Spiritual Secrets to Unlocking TRUE Happiness: Part 4

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. Today's presentation on Spiritual Steps to Happiness. This is part four of four, so we are finishing the series today. For those of you who haven't been in any of the other presentations for this series, we are approaching spirituality from a very general perspective, relating to a sense of connectedness, awe, wonder, all that kind of stuff, not necessarily relating to a higher power. My belief is that people who, even people who are agnostic or atheist can have a spiritual connection and a spiritual component to their wellness and to their recovery by looking at how they're connected to everyone and everything else and by getting a vision of where they want to go. And in that vision we call that good orderly direction for the purposes of this PowerPoint, that is knowing where they want to go and deciding whether what they're feeling, doing, thinking is helping them move closer to those goals. So with no further ado, we're going to focus on the concepts of authenticity and integrity, patience and forgiveness and gratitude today. So authenticity and integrity. How does it make sense that this could reduce distress? Now, a lot of these really seem pretty obvious, but we're going to talk about them. When we live authentically, we are being true to ourselves and not denying our feelings and thoughts. We're living in harmony. So instead of fighting against something, you know, feeling that things should be one way, there's that should and needing or thinking we need to do things another way, we are doing things that are in harmony with the way we think things ought to be done. When people live with integrity, we're living in a way that is true to our principles. So we feel whole. We don't feel like we're divided, we don't feel like we're split against ourselves. We talk a lot or we have talked a lot about head, heart and gut honesty. When we are not living authentically, when we're not living with integrity, we are often one of those is out of whack. So we are not whole. We are not thinking what we're doing is the right thing and thinking good thoughts. We're not feeling good feelings in our, in our heart and our gut is kind of telling us this is, this is not the right place to be. So authenticity helps us feel whole. It helps us align ourselves. It helps us reduce our stress. Now remember, we've talked that about the Fact that when you do this in group, you're likely going to have people from multiple different religious or spiritual backgrounds. Some, some may be atheists, some may be agnostic, some may be Buddhist, whatever. That's cool. What I want people to grasp is the overarching concept. I come from a Christian background, so I bring that with me. But I encourage people before group, you know, I tell them the week ahead of time that if they have some particular proverbs or sayings or writings from their scripture or whatever that relate to this to bring it in. And let's share because there's a lot of wisdom out there anyhow. We also talk about how biblical principles or principles that come out of the Bible a lot of times represent common sense. And they are principles and concepts in many cases that are represented in many different spiritual bodies, if you will. So, moving on. Authenticity and integrity. Psalm 73 says, the wicked are successful but can also easily fall and be destroyed. And Psalm 73 is kind of a long psalm, but it is one that helps us see that. You know, in that particular song, as they call it, this person is saying, I look and I see these people that are cheating and they're being deceitful and they're, you know, not living with integrity and they seem to be winning and it's not fair because I'm doing the right thing and I'm not getting ahead. But then he comes to the realization that he knows what he's doing and he can get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say, I'm good, I'm doing the right thing. I feel right within myself and that's okay. Even if I'm not the most powerful, the richest yada, yada, and the other people, it's easy for them to get caught in their own snare of lies, in deceit, so they can easily fall and they don't have anything to fall back on. So he has that bedrock of integrity and self esteem. Proverbs 4, 25 and 26. Fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the path for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Well, this makes sense. We talk about in leadership classes, we talk about having a laser focus. Fix your gaze directly before you. Where do you want to go? You want to move towards a rich and meaningful life. Well, that's wonderful. What does that look like? So you're looking at where you want to go and you're giving careful thought to how you're going to get there so you don't get distracted. Or get misled or take a wrong turn somewhere. So it's. It makes total sense. Luke 6:31 do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. If you're living with authenticity, if you're living with integrity, you're treating people the way you want to be treated. And if you're not, then you know, that's something. Something to look at. But when we treat people nicely, they generally, not always, they generally treat us nicely. Back when we are ugly to other people, most of the time they can be ugly back at us. So we give what we get in return. Matthew 10:14 if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. So in Matthew, Jesus is saying, you know what? Go in. Be yourself, be authentic. And if where you are does not respect you for who you are, it's not about you, it's about them. So move on. Don't take it personally. Move on. I love that passage. And Corinthians, we're back to this whole one body thing. For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. If the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less part of the body. So we talk about how this can mean. Don't try to be something that you're not. All of us has a important role to play in the functioning of this great universe. So seven days of authenticity and integrity the first day if we are going to live with integrity, we've got to know what we stand for. So begin with the end in mind. Decide what's important to you know, and state your intentions and think