Riding the Waves: Managing Difficult Emotions During Change (Stress Less Strategise More Series)

0:01
okay team welcome welcome welcome We'll get underway Um
0:06
uh so for those of you that haven't that don't know me I'm Lieutenant Colonel Steve Kernney I'm the chief mental
0:12
health officer for the NZDF Uh and I'm also a clinical psychologist uh and my
0:19
uh and what we're talking about today or this is part of a sequence of um
0:24
webinars focusing on how some practical tools you can use to deal with some of the pressures that we're facing across
0:31
the organization at the moment And um in the background with me
0:36
today I have Frank Harkin from our OD cell He's going to be recording our session today and we're also going to be
0:42
uh making that available downstream I'm not yet sure exactly how we're going to be distributing that but um but Frank
0:49
will uh that'll be distri that'll be dispersed and communicated by the OD team Um and so the focus of today is is
0:58
on our emotional uh managing our emotions right uh and as we go through today you'll see that there are some
1:05
kind of uh it's important to understand some key expectations that we should have of ourselves around our capacity to
1:12
manage our emotions And now sometimes even that expectation of ourselves can be
1:17
unhelpful Um and so uh without so uh without further I guess
1:23
I'll we should get underway So I'll share my screen here Wait one Uh where are
1:32
we let's do
1:38
this All right Here we go We're underway
1:48
Excellent Sweet So uh welcome And uh today we're going to talk about um as I
1:56
said emotions The uh key kind of bottom line up front from today is that uh is
2:02
kind of captured by this tamari fakki or himong a which is the calm after the
2:09
storm right that's what we're after today It is human and normal to have moments when our internal stuff gets on
2:17
top of us That is okay What we're trying to get uh from today is some ideas about
2:22
what might make that less frequent and how we might usefully and helpfully respond if we if we notice that's
2:29
happening for us that our internal storm is getting away on us and is making it harder to be the kind of person we want
2:35
to be for our faro for our teammates at work and for ourselves So that's really
2:40
what we're kind of we're getting at today to calm after the storm because storms like in all and here in
2:47
Wellington we're having a good example of that today Storms are all and uh and so it's about what you do when they show
2:53
up That is that is what we're going to talk about today So here's a kind of more detailed
2:58
uh land uh road map We're going to talk about what emotions are because that's really important to understand and and
3:05
is your first step in kind of dealing responding to them more helpfully The second thing is we're going to talk about why we have them Because despite
3:11
our best efforts and often even when we wish we wouldn't we evolved emotions
3:16
including the unpleasant ones for for reasons The third is we're going to talk
3:22
about how they create problems for us So how to notice when they're getting in the way when they're trapping us when they're tripping us up And we're going
3:29
to talk about some practical things you can do As with all my previous seminars or previous webinars much of today's
3:35
content is based on a particular approach to mental health called um uh
3:41
acceptance and commitment therapy And uh so if you want to know more about it I'll provide some references at the end
3:49
But again everything is googleable So if you if you want to know more about you can usually just use Google the language
3:55
I used And if you Google acceptance and commitment therapy and the words that I use you should get some you should get
4:01
some ideas about practical stuff you can do Cool So the the first thing to kind of
4:08
note is that is that emotions matter Many of us here in New Zealand and I would say particularly true in the in
4:15
the military have sort of picked up on the implicit message that emotions are noise or that emotions and feelings are
4:23
a source of error and weakness And the reality is that we evolve them for a
4:28
reason They're hardwired And sometimes ignoring or overriding our emotions
4:34
creates as many problems as it solves or even even more problems So a kind of a
4:40
useful illustration of how important emotions are is that uh Inuits uh that
4:46
is our our North American native population have about 60 different words for snow because snow is really
4:53
important in their world You know if you if you live in that world then then snow matters and so you've got lots of
4:59
different ways of describing the nuance and specific details of snow So it's
5:04
useful to then think about in in English there are over a thousand words for different emotions
5:11
uh in the dictionary and in fact there are some really good words that I think are quite useful that we don't have in
5:16
English that I think we could benefit from So my friend who is German she tells me tells me about this torchless
5:22
panic which is a word a German word for that sense you get when an opportunity
5:27
is clo is just falling out of your grasp uh you know it's the translation is gate
5:33
closing panic and it's that kind of anxiety that you get as an emo as a opportunity is falling out of your grasp
