Zone Into Your Purpose in Life! or Just Start Heading in Unplanned Directions and See What Happens!
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” –
I know, I know! I can almost feel the fear coming through cyberspace as I write this; imagining people reading this post and saying “OMG, I have no idea what my purpose is?!?!”, “I have nothing to offer the greater good in this world!” or simply “I am not doing this hippy dippy crap again in my life!”
Well, give me a chance to explain. You definitely don’t have to have a perfectly clear idea, it doesn’t need to meet your definition of extraordinary, nor does this need to be a pressure filled stressful experience. Life meaning and purpose is, simply, just a little incentive in this life to get you out of bed and engage with this incredible world as the incredible human that you are. Also, science supports this butt kicking approach to life 🙂
Because Science Says So!
The Psychological Benefits of a Meaningful Life
- People with a stronger sense of life purpose are happier, better at managing stress and tend to be healthier. PsychNERD Link
- People with a sense of purpose in their life showed better cognitive function (brain power!) measured by higher scores for memory, executive functioning, and overall cognition. PsychNerd Link
- As a sense of life purpose increases, symptoms of depression decrease. PsychNERD Link
- Having identified a purpose in life was associated with greater life satisfaction and overall well-being at three stages of life (adolescence, emerging adult and adult). PsychNERD Link
- Having a purpose in life in early youth predicted positive well-being, self-image, and low delinquency during emerging adulthood. PsychNERD Link
Just a reminder that this is #5 in my 10 part series this academic year on
“Being Nice to Your Brain”
Series: 10 Things You Can Do to Be Nice to Your Brain
- Learn to Tolerate Ambiguity
- Be Open to New Information
- Learn to Reframe Adversity
- You Don’t Have to Act the Way You Feel
- TODAY! Zone in on Your Purpose in Life
- Master Motivation aka “fire under your butt strategies”
- Seek Out Peak Experiences
- Stay True to Your Values – Who do YOU want to be in this world?
- Learn the Art of Balance
- Apply the “Power of Yet” in Your Life
TEDTalk
Let’s start this journey with a positive and inspiring TEDTalk from an award winning, and pretty cool author, Emily Esfahani Smith. This is a good read 🙂
Our culture is obsessed with happiness, but what if there’s a more fulfilling path? Happiness comes and goes, says writer Emily Esfahani Smith, but having meaning in life, serving something beyond yourself and developing the best within you, gives you something to hold onto. Learn more about the difference between being happy and having meaning as Smith offers four pillars of a meaningful life.
The PSYCHNerdy Next Steps
Planned Happenstance
Many years ago, I stumbled on a career counselling theory called, Planned Happenstance that was introduced in 1999 by Mitchell, Levin and Krumboltz. I had the chance to meet Dr. John Krumboltz back then and listen to him speak, wow! Incredible speaker and career theory psychologist. (Sorry a little nerdiness slipped out!). They defined this career search approach as “constructing unexpected career opportunities” and that people can actually “plan,” be prepared for, and even “construct” or generate “chance” career events in their lives. You don’t have to know what your life purpose is, or what career you want to have, you just need to develop 5 skills and then go out and take some risks, get out of your comfort zone, try things that you can’t imagine even liking…nothing illegal 😉
Top 5 Happenstance Skills to Develop
These life skills help you to recognize, create, and use chance opportunities as career and life opportunities:
- Curiosity: your ability to get out there an explore new opportunities
- Persistence: your ability to continue to exert effort despite setbacks
- Flexibility: your ability to change your attitude and the circumstances if needed
- Optimism: your ability to view new opportunities as possible and attainable
- Risk Taking: your ability to take action in the face of uncertain outcome
This is so much more than a career theory, it is a life perspective that can help you zone in on your overall life purpose. Go out and participate in something you don’t even seem interested in, volunteer to help organize an event, take part in something at work or on your campus that scares you a little bit…just go out and try some legal things that freak you out a bit or things that don’t seem to interest you… YET.
Adapted from: Planned Happenstance: Constructing Unexpected Career Opportunities
生き甲斐
Many years ago, I was really fortunate to be “forced” to take karate by a paranoid father of 2 girls. I hated it for the first year and then slowly began to love it, mostly. For the next 15 years, being a part of the Shōrinjiryū Kenkōkan Karate world, widened my narrow world view, allowed me to learn so much about myself, including the ability to push beyond my perceived limits, all while being immersed in the completely mysterious and wonderful world of Japanese culture.
The one Japanese concept, amongst so many, that has stuck with me all through my life is is ikigai. The beauty of this concept is that it does not have a direct English translation, but it is thought to combine the Japanese words ikiru, meaning “to live,” and kai, meaning “the realization of what one hopes for.” According to the World Economic Forum, ikigai is becoming popular outside of Japan as a way to live longer and better.
Try This Out!
To get started, ask yourself the following 4 questions:
- What do you love?
- What are you good at?
- What does the world need from you?
- What can you get paid for?
Still Freaked Out?!?!
If you are really stuck and your motivation seems to have alluded you, or fear of the unknown is completely freaking you out, take some time to watch a hilarious film called “Yes Man” with Canada’s own Jim Carrey. It is a really extreme version of what you can do to get out there, plan your happenstance, try something that you fear, and stand on the outside of what is familiar and comfortable. You never know what will be unveiled for you. Check it out!
I so often tell my students that “we are just here to entertain ourselves until we die”, so, don’t take yourself so seriously that you become frozen in place with fear. Start cultivating meaning in your life by asking yourself “what do I want to do to make this life worth living?
Just for Fun Resources:
-
How to Find Your Purpose in Life – Berkley Greater Good Magzine
- 7 STRANGE QUESTIONS THAT HELP YOU FIND YOUR LIFE PURPOSE
- How to Find Purpose in Life and Make Yourself a Better Person – LifeHack
Tell me about your journey!
#YouGotThis #LiveFully #MentalWellness
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
You Don’t Have to Act the Way You Feel. Seriously cut it out ;)
“Fake it until you make it” has been the BEST advice I have ever followed in my life.
I often experience all kinds of annoying and life limiting emotions like feeling like an imposter, experiencing low-self esteem days (less as I get older and actually use my strategies), anxious (agitated, fearful, worried, freaked-out…), low mood (bummed out, down, blue, depressed…) and lack of motivation (most of my life), to name a few of those pesky emotions that often take over my life. This blog has taken me way too long to write, I actually have no idea why, other than I wanted to make it real and usable, and something people could relate to.
I confess, I am a serious recovering “I don’t FEEL like it” kinda person. I so often tell my students that if I lived by feeling alone (no rational thoughts) I would not do anything except watch Netflix, in my PJs, sipping wine. I have no problem feeling like doing that 😉 It is easier. No anxious feelings, no feeling like an imposter, but it usually leads to lowering my self-esteem and feeling crappy.
