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By Amy Dee
Imagine: It’s so hot your thighs are sweating. Your throat feels like you’ve swallowed sand. You bring the icy glass of lemonade to your parched lips and drink a huge gulp. Suddenly, your tastebuds sear with tongue slipping sour; you spit the drink out, yelling, “I forgot the sugar!” Forgetting to laugh during stressful times like drinking lemon water. Laughter makes a sour day, sweeter. Humor is the sweetener in life. When you learn to shift your perspective and find the light side of a situation, you can turn lemons into lemonade. Humor doesn’t ignore Difficulties, it makes them tolerable. You do not have to let the fact that you are frustrated, stressed, and overall miserable keep you from finding a bit of fun and joy out of life. I’ll help you understand that humor has the power to weaken negative emotions. As a matter of fact, humor can even flip a negative mood into a positive one. Furthermore, finding funny can redirect you towards finding solutions to the problems that created your negative emotions in the first place. It will ease the tensions you feel and give you greater control over the challenges you are facing. Humor helps keeps everyday irritations in perspective. Most (not all) problems are pretty small when you consider the big picture. Laughter is Contagious Once you get good at adding comic sugar to sour days, you will feel happier. Better yet, those positive emotions will transfer to those around you. When we sprinkle humor into our day, goodness grows. As a funny motivational speaker, I’ve watched one giggle swell into a wave of snorting, knee-slapping laughter that swamps my audience. We all know how good it feels to share a laugh with family members at a reunion or with co-workers. Let’s face it, the sound of roaring laughter is contagious and much better for us than a sniffle, sneeze, or cough. Shared laughter unites us and increases our joy and affection for each other. Laughter Strengthens Resilience The power of laughter appears when you learn to use it during stressful situations.
For this reason, your sense of humor plays a huge role in your resilience. On your worst days, humor will help you bend without breaking. Finding the funny will help you better handle the challenges life throws at you. Laughing is a powerful weapon to help you punch back at adversity. Laughter Helps In addition to the ripple effect of happiness and delight, laughter also activates healthy physiological changes.
Laughter Is Strong Medicine For The Body There are oodles of stress management techniques out there. People find great success with deep breathing, meditation, yoga, and other stress busters. However, we often forget that humor is one of the most effective stress reducers available to us. It is natural, free, and one of the most essential tools you have to create an enjoyable life. No pill you pop will work faster or is more dependable in bringing your mind and body into balance than a deep laugh. Laughter is a potent remedy to conflict, stress, and pain. A good giggle lightens your burdens and keeps you grounded. It creates a connection to others and helps you remain focused and alert. Laughter has healing power. For this reason, your ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource because it:
Humor Doesn’t Mean... Just because you find something to laugh about during tough times doesn’t mean you aren’t serious about it. In fact, laughing can actually help you handle the problem more effectively. For instance, consider that many corporate meetings start out with a funny story or a joke. Beginning with a laugh puts attendees in a positive frame of mind, which can help the meeting flow better. Likewise, if you’re racing through your day, putting out fires, a good belly laugh can dampen the flames. Did you know that four-year laughs once every four minutes while adults laugh only an average of 15 times a day? Increasing our ability to find humor is vital for lots of reasons. Let’s start by exploring a few of the physical benefits, such as: Positive vs. Negative Humor Just to be clear, not all humor is the same. We’ve all known people who have miserably failed to be funny during stressful situations. Most likely, their humor leans towards being sarcastic, rude, or cringe-worthy. A study showed that the tendency to use negative humor is associated with lower interpersonal competence, self-esteem, and psychological well-being, higher levels of depression and anxiety—and even more frequent psychiatric symptoms. On the other hand, a bias towards positive humor is associated with higher self-esteem, interpersonal competence, and overall psychological well-being and lower depression and anxiety. Dark Humor President Abraham Lincoln once read something to his advisors, which he found very funny, but they didn’t laugh. He said, “Why don’t you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh, I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do.” As a psychiatric R.N. who worked in an acute care psychiatric hospital, we dealt with heartbreaking situations and horror stories daily. There is an emotional build-up resulting from being immersed in other people’s emotional conflicts and turmoil day after day. Humor helped us, “let go.” I’ll admit that there were times when our humor could turn slightly gray. Humor preventing our negative emotions from taking over. It helped us maintain a positive focus while dealing with our patients. Not to mention, humor helped us avoid the ongoing risk of burnout. We also knew this humor could only be shared with staff, not patients or people outside our unit. Our sense of humor was sometimes unusual, but it also helped us manage our personal roller coaster of emotions. I love collecting stories from audience members after my keynotes. This true story came after a keynote to an audience of nurses. Emergency service personnel such as police and firefighters and E.R. providers also use humor to cope with the agonizing events they encounter. In these demanding occupations, cynical humor or ‘gallows humor’ helps them cope with stress, relieve tension, and vent their feelings. A Coping Mechanism One way this humor helps is by allowing the service giver space to detach or distance themselves. Also, it helps foster group stability and social support. As a result, they can be more effective during tough situations. None of this humor is meant to hurt or diminish the pain of the people they care for every day. Instead, it creates a momentary positive focus, which, in turn, helps them live with the emotionally draining things they confront daily. In addition, it helps them fight burnout and do their job effectively. Humor doesn’t ignore Difficulties, it makes them tolerable. You do not have to let the fact that you are frustrated, stressed, and overall miserable keep you from finding a bit of fun and joy out of life. I’ll help you understand that humor has the power to weaken negative emotions. As a matter of fact, humor can even flip a negative mood into a positive one. Furthermore, finding funny can redirect you towards finding solutions to the problems that created your negative emotions in the first place. It will ease the tensions you feel and give you greater control over the challenges you are facing. Humor helps keeps everyday irritations in perspective. Most (not all) problems are pretty small when you consider the big picture. “Life is full of misery, loneliness, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.” (Woody Allen) “It is because they can be frivolous at times that the majority of people do not hang themselves.” (Voltaire) Laughter is Contagious Once you get good at adding comic sugar to sour days, you will feel happier. Better yet, those positive emotions will transfer to those around you. When we sprinkle humor into our day, goodness grows. As a funny motivational speaker, I’ve watched one giggle swell into a wave of snorting, knee-slapping laughter that swamps my audience. We all know how good it feels to share a laugh with family members at a reunion or with co-workers. Let’s face it, the sound of roaring laughter is contagious and much better for us than a sniffle, sneeze, or cough. Shared laughter unites us and increases our joy and affection for each other. Laughter Strengthens Resilience The power of laughter appears when you learn to use it during stressful situations.
