Unveiling the Secrets to Developing Hardiness and Resiliency

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@allce.com counselortoolbox we are going to be talking about hardiness and resilience. Over the next 30, 45 minutes. We're going to define resilience, identify characteristics that make people more resilient and ways we as clinicians or parents or teachers can enhance those characteristics. Then we'll also move on to defining hardiness, which is kind of a part of. Resilience is defined by having commitment, control and challenge. It was developed back in the 70s, but a lot of what they had to say really holds true today. And we'll examine why hardiness is important to resilience. So resilience is the capacity to bounce back. A lot of times when we think about resilience, we think about pillows, we think about mattresses, we think about things that bounce, bounce back emotionally. We can have the capacity to bounce back ourselves. And why is this important? Well, you know, if we don't bounce back, then when we hit some sort of a stressor, when we hit something that is an obstacle, we fall flat. My daughter has a new kitten right now, and bless her little heart, she is not very coordinated. The kitten, not my daughter. And she came running through the house today and jumped up and was trying to jump up on the counter and face planted right into the drawer just below the countertop. And, you know, after I stopped laughing, I felt really bad for her. But no, you know, she was fine. She got up and she did it not one more time, but two more times because she was determined to get on top of that counter. She definitely shows a lot of resilience. When we talk about emotional resilience, we talk about people who, when they get angry, they can get it under control, they can come back from it, when they get upset, when they get depressed, when they feel rejected, all those things that happen, I mean, life happens, but it doesn't hold them down. They don't unpack their bags and live there. So resilient people tend to have an awareness of and minimize their vulnerabilities. So if you're going to be resilient, you want to be as strong and as prepared and as, you know, ready for any challenges that come your way as you can, which helps with the resilience. If you're already worn down, you know, think about that old leather seat that's in your car that may be 10 years old or, you know, something like that. New leather can bounce back if somebody sits on it with something that's a little pokey. Old leather, as soon as you sit on it with anything that is not super soft, it'll start to crack. Same sort of thing with people. We want to make sure that we maintain as much flexibility and as much energy that we can devote to dealing with stressors instead of just dealing with, you know, existence. So minimize your vulnerabilities, get enough sleep, get good nutrition, have a good social support system, all those kind of things. A healthy self esteem kind of seems to go without saying, but we're going to say it. People who are not looking toward others for external validation, people who can validate themselves and say I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me tend to be able to bounce back because they're not looking for other people's approval, they're not needing other people to tell them they're okay. A strong social support system is also characteristic of people who are resilient because social support is one of our greatest buffers against stress. We are not made to take on the entire world all by ourselves and live in isolation. That's just not how humans operate. So having people there who can present other opinions, who can just empathize, who can do whatever you need them to do, helps a lot in managing stress. Self awareness. Now I talked a little bit ago about awareness of vulnerabilities and that's part of it. We want to make sure that we are physiologically minimizing anything that's going to put an excessive drain on our energy. But then we also want to be self aware of our own attitudes and our own needs and our own preferences. We've talked about using temperament, the MBTI or the kirsi and helping people understand what kind of situations cause stress for them. What kind of situations tend to be less stressful or more in tune with their temperament. The more we can encourage people to create environments and situations that are in tune with their temperament and their personal preferences, the less stress they're going to have, the less effort they're going to have to exert to get through the regular day, which means they'll have that much more energy to handle any stressors that come their way and they can be more resilient. Self efficacy. If people don't think that they can affect change, then they're not going to bounce back, they're just going to get knocked down. They're going to be like what's the point in trying so we want to encourage clients to look at their self efficacy. We want to encourage children to look at their self efficacy. Yes, maybe you didn't pass that test or yes, maybe you're not good in that particular subject. What can you do to get better? What can you do to change the situation or, and, or what else are you good at? You know, we're not all good at everything, so it's important to engender that self efficacy. Problem solving skills Getting outside of the box One of the things we talk about with acceptance and commitment therapy is developing psychological flexibility. These problem solving skills help