So I do this instead…
I pair the “fake it” part with with “feelings are not facts“as a strategy to motivate the inner feeling-based person that I am. My poor students so often claim to claim to hear my voice in their head at times where they need to kick their own butt, walk through adversity and end the current pity party. I am not saying that you can’t have a pity party sometimes, this can actually be a moment of reflection and healing; I am saying don’t stay too long at that party. Like everything in life, moderation, moderation, moderation…except moderation 😉
Just a reminder that this is #4 in my 10 part series this academic year on
“Being Nice to Your Brain”
Series: 10 Things You Can Do to Be Nice to Your Brain
- Mental Health Problems are Learning Problems. #YOUARENOT BROKEN #LEARNING (Theme: Learning to Tolerate Ambiguity)
- The Psychological Value of Being Open to New Information and Experiences #MindBlown (Theme: Be Open to New Information)
- Learning to Reframe Adversity: Yes Bad Things are Terrible, But so is Giving Away Your Power! (Theme: Learn to Reframe Adversity)
- TODAY! You Don’t Have to Act the Way You Feel…Seriously Cut it Out 😉
- Zone in on Your Purpose in Life
- Master Motivation aka “fire under your butt strategies”
- Seek Out Peak Experiences
- Stay True to Your Values – Who do YOU want to be in this world?
- Learn the Art of Balance
- Apply the “Power of Yet” in Your Life
Let’s Get Started!
Emotions have a wonderful purpose in your life providing colour and richness, guidance, warning signals, human connection and so many more useful functions. However, they were never designed to be left alone to fend for themselves. They need a partner in crime to help keep the emotional message in balance. This is where another part of your brain needs to be hauled in to add a “voice of reason” balance to the message. Here is a little taste of what is to come in this post, a cool little strategy that helps your emotional areas and your thought areas of your brain work in partnership, the Wise Mind. I use this all the time.
From Strategies to Destination
Let’s start with attitude. I find it helpful to look at my life like an adventure rather than something to survive. If you distill it down, we really are here, on this planet, to entertain ourselves until we die. So, why don’t we make it fun and learn all kinds of adaptive skills along the way that positively contribute to our lives and to our communities?!?!
Attitude Adjusters
Here are some of my favourite “attitude adjusters“: (yes I use them personally)
- Choose Your Own Adventure: Take on a “choose your own adventure” way of seeing your life. This was one of my favourite book series when was young. Yeah, stop calculating my age 😉 Netflix has taken this concept digital, check it out! Start taking control of your life, your decisions, take responsibility and stop waiting for someone else to tell you what to do. You are just waiting for someone else to take the responsibility or the blame.
- Fake it Until You Make it: This is such an important attitude to adopt. You may be scared, you may feel that everyone thinks you are a fraud, but just go out there and get started, you will definitely be surprised at how much further you get than just sitting at your pity party. Here are some tips, that are a part of my daily life, for actually making this happen:
- Own Your Narrative: Be the main character in your life and show up! Yes, maybe bad things have happened in your life, yes maybe things are unfair, but it is what it is and no amount of complaining is going to make the facts change. So, the first step is accepting that it is true, not right or fair, but true. This is your story, writing the narrative is the best form of control over how it ends. Start with some of these strategies for getting you started.
- Radical Acceptance: “Pain + non-acceptance= suffering.” Check out this link to learn more about this Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) strategy
Watch This Video! Please
*really, it helps to understand that your brain can change, you can do things to actually change it and you can put your self on the path to your best self.
In Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), the word “dialectic” refers to balancing and comparing two things that seem to be quite different – even contradictoryMarsha Linehan, creator of the highly-regarded Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Destination
Here is a simplified explanation of the neurobiology of your brain. Like physical exercise builds muscles in the areas that you focus on, the brain is very similar. Whatever you spend time focusing on in your mind is what is created, fostered and built. I am not saying that you should always think positively, but you do need to spend time shaping your brain, like you would do for your physical health, and create a balanced perspective on your world. The good and the bad.
Then decide…
Who do you want to be in this world? What do you want to achieve while you are here on this planet? What would you like to be remembered for? What character attributes would you like to develop?
Start asking these questions so that your roadmap is clear. With everything you do, you can then ask yourself, does this help or hurt the life that I am striving for? Yes this is a messy process, but it should be. Life is beautifully messy and that is where the most beneficial learning creeps in 🙂
Tell me about your journey!
#YouGotThis #LiveFully #MentalWellness
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
heather.drummond@mohawkcollege.ca
If you liked the suggestions above, check out these extra resources and get started treating your mind as you would like to be treated.
- The Importance of Practicing Radical Acceptance
- Three Blocks to Radical Acceptance
- How to Practice Radical Acceptance
- Distress Tolerance Worksheet – Process Guide
Learning to Reframe Adversity: Yes Bad Things are Terrible, but so is Giving Away Your Power!
Reframing adversity is not about pretending that something did not happen, it is about accepting the reality of it, “yup, that happened” -> “this is horrible” -> “poor me” -> “I don’t love this feeling of being out of control” -> “Now what can I do next to make my life better?” Reframing begins at the last statement.
Accepting that it is indeed a fact and it did happen, there’s nothing that you can do to change that fact, but you can change how you react and how you carry on.
Someone said to me once that I could choose to make myself miserable or choose to make myself strong after some crappy crap that happened. I chose strength, misery sucks and it takes so much more time and energy to be miserable.
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become” – Dr. Carl Jung
This is #3 in my 10 part series this academic year on
“Being Nice to Your Brain”
Series: 10 Things You Can Do to Be Nice to Your Brain
- Mental Health Problems are Learning Problems. #YOUARENOT BROKEN #LEARNING (Theme: Learning to Tolerate Ambiguity)
- The Psychological Value of Being Open to New Information and Experiences #MindBlown (Theme: Be Open to New Information)
- TODAY! Learning to Reframe Adversity: Yes Bad Things are Terrible, But so is Giving Away Your Power! (Theme: Learn to Reframe Adversity)
- You Don’t Have to Act the Way You Feel…Seriously Cut it Out
- Zone in on Your Purpose in Life
- Master Motivation aka “fire under your butt strategies”
- Seek Out Peak Experiences
- Stay True to Your Values – Who do YOU want to be in this world?
- Learn the Art of Balance
- Apply the “Power of Yet” in Your Life
There is this pretty cool book called “The Gift of Adversity: The Unexpected Benefits of Life’s Difficulties, Setbacks, and Imperfections” by Norman E. Rosenthal M.D, that I think you should check out. If you are serious about working on your ability to reframe the bad things in your life, so that you can move forward and flourish, then seriously read it, listen to it or find a friend who can give you the short notes version with learning points…like me! See below 🙂
…or better yet, listen to a little YouTube bookstore chitchat with Dr. Rosenthal, MD.
What is the most important lesson about coping with hardship that people should take away from reading The Gift of Adversity?
- Acceptance: Accept that the adversity has occurred.
- Response Size: Proportion your response according to the nature of the adversity. Small problem, small response, small amount of energy expended.
- Analysis: Analyze the situation. Is this within your control or not? Is there anything you can do to make it better? What can I do?
