How to make yourself feel better at any given moment
November 15, 2009 by Megan · Leave a Comment
Want to know how to change from feeling CRAP to feeling great? With practice it’s easy.
- Get emotionally intelligent. Get to know the feelings words that describe how you feel. If you always say you feel crap what does that really mean. Does it mean you feel like a big brown soppy dog turd on the footpath or does it mean you are feeling really down, like crying, lacking motivation and thinking bad thoughts all the time? Here’s some more reading about getting emotionally intelligent. If you’re really serious about change, then try this short article too: Emotional Intelligence 101.
- Practice, practice, practice, using clear communication to firstly identify your feeling, secondly give your feeling a proper feeling name (crap isn’t a proper feeling, actually, it’s a piece of excrement….yuk….I don’t want to feel like crap!) and thirdly verbalise exactly how you are feeling. There are degrees of feeling and it is the emotionally intelligent person who understands those degrees. Even crap comes with degrees: runny crap, hard crap, wormy crap, smelly crap – if you are smart then you’ll describe exactly what sort of crap you feel like! Here’s some more reading about using clear communication to express how you really feel.
- Possibly the most important step in moving from crap to helpful manure that encourages growth and big fat blooms is to
purposely move yourself up the emotional scale whenever you recognise that you are feeling more lowly than you need to.
Yes, it is possible to change your emotional set point and to make yourself feel better in any moment. Here’s the scale of emotional guidance (you’re aiming for being in number one spot):
- Joy, knowledge, empowerment, freedom, love, appreciation
- Passion
- Enthusiasm, eagerness, happiness
- Positive expectation, belief
- Optimism
- Hopefulness
- Contentment
- Boredom
- Pessimism
- Frustration, irritation, impatience
- Overwhelment
- Disappointment
- Doubt
- Worry
- Blame
- Discouragement
- Anger
- Revenge
- Hatred, rage
- Jealousy
- Insecurity, guilt, unworthiness
- Fear, grief, depression, despair, powerlessness.
While these labels are merely words, it is the feelings associated with the words on the higher end of the scale that have the ability to change our lives for the better. When you consciously reach for a higher feeling, your immediate state of feeling is improved.
Having a sample of happy memories to recall helps to move the focus away when you become aware of a lower scale feeling. If you are feeling angry for example, consciously think of a time when….[insert own positive thought...]
Are you happy to stay at the bottom of the emotional intelligence class? I didn’t think so. Here’s what you’ve got to do:
Step 1: Get emotionally intelligent
Step 2: Use clear communication – I feel….when you…..because…..
Step 3: Move yourself up the emotional scale whenever you recognise that you are feeling more lowly than you need to.
Want to learn more about feelings? Here’s two FREE resources for you:
Emotional Guidance Scale from: E & J Hicks, 2008. Manifest your desires. Hay House:Sydney
Kids and Sign
Everyone has different preferred learning styles, including kids. Hearing is just one way of receiving new information. What about seeing and doing?
Speaking only covers auditory learning, neglecting both visual and kinaesthetic styles. Why not aid your child’s language development and incorporate signs into your speech. Your child will then hear AND see the words, and when they learn the signs they will feel them as well.
Signing with speech is an aural, visual and kinaesthetic hat trick for language development!
Where to start:
The Auslan Signbank is a great resource where you can look up signs. Begin with basic signs like, stop, go, more, please, thank you, eat, drink and finished. Once you’ve incorporated these into your everyday communications, try looking up some specific to your child’s interests (eg, dog, truck, car, big, fast etc).
Your local library should also have some basic Auslan books. Go…do the Helen Keller and talk with your hands!
Stick to Auslan rather than baby sign and your child will not only benefit from visual and kinaesthetic input – they will be bilingual, too!
This is a guest post by a wonderful young woman who is dedicated to ensuring the world integrates learning by seeing, feeling and hearing all the good that life has to offer. She wishes to remain anonymous.
My gratitude to her is not anonymous.
Worker resources: FREE handouts for social science client work
May 18, 2009 by Megan · Leave a Comment
Many requests from social workers, psychologists and teachers for FREE client handouts (bibliotherapy) and training resources has resulted in a reprint of some of my most useful handouts.
Although copyright belongs to Imaginif, you are free to print and use these articles as client handouts or in training sessions with staff or other participants. Please always remember to acknowledge Imaginif with a link back to this website.
EDIT: Handouts are now only available through the Peer Supervision and recruitment agency for human service professionals, in the Training Packages and Resources section. To join the membership based forum please sign up to access supervision, training, chat, jobs, journal club and global social commentary.
