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Quick Check: Values Based Action

It’s been a while since the last blog post, and I’m planning on tightening up the time between submissions.  More wisdom is on it’s way.

Everyday provides endless opportunities to live the life we want to live, but we’ve got to paying attention, and be prepared to take advantage when an opportunity presents itself.  With that in mind, I want to provide a decision making strategy that can be applied anywhere and anytime.  When you’re making decisions mindfully (and hopefully most of the time you are), it requires intentional questions and answers in each moment.

  • Where will I choose to focus my attention?
  • What will I say in response to that greeting?
  • What tooth will I brush next?
  • What am I tasting right now?

With all those questions and choices, how can we know which path to follow?  It’s easy to fall into a pattern of looking for the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ path, but that’s an oversimplification and introduces unnecessary judgment.  Instead you can ask, “How will this choice help me move toward my values?” or “What behavior would I be engaging in if I were behaving in alignment with my values?”

Through the course of any day, the more closely we can align our choices and behaviors to our values, the better off we’re going to be.  It minimizes guilt, regret, shame, self-criticism, and judgment.  It maximizes healthy pride, self-efficacy, contentment, and personal growth.  It allows us to live our life based on the things that are most important to us.  If you’re not sure how to define your values, you can take an initial step by downloading and printing this  values clarification worksheet.  Rate all the values on the worksheet as either very important, somewhat important, or not important.  Once you’ve identified all the values that are very important to you, narrow those down to your top ten.

By using your top ten values to make decisions, you’re sure to find yourself on a more fulfilling path in life.

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Mental and Emotional Fitness

My perspective on mental health continues to move further and further from the traditional medical model.  Identify symptoms, track causes, treat the disease – repeat.  I’m a much bigger believer in a preventative health model, the model that states we can avoid many illness and recover faster from the ones we do encounter IF we are taking good care of ourselves along the way.  The preventative model, while not actively implemented, is universally accepted.  I don’t know anyone that argues against the idea that regular exercise and a healthy diet can prevent many diseases and improve recovery rates for many others.

It’s important here to distinguish between being mentally and emotionally fit and being happy.  These are two extremely different things.  Happiness is a impermanent emotional experience.  Fitness is a slow-to-change state of being.  In the course of building and maintain fitness in this realm, I’m confident that there will be increasingly more opportunities to feel happy.  However, just like being tired one day doesn’t mean you’re not physically fit, being sad or anxious one day (or a few) doesn’t mean that you’re not mentally/emotionally fit.

Things are more clear with physical well-being.  Everyone knows that smoking cigarettes, consuming excessive alcohol, and subsisting on Doritos and Mountain Dew may have serious health impacts.  No one expects to be healthy when they consistently avoid healthy behaviors and engage in unhealthy behaviors.  No one is surprised when their doctor tells them that regaining health will require a change in lifestyle – consistent, long-term changes in diet and exercise.  We all accept the fact that physical fitness comes through committed effort.

It’s the same for our mental and emotional fitness.  It’s just harder to see.

Many people fall into patterns of mental and emotional sabotage then lament their lack of contentment.  They engage in unhealthy behaviors every single day then honestly wonder why they don’t feel mentally and emotionally well.  They judge, criticize (themselves and others), focus on the worst part of their day, build walls of righteous anger, fill the world with blame and shame, fail to communicate assertively, ignore their feelings, neglect boundaries, compromise their values, and passively watch life go by….then they complain about not being happy.

It’s the equivalent of someone watching their twelfth straight episode of “House of Cards” on Netflix, finishing off a pack of cigarettes, and washing it down with the last swallow in two-liter of Mountain Dew and pondering, “Why isn’t my body in peak physical condition right now?”  It sounds a little silly, but many people expect mental and emotional well-being without the work.  They expect fitness without committed effort or significant changes.  To be fair, it can be easy to mistake moments of happiness with genuine emotional fitness.  Unfortunately, it’s a costly mistake that allows people to justify a wide variety of strategies for exercising mental fitness.