people get outside of the moment and look at the situation for what it is. Not judging it, just looking at it and going objectively. Is this getting me closer to or further away from my goals? And what are possible solutions? You know, not every time something happens do you come up with the best solution right away. Think about different ways to solve the problem. Practice acceptance. Just being okay with the fact that things are, you know, sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad, but they just are. There's not a lot that you can do to change things in the moment sometimes. So accepting that there are the unchangeable and figuring out how to live with it, Tolerating distress People who are resilient are able to experience distress and not let it overcome them. So think about a wave coming in. Somebody who is resilient is able to sort of stand and that wave won't knock them down. Somebody who is experiencing a lot of vulnerabilities, who doesn't have a healthy self esteem, who doesn't have that capacity to bounce back. As soon as that wave comes, it's going to knock them flat on their keister. So we want to help people tolerate distress and they have an optimistic viewpoint. It is so much easier to deal with adversity when you try to see the silver lining than when you say oh, well, I expected this to happen or this always happens and looking at all the negative things. So ultimately, when we develop resilience within our children, within our students, within ourselves, within our clients, these are the characteristics that we're going for. We want to help them be strong, we want to help them be on the ready. We want to help them be self assured, self confident and have a healthy self esteem. So awareness of vulnerabilities, being aware of emotional distress. When you get up in the morning, sometimes you get up and you're not having a good day, you're depressed, you're anxious, whatever. Being aware that that's how you Are at that moment in time will give you more tools to handle what comes your way. I deal with things and I approach things and I take on things differently. If I get up and I'm anxious about something versus if I get up and I'm not anxious. I can take on more things if I don't have a lot of energy. Devoted to anxiety. The day that I defended my dissertation, huge anxiety. I knew that day I wasn't going to do anything but get up, go to the gym, and then get to the building like two hours early. So I knew I had parking and my transparencies and everything all set up. Yes, that's how long ago I defended we had transparencies. But I digress. If you are aware that you are emotionally dysphoric, you can figure out how to address it, but you can also make sure you don't take on additional stuff to compound that mental distress. Well, emotional eustress, let's hit that one real quick. Yeah, it can be a vulnerability. Have you ever gone on vacation and come back and been like, I need a vacation. You're exhausted because you are so on, so happy, so revved, so jazzed, whatever word you want to use. It too can be exhausting. So you're not necessarily coming back and feeling all relaxed and refreshed and Zen and ready to take on the world. You. You may need another week or so just to recover from the vacation. Is that a bad thing? No. We all need happiness. But when we are that happy, you've got to remember that your brain is still dumping a lot of dopamine and all that sort of stuff, which takes energy. Mental distress is when you're foggy, when you have difficulty concentrating, when you're having difficulty with problem solving, when. When I get a cold. I am all of the above and then some. Especially if it's a head cold. I swear, a head cold just like turns my brain off when I get up and I know that I'm foggy and I'm not getting out of it. I don't take on tasks that are going to require a lot of mental concentration if I can avoid it. I'm not going to start redesigning a website. I'm not going to start trying to write a new chapter. I'm not going to do something that is going to increase my mental distress and sort of be like beating my head into the wall because I know that I'm already not focusing well. Mental use stress again. Just because it's stress doesn't mean it's bad. Stress means anything that makes the body use energy, mental use. Stress is doing things you enjoy that you get excited about, reading a book, learning a hobby, any, anything like that. But it takes energy. It's not just sitting there allowing your body to be kind of like when you're sleeping. Physical distress. You know, we know what this is. Poor nutrition. Dieting. When you go on a diet, your body is trying to adjust for calorie deficits. It's trying to adjust to changes in your eating. This can cause some distress. Too much caffeine can put your body on a roller coaster as well. It's important to pay attention to those things, especially if you've got other sources of distress going on. Sleep. If you're getting enough sleep, that's great. If you're not getting enough sleep, that can be a problem. Exercise, it can be you stressful because you enjoy exercising, you enjoy the rush afterwards, you enjoy feeling stronger. If you it can help not you know, you have to be careful with it. But exercise actually can help reduce pain by balancing muscle imbalances that you have and helping to release some of that tension. Stress. But it can also cause pain and exhaustion. So it's finding that happy medium pain is a vulnerability. Whenever we're in pain, it makes