Handouts for client work
(copyright 2008 Imaginif www.imaginif.com.au)
Art Therapy with Collage and Story Telling
Childhood night fears
Children learn the cycle of violence from parents
Co and counter dependency
Conversation about self harm
Counselling friends
Effect of trauma on secure attachment
Emotional Intelligence and feeling words
How to change in two easy steps
How to debrief a friend
Issues in traumatised children with attachment problems
Learning ability in traumatised children
Private parts and what to call them
Say no to hang man
STAR problem Solving Model
Ten steps to counselling children
Use correct body part names
What can I do to help foster children who steal and lie
What is a personal practice model
When to teach protective behaviours
Why does my foster child hoard and steal?
Replace the word hate with gratitude
April 13, 2009 by Megan · 4 Comments
I noticed last night, at the Baptism after party, that I was using the word hate a lot. Much later, and in the solitude of my bed, I reflected on my “hate” speech and why I might be doing it: I was uncomfortable. I was surrounded by people whereas I prefer small groups. The language difference always results in me over listening and I give myself a headache and I was scared that the alcohol may fuel fights.
Strange how being out of my comfort zone produced negative connotations and speech patterns for me. That has to immediately change because negativity breeds more negativity and destroys creativity, personal growth, alignment and manifestation of goals/dreams.
I was reminded of an article that Brenda at Leading Edge Personal Development wrote: Love the thing you hate. Dr John Demartini, a seminal write on personal development and author of The Gratitude Effect, suggests that to be able to move beyond hate you must first be able to love it. Love has to have a starting point so, he suggests starting with a pen and paper and writing a list of why you might love (as opposed to hate) a certain thing. Brenda maintains that she has done this and that it works – she simply writes an alternative list of why she loves the things she hates…and then moves on with her day free from hate residual.
An interesting technique, I decided to try it in relation to using the word hate. A comical list on why I love the word hate developed and now I am not sure that I will ever say that word in conversation again without laughing my head off!! Even if I do slip up and say that I hate something, writing the list put me into such a great mood that I flew straight to the top of the emotional guidance scale, so therefore, I almost welcome another opportunity to write a list 
.
From now on, I endeavour to replace the word hate with gratitude…even if it is to say that I am grateful that I am going to get another fun opportunity to write a list of why I hate something. A win-win situation for change and emotional alignment, who could not find this technique fun, enlightening and hate changing?
Accountability partners holding me accountable for short term goal achievement
March 26, 2009 by Megan · 6 Comments
Working toward a short term goal is easy. Having a partner that you are responsible to for the steps toward your goal is somewhat more challenging. I have a small group of accountability partners and they scare me into doing what I say I am going to do. I keep my goals!
The thesis behind accountability partners is that they measure out a negotiated punishment (yes, I said punishment) if the subject fails to do what they said they were going to do. It’s all about the subject putting their money where their mouth is and making the consequence (punishment) of not meeting that goal much more horrible than just doing what they said they were going to do. This is what elite performers do…they do what they say they are going to do!
This is the antithesis of all that I have ever enacted. I prefer to operate from a positive and reward good behaviour paradigm (most of the time…I make no claims about being perfect though). But….this whole punishment and accountability partner deal works for me because I so do not want to lose face in front of my peers or seem as a failure.
Hence, along with my Business mastermind group and partners in being an elite performer, I now make the world my accountability partner. I am going to share my three short term goals for the next week and what I negotiated as my enforceable punishments for not reaching my goal.
- Business goal: To face to face prospect a person I do not know. This involves me approaching them and telling them about my business and business services and products. The enforceable punishment for not achieving this most scary goal is that I will not blog for a seven day period (you may laugh, but this is a severe and very public punishment for me…the whole world will know I failed if I do not blog for seven days).
- Health goal: To walk every day for a week (7 days) for at least 30 minutes. The punishment for not meeting this goal is that I will attend a 1 hour gym session for every day that I fail to walk. While I can lie to you guys and pretend that I went to the gym, my on the ground accountability partners will come to the gym and watch me sweat it out. That aint gonna happen so I’ll do the daily walking!
- Personal goal: To use a mind clearing method and be non resistant (aka, to not pick a fight) to my husband and the things he does that I do not agree with. The punishment for breaking this goal, even just once, is that I wash the dishes (his usual job) for seven days in a row. Again, this is a hated task for me and something I do not want to do. Will I use a clearing technique and become non resistant…yep!
Starting right now, I am an elite performer because I do what I say I am going to do. Elite performers pay a balanced attention to three core areas of life: business, health and personal. What three short terms goals are you willing to be held accountable to this week?
For further information on giving yourself the highest possibility of predictable success, see Bob Davies book The 1.2% Factor – The science of how the small change of accountability leads to large results!
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