Spiritual Steps to Happiness Part 2

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 welcome everybody. I'm Dr. Donnelly Snipes. And today we're going to be talking about spiritual steps to happiness. And this is part two of four parts. I'm finding that I probably should have made it a little longer, but we're going to stop at four parts and move on to a different topic. I will remind you that spirituality is not necessarily just about or not necessarily at all about formal religion. Spirituality is about our sense of connectedness with the universe and our sense of awe and wonder at stuff and just how awesome and inexplicable some things are, but the fact that they are. So spirituality is really our awareness that there's something bigger than ourselves, however people want to define it. And whenever I do spirituality with my groups, I always preface any spirituality groups I do with, you know, that little discussion, but also pointing out that religion can be a part of spirituality if people want it to be. And if anybody in my groups has particular a particular religion and they want to bring information related to the topics we're discussing in from their scriptural texts or whatever, that's awesome. You know, I think it's great that we can learn from each other and see the common themes, because regardless of the religion, most religions, I don't by all means know all religions, but most religions have similar themes of honesty and awareness and compassion and all those things. So it helps people create a sense of unity and harmony as opposed to separating one another. So anyway, moving on. Today we're going to talk about acceptance, honesty and awareness and how it can help people live happier lives because we first have to become aware of what's going on around us. And we talked about this. Some of the stuff that we talked about last week is going to overlap with some of the stuff we talk about this week. And that's okay. There are different activities that people can employ, and what we're really working towards is that sense or that sense of spiritual awakening and spiritual awareness. So sometimes we have to hit things from a couple of different angles. Once we're aware of what's going on within and around us, then we need to get honest with ourselves and other people about what we need and what we can and can't do. What do we have the power to control? Finally, we have to accept the dialectics of hardships with success, happiness with pain, and control with Powerlessness. So let's start with awareness because like I said, we need to get aware. Once we're aware of what's going on, then we need to get honest and go, okay, this is really happening or this is what I need in this moment. So how can awareness reduce stress? Well, this is one of those that's kind of a no brainer really. But let's talk about it. Awareness helps us become aware of ourselves, become aware of what we're feeling, thinking, what our urges are, what our body's sensations are. It improves our connectedness because we become aware of our influence and our impact on other people and their impact and the environment's impact on us. It helps us improve our focus on the things that are important to what we define as a rich and meaningful life. And that is very, very individual. So you know, we need to become aware of what are we doing in this very moment in order to help us work towards creating that vision of a rich and meaningful life. Awareness helps us from keeps up, helps keep us from being led astray. Because if we're not paying attention, if we're not aware, we can follow just about anything or fall for just about anything. So that's when we start talking about paying attention to those spidey senses. We make deliberate decisions guided by mind and logic instead of just emotions and instincts. All of those things are important, but it's important. And if you think back to dialectical behavior therapy, you have the emotional mind, you have the logical mind, and then you've got the wise mind which combines them both. And that's really what we're trying to get to. But awareness is helping us become in touch with trying not to define something with its own word. Awareness helps us become in touch with our emotions and our thoughts and the logic so we can put them all into that jar of mindful thought. Awareness helps us become a good judge of character and it helps us avoid mistakes. If you're aware and you're paying attention to what you're doing, you probably will get it right the first time. So if you remember, we talk in terms of spirituality in general, but since some people are Christian in your program, I share because I come from a Catholic faith that I share what I know from my religion and people can take it or leave it. I also emphasize to people that they can also look at things in terms of good orderly direction. How is whatever we're going to talk about in a second, how does this help me live in a good orderly direction? How does this help me keep moving in an orderly fashion towards my goals. So what the Bible says about awareness, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Okay, so for a Christian, that that kind of makes sense. For someone who is atheist or non Christian, how does that make sense? If we become aware of our mistakes, if we come, become aware of our inadequacies or things that we fail at or whatever, if we become aware of things that we feel guilty for, then we can do the next right thing. Good orderly direction says, figure out what to do to improve the next moment. And that will help us continue to move forward and hopefully learn from it and not make the same mistake again, which is sort of the cleansing us from all unrighteousness. Help us learn and move forward. Not making the same mistake again. Proverbs says, the purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. And that helps us understand how ingrained our purpose is. And if we understand what our purpose is, then we can draw out that purpose and we can live that purpose. We can embody that purpose. That's good orderly direction 101. So you know, that one's a little bit easier to wrap your head around from a secular point of view. Throughout the Bible, people are aware of God's miracles and actively seek him out with optimism and faith. Okay, again, that's a Christian thing. However, good orderly direction throughout