- Self-Care: Regulate your physical and emotional state, for example, by keeping regular hours of sleeping and waking, eating regular healthy meals, exercising and meditating, spending time with supportive people and establishing boundaries and self-expectations that are different from your “normal” state (do less or protect more). Take care of yourself.
- Help-Seeking: Reach out for help to family, friends or even mental health professionals. We are on this planet with over 7 billion people, we are not meant to be islands, we are social creatures.
- Tell Your Story: Turn your experience into a story to help you process it. “This happened, it sucked because, I don’t want to stay in this place, I will try this to make things better for myself…”
- Reframe: Reframe the adversity, think about it in a different way. “This is what I learned, this is what I know now, I am pretty strong in crappy situations…”
Still Not Convinced?!!?
Well, this is your life and the beautiful thing is that you can choose how you want to live it. I got sick of being miserable so I accepted my situation and created my “work around” for the circumstances I had. Your choice. But, if you want to be a person who flourishes, has the ability to bounce back from unexpected adversity, change or loss, the follow the steps below.
A Recipe for Flourishing for Humans
- Unwanted adversity shows up
- If you can’t change it, accept it. It is what it is. (or stay stuck here, your choice)
- Reframe it so that you can move forward in your life.
- Implement a “bounce back strategy” (Resilience is fostered here)
- Let the thriving begin and enjoy the flourishing life that you are creating.
- Repeat
- Learn new new tricks and perspectives while waiting for more adversity to show up (it will happen, it is what life does well).
TEDTAlk: The Opportunity of Adversity
In Closing
- You have muscles not wounds. You have done the heavy lifting.
- The struggle you put in today is the strength that you will need tomorrow.
- Adversity does not build character it reveals it
It takes courage, adaptability and strength
to persevere when things don’t go your way.
I never share things here that I haven’t done or are not currently wrestling with. Life is an effort, but the effort is worth the struggle. Who ever thought that this life would be easy, or told you that, is absolutely wrong. The closest we get to easy is the opportunity to work on being happy. #HardwiringHappiness
Tell me about your journey!
#YouGotThis #LiveFully #MentalWellness
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
The Psychological Value of Being Open to New Information and Experiences #MindBlown
What Open-Mindedness Looks Like
An open-minded individual…
- strives to develop a better understanding of the world, willing to listen to other people’s beliefs and opinions, to learn from their insights and experience and makes an effort to try new things (experiential learning) to foster personal growth.
- understands their strengths and limitations. Meaning that you do not feel obliged to agree with others, but you can respect the rights and beliefs of others without trying to force your own views (strength) and can admit when you don’t know something (limitations).
Series: 10 Things You Can Do to Be Nice to Your Brain
- Mental Health Problems are Learning Problems. #YOUARENOT BROKEN #LEARNING (Theme: Learning to Tolerate Ambiguity)
- TODAY! The Psychological Value of Being Open to New Information and Experiences #MindBlown (Theme: Be Open to New Information)
- Learning to Reframe Adversity: Yes Bad Things are Terrible, But so is Giving Away Your Power! (Theme: Learn to Reframe Adversity)
- You Don’t Have to Act the Way You Feel…Seriously Cut it Out
- Zone in on Your Purpose in Life
- Master Motivation aka “fire under your butt strategies”
- Seek Out Peak Experiences
- Stay True to Your Values – Who do YOU want to be in this world?
- Learn the Art of Balance
- Apply the “Power of Yet” in Your Life
Let’s Get Started
Are You Feeling Stuck?
From my experience, sometimes people can mistake the feelings associated with being stuck in an old boring routine, or stuck in a old way of being or thinking, with being depressed. Not always, but sometimes.
Here is the secret, your brain is designed to learn, it loves to learn, when you are not learning…YOUR BRAIN IS BORED! Hense, the meh feelings.
Don’t believe me?
Well here is some information from the secret life of therapists…
When you get outside your comfort zone, and come see a counsellor like me, we help 
you to do the work necessary to change the neurobiology of your brain through developing coping strategies, new ways of being, new learning, through a science supported counselling interventions like Behavioural Activation. This is a pretty cool therapy for depression, that focuses on activity scheduling to encourage people to approach activities that they are avoiding, along with analyzing the function of their cognitive processes (thoughts), such as rumination (cycling thoughts), that serve as a form of avoidance. Getting out there and doing, rather than avoiding, helps you to become refocused on your goals and valued directions in life. You tend to feel happier and more empowered. Eventually experiencing the benefits of doing, creates energy and excitement to try new things.
So I think I have your attention.
More doing less avoiding!
A wee bit of advice..
Don’t Take the Dopamine Short Cut!
Sometimes people find “doing the work” takes too long or it is simply just too hard. Yes, rewiring your brain is hard work! But if you do the work, you get lasting results with so many mental and physical health benefits.
The dopamine short cut means using various substances, legal and not, to elicit a dopamine response artificially, thus fooling the brain. While so many other activities elicit dopamine naturally, like exercising, good sleep, healthy eating, sunlight and music. Yes music! Listening to music taps into the dopamine system, in part, because hearing something new is a signal that the brain is learning something, and we have evolved to enjoy acquiring new information.
So do the work instead of tricking your brain. Tricking is not learning, it just keeps you in the same place…feeling…
Ok, Now I’m About to Get a Little Nerdy on Ya! Big Time!
Let’s Get on a Eudaimonia Trip!
A What???
Eudaimonia, a funky Greek work that means “personal happiness”. More specifically it is the pursuit of happiness, manifestation (creation) of personal growth, self-actualization, flourishing and life meaning. It is very different from it’s cousin, hedonia which is the pursuit and/or experience of pleasure, enjoyment, comfort, and reduced pain. Eudaimonia is a journey, a process, sometimes hard, sometimes easy, but the benefits are immense. It is the satisfaction that comes from constantly developing and living one’s life to the fullest.
Science Says
- Research suggests that the greater sense of purpose and personal growth
associated with eudaimonia correlates with lower cortisol levels (from bad stress levels), better immune function (you get sick less), and more efficient sleep (who doesn’t want that?). Dr. Gary Marcus, NYU - Dr. Rich Walker, research psychologist, looked at countless event memories that people were able to remember, and found that “people who engage in a variety of experiences are more likely to retain positive emotions and minimize negative ones than people who have fewer experiences.”
-
Psychological Well-Being Revisited: Advances in the Science and Practice of Eudaimonia (Full Article)
-
Growing evidence shows that qualities such as purposeful engagement, self-realization and growth, and enlightened self-regard are relevant influences on how long and how well people live.
-
Multiple studies have linked these indicators of well-being to reduced amygdala activation in response to negative stimuli (this means lower anxiety), sustained activity in the ventral striatum and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (emotion regulation) when viewing positive stimuli, and increased insular cortex volume (increased emotion experience such as compassion and empathy).
-
Ok, enough nerdy science, even though I love it!
It is not about me, it is about you getting out there, being open to new things, new information, new behaviours, new experiences, new activities.
Open Mindedness for Psychological Well-being #MindBlown
Start with becoming a “Yes Person” when it comes to trying healthy new things!
