Stress Management 101: CBT Tools and Activities for Beginners

You. Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this video on Stress Management 101, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, tools for beginners and group activities for therapists. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In this video, very simply, we're going to explore 25 tools to help you more effectively manage stress in all pieces of your life. Pieces stands for physical, interpersonal, emotional, cognitive, environmental, and spiritual. Knowing what to do is the first step. Knowing that you need to manage stress, knowing that you have a tool, like knowing that you have a screwdriver, well, that's great, but unless you know how to use it, it's not going to be really effective. Knowing why you are doing it can help to motivate yourself. Going back to that screwdriver, you have a screwdriver, but you. You need to know when is appropriate to use a screwdriver and when you might need to use a hammer. How you do it can differ greatly between people. Stick with the woodworking analogy for the minute. When my daughter and I do things, we tend to do them very differently. And whereas I will go down and I will get a screwdriver or something when I need it, she'll find a nail file or a butter knife or something and she'll do the same thing. She just does it differently. Letting go is a perfect example. Knowing that letting go of some of the things that are out of your control would be helpful to release stress, well, that's great, but why am I going to let go? How is it actually going to benefit me other than just in general relieve stress? Exploring that, and that's what we call motivational enhancement. I've done other videos on that. And then how you do it, how do you actually let go of something that's out of your control? Some people give it to God. Some people just decide they're not going to invest energy in it. How are you going to let go of things that are not within your control? So the first mnemonic for today is TIP Tool identification. As you go through these slides, you will learn about 25 different tools. And not everyone is going to work for you. Not everyone will even sound appealing to you. And that's okay. So identify the tools that you think might work for you in the areas of your life, in the pieces of your life that are currently experiencing the most stress. I stands for implementation. All right, you've identified this tool, Letting Go. Wonderful. How exactly are you going to let go? Are you going to journal? Are you going to talk with a friend? Friend, Like I said, are you going to Pray about it. What tools or what methods are you going to use in order to implement this tool? And then P stands for practice. If you are doing this in group, great. You can practice implementing these skills and tools in group. You can role play. There are a lot of things you can do. You can practice with others and I would encourage you to choose to safe others. So people that you know, people that you trust, either your counselor, your sponsor, maybe your significant other, or your best friend, practice using these tools. Let them know, this is what my goal is. I want to learn how to let things go and not just hold on to them like a dog on a bone. People in your life who are safe and supportive can help you identify when you're holding on to things that are out of your control and and encourage you to try to let go and process with you, talk with you about how you might be able to go about doing that in any particular situation. And then guided imagery is another form of practice in which you envision yourself. You imagine yourself in a situation where something's out of your control, for example, and you need to let it go. And you imagine yourself successfully saying, this is not worth my time and energy. I am not going to let this situation or this person steal my precious energy that I need to move toward the things that are important in my life. So tool identification, implementation, how you gonna do it? And practice. If you're a therapist, each one of these pieces has its own mnemonic and can form a foundation for a pretty interesting and interactive group. Helping people brainstorm ways that they are actually going to implement it, the hows, and also exploring potentially some of the benefits to implementing it other than it's something I'm supposed to do or it's going to reduce my stress. We need more than that most of the time. So the next mnemonic we're going to talk about is nicer. If you are nicer to yourself, then it is easier to deal with life on life's terms. And I've talked about this in a lot of other videos, so I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time here. But nutrition is the end. When you eat food, that food is used to make neurotransmitters and hormones and repair your body and keep you healthy and happy and responsive and motivated and all that stuff. If you are putting crap into your body, then you're probably going to feel like crap. Crap in, crap out. If you're putting nutritious foods in, that's going to help a lot. Now I'M not saying that you have to radically change your diet, but make some minor revisions here and there in order to start eating a little bit