it harder. And not to say that you're going to be pain free all the time every day. Nobody is know when you're in pain, that there are going sometimes there may be things that are harder to do and it may be frustrating. Just kind of work that into your plan for the day. And then we already talked about illness, social distress. If you've got those friends that suck the energy right out of you, co workers that suck the energy right out of you, family. These are all sources of social distress. They're people who are embroiled in drama constantly or can be negative or can be hurtful. We want to figure out ways to deal with this. You can't always distance yourself from those people. You can't always just cut those people out of your life. They're your co workers, they're your family, they're your friends. And you've chosen, you may choose for whatever reason to keep them in your circle. So how do you deal with the distress? If you're going to a situation and this starts to happen around the holidays or you may be going to a family gathering and you like 80% of your family, but there's that 20% that tends to be a little bit more critical, negative, or maybe you're in recovery and they are insistent upon bringing alcohol and drugs and being not respectful of your needs, those are all sources of social distress. So helping people figure out how to deal with that, but also remembering that social use stress, going to parties, socializing with people, it can be exhausting, especially if you're an introvert. Even if it's a good conversation, even if it's a good party that you went to, you really enjoyed it, it can still be exhausting. And then finally, environmental distress is those things that keep you from getting enough sleep, feeling comfortable, being able to relax, if you're always on guard, if you're always sort of hyper vigilant because you don't feel safe in your environment, that takes a lot of energy. Environmental use stress means being in situations that make you feel more comfortable. And sometimes that may mean doing things like cleaning, you know, but doing that might also make it a more pleasant environment to be in. And to that extent, it's worth the effort. Self esteem we want to make sure that we help clients develop the ability to provide validation and acceptance of themselves for who they are, not what they do, not their occupation, not any of that, but who they are, who are you as a person, and helping them focus on things like being compassionate, being giving, being loving, being intelligent, being creative. Those are all characteristics that describe a person. Whereas a lot of people tend to focus on I'm successful, that's what they do. I am a, you know, whatever their job title is, I am a mother, I am a sister. Those are all roles you occupy, things you do, and yes, you may be very proud of them, but without all those things, who are you? What characteristics describe you? And that's a cognitive challenge for a lot of people to get away from the what I do versus who I am. Help people identify personal strengths and positive characteristics. One thing you can do if you're a teacher or a parent or, you know, doing group counseling, have people each day, either at a meal or at the beginning of class, beginning of group, identify in their journal a personal strength that they have and a positive characteristic about themselves. They don't necessarily have to share this with everybody. Other things you can do I've done in group before is give everybody note cards when they come into class and they have to write a nice thing about each other person in the group and then you hand them all back out. So whoever the statement is about ends up with 12 positive characteristics that their peers observed in them. They can choose whether to hold on to those or whether to give them back. Not give them back physically, but if they agree with them, they will incorporate them into their journal. If they don't agree with them, they don't have to. But this is also a good way for people to get an idea about how others perceive them, since most of our clients are far harder on themselves than anybody else, far more critical of themselves than anybody else, and tend to minimize their successes and their accomplishments. We already talked about separating who you are from what you do. And then we can also encourage people to explore their thoughts, their cognitions about why other people's opinions matter. I've done an entire group on this with people before. What is it about other people's opinions? And is it just certain people's opinions, or is it everyone's opinion? And why do you care what other people think? Most of us, unless we've been asked that question before, have never really considered why do we care? Why do I care what Jim Bob down the road thinks? Why do I care what my neighbor thinks? Why do I care what anybody's opinion is? When we're growing up, we're taught that we are supposed to respect others, respect our parents. We're supposed to do what we're told. And yes, we do want approval, especially from our parents. But figuring out where we can give ourselves approval and where we need other people's opinions as we grow older is really important. But it's not something a lot of us really actually move into doing. And also exploring cognitions about attributions. We've talked about these before. Global attributions are those that are about everything. I am smart or I am stupid, I am successful or I am lazy. Those are global attributions. It