5:39
Apparently it's used sometimes for people in relation to their opportunity to start a family or their as they see
5:46
their kind of career aspirations kind of slipping out of their timeline And then the last one the next one I saw which I
5:52
thought really like is agiatur which is a Japanese word for that feeling you get when you have a bad haircut uh and I
5:57
have had such an experience in the recent in my recent history and so it was very poignant for me but this idea
6:04
that we have that emotions matter and so we because and so we have lots of words to describe the nuances and specifics is
6:12
is is a useful one right and as we'll I'll just to foreshadow some content from later one of the most useful things
6:19
you can do for yourself is to get better at describing and finding words to fit
6:25
what is going on in here And if you're a parent that is one of the best things you can do for your kids is is coach
6:32
them and equip them to describe what is going on in here because once we can
6:37
describe it it gets easier to do things that are helpful Cool
6:44
So if you uh of the school of thought that emotions are noise and should be
6:51
ignored then um uh you may find this session
6:57
intriguing because we evolved them for a reason So uh we evolved All mammals have
7:02
emotions right so your family dog has emotions Joy fear
7:08
um contentedness you know all of that stuff you will see in your family dog you'll
7:13
see it in your cat in a very different way Um but all mammals have emotion systems right they have different
7:18
different emotions have different triggers So for instance uh a trigger
7:23
for anxiety is often a threat some sort of sense of impending harm or loss Uh a
7:30
trigger for joy is often a sense of gaining or or particularly gaining a
7:36
human connection with someone or a sense of deep connection with someone They have different actions So emotions
7:43
prompt you to do different things Different emotions make more certain behaviors more or less likely which then
7:49
is why that we evolve them because they tend to lead us to do certain things They have different physiological
7:54
footprints So the neur if you're taking pictures of the activity in someone's brain when they're afraid that's
8:01
different from when they're curious Yeah Quite different parts of the brains firing
8:06
up and um they tend to communicate and connect us with others So all emotions
8:13
serve a social function They tend to have an impact on the way we engage with
8:18
people Talk more about this next week in terms of why connection is so important
8:23
for human beings But just to kind of foreshadow that human beings don't have teeth we don't have claws We don't have
8:31
armor The thing that allows us to survive and thrive is the ability to be
8:36
belong and have other people cover our back And so emotions play a really key
8:42
role in in in shaping and
8:47
um uh helping with those connections and helping us understand and make sense of
8:53
those connections more readily What's going to be helpful and helpful in and unhelpful in those
8:59
connections uh and they all have wisdom right so emotions tend to show up in relation to the things we care about And
9:05
so a trap we can fall into is that if we ignore certain emotions particularly unwanted emotions or uncomfortable
9:12
emotions we tend to ignore what they're trying to tell us about the things that
9:17
are important to us We're pretending that something doesn't matter to us when actually it does So when we ignore
9:24
strong emotions we tend to get disconnected from the things that are important to us
9:31
Um and so uh I'm curious or I don't know if
9:38
we can do this Um but uh there are different if we look at these things we
9:43
can see that there are different um elements or diff these things that actions triggers purpose they all are
9:50
different for different emotions So for anger the most common trigger for anger is a sense of unfairness right which
9:57
then prompts us to do stuff to address that sense of unfairness I've lost something that I shouldn't have lost
10:03
Someone else has lost something that they shouldn't have lost Um there is an inequitable distribution of resource So
10:08
often anger is triggered by by a sense of unfairness Also just as an aside
10:14
anger can be um a secondary emotion So an emotion
10:20
about another emotion So it's not uncommon for instance for people to feel
10:25
angry because they feel sad i.e are depressed and they feel like it's not
10:31
fair that they shouldn't be sad that that that it's not fair that they're sad So they get angry about the fact that
10:37
they're sad and that's what point they point in out in the world So there's some evidence particularly in masculine
10:42
communities that that that anger is often actually a signal for sadness
10:50
Um if you've got any questions by the way team I meant to say if you've got any questions or queries then there is a
10:57
question and answer section in the um in the chat there Uh and you should be able
11:03
to load stuff onto there If you're dialing in from outside the organization I'm told that that might be a little
11:08
harder to do and some of those might be blocked I don't know how to stop that Sorry But um but that's the kind of But
11:14
