How you perceive stress.
Changes everything.
Challenge or opportunity?
Ending or new beginning?
Stumbling block or stepping stone?
Coal or diamonds?
If you can’t change the stress.
Change the way you think about it.
Week 2 at College: Short Video
Category: Resilience
Optimism Bootcamp for Health & Happiness.
Hope Lights The Way
Nathalie Begin author of the Gutsy Feeling Blog invited me to give a positive psychology workshop called Optimism Bootcamp at a Symposium for Crohn’s & Colitis Canada.
The audience was filled a very special group of people. Individuals that have been battling the chronic condition of Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) their whole lives.
Click Here to join the workshop
What’s IBD?
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) describes a group of conditions, the two main forms of which are Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. IBD also includes indeterminate colitis.
Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are diseases that inflame the lining of the GI (gastrointestinal) tract and disrupt your body’s ability to digest food, absorb nutrition, and eliminate waste in a healthy manner.
Health Warriors
Individuals with chronic health problems such as IBD often feel a sense of helplessness and disempowerment over their bodies.
Which is why teaching concrete strategies for focusing on what’s within one’s control (beliefs and attitudes; deep breathing; present moment awareness) and letting go of what’s not (waiting times; IBD diagnosis; doctor availability) is so important.
Believing you can is half the battle.
Optimism Research
Research in health psychology shows that optimism and having hope in one’s future has a significant impact on whether patients follow through on medical advice.
Optimism has also been found to improve the overall quality of life, well-being, and happiness of cancer patients.
Click Here for Research on Health, Hope, and Optimism
“Hope changes everything. It transforms pessimism into optimism. It changes winter into summer, darkness into dawn, descent into ascent, barrenness into creativity, agony into joy.” Daisaku Ikeda
Optimism Can Be Learned
The good news is that optimism is a skill that can be learned!
- Optimism / pessimism are not fixed personality traits that someone is lucky (or unlucky) enough to be born with.
- Optimism / pessimism are states (not traits) that are malleable and open to change.
- Optimism / pessimism are attributional styles that can be taught and reinforced over time.
Additional insight on how our minds work
Excerpt from Optimism Article:
Using Attribution Theory, I can tell a lot about someone by the way they interpret the events that happen in their lives, particularly the explanatory style they use in analyzing setbacks versus successes.
The pessimist perceives failures as personal, permanent, and pervasive, and thus has difficulty moving beyond setbacks. They often get lost in a recurrent loop of negativity.
In contrast, optimists see setbacks as universal. to everyone, temporary in time, and limited to one or two areas of their lives.
Click Here to Watch Optimism Video Workshop
Hope you enjoy the workshop and have fun doing the interactive exercises!
Dr. D 💖☀️
ABC Technique: Transforming Painful Experiences
Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing: your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
In this blog post and classroom video, I share strategies for transforming painful experiences. Especially those beyond your control.
Strategies include: Cognitive reframing (identifying and then disputing irrational or maladaptive thoughts) and the ABC technique (Antecedent, Belief, Consequence).
I also discuss my latest article in The Drive Magazine (link to article below) where I help a good friend transform the painful story in his life (house flood) into a more meaningful and empowering experience.
Read Here: https://www.thedrivemagazine.com/posts/the-stories-we-tell-ourselves
Tips for Transforming the Painful Story in Your Life
1. Talk to others who have overcome similar circumstances. Be open to their lessons.
2. Ask five people to identify five strengths. Refer to them during the low points in your day.
3. Reflect on times in your life when you have successfully overcome adversity.
4. Be proud of what you’ve been through and have faith in where you’re going.
Excerpt From The Stories We Tell Ourselves, The Drive Magazine
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
To Watch Video Click Here
Cultivating Mental Health Daily.
In Celebration of Mental Health Awareness Month in Canada
In this video, I share an overview of my latest psychology article in The Drive Magazine (May, Issue 121). An issue devoted entirely to mental health awareness, treatment, and prevention. With the ultimate goal of ending the stigma of mental illness.
Instead of thinking of mental health as a burden to be shouldered, imagine it as an opportunity to experience peace and joy. In the same way that we make time for our physical needs (eating and sleeping) we must devote attention to our psychological needs.
Excerpt from The Drive Magazine, Issue 121, pages 58-60.
Building a mental health reserve
In the article I discuss the importance of daily self-care as a preventative and restorative health strategy.
In the same way that save money to buy our dream home, it is critical that we contribute daily to our mental health bank account. Health is wealth after all!
Everything little bit counts. Everything adds up. Spa coffee dates especially. ☕️💗
Read Magazine Article ⇒ Click Here
How brightly you shine.
Stress Amnesia
The first thing that goes when we are faced with a stressor of any kind is the memory of all we have overcome in years gone by.
Wake Up Call
Let this be your daily, weekly, hourly signpost of how wildly capable you are.
Truly. Incredibly. Capable.
And if you ever need more than this note, let me know.
I will remind you how brightly you shine.✨
Fun Video: Mirror Affirmations.
Lemon Soul Podcast: Thriving Under Pressure.
The Psychology of Wellness
I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed on the Lemon Soul Podcast by an engaging and bright young woman named Sierra Parr.
It was one of the most rewarding projects I have worked on and I hope you find the same value in listening to the podcast as I had co-creating it with Ms. Parr.