means it's not applying to any particular thing. Like I am really smart when it comes to fixing cars, but I am really not smart when it comes. I don't like the word stupid. I'm really not smart when it comes to doing calculus. That is a specific attribution. We want people to really look at some of their negative cognitions especially, and make them less global, make them more specific. Everyone in the world is not all against you. There may be some people in the world who don't want to see you succeed. So looking at the all or nothing thinking, addressing those global attributions, especially the negative ones, and making them more specific. This is really important when, especially if you're working with young people, because as they develop cognitively, they go from the all or nothing thinking that children naturally have, and they need to be encouraged to develop more specific attributions. This will help Them in the long run, when my kids start talking in all or nothing terms, I have them identify exceptions. Now you're saying this happens all the time. Tell me about a time when your brother didn't do that. Tell me about the time when your teacher didn't do that. In group, we can do the same thing. We can focus on global attributions. If they say all people of this category do this thing, you know, all drug addicts are. Fill in the blank, I bet you, you know, dollars to donuts I can find exceptions to that rule. Because I've known some very successful, nice, compassionate drug addicts. I mean, they're the nicest people that you could ever hope to meet. They just happen to be addicted to morphine. So looking at those attributions and taking them from global to specific, stable, and changeable is another type of attribution. Stable attributions mean whatever you think about this particular thing or this whole group of thing. If we're global is there forever and always. It's a stable attribution. If someone is good. You know, I personally believe that most people, you know, there's that little tiny miniscule group that we can identify with antisocial personality disorder. But most people are good, and they're good people. They may make bad choices, but in my mind, I still have a stable attribution of them being good people. Changeable means it's something that can be changed. It can be addressed. So if you're not good in math, instead of saying, I am stupid in math and I will always be stupid in math, you can say, I'm not very good in math. I need a tutor again. As children grow up, a lot of times we fail to encourage them to look at what things are changeable. But part of the stable and changeable is also looking at the things that can't be changed. The weather. Every winter it is going to get cold in Tennessee. That is a stable attribution, and I can tell you that. So I can't change it. How can I deal with it? Encouraging people. And in recovery circles, we have the serenity prayer. And we talk about the courage to change the things I can and the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Well, serenity is kind of a vague term. So how do we accept those things we cannot change? How do we change our perception of it? So we're okay with it, or at least we're not un okay with it. So global versus specific, stable versus changeable. And then the last type of attributions are internal versus external. Is it about me as a person or is it about something that happens? And the best example that I've ever been given for this is if somebody's walking down the street and they trip, do you automatically assume they're clumsy or do you automatically assume that there must have been something in the road or their shoe was untied? The first one, assuming they're clumsy is an internal attribution. You're assuming it's something about them that made them trip. Assuming there's something in the road is an external attribution. And too often we attribute things to people based on internal attributions. Well, that person's just lazy. Well, no, maybe not. Let's look at what's going on in that person's life. And you know, maybe they had all kinds of stuff. Their car broke down on the way to work, their kid got sick, something else happened, they didn't get any sleep last night. And yeah, they're going kind of slow today. But does that mean they are they as a person internally are lazy and it's perpetual and global? No. So we need to look and try to find other explanations. And that's the other activity I do with clients as well as my kids. When I hear negative attributions, I say, give me three other reasons that this might be happening or try to get inside that person's head. Just teleport yourself in there and try to imagine what might be going on that's causing this behavior. So what are the attributions? Those are all ways we can help people improve their self esteem. Because a lot of people, adults and kids alike, take other people's reactions or other people's thoughts and what other people say, they take it to heart and then it starts to erode their self esteem. So if we encourage them to step back and say, how much of this is really about me? Is there something that's changeable and what are my positive characteristics? Maybe I flubbed up, maybe I goofed here. Okay, so what can I do about it? And that's when we start working on problem solving. Encouraging this will encourage that psychological flexibility that we really need for resilience. Encouraging people to A not get stuck in the moment and B, be able to look at alternate explanations is very