 Welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. This podcast was created to provide you the information and tools Doc Snipes gives her clients so that you too can start living happier. Our website, docsknipes.com, has even more resources, videos and handouts, and even interactive sessions with Doc Snipes to help you apply what you learn. Go to docsknipes.com to learn more. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation of Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. Practical tools to improve your mood and quality of life. Today we're going to be talking about strengths, needs, attitude, preferences, and temperament, which is a whole bunch of stuff, but basically you're going to get a better understanding not only of what makes you tick, but also what makes your significant others tick and how you might be able to improve your relationships by understanding a little bit more about your preferences and the preferences of those who are important to you. We're going to start by exploring the concept of SNAP T, strengths, needs, attitudes, preferences, and temperament. Review the different learning styles and explore how strengths and needs and attitudes impact your success in change and in relationships. So SNAP stands for strengths, needs, attitudes, and preferences. Your strengths are those things that you already have, those things you already do that help you feel better, that help you succeed, that help you feel clearheaded. Anything that helps you move towards those things, states, and people that are important to you. Why are strengths important? Well, because we all have our own unique strengths and our significant others may not have the same strengths. The cool thing is that we can balance each other out where one may be a hammer, the other one may be a wrench. So instead of feeling less secure in yourself because you don't share the same strengths as somebody else, focus on the strengths you have and what you bring to the situation to complement it instead of bringing repetitive tools. I mean, if everybody brought a hammer to a construction site, a whole lot of stuff wouldn't be able to get done. Needs, are those things that you need to feel happy, healthy, secure, and grounded. We all have differing needs. And we've talked about needs, some in terms of preventing vulnerabilities. We all need a certain level of sleep. We all need a healthy diet to a certain extent. Some people need more accommodations and more modifications in their diet, such as gluten-free, grain-free, whatever, than other people. But knowing what your needs are is going to be important. And figuring out how to make accommodations for that. For example, if you're gluten-free, then, and you need to be that way because you've got celiac disease, knowing what accommodations you can make. So you can still go out with your friends and go to dinner and eat a healthy meal without getting sick and not feeling like you're dragging everybody down. So you want to prepare for what your needs are with any accommodations that you might need. Attitudes. We, again, often have different attitudes. Now, oftentimes we align with people who have similar attitudes on a lot of things. But I can tell you some of my best friends have very, very different attitudes about certain things than I do. And I accept that that's their attitude. If no judgment, better or worse, it's just doesn't happen to be my attitude. Now, some things will be more important, and you'll need to or you'll choose to look for alignment on that thing. But really what we're talking about here is knowing what your attitudes are about life, about job security, about family, about all those things that are important to you. And being able to be true to yourself, which, again, may mean accepting that other people have different attitudes and not yours. It doesn't mean you have to align with people that share every single attitude that you have. And preferences. We're going to talk a lot about preferences because this is where people often kind of fall down because they're not aware of how much it really impacts you if you are presented information in a way that's not meaningful. Or if you're working with somebody who has a different temperament, it may seem like your budding heads because you don't understand how that person communicates. They may take in information much differently and may look at the world much differently. So by understanding their temperament, you can approach them from a way that'll create a win-win instead of feeling like it's an argument or something unpleasant. So strengths. Identify those things you are good at. You know, if you are a good cook, wonderful. That may be able to be used in your employment. That may be able to be used in getting friends together. Maybe if you're the good cook of the group, everybody can meet at your house and you provide the meal and then somebody else provides the entertainment or whatever the case may be. But look for things that are your strengths that you can share if you choose to with other people. But the strengths are also the things that you use when you're feeling depressed to help yourself feel better, when you're feeling anxious to help yourself calm down. It's also important to figure out how you learn best and how you've coped in the past. And we're going to talk some about learning styles. But if you are, you know, for example, I am a visual, what they call visual kinesthetic learner. I learn best by reading. I can't stand to sit through a lecture. And by doing when we have a new computer program at work or when I've