about what you value in your life. And this is one of those activities. It's really hard to do in group, but you can do it in groups. You can talk about the integrity of the group and create a group end. You know, what is it that we're working towards as a group? What's important to us as a group? So you can walk through this activity and then you can encourage people to do it on their own. So they know for them, what does recovery look like? What does health and happiness look like? Whatever they're defining their end goal and they know what they value in their life. So when they set their gaze before them, they know where they're going and what they're working for. And they can continually ask themselves, is what I'm doing, feeling or thinking moving me closer to that or not? Day 2 Define your purpose in life, obviously, there's a little less group work in this set of activities, but you can really talk with people after they've done these activities for homework about how they felt and what they learned about themselves. So in day two, people are defining their purpose in life. They can say something like, I was put on this earth too, or my talents and skills enable me to. And this is one of those that you actually can do in groups sometimes, because sometimes. Well, most of the time my experience has been people don't really have an answer to this question. When you pose it to them for the first time, you say, what's your purpose in life? And people are like, I don't know. Well, let's think about it. What things are you passionate about? What skills and talents do you have? And sometimes people, especially people with low self esteem, are still sitting there going, I've got no clue. And that's when the group can chime in and they can identify strengths that they've heard from that client. You know, I heard you say that you're a really good singer, or I've heard you talk about your family and your kids, and you seem like you're a really awesome, nurturing mother or whatever it is. But they can start highlighting one another's strengths in order to help people figure out what they're good at. And they can say, you know what? I'm making a positive difference in the world because of this. Day three. Foster an open mind to help you live life fully and from every perspective. So when something happens, good or bad, it doesn't just have to be bad, good or bad, look at it from other perspectives. One of the activities that I'll do sometimes with a group, if we've got the time and it's nice weather, we'll go outside and we'll look around and I'll find a bush or something and we'll look at it like we normally do. But then I'll have everybody get down prone out on their bellies, look at it so they're looking up at the bush. It's a whole different perspective. How does your perspective on that bush change when you're looking at it from your belly? Then I'll have them, you know, stand directly over it and look down on it from the top. What else do you notice about it from, from that perspective? I know when I'm evaluating the health of my shrubs, I'm doing all these things and the neighbors are probably laughing their butts off. But you learn a lot about a plant's health by how full it is and how it's branching and all that other stuff. But I want people to look at different perspectives and see how even when it's something simple as looking at a bush, just taking a look at it only gives us one perspective unless we look at it from all different angles. And that's how I want them to start approaching problems and everything else when something happens, ask what else contributed to this? Maybe you had a really good day and you are in an awesome mood. All right, let's foster an open mind and figure out what contributed to that. Maybe you had a good day at work, somebody said something nice to you, you had a good workout, the weather was nice, it was sunny. Lots of things contributed to your good mood. So you're not just attributing it to one thing. And this open mindedness, especially if you're applying it to the good stuff, trains your brain to start looking around and recognizing what all of the factors that feed into a good day or a bad day or whatever. We can also do this when something unpleasant happens because it helps people look at what parts did. I have control over what parts didn't. And if it's a problem, then we ask, okay, we looked at it from multiple perspectives. We tried to figure out all the contributing factors. Now what other solutions can I come up with for this problem that can help me live more in line and move more towards my goal, live more in line with my good, orderly direction? What can I do that feels right in my heart? If you are in a job that you really don't like or in a relationship that is really dysfunctional, okay, look at it from multiple perspectives, look at all the contributing factors to it, and then figure out in terms of your good, orderly direction, what needs to happen in this relationship, what solutions are available that help you be true to yourself with what you feel you want and deserve and need and help you move forward. Day four is practicing psychological flexibility and radical acceptance. It is what it is. And you know, this is one of my favorite interventions. Encouraging people to accept the moment as it is. You cannot change the present. You can change the next moment, that's the future, but you can't change the present as it is. So we can say radical, radically accepting it is what it is. You know, I feel encouraging clients to identify how they feel. My thoughts about this are, that's just identifying what is in the moment and then thinking to themselves, okay, how can I improve the next moment? And it doesn't mean succumbing to every urge. Sometimes if you are really angry about something and you feel angry and your thoughts are that everything is unfair and your urges are to punch a hole in the wall and, and you think it would make you feel so much better just to really punch a hole in the wall. It doesn't mean necessarily punching a hole in the wall because thinking about it helps you see, okay, punching a hole in the wall might make me feel better for a brief second until I realize that I've also broken my knuckles. And now I've got a big thing to patch. What in good, orderly