healthier. Start. Start low and go slow. Make one small change. Do it for a little while. Once you're comfortable with that, make another small change. I stands for illness prevention. None of us, well, most of us, have difficulty dealing with life on life's terms as effectively when we're sick, especially now when there seems to be a whole lot more health anxiety. So prevent illness whenever possible. Wash your hands. So socially, distance. If you're in the store and somebody in the same aisle is hacking up along, you probably don't want to get right up next to where they are to get something off the shelf. Wait a little bit. Make sure you sanitize your hands afterwards. There are some very basic skills that we can implement. We also know that lack of sleep and stress both increase our likelihood of getting sick. It reduces our immune system, which takes us to C. Circadian rhythms and sleep, they are not the same thing. Circadian rhythms represent the rhythm of your body, and that includes your cortisol secretion. That includes your melatonin secretion, gonadal hormone secretions. Everything is actually on a body clock, if you will. So it's important to try to maintain that because if your cortisol is secreting at the wrong time, your energy may be lower. If your gonadal hormones get all out of whack, then you may start having problems there. So it's important to maintain your circadian rhythms by keeping a relatively stable routine most of the time. And it's important to remember in life that if we try to do something always, all the time, perfectly, that's just going to add stress. You want to start engaging in some of these healthful behaviors in a way that doesn't feel punishing to you in a way that is meaningful but not unpleasant. Sleep is part of setting your circadian rhythms. It's not the only part, but. But going to sleep about the same time most nights will help your body get used to when to secrete cortisol, which it does first thing in the morning. It's actually highest when you're supposed to be getting out of bed and when to secrete melatonin, which is in the evening when your cortisol levels are supposed to be lowest. I have several other videos on sleep hygiene. If sleep is one of your problems, sleep is such an issue that I do harp on it pretty much anytime I can. Because lack of sleep is perceived by your body As a stressor. So it's going to trigger your stress response. It's going to increase adrenaline and some of those other chemicals in your body, and it's going to make it harder to deal with life on life's terms. When you are sleep deprived, they've done studies and shown that it is harder to control your thought and you're more likely to have intrusive thoughts and, and ruminations when you're sleep deprived. So if this is one thing you're willing to address even a little bit, it can do a lot for not only your physical health, but also your mental health, which takes us to exhaustion. And I don't mean just sleep deprived. It's really important that if you start feeling physically or mentally exhausted that you step back and go, wait a minute, you know, it's kind of like your car overheating. You don't want to drive until the engine block cracks. You want to stop, figure out what's wrong and make adjustments. Don't let yourself get exhausted. That also may mean saying no sometimes and setting boundaries and we'll get there. Checking with your internal energy meter is really important. Mental stress, cognitive stress, emotional stress, all of those things take energy. So even if you're not going to the gym or running a marathon or whatever, you may still feel exhausted. Even if you're actually getting enough good quality sleep. Some days you may feel exhausted, and it's important to pay attention to that and adjust where necessary. And finally, relaxation. Relaxation means actually letting the body calm down. You can try stimulating the vagus nerve, you can stretch, you can do things that you enjoy. Relaxation happens when your body releases neurotransmitters like serotonin and gaba. Those are things that help your muscles relax, help your body relax, help your brain relax. So being nicer to yourself is a great way to start with stress management. If you are taking care of your body factory, it will be easier to adjust to changing demands. The next piece of the puzzle is interpersonal. For most of us, we want to be in relationships of some sort. Now, not everybody is an extrovert. Not everybody wants to have 50 friends and go hanging out with people every night. That's okay. Some people are introverts and they have one or two good friends that they may talk to once or twice a month. And they're good with that because too, too much people is exhausting and that's okay. But our relationships help us in a lot of ways. They can provide us what we call recovery capital or stress management capital, if you will. Because they can be there to support us and help us feel loved and accepted and safer. But relationships can also be a huge stressor if they're unhealthy. So with this one, we're talking about share. The mnemonic is share, set and maintain boundaries. This is so important. Remember in other videos I've talked about how boundaries are like a house and you can choose who you let in