For this reason, your sense of humor plays a huge role in your resilience. On your worst days, humor will help you bend without breaking. Finding the funny will help you better handle the challenges life throws at you. Laughing is a powerful weapon to help you punch back at adversity. Laughter Helps In addition to the ripple effect of happiness and delight, laughter also activates healthy physiological changes.
Laughter Is Strong Medicine For The Body There are oodles of stress management techniques out there. People find great success with deep breathing, meditation, yoga, and other stress busters. However, we often forget that humor is one of the most effective stress reducers available to us. It is natural, free, and one of the most essential tools you have to create an enjoyable life. No pill you pop will work faster or is more dependable in bringing your mind and body into balance than a deep laugh. Laughter is a potent remedy to conflict, stress, and pain. A good giggle lightens your burdens and keeps you grounded. It creates a connection to others and helps you remain focused and alert. Laughter has healing power. For this reason, your ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource because it:
Problem-Focused vs. Emotion-Focused Coping Problem-Focused on Coping Because problems come in all shapes and sizes, there isn’t a one size fits all solution. Admittedly, we know this is true. But instead, we often apply a preferred solution to most of our problems, ignoring the fact that it doesn’t fit. While addressing a problem, one of the most important questions you can ask yourself is: What can I control? One of the most helpful methods you can use to address a problem is; What do I have control over? We need to be realistic about what we can and what we can’t control. Problem-focused coping works when the problem causing you pain is under your control. For example, like many of you, COVID significantly disrupted my work when all my convention events were postponed. I couldn’t control the virus, but I could control my keynote options. Within weeks my husband and I built a studio in our basement, and I started presenting virtually with great success. My mom was diagnosed with wet macular degeneration. She can’t reverse the disease but is now on an eye-injection regime that has diminished its progress. Some situations we can fix and some we can’t. Instead, we must learn to live them. Emotion-Focused Coping However, some situations we can fix and some we can’t. When we can’t fix it, we must learn to live it. For example, you arrive at work and several co-workers are out sick. No float nurses are available, so your patient load is increased. As a result, you have a hectic and stressful day. In this case, emotion-focused coping concentrates on changing your mood or your frame of mind. In this case, you need to pull yourself out of anger or anxiety and replace it with a positive frame of mind. Switching from a negative to a positive mindset will help you recognize what you need to do to deal with stressful situations. SHAZAM! HUMOR TO THE RESCUE Humor creates a cognitive-affective shift. In other words, it reframes our perspective. Once you change the way, you also have an emotional shift to a more positive direction. Once you accept that humor creates this shift, you can deliberately use it to manage your emotional state.Now that’s POWER! The power of humor is that you can’t be genuinely happy and sad at the same time. 3 ways to increase your humor 1. Boost the humor in your daily life. Funny surrounds us, so there are lots of simple ways to boost humor in your life. Consider looking at outside sources.
2. Laugh at Yourself We all make mistakes, have quirks and goofy habits that are funny. Life is happier when you learn to laugh will get stop taking yourself so seriously. (Even though you continue to take your work and responsibilities seriously.) 3. Look for the Humor Humor is everywhere. Watch for humor at home, at the grocery store, at your job. Find fun in your relationships, at the dinner table, and while doing lawn work. Life is funny. When you look for the Funny, you will find it Humor is one of our greatest blessings. Being funny is possibly one of the best things you can do for your health. It helps bolsters your immune system, eases pain, protects the heart, and burns calories. Laughter strengthens relationships, enhances teamwork, and diffuses conflict. Find the funny relieves stress, improves your mood, and strengthens resilience. Best of all, laughter brings joy and zest to life. Everyone deserves a laugh and, if you look, every day will give you one. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success!