got to learn a new process at work, having somebody show me how to do it does absolutely nothing for me. I don't retain that at all. And it's not that I'm not trying to attend to it. If I have to be in a situation where somebody is in front of the group showing everybody how to do it and I can't walk through it myself, I have to take copious notes so I can go back and review those sorts of things. It doesn't mean that I'm not paying attention. People who are auditory learners, on the other hand, will prefer to have you tell them how to do things instead of just hand them a manual or go, you know, just start clicking buttons. You'll figure it out. So how you learn best is important because it affects how you not only you get information in your brain, but how you conceptualize it, make sense of it and figure out whether it's worth storing. If it's not something you care about, it's going to go in one ear and out the other. If it's something that you care about, something that's important and you can link it to past memories or past learning learning experiences, you'll be able to access that material a lot easier in the future. Another strength are the things that give you hope. Those are the things that you can rely on. Those are sometimes your values. But what gives you hope that things will get better? The belief that if you do the next right thing, things, good things will come. When we're talking about recovery, you also have strengths in terms of what you know about the condition. You know, a lot of information is out there and a lot of people are very partially educated. They don't know everything there is to know about depression. They don't know everything there is to know about any particular disorder, issue, condition. So knowing about the condition in general, what causes it, what can cause it, including the common things like for depression, a serotonin imbalance has often been blamed. But now we're finding out that it may have more to do with norepinephrine. But there are a lot of other things like hormone imbalances and poor sleep and a dysfunctional HPA axis that can also cause depression. So one of your strengths is knowledge. Know about your condition or your situation. Same thing in relationships. Your strength is knowledge. If you know the person that you're interacting with, if you've paid attention to their preferences and their strengths and what they need, it's going to be a lot easier to create a win-win situation and a harmonious relationship than if you've always tried to impose your strengths, your values and your way of doing things on them. You can also learn about in recovery, recovery methods, what are the different approaches to address depression, for example. And there are many. It's not just medication. It's not just talk therapy. There's acupuncture. There's Tai Chi. There are a lot of different approaches to addressing depression. And that's partly based on what's causing it for you and your belief system. The same thing is true with relationships. When you're in a relationship with somebody, knowing how to make things work, if you're planning on going on a vacation, how can you make something work that's going to be harmonious? How can you make communication work? What kinds of things do you like to do together? You know, you may enjoy going hiking with one of your friends, but going to the library or the coffee shop with another. And they don't share similar interests. So knowing about what will make that relationship health, healthy, happy and, you know, well, for lack of a better word, is also important. And you need to know what does and doesn't work for you because what works for your friend for treating depression or for enhancing relationships may not work for you. That may not be part of how how you tick. So knowing what has worked in the past, when you've had a good relationship, what did you do? How did you nurture it? What did it look like? When you've had depression before and you started to feel better, what did you do? What worked and what didn't? So you have an idea already about the things that you need in relationships and your strengths in relationships, as well as in recovery and life and health and wellness, your needs. And I alluded to those earlier. You have emotional needs. What makes you happy? What makes one person happy? I have friends that love to go out boating and fishing. That's not my thing. I have friends who love going out and playing golf. That's not my thing. You know, I love hiking. I love cooking. There are a lot of things I love. So knowing what makes me happy is important because I need to be able to schedule that activity into my life. It doesn't mean I have to, you know, ditch those friends. It just may mean that, OK, we'll go do something that makes you happy. And then maybe we can do something that makes me happy. You need to know what makes you feel content. We're not not all going to be deliriously happy every day. But what do you need to feel content and empowered to make yourself feel better or help yourself be happy and healthy? And that's what efficacy is, knowing that you can be effective at creating an environment that is productive for you. Your needs also include your learning preferences. Do you learn by seeing, hearing or doing? And you need to understand what your physical needs are. Do you need assistive devices? You know, I need my glasses when I'm reading anything. I found, even when I go to Walmart anymore, in order to read anything that's on a bottle or on a shelf, I need to have my glasses with me. So that's something I need to have to reduce