and how much freedom that you give them, how vulnerable you allow yourself to be around them. And you can alter that based on situation, based on people. You don't have to let everybody in and make yourself completely vulnerable. So it's important to figure out where your boundaries are, what feels safe, and also to maintain them. When pe other people are being aggressive, that means that they are basically stomping all over your boundaries. They're kicking your door down and coming in and they're telling you they're either invading your physical boundaries, getting too close, or feeling threatening, or invading your cognitive or your emotional boundaries, telling you what you should think or how you should feel, or your emotional bound, or I'm sorry, your environmental boundaries, where they're going through your stuff. And I think we've all had a sibling or a roommate or somebody else who's gone through our stuff and it feels very violating. So it's important to recognize where your boundaries are and if somebody starts to step over those boundaries, be able to use assertiveness skills to say, you know what, that's making me feel unsafe, that that's not good, I need you to back up. And that takes a lot of practice, especially if you've been raised in a environment in which it wasn't safe to set boundaries to maintain boundaries, that can feel terrifying. And quite honestly, if you are an adult especially and you haven't set boundaries up until now or haven't been consistent in maintaining those boundaries, people are going to bristle a little bit when you start setting boundaries. So there's some finesse in that's involved in starting to set boundaries and helping other people recognize that you're not rejecting them, you're not pushing them away, but you are maintaining the sanctity, if you will, of your house. Honesty with self and other. This kind of goes along with boundaries. But it's really important for you to check in with yourself and ask yourself, what am I thinking? How am I feeling? What am I needing right now? And be honest about it, don't ignore it and tell yourself, well, I'll tend to it later, I shouldn't feel this way or this is stupid. You feel how you feel, you need what you need. So being honest about that is really important because you are responsible for trying to get your needs met. And what I mean by that is, if you expect other people to read your mind and know what you need, you're going to feel stressed out and rejected and let down a lot of the time. So first you need to be honest with yourself and willing to meet your own needs. And sometimes being honest with others and saying, I need your help here, or this is how this makes me feel. Remember I said the boundaries. You're going to set that boundary and say, this is okay. This makes me feel safe. I feel comfortable when you go an extra step. That's when I start feeling anxious. And it's important to me for you to respect that. A stands for appreciate the positive and what is. Too often in relationships, we split people. They are all good or all bad, or we focus on what they're doing wrong all the time instead of what they're doing right. And after being a supervisor for 20 some odd years, I can tell you that in my early days, I used to fall into that trap sometimes with employees who weren't performing as I expected them to. And I had to appreciate the positives of what they brought, what their skills and tools were, what they were doing well, in addition to recognizing what they might need to work on. But we need to do that in relationships too. I remember as a parent, my children, wonderful little kids. They were wonderful little human beings. They're wonderful big human beings now. But it was important for me to remember to let them know that I appreciate the positive of what they're doing. I appreciate that you're doing this. I appreciate you for just being you. That was really important because in a lot of families, the only time the kids really get much feedback from mom and dad is when they're doing something wrong. And so no news is kind of good news. But that creates a barrier and appreciating what is in relationships. There may be things I wish were different in a relationship that I have. However, it's not. And if I want to stay in that relationship, it's important for me to look at it and say, let me appreciate what is is. Let me appreciate what skills and tools this person has, what they bring to the table, if you will, and focus on the benefits of the relationship instead of only focusing on the negatives. Responsive to self and other. Well, it is great to be honest with yourself and other people about your thoughts, wants and needs in an appropriate fashion. Of course, but then you have to go the next step and respond to it. If I notice, if I'm honest with myself about the fact that I'm hungry, okay, that's great acknowledging that need. But if I don't get up and do something about it, what's the point? It's important not only to be honest, but also to take steps to address that. If I'm feeling anxious in a relationship for some reason, it's important for me to be honest with myself about that and respond to it by addressing it by sitting down with the person and communicating with them. What is causing me