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By Amy Dee
Years ago, I moved from Norway to the United States with my two little girls. While living overseas, my first husband and I started a very successful home-based business. I bought his permission to leave with our daughters by giving him half of our profitable business. It was the best business deal I’ve ever made. With only our suitcases, the three of us flew home to begin a safer and happier life. During those nine years of living in Norway, I ran our home-based business. Suddenly, it was gone. I had no idea what I would do. Leaving my home, friends, and significant financial security, I started over as a single mom of two. It was scary because I had no home, no job, no plan for the future. Fortunately, I had something much more robust: Hope. That hope carried me through renovating a hundred and six-year-old dumpy house and nursing school. Faith sustained me throughout the years of single parenting. It was an exciting and challenging time. Hope made me strong. Over the years, psychologists have studied optimism, grit, self-efficacy, passion, inspiration, etc. All of these are valuable. Unfortunately, there is one critical intervention that is often underrated and even shunned in our society. Hope is Unappreciated Hope is scoffed at because it appears weak, impractical, and even silly. It stirs up thoughts of an eternal optimist, sitting down for a picnic while the forest burns around her. However, studies repeatedly show that hope is critical to resilience. What is Hope? Merriam-Webster defines hope as : to cherish a desire with anticipation: to want something to happen or be true Most psychologists who study hope prefer the definition developed by the late Charles R. Snyder, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Kansas and a hope research pioneer. According to Snyder et al. (1991), hope is a positive cognitive state based on a sense of successful goal-directed determination and planning to meet these goals. Snyder’s model of hope has three components: goals, agency, and pathways. To clarify, ‘agency’ is our ability to shape our lives. We believe that we can make things happen. It also includes the motivation to reach the desired outcome. On the other hand, a pathway is a road that gets us there. No matter the size of a goal, we need a plan and a path to achieve a goal. The target could be some as simple as losing a few pounds or as challenging as running a marathon. In other words: Hope is the belief that your future can be better than your past, and you play a role in making it so. Hope Is Not Just An Emotion Hope is not just an emotion. Instead, hope is the mindset that drives resilient behavior. Hope is the pathway to resilience. Hope vs. Optimism Optimism is a positive attitude about a future event that is probable and likely to occur: the optimist expects that life will work out well and as expected (Scheier & Carver, 1993). Conversely, being hopeful is regarded as more realistic. A hopeful individual recognizes that life may not work out as planned, yet maintains positive expectancy directed toward possible outcomes that hold personal significance (Miceli & Castelfranchi, 2010). In fact, hope is the single best predictor of well-being compared to any other measures of trauma recovery. Psychologist Shane Lopez, Ph.D., is a senior scientist at Gallup and author of the 2013 book “Making Hope Happen”. Lopez, together with Matthew Gallagher, Ph.D., a psychologist at Boston University, found hope to be a strong predictor of positive emotions (Journal of Positive Psychology, 2009). Their research revealed that hope and optimism are different. Through his work with Gallop Polls, Lopez studied hope in millions of people. He found that both traits are essential for happiness and well-being, according to Lopez. While he concedes that hopefulness alone won’t make a person happy, he deems both are required to find contentment. “You have to knock down the hope domino to get to the happiness domino,” he says. Hope isn’t just wishful thinking. Hopefulness is different from wishing. “Wishing is ubiquitous, but it can be kind of an escape from reality. Hope is different because it has to do with facing reality,” says Jon G. Allen, Ph.D., a senior staff psychologist at The Menninger Clinic, a psychiatric hospital in Houston. “As I see it, hope is the motivation to stay in the game.” Hope Doesn’t Mean Pollyanna Hopeful people are not just perpetually cheerful types. They are not naive Pollyanna’s wearing rose-colored glasses. In fact, these people are often very realistic. After all, continuously setting unrealistic goals set you up for failure. Repeated failures can wear you down. As a result, your hope will diminish. Why Hope? Hope doesn’t just feel good, it is good for you. Randolph C Arnau University of Southern Mississippi and colleagues reported that hopeful people have a greater sense that life is meaningful (International Journal of Existential Psychology & Psychotherapy, 2010) There is evidence that hope can buffer adversity and stress. In addition, hope can predict critical outcomes. Best of all, hope can be learned and sustained. Human beings differ, and some people lean towards being more hopeful. Those who a more extraverted and agreeable tend to have more hope. Conversely, those of us who are more neurotic generally have less a bit less hope. People with a high degree of hope tend to be better at setting goals, according to psychologist Randolph C. Arnau. “A high-hope person tends to have more goals, and is quicker to focus on another if they fail.” Lopez has found hopeful people tend to share some commonalities. When challenged by a crisis, less hopeful people tend to shut down. Hopeful people are more likely to take action to help them cope. Hope Can Drive Success. After tracking college students for over three years, John Maltby, Ph.D., a psychologist at Leicester University, found students with more hope students had higher academic success. Maltby’s research discovered that hope better at predicting academic achievement than intelligence, personality, or previous academic performance (Journal of Research in Personality, 2010). The good news is, “Hope is an equal opportunity resource.” per Lopez. Three Steps for Building Hope Lopez describes three necessary steps for building hope: The first step is a process he calls “futurecasting.” Futurecasting requires you to envision a specific future goal. The key is to create a vision that is brilliantly alive. Let’s say you want to learn to speak Spanish for an upcoming trip to Spain. To begin with, Lopez suggests finding pictures of the sites you plan to visit. Use these pictures to create a collage and place it in an area where you will see it often. In other words, keep your goal front and center in your mind.” Really crystallize what you want your future to look like,” he says. Remember: The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment. Earl Nightingale Create a Path Secondly, create a path to your goal. You may remember that the idea of pathways is central to Snyder’s model of hope. After all, once you choose a destination, you must figure out a way to get there. If you want to learn Spanish for your upcoming vacation, look into language apps and classes to path the way to your success. Finally, plan for contingencies. Lopez’s research discovered that the most hopeful people create several possible solutions to a potential problem. Conversely, less hopeful people tend to consider only the best-case scenario. At most, they may create just one or two paths to their goal. Instead, Lopez tells us, “You have to come up with many ways to overcome those obstacles.” Hope and Trauma Trauma may require a fourth skill that Lopez calls “regoaling”. Years ago, I worked with a