stress and to help me be more effective. If you need frequent breaks, know that ahead of time or at least listen to your body. And when it's time to take a break, take one. And if you need medications, be aware of those sorts of needs. So there are a lot of things that if you pay attention to them and you meet your own needs, you're going to be happier, healthier, more content and probably a lot more fun to be around. Socially, what are your needs? We're going to talk about this a lot when we get down to temperament. But socially, some people need a lot of friends. They need a lot of activity. They're very social people. Other people are very content with having one or two close friends that they talk to once a week or so. Both of them are very healthy. Both of them just have very different needs in terms of socialization. All of us need to understand what a healthy relationship looks like, though. And what does it look like for you? Maybe a little bit different than what it looks like for someone else. But in general, we need to have the knowledge of what does it look like to have healthy boundaries? What does it look like to trust, to love, to care? And your environmental needs. These are kind of basic. But again, if you're not getting them met, it can contribute to a lot of distress and irritability and just generally being unpleasant to be around. If you don't feel safe, if you're anxious, some people like to sit so their back is always to the wall and they can always see the doors. You know, just know that ahead of time. My husband was in law enforcement for almost 20 years. And I know, and my grandfather was too, I've kind of been raised with the fact that those guys will sit with their back to the wall and facing the door. That's how they were trained and it makes them a lot more comfortable. So whenever we're selecting seats at a restaurant, there's not a question. I know where I should sit in order to accommodate their needs. And I don't care if my back's to the door because I know they got my back. Temperature. Now this one can be a little bit tricky because people have a wide variation on what temperature they find comfortable. When I start, when I was working this morning on the computer, I was sitting still. I wasn't doing a lot of moving around. Temperature in the office was about 78 degrees and I was perfectly comfortable. But as soon as I start teaching, I start moving around a lot more and burning more energy. I need to crank that temperature down or I'm just sweating bullets. Same thing is true if you've ever gone to maybe your grandparents' house or your great-grandparents' house and they have it like a sauna in there. It's like 85 degrees and they're putting blankets on themselves and you're just sweating over there. That's what makes them feel comfortable based on the stage of life, their metabolism, all that kind of other stuff. What feels comfortable for them? So how do you accommodate that? Obviously you're going to wear short sleeves and shorts if it's possible. When I was in graduate school, our courses were in the middle, in the basement of the hospital. And for some reason, they could not regulate the temperature down in the basement of the hospital. In the middle of the summer, when it was 95 degrees in Florida, in the basement of the hospital, it was more like 60. We were all going in there with coats and two or three sweatshirts because it was so cold. And you couldn't even focus on what the professor was saying. He was so cold most of the time. In the winter, it was just the opposite. We'd go in there dressed in layers because it was a frigid 40 in Florida and we'd get into the classroom and it would be more like 78 or 80. So we'd start peeling off layers so he could be comfortable. But when you're uncomfortable, it affects what you're paying attention to. It affects a lot of things about your mood and your patience and etc. Think about times when you've been uncomfortable versus times when you've been happy. When I go on car trips, I get wickedly motion sick, especially if I sit in the backseat or if I'm looking at my mobile device. So I know that I can't do that because as soon as I start to get sick, I am a grumpy pants. And nobody likes being around that. So what time of day works for you? We all have ebbs and flows and our circadian rhythms. For me, I'm a morning person. My kids are night owls. They'll stay up till 9.30, 10 at night and then sleep in until 7. I, on the other hand, in bed more like 8 o'clock and up at 3.30 or 4 in the morning. That's how my energy goes. And I've always found, even when I was in college, I had much more energy before 11 a.m. So pay attention to that. If you've got big things that you've got to take care of, if you've got big projects that you need to be able to focus on, when are you more alert? When are you more able to focus? In terms of environmental needs, you also may need to consider transportation and childcare when it comes to getting to meetings with friends. You know, if you're going out to lunch, how are you going to get there? If you don't have a car, what do you need to do to get there? Can you get a ride from somebody? Whatever. And childcare. If you have children at home, that's going to environmentally curb some of the things that you can do because you may have to be home before dark. You may have to be able to pick them up from school. You may have to do a variety of other things. And if your needs conflict with the children's schedule, you're going to have to figure out how to fix that ahead of time. Have somebody else pick them up from school, have