to feel threatened or anxious in the relationship and having that open line of communication. And E stands for empathize again with self and other. Interpersonal relationships are great, but if you're worn down, if you don't know what you need, if you don't know what you want, if you are completely hating on yourself all the time, then you're not going to be a lot of good to anybody because you're not probably going to get your thoughts, wants and needs met. Empathize with yourself. You're being honest. You're saying, I'm exhausted, I'm burned out. I just can't do one more thing today, okay? Instead of saying you shouldn't feel this way, empathize and go, hey, been there. Had those days that were not a days I where I was not a hundred percent. I'm going to empathize and be compassionate with myself and say, all right, let me meet you self where you're at. Same thing with other people. Empathizing with them can go a long way. If somebody is in a really bad mood, for example, empathizing with them can help you kind of get into that space where they are and understand their actions and reactions from a different point of view. If somebody bit my head off for, quote, no apparent reason and I wasn't empathizing with them, I might take offense. I might feel that that's really aggressive. I might assume that it's directed at me. Whereas if I empathize with them and I think to myself, I wonder what's going on in John's life right now that is causing him to be so impulsive or aggressive that empathy can go a long way to not only helping you be effectively responsive to the other person, but also to not personalizing it so you can nurture healthy relationships by sharing, set and maintain boundaries. Practice honesty with self and other. Appreciate the positive and what is respond to yourself and other to help meet needs and Address anxieties and other stressors and empathize with self and others. Don't should yourself into next week. Empathize and recognize what is the next piece. Are your emotional and cognitive aspects. And I put these together because our thoughts tend to impact or trigger different feelings and our feelings tend to impact the way we think think. So they're intertwined, if you will. The mnemonic for this is phased Psychological flexibility. Hardiness, awareness, support, esteem and distress tolerance. So psychological flexibility means asking yourself when you're angry, when you're upset, when you're confused, when, when you're doing whatever before you use your energy, but especially when you're distressed. Are my reactions to my thoughts and feelings helping me use energy to move toward my rich and meaningful life? I'll say that again. Are my reactions to my thoughts and feelings helping me use energy to move toward my rich and meaningful life? Your thoughts are based on your past experiences. Maybe not in fact in the past, in the current situation, but your past experiences and your feelings are natural reactions, automatic reactions to those thoughts and your feelings. That's your body turning on your stress system or turning on your happiness system and giving you energy so you can either fight or flee or do it again. Hardiness is another tool that you can use. And hardiness says you are aware in your rich and meaningful life all of the people, things and experiences that are important to you. And you can look at them kind of like a pie, if you will, and recognize in that pie which slices of the pie are going well and which slices aren't. So you recognize what you're committed to spending your energy to. You recognize in that pie that pretty much everything in there you have some control over, but you don't have total control over. So you acknowledge what aspects of this situation do I can I control and which aspects can't I control? And then for those aspects that you can control, you encourage yourself to see it as a challenge. Not a drudgery, not an a barrier, but a challenge. Okay, how can I solve this problem? This is not exactly what I want going on and these are the aspects I can control. Now let me figure out the best way to do that. Get curious. A stands aware for awareness of thoughts, feelings and facts in context. Remember I said earlier that thoughts are not necessarily accurate and neither are feelings. They are based on prior experiences. And it's your body helping you try to anticipate what might be coming next. You need to take those feelings and validate them. I feel anxious right now. Okie dokie. You Feel anxious. Let's look at why. What are the thoughts that are telling you or or causing you to feel unsafe? And then with each of those thoughts, compare them against facts in context. When this happened when I was a child, or last week or whatever, it may have been a threatening situation. However, in this context at this time, what are the facts for and against my thoughts, for and against my beliefs and that are triggering my feelings? Self esteem is the next thing that's really important. And this is how you think about yourself. And it's really important to unhook behaviors from yourself. You are not your behaviors. You are a person. You are lovable. Your behaviors may not always be, but it's important to learn how to unhook your behaviors and love yourself despite