We’re continuing the series on Dr. Steve Peters’ book, “A Path Through the Jungle.” This one focuses on Stress Prevention and Management. We talk about how to hold your Chimp’s hand, give it perspective, and decrease your stress with 4 steps. She also reviews some suggestions, thoughts, and helpful autopilots to handle chronic stress.

“A Path through the Jungle” can be purchased on Amazon:  https://a.co/d/4hx7M7M

See more about Dr. Peters at https://chimpmanagement.com

Previous episodes in this series are at:

Depression and your Chimp Mind >>>> https://drlizhypnosis.com/hm318-depression-and-your-chimp-mind

Stop your Chimp’s Panic Attacks >>>>https://drlizhypnosis.com/hm316-stop-your-chimps-panic-attacks-with-dr-liz

Manage your Anxiety by Managing your Chimp >>>> https://drlizhypnosis.com/hm315-manage-your-anxiety-by-managing-your-chimp

Your Chimp vs your Human >>>>https://drlizhypnosis.com/hm313-from-inner-chaos-to-inner-peace

 

About Dr. Liz

Winner of numerous awards including Top 100 Moms in Business, Dr. Liz provides psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and hypnosis to people wanting a fast, easy way to transform all around the world. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and has special certification in Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy. Specialty areas include Anxiety, Insomnia, and Deeper Emotional Healing.

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Do you have Chronic Insomnia? Find out more about Dr. Liz’s Better Sleep Program at https://bit.ly/sleepbetterfeelbetter

Search episodes at the Podcast Page http://bit.ly/HM-podcast

Help yourself with Hypnosis Downloads by Dr. Liz! http://bit.ly/HypnosisMP3Downloads

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A problem shared is a problem halved. In person and online hypnosis and CBT for healing and transformation. Schedule your free consultation at https://www.drlizhypnosis.com.

Listened to in over 140 countries, Hypnotize Me is the podcast about hypnosis, transformation, and healing. Certified hypnotherapist and Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Dr. Liz Bonet, discusses hypnosis and interviews professionals doing transformational work

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Transcript

Hey everyone. Dr Liz, here, I promised you an episode about stress prevention or managing stress, let’s say, from A Path Through the Jungle by Professor Steve Peters. If this is the first episode you’ve heard on this book, I suggest you go back and listen to the other ones. They’re awesome. I love them. I love this book. I don’t make anything off of this. This is not an affiliate relationship here. I just think it’s a life-changing book and so I suggest everyone order it and read it yourself. But this is the stress episode that I promised you. So it’s been a couple of weeks. I’ve aired other interviews and here we go on this one.

The stress reaction has three stages the alerting stage, the resilience stage and the stress stage. So first thing our mind does is to actually alert us that something needs addressing. That’s the chimp coming in right. The chimp coming in and saying like, pay attention. It’s sending us a message we need to handle something and there’s actually chemical reactions that go off in our body for this as well. During the alerting stage. We’re going to talk about it some before we talk about the other two. We have a chance to intervene here even in the alerting stage. We’re going to talk about it some before we talk about the other two. We have a chance to intervene here. Even in the alerting stage, we’re recognizing something’s going on, we’re spotting the warning symptoms. We decide, instead of engaging with the symptoms, we’re going to move into the resilience stage, which is that need for action.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about here. The alerting stage is you feel upset, you’re uneasy, you’re on edge. Perhaps you have some anxiety going on, perhaps it’s more than that, perhaps it’s panic, you’re worrying, you have some fear maybe. Maybe there’s increased heart rate, or irritability or frustration or anger. Sometimes it comes out that way instead of the other ways the worrying. Maybe you’re snapping at people that normally you wouldn’t, or you’ve lost your patience. Those are all like okay, something’s going on here, there’s some stress going on and I need to recognize what’s happening, because if you don’t recognize it, then it’s going to get worse typically.

So sometimes people say I’m just going to ignore that. There’s a difference between ignoring something and I need to put it off for a while because I’ve got to handle other stuff. Particularly, parents will put our stuff off for a while if we’re trying to handle kids stuff, even if those kids are adults technically. Maybe they’re young adults, maybe they’re even older, but we’ll often sacrifice ourselves to handle the kid problems coming up, no matter how old they