HALT Day 3

The third letter of HALT stands for LONELY.

What does that mean and what makes us feel we are alone in the world. The definition of lonely is being without the companionship, isolated, solitary, in other words being alone.

When I start to fixate on feeling or being alone I like to get down to what the word really means. That's another way of talking back to your feelings. You can prove that you are not truly feeling that way and to train your brain to think of lonely differently. One way to look at being lonely is to feel alone.

Think of alone as being with yourself not by yourself.

When we are with ourselves we are keeping ourselves company as opposed to being alone, which can give you a desperate feeling of wanting companionship. Why do we feel that we have to have companionship all the time, or even most of the time? Why do we diminish the fact that being with ourselves is being with an awesome person? After all don't awesome people make others feel good? If that is true then why wouldn't we want to be with ourselves, since we are or about to become awesome? Plus I think you probably have more contact with others than you think.

For one you have contact with me either by reading this blog, tweeting with me or emailing with me, as many of you do. Then there's the casual contact we have with the outside world at stores, doctors offices, and other places like that. This is one way that I feel less alone:

Casual contact makes me happy. Remember "lets make today a great day no matter what!" that I wrote about? Well this takes that 1 step further and can "make someone else’s day good". What I do is:

I try to be pleasant and to wish those that I talk to a 'good day'. You should see how the people smile; it really can make a difference in someone’s day. And when I do that I feel good about being kind to someone, which is a positive feeling. It makes my day as well as theirs, after all who doesn't like being wished a good day?

I encourage you to try it, what do you have to lose? The next time you go to the store to get groceries, when the cashier hands you your credit card back say "Thank you, have a good day" and see what the reaction is that you get back. Unless the person you are chatting with is a complete grump they will probably say thank you/your welcome and possibly wish you a good day too. Now doesn't that feel good? You made someone happy for at least a moment and you made yourself feel good too! Plus when you smile, even a forced one can make you feel a bit better. Why not try that now. Just sit still and smile for 30 seconds, how do you feel? And being able to make someone else smile shows that you are really not by yourself at all. Can you see the cycle?

Say "Thank you, have a good (or great, wonderful, etc) day!" -----> This makes their day a little brighter -----> Then they say "you too" or "your welcome" or some other positive response -----> Which in turn makes your day a little brighter.

And when all these little bits of brightness to your day add up it makes for a bunch of good feelings. And this works even better when greeting someone. All too often we just brush aside these little bits of happiness that come our way, but I choose to take the well wishes they are sending my way to heart. Which in essence makes me feel less by myself and more with myself. Being with myself is being in control of things around me.

So next time you start to feel lonely try doing something proactive to turn that feeling around. That little bit of kindness you show another person will come back to you and that feeling of happiness will make you feel less by yourself and more with yourself. And since you are an awesome person being with yourself is pretty good.

And always remember to SMILE!

Sha :)

HALT Day 2

Today is about the second word of HALT

Angry:
Anger is a mask for fear. When we are afraid of something along with that fear we get angry because we can't handle what happened. I want you to really think about this one. When we are angry we can not feel gratitude. When we are angry do we feel thankful for the sunshine, do we feel thankful for the good things in our life? At that exact moment the answer is no. So when we feel that type of all consuming anger it is the time to HALT and really think about ways to deal with this. Here's an example of my recent experience:

As you may know my daughter was robbed at gun point 2 days ago. Not only did the robber make her and her friends get down on the ground he held a gun to her head 2 times! Boy was I scared/afraid for her when we got the call. But all I can remember feeling is anger that someone did that to my daughter! How dare he do that! What kind of a person he must be and what kind of parents he must have! These were just some of the thoughts I had besides thinking it could have been much worse, etc. Yes I was happy that she was physically fine, but that was hard to feel thru the anger. Yes I am grateful for my family, the life I have now, etc, but at that moment all that gratitude went out the window, all I felt was true anger and hatred for the person who did this.

What we have to do is find a way to talk back to that anger and tell it to go away! In effect we have to train ourselves to break down the anger and think about it differently. Once you can  confirm that you are angry think about the feelings you are having. Are you scared, annoyed, upset? Then you can self talk to yourself to see what really is wrong. The anger I felt made me have these thoughts:
fear, outrage, helplessness.
I was beyond scared for my daughter and her friends. Then I thought what is the worst thing that can happen now (after the robbery)? My daughter was safe, we stopped her credit card and we can fix everything else tomorrow (new lisence, bank acct, etc).