let's just test maybe so far Is this making sense to people say if you even just use the emoji reactions right so on
11:21
your screen you should have a little emoji button Thumbs up If if if you're confused at this point maybe give me
11:27
like a a shock face I think that's a nice little option there So if there's any
11:32
confusion I'm just looking at my other screen for this Okay cool So there's a couple of bits of confusion Sweet as
11:38
that's okay I will I will I will try to um make more sense
11:44
Cool Okay so key messages so far Emotions matter They're important Trying to pretend we're not having them tends
11:51
to create more problems than it solves particularly in the long term Um and we
11:57
evolve them for a reason right so so all of this comes to the point that getting
12:02
rid of them if you think that's what we're here to talk about today how to not have emotions then you're going to
12:08
be uh disappointed right so if you think you can control them like your lever
12:15
like those sliders on the image there then that's going to be really hard to do We're going to give you some ideas
12:20
about ways that you might kind of adjust or respond to them and re to your
12:26
emotions more helpfully and do things that are more helpful But often times we
12:32
just need to feel what we feel And that is in allowing ourselves to do that and
12:37
being okay with that is the most effective thing to do Yeah So I'm not
12:42
going to tell you how to get rid of certain emotions or control them or uh or anything like that today So if that's
12:49
what you're here for maybe tune out and um check your emails or something like that Easy
12:55
So what I would like you to do to help us today and to help make this real and practical for you is I'd like you to
13:00
think of a time maybe in the last week when you've been feeling some emotional stuff Not like a 10 out of 10 We don't
13:08
want you to kind of get caught up in it right here and now but see if you can think of a time when you've had a bit
13:15
going on in here And I'd like you to uh maybe just write down on a bit of
13:21
paper in front of you like where were you what were you doing who were you
13:28
with and what was showing up what do you notice what fe what emotions were
13:33
showing up what else was happening internally just as you sit and put yourself back in that
13:39
moment and invite you just to do that and then we'll come back to this as we go through the rest of the session and
13:45
we'll see how it helps us understand that a bit more Cool So I'll just give you maybe 15
13:54
20 seconds just to write down where were you who were you with what were you doing maybe what you wanted to do that
14:01
you didn't do um and what else was just what else was showing up internally Right so that's
14:08
often what psychologists will ask you if you if it may be a feeling it may be a physical sensation it may be just like
14:16
something going on that you that you can't that is that you can only describe in a sort of vague way But whatever that
14:22
way is write that down And just as an aside this is not a
14:30
bad place to start if you're trying to make sense of what's happening for you in here All the way through these
14:35
sessions I've talked about the benefits of writing stuff down So if you're just not sure what to do next in almost all
14:42
cases it's a good idea to just to write reflect on your own stuff and start to
14:48
and when you write it down often that will help your brain begin to organize and and get useful perspectives on
14:55
stuff Cool Okay So has everyone got something written down again let's see a thumbs up once you've got something
15:00
written down Um just so I know that everyone's tracking Sweet
15:07
ass Good Cool team Thank
15:13
you Okay so let's have a look The first thing to understand about
15:20
emotions is that they're more than just the feeling bit right the feeling bit is one component and often sits at the
15:26
surface when it comes to our emotions But they are also our thoughts
15:33
There are behavioral urges and there are reactions in our bodies that come with
15:38
with that emotion state So if we take uh anger for instance
15:46
um the thought as I said earlier is often that there is something unfair I have seen something unfair I've
15:52
experienced something unfair and that thought then triggers
15:57
this emotion of anger And then often there are urges that come with that So
16:03
that might be to stand up to talk more loudly to engage with someone in an
16:09
assertive or aggressive fashion There's a whole bunch of behaviors that become
16:14
primed as part of that emotion system and package And there are reactions in your body to service that So your heart
16:21
might pump faster your your muscles might get tenser the blood flow in your
16:26
in your skins might skin might change all of that kind of stuff It's equally
16:31
true with say sadness You know when you have sadness you start to think about
16:37
the thing that you've lost Often that's the trigger of sadness is a is a is we've lost a thing um or we've lost the
16:44
hope of a thing And then we get fe this feeling that that we know as sadness or
16:50
describe as sadness Then we get urges that come with it Right so often the urge with sadness is to get smaller to
16:56
pull away to to be inactive to reflect to slow down And the reactions in our