direction. What, in the big scheme of things is the best way to handle this situation to moment. And there are a variety of different problem solving tools that people can use. This psychological flexibility helps people, again, focus on what they can do and focus on the fact they have choices. Yes, they can choose immediate gratification and impulsivity to make that pain go away right now, in the long run, is that going to move them closer to what's important to them or is it going to move them backwards? Generally, it's not a status quo. It's not something you're going to stay right there because somehow it's going to drain your energy. Day 5 Quit. The rationalizations encourage people to identify things they rationalize that go against their values. And it can be little things because every little choice can add up. You know, every time you, you take a little teeny baby step over the line, then you're going to go a little bit further. The next baby step takes you a little bit further. So before you know it, you've gotten way far away from your values and what's important to you. Examples that we see in the workplace environment, people stealing supplies. Maybe it's a pencil, maybe it's a ream of paper, maybe it's. Who knows? But before long, you know, it starts adding up. And if this goes against their values and their integrity, it's weakening that distance between what they said or shortening that distance between what they said they would never do and what they're actually doing. Slacking off at work. Okay, all of us have done it at one point or another. We were there and we were just like, I'm running on 50% today. Doing your best, the best you can at that point in time. That's what's important. Yes. Not every day is going to be an A day, but if you give it 100% of whatever you got that day, that's good for the people who go to work and they know they're going to play on Facebook all day long or watch YouTube videos or whatever. That's what we're talking about here. And sometimes people rationalize it like, well, we haven't gotten a raise for three years, so I really only owe the boss 30 hours a week instead of 40 or whatever it is. Gossiping is another one of those things that people can rationalize. They start gossiping and then they rationalize what they did. We want to quit the rationalizations. When you do something, before you do it, encourage people to stop. And before they do something, before they say something, encourage them to think, is this in line with who I want to be? Synchronize Day 6 Synchronize your head, heart and gut honesty. Whenever you're getting ready to make a decision, and it can be where you want to go on vacation, what you want for dinner tonight, any decision you make, check to see how you feel about it. Does it make sense in your head? Is it what makes your heart happy? And does your gut agree? Ask yourself, does this move me closer to what's important to my rich and meaningful life? Because we all have different goals and is this in line with my values? So every time you make a decision, whether it's to maybe you checked out at the store and you did the self checkout thing or you didn't, but you forgot and left something in the buggy and didn't realize it, get out to your car and you're unloading all the stuff that you just bought and you realize that you have something in your buggy you didn't pay for. Do you take it? Do you go back to customer service? How do you handle that? And what does your head, heart and gut say about that decision? And day seven is to practice mindfulness. This is sort of the crux of authenticity and integrity, being aware of how we feel because we're not going to feel the same tomorrow as we feel today, and we don't feel the same today as we did yesterday. So we need to check in with ourselves and say, in reality, if I'm being authentic about how I feel today, what can I do? What can I accomplish? What am I working towards today? I feel sluggish. I feel a lot more sluggish than I did yesterday. So I'm being authentic with myself and with my partner. When I say, you know, today's not going to be as productive as it was yesterday, I'm going to do my best, I'm going to live with integrity and I'm going to do my best, but it's going to be a little Bit slower paced. Mindfulness also means checking your baggage, letting go of patterns in relationships that no longer serve you, and letting go of unnecessary guilt and anxiety, surrounding yourself with those who love you, believe in you, and want the best for you. So being mindful means even in your relationships. Being mindful can be mindful in the moment, but also thinking about your relationships and being mindful of who and what you surround yourself with, and figuring out being authentic and true to yourself about who and what do I want in this environment. And you don't have to make all those decisions in one day. But being mindful, if you start having interactions with somebody and you realize, you know what, every time I go out to lunch with this person, I end up in a bad mood. Well, be mindful of that and be authentic with yourself, recognizing the impact that person has, and then make decisions about how to handle it from there. Mindfulness also helps people find their voice and their truth. It helps them figure out what they think, what they feel, what they believe, you know, their thoughts, what makes their heart happy, and what keeps their gut from going wonky. Once people know this, then they can learn to start expressing themselves. But it's important to remember to think. And we talked about this a couple classes ago. Thinking means before you speak, is what you're getting ready to say truthful? Obviously that's kind of a deal breaker there. So we want to make sure it's truthful if we're going to say it. Is it helpful? Now sometimes there are things out there that are helpful that you could say that just really aren't necessary. My mother in law was visiting last year and she kept trying to be helpful in giving tips to my daughter. And my daughter was just about ready to climb the walls because she felt so frustrated that she felt like her granny was being critical of her instead of trying to be hopeful. And I know my mother in law was just trying to be helpful. So thinking about, is this something this person really