Understanding in J210

The mind really is a beautiful and dangerous thing!

  I attended a training the other day titled, "Safe & Positive Approaches®" that focused on understanding and recognizing behavior in order to deliver crisis prevention and intervention-based training to students in need.  While we were learning the material for the 3-day course, we learned about something called de-escalation and utilizing de-escalation tools.  The goal of these tools are to act as a guide on how to anticipate, observe, and minimize negative behaviors and most importantly to help others.  I immediately found power in the concept and started jotting down notes.  Jotting down thought is more powerful than we sometimes think.   I found value in the what I had learned and I wanted to find a way to apply it to my own life. 

I didn't need someone else helping me with my own behavior....

What I needed was to learn how to apply these strategies on myself!  

Which wolf am I going to feed today?

   My thought was that if I could identify what brought out the worst in me and how it impacted my immediate behavior, I would be able to have set solutions in place to bring out the best.  Can you tell that I am Type-A? 

The three parts included:
1. Triggers (Problems in my life that are stopping me from happiness)

2. Warning Signs (Behaviors that I am exhibiting because of them)

3. Calming Strategies (What can I do to solve them)

Triggers

Adam, we have a problem!

My triggers, like anyone's triggers are deeply associated with expectations, reality, and fantasy.  What I mean by that is, we all want our lives to be a certain way, however the way we want them and the way they don't always align.  We are all looking for happiness, however some of us find it in different ways.  Think about the scenario below involving three people all in search of happiness.

A person depositing money at a bank
(saved money= build security/have options= feel safe= be happy!)

A bank teller working at a bank
(have job/purpose= make money=earn living to purchase things/experiences=be happy!)

A person robbing a bank  
(rob bank= make money=buy freedoms/possessions=be happy!)

They all connect back to happiness!  They also connect to money, however I truly believe that you can achieve happiness without money, but only after your basic needs of life are met!

We are very needy creatures

  Bottom line is that we don't always find happiness, but everything we do in our lives is in search of it!  Connect that back to triggers and you will begin to understand deeper about what problems are in your way when finding it.

What are some triggers in your life that you can begin to identify?

Warning Signs

How are you feeling today?

  What behaviors are you demonstrating because of your problems?  Do you get angry, frustrated, or short with people?  What type of impact does this have on your own well-being and on your relationships?  We all know ourselves better than anyone, however why do we sometimes ignore or miss signs that are so blatantly obvious to everyone but us? 

This is the step where we have the most power because we have the choice to control our behavior through our actions.  We must be aware of our own behaviors in order to adjust them.  We must slow things down in our lives to listen to our bodies and to hear what they are telling us.  

Just listen.....

What are you feeling right now?  How does your body feel?  Heavy or light?  Alive or tired?  On top of the world or barely hanging on? 

More importantly why are you feeling these things?

Calming Strategies

Are you calm yet?

What actions are you going to take to ultimately listen to your warning signs and quiet your triggers?  This is the part where you decide the wolf you are going to feed!  The decisions you make at this step are either going to build you up or break you down.  

The choices you make today are ultimately going to impact your tomorrows and we all know this.  However, a lot of us choose the wrong solutions that we think will fix our underlying problems because they are easier, and provide us with an instantaneous satisfaction.  We get a small sense of happiness and we pounce on it, however when the dust settles we realize we are sitting on top of the same problems we had before. 

​That is why the strategies we choose are so important to not only our current situations, but to our future!

Look into my crystal bubble ball

Do the things you do bring you happiness and a sense of feeling better long after they are finished?  If the answer is no, then they aren't the right solutions.  You must begin to determine if they are the easier choices?  Do you do them to escape or enhance your life? Are they making you stronger or weaker? 

In these decisions, you will hopefully find solutions that allow you to take the upper hand on your problems!

Bottom line

Thanks for making it this far!

We all have problems, we all have issues, we all have choices.  Once we accept ourselves and all that comes with ourselves we can begin to identify, address, and overcome whatever stands in our way! 

​Sometimes the triggers are out of our control, sometimes we can't immediately fix behaviors, and sometimes we magnify our problems by making the wrong choices.  However, our future is happening right now and you just have to make the decision you want to live the best life you can.

You have to understand that you deserve happiness!

My goal of this little thought tsunami was to empower you to realize that "an oz. of prevention to help you gain a pound of a cure"- Ben Franklin

Prevention>Curing

  Sometimes we need to be in a random room to connect our random thoughts to powerful concepts.  That's all this was.  It's about understanding that sometimes life gets complicated when it doesn't need to be and that we all have the same problems and solutions. 

Take it easy on yourself so you can slow things down to listen and let the answers just come!  

What do you hear?