time, we've seen that people who are able to make effective plans and follow those plans and adapt as needed in order to continue on their goals, they've got determination and perseverance that they typically succeed at what they're doing. So we seek out that good orderly direction. We seek out that plan and that laser focus, and we have optimism and faith that if we pursue that course, we're going to achieve our goal. So how do we embody this for seven days? Let's talk about increasing our awareness. Encourage people to learn mindfulness meditation at least at one meal, but preferably at each meal. Encourage people to just take a check in with themselves. Become aware of their feelings, emotions, where are they coming from? Be curious about it. You know, I'm feeling kind of blah today. You know, why am I not feeling happy? What could I do to feel happy? You know, these are just curious questions. They're not judgments, they're just, I wonder why. Become aware of your thoughts. Are you in a negative place? Are you feeling overwhelmed? Are you feeling cluttered? What's going on in your head and what are your physical sensations and needs? I know today for some reason I'm sleepy and I'm having a really hard time staying focused, but with what I'm doing. So I'm having to take extra steps in order to make sure I don't make mistakes. But that's become being aware of what's going on so you can mitigate it and address it. Encourage people, once they do that, you know, you have the awareness of how you're feeling and what your urges and stuff are, then you need to ask yourself, what do you need to do differently as a result of this awareness? If you recognize that you are exhausted, then maybe that means it's a day that you can skip going to the gym. For me, it's actually the opposite. When I'm tired, if I go to the gym, it helps get my blood flowing and push me forward. But that's when you ask yourself, what is it that I need to improve the next moment now that I'm aware of my status? And how does this awareness encourage people to reflect each day and over the course of the week? How does this awareness impact your day? Once you become more aware on a regular basis, not just once a day, but throughout the day, once you become more aware of how you're feeling physically, emotionally, cognitively, how does that impact your productivity, your patience, your energy levels, yada yada. So this is something you can ask people and this is generally just a discussion that we have in my groups. It's kind of loosey goosey, no charts, no balls, no nothing. But talking about the different ways that becoming more self aware improves our day and reduces our stress. All right, day two is awareness of those around you. And y' all know I'm a huge fan of the temperament Sorter. Some people really like Enneagrams, so if they want to go there, I find those to be a little bit more complicated. But you can go online to the KIRCI Temperament Sorter or you can go online to the Enneagrams site and take different tests to categorize yourself in general. Now, I preface this with people saying you are not going to fall exclusively in one category for the temperament. You're not going to be exclusively an extrovert. You're going to have characteristics of a little bit of each. So don't feel like, you know, you're not behaving correctly or something. Drive that home. One of the activities that I do and let me see if I can open it up with my group and you don't need to really read this very much because it's. I know it's tiny, but I have a sheet that I have people go through. And up here in this first block is extroversion versus introversion. And I read out the characteristics. I have people go to their group corners if they're an extrovert or an introvert. And then I read out the characteristics of extroverts. And if something doesn't fit, then people take a step towards the center. And when I read over the characteristics of introverts, if people who are extroverts hear something that sounds like them, they take another step towards the center. So you're creating your own dimensional line so people can see that it's not either or, it's along a continuum. And most people end up somewhere in the middle when we're doing this. And then they start to understand and they can better work with one another and better understand the concepts because maybe their spouse or their, their best friend is an introvert and they're an extrovert. Well, just because their, their significant other is an introvert doesn't mean that they're going to hold all of those characteristics. Just like we say when we're talking about culture, just because somebody is, you know, from a particular culture, you know, just because I'm from the south doesn't necessarily mean I embrace all of the Southern values. So we don't want to assume anything, but it gives us a base to start exploring and say, does this fit? Does this not fit? It's a fun activity. It gets people talking, it gets people laughing. Especially if you've been doing this group for a little while or working with whatever group it is for a little while because they know each other and they'll call each other out and they'll go, oh, no. When you think, you talk, you constantly talk and think at the same time. And then the person might be like, oh, yeah, guess you're right. So it can be a fun activity. Day three is humility, and this is different from humiliation. So I encourage you, if you're doing this in group, I encourage you to have a discussion about the difference between humility and humiliation. Humility as we're presenting it here is the recognition that we're not perfect. It's the recognition that there is something greater than ourselves and we can't control everything. We are humble to respect the fact that we're not the all powerful. Being aware of what you are and are not capable of and willing to ask for help or to lower the Bar. And humility can be very difficult for a lot of people because it's hard, especially if you. For people who have low self esteem that they're trying to get validation from other people. It's hard to admit that we're not perfect or we're not capable of doing something. We may have been punished in the past for asking for help. So humility is coming to that realization and liberation that, you know what, we're not perfect, we can't do everything and it's okay to ask for help. Humility