Social Interventions for Depression Treatment | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Tips

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@allceus.com Counselortoolbox you. I'd like to welcome everybody to Today's presentation on 100 Practical Tools to defeat depression. Today we're talking about social interventions. So far we've covered emotional interventions, cognitive, physical, and now we're moving on to social. We're going to identify the benefits of social support, the characteristics of healthy relationships, ways to improve relationships, including getting rid of baggage, knowing your temperament, practicing assertiveness, and nurturing positive relationships. We'll discuss the concepts of forgiveness and acceptance, which we all have to have in relationships, and learn about how even pets can provide an element of social support. So why is social support important in depression? Well, remember, when we think about depression, we think about people who are feeling hopeless. They're feeling helpless, they may feel feel dejected, they may have low self esteem, they may feel overwhelmed. And social support can address pretty much all of those things. It provides a sense of belonging. Spending time with people helps ward off loneliness. Whether it's other new parents that you're hanging out with, you're hanging out with dog lovers or fishing buddies or siblings, just knowing you're not alone can go a long way toward coping with stress. Social support also provides an increased sense of self worth because having people who call you a friend reinforces the idea in your own head that you're a good person to be around. Now, you know, we regularly talk about the fact that we don't want to be exclusively externally validated. We don't want to rely and have our happiness rest on other people telling us we're okay. But you got to admit that when somebody that you care about tells you, you know, you're awesome or I enjoy hanging out with you, or you're a great person to have in my life, it makes you happy. You know, it doesn't mean that you can't exist without them in your life, but when you know that you're a positive force in their life, it makes you feel good about yourself. And social support can also provide feelings of security. Your social network gives you access to information, advice, guidance, and other types of assistance should you need it. And it's comforting to know that you've got people you can turn to in the time of need. You know, we've got some stuff going on here and I have friends right now. I've got two friends who've offered to pitch in and help Should I need them to come, you know, stay with my kids so I can go stay with my mother after she has chemo or something. So it's nice to have those friends there because you don't feel like you're out there all alone and stranded. So if you've been to my classes on relationships before, I'm sure you've heard this analogy. But we're going to do it again. Healthy relationships are a lot like cookies, and I love cookies. But one of the things that we can do when we're teaching about relationships is use this analogy. And we start by teaching and discussing cookies and how many different variations there are for sugar cookies. You know, there's a lot of things you can do with sugar cookies. And then you discuss all the different standalone foods that you can put in sugar cookies to make them even better. So, you know, chocolate chips for one, and obviously these are mine, but chocolate chips, caramels, candy corn. Oh, I love candy corn. Dates and raisins. You can even add peanut butter or peanut butter chips, walnuts and yes, it sounds kind of gross, but zucchini. If you've had zucchini bread, zucchini cookies are just kind of like zucchini bread on steroids. Carrots, same thing. If you've had carrot cake, it's very similar. It's just, you know, a little bit of a different texture. You can put in Rice Krispies or oatmeal. All of these things are things that you can eat alone or you can put them in the sugar cookie and make a super duper sugar cookie. So then you can talk about standalone foods you wouldn't add to a sugar cookie. And yes, there is a point to all this and not everybody's going to agree. So, you know, for example, I don't understand chocolate covered fruit. Why would you ruin perfectly good fruit or perfectly good chocolate with fruit and vice versa? I do like fruit, but I've just never liked chocolate covered fruit. Some people love it. So, you know, there's going to be some disagreement in there. And that's good. So examples of things you wouldn't put in a sugar cookie. Sardines yet. No, I'm not thinking. So hot pepper flakes. Black licorice. You know, I think I don't like black licorice. I don't like fennel either. Some people would like to dice it up and put it in sugar cookies. More power to them. I just won't eat them. Oysters, lemon slices, kale or popcorn. You know, these are all things that are good Standalones, but you probably wouldn't put them in sugar cookies. So then we start talking about how different people and different things go together. You know, not everybody likes sugar cookies with zucchini in them. And that's fine. You know, that that's more power to them. Not everybody is going to like your best friend, and you're not going to like everybody else's friends. We all have different characteristics, and some blend and mesh really well, and some not so much. So when we're talking about the standalone foods, I have next to them salty, spicy, funky. I didn't know what to call licorice. Slimy, sour, bitter, and popcorn just dissolves. But we can think about how, you know, these flavors differ. And not everybody likes these particular flavors. And we've got friends that can maybe be categorized in each of each one of these flavor categories. So we start talking about differences and complementarity, if that's even a word. And then we start talking about making a recipe for a good person. You know, what does that look like? And that's kind of like creating a recipe for a sugar cookie, because that's a standalone recipe thing, and that's a recipe for a good person. And then we create another recipe for a friend that, you know, that would make a great dessert, could stand alone on its own. It would bring out the best in a good person. Have you ever had sugar cookies with brownies? You know, put them together in layers. Oh, that's good. I like to bake. If you hadn't picked up on that, and then identify characteristics of people that would not combine well with the good person. Pet peeves and deal breakers. So if everybody thinks of themselves as a sugar cookie and then they think of their friends as those other desserts that could be combined to make a super duper dessert, that's kind of what we're talking about here. It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with black licorice. Just because I don't like it and I don't want to combine it with my sugar cookie doesn't mean that it doesn't go great with somebody else's. And so if you can really explain and play out that metaphor, it can be an interesting conversation starter. And