17:03
body sort of reflect that kind of dropping down of of um not taking the
17:08
initiative on things and pulling back a little bit and the and the body changes that support that right and then so
17:15
these so these are all kind of connected And then the thing about um all emotions
17:22
is that uh they tend to be self-reinforcing So have you ever had
17:27
that experience where you've just bought a new car and then you see lots of other kinds of that lots of other that of that
17:34
car around well it's the same with emotions right if you are feeling sad your brain then becomes prompted to
17:41
notice things that might elicit more sadness Uh and the things that you do when you are sad often
17:49
uh keep you in that space So they become self-reinforcing and that's how you get
17:55
stuck in a loop around anxiety sadness anger all of these
18:01
things Once you're in that emotion state that system is designed to kind of for
18:06
it to be very easy for you to stay there Sometimes that's helpful sometimes it's
18:12
not And it's also really important to understand that not all emotions are
18:19
equal in our in our brains Negative emotions like
18:24
anxiety sadness fear these are all much stickier
18:30
than positive emotions And in fact it takes about to stay happy in our lives
18:36
we need to have three positive emotions to offset every negative emotion in our life We feel negative emotions more and
18:43
they tend to be stickier So being intentional about and deliberate about not getting stuck in those captured by
18:51
that negative bias is one of the things we're going to talk about later on in the session Yeah So key message is it's
18:58
more than just feelings It shapes our thoughts and our behaviors and even our physical stuff which then means we get
19:03
stuck in can get easily get stuck in these loops and we get stuck in certain
19:09
emotions Everything making sense so far so what I would like you to do now all right is just go back to that instance
19:16
that you thought about before that um that little moment when you were feeling some stuff and maybe on a bit of paper
19:23
in front of you just see if you can describe your own internal turf right what thoughts are you noticing in that
19:29
moment or are you remembering you noticed in that moment what urges showed up what did you want to do whether
19:35
you're not acted on it but what did you want to do or you tempted to do what feelings so if you were to put some
19:42
descriptors on there the the tone of that the internal tone of that experience what would they have been and
19:49
then what did you notice happening in your body like muscle tension tuning in your stomach muscles kind of feeling
19:55
flat and floppy whatever it is you know So just just take a moment to reflect on
20:00
that um experience See if you can flesh it out a
20:08
little more
20:16
Cool Okay So let's uh for those of you that
20:26
can jump in the Q&A and I'll get Frank to shove these across to so they're published and everyone can see them But
20:32
what are some of the what's some of the bad advice you've been given about managing your emotions or responding to
20:39
your emotions uh many of us have been given quite house advice excuse my
20:44
French about how we should deal with that stuff So I'm curious what's some of the bad advice that you've been
20:51
given when it comes to emotions and dealing with emotions
21:21
see just waiting for some to come through here Can't see any just yet
21:31
Just get over it is one Yeah Nice one Very common one in the military Another common one is take a hard pill and uh
21:38
and crack on Rain it in Yeah Yeah Just keep it to yourself right rain it in
21:44
Keep it to yourself Don't you know don't keep your feelings on me please Please kind of keep them at a distance I don't
21:51
I want to get anything splashed on me All that kind of stuff
21:57
Uh what else anything
22:06
else it'll pass is another common one Yep All that kind of stuff right so it's
22:11
a really common sort of generally the tone is is sort of just get over it move on don't don't distress others with your
22:18
distress which is actually often what is going on for people when they are asking you to um to not have your
22:27
feelings is um is to just get over it because there
22:32
are there all emotions are contagious right we're human beings We are we have
22:39
mirror neurons in our brain that mean that we start to vibrate on the same frequency as the people around us And
22:46
actually if you're a parent a partner or a boss if you're in a position of authority or other people are vulnerable
22:52
to you dependent on you then actually your emotions are more contagious than other people's Right so another good
23:00
reason if you are in one of those parent partner or boss roles uh in your situation whatever situation you're in
23:06
all the more reason to be aware of your own emotional landscape and to seek to
23:12
keep it helpful uh because that'll be more contagious
23:17
which is what we're going to talk about now Right so the goal of today's session is not to get rid of emotions to push
23:24
them away to to kind of not have them As I've said the goal of today is to help
23:30
you keep them in this what we call a window of tolerance So too much emotion
23:35
and you it's hard to think clearly It's hard to engage with other people effectively It's hard to plan for the
