I used to think of life purpose as some great big grand scheme for life, something we spend our whole life chasing after. Daunting for sure. At times overwhelming.
Then one day I realized that life purpose was a series of small, fleeting events, rather than one great big span of life. Bite size in fact.
It’s the one thing we love doing, time and time again. Over and over. Day by day. It’s the one thing we love sharing. Moment to moment. Breath by breath.
Opening the door for someone at the grocery store.
Listening intently to my husband at the end of a long day.
Mission for this Moment
My hope for today is to make you feel like the centre of my universe. One smile at a time. One conversation at time. If only for a moment. Sometimes for a lifetime.
Sometimes we need a quick, fun, and easy way to elevate our mood. Suggestion: Angel Cards A simple, soulful practice that takes a (bite sized) moment. Now my friends ask me to bring angel cards to all our coffee talks. Even if we’re sitting 8 feet apart! These light-hearted cards guarantee a shift UP in conversation. From the mundane to the magical.
“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.“
With time, I have come to realize that failure has always been my greatest teacher. Each failure pointed me in a better direction and helped me to develop strength and authenticity, ultimately unveiling who I was and what I was destined to become
F. A. I. L. = First Attempt In Learning
• The failing grade I received on my first exam in graduate school taught me how to ask for support when I needed it most, no matter how shameful I felt or embarrassed I was.
• The end of a long-term relationship taught me how to value my time alone and make tough decisions for myself, no matter how weak I felt or lonesome I was.
• The layoff from a job I loved taught me how to let go, look forward, and trust in something so much bigger than myself, no matter how scared I was or irrelevant I felt.
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
Is it possible to see failure in a positive light?
Under the right conditions, failure strengthens us, adds to our self-knowledge, and enhances the quality of our lives
• If it weren’t for failure, I would not have met my husband John.
• If it weren’t for failure, I would not be a psychology professor.
• If it weren’t for failure, I would not have written three textbooks.
• If it weren’t for failure, I would not be the person I am today.
Awareness is the first step to enhancing vitality.
The goal is to identify the source of energy leaks and peaks.
Where to start?
My recent interview on FM 105.9 The Region was designed to help people become more conscious of what depletes their energy and what lifts them up.
Rather than focusing on time, which is finite, I suggested to radio host Candace Sampson that we turn our attention to energy management, which in turn expands the amount of time we have.
Because when we feel energized, we can do twice as much in half the time.
Tip #1: Debits and Credits (Energy Audit) Daily Tracking System of Who and What Depletes You
Tip#2: Put a Time Limit on Negativity (Stove Timer) Conscious awareness of how much time with friends and family is spent on complaining (draining) versus solutions (energizing).
Tip #3: Energy is Everywhere (Combat Boots Anchoring Exercise) Energetic grounding rituals before interacting online.
*All 3 tips described in detail in both a) the August 20 energy video above and b) the extended September 1 podcast interview below.
Reflection Questions:
How do you manage your energy throughout the day?
Is energy something you consciously pay attention to?
What is your energy level on a scale of 1-10 right now?
The goal is to discover if angry thoughts, actions, or emotions are serving a purpose.
Is anger helping or hurting?
Why Anger?
Perhaps anger allows someone to speak up, say no, set a boundary, or bond with friends.
And if this is the case, the goal of psychology coaching is to help clients replace confrontations (for example) with more effective communication patterns.
PSYCHOLOGY HOMEWORK
Anger → Awareness
First: Set aside time to journal thoughts and emotions about “hot topics”. This allows for a cooling off period and a chance for self reflection and integration.
Second: Plan a mutually beneficial time to discuss anger triggers and solutions with friends and family.
This 2-step communication technique results in safe, open, and engaging conversations that move both relationships and actions forward. Win Win!
Reflection Questions
What Purpose Does Anger Serve in Your Life? Gains versus Losses?
Does It Strengthen or Deplete You?
Does Anger Move You Further Away from Your Dreams or Closer to Your Dreams?
What In Your Life Needs To Change?
Do You Need More Effective Ways of Coping with Frustration and/or Loss?
Once you understand the underlying purpose anger serves in your life, you’re ready for the next stage in the change process:
Is it possible to feel joy in the face of adversity?
Strength during the lowest of lows?
Creativity in the midst of destruction?
Peace in difficulty?
Vibrancy during cancer?
Happiness during COVID-19?
In the video below, I share some personal examples from my own upbringing on how my parents found strength and contentment during even the darkest of times.
Your Thoughts:
Can trauma and happiness coexist?
I’d love to hear your ideas, theories, and personal stories.
One that I’m asked often. And one that I often ask myself.
PSYCHOLOGY INSIGHTS
What causes this behaviour?
The answer is multifaceted and includes several factors including how we were parented (when internalized superego and conscience first develops) andeventually how we parent ourselves.