psychiatrist whose young son had been diagnosed with cancer. After years of medical treatment, his treatments stopped working. Heartbroken, they had to shift their goal from helping their son live to make the most of his last months on Earth. She and her husband took a sabbatical from their jobs. They took family trips to Disney World, the Grand Canyon, and New York. In the end, their goal changed. Rather than fighting to keep their little boy alive, their new goal was to keep him comfortable until he died. This little guy had even helped plan his own funeral. There wasn’t a dry eye in the church when the pallbearers entered wearing full out Star Wars costumes. His entire grade school class attended. Despite the heartache, the stories about this little boy left us all with hope. During these times, counseling can help people accept this new goal. In the end, they need to release old dreams and aims to create a new future. We Need Hope It is challenging to give up on a dream. But hope makes it more accessible. We need hope. “Many of the ancient religious texts reference faith, hope, and love. Hope is an ancient virtue and a basic human quality,” Lopez says. Hope is important because life can be tough. We all face obstacles. When dealing with challenges, having goals is not enough. To move towards those goals, we need to overcome all the twists and turns that come our way. When we harness hope, we can approach problems with a success mindset. This, in turn, will increase the chance that you will actually accomplish your goals. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Amy Dee
Years ago, I worked as a nurse in a behavioral health hospital. One day we had an unfortunate incident. My co-workers took the adolescents to our gym. As always, the kids were warned to avoid hitting the celling. Above all, we were concerned they’d hit the sprinkler system. Certainly, most kids followed the rules. Unfortunately, one day an angry teen intentionally smacked the sprinkler. Consequently, the sprinkler went off, and the gym was flooded. The flooding caused considerable damage. Meanwhile, one of our managers stormed onto our unit. Unbelievably, she announced “The gym has $10,000 dollars of damage, so no raises this year!” Subsequently, her outburst caused an adverse reaction from my co-workers. First, they didn’t want to lose their raise. Second, they thought this was unbelievably unfair. She immediately apologized for her comment, but it was too late. The damage was done. Chatter about her comment went on for weeks. This manager allowed emotions to hijack her thinking. Understanding and strengthening her emotional intelligence may have helped. Emotional intelligence is a set of emotional and social skills that combine to establish how good you are at:
Explaining Emotional Intelligence In short, EQ is how you blend your thinking with your feelings. It helps you make the right decisions, and build authentic relationships. Of course, many factors predict performance, development potential, and success in life. However, emotional intelligence is a critical factor in these areas. You can developed, improved, and change your EQ over time. Studies estimate that EQ accounts for between 27% to 45% of job success. Although EQ is often linked with management training and skills, everyone needs it. Three tips to increase your emotional intelligence 1. Take Responsibility for Your Feelings and Behavior No one can make you feel or act. You are responsible for your emotions and behavior. Accepting responsibility for how you feel and behave will positively impact other parts of your life. 2. Choose to respond rather than react Reacting is an unconscious action. First, we experience an emotional trigger. Next, we act quickly without thinking to express or relieve the negative emotion we are feeling. On the other hand, responding is a conscious process. To clarify, you take time to acknowledge the emotion, then choose how to behave. 3. Learn to empathize with yourself and others Above all, empathy requires you to understand why someone feels or acts in a particular way. In addition, it requires you to explain your understanding. Certainly, we need self-empathy as much as everyone else. Strengthening your empathy comes with practice. It will also improve your EI. First, begin by practicing on yourself. To clarify, notice your feelings and behavior, ask yourself, “Why do I feel or act this way?” Eventually, your self-awareness and self-control will increase. Be patient with yourself. EI isn’t one and done. Therefore, you must continue to practice. As a result, you keep improving over a lifetime. Every situation is different. You’ll need practice to hone this skill. It is worth it. You will reap a lifetime of benefits. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Amy Dee
Empathy defined Em ·pa·thy | \ ˈem-pə-thē. Definition of empathy the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. A story about the power of empathy The power of empathy was reinforced while I was a psychiatric RN in a behavioral health hospital. One day, while working on our child unit, I met Kimi who taught me a lesson I’ve never forgotten. Kimi was 11 years old and completely shut down. She attended our groups and therapies but refused to talk. An outsider may have interpreted her behavior as entitled or oppositional, but we all knew she was hurting. So, I plopped down next to her during lunch and told her silly stories about my dogs and kids. Eventually, she laughed, and we started talking. After a while, she said, “I was five when I left my grandma’s home, and I’ve been in 22 foster homes since then.” Twenty-two foster homes in six years! No wonder she didn’t bother to engage! She didn’t trust us. Why would she? From Kimi’s point of view, there’d be no point in getting close to us. After all, she’d soon be moving on to her next stop. Once we appreciated her perspective, we knew to approach her extra slowly and earn her trust. Empathy ignored Shortly after that, a psychiatric resident introduced himself to Kimi for her first evaluation. Instead of slowly getting to know her, he immediately began peppering her with questions. Kimi shut down and refused to talk to him. Consequently, the resident became frustrated and left. While leaving, he said, “She won’t talk or look at me. Give her some assignments. She needs to learn to respect doctors.” At that moment, the resident ignored the Power of empathy. He didn’t “put himself in her shoes.” You see, Kimi didn’t care about his medical degree. After all, she’d been shoved around for years, so she trusted no one. Had he taken the time to see her perspective, he may have approached her differently and gotten better results. Sadly, in this situation, he didn’t bother. The power of empathy in leadership Unfortunately, leaders often consider empathy as an unnecessary soft skill. As a result, they ignore one of the most powerful tools we have when it comes to connecting and understanding one another. Leadership is about inspiring others to take action beyond their capabilities. A great leader guides them in a direction that is compelling and dynamic. Most certainly, understanding is the bedrock of those actions. Empathy is essential to effective leadership. Empathy is not Sympathy Sympathy and empathy are different. Sympathy is a feeling of concern for someone, but it doesn’t require seeing things from their perspective. You don’t “step inside someone else’s shoes” to grasp their perspective or recognize their emotions behind it. Empathy, however, requires you to consider the other’s perspective. It necessitates that you set aside your own thoughts and opinions to learn how someone else perceives things. The power of empathy at work and home Empathy lets us build friendships, cooperate with others, and help out when we see people being bullied. It has many valuable assets both at work and in our personal life. The Power of Empathy at work
