Positivity is a mindset. We all have the ability to turn on positive feelings. To do so, takes honesty and an authentic look at your present state of mind to allow yourself to find the good. If you tap into what’s right about your current circumstance or what’s wrong with it, you’ll elicit opposite emotions and behaviours. Positive emotions will expand your ideas about possible action, unlike negative emotions that will narrow your ideas about your behaviour and reactions. This dependency of thinking about the positives is what makes positivity so fragile.

After ten years of research, Barbara Frederickson, a pioneer of positivity, outlined the following emotions that help elicit a state of positivity: Joy, Gratitude, Serenity, Interest, Hope, Pride, Amusement, Inspiration, Awe, and Love. Notice that happiness is not among this list, that’s because happiness is a judgment about life. Happiness is the overall outcome of many positive moments. Instead, if you focus on your day-to-day feelings, you will end up building a resource and becoming the best version of yourself. In the long-term you’ll be happier with life. Rather than staring down happiness as your goal and asking yourself “How do I get there?” think about how to create positive emotions in the moment.

12 WAYS TO BECOME MORE POSITIVE:

1. Be Open- Temporarily rid your mind of expectations and judgments. Often these cloud our ability to be open. Give yourself permission and time to experience the present moment. No matter what you encounter in your day, experiment with awareness and acceptance.

2. Create Quality Connections- Notice how different you feel compared with when you’re gossiping with or oblivious to others.

3. Cultivate Kindness- Give yourself a goal of performing 5 new acts of kindness each day. Aim for actions that make a difference and come to some cost to you, such as donating blood.

4. Develop Distractions- Distractions are important for breaking the cycle of rumination and redirecting needless negativity. The goal is to get your mind off your worries. The best distractions demand your full attention, so that when you emerge your cleansed of your negativity.

5. Dispute Negative Thinking- When a negative thought arises, dispute the thoughts with facts.

6. Find Nature- Get outside and find a few places you can get to that will connect you to trees, water or the sky. These have been researched to boost positivity.

7. Learn and Apply your Strengths- Take a free online survey from www.AuthenticHappiness.com that ranks your top 24 strengths. Allow yourself plenty of time to complete the 240 item measure. Once you have learned your strengths apply them to redesign your job and life, so that you can use them daily.

8. Mediate Mindfully- Find a quit place where you can sit comfortably without distraction. Take a few deep breathes and notice where you feel your breath. Always bring yourself back to yourself when your mind wanders. Observe your mind in action and practice being where you are now. Attending to your breathe is a vehicle for strengthen your ability to stay present.

9. Mediate with Guided Imagery- Start by focusing on your breath. Once your grounded, reflect on a person for whom you already feel warm and compassionate towards. Visualize how being with that person makes you feel. Thereafter, extent that warm feeling towards yourself. These feelings of love and compassionate will create positivity in you.

10. Savor Positivity- Remember a past moment of positivity and allow yourself time to visualize this moment. The goal is to savor these valuable good feelings in your mind.

11. Visualize your Future- Imagine yourself 10 years from now, after everything has gone as well as it possibility could. You have worked hard on your goals and succeeded. Visualize where and how you would be if all your current dreams came true. From these dreams, draw out what purpose you want to drive you?

12. Experience the 10 Positive Emotions- Think of the 10 positive emotions and when you felt each of these emotions. Rearrange your daily routine to capture these emotions.

With the recent changes in weather it is crucial to keep healthy and do anything possible to protect yourself from the flu. The general rule of thumb is to drink lots of fluids, get a lot of sleep and maintain a well balanced diet. With all else being equal, what about the counsellor that follows the aforementioned rules but also has a lot of stress; be it from a stressful environment, challenging clients or unsupportive peers. Even though this person is keeping healthy with a well balanced diet, getting a lot of rest and drinking a lot of fluids, they are more likely to get the flu if they have added stress compared to their peers who do not have stress. This is because the body releases cortisol, which prepares the body to either fight or flee from a stressful event. As the body is prepared for a potential threat, heart rate and blood flow increases which temporarily suppresses parts of the immune system. The more a person feels stressed, the weaker their immune system gets. If you’re an individual who experiences regular stress, here are some tips to help reduce it!

1. Get your vitamin D levels checked by your doctor. Depleted vitamin D coupled with chronic stress can result in more colds.
2. Reduce the stress in your life or eliminate it altogether. There are multitude ways you can do this: recognize what you can and cannot control, use diaphragmatic breathing to change the oxygen and carbon dioxide ratio in your body, if you’re able to figure out the triggers and cause of your stress, come up with a plan of action to address it. Set aside a time to participate in an activity you enjoy, since the FIFA games are on right now, perhaps watch a soccer match and root for your favourite team!
3. Eat a lot of raw foods.
4. Exercise regularly- if you can’t meet the recommended amount of exercising; 3 times a week for 30 minutes, try to get at least 10 minutes of vigorous exercise in daily to improve circulation of immune cells in your blood.
5. Wash your hands often.