23:43
future in the past and we get very reactive Having said that having no
23:50
emotions doesn't work either either All right so suppressing all our emotions can actually be a key factor in
23:57
depression because when we try to suppress our negative or unwanted emotions our positive emotions get
24:04
suppressed as well and life can start to feel very numb very flat Uh it can be
24:11
hard to laugh and love the things that we love to do and to and the people that
24:16
we love to be with And so you know suppression of everything or suppression of emotions doesn't work very well
24:22
either And then when we do that it's really quite tiring because that takes a lot of our brain's energy kind of
24:29
containing those systems And also what happens is that we can contain them for a while and then they spill out all of a
24:37
sudden and we go straight to that red zone where where we're overwhelmed So
24:42
we're after a a balance in the middle and kind of noticing when we're peing too high and doing things that help us
24:50
settle a bit and then also noticing when we're too low and we're and we're not
24:55
allowing oursel to feel the things we need and want to feel and kind of opening up to those experiences a bit
25:01
more as well So we still can make choices that reflect the things that matter to us and
25:09
the kind of person that we hope to be So the best a good So now we're going
25:15
to get into some practical stuff right so what you can do to to kind of help yourself One of the things that it can
25:22
be a good place to start is with what we call or starting with your body right so
25:28
if we think of our four components of our turf often times when our thinking is wired up when our emotions are
25:35
overwhelming if we're in that red zone good place to start is actually with your body and down and down reggulating
25:43
and helping your body settle itself down Um and a really useful tool for that is
25:49
a tool called box breathing Now I we won't run a practice of this here and now because uh one we haven't got time
25:57
and two sometimes people fall asleep when we do this practice but there is tons of stuff on the internet including
26:02
on the NZDF health hub around box breathing if you Google box breathing
26:08
you'll get tons of YouTube videos MP3 clips all that kind of stuff and the way
26:14
idea with box breathing is that you breathe in for four seconds you hold you
26:19
hold for four seconds You breathe out for 4 seconds You hold for 4 seconds And you just do
26:27
this on iterations of four Right so you do four sets of four And then you do
26:32
another four sets of four and check in And you just do that Now the reason this makes a difference is because the part
26:39
of our body and our brain that panics is actually not very accessible consciously
26:47
One of the few ways that we can consciously access the part of our brain that panics is through our breathing
26:54
When we slow our breathing down it slows the rest of that system down as well And
27:01
in fact um you one of the key ways that we do that is by paying particular
27:07
attention to our outreath and making sure that our outreath is as long as or
27:14
even longer than our inb breath Right so when we start to panic that engages our
27:21
uh what we call our sympathetic nervous system or our speeding up nervous system when our arousal gets when our body gets
27:29
fired up for by strong emotions and you'll notice that when you do that there's a it actually activates your inb
27:37
breathing system your breath your breath sucking in system So that's when you so you know when you get an email from
27:43
someone and you know I shivers this is not going to be this is not going to be a fun email and you go you know you
27:48
sharp and take a breath that's your activation your sympathetic nervous system and you'll notice sometimes when
27:56
you're really stressed out you forget to breathe and you forget to breathe out and you'll also notice that if you
28:02
imagine if you get that email and you go and then it's not such a big deal and your body calms down you
28:08
go Right that's your often that breath out triggers that calming system So this
28:16
process of breathing in for four holding for four breathing out for four holding
28:22
for four that is a way of triggering that outreath making sure that it's and
28:28
we're not getting caught up in our inb breath and allowing our body to begin to
28:34
settle down Is that making sense can I get actually a sense of who's tried
28:39
either box breathing or in some parts of defense we call it tactical breathing So just in the emojis thumbs up if you've
28:45
tried this before Cool Yeah Okay So a few of you have Good
28:54
If you've got kids your kids may have been taught this as well in schools It's quite commonly taught in schools And my
29:01
uh my daughter came home one day and told me she had taught been taught about snake breathing which is so just a long slow breath out as a
29:09
way of calming yourself down Right so if you're right in the thick of it if you've had some bad news if you're
29:16
feeling overwhelmed start with your body and practice this stuff You know this is
29:21
and and Navy Seals are trained in this technique for application on the battlefield So no matter where you are
29:28
