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Choosing Your Mindset

After you do an exercise justus, we d'oh, you will have opened up your creativity to deal with that you really will. You'll choose a mindset where instead of spending energy just on the worry side of it, or just on the out of control, you know, I feel out of control and, um and safe because of that, and I need to start spinning on my wheels and dumping my fourteen hundred chemicals into my stress system, because I I don't know what to dio choosing to pull this into you will give you more power. In fact, your heart will start to beat in a healthier rhythm, which your immune system will like by the way, on your breath will be in a healthier in your brainwaves will be in a healthier with him, but that will power up your brain and you can choose this mindset that's going to save you from losing so much energy of a problem and make you more creative. So I know we have a lot of creative types out there listening as this is creative live and what I find really fascinating as I started to do a...

lot of this research and read about creativity, which is a a personal interest of mine is this is the same mindset that is creative, the mindset that lets us get back to a space where we can deal with our stress better where we're more resilient is the same mindset that makes us more creative now I'm sure there's some people who are going to push back and say, you know I get creative when I'm under the gun I get creative when the challenges is in front of me. Well, if you remember the curve, we talked about the bell curve it's true, you need a challenge but you're your most open and creative and expressive and ableto access all the different parts of you when you get to this mindset, you may come up with a brilliant idea on the face of danger and that may save you but for the longevity and resilience of your life that's not the way to do it over and over again it's it's not good to jump from snake to snake to snake to make yourself productive this is the way to stay there in a healthy state and grow the connections in your brain that are really going to make you more powerful. So this is your path to creativity and I just love that the path to creativity is about the same path as the path to stress management because when we're in creative in our own lives were actually happy or two even if we're not a quote creative type I've done this work with a cps you um who shock are sometimes shock when they find out the more creative than they thought, but I've done it with all different types of disc profiles. All different types of myers briggs profiles this. These are just the qualities of mind set in which the human operates best. We operate this when we're clear and calm, we operate best when we're courageous enough to speak our needs when we're curious about it all. And when we're compassionate that's when we're at our best, does that make sense? Any questions coming up? Any other adjectives to add to it? What works for you, what's your best mindset present? I loved that's great! We've got loads of people are responding to what sits on your plate and bothers you, okay? Yeah, something really quite interesting, I'll just run to them really, really quickly won't necessarily give the shot up gossip is one family, lots of people, then said yes. Family, family, family, family. I love this one telephone calls to customer service people who vent their anger rather than expressed what they really want to need that's a very interesting one that actually comes from sky eight can I respond to that? Will you please? This is one that I've dealt with a lot with conflict in conflict talks, and it really is amazing. They're not doing that on purpose there not in touch that's the first thing a little compassion, they're usually not in touch or they haven't taken the time to be in touch. And you, khun, sometimes stop that dead and tracked by reflecting back and say, wow, you sound really upset. Sounds like you need something. Do you know? Can you tell me what it is? And that sort of goes thing keeps your boundary? Well, ten on a few they said that dismissive comments the holier than thou sort of person. I don't know that person on unsolicited advice. Yeah that's an interesting one on dh parents, parents that's in the family cat it is definitely and I asked, making as a parent, sometimes it's the kids? Um, I think we have trained responses and dances we've talked about before that we do with our family accepting that is interesting. Having the courage to break the expected behaviors can be a very interesting pattern um, knowing that were triggered by certain things, the funny part about family is we don't get to divorce them necessarily we get them, we can change our boundaries, we can change our conversations and we can change how much energy we're going to spend on that every year at the holidays, I'm asked about talking about holiday stress and the number one thing that comes out is dealing with family and yet when you ask the majority of people what they value most what did they say family wasn't that interesting it's number one on the stressor list and it's the number one thing we value well first that's sort of interesting because what it reflects is there's a lot of emotion around it you wouldn't have a motion if you didn't care you really wouldn't um my daughter will love me for this one but my daughter just recently got married and the lovely gentleman that she married is the very one that she came home from a school trip and told me there's this really irritating guy on this trip well, she wouldn't have been irritated if she didn't already have some carrying an emotion going so accept that it's part of the puzzle but then step back and own also part of what you're contributing what if you did the little heart math thing right before you walked into the door to your family? What would that change? What would it change if you got into your own best mindset before you dealt it's an interesting thing to play around with um and it's also interesting to start to get courageous enough to push back against