Really sugar is shaky because it originates from a straight stick see the play is Granny yes Grandma plus new style luv MaryJane so listen (Granny Apple last years blue ribbon production winner AKA) I, I, I ain't on the right side of my house Jane something or the other is in my room: finally after an extermination Grannie speaks once more "let my (old man) Pacman step on it". See it is home on the range so solo as it be truity speaks got a problem it is your own. But alter scenario: Z/n time; narcotics I got that candy s.p.ee..d360 Bar itch its' and Mickey Mouse for the Sultan 7 1 4er well a hem a hem, it went early in the morning like a smack chanting sugar structure 7 -one 1 +eleven and 4 do an ate 'er 8 eight 'er? Well that aint nice. NARCO says do you know them numbers change (response) Yes it is a FiX they are MF's Ope yeah Ope Douglas is it.
Surrounded by Alkaloid is both Mary and Grandma in an never ending circle of membership. French mandates declare put up their dukes... ZEN Pepsi can talk half Chocolate and your ole man Pacman down in Cuba posing as the worlds one and only Coffee Wizard "back 1:1" tis Coffee time... ||
Do you think you might have anxiety or know someone who does if not What’s the first image you have and you imagine someone with diagnosed anxiety? The popular comical image may have popped into your head with the frazzled jittery expression unkempt hair and profuse sweating the truth is some people go on to be successful and accomplish great things despite their battle against this mental illness This is known as high functioning anxiety isn’t a diagnosable condition And so it can be difficult to identify because those who have it don’t appear anxious However, the calm appearance doesn’t make it any less real serious or painful for those who have it Wondering now if you might fit in with this category Here are 12 things.
You may not realize you’re doing this because of your high functioning anxiety 1 you turn down things you want to go to You eagerly await events and get-togethers with friends, but when the day finally comes you often decide not to go at the very last minute sound familiar Even though you were looking forward to it for so long You’ve talked yourself out of attending because the thought of going out leaves you wracked with worry and dread – you dislike having to meet new people When someone says to you, there’ll be so many new people you can network with.
How do you feel? Mingling and social functions just aren’t your thing not due to shyness or introversion. You just don’t want to meet new people Sticking to your close-knit group of friends is comfortable and happy for you Introducing yourself or being introduced to someone else makes you feel self-conscious and worried about making a good first impression This worry is so intense that it sucks any enjoyment or intrigue out of meeting Someone new 3 you’re uncomfortable with slow responses The moment you send someone a text or leave them a voice message Do you start counting the seconds waiting for a response and the longer you wait? The more you feel anxious you overthink about why they haven’t replied yet and somehow take it to mean that you did something wrong Take a breath they probably like you just fine and their phone might be on mute For you get very little sleep We hear eight hours of sleep is required Can you remember the last time you got eight hours of sleep? We mean all at once not spread out over a few days You may be able to look at anxiety as the reason it may wake you up early and keep you from having a deep and relaxed sleep and also keep you up at night with thoughts racing through your mind Being shortchanged on both ends is why sleep deprivation is such a common complaint amongst those of us who suffer from high functioning anxiety Five you fixate on the tiniest details Is there any little thing you think about what’s keeping you up at night and depriving you of sleep Like how you said you to to the waiter when they told you to enjoy your meal? Or maybe why that person replied to your long text simply, okay? Logically, you realize this isn’t going to hugely impact your life.
The waiter won’t remember you and that other person was probably just busy Still you examine it this fixation is a common feature for people with high-functioning Anxiety you tend to obsess over trivial things Especially social interactions you analyze everything and spend hours and hours wondering what it could all mean and why? Six you get hung up on old conversations Speaking of social interactions. Do you find yourself playing back old social scenarios in your head thinking about different actions? You could have taken or Not Taken Things like maybe I shouldn’t have texted him or maybe I should have given that witty reply High-functioning anxiety makes you overthink every single social interaction You’ve ever had big or small and it’s not unusual for people who struggle with it to get hung up on the past regardless of how long ago it was 7 your unforgiving to yourself Do you feel upset at yourself when you make a mistake? Mulling over it and scolding yourself for months even years Well high functioning anxiety can often resemble perfectionism With one of its most problematic characteristics being that it turns us against ourselves whenever we mess up Your anxiety makes that mistake bigger in your point of view than it was in reality.
So getting over it feels difficult Eight you constantly compare yourself to others It’s normal to occasionally compare yourself to others but those with high-functioning anxiety. Take it to an extreme Are you overly concerned with how you measure up against your peers? Do you constantly worry that you’re not fulfilling your full potential? No matter how much you accomplish. Do you never feel like it’s enough? If so, you might be struggling with high-functioning anxiety 9 You’re a constant people pleaser Do you work hard to make others feel happy, even if it comes at the cost of your well-being Do you feel like you’ll never be good enough until you attain it? Everyone’s approval If you have high-functioning anxiety you may have convinced yourself that the only way others will ever accept you is if you go above and beyond what everyone expects of You all the time. 10 You need to keep yourself busy all the time Now we’re not talking about creating great Renaissance artworks or intricate business plans We just mean busy not necessarily productive If you’re not busy you feel Restless and tense.
So you try to occupy yourself with just about anything during your nails. Yes Alphabetizing your games. Okay, cleaning your perfectly working computer fan with a toothbrush It’s sure the truth is you don’t mind doing anything as long as it helps distract yourself from your thoughts and worries 11 You get very anxious whenever you think about the future What does the future mean to you for many in the future is the light of possibility something to eagerly look forward to? then for some, it can feel like Scrooge and that last spirit of Christmas who looked like the Grim Reaper if You’re not feeling hope but terror and dread for what’s to come This could be a sign of high-functioning anxiety can paralyze you with fear about the unknown and what’s not in your control it can keep you from truly living your life to the fullest because you always expect the worst to happen and 12 you always focus on the worst-case scenario Do you like to prep my prep? We mean do you say to yourself? Okay, so this is the worst possible outcome I’ll be ready for it.
If I’m ready for it. I can handle anything else. Do you then continue to expect the worst-case scenario? They might be high-functioning anxiety laying the plans This might lead people to misjudge you as a pessimist because ultimately you may try to share with them your preparations Where you see anticipating and being proactive they see a downer Unfortunately being so prepared often doesn’t allow you to just enjoy the moment Do you relate to any of the things listed here living with high-functioning anxiety is never easy? But most people may not see the emotional toll it can have on a person if you’re starting to feel overwhelmed with your anxiety There are many professional certified resources to reach out to Please like share and subscribe to the site to go for more psychology content.
We hope to see you in the next video and as always Thanks so much for watching.
As found on YouTubeSeanCooper🗯 The Shyness & Social Guy ⇝ The 3 WORST Mistakes You Must AVOID If You Want To Overcome Shyness (PLUS: 1 weird trick that targets the root biological cause of shyness so you can stop being nervous, awkward, and quiet around people…) By Sean Cooper, The Shyness & Social Anxiety Guy. The fact that you’re reading this article tells me you may have already reached a point where you feel your shyness is NOT going away on its own… or you fear it’s getting worse and worse. And I don’t want you to waste one more day living a life where you feel left out, bored, or depressed because you don’t have the relationships which would make you happy. That’s why I’ve put together this page to help you avoid the worst mistakes that keep many people stuck with shyness for years… http://flywait.darekw.hop.clickbank.net/ often giving up hope of ever improving as you watch other people have interesting “normal” lives without you. Yet this doesn’t have to happen.
[Music] hi everyone we it’s like to go would love to thank you for making us a digital family of more than 2 million it’s with your continued support that we’re able to bring you new content regularly our mission is to help everyone become more self aware of the various psychological factors that affect our lives one such factor that we hear about on a daily basis is anxiety but it’s important to know when it’s anxiety only and wanted to become something more so let’s find out anxiety in general is our normal reaction to stress in fact it can be a good thing anxiety motivates you to accomplish your assignments to study harder for a test and it can warn you when you’re in a dangerous situation it informs you to be extra vigilant about your environment the fight or flee generalized anxiety disorder or GED on the other hand is a full-fledged anxiety disorder that involves intense and excessive anxiety as a key factor along with other debilitating symptoms differentiating between normal anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder or di D can be tricky how do you know especially if you’re a little more anxious than others whether or not your anxiety is significant enough to qualify as a disorder so let’s begin with an introduction to the main concepts revolving around the – one normal anxiety is more of a friend than a foe according to the anxiety and depression Association of America anxiety is a normal and often healthy emotion which is characterized by feelings of tension worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure when we face potentially harmful or worrying triggers feelings of anxiety are not only normal but necessary for survival since the earliest days the approach of predators an incoming danger set off alarms in the body and allowed evasive action these alarms were in the form of a raised heartbeat sledding and increased sensitivity to surroundings danger causes a rush of adrenaline a hormone in the brain which in turn triggers the anxious reactions in a process called the fight-or-flight response this prepares humans to physically confront or flee any potential threats to sea all these are classic characteristics of normal anxiety such traits came in handy for our predecessors but we don’t have to be in a constant state of fight-or-flight anymore so running from larger animals is a less pressing concern in present times than it would have been for early humans anxieties now revolve around work money family life health and other crucial issues that demand a person’s attention without necessarily requiring the fight-or-flight reaction the nervous feeling before an important life event are during a difficult situation is a natural echo of the original fight-or-flight reaction it can still be essential to survival anxiety about being hit by a car when crossing the street for example means that a person will instinctively look both ways to avoid danger when the duration or severity of an anxious feeling is out of proportion to the original trigger or stressor physical symptoms such as increased blood pressure and nausea may also develop these responses are what moved normal anxiety beyond into gid generalized anxiety disorder GA D is when the trouble starts generalized anxiety disorder involves persistent and excessive worry that interferes with daily activities people with symptoms of GA D tend to always expect disaster and can stop worrying about health money family work or school in people with GID the worry is often unrealistic or out of proportion from the situation daily life becomes a constant state of worry fear and dread eventually the anxiety so dominates the person’s thinking that it interferes with daily functioning including work school social activities and relationships there are several key differences that make them distinguishable here are a few ways you can tell the two apart one presence of a stressor usually a normal anxiety occurs in response to a stressor such as an exam an upcoming interview a fight with a friend or a new job when you struggle with GID you’re anxious most or almost all of the time even when you can’t spot the source of the stress for instance people a generalized anxiety disorder can have a difficult time just getting through the day even seemingly small responsibilities like paying the bills make them feel anxious – intensity and length gid produces intense and excessive emotional responses even if you’re reacting to a stressor your anxiety is disproportionate to that stressor many people are on the edge before an exam but a person with jad might be anxious several weeks beforehand and will experience intense symptoms right before and during the exam also normal anxiety is fleeting while gid is ongoing and the feelings can last weeks or months three physical symptoms of jad excessive anxiety and wary aren’t the only symptoms that accompany GID there are physical symptoms – dizziness lightheadedness sweating trembling heart pounding headaches and nausea you feel like you can’t breathe can’t talk or have to go to the bathroom frequently people at jad also report feeling detachment and disconnected from reality they feel like they can’t think straight and have difficulty concentrating psychological symptoms are also present individuals experience racing or negative thoughts and are unable to concentrate and have worries about day to day things or impairment when you struggle with GID it affects your entire life it impairs or interferes with your schoolwork job and daily life avoidance is a symptom of jad and can be quite debilitating in other words excessive anxiety can cause you to avoid normal activities you might skip class miss a test stop going to work procrastinate grocery shopping or avoid anything that makes you feel anxious and 5 no control most people can reduce and control their anxiety through a variety of coping techniques and the ability to calm oneself however people at GID have significant difficulty finding relaxation calm and time away from their worries if you have more difficulty than other people you know in controlling your anxiety it may be more than normal anxiety did you often find yourself confused about these two conditions do these factors easier to differentiate between the two do let us know in the comments below if you are struggling with overwhelming anxiety and you can relate to some of these factors don’t hesitate to seek help from a mental health professional and subsequent treatment also remember to share this video with someone you think might benefit from these as well don’t forget to click the like button and subscribe for more content as always thanks for watching
As found on YouTubeSeanCooper🗯 The Shyness & Social Guy ⇝ The 3 WORST Mistakes You Must AVOID If You Want To Overcome Shyness (PLUS: 1 weird trick that targets the root biological cause of shyness so you can stop being nervous, awkward, and quiet around people…) By Sean Cooper, The Shyness & Social Anxiety Guy. The fact that you’re reading this article tells me you may have already reached a point where you feel your shyness is NOT going away on its own… or you fear it’s getting worse and worse. And I don’t want you to waste one more day living a life where you feel left out, bored, or depressed because you don’t have the relationships which would make you happy. That’s why I’ve put together this page to help you avoid the worst mistakes that keep many people stuck with shyness for years… often giving up hope of ever improving as you watch other people have interesting “normal” lives without you. Yet this doesn’t have to happen.
foreign [Music] I want to say this to you because a lot of times and I make the same mistake I said to you I’m going to speak honestly to you I make the same mistake sometimes it feels like God must be so far away or I must be so far away from God you ever felt that way good here’s the funny part it’s usually in the times when I think I’m far away from God or God is far away from me that he’s the closest [Music] [Music] yeah to this house. ➫ Watch The Video Below To Find Out How YOU Have Been Programmed To Study The Wrong Way All Your Life And Because Of This, YOU Have Achieved Far Less Than What You’re Capable Of!
As found on YouTube
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This episode was pre-recorded
as part of a live continuing education webinar on-demand CEUs are
still available for this presentation through all CEUs registered at all
CEUs comm slash counselor toolbox I’d like to welcome everybody today to the
presentation love me doesn’t leave me addressing fears of abandonment the purpose of this
presentation is really to help us help clients increase their awareness of their story including
beliefs about behavioral reactions to situations that trigger their fear of abandonment so how
do we do that well the first thing we need to figure out is what fear of abandonment is and how
can we identify it in a clinical set setting then we’re going to explore the concept of schemas or
core beliefs and these are things that are formed in early childhood you know if you remember
prior classes we’ve talked about early childhood cognition is generally very dichotomous in children
Young children can’t look at that gray area so these schemas if they’ve gone
unchecked can lead to some very extreme belief patterns which lead us into common traps in
thinking reacting and relationships if your schemas are based on all-or-nothing you either
love me or you’re going to leave me hence the name of the book then your reactions are going to
tend to be more extreme and more all-or-nothing which increases anxiety because then anytime
a person who perceives any amount of disapproval is going to go to that extreme so we
want to talk about bringing it more toward the middle line and helping people learn to appreciate
and love themselves for themselves while they may not approve of the behaviors of other people they can
still love other people so just because somebody doesn’t approve of your behavior doesn’t mean
necessarily that they’re going to abandon you so we’re going to talk about that and then we’ll
learn skills necessary to help people accept their past as part of their story maybe they do
have a lot of abandonment issues and you know some people do and it is painful it cuts
to the core especially when those abandonment issues occur in early childhood when kids going
what that does so we’re going to talk about that and help people learn how to integrate it into
their present and we’ll learn the skills necessary to acknowledge that their past does not have to
continue to negatively impact them in the present so if they were abandoned when they were a child
you know we need to deal with that however if they continue to expect that every significant person
in their life will abandon them notice I use the word every because we’re still in those extremes
then they’re going to think that the past is negatively impacting them in the present so we’ll talk about
how to sort of moderate those belief systems how does this impact recovery whether you’re talking
about addiction or mental health issues connection is a basic human need we are not meant for the
most part to be Hermits in the middle of the woods there are introverts and in my husband’s an
introvert he has a couple of excellent friends he needs quiet time each day he doesn’t need to
be surrounded by people and he’s fine but I mean we’ve got human connection he’s not going to be
one that’s just going to you know move out to the middle of nowhere I’m an extrovert on the other
hand and I tend to have a lot of acquaintances and a lot of friends I draw energy from
being around other people so just because someone doesn’t have 150 acquaintances doesn’t
necessarily mean they don’t need connections so we want to recognize that connection is a basic
human need when infants are born they are put on their mother’s chest when we embrace each
other whether it’s mother and child or friends or whatever a chemical called oxytocin is released
and it’s our bonding chemical we are programmed we are hardwired for connection and oxytocin is a
very rewarding chemical so we want to recognize this that if people are so afraid of abandonment
that they push everybody away what are they losing as far as quality of life as infants and children
survival is dependent upon the relationship with the primary caregiver so if mom or dad wasn’t
happy if mom or dad was rejecting the young child was pretty much helpless to think about a child
who’s growing up in a family that’s just riddled with addiction and mental health issues and the
primary caregiver or caregivers are completely emotionally unavailable they may be physically
there but they may be so high or so depressed or so psychotic that they cannot attend to the
child’s needs what does that communicate to the child the child feels abandoned the child
feels a sense of neglect for people’s beliefs about other people and relationships were formed largely
based on their interactions with their caregivers so if this child was going Mom I’m hungry and
nothing happened or worse yet child was going Mom I’m terrified and nothing happened or they
were just given a pacifier and told to shut up then that is they were told they were communicated
to that, their beliefs their feelings their wants, and their needs were not important so they were
being rejected healthy relationships serve up as a buffer against stress so even if they had all
these negative experiences in early childhood teenage years you know maybe up until
they walked into your office it doesn’t mean it has to continue and how much can they gain from
having healthy relationships with a lot of clients that I work with who have pretty significant
abandonment issues can’t even fathom trusting someone enough to be in a healthy relationship so
we’re going to talk about how to sort of ease into that because you’re not going to say don’t let
your past influence your future and we’ll wave a magic wand and they’re ready to trust people
even once you point out that what happened in the past was largely not their fault or maybe not
even if their fault at they they’re still going to have difficulty not accepting responsibility
and going everybody leaves me so what talk about that addressing beliefs that formed as a result
of these relationships the past dysfunctional relationships we can help people create a
new understanding of events was mom or dad or caregiver being rejecting were you being
abandoned emotionally and physically because of you or because mom or dad just was able to do what
they needed to do to be a caregiver then they were doing the best they could with
the tools they had but it wasn’t enough to meet your needs so we want to talk about alternate
explanations for why parents and caregivers may have behaved in that way if you have a young child well
an adult now but who was put up for adoption or abandoned by their caregivers at a young age the
a young child was probably very confused because one moment their caregiver was there in the
next moment they were in the system so they were trying to figure out what did they do wrong and why
doesn’t that person love me anymore it must be me because children really can’t see well you
know mom is not able to function as a parent right now or dad is having difficulty coping we
want to help people better understand themselves in their reactions so that when they start getting
this urge to just cut all ties and be like you know what fine you know I’ll take my ball and go
home no problem what does that mean at there’s a certain point in all relationships in all healthy
relationships that you know sometimes people have to distance themselves from one another because
it’s becoming dysfunctional but for the most part, people will in relationships encounter
hiccups will encounter disagreements but in healthy relationships, they can work through
them in relationships with people who fear abandonment there are going to be two extremes
there’s going to be complete compliance and please don’t leave me or complete disengagement
and whatever I don’t care the final thing we want to do is help make people more conscious of
what they’re doing so they can make healthy decisions in their current relationships so when
they get that urge to either comply or disengage is that a healthy normative reaction right now
or are you reacting out of your past experiences the abandonment experience in childhood survival
depends on caregivers a four-year-old left alone for five days is not going to do so well you
know they may be able to scavenge food but once the food runs out where do they get it you
know there’s only so much that a child can do an infant can’t even get food
so survival depends on their caregivers and if their caregivers fail to meet those needs there are
high levels of anxiety and I will refer regularly to emotionally unavailable caregivers
and emotionally absent in addition to physically unavailable or absent because some parents and I
worked in the field of co-occurring disorders for over two decades and some parents just they are so
overwhelmed and so paralyzed by life itself they can’t even attend to anything else that’s going
on they’re doing good just to be breathing but if they have a child and that child’s needs are
getting neglected and fear of abandonment is a natural survival response when your food source goes away
what happens you start to freak the freak out so this is normal we look at this and say that that’s
that’s natural if a child thinks about the first time you take a child to kindergarten or pre-k