needs to know? Will it be helpful? Is it necessary? And am I doing it in a way that is kind? Because sometimes we can say things, even constructive criticism can come off nasty. So am I. If it's truthful, if it's helpful, if it's necessary, then it probably needs to be said. How can I say it in a way that's kind? And yes, thinking through all these things before speaking takes time. But in our culture we are frustrated, far too obsessed with immediate responses and talking. A lot of times we are thinking of our answer to what somebody's talking about. Before they've even quit talking, we've quit listening before they've quit talking because we want to jump right in there. If we start practicing patience, and we'll get to that in a few minutes. If we start practicing patience and thinking about what we have to say before we say it, a lot of times it prevents unnecessary hurt. Gratitude is the next concept we're going to talk about. It makes sense that it can improve happiness and reduce stress because research has shown that when we are grateful, when we have an attitude of gratitude, it improves our relationships. If we are grateful for, for somebody being in our life, we may not have to like everything they do, probably won't. You know, nobody's perfect. But if we're grateful, it improves our relationships. Instead of being critical or cynical, you know, people want to be around someone who is optimistic and grateful. It improves our physical health partly because it triggers our reward pleasure circuitry. Gratitude helps tone down that HPA axis, that threat response system, so we have less cortisol going through our system. We have improved physical health. Reduced blood pressure is what they've seen in the studies. For people who have more gratitude, it enhances empathy and reduces aggression, improves sleep, enhances self esteem and increases resiliency. When you're grateful, when you have an attitude of gratitude, you recognize that pain is inevitable, that bad stuff's gonna happen. When you are grateful, you're grateful for what you have in the moment instead of always looking for, well, it could have been or I wish it would. You say, I've got what I've got right now and I'm grateful for that. So what does the Bible say? Job 5:2. Resentment kills a fool and envy slays the simple. Now obviously that doesn't speak to gratitude. It speaks to the opposite. But when we are grateful, then we typically don't envy other people. We're not wanting what they have because we're grateful for what we've got. We focus on what we have instead of the future. Ecclesiastes and I saw that all toil and all achievements spring from one person's envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. When we envy one another, when we're working after trying to get something somebody else has, trying to go, if I get that, then I'll be happy. If I get that, then I'll be happy. Instead of saying, I'm happy right now, then we're constantly chasing happiness, but a lot of times never actually achieving it. We get it and we're like, oh, this isn't as Great as I thought it would be. Maybe something else over here will make me happy instead of looking at what we've got right now that makes us happy. And James 3:16 for where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil in every practice. When we are envious, when we're not grateful for what we have and we're constantly striving, then we can also potentially constantly be conniving and trying to figure out, how do I get ahead? How do I beat the system? When we're grateful, we're at peace with where we are. Does it mean we don't envision something better? No. You know, we can envision better things, but we're also content with where we are. Could things get better? Yes. But things are good the way they are. Day one and these are some fun exercises. Day two especially to do with kids. But attitudes of gratitude is great to start developing this in children early on. So these are great family activities that you can do at home, you can do in a classroom, whatever. Because our brain is wired for survival and we tend to focus and give more weight to the negative. We need to see five positives for every negative. So when we have a negative thought, we need to have five positive thoughts in theory. So attitude of gratitude can help people start learning optimism, as Seligman talked about. So day one, practice and savor gratitude. Train your mind to see the good part in everything. See the goodness, the beauty, the kindness, the light, the love and the joy. So when bad things happen, try to find the silver lining. Put on and I always say those obnoxious rose colored glasses because when you're feeling angry or down or depressed, you don't necessarily want to look for the silver lining. And it can feel frustrating. And I say, okay, let's put on those obnoxious Rhodes colored glasses and tell me what you see. Now, you don't have to necessarily embrace it, just tell me what you see and then you can choose to keep it or leave it. Encouraging people to go for an entire day practicing and savoring gratitude in everything. The fact that even the things they usually take for granted, the fact that their car started, the fact that they've got a job to go to, the fact that they drove all the way to work and didn't get into a car accident, I mean, there are lots of things that we just kind of take for granted that we can be grateful for because not everybody had that experience that day. Day two and this is like I said, one of the more fun ones is creating A gratitude mural, if you will. And you can do it in a lot of different ways. You can do it on a blackboard and write in different colored chalk, today I'm grateful for. And then erase it every day. And when students come in the next day, have them contribute something. So every day they're adding something that they're grateful for and they can see what other people have put up there. And it's anonymous. They don't have to put their names, but. But that helps get everybody in a positive frame of mind. They've actually shown that journaling for 15 to 20 minutes each day on the positive things that happen that day increases happiness, reduces stress, and increases positivity. So you can have the check in board is what I call it. There's this other one here where the