 Welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. Each week we record the podcast during a Facebook Live broadcast in which Doc Snipes presents information and tools to help you start living happier. Our website, docsknipes.com, has even more resources, videos, handouts, and workbooks to help you apply what we talk about. After each podcast, the accompanying video, text, and worksheets will be published from members on docsknipes.com. Additionally, each week we have a members-only educational group, followed by a question-and-answer session with Doc Snipes to help you apply the tools to yourself and start living happier faster. The Doc Snipes podcast will be providing listeners and members the same tools and information Dr. Snipes gives her clients. Go to docsknipes.com to learn more. In this section, we're going to talk about core mindfulness, and that's basically the underpinnings of what mindfulness is and how to do it. We're going to define what core mindfulness is and the concepts underlying it. So there's going to be a little bit of theory here, but I'm going to try to keep it as practical as possible. Then we'll explore three states of mind, your emotional mind, your reasonable mind, and your wise mind, which I like to think about as the heart, the head, and the gut. So here's my favorite little monkey again. The wise mind talks about how skills, and the wise mind integrates your heart and your head. And it says, you know what, there are things that you really, really want, and your logic tells you something maybe that is in line or maybe something that's different. The wise mind takes those two points of view and synthesizes them. The wise mind is non-judgmental though. It's just taking in all the information, synthesizing it, and trying to make the best decision for you based on your goals and everything else. It helps you focus on the task at hand and clear your mind of everything else so you can do what works. The key is to be compassionate with yourself, especially when you're starting mindfulness. A lot of times you will have monkey mind. You'll start trying to figure out, okay, how do I feel right now? And you start thinking about it, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I got to remember to go to the store to get this, or that's okay. Just write it down on a piece of paper. I really suggest most of us keep a piece of paper and a pen handy whenever we're trying to do our mindfulness stuff. That way we can write down anything that comes along. If you write it down, then you don't have to remember to remember it. You can just know it'll be there and go back to the task at hand. If you're able to just let the thought come and go, that's great. Me, not so much. I know that I will keep coming back to that thought so I don't forget to remember it. So core mindfulness talks about those three states of mind. Your reasonable mind. Now some people start with the reasonable mind and look at life through a logical lens, if you will, and that's okay. That's totally cool. Other people look at life through an emotion-driven mind and what is more most compassionate and what's going to make most people feel the best. We all have both minds. It's just which one is more dominant for you. The wise mind helps you synthesize those two points. For example, I do a lot of animal rescue and there's always homeless animals. There's always an animal needing foster. There's always something to be done. However, and I would love to have every single homeless animal and be able to take care of them until they could find forever homes, but that is not logical. There's no way I could properly attend to a million animals, let alone two, three, four, in addition to the brood that I already have. So my reasonable mind says if you're going to foster animals and you're going to do animal rescue, cool, because that is what's in your heart. However, you can't do that and use up so much energy doing that that you can't attend to the other areas of your life because that will keep you from achieving your goals too. So what is the reasonable thing that you can do right now? And my wise mind says, you know what, I can take on a mama in her litter or I can take on one or two adults, but I can't take on more than that at any one time. And that's kind of the way, is it what I would like to do in a perfect world? No, I would love to run an animal rescue shelter, but that's not what I do. So my reasonable mind says, okay here are your other options and the wise mind comes up with the compromise. Wise mind skills, they're the what skills you want to observe, describe and participate. So observing is simply being a detective and taking in the whole situation. Now think about what detectives do when they go to a crime scene. They look at the big picture, they look around, they look at the scene, they look at the environment, they look at who's standing there, who's reacting how, and kind of get a big snapshot of what's going on. What might I be missing? They're trying to look for how all the puzzle pieces go together and trying to figure out potential explanations for how this whatever this is could have occurred. And they interview a lot of different people, a lot of different observers. It's not the word I'm looking for, but you know where I'm going with this. Because each person, witnesses, thank you. Each witness is going to see and remember something different or at least a little bit different. So taking all of these different perspectives and synthesizing them gives you a bigger picture of what actually is going on. So when something happens be a detective, take in the whole situation. Maybe you're at work and a co-worker is being particularly grumpy or