the boundaries to realize you know this person expects me to act this way and I really don't feel like it to say I don't want you know I hear you saying these things again where I'm going to talk a little bit later about nonviolent communication but there's some lovely ways to speak within families just say that you know you have said blank blankety blank and when you say that it makes me feel this and I really need to know that you I feel connected to me I need you to say this and that takes a big time courage but boy can save a lot of future stress huge so hope some of that is helpful and we'll play around with some of those things and I'd love to hear more of it because there's something coaching opportunities in there so keep bringing them in so what we're talking about is choosing your mindset and the word mindfulness is everywhere now ah mindfulness is just choosing your mindset well, if the definition of stress is a lack of choice, the definition of stress resistance is choosing your mindset choosing what you want to think in the presence of what is there it's taking back your choice so this family member may irritate the living you know what out of you because they do so they they know a weak spot for you and they pick at it that's what family members do and their darned good at it and they've probably practice it so well it's like somebody else's practiced mozart for twenty years they can play it without thinking they probably don't even know they're doing this they start right into picking on the very thing they know is going to get a rise out of you because that's that gives them their jollies and in fact getting a rise out of you turns on their frontal lobe there's a reward to it so they're really going to do it so if you have the ability to choose how you're going to react or respond would be the better word there you just took back some mindfulness and some choice now one of the things that I really find funny when I work with a group that's intimate whether it's a workgroup or family members if one person decides to start playing with this and change the game it throws everybody off it's like wait a minute you're supposed to go act hurt now and then you're supposed to lash out at me about this and then we're going to start in the part about the last time we were together and if you change the game everybody sort of out of sorts so you just have to be prepared for that you just have to know that if you're gonna change the game you're gonna have to deal with the fact that you just changed the dance card and people may have a different reaction and staying you do whatever you can do to stay in your mind for place repeat your theme to yourself remember your mission for doing this remember you're bigger person you want to connect to this person so that you are choosing the mindset that helps you do that the best this is where the big work is and it is not not not overnight do you hear me? It's this is life work this is not overnight work but it pays off so well and when you don't feel it emotionally, get yourself physically there first do whatever you need to do to get calm physically so that you have more access to that emotional choice anything coming in? Would you have a question here? Actually again from angst puppy is saying really loving your thoughts on family here resonating with it but however they're finding your suggestions that based on the assumption that the family they're dealing with a rational have you got any suggestions for dealing with irrational people? Yes, now shocking identify with them way don't we all think we're rational? Does the irrational person think they're irrational? No, so we've opened we are all irrational let me just talk to that for just a moment rational assumes that we're using this frontal lobe to pick with common sense and wisdom a choice of how we're thinking in behaving well our frontal lobe is off a heck of a lot of time on ly a gross estimate is that we're aware of twenty percent of what we're doing eighty percent is just instinct it's the rest of the equation so we're not even aware of when we're doing this stuff and we don't even know how it lands because that part isn't on either but what we're dealing with people who are totally irrational the only choice left van is to make yourself a cz rational and mindful as possible and boundaries you just have to accept that this person is totally irrational their judgment of you may be irrational it may feel unfair it may attack every part of you that you need it may you may not feel related you may not feel like it's fair you may feel out of control you may feel like they're your uncertainty and status all those things from the scarf model come into play you need to accept that at that point and say okay this is what happens when I'm here and ramp up your own self care I've got to go to this family function uncle harry is toxic sorry if your name is harry on goa harry is toxic and irrational and recognize part of what you're doing is your own fault right now you've got to give up the expectation that you're going to make him different that you're going to make him rational and just put on your shield of armor and be the person you want to be at that moment you're the person who's resilient in the face of irrational and that may be all it isthe, and then go out and have fun with some people you really like, but something back in the well after that, a lot of people saying they just completely avoid their families, they just sort of come them out of their lives because they say that's just easier. Yeah, I mean, that's. Isn't that an avoidance in a way, a swell? You're not really you're not dealing with the things they're stressing you, you're just avoiding the whole thing pretending, it's, not there. I don't know what you thought they're they're mixed on that, um, avoidance sometimes is the right choice, because we were born into a family does not mean those are the people with whom we resonate. We may be very different, even if we're not the milk man's child, we just been very different than that family, and just because they're family, we have