if you don't mind having, you know, food around the room, you know, you can even have that out there to have people sample, because I found that food really makes people happy. So that helps people kind of get the idea, because one of the things I want them to garner from that activity is that healthy relationships are not about completing one another. It's not about the eggs that go in the recipe for the sugar cookie. You know, you're not eggs and flour. When you're in a relationship, that's two incompletes that make something really good. You want to have two complete things that you can combine together to make something that is just magnificent. But it brings out the two independent things, bring out the best in each other. Think like Reese's Pieces or Reese's Cups. You know, they bring out the best in each other. So then we move on to talking about something that's a little more mundane and the characteristics of healthy relationships. And we talk about honesty, faith and trust, Compassion, respect, boundaries, which a lot of people grew up not having. Some of these things. Openness and willingness, mutual support and unconditional positive regard. So, you know, I can throw all those terms out there, and people sit there and bob their head and, you know, think they're getting it. But then we. When we go back and we talk about, okay, what does it look like to have honesty in a relationship? And how have you experienced this? Conversely, how have you experienced dishonesty in a relationship? Move down to faith and trust. You know, what does that look like? And tell me about some times when you've experienced a relationship where you lost faith or trust in the other person. And we talk about how you build trust, because it's not one of those things. You meet somebody, just like in therapy, we don't meet somebody and they automatically trust us, you know, with everything. They trust us with a lot more than the average person on the street. But most clients, if they've got these deep, dark, secret secrets, don't bring those out in the first session. So how do we develop trust? And how do we learn to have faith in ourselves as well as other people? Compassion, you know, what. What is compassion? How do you define that? What does it look like? And how do you experience compassion? Respect, boundaries. And we go through each one of these and we talk about them, what they look like, experiences people have had when they haven't been able to have boundaries, whether it's physical or emotional or cognitive. And we talk about the difference because, you know, physical boundaries are really easy to define. You know, if you don't like to be touched, then, you know, you have this boundary. We have a boundary with how much space is comfortable. We talk about emotional boundaries. You know, somebody can be in a bad mood in your house. It doesn't mean that you're not allowed to be happy, and that's not okay in a lot of addicted families. Don't talk, don't trust, don't feel are the three mantras of the addictive family. So it's important for clients to understand, you know, you don't want to get in their face and rub it. I'm in a good mood and you're not. Of course that's rude. But just because your roommate or your spouse has had a bad day and they're in a God awful mood doesn't mean it has to bring you down. You can have empathy, but it doesn't mean it has to bring you down and keep you there. And then cognitive boundaries are similar. Reminding people that they have valid thoughts, they have valid opinions, and they have the right to hold and maintain their own thoughts, opinions, and perceptions of things if that's what they want to do. And mutual, mutual support. We spend a fair amount of time talking about unconditional positive regard. And you know, that throws you back to your humanistic roots. But most people have never experienced it. Most people have always had conditions of worth. And you know, Roger said that from the very beginning. So helping them figure out what this looks like and how to separate loving a person from, you know, loving or disliking their behaviors or their choices is really important. And learning how to provide unconditional positive regard for others as well as themselves, reminding themselves that they're deserving of love regardless of whether they get an A or a circumstance or they get the promotion or they don't. So like I said, we start by defining each characteristic and have participants identify examples of honesty, faith, trust, et cetera. We write each characteristic on a piece of flip chart paper and post it around the room. And then you can go have people go from station to station. You know, I'm stuck on flip charts. I love those things. Write how they nurture that quality in themselves and in others. So a lot of times I'll draw a line down the middle and I'll have nurturing yourself and nurture in others. Because it's important that people have a healthy relationship with themselves and helping them understand this is really important. I want people to learn how to be their own best friend. That doesn't mean they don't need other people, but in order to know how they want to be treated and they need to know how they want to treat themselves. So we have them think about how they nurture those things in themselves. A lot of times clients are not honest with themselves. They will deny their own needs. They will ignore their own needs or their thoughts or their feelings in order to get acceptance or to avoid abandonment or whatever. Many times clients don't trust themselves or have faith in their own abilities. They're not compassionate with themselves. A lot of times clients are like their hardest critics. So I encourage them to figure out, how do you nurture that if you are willing? If your child experienced the same experience, would you condemn them for it or would you, you know, hug them and try to help them pick themselves up and figure out what to do next? You know, that's compassion. So why then are you holding yourself to this higher standard, you know, much higher standard that you know, and beating yourself up for it instead of being compassionate with yourself? And there is a group of people who were taught that self compassion is not okay, that that is indicating of a sign of weakness or gluttony, that they shouldn't, they should hold themselves to that higher standard and they should always push and they shouldn't be compassionate because it means they're, they're weak in some way. So we may need to process that with people, but encourage them to go around. And then you've got a list of ways that people can nurture qualities of healthy relationships in themselves and others. You can write it down, create a handout, give it to people the next week. Another thing that a lot of people do, and I don't want to just say clients, because it's not. None of this stuff applies to just clients. Those are just the people who've recognized that they may need help with it. But too often we carry baggage from one relationship to the next and we make the new person carry the old baggage. You know, think about every