or daycare or whatever it is and you drop the child off even if they’re securely attached what
do they cry because they’re afraid that mom or dad won’t come back and they’re afraid of
this new situation that’s changed securely attached children will you know to adjust and then be happy to
see mom or dad when they come back but the point is there’s that initial oh crap reaction meeting
biological needs and safety are key triggers for anxiety at any age so we’re talking about housing
we’re talking about safety we’re thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy if somebody is not meeting the
child’s needs or if the person is not getting their needs met then they may have high levels
of anxiety and I add to the safety concept not only physical safety but also emotional safety
people need to feel safe in their heads and they need to be free from emotional abuse when
focused on survival people can’t focus elsewhere so if they’re not getting their physical needs
met guess what you know if you take somebody who is in pain who is sick who is hungry and who is
homeless are they going to work on self-esteem are they going to work on relationship skills
no, they’re focused on survival they need to have those basic needs met they need to have a certain
sense of security if they are in a situation that is dangerous physically obviously they’re not
going to be focusing on how I can better myself when they’re worried about somebody coming in
and hurting them physically likewise, it’s hard to focus on how can I better myself when everywhere
they turn they perceive someone telling us you’re not okay you’re stupid you’re lazy you’re bad
you were the worst decision I ever made in my life they can’t focus on personal growth when
all they’re getting is these verbal beatdowns all the time so people need to have acceptance if
they don’t have acceptance kind the opposite of acceptance is abandonment two kinds of extremes
again we’ll bring it back to the middle every stressful situation becomes a crisis the in
securely attached child now you can go back to and read Bowlby’s work on secure and all that kind
of stuff great reading but for the short version of this presentation remember that certs securely
attached children feel anxiety when their parents leave but then they can adjust and they’re happy
to see the parents return in securely attached children feel a great amount of anxiety when
their parents leave and are terrified that mom or dad won’t come back and then when mom or dad does
come back it’s your very very clingy or very very rejecting so with this child that’s in securely
attached it’s just like one to a hundred as soon as something happens that they think they may be
abandoned you see this pattern again in adults who are still struggling with these abandonment issues
that schema that they’ve formed and I’m getting a little ahead of myself that schema that they form
says if you let this person at your site or if this person disagrees with you or if this person
criticizes you they’re rejecting you and they’re going to abandon you so we want to you know check
in with those cognitions and look for trying to make those thoughts a little bit more helpful in
infancy or early childhood if caregivers were away for long periods because of work because
of the military if they were in jail if they just chose to be away or if they passed away children
may experience some abandonment issues now if the parents are away because a parent is a way
because of work or military or even jail and the other parent can help the child work through it
there’s much less drama if you will there’s much less issue with abandonment issues in totality
now if it’s whatever parent it is if the pay if the father happened to be the one went away
that person may have some residual issues with adult figures in their life that they need to deal
with but they may not know I’m not saying that every child of a soldier or a service person
is going to have abandonment issues that are so not true however if the experiences of the time
apart was not handled in a way where the child felt secure then it could have consequences that
are going into the present day if in early childhood caregivers were consistently or unpredictably
physically or emotionally present so think about a parent who has major recurrent major depressive
disorder addiction or is just ill-equipped to deal with a child when I was working at the treatment
center in Florida I had 14 15 16 year old young women coming in and having babies and you know
what does a 14-year-old know about giving birth and raising a child it’s not that they weren’t
necessarily trying you know they didn’t have great role models raising them in most cases and so they
don’t have anything to work with they don’t know how to be a parent they’ve never been taught so
it’s not always I don’t want to pathologize or make the parents look like bad people because
I believe that people do the best they can with the tools they have at any given time parents
don’t choose to be sucky parents sometimes it happens but I don’t believe they choose to
anyhow off my soapbox in later childhood as the child becomes elementary school middle school
age if they’re a poor family fit or they feel like they’re the black sheep they just don’t
have the same beliefs that the other people do they don’t seem to have the same interest that
their family does they may not feel accepted especially if the family’s going no that’s wrong
to believe and invalidate them so going back to that psychological safety if they’re constantly
being told their ideas are stupid they’re wrong they have the wrong point of view and they can
feel very isolated something can happen that ruptures the relationship with the primary care
giver whether it’s abuse or you know some other trauma and introduction of a new less
emotionally or physically safe caregiver can also lead to abandonment if the child feels like the
biological caregiver chose a new spouse over him or her say if you see where I’m going with that
because if this new person comes in and is less safe is abusive in some way emotionally physically
sexually it doesn’t matter the child is going to feel like they didn’t have a voice the child
is going to feel like the biological caregiver didn’t care and brought this other person in
any way which leads to feelings of rejection and abandonment so what are the reactions
fight-or-flight whenever there’s a threat we fall back to fight or flight or freeze but we’ll
talk about that when there’s a threat our anxiety goes up and we say in the past in these kinds of
situations, if I fought, did I succeed if so then we’ve got fights in the past did I succeed, and if
the answer’s no then the response is to flee pretty simply so anger towards someone unavailable
if they got angry and felt like it got them some sort of acceptance from somewhere that might
be the prevailing reaction sadness when someone goes away a sense of helplessness this person
just left me shame or self-anger about feeling needy or about pushing someone away with fears related
to rejection and isolation, nobody will ever love my loss of control or the unknown everybody
always leaves see how I’m using these extreme words again and fear of failure I can’t maintain
a relationship nobody wants to be with me because I’m not good enough so the questions for clients
in these situations what caused these fears as a child so when someone starts to have these fears
about a relationship, if the relationship starts to get rocking first question is what is it that
you’re afraid of in this situation if you stay together what is it that you’re afraid of if this
the person leaves what is it you’re afraid of and how likely is it that this person is going to leave
based on whatever is going on right now so let’s get some objective evidence here and another
the tool you can use is the challenging questions worksheet in cognitive processing therapy if
you google it challenging questions worksheet CPT or cognitive processing therapy helps
people walk through the logic in some of their cognitions and identify some known as unhelpful
distortions so then after you figure out kind of what the fear is then we say what caused that as
a child in the past when you felt like this what caused that and how was this reasonable or helpful
you know in the past when you felt like this and you reacted in anger what was the outcome and
how was it helpful in some sort of way you know did it get somebody to pay attention to you did
it gets somebody to come to comfort you, okay so you were identifying the function of the current
behaviors and then we want to say what causes these fears now a lot of times it’s the same symp
or similar stuff but we could say how are these reactions now unhelpful because as independent you
know adult-type people we can fend for ourselves we can put food on the table we can go to work we
can do we can function independently whereas this is a child we couldn’t you know there were just
some barriers to that does that mean again that we should live in isolation and say well
I don’t need anybody no that’s not what I’m saying what I’m saying is is these fears that
are overwhelming about abandonment that causes people to push others away or cling on like you
know whatever clings on uh are these reactions helpful in the present day you know do you still
need to hold on to people like there’s no tomorrow temperament based on their temperament children
need different types and amounts of caregiver interaction um some children are wide open and
easily overstimulated you know my son was that way when he was born well to this very day um
when he’s awake he is like the Energizer Bunny on methamphetamine I’m he’s just going going
going and talking and talking to himself and he needed a lot of structure and he would get
overstimulated easily but we were able to help him figure out how to handle that instead of
getting mad at him for what seemed to be acting out we were able to help him channel and figure
out when he needed to take a break the introvert may not need as much one-on-one attention with
the caregiver may need a comforting word here and there but they may not need the amount of
the attention that an extrovert may need an extrovert tends to need more interaction with parents with
family with other people because they draw energy and they think while they talk and they think
while they talk with other people so they feel a lot more isolated if they are isolated so we
want to understand the person’s temperament and how they may or may not have gotten their needs
met how they may have been told they were wrong and invalidated when they were younger and you
can hear some of this is kind of going towards Linda hands DBT environment um but what we want to
look at what you need now how can we create an environment that’s accepting and welcoming
to you now based on their needs and caregivers’ reactions children form schemas or core beliefs
about the world and others so if they state their opinion and it’s squashed or it’s ridiculed then
they’re going to form this core belief that it is not safe ever to share my opinions because I am
always wrong now we’re talking about children here but a lot of times think back for yourself there I
think most of us have at least some all-or-nothing dichotomous thoughts that come in every once in
a while and you know we can catch them but if these dichotomies go unaddressed the person starts
feeling very lost and very abandoned because it’s all-or-nothing important points about children
under 7 from 8 to 12 children are developing alternative cognitive skills they’re
starting to be able to think abstractly they’re starting to be able to see the gray area and
alternate explanations but even you know during that period so zero to 12 children are having
difficulty envisioning all the possibilities so anything that happens before that we want to
encourage them to look at the schemas that were formed and challenge them to examine whether they
are currently accurate and helpful children think dichotomously when they’re that young it’s all
or nothing it’s good or bad it’s not kind of sort of something it is what it is I mean even think
about thinking back to grades that we would get it was satisfactory or unsatisfactory there was
no ABCD F when we were in elementary school and I don’t remember middle school then it was a
dichotomous grading scale you either did it or you didn’t children are egocentric so whatever happens
they say what was it about me that made this happen if mom’s in a bad mood what did I do if
you know Mom is rejecting stupid well I’m stupid children are very egocentric so you take
all or nothing combined with all about me and you can see we’re creating the perfect storm of children
can only focus on one aspect at a time when I work with adult clients you know they come in and they
tell me that they had an interaction with their boss he was walking down the hall and he was in a
bad mood and I just knew I did something and so we talked about that and I’m like how do you know
that because he had it he had an angry look on his face okay what are some other possibilities what
else might have been going on with him then and a lot of times we can brainstorm
ideas about a call he just got or where they just left a meeting that didn’t go so well or who
knows what else in this day and time when we’ve got our cell phones and PDAs and everything
there are a lot of things that can trigger a mood besides just whoever you pass in the hallway
children can’t think about those other things that might have triggered the mood they see somebody
unhappy and they’re like I’m sorry um so we want to encourage as adults we want to encourage them
to say all right what are the other possibilities even as children I try to work with my kids
to encourage them to look at alternate reasons why somebody may be acting a certain way children
can’t think abstractly and consider those possible options um even with kids you know knee-high
to a grasshopper if you’re in a situation and maybe in a store and somebody behaves not kindly
to you, you can talk about that later with the kids and say you know that was kind of unpleasant to go
through what you think might have caused that and brainstorm three ideas my favorite number is
three I don’t know why but brainstorm three ideas for alternate explanations for why that person
may have been in an unpleasant mood if children learn to do this when they’re younger it’s a
a lot easier to transition to as adults schemas are a broad way of perceiving things based on
memories feelings and thoughts it’s our go-to perception of what something’s going
to be like we have schemas about everything if you go to church you have a schema about what’s
going to happen when you go to your mother’s house you have a schema about how mom’s going to
behave and what’s going to happen we form these it’s our brain’s short shortcut instead of having
to analyze every situation it says oh I remember this been here before it’s probably going to be
like X Y Z unfortunately sometimes things change and one of the things we see in addictions
treatment as is as caregivers into recovery and get a hold on it and start working that
a new way of life and sobriety and all that stuff old family members or family members still expect
that old behavior they have that schema that when Jane comes in this is what’s going to happen
because they’re remembering how she behaved and acted in her addictive self so we want to help
people identify their schemas and check them sometimes they’re still accurate sometimes not so
much schemas that trigger abandonment fear center around the cell acceptability is this person going
to like me which is one of the reasons we do a lot of self-esteem work in reducing abandonment fears
because we want to reduce the need for people to solicit external validation we want them to say
I’m all that and a bag of chips and I would love to play with you but if you don’t want to play
I’m okay with that love ability if they were told they were unlovable if they perceived
they were unlovable then in the present, they may fear isolation they may fear that they’re not
lovable so they will try to do whatever they can or likewise they will build a lead wall that is 5
feet thick around them so nobody can hurt them they may have fears about their own
competence you know thinking back to Erikson you never thought some of these theorists from the
past would keep coming up even in current practice but they do if a child going through that period
of industry versus inferiority Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development and they felt
like a failure all the time or they were never good enough the parents never recognized their
positive achievements then they may question their competence and feel like a failure if they
feel like a failure they may feel they may believe that nobody wants to be around them so they will
leave so if I fail they will leave and fears may center around adaptability some people are not
able to tolerate any loss of control they’re just like that they’re holding on with a death grip to
the relationship to anything that’s going on and it starts to go wonky they are going to freak out
so we want to look at what does it mean if you’re not in control of everything what does it mean
if you trust that this person is going to do the next right thing if you are doing the next right
thing as well schemas that trigger abandonment fears can also be sent around center around others
if someone is rejecting distant cold or is unable to handle the person’s needs then the person may not
feel acceptable so if they are in relationships with people like this then we need to look at is
Is it you who’s not acceptable or is something else going on with that person that may be making
them unable to deal with anybody else’s stuff right now the person may feel isolated if other
people are absent if people fail to keep promises they may feel like nobody’s ever there for them
competence if other people are always critical then the person will question their competence
and if others are unpredictable a lot of the time when people who have anxiety about abandonment
they come from situations where other people have not been predictable or if they were they were
unpredictably absent and relationship of self to others if they are afraid about their ability to
relate with others if they’re afraid of rejection if they’re afraid that if they start to love they
will be rejected and then they will be isolated forever if they are afraid of the unknown and they
I just want consistency more than anything and as soon as consistency starts to waver a little
bit because as we grow things change and people with abandonment issues don’t like things to
change because that’s not predictable and that’s not consistent so they may have difficulty if one
the person starts to change what they do I see this a lot not saying that it’s an abandonment issue
necessarily but when law enforcement officers retire you know because they can retire after
20 years so they may start a new career and that causes a lot of change schedule changes
they’re not law enforcement anymore and the spouse sometimes has culty adjusting to it as
does the retired officer but controllability if the person holds on to relationships and
everything in their life with white knuckles because they’re so afraid if they let go of
control that they are going to disappear or disintegrate then if something seems like it’s not
in their control, it’s going to be a catastrophe so attachment Styles secure if there’s an
emotionally available caregiver the child will seek the caregiver for comfort and guess
what the caregiver will be there and will more often than not meet the need for comfort with the
the correct type of comfort so hungry cold scared kind of following the child’s upset when the caregiver
leaves especially in new situations but the child gets over it it’s not a child that’s going to sit
there and cry for eight hours and then the child’s happy when the caregiver returns in this kind of
attachment the child learns to trust others will be responsive to their needs and validate their
needs a child learns to be self-reliant and try new things but if they fail they know they can
return to the home base they can go out and go well that didn’t go as planned and the caregiver will be
there to say alright let’s figure out what to do next not You are such a failure the child learns
to adapt to a variety of situations because when they’ve been faced with something that’s a little
scary caregivers have been there to kind of coach them on and go you got this it’s scary I got it but
you can do it the child learns to deal with stress because the caregivers are there to coach them
or to process it with them afterward because the caregiver is not always physically there but if
you’ve got children you know sometimes they’ll come home from school and they’ve had a really
bad day and you’d pull them aside and go you know what’s going on let’s talk about it so in this way
the child learns to deal with stress and the child learns to have accurate expectations of others
in the secure attachment, emotionally available situation remember children are egocentric so
if mom’s upset the child goes what did I do or Oh my gosh I hope mom’s not going to leave in
a secure situation sometimes the parent has to say something like Mommy had a really bad day at
work today has nothing to do with you I need to go take a timeout that helps a child understand
that you know what it’s not all about me and I can understand that sometimes moms upset for
something besides me and I can understand that if moms Up said it doesn’t mean she’s going to
leave so obviously, this is the ideal situation avoidant attachment styles the rejecting or harsh
caregiver the person depends less on the caregiver for security because every time they go saying mom
Mom I had a nightmare can I come into bed with you they’re met with going back to your bed and the
caregiver rolls over it’s not oh I’m sorry you had a nightmare let me walk you back to your room
when the child is separated from the caregiver there’s little response when the caregiver leaves
or returns because the kids like what uses that person to me the child learns not to depend on
a caregiver for comfort connection or security now imagine yourself a four-year-old child or a
six-year-old child thinking I can’t count on my caregivers for comfort connection or security
that must be a terrifying place to be and I can see why you would develop some pretty strong
defense mechanisms the ambivalent relationship between the cave caregiver is inconsistent or can bow can’t
talk caregiver is inconsistent or chaotic this is true in a lot of homes where there are
at least one parent who is battling some sort of addiction or mental health issue so the parent
may or may not be available you don’t know what the good days are going to be you don’t know what
the bad days are going to be so the child may be anxious and afraid to try new things or explore
because they’re like things are going good right now I don’t want to top will be an applecart just
going to sit here and ride it out a child may be clinging and demanding trying to elicit a response
remembering negative attention is better than no attention at all and the child is upset when the
caregiver leaves but also inconsolable when the caregiver returns because you know I was upset
I was scared you went away but you came back and that’s good but I don’t know when you’re going
to go away again and if you’re going to come back so it’s this constant anxiety of abandonment
core abandonment beliefs all people leave so we want to challenge that by identifying exceptions
mistrust people will hurt reject take advantage of me or just not be there when I need them you
know what that’s true sometimes because people have their stuff so when this happens let’s
look at whether it’s happening all the time and/or let’s also look at what else might be going on
with that person that caused them to hurt reject take advantage or not be there when you needed
the emotional deprivation I never get the love I need nobody understands me cares about me or even
ever tries to meet my needs here how dramatic and extreme that is so one of the things as clinicians
we can do is say if you are getting the love you needed what would it look like what
would be different what is it that you need that you’re not getting once we identify
then we can create a plan to get it but a lot of times other people don’t understand or may not
be able to interpret what you need so let’s help let’s try to figure out how to make this happen
nobody understands me alright let’s talk about why that might be and you know let’s look at some
people who’ve kind of gotten a grasp sometimes with clients with abandonment beliefs nobody
understands me translates to I don’t give a buddy a chance and I cut them off as soon as they become
confused and because they associate confusion with rejection so we might talk about communication
skills we might work on what it is that people don’t understand and how to better communicate
that and where to find people who have similar interests nobody ever even tries to meet my needs
you know where I would look for exceptions but I would also challenge the person and I would
say when do you meet your needs what do you do to take care of yourself a lot of times
clients with abandonment beliefs are so freaked out and afraid of being abandoned that they’re
not taking care of themselves either they’re just living and paralyzed going back to fight
flee or freeze they’re living a paralyzed state of I want to be loved but if I love I’m gonna get
hurt and I don’t know what to do they don’t even love themselves so we want to start talking about
if you had your best friend you know create this best friend persona what would he or she say to
you what would he or she do right now let’s try to help you understand yourself with mindfulness exercises
are good here because a lot of times these clients don’t understand themselves they’ve got
so much anxiety they’re so afraid and they don’t know where it’s coming from because a lot of
it has been going on for so long defectiveness if people knew me they would reject me you know
not everybody’s going to like you why do you need everybody to like you why is it important that
everybody likes you and failure I don’t measure up and I’m not able to succeed I usually put pull
out the obnoxious quote that if you haven’t failed you haven’t tried and we talked about what it
means to get outside your comfort zone and you’re not going to be perfect at everything you’re not
going to be Michael Phelps you’re not going to be the president of the United States that doesn’t
mean that you’re a failure that doesn’t mean you’re a failure so what things are you
good at what can you and have you succeeded at and go back and look over things like you graduated
high school not everybody does that you know raised a family, not everybody does that so we