Yes I was totally outraged, but unless the police caught the guys there was nothing else I could do about it. Yes I wanted them punished, but that was out of my hands, afterall how was I going to find them? That took the pressure off of me to feel that emotion, afterall it was beyond my control. Just remember that you are in control of your feelings/emotions/actions.

And I felt so helpless to do anything about what had happened. I couldn't protect my daughter nor could I stop her from feeling what she was feeling. But what could I do? Thats the more important question. I could go to her as soon as possible, which we did do. I could help her get a new key for her car, bring her to the DMV for a new lisence, call the doctor for her and go to the bank with her. Plus I could give her all the TLC I could (or that she would allow).

I think the best way to deal with these feelings that anger creates is to talk back to it. I find it helpful to write this stuff in my journal or to sit down and really think it thru.

Try this:
1. Write what is making you angry (the action)
2. Write down the emotions you feel because of it
3. Talk back to the emotions, ask yourself an opposite questions for example: Instead of feeling sorry for yourself or someone else (in effect having a 'pity party') decide to be proactive and ask, "What can I really do to fix this?" Not "What I want to happen", but in reality what can I do.
4. Answer the question. Remember to be proactive, try to make things a little better.
5. Make a note of what you feel after you ask and answer the question from step 3. Do you feel a little less scared, do you feel more in control of the situation, does fixing the problem (or part of it) make dealing with the aftermath any better?

Tomorrow we will be talking about Lonely.
I'd love to know if this has helped youi turn anger around.

Sha :)

HALT

Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired

Do you ever feel hungry, angry, lonely or tired? I bet you do, we all do at one time or another. Over the next 4 days I will be exploring what these words mean.

Hungry:
This type of hunger is hunger/need for love, caring, concern, etc from others or hunger/need for positive feelings such as feeling love for yourself and others, feeling happiness and joy, feeling self confident, etc. When we don't have love, caring, concern, happiness, joy, self confidence, among other positive feelings in our life it's time to HALT and take a step back to see what’s really happening. I am not saying that you have to have all of these feelings at the same time, but 'the more the merrier' as the saying goes. Once you realize that you have to HALT coping mechanisms come into play.

One way that I cope with these feeling is to journal. All you need is a notebook and a pen and some time. I was hesitant to journal at first but once I started I found that the words just flowed onto the page and before I knew it I was filling up pages and pages. I encourage you to journal too. I almost always never read what I journal, but everyone is different. . I figure that I got the thoughts out and don't want to revisit them again. I do not feel guilty for what I journal, it’s my journal and not done for anyone else but myself. Also I always journal by writing not typing, when we type we tend to look the page over for grammar and spelling mistakes. I find this coping mechanism to be very beneficial and encourage you to try it.
Sha :)

What you think of me is none of my business

This saying is something that we all need to hear and say to ourselves.  I know we all have those times when we doubt ourselves or times that we think people are ‘talking’ about us, which may or may not actually be happening. Whether it’s happening or not our reactions are the same. Not knowing what others think about us can be just as hard to handle as knowing.  If we know what someone says and it make us feel bad, then we get upset or sad, and those are negative emotions. But if we don’t know and are just ‘imagining’ what they might say that can be even worse. Let’s think of a way to talk our way thru this…

You work really hard on a quilt and show it to Suzy very enthusiastically. 3 things can happen:

1. Suzy can say “I love that!” which will make you feel good
2. Suzy says “she really doesn’t like it” or something a little different like “Oh your corners are just not good”, both make you feel bad and start to make you ‘self doubt’ yourself (more on that in a later post).
3. Suzy says nothing, basically ignoring you.

As you can see #1 is the best outcome, who doesn’t want to feel good and get a compliment.

With #2 and #3 it’s a different story. Going back to the “I get to control me and no one else” post from a few days ago, we can use that as a stepping stone to feeling better. Yes Suzy hurt your feelings one way or the other and both ways make you feel bad and have some 'self doubt', among other emotions. Can you control Suzy or her thoughts and actions? If you are the only one who can control yourself, the same is true for Suzy. You also get to control how you react to #2 and #3, both internally and externally. 