The same way poor physical health makes physical injuries more likely and recovery more difficult, poor mental and emotional fitness can make people more prone to mental health “injuries” – diagnostic levels of depression, anxiety, substance use, etc.  as well as making recovery from those illnesses more challenging.

Now, physically fit people still fall ill and suffer some of the same maladies as those less concerned with physical health.  They can still suffer from heart attacks, broken bones, and pneumonia.  Mental illness is no different.  Practicing mindfulness, exercising gratitude and compassion, engaging in values-based living, and working to maintain a healthy mental outlook doesn’t guarantee  mental well-being.  Nothing can completely protect you from illness.  Mental and emotional fitness is about quality of life before, during, and after those illnesses.

So what’s it take to get fit?  The guidelines for physical fitness have been well defined.  According to the World Health Organization, adults benefit from spending at least 150 minutes per week engaging in moderate-intensity activities.  That’s 30 minutes five times per week, roughly 1.5% of your time each week.  Let’s apply the same standard to mental and emotional fitness.  Spend approximately 150 minutes per week actively engaged in becoming mentally and emotionally fit.  Whether that means meditation, writing a letter of gratitude, challenging distorted thoughts, practicing compassion, or seeing a therapist – carve out 1.5% of your weekly schedule and prioritize your emotional well-being.  Get fit.

As a therapist, people usually come to me after they recognize an illness.  The preventative piece is gone in terms of the present struggle.  I’m the cardiologist that meets the patient for the first time after the heart attack.  Not ideal, but it’s a place to start.  If I have the opportunity to work with someone on developing skills, building strategies, and creating a life-style, I’ve got a chance to help them get fit, to help them avoid (or lessen) future illnesses, to help them enjoy life a little more.  I’m grateful for that opportunity.

 

 

 

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Avoidance: The Burden of Dodging Burdens

Avoidance (and attempted avoidance) is one of the biggest sources of mental and emotional distress.  Avoidance may offer some immediate gratification, a sense of escape and relief.  You may even feel victorious if you’ve dodged a stressful task for another day or compartmentalized an emotion for another week.  That sense of relief becomes a powerful reinforcer of avoidance, and it’s easy to be stuck in a perpetual cycle of ducking and dodging the discomfort of actually doing.

Avoidance of uncomfortable situations, for all it’s real short-term benefits, can lead to very serious skills deficits.  Imagine the uncomfortable situation is swimming.  Plenty of people are scared of swimming.  One strategy for managing this fear is avoidance.  “If I never get in the water, I’ll be fine.”  There’s truth in that statement.  Avoidance works if the primary goal is to avoid feeling fear/anxiety//etc.  If the goal, however, is to be safer or feel safer near water, avoidance can’t get you there.  If the goal is to learn to swim, avoidance is the least effective thing you can do.

This provides a clear example of avoidance in action.  In our day-to-day lives, avoidance may be much more subtle.  You may avoid a conversation or an email.  You may avoid a place or a task.  You may work to avoid a thought or a feeling.  These efforts to avoid almost always waste energy, consuming your capacity to pursue what you want while you’re busy running from the discomfort in your life.  The brain’s ability to rationalize and justify is put to full use, and countless explanations (excuses) are created to support the decision to avoid.

Common Avoidance Strategies

“I’ll do it later.” is a classic justification for procrastinators around the world. “I’ll do it after ________.” is another easy way to avoid actual engagement in a task.  Netflix has been a boon to avoiders everywhere.

“I can’t do it.” is the rallying cry for people avoiding academic assignments, exercise, crucial conversations, and every other uncomfortable task.  A close cousin to the “I can’t do it” form of avoidance is the “I don’t have time” statement.  You can do, and you can make time.  The more honest statement is…”I’m not willing to suffer the consequences of doing it.”

“I’ll get more prepared instead.” is a slightly more sophisticated way to avoid – choosing, perhaps, the lessor of two uncomfortable endeavors.  “I’ll read a book about how to swim instead.”  I can assure you that no one ever felt safe and confident in the water without actually getting in the water.  This strategy of avoidance is common in high achievers and those that are reliant on knowledge for comfort.  Gaining more knowledge about a topic can be way to avoid the doing and to avoid the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that come with doing.  It’s a very strong, rational justification for avoidance….but it’s still avoidance.