want to challenge all nothing’ languages we want to look for exceptions and we want to look
for in what ways can you provide yourself the validation so you don’t fear abandonment you don’t
need other people to tell you you’re okay because guess what you’re telling yourself I’m okay and
before I go on to unhelpful reactions I do want to point out that if we tell people to tell
themselves you know I’m okay that sounds great but if they don’t believe it if it’s not supported
with evidence, it’s probably going to slow their growth because they’re sitting there going
telling themselves I’m okay and in the back of their head going you know you’re not so we need
to get that internal critical voice to kind of hush up by providing the person with the objective
evidence of why they’re okay why they’re good enough and that’s a slow process it’s not going
to happen overnight but encourage people to figure out why they believe what they believe and then
you can work from there okay unhelpful reactions fighting with someone you don’t want to leave
me because so the person may engage in a dominant sort of posturing behavior aggression hostility
blaming and criticizing trying to tear down the other person to say you know what I don’t care
and it would help if you were grateful that I’m in your life recognizing and seeking to get attention and validation
or approval so if they feel something’s going wrong in a relationship they may start trying to
do something to gain recognition to prove that they’re worthy of a relationship for what they do
versus who they are manipulation and exploitation said lying justifying I did this because you made
me so sometimes we all occasionally do things that aren’t the nicest people who fear abandonment
have difficulty saying you know what I screwed up and they’re more likely to go you made me do
I wouldn’t have done it if you would have X Y & Z people again who are worried about a relationship
is going to fall apart and may also make excuses for other people’s inappropriate behavior it’s like
you know I hate what this person does but if I don’t make excuses for it if I condemn it
then this person is going to leave in counseling we can talk about the difference between loving a
person and loving a person’s behavior you know I love my kids to death there is no question about
that but some of their behavior makes me want to climb a wall I’m very clear to separate from them
the difference between the behavior that I dislike and them because you know like I said I love them
to pieces and we want to help people start making this differentiation if they don’t do it already
and clinging and chasing is the other fight reaction stalking and messaging somebody 47 times on
Facebook in an hour all these kinds of behaviors and even online bullying those sorts of things can
be fight reactions in response to feeling like there’s a threat of abandonment flight is more
of the I don’t care if you leave so the person will withdraw physically and emotionally and
maybe even numb themselves with some sort of addictive behavior or distract themselves with
something completely different or find a new person just proof that you know what I didn’t
need you because I’ve got this new person now questions for clients about core beliefs
all people leave okay so what does it look like if somebody’s available to you if they
don’t abandon you who in your past left you or was unavailable emotionally now a lot of
I find it helpful for mental health and addiction clients to have them write an
autobiography because then we can go back and kind of review it and identify the core
people at certain stages in a person’s life what did the person who left you do to make you
feel rejected or abandoned in retrospect you know it was hard to see the difference what
was going on back then because you were a kid in retrospect what are the alternate explanations
for why this may have happened was it you or was it more about them who in your past
has been available to you emotionally most of the time people can point to one maybe two people
who have generally been there it’s unreasonable to expect someone always to be there who in your
present is available to you emotionally you know maybe they’ve only been in your life for six
months or a year but they are available and I say emotionally because you know not everybody can
be available physically all the time we’ve got jobs kids all that kind of stuff but can you pick
up the phone and call them or text them and say hey you know what I’m struggling right now
what do you do in your current relationships that cause people to leave do you push them away if so
how what are alternatives to pushing them away cutting all ties and just saying fine be that way
I wipe my hands off you if you cling how do you do this in what ways do you perceive yourself as
being clinging and what are some alternatives to holding on with all desperation and mistrust people
will hurt reject or take advantage of me or just not be there when I need them so again what does
it looks like when somebody’s or what does it feel like when someone is trustworthy and safe who in
your past was untrustworthy or unsafe what do they do they taught you this and what are alternate
explanations who in your past has been trustworthy and safe who in your present is available and
trustworthy What do you do to yourself that is unsafe or dishonest that’s one of those tricky
questions you’re there talking about other people other people then it’s like what
do you do to yourself how do you lie to your self or how are you mean and hateful to yourself
how does your distrust of other people or even yourself impact your current relationships some
people distrust their internal intuition so much that they don’t want to make friends with
other people, they’re like I can’t tell who’s going to hurt me and who won’t so just yeah I’m
going to wipe my hands of it all what could you do differently what do you think you could do
to start building trust and what does it look like to build trust because Trust doesn’t
just appear it builds gradually emotional deaths deprivation I don’t get the love I need nobody
understands me so again what does it look like when somebody understands you and meets your
needs who in the past failed to meet your needs emotionally and how can you deal with that now
you know it may have been mom it may have been ex-husband it may have been you know who knows
how can you deal with it now yourself so you can put it to rest who in your past is understood
you who in your present understands you how can you start again better understanding yourself
because it’s hard for other people to understand us when we don’t even understand ourselves and
what can you do to start getting your needs met one of the things was starting to get your own
needs met is to figure out what your needs are and this is one of the exercises I have people do as
a homework assignment they keep track of what is it they want daily keep a log and then
let’s talk about what common themes were seeing if people knew me they would reject me okay so how
do you know when you’re accepted or acceptable to someone who when you’re past may make you feel
defective are there alternate explanations and how can you silence those old tapes because
that person that statement stays as a heckler in the gallery we need to hush the heckler what
can you do part of it could be talking back and saying you know what I’m not going to listen
or I don’t have time for this right now who’s been accepting and supportive who is in your life
that’s accepting and supportive and how can you start accepting yourself and being compassionate
so some compassion focus training mindfulness work to help people understand themselves and start
being compassionate with themselves understanding their vulnerabilities and cutting themselves some
slack I don’t measure up I’m not able to succeed okay that’s a pretty big success you know what
is what success means success means different things to different people so what does it look
like to you to be successful let’s kind of hammer that out what is it if you are successful what
would be different what in your past has made you feel like a failure what are some alternate
ways of viewing it such as a learning experience or something I had to go through to grow or you
know brainstorming alternate explanations for why people fail they don’t have a response to
sometimes I ask them to kind of take on a flip role and say pretend you’re a parent and
your child comes home and they’ve tried out for the football team and they didn’t make the team
they failed what are you going to tell on what have you succeeded at doing in the past what are
you good at in the present and we want to pay attention to minimization here because a
a lot of our clients are not good at identifying their strengths what does being successful mean in
terms of your relationship with others do you have to be successful to be loved and be a
good relationship you know you’re going to be successful in a relationship if you’re
but do you have to be financially successful and powerful whatever you define success as in
order to be in healthy relationships who are three successful people you know and what makes
them successful in your eyes does success equal happiness you can do a whole group on that and
what do your kids need to do to be successful in life you know we want our kids to succeed we
want our kids to be happy so what is it that I envision my child’s life to be 10 to 15 years from
now triggering relationships the abandoner is unpredictable unstable and unavailable the
abusive relationship is untrustworthy and unsafe the deprived err depriving relationship the
a person is detached or withholding the Devastator is always judgmental rejecting and critical and
the critic is critical and narcissistic usually a lot of times people replay their past to try to
kind of get it right the second time so we want to look at do you have a habit of getting into
relationships with people who are not safe we can also ask them how do you exhibit these behaviors
in what ways are these behaviors present your current relationships and in what ways were these
present and your primary caregiver relationships behavioral triggers abandonment and mistrust
if somebody starts acting differently they change their behavior in some way a person who fears
abandonment goes oh that’s not good if they’re not getting constant reassurance that’s
that external validation can trigger abandonment fears so again we want to work
on internal validation and why is it that you feel you need constant reassurance from the other
person’s relationships feel threatening so work relationships those sorts of things the
a person who has abandonment issues won’t want their significant other around other people
and they become hyper-vigilant to rejection and disconnection even if it’s just somebody
going I had a really bad day I need 20 minutes and go into the room and shut the door
the person with abandonment issues will likely have a high level of anxiety so we want to ask
how these behaviors have threatened them in the past what are alternate explanations for why this
is happening with this person right now and what would be a helpful reaction to these behaviors
now so this is happening what would be a helpful reaction instead of assuming that the sky is
going to fall defectiveness and failure so if somebody is critical if they have unexplained time
apart there’s absent or inconsistent reassurance or if the person tells them they’re a failure
these or they fail at something these could all be behavioral triggers they could be like I
failed at something I’m not getting reassurance this relationship is fixin’ to end questions how
is this threatened you in the past alternate explanations and what would be a helpful
reaction to this particular situation right now envisioning activity what does a healthy
the relationship looks like presence versus abandonment acceptance versus rejection emotional support
versus emotional unavailability trustworthy versus untrustworthy and safe versus harmful
these are extremes what does it look like to be a middle ground there are going to be exceptions
you know things are going to happen so what does a healthy relationship look like and how do you
deal with exceptions if somebody’s not always present how can you create this relationship with
yourself that’s the big one and then how can you create this relationship with others’ mindfulness
questions what am I feeling what’s triggering it am I safe right now and if not what do I need to
is this bringing up something from the past if so how is this different how am I different
then I was when I was six or four and how can I silence my inner critic and finally what
would be a helpful reaction that would move me more toward my goals and a positive
emotional experience summary core beliefs about the self and others are formed in early
life due to children’s lack of knowledge of other experiences and primitive cognitive abilities
these core beliefs are often very dichotomous core beliefs can be formed around events or
experiences outside of the conscious memory identifying and being mindful of abandonment
triggers in the present can help people choose alternate more helpful ways of responding in
the present in Secure and Loved loved me don’t leave me are two excellent books
there are Google previews if you want to look at them to see if it’s something that you like
but they do take what we talked about in this presentation and expand upon it a whole bunch
more if you enjoy this podcast please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on
YouTube you can attend and participate in our live webinars with Doctor Snipes by subscribing
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CEUs com provides 24/7 multimedia continuing education and pre-certification training to
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As found on YouTubeSeanCooper🗯 The Shyness & Social Guy ⇝ The 3 WORST Mistakes You Must AVOID If You Want To Overcome Shyness (PLUS: 1 weird trick that targets the root biological cause of shyness so you can stop being nervous, awkward, and quiet around people…) http://flywait.darekw.hop.clickbank.net/ By Sean Cooper, The Shyness & Social Anxiety Guy. The fact that you’re reading this article tells me you may have already reached a point where you feel your shyness is NOT going away on its own… or you fear it’s getting worse and worse. And I don’t want you to waste one more day living a life where you feel left out, bored, or depressed because you don’t have the relationships which would make you happy. That’s why I’ve put together this page to help you avoid the worst mistakes that keep many people stuck with shyness for years… often giving up hope of ever improving as you watch other people have interesting “normal” lives without you. Yet this doesn’t have to happen.
Upbeat, Music, Hey Psych2Goers, have you ever thought about joining our team of animators or writers, Or perhaps you want to start an animation channel of your own? Are you looking through as many youtube channels as you could for tutorials and tips, but wasted a lot of time on some, not so helpful ones? Skillshare is a great place where you can learn new things with their online classes and they have animation courses as well Click the link in the description below to get your free trial of Skillshare Premium, Hey Psych2goers, and welcome back to our channel. This video is suggested by one of our viewers Army Blink.
Thanks for the suggestion Now let’s get started.
Have you been wondering if your mental health is possibly getting worse? Mental health just like physical health, affects everyone, whether you are suffering from a mental illness or not.
Your mental and emotional health can fluctuate from time to time, depending on the stresses going on in your life, So it s always a good idea to check in with yourself and try to gauge the direction your mental health is going in With that said, here are Ten signs that your mental health is getting worse NUMBER ONE, You re losing interest in the little things.
Do your favorite activities suddenly seem meh to you?
If you’ve started to lose excitement for life s little things, then this is a sign that your mental health might not be at its best.
You might be feeling this way because of an overload of stress in your life, or you’re feeling overwhelmed with all of your responsibilities and to-do lists When you lose interest and don t enjoy the hobbies and activities that you once did.
This could also be a warning sign of depression If you think this could be what’s happening to you know that you are not alone and that help is just around the corner.
Talk with a trusted friend or a family member or a mental health professional.
To get the help you need to navigate these troubling times NUMBER TWO: You get overwhelmed easier. Do you find that you’ve been getting overwhelmed more often than normal? When do you have a to-do list for two or three tasks? Does it feel more like you? Have ten things to do When you start to get overwhelmed easily with everyday things, this could be a sign of worsening mental health According to Psychotherapist, Sheri Jacobson, feeling mentally overwhelmed could be an internal reaction to excessive outside stress.
To help cope with this overwhelming feeling.
You can journal meditate or practice mindfulness NUMBER THREE.
You don t feel like socializing that much anymore Does it feel more exhausting to interact with people nowadays, Regardless of whether you’re an introvert extrovert, or somewhere in between?
We all have a standard comfort level when it comes to social interaction If you feel yourself slipping below your comfort level.
Pay attention to this.
Remember that, even if it does t feel that way at the moment, interacting with people can help boost your mood.
We want to mention that we’re happy to have Skillshare as a sponsor today because they promote the idea of a self-made.
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It would be great if everything you need is all in one place right? Well, Skillshare has thousands of catered courses across all kinds of topics like design, business, tech, and more.
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Skillshare has a great intro class on animation that we recommend The course is called Creativity, Unleashed, Discover, Hone and Share Your Voice Online by Johannes Fast.
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In the link below The first 1000, people will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium and after that, it s only around 10 a month.
Let us know what Skillshare courses you’re taking in the comments below FOUR You don t have a consistent sleep schedule.
Have you developed a seemingly random sleep schedule, Despite wanting to get up at a certain time in the morning, do you wind up sleeping all day When you have an irregular sleep schedule? This could signify increased stress in your life and a decline in your mental health.
If you’re struggling to regulate your sleep, you can try setting up a routine to wake up and go to bed at the same time every day, This will get your body back into its regular rhythm of sleep and wake cycles, therefore, no longer causing sleep Disturbance, FIVE, You always feel drained Despite getting enough sleep and eating well, do you constantly feel exhausted or drained According to Healthline mental exhaustion can set in when you are under long term stress and this type of exhaustion can make it feel like you are trying to Move up a mountain More than just feeling tired.
When you are this drained and constantly exhausted, you might struggle to get anything done.
Healthline suggests practicing gratitude, relaxation, and yoga, as well as talking to a mental health professional, to provide medication for you. If it s needed Treatment, plans will look different for everyone, but regardless there is a way that will work best for you to help pull yourself out of this state of exhaustion.
Six, Your anxiety seems to be increasing.
Do you wake up in the morning with a crushing sense of anxiety that stays with you all day? Does this anxiety cast a cloud over your daily activities? Worsening anxiety can often coincide with worsening mental health.
Anxiety affects us all whether or not you happen to suffer from a particular anxiety disorder.
It s important to monitor your anxiety levels because a noticeable change can tell you a lot about your mental health.
Anxiety is a stress response and it can cause a variety of psychological and physical symptoms.
When you feel overly anxious, you might notice that your heart rate speeds up and your breathing rate increases, and you might experience a bout of nausea.
Seven.
You feel mentally and emotionally shattered.
Do you feel like there are so many things happening around you, but you can t focus on any of them? If so, you’re not alone From time to time it s normal to feel this way, especially when you are going through higher amounts of stress.
However, if you are feeling scattered and like things are spinning out of control, this could be a sign that your mental health is under strain According to Psychologist, Rick Hanson from Psychology.
Today, you probably feel scattered, because you are struggling to find your center.
This means that, for your brain to feel more organized, you need to feel at peace within yourself.
Practicing mindfulness such as yoga and meditation are great places to start on the road to inner peace.
Eight, You can t seem to pay attention.
Do you have a harder time focusing and staying on task When you’re reading? Is it hard to comprehend? Do you have to reread the same passage over and over, Though it could relate to potential psychological disorders such as ADHD, depression, or anxiety? It is also likely that a lack of focus can be due to stress or poor self-care.
It can be frustrating to start losing focus so frequently and those feelings are valid and normal Remember to take care of yourself and, as you recover know, that help is available NINE.
You might be struggling with your impulse control.
Are you acting more on impulse? Are you possibly indulging in things you should t, Whether it s retail therapy or binging, all of your shows, or playing video games for hours? When you act more on impulse like this, it can signify worsening mental health. You might pick up some unhealthy habits as a way to cope with life.
Stress fulfills you or distracts you from a major issue going on in your life.
Journaling, mindfulness, and therapy are great ways to start uncovering some of these issues.
Ten, You are struggling to feel, grounded Similar to feeling centered when you are grounded.
You are feeling confident and balanced within yourself.
According to Irene Langeveld, an energy worker and meditation coach grounding starts with the root chakra at the base of the spine known to help.
You feel secure Activities that connect your body with the world around you, such as hiking, meditating, or walking outside, are all great ways to help.
You find your sense of grounding.
Can you relate to any of the points made in this video? Do you think your mental health could be slipping If so know that there is help you can reach out to You. Can talk to a trusted friend, family member, or mental health therapist for support? Please like and share this video if it helped you and you think it can help someone else too.
The studies and references used are listed in the description below Don t forget to hit the subscribe button for more Psych2Go videos. Thank you for watching.
We’ll see you next time, Video by Psych2go.
As found on YouTubeBrain Booster | Blue Heron Health News ⇝ I was losing my memory, focus – and mind! And then… http://flywait.4brain.hop.clickbank.net/ I got it all back again. Case study: Brian Thompson There’s nothing more terrifying than watching your brain health fail. You can feel it… but you can’t stop it. Over and over I asked myself, where is this going to end? What am I going to end up like? And nobody could tell me. Doesn’t matter now. I’m over it. Completely well. This is how I did it!
“Lavender for Generalized
Anxiety Disorder” Lavender oil,
distilled from lavender flowers, is most often used
in aromatherapy and massage. Despite its popularity, only recently have scientifically-based
investigations have been undertaken into its biological activity, however. There have been small-scale studies
suggesting a benefit from lavender massage, but maybe it’s the massage,
not the lavender. There was a study on patients
in intensive care comparing massage with odorless oil
to massage with lavender oil, and through patients
massaged with lavender oil did say they felt less anxious
and more positive, there were no objective differences
found in terms of blood pressure, breathing, or heart rate.
Frankly, maybe the lavender was just
covering up the nasty hospital smells. Subsequent studies
using more sensitive tests did find physiological changes, though. We know, for example, the smell
of lavender changes brain wave patterns, but what effect does this have? Well, it makes people
feel better, and perform math better, faster,
and more accurately, whereas the smell of rosemary,
for example, seemed to enable folks
only to do the math faster —not necessarily
with greater accuracy. What if you
eat lavender flowers, or in this case take capsules
of lavender-infused oil so you could double-blind the study
to compare lavender head-to-head to a drug like valium,
lorazepam, known as Ativan, for generalized anxiety disorder? Generalized and persistent
anxiety is a frequent problem and is treated with benzodiazepines,
“benzos”, or downers like valium. Unfortunately, these substances not only
make you feel like you have a hangover, but have a high potential
for drug abuse and addiction, so they decided to give lavender a try. The drug Ativan certainly
reduces anxiety… but so does lavender. By the end,
you couldn’t tell which was which! And in fact, among those
that responded to either, the lavender
seemed to work better.
Since lavender oil has no potential
for drug abuse and causes no hangover effects, it appears to be an effective
and well-tolerated alternative to benzodiazepine drugs for the amelioration
of generalized anxiety. One cautionary note, however. There was a case series published
in the New England Journal of Medicine. Prepuberty gynecomastia
linked to lavender. Reports of young boys exposed
to lavender-containing lotions, soaps, hair gel, and shampoo,
starting to develop breasts, which disappeared after these
products were discontinued, suggesting that lavender oil
may possess hormone-disrupting activity. Indeed, when dripped on estrogen receptor
positive human breast cancer cells, lavender does show estrogenic effects
and a decline in male hormone activity, though it’s unknown if similar reactions
occur inside the body when lavender flowers
or lavender oil is ingested.