For example:
When something goes wrong, how do you respond?
1. Self Criticism versus Self Compassion
2. Self Control versus Self Love and Understanding
PSYCHOLOGY SOLUTIONS
How do I make the shift from self criticism to self compassion?
1. Pay attention to where your self judgements originated.
Is this your personal measure of worthiness or society’s expectation of success?
2. Investigate how truly arbitrary the standards you set for yourself are.
For example, who said you had to weigh 125 lbs, have a million dollars in the bank, and be married by 30?
3. Don’t Believe Everything You Think!
Watch this short video for additional insights into the developmental origins of toxic self criticism, unrealistic standards, and the SUPERego.
“Be kinder to yourself. And let your kindness flood the world.”
How are you coping with our universal global event?
How has your perception of yourself and the world evolved?
How has COVID-19 transformed you?
What is the higher purpose in all of this?
I Am Waking Up
After socially distancing and working full-time from home as a psychology professor (now online), I had never felt more appreciative and grateful for all the simple joys in my life.
In this video created for Windsor Updates I share how our family is thriving instead of merely surviving the COVID-19 crisis.
Including counting our blessings like never before.
Community Resilience
In the next video I share pandemic resilience techniques with our local Windsor Essex community.
An interactive virtual experience hosted by F45 fitness studio owner Samantha Piercell:
Every time we take a long deep breath, we are telling our bodies that we are safe.
Each breath connecting
our mind, body, and heart.
Bringing us back to present time.
Breathing Techniques To Try
Follow Your Breath Become aware of each inhalation and exhalation. Focus on the sensations you feel as air passes through your nose and throat. When you feel your thoughts drift, gently redirect your attention back to your breath.
Stand Up Straight Posture is especially important for breathing. Being upright enhances the rhythmic movement between the diaphragm and ribs. Hold yourself straight. Shoulders back. Feel the power of your breath.
Think Reassuring Thoughts While Breathing With each breath, think soothing thoughts (“I am inhaling calm”). With each exhalation, imagine that you are expelling your fears and worries (“I am exhaling worry”).
Abdominal Breathing Breathe through your stomach. Start by inflating your belly by inhaling, as if to fill it with air, then swell your chest; as you exhale, first “empty” your stomach, then your chest.
Balanced Breathing At the end of each inhalation, pause briefly while slowly counting “1, 2, 3”. Hold the air in. Then slowly exhale counting “1, 2, 3”.
Like all eyes are on you and every potential error you make?
Everyone experiences this phenomenon from time to time, especially when trying out something for the first time.
Think back to the first time you gave a dinner party, swung a golf club, wrote a college exam, or posted your first blog online.
Social Anxiety and Heightened Experiences
Individuals with social anxiety experience this sense of being watched (and thought about) significantly more than the average person.
Independent of skills and expertise.
Why is this the case?
The Imaginary Audience
One potential explanation is a psychological phenomenon called imaginary audience experienced frequently in adolescence.
A concept first introduced by social psychologists David Elkind and Erik Erikson in the 1960’s.
Think back to how easily embarrassed you were as a teenager.
If you wore the “wrong shirt” to school, it felt like everyone was gossiping about you and your entire social life would end as a result.
Resulting in perpetual self-consciousness, distorted views of how others saw you, causing in a tendency to conform for fear of sticking out.
Limiting your freedom to express outside the norm for fear of collective banishment and reprisal.
What does the research say?
Using the Imaginary Audience Scale as a Measure of Social Anxiety in Young Adults
Two studies explored imaginary audience phenomenon among college students.
Imaginary audience behavior was found to be related to measures of social anxiety, self perception, and personality.
Furthermore, imaginary audience scores were more strongly related to anxiety than abstract reasoning.
These results suggest that imaginary audience experiences that persist into early adulthood have more to do with social anxiety than with cognitive development.
The next time you imagine you are being watched, talked about, or judged by others, remember that imaginary audience IS AN ILLUSION heightened by social media, physiology (eg., lack of sleep), and overthinking.
When in truth, people are so focused on themselves (and their phones), that there is a 99% chance that no one cares what you are up to or how you are performing.
This is a very good thing!
CARPE DIEM
Today’s Freedom Mantra
Live like nobody’s watching. Love like nobody’s watching. Succeed like nobody’s watching. Fail like nobody’s watching. Write like nobody’s watching!
Signs pointing us in the direction of our dreams are everywhere.
Everywhere!
But we have to look UP to see it.
OPEN our minds to BELIEVE it.
Daily Visualization Exercise
The next time you see a 40 km, 50 km, or even 100 km sign — take it as an opportunity to visualize where (and who) you want to be at that age.
Additionally, use each “sign” as instant reflection time for contemplating: 1) what you need to do more of and 2) what you need to let go of to get there.
My TEDx Talk includes all 3 C’s of Thriving Under Pressure: challenge, control, commitment.