your mistakes, to strive for progress and not insist on perfection. Self esteem can also help you depersonalize when things happen. People who have low self esteem often require or crave other people's validation. And if you feel good about yourself, if you feel lovable, if you feel acceptable, if you feel competent, if you. In dealing with life on life's terms, when somebody does something that's aggressive or nasty or whatever word you want to use, you're less likely to take it personally and think, oh, I must have done something to make them really mad. It must be my fault. I must be inadequate in some way. E stands for explanations and exceptions. Explanations can help you take a step back. Why did this happen? Three explanations besides what I'm assuming. Three explanations besides it's all me. What are some other explanations for why the building may have fallen down? You know, was it the wind? Was it the architect? Was it the materials? There are a lot of different reasons. Same thing with people. Why was so and so rude to you today? All right, was it because, oh my gosh, they hate me? Well, that's personalization and looking at it and going, okay, what other reasons might have led to so and so being rude to me today? What are three other things? Maybe they weren't feeling well. Maybe they were, you know, often la la land thinking about their own stuff and you kind of jolted them out of it. There are a lot of reasons, but explanations help us get a rounder perspective. And exceptions. When you think somebody does something all the time or this never happens to you, look for exceptions. Now, some things may have never happened yet, like you may never have won the lottery, okay, but what things have you won? What things have you succeeded at? And then D stands for distress tolerance. And I have a little mini mnemonic here Add A stands for acknowledge and accept your thoughts, feelings and reactions in the moment. You feel how you feel, you think what you're thinking and, and it is what it is. Arguing with it with yourself, struggling with yourself, shoulding with yourself just drains that energy. So acknowledge and accept it doesn't mean you have to keep doing, doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to end up being accurate. But for right now, based on your brain's shortcut, your schema, that help your brain anticipate what's going to happen, this is how you feel. Okay? D stands for downregulate. Generally when we're talking about distress tolerance, we're talking about distress. That means you're feeling a threat from somewhere, anger or anxiety. And it's important to downregulate because when you're in that fight or flight mode, and I know a lot of people are like say all the other Fs, fight, flight, fawn, forget about it and freeze. There are five different Fs in the, in the stress response. But it's important to recognize that when you're there, your brain is going, there's a threat, we need to survive. There's a threat, we need to survive. There's a threat, we need to survive. It is not ready, willing or able to really engage that executive functioning and think about, think clearly and objectively about what's going on. So it's important to downregulate. And there are a lot of tools out there that can help you downregulate your stress response. And you notice I'm intentionally avoiding the word calm down because that's a trigger word for most of us. Figuring out what helps you down regulate. Does it help you to call a friend? Does it help you to go on a walk? Does it help you to do 50 push ups? What can help you take a step back and get into that place where you can think clearly. And then once you've down regulated, you're going to determine the most prudent course of action. All right, this is the situation, these are the facts in context. How am I going to best use my energy to address this situation in a way that helps me move toward my rich and meaningful life and what aspects of the situation are within my control? So all of these things in phased kind of feed on one another and build on one another. The phrase that I use a lot of times with people that I work with is when you have good tools and life hands you lemons, you won't be phased. And that is trying to help them Remember the mnemonic to use when they're feeling stressed. And the next piece that you can explore is environmental. We already talked about physical aspects of stress management and how it's important to reduce physical stress on the body so you have energy to deal with emotional and cognitive and interpersonal stress. And, hey, let's face it, physical stressors, like germs and stuff when they come along. Environmental stress is more about where. Where you are. So sensory stressors. And the mnemonic here is safe. When you attend to your environmental health and stressors, you will feel safe. Sensory sights, sounds, smells, times of day, or even just the energy in the room. It's important to recognize for each one of these things what triggers distress in you and what triggers a feeling of safety and contentment or even, dare I say, happiness. Add more sensory triggers for positive, empowering, encouraging thoughts and feelings and address the sensory triggers for distress. You may not be able to remove