helpful. Social supports are our greatest buffers against stress and can be some of our greatest causes of stress. So for clients, and you know, I'm just going to say for people, clients, kids, students, whoever you're working with, it's important to Identify the characteristics of healthy relationships. Again, not something that we often are taught from the get go, not something that we learn in school. What does a healthy relationship look like? And what's the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships? If a person has a strong self esteem, then they're less likely to already be in unhealthy relationships. If they have an unhealthy self esteem, then there's a chance, a greater chance that they're in unhealthy relationships because they're clinging on to anybody that will provide them validation. We want to look at boundary setting and give and take and emotional support and whatever is important to that person and figure out what does a healthy relationship, how does a healthy relationship support that? We want to help people explore ways to nurture and enhance healthy relationships. Because guess what, you can't just meet somebody, develop a relationship with them, you know, chat for two weeks, go out, you know, whatever you do, and then drop it and expect it to necessarily stay. Now we all have those friends that, you know, you may not talk to for two or three months or two or three years and you start talking again and it's like you never left each other. You know, that's great, but that is the minority, that is the exception to the rule. Generally relationships require work. Touching base, seeing how somebody's doing, providing emotional support. Not all of us, you know, and I am the worst about birthdays and anniversaries and holidays and things like that. I just, I don't see the point. I can't remember. I don't want to celebrate my own birthday. So it's hard for me to remember other people's birthday. I have to put it in my Google calendar and things like that. I am not one of those sentimental people. But there are ways to nurture, enhance healthy relationships besides just showing up on holidays. Brainstorm that. And that's an excellent group activity. It's also an excellent family activity to identify things that you can do for the other people or identify each other's likes and dislikes and shared things that you share in common. We want to identify ways to deal with unhealthy people. Like I said, you can't always just cut them out of your life, nor do you necessarily want to. You know, we work with people all the time who a significant portion of their problem originates from their family of origin, which is just dysfunctional. They don't want to separate from their family. They don't want to tell their whole family to go jump in a lake. They want to have that Beaver Cleaver family, which probably won't ever happen. So we need to figure out how to help them find the happy medium, but also where they can find good social support, you know, good healthy people that they're not having to, you know, really work and making everything kind of peaceful. So identifying ways to deal with those unhealthy people and learning about their temperament and complementarity. Again with the temperament. I know our temperament is the way we prefer to be, but if you remember temperament, a lot of it talks about, well, the extrovert versus introvert. You know, I tend to be an extrovert. I like to be around people. I draw energy from other people. I get a lot of joy from being around other people. Not everybody is like that. Some people are introverts and they prefer to have one or two friends. So it's important to remember that you need to look at what that other person wants when you're developing social relationships, when you are trying to do something for someone. I remember when my, my kid's dad and I got together. The first birthday that we were together, I threw a party for him because I thought that's what he would want and that was like the thing he would want the least because he's very much an introvert. So it's important to understand that what you want is not always what they want, but there's a happy medium. Likewise, I tend to be a broad strokes person. I tend to be intuitive, if you will, on the key attention to detail, not so much. So I know that I'm great at writing grants, but I need somebody to go behind me and make sure or do the detail oriented parts not necessarily go behind me, but we all have our strengths. The people who do the detail stuff, they have difficulty with that whole big picture concept. So we work well together, we're just different. People who are perceiving tend to be more spontaneous. So if they get into a relationship with someone who is more structured or judging, as the temperament sorter would say, it can be a little tenuous because the perceiver wants to. The spontaneous person just wants to fly by the seat of their pants. And the person who's more structured wants to schedule it in. So finding a way to, to accept differences and work within the complementarity, self awareness again of temperament, but also of personal needs and wants. Now a need is something you have to have. Again, for me, I have to have sleep. I know some people who can sleep three hours and they're not on their A game, but they can function not Me? No, I need at least six hours of sleep, if not eight. I need to eat every couple of hours. If I don't eat for four or five hours, my blood sugar just goes through the floor and it's really