As found on YouTubeSeanCooper🗯 The Shyness & Social Guy ⇝ The 3 WORST Mistakes You Must AVOID If You Want To Overcome Shyness (PLUS: 1 weird trick that targets the root biological cause of shyness so you can stop being nervous, awkward, and quiet around people…) By Sean Cooper, The Shyness & Social Anxiety Guy. The fact that you’re reading this article tells me you may have already reached a point where you feel your shyness is NOT going away on its own… or you fear it’s getting worse and worse. And I don’t want you to waste one more day living a life where you feel left out, bored, or depressed because you don’t have the relationships which would make you happy. That’s why I’ve put together this page to help you avoid the worst mistakes that keep many people stuck with shyness for years… often giving up hope of ever improving as you watch other people have interesting “normal” lives without you. Yet this doesn’t have to happen.
this episode was pre-recorded
as part of a live continuing education webinar on-demand CEUs are
still available for this presentation AllCEUs.com/Anxiety-CEU I’d like to welcome everybody to today’s
presentation on best practices for the treatment of anxiety I am your host, Dr. Dawn Elise Snipes now not too long ago we did
a presentation on strengths-based biopsychosocial approaches to addressing anxiety while
those are wonderful you know I thought maybe we ought to look at you know what’s some of the
current research so I went into PubMed which is I don’t know it’s a playground for me it’s where
you find a lot of journal articles and you can sort I sorted by articles that were
done and meta-analyses that were done within the past five years so that gives us an idea
about current research I mean there’s a lot of stuff that is still the same like some of
the medications that were known to work ten years ago are still known to be you know good
first-line treatments but there are also some newcomers that we’ll talk about and there are
also some changes that we’re going to talk about so we’re going to explore some common causes
for anxiety symptoms to treat, we need to and of course, this does play into
the biopsychosocial aspect we need to understand kind of what causes it because anxiety
that’s caused by for example somebody having a racing heart may be different than anxiety that’s
caused for somebody who has abandonment issues so we’re gonna treat the two things differently so
we want to look at some of the common causes we’re gonna look at some common triggers for anxiety
Do you know what are some of these common themes that we see in practice I will ask you to share
some of the themes that you see that underline or underlie a lot of your client’s anxiety and
identify current best practices for anxiety management including counseling interventions
medications physical interventions and supportive treatments so we care because anxiety can
be debilitating and a lot of our clients have anxiety a lot of our clients have anxiety
comorbid with depression and they’re looking at us going how can I feel anxious and stressed out
and like I can’t sit still and be depressed at the same time you know when you’re depressed you’re
supposed to want to sleep well a lot of times people who have both issues want to
sleep but they can’t so I want to help clients understand that also sometimes anxiety when
people are anxious for long enough the body starts kind of holding on to the cortisol the body
recognizes at a certain point this is a losing battle I’m not going to put energy into
this anymore so it starts withdrawing some of its excitatory neurotransmitters so to speak and
people will start to feel depressed the brain has already said this is hopeless this is
you’re helpless to change the situation so then people start feeling hopeless and helpless
which is sort of the definition if you will of depression low-grade chronic stress and anxiety
arose energy and people’s ability to concentrate so if we’re going to help them become their uber
selves we need to help them figure out how to address anxiety not just generalized overwhelming
debilitating anxiety but also panic social anxiety and those minor anxiety triggers that come along
that may not meet the threshold for diagnosis anxiety is a major trigger for addiction relapse
if you have a client who is self-medicated before or had an addiction for some reason anxiety is a
major trigger increased physical pain when anxiety goes up people tend to tense their muscles when
they tense their muscles they tend to feel more pain I mean think about when you’re stressed you
tend to have more pain like in your neck your back and things that already hurt may hurt more
why because serotonin which is one of our major anti-anxiety neurotransmitters is also one of our
major pain modulators so when serotonin levels are too low because anxiety is high then our pain
perception is going to be more acute and people can have sleep problems if they’re stressed out
your body thinks there’s a threat you’re not going to be able to get into that deep restful
sleep you may have you may sleep you may sleep a lot but it’s probably not quality sleep which
means your neurotransmitters may get out of whack your hormones make it out of whack and your body
is going to start perceiving yourself in a persistent state of stress when you’re exhausted
the body knows that we may be the weakest link in the herd so it continues to secrete cortisol
to keep you on alert a little bit so you may again you may be resting kind of like when
you have a new baby at home those first couple of months that my children were home from the
hospital I slept but I didn’t sleep well I mean the slightest little noise and I was awake and I
was looking around and you know I felt it I felt exhausted and a lot of new parents do so triggers
for anxiety abandonment and rejection and we’re going to talk about ways we might want to deal
with these things but some of the underlying themes that I’ve seen in a lot of clients and when
I do the research and a lot of what themes that come out include low self-esteem if someone has
low self-esteem they’re looking to be externally validated oftentimes they’re looking for somebody
else to tell them you’re lovable you’re okay so that can lead to anxiety about not having
people to tell them you’re okay which makes their relationships tenuous and can make them
dysfunctional irrational thoughts and cognitive distortions may lead people to believe that if I’m
not perfect for example I am not lovable so we’re going to look at some irrational thoughts and
cognitive distortions unhealthy social supports and relationships when you’re in a relationship
it takes two to tango and even if your client is relatively mentally and physically healthy if they
are in a dysfunctional relationship they can fear abandonment and rejection if that other person
is always saying if you don’t do X I’m going to leave you or if that other person is always
cheating on them or whatever so relationships can trigger abandonment anxiety and ineffective
interpersonal skills can lead to relationship turmoil and social exile if our clients are in
relationships even if they’re not completely dysfunctional if our clients are not able to ask
for what they need and set appropriate boundaries and manage conflict effectively because conflict
happens in every relationship then they may start to argue more which may lead to fearing may lead
to relationships ending in the past and them going well every relationship I get into ends which
means I must not be lovable so they start fearing abandonment and rejection these are four areas
that we can look at one more assessing clients another issue is the unknown and loss of control
a lot of times negative self-talk and cognitive distortions can contribute to that if I don’t have
control of everything then it’s all going to be a disaster negative others when clients hang out
or when people hang out with negative people it kind of wears on you after a while you notice
that people who tend to be more negative pessimistic conspiracy-minded tend to hang out
with people who are also negatively pessimistic and conspiracy-minded so if you’re hanging out with
somebody who tends to be anxious then the anxiety can be palpable and it can kind of permeate
physical complaints can lead people to be anxious because they don’t know what’s causing it
like I said earlier sometimes if your heart starts to race if you don’t know what’s causing it you
can start thinking I’m having a heart attack or I’m gonna die when people have panic attacks for
the example they truly think they’re having a heart attack and it’s I’ve had them they are very
very unpleasant experiences but when people start having physical complaints and it can be you
know they have a weird rash that they can’t get to go away or whatever but when they don’t know
what it is and they can’t control it they can’t make it go away they start thinking about all
the worst-case scenarios and going online and getting on WebMD which usually gives you all the
worst-case scenarios um so physical complaints are important we need to normalize the fact that
nobody’s pain-free all the time and you know the fact that you may have an ache or a pain or a lump
or a bump or you know a cough most likely you know when we look at probability the probability of it
being something significant is pretty small now do you want to get it checked out probably but
you know the probability that is anything to be worried about is relatively small and a sense
of powerlessness can trigger fear of the unknown and loss of control for somebody who doesn’t
feel like they have any agency in their life if they have an external locus of control or
if they felt victimized all of their life then they may fear not being in control they may be
holding on and saying okay this is the one area of my life I can control when I grew up you know
I grew up in a very chaotic environment I had no control I was bounced around in the foster system
yadda yadda yadda now that I’m an adult you know I can control these things and I am going to hold
on with white knuckles and if I can’t control everything then that terrifies me to death and
loss are other triggers for anxiety and it can be people or pets and pets are important I don’t
want to minimize pets because you know they are little parts of a lot of our families so making
sure we check that my daughter’s dog for example is it’s getting old she’s getting older she’s 14
now I think and you know she’s in decent health we took her to the vet and the vet said yeah she’s
got a little heart murmur but that’s expected for a 14-year-old dog and but when she goes out if she
doesn’t come back when I call her I have this rush of anxiety for a second oh my gosh I hope this
wasn’t the day so anxious around losing people and you know if she when she crosses the bridge
she will and you know I’m okay with that I’m I have a harder time dealing with my daughter’s
emotional turmoil when that happens and because she’s grown up with this dog so you know those
are the types of things that we want to talk about with our clients what things are weighing on you
that you may not even be thinking about because I know in the back of my mind there’s always that
worry about one of our donkeys and her dog jobs and promotions can trigger anxiety if people are
afraid they’re gonna lose their job if they’re always afraid that you know they’re gonna walk in
and get a pink slip or get fired you know we want to help them look at how realistic they are
you doing what you need to do to achieve and keep your job and sometimes it’s not easy to
answer I mean the first thought that a lot of us have is well you know if you’re doing the right
thing so just do it but there are those bosses out there and I’ve had some amazing bosses
a lot of them and I’ve had two horrendous bosses and those two bosses I could never I
never felt like I was able to do anything right and so going to those jobs there was always this
anxiety about what I’m what am I going to get in trouble for today so you want to talk with people
about does your job cause anxiety what can you do to moderate that anxiety the same thing with
promotions people may get anxious about whether they’re going to get promoted to safety and security
you know when you lose safety and security you can feel anxious so if there’s a break-in at
the house next door or shooting down the road or you start watching the news you can feel very
unsafe and insecure quickly so we want to help people figure out how safe and secure are you
really and a lot of it goes back to really looking at facts when people lose their dreams and hopes
or fear that they’re going to lose their dreams and hopes they can start to get anxious you know
they have this dream that they’re going to be a doctor or I just finished the presentation on
helping high school students transition to college and a lot of high school students for example
start college with these wide eyes and hopes to save the world and they want to be doctors
and engineers and this and that and they get into it and they realize that it’s a lot harder
then they thought or they realize that you know what I don’t like this but I’ve already
committed to it so what do I do I want to help people but I can’t I can’t cut it doing this you
know for me I figured out in my second year that I wasn’t going to medical school because I wasn’t
going to pass calculus and that caused a lot of anxiety it was like okay what am I gonna do now
Do you know what career should I choose to help people figure out do they have dreams that have
maybe kind of crashed and burned and you have to find new ones you know okay that one we’ve got to
accept it figure out that it’s not going to be and what can you do now people may also have dreams
about relationships, they get into relationships and see themselves with this person forever
and then this relationship ends and or starts to get rocky and they’re like but that’s my dream
what happens if that’s got to happen because it’s my dream I don’t know how to function if
that goes away we want to help people be able to rewrite their narrative and then sickness spiders
and other phobias kind of go in with death a lot of times when people get sick they start getting
anxious that oh my gosh what if this is terminal oh my gosh what if this is you know incurable
if I get bit by a spider it’s gonna kill me and which is rare you know there are very few spiders
that is that poisonous same thing with snakes going over bridges I’ve shared with you all
that is not one of my irrational fears you know I am just terrified that you know something’s going
to happen and I’m going to get pushed off the side of the bridge which is completely irrational but
we need to help people look at those and identify the thoughts that they’re telling themself about
those phobias and dealing with that anxiety failure is another trigger for anxiety especially in
this culture our culture American culture is in large part puts a high premium on success
and perfectionism so when people realize that they’re not perfect they may start to get anxious
because they feel like if I’m not perfect then I’m a failure you know those cognitive distortions of
all-or-nothing thinking and they start with that negative self-talk you know you can’t do anything
right so those are some of the issues that you know we often see in counseling sessions so what
do we do you know somebody comes in and is like I can’t live this way doc anxiety depression and
substance disorders as well as a range of physical disorders are often comorbid so this is the first
the thing we need to realize is that we’re very rarely dealing with a very simple
diagnosis you know when somebody comes in we need to figure out you know if they come in and they’re
presenting with depression all right let’s talk about that and then we start realizing that there
depression started to occur after a long period of being anxious okay so we need
to deal with that but we also need to help them with their sense of hopelessness and helplessness
we need to develop that sense of empowerment and then substance disorders we know that substance
use is often a way of self-medicating but we also know that it monkeys with the neurochemicals
in the brain and can contribute to anxiety and depression the same thing to physical issues pain
from physical disorders anxiety about having physical disorders medications you’re taking for
physical disorders can all contribute to anxiety so we need to look at the person as a whole and go
what are all the things that are contributing to the anxiety and what are all the things that the
anxiety is contributing to so we have started having this big list of stuff that needs to be
addressed and then we can start figuring out okay where we start so knowing that these things
are comorbid helps researchers explore pathways to mental disorders so they can start figuring
out you know what little string can we pull to unravel this blanket of anxiety so it doesn’t
suffocate somebody and for us as clinicians it provides us key opportunities to intervene in you
know sometimes clients will come in and start talking about their
anxiety and their physical issues you know maybe their anxieties about you know heart
palpitations and because that’s a common one we may want to encourage them to go see the doctor to
get that ruled out you know rule out anything that has to do with hormone imbalances or you know
heart conditions or anything else that might be contributing to it which can help them address
it and if they do have physical disorders let’s go with hormone imbalances that are contributing
to the heart palpitations then they can start to treat that if they don’t start to treat that then
no amount of talk therapy we do is going to get them to the quality of life that they’re looking
for because they’re still gonna feel those so we want to make sure that we’re addressing them
holistically anxiety disorders should be treated with psychological therapy pharmacy therapy or a
combination of both and what they found and this is no surprise this is kind of old news is that
counseling Plus pharmacotherapy tends to have the best outcomes but separating the two have
similar outcomes in many cases but that’s just looking at and I hate to call it simple anxiety
but we’re just looking at anxiety symptoms here we’re not looking at the full quality of life and we
want to make sure that we’re also including any medical issues behavioral therapy is regarded
as the psychotherapy with the highest level of evidence, there are a variety of cognitive
behavioral approaches ranging from acceptance and commitment therapy to dialectical behavior
therapy to CBT to debt you know any of those that deal with the thoughts and the cognitions that fall in
that realm and it is effective in the current conceptualization of the etiology
of anxiety disorders includes an interaction of psychosocial factors such as childhood adversity
or stressful events and a genetic vulnerability so the psychosocial factors and these are other
things when we do our assessment we want to pay attention to because our approach to treatment
is going to be different for people for example who have trauma-related brain changes maybe
then for somebody who doesn’t so, we want to look at childhood adversity and stressful events
that it may have caused basically what I tell clients is like rewiring of the brain there
are trauma-related brain changes in soldiers and especially in children or in people who’ve been
exposed to extreme trauma that is designed to protect them but it also can cause complications
kind of later on in dealing with anxiety coping skills that were learned that are ineffective you
know sometimes people grow up in a household or an environment or a situation where they don’t learn
effective coping skills so we need to kind of help them unlearn those and learn new ones build on
their strengths and trauma issues that may still need to be dealt with such as domestic violence
you know if they grew up a lot around a lot of domestic violence they may think you know I’m
out of that situation it’s over I don’t want to think about it it’s not bothering me anymore or a
parental absence and I put absence because it can be death it can be a parent that just packed up
and left it could be a child that got put up for adoption whatever put the child in a position of
feeling like they were rejected by a parent can be very traumatic and bullying among other things
but there are a lot of trauma issues that people once they’re out of that situation often say you
know I’m out of it it’s not a big deal I dealt with it let’s move on and they don’t realize the
full ramifications and how that’s contributing to their current anxiety and their current self-talk
and cognitions of current stressors if somebody has a lot of current stressors that’s also going to
impact whether they develop generalized anxiety you know we’re kind of stacking the deck here and
the current availability of social support if they don’t have effective current social support then
they’re gonna have difficulty bearing the weight of everything on their shoulders so we want
to look at all these psychosocial factors when we do our assessment now going back to the trauma
issues if you’ve taken the trauma courses at all CEUs you know that some people are not ready
to acknowledge that the trauma is still bothering them or work on the trauma and that’s okay we
can educate them that it might be an issue and then let them choose how to address it but
we want to bear in mind the fact that you know this could be sort of an underlying force
motivating some of the current cognitions and genetic vulnerability so you take any three
people and you put them or 300 people and you put them through roughly the same psychosocial
situations they’re all probably going to react a little bit differently based on their prior
experiences but also because of their genetic makeup there are certain permutations and they
found four we’ll talk about later that make the brain more or less responsive to stress and
more or less responsive to serotonin which is your calming chemical so brains that are less
responsive to serotonin isn’t going to you know send out as much or send out serotonin as easily
so people can stay kind of tensed and wired that’s an oversimplified explanation but that’s
all you need for right now so genetic vulnerability impacts people’s susceptibility
to the effects and development of dependence on certain substances which can increase anxiety
when people are detoxing from alcohol when they’re detoxing from benzos when they’re detoxing from
opiates they can feel high levels of anxiety when they take opiates some people find that opiates
have wonderful anti-anxiety properties not that I am advocating for the use of opiates I’m
just client experiences have shown that that can be true so some people are going to be
more susceptible to the anti-anxiety effects of certain substances and some people are going
to be Cerrone to become dependent on substances where others may not and that part of that is
genetic vulnerability and they estimate about 30% the predictability of the development
of anxiety disorders is genetic and genetics also impact which medications are effective
if you have genetic makeup then SSRIs might be helpful then
atypical antipsychotics may be more effective and SSRIs might not do anything which is why
a lot of our clients get so frustrated because they know there’s no way to figure out exactly what I
guess there is now that there’s genetic testing out there but up until then it was harder to
figure out which medications to start with and most physicians matter of fact I don’t know of
a single physician that starts by saying well let’s do a genetic profile to see
what med to start you out with most we’ll start with events as with an SSRI or some other
anti-anxiety medication some sort of Benzo that’s been my experience so we may want
to encourage clients to consider genetic testing if they’re having difficulty finding a
medication regime that works for them and they are feeling like they have to have medication
genetic vulnerability also affects what’s going to make somebody more vulnerable now than all of you
in class today you know thinking about sleep you know sleep may not be a big deal for some of you
I know people who can go days or weeks with four or five hours of sleep and they feel fine it’s
not a big deal, not me I need eight or nine hours of sleep so genetically for whatever reason I am
programmed to need a lot of sleep so when I don’t get that much sleep I tend to be it tends to be
harder for me to deal with life on life’s terms and I know that that makes me more vulnerable to
being irritable so genetic vulnerability affects who can become addicted and affects what medications
work best and affects what situations are going to tend to make somebody more vulnerable to
anxiety so our medications and I know the type on here is small but we’re going to go through
the first-line drugs are the SSRIs selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and SNRs is
selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors now the names are a little bit deceptive because
selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors also increase available serotonin but the mechanism
of action is different the mechanism of action for each SSRI is a little bit different as well
which is why you can put somebody on Prozac and they have an awful experience and you can put them
on Zoloft and they have a much better experience like I said earlier a lot of the research pre
five years ago had been done on medications and Zoloft paxil luvox lexapro celexa and their
generics have all been found to be effective at treating anxiety in certain people no one
medication works for everybody in the last five years effexor has come on the radar and it has
been found effective according to the Hamilton rating scale for anxiety so that’s another one to
consider if clients are not successful or getting the treatment effect that they need for on some
of the other medications obviously, none of us probably are prescribers but we do need to educate
clients about why the first drug or even the third drug that the doc tries may not work so they
don’t start feeling helpless and hopeless like I said earlier there are at least four different
genetic variations which are correlated with the development of generalized anxiety disorder and
different medications are more or less effective depending on the genetic makeup of the person
there’s a high mortality rate moving on to two benzos the recommendation has switched
to back off from the use of benzos now for some doctors will prescribe an SSRI and for the
first, four weeks while the SSRI is building up in the system they will also prescribe a Benzo
to be taken as needed to moderate the anxiety and you know you could argue on either side
of that, if somebody has a history of substance use or substance dependence benzos are really
a bad idea because they do have a high rate of dependence but the other reasons that they are now
cautioning against the use of benzodiazepines is that there’s a higher mortality rate among benzo
users compared with non-users there’s an increased risk for dependence with use for more than six
months and that’s a long time to be using Benzo and when we’re talking about dependence and six
months we’re talking about somebody who uses it like every four hours or every eight hours
depending on your Benzo every single day, not a PRN user if somebody’s using it at night to
help them go to sleep or you know three or four times a week when the anxiety gets high
the risk of dependence is relatively low but a lot of people with anxiety because if they find
the right Benzo makes them feel so much better they may not want to be off of it and for a lot of
people when that benzo reaches its half-life and starts getting out of the system even more their
anxiety spikes you know they have rebound anxiety which they want to medicate with more benzos
that’s gonna be an issue for them to discuss with their doctor there’s also an increased risk
of dementia identified in long-term benzodiazepine users again this is for the people who use you
know throughout the day every day for six months or relatively every day for six months or more
and it doesn’t matter if it’s you know we’re talking about somebody who’s 65 or somebody
who’s 35 who’s been using Benzos for you know six months a year two years the risk of later
life dementia is greatly increased according to the research benzodiazepines also don’t treat
depression okay so if you’ve got somebody who has concurrent anxiety and depression there’s a much
higher suicide risk if they’re on benzodiazepines so being aware and generally that suicide risk
comes from overdosing on benzodiazepines but not always other treatment options you know if the
benzos aren’t something that people want to touch you know they scare the living daylights out of
I SSRIs and SNRIs don’t seem to be working then tricyclic antidepressants can be tried on those
your older generation antidepressant seroquel is used a lot and there are some there’s some
research that shows it can be effective with anxiety like some of the antidepressants and
depending on the person the benzos seroquel can make people very very very sleepy so you know
it may not be the side effects of the Seroquel the weight gain and the fatigue and you know
sleepiness may be an unacceptable side effect for some clients and boosts perón is the third option
boost Barone works more like an anti-depressive serotonin reuptake inhibitor and that it takes
you know four weeks or so to kind of build up in the system studies have shown that there’s really
no long-term benefit to taking it but after six months to eighteen months of use it has been shown to
be effective in talking with clients a lot of clients report that boost bar when they take it
doesn’t necessarily help them stop being anxious like a benzodiazepine does but it helps them not
go from zero to 200 in 2.3 seconds it kind of you know keeps them from having this gush of a freak
out reaction every time something goes wrong which a lot of clients report helps because they feel
more stable throughout the day after remission medication should be continued for six to twelve
months and during that last six months first six months keep it as is last six months you know
they say that tapering is best it’s best not to stop somebody cold turkey on any of these but
it’s important for people once they’re in remission to not just suddenly go okay I feel
better I don’t need any of this anymore they need to work into it and make sure they’ve developed
the skills and tools that they need to deal with some of the anxiety that is going to
happen in life so physical signs and symptoms of anxiety may include fatigue irritability muscle
tension or muscle aches try laying feeling twitchy being easily startled trouble sleeping nausea
diarrhea irritable bowel syndrome headaches so the first thing we want to do with clients when we’re
talking to them well second thing first thing is say get a physical let’s rule out physiological
causes of this but we can also help clients look at you know what might be causing these
things that you can do to mitigate it what might be contributing to your fatigue what might be
contributing to your irritability and your muscle tension or your muscle aches I mean let’s look at
economics did you recently get a new bed or do you need to get a new bed what about your desk chair I
know you know I get more muscle tension and muscle achy when I do a lot of mousing because I have
deplorable posture being becoming aware of that helps and then I’m like okay well I know it caused
unfortunately, it’s unpleasant but it’s not a big deal trembling or feeling twitchy you know
that can be caused by low blood sugar that can be caused anxiety that can also be caused
by early onset Parkinson’s symptoms you know there’s you know it can be worst case scenario
or it can be something benign so we want to have people figure out you know when you start
trembling or feeling twitchy is there something that it’s related to you know I know when my
son gets excited he’s he just sits there and you can see him almost shake because he’s so
excited about something so we want to have people prevent misidentification we don’t want them
to jump to that worst-case scenario we don’t want them to go onto WebMD and go oh my gosh I’ve
got cancer I’ve got this debilitating disease and I’m going to die in six months probabilistic Lee
speaking it’s not gonna happen yes get a doctor’s opinion I’m certainly not going to tell them it’s
all in your head I want them to get an evaluation but I do want to in the meantime
help them think about how likely is this and other things for headaches and this is
one another one of those that can be frustrating as we get older our eyesight starts to go and
you know there was a period there I did fine and then after I hit 45 my eyesight just started
to like steadily and kind of rapidly in my mind decline so I have to get my eyeglass prescription
changed every couple of years and that can cause headaches so instead of starting to worry
about oh my gosh I’ve got a headache all the time maybe I’ve got a brain tumor you know I know that
it’s probably my glasses or I’m grinding my teeth so other biological interventions that
have been evaluated there’s something called the floatation rest system that reduced environmental
stimulation therapy reduces sensory input into the nervous system through the act of floating
supine which is on your back in a pool of water saturated with Epsom salt you know I’m looking at
this going sounds good and you can’t quite get the same experience in a bathtub because
you’re not floating you’ve got pressure points and you’re still hearing stuff clients can sort of
simulate it with you know earplugs or whatever but it’s if they can access this it’s been shown
to be effective the float experience is calibrated so that sensory signals from visual
auditory olfactory gustatory thermal tactile or tactile vestibular gravitational and preceptive