Suzy says something bad about your quilt à

You think “oh no if Suzy doesn’t like it who will?” or “I didn’t do a good job, how stupid was I to even try”. Both of these are negative thoughts and make you feel bad. They are also mistakes (after all you showed the quilt which meant are happy with the quilt, which shows your negative thoughts are a mistake) à
Ask yourself for forgiveness for thinking things in #2 (since it was a mistake) = turning the bad thought/feeling around to a good thought/feeling

Do you see how this negates what Suzy thinks, which in essence says that it really doesn’t matter what she thinks? Internally you can understand that you cannot change what anyone thinks, although most of us dwell on the negative instead of the positive. It's time to turn that around! What you can do is think “it’s none of my business what Suzy thinks of me” and then think about how saying that makes you feel. Does it empower you? Remember you are in control of yourself and no one else! Why give Suzy any power over your feelings?

I know this saying has really has helped me a lot, especially when I was first diagnosed, I can’t count how many times I said or heard this. In all reality we can only strive to live life the happiest we can and do our best to deal with all the negative stuff. Learning some tools or sayings to help along the way will help tons. If you say this everyday about 10 times thruout the day you will begin to trust it. It doesn’t have to be out loud. It really is all about retraining our minds to think in a more positive way.

Sha :)

Blame ends with ME

B L A ME

I like seeing small words inside of big ones that connect to the meaning of a word or sentence. This is not an original idea, but it is a saying that has stuck with me.

When you blame someone you are using negative energy. Negative energy makes us not happy in that moment. Can you blame someone with just one thought or do you dwell on that thought and let it fester in your mind? What emotions do we feel when we blame someone? Mad or anger comes to mind right away. These are negative emotions, and do not help us be happy. Think about it this way:

Blame -----> negative thoughts and emotions -----> feeling unhappy ----->blaming them for you not feeling happy -----> negative thoughts and emotions -----> feeling unhappy

See how it's a cycle? And it's worse when we blame ourselves because then guilt and shame come into play (more on those later this week). A few days ago I wrote about giving yourself permission to make mistakes, do you see how it's all related? When you blame yourself you are dwelling on a mistake you made. Think about this:

Happiness and unhappiness cannot live in the same moment at the same time.

I come back to this truth all the time, it's one of the saying that I live with, one of my mission statements.

I'd love to hear what you think of this saying and what it means to you.

Sha :)

I get to control me and no one else

This takes what we talked about yesterday a little bit further. You control your actions and your thoughts, and only you do. No one can make you do or think something. If you are pressured into something by someone else you are still the one who made the decision to comply. Owning what we say, do and think is empowering, although at times it may feel like you had no choice, after all its easy to play the blame game and take the responsibility off ourselves. Blaming is a negative emotion and something that we should strive to not have, positive is the way to go! I assure you that you are the only one who did have a choice regarding your actions and thoughts. Whether you are making a statement, doing something or just thinking about something, you own it. Yes, what you say or do may be a mistake, that's when the forgiveness from yesterdays post comes into play. So can you see the pattern emerging?

Thought or action -----> no mistake = something that makes us feel good.
Thought or action -----> mistake -----> fixing the mistake and/or asking for forgiveness = something that makes us feel good

And feeling good is the name of the game!

Sha :)

GIve Yourself Permission To Make Mistakes

I make mistakes, a lot. Do you make mistakes? The answer is yes. We all make mistakes, that's how we learn. I choose to think of mistakes as opportunities to grow. Think about it, when you are piecing a quilt and make a mistake the chance of making that mistake again is pretty slim. The same goes for recipes; if you put too much salt in a dish or cook it for too long you learn from that. I remind myself of those mistakes by making a note on the pattern or recipe page. You might be thinking that doesn't apply to everything but it most likely does, even for the big things. And the great thing about mistakes is that almost all the time they can be fixed or humbly apologized for, even if that apology is to ourselves.

Many of us beat ourselves up for any little mistake that we make. We will apologize to others for our mistakes, but not to ourselves. The experts say that we need to love and respect ourselves first before we can love and respect others. If we give ourselves permission to make mistakes, apologize to ourselves for them and learn from them then we will not spend as much time 'self loathing' ourselves, which will lead to more time being happy with ourselves.