relationship. If you've been in five relationships and in each relationship you get a bag. And if you've ever been to the airport once, you have more than two bags. That's a lot. And especially with how much they charge for baggage fees now, you really only want that carry on. But you know, if you're carrying around all this baggage with you, how much does it weigh you down? So encouraging people to look at what types of baggage did they pick up in this past relationship and figure out how to deal with it so they're not holding this new person hostage for it. They're not making this new person carry around that luggage. Healthy relationships require understanding what you feel, why you feel that way, who triggered that feeling, and then deciding if you want to carry that baggage with you. Sometimes people want to carry some, some of that stuff with them as protection because they still don't feel safe. They don't still don't trust other people, you know, and that's okay. I'm not encouraging them to like strip themselves naked right away. You know, I want them to be willing to let go of some of those walls or that baggage when they're comfortable. But it's important for them to recognize, am I expecting this new person to behave like the old person behaved and if so, is that fair? And what am I doing to maybe create a self fulfilling prophecy. So one of the activities you can do is have people list all the influential people in their life. Their parents, their friends, their past loves and their current ones. You know, just make this huge list and you don't have to name them. You can have categories like mom, dad, sister, brother, whatever. Have them identify what each person has taught them about relationships, good and bad. And so they start learning where they got their perspectives on relationships, especially these characteristics. You know, what did your mom teach you about these things in relationships? And what did your best friend and your first love and your sibling teach you about these things in your relationships? Because we generally recreate what we know. So if that's what we've learned, then that's what we're probably going to carry with us. And yeah, we want to have, you know, if people have gotten divorced or, you know, even if they haven't been married, if they've had a breakups, they're probably carrying stuff with them. So we want them to identify it and deal with it so it doesn't impact, so the next relationship person doesn't have to carry that baggage. Once people identify all the things they learned about relationships from the those that are influential in their life, then we want to go back and compare those to the skills required for healthy relationships. So maybe they learned in their relationships, you know, all the influential ones, that it was never safe to have boundaries or that it was never safe to trust because people would let you down. Okay, well that's obviously an issue that they may need to address now. So have them decide what baggage they have from each relationship that they're going to choose to carry, what they're going to choose to learn from and let go. Because it's not fair to hold everybody else hostage, such as a parent who couldn't openly express affection. You know, if you had a parent that that was that way, that was unfortunate. And so you may have developed some feelings about that and lack of trust and low self esteem or whatever. But it's important not to assume that you're not lovable just because that parent couldn't express affection. So Then have clients start to identify what skills they need to work on. And a lot of times this is an individual activity, not a group activity. When we get down to the nitty gritty here and have them focus on improving one area each week. Now as a group, it's fun to go through this other activity with the stations about healthy relationships because that's not going to be traumatizing in any sort of way. Then when you get down to the baggage claim, a lot of times that's an individual activity because people don't want to share that stuff in group. That's cool. Being assertive means that people express themselves effectively, stand up for their points of view, while also respecting the rights and beliefs of others. So we talk about the difference between passive aggressive, passive aggressive and assertive behavior. And this can be a really fun group if you prepare for it ahead of time with a few good scenarios that people can act out. But we talk at first about why assertiveness is important and, you know, generally most beneficial in most situations sometimes. And there are occasions where it's better to be passive and get out of a situation and then take action. There are times occasionally when you have to step up to an aggressive level, but those are the exceptions to the rule. Most of the time, assertiveness is going to be the best round. So I do, when we talk about this, especially if I'm talking about it in a group of people who have experience with violence or abuse or whatever, you know, we do talk about the fact that there are times when assertiveness is not in your best interest, but in healthy relationships it is. So that's the key there. We're talking about assertive communication in healthy relationships. So activity. And this is why it can be fun. Roleplay each type of communication in the following situations. And you can have little slips of paper that have each type of communication on them and just randomly hand them out. So disagreement with a roommate and you have somebody, and I have assertive go last. I usually have aggressive or passive go first. And somebody plays the roommate and somebody plays the other role, and then we do the other one. Then we do passive aggressive and then we talk about, okay, you see how these didn't seem to go so well. And we talk about why the aggression, the ramifications of being aggressive or being passive in the short and long term. And then we role play the assertive one and see how people feel afterwards if they feel like it was a more mutually beneficial outcome. A disagreement with someone on social media. It happens a lot. So. And I do bring these up a lot in group because I see a lot of people getting stressed out on Facebook and YouTube and other things. People can be horribly mean to one another in social media, so it's important for people to learn the skills to deal with it when they experience it. Being on the phone with the cable company, I think most of us can relate and by the time they get to you, you just. But being aggressive with that person is probably not going to do any good. And most of the time they have no control over your situation. So being ugly to them is pointless. Talking to the doctor Sometimes when people talk to a doctor, they can be generally tend to be more passive than aggressive when they're talking to a doctor about what they need. And it's important for people to be able to say, you know what? No document, that's not how it is. I need you to listen. And interacting with a particularly difficult family member. I think most people have experienced each one of these