channels are minimized which means you don’t see here taste touch smell feel anything as is most
movement and speech so you want people to lay just like completely motionless and not talk which can
be hard for some people with anxiety in the study the study I looked at fifty participants
reported significant reductions in stress muscle tension pain depression and negative effects and it
was accompanied by significant improvement in mood characterized by increases in relaxation happiness
and well-being I read the study I’m like where can I sign up you know it sounds in looking at some of
the research this was more effective for addressing anxiety than something like a massage
Tai Chi also produced significant reductions in anxiety there was approximately a 20% treatment
effect 25% treatment effect in patients with anxiety and fibromyalgia who practiced twice a
week for a year now you know we want to look at the confounding things here is it the Tai Chi
itself or is it learning to control the muscles and becoming more in tune with your body and
learning to control your breathing helps people reduce their anxiety either way you know
Tai Chi helps people do that and it was shown that after a year after the first six months, there was
a significant treatment effect but after a year you know it kept growing and after a year it was
about 25% so Tai Chi can be effective acupuncture at the HT 7 median Meridian can
attenuate anxiety-like behavior induced by withdrawal from chronic morphine treatment through
the meditation of the GABA receptor system what does that mean that means if you if the
acupuncture is done in very certain places the anxiety behavior the GABA a receptor
system GABA is your main calming relaxation neurochemical that is triggered and causes your
body to sort of flood that receptor system and this research was done on people who were detoxing
from morphine treatment but we can look at generalizing the results and I would be interested
to see further studies on it pain other things we need to do to help people with anxiety when people
are in chronic pain they often have anxiety that oh my gosh this is getting worse or It’s never
gonna get better or I just can’t take this pain anymore or they may get anxious that they’re going
to be rejected because they can’t do some of the things they used to do because they’re in so much
pain so there’s a lot of guilt and anxiety that can kind of revolve around pain what can we do
to help clients guided imagery is generally very helpful if we can help them imagine you know if
that pain in their shoulder imagine the pain is like the color red flowing out of their arm
or other focus mindfulness so you know when you think about something you know when you get a shot
if I don’t think about it it doesn’t hurt near as much as if the nurse says okay now one two three
and you know she’s counting down and I’m getting prepared and I’m focused on it I had
another nurse one time who she was just talking to me and you know put the alcohol on my arm
and just kept on talking and didn’t tell me she was getting ready to give me a shot and before I knew
it she had given me a shot and she was like okay we’re done I’m like you didn’t give me a shot yet
she said yes I did it’s like oh so not focusing on it and next time you have an itch for example
if you’ve ever been driving on the interstate and you can reach on your foot I get those on
the bottom of my foot sometimes and I’m like okay I’m not going to pull over to each my foot if you
focus on something besides the itch eventually, it goes away I’m not saying the pain is gonna completely
go away but the more people focus on it the more it hurts physical therapy can help so encourage
them to get a referral and encourage them to do a self-evaluation if nothing else of ergonomics in
their car at work where they watch TV and spend most of their time at home and they’re sleeping
so those are the four places that they spend most of their time what do their ergonomics look like
and that can help a lot of people mitigate a lot of pain hormones are another thing that
we need to look at imbalances of estrogen and testosterone can contribute to anxiety symptoms
heart palpitations fatigue irritability having people get a physical we can’t as clinicians do
anything about it but doctors can rapid heart weight rate sweating palpitations are not uncommon
in women in perimenopause or menopause so a lot of women start feeling like they’re developing
generalized anxiety and/or something’s going wrong when they start reaching that mid-40s to mid-50s
area and they start having some of these symptoms again we’re not going to diagnose it but we do
want them to recognize that it may not be anything you know is catastrophic this is something that a
a lot of women experience and help them figure out how to deal with that supportive care biologically
now you know this isn’t gonna treat anything but we can help them minimize their vulnerabilities
help them create a sleep routine so their brain and body can rebalance this can help repair any
adrenal issues that may be going on and improve energy levels people with anxiety don’t sleep well
so helping them figure out how to get some quality sleep is important nutrition minimizing caffeine
and other stimulants are going to be a big help because those make people feel anxious and encourage
them to work with a nutritionist to try to prevent spikes and drops in blood sugar which can trigger
the stress response when your blood sugar goes way up or way down you can start getting kind of shaky
and feel weird and that can cause people anxiety because they might think oh my gosh I’m having a
stroke or a heart attack or you know I don’t know what these tremors are so it’s important that
they don’t miss identify symptoms and encourage them to drink enough water dehydration can lead
to toxic Ardea which is increased heart rate sunlight vitamin D deficiency is implicated
in both depression and anxiety mood issues vitamin D has been found in those main areas where
serotonin receptors are found vitamin D receptors are found so we know the serotonin and vitamin D
have something going on sunlight prompts the skin to tell the brain to produce neurotransmitters and
set circadian rhythms which impact the release of serotonin your calming neurochemical melatonin
which is made from breaking down serotonin and helps you sleep and gaba so sunlight actually
helps increase the release of GABA when it’s time to start calming down and going to sleep
exercise studies have shown that exercise can have a relaxing effect and encourage clients to start
slowly there’s not a whole lot of new research on exercise and anxiety aromatherapy has been
used a lot, especially in other countries in the treatment of people with anxiety people with
hospital anxiety people women who are giving birth and they have some birth anxiety there they’ve
been found to be effective in a lot of those studies essential oils for anxiety include
lavender rose Bedevere ylang ylang bergamot chamomile frankincense and Clary sage encourage
clients to just go to a health food store and you know sniff some of these and see if it makes them
feel happy and calm and content the aromatherapy molecules enter the nasal membranes and they
will start triggering neurochemical reactions and so you don’t need to apply it you don’t need
to ingest it all you need to do is so encourage clients if they’re open to it to think about this
because aromatherapy can be integrated into their bedroom for example with an atomizer or a Mr.
It
can be incorporated in a lot of different places again where they’re not applying it or ingesting
it in any way all they’re doing is smelling it they’ve used it in defusing aromatherapy in
hospital emergency rooms and they found that it reduces stress and irritability the people in
emergency rooms and I’ve been to enough emergency rooms over the years to know that
people who are in ers typically are not in the best mood so if it can help those people then
it’s probably going to have some sort of an effect so psychologically helping clients realize
that their body thinks there’s a threat for some reason that’s why it triggered the threat response
system which is what they call anxiety so they need to figure out why is there a threat
you know sometimes it’s like the fire alarm going off in my house it just means that the windows are
open and there’s a strong breeze there is no fire there is no problem there’s just a malfunction
it’s a false alarm a lot of times clients get this threat reaction they get this stress
reaction and it’s not a big deal right now so they can start modifying what their brain responds to
and again those basic fears that a lot of people worry about failure rejection loss of control the
unknown and death and loss distress tolerance is one of those cognitive interventions that have
taken center stage in anxiety research and it isn’t about controlling your anxiety you know
helping people recognize their anxiety acknowledge it and say okay I’m anxious it is what it is
how can I improve the next moment instead of saying I’m anxious I shouldn’t be anxious I hate
being anxious and slang with that anxiety let it go just accept it is what it is have the client
learn to start saying I am feeling anxious okay so distracted don’t react because I explain to them
the whole notion of feelings comes in the crest and goes out in about 20 minutes it’s like a wave so once they
acknowledge their feeling if they can distract themselves for twenty or thirty minutes you know
they figured out there was no real threat if they can distract themselves for twenty or
thirty minutes those emotions can go down and then they can deal with it in their wise mind and encourage
them to use distancing techniques instead of saying I am anxious or I am terrified or whatever
have them say I am having the thought that this is the worst thing in the world I am having the
thought that I cannot handle this because thoughts come and go and that comes from acceptance and
commitment therapy functional analysis makes it possible to specify where and when with what frequency
with what intensity and under what circumstances the anxious response is triggered so it’s
important that we help clients develop the ability to do functional analyses on their own so
when they start feeling anxious they can stop and say okay where am I what’s going on how intense
is it what are the circumstances and they start trying to figure out what causes this for
them so they can identify any common themes from their psychoeducation about cognitive distortions
and techniques to prevent those circumstances or mitigate them can be provided so if the client
knows that they get anxious before they go into a meeting with their boss and it’s usually a high
the intensity of anxiety okay so we can educate them and help them identify what fears that may be related
to techniques to slow their breathing and calm their stress reaction and help them figure out
times in the past when they’ve handled going in and talking to their boss and it wasn’t
the end of the world you know there’s lots of different things we can do there for them there
but the first key and it gives them a lot of a huge sense of empowerment to start becoming
detectives in their own life and going okay now under what situations does this happen positive
writing this was another cool study each day for 30 days the experimental group and this
was high school-aged youth in China but you know the experimental group engaged in 20 minutes of
writing about positive emotions they felt that day so they’re writing about anything positive
that make them happy that made them enthusiastic gave them hope whatever long-term expressive
writing positive emotions so after 30 days it appeared to help reduce test anxiety by helping
them develop insight and use positive emotion words so it got them out of the habit of using
the destruction and doom words and encouraged them to get in the habit of looking at the positive
things and being more optimistic it’s a cool activity that clients can try it’s not gonna
hurt anything if you have them journal each day for 30 days mindfulness also came up in the
research and was shown to be effective in a meta-analysis of six articles about mindfulness
based stress reduction four about mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and three about fear of
negative appraisal and emotion regulation were reviewed all of these showed that mindfulness
was an effective strategy for the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders and is an effective
in therapy protocols with different structures including virtual modalities so you know if you’re
doing it via teleconference mindfulness can still be helpful mindfulness helps people start learning
how to observe what’s going on and become aware of what’s going on more aware of those circumstances
which will help them complete their functional analysis but it also helps them become aware of
vulnerabilities and head off things in the past and if they’re taking better care of themselves
that they’re living more mindfully then they may not experience as many situations that trigger
their anxiety mindfulness also encourages clients to learn acceptance that radical acceptance of
it is what it is I’m not gonna fight it I’m angry right now I am anxious right now however I’m
feeling right now is how I feel and that’s okay it’s hard for clients to get to that but once
they get a hold of that and they truly believe it and they can say all right it’s fine I’m not gonna
feel this way forever I’m gonna do something else until the feeling passes it helps and that’s where
the labeling and letting go comes in mindfulness can also help them identify trigger thoughts
what thought were you having right before you started feeling anxious if people are mindful or
let’s start back when people are not mindful they often notice or don’t notice that they’re getting
anxious until they’re like super anxious when people are mindful they become more aware of
subtle cues address unhelpful thoughts when they say or believe it’s a dire necessity for adults
to be loved by significant others for almost everything they do always running gonna happen
why is it a necessity what we can encourage them to do is concentrate on their self-respect
on winning approval for practical purposes you know for promotions or whatever but it’s not about
me being lovable it’s about me getting a promotion and making more money and focusing on loving
rather than being loved because when we give love we generally get love back with unhelpful thought
number two people feel they aren’t able to stand it if things are not the way they want them to be
or are not in their control so encourage clients to focus on the parts that are in their control
and other things in life which are going well and to which they’re committed number three misery
is invariably externally caused and is forced on us by outside people and events just by reading
that makes me feel disempowered so encouraging clients to focus on the fact that reactions such
as misery or happiness are largely caused by the view that people take of the conditions so if
you see it as a tragedy and devastating then it’s probably going to produce misery if you
see it as an opportunity and a challenge it’s probably going to produce a different emotional
reaction if something is or may be dangerous or fearsome people should be upset and
endlessly upset about obsessing about it a lot of people with anxiety get stuck on this you know
if I feel like it’s fearsome I need to worry about it getting on a plane for example if I fear that
that’s dangerous that I need to think about it and worry about it that’s not going to do any
good so encourage clients to figure out how to face it and render it harmless if possible and
when that’s not possible accept the inevitable so looking at airplanes you know facing it means
researching to figure out how dangerous is it really and realizing that it’s not
that dangerous so that helps render it a little bit harmless in their mind it proves to them
that it’s not as dangerous as it could be and when it’s not possible accepting the inevitable you
know you got a fly so getting on there figuring out how you’re gonna get through it hurricanes
are the same way people especially in places like Texas Louisiana Florida may obsess as soon
as it starts coming to hurricane season or if a hurricane is spotted out in the Atlantic somewhere
they start checking the weather every hour or more wondering what the path is going to be and you
know what there’s you can’t change the path of the hurricane so all you can do is board up your house
evacuate if necessary and deal with the fallout child driving is just another example I’ll give
you know my children are learning how to drive and that’s kind of scary and fearsome you know what’s
gonna happen when they’re out there you know you see crashes all the time well render it harmless
by making sure they’ve got good training on how to drive make sure they’re good drivers and then
accepting that some things are just not within my control it’s easier to avoid than face life
difficulties and responsibilities Well running from fear is usually much harder in the long run
so encourage clients to look back at times when they’ve avoided difficulties and responsibilities
and the eventual outcome you know what happened there people believe they should be thoroughly
competent in achieving in all possible respects or they will be isolated rejected and failures we
need to encourage clients to accept themselves as imperfect with human limitations and flaws and
focus on what makes them loveable human being what qualities like courage and intelligence and
creativity and those things that can’t be taken away what inherent qualities do they have that
make them awesome people because something once strongly affected people’s lives they should
indefinitely fear it if you got lost you know when little kids get lost it’s terrifying when
you’re grown up if you get lost you turn on the GPS and you figure out your way but some people
still, you know freaked out about getting lost if they got lost once so we want to help people look
back at past episodes that may be contributing to the current anxiety and compare the situation’s
you know are you the same person or is this not a big deal now that you’re older wiser stronger
encourage them to learn from past experiences but not be overly attached to or prejudiced by
them yeah you could have maybe got lost in the past and it was a horrible experience well you
were six I can see where that would be terrifying and a horrible experience but it doesn’t have to
continue to impact you that way now when you’re you know 26 getting lost you know could be an
opportunity to try a new restaurant or something people must have complete control over things
well this doesn’t happen so encourage clients to remember that the past and the future are
uncontrollable we can’t change the past it is what it is we can learn from it so it doesn’t repeat
but we can’t change it and the future is largely uncontrollable I mean there are a lot of things I
can do to stay moving toward a rich and meaningful life but life is going to throw me curveballs
sometimes and there’s nothing I can do to plan for or control that we can control our actions in the
present to stay on our preferred path and general develop general skills to deal with adversity
should it arise so we want to help clients develop those general problem-solving skills and
the general support system so when they are thrown a curveball you know it doesn’t knock them upside
the head people have virtually no control over their emotions and cannot help feeling disturbed
by things well encourage them to think about the fact that they have real control over destructive
emotions if they choose to work at improving the next moment and changing inaccurate thoughts then
they’re not going to experience the destructive emotions as intensely or as frequently when you
feel an emotion you feel how you feel but again you don’t have to wrestle with it fight it and
nurture it you can say this is how I feel how do I improve the next moment when it comes to
cognitive distortions encourage them to find alternatives when they start to personalize things
if somebody laughs when you walk out of the room then the and the person starts getting anxious
thinking oh they were making fun of me I wonder what they thought I wonder if I had something
stuck to the back of my dress and they start getting all panicked about it that doesn’t do
any good encouraging them to think you know what our three alternate explanations that hadn’t but
had nothing to do with you for why they laughed magnification of the worst thing you know taking
something and saying if this happens then it’s going to be a catastrophe and minimization going
along with that a lot of times when people magnify and see a catastrophe they minimize not only
their strengths and resources but all the other stuff that they’ve got going for them all
they’re seeing is this catastrophe so encouraging them to focus on the facts of what is actually
happening and what is the high probability event and encourage them to get information
and look at the broader picture you know yes you got into a car crash and your car is totaled and
that is unfortunate you know it sucks but you know that is not going to cause you to lose
your job and then become homeless and penniless and yadda-yadda it might cause your insurance to
go up but okay so you don’t have a car but what are the resources that you have who can Who do
you work with that might be able to give you a ride to work you know let’s look at the resources
you have and work around so problem-solving helps with magnification and also focusing on you know
let’s be grateful for what didn’t happen you know you could have been killed but you weren’t the
car was totaled it’s replaceable all or nothing thinking again have them think about what else
could have been happening like Brittney suggested finding the exceptions instead of saying she
always does this look for exceptions when has she not done that what else has she done instead
of this selective abstraction and filtering is when people look for the good the bad and the
ugly a selective abstraction means you kind of see what you expect to see so if you expect
something to be devastating you see only the devastating aspects of it which kind of goes with
the magnification and minimization you filter out the stuff a lot of times when people are in a bad
mood or are anxious they see the negative because that’s the state of mind they’re in so encouraging
people to complete the picture alright there’s all this bad stuff now what’s the good stuff you
know to encourage them to look at the good the bad and the ugly so they get a wide view of exactly
what’s going on and encourage them to remember that hindsight is twenty-twenty when people have
something embarrassing happens or they get anxious about something that happened they look back
and they go I should have or I could have or Oh I wish I wouldn’t have when you were in that
situation you did what you did and you know maybe you may have had a reason for it or you know
you may have not had other options or it may have just been a bonehead thing to do but okay so you
made one mistake hindsight is 2020 that’s gonna that mistake is gonna stand out just like the
great big letter on the eye chart because you’re thinking back and you’re looking at it and that’s
all you see but encouraging clients to remember that other people are too busy worrying about
themselves to remember what they did jumping to conclusions encourages clients to remember to
get all the data if your significant other male significant other comes home and is smelling like
perfume don’t just jump to the conclusion that he was cheating on you maybe he went to the
mall to get a new tie and walked through the perfume area and got spritzed or bought you some
perfume or who knows maybe the person sitting next to him at work sprayed her perfume on the desk
and some of it filtered on there are all different reasons that that might happen so encourage people
to get all the data mind reading we can’t do it you know you can’t read somebody’s mind you don’t
know what they’re thinking so ask them what you think about this don’t assume anything and
emotional reasoning encourages people to step back from a situation and ask themselves am I feeling
anxious about this because I’m feeling anxious and I’m looking for reasons that it should be scary
or am I feeling anxious about this because it’s really scary for some reason there are facts
support my anxiety a lot of times when we go into new situations we may feel anxious because it’s
a new situation but when we step back we say you know what there’s nothing to be worried
about here you know no big deal I got this and move on so instead of rolling with it and trying
to figure out okay I feel anxious so there must be a reason not necessarily very likely a false
alarm other psychological interventions relaxation skills encourage people to learn how to relax
not only physically but mentally diaphragmatic breathing helps encourage them to breathe
through their stomach and put their hand on their belly and feel their belly expand and contract
slows breathing down which triggers the rest and digestion reaction in the brain which is calming
meditation can be helpful for some people some people find trying to quiet their minds too
frustrating because they’ve got too much monkey mind going on that can be later or maybe
never for some people we don’t want to increase their anxiety with interventions cute progressive
muscular relaxation also has a lot of research support and remembers with cute progressive
muscular relaxation we’re Sakura getting them to attach a cue AK you word like relax or breathe
with the relaxation response so they tense their muscles and then relax their muscles and as
they relax their muscles they say their “querk”-word like relaxed and they work from head to toe or
from toe to head tensing and relaxing different muscle groups so they become more aware of what a
tense muscle feels like versus a reactive relaxed muscle there are great scripts that are online
that people have already recorded that can walk people walk clients through CPM are I highly
encourage it because once they get used to it then they can just think that cue they can think
relax and as they exhale they will start to feel their entire body kind of relaxing because it’s
trained when it hears that just like when you hear the word pop quiz when you were in high school
you had a stress reaction well we want to use it in reverse and train the body so that when
it hears a cue word relaxes helps them develop self-esteem because fear of failure and rejection
a lot of times come from needing other people’s approval to help them develop a rational idea of
their real self develops compassion self-talk instead of saying I’m an idiot or I’m stupid or
I’ll never measure up to anything encourage them to talk to themself like they would talk to their
child or hopefully their best friend and encourage them to spotlight strengths whenever they feel
like they’ve got an imperfection to identify these three strengths that they have so they’re you know
balancing out the imperfections and the strengths of cognitive restructuring reframes challenges in
terms of current strengths, not past weaknesses so if you’re going to give a presentation in front
of 60 people and you hate public speaking instead of thinking about you know this is terrifying
because the last time I went up in front of people I forgot everything I was going to say and drop
my note cards well that’s a past weakness what is your current strength you’re prepared you know
the material you Jabba-dada so encourages people to look at all the strengths and resources they
currently have them develop an attitude of gratitude and optimism because like I said with
that the positive writing exercise when people are in a grateful optimistic frame of mind they
tend to see more of the good stuff they see the bad stuff too but they can also see more of the
good stuff and some of the bad stuff they see opportunistically instead of as a devastation
acceptance and commitment therapy says that some of the reasons that we’re miserable are
fear we get fused with our thoughts we think I am terrified well if I am terrified then I can’t
I mean if I am I can’t get rid of anything I am if I’m having the thought that I’m terrified
well I can get rid of a thought I can forget things easily encourage people to evaluate their
experience and empower them to look at things as challenges and opportunities instead of hardships
encourage them not to avoid their experiences so things that are scary gradual exposure and
finding exceptions like for me bridges you know I love public speaking so that’s not a
thing but when I go to a bridge you know when I Drive to the bridge you know when I’m on the
bridge somebody else is driving I get used to doing that when I Drive over a bridge than when
I Drive over one of those bridges that opens up I hate those bridges um I know y’all are just like
oh my gosh yeah it’s an irrational fear I realize that but instead of going straight for the bridge
that opens up going for the little bridges first and then thinking back over times that I’ve gone
over bridges and there’s been no problem you know there are exceptions nothing happened it wasn’t a
big deal Sometimes I didn’t even notice it until somebody pointed out hey look down there at that
pretty water and I’m like oh we’re on a bridge so encourage people to not avoid their experiences
get used to them embrace them and learn that they have the power to deal with them and stop reason
giving for behavior you know use the challenging questions if something is fearsome let’s look for
at the evidence for and against it instead of you know making excuses for social interventions
improve their relationship with their self which goes with self-esteem improvement people are going
to feel less anxious about getting their needs and wants to be met if they know what their needs and wants
are so part of that is becoming mindful cuz a lot of our clients don’t know what they need and want
they just want to feel better but they don’t know how they don’t know what they need to feel
better so helping them identify their needs and wants to encourage them to be their own best friend
you know when they get a promotion take themselves out to dinner pat themselves on the back whatever
it is don’t rely on
other people to do it because other people it’s not that they don’t care but
other people are often very involved in thinking about their stuff and they may not notice
encourage them to develop a method of internal validation so they can feel like they are all
that ‘no bag of chips and they realize why they are lovable human beings and they accept the
the fact that everybody is not going to like them and nobody is gonna like them all the time and
that’s okay you know my kids don’t like me all the time my husband doesn’t like me all the time
I’m okay with that I know I can be challenging but you know most of the time you know they like me
and that’s okay and there are some people you know who don’t like me at all and okay there’s
nothing I can do about that helping our clients develop an okayness with that helps relieve a lot
of anxiety because a lot of people feel like they have to be liked by everybody and if somebody
doesn’t like them it’s like what did I do wrong oh my gosh encourage them to develop healthy
supportive relationships with good boundaries develop assertiveness skills so they can ask for
help when they need it anxiety a lot of times you know that’s the body saying there’s a threat well
if there’s a threat maybe you need some help you know dealing with it so people need to be willing
and able to ask for help and not feel like that’s going to lead them to be rejected and allow them a
certify this will allow them to say no to requests again without feeling like that’s going to result
in them being fully rejected describe the ideal healthy supportive relationship and encourage
them to separate the ideals from the reals you know let’s look at if you had the best relationship
what would it look like okay you know Warden June Cleaver we got that now how realistic is that
you know let’s look at you know rephrasing this a little bit so it’s less extreme you know warden
June Cleaver never fought their kids were perfect you know all those extreme words let’s look at
what’s real what happens in real relationships encourages people to identify who would be
a good partner in supportive relationships I’m not meaning necessarily romantic I’m meaning
friends and where they can be found you know where would you find people that you could be friends
with and encourage them to play through what it means when gaming cuz a lot of times again this
goes with my reading you know what it means when your friend doesn’t return your text right
away what does it mean when your friend cancels dinner on Friday night what does it mean when
you see where I’m going with this and a lot of times clients with anxiety and rejection issues
and low self-esteem will go to the worst-case scenario so encourage them to go back to finding
the exceptions what else could have been happening what else could it be that caused this and it’s
not about you so anxiety is a natural emotion that serves a survival function excessive anxiety can
develop from lack of sleep nutritional problems neurochemical imbalances failure to develop
adequate coping skills cognitive distortions low self-esteem and a variety of other stuff recovery
Ambala involves improving health behaviors making sure your body’s functioning and making the
neurotransmitters it needs and you know release them as needed to identify and build on current
coping strategies address cognitive distortions and develop a healthy supportive relationship with
self and others if you enjoy this podcast please like and subscribe either in your podcast player
or on youtube, you can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr.