a societal expectation that we have to stay connected to family. We don't it's, not a law anywhere. I will say that the majority of people do find if they can find some connection in that it's, another version of community and holding, but a lot of people choose their family, I'm from a tiny family, they're not many of us, so for a number of holidays when my child was young, a group of us who had small families living in this small town got together. We decided we were a family, we just renamed it. We we had a chosen family and boy, I like my chosen family. I happen to, like most my real family. You most know who you are, but yeah, sometimes choosing not to be there. But a lot of people really feel dissatisfied by that it's still a stressor and they want to find a way to be there and be safe so time can go by where you find that I also as a physician have had the privilege of being around death and dying a lot. And I will say there seems to be a human drive tow wantto have that connection and it's very sad toe wait for that to occur on the death bed so would be really nice if we could sometimes move out of avoidance and see if there's some ways to create that in life. But nobody said you had two. Nobody said you had to do anything that's a good point too. Yeah, yeah. Um, so great question, really great question, because this stuff you know, there were so many stress management things out there and they're tips and we should and that's all good, but I but I want everybody to realize this takes practice in real life with big stuff and we waste some of our effort and time on the eighty bitty little stuff so we don't have it left for the big stuff of the big stuffs around and we want our whole cells there to deal with it and give ourselves the grace sometimes that family experiences just fallacious and you have to go home and allow yourself the time to grieve that you don't have the family that norman rockwell told you you were gonna have we read books and stories that tell us that we're gonna have these lovely thanksgiving meals if you're american and everybody's gonna be grateful and happy and it's and we need to grieve the fact that we don't have that sometimes it's okay, yeah, anything coming up for you all around choosing all of this uh, this is a little off, but, um, it's interesting, because in the last year I've really been able to craft a life where I don't have a lot of the big stress things that you're talking about, but as I, um to continue to grow and then have a family, they're gonna be outside, you know, the parents of friends of my kids and such that I'm not gonna be able to stay in my own little crafted bubble um I'm gonna have to have the's bigger stresses that I'm not used to, so I'm really happy to be having these tools now to put into effect just every day and my smaller stressors so that when the bigger is bigger stressors come in I'm ready for them nice there's an exercise you khun dio just because I'm hearing a lot about this the relationship part of in stress there's an exercise you can do of the circles of your life and who's in your innermost circle your animal circles you period there's some parts of you you never share with anybody uh you wantto on that you know and you want as we just did in the last exercises you want to know who that is in that inner circle because that is your bestest, bestest bestest friend khun b your worst enemy but it's your bestest friend and then there's your most intimate relationships and if you kind of circle out to the people who are really acquaintances business stuff way on the outside it kind of gives you some definition of how much intimacy to expect, how to set boundaries, how to put people in the inn spaces where you understand it so you know how to deal with it it's an interesting process to dio avoiding I want to come back to avoidance for a minute um because I won't talk about a few coping skills that people pass around with stress and avoidance is one of them avoidance works when it is a conscious decision to set a boundary to not have a person a place, an object, a job, the thing something in your life to say that I I don't need this in my life and I don't have toe have it and I am completely okay with not interacting with this person in my life there's nothing I'm missing by doing that I'm I'm good with that that's one avoidance works in stress management but stuffing stuff in stress management, stuffing it in avoidance by just you know, okay, I'm not gonna deal that I'm not going to deal with that it just sits on the back burner and simmers you're better off just calling it out what it is in dealing with it now sometimes you can put it may be on the someday maybe list of dealing with you know I'm gonna wait for a little more insight on how to deal with this one, but but name it avoidance avoidance is part of denial and denial is not the path out of stress management know denial is our brains way of coping and there's some things some places where it really helps immediately it's part of the post traumatic stress whole scenario something horrible happens to us we want to deny it because we can't deal with the emotions that would come from that we don't want to do that um and then it's healthy at that moment but long term is a coping strategy this just doesn't exist that doesn't work because it's still exists somewhere inside of you does that make sense in a when we actively have to say this doesn't matter it already mattered and simon yeah, so in terms of this whole avoided thing like I couldn't understand, you know, in some cases where you can also you could just say okay, I don't need that in my life whatever that is but, um in last four years I've had a couple cases with a kind of problem clients where they you know in a certain point I just said okay, I don't want to continue, you know, but um and then that was a point where I could just say, ok, that's I don't need that but how how do you how does how does one use thes skills one to kind of maybe identify that you know, it might be this problem situation that's just not worth and it'll just suck one's energy or two when you're