situations at some point or another, which is why I choose them. And we go through the different scenarios. If they've experienced it before, it's easier for them to act it out. And both being the antagonist as well as being the one acting out the communication style. So nurturing relationships. There's only so much we can talk about with healthy relationships and unhealthy relationships and communication. We also want to talk about nurturing relationships. You've got some good relationships. Maybe none of your relationships is perfect. Okay, that's alright. But it's important to recognize that there are aspects of some of your relationships to be nurtured. So I have clients review this list and ask themselves how they can do that for themselves as well as for their friends. So this is a similar one to the healthy relationships activity. Kind, constant and honest communication. Now, it's rare that people can honestly say I do all three with myself and everybody else most of the time if they can score kudos. And this is where we really want to teach mindfulness. Because in order to be honest, they have to be aware. In order to be aware, they need to use mindfulness practices to know what they need and what they feel and what they want and what they think. This communication, that's constant. Now it doesn't have to be, you know, extrovert constant, but it has to be regular communication with yourself. You need to regularly check in with yourself. That's part of mindfulness. But also regularly checking in with others, whatever that means for that person. Maybe it's once a day, maybe it's once a week, whatever it is. But we do want to have regular communication and we want to try to be kind even when we're not, even when we're providing constructive feedback. It's important to try to be kind and use effective words. Whether we're providing constructive feedback to ourselves about something we need to start working on, or to a friend or a family member. The willingness to work through difficulties and disagreements. And again, how do you do this for yourself? When you're having difficulties, when you're feeling stuck, do you have a willingness to figure out how to solve it, or do you just throw your hands up and go, I feel hopeless and helpless. And remember, if somebody's already depressed, they're going to tend to feel more helpless and have that sense of learned helplessness and just kind of lay down and go, whatever. I can't even deal. So we want to encourage people to have a willingness to work through difficulties and disagreements, which may mean asking for help. You know, sometimes you don't know how to solve it. So you need to be willing to reach out and go, I need some advice, a sense of humor, some fun, and a bit of distraction from the rigors of daily life. We all need to laugh. We all need to have fun. So encourage clients to share how they bring happiness into their life each day, how they have a sense of humor, whether it's laughing at themselves or, you know, laughing at their dog. Our cats are usually much more amusing than our dogs, but either way, I mean, we find ways to laugh every day, so we want to share that with one another and encourage humor and some lightheartedness, even if it's a. Well, especially when people are having a bad day, it's important for them to take a laughter break. Sharing life lessons with your friends so in group, people can share about, you know, what types of things have your friends taught you or. And what types of things have you taught your friends? You know, what kind of life lessons have you passed on to help people recognize that they do have an impact in other people's life and other people do have an impact in theirs? So it's not just, you know, if I disappear tomorrow, it wouldn't affect anything, or if I was never born, it wouldn't affect anything. What types of life lessons and impacts have you had on other people? We talk about emotional support, validation and compliments, self and others, sharing goals and dreams. And this is something you can do in group. It's a great thing to do as an art therapy project, encouraging people to explore what their goals and dreams are. They can make a big tree and, you know, each person gets a branch on the tree to be one of their goals or, you know, they can make individual projects. There's a lot of different ways to do a goals and dreams tree. But the cool thing if you do a group tree or a family tree is that each part of the tree is branching from that same trunk, which is feeding from the same foundation. So you can talk about how it's important to have, you know, good soil and all that kind of stuff. Compassion, acceptance and forgiveness and being able to admit mistakes and talk about them. And one of the things I often have clients do if they're willing, is to share a mistake that they've made and why they regret it and what they did to fix it, make amends for it, whatever. Temperament is another thing we need to consider in social relationships. By creating environments that are most in line with our preferences, we can reduce stress. So. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself by understanding other people's preferences. You can improve how you interact and communicate with them. My daughter is a strong introvert. I tend to be an extrovert. My son tends to be more, more of an extrovert. So I communicate with them a little bit differently. And both of them have very different preferences about their environment and their activities and their hobbies. So in group you can administer the Temperament Checklist, which I have in the book, or the Kircy Temperament Sorter, which is online. Clients can usually take that at home and then come back and talk about what their dimensions were. Extroverts tend to like being around other people and they have a lot of friends and they tend to think better while they're talking. And you know, they think while they're talking. They gain energy from other people. Introverts tend to want to think things over and then tell you about it. They don't talk and think at the same time. They need downtime each day and being around a crowd of people can be draining because it takes them a lot of energy to focus on things outside of themselves. It doesn't mean they're antisocial, it just means that they prefer a different style. Extroverts don't mind interruptions or last minute changes. They do well as teachers and things. Introverts do mind those things. And they do better in like lab work or, you know, computer work of some sort that they're not getting interrupted and having to change directions every two minutes. Sensing and intuitive sensors are detail oriented and intuitors are broad strokes. We get frustrated by getting Stuck down in the weeds with all the details. We like to think we're the ones who come up with the grant ideas and then there's other people who do the budgets and all the other, you know, stuff to make it happen. Thinkers and feelers talks about how people make decisions and make judgments about things. Thinkers tend to use, and this is wildly overgeneralized just because we don't have