teacher was very creative and used post it notes. And they created a design out of post it notes and put things there that they were grateful for every single day. Over the holidays, you can create a wreath, a gratitude wreath, where you cut out construction paper leaves and everybody writes on it something that they're grateful or thankful for. You can do the same thing all year round by having a gratitude tree somewhere in your house. You can also do an I'm thankful tree. This one is a lot smaller, obviously. You see it's in a vase. You go out and you get twigs, and then you get the little luggage tag things or key tag things, you know, like you get when you go to the drop your car off to get work done. And you can write what you're grateful for on there and hang it on the different twigs. So over time, you end up with a nice little bouquet of gratitude. And finally, the turkey. I think we all did this when we were in preschool. You trace your finger, your hand on construction paper, and this is the turkey's head. And then each one of these is a feather on the turkey. And you write something that you're grateful for on each one of the turkey. Feathers. Lots of different things you can do, ranging from more sophisticated for adults down to preschool. Day three is the gratitude game. And yes, you can do this with adults. And I love this one. I make a game board just like you would have in Chutes and Ladders or something that looks something like this. G stands for gratitude, K stands for random acts of kindness. So I create this board and you can put more or less G's and K's on it. You can make it longer or shorter, whatever you've got and however you want to create it. I use a die And I make two stacks of cards. One is a stack of cards that talks about gratitude. And it says, I'm grateful for this or the activity I'm most grateful for. The sense I'm most grateful for the person I'm most grateful for. However you want to put it in your gratitude cards. And then the stack of kindness cards are random acts of kindness. So it generally asks the person, it's a rainy day. What is one random act of kindness you can do? What is one random act of kindness you can do for the birds? What is one random act of kindness you can do for the environment? You know, feed the birds, pick up trash, whatever you have decks of cards. So people start at start with their little pieces. I guess I should have put pieces in there. I forgot those. A lot of times we'll just use nickels, dimes, quarters. You know, everybody's a different piece of change just because that's what we have handy. And you roll the dice and you advance. If you land on a blank square, okay, fine. The next person rolls the dice. If you land on a G square, then you draw a card out of the gratitude and complete whatever prompt is on the gratitude card in those stacks. I also have some gotchas where you can say someone is grateful for you. Move ahead three spaces. So that helps somebody, or you were jealous of someone, go back three spaces. So I have some things that make it a little bit more interesting, but also help people see that there's consequences to their lack of gratitude. So anyway, you just keep doing that until you get all the way to the end of the game. It's really cheap to create. It takes the better part of a day if you're doing all the cards from scratch. But then once you have it, it's a fun game to play when you're trying to Inspire gratitude. Day 4 Spread gratitude everywhere. Tell people I'm grateful for you because do this to the stock person or the cop that's just eating in a restaurant, the teacher, your postal worker, the garbage collector, whomever. If you don't necessarily run into them, you could like for the garbage collector, you can leave a little sticky note or a card on top of your garbage can. So when they come by, they get it and it just tells them that they're appreciated. You can go to places like the Dollar store and get cards for really inexpensively if you want something that looks more like a card. Day five Haves and have nots we want to help people recognize the things in their life that they are. Often that they Often take for granted and embrace what is real and rarely perfect. For example, a lot of people have a place that they live, a roof over their heads. The majority of our clients probably do. Okay, so you've got something that you call a house. Is it, you know, a mansion with whatever they envision being the perfect house. Is it something that you're going to see on mtv? No, probably not. But is it solid? Is it safe? Is it something that keeps. Does the job? Car. Not everybody has a car. So encouraging people to. Or a driver's license. Encouraging people to be grateful for the fact that they've got transportation. Encouraging people to be grateful for the fact that if they've got vision, hearing, mobility. Now, I will preface that, I guess I would say people who have sensory impairments are very fine and very grateful as they are. Not everybody who has hearing loss, for example, wants a hearing aid or a cochlear implant because they've embraced the deaf culture. So it's important not to assume that because people don't have something that they want it. Same thing is for a house. Not everybody wants what we consider a home. You know, some people like being more of a. What's the word I'm looking for? Move from place to place. I'll think of the word later. Also, ask them to think about children, pets, jobs, talents and abilities and supports that they have. Recognizing what they have, even if it's not perfect. Nomad, thank you. Even if it's not perfect, it's theirs and they have it, and it's something to start with. I mean, we're not perfect. None of us is perfect. But we are grateful for who we are, and we can grow and we can improve, but we've got the foundation to start with. So encouraging people to recognize those things. Day six. Just say thank you. Have people go an entire day saying thank you to other people more often than they normally would. If somebody brings them dinner or makes them dinner or does the dishes or does something nice or whatever. Find times to say thank you and even times to say thank you instead of I'm sorry. And we talked about that a couple weeks ago. Instead of saying, I'm sorry I'm late, say thank you for