Stop Avoiding, Get Engaged

Depending on the sophistication of your avoidance, you may face some serious challenges in recognizing and overcoming the habit.  You can start by asking these simple questions:

“Why is this important to me?” If you’re avoiding something, you’ve given yourself more reasons (or at least more important reasons) to NOT do it than TO do it.  Once you see patterns of avoidance popping up, look at what you’re avoiding, and focus on the justification for doing it.  Our swimmer might start by saying they value personal growth and challenge.  They can remind themselves that they want to be a playmate and protector to their water-loving children.  Regardless of the “why,” make sure it’s readily available when you’re faced with the urge to avoid.

“What can I do?”  By using all the horsepower in your brain to answer an affirmative, action-oriented question, you disengage from avoidance and start moving toward the goal.  Be a problem-solver.  Brainstorm until you have some specific actions that can move you toward the desired goal or value.  If you discover the avoidance continues…just ask the question again until you start taking action.

“What am I willing to experience?”  Let’s be honest, some experiences are going to be uncomfortable, and we’re not going to eliminate all unpleasantness from life.  So ask yourself what thoughts, emotions, urges, and sensations you’re willing to deal with to engage in life and do what you want to do.  In the example above, our fearful swimmer may want to acknowledge…”I’m willing to think I don’t need to swim.  I’m willing to be scared.  I’m willing to have the urge to runaway, and I’m willing to sweat from my palms.”  If they’re willing to experience all that and still get in the pool for lesson #1, they can overcome avoidance.  Read more about the tricky business of willingness here.

 

 

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Tricky Business of Sincere Acceptance

For years acceptance has been the pinnacle of the grieving process.  Acceptance is a cornerstone of Alcoholics Anonymous.  It’s also fundamental to Eastern philosophies and practices such as Taoism, Buhhdism, meditation, and mindfulness.

All of these approaches promote acceptance.  Be accepting of thoughts and emotions.  Be accepting of situations and hardships.  Be accepting of yourself and other people.

Theoretically, acceptance will result in less suffering, less sadness, less anger – generally less discomfort in our lives.  Through years of practice and observation, I believe that is true.  I’ve shared and taught the ideals of acceptance to hundreds of people, and in nearly every instance, no matter what I do or how I explain the concepts, the same problem arises.

People want to use acceptance as a way to control their emotions.  They ask, “How will acceptance make my sadness go away.”  They wonder, “If I accept everything, how will I control it?”

Hopefully, you picked up on the complete contradiction in the previous sentences.  If not, let me explain.  Acceptance means you’ve relinquished all expectation for change; you’ve taken a role as an observer.  To say internally, or out-loud – “I accept that I’m sad” with the expectation that the sadness will go away is not acceptance at all.

Please don’t mistake the idea of acceptance with giving-up, surrendering, wallowing, or otherwise disconnecting from life.  Genuine acceptance does not equate to throwing your hands up and spending three days in bed watching three seasons of a mediocre show on Netflix.  That would be surrendering to sadness, not accepting it.

Genuine acceptance starts with nonjudgmental recognition – “I’m feeling sad.”  You may simply sit with that feeling, examining and experiencing the thoughts and sensations associated with the emotion.  After accepting that the feeling is present, you make the all-important decision about how you want to live your life (regardless of how you feel).  Here’s the key to accepting uncomfortable emotions.  You don’t have to wait for it to go away to start living life according to your values.  You can be sad and call a friend.  You can be sad and socialize.  You can be sad and make dinner for your family.  You can be sad and go to class.  You can be sad and be kind, trusting, generous, engaged, or dedicated.

All of this is easier said than done.  It requires clarity of personal values and goals.  It requires intentional practice related to active acceptance.  It requires self-compassion, patience, and vulnerability.  Use this guided exercise to take a proactive approach to emotional acceptance.