also means lowering the bar. And that doesn't mean quitting. That doesn't mean giving somebody an easy out. That means helping people recognize when they're holding themselves to an unreasonable standard. Humility says, realistically, given everything else I've got going on right now, I can't expect this out of myself. I can expect this down here. That's a more reasonable goal. So encouraging people to start being reasonable and compassionate with themselves. And humility also means being grateful for other people's contributions. Because a lot of times we take credit and we don't necessarily mean to, but we do. We take credit for things as if it's all of our doing, our own knowing and nobody else had any part in it. Like, I've got great kids, I love my kids and would I like to say that I'm the one who created them? Sure. But there went a lot more went into it than that. I mean, they've got their dad, they've got their friends, they've got their little selves and their little brains. So there's a lot of stuff that goes into it. And if I had another being, I can't guarantee that it would turn out the same way. So I am recognizing the influence of all of those factors in my world on helping me create the little humans that I've got. Head, heart and gut. Honesty is number four. And I talk about this a lot with my groups, whether it's a spirituality group or not. Head honesty is logic. You know, that's that logical mind. Does this make sense? Heart honesty is love and compassion. And if something doesn't feel right in our heart, if it hurts our heart, if it makes us sad, that probably is an indication that it might not be the right thing. And gut honesty, gut is more about safety. This is about love. Gut is more about safety. And when you're getting ready to do something or make a decision and your stomach is kind of churny, then it might be telling you this is not the right decision or it Might just be telling you you need to pay attention, but you want to have head, heart and gut honesty. What's the logical response to this? What is my heart saying about this? And what is my gut, the gatekeeper, saying about what's going on? So in group, I'll have people identify three big decisions that they've made that they ended up regretting. And if it's a big group, we only do one decision that they ended up regretting. And it can be something like buying the house that they're in or a relationship or taking a job that they ended up really hating or something, whatever it is. And we talk about head, heart and gut honesty with that job or with that decision. When you made that decision, what was your head saying? What was your heart saying? What was your gut saying? And sometimes, you know, all of them were in alignment and it just. Things disintegrated. Later on that happens. But a lot of times people can look back and go, yeah, there was something in the back of my mind that was going to this is too good to be true, or I don't know, something seems a little off here and that's okay. But it's encouraging people to pay attention to all three of those and not just write one off as jitters or something. We also talk about three big decisions or one if it's a big group people have made that they're very satisfied with. And we go through the same process. We when you made this decision about where you were going to go on vacation for the holidays, head, heart and gut honesty, what was your head telling you was the logical thing to do or the most practical thing to do or whatever? What did your heart say that you wanted to do and what was your gut saying about all of it? And how did you come to the decision that yes, this was the right thing and you ended up being satisfied? And generally head, heart and gut honesty are more in alignment. Maybe not completely, but more in alignment when people are satisfied with their decisions. So encouraging people to pay attention. Day five is gratitude. Become aware of the supports and resources available to help people live a rich and meaningful life. Too often we're not paying attention to all the supports we really have out there. So encouraging people to create an inventory of what supports they have and I will put up on the board. People, finances and other. And we talk about different supports and resources people have access to. A lot of the resources fall under people what people in their life. And it can be significant others, it can be loved ones, it can be friends, it can Be teachers, pastors, whomever. But humans that are in their life, that can be resources that they can be grateful for and they can recognize, you know what? I'm not flopping out here like a fish out of water. I've got people I can call on if I need to, being aware of their resources and what they already have as part of their rich and meaningful life. So they are looking around going, huh, I didn't realize it, but I am halfway to where I wanted to be. That's pretty awesome. Too often we spend time thinking about the future instead of paying attention to what we actually have in the moment. So this gratitude exercise can be really enlightening and inspiring for people. Day six. Making my mark. Thinking about and becoming aware of how we've impacted ourselves, you know, through our own thoughts and our own actions, the earth and other people. And this is a image of Broffenbrenner's ecological model. But we look at the individual and how has their gender, their age, their health, etc. Impacted who they've become and who they are? And how have they, the individual, impacted their family? And how has their family impacted them? How have they impacted their school or their work? And how has that organization impacted them? And back and forth. But I want people to recognize how they've impacted things. And then I ask, how could you, how could you impact those things, your family, your church group, your neighborhood in a positive way in order to help create that rich and meaningful life, in order to create that little sliver of peace and contentment, you know, utopia, if you will, in their little sliver of the world. You may not be able to change the state, you may not even be able to change the city, but you can do things to enhance and improve and make your, your neighborhood the type of place that you want to live in. And day seven. Awareness. Couldn't get through awareness without taming that monkey mind. Because