Inspiration for TEDx Talk + Psychology Blog
I created my psychology blog and TEDx Talk (both called “Thriving Under Pressure”) in response to rising levels of student stress and anxiety.
The goal is to help students (and you) develop positive coping techniques in fun, interactive, and uplifting ways.
By first focusing on what is right, before examining what is wrong, people are motivated to move beyond, and in some cases, be transformed by their challenges and adversities.
This activity helped them focus on the areas of their life, including mental health habits and stress management practices, that is within versus outside their sphere of control.
1. Student leaders first identified their triggers. Including emotional, cognitive, situational, and physical stressors. CATCH
2. Then they practiced taking a time-out (long deep breath) during high pressure moments. PAUSE
3. Finally, they shared both self-care (fitness, sleep, nutrition) and professional resources (counselling) that help them replenish unmet psychological and physical needs (as outlined on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs). REPAIR
When we feel a painful emotion, our first instinct is to pull away. To numb the pain. To hide from the intensity.
This was the case for Sarah and Jack, two unique individuals with vastly different circumstances. But they each experienced the same emotion: loneliness. An emotion that is heightened during the holidays.
Sarah was a 42-year-old recently divorced woman who was about to face her first holiday season alone. Living in a new town, miles away from friends and family, she was waiting to begin a new job in January. Hours felt like days.
Days felt like months. Sarah had tried everything to fill the void inside. The mistake she made was running away from the one thing that would help get her to the other side: loneliness itself.
Knowledge is power
1. Understand the emotion
We need to first understand an emotion before we jump to the conclusion that it’s either good or bad, because in reality, emotions are almost entirely physiological in nature.
There’s not a negative or positive to them. It’s in our mind that we make it one or the other. This concept is supported by Schachter-Singer’s theory of emotion:
This theory of emotion explains why two people can experience the exact same event and have completely different emotional reactions to it.
What matters most is the person’s interpretation of an event, not the event itself. After all, as they say, one person’s glass-half-full is another one’s glass-half-empty.
In Sarah’s situation, she interpreted her physiological response to idle time as loneliness, while another person might label it as much-needed relaxation. Ultimately, Sarah has a choice. One interpretation debilitates; the other empowers.
2. Witness the emotion
Now that Sarah understands the interpretative power she holds over her environmental triggers, the next step is to witness loneliness in a neutral, curious state rather than fighting it at every turn.
In doing so, Sarah neutralizes the intensity of her emotions, allowing them to flow through her, rather than getting stuck in a repetitive loop of pain.
Here are four simple ways to create space between triggers and responses:
Taken one step further, each time that Sarah experiences a challenging emotion during the holidays, rather than running from it she needs to lean in and ask that emotion, “What are you trying to teach me?”
3. Reframe the emotion
The final step for Sarah is to learn how to reframe the situations that trigger her loneliness, and understand why sometimes she overreacts, while other times she lets go without a second thought.
Solitude is perceived as isolation by one person and freedom by another.
Reframing exercise:
Identify a situation that triggers loneliness.
Imagine the best-case scenario: “This situation is temporary.”
Look for evidence of the best-case scenario: “The longest I’ve been single is two years.”
Describe the worst-case scenario: “I will be alone forever.”
Name the benefits of the worst-case scenario: “I am free to do what I want.”
Finally, ask for help in reframing triggers, especially when feeling overwhelmed.
Once Sarah learns how to change the story “behind” the story, her instinctive loneliness lessens. And her ability to choose a higher thought improves.
At 55 years of age, Jack was also feeling the pangs of loneliness. His wife of 25 years died suddenly of a heart attack two years ago.
Unexpected was an understatement. They had run in three marathons together and had spent their weekends sampling new vegan restaurants in their local community. Ever since his wife had died, Jack struggled to face the holidays alone.
Jack’s story is as much about him as it is about the family around him. His family and friends’ automatic response was to feel sorry for him, a response that compounded his feelings of disconnectedness and misunderstanding.
Jack did not want people to feel sorry for him. He was a proud man who was ready to move on.
Get out of your own head
1. Meet with “experienced” widowers
As much as Jack missed his wife, he also missed his ability to connect authentically with friends and family. Having been treated with kid gloves since his wife died, Jack longed to be seen as a victor rather than a victim
As such, I encourage Jack to connect with like-minded individuals who had been through a similar situation: widows and widowers. Specifically, ones who had been on their own for several years.
The benefits are twofold. One, Jack would learn new ways of relating to friends and family. And two, he’d be given the green light to grow and acclimate to his new circumstances.
2. Connect with others in unexpected, low-pressure ways
The other component missing in Jack’s life was fun. Simple, cheerful, good-time fun. Everything had become so serious since his wife died, with almost every conversation beginning or ending with his wife’s death.