Snipes by subscribing
at all CEUs comm slash counselor toolbox, this episode has been brought to you in part by all
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As found on YouTubeBrain Booster | Blue Heron Health News ⇝ I was losing my memory, focus – and mind! And then… I got it all back again. Case study: Brian Thompson There’s nothing more terrifying than watching your brain health fail. You can feel it… but you can’t stop it. Over and over I asked myself, where is this going to end? What am I going to end up like? And nobody could tell me. Doesn’t matter now. I’m over it. Completely well. This is how I did it!
Depression affects many of us around the globe. According to the World Health Organization,
300 million people of all ages battle with it Depression is a sneaky mental disorder. It’s difficult to catch during the early
stages. Most of us realize we have depression when
we are deep in the grips of it. Those with this mental disorder feel hopeless,
empty or sad, fatigued, irritable, and restless. Depression not only takes your motivation
away, but you can have problems concentrating and making decisions.
Those of us with this disorder can act in
ways that will worsen the situation. Here’s a list of 10 things depression makes
you do. 1. Isolating yourself. Individuals with depression isolate themselves
for different reasons. Some will keep to themselves because they
feel overwhelmed socializing, and others believe it’s better to be alone. In other cases, the person may feel so much
self-hatred that they prefer to not interact with people. Those with severe depression may even stay
in their house for weeks. 2. Being disorganized. Depression leaves you feeling exhausted, so
cleaning a room or home becomes an endeavor.
Dirty dishes and clothes start piling up while
your garbage is overflowing the trash. It becomes an even bigger a physical challenge
to walk around your room because everything is on the floor. Living in a cluttered place leaves you feeling
uneasy, but the lack of energy doesn’t help. 3. Poor hygiene. Depression zaps all your energy. It’s difficult enough to get out of bed, so
showering, brushing your teeth, washing your hair and taking care of your body, it goes
out the window.
Those without depression may see this behavior
as lazy, but the truth is, showering or changing into clean clothes is exhausting and painful
at times. 4. Struggling with sleep. Depression affects your sleeping schedule,
some of you may stay up and sleep very little. It keeps you up with your intrusive unwanted
thoughts. These may end up making you feel anxious
all through the night. In other cases, some of you will sleep excessively
and still feel unrested. 5. Catastrophizing every situation. Depression plays tricks on your mind, making
you believe negative things. It can get to a point where you’re constantly
looking out for bad things to reassure your pessimistic thinking. Every time something bad happens, you use
it as evidence to prove how bad life is.
This slippery slope makes it difficult to
see life under a brighter light. 6. Terrible eating habits. Those with depression will either eat too
much or hardly anything at all. Some of you may find yourself in the kitchen
eating everything in side, trying to eat away the emptiness or sadness you’re feeling while others don’t have an appetite and may even feel disgusted by food.
In other cases, some of you may feel so exhausted
that that thought of preparing a meal is overwhelming. 7. Lack of motivation. Depression steals your interests and desires
right from under you. Your favorite pastimes and hobbies no longer
satisfy you, slowly you find yourself feeling dead and numb inside. If you aren’t careful you’ll end up staying
in bed all day. 8. Evading your problems. Depression by itself is overwhelming, you
can feel devastated and out of control most days, so trying to face situations and problems
head-on is difficult enough.
Instead you ignore or set the problem aside,
and this in turn can bring trouble because it will continue to pile up. 9. Feeling guilty and feeling self-hatred. If you allow depression to take over your
thoughts, then you’ll most likely feel self-hatred. You’ll continue to talk down to yourself and
this often leads to the development of self-esteem issues along with poor self-image, eventually
you’ll believe you aren’t worth it anymore. Some people with this mental disorder can
even feel guilt by thinking all their problems are their fault. And 10: living in fear. People with depression fear that terrible
things will happen to them. In severe cases, some of you will sabotage a good situation, believing that it will turn bad. Other times individuals will reject opportunities
and stop pursuing their dreams.
It’s a twisted way to protect yourself because
this prevents you from living and achieving amazing things. Depression affects us in different ways. The list mentioned in this video contains
some of the common behaviors those with the disorder have. Do you agree with these points? What other behaviors have you noticed? Let us know in the comment section below. <3.
As found on YouTubeBrain Booster | Blue Heron Health News ⇝ I was losing my memory, focus – and mind! And then… I got it all back again. Case study: Brian Thompson There’s nothing more terrifying than watching your brain health fail. You can feel it… but you can’t stop it. Over and over I asked myself, where is this going to end? What am I going to end up like? And nobody could tell me. Doesn’t matter now. I’m over it. Completely well. This is how I did it!
CEUs are available at AllCEUs.com/CBT-CEU This episode was pre-recorded as part of
a live continuing education webinar. On demand CEUs are still available for this
presentation through ALLCEUs. ALLCEUs.com/CBT-CEU I’d like to welcome everybody today
to cognitive behavioral therapy addressing negative thoughts. Now a lot
of us took courses and cognitive behavioral therapy we’ve worked with CBP
for many many years so some of the this is just going to be a refresher and
others you know you may pick up a few new tips or tools as we go along so
we’re going to define cognitive behavioral therapy and its basic
principles just get a really basic refresher on what was that original CDP
about well identify factors impacting people’s choices behaviors because you
know they always have a choice we’ll explore causes and the impact of
thinking errors whether you call them cognitive distortions irrational
thoughts or when I work with my clients I try to call them unhelpful beliefs or
unhelpful thoughts because distortions and irrational seems sort of pejorative
to me so I try to avoid those words as much as possible and help clients see
them as not incorrect necessarily but unhelpful and then we’ll identify some
common thinking errors and their relationship to cognitive distortions
and some of our just very basic fears why do we care
well because cognitive distortions or irrational thoughts or unhelpful
thoughts whatever you want to say really impacts people on a physical level a
mental level and an emotional level a person who perceives the world is
hostile unsafe and unpredictable will tend to be more hyper vigilant until
they exhaust the stress response system so think about you know a bottle ship
and you’ve got a bunch of new people on this battleship and all the sailors
every time there’s the least little thing they send off the
all-hands-on-deck so a big bird flies over and I mean literally a bird and
they freak out found me all hands on deck and this goes
on for a week or two or six months you know let’s think about our clients they
don’t usually come in right away where everything is set to OFF that startle
response everything sets off that fight-or-flight response the staff
starts to get exhausted all the rest of the sailors that have to drop everything
and run to their battle stations after a little while they’re like really no no
we just we can’t even do this and it also reminds me of the boy who cried
wolf anyhow I digress sticking with the battleship metaphor so eventually the
captain says you know what let’s retrain on what is worth setting off the all
hands on deck because everybody here is exhausted and nobody’s even really
responding anymore when they come to their battle stations they’re just kind
of dragging their butts in like whatever it’s probably another false alarm the
same sort of thing is true with us when we’re on on high alert for too long our
brain says you know what we got to conserve some energy in case some really
really big threat comes along so it turns down what I call the stress
response system it turns down the sensitivity so you don’t get alerted for
every little thing that would cause you stress but you also don’t get alerted
for those little things that would cause you happiness either anything that would
cause the excitatory neurotransmitters to be secreted you’re just not getting
those anymore which a lot of people kind of refer to as depression it’s just kind
of like the F whatever and only the biggest most notable things actually
cause an emotional effect we don’t want people to get to that point that’s no
way to live so we need to help them learn how to sort of retrain their
spotters to figure out what is actually stressful a person who perceives the
world is generally good and believe they have the ability to deal with challenges
as they arise will be able to allow their stress response system to function
normally there are going to be times you have all hands on deck whether it’s a
real emergency or whether it’s just a drill but it will happen and they can go
they can you know do what they’re going to do they have that adrenaline rush
they have the energy and the focus to do their jobs and when it’s over they
go back to their quarters they can relax refresh you know just kind of chill for
a while and then there’s a low where their body rebalances before the next
one and this is kind of what we want in life I mean ideally we wouldn’t have
super high peaks very often but we want to make sure we give our body time to
rebalance after there’s a stressor and not have to stand on on edge not be
hyper vigilant constantly just waiting for the next one to come along so what
is the impact of these thinking errors well whenever we have that stress
response system activated the body is saying we either need to fight or we
need to flee so you’re dumping all kinds of adrenaline and other neuro chemicals
so there’s anxiety there can be stress when people start having this reaction
you know they start having muscle tension sweating heart rate increases
breathing increases people will call that anxiety some will label that as
anger either way they’re both sides of the same coin
they need to do something but if it lasts too long then we start moving into
depression and they just they don’t have to get up and go anymore there’s just
not any excitatory neurotransmitters really left they need some time to rest
and rebalance behaviorally think about it if you go somewhere and you are just
constantly on guard are you going to keep going there or are you going to
withdraw so people who have a lot of thinking errors unhelpful thoughts tend
to withdraw more they may turn to addictions to kind of numb or blunt some
of the inputs sleep problems and changes when you are hyper vigilant when you
have this stress response going even if it’s not a full-bore if it’s still there
somewhat if you’re stressed out you’re not going to sleep as well you’re going
to maintain higher levels of cortisol so you’re not going to get that restful
rejuvenating sleep you may kind of goes on and off eating changes you know
depending on the person some people eat the self food that some people can’t eat
it all but we do see that the hormones Guerlain
and lets them get all out of whack not under stress but also when sleep
gets out of whack when your circadian rhythms get out of whack so we’re
starting to see the Cascade effect where it’s emotional and behavioral physical
you’ve got stress-related illnesses that start coming up if you’re on that lunch
you’ve got muscle tension for that long it starts to hurt I mean you start to
get migraines your back starts to hurt wherever you store your stress so to
speak it starts to come out and most people when they’re under a lot of
stress for an extended period you know a day is not a big deal for most people
but for an extended period become more susceptible to illnesses they start
getting sick easier headaches GI distress you know some people store
their stress right in their gut socially think about the last time you were
stressed were you patient and tolerant and just a pleasure to be around you may
have tried to be but you’re more prone to irritability and impatience and again
wanting to withdraw all of these affects contribute to fatigue and a sense of
hopelessness and helplessness which often intensifies thinking errors so
you’ll see this negative reciprocal interaction if somebody feels stressed
out and overwhelmed and that they withdrawal then they may start feeling
like they have no support and they don’t and they lose all their social buffers
to the stress so they feel even more stressed so they want to withdrawal even
more so we’re going to talk about how to prevent that now I like this little
diagram maybe because it’s got a heart in the center I don’t know
but behavior feelings and thoughts this is the outside of the circle all three
of these impact diecuts each other when you do something
it often impacts your feelings and your thoughts about a situation when you when
you’re thinking if you think positively you’re probably going to choose more
positive behaviors and more have more positive feelings you’re thinking
negatively obviously you may choose more of an escape behavior
Protection behavior and may have more feelings of anger anxiety depression etc
so these things are going on and they’re all interacting the one really cool
thing is if you break this chain somewhere or this circuit then you can
stop that reciprocal negative downward spiral so cognitive behavioral helps
people who are willing to show up or who are willing to address their thoughts
not everybody is willing to start addressing their thoughts right away
maybe they want to start addressing their sleep problems in their eating
problems or something that’s more physical okay that’s fine because
anywhere we interrupt this circuit is going to have positive effects assuming
the intervention is positive it’s going to have positive effects on the other
ones so what about the triangle well yourself
so you’re feeling thoughts and behavior impact you it impacts how you feel and
you’re like well yeah okay just stay with me but the way you feel think and
act impacts your future and it also impacts how you interact with others so
you know that kind of affects things because remember social support is a big
buffer for us now core beliefs and you can do this inward to outward or outward
to inward but either way it comes down to core beliefs if you have positive
thoughts and positive feelings and you generally engage in positive behaviors
to keep that cycle going you will probably feel pretty good about yourself
have good relationships have a somewhat optimistic feeling about the future and
your core beliefs may be more like people are generally good I can do this
you know very self affirming and other affirming positive core beliefs about
yourself in the world now if your thoughts or feelings are negative then
you have this negative outer circle you don’t feel so good you start questioning
the goodness and Trust ability and dependable
of other people you have more of a bleak look in the future so what do you think
is going to happen to the core beliefs the core beliefs may change too if
someone doesn’t love me I am completely unloveable they may
change to being more extreme more negative and more difficult to rectify
if you want to have somebody who’s happy I mean you’re not going to have somebody
who’s happy who thinks the world is an unkind unpredictable scary place going
it’s just wonderful roses today so we have to help people try to adjust
eventually start adjusting those core beliefs and when we get into causing
that behavior remember the ABCs your automatic but
well your automatic thought then your and beliefs are what happened as soon as
that event occurs and those you don’t think about that’s why they’re called
automatic so when you have the ABCs these core beliefs are those things that
pop up that we need to address so what factors affect this and whoops you know
there’s a lot of stuff right here and EBP they call them vulnerabilities you
know we’re just going to talk about in general different factors that affect
the choices our clients make in terms of behaviors so negative emotions if they
are not if they’re feeling angry if they’re feeling anxious they’re feeling
depressed they’re probably not going to be really motivated to get up and engage
in a whole lot of self affirming activities they’re not probably not
going to be having a lot of positive self affirming thoughts they’re going to
be focused on whatever is causing that distress and maybe escaping from that
physically pain and illness when you don’t feel well it’s harder to be Susie
sunshine I don’t think many of us are just a barrel of monkeys when we don’t
feel well so if our clients have pain this is one
of those if you want to put it in behaviors behavioral areas physical
areas we can address and have them go see their physician have them go see
their physical therapist and get recommendations so they aren’t feeling
physically painful physically and distress all the time because physical
distress and emotional distress both mess with sleep unfortunately sleep
is the first thing to usually go and I’m not talking about quantity I know a lot
of clients who when they get depressed they’re in in bed for you know days
they’ll get up they’ll maybe shower and you know go back to bed and they’re
sleeping a lot but it doesn’t mean it’s quality sleep so what we need to look at
is what is the quality of their sleep are they getting that rejuvenation the
time for their brain and neural chemicals to rebalance so they can feel
happy so they can have that nice balance of all the the neurotransmitters they
need to feel happy poor nutrition well no matter how much sleep they get if
they don’t have the building blocks to make the neurotransmitters and the
hormones that are needed to prompt the feelings the physiological sensations
that we’ve labeled happiness or excitement or you know even depression
and anxiety those are all caused by different neurotransmitters being
secreted in different combinations if your body doesn’t have the building
blocks to make those then it doesn’t matter how much sleep you get you’re not
going to get any benefit from it an intoxication and this can be uppers
downers anything that is psychoactive if you are messing with that
neurotransmitter balance you’re going to get it out of whack and you may either
use up too much of the excitatory or cause us a lot of it or you may use up
too much of the depressant either way there’s usually a rebound effect which
we call withdrawal so you’re not going to be in a good space either during the
intoxication sometimes but definitely when you’re sobering up
there’s a period where there’s going to be negative emotions negative feelings
environmentally yeah your environment can even make you grumpy
introduction of a new or unique situation some people love new
challenges love going to new places other people not so much depending on
the person taking on going somewhere new may be really stressful for them so if
they’ve already got de-stress going on because of having to go to this new
situation then their thoughts may be a little bit more on the anxious side
about a lot of things and they may have less patience and tolerance to deal with
other stuff that comes their way because they’re already kind of on edge and
exposure to unpress you know going places that you just really don’t want
to go maybe and one of the places I used to work we had this meeting once a month
and it was literally an eight-hour meeting and we would all sit in there
for eight hours and one person at a time would get up and give their staff
reports or whatever but it tended to be a relatively dreadful sort of
environment or eight hours and we all knew we had to be there and that was
fine but it was an unprecedented were grumbling on the way in they were
getting their coffee and going well I better do this because I’m not getting
out for another eight hours we need to help our clients obsess what is it in
your environment if anything that is making you already feel grumpy or not as
happy and likewise what can you put in your environment to make you feel
happier you know I keep pictures of my kids and my animals on my phone that way
if I’m having a moment or not sometimes I just like looking at them I can take a
look at it it makes me smile and I’m like okay life is good you know this
moment may not be so wonderful but it’s just this moment then we move on to
stress of a social nature peers or family who
convey irrational thoughts as necessary standards for social acceptance nobody
wants to associate with those people or nobody’s going to like you when you’re
like this or you read if you really want to be successful then you need to change
fill in the blank it’s always a something needs to change you are not
okay for who you are how you are and a lack of supportive peers to buffer
stress because we all have negative people in our life it happens but if you
have negative supportive peers that you can call afterwards and go yeah I had
just had to meet with someone so for an hour and it was just dreadful and that
person can go well I’m sorry or be there make you laugh or whatever they do it
helps buffer the stress if you don’t have those positive social supports then
you’re left walking out of it you’re kind of feeling shell-shocked and then
you also at the same time have to figure out for yourself all right what do I do
next now it doesn’t mean you can’t do it you
know people do it all the time but it is good it is awesome to have supportive
peers to buffer your stress so when cognitive therapy clients learn to
distinguish between thoughts and feelings realizing that thoughts will
trigger feelings but they don’t have to cause continual feelings and behaviors
and feelings can cause certain thoughts but they don’t have to you can unhook
from them and you can just say this is how I’m feeling right now now where am I
going to go from here and we talked about that on Tuesday with
unhooking from unhooking from your thoughts and stepping back and going
what is the next logical action to get me to where I want to go become aware of
the ways in which the thoughts can influence feelings in ways that are
sometimes not helpful being critical being jealous envious maybe you just
don’t like somebody and you know there’s a whole lot of reasons for that but you
don’t like everybody most people don’t like everyone
and so it’s you know that’s okay but recognize how that affects your
interactions with that person and your thoughts about that person
learn how thoughts that seem to occur automatically affect emotions so
recognize start getting down to what are these core beliefs that happen every
time it’s a negative incident that make me feel angry or anxious constructively
evaluate whether these automatic thoughts and assumptions are accurate or
perhaps biased evaluate whether the current reactions are helpful and a good
use of energy or unhelpful and a waste of energy that could be used to move
toward those people and things important to the person so again back kind of to
that ACP sort of thing is this a good use of your energy to help you achieve
your goals and be the person you want to be and develop the skills to notice
interrupt and correct these biased thoughts independently like I said you
don’t always have to call somebody you can do it on your own but sometimes it’s
nice to have that buffer in that middle moment so what causes these thinking
errors how can we even start helping people address their thoughts and until
we start thinking about well what caused them information processing shortcuts as
we grow up we learn things you know when you were knee-high to a grasshopper you
didn’t have a lot of experience so you learned things but things you learned
when you were a kid unfortunately because you were
cognitively a child are either our dichotomies they’re all or nothing it’s
either this way or no way at all so things that you have things that you
learn back when you were a child may not have been challenged if you heard
something from your parent maybe your parents said you’re a bad girl or you’re
a bad boy it’s all or nothing well I am a bad girl so I guess that
means I’m not okay and if I’m not okay right now I’m never okay that can stick
with a person so these outdated amis schemas can really trip somebody up
once the person gets into you know middle schoolish the thoughts aren’t
nearly as dichotomous there’s a lot more formal operational thought if you will
but up until then I mean you’ve got a child who’s experiencing a lot of stuff
and taking in like a sponge everything they hear and it gets sorted into a yes
or a No pile there’s there’s no kind of middle
pile that there’s no yes and so what we want to do is help people look at those
thoughts now and say okay if they’re all or nothing is there a way to find both
and so for example we’ll take that exam scenario I gave you earlier if a child
hears you’re a bad girl when they’re young they take that to mean always
everything about me is bad I’m unlovable so what is the both and compromise as an
adult we can look back and go you know I’m a good person I may not make may
make poor choices sometimes I may make bad choices but I’m a good person
so there’s that both and you know I’m not perfect but I’m good so that it’s
not all or nothing and I encourage my clients to really always look for that
middle ground how can it be both or does it have to even be that negative one but
most of the time there’s a little bit of something on both sides the brain’s
limited information processing capacity and limited responses when children are
young you know they hear something you know mom comes in and says you’re a bad
girl and child hears I’m totally unlovable and it just crushes the child
they don’t have experiences to go moms having a bad day she kind of tends to
say things she doesn’t mean when she’s having a bad day it’s just it’s
devastating to that child when you’re older if somebody says something that’s
not necessarily tactful you know you can look at it and go yeah that really
wasn’t nice but that person probably did not intend to be hurtful they may have
something else going on children have fewer experiences so what
was devastating or overwhelming as a child may not still have have to feel
that way when you’re a child if your best friend moved away oh that was
devastating it was the end of the world now as an adult you can go visit them
you can call them and with the internet and everything you can email them you
