Hold Onto Positive Energy (HOPE) since Faith involves taking a Risk by giving up selfish fantasies/ preconceptions and Willingness to Change despite our desire for predictability
- Values Identification
- Purpose, pleasure, and achievement
- Self- Identification
- Changing Expectations
- Understanding My Stress Reactions
- Hate and Anger
- Greed and Jealousy
- Creating New Healthy Habits
Chapter 9 Values Identification
Values are broadly classified into three sub-types:
- Personal Values – who we are, what we want, and how we make decisions
- Social Values – what controls our connections, interpersonal relationships, and how we want others to perceive us
- Universal Values – cultural standards, spiritual beliefs, and overall view of the world
What is most important to you? Who do you Admire? Core Values usually include some of the following areas in no particular order:
Accountability, Achievement, Adaptability, Ambition, Career, Control, Courage, Creativity, Education, Ethics, Fairness, Family, Freedom, Friendship, Goals, Growth(personal), Happiness, Honesty, Health, Humility, Intimate Relationships, Independence, Integrity, Kindness, Love, Leisure, Money, Personal Growth, Power, Resilience, Respect, Security, Spirituality, Self-discipline, Self-Care, Wisdom
Try to list your top 10 Values or your can also take a personal values assessment online.
Chapter 10- Purpose, Pleasure, and Achievement
Happiness comes from:
- Having a Purpose (knowing who we are, who we want to be, and working towards that). Your Values should help determine your goals in life.
- Engaging in things that provide you Pleasure (Fun, Enjoyable, Playful, Self-Care). To be the best version of yourself and to help others, take care of yourself first or put your oxygen mask on first or you won’t be able to do it for others. Fun creates hormones and neurotransmitters in our brain and body that give up energy and motivation to do less desirable tasks. Arts have been proven to to help heal the brain. Neuroaestetics is a scientifically researched concept by Johns Hopkins University and the Aspen Institute that explains how art heals the brain. Find out more at the NeuroArts Blueprint.
- Feeling Successful or a sense of Achievement (challenge yourself). When we expand our possibility our brain creates dopamine that makes us feel good. Make a to-do list and check it off, be creative, do a project, complete a task, try something new. Celebrate all small achievements.
- Create a Gratitude Journal and add one item every night before bed
- Always Do your best
Chapter 11- Self Identification
Be your authentic self. If you cannot be it on the outside in the environment that you currently reside: be true to yourself until you can be who you are in the world. Living your truth will bring you internal peace. You have the power to change traits that you are not proud of.
You can also Change your Mindset by Changing how you identify yourself. If we say “I am a lazy worthless person” you will always feel that way until you push past your comfort zone to expand the potential for your identity. This change in mindset will change everything, but you have to come out of your comfort zone and try some challenging things that might fail, but you can view it as a learning opportunity. To change your self identity, you must try some new challenging things and expand what you thought of as the possibility. This belief system of “your” identity typecasts you into one role. Make a pie chart of all aspects of you, not just your problem. You may be someone’s child, or partner, friend, co-worker, classmate, musician, artist, employment, student, community member, group/church member. Also add in the following:
1.*Your Inner Critic Your voice that puts you down, hurts you, wants you to make bad decisions that the devil might encourage.
2.*Your Inner Divine Guiding Voice Your higher conscious offering thoughts that are in your best interest via wisdom and intuition and act as a cheerleader that anything is possible, encouraging you to do things that are good for you.
—-the inner critic and inner guide are often the loudest and go directly against eachother, like an angel and a devil——-
3.Powerful Protector Your strong warrior that can get through any challenge that may get caught up in ego
4. Manager Your logical, responsible, reasonable self that will go to a mentor if needed to make decisions
5. Caretaker -Sharing unconditional love, Looking out for others best interest, big picture, put others before self, looking for efficient ways to do it all
6. Emotional – Your emotional side, that is not rational or reasonable.
Imagine all 6 of these parts of yourself. Imagine what each one looks like, acts like, and sounds like. Imagine where in the body each part resides and then practice making the noise and acting out the attitude of each of the 6 parts. Now focus on the parts you like and imagine integrating them. When the negative ones come up, respect and acknowledge them and then picture the one(s) you want and make the noise. Bring those parts back out and remind yourself how to identify with the part you want to be- then BE THAT PART!
Chapter 12- Changing Expectations
We are born with no expectations, but through our life experiences we create images that become our expectations. As discussed in the misery trap, schemas are frameworks or concepts of what we think are common to help us organize information into categories. These mental models or patterns of thought or behaviors allows us to use short cuts to interpret the world and our environment. We create expectations based on our unique perspective. Our perspective is based on our family, upbringing, identification, traumas, triggers, past experiences, community, health, belief systems, assumptions, emotional status, biology, personality, the people we interact with, the weather, mood, time period that we were born, and other things. Each individual person has unique expectations, so no one can truly be right or wrong. As long as you hold on tightly you’re your expectations, you will always be disappointed. Being aware of this is the first step to being able to change your expectations. However, to truly rid yourself of these schemas it can be helpful to do a meditation to release your schemas to be able to see the world with clear view. The biggest schema we tell our selves is “our story.” Repeating the story of a victim or excuses only leads to never improving. To change, transform, become happier, make a story of who you want to be and dont go back unless you are intentionally trying to erase or change traumatic experiences.