waiting on me. Say thank you. More often saying thank you to others. That makes sense. Say thank you to yourself. Encourage people to say thank you to themselves for being authentic, for being compassionate, for doing something that was good for them. You know, if I drag my happy butt to the gym, I can say, well, thank you for taking care of your physical Health today and then encourage people to say thank you to their higher power. However, they recognize that if it is just the universe, if and not everybody has a higher power. And that's cool too. But for those that do, encourage them to thank their higher power as they go through the day, for the sunrise, for the grass, for just getting them up on that side of the, on that side of the dirt. And then talking group how that affects their day and how that affects other people when they are going around and intentionally saying thank you. And day seven, have a complaint and judgment free day. Ha. Easier said than done for all of us. A five to one day. I recognize that it's not going to be perfect. So if people catch themselves complaining or judging, they need to find five positive things to be grateful for and to focus on in that situation. It's a learning process. But we can train ourselves to be less judgmental and more grateful, less complaining. And patience. Why does this logically make sense? Well, patience is the opposite of irritability and it reduces the activation of our stress response system, our HPA axis. Think about somebody you know, with an abundance of patients. And my son's first preschool teacher was this person. When I think of somebody with patients, I think of Ms. Jessica because she was just effervescent all the time and it was amazing. And she was so patient with the children and nothing ever seemed to really get her flustered, but she. And she was very authentic. I had her come over one time because I was having a hard time getting Sean to want to play with me. He would get bored very easily and I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. So she came over and watched us play for a little while and after about three minutes she stopped and she said, all right, I know what's wrong. You're boring. Excuse me. And she didn't mean it in a hurtful fashion at all, but she was right. I was being far too intellectual with my 2 year old. And, you know, so she was very patient in saying, okay, this is. These are some things that you could do. Because I'm looking at her like I have no idea what to do with him. And she helped me learn a little bit about that. But people who are patient aren't irritable all the time. They don't get irritable when they're in traffic. They don't get irritable waiting in line at the grocery store. They don't get irritable with a slow cashier. They don't get irritable over all those little things that some of us who have less patience get irritable over. When we get irritable, it's like sitting, driving our car, but revving that engine the whole time. You know, if you drive a stick, it's like keeping it in first gear and trying to drive on the interstate. It just drains your energy. So people with patients have a whole lot more energy, they're less stressed, and they also learn how to tolerate distress. Because people with patience, it's not that they don't encounter distressful situations, but they've learned distress tolerance skills. So they can be in the moment, but let that irritation go by and just say, okay, it is what it is. How do we improve the next moment? So the Bible says in Proverbs 15, hot tempers cause arguments, but patience brings peace. When we are patient, we tend to think before we speak, which means it's less likely we are going to say something that we can't take back. Galatians Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. So we need to keep pressing on perseverance. We need to be patient. Whatever you want. Think about when you went to graduate school. Oh, you wanted to start working. And a lot of us started graduate school, and we thought we would be in private practice. You know, we just could see that, we could taste it. But we had five years to get through before we could be in private practice. So we had to be patient. There were steps we had to go through. We took our exams. We had to wait for the licensure board to have their next meeting. We had to be patient. So if we're patient, things will come. But some things we just can't hurry. Ecclesiastes There's a right time for everything, and everything on earth will happen at the right time. Recognizing that there are some things we just can't hurry up for whatever reason. So we need to identify and accept those things. We can't change or control and change what we can. And a lot of times that's our reaction to it because we, we want what we want, and we wanted it yesterday. Well, we can't have it yesterday. We may not even be able to have it today. We've got to be patient for whenever it comes along. So we need to learn to use our energy wisely. And 3:12 Ecclesiastes I learned that the best thing for people to do is to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live. Can I think about all the things that I want? Sure. Can I think about all the things that I don't have? Sure. Do either one of those make me happy? No. However, are there things in my life right now that do make me happy? Oh, yeah. There are wonderful things in my life. So focusing on those helps me live a rich and meaningful life in the moment, even if everything's not perfect. Because it probably isn't. Day one. Identify your vulnerabilities, things that make you less patient. And this is a fun activity to do with the flip chart papers around the room. Emotionally, what types of emotions do you have that make you less patient? If you are angry at somebody else, if you're holding on to resentments, you may be less patient with other people around you. If you are feeling guilty about something, you may be less patient with yourself or with other people. So that's kind of what I'm getting at there. Mentally, people's attitudes. What kind of attitude do you have when you are more patient versus when you're left less patient? I tend to be more patient when I've got that attitude of gratitude and not of suspicion or whatever else. When I have a negative attitude, I tend to be less