can still stay in touch so there are ways to do it yeah you can’t go out and
swing swing on swings together all the time but it doesn’t have to mean the end
of the end of time things will change and there’s a little process of grieving
that has to go along with that but to an adult a friend moving away is less
devastating than say to a six-year-old your parent being angry with you if you
grew up in an alcoholic or addicted household you learn don’t talk don’t
trust don’t feel when the parent came in if the parent was angry with you you
could have been in a lot of hurt you know there could have been some actual
danger to your physical or emotional person so it was scary as a 26 year old
or however old your client is is it that threatening you know if your parent gets
angry with you you don’t depend on them for food and shelter anymore you don’t
have to be an inner household if they were violent towards you so is it as
terrifying when your parent gets angry yes there’s lots of issues with wanting
acceptance from your parents that’s over here there’s a whole nother issue but
when your parent is angry do you have to have that person’s approval when we’re
in crisis we don’t process much when you’re in crisis your body is worried
about surviving if you’ve been in a car wreck if somebody has gone to the
hospital whatever the case is you’re not
processing all of the data in order to make it in for
decision you’re processing what’s right in front of you because when we’re in
crisis we generally have tunnel vision and really crappy memory so if something
happened when someone was in crisis that hurt their feelings made them angry you
know fill in the blank some sort of dysphoric emotion we want to say well
let’s look back at that and see if there’s a pose and let’s look back at
that and see if there was something that you missed that might help you
understand why this person reacted that way but understanding that in crisis we
just generally don’t make the most informed decisions so emotional
reasoning helping clients understand that feeling or not facts and helping
them learn to identify feelings and separate them from facts so if they say
I’m terrified all right so you’re terrified got that about what are you
terrified you know tell me what are these things that make you feel like the
world is such a scary place and let’s list them on the whiteboard or a flip
chart what is the evidence that those are present dangers right now that
they’re actually impending threats so tell me about what the evidence is in
what ways is this similar to other situations where you felt terrified and
how did you deal with those situations I have a friend who actually went this
morning on an airplane flight and she hates flying totally terrified of it so
what is the evidence that this plane is going to crash you know what is the
evidence that it is likely that this plane will crash and there really she’s
flying on an american-based commercial airliner there really isn’t any when you
look at the proportions so okay there’s there have been a couple of crashes over
the past 20 years and in a couple of those there were some fatalities no
doubt but looking at the proportions and running the numbers
what’s the likelihood in what ways this is similar to other situations that you
have felt terrified you know maybe there haven’t been any other situations where
she’s flown and gotten through it and been like score I did that but what
other situations have you had to get through that you were terrified and how
did you deal with those help people develop distress tolerance skills one of
the things I told her was when you’re sitting on the airplane and you know the
airplane starts up don’t wait til you start getting really stressed
necessarily but when we were little on the car when we’re in the car we used to
find things on the drive find something that starts with a and everybody would
find something that started with a and then find something that starts with B
and you know so on and if you couldn’t find something that started with that
letter you were out so I mean she’s going on this trip with her kids and I’m
like why don’t you try doing that because there are some letters that
you’re going to have to work really hard and it’s kind of like the game apples to
apples you end up finding something really inane in order to get that letter
and you laugh and you’re so busy focusing on that you’re not focusing on
all of the things that could possibly maybe go wrong other distress tolerance
skills you know you can go through the whole DBT curriculum and learn some of
those the biggest thing is if you have to face the terror if you have to go
through it figure out a way to not have to focus on it and fight it and go I
shouldn’t be afraid I shouldn’t be because that doesn’t work if it worked
we wouldn’t be talking about it and develop emotional regulation skills so
prevent those vulnerabilities set yourself up so you are as prepared as
you can to not feel stressed to not feel anxious she has her spouse with her who
can help diffuse some of it she’s got her kids with her she downloaded some
movies she’s prepared to endure the distress she’s you know trying to go
into it with a positive mindset as much as
possible and focusing on the destination which you know is ultimately the reason
she’s getting on the plane social causes of stress and thinking errors
everybody’s doing it well that’s not true there’s very real that everybody
does so correcting misinformation how the client gather objective information
about you know if they say well everybody else that I know has succeeded
okay well let’s gather objective information about that who do you know
and tell me if they’ve succeeded if I want to be liked I must do it
this need for approval or low self-esteem can cause a lot of problems
in thinking errors and fears of rejection so we say okay let’s look at
developing some self-esteem so you don’t need to worry about if somebody likes
you what would it be like if you woke up in the morning and you didn’t care if
so-and-so liked you I mean we all want to have friends don’t get me wrong I’m
not saying you want to be her moving out in the woods but if we’re talking about
a particular so-and-so what would it be like in the morning to get up and go you
know what if that person messages me today or call us me today that’s great
and if not I’m okay with that how liberating would that be to get your
power back and how people develop social supports that share their same values
and goals at least mostly or at least can respect yours so for example when
you know I work with people with co-occurring disorders and they don’t
drink and they don’t use drugs so they may be around people family friends who
drink if you’re going to be in that situation do you have to drink and can
you be around do you have social supports that can be supportive of your
choice to not drink doesn’t necessarily mean they’re it’s not going to not going
to not drink in front of you but at least they’re not trying to get you to
drink so the social causes of irrational
thoughts if I want to be liked I must do this
why can’t you be like for who you are cognitive bias negativity mental filter
focus on the negatives and worry about the future most of us know some people
like that most of us have had a moment where we felt like this we’ve just
gotten ourselves in a tizzy and spun out of control but you can bring it back so
you want to ask yourself or have your clients ask themselves what’s the
benefit to focusing on the negative if you know that this is going to go south
really fast what’s the benefit to just focusing on
that could you focus on alternatives or Plan B’s what are the positives to the
situation most people who have mood issues who present to us in counseling
don’t focus on both sides yes every side you know has a little bit of negative to
it if you really want to look hard enough but every side also has a silver
lining if you really want to look hard enough so we need to balance the the
positives and the negatives so encourage people to look for the positives in the
situation yeah this really sucked but and what are all the facts what are all
the things going into it sometimes people will go to work and not know or
wonder if they’re going to get laid off because you know you’re not necessarily
always guaranteed a job anywhere there can be layoffs but if somebody is going
to work every day worried about this focusing on the negative up yep I’m
definitely going to be the one that’s going to get the pink slip and they go
to their mailbox each time looking for that pink slip expecting it to be there
how is that going to affect their mood as opposed to alright there may be
layoffs coming what can I do to make myself really valuable or and what are
my options if I do get laid off let’s make a plan B and C so I don’t just feel
like the rug was pulled out from under me coin toss activity if
somebody tends to be stuck in negativity have them flip a coin every morning if
it lands on heads they can just see their normal selves to their heart’s
content if it lands on tails they need to act as if they are a happy positive
optimistic maybe even a noxious ly optimistic person for the entire day you
know we want them to be farting rainbows and when I say that they usually look at
me and laugh and but that’s okay I’m like every time you start having a
negative thought I want you to see a unicorn farting rainbows and take it
from there and then have them process how they felt at the end of the day if
they weren’t constantly focused on negativity and worrying and only seeing
the bad stuff disqualifying or minimizing the positive if something
happens when somebody says well I just got that promotion because they didn’t
have anybody else to give it to okay if your best friend just got a promotion
would you say that to them what is scary about accepting the positive about
accepting the fact that maybe you got the promotion because you’re awesome
sometimes we disqualify the positive because it fails to meet someone else’s
standards so might that be true here you know maybe you got this promotion and
you’re actually down deep down inside kind of proud of it but you know that
your mother had always wanted you to be this over here and you’re never going to
meet that expectation so you minimize it that way nobody else could say well you
know better than nothing and take away your thunder egocentrism my perspective
is the only perspective take different perspectives I always say three if
something happens and you know maybe somebody was rude to you
anyone they were rude to me okay they were rude to you what are three reasons
what are some alternate perspectives why that person might have been rude maybe
what you did something that triggers them maybe they were
having a bad day and it’s got nothing at all to do with you you know there are
options that we can look at personalization and mind-reading what
are some alternate explanations for the event that didn’t involve you if you
think well that person that person just really doesn’t like me and you know I’ve
got to work with them every day and they hate me my question to my client would
be what what’s the evidence for that and what are some alternative explanations
for why that person may be behaving that way
I had a staff member that a lot of my other staff members had difficulty
getting along with and ultimately you know we had to sit down and look when I
had some different staff meetings with people and say you know what gives you
the idea that she doesn’t like you what gives you the idea that it’s about you
and you know they cited all kinds of behaviors and I had to come back to well
what are some alternate reasons why somebody anybody not just her might be
expressing those behaviors could it be something besides you and of course they
came back – yeah availability heuristic remembering what’s prominent in your
mind if somebody was if you’re a supervisor for example and you’re doing
evaluation for the year what are you really remembering when you’re doing
that evaluation the whole year or the last three months and that’s the event
fail ability heuristic so when you’re talking to somebody about their
relationship with their best friend or their spouse or their kids and if
somebody says well that that child has always been a problem okay let’s look at
that you know the child is 18 and you’ve had a lot of problems with him lately
but what about three years ago so was he always a problem or is this something
that’s relatively new that something might have changed
magnification people getting stuck on fearing the absolute worst so you want
to ask them is this a high probability or low probability outcome if they’re
magnifying something that happened like oh my gosh that is the worst thing in
the world is this going to matter six months from now maybe you totaled your
car and yeah that is a huge bummer and you’re safe in six months is this really
going to matter that much you know there are going to be some bills and
everything but the big scheme of things is at the end of the world what have you
done in the past to tolerate events like these when something really really
unpleasant has happened and then if they’re looking at dichotomous ways of
thinking which a lot of our clients still do they’re like someone so it
always does this or never does this have them look at the differences between
love versus hate perfection versus failure and all good intentions versus
all bad intentions because a lot of our dichotomies fall in one of these three
categories this person always does this or Never
or does it intentionally or you know just doesn’t care belief in a just world
the fallacy of fairness encourage people to look for for good people they know
that have had bad things happen attributional bearers are labeling
yourself not a behavior such as saying I am stupid instead of I don’t have good
math skills I am is difficult to get rid of I can’t get rid of stupidity if it’s
part of me but if it’s a thought or a skill I can either get rid of it or
improve it stable I am means I am right now and I probably always will be stupid
verses I can change this thought or skill I can learn math and internal
attributions mean it’s about me as a person versus about a
skill or skill deficit or something completely unrelated so when somebody
makes a global internal negative statement we want to help them challenge
that global internal positive statements I’m all about but the negative ones I
want to say let’s take a look at that is that true that this is about you all of
the time and it means that there’s something wrong with you so we want to
ask them how are these thoughts how are these ways of thinking impacting your
emotions health relationships and perceptions of the world we want to
increase motivation to start looking at these spanking errors because it’s a lot
of work to start changing the way you automatically think because you’ve got
to stop you’ve got to become mindful and then you’ve got to decide well what are
the alternative thoughts because this is what I thought for so long how may have
this thought has been helpful in the past most of the time thoughts we have
came from somewhere and whether it was a thought we had when we were a child
something we learned when we were a child that is dichotomous and not quite
applicable anymore it may have been helpful in the past to help you navigate
situations doesn’t mean it was wrong it means it’s not helpful in the present
asking them to always ask themselves is this thought or feeling bringing you the
client closer to those people and things that are important to you it’s hanging
on to this negativity bringing you closer and and I like the energy
philosophy if you will when you are unhappy you are letting this person have
your power you are letting this person make you angry when you decide you are
not going to give them your power then you may start feeling happier and I
don’t always use that with clients but sometimes the power metaphor help
when we talk about thinking Ayers asked them are there examples of this not
being true and and or how can a statement be made less global stable and
internal is it about you or is it about what you do at work is it about you or
is it about your relationship with this particular person so the last couple of
slides focusing on some of the irrational thoughts or unhelpful beliefs
our basic fears are rejection and isolation failure loss of control the
unknown and death generally the things that cause people to have this
fight-or-flight reaction fall into one of those categories so some of the
unhelpful beliefs that we hear a lot coming up when we do the ABCs is that
mistakes are never acceptable so if I make one
I am incompetent so we’ve got dichotomous thinking and we’ve got a lot
of internal global labeling here rejection and isolation when somebody
disagrees with me it’s a personal attack against me well sometimes it is what
does that mean it’s about you we’re helping them address the rejection and
isolation fears we want to ask them you know if they disagree with you were they
attacking you and saying you were stupid or were they attack attacking you want
to use that word or were they attacking the thought and saying they disagreed
with the thought there’s a little bit of a difference it’s somewhat semantics but
it’s a difference because they may have a lot of respect for you but they may
disagree with what you just said if someone criticizes or rejects me there
must be something wrong with me again that’s one of those internal global
negative statements to feel good about myself others must approve of me we want
to make sure our clients can self validate and they don’t rely on external
validation because they’re setting themselves up for a world of hurt if
they are not their own best friend to be content in
life I must be liked by all people and thanks for a second are you liked by
everybody I know I’m not liked by everybody so does that mean that I
should not be content in life and what does it say to give people that power to
say if you don’t like me that I can’t be content because I’ve got to be liked by
everybody sometimes with clients I’ll help them look at what may be going on
with the other person why that person might like them because a lot of times
other people’s reactions towards you are more about their stuff than about you
and helping them see how that might be true my true value as an individual
depends on what others think of me so these other unhelpful beliefs pertain to
those thoughts of failure and loss of control none of us likes to fail don’t
get me wrong it’s not pleasant but it happens and there is a saying out there
that says if you haven’t failed you haven’t tried which means we need to get
beyond our safety envelope we need to push ourselves behind beyond our
boundaries and when we do sometimes we’re going to stumble and fall and we
pick ourselves up and we learn from it but to expect to never fail at anything
is not realistic so nothing ever turns out the way you want it to how many
times have you heard that from your clients I won’t try anything new unless
I know I’ll be good at it I’m in total control and anything bad that happens is
my fault so let’s look at this locus let’s control thing here you’re in total
control so you can make it rain you know it was unpleasant today because I had to
come to work and it was raining outside so that was bad it happened was it your
fault pointing out and depending on your relationship for your client you’re
probably going to be more or less snarky when you present some of these but a lot
of times I have a semi joking relationship if you will with my clients
and they’re like yeah I see your point that kind of didn’t make a lot of
since other times you know if they’re more serious I’ll ask them to identify
things that happened that were bad that they had nothing to do with if I feel
happy about life something will go wrong or I’m always waiting for the other shoe
to drop helping people stay focused in the moment with mindfulness and
something’s going to go wrong down the road somewhere sometimes yeah it’s true
this will happen let’s enjoy what we’ve got for right now the past always
repeats itself it was if it was true then it’s true now so what was true when
you were ten is true now that you’re forty always is that true it’s not my
fault my life didn’t go the way I wanted everybody conspired against me and
there’s no gray area so for people who feel the need to hold on to control its
dichotomous it is or it isn’t it’s got to be that way there’s no gray area and
it can make life be seem very uncomfortable because they’ve got to put
things in one of two buckets and sometimes things don’t fit nicely in
buckets what happens if we add a third bucket that both an bucket so a quick
note about irrationality the origins of most beliefs were rational and helpful
given the information the person had at the time and their ability to process
that information because of their cognitive development so things that we
identify as unhelpful or automatic beliefs now came from somewhere and they
made perfect sense whenever they were formed they may not be healthy or
helpful now which is why we want to look at them and either adjust them or just
throw them out the door but when they were formed they were on point
irrationality or unhelpful nasaw thoughts comes when those beliefs are
perpetuated without examination so again we need to look at them continually look
at what you’re telling yourself and go is this still accurate
and continue to be held despite causing harm to the person sometimes you’re
going to look at a thought an automatic thought and you’re going to go yeah that
is still spot-on now is holding on to this helping me
achieve my goals you know yet the world right now is kind of a scary place is
holding on to this fear and terror helping me and be a happy productive
yada-yada whatever kind of person you want to be or is it causing me to feel
anxious and angry and scared sometimes it’s more productive for clients to
think of thoughts as unhelpful instead of irrational because like I said I feel
like irrationality and distortions seem very pejorative to a lot of clients so
questions clients can ask themselves when they are faced with a situation
what are the facts for and against this belief is this belief based on facts or
feelings just because you feel scared is it a scary situation does the belief
focus on just one aspect or the whole situation does the belief seem to use
any of those thinking errors we talked about and if so you know what do I need
to do about it what are some alternate explanations for this belief what else
could have caused this to happen besides whatever I’m afraid of what would you
tell your child or your best friend if they had this belief
what would you took what would you want someone to tell you about this belief
you could have somebody tell you something that would make you feel okay
what would you want them to tell you and how is this belief moving you toward
what and who is important to you remembering that beliefs are a
combination of thought and fact and personal interpretation of those
thoughts and facts I tend to when I talk you know you see me I kind of I’m all
over the place with my arms I am a animated talker now if you are seeing me
from a hundred feet away and you are seeing me talk
might think I was angry because I make a lot of really big gestures because if
you had grown up in a situation where there was domestic violence or something
but if you had grown up in a household like I did where you had a first
generation Italian first generations of ten Italian Americans talk big they talk
real big with lots of gestures and sometimes loud and that doesn’t
necessarily mean any anger a lot of times it’s just pure excitement so
understanding that there’s thoughts in facts you know you see this going on but
your personal interpretation can really affect what you get out of it or what
you perceive that situation to be so we need to look at how is your personal
interpretation maybe adding a negative bias and what what do we do about that
it may be 100 percent accurate what do we do about it so it doesn’t keep you
miserable thoughts impact behaviors and emotional and physical reactions
emotional physical reactions impact thoughts and your interpretation of
events irrational or unhelpful thinking patterns are often caused by cognitive
distortions my two favorite words in that same sentence cognitive distortions
are schemas or shortcut ideas or memories if you will which were formed
based on faulty inaccurate or immature knowledge or understanding of the event
you know little kids may not have quite understood what was going on they just
understood that mommy and daddy were screaming identifying the thoughts the
hecklers I call them those negative voices inside your head that are
maintaining unhappiness helps people choose whether to accept the thoughts
and say yeah you know that’s right I really am not good at that or whatever
the negative thought is and change it or let the thought go are there any
questions you you thank you miss Benson well thank you all
if you come up with any questions you know you’re mulling it over later and
you think you know that yet I’ve worked with a client and with something similar
and I did this or you know you have a question about something I said feel
free to email me the easiest one to remember is support at all CEUs com
there’s only two others in the office so either my husband gets it err I do so
it’ll get to me and I guess that’s it so I will see you all on Tuesday if you
have any types of courses that you want to see added to the list please let me
know I’m always interested in doing what you want to learn about not necessarily
just where I pull out on my rabbit hat yes you can print the slides in the
golly golly golly when you go into the class there’s a link that has a PDF of
the slides that you can print if you want to print go ahead and print those
out the video version of this will be up on YouTube by tomorrow morning maybe
later this afternoon you okay everybody have an absolutely
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As found on YouTubeSeanCooper🗯 The Shyness & Social Guy ⇝ The 3 WORST Mistakes You Must AVOID If You Want To Overcome Shyness (PLUS: 1 weird trick that targets the root biological cause of shyness so you can stop being nervous, awkward, and quiet around people…) By Sean Cooper, The Shyness & Social Anxiety Guy. The fact that you’re reading this article tells me you may have already reached a point where you feel your shyness is NOT going away on its own… or you fear it’s getting worse and worse. And I don’t want you to waste one more day living a life where you feel left out, bored, or depressed because you don’t have the relationships which would make you happy. That’s why I’ve put together this page to help you avoid the worst mistakes that keep many people stuck with shyness for years… often giving up hope of ever improving as you watch other people have interesting “normal” lives without you. Yet this doesn’t have to happen.
