 Welcome back to happiness isn't brain surgery with Doc Snipes practical tools to improve your mood and quality of life We're going to continue in this section talking about building resilience We want to define what are the characteristics of resilient people and how do you develop these characteristics in the first section We talked about what resilience is which is great But knowing what it is doesn't help us unless we know how to do it So we're going to talk about what character as characteristics you need to develop within yourself So there are several assets remember we talked about assets and resources before there are five assets and one resource that we're really going to talk about here And we're going to start with the assets. So your first asset and not in order of importance necessarily is coping Your ability to effectively balance negative and positive emotions and manage strong impulses When life throws you a curve ball when life hands you lemons your initial reaction could be a very strong unpleasant reaction anger fear Sadness whatever it is That's okay. That's your body's natural reaction and accepting that recognizing it saying, okay. This really sucks right now what next Is the first step into being resilient if you feel that feeling And then you start getting scared about feeling that feeling or you get angry because you feel that feeling You're starting to struggle with that feeling and spend a lot of energy trying to fight Reality trying to fight what is it is Unfortunate whatever the situation is So in order to do that, you know, I typically have my clients look towards What's generally covered in dialectical behavior therapy skills starting out with emotion regulation Where you prevent and mitigate vulnerabilities when we talked a lot about that in the first section Make sure you're getting enough sleep Make sure you're managing your pain any pain you have as well as you can Make sure that you're eating a quality diet So your body is as healthy and as strong and as resilient as it can be think about when you get sick When I was in college Every semester I would put off studying and for final exams until like the week before And then I would study and I would stay up late and I wouldn't get enough sleep And I would eat pizza and ice cream and you know just do horrible things Which made me more vulnerable to getting sick and almost without fail at the end of every Um semester final exams. I would get sick because I was not resilient My body could not encounter a germ and bounce back It encountered the germ and it said I ain't got any energy to fight you go ahead So I would get sick Emotionally we are the same way We need to make sure that our body has the resources to make the happy chemicals Our body doesn't just make white blood cells to fight off infection It also makes the hormones and happy chemicals That help us feel relaxed and deal with stress So we need sleep good quality sleep. We need good nutrition We need to get some sunlight to help our circadian rhythms stay balanced and there are all kinds of Other podcasts on those things so i'm not going to go into them too much But we also need to learn to experience emotions radically accept them, which means Look at them or you know i'm a visual person. So I say look at them Accept how you feel in the moment and say it is what it is What can I do now? Recognize that when you feel these feelings you've developed ways of reacting to them that you can think of as urges So sometimes if if you're a smoker when you feel stressed your urge may be to smoke a cigarette Okay That's up until now how you have dealt with stress or at least stress in the short term Recognize that feelings and urges pass in about 20 minutes if you don't feed them If you focus on them if you dwell on them if you you know Continue to think about them. You're giving them energy and they're going to last longer So think about your urges and emotions like a bee landing on your arm That feeling is the bee The first Instinct that a lot of us have is to swap the bee off because we don't want to be on our arm But if you swap the bee off you're likely going to get stung. So that would be a negative consequence If you can resist the urge eventually the little bee is going to fly away Resisting your urges to self harm to drink to smoke to do something unhelpful Is kind of the same way. So this can help you a little bit with emotion regulation in order to Tolerate how you feel while that bee is on your arm while you're having the urges there are distress tolerance skills And some of the most effective skills are to get grounded in the present moment I do a four three two one exercise when I start feeling really stressed I will focus on four things I can see three things I can hear two things that I can smell And one thing that I can feel I don't want to focus on how fast my heart is beating I don't want to focus on whether I'm breathing deeply or shallowly I want to focus outside of myself and get grounded in the moment So my body has a chance to let that adrenaline surge go away Adrenaline surge is there that fight or flight reaction is there to protect you But most of the time You don't need to hold on to it most of the time you're not in vital danger Letting it go and then you can think in a clearer mind And move on to problem solving skills So if you have questions about other distress tolerance skills, there are podcasts and videos on our youtube channel About distress tolerance so you can look at those there Coping you know just to kind of sum up is one of the first characteristics of resilient people If you can't deal with emotions, then you're not going to bounce back up So we need to be able to figure out how to deal with it Control and in autonomy Um a sense of personal identity and the ability to act independently To exert control over your situation if you don't believe you have any control over the situation Then why would you bounce back up? You it's like being in the boxing ring And you just got knocked down if you don't believe that you can defeat the person Why would you get stand back up just to get hit knocked back down again? So control and and autonomy is this idea that I know what I need to do. I know where I want to go I know what's important to me So i'm going to choose my actions based on that, you know, maybe i'm not going to win this particular match But I can win Something else later So in order to develop this sense of autonomy and figure out what is it that's important to you? What is it that's worth exerting your energy on what is it that's worth Fighting for and what is it that's worth letting go? Ask yourself. Who am I and what's important to me? When things bad things happen, then you want to ask yourself, you know in terms of what's important to me You know for me. It's my career my family our pets I look at what things can I change