patient. My expectations. Mentally, if I expect things to be perfect, I tend to be less patient with people because things are rarely perfect. So I get frustrated. If I expect things to happen my way, I tend to be less patient because, you know, not everybody wants to do things my way. Those are the things that I want clients to actually start coming up with. Those are the prompts that I'll use. And memories, I put those in mental. If you have certain memories, it can make you less patient. For example, if you have memories of somebody being unpleasant to you in high school, then you may be less patient with them. When you go to your high school reunion, encouraging people to identify their vulnerabilities and then figure out how to address those, knowing that sometimes it's going to occur. You know, physically, when I'm sick or I'm in pain, I tend to be less patient or when I'm tired, so I know those things. I try not to be sick, in pain, or exhausted, but when I am, I have a backup plan. I know that I'm going to be less patient or tend to be less patient. So I warn everybody in my household ahead of time. I'm like, mommy didn't sleep very well tonight, so just give me a little space. If I need to tell them that, or if I'm at work, I will have the door closed. Normally, I'VE got it open, you know, whatever, anybody in and out. But if I'm feeling like I might be impatient that day, I shut the door so I don't accidentally just snap at somebody. Environmentally, look at those sorts of things. And socially, you know, there are some things, characteristics of people that may make you less patient. Know those things and have a plan to deal with it. If you are dealing with somebody who's really rude, you know, I have difficulty being patient with people who are rude, but I've got to take a breath. And for me, I ask myself, you know, what would prompt that reaction from that person? What must be going on in that person's head for them to feel the need to act aggressively? That's how I handle it. Not everybody handles it the same way. But once you identify all the vulnerabilities, then you can go around as a group and brainstorm ways to deal with it. Day 2 Practice delaying gratification. Have you ever stood in front of the microwave and gotten frustrated because it wasn't heating up your coffee fast enough? I know I have. I'm like, I wanted it yesterday. In our society, we've gotten so used to having things instantly that it can be difficult to delay gratification for things. Back in the olden days, when I took my licensure exam, it was paper, pencil. So, you know, we filled in the little bubble sheets and we sent it off, and two months later we got our scores in the mail. You know, now you go take it and it prints out at the desk as soon as you walk out of the testing room. That doesn't always happen. So practicing delaying gratification and being patient, getting a response from your boss about something or test results, these are all things that sometimes you just can't hurry. So talking about with clients, how do you delay gratification? How do you practice patience when you can't have something right away that you. You really want? You want the answer to? How do you do that? And brainstorm ideas? Because people have a variety of different techniques for delaying gratification. A lot of them, I'll give you a hint. I use the Accepts and Improve acronyms from dbt for those are distress tolerance skills. But when we're delaying gratification, we feel a certain amount of distress because we want it and we're not getting our urges met. So encouraging people to practice some of those distress tolerance skills. Also radical acceptance is another great tool for delaying gratification. Imagine this urge to have the answer like a cloud flying, going by in the sky or Whatever metaphor you want to use. Day three Practice empathy. Have clients identify three things that make them impatient. And you know, this is generally not hard because most of us have at least three trigger things and encourage them to share with the group. Instead of being impatient that something didn't get done, or being impatient with someone, ask, why might this have happened? So you take all those examples people gave and ask, why might this be happening? Or why might this have happened? Such as failing to finish a project. Maybe you're working on it with your co workers and somebody doesn't do their part and you can get impatient with them. Or as a supervisor, I know they were multitude of times I went to get notes or we were preparing for an audit and I found a chart was not 100%. And my first instinct would be to be a little bit impatient, but my next instinct would be asking myself, why might this have happened? This is a great clinician. Why might these things be missing? And this was back before electronic health records when everything had to be hand filed. Did the filing get messed up? Does the clinician not have enough time, you know, brainstorming different ideas? Lazy co workers, that's another thing people can get impatient about. But we want to ask, why might this be happening? What could be going on here that, you know, maybe the person's not lazy, maybe they are sick, maybe they got bad news at home and they're just struggling to be there that day, trying to take different perspectives and practicing empathy instead of irritation. I'll give give you another example. I was behind a slow driver the other day. And I mean, this person, the light would turn green and they would just kind of roll forward. And I'm like, yeah, what's going on? Find the accelerator, you know, let's get going here. And she would start to speed up a little bit and then she kind of slow down. I'm like, what is going on? Oh, my gosh. All right. So finally I was able to get around her. Turns out by the looks of her, she was probably 16, just barely old enough to drive, driving a sports car, which to the best I could figure out by what I was seeing was probably a stick. So she was learning to drive a manual transmission in relatively heavy traffic in a sports car that tends to be a little bit more persnickety. And she barely had any experience driving. So, yeah, you know, I don't blame her for having a little bit of, bit of trouble there, but that's where empathy comes in. Instead of being