Following all or some of the tips mentioned above will help you from catching the flu and becoming resistant to it. If you have more tips, please comment.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/25/stress-and-vitamin-d-deficiency-cause-cold.aspx

In a previous post titled “Epiphany” I briefly discussed setting limits on the amount of time I spent working from home in order to find a balance between my home and work life. In today’s day and age, there is no such thing as “leaving work at work”. Most people work from home after their scheduled work hours in order to meet their work demands. Some catch up on replying to emails, others catch up on notes. However, if the working from home component does not incorporate emails and notes, rather, the emotional work that is entailed from a difficult day, how does one separate the two? In order to maintain self-care and avoid accelerated burnout, limits HAVE to be put in place. We teach our clients how to create and maintain limits, so why not for ourselves? I think it’s because we’re putting limits ON ourselves rather than on the behaviour of others. It’s directed towards ourselves. With that being said, what’s one of the first things we suggest to clients when setting boundaries? We tell them to “begin small”, thus, we too need to begin small. For me, beginning small means setting a specific amount of time allotted to venting about my day, maintaining confidentiality, of course. This way, once that timer has gone off, I have to change topics and move on. I find that if I don’t give myself enough time though, that it remains with me. A good rule of thumb would be to set aside a reasonable amount of time that works for you- perhaps 15 minutes? Again, this is subjective. You don’t want to spend an hour ruminating about your day or a difficult client as it will just perpetuate resentment and/or other negative feelings. Similarly, five minutes may not be enough time either. It should be just enough to get whatever is weighing you down out of your system and then move forward with your day. Another suggestion to beginning small is by writing in a journal. Because of the sensitivity of our work and confidentiality concerns, it is important to note that anything that is written in the journal should not include any identifiable information. I recommend just writing down short sentences or one to two words that describe how you felt that day. I also feel that a good idea is to refrain from writing the specific date down. I say withhold the date because there is no real purpose to this. Why look back at the journal only to remember a difficult day if the date is present? It would not be constructive. Remember, the purpose is to set limits for ourselves in order to maintain self-care. I hope these tips work for you. If you have any others that you would like to share, please do comment.

The busier our lives get, the more we get pulled into different directions. Often people describe this experience as being on autopilot. The Buddhist describe this experience as suffering. The old Buddhist thought is that if we are always on autopilot we must be fighting feelings that we do not want to feel. As a result, the suffering increases enormously and we try every attempt to avoid the initial feelings we were fighting by staying in autopilot. With awareness of every thought, image or sensation, simultaneously there is a feeling attached that is either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. If you’re like most people and you’re running on autopilot daily, these feelings usually go unnoticed and you’re left with just your thoughts, and perhaps even an emotional reaction or two.

Naturally, our mind wants more of the pleasant feelings in life and we want to avoid those feelings that are unpleasant. The more we react to the pleasant feelings, the more we are strengthen a neuro-connection in the mind that reduces the unpleasant experience. In other words, you either attach to something pleasant or move away from the unpleasant feeling. The more we attach to sensations, the more we build habitual reactions. These habitual reactions then become the basis for our emotions. When we avoid these feelings, they often produce anxiety within us.

If we open ourselves up to every experience we will realize that we can increase our tolerance and acceptance for uncomfortable feelings. This is the basis of mindfulness. Mindfulness works by being attentive, accepting, and non-judgmental towards every thought and feeling that arises. By being insightful towards your emotional life, you will start to become more aware, in control, and less reactive. As a result, you may be able to increase your tolerance in situations, rather than reacting to the situation.

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How are our personal lives connected with our professional lives? And how can the two combined create an equation that expedites burnout to the square and lead to bad decisions? When my personal life seems to be shaken up, I noticed that it takes a toll on me while in my counselling office. I did not have the energy to work through a long day and had difficulty remaining in the present. Feelings and thoughts began impeding my sessions. When I became cognizant of my thoughts, I immediately felt guilty. This of course lead to thought errors. As I became mindful of my thoughts and feelings, I put my personal issues aside and completed all scheduled appointments. By the end of the day work day, I was not only mentally and emotionally exhausted, but felt physically drained too; however, my day wasn’t over just yet. I still had to work through the issues that were causing distress in my personal life. I immediately craved McDonald’s. That’s my go-to comfort food for when I’m feeling overwhelmed. I’m vegetarian, so in order to fulfill my craving, I order the BigMac without the meat patty. I request fresh fries and sometimes ask for tartar sauce on the side to dunk my fries in. Yes, I am admitting to my very unhealthy coping mechanism. However, having had a mindful moment earlier in the day, I had another mindful moment while making my way to the closest McDonald’s; the veggie BigMac will not help me feel better. So, instead, I made my way to the gym, got on the elliptical and spent the next half hour going through the motions. It was amazing! That night, when I got into bed, I reflected. I thought about how difficult maintaining personal and professional boundaries can be, how having a bad personal day coupled with challenging clients can take a toll on mental well-being, and then spent another 15 to 20 minutes re-experiencing the emotional rollercoaster I was on earlier. And then I thought about how stress squared can very quickly lead to unhealthy coping skills. Yet, as I laid in bed, I couldn’t help but smile. I was proud of myself for actually getting to the gym rather than eating food that would have made my stomach upset! But, I was also concerned about how the combination of my personal and professional lives created double the amount of stress for me. I felt overwhelmed. I started realizing how quickly my mental health can deteriorate if I don’t have a toolkit filled with strategies to deal with all kinds of stress. I was glad that I had a moment of clarity and went to the gym. I just hope that the next time I feel this overwhelmed, that I am able to pull out other strategies so that the thought of going to McDonald’s is not even an option.