your boss is being particularly grumpy. So you want to step back and say not necessarily say, oh, he's mad at me. Step back and go let's look at the big picture. What's going on? Oh, today was the upper management meeting that he just came from. That could be it. Something could have happened at home. You know it is the day or two days after the time change. Maybe he's just having a hard time with the time change. Taking in the big picture and looking at all the possibilities instead of honing in on one particular thing which unfortunately for most of us tends to be probably the most negative interpretation. And we want to ask ourselves to step into the witness position for multiple people in that situation. Say you know if I was in his shoes today what might be making me grumpy. We want to describe, name our experiences. This situation is really stressful. Okay, it's not saying anything about what's going on. I am just describing what's going on and how I feel in this situation to myself. So I'm understanding that I'm feeling really stressed out about this, not exactly sure why. And that's okay. That's that what skill you're observing, you're describing, you're giving texture and depth to the situation so you can get a better handle on what to do next. Which is participate. So I know that I'm feeling stressed about whatever it is because my boss is in a really grumpy mood. And I say okay so what can I do to improve the next moment? Because being stressed about whatever's going on with my boss isn't going to solve anything. It's just going to keep my anxiety wound up. So what can I do? I can talk to myself and go you know what? There are 20 different explanations for why my boss might be in a bad mood. Is dwelling on and trying to figure it out worth my energy? Am I doing something that could have triggered a bad mood in him? And if so, what can I do to correct it or improve the next moment? Can't change the past but I can start doing better in the future. Look at all of those options about what you have that you at your hands at your fingertips that you can do to improve the next moment and then choose the best choice of action based upon your goals. I like this job. I really like my boss. I really want to continue to stay employed here. What is the next best course of action based upon my goals? It may not be running to my boss's office and going did I do something? It may be just staying at my desk doing the best job that I know how to do and trusting that if there's a problem he will come knock on my door and go Donna Leece we need to talk. That could be one choice of action. So participating is really choosing what is the best use of my energy in this moment to get me towards my goals and we're going to talk a lot in future modules or podcasts or whatever you want to call it about how to deal with anxiety and distress tolerance and all that kind of stuff but right now I just want you to focus on mindfulness being aware of what's going on describing how you feel so you get an idea of what's going on inside and outside of you and then starting to brainstorm what are ways that I could improve this next moment you know I'm feeling stressed right now I don't have to continue to feel stressed stress anxiety anger those are emotions that are designed to say dude get off your butt and do something and you've got to figure out what that something is there are things that get in the way of mindfulness though things that get in the way of observing would can be adrenaline and fear so your boss comes in and he's in a just grumpy old mood your adrenaline sets off oh my gosh I'm going to get fired I must have done something wrong I don't know what it is and you start going off in this spiral of what ifs and could-haves and extremes adrenaline kicks in and you've got tunnel vision all you can focus on is the fact that your boss is in a bad mood and it must be something you did so that adrenaline that fear is stopping you from stepping back detaching from your emotions and observing and hypothesizing about what are the other options what else could it be because you know most of the time it's probably not you describing sometimes we have a hard time describing things because we were on autopilot the whole time I don't really know what happened I was just in the day room and all of a sudden a fight broke out well that's not real effective at describing so you need to stop go back and try to remember what happened and you may not be able to but as you become more mindful you will become more aware of things in the moment and I'm not asking you to switch gears right away it's going to take time months to learn to be present constantly not just at those anchored mindfulness scans but that's okay you know little progress starting to become more aware when you start feeling that little in the pit of your stomach going I need to stop and figure out what's going on that is awesome that is huge progress because like getting a cold you don't wait until you have a fever of 103 and you can't breathe and you're but sick in bed generally you probably as soon as you start getting the sniffles start trying to do something so you don't get sick because nobody likes being sick well this is what I want you to do with your emotions when you start getting that kind of easy feeling and however you think about it stop right then and start trying to prevent it just like you would do things to take steps to prevent a cold another thing that stands in the way of describing is a lack of words if you have been on autopilot for many many years you may not have the words the emotional vocabulary to say this is how I'm feeling it may come out as I'm feeling eh and for right now at least