Empathy builds connections. So, when employees relate to their customers, they form a relationship. Your company or hospital will stand head and shoulders above the competitors who don’t bother to encourage this connection. Therefore, empathy is good for business, according to Harvard Business Review. Power of empathy in personal life
When we take time to understand each other, we are more likely to accept them. As a result, positive feelings flow for them and for ourselves. We feel more connected, and that bonding increases our happiness and our wellbeing. Empathy doesn’t require agreement Empathy doesn’t require us to agree with another person’s point of view. Instead, it merely asks us to recognize and understand their perspective. We better understand each other when we withhold judgment and sincerely consider their perspective. I am grateful that Kimi eventually trusted me enough to tell me about her chilling, short life. Her stories helped us create a more effective treatment plan. But Kimi also taught me a valuable lesson during my time as her nurse. She taught me that the real power of empathy is in bridging the connection between two hearts. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Amy Dee
Just like you, the coronavirus has created changes and challenges for my family. All my spring and summer speaking engagements were either rescheduled, or became virtual events. In addition, Mom’s senior living apartment complex remains closed to visitors. Meanwhile, we’ve not gone to a movie or eaten out for months because, like you, we are stuck at home. The good news is that reframing is an excellent tool for building the foundation for a happier life. Reframing works because it requires you to look for positives in a situation. Negative to Positive. A Reframing Metaphor: The camera and director There are always many ways to view a situation. For an example, let’s say your Uncle Bob is videotaping your family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Uncle Bob can focus his camera lens on the massive pile of dirty cooking pans by the sink or focus on the family laughing together while enjoying their food. When you shift your perspective you change your perception. Robinson Crusoe Reframing to go from negative to positive There are many reframing techniques. This method is named after the principal character, Robinson Crusoe, in Daniel Defoe’s book Robinson Crusoe published in 1719. After a shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe ends up alone on a remote tropical island. In order to survive he has to make the best of an unpleasant situation. This method requires that you to look at the other side of the coin. As a result, you can gently change a negative situation to something more positive. What follows is an example from Steve Klein’s book, The Science of Happiness. You start by creating a simple template with two columns, the minus column, and the plus column. If Crusoe used this technique it might look something like this: Minus Plus I am stuck with no chance of rescue, but I am alive while others died. There is nothing to eat, but in this tropical jungle, I can forage for food. I have no clothes to wear but, in this tropical climate, I won’t need many clothes. Most importantly, notice that the minus column starts with ‘but’. This is intentional. The word ‘but’ decreases the power of the minus portion of the sentence. The but helps you move from your glass being half empty to being half full. Studies show this reframing technique successfully helps people move from negative to positive The American National Institute of Mental Health used a CBT method similar to the Robinson Crusoe method on several hundred people diagnosed with moderate-to-severe depression. Their study revealed that this technique cured 60% of the participants’ depression. To sum up, you can’t choose everything that happens in your life, but you can choose how you respond. So, next time a challenging situation appears consider using Robinson Crusoe reframing to minimize the negative and find the positive. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Amy Dee
With everything that's happened in the last year, life in America seems more stressful than ever. But have you noticed that people cope with stress differently? As a funny motivational speaker, I have a bird’s eye view of an industry that turned upside down when our country closed in March. Like everyone else, all my speaking events postponed. Lots of speakers dealt with cancellations. Suddenly, virtual speaking became the only option. People Cope With Stress Differently That’s when I saw how differently people cope. Some speakers decided virtual wasn’t for them, so they are waiting it out. Others reluctantly dragged themselves into virtual but are still floundering today. A select few charged head-on into virtual speaking, now they love it and say they’ll never return to live events. You’ve seen it yourself. Some people face pressures directly. They are mentally flexible. These people flourish and grow through tough times. While others pretty much curl into a ball and hide. Let’s start by recognizing that stress gets a nasty rap. But truthfully, not all stress is bad. In fact, a bit of pressure is necessary to get you out of bed in the morning. Good stress helps you get things done; bad stress messes you up. In this article, I summarize stress categories so you will better understand stress. After that, I’ll give you tips you can quickly apply to build your stress resilience. You Already Know Stress Can Be Harmful By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the perils of stress: sleep disruption, increases in the stress hormone cortisol, cardiac stress, and depression. In addition, it can make you irritable, obese, and wreak havoc on your relationships. As if that isn’t enough, you may experience G.I problems, have difficulty thinking, and find yourself isolating. The list goes on. The truth is that Chronic Stress correlates, in degrees, with all of these awful, scary effects. Without a doubt, this is terrible. None of us want to be a lonely, irritable, fat, gassy, depressed person with heart and relationship problems. At first glance, it appears that stress should be avoided like the plaque The Other Truth About Stress While this awful stuff can be real, this isn’t the entire story. Here two important things to also understand about stress. Stress also has lots of significant and positive benefits. and… The way you look at stress is even more critical than the amount of stress you experience. Different Types of Stress To clear this up, I’ll identify the different types of stress. Normal Stress (Eustress) Eustress is a situation or event when a bit of stress shows up, then quickly leaves. This stress can be beneficial. It may give you a burst of energy that helps you get things done. In addition, it may create an incentive that allows you to focus and improves your performance. Example: Despite speaking to thousands of people yearly, I get a little burst of eustress before I grab the stage. This stress helps me sharpen my focus; it makes me alert and completely present. Ultimately eustress improves my performance. Distress Distress is harsher stress. Although it doesn’t last long, it does cause significant disruption. The effects are serious but short-lived. After experiencing distress, we usually return to a normal state. Example: You trip during your morning jog (a reason I do not jog). You suffer minor injuries but recover. Traumatic Stress Traumatic Stress is a big deal. It is profound. After this experience, your beliefs and assumptions may change. You recover over time, but you are forever changed. Heavy