in this situation Can I change the situation if this is a really unpleasant situation? What can I do to change it? Or can I change my reaction to the situation? An example it may be a little hard to relate to right now We're having the little bit of a crisis with hawks killing all our chickens And that's really unpleasant for all of us. We love our chickens. We love our all of our animals Um, and so I'm looking at it. I'm saying, okay My kids are important to me and this is really hard on my daughter Which is hard on me because I you know take that personally when she's feeling upset So what can I do? Can I change the situation? Do we want to pin them up so they can't be on free roam on the farm anymore? Or do we prefer to give them the quality of life where they can roam the five acres freely? Just at a greater risk So can I change the situation? Yes, I could Is that what we want to do and our decision as a family was no So can I change my reaction to the situation? And that was my alternative changing how we as a family reacted when an animal Especially one of the chickens got attacked It's a god thing. It's a circle of life thing. But while they were alive, they weren't penned up They weren't you know Eating only pellets. They were able to go out and forage for bugs and they were happy chickens So that's kind of how we look at it Not everybody's going to look at it the same way I know a lot of people that have very elaborate chicken pens and To each his own, you know, you have to decide what's important to you and how to deal With that situation based on the the unfortunate situation based on what's important to you And what's going to get you closer to your goals? And this helped us as a family move closer to our goals Character and a sense of purpose and future so once you know what's important to you. Well, that's great But now you need to say how do I get there? I know what my destination? I want it to be I know Who I want to be I knew who I want to grow to be, you know, even Today I'm almost 50 years old and I'm like well when I grow up. I want to be like so and so We always have goals We always have things that we want to change or grow into But you need to use what we call purposeful action Make realistic plans for a meaningful life based on what's important to you because you're going to have a lot of stuff come your way And if you go after everything You're going to be going off on these tangents and using a lot of energy And probably not moving toward what's most important to you and most rewarding When you do take positive forward steps notice them Notice your move forward moving thoughts and behaviors and notice those things and others. So congratulate people for Successes that they've had focus on the positive focus on creating a win-win And building positive energy not only in yourself by noticing your successes But also in others that can be supportive of you by noticing their successes. So you're creating this positive karma kind of environment Confidence is the next thing confidence in your strengths and abilities So you know what you want you kind of got a plan for how to get there You have some coping skills to deal with life when it gets hard But when life gets hard how confident are you that you can actually use those coping skills and get through it So looking at what are your strengths, you know list them out if you're a visual person like iam write them down Figure out what you bring to a situation not only as your asset But also as your resources resources or strengths too. Who do you have in your corner? When things happen ask yourself in what ways Does your response to whatever this is makes sense and that goes with that radical acceptance It's not realistic to expect you will never get angry. You'll never be scared. You'll never be sad You'd be living in a hole somewhere Life is going to bring emotions and your body reacts kind of automatically What you do with that reaction Is what's going to determine how resilient you are But that automatic reaction look at it Ask yourself in what ways does this make sense because your body wants to protect you it's there. It's telling you there's a problem here Or we've experienced we've lost something that's important to us here or we've done something that's really pleasurable. Yay Once you understand that that response makes sense Then it's easier to deal with it because you're not telling yourself. Well, I shouldn't feel this way or I should feel this way You feel how you feel. So why does it make sense? How did you get through similar situations? my my grandmother recently passed and You know, my first reaction Wasn't one of devastation It was almost one of relief because she'd been in so much pain for so long Did I have a moment where I felt guilty for not feeling devastated? Sure But I asked myself, you know, how does this make sense? In the big scheme of things. Well, I had seen her struggling and suffering for 10 years So this was actually she's at peace now So in my mind it made sense the way I reacted and it's going to be a lot easier on my mother Now that she's not having to watch her mother Decompensate so much So that helps me kind of understand my reaction and not beat myself up for I should feel this way or I shouldn't feel this way Looking at how you got through similar situations, you know, I went through a similar situation with my father when he passed away from cancer And it was almost a relief when he passed. Yes, it's devastating to lose a parent but there's also a certain amount of Being at peace with it because it brought him peace So think about How your reactions make sense and stop beating yourself up And that that kind of goes along with Looking at any helpful or self-defeating thoughts. You're telling yourself in response to something that comes your way If you're telling yourself, I can't handle this. I can't deal with this. This is overwhelming Then you're going to feel that way if you tell yourself that maybe I can't handle this by myself I need I need some support. Well, that's different That's saying I can't handle it if I've got support So tell yourself positive thoughts thinking Focusing on your strengths and pulling on your resources when something happens That will give you confidence and and even planning ahead for when something happens We'll give you confidence that you can navigate life's storms And competence competence is kind of the big deciding factor because I know a lot of people who have a ton of confidence With an f but not a whole lot of competence with a p um, you know, they think they can do everything and in reality they can do a few things pretty well um, and you know teenagers are famous for this because Well, they think they've got the world by the seat of the pants So competence is the next thing once somebody encounters a situation And they've had to cope with it. They've