them staying after school care. What can you do to accommodate your needs so you can get done what you need to get done not only in terms of work, but in terms of health and happiness. And that took me a long time to wrap my head around. I was fine leaving the kid with a sitter or leaving them at preschool a little bit longer if I had to stay at work. But I wasn't okay leaving them there a little bit longer so I could go to the gym. And the gym is huge for me in terms of de-stressing. That is my hour a day where I can just totally clear my mind. And I am in a much better frame of mind and have much better energy if I get that most days. So recognizing that wellness and feeling happy is not just about meeting your basic, you know, get to work, come home, eat, go to bed, get back up and get to work again. There's more to life than work and sleep. So you need to consider what are your needs in all areas so you can live the life that you envision in terms of one that is happy and healthy and you're excited to get up in the morning. So learning styles, real quick we'll go over that again. How you best take in information. Hearing it, doing it or seeing it. So if you're learning a new computer program, do you do better watching the YouTube videos and then going and trying to work on the computer? I'll watch the YouTube video, I'll pause it after step one. I do this when I learn how to crochet a new stitch as well. I'll watch it on YouTube, get to the first step, I'll do it. Then I'll start the video again and I'll do the next, watch the next step and then I'll do it. Do that a few times until I get the hang of things. And then I always know I can go back and watch that video again. But I'm not one who benefits largely from listening to a 30-minute explanation of how to do a complex process and then go and try to do it. Unless, and this is where the accommodations kick in. If you're like that, if you take notes and cues to yourself as you're going along, you'll remember more and then you'll be able to go back and read step one, do step one, read step two, do step two. Kinesthetic learners learn better by doing and a lot of people are kinesthetic to some extent. Think about when you taught your kids how to tie their shoes. You probably didn't just sit there and tell them about making bunny rabbit ears and all that. You probably showed them and then had them do it and then helped them do it. You probably didn't read them a book about it and expect them to know how to tie their shoes. As you get older, you'll probably find that you gravitate more towards one learning style or another. And that's okay, but know what that means. If you're visual, you will benefit from learning about it. Before church, I will read the scriptures that are covered for that day because I do better if I can look at it and read it or I'll read it while the pastor's talking. But it's important for me to be able to read it in order to get it in my mind and have it stick and be meaningful. You also may process information differently. And this can seem really frustrating when you're dealing with someone. If you're an active processor, you process as you go and you're just like, yeah, that's the next step. That's the next step. Cool. And you're dealing with somebody who's reflective because they take all the information in, they put it together in their mind, and then they have an aha moment where an active learner has aha moments all the way along. And the best example I can give you is when I was in college and even in high school and they'd go through math problems on the board. And the professor would be up there and he's like, okay, you do this first. And then of course, the next step would be this one. And I'm just sitting there going, yeah, of course, sure, whatever. Knowing good and well, I was lost already and it wouldn't make sense until I sat down and I saw it in the book and worked through it kind of at my own pace because he was going a lot faster than my brain could process. I'm a reflective learner. So there's nothing wrong with that, but knowing that will keep you from being frustrated if you know that you just need to try to take in as much information as possible and then have a little bit of downtime, maybe driving home from your meeting or going out to lunch after a meeting at work to think about everything that was said so you can put it together in a way that's meaningful for you and then you can come back and talk about it with the people who were active processors. And you will find that people who were active processors also tend to be extroverts because they think while they talk, just kind of a little hint to look at. And conceptualization, sequential versus global. I'm one of those people when you give me a puzzle, I have to look at the box to see what the big picture is going to be and then I can start making the frame and then I take all the pieces and start putting them in the frame. I'm a global conceptualizer. I need to see how all of these little pieces that I'm getting ready to work with fit into the big picture. Sequential learners, on the other hand, will dump out all the pieces and they'll find some that are similar and they'll put them together and they're like, okay, this is a tree. Not sure where the tree goes. We're going to move that over here for now. Find more similar pieces, put them together. Okay, this is a doghouse. Not sure where that's going to go. Put that over here. Then they get a lot of big clumps and then they start putting the big clumps together. May never have even looked at the outside of the box. My grandmother