the grounding, noticing what's going on in this moment, in this situation, and then thought stopping by using guided imagery, thought stopping itself. If you just say, I'm not going to think about that right now, that's not so easy. Because if you just don't think about that and don't replace it with something, then you've got this void. And most of us can't keep a empty mind for very long. So it's important in order to support thought stopping you ground, make sure you're safe, and then use guided imagery or start thinking about something else to replace those intrusive thoughts. Self esteem is important, and we're actually going to talk about that tomorrow. For developing a sense of safety when you have self esteem, when you think you are good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it, people should like you, then it is easier to tolerate criticism. It's easier to accept when people don't like you because not everybody's going to like you. And that's just the way it is. And when you have a strong self esteem, you're not relying on others to tell you you're okay. You, you know in your heart, in your head and in your gut that you are okay. You are lovable. So any rejection that comes your way, yeah, it's unpleasant, but it doesn't make you feel like you are going to disappear. And that's really important. Identify people who are unconditionally supportive in your life. This is really important to create safety. Who in your life right now is unconditionally supportive of you? Who can you be yourself around? You know, just kind of roll out of bed, sweatpants, whatever, and just be yourself without having to worry about couching or altering what you say in order to be quote, appropriate. Who loves you even when you're not, you know, on your A game. If you don't have anybody in your life that's like that right now, you know, it's. That's one of those things that's probably going to be important to cultivate and so explore how you can build a network of supportive, safe people. And that's hard, especially, you know, if you. With COVID and everything. When we are doing a lot more working from home or we don't have more as much time where we're actually able to socialize with our colleagues, we're, we're not going out as much but figuring out where might I be able to connect with two or three people that share similar interests with whom I could be my authentic self in front of? What would it take for you to feel safe? And this is going to vary depending on the situation and the person. What would it take for you to feel safe communicating your thoughts and, and feelings to your significant other, to your children, to your friends, to your boss, you, to whomever you know. Each one of those is his own unique situation. And it's important to figure out how could I feel safe doing this? And obviously that requires, you know, good interpersonal skills and assertiveness. What would it take for you to feel safe setting boundaries with others? A lot of times people fail to set boundaries because they fear rejection because they have low self esteem and they need other people to tell them they're okay. So if they are rejected, then they feel very anxious. So they don't want to set boundaries because they're afraid that that will push other people away. And what would it take, just like we've been talking about, for you to feel safe acting authentically just being yourself and that one of the things that, you know, I, well, I love so Many things about my daughter and, you know, I love her to the moon and back, but she's so awesome because even through her teenage years when people tend to become more self conscious and stuff, she never did, she has always marched to the beat her of her own drummer and behaved very authentically. You know, 90% of the time. I know she's, you know, reined it in sometimes inappropriate situations she couldn't, where she couldn't be completely herself. But it's always been very liberating in some ways for me to watch her just not have a care in the world. She's just like, here I am, take me or leave me. And that is so awesome. If you've been through challenging experiences, which I think everybody has, they don't may not rise up to the level where you might call them a trauma, but we've all been through heartbreak, we've all been through challenging experiences. How can you develop meaning from that challenging experience? How can you emerge from that as a survivor? And a lot of times I'll have my clients write a story or a script if they want to do that. And in that story, you know, each chapter represents something else that's happened in their life. But you know, when you're watching a television show or whatever, they don't just plop something in there for no apparent reason. There's always a reason that that event was added into the script and it alters the characters in some way. So how can they write their story to incorporate that event into their narrative, their life narrative, in a way that makes them emerge stronger? Identify three examples of how you've been courageous in the past and how you've kept yourself safe. Develop compassion for yourself, recognizing that criticizing yourself is back to having that negative, unsafe internal critic. So having compassion for yourself and love for yourself and acceptance for yourself is really important. But also having compassion for others can be important. If you are around somebody who is angry a lot of the time, you know, it's important. You can either view them as a threat, as an angry threat. And you know, we're assuming here that they are not a physical threat to you. They're just, they're