when our monkey mind is going here, there and everywhere, we're not paying attention to the now. Our mind is constantly getting pulled. And if think about being in a preschool classroom. Love preschoolers, but it's exhausting, oh, my gosh. Because you've got 15 children and they're all wanting something different and they're all buying for your attention at the same time. This is kind of like monkey mind. You can't concentrate on writing a paper or doing anything when you've got 15 little preschoolers that are vying for your attention and that you feel like you have to pay attention to. Encourage people to practice being aware of what they're doing in the moment. Start with something easy, like watching television. You know, that's not hard, paying attention to what they're doing in the moment. Instead of watching the television and thinking about, oh, I should check my email or did I get that laundry done? Whatever it is, focus on the moment. And then when the commercial break comes on, they can get up and check the laundry. When you're driving, this is a great time to focus on taming that monkey mind and paying attention to where you're driving, how you're driving, what the other drivers are doing, and then when you're doing something a little bit more mundane, like doing your documentation. During these times when your mind starts to wander, encourage people to just bring it back without judgment. And some mindfulness practitioners would disagree. However, I keep a pad by me, and if something comes into my mind while I'm trying to focus on the present moment, sometimes I feel I need to jot it down. So then it's down and I don't need to worry about remembering it. Otherwise it'll keep coming back and going. Hey, hey, don't forget. Don't forget tapping me on the shoulder. Honesty. Why does honesty logically make sense? Again, this is a pretty obvious one. When we are honest with ourselves and about what we need and want, we can better attend to those issues. So that makes it a lot less stressful. If we know that we're feeling tired, if we know that we're feeling unfulfilled, then we can address those things. When people are honest with others, they're more likely to get their needs met. If I'm honest about what my needs are, and I don't expect people to read my mind, more likely to get my needs met, which is going to reduce my stress and increase my sense of connectedness. And I also don't have to keep track of a bunch of lies, you know? So one activity that you can do is the consequences of dishonesty. And this isn't one of the seven activities. This is just when you present the concept of honesty when you are dishonest. And again, this is a good flip chart. 1. Emotionally, how does it affect you when you're dishonest with people about something and when you're dishonest with people about your needs, I usually I separate the flip chart. I have two different sections. Because when we're dishonest about our needs, it affects us by making us feel less heard, which is kind of counterproductive because if we're not saying something, then we can't be heard. So that's what I'm getting at, is to encourage people to start to realize that in order to get your needs met, in order to be heard, in order to get support that you need, sometimes you got to tell people because they're not going to get it. My daddy always used to say, if you need something, you need to tell me outright because I don't take hints. And he was right. Okay, so what the Bible says about this in Timothy, he says, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. So again, good, orderly direction. If you're trying to achieve this wonderful life that you're creating, then if you do your best and you're honest with yourself about what you need and what you need to be doing to move towards there, and you're honest with other people about what your goals are and how they can help you, then guess what? You're probably going to be in a good place. Ephesians talks about, you must speak truthfully. Since we are all members of one body. We talked about that a lot last week. We are all part of one universe, if you will. And if one part of the body, one part of a machine, one part of the universe starts to go astray, then it can muck up the works, if you will. So recognizing that other people depend on you, and when you're dishonest, it affects everybody else. In Proverbs, the one whose walk is blameless is kept safe, but the one whose ways are perverse will fall into a pit. If you're lying, you're likely going to get trapped or caught up in your own lies and you're going to trip over yourself and you may lose people's respect. You may find yourself very unsupported and very isolated. Proverbs. Again, to do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice, which to me means it's better to be honest and do the right thing than to make amends later to say oops, sorry and try to make up for it. Again, that can really reduce stress. If we just practice doing it right and being honest from the get go, then we don't have to apologize, we don't have to make up for things. In John, he says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful to forgive and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We talked about. And in John 8:32, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. When we are truthful it can be very liberating. So day one Honesty with yourself. Encourage people to identify their values and virtues and work diligently each day to live by them. We're not going to achieve perfection every day, any day probably. But if we're working towards those things, then it will help us a lot. Oh, hush. Okay, my proxy server's down. Anyhow, virtues can be things like family oriented, intelligent, creative. What things about you are important, what things are awesome that make you who you are, what things describe the person that you want to be. So if you want to be family oriented, if you want to be a dedicated worker, if you want to be dependable, yada yada, you know, you can see some of them down here, then what can you do each day in order to work towards that? If you could change one thing about yourself, when you're looking at yourself and what values and virtues that you embody right now versus what you wish you embodied, if you could change one thing about your life, about yourself and about the world, what would you change? And