always told me, if you look at the outside of the box before you do a puzzle, you're cheating. I just can't do it. I have to read the Wiki before I watch a TV series too, but that's a whole different issue. Be aware of your attitudes towards yourself. If you're self-deprecating, if you don't like yourself very much, that's probably going to come out. And try to figure out ways that you can be more towards yourself the way you are to other people. I mean, if you're hateful to everybody else, then that may not work. But most of the time, I find people are very kind to other people. They're very compassionate. They're very forgiving, but then they can be very hateful and harsh with themselves. Know about your attitudes with regard to the condition or target issue if you're in recovery. What are your attitudes about depression, about anxiety, about anger, how it comes along, whether it's useful or not. What would happen if you got rid of it? Some people can get really scared about letting go of anxiety because then they may feel like something may come and hit them from out of the blue. So they get anxious about not being anxious. Know these things. These are things you can work through or address. What are your attitudes about and willingness to learn and try new things? Some people are more comfortable with that than others. And if we're talking about recovery, there are some things that I have heard from other people that kind of keep them stuck. So they need to know what they're going to do instead. And that's where I always come from when I'm doing an assessment. If I'm doing an assessment for substance abuse, for example, and somebody says, I am not going to get up and call myself an addict in every day. Every day. I said, okay, that's fine. What are you going to call yourself? And usually it's their name and that's fine. The term addict represents something to them that they are not willing or believe in embracing. And that may not be something that's necessarily worth pursuing because there are different views of what addiction is. I will not go to those meetings. There's another one that I heard a lot. And my response was always, okay, what are you going to do instead? You need to find things to do with your downtime to create a healthy community of recovery. So if you're not going to go to meetings, 12-step meetings, what are you going to do? Are you going to volunteer? Are you going to go to church? Are you going to? You need to establish some sort of connection with people in recovery or people who are clean, sober, and healthy. Where are you going to do that? So one of the things we can start doing in looking at the reasons we want to change and increasing our motivation for change is looking at the difference between the old way and the new way. And it's important to acknowledge that the way you're doing it right now has some benefits because we only do things that are rewarding. And if you don't figure out a different way to get those same rewards, then you're probably going to set yourself up for relapse. So look at the reasons you want to stay the same. And people look at me kind of cross-eyed when I say that and they're dealing with something like depression. And we really start talking about it and sometimes it'll come up that if they start recovering from their depression and start feeling better, then they're afraid they're going to fall back into the depression and they don't know if they can take feeling this bad again if they start getting a glimmer of hope. So they're afraid of disappointment. They're afraid of relapse. And those are very valid fears. What are your positive attitudes about the old way? And this may not apply for depression, but it's one thing you may want to consider looking at. What are the concerns you have about changing? A lot of times people are concerned about changing because they don't know if they can do it or they've seen other people try and fail and they're afraid they're going to... nothing actually works. So they will fall into the same trap. You also want to look at the new way. What are the reasons you want to do this? If you want to start eating healthier, why? What are your positive attitudes about eating healthier? And, you know, emphasize those. What do you hope is going to be different if you start changing? And what things do you not like about the way things are currently? So you want to address all of the benefits to staying the same, you know, make those kind of go away, find different ways to meet them and enhance the benefits for change. Part of making treatment change and even relationships work for you is understanding how you learn, how you interpret things, what your strengths are, why you're motivated to do things and why you're not motivated to do things because that'll help you understand why you interact with some people better than others and why you're willing to do things and more able to stick to goals, certain goals than others. The next part is understanding your inborn preferences to create a comfortable environment, learn how to get that information in in a way that's meaningful, understand what motivates you and explore how to best work within your time management style. And all of this kind of comes down to temperament or some people call it personality. If you like this podcast, you can subscribe on your favorite podcast app, join our Facebook group at docsnipes.com slash Facebook. You can also join our community at docsnipes.com. Thanks for tuning into Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. 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