Questioner: Sadhguru, I wanted to know that when we are silent, still we feel that mind chattering, which always bothers us. And our thought always shifts back to past and future imaginations, which will not be any of the output. How to get rid of it? Sadhguru: There’s a whole lot of thought about this thoughtlessness. Thoughtlessness, no mind, these kinds of terms have been propagated all over the place, and these terms have been badly misunderstood and made into all kinds of things, and people are striving “how to stop my mind.” It took millions of years of evolution to get a mind of this kind of capability.
Hmm? Isn’t it? Millions of years of the tremendous amount of nature’s work that today you have a mind of this kind of scope. And now, you want to stop it. [Chuckles] Why is it that you want to stop it? If your mind was constantly producing absolute pleasantness for you, would you think about how to stop this mind? Would you? No. It’s producing a lot of unpleasantness, and that’s why you’re thinking of how to stop the mind. This is the first thing, wherever you go in the world, this has gone so much into people’s minds; if you tell them, “You meditate,” they say, “But Sadhguru, I’m not able to stop my mind.” I said, “That will happen only after you stop your kidneys, liver, heart…
[Laughter] If you stop all these things, then the mind will also stop. Do you want it to stop?” “No.” Then why do you want the mind to stop? Why do you have such a horrible prejudice against the mind? You don’t mind if your heart is beating, you can meditate. You don’t mind if your liver is working, you can meditate. Your kidneys are functioning, you can meditate. If your brain functions, you can’t meditate. What is the problem? You seem to have something against intelligence, isn’t it? [Laughs] This is the conspiracy of the stupid against human intelligence, that to meditate means your brain must be frozen. No. You don’t have to freeze your brain. We were looking at this yesterday itself. We will initiate you into Shambhavi – it’s a simple process. There are many ways to do it, this is one simple way, but it’s a powerful process. If you sit here, you will see, your body is here, your mind is somewhere, and who you are is somewhere else.
Once there is space between you and the mind, then what the mind is not doing, what the mind is doing, is not even an issue. It is like you’re stuck in a traffic jam; you know, you’re struggling through the traffic – that’s one experience. Suppose you are either standing on Chamundi Hill, or you are floating in a hot air balloon, and looking down at all the traffic. Very peacefully, “Traffic.
Hmm…” [Laughter] Why? Because of distance, isn’t it? When you’re in it, traffic is a different experience. From really high up there, sitting in a hot air balloon, you look down, and you can’t even hear the sounds, looks wonderful traffic, isn’t it? Yes, or no? Participants: Yes. Sadhguru: Because there’s a distance. So, once there’s a distance between you and your mind’s activity, the mind is not a problem – the mind is a miracle, it is not a problem. And anyway, if thoughts are going continuously, if you’re having mental diarrhea, [Laughter] you ate some bad food, isn’t it? Yes? If you’re having physical diarrhea, you ate some bad food, isn’t it? If you’re having mental diarrhea, you consumed something wrong. What this wrong thing could be is, the moment you identify yourself with something that you’re not, then you’re finished – your mind is a continuous run. There is no other way. Do what you want, and try as hard as you want, it is not going to stop.
If you do not identify yourself with anything that you are not, you know how to be with everything, you know how to use everything, but you’re not identified with it, then you will see, if you sit here, simply, the mind will be like this; [Gestures] if you want to use it you can use it, otherwise, it’ll be like this. Right now your hands are like this; oh, you’re holding it tied up because it’ll go all over, is it? No, you can keep it like this. You can keep it like this, you can keep it like this. [Gestures] When you want to use it, you can use it. So, it’s a useful instrument. Suppose your hands become like this. [Gestures] You know, some people have become like this? Yes, or no? [Gestures] If it becomes like this, you will become ridiculous, isn’t it? If it happens to your mind, also you’re equally ridiculous. It is just that you are living in the comfort that nobody else can see it.
But people can see it; if they watch you closely enough, they can see it, isn’t it? And whether they can see it or not, that’s not the point; the point is, the most important faculty of your life is out of control. It doesn’t matter whether they can see it or not, that’s not the issue; the issue is, the most important faculty in your life is out of control, doing its rubbish all the time, not doing what you want it to do. So, if you have to be freed from this ailment, you should stop eating bad food. Wrong food, or bad food means, you are identifying yourself with things that you’re not. If you sit here, if you’re not identified with this, and with this, [Gestures] then you will see, everything is just fine. Then your mind will do what you want it to do; otherwise, it’ll simply hang there, and that’s how it should be. The mind should not be telling its own stories all the time; it should tell the story that you want it to tell, isn’t it? Otherwise, it’s quite a nuisance.
As found on YouTubeBrain Booster | Blue Heron Health News ⇝ I was losing my memory, focus – and mind! And then… I got it all back again. Case study: Brian Thompson There’s nothing more terrifying than watching your brain health fail. You can feel it… but you can’t stop it. Over and over I asked myself, where is this going to end? What am I going to end up like? And nobody could tell me. Doesn’t matter now. I’m over it. Completely well. This is how I did it!
So getting over it feels difficult Eight you constantly compare yourself to others It’s normal to occasionally compare yourself to others but those with high-functioning anxiety. Take it to an extreme Are you overly concerned with how you measure up against your peers? Do you constantly worry that you’re not fulfilling your full potential? No matter how much you accomplish. Do you never feel like it’s enough? If so, you might be struggling with high-functioning anxiety 9 You’re a constant people pleaser Do you work hard to make others feel happy, even if it comes at the cost of your well-being Do you feel like you’ll never be good enough until you attain it? Everyone’s approval If you have high-functioning anxiety you may have convinced yourself that the only way others will ever accept you is if you go above and beyond what everyone expects of You all the time. 10 You need to keep yourself busy all the time Now we’re not talking about creating great Renaissance artworks or intricate business plans We just mean busy not necessarily productive If you’re not busy you feel Restless and tense.
So you try to occupy yourself with just about anything during your nails. Yes Alphabetizing your games. Okay, cleaning your perfectly working computer fan with a toothbrush It’s sure the truth is you don’t mind doing anything as long as it helps distract yourself from your thoughts and worries 11 You get very anxious whenever you think about the future What does the future mean to you for many in the future is the light of possibility something to eagerly look forward to? then for some, it can feel like Scrooge and that last spirit of Christmas who looked like the Grim Reaper if You’re not feeling hope but terror and dread for what’s to come This could be a sign of high-functioning anxiety can paralyze you with fear about the unknown and what’s not in your control it can keep you from truly living your life to the fullest because you always expect the worst to happen and 12 you always focus on the worst-case scenario Do you like to prep my prep? We mean do you say to yourself? Okay, so this is the worst possible outcome I’ll be ready for it.
If I’m ready for it. I can handle anything else. Do you then continue to expect the worst-case scenario? They might be high-functioning anxiety laying the plans This might lead people to misjudge you as a pessimist because ultimately you may try to share with them your preparations Where you see anticipating and being proactive they see a downer Unfortunately being so prepared often doesn’t allow you to just enjoy the moment Do you relate to any of the things listed here living with high-functioning anxiety is never easy? But most people may not see the emotional toll it can have on a person if you’re starting to feel overwhelmed with your anxiety There are many professional certified resources to reach out to Please like share and subscribe to the site to go for more psychology content.
We hope to see you in the next video and as always Thanks so much for watching.
As found on YouTube
SeanCooper🗯 The Shyness & Social Guy ⇝ The 3 WORST Mistakes You Must AVOID If You Want To Overcome Shyness (PLUS: 1 weird trick that targets the root biological cause of shyness so you can stop being nervous, awkward, and quiet around people…) By Sean Cooper, The Shyness & Social Anxiety Guy. The fact that you’re reading this article tells me you may have already reached a point where you feel your shyness is NOT going away on its own… or you fear it’s getting worse and worse. And I don’t want you to waste one more day living a life where you feel left out, bored, or depressed because you don’t have the relationships which would make you happy. That’s why I’ve put together this page to help you avoid the worst mistakes that keep many people stuck with shyness for years… http://flywait.darekw.hop.clickbank.net/ often giving up hope of ever improving as you watch other people have interesting “normal” lives without you. Yet this doesn’t have to happen. 
Do you wake up in the morning with a crushing sense of anxiety that stays with you all day? Does this anxiety cast a cloud over your daily activities? Worsening anxiety can often coincide with worsening mental health.
Anxiety affects us all whether or not you happen to suffer from a particular anxiety disorder.
It s important to monitor your anxiety levels because a noticeable change can tell you a lot about your mental health.
Anxiety is a stress response and it can cause a variety of psychological and physical symptoms.
When you feel overly anxious, you might notice that your heart rate speeds up and your breathing rate increases, and you might experience a bout of nausea.
Seven.
You feel mentally and emotionally shattered.
Do you feel like there are so many things happening around you, but you can t focus on any of them? If so, you’re not alone From time to time it s normal to feel this way, especially when you are going through higher amounts of stress.
However, if you are feeling scattered and like things are spinning out of control, this could be a sign that your mental health is under strain According to Psychologist, Rick Hanson from Psychology.
Today, you probably feel scattered, because you are struggling to find your center.
This means that, for your brain to feel more organized, you need to feel at peace within yourself.
Practicing mindfulness such as yoga and meditation are great places to start on the road to inner peace.
Eight, You can t seem to pay attention.
Do you have a harder time focusing and staying on task When you’re reading? Is it hard to comprehend? Do you have to reread the same passage over and over, Though it could relate to potential psychological disorders such as ADHD, depression, or anxiety? It is also likely that a lack of focus can be due to stress or poor self-care.
It can be frustrating to start losing focus so frequently and those feelings are valid and normal Remember to take care of yourself and, as you recover know, that help is available NINE.
You might be struggling with your impulse control.
Are you acting more on impulse? Are you possibly indulging in things you should t, Whether it s retail therapy or binging, all of your shows, or playing video games for hours? When you act more on impulse like this, it can signify worsening mental health. You might pick up some unhealthy habits as a way to cope with life.
Stress fulfills you or distracts you from a major issue going on in your life.
Journaling, mindfulness, and therapy are great ways to start uncovering some of these issues.
Ten, You are struggling to feel, grounded Similar to feeling centered when you are grounded.
You are feeling confident and balanced within yourself.
According to Irene Langeveld, an energy worker and meditation coach grounding starts with the root chakra at the base of the spine known to help.
You feel secure Activities that connect your body with the world around you, such as hiking, meditating, or walking outside, are all great ways to help.
You find your sense of grounding.
Can you relate to any of the points made in this video? Do you think your mental health could be slipping If so know that there is help you can reach out to You. Can talk to a trusted friend, family member, or mental health therapist for support? Please like and share this video if it helped you and you think it can help someone else too.
The studies and references used are listed in the description below Don t forget to hit the subscribe button for more Psych2Go videos. Thank you for watching.
We’ll see you next time, Video by Psych2go.
Since lavender oil has no potential
for drug abuse and causes no hangover effects, it appears to be an effective
and well-tolerated alternative to benzodiazepine drugs for the amelioration
of generalized anxiety. One cautionary note, however. There was a case series published
in the New England Journal of Medicine. Prepuberty gynecomastia
linked to lavender. Reports of young boys exposed
to lavender-containing lotions, soaps, hair gel, and shampoo,
starting to develop breasts, which disappeared after these
products were discontinued, suggesting that lavender oil
may possess hormone-disrupting activity. Indeed, when dripped on estrogen receptor
positive human breast cancer cells, lavender does show estrogenic effects
and a decline in male hormone activity, though it’s unknown if similar reactions
occur inside the body when lavender flowers
or lavender oil is ingested.
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at all CEUs comm slash counselor toolbox, this episode has been brought to you in part by all
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This slippery slope makes it difficult to
see life under a brighter light. 6. Terrible eating habits. Those with depression will either eat too
much or hardly anything at all. Some of you may find yourself in the kitchen
eating everything in side, trying to eat away the emptiness or sadness you’re feeling while others don’t have an appetite and may even feel disgusted by food.
In other cases, some of you may feel so exhausted
that that thought of preparing a meal is overwhelming. 7. Lack of motivation. Depression steals your interests and desires
right from under you. Your favorite pastimes and hobbies no longer
satisfy you, slowly you find yourself feeling dead and numb inside. If you aren’t careful you’ll end up staying
in bed all day. 8. Evading your problems. Depression by itself is overwhelming, you
can feel devastated and out of control most days, so trying to face situations and problems
head-on is difficult enough.
Instead you ignore or set the problem aside,
and this in turn can bring trouble because it will continue to pile up. 9. Feeling guilty and feeling self-hatred. If you allow depression to take over your
thoughts, then you’ll most likely feel self-hatred. You’ll continue to talk down to yourself and
this often leads to the development of self-esteem issues along with poor self-image, eventually
you’ll believe you aren’t worth it anymore. Some people with this mental disorder can
even feel guilt by thinking all their problems are their fault. And 10: living in fear. People with depression fear that terrible
things will happen to them. In severe cases, some of you will sabotage a good situation, believing that it will turn bad. Other times individuals will reject opportunities
and stop pursuing their dreams.
It’s a twisted way to protect yourself because
this prevents you from living and achieving amazing things. Depression affects us in different ways. The list mentioned in this video contains
some of the common behaviors those with the disorder have. Do you agree with these points? What other behaviors have you noticed? Let us know in the comment section below. <3.
Schneider by subscribing at all CEUs
calm / counselor toolbox this episode has been brought to you in part by all
CEUs calm providing 24/7 multimedia continuing education and pre
certification training to counselors therapists and nurses since 2006 use
coupon code consular toolbox to get a 20% discount off your order this month.
Hmm…” [Laughter] Why? Because of distance, isn’t it? When you’re in it, traffic is a different experience. From really high up there, sitting in a hot air balloon, you look down, and you can’t even hear the sounds, looks wonderful traffic, isn’t it? Yes, or no? Participants: Yes. Sadhguru: Because there’s a distance. So, once there’s a distance between you and your mind’s activity, the mind is not a problem – the mind is a miracle, it is not a problem. And anyway, if thoughts are going continuously, if you’re having mental diarrhea, [Laughter] you ate some bad food, isn’t it? Yes? If you’re having physical diarrhea, you ate some bad food, isn’t it? If you’re having mental diarrhea, you consumed something wrong. What this wrong thing could be is, the moment you identify yourself with something that you’re not, then you’re finished – your mind is a continuous run. There is no other way. Do what you want, and try as hard as you want, it is not going to stop.
If you do not identify yourself with anything that you are not, you know how to be with everything, you know how to use everything, but you’re not identified with it, then you will see, if you sit here, simply, the mind will be like this; [Gestures] if you want to use it you can use it, otherwise, it’ll be like this. Right now your hands are like this; oh, you’re holding it tied up because it’ll go all over, is it? No, you can keep it like this. You can keep it like this, you can keep it like this. [Gestures] When you want to use it, you can use it. So, it’s a useful instrument. Suppose your hands become like this. [Gestures] You know, some people have become like this? Yes, or no? [Gestures] If it becomes like this, you will become ridiculous, isn’t it? If it happens to your mind, also you’re equally ridiculous. It is just that you are living in the comfort that nobody else can see it.
But people can see it; if they watch you closely enough, they can see it, isn’t it? And whether they can see it or not, that’s not the point; the point is, the most important faculty of your life is out of control. It doesn’t matter whether they can see it or not, that’s not the issue; the issue is, the most important faculty in your life is out of control, doing its rubbish all the time, not doing what you want it to do. So, if you have to be freed from this ailment, you should stop eating bad food. Wrong food, or bad food means, you are identifying yourself with things that you’re not. If you sit here, if you’re not identified with this, and with this, [Gestures] then you will see, everything is just fine. Then your mind will do what you want it to do; otherwise, it’ll simply hang there, and that’s how it should be. The mind should not be telling its own stories all the time; it should tell the story that you want it to tell, isn’t it? Otherwise, it’s quite a nuisance.