this is often a tool that is a good place to start Yep Cool If you So moving
29:34
on from our body let's talk a little bit about our emotional our emotion systems
29:39
Right So now what I would like you to do is come back to that instance that you thought about before on our scale or
29:46
five to uh you know 1 to 10 We're looking something between five and eight So and what I'd like you to do is just
29:53
go down this list here and see if there are any emotions or which of those
29:59
emotions you were feeling at that time Right so are there any of those
30:05
emotions or which of those emotions do you think you were feeling at that time and just maybe write a do a tick on
30:12
a bit of paper for each one or you could write it down even on a bit of paper in front of you I'll just give you a moment
30:18
to look over that list There are a couple of taldi words or
30:24
maldi words in there One is ha which is a bit like kind of disgruntled and fakamar is like a blend
30:34
of embarrassment and shyness and shame Sort of a mix of those
30:41
things Just give you another few seconds just to go down that list and see which of those you are feeling at the
30:48
time And then as once you've done that maybe just go down go down the those or
30:53
look at those ones again that you are feeling and just notice whether as you
30:58
put words to them does that change how they feel and how you feel in the
31:05
moment So if you tick angry and vengeful
31:11
and resigned as you tick those things does it feel does anything feel
31:18
different do they shift at all sometimes not all the time for all people in all situations but sometimes for some people
31:25
some of the time writing that word down actually helps it feel a bit less right
31:32
up here and a bit more out here Right a little less kind of overwhelming and a
31:38
little more I can see it and look at it and and understand it and a bit better
31:44
So I'll be curious to know again maybe just with the emojis does that sound true for anyone
31:50
as they ticked those as they sort of thought about those words and labeled their experiences did that actually
31:56
change that how change make it easier just a little bit maybe just a little bit Okay So a couple of people right so
32:04
this would be if you if you are in a time in your life where there is a lot of turmoil
32:10
My advice is to or a suggestion for you is to print out a list like this and there's lots online and I'll do this
32:17
with clients that I'm working with and I'll get them to sit down and when they're feeling is that tune to just go
32:23
down the list and tick all the ones they're feeling right and then that allows or helps to kind of get a bit of
32:30
perspective because when we know that actually I'm not angry I'm frustrated
32:36
frustr frustrated shows up when we hit an obstacle Right so anger shows up with unfairness
32:43
Frustration shows up with when we hit an obstacle So if we know that actually this is not anger this is frustration
32:50
then it helps us decide what we're going to do next That might be a bit different
32:55
Also really importantly if we've got two or three emotions going on it can be
33:01
helpful to tag all of those and be aware of all of those So let's imagine that I'm starting a new job I might be
33:08
feeling anxious and excited If I allow myself to kind of sit down and tag those
33:13
and name those then I can start to do things that are useful I can address my
33:20
anxiety by starting to prepare by starting to plan by starting to ensure
33:26
that I have kind of some of those concerns addressed If I'm excited then I can
33:32
start to be curious I can start to allow myself to
33:37
um uh think about the opportunities and what I'm hoping for and to kind of revel
33:43
in those Right so I can start to do that If I if I'm doing something and I feel a sense of sadness about leaving my own
33:50
job as part of all of that then I can start to do things like say goodbye to
33:55
the people that I that I'm going to miss um or and acknowledge and and thank those that I'm going to miss So by
34:02
labeling our emotions and getting more granular it helps us to decide what
34:07
we're going to do that might be helpful And there's lots of research showing that just by labeling your
34:13
emotions it helps to it helps them to dissipate So for instance in one study
34:21
they got people to look at distressing images like of car car accidents and that kind of stuff And then in one
34:27
condition they got them just to describe the picture And in another kind of group they got them to label their emotions as
34:33
they looked at the pictures And then they measured their or physiological
34:38
response So like their heart rate their sweat response these sorts of things And
34:44
those that describe their emotions had those start to dissipate
34:49
faster Right so when you talk about what and when you mentally describe what's
34:55
happening for you that starts to help you to get in that window of tolerance
35:01
that I was talking about before Any comments questions on
35:07
that okay cool
35:12
The next thing you can do and this becomes is often easier or sounds over
35:18
simple but actually I'd encourage you to make it make give it a punt and do an experiment and see how it goes for you
35:26
When we get into trouble often with emotions is when we start to have emotions about our emotions So I get