being aware that you feel eh is pretty good and bleh is another nonclinical word but it gets the point across so don't try to find the right words necessarily partly because you're talking to yourself so who's going to judge but you if you're feeling wonky bleh eh that's okay that's you saying there's something about this situation that I'm not feeling right about and then participating you can actually have difficulty figuring out what to do and what your options are if you don't know your destination what is it that you want to do what kind of a person do you want to be what does happiness look like for you if you are unhappy right now okay well happiness is more than just the antithesis of unhappiness so if you're happy what does it look like what how do you interact with people what values do you have that's your destination so then you can go back when something happens and you can say what actions can I take right now that is they're going to get me closer to being happy and maybe one of those characteristics of happiness is not worrying about every little thing okay so if that's one of those characteristics what can you do right now so you can help yourself stop worrying about every little thing another thing that keeps people from participating is a fear of rejection if I do what I feel I need to to improve the moment for myself people may get mad you know if I have to go out and take a 10 minute break what are people going to think are they going to judge me and and when I work with people on this I ask them to ask themselves well if you stick around and you end up getting in a really negative mindset then what are they going to think of you so is it better to model healthy mindful behaviors so you can come back in 10 minutes and be focused again and be positive again or is it better to sit here and push through because you're worried that they might judge you and that's an individual decision people have got to make but you can kind of see what I would encourage you to do and the fear of being wrong what if you go through all those options and you choose one and you do it and you don't feel any better or it doesn't help you get towards your ultimate goal you'll learn something next time that situation comes up you won't choose that option but the fear of being wrong the fear of trying and failing can also keep people paralyzed so they don't act mindfully they would prefer to just go on autopilot because then they can blame other things and they don't have to say yeah I really made a crappy choice so activity practice observing describing and particularly participating watch a sitcom or another television show and find a scene where a person has to make a choice and you can choose I like sitcoms because at least they're somewhat funny but the person has to make a choice about something and describe what's going on observe the situation describe how that person might be feeling and hypothesize about the different options that person might have at that particular point in time this is one of the things I do when I work with adolescents because it gives them something outside of themselves something less personal where they can talk about it and hypothesize and it's very much less threatening than putting their own stuff out there once you've done that a few times and you feel pretty comfortable with observing describing and participating then look back over your week identify one time I'm not asking ten or three which is my favorite number y'all know I'm asking you to identify one time you felt irritable and practice those what skills observe in hindsight what was going on what was going on inside you what was going on around you what was going on that led up to this situation describe how you felt describe the situation and then move on to that participating and go you know next time it happens or what options did I have that I didn't necessarily pay attention to and what could I do the next time so looking back learning from our mistakes we make mistakes all the time we make wrong choices all the time it just happens we're human we're fallible but learning from mistakes is what we want to do you don't want to make the same mistake over and over and over again so make a mistake all right pick yourself up dust yourself off learn from it and then the next time that situation occurs you'll probably make a better choice and purposeful action you know we've been talking about observing describing and participating and purposeful action really kind of brings participating to the forefront it means becoming mindful in the present moment acting intentionally instead of reacting emotionally you act with purpose so you're aware of what's going on you consider your options and you choose how you're going to use your energy you choose behaviors and actions that make effective use of your energy to help you achieve your long-term goals of happiness whatever that is so if that means being a compassionate friend if that means being a dedicated employee if that means being whatever it means to you when things happen look at what choices can i make in order to be the type of person that i want to be and start doing that right now so in order to determine purposeful action remember i said one of the things that gets in the way of participating is not knowing your long-term goals so ask yourself spend i don't know 30 minutes it's not so long thinking about what kind of person do i want to be what kind of values and it's a little morbid but sometimes if people get stuck i say what would you want on your epitaph what do you want people to remember you by or for and that can help you narrow down because there's a lot of stuff you want to be but what are the