frustrated with her, I felt a little bit of Pity for her because that was kind of rough to have her out where she was trying to learn that. Practice time management for day four. When we are overwhelmed, when we are just bombarded with stuff to do, we can get impatient with other people, with ourselves, because we feel hurried and overwhelmed. So encourage clients to practice making a time management plan. And in my group, we create a Everybody creates a list. One column is the must do's gotta do it or something bad's gonna happen. The next column is the would like to do's has to be done at some point in the not so distant future, but if I don't do it tomorrow, nothing bad is going to happen. And then three is would like to dos. Those are all the other things. So the must dos, like paying the electric bill. That's that first column. You got to figure out how to get those done because you want to keep your lights on the stuff in the second column, if it doesn't get done this week, you know, huge bad things aren't going to happen. It'll get done next week. So, you know, that's one of those that you might be able to put off to help people see. And then we talk about, okay, with what's left, what can you delegate? What can people help you with? What can you simplify? You know, maybe not that, you know, something you can do all the time, but maybe if you're just completely slammed and you don't have time to do laundry, you can take it somewhere where they'll do your laundry or instead of making dinner, you know, you just don't have time to get it done that night. But the family needs to be fed, so you stop and pick up pizza on the way. Do you want to do that every night? Probably not, but there are ways to simplify and cut some time corners when you need to. Day five is set smart goals. Most things don't happen instantly, and I want people to recognize that they generally have to work towards things. Setting smart goals can help people see incremental progress. So in my groups, we practice as a group setting smart goals for recovery, whether it's mental health or physical health, weight loss, you know, when you want to lose weight, how do you set those smart goals? Do you say, I am going to lose £20, or do you say, all right, I want to lose 20 pounds, so I want to try to lose a pound a week. You know, those are the smart goals that we are looking for and encouraging people to see how everything is incremental. You are not just going to lose 20 pounds overnight. Stopping smoking, it's another one of those things. It generally doesn't happen overnight. So encourage people to learn how to set those smart, specific, measurable, achievable, related and time limited goals. Day 6 Practice accepting the things you cannot change. One of the ways a lot of us become impatient is because we keep trying to change something we have no control over. I can get frustrated. Like right now, it is cold outside and it's been windy for like days now. And I don't do wind, I can do cold, I don't do wind. And I'm getting frustrated because I can't go outside and run like I want to. I choose not to because I don't do wind. So I'm getting impatient. I'm like, when is it going to get sunny? Or at least, you know, not, not as windy outside. Well, I can't change that. So what good does it do me to get all fired up and impatient about it? So practice accepting the things you cannot change or you can't change completely. The past. The past is the past. So we talk about, you know, you can't change the past, but what can you change? You can't change the present because it's happening right now. It is what it is. You can change the next moment, but that's the future. You can't change other people. You can change your reaction to them, you can change how you interact with them, but it's up to them to change on their own. Politics. Now, this is one, you know, all of these. You have some ability to change to a certain extent other people. You can use a little bit of behavior modification and reward good behaviors and, you know, not reward behaviors. You don't like politics. You can't overnight change politics. You can join a local advocacy program or something, that's something you can do, but you can't personally, individually, for example, unseat a president or something. Right now. You have to set those smart goals and be patient as we work through the process and the weather. You can't change. Now if I wanted to, I could get all bundled up and go out and run, but I'm choosing not to. So looking at what parts of things that are making you impatient, you can choose to change if you want to versus what's just. It is what it is. So authenticity, gratitude and patience can help people be less stressed and actually increase their happiness because it reduces your stress level. You become whole when you're living authentically. You don't have a public self and a private self. You have a self when you're grateful, you're focusing on, yeah, things may not be perfect, but I do have a fair number of things, good things going for me right now. And when you're patient, you are choosing to not get irritable and upset and rev up that engine over things that you either don't have control over or it doesn't make sense to get upset over. Just taking a breath and saying, all right, everything in due time. Are there any questions? Okey dokey. On Thursday, we're going to be talking about fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. That is our next segment. And then next week we will start into a cultural responsiveness in terms of counseling people who have different. Sexual practices. We're not going to be talking about lgbt. We're going to be talking more about the kink, the polyamory, and those sorts of things that are becoming more prevalent today. So we need to be more aware of what they are and how they may be impacting our clients. Alrighty everybody, have a great day and I will see you on Thursday. If this podcast helps you help your clients or yourself, please support us by purchasing your ceus@allce.com or getting your agency to sponsor an episode. A direct link to the on demand CEUs for this podcast is@allce.com podcastceus that's allce.com podcastce to sponsor an episode of Counselor Toolbox and reach over 50,000 clinicians per week, go to allce.com sponsor thank you.