There was no doubt that he missed her with all his heart. But equally, he longed for moments where he could be free of the loneliness and pain.
I recommend that Jack reintroduce sports into his life. Something non-competitive that would get him out of the house on a Wednesday night. Better yet, if it involved people that he had never met, it would allow him to continue his journey of reinvention and rediscovery.
Equally therapeutic for Jack would be joining a cinema group or regular euchre meetup—both would offer him a chance to be in the moment and enjoy the simple pleasures in life.
3. Honour the old, create the new
Finally, I advise Jack to examine the memories and traditions that he wanted to keep alive during the holidays—and, equally, the ones of which he was ready to let go.
Jack took the practice one step further. Declaring December a month of renewal and reinvention, he revived a strength and peace inside that radiated out to his entire family.
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
Conclusion
Jack and Sarah have a lot to teach us about loneliness and how important it is to honour the unique ways in which we process adversity.
One size does not fit all. Fellowship and fun were vital for Jack’s growth and recovery, while Sarah needed a more analytical approach to processing difficulty.
Lean into loneliness
Approach it with openness and curiosity
Make space for the lessons beneath the suffering
Video of Post
Your Turn
How do you cope with difficult emotions during the holidays?
What strategies do you use to make peace with the heightened pressures of the Christmas season?
What are your unique traditions and one-of-a-kind celebrations?
Disclaimer: This post and article are for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. To protect the privacy of individuals, names and identifying details have been changed.
Catch yourself before a stress response escalates by becoming more aware of what triggers you.
2. Pause
Pause and take a 60 second time out when you feel the physical sensations of stress begin to escalate.
3. Repair
Repair the root source of the heightened stress response which is often physiological in nature.
Supporting Student Health
Requested by
The CPR Presentation was developed for the St. Clair College Student Sustainability Group as part of their initiative for supporting the health and wellbeing of college staff, faculty, and students.
New Opportunity
This was the first time I’ve been approached to make a video for a third party. And it was so much fun!
You will hear the remarkable stories of teachers, social workers, and principals who suffered greatly through illness, injuries, and difficult pregnancies.
Eventually rising up (with time and support) to greater heights in their current lives.
Hear Their Stories in Video Below:
What is Post Traumatic Growth?
Post traumatic growth (PTG) can be defined as positive personal changes that result from the survivor’s struggle to deal with trauma and its psychological consequences.
The process of post traumatic growth can lead to 1. improved relationships, 2. more compassion, 3. openness, 4. appreciation for life, 5. spiritual growth, 6. personal strength, and 7. a renewed sense of possibilities in the world.
That said, it’s easy to get lost in a spiral of negativity — What’s wrong? Who’s to blame? Why did this happen to me? Leaving little time in the day for appreciation, wonder, and fun.
Go to bed visualizing three new things you’re grateful for that day.
Joy needs room to breathe.
And so do you.
Engagement
Remember when you were a kid playing with friends, and before you knew it the street lights came on? If it wasn’t for your mom yelling your name, you would be outside playing all night long. In that moment, you were in a state of flow.
You were completely engaged in what you were doing, independent of everything around you.
Your mom could have called your name for hours, and you wouldn’t have heard a word.
One hundred percent of your attentional capacity was taken up by the activity right in front of you.
Most likely you still experience a state of flow and engagement, but not as often as you like.
Engagement and flow are important for mental health. When you’re completely absorbed by a task, your mind has no capacity left over for distressing thoughts and emotions.
Relationships
Social support is an important buffer for life’s challenges.
That said, not all associations are created equal. Some relationships, unfortunately, lead to a deterioration in mental health.
Consider the following when you spend time with people:
Do you feel uplifted or drained?
Do you feel listened to or ignored?
Do you feel encouraged or criticized?
Stay close to people who feel like sunshine.
Meaning
Meaning comes from serving something bigger than ourselves.
Whether it be family, charity, occupation, or community, meaning unites us in a common vision and gives us the will to get through adversity.
Students Are My North Star
That said, meaning can appear elusive to some, so why not consider one purpose each day.
Begin with a typical workday. Choose one purpose, and do something to give meaning to that purpose.
I’ve listed a few options, as well as an example for each:
Pick one person — thank a custodian for their hard work.
Pick one place — post uplifting notes and quotes on a section of the wall.
Pick one time — declare 3 pm gratitude hour.
Achievement
Achievement is the final component of the PERMA model, and, in many ways, its foundation. Goals give us a sense of achievement and satisfaction, helping us to know if we are headed in the right direction.
The key is to balance our drive and determination with the right level of difficulty. If we set a goal that’s too easy, we get bored. If it’s too hard, we experience learned helplessness.
The solution?
Set daily goals that are achievable and tied into your highest dreams.
In Conclusion
Cultivating mental health daily prepares us for the big things in our life. Every little bit counts, everything adds up. Small things on repeat change the world.