had to draw on their strengths They've had to go through it This will either Show them that they're competent and increase their confidence Or it will highlight the fact that they're not as competent as they thought they were And it may undermine their confidence a little bit So, you know, if something goes bad It can happen. It's a learning opportunity Um, the things that do go good you want to focus on that though So in order to build competence get out of your own way and allow yourself to take chances If you don't have those small little upsets Then when a big upset comes your way, you are going to be totally ill prepared Um, you need to kind of build on your strengths as you go through Notice praise and critique How you respond to stressors and it can be small stressors like somebody stealing your parking space Um, or not getting a promotion you wanted or Whatever the case may be But once stressors come your way notice how you handle them Praise yourself for the things that you do well And and right to be resilient And then critique constructively by looking at okay, what can I do differently next time to be a little bit more Resilient with this to bounce back a little easier or to not let it Get to me so much Strive for authentic success, which means being true to yourself. You know if solving a problem um Or or achieving a goal May mean different things to different people So what does success mean for you? Always strive to choose the actions and activities and choices That will get you closer to what you define as happiness and success as being authentic with yourself Not what your parents define as success or the media defines success as success Act in your wise mind If you act in your emotional mind, you're probably going to make mistakes Which will undermine your confidence and your confidence Stop lecturing and second guessing yourself when you do something don't shoulda coulda woulda's Look at what you did Notice praise and critique and move on And make sure to rely on assistance and feedback from others to help you meet new challenges When you're stepping out of that comfort zone You're stepping into a place where you don't necessarily have the skills and tools yet So you need other people or resources to help you learn those skills and tools Think about if you were uh, if you ever learned a sport or tried, uh, tried to learn piano or a musical instrument You didn't know how to play right away You didn't know how to do it right away. You learned certain skills You mastered those and then your coach taught you or your piano teacher taught you the next thing Somebody else was there to provide you a little bit of Insight or assistance into learning those new skills You can get that through self-help books through videos like these through talking to friends through therapy Um, there's a lot of places that you can get assistance and feedback But it's important to recognize and cut yourself some slack if you don't have all the answers Because if you've never done it before you probably don't have all the answers Assets of resilient people also include having safe Self-esteem and a safe internal environment. You need to silence that internal critic So you're not always telling yourself shoulda coulda woulda's And focus on your strengths and abilities It's important While you're doing this in order to build your self-esteem To see failure as a form of helpful feedback Because if we haven't stepped out And tried something new And you know, generally when you try something new, you don't do it perfect the first time That's not a failure. That's an opportunity to learn So identify three times life has knocked you down And what skills or strengths did you develop in response to that? What did you learn about yourself? Activities to develop resilience including enhancing relationships with social supports So don't just expect that your friends are always going to be there if you don't talk to them But once every six months or a year you want to spend some time kind of nurturing those Relationships and that can be you know one or two or 15 or 20. That's up to you Try to avoid seeing crises or stressful events as unbearable problems Yeah, they are uncomfortable and they feel awful at the moment But if you see them as challenges and opportunities to grow and If when something happens instead of seeing it as unbearable seeing is seeing it as something that's unpleasant but achievable Is important Practice radical acceptance and that's just looking at whatever is going on and going okay. This it is what it is what next Develop realistic goals and move towards them. So you have these goals. What does happiness look like for you? What's going to be different when you're not depressed? Well, you're working towards those things But you need to have steps along the way so that you can see you're making progress You know think about just stairs You know each stair step is progress towards your goal. What's the first step? What's the next step? Look for opportunities of self discovery after a struggle Even if it didn't turn out the way you wanted and you know, you are frustrated about that Look for opportunities to learn more about yourself What you did well and what you could possibly do differently the next time Keep a long-term perspective considering the event in the big scheme of things Sometimes things feel catastrophic in the moment, but in the big scheme of things, it's not so bad One of our our fences Got knocked down in a storm a couple months ago and you know, it was Almost 400 feet of fence. It was pretty overwhelming when I went out there Especially before coffee in the morning and found that the fence was just laying down Now Is it expensive to fix? Yes. Did it cause a lot of problems? Did we have to drop everything because we had to keep the animals confined? Yes But in the big scheme of things That night all the animals had actually gone into the barn So everyone was safe and we had the ability to Do what we needed to do To temporarily fix the fence and you know actually getting it fixed is kind of a long-term project But we were able in the long big scheme of things A lot worse a lot worse could have happened Maintain a hopeful outlook and care for your mind and body exercising regularly and paying attention Regularly like before every meal do a mindfulness scan and ask yourself. What do I need? What am I feeling? What are my vulnerable abilities and how can I address them right now? And address those in order to prevent drains on your energy reserves that way If something happens You've got the ability to deal with it and you're not going to feel completely overwhelmed and like you're drowning If you like this podcast you can subscribe on your favorite podcast app Join our facebook group at docsnipes.com slash facebook or join our community and access additional resources at docsnipes.com