in the midst of it to kind of get an act in a way that's um you know, calm, courageous, etcetera um taking just a moment to pull yourself into that space before you deal with a person makes a huge difference. I don't care if you duck in the bathroom for a second where if you stop outside the door of that office or that person is ringing in on your phone and you look at it and you just take a quick breath or you decide to take a few quick breasts and call them right back instead of answering it, whatever you need to do to make sure you're calm in that space, you bring up a point that I, a lot of business people go through and that's, and it happens on the personal side the same way that person has something you need because they're you're client, they pay you so there's a part of you that's in the mode of I need I need to engage with this person because they're paying me, I can't just avoid them because, you know, little me would like to go hide behind the the curtains now and not talk to them, you know, five year old male really doesn't want to talk to him at all, but grown up me nose there. My client and I have to talk to them, but I've seen this over and over again as you start to trust yourself and your business grows, you start to gather the clients that you don't feel that way about, you start to gather the people that resonate with you and you start to trust that said that when someone's truly toxic, you wind up not needing their business and trusting that in the beginning is really scary because we're in the fierce space on what's the fear in the beginning of business survive right? Not going to make it so I need to I need to be kind to anybody who's going to pull a greenback out of their wallet. Um, I made that mistake starting business, you know you say yes to too many things you don't trust your gut on what's really important and yet there's something fabulous business people who have from the get go been so courageous to say this is my tribe thes air the people I serve, I'm very clear about it and they're going to come to mei it's a that's, a trust issue it's, big it's really big and a little bit fun to play with when you're a single that it also applies to relationships well, romantic relationships I agree with that too. Yeah, it does um and you know, that's that flip again, but we talked in this session from the day before about we sort of have two modes of toward and away of open and fear and when they're both at play, um, flipping back and forth fear usually wins that game the fear that I'm not going to find somebody with whom I relate causes me to not let go of ones who are the wrong relationship does that make sense yeah yeah it's some we do it over and over and we you're right we do do it personally it's fear it's it's uh there's a lot of talk between scarcity mentality and abundance mentality and that's the scarcity mentality is there's not enough to go around and you are you are going to have to compromise in life it's not all perfect that that perfectionism taken to its supposed to be perfect is really a recipe for stress there times you're gonna have to compromise and relationships that are personal their times you're gonna have to worry about compromising relationship that a professional but when you're grounded in who you are and you are mindfully making that choice it's easier when you were aware of it it's just easier and that's the point eases the point ese and flow are the point of this what other things come up that somebody would liketo talk about changing the thoughts about uh um I have ah extended relative that we've in terms of boundaries made the very mindful educated um thoughtful decision that's that teo not be in contact with that person um and for the most part I feel very at peace with it I suppose and you know the thought is if they are on their deathbed well, we have really felt that we did everything we could and well we feel as okay as we can and not have those regrets and and the answer is yes, the very thought ful answers yes, but there's still those sort of even as you were describing some of you know it's all of it there is those pangs of I guess, a little bit of stress. Um even though I do feel confident in that decision um, any thoughts on you, would he not you're just aware of it and then you would totally not be human in the nice person that you are if you didn't have a twinge of guilt that you made that decision and as we discussed before there's a part of your brain is always going to hold that second possibility. I just know it for what it is and allow yourself the grace and space to be in the decision you made and you made the best decision you could with the data you had in the moment you made it and you made it thoughtfully and the rest is grace and space it's all good and, you know, callous is not a good way to bay warm and loving and worried that you have made other people happy is the better space to operate from a cz long as you can allow yourself to feel good in that space it's not about I should feel this. Thanks for sharing that. This I didn't say this was easy stuff. I totally didn't say it was easy stuff. So I have a quote, your mind is like water, my friend. When it is agitated, it becomes difficult to see, but if you allow it to settle, the answer becomes clear. Kung fool pender well, we don't really think we know the movie was taking this from another site it's, but mind, like water is a lovely way to think of mindfulness because when you drop that piece of guilt or you drop that piece of angst or the resentment over someone else into the water, just one little drop it's just absorbed by the whole thing. So this is part of making you whole this mind like water it's just softer and easier. It flows and flow is the point, and I've had clients will just, you know, do that that's their little mantra, mind like water before they walk into a meeting, they really don't want to go into mind like water. You can't disturb me there might. You might make a ripple, but you can't really disturbed b and it's, telling ourselves that helps it's like putting on a little suit of armor to go in.