Trying something new often requires courage, but it opens up the possibility for you to enjoy something new. Trying something new forces you to grow.
Try some of these cool new things!
- How Books Can Open Your Mind (TEDTalk)
- Why it’s Worth Listening to People You Disagree With (TEDTalk)
- We get stronger, not weaker, by engaging with ideas and people we disagree with, says Zachary R. Wood. He calls this process, “Uncomfortable Learning”
- Being open-minded doesn’t mean you accept all opinions as being true or equally valid. You just listen and try to understand another’s point of view.
- Planned Happenstance: A cool career theory, (Mitchell, Levin, & Krumboltz, 1999), that helps people generate, recognize, and incorporate chance events into your career development. Go out volunteer for something that you would NEVER expect to interested in and see what happens. This is how I found my career path! You can use this for more than just a career path, it can be used to discover what you love to do in this life. Check out this guide!
- Mindfulness & Meditation: Foster your cognitive flexibility! Check out these great resources to help guide you though this empirically validated brain intervention: Meditation Resources and Mindfulness Resources.
- My Favourite Brain Growth Intervention: Participate in a cultural event that is not familiar to you. This can really help you to develop your beginner’s mind (look it up…super cool!).
Our opinions and ideas make perfect sense when we look at them through our own lens, and with that, the perspectives of others can sometimes seem wrong. If we want to experience positive mental health, we need to develop a better understanding of the world and other ways of doing things. There is no use in clinging to our beliefs because they’re more familiar and comfortable to us, especially if they hurt or hinder us.
The secret of Change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old,
but on building the new” – Socrates
Tell me about your journey!
#YouGotThis #LiveFully #MentalWellness
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
heather.drummond@mohawkcollege.ca
Cool Resource!
What processes are taking place in our brain when we are learning?
Mental Health Problems ARE Learning Problems #YouAreNot Broken #Learning
For any of you who have been following along with my ramblings about our wonderful adaptable learning brains, you know that I love to follow the research findings and apply them to life. The evidence is with the Psycho-Social Model of mental health and wellbeing (research says so). Meaning that we all grow up under different circumstances, in different contexts, experience different adversities and learn different things along the way. Those factors need to be considered when exploring and explaining our psychological distress and working our way through it #adapting.
We are not not broken, we are beautiful humans with a history, developing resilience along the way, with wonderful adaptive capabilities!
“Mental disorders are brain diseases caused by neurotransmitter dysregulation, genetic anomalies, and defects in brain structure and function.
Yet…
…scientists have not identified a biological cause of, or even a reliable biomarker for, any mental disorder.”
So what is the alternative way of thinking? …I hear you asking…
Well, research evidence is showing up all over the place because of new technical advances like the funky fMRI machine and the ability to measure our Cortisol (Stress Hormone) and Oxytocin (Social Bonding Hormone). So yes, we can now measure the effects of exercise, being in nature, social connections and psychotherapeutic interventions, showing that our brains actually change by just doing stuff! This is the Psycho-Social Model of Mental Health and Wellbeing.
Psycho-Social Model of Mental Health and Wellbeing
The psychosocial approach looks at individuals in the context of the combined influence that psychological factors and the surrounding social environment have on their physical and mental wellness and their ability to function.
VS
A term coined by psychiatrist R.D. Laing, in The Politics of the Family and Other Essays (1971), a medical model is a “set of procedures in which all doctors are trained.” … Simply stated, the medical model treats mental disorders as physical diseases whereby medication is often used in treatment.
We Need to be Better!
If we want the stigma to subside, if we want people to grow through what they go through, if we want to empower people, we need to shift our thinking and apply the research findings to approach mental health and wellbeing differently.
That means recognizing that our mental health and well-being depends on…
the things that happen to us,
how we make sense of those events
and how we respond to them.
Dr. Peter Kinderman
A Prescription for Psychiatry: Why We Need a Whole New Approach to Mental Health and Wellbeing.
Ok, Enough PsychNerdy-ness
Have I convinced you to take on this 10 week Psycho-Social Journey in Changing Your Brain?!?!
Great! come on along!
Start with thinking that you are not broken. You have just been through things, have grown through adversity and, as a human, you continue to adapt by learning strategies to positively adapt to life challenges.
Over the next 10 weeks I will be posting psycho-social related growth ideas, suggestions and strategies in 10 of the most beneficial adaptive areas for human flourishing (I think).
10 Things You Can Do to Be Nice to Your Brain
- TODAY! Mental Health Problems are Learning Problems. #YOUARENOT BROKEN #LEARNING (Theme: Learning to Tolerate Ambiguity)
- The Psychological Value of Being Open to New Information and Experiences #MindBlown(Theme: Be Open to New Information)
- Learning to Reframe Adversity: Yes Bad Things are Terrible, But so is Giving Away Your Power! (Theme: Learn to Reframe Adversity)
- You Don’t Have to Act the Way You Feel…Seriously Cut it Out
- Zone in on Your Purpose in Life
- Master Motivation aka “fire under your butt strategies”
- Seek Out Peak Experiences
- Stay True to Your Values – Who do YOU want to be in this world?
- Learn the Art of Balance
- Apply the “Power of Yet” in Your Life
Week #1
Learn to Tolerate Ambiguity
This means staying in uncertainty, or staying with the question, despite the discomfort of not knowing the answer, or not knowing where you are going. I know this is scary! That is the point. Anything worth developing does feel a bit uncomfortable because it is new and your brain has not learned how to process this yet. Your brain’s job is to keep you safe, good work brain! But sometimes we need to help it to calm down when we are doing things that are just new, not dangerous.
It will take time to relinquish control, learning to enjoy the puzzle without a solution, letting life unfold while knowing that have built some skills along the way that are helpful. You can survive this yucky emotional experience! This is such an important skill for life if you want to feel less anxious. This could open up so many opportunities for you! There might be numerous ways of answering the same question or solving a problem, each with different but potentially positive results.
Check out this wonderful TEDTalk to get you started on teaching your brain that ambiguity is good and that your Amygdala (part of the fear process in your brain) is not always needed:
Some Ambiguity Tolerance Building Tips from and Excellent Blogger
Source: Tolerating Ambiguity by Maggie Dugan
It makes sense that if you can stand to hover in the gray areas between black and white distinction, you might get to a more creative outcome. But how do you cultivate this tolerance for ambiguity?
- Stay neutral and suspend judgment.
- Stay curious.
- Enjoy the mess.
- Take time.
- Try things on.
Check out her blog post for the details 🙂
A Little Extra!
Trust Issues?
Check out this recent research:
People More Likely to Trust and Cooperate if They Can Tolerate Ambiguity“
Tell me about your journey!
#YouGotThis #LiveFully #MentalWellness
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
Your Phone is a Tool Not an Appendage! and Other Healthy Mind Shifts
Again, not slagging tech because any tech is AWESOME, we humans are just not so awesome, YET, at using it as a tool that we pick up and put down and walk away from.