or unrelenting traumatic stress may outmatch your capacity to cope. As a result, you may experience fatigue, exhaustion, or even a breakdown. Example: A natural disaster such as a hurricane rips apart your home. You or a loved one becomes diagnosed with a major health problem such as cancer. The Persistence of Stress Stress can also be categorized based on how long it lasts. Acute Stress Acute Stress is the most common form of stress. It may be a result of pressure and demands from the past or the future. Acute stress is exhilarating and exciting in small doses, but too much becomes exhausting. Example: You arrive at work excited and ready to roar. But by 3 pm, you are drained and ready for a break. If you don’t take time to recharge, you risk making critical errors. Episodic Acute Stress Some of you may suffer from acute stress frequently. Perhaps your life is pummeled continuously with chaos and crisis. You may be juggling lots of demands and find it challenging to keep them all afloat. Episodic acute stress causes you to experience acute stress reactions, i.e., becoming short-tempered, over-aroused, anxious, irritable, and tense. You may have lots of nervous energy. You may rush about but find yourself often late. At times you can be abrupt and irritable, causing you to respond to others with hostility. In the end, you may harm your relationships. Example: You may self describe as a worry wart or a type-A personality. These characteristics can create frequent episodes of acute stress. Chronic Stress Chronic Stress is the eroding stress that wears you down bit by bit over a long time. Unfortunately, people experience this when they can’t see their way out of a bad situation. You may experience constant demands and pressures for seemingly never-ending periods. Eventually, your hope depletes, and you quit looking for solutions. Chronic stresses may come from traumatic, internalized early childhood experiences that make the present painful. Eventually, your view of the world or your belief system eternalizes this constant stress. The world becomes a threatening place. You may feel you must always be perfect. Worst of all, you may normalize feeling this way. You get used to it. You forget that this unpinning pressure is even there. Long Term Effect of Chronic Stress Because acute stress is new, you immediately notice it. On the other hand, chronic stress becomes easy to ignore because it’s old and familiar. Oddly enough, it may even become almost comfortable. Your physical and mental resources erode. This lack of resources makes the symptoms of chronic stress are more difficult to treat. Extended medical, as well as behavioral treatment and stress management, may be required. Example: Chronic Stress may come from being in a dysfunctional family situation or living in the stress of poverty. You may feel trapped in a hated job or career. Inside, not outside response to Stress Let’s face it, too often, our first response to stress is to look for help outside ourselves immediately. We download productivity apps or invest in productivity software. These promise to help us reduce distraction, add hours to our day, and make our lives easier. Or instead, we look for more get more help at the office or home. We consider switching careers. Sure some of these solutions can help. But more often than not, these external fixes are superficial and temporary because the answer lies inside, not outside of you. Remember Your Power In order to manage long term stress, you must find your internal power before looking for external solutions. By strengthening your resilience superpower, you can turn problems into challenges and difficulties into opportunities. Resilience Resilience, according to The American Psychological Association, is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or even significant sources of stress (such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors). In other words, resilience is “bouncing back” from tough situations and painful experiences. The great news is that research continuously shows that resilience is ordinary—not extraordinary—and that people commonly demonstrate resilience. Research also shows that our resilience muscle can strengthen by choosing to respond positively to difficult times. To be clear, emotional pain and sadness are common when we have suffered through trauma or major adversities. Furthermore, resilient people don’t live on cloud nine; they also experience difficulty or stress. Truthfully the road to resilience is likely paved by considerable emotional distress. That said, resilience is not a trait that people either have or do not have. Instead, resilience is a process. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that resilience involves thoughts, behaviors, and actions that can be learned and developed in all of us. 3 Steps To Resilience Unless you live under a rock, you already know that eating right, sleeping enough, and exercise are essential. All of these help you better deal with stress and increase your resilience. Instead of rehashing these critical factors, I’ll introduce a few mental tools you can use. STEP ONE: Find Your Locus of Control Locus, according to Merriam-Webster, means a place where something is situated or occurs. Do you have an Internal or External Locus of Control? If you are uncertain, you can take a quick quiz to determine the position and strength of your locus of control. To sum it up, people with an internal locus of control believe that their actions determine the rewards they get during their lives. Conversely, those with an external locus of control believe that their behavior doesn’t matter that much. Instead, they think that life’s rewards are outside of their control. Your Locus of Control is important because… Resilient People have an Internal Locus of Control. In other words, Resilient people believe that they are in control of their lives. While these folks understand that they can’t always control what happens to them, they know that they can control their responses. Having an internal locus of control makes a huge difference in our attitudes and the course of our lives. Fortunately, you can develop your internal Locus of Control. Here are three quick tips to consider: CHOICE: Remember, You always have a choice. No matter what happens, it is YOU who decides how you will cope. It is YOU who decides what resources you will seek out. It is YOU who decides the language you will choose to describe this challenging time. TRUTH: By telling yourself the TRUTH Saying “I have no choice” or “I can’t” isn’t honest. You always have a choice. You may not like the option available, but you do have a choice. At times you may have the opportunity to change a situation. At other times, your choice may be to accept the situation gracefully. No matter what, you choose. Brainstorm: Brainstorm your choices When you feel stuck, create a list of every possible course of action. Don’t judge your options, just scribble them down. This list will help to remind you of your choices and keeping you from feeling stuck. You’ll remember that even though there are things you cannot do, there are also things you can do. When feeling overwhelmed and stuck, remember Viktor Frankl, who suffered from three years in horrific Nazi concentration camps and lost most of his family. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl writes: “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Viktor Frankl (March 26, 1905–September 2, 1997) STEP TWO: SHIFT YOUR PERSPECTIVE Resilience people accept that life will always be full of difficulties. Because this is true, they understand that they need to be flexible and open to change. They don’t have a victim mentality. In other words, no self-pity, feeling victimize or look for someone to blame. Instead, they look for the positive benefits of facing stressors. Recognizing that growth comes from experiences and mistakes, they look for actionable forward-moving steps. Kelly Mcgonigal’s research (see this TED talk) compared people with a positive attitude about stress to people who have a very negative attitude about stress. Her research found that people with an equal amount of stressors are not equally affected in negative ways. Instead, only people with a negative outlook about stress have an increased risk of these adverse consequences (death, illness, etc.). In short: your perspective of your stress matters more than the number of stressors you experience. In essence, Your perspective about stress affects how you experience it. Your attitude matters. You can shift your perspective and grow your “resilient attitude” by being aware of the positive aspects of facing stressors. Understand that stress is a part of every life. Realize that stress enhances your ability to grow and get stronger. When you shift your perspective, you change your perception. Changing your perspective is process. Therefore, with greater awareness and clarity about your power, you will better handle stress and strengthen your resilience. Step Three: Relationships: Get support. No man is an island. People with low social support are more likely to develop depression in the presence of chronic stress. In fact, strong social support helps protect people against the harmful effects of stress. In addition, the brain of a stressed person has lower adverse chemical effects when they have high levels of strong social support. We all know that when it comes to facing challenges, our friends help lighten the load. Resilient people are likely to have secure networks of social support. They also tend to cope well with stress and to stay healthier and happier throughout life. Certain feelings and behaviors are signs indicating the need for prompt, professional help. Important warning signs are:
Seek Help if you are overwhelmed If you feel that your resilience is crumbling, you should seek help without delay. NAMI is an essential national alliance that offers mental health support. https://www.nami.org/Support-Education The National Suicide Prevention Hotline offers 24-hour telephone support a 1-800-273-8255. https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org Human beings are amazing creatures. We’ve mastered flight and traveled to the moon. We’ve developed language, writing, electricity, photography and the internet. Vaccines, music, wind and solar power, theory of relativity and quantum physics have all been created by us. So, how is it that such intelligent creatures, still struggle with managing stress? The good news is, we have the power to change. We can better manage our stress and increase our resilience through a mindful approach to life. Stress resilience is a process, a journey…not a destination. Planning your virtual event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to book your healthcare speaker! By Amy Dee
Best Laid Plans Years ago, I was to sing at a friend’s wedding. The bride had been planning every detail of this event for over two years. At one point, she called me in a panic, saying, “I am just so afraid something will go wrong.” “Count on it,” I responded. The wedding day arrived. It was a brilliantly sunny day with mild temperatures. Five hundred guests sat in the church adorned with glorious bouquets lining the altar and pews as gentle harp music rippled through the air. Everything was perfect. Shift Happens Toward the end of the service, fourteen attendants stood beside the bride and groom to receive a special blessing. Suddenly, a thunderous retch, the sploosh of liquid, and a resounding thud interrupted the service. The bride’s brother had vomited and passed out cold at the altar. The church exploded with 487 guests gagging and running to the bathroom, while a guest doctor and family members jumped to assist the fallen groomsman. Moments later, ambulance sirens screeched to a halt outside the church. EMTs raced in with a stretcher for the tuxedoed, vomit-covered groomsman. A few brave guests armed with handfuls of paper towels mopped up while the attendants washed splatters off their formal wear. Forty minutes later, everyone (painted in various shades of green) harnessed their emotional resilience to resume their places. The ceremony restarted with a rancid-sweet-flower smell permeating the air. In the end, the bride and groom married and the reception was fun. Despite my friend wanting to kill him, her brother, hungover from the bachelor party, recovered. Even after years of planning out every detail of her wedding, shift happened. The Human Need to Predict As human beings, we have a distinct feeling of being able to internally pre-experience future events. Because of this feeling, making constant plans for our future comes naturally. Pre-experiencing the future allows us to “try out” various possibilities, which can be handy. The problem comes when we mistake our pre-experience tryouts for facts. Thinking doesn’t make it real. Human beings are notoriously bad at predicting the future. Life never precisely happens as planned. When plans are successful, our innate ability to adjust and adapt makes dreams come to fruition. Good News! You’ve Got This! Experiencing a worldwide pandemic is new to all of us. Despite this, here is good news: Within you is a deep, untapped reservoir of resilience that will help you survive and thrive during and after this pandemic. Life will not be the same because life never is the same. Our lives are in a constant state of change. But our remarkable ability to adapt makes most challenges and changes barely noticeable. Think about it: you and everyone else out there has experienced and survived some challenge. Most of us have thrived through difficulties: the death of a loved one, conflict in a relationship, illness, pain, job disappointments, and fear. The truth is, you were resilient long before COVID-19 came along. You will figure this out; you will adapt. You can not only survive, but thrive. This is a choice. Jason Moser Ph.D. of Psychology at the University of Michigan, who has published multiple studies on human emotions, cognition, and the ability to rebound from adversity, says, “Humans are a highly adaptive species” as are many others in the animal kingdom “so we’ll figure out how to get to living in a new world and be okay.” Overcome Stress at Work COVID-19 presents a unique set of concerns about work, including:
Whether you are experiencing stress at work, at home, or both, the following tips will help you increase your self-reliance and build your emotional resilience. Gratitude Let’s start with the most straightforward bit: gratitude. Gratitude practices can not only help you overcome stress at work. These can also help you better manage any hardships or challenges that come your way. Building emotional resilience is about control and perspective. A Gratitude practice allows you to stop and reflect on the good instead of overlooking it and passing it off as unimportant. Of equal importance, gratitude also will enable you to pause and put some space between your impulse and your actions. This space allows you the ability to choose. It gives you the control and perspective you need to make the right decisions while dealing with challenging situations. Keep a gratitude journal. Make it a habit to write down your blessing and your thoughts about the gifts you’ve received each day. Count your blessings. Pick a time every week to write and reflect on the good things that happened during the week. Choose three to five things to identify each week. As you write, think about the sensations you felt when that blessing came to you. Reframing Reframing is an excellent tool for building