35:33
anxious about my I get I get anxious about something that's happening at work Then I get angry about my anxiety and
35:39
then get ashamed of my anger about my anxiety and then I get frustrated about
35:45
my shame about my anger about my anxiety Right and so we start to have feelings
35:50
about our feelings And when that happens that is when we start to go down go down
35:56
the rabbit hole go down the plug hole And only humans can do that right only humans can really have feelings about
36:03
their feelings your family dog Like I took my dog for this walk this morning in the rain She wasn't happy about it Um
36:12
but then when we came back inside that moment had passed and that sadness had passed That unhappiness had passed and
36:18
she was happy as Larry and we got back to the house Now if I took my kids for a walk in the rain they would get
36:23
frustrated about having to do something they didn't want to do and then come back and they'd stew on it for a good 10
36:29
to 15 minutes about why they had to do this go for this do this dumb thing and how they didn't feel and how they felt
36:35
about it So only humans kind of hold on to stuff like that and start to have feelings about feelings and uh and it's
36:42
our superpower sometimes because it helps us think about social interactions and
36:47
predict other people's interaction uh emotions rather and predict my own emotional reactions to things but it
36:54
means we can get stuck in a in a loop on stuff So sometimes the most useful thing
36:59
to go to do is to label your emotion and then remind yourself that that's okay
37:06
I'm feeling sad and I'm human Humans feel this way sometimes It's okay to
37:12
feel sad I'm feeling anxious and that's okay I'm feeling overwhelmed and that's
37:20
okay I'm feeling frustrated and that's okay I'm a
37:27
human being Human beings feel this way sometimes It's pretty And also I'm
37:34
bigger I can be bigger than just this feeling There is more to me than just
37:40
this feeling So I can deal with it I can not to make it go away but I can wear this I
37:47
can carry this with me and still do the things that matter for the people that
37:52
matter to me Yeah So accepting whatever it is that you're feeling knowing that
37:58
it's that it's okay to feel that way and that you might not like it and it's very human not to want it to be there but it
38:05
is and that is okay Is that making sense to people i wonder could I see from the
38:12
emojis like once again thumbs up if that makes sense or surprised face if you're
38:18
like I that feels like to me Steve I'm
38:25
curious Can I get a sense of
38:33
that okay we got a few thumbs up Okay cool
38:38
Yeah good So if you're real stuck just do this You know I'm feeling whatever it
38:46
is you're feeling and that's okay And you could write it down on a bit of paper in front of you just say to
38:52
yourself in your head Yeah not a bad place to
38:59
start The other thing um you can do when you're feeling or it's important when it's when we're feeling particularly if
39:05
you notice you're stuck in one of those loops those reinforcing loops where you feel anxious and that makes you you
39:13
start finding it easy to look for other things that are anxietyinducing If you notice you're in one of those loops over
39:18
time is making a deliberate effort to cultivate positive emotions And this is
39:24
true if also if you think you might be stuck in that kind of blue zone at the bottom of the window of tolerance where
39:31
where you're just it's hard actually to feel anything uh is making a deliberate effort to
39:38
focus and to experience positive emotions Now
39:44
importantly it's not about like being polyianaish and pretending negative emotions don't exist or bad things
39:52
aren't happening in your life I'm not suggesting any of that But it is about
39:59
because those negative emotional experiences are so sticky and we are
40:04
hardwired to to lean towards or be more open to the neg to negative emotions
40:11
hunting the good stuff Making a deliberate and intentional effort to hunt the good stuff can help to balance
40:17
out those that those two those two systems and give us more perspective on all of our emotions positive and
40:24
negative And it's also about snacking rather than binging So rather than kind
40:29
of wait until like a lot of Kiwis try to go from Christmas to Christmas without taking leave Um and that gets that's a
40:38
long time right um so what we're suggesting what I'm suggesting is that you snack on good emotions So take
40:45
little moments during the day littleer moments during the week little moments during the
40:52
uh month and during the year for small and often for positive emotions to cultivate positive emotions to help
40:59
bring your emotion system kind of back in balance Uh there are some interesting
41:05
ways to do that So one is a gratitude diary and and you may some of you may have heard the grat of a gratitude diary
41:11
before but a gratitude diary is about making a practice three to four times a week of sitting down for 5 to 10 minutes
41:18
and actually writing down about three things that are that are positive in
41:24
your life at the moment and they can be super small things right so it might be like for me I just had a really good cup
41:30