that can be a really interesting conversation to have because we're not talking about just our own, what we need to change in ourself, we're talking also about, you know, if I could change one thing in my life right now, I would say I wish I, you know, I wish I hadn't made this choice or I wish I were at this place or okay, why? And that's one of those curious questions we can start talking about and exploring why that particular change is important to that person. Day two is honesty with yourself. Encourage people to do a self esteem inventory and become okay with the fact that they're imperfect, we're all imperfect. And I do the self esteem inventory with my group because I want to show them that I'm accepting of the fact that I know I'm imperfect. And there are things that I work to change every single day because I strive to grow. So we look for areas of improvement based off our values and virtues and self esteem. Inventories are a dime a dozen on the Internet. You can pull some of them out or you can use the values and virtues activity from the day before and help people figure out these are the values and virtues that I want to be, that I want to embody. This is my ideal self and this is my current self. Which ones do I need to work towards and how can I work towards, for example, being a better friend or being more dependable or more open minded. What can I do? Day 3 Honesty with others. Oh my gosh, about your Needs, wants and feelings. And this is terrifying for some people. So I encourage them to pick a safe person. You don't need to be brutally honest with everybody about everything from jump. Pick one person that you feel you can be honest with and practice stating your needs and not expecting mind reading. And we talk a lot about mind reading during this activity and I have people share one or two examples of when they've expected somebody to read their mind. Holidays are a perfect time when you expected your significant other to get you a certain present and they didn't and you were disappointed. So my question is, well, did you tell them what you wanted? And generally the answer is no, you know, it should. I had talked about how it was really awesome. Well, sometimes that doesn't translate into I want this for my birthday or I want this for Christmas. I encourage like for presents and things. I encourage my kids to always keep a running list, wish list in Amazon or Target or somewhere. That way when grandparents want to know what they want, then I have a place that I can, that I can refer them to. Because my kids wants and needs, well, their wants at least and interests change pretty frequently, as do most children. Other things when we expect mind reading, if you expect that your roommate is going to clean up the dishes off the, off the coffee table at the end of the night or whatever and they don't do it, then you get frustrated because they didn't clean up after themselves, which seems, quote, so obvious. Well, that's expecting mind reading because they didn't necessarily grow up in that same environment where they were expected to put their own dishes away. So encouraging people to start looking at times when they've gotten frustrated and asking themselves, did I communicate my wants and needs or did I expect the person to just know what I wanted? The other part of this day we can talk about is seeking first to understand yourself and the other person. You know, what is it that I want and need? What does this person want and need? And then to be understood, how can I communicate to this person what my needs and wants are to create a win win? Thanksgiving dinner or holidays typically are a big time for these types of discussions. When you have one spouse who has certain wants and needs and another spouse who has wants and needs. And you know, for example, I recognize that, you know, my husband wants to go see his family on the holidays and then we start talking about, okay, how can we create a win win where we both get our wants and needs met. So I'm recognizing it's not just all about me and I'm able to communicate. I recognize you have needs and wants that are different than mine, and that's cool. How can we compromise? So the discussion becomes about what do you want and why? What does the other person want and why? How can you express yourself assertively to the other person so he or she understands your point of view? What would be a win win in this situation? So we do this in group, and I have a lot of cards that I use in a deck of index cards, and each index card has a particular conflictual situation on it that has come up in group therapy. You know, over the years that I've been doing this, I regularly add to the stack. And we will rehearse this, seeking first to understand yourself, then the other person, and then become understood and create a win win. We'll rehearse this in group with different things, such as going to holiday dinners, picking a movie, vacations, whatever, and so people have a good feel for it before they walk out of group. Day 4 I love this one. Think before you speak. Sometimes things just don't need to be said. They may be true and, well, I'm getting ahead of myself. So Think stands for Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it important and inspirational? Is it necessary and is it kind? Okay. Sometimes something that you have to say could be very, very true, but it may not be necessary to say it. You know, if somebody comes in and they're wearing an outfit that doesn't really flatter them very much, is it true that it doesn't flatter them? Yeah. Is it necessary to say, oh, you look like crap today? No. Or even something less offensive like that outfit's really not flattering. Is that necessary? No. You could argue about whether it's kind or not to say something, but my feeling is if they chose that outfit and they put it on, they felt good in it. So it's probably not kind of me to undermine them and criticize them. So you want to get as many of these things as possible in alignment if you're going to say something. Now, the I I always have a little bit of trouble with, because sometimes something can be true. Something can be helpful for me to share. It can even be necessary for me to share. And if it's necessary, it's probably important and figuring out how to share it in a kind way. So sometimes you got to say things like if you're a