hard for me to focus. These are different needs that I have that kind of go along with vulnerabilities. So in order to be as resilient as possible, I have to be aware of what my needs are and get those needs met. And that sometimes means, you know, being a little bit creative about, you know, keeping snacks with me or, you know, figuring out how I'm going to get to sleep and the amount of sleep I need. Wants now. Needs you have to have. Wants are the things that motivate you. They're the things that you know you really want to do. They're the things that you really want to have, which justify doing what you've got to do to get them. Identifying those. So what are those goals you are working toward? People who are resilient are forward thinking. They tend to be optimistic. They think that they have the ability to achieve goals. So great, let's make sure we highlight those things because when something happens, then you can fall back and look at those wants and go, okay, now you said you wanted this, what, whatever this achievement is, let's say going to the Olympics. You wanted to go to the Olympics and you're not wanting to get up at 5:30 in the morning to go to practice. So how do those two things work together? You want to go to the Olympics, but you didn't win these three meets. So. And that's a devastation, so that's a setback. How can we be resilient? How can we bounce back so you can get back on the course to getting to the Olympics? This is what you want. So let's focus on what you want and learn from whatever this adversity was. People need to be aware of their values. They're truly important driving forces. The reason they get out of bed every day and you can do a whole course on values identification, but those are the things that are a lot less tangible that underscore a lot of the things that people do they want and they need. We want them to identify their goals. Is what I'm doing getting me closer to or further away from what is important to me. Most people have three, four major goals that they want to accomplish in the next year, two years, five years. That's great. So whenever something comes up and they have a fork in the road, you know, we need to ask Them you only have so much energy you can use and you've got to use that to deal with life on life's terms and getting toward your goals. And if you start diverting energy to do this little thing over here and this little thing over here, it's going to be harder to bounce back. You're not going to be as resilient because you're going to be spread too thin. So going back to my analogy of the leather, let's think about if you've ever made pizza dough. If you're trying to toss pizza dough and I'm really bad at it, but if you're trying to toss it, you'll have thick areas and thin areas and the areas that it's too thin, it gets weak and it just gets soggy and everything falls through it. So we want to make sure that there's consistency in their energy expenditure, physical and emotional state. In the present. That means being mindful. How do you feel right now? Are you too hot? Are you too cold? Are you tired? Are you bored? Do you know you have a client coming up in an hour and you're wondering when we're gonna get finished? These are all things to pay attention to and triggers, positive and negative. We always talk about negative triggers, things that trigger depression, things that trigger anxiety. Well, yeah, we need to be aware of those, of course, but we also need to be aware of those things that trigger a smile. What makes you happy, what makes you laugh. Encourage people to put positive triggers in their environment. I told you before, I keep various pictures on my phone. So when I open my lock screen, it makes me smile. For the longest time I had a picture of a hamster in a sweater and it made me smile just because it was a hamster in a sweater. I mean, really, who could not smile at that? Right now I have a Little Otter. Whatever it is that makes you smile, put those triggers in your environment. Self efficacy is believing in your own capacity to accomplish whatever your goals are. How effective are you encouraging people to set reasonable, specific, measurable, attainable and time limited goals. Our smart goals will help them develop their self efficacy. Not everybody is taught that when they were little, but if you work with kids, let's start teaching them how to do that now so they set goals that are small and achievable and they can have that. I did this moment. They're not always going to succeed. Nobody does 100% of the time. And that's okay. That's where the resilience comes in. But if six out of the Eight times they succeeded. Then when they have those other two failures, they can look back and go, well, six of the times I succeeded. So let's see what we can learn from this and move on. They want to identify as a survivor, not a victim. And this is all about locus of control. A survivor takes control of what's going on. A victim life acts upon them. You've probably worked with clients who blamed everything and everyone else for their current situation. They didn't feel any sense of self efficacy. They didn't feel like they had any ability to control anything. And that's a really extreme external locus of control. The survivor has an internal locus of control. And you know, we don't want to take it to the extreme where they think they can control everything because we can't. But we want them to believe that for the most part, they can make choices and do things that will