of coffee this morning I got it just right and I was sitting on the deck it was raining outside but I could I was
41:37
dry the breeze was warm it was just a great moment So I might write about that
41:42
Um it might be a moment with someone in your life that's important with a child with a partner with a teammate but just
41:50
finding little things to be grateful about and allowing your mind to linger
41:56
and stew on those in the same way that it lingers and stews on the bad stuff
42:01
Right so we're just trying to replicate the same thing that your mind does with negative stuff but with more positive
42:09
stuff Uh and doing that there's evidence actually that even just doing that
42:14
um three to four times a week can be as effective for treating depression as
42:21
either medication or talking therapies Right so you're sitting down and building this practice There is also
42:27
there is also some evidence actually that if you do that just before bed it can help you sleep better as well
42:32
because it'll unwind some of that cortisol and stress response that is kind of keeping you up at night So doing
42:39
it just before bed can have a slightly improved outcome as well Any comments questions on any of that
42:47
okay So you might remember last week um we talked about uh whooping as a as a
42:54
strategy for behavior change So this is um what I'm suggest what I'm sort of prompting you to do here is to maybe
43:02
come up with a bit of a plan for what you might do just based on today about with regard to managing negative or
43:08
responding to unwanted and and intense emotions right it might be uh some box
43:15
breathing It might be writing them down It might be trying to check them off on
43:20
a list and get slightly better at naming them Um it might be deliberately
43:25
cultivating positive emotions for a gratitude diary or just a daily gratitude
43:31
practice then you want to think about okay what if I do this if I'm able to get just a bit better at these emotion
43:39
at the at the managing these emotional ups and downs what would be the payoff
43:45
what would be the objective i'd make slightly better choices I'd feel slightly more focused I'd be more
43:52
available to my team and my family Whatever it is And then think about what are the obstacles that might trip you up
43:58
Ah I might be feel too tired I might tell myself I'm too tired I might tell myself that I'm too busy I might tell
44:05
myself that it's not worth it It's not really going to make a difference whatever you're going to tell yourself whatever obstacles and excuses your your
44:12
internal voice might put up in front of you and then a plan for each of those things So what are you going to do if
44:17
that happens i'm going to remind myself of what I of
44:24
uh that I don't know until I try that it might work some of the time and that's enough whatever it is Yeah So this
44:31
whooping So as you come away from the session think about how you might turn it into just a small thing that you can do differently And here's a summary of
44:38
the things that you might try Right so emotions are more remembering sorry just to summarize what we've talked about
44:43
today emotions are more than feelings and they can take on a life of their own if we don't if we get caught in that
44:49
loop Um we have them for a reason So if we're having strong emotions about something it was probably because we
44:55
really care about it So spending time unpacking that a little bit and
45:00
reflecting on that a little bit can be can be can actually make it pass quicker
45:06
or we can deal with it more effectively and and in a in a fuller more enriched
45:13
way Um getting rid of them often doesn't work and suppressing them might be a
45:20
short-term strategy but on the long term will often make things harder and then I can talk through a few basic strategies
45:26
If you want to know more about this stuff like I've said acceptance and commitment therapy is a place to go and here are some resources that you might
45:33
might look at Um the em emotional agility is a good one in the workplace if you're thinking about it in the
45:38
workplace The reality slap I've mentioned before that's particularly in relation to big kind of events that
45:45
catch you by surprise uh man's search for meaning meaning is by Victor uh Victor Frankl and he's
45:52
actually a German Jew and he talks about um his experience in the prison of war
45:59
camps in the second world war uh and his observations around what helped people
46:04
survive that emotional experience and um that can be very instructive and then as I said
46:09
previously the subtle art of not giving a toot is a is another good resource so
46:15
that'll that'll do that's our 45 minutes for today Tim um you've got any
46:21
questions I'll uh or concerns um feel free to email me directly in the health
46:26
in the defense health in the defense email system There's more resources on much of this stuff on the defense health
46:32
website Um and um the slides from today as well as the video will be promulgated
46:39
by the OD team So that'll come out That's me Uh I'll stick around for
46:46
any questions if anyone has got any questions I'll keep my eye on the um question feed for the next we while for
46:52
next couple of minutes But otherwise thanks very much and I'll see you when I see you