supervisor or a parent or anybody, and you've got to provide corrective feedback to somebody or constructive feedback to somebody, figuring out how to say that in the Kindest way, as opposed to just laying it all out there is important in order to reduce everybody's stress and to increase harmony. Think about your impact. Become aware of your impact. If you don't think before you speak, if you're saying things that are not helpful or are unkind or are just plain unnecessary, how does that impact your relationships? How does that impact the energy in your corner of the universe? Day five is honesty in general. Encourage people to be impeccable with their word. And this is one of the four agreements. When they say something, encourage them to follow through. Now, we don't always follow through. We don't always. We're not always on time. We're not always doing things exactly 100% right. So when we don't. One thing I read on my social networking last week, and I loved it and it has obviously stuck with me, is to replace sorry with thank you. And the next time I have this group, I'm going to ask people to identify things. Three things in the past week that they've apologized for that they should have or could have replaced with thank you. For example, instead of saying, sorry, I'm late, say thank you for waiting. Instead of saying, sorry, I forgot, you can say thank you for reminding me or thank you for being patient until I can get it done. So trying to find ways. If you're getting ready to say sorry, think about, is there a way you can say thank you instead? To provide support and encouragement or reinforcement for the person who's being tolerant of whatever your mistake was? And this also helps us take responsibility for our actions. Because sometimes when we say sorry, it's like, sorry, then you do it six more times. It seems like if you change the semantics to thank you for being patient, then it may encourage people to take more responsibility for their actions. I don't know, I'm just thinking. Day six. Don't take things personally. And this is honesty. Because sometimes we're not honest with ourselves about what we can and can't control and what our part is in things. So when there's a problem, present both sides of each issue to engender objectivity. So if you're having a disagreement with somebody, or if your boss was particularly snarky one day and you're like, where did that come from? What did I do wrong? I must have made him mad. Before you go down that tizzy hole, present both sides of each issue, step into his shoes for a second and go, what else might have caused my boss to be snarky that day? Probably going to Come up with a lot of things once you actually step into his shoes. So that helps you get honest with yourself and not take things as personally. Be honest with yourself about what parts of situations you are and are not responsible for and what things you can and cannot control. So after you do that activity and you put yourself in his shoes, then you can step back out and go, okay, you know, I probably wasn't responsible for that because I don't think I did anything that was offensive. I can't control his day and I can't control how he feels. What I can control is my reaction to it. And encourage people to remember that what other people do is usually because of themselves or their reactions to situations, not you. So if somebody reacts poorly to something or is unable to support you for some reason, it doesn't mean that you don't deserve support. It doesn't mean that you deserve criticism. It may mean that they are not able to provide the support. They just don't have the tools to be able to understand that situation. It may mean that they're having a particularly bad day and they just don't have the patience to be able to take a step back and go, okay, so and so needs me right now. And day seven is honesty and freedom. Just pondering how honesty helps people free themselves to be themselves and to achieve their goals. If I'm not trying to be a chameleon, if I'm not trying to say what I think Sally wants me to say and do what I think Tommy wants me to do, then I can do and say the things that are important and kind in order to help me work towards my goals. And it's extraordinarily liberating when I can start being honest with myself and others about my needs and thoughts and wants and be okay with that, even if they don't agree. And finally, acceptance. This logically makes sense, that it can improve happiness because we can dislike situations and still accept them. We talked about this in acceptance and commitment therapy for trauma. Finding ways to accept those things that are beyond your control to change provides freedom from having to fight against the realities you find disagreeable, uncomfortable, or painful. So instead of fighting against something, like when you have to get a shot, this is an uncomfortable, unpleasant situation. Now, I can fight against that shot, but guess what? If I do, I end up with a bruise and my shoulder hurts for the next week. If I don't fight against it and I just accept it, then I generally don't tense up and have the same issues. So what the Bible says Joshua, have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous, do not be frightened and do not be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go, and that encourages some of us to accept that bad things are going to happen. However, we have the ability to emerge victorious and not to get too caught up in the minutia. Ephesians with all humility and gentleness, with patience bearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, humility and gentleness, and bearing one another in love, that's accepting everybody for who they are. Instead of trying to change or criticize or subvert people. How much would that reduce stress in your life if you just accepted people for who they are with the tools they had and believed that they were doing the best they could at that point in time. Romans, therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Again, that open arms welcoming acceptance of people without trying to change them, saying, I accept you for you and your imperfectness or imperfection. James 1, 2, 2, 4. Count it all joy my brothers, when you meet the trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete and lacking in nothing. So this can help us face trials. We can recognize