put them in a good place and get them headed in the right direction. Which brings us to hardiness. You knew we'd get here. Commitment is your motivation. If you commit to doing something like going to the Olympics, then you say, this is something I really want to do. And this is where my motivation comes in. I'm going to get up and go to practice every morning at 5:30. Control means the goal that you're setting. Not only are you motivated to accomplish, it's something you really, really want for some reason. But control means you have a realistic understanding of what is within your control. So you know that when you're going out for those swim meets, you're not going to win every single one of them. But you know that if you go to practice every day and you do what the coach says, that you're going to reach your personal best. So focusing on that and challenge anything that's too easy, most of us will put off. It's like, I can do it tomorrow, I can do it tomorrow. And then, you know, finally you're up to the deadline. You're like, oh crap, I got to do it now. But there's no motivation to get it done. Things that are too hard, people put off because it's too hard. So you want something that's challenging. You want to be motivated, you want to have a realistic understanding of what you're able to accomplish, but you also want it to be challenging enough that you're kind of excited to do it. Problem solving skills is the ability to conceptualize problems. Too often people just see a problem and they're like, we need to look at the problem and go, okay, what's causing the problem. What is the problem? What's causing the problem? Somebody comes into your office and they say, you know, doc, I'm depressed. Okay, that's sort of a problem. I mean, we know that depression exists, but what's causing their depression? In order to understand their depression, we have to know what causes it, what makes it better, what makes it worse, how long it's been going on. All those sorts of things will help us conceptualize the problem, and then we can start thinking about what the solutions are. It's not as easy as saying, okay, you know, every square peg fits into this square hole. So, you know, there we go. Sometimes you need creative solutions. If a client comes in and they say, you know, I've been on every antidepressant known to man, and I've had some clients say that to me, and medication doesn't work to help my depression. So then we start looking at, okay, you know, you're here and I can't prescribe. So we know that we're not looking at meds here. But what other things can we look at that might be causing your depression? And what else can we rule out? And my first response is always to send somebody to get a physical, make sure their hormones and thyroid are all in balance and everything. And then we also start looking at cognitions and other things. As we talk, we start to understand what may be underlying some of these problems, which may mean a whole different approach to treatment for Jim Bob versus Jane Doe. A willingness to seek out help because we don't all have the answers. I mean, I know I don't. So when there's a problem and you don't know the answer, the ability to go, I don't know, I'll try to find out. And looking to find the answers is also a sign of resilience. It's not getting knocked down. It's not going well. I don't know the answer. So I give up. It's going, hmm, I don't know the answer. But that's a good question. Let me try to figure it out. And motivation to actually take action. If somebody has encountered difficulties before and they've tried to seek out help and it's been successful, they're likely going to do it again. You know, go figure. But if somebody has tried to seek out help before and they haven't been able to figure it out, then they may not do it. And perfect example, I said, I'm not good with technology, and I'm not. So when I start having computer problems, used to Try to find the answer online and try to figure out how to fix it myself. But you know what? I figured out that I can't do it that way. So I'm not even motivated to go online and try to find the solution anymore. I just call up tech and I'm like, dude, I broke it again. And you know, they just kind of go, yeah, you walked in the room, didn't you? I said, yeah. So it's important to understand what you're motivated to do and what needs to happen. One thing I've always told not only my kids, but also my subordinates when I was a supervisor, is to not bring me a problem unless they have an idea for at least one realistic solution. You know, and it may be way off base, especially at first if they're new to problem solving. But. But I do want them to think about it and not just come to me and go, here's the problem, fix it. No, I want to empower them to get creative and figure out how to fix it themselves. Accepting that some things are just. They just are. They're unfortunate, they're inaccessible, they're unchangeable. Unfortunate things happen, you know, people die. You can lose a job. Whatever it is, it may just be there. Some things are inaccessible. You may not be able to afford a Lamborghini or I don't know anything about cars either. And that's just going to be kind of your lot in life. It just is. And some things are unchangeable. I'm 5 foot 4. I'm not going to be 5 foot 10. I gave up on the fact that I might grow a little bit more when I hit 35. So some things are just unchangeable. Accepting that they are without judgment. Okay, so I'm five' four. I am willingness