Tech Disruption Part #3
This post is Part #3 in a three part series about mental health and your smart phone. Check out Post #1 and Post #2 to learn why reevaluating how you infuse technology into your life is important to your mental wellbeing.
Two Kinds of Tech People
In my last post I had 6 tips for helping you get you started on spending less time with your phone. I figured that you may just be a little tired of listening to a ‘digital immigrant” so I went searching high and low, through many remote places, to find just the right expert to interview, a real life digital native…just kidding, I just had to look next to me on my sofa 😉
I interviewed a real millennial, a extraordinary digital native, a human who has never seen a world without WiFi and computers/tablets (I know…super weird). Jack Snell is a 17 year old high school student who really loves watching videos on a tiny screen in the same room there is a 72″ television.
Please take a moment to check out his advice on healthy engagement with two very popular social media platforms, Insta and Snap…See! This digital immigrant can still sound cool 😉
Now on to a much more interesting Digital Native…
Handling Social Media
By Jack Snell
Click for Full Article: Handling Social Media by Jack Snell *More Info Here
Pros:
- It allows you to share information and pictures with friends, family and that dude that you don’t know but seems like a good guy and likes all your stuff.
- Powerful tool to create your online and real life image.
- Instagram is just a great place to indulge in whatever you find entertaining.
Cons:
- People’s self worth can be impacted or even dictated based on the amount of followers and likes that they have.
- Insta is a place for people to show off and make their lives appear to be better than they actually are.
How to deal:
- You will have to…Read Full Article..for his advice.
Pros:
- Gives you a quick, easy and fun way to talk to people, and with streaks and scores it can become a real life game.
- Because you are sending pictures AND text, you have the opportunities to use facial cues to express emotions and context that are annoyingly missing on direct messaging platforms. Emojis just don’t cut it sometimes.
- Like Instagram, it gives you an opportunity to express yourself and your interests through what you choose to send people and put on your story.
Cons:
- As I mentioned, it can become like a real life game… and that isn’t good. I’ve been there.
- Keeping a streak for the sake of keeping it is just weird. Yea, I’ve sent a shot of the floor or my left foot just to keep a streak alive but like… it’s so unnecessary. I doubt people in the 30’s sent blank telegraphs just for the sake of appearing to talk to each other.
How to deal:
- You will have to…Read Full Article..for his advice.
Social media is an amazing tool to connect and express yourself with people. That being said, it can also be extremely controlling. For positive mental health AND physical health, it is essential that we all make an effort to use social media in a more healthy way. Sometimes that might even mean not using it at all.
Thanks Jack!
It was great to hear your perspective and that you actively use strategies to make your social media experience healthy, fun and overall beneficial.
Great insights and advice!
When Jack is not writing about social media, he is actively posting and scrolling through Instagram pics of cars or writing about them on his blog. Check out his social media: Instagram or WordPress.
You know I couldn’t end without going a bit PsychNerdy on you 😉 So you now have heard from two people, one a digital native, and me, a digital immigrant, who both LOVE technology but are actively working on integrating it as a tool and not having it negatively affect our life. There is yet another area that social media can adversely affect your life and take some of the fun out of it. Now social media is interfering with your food intake and enjoyment!
Say What?!!?
There was a study done at Bringham Young University, “Satiation from sensory simulation: Evaluating foods decreases enjoyment of similar foods“, which found that looking at many too many pictures of food may actually make the act of eating less enjoyable.
Yes, it is called Sensory Bordom! Now that Instagram is even messing with your food along with your mental wellbeing, your social savvy and your self-esteem, you have a choice. Less time spent on this little device, which is hard, or continue and have your overall wellbeing nose-dive.
In Closing
Please know…
- One of the big reasons that we struggle with insecurity today is that we compare our ‘behind-the-scenes’ with everyone else’s ‘highlight reel’. So, keep this “top-of-mind” when you Insta-Creep. When you start feeling icky…drop that phone! Your life IS actually interesting.
- Being accustomed to having everything at a click means that you tend to keep your life within a comfort or familiar zone. So go out and take some little risks and try something new! Meet a friend in person.
- You need to stop looking for the “Like Button” in your life. This is NOT a measure of you as a person, it is a measure of social media influence/addictiveness only. How many times have you just mindlessly clicked “like” with very little emotion or thought? Why don’t you actually tell your friends that you liked their picture or, even better, that you actually like them (say it offline and in person).
- Your life can be more vivid than it appears on the internet, if you put your phone down once-in-a-while and actually live it.
#YouGotThis #LiveFully #MentalWellness
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
Don’t Eat the Marshmallow! and Other Miraculous Hacks for Phone-Life Balance
This post is Part #2 in a three part series about mental health and your smart phone. Check out Post #1 to learn why reevaluating how you infuse technology into your life is important to your mental wellbeing.
I am well aware that this is a difficult relationship to re-imagine, but this is possibly what is standing between you and living your best life. Again, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE, my tech toys, especially my smartphone. However, I am very aware of what it does to my self-concept, my time management abilities and my overall ability to focus on tasks. Ready to love that little tech wonder in a different way?
- Do you compulsively check your phone for messages (from any source)?
- When you are stressed, do you find that you spend more time on your phone?
- Are you noticing a loss of interest in face-to-face social interactions?
- Do you feel “lost” when you do not have your phone?
- Are you able to be in public alone and not look at your phone?
- Do you have trouble getting to sleep? Do you spend time on your phone before you go to bed?
If you said “yes” or even “sort of” to any of the above questions, I think you need to re-evaluate your relationship with Smartyphone.
PsychNerdy Stuff that Relates to Your Tech Toys
Marshmallow Test
Before I get too far down this rabbit hole, I just have to share one of my favourite psychology experiments, The Marshmallow Test!
In the 1960s, a Stanford professor, Dr. Walter Mischel, began conducting a series of important longitudinal psychological studies on the importance of delayed gratification (being less impulsive). I will let the videos below explain the fascinating and hilarious details of this study. My hope is that it will give you a little insight into the importance of learning to be less impulsive with your phone. If you get nothing out of it, at least you will see young kids struggling to not eat the marshmallow and the side-splitting strategies they try in the attempt to avoid actually eating it. I still LOL when I watch these vids 🙂
Resisting the Marshmallow
A Little Extra for You Fellow PsychNerds!
Delayed Gratification, Impulse Control, Digital Dieting, Tech-Life Balance, Mindful Use of Tech, whatever you want to call it you have a choice. A healthy brain or a brain that struggles. A successful life for your future self can start with living more in the real world and less in the digital world.
The Marshmallow Study makes one thing clear: if you want to succeed at something, at some point you will need to find the ability to be disciplined and take action instead of becoming distracted and doing what’s easy.
Ok, so I hear that you may be tipping in the right direction but have no idea how to actually stop eating the marshmallows (aka looking at your phone).
Here is a recap..
Eating 1 Marshmallow (Looking at Your Phone) = Building Psychological Distress
Waiting for 2 Marshmallows (Phone -Life Balance) = Building Mental Wellbeing
So, let’s talk about the very cute but large elephant in the room. FOMO!