a grumpy person. And you can view that as a threat, or you can have compassion for them and think, wow, how awful must it be to live in that darkness? Hope. When we are feeling safe, we are also feeling hopeful. And one activity to develop optimism. And this came from the book Crisis Intervention Promoting Resilience and Resolution in Troubled Times. One of my favorite books of all time. But he talks in there about finding the pony. And basically there was this really optimistic person who his parents were trying to convince him to be less optimistic because he was just too optimistic all the time. Now, I don't know why you would do that. But anyway, so they took him to this psychologist who was a little bit, you know, unique. And the psychologist put him. Put the optimistic boy in this room that was just full of pony poop. There was just horse poop everywhere. And the child was instructed to shovel out all of the. All of the horse poop. And instead of getting angry about it and being, you know, upset and frustrated, at the end of the day, when his parents came back, he was still happily shoveling away. And they were just like, what gives? You know, nobody wants to shovel horse manure for this long. And the boy was like, well, with the amount of horse poop in here, there has got to be a pony in here somewhere. And that was what he was. He was looking for the nugget in the pile of crap and, and encouraging yourself to find the pony, even when you feel like you're swimming in a sea of horse manure, you know, can you find the pony? Hope can also be developed by looking for the benevolence in the world. If we are feeling unsafe, we are looking for the threats in the world. And it's important to balance that out. Force your brain to also notice the benevolence in the world. The people that are kind that stop and help you change a tire, that, you know, check in on you if they haven't seen you, show up at your favorite coffee shop or the gym for a while, you know, looking for the benevolence, not just the threats in the world, can be very empowering. And thinking about what helps you get through difficult times, you know, how do you continue to feel safe? How do you protect yourself? How do you find the courage to get through difficult times? When we've got courage, it means we are doing what we need to do to keep ourselves safe. So what keeps you courageous even in difficult times? And in what ways have you grown through your experiences, both good and bad? So that kind of goes back to finding the pony sort of thing. What pearls or diamonds in the rough can you find that emerged from the pressures that you experienced? You know, diamonds are. Are compressed. I believe it's coal, but I don't remember any. In what ways have you emerged a diamond from that experience? While you can't control everything, it's just not reasonable to think you can. You can choose to address the things that are in your power in order to improve the next moment. So if you start today and you keep choosing to improve the next moment, by the end of the day, you know, assuming a moment's like a minute, let's just round up, you know, that's a lot of moments and a lot of improvement. So continually asking yourself, what can I do to improve the next moment. What is one thing that you can start doing today to feel safer in your own head? You know, what's one thing you can start doing today to silence that inner critic, to develop compassion for yourself and to develop self esteem? What is one thing you can start doing today to feel safer at home? If you don't feel safe in your own home? If you don't feel like you can relax, what do you need to do? What do you need to do so you can relax? What do you need to do to feel safer in public? And that may not be something that you're ready to start with today. You know, start small and what can you do to feel safer in your relationships? And one of the best ways to do that is start having more open and honest communication. But you know, everybody's going to pick their first, their where they want to start and, and that's cool, but it's important to feel safe in your, in your head, at home, in public and in your relationships in order to help you feel less stressed and have more energy. And it is important to remember, you know, that safety is something that is ever evolving. You know, you can be sitting in your house and you know, everything is fine, then all of a sudden this huge front line starts coming through and you tornado sirens start going off. So you were safe, you know, five minutes ago, but now, okay, we've got to change. So safety also means being flexible and being able to adapt and being able to sort of anticipate what might happen and having a plan. A lot of times people feel safer if they've got a plan to deal with distress when it happens. You know, what, in the unlikely event that I were to get fired, what would I do in the event that there's a tornado coming through? You know, we know what we're as a family, we're going to do. We've done it enough times. So there are a lot of things that you can anticipate that are highly unlikely, however you want. It's something that may nag at the back of your head, so, or the back of your mind. So having a plan to deal with it that way, you know that if the worst thing happens, you do have a drop back and punt plan. Can make people feel a little bit safer. Are there any other questions? I really appreciate you all being here with me. I know you're taking time out of your day and I hope that you are able to find a nugget in each of these presentations that can help you live a little bit happier every single day.