to accept life on life's terms without judging, you know, things happen. And this is one of the places where a lot of our clients get stuck because something happens and they get upset about it and they want to change it, but it's not changeable. So then they get stuck in this never ending feedback loop, helping people focus. And we'll talk about this a lot when we get into the presentation on meditation. But being able to separate what's going on from your emotional reaction and just focus on what's happening without judging it, without getting attached to it and look at it like a fly on the wall. And again, not trying to change the unchangeable. How many of our clients, our friends, ourselves, have tried to change other people? We can't they can only change themselves when they're so motivated to do so. We can provide them all the tools in the world. And, you know, having two donkeys, I can tell you that, you know, it is kind of like convincing a donkey to cross a stream. It's just not going to happen unless they decide they're ready to do it. Distress tolerance. The ability to feel a feeling without having to react. Feelings are our body's natural response to go, hoo hoo, there's a threat, or whoo hoo, let's do that again. When we experience a stressful emotion, it doesn't mean we have to jump and act right now. Being able to stop and go, okay, I'm angry. What can I do about it? Being able to separate yourself like we talked about in the acceptance and commitment therapy class. I'm having a feeling of being angry instead of I am, which is that global. I'm having a feeling of being angry that's separated from who I am or saying something like, I am angry, but can choose whether or not to stew in it. Sometimes people take that anger and instead of working on it or letting it go or trying to change it, they just stew on how angry they were and how put off they were. There are no you made me's taking that victim stance. So people who have distress tolerance can say, I got angry. And it's not you made me angry, it's I got angry because of this situation. Now, it may be you did something and I got angry, but I chose what to do with that anger. With the stress tolerance, there's no active attempt to change it. At this point, you're just going, okay, I got angry. You're not trying to make it go away, you're not trying to address it. It's just accepting it and remembering that feelings are there to tell us something. Fighting them or nurturing them only prolongs them. And you'll learn a lot about how fighting feelings can be counterproductive if you review any of the work on acceptance and commitment therapy. So, optimism. My favorite one, finding the silver lining. Looking at failure as a learning opportunity. Looking at failed relationships with compassion. Going, okay, well, maybe I learned something. I try to learn something from everybody I encounter every day, even if it's something about myself or just a greater awareness of what's going on. But I try to learn something every day. A rainy day happens and you can look at it as, oh, my hair is going to be a mess, the car is going to be spotted, it's going to be Awful getting into work. Or you can look at it as cool fronts coming, the plants are getting watered and you know, now I don't have to wash the car. If there's a life change that happens, you know, you get fired, you quit your job, you retire. My best friend just retired and it's kind of thrown in for a loop. But you can look at it as an opportunity to find new direction instead of going, oh my God, the life I knew is over. Alright, well that's true, but you can't change that now. People who have empty nest syndrome, it's like nobody needs me to be home and do laundry and cook and do all that kind of stuff anymore. So figuring out how to proceed with this next chapter, encouraging people to be optimistic, Focus on what is good in life right now instead of focusing on all the things that are wrong. Because at any point in time there are things that are wrong and there are things that are good. What are you going to spend your energy on? So resilience is the capacity to bounce back wash after wash. Sorry, couldn't resist. It's a quality we can enhance in our clients while also helping them reduce distress. So yes, we're dealing with all of their cognitions, we're dealing with their ptsd, we're dealing with whatever. We're helping reduce the distress, but we also want to help them increase the positive because they're going to feel better a lot faster if they're increasing the positive and reducing the negative at the same time. Characteristics of resilient people we'll go through one more time because this is the end goal we want for everybody. Awareness and minimization of vulnerabilities, a healthy self esteem, a strong sane social support system, self awareness, self efficacy, problem solving skills that include some creativity, the willingness and ability to practice acceptance. And that's a difficult one. Ability to tolerate distress without having to act on it right away, and the ability to have an optimistic viewpoint. If you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. You can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing at allceus.com counselortoolbox this episode has been brought to you in part by allce.com, providing 24. 7 multimedia continuing education and pre certification training to counselors, the therapists and nurses since 2006 use coupon code counselortoolbox to get a 20% discount off your order this month.