that things may be difficult. However, this can help us grow and become stronger and wiser and all those wonderful things, so we become more complete and more evolved. If you will. Proverbs Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. Sometimes you just have to accept that things are. There's no good explanation. And in Job, the whole book of Job is about Job's trials and he was a really good guy and he just kept going. I don't understand God. You know, it seems like you're punishing me and I don't know what I did wrong yet. The entire time he did not curse God for what was going on. A couple of times he said he wished he was dead. But he didn't curse God for what was going on. He accepted what was happening. And he said, shall we not accept good from God and not trouble encouraging people to accept the fact that pain is a reality of life? So day one for acceptance. It is what it is. How can I improve the next moment? Encourage people to practice using radical acceptance. When something good happens, it is what it is. Let me keep going. When something bad happens. I got a flat tire the other day. It is what it is, how can I improve the next moment? What do I need to do to get my tire re inflated and get back on my day and on my path to accomplishing my goals for the day? But radical acceptance helped me there because I could have gotten, you know, really upset about everything that was going on and you know, I don't have time for this and yada, yada, yada, that wouldn't have done any good. That whole temper tantrum would have just wasted a whole lot of energy. So instead I called my husband and I'm like, my tires flat as anything and I had a big old bolt in it. And he's, he's like, well, you know, be grateful that you're at the gym. You're at a safe place. So go in, have your workout and I'll pick you up in an hour and a half and we'll figure out how to proceed from there. So that's how I improved the next moment. I reached out for support and we figured out the next steps. Encourage people to just spend the entire day practicing radical acceptance. They are making dinner and they realize they're out of butter. Well, they could get frustrated about it or they could go, guess I'm going to learn how to use a butter substitute today. Figuring out, instead of getting frustrated and angry about things, go, okay, this is a stopping point. This is a roadblock. How do I get around it? Day two is accepting yourself. Stop shoulding and judging. Encourage people during day two to practice their loving kindness meditation. This helps them accept themselves and send positive feelings towards themselves. Accept others and send positive feelings towards others. And we talked about that in the meditation class a couple days ago. Encourage them to live in the and recognizing that sometimes things are stressful, sometimes things are unpleasant. However, they can experience distress, they can experience anxiety, experience grief, and still continue moving forward in their rich and meaningful life. It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. If you're grieving over something, it doesn't mean that the world stops. So you can continue to grieve and go to your kid's basketball game and be happy when he makes three layups or whatever the case. It is so you can live in the and you don't have to have mutually exclusive feelings. And encourage people to learn to accept themselves by dealing with the hecklers. All those things they tell themselves, all those voices in the back of their head that tell them they're not good enough, not smart enough, never going to cut it. Help them figure out how to deal with those. And we've talked about that in other classes. Day 3 diffuse from your emotions. And this should sound pretty familiar because we talked about it in acceptance and commitment therapy for trauma. Encourage people to recognize that they can have an emotion or memory without having to become entangled. Entangled in it. And I'll share with you, small animal. Well, animals in general, you know, I have a soft spot for. But I'll be driving along and I'll see a turtle on the side of the road. And we have a lot of turtles on the side of our road that leads out of our subdivision. Unfortunately, that road is very windy and has zero shoulder. I mean, it's a drop off. It's not even just grass, it's just a drop off. So there's nowhere to pull over until you get to the next neighbor's driveway. And we live out in the country, so that's quite a ways away. And sometimes I'll see a turtle and I really want to pick it up and move it out of the road so it doesn't get squished. But it's not safe for me to do that for some reason. And I can either battle with myself the entire way to work about whether I should have stopped and walked 300 yards in my heels down the road in order to move a turtle, or I can say, you know, I have to trust and have faith that Mr. Turtle will go back the right way and not become squished Mr. Turtle. But I can let that turtle, that turtle represents discomfort for me because it makes me nervous that he's there, but I don't have to get entangled in it. I can say, you know what? I can't deal with that right now, or I'm choosing not to get involved with Mr. Turtle right now. Day 4 affirmations to help people live in the and and you're going to get tired of me hearing, hearing me say this, just like you get tired of hearing me say it is what it is. However, living in the and is a great concept. Encouraging people to find affirmations that they can tell themselves throughout the day, such as, I'm not a bad person when I act badly. A person who has acted badly, encourage them to separate, unhook from that action. They are a good person, they made a bad choice. I would better not define myself entirely by my behavior, by others opinions, or by anything else under the sun. So it's better for us to define ourselves by who we are, not by external factors. I have many faults and can work on correcting them without blaming, condemning, or damning myself. For having them, we all have faults. Be curious, look at it and go, hmm, all right, well, that's not ideal. What can I do to improve it? Instead of going, you are so useless. Big difference. Encourage people to look at their faults or what they perceive as their inadequacies with curiosity and go, okay, how can I solve this problem? Day five Learn from all