We all see the world differently, what do you see below:
Chapter 13- Understanding My Stress Reactions
What Stress Reaction Do you experience? When you notice these, take a breath and use a coping skill (from chapter 2 The Misery Trap)
Chapter 14- Hate and Anger
The causes of Anger vary from person to person and situation to situation, but anger always affects your body in the same basic manner as described below:
• Adrenaline, Cortisol, Catecholamines, and other chemicals enter your bloodstream for a burst of energy for immediate action to protect against a perceived “threat.”
• Your heart rate speeds up, your blood pressure rises, blood flows faster, your muscles tense up, and your rate of breathing increases to prepare to fight off the danger, except most of the time the trigger is not a lethal danger and no physical action is warranted.
• Your attention narrows and you become less aware of what is occuring around you in order to pay close attention on your target, resulting in inaccurate memories of what actually occurred.
• This chemical arousal makes changes to your brain and lasts a very long time (many hours, sometimes days), and lowers our anger threshold, making it easier for us to get angry again later on.
Everyone gets angry sometimes. Handling anger well can help you:
• Overcome problems and improve relationships
• Reach your goals without getting distracted
• Stay healthy mentally and physically
• Feel better about yourself and improve your self esteem
But uncontrolled anger has consequences:
Angry people are less likely to have healthy supportive relationships than less hostile people.
• Family Conflict, Trouble maintaining Friendships or getting support, Peer Issues, Intimate Partner Conflicts, and Damage of Exposing Children to Anger
• Work issues with bosses, coworkers, and colleagues
• Legal and Financial Problems
• Physical Health and Mental Health Problems (trouble relaxing, anxiety, stress, among many medical complications and healing slower)
Some common causes of anger include:
Annoyance Reaction to minor irritations and daily hassles
Disappointment Displeasure from unmet expectations or desires
Fear Response to perceived danger, threat, or abuse
Frustration Inability to fulfill a goal or feel things are out of your control
Resentment Bitterness or disgust as a result of rejection, insult, or unjustice
Stress State of worry or tension causing irritability or anxiety, often related to work, family, health or money problems
Anger Tools:
- What Am I Going to Do: Take a Breath
- Think: I am in control of my actions
- Rules: Do not get aggressive, be kind or don’t speak and walk away, bite your tongue, or write in a journal/email and do not send it until you slept on it
Hate is usually an unchecked bias or preference against something/someone. Hate can be seen as an emotion, an attitude, or even a sentiment. Hate is often related to fundamental disagreements in core moral beliefs, however this destructive state of mind creates a mirror effect and attracts you to the things that you hate in order to be intensely repulsed over and over again. Sometimes people feel hate because they think that other’s beliefs are a personal threat to their own identify, resulting in attacking rather than avoiding their targets.
Triangle of Hate:
Chapter 15- Greed and Jealousy
Jealousy and Greed
Jealousy and Greed are strong motivators that are also known as “Deadly Sins.”
Jealousy is the belief that someone has it better and the desire for what they have. Common examples are the desire to have the life of someone on social media, despite the fact that most people post what they want the world to think is true, which is often very far from the truth. The grass always looks greener on the other side, until you walk in it.
Greed is an intense, selfish and excessive desire for more; such as power, status, wealth, or other materialistic pursuits. Greed can cloud people’s judgment leading to bad actions, such as fraud, dishonesty, shallowness, and abuse; leaving people dissatisfied and never happy.
Chapter 16: Creating New Healthy Habits
Only pick a few things to change at a time and keep it simple.
Set an alarm for every hour as a reminder to take a deep breath and refocus.
Be aware of the triggers of past habits, create a new system/behavior plan and reward yourself for following the new habit. Focus on the process before the outcome.
You can tell others of your intention to help you stay on track with reminders and accountability.
Before bed, review your new goals and rate your progress.
Perfection is not the goal, but overall progress. When changing old habits, we often take 3 steps forward and then 2 steps back: this is still progress!
Have reminders that involve as many senses as possible. For example: visual reminders in the bathroom, on the refrigerator, on the wall at the office, on the steering wheel, and on your phone. Sound and music reminders at different times during the day. Touch reminders, such as sticky notes that you need to move, a bracelet or ring that you can touch, or a small piece of sandpaper on your notebook. Connect certain smells as reminders, such as room spray, fresh cut grass, or baking cookies. Location or Experience reminders, such as each time your pass a white house or when you feel sun on your face. Come up with anything that will work for you, make changes as needed, and keep at it.
Step 3 will explain how the brain works and how to create new pathways.