them, but at least have a plan for how to deal with them. There was a building that I used to work at, and it was an inpatient clinic. And the walls were just this pukey, nasty, institutional light green color. I mean, it was dreadful. It was cold. It was. And obviously I found that oppressive when. When I walked in there and I saw it and it just didn't feel warm and inviting. Okay, well, that's not how I want to feel when I go to work. That's not how I want people to feel when they come into my office. So I took steps to make sure that my office felt more warm and welcoming and cheerful and I paid attention to the decor that I had. But it's also important to do that for yourself. If you don't feel safe and comfortable and nourished in your own environment, it's going to drain your energy. A stands for awareness of what I call your spidey senses and facts in context. Your spidey senses, that's that feeling of fear or anxiety or something's just not quite right. Okay, Remember, that comes from your prior learning from your past experiences. It may not be accurate in context, but it may. Example, if you were robbed at when you were going to your car after work one night in the parking garage. Okay, well, that obviously was a dangerous and threatening situation. So in the future, when you are going to your car after work and in a parking garage, you may feel anxious, you may feel like, oh, crap, it's going to happen again. That's your brain trying to say, protect yourself. This is what we learned from the last time. Awareness of Your spidey senses is important because when you feel that anxiety, if you don't address it, it can overgeneralized. So when you notice that, check the facts in context, pick your head up from your phone, and actually look around and find the facts for and against the belief that you are unsafe in this particular situation. F stands for foresee challenges and vulnerabilities and plan for them. We are starting the month of November right now, and a lot of people are getting ready to go to holiday gatherings and visit family. And that can be exhausting at best and triggering at worst for a lot of people. And it's important to plan ahead, foresee challenges to in your environment. You know that when you go to your mom's house that Uncle Bob's going to be there and he just gets on your every last nerve. Okay, well, you know that's going to happen. And instead of pretending it ain't, isn't, sorry. It's important to say, all right, how am I going to handle that If Uncle Bob shows up and starts being his general, usual unpleasant self, what can I do in order to keep myself safe? What strategies can I use? And remember, I said at the beginning, just knowing the tool is not enough. Knowing that you have a screwdriver is not enough unless you know how to use it and implement it in order to achieve a goal. So foresee challenges and then brainstorm ways to handle those challenges. And as they come up, that will help you feel more prepared. Think of soldiers. You wouldn't just pluck somebody up off the street and then send them over to a war zone because they wouldn't know how to use the tools that they had. They wouldn't know how to assemble and fire and clean their guns and how to be safe and all that stuff that they learn in basic training and stuff. So it's important to foresee the challenges and then to identify the tools and how you can use them to stay safe. Now, vulnerabilities, remember, are those things that make it harder for us to deal with life on life's terms. If you're grieving, if you're depressed, if you're hangry, if you're exhausted, you know, any of. In pain, sick, any of those things that is already taking energy. That means you have less energy to deal with life on life's terms, which means you're more vulnerable to distress, you're more vulnerable to feeling more threatened if you know that you're exhausted, if you know that you're grieving or whatever. And that's a Vulnerability, okay, it is what it is. You can't change it by just wishing it away. Acknowledge it and say, okay, what is the best way to handle going to my family's party even though I'm feeling exhausted, or even though I'm feeling really stressed about something? Okay. You know, looking at that, recognizing, hey, I'm feeling really stressed. It's been a really hard few weeks, few months, whatever. So, yes, I think it's important in my rich and meaningful life to go to my family's party, but I am going to limit the amount of time I spend there. I'm going to let them know they're important to me, but I am also going to limit how much time I spend there. And in order to be able to devote a little bit of time to relaxation and recuperation. And E stands for excuse yourself from triggering or overwhelming situations. Sometimes it just gets to be too much. And sitting there and forcing yourself to endure it when you feel powerless just increases that threat response. So excuse yourself. That may mean go to the bathroom, that may mean go out on a walk, that may mean leave altogether. But it's important to develop those assertiveness skills. And if you can't get into a situation where you feel safe, figure out your exit strategy. And spiritual. This is the final one of the pieces that we're going to consider. And the