parts. I love this activity, and this is another one that I do do. Flip chart pages for what can your emotions teach you when you have anger? What can it teach you when you have happiness? What can it teach you? Well, for those two things, they're pretty obvious. Anger and teaches you about things that you perceive as threats. And then you can go down a little further and explore why you perceive those things as threats. Happiness teaches us things that we want to do again, things that produce joy. So paying attention to our emotions can help us learn how to increase the joy on our life if we recognize that sunshine and rainbows brings us joy. I know for some weird reason, when it's kind of gray and kind of cool and the leaves are starting to change and it's got this smells like fall. I don't know if any of you have ever experienced that. I just get in the best mood and I am walking around singing Christmas carols and baking and doing whatever. I don't know why it puts me in a good mood, but being aware of that, I know that I can recreate some of that in order to improve my mood. What can your thoughts teach you? When you're thinking positive thoughts, when you're thinking optimistic thoughts? What does that teach you when you're thinking pessimistic thoughts? When you're thinking, I can't do this, what are those thoughts teaching you? Are those thoughts teaching you patience and tolerance and a compassionate voice? Or are those thoughts teaching you to be the type of person that you don't want to be? I want people to start thinking about their thoughts as their internal coach, their internal parent. What do they want their thoughts to be? What can your body teach you? Well, my body teaches me a lot lately. Teaches me that I ain't 20 years old anymore, which I really hate. But if we pay attention to our body, it teaches us when we need to slow down a little bit. It'll tell us when we're starting to get sick. It will tell us a lot when we're hungry, when our blood sugar is low. Our body can also tell us when there might be a threat because we. We feel these. These different excitatory responses. We start breathing faster and get that nervousness in our belly. Our body can teach us a lot because some people have disengaged from their emotions. So if they connect with their body, then they can start identifying physiological sensations and then connecting them back with emotions. What can good experiences and successes teach you? Well, what you're good at and that you can do things and that you've probably persevered through difficulties. What can bad experiences and failures teach you? They can teach you a lot too. And this, each one of these can be an entire group discussion. What can your friends teach you? You know, I have friends that teach me stuff every day. And I learn, I try to learn from everybody, but I also try to learn from my enemies or people that have are not good presences in my, in my life. What can I learn from them about myself and about other people? So that can be a pretty heavy discussion. But it gets people to start thinking about how everything is intertwined. How their thoughts and their feelings and their body are all intertwined. How their good experiences turn into memories which can be reenacted or whatever in the present and produce emotions, thoughts and sensations. Day 6 Examine your options. When we're talking about acceptance, examine your options for what you can do. There's a problem. It's unfortunate you don't like this situation. You're not happy in the now. Okay, what can you do to improve the next moment? You can solve the problem. If that's an option, that's an option. Sometimes it's not always an option. You can change how you feel or react to the problem. So if you can't solve the problem, you may have to change how you react to it. If it's raining outside and you wanted to go out and work in the garden or go hiking, you can't solve that problem necessarily. You can't make it stop raining, but you could change how you feel or react to it. So you can choose a different option instead of getting upset about it. And recognize that you don't have to water your garden now. You can accept it and just go, eh, it is what it is. Guess I'm doing something else. Or you can stay miserable. Those are your four options. So encourage people to remember to look at these options. And again, if they can put it on an index card, because sometimes things get lost on our tablets and our mobile devices just for this day, carry around that index card. And when they run into something that's frustrating them, encourage them to examine their options. Acceptance and change. Recognizing that radical acceptance has three main components. Seeing reality, accepting reality and moving forward. So you've got radical acceptance right here so you can have self improvement, self acceptance. Those are two kind of opposite things because I want to accept myself for who I am, but I also want to improve. How can you combine the two of those? Well, you can combine the two of those by saying I am my best self in the moment and I am good enough. I can be better, but I am good enough as I am. I am acceptable and I am lovable and I can work towards growth and enhancement later. So honesty, awareness and acceptance. And acceptance can help us reduce stress by helping us realize our power, realize what we have control over, realize that we're good enough, be grateful for the things and recognize become aware of the things that we already have in our life that we can be grateful for instead of always looking towards the future for life will be okay when this happens. Well, what about life is okay right now? That helps reduce stress because people start recognizing that. Okay, it may not be the way I had anticipated, but I've got some things going for me right now. Alrighty everybody. Are there any questions? Have a very happy Thanksgiving. If I don't see you or tomorrow's class, please remember that if you do need another live CEU this week we are doing it at noon Central Standard Time, 1:00 clock Eastern Standard Time tomorrow, which is Wednesday in order to make sure that we got in our two webinars this week. And remember, just log into allce.com and go into the classroom and you can take your test. 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 podcastce 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.