time to go into everything right now. But thinkers tend to use right and wrong, black and white laws, rules, those sorts of things. Feelers, we tend to make decisions based on what's going to make everybody else happy and what seems to be the most ethical and compassionate thing to do versus necessarily what's by the book. So if you're trying to persuade somebody who's a thinker, you're going to use more fact based stuff. If you're trying to persuade somebody who's a feeler, you're going to use more compassion based stuff. So in a work environment, for example, somebody could be really stressed out if they're a by the book sort of thing and the organization is more of a well, let's do what makes everybody happy. And judging and perceiving Judgers tend to be, this refers more to time management. Judgers tend to be more structured and time and deadline oriented. Perceivers are much more spontaneous. I'm a judger, I'm like off the chart judger. I need to have, I love structure, I thrive on it. But you know, other people in my household are more perceivers and they think that I can be kind of boring because, you know, Sundays is laundry day and that's when we do laundry. So knowing what your preferences are, if I'm in an environment where I can't plan or predict, it drives me a little bit batty. And I have to recognize that and know that if I'm going into one of those situations ahead of time, I need to kind of have a plan because I'm a judger. I need to have a plan for how to handle the ambiguity. Perceivers going into overly structured situations need to have a plan for handling the monotony, so to speak. And I have lots of videos on temperament on our YouTube channel, allce.com YouTube but that kind of hits the highlights. So you can understand how two people with different temperaments may struggle in what they prefer to do. You know, my daughter, great having one or two people over for a couple of hours. My son, he could have five people over for the entire weekend and still be going strong. So it's Just a difference in what your preferences are. But when people are stressed out, if they're in environments that don't fit their temperament, then it's going to tend to make them feel again, more helpless and hopeless. So when you're working with clients after they've identified what their temperaments are, address one dimension at a time. So for example, have extroverts on one side of the room and introverts on the other. And there's a, in the book, and I'll actually put it in your classroom too, I have a little check sheet. It's kind of a quick go by guide that hits some of the highlights of these different temperament dimensions. And we talk about how it's a continuum and we discuss what each temperament prefers using that checklist and discuss ways people with opposing preferences can effectively be in relationships and how that preference impacts people's work, recreation and relationships. So for example, extroverts like meeting new people and have a lot of close friends. I mean they, they walk into Walmart or church and they know everybody. Introverts have to exert effort to meet new people, but they have a couple of really close friends that they are just like thick as thieves. So that's important to understand if you're in a relationship with an extrovert like I am, I tend to like for celebrations, I tend to like parties and my husband tends to like having one or two people over. You know, parties are really stressful for him. So I have to understand that. And we kind of compromise. We found a number that makes us both feel relatively happy for the number of people to have over. But we talk about how we can work that. If you're an extrovert, you're probably going to get really bored if you work in a cubicle and that's going to be stressful and frustrating if you're an introvert, if you're working as a salesperson, that's probably going to be overwhelming. So you want to talk about how people's innate preferences impact their daily life. Now if you read these because it's a continuum, you're going to read all of the extrovert temperaments, for example. And anyone who identifies as an extrovert who says no, that doesn't really describe me, takes one step toward the center for each characteristic that doesn't fit them. So you're going to end up with people all the way across the room by the end because some people are about halfsies and some people are, you know, they read it and they're like, oh, My gosh, that's me. So it helps people understand that we're not dealing with a single entity and we need to individualize our interactions. Love and compassion is another thing we talk about. And I just start off the group by asking them, what or who do you love? And again, this can be a fun art therapy activity, having people bring in pictures of people that they love or things that they love and make collages, etc. But then we talk about, how do you know you love that person? How do you know what love is? And are there different types of love? You know, I love my dog, I love my kids, I love my spouse, I love my best friend. But are those all the same kind of love? And if not, generally we come to the conclusion that no, there are different types. What does each type look like? And there's, you know, there's passionate love and there's friendship love and all those other things. Then we talk about how can you tell the difference between love, lust and like? Because a lot of people, when they. Well, when we get into relationships initially, we may confuse what those things are. And a lot of people getting out of recovery or getting out of treatment often confuse their feelings because especially in addictions treatment, they haven't felt much for so long now. They're just flooded with all these feelings. They've got highs and lows all over the place. And they get confused about what's love versus what's hormones and all that kind of stuff. And it's easy to do. It doesn't matter if you're 14 or 44. Have you ever thought that you loved somebody just because you were afraid of being alone? And generally people aren't going to like, raise their hand up and be like, oh, yeah, that's me. But you'll see people start to nod and be like, yeah, you know, I convinced myself that I loved that person just because I didn't know what else was out there. And how does love sometimes keep you in unhealthy relationships? So these aren't, you know, ruckus experiential activities, but they are decent discussion questions that we can have to help people recognize their patterns in relationships and their pattern and how those relationships impact them and their relationship with themselves. An individual activity people can do is to write a story about loving something. So they talk about it. You know, basically something like a Hallmark novel or whoever writes those, you know, the trashy novels, write about being windswept and in love and what that looks like. So they can start putting words to what love they hope love looks like. And that's the idealized version, of course. But then we also talk about, you know, how do current relationships feel? And again, how do you know