mnemonic here is love, let go, optimism, values driven behavior, and encouragement of self and other. The first one is letting go. And if you notice a lot of these things kind of overlap on one another, letting go of things that you cannot change is really important. Accepting things you cannot change and letting go of the belief that you have to change it is really important for stress management. If you have a house and it's six inches over the property line and you think, I need to move that over back over so it's not encroaching on my neighbor's property line, that's not going to do you any good. You're just going to sit there and ponder on it, maybe go out and, you know, try to push it with your shoulder. I know that's silly, but it's not going to work. So it's important to use your energy to address the things that you can in your rich and meaningful life and figure out how to let go of those things that you just cannot change. And sometimes that's other people. Optimism gets a bad rap. And yes, it's really important not to smile and just go, everything's fine, it's all going to be fine. Well, no, in recovery circles, a lot of times we say fine stands for effed up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. Okay, so fine is not a word that we're even allowed to use in my household. But tragic optimism means accepting, acknowledging what sucks and having hope that it can get better or that having hope that you can tolerate that distress. And focusing, identifying the other things that are important in that pie, that is your rich and meaningful life that are going well. Yeah, this sucks over here, and that's tragic. And I do have optimism that I can be empowered to improve other areas of my life. For a lot of us, the economy right now has been a challenge, to say the least. And tragic optimism is recognizing, okay, hey, you know, I've got to do some things here I don't like to do, I didn't want to do. And my life is more than my payroll. My life is more than my bank account. And so I focus on that and recognize, you know what? I've got a lot of things that are going really well in my life. Values driven behavior. And this is really the heart of spirituality. Choosing behaviors, choosing to react to life in ways that are in alignment with your values, that are in alignment with the person you want to be. And that doesn't mean always making the right choice, because perfection is an illusion, but progress. When you're faced with choices, remember asking yourself, is my reaction to this situation, you using my energy to move toward my rich and meaningful life? Well, part of your rich and meaningful life is being the person that you want to be and using your values. So when I'm faced with decisions, I weigh each one of them against my values and I say, which one is going to help me move toward being the person I want to be? And e, encourage self and other. It's really important. I mean, a lot of us encourage other people and we try to be supportive and all that stuff, but it's also important to encourage yourself to give yourself a pat on the back and go, you know what? This was a really hard day. Congrats for making it through without losing your stuffing. It is what it is. So spirituality and, and spiritual wellness and cognitive behavioral tools really revolve around enhancing love in your life, both for you and for other people. If you have stressors in any pieces of your life, it makes it harder to deal with stressors and demands in all other pieces of your life. It's just the way it is. You only have so much energy, and if this area over here is draining 60% of it, then you've only got 40% left to give to every other area that's important in your life that's spreading it kind of thin. Today's video introduced you to a small set of tools that might be helpful. There are lots of other tools out there, but I think it's important to give people some starter tools. Using that toolbox analogy again, a lot of times when you start learning how to use tools, when you're a kid or an adolescent, your caregivers got you a little starter toolbox with the basics. They're not going to start you out with a lathe and a circular saw and something else that you could, you know, chop off a limb. You're going to start with hammers and screwdrivers and things that form the foundation for everything else that you are going to learn. So that was the point of this particular video. Pick three or four tools that might be helpful and discuss them with your therapist or sponsor to figure out how you are going to implement them. Like I said when we were on that slide, how will you let go of things that you can't control? How exactly are you going to set boundaries with other people? What's that going to look like? How do you do it? Be responsive to yourself and others? How are you going to do that? How are you going to change from ignoring yourself and being on autopilot to being responsive? If you need some tips and tools, maybe you don't have a counselor or a sponsor or somebody that you can brainstorm this stuff with. You can find related videos at docsnipes.com doc snipes-AI that is the doc Snipes bot that I had created and educated with all 1500 videos that are on the YouTube channel. Have a great day, everybody.