things that are really the most important to you what values do you cherish because that's what you want people to remember you for and what people experiences and things are important to you now this is getting a little bit broader so when you're talking about being a loyal friend that's great are there certain relationships that you feel you need to use your energy to nurture because those particular relationships are of utmost importance to you what experiences and things in your life are really important to you for example work you know being a valued employee all right maybe that's one of them and you know we all have things that are important whether it's your house your livelihood your whatever it is but what things are important to you if you want to achieve a let's talk about secure retirement you know not even necessarily a particular thing but you want to be able to retire when you're 65 and be secure in that well that might be a value or a activity that's important to you so when you're making your decisions you're going to think is this going to help me be achieve my goal of being secure in retirement if you're visual like i am make a collage and some people are like a collage and if you feel like that cool you don't have to write it down make a list do whatever it is so you have something tangible that you can look at and go these are my goals and you can review it each day and go okay i need to act in ways that are going to help me achieve these things this week this month and you know eventually in the next 10 years or whatever so the shortcut question anytime you're at a crossroads having to think about a decision or having to deal with negative emotions ask yourself is this behavior or reaction getting me closer to my long-term goals or is it an autopilot response think about social media i'll refrain from calling out any particular social media you get on social media and somebody is being particularly antagonistic or negative now you have options you can get all upset and angry which you know some people do and then you can choose what to do and you can say all right is this worth me getting upset about and you know if i go the direction of trying to get into an argument with them on social media is that helping me get closer to my long-term goals or is that just draining me of energy that i could use doing something other something else completely different because this argument really has nothing to do with what's important to me it's all about questioning um my daughter bless her little heart she just turned 13 but she's got this one down and something will happen and she'll look at me and thank thank goodness i've got a hold of it enough that doesn't happen often but every once in a while she'll look at me and she'll go mommy now is getting upset about this helping you achieve your goals and i just kind of have to bite my lip and be like mouths of babes all right you're right and let it go i mean if my 13 year old can see it why can't i see it because i'm not being mindful i'm on autopilot and she checks me on it and she's like uh that's probably not what you want to be doing so in summary core mindfulness is being able to observe describe and participate in the present moment you want to integrate information from your reasonable mind your emotional mind and come up with a solution in your wise mind and think about it when something is the right thing to do for you it's logical it makes your heart happy and your stomach's not going doing flippy flops going not sure about that no everything's in alignment it goes this is the way to go core mindfulness helps you adjust your day to prevent upset if you're already vulnerable you know ahead of time and you plan for it and you can choose actions and thoughts that will help you purposefully move toward your long-term goals so again you can subscribe to our facebook group docsknives.com slash happiness podcast and when we start broadcasting only in that group then you'll be able to participate you can subscribe to our youtube channel youtube.com slash all ceu's education that has both our clinical counselor toolbox podcast as well as the happiness podcast all on the same page and you can also visit our website at docsknives.com this concludes the second episode if you will in today's three episode set of podcasts and i'm going to take a little break i encourage you to do the same and i will see you in a few minutes thanks for tuning in to happiness isn't brain surgery with docsknives our mission is to make practical tools for living the happiest life of thanks for tuning in to happiness isn't brain surgery with docsknives our mission is to make practical tools for living the happiest life affordable and accessible to everyone we record the podcast during a facebook live broadcast each week join us free at docsknives.com slash facebook remember our website docsknives.com has even more resources members only videos handouts and workbooks to help you apply what we talk about new resources are added weekly during the first half of 2017 we're offering introductory memberships lock in the introductory rate of five dollars per month for the happiness basic membership which includes all texts videos and worksheets or 14.99th per month for the happiness plus membership which includes everything from the basic membership plus access to the weekly members only educational groups and question and answer sessions with docsknives designed to help you start living happier faster if you like this podcast and want to support the work we're doing for as little as 3.99 per month you can become a supporter at docsknives.com slash join again thank you for joining us and let us know how we can help you