that you love those people? And have them make a list or collage of all the things they love. If they don't want to do that, maybe they're not artsy, they don't like doing that thing. You can have them get a shoebox or something and decorate it and then put pictures or items that remind them of things that they love in there. So then when they're having a bad day, they can go into the box and review all those things and smile. Compassion is defined as caring and concern for the suffering or misfortunes of others or even ourselves. Americans often respond with a self centered response. Instead of seeing a cashier as someone who's doing her best and just having a bad day, we may see her as someone who's slow and holding us up. And you see this in people's faces when they're, you know, four deep in line, trying to have compassion for the person who's been scanning stuff all day long and, you know, having difficulties for whatever reason important. I've been a cashier, you know, most of the time it's a great job, but sometimes it can be challenging. So in order to encourage people to develop compassion for themselves and others for the next week, when they start getting irritated at someone or feel guilty for not doing something, encourage them to try to be compassionate. Because remember, guilt is lack of compassion towards self and have them ask themselves, am I, or is that person doing the best that I, he or she can? If so, is it reasonable to expect anything else? You know, if you're doing your best, is it reasonable to expect people to do better than that? No, because then your best wouldn't be your best. So, and then follow that up with, is there something I can do to help to make it better? So if you're having a bad day, you know, maybe you're just really struggling getting your work done that day and you're beating yourself up. You're like, I really need to get this project done. You know, I put it off and you're beating yourself up for it. How can you have compassion for yourself? You know, reminding yourself that, you know, you didn't sleep well last night, you're not feeling great, you know, you're doing the best that you can. All right, so you are that there's nothing more you can do than your best. Is there something you can do to make the situation Better maybe take a break. You know, sometimes just taking a 15 minute break, you can get back and get focused. Sometimes you just need to switch gears and then come back to it tomorrow. So doing some problem solving to figure out how to improve the situation instead of beating yourself up, which is going to do no good except for use a lot of energy and ask yourself, you know, what are possible explanations for why this might be happening? If you are desperately trying to get a project done and you've read the same paragraph three times and you still don't know what you read, what's going on? You know, is your blood sugar low? Do you need to take a break? Did you forget your glasses at home? Did you not sleep well? You know what's going on? You may not be able to fix it right then, but instead of saying stupid or I'm worthless or I'm helpless in some way, you can identify a tangible factor that is contributing to this problem and then figure out how to address it. Forgiveness and acceptance is another thing. And the minute I say this to people, sometimes you start seeing them bristle when I start even mention the word forgiveness. They're like, oh, not gonna forgive. If I forgive, it means I'm gonna forget and I'm not willing to forget. And I'm like, okay, putting the cart before the horse here. Let's just talk about forgiveness first. Forgiveness is a power play that allows us to accept something or someone did, allows us to accept something someone did and stops doing on it. If my best friend lied to me, you know that, you know, that hurts. It stings, you know, because characteristics of healthy relationships. Honesty was number one. If somebody lies to you, yeah, that's going to sting. But does stewing on it do any good? You know, it's kind of, when you're stewing on something, it's kind of like having something sitting on a burner all day long. It just uses up energy and evaporates a lot of the water out of it. It's not doing any good. And in this, any relationship, there's going to be times that you need to forgive yourself, the other person, or both for something that happened. And, you know, how is forgiveness a power play? Forgiveness is a power play because it's the person, the client, yourself, whomever choosing to say, you know what, I am not going to invest any more energy in this. It was unfortunate it happened. I can't change it. I can learn from it, but I can't change it because I can't change the past. And I'm going to Quit investing energy and staying angry about it. Because anger tells us that there might be a threat that you need to address. Not that we need to hold on and nurture this anger for 20 years. And you know, some of us do have a hard time letting stuff go, but so we do want to look at, you know, what is the function, what is the effectiveness of holding on to something and nurturing anger and resentment for 10 years or even 10 days. Experience the anger, learn from it, and then figure out what to do with it to improve the next moment so you're not using the energy from your gas tank to fuel something that you can't change. So one activity we do is the impact of resentments. I have clients brainstorm the impact of resentments on their health, their relationships, others, their mood, and their faith in self and others. So guess what? Five stations around the room. You know it, and I like doing stations because you can break people up into small groups so you've got maybe two or four people going around together and they feel more comfortable talking about the topic at hand and they have to produce something so they can't just be sitting there in groups, you know, in la la land, they have to be engaged in some way and it makes group go faster and you end up having something tangible that you can pull together and provide as a handout the next group. So that's why I do a lot with flip charts. So I do have them go around and brainstorm the impact. And then we talk about that and we discuss when you refuse to forgive yourself, you damage your self esteem, waste a lot of energy and can feel hopeless and unlovable, which can lead to depression. So we talk about these, these guilts that people have and you know, we talk about why they refuse to forgive themselves. Maybe they don't feel like they deserve to be forgiven. Maybe, you know, there are a lot of reasons. So we talk about those and talk about how that basically traps their energy and ways they could make amends, learn from it, forgive themselves, accept if they're not willing to use the word forgiveness, okay, accept that it happened and figure out how to improve the next moment instead of staying stuck back here. You know, I don't want people, if they're continually looking over their shoulder at the past, they're going to get a kink in their neck and it's uncomfortable. So use that energy to look forward. When