What is a Lemon Soul? 🍋
A lemon soul is someone who has been sweetened by the sour parts of life. Resulting in the most beautiful soul of all – “The Lemon Soul”.
The Lemon Soul Experience 🍋
Sierra’s podcast questions are timely, thought-provoking, and well-organized.
With equal parts practicality, spirituality, and science. Wrapped up in a captivating and compassionate interview style.
So much so, that I revealed parts of my life that I have never shared publicly before.
Take a listen and let me know what resonates with you!
Lemon Soul Podcast: Episode 15
Tap on Image Below and Press Play
Thriving Under Pressure: Psychology of Mental Wellness
1. Listen on SoundCloud: https://m.soundcloud.com/lemonsoulpodcast/015-dr-andrea-dinardo-thriving-under-pressure
2. Listen on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/lemon-soul/id1386504193?mt=2&i=1000432857445
SHOW NOTES FROM LEMON SOUL PODCAST 🍋
Very honoured to sit down with Dr. Andrea Dinardo this week and divulge all my lemon soul questions with her. A true testament to her work as a psychologist and now psychology professor, this episode is FULL of good advice! With a deeper insight into many of our mental health struggles and the science behind how our brain is working. Furthermore diving into Dr. Dinardo’s personal life as she uncovers her fundamental inspiration for everything she does in life, her sister.
Topics covered on the podcast:
From psychologist to psychology professor!
How to motivate students!
Why connection is important.
Compassion fatigue
The givers & the takers
Setting boundaries for others and ourselves.
Thriving Under Pressure!
Failure as Feedback!
Are we socialized to care?
How to train your brain
Challenge, Control, & Commitment
Honour your pain!
B r e a t h i n g s p a c e !
The universe box
Claiming your prize
GET MOVING!
I hope this podcast interview inspires you to take the road less traveled this week.
The one you have been waiting to take for days, months, perhaps years.
If not now, when?
Listen Here: Lemon Soul Podcast
International Women’s Day: Who Inspires You?
#internationalwomensday #rolemodel
Growing up my Mom, my mentor, and the first psychologist in our family, didn’t talk a lot about women’s empowerment.
— She just lived it.
Gracefully. Quietly. Courageously.
Today, and all days, I am grateful for a role model who began her journey from challenge to strength with incredible will and a heart of power.
A first time mother at 17 years old, the jumping off point for all that would unfold.
“How did you do it?” I ask frequently to this day.
A single mom in her twenties.
One of few women working on our street.
Criticized openly for leaving her kids during the week and going back to graduate school in her 40s.
I lean in often for her wisdom, inquiring:
“How did you rise above all the naysayers and critics?”
Her response:
When you really, really want something Andrea, you become singularly focused, no time, no energy, for anything else (4 kids keep you busy).
“Sure it hurt, she says.”
”But my mission was always greater than my misery. And this is when I knew what I was truly meant to do.”
Everything else became white noise.
A teacher, a leader, and a mother who teaches me how to live with equal parts grace, fortitude, and tenderness.
Someone who shows me how to pay my good fortune forward.
Every chance WE get. 💃❤️💃
Who inspires you today?
Failure as FEEDBACK | The Drive Magazine.
There are two ways of looking at failure.
Failure as FEEDBACK.
Failure as PUNISHMENT.
⊕⊕⊕⊕⊕
One energizes.
The other paralyzes.
WHY FAILURE IS NECESSARY
I believe that failure is essential for success, at work and in our personal lives.
Failure lights our way to what we’re ultimately meant to do. Especially when we embrace it and consciously invite it into our lives. Pushing us past our comfort zones. Having the courage to take risks beyond our current circumstances.
Failure shows us what we’re good at, and equally what we are not skilled at. And how if we perceive failure as information (versus punishment) we will move on much more quickly to what we were born to do.
THE DRIVE MAGAZINE
I believe so strongly in the benefits of failure that I “pitched” failure as feedback to the editors of The Drive Magazine. And they said yes!
So here it is: A video overview of the February issue and links to the online edition of the magazine.
🔝 Psychology YouTube Channel 🔝
MAGAZINE edition
For the rest of the story, pick up a copy of The DRIVE Magazine.ONLINE edition
My psychology article “Failure as FEEDBACK” is also available online: https://www.thedrivemagazine.com/posts/failure-as-feedback
One Minute Meditation | Stress to Growth Reframing
“To make the growth choice instead of the fear choice a dozen times a day is to move a dozen times a day towards self-actualization.”
Re-imagine stressful moments as growth moments.
Opportunities moving you one step, one breath, one moment closer to your dreams.
One thought debilitates.
The other levitates. 🍃
I hope you enjoy my one minute meditation retreat.
Visit my YouTube Channel for more psychology videos.
TEDx Talk: Thriving Under Pressure.
May you thrive all 2019 long! ♥
Overview
In my TEDx Talk I discuss how to THRIVE under pressure using 3 stress resilience tools: challenge, control and commitment.
The purpose of this talk and my blog is to help students develop positive coping techniques in fun, interactive, and uplifting ways.
By first focusing on what is right, before examining what is wrong, students can be transformed by their challenges and adversities.
If you like, please share my TEDx video with friends and family and on social media. The wider its reach, the more people I can help thrive under pressure!