your emotional resilience. Reframing works because it requires you to look for positives in a situation. A Reframing Metaphor: The camera and director There are always many ways to view a situation. As a metaphor, let’s say your Uncle Bob is videotaping your family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Uncle Bob can focus his camera lens on the massive pile of dirty cooking pans by the sink or focus on the family laughing together while enjoying their food. When you shift your perspective, you change your perception. Here is an incredibly useful reframing tool I use in my everyday life. Humor One way this humor helps is by allowing us space to detach or distance ourselves. Humor also helps strengthen group stability and social support. As a result, you will be more effective during challenging situations. Humor makes challenges tolerable. Don’t let feeling frustrated and stressed keep you from finding the fun and joy in life. Humor is powerful. It can weaken negative emotions and flip a negative mood into a positive one. Finding the funny redirects you towards solutions to the problems that created your negative emotions in the first place. It eases the tension you feel and gives you greater control over the challenges you are facing. Humor helps keep everyday irritations in perspective. Most (not all) problems are pretty small when you consider the big picture. We cannot control everything that happens to us, but we can control our response. So count your blessings, shift your perspective, and laugh. Building resilience happens by making choices, one challenge at a time. Planning your virtual event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to book your healthcare speaker! By Amy Dee
Snow bombarded us again, another five inches. Steve woke up groaning about shoveling, but after clearing the driveway, he shook off the white powder saying, “What a beautiful day! It’s nice to get outside right away in the morning.” Same driveway, same snow, same chore, so what changed? Steve’s point of view shifted. Your point of view depends on your framing of the situation. Reframing is a technique to create a different way of looking at a circumstance, event, or person. By moving the frame, you can change what you see and how you see it. You shift your perspective to change your perception. Brainstorming is a method for generating ideas to solve a problem. I use brainstorming every day to gain new insights, work through issues, and improve my creative thinking. During the next few days, write lots of reframes to your current thinking. Seek quantity, not quality. Write as many ideas as possible, no matter how outlandish or bizarre. Do not criticize or analyze the value of the ideas generated. Why so many reframes? Helpful friends would often advise me, “Instead of being afraid of flying, just remind yourself that flying is safe.” The problem is that considering the opposite doesn’t generate enough energy to create change because my fear of flying was like a well-worn mountain path, deeply embedded in my thinking. Creating a new path means cutting through lots of weedy thinking. Brainstorming lots of reframes is like slicing repeating slicing through the weeds. Remember, it doesn’t matter how ridiculous, keep writing. I wrote things like, “if the pilot passes out, maybe I will be a hero and land the safely land the plane” and “During bad turbulence, I might be a hero and keep everyone calm.” (You see a bit of a pattern here, right?) I promise that you will generate great thoughts along with the dumb stuff. Try this: Write out 15-30 Reframes. See your perspective change. Planning your virtual event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to book your healthcare speaker! By Amy Dee
My mom’s house sold recently. This was GREAT NEWS. Within moments, I heard my daughter was on her way to the ER because of a minor accident. “Can’t I enjoy five minutes of peace before the next storm hits?” I whined. This summer has been a succession of mini storms. Mom’s serious fall derailed a short vacation. A leisurely transition into our new home became frantic when we needed to move Mom the same week. Delayed flights forced me to sleep overnight in the Atlanta airport. On and on. This morning, I realized that my experiences are life’s natural flow of ups and downs. Both good and bad things happen in everyone’s life. Too often we think happiness relies on the quantity of these trials and successes. Lots of good stuff makes us happy, while lots of bad stuff makes us unhappy. This isn’t true. The sum of happiness doesn’t come from the number of ups and downs. Happiness results in how smoothly we transition through both the painful and the painless moments. Nothing in our life is permanent. Like the weather, everything changes: our moods, emotions, relationships, goals, etc all change. When clouds show up, we don’t curse the sky, believing that the storm will last forever. When the sun shines, we know the clouds are minutes or days away. Good or bad experiences don’t define our lives; they are just small pieces in the big picture of our overall life. Once we recognize the impermanence of our lives, we no longer need to hold on to either the “good” or “bad” moments. We value every moment when we conclude it happened for a reason, and when recognize it won’t last forever. So next time you feel bad, remember, like clouds in the sky these moments will pass. And next time you feel good, appreciate the moment of sunshine, because, ultimately the clouds will drift in. Remember the saying attributed to Vivian Green: Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass… It’s about learning how to dance in the rain. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Amy Dee
Recently, I took a long phone-less walk in the neighborhood. Before I left my iPhone behind an internal debate raged “What if I get a business call?” or “ What if my mom or my kids need me?” to “What if I miss a good deal on eBay or great recipe on Facebook?” Surrendering the battle, I left my phone on top of some boxes in the garage and closed the door. Sad, because years ago, bc (before cells), a long walk alone was precious thinking time. Now I have to convince myself to leave without it. What gives? It turns out, applications and websites are engineered to get us scrolling as often as possible. One study says smartphone owners consult their device an average of 150 times a day. Smart phones have hijacked our brains. How? Dopamine is a neurotransmitter enables us to see rewards and move toward the rewards. Fast food joints know that sweet, salty and fatty foods captivate the brain’s reward circuit in much the same way that cocaine and gambling do. Smart phones similarly bewitch our brains. The most prosperous sites and apps hook us by tapping into our deep seated human need for social approval and connection. Just like Pavlov’s dogs began to salivate, anticipating food at the ring of a bell the smart phone’s every ding, buzz, and vibration keeps us scrolling through our phone, salivating for more. What now? Take back your life by taking a break. Turn off your smart phone notifications. Make a commitment to take time away from your phone daily, so you can reconnect to the here and now of everyday living. Because? Sans the phone my walk was more enjoyable. I noticed the lush green grass, watched kids practicing softball, petted dogs and greeted other pedestrians along the path. I overheard some birds’ angry conversation with a naughty squirrel and observed a tiny black ant dragging an enormous french fry home. Pretty cool stuff and I didn’t even once have to find a shady spot to check my phone. Life is a gift, but you must be present to win. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! |
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