people refuse to forgive other people, they exert a ton of energy and isolate themselves from potentially positive people who could help them feel loved and supported. So Again with that baggage. If you refuse to forgive other people in your past, then for you did this, you did that, you did the other thing, there's the tendency to fear that other people are going to do that to you. So the more people you refuse to forgive, the less you have in terms of supports. And you know, I ask people to look at themselves and go, you know, we've already talked about guilt. So you know, there's stuff that you've had to forgive yourself for, and there's stuff that you've wanted people to forgive you for. So you know, how does that work? Does it work both ways? If you're deserving of forgiveness, are other people deserving of forgiveness? Another activity, what would happen if I forgave? And this is a huge trigger one for people who are survivors of abuse of any kind or neglect of any kind. So use it carefully because when people have been abused, the concept of forgiving the abuser is, is contrary to self protection. So a lot of times this is really, a really, really hard concept for them to wrap their heads around. But other times when we talk about forgiveness, it's about for minor things or more minor or less consequential, however you want to say that. So what would happen if I forgave? You know, if you're first boyfriend in high school cheated on you, you know, if you're still bitter 20 years later, you know, what would happen if you forgave? Does it mean you're going to make the same mistake again? No, forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting. It just means learning and growing. Another individual activity. Make a list of all the things that you're holding on to and beating yourself up for. Then figure out how to forgive yourself and let it go. If you get stuck, ask yourself, if my child or best friend did this, how would I deal with it? And then do it. So have the same compassion you would have for your child or best friend and then repeat the same thing for resentments that you hold toward other people. A group activity can be done the same as the individual activity. But have people write on a card two resentments that they hold and put it in a hat or a box or something. So people aren't necessarily having to put their stuff right out there if that's not how close your group is. And then you can draw from the hat, put the resentment up on the board. Because a lot of times people share similar resentments. And then we talk about, you know, how do you forgive or accept somebody being unfaithful in a relationship? How do you forgive or accept somebody lying to you. How do you forgive or accept, you know, whatever it is, and we're talking about it in generalities, and then they can take what's useful and leave the rest. But I really encourage clients, you know, I like to use a lot of Socratic questioning. Instead of telling them, you can do it this way, I want them to tell me, how do you deal with this? What's another way you can deal with this? Another thing we want to encourage clients to do is learn how to ask for help and say no. Because it is so easy to get exhausted and feel overwhelmed and so stuck and apathetic and depressed when you insist on not only carrying all your own burdens by yourself because you're not asking for help, but also carrying everyone else's because you're not saying no. They say, can you help me move? Can you watch my kids? Can you watch my dog? Sure, no problem. I'll do that. And then you're like, oh, my gosh, you know, I can't breathe. So encourage clients to remember to ask themselves before they say yes or no to anything, for them to ask themselves, will this help me be more the person I want to be? Now, you know, that's kind of a loaded question, because maybe they want to be a nice person. Well, that's great, but we need to look at, you know, what is a rich and meaningful life. And holistically, yes, I want to be a nice person, but I also want to be a good employee, and I want to be healthy, and I want to be able to spend time with my kids. So if I say yes to all these other people, is it going to help me get closer to the things that are really important in my life, or is it just sort of an ancillary good deed and do I have the energy for that right now? Is this something I can afford to spend energy on right now? And, you know, I do that with animal rescue. You know, I would love to have 15 rescue animals the time, but I just got. Ain't got that kind of time or energy. They poop a lot. So, yes, being compassionate to animals helps me be more the person I want to be. But I also, you know, I'm not just an animal rescuer. I'm a parent and a spouse and a friend and a business owner. So I have a lot of pots, so to speak, that I've got to divide my energy among. So I have to set limits and decide, can I take this animal on right now or not? Is it fair to me My family, my business, and the animal because they need love and attention. I can't just put them in a room. I don't put my fosters in cages. So can I give them the attention they need? Sometimes when people get depressed, they get stuck in the no trap when you don't want to do anything. Part of being mindful is to have them ask themselves, is there any reason I can't do this right now? If they have time and can muster the energy, at least consider trying it. You know, sometimes when I get in a funk, my husband will be like, okay, let's go out and take a walk around the barn. And I'm like, no, I want to sit on the couch. He's like, come on. You always feel better when you get out and take a walk. All right, all right. So, you know, I put my shoes on and trudge out there begrudgingly, but by the time I come back, I feel a lot better because I've gotten my blood moving. But we need to get out of the get out of the no trap. If you're working with a client who is in the no trap, intentionally ask them questions that they will say yes to to break that automatic no habit and see if you can get them to change up their answers. Sometimes it doesn't mean they're going to agree to everything you want them to do. But encouraging people to get out of the no trap questions to ask the group or the individual. Why do you resist asking for help or saying no to other people's requests? A lot of us, that's what we were taught. We were taught when people ask you to do something, you say yes, and you don't ask for help because that's an imposition on other people. So we have to really challenge what we learned over the years to figure out, you know, what is normal and okay and helpful and necessary. And then I have them identify three times in the past month when it would have helped if they had asked for help. And who could they have asked? You know, it doesn't matter if it's mowing the lawn or, you know, and I'm bad about that at the house. I will do things that my kids could do, and it would be helpful if they did. But I don't want to, you know, I don't want to bother them. And then I think, they're my children, they can help. But it's important to think back about, you