I sat there, empty as a husk, having given everything I thought I had to give. As my last client, a boy with a past more terrible than my imagination could make up, left the hospital, I sat there, slowly sorting the files and signing the termination reports. My nerves were frayed. I was done. Empty but glad that my cases were closed and all my clients referred elsewhere. “Off to better hands”, I told myself. I stayed glued to that chair for a long time.

It had taken months of nightmares and a slow and sickening descent into my own personal hell, to finally admit that I needed to put the brakes on. The clinical head of my department, a doctor who I admired for her ability to see 700 families and remember and care for every one of them, was kind enough. She suggested that I was doing a fine job and needed to just “leave it here” without taking it home. I wish I had her hardiness and distance then. In taking a leave of absence, I felt like I was committing the worst crime as a new therapist: abandoning my clients and conceding defeat.

That was over ten years ago, on a day whose night unfolded into a journey of personal disintegration: losing my identity into an abyss of trauma, panic, and despair. It was the beginning of my own mask as a “helpful therapist” and overall “nice guy” shattering into a thousand pieces.

Though the beginning sounds terrible, there are many blessings that have come out of my experience of burning out: some came as I climbed out of my personal hell and others like wine cultivated in the years that have followed. I list them here in brief to inspire, console, and perhaps even guide any of you who are also going through your own hell, or afraid that you may one day do so:

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Today, it dawned on me…I was putting more effort in a treatment program than were my patients. For example, I prepared for a session that was a continuation of an individualized version of a group. The patient did so well for the first couple of weeks; motivated to change, did all the homework, utilized the skills; and even though she failed sometimes, she kept up with her positivism and momentum. I thought, “Oh wow, she’s really going to do this! I’m so excited for her!” That was the naïveté in me. Don’t get me wrong, I am always excited for patients when they progress and really begin to feel enthusiastic, I will always be their biggest cheer leader. But, the problem began when this patient began missing her appointments. At first, she was calling and informing the clinic about not being able to make it to her appointment, and then she stopped calling as well. Meanwhile, I was at home the night before working on the next day’s material in anticipation of her arrival. When I finally noticed that I was working harder at treatment than my patient was, that was when I recognized the potential for early burnout. How so? Because, I need to check in with myself and identify a few things: 1. I am not meeting the patient where the patient is at, and am working through treatment on my own agenda rather than hers. 2. How is this affecting my attitudes towards the patient and 3. How is this helping me with my self-care? These are but just a few among many other concerns. Of course, with personal counselling, I will be able to work through the first two issues, but the one I want to focus on is the self-care component. By spending time working on a treatment plan for hours, endless readings, and neglecting my friends, family or sleep, I have crossed over to the other side. In other words, I have neglected myself and am one step closer to burning out. I personally feel that a way to ensure that I am not repeating the same mistake is by adopting the rule “Follow the patient’s lead” and never having an agenda; instead, embrace a loose guideline. Sometimes, the patient may not be ready to move forward. Another preventative measure I have begun and really like is putting limits on the amount of time and energy I spend on working from home. This tactic is thus far aiding in finding a balance between work and play. By putting such limits, I can shut off the work component of my brain and get into relax and rest mode afterwards.

By: Bhavna Verma

From their paper, “Burnout Syndrome in Licensed Mental Health Counselors and Registered Mental Health Counselor Interns: A Pilot Study” the authors point out that during the first three years of work experience for professionals, they are at higher risk for burnout and job turnover (p1. 2011). I am currently in my first year of professional work experience. Although, each class in my Master’s program had devoted a component of the importance of self-care as well as provided students with various strategies; I found that they did not mean anything until I was practicing. For me, self-care was another subject like theories; understand the concept for the time-being and figure out what it really means later. Thinking about the burnout statistic, I am alarmed. I recognize the importance of self-care, however am still struggling to learn how to do it. The first step to recognize that burnout may be occurring is to understand the symptoms. There are many symptoms to burnout; depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, lack of interest, etc. Just as there are many symptoms to burnout, there are also that many countermeasures a counsellor can take too; exercise, personal counselling, conscious effort to leave work at work, etc. I could go on. But, at the end of the day, what I really found helped was finding my own way at ensuring I was taking care of my mental health. I do not think there is one formula, but rather a combination of strategies. This has been a bit of a learning process. I have been fortunate to be working in a supportive environment that fosters self-care. But in order to ensure that I do not become a part of the statistic, I am learning which self-care strategies work for me so that by the time I have been three years into the field I would have already had many tools in my toolbox that could be pulled out automatically.

Baldwin, K.D., Barmore, C., Suprina, J. S., Weaver, A. (2011). Burnout Syndrome in Licensed  Mental Health Counselors and Registered Mental Health Counselor Interns: A Pilot Study.