In my opinion, this has got to be the worst side effect to this tech revolution. Studies show that FOMO leads to extreme dissatisfaction and has a detrimental effect on your physical and mental health – mood swings, loneliness, feelings of inferiority, reduced self-esteem, extreme social anxiety, and increased levels of negativity and depression.
So, put your phone down! The person who texted you (or Snapped) will be there later, the person in front of you won’t be.
Simple Tips to Spend Less Time on Your Phone
- Turn off Notifications:
- Every time that phone buzzes you are prompted to check it for that little dopamine rush in your brain. Do you really want to be a pavlovian dog?!?
- Get the Facts!
- Find Out How Much You are Using Your Phone. Check out this APP, Moment (IOS) or Quality Time (Android).
- Set Boundaries and Create “Living in the Real World” Time:
- Set up phone free periods every day. Go for walks, to the gym, to study, to lunch, etc. without your phone.
- Tech Break Strategy: “Start by looking at your phone for one minute and checking all forms of communication, including texts, calls and social media. Then turn it off, set the alarm for 15 minutes and place it face-down in plain sight. The upside-down phone reminds your brain to not release stress and anxiety neurotransmitters” Dr. Larry D. Rosen. Practice practice practice!
- Bedtime: No screen time 30 minutes before bed. This just fills your brain with rumination information (negative thinking) and light that messes with your melatonin.
- Get Some Sleep!
- When you are tired, it is way harder to fight the urge to check your phone.
- Try not to use your phone as an alarm clock, or at least set it to airplane mode or “do not disturb” when you sleep.
- Challenge Your “Real-Time” Convo Fear:
- Avoid succumbing to ‘texting syndrome’ by fostering a variety of communication skills. Don’t just rely on texts, Snaps, Instas or even emails. Try actually talking to people on the phone, or even better, in person. Force yourself, build this habit, it is worth it for your mental wellbeing.
- Fight FOMO!
- Stop Looking: The more you look the more you feel like you are missing out. Us GenXer’s could only imagine our friends out there having a great time without us, now all you need to do is scroll Instagram or SnapChat to get the full sad picture of everyone having way more fun than you (which is actually a lie).
- Perspective: Remember that people only post their best selves, the highlight reel, the incredibly curated selfie that took at least 20 shots to get. You are probably having a great time now, be in THAT moment.
Next blog post I will be going into more detail around how to manage specific challenges with applications such as SnapChat, Instagram and getting caught in the endless streaming cycle with YouTube and Netflix. Join me and please feel free to ask questions or suggest topic areas 🙂
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
heather.drummond@mohawkcollege.ca
Social Media, Your Beautiful Brain and a Need for Some #TechDisruption: 3 Part Series
Disruptive Technology
In 1997, the term “disruptive technology” emerged as a term to help people conceptualize the rapid growth and impact of technology in our lives. Super smart Harvard Business professor, Clayton M. Christensen, coined this term in his best selling book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. He presented the idea of separating new technology into two categories: sustaining and disruptive. Sustaining technology relies on incremental improvements to an already established technology. Making what already exists better. A disruptive technology shakes things up a little by introducing something completely new.
What I want to share with you today is disruptive technology for your “necktop” computer, your lovely brain. I want to start with considering the wiring of your brain and the positive and negative impacts that technology has had on our brain development.
This is definitely not a post slagging technology nor ripping on millenials. I LOVE technology, like seriously love technology! I just want to offer some suggestions around how to have a smart relationship with your phone so that it is mutually beneficial.
What Makes Me a Tech Use Expert?
Well, the reason I think this is an important topic is because I have had the benefit of being a bona fide member of GenX which provided me with a titrated tech experience. This slow drip of new technology created an environment perfect to learn how to love and own a smart phone without it owning me. So, I think I just may have some solid advice for you on your road to a healthy tech balance.
Ok, I hear you saying…
GenX?!?! Who? Well look up “slacker generation” and one of the first sites to appear on Google is GenX. Yes, millenials, we were once ripped on by society too 🙂 So you can trust me! Let’s start DISRUPTING!
Technology Running Amok
I want to start with helping you gain a better understanding of what happens when you let technology run amok, unsupervised, rampant and with no babysitter. You need to take charge of this trusted tech BFF and not allow it to secretly control so many aspects of your life. I hear from many of my students that the mere existence of social media makes it “way harder” for them than past generations. Yes, it is true, any new technology poses problems until us incredible humans learn to adapt to it. I am not going to let you off the hook that easily because you are the boss, not the tech! Human are adaptable.
I think learning how to use tech in a healthy way will require some background in brain science to convince you that this difficult learning, and behavioural shift, is important if you want to make technology a friend in your life and not a bully.
Want to Know More Smartphone Brain Science?
Check out this video to gain a better understanding of what your
little innocent phone is doing to you.
5 Crazy Ways Social Media Is Changing Your Brain Right Now
PsychNerdy Time!
With a Smart Twist 😉
I love psych science! It helps me understand this big ol’ world and learn ways that I can live very happily in it. I want to help you do the same.
I have already established my love for my tech toys and I definitely have no plans to live without them. My only option has been mindful tech integration in my life. Being strategic about how I consume and utilize these wonderful digital advances in a way that maintains the healthy brain that I have worked so hard to nurture.
I am going to sneak in a wee bit more psych-nerdy science to help you understand why disrupting your current smart phone relationship, and doing things differently, is actually an urgent matter.
There is a pretty incredible longitudinal study, The Monitoring the Future survey, which has asked students in grade 12 more than 1,000 questions every year since 1975 (and students in grade 8 and 10 since 1991).
This survey asks teens how happy they are and how much of their spare time is spent on various activities. Here are some highlights:
- Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on non screen activities are more likely to be happy. All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all non-screen activities are linked to more happiness.
- 10+ Hours of Screen Time: Teens who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56 % more likely to say they’re unhappy than those who devote less time to social media.
- 6-9 Hours of Screen Time: Teens those who spend six to nine hours a week on social media are still 47% more likely to say they are unhappy than those who use social media even less.
More Screen Time = More Sad
More Non-Screen Time = More Happy
Want to Be Happier?
GO BE AROUND YOUR FRIENDS!
For the love of your beautiful neural network, PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE, live your life for a while and stand near a human.
#BrainLove #PositiveComputing #Digital Dieting
3 Part Brain Love Series
In the next two blog posts I want to help you develop tools that prepare you to manage your wellbeing. No, you don’t have to break up with your phone, but you do need to take charge, be the boss and stop being subtly bullied by your phone.
Here are some of the highlights of the next two posts:
- Addiction to devices and social media.
- Looking for the “Like Button”.
- Distraction and instant gratification
- The distortion of reality and the effect on your self-esteem.
- Strategies for healthy smartphone relationships.
Join me and start DISRUPTING this tech invasion and
truly make your smart phone your BFF 🙂
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
New Year? Build Some Badass Positive Habits!
This is Your Year!
You want to make some changes, take on some new challenges and keep developing into your best self. Whatever your goals are, the most important thing to remember is that this is a messy process, a beautifully messy process.
Don’t expect smooth sailing, or perfection, or the easy way out, if you want to grow. Personal development and change is all about geting out of your comfort zone. If you want your life to be different you need to do things differently.
Doing things differently does not have to be painful! Sustainable change happens at a pace that is manageable for you. Focus on small shifts everyday that lead toward your goal. Accepting setbacks as learning, and not letting them derail you, is an important perspective to foster. It is all about the direction not perfection.
Perspectives, Strategies, Approaches and Ideas to Get You Started
- Sustainable Progress: Just take it one day at a time. Your goal is to move in the right direction with patience and the acceptance of setbacks as part of the learning. Don’t try to change everything all at once, pick a few areas to work on. Small daily habits lead to long term growth.
- Write Down Your Goals: Use a goal setting method such as S.M.A.R.T.
- Make Your Goals Visible: Post them on your wall, create a card that you carry with you or create a vision board to remind you of where you are heading and why. Use this to visualize yourself accomplishing your goals.
- Personal Wellness Approach: Surround yourself with positive influences. Reward yourself often when you are on the right track. Believe in yourself, and your ability to work through adversity, by consciously remembering the times when you have overcome difficulty in your life (write these down for future reference!). Acknowledge your positive attributes by also making a list of what you do well. Be kind to yourself by avoiding comparison with others (you have no idea what the real situation is for them).
- Recognize Your Progress: “Feeling” like you are not succeeding is not fact. Feelings are fleeting. Take a moment and capture where you started and where you are now. Look at the facts.
Feeling Stuck?
Not Sure How to Even Start Building New Habits?
Not Sure How to Get “Doing”?
and read this!
How to Cultivate the Habits that Matter to You
Need Some Productivity Hacks?
10 Ways to Be More Productive in 2018
One of the most important things that I have learned is that your goals need to be your own, not for someone else, if you want to achieve them. It is going to get tough at times and you need to be clear why you are working toward this goal. At times, you are going to want to quit, but if you can really see yourself achieving this goal and what it will do for you, it makes the hard times easier to work through 🙂
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
Coping, it’s Not the F-Word!
It is this time of year that really gets me thinking of what people do to get through tough times. It can be a difficult month for so many people. What I have noticed is that people seem to use the word “coping” like the f-word, like a bad word, like a descriptor of a mental state of messiness (f^@%ed). But that is not true at all. Coping rocks! Adversity is an opportunity to put your skills to the test, to grow, to increase your adaptability, to learn that you, indeed, can do it. Read on, learn some new stuff, try some new stuff and surprise yourself with your ability to deal, even when you thought you couldn’t.
Life is messy.
Coping is happiness
What changed my life, and the lives of so many of the students that I have learned from in my counselling practice, is that when you accept adversity, or barriers, as learning opportunities in your life you flourish. You start to rock this life because you learn to bounce back with all those wonderful skills you build.
Yes, there is always a moment when life knocks you on your ass, and you just lay there and whine, complain and use every word in the profanity realm (yes, I do that too). Then you go, “okay, that happened”, get sick of your pity party and then start doing something about it.
“Adversity can change you for the better, if you let it”
Me
Perspective Shift! YOLO!
So let’s start looking at coping differently…
“In psychology, coping means to invest conscious effort, to solve personal and interpersonal problems, in order to try to master, minimize or tolerate stress and conflict” (Brougham, Zail, Mendoza, Celeste & Miller, 2009)
Take Away:
Coping is a good thing. Try to stop using that word to describe a bad mental state. Coping means you are rocking it. Coping happens at many levels. Sometimes it is small, sometimes it is big. It about doing something, not how big or small.
“Problems are not problems. Coping is the problem.”
Virginia Satir
Success and happiness depend on how well you can cope with the untidy, confusing, embarrassing, crappy or messy situations of the day. In the book, Peoplemaking, Virginia Satir, a legendary social worker, talked about problems not being the problem. Expecting life to not have problems is a big part of the problem.
Put on the Work Clothes and Kick Butt!
Start with accepting that if you want things to be different, you have to do things differently. Also, accepting that we will always be out of our comfort zone when we are growing and becoming our best selves. So let’s take on these “problems” and build our ability to bounce back and take on this life you have.
Here are some ideas that I uses daily, and highly recommend:
Work first Play Later
- The Art of Delayed Gratification: The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment (got you curious don’t I?!?!) – one of my favourite psychology experiments. Watch it Now!
Feelings Are Not Facts!
Get Some Sleep!
- Thoughts racing? Here is a great resource to help you with adding some z’s to your thought bubble 🙂 Check this out!
- Check out this TEDTalk to learn strategies to calm your busy mind.
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
heather.drummond@mohawkcollege.ca
References
- Brougham, Ruby R.; Zail, Christy M.; Mendoza, Celeste M.; Miller, Janine R. (2009). “Stress, Sex Differences, and Coping Strategies Among College Students”. Current Psychology. 28 (2): 85–97. doi:10.1007/s12144-009-9047-0.
Stuck? Overwhelmed? Make the 4A’s Your BFF #Resilience
Awareness – Acceptance – Adjustment -Action
Spoiler!
What you are about to read is not a slag to millennials, but rather a compliment!
Dear Millenials,
I know that you take a bunch of criticism from Boomers and GenXers, some if of it deserved 😉 some misinformed and wrong. So to balance out this perception, I am going to share a good news story with you…
I have just come back to work after a province wide (24 colleges) faculty strike where I had the privilege of waking in circles, for little to no pay, taking a strong stand for quality education (which is super important). No, I didn’t want to be doing this but the cause was irresistible since education changed my life profoundly. Integrity means supporting your beliefs even when it is hard. I want you to have the incredible educational experience that I had so that you too can create your wildest dreams life.
So, we faculty were all very nervous coming back, wondering what we would be met with as the student-faculty paths started to intersect again. What I found was pretty incredible behaviour from you millennials 🙂
So many of you were stressed and overwhelmed, which is absolutely normal since you had no idea what the plan was for you to complete your semester. Within a week, after the plans were clear, the whole campus feeling transitioned from freaked out to functioning beautifully. Students listened, asked questions and started getting back to work and professors listened, asked questions and supported their students. So many of you decided that you would “lean in”, listen and figure out your next steps. You got all gritty and motivated and made the next step toward your success. Nicely done!
My advice to you is look around you at the students who are leaning into their studies, not complaining about what happened (staying stuck) but rather doing what it takes to get their semester completed successfully, one small step by one small step. There are some pretty great examples out there in your classes, sitting right beside you. I am so impressed with your behaviour and resilient abilities 🙂
Well, this got me thinking about resilience building and a model that really helps bring the process to life.
Awareness – Acceptance – Adjustment – Action
Awareness
The first step in building your resilience is awareness.
- Be aware of what is going on in your body and your brain. Where do you feel tension? Is your body telling you that something is wrong?
- What are you feeling? Emotions contain information. Notice what they are telling you about the situation and yourself. If you are saying that you can’t do this, well that is exactly what your body is reacting to.
- Try this! Mindfulness Practice is a great way to get started: Check this Out!
*Overall, awareness is reading your personal signs and knowing that there may be something that needs to change.
Acceptance
This is the part where you say, “okay, that happened”.
- Feelings: Accept the way you feel is the way you feel. Feelings are are part of our natural response to experience. It is absolutely okay to feel disappointment, shock, sadness, overwhelmed or incompetent. But…
- Remember that just because you feel a certain way, does not make it true. You may feel like you can’t handle something or that you are a failure, these are just feelings. Feelings are not facts!
- Also, you don’t have to stay living in those feelings. Be careful how you interpret the message.
- Behaviour: Accept the situation for what it is, what you can and can not control. Do something to change the situation or change how you are reacting to it. I had an amazing professor who called staying stuck in things you can’t change as ‘baby wishes’. You can wish and wish and wish, but that will never change what is. This was a very helpful way of conceptualizing my stuck inner tantrum-prone 4 year old 🙂
Adjustment
This is where the “bouncing back” part of resilience begins.
This is where you start to make adjustments in your approach so that you can improve the situation. Asking yourself, How can I shift my attention and energy to something helpful?
Here are some tools to get you started:
- Attitude Adjustment:
- Adopt the attitude of making change happen in your life, not waiting for others to do it for you. You are your own advocate, show up in your own life. #MakeSomethingGoodHappen
- Radical Acceptance: Check out this funky little therapy trick!
- Cultivate Clarity: You need to have an idea of who you want to be, what qualities you want to possess and what you would like to accomplish in your life. If you know where you are going, the tough times are easier to navigate.
- Take on the Challenge: Be a person who deals with anxiety and overwhelming emotions by approaching them, not avoiding them. The very thing that scares you is the thing you need to run toward, not away from. *You can also walk or even crawl because it is the direction matters 🙂
Action.
Take action and do something.
Do it consciously and intelligently. Use your emotional awareness, even if your choice is not to act immediately. Consider the last time you were in a state of indecisiveness.
How did you feel the moment you made a decision and took action?
What positive changes happened as a result?
Adapted from: 4 Steps for Building Your Resilience
Still don’t believe me that this helps?!?!
Here are some facts to convince you tough ones out there…
PsychNerd TIME!
It has been a while!
I just can’t stop myself from dropping some nerd on you today 🙂
Here is some evidence that emphasizes the importance of cultivating the skill of acceptance. I highly recommend adding this to your self-development life “to-do” list, especially if you want your life to be less overwhelm and drama and more “I got this” and “I can’t believe how this has changed my life”.
Acceptance
Buddhist teachings on happiness have long held that accepting that which cannot be changed or controlled is key to reducing suffering.
So some pretty smart researchers, Broadbent, de Quadros-Wander & McGillivray (2013), found that “perceived control” is a very important learned ability that fosters life satisfaction, happiness and wellbeing.
Perceived Control has Two Parts:
Primary Control (External): the ability to make desired changes in your environment. Yes, you need to assesses the situation and see if there is anything you can do to make it better….and then do it.
Secondary Control (Internal): making changes within yourself to adapt to your environment; the acceptance of what can’t be controlled externally. You change your thinking about it, or work hard at stop thinking about it (stop dwelling on it), and start regrouping and designing your next steps.
*Both types of control are EQUALLY important in determining overall life satisfaction. Secondary Control, internal control, helped the research participants to cope with the losses in primary control that they had experienced.
I will end with the words of advice from a very wise woman….
“Bring your best self to whatever the challenge is”
Jennifer (Reid-Bicknell) Trapman
Be strong enough to let go and wise enough to wait/work for what you deserve.
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
heather.drummond@mohawkcollege.ca
References
Broadbent J, de Quadros-Wander S, & McGillivray J (2013). Perceived Control’s Influence on Well-being in Residential Care vs. Community Dwelling Older Adults. Journal of Happiness Studies; DOI 10.1007/s10902-013-9452-9
Trouble Sleeping? Sprinkle a Little Gratitude into Your Life
Here in Canada, we are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend. I thought that this would be a great opportunity to get all nerdy on you and present some pretty great reasons to start infusing gratitude in your life.
The land that Canada is on was originally occupied, and cared for beautifully, by indigenous people. Since this land was taken over without negotiation, we Canadians could at least be grateful for the life that this land has given us. There is nothing worse that first world problem whining in a land of such prosperity. Ok, said my piece on why gratitude should be a given, but since it still seems to be a difficult task to master, let me tell you what a attitude of gratitude can do for your nocturnal angst.
Often the reason why people have difficulty getting to sleep, and sometimes remaining asleep, is what you think before you go to bed. Scared, fearful, anxious, freakout out thoughts keep you in a state of “fight or flight” in your brain. Seriously! Your brain kinda needs you to be alert if you are gonna use your fists or your legs to run away. So, my suggestion is to do the following:
Sleepy PsychNerd
There are some pretty smart, researchers at the University of Manchester in England who looked at how gratitude might affect people’s snooze time. Their study included over 400 adults of all ages, even some with diagnosed sleep disorders. They asked these folks to complete questionnaires about gratitude, sleep and pre-sleep thoughts, and these people provided some pretty cool information that resulted in the data being smooshed into patterns and trends that showed that gratitude was related to having more positive thoughts, and fewer negative ones, at bedtime. What this means is that gratitude leads to dozing off faster and sleeping longer and better.
Study Results
*With nerdspeak translations
Gratitude was uniquely related to:
- Total Sleep Quality: multiple measures of how you slept such as brain waves, duration, self-report of how you slept, etc.
- Subjective Sleep Quality: how you thought you slept
- Sleep Latency: fancy word, in sleep science, for the length of time that it takes to accomplish the transition from full wakefulness to sleep.
- Sleep Duration: how long you slept as observed by sleep scientists.
- Daytime Dysfunction: your amount of sleep mixed in with how well you function during the day.
Practicing Gratitude
Here is an awesome resource, with a free APP :), to get you started on the magical infusion of gratitude in your life.
UNSTUCK: A Practical Guide to Gratitude
You can even get weekly free tips sent right to your email. Seriously, stop whining and start noticing what is going well in your life and you will start to sleep better (an then be less whiny). Even I get whiny at times, but I really try hard to balance my negative thinking with expanding my life view by forcing myself to also see what is going well. Trust me, it works 🙂
Sleep Strategies
Surround your gratitude with healthy sleep habits.
I wish you all a weekend of getting some gratitude swirling around your brain . This is the first step to better snoozing’ 🙂
Dr. Heather Drummond, EdD (Counselling Psychology)
eSuccess-Coach * Passionate Advocate for Student Success
heather.drummond@mohawkcollege.ca
References
Wood A.M., Joseph, S., Lloyd, J., Atkins, S. (2009). Gratitude influences sleep through the mechanism of pre-sleep cognitions. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 66 43–48