know, who can you ask for help to lighten your load, that delegate part of time management. So encourage people to Develop a schedule for the next two weeks and identify where other people can help them and then learn how to ask. And in DBT there are a lot of activities, dialectical behavior therapy. There are a lot of activities that teach people how to say no and how to ask for help in a way that creates a win win situation and helps relieve some of their stress, isolation and potentially stuckness. Larry suggests a book called Forgive for Good by Luskin as an excellent resource on forgiveness. So I want to throw that in and finally appreciating individual differences. We talked about what we learned from these people in relationships. But you know, we can also go back through it and just learn from people. We can Even learning something we don't like can help us focus on creating meaningful relationships. And we need to remember to synergize. If you work with somebody who is detail oriented and rigid and you know, just seems to constantly be, you know, can't take a break and can't take a breath, well, instead of seeing that as a negative, see that as the person you're going to put in charge of project management for the next project to help keep everybody else a little bit more on task. So you synergize, you use people's strengths and their inherent qualities for the benefit of the group or the greater good. Look at what your mother taught you, what your mother mother's like. For example, what did you learn from her that you can use and you know, when working with her or doing things with her, how can you synergize? You know, some people have certain strengths and other people have other strengths. My mother in law, for example, she's like a female version of Bob Vila. So if I need something done around the house because I suck, it would work and pretty much anything construction oriented except for demolition. So if I need anything done, I can always call her and go, how do I do this? You know, she lives five states away so she can't just run over and do it. But I can synergize. We are not the same. But that's great because she brings strengths that I don't have. And it's important for people to look at each other in terms of what strengths and resources do you bring into my life and what strengths and resources do I bring into your life and how can we counterbalance one another and pets. I couldn't get through the social interventions without pets. They found and research has found that petting or holding an animal can help release oxytocin, which is our bonding chemical, lower blood pressure and reduce heart Rate. Well, when it lowers blood pressure and reduces heart rate, it's calming the stress response, which is increasing the secretion of gaba, your calming hormone. So petting an animal can be awesome as long as it's an animal that's like, not trying to desperately get away from you. If you've ever watched Tiny Toons, you know, Elmira is who I'm talking about. But, you know, most animals, you know, love to be pet. Animals can provide unconditional positive regard. They don't care if you're having a bad hair day or you smell or, you know, I'll be out working in the garden all day long, and I will be covered from head to toe in dirt, and I'm sure I'm pretty ripe. And my dog just wants to sit on my lap and lick my face, which is gross. And, you know, he's just like, I love you, mom. I don't care. And we're good. You know, he doesn't care. He just likes me for being there. Feeding him animals can help distract you. Just look at the YouTube stats, how many people watch silly cat videos. They can change your behavior. Like, after a bad day, you may be grumbly and come home, but as soon as you see Fido, you get into pet mode, and it's like, okay, we need to take you on a walk and get you some food and suddenly forgotten about what was stressing you out. When you walk through the door, at least for a little bit, they can get you out of your own head. If you're playing with your dog, you're probably not thinking about what somebody did at work to tick you off. They can make you laugh, and they can even help reset your circadian rhythms by getting you on a schedule, especially if they're puppies and they need to go out a lot. So one thing people can do if they don't want to take on the responsibility of owning a pet is to consider fostering. You know, foster agencies often pay for all the vet bills and the food. You just have to provide the animal love and bring it to adoption events. And it's easier to let go than you would think because you. You remind yourself that if I adopt this animal, then I won't have a space in my house for another animal, and I can't save any more lives. So I'm going to let this one go on to a happy home, and I'm going to give another animal a chance. So that's how we do it in our house. If your agency is willing, there are a lot of programs that are run through mental health clinics as well as jails that help people learn a lot of skills such as tolerance and acceptance and consistency and discipline with a foster and animal training program so you can look into those. It's a great program to get started, gives you a lot of good media attention. So we talked about identifying the benefits of social support as being belonging, increasing self worth, and providing security. We explored the characteristics of healthy relationships including honesty, compassion, mutual support, and willingness to explore and work through things. We identified ways to improve relationships such as getting rid of unnecessary baggage, understanding one another's temperaments, becoming assertive in communications, and nurturing those good relationships. We discussed the concepts of forgiveness and acceptance and ended up talking about how pets can also provide an element of social support. Thank everybody for being here today. Have a wonderful weekend. Are there any questions? So next week we're going to move on to spiritual interventions and environmental interventions. So just, you know, switching up because not every client is ready to start at the same place. So I'm trying to give you as many different tools as I can to try to suggest and group activities. If you work in a group situation, please feel free to suggest any that you use or you have. I would love to, you know, learn from you guys as well and I will see you on Tuesday. If you enjoy this podcast, please please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. If you want to attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes, you can subscribe at. 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. You can use coupon code counselortoolbox to get 20% off of your current order. If you're a podcast listener, especially on an Apple device, it would be extremely helpful if you would review Counselor Toolbox. To do this on your Apple device, go to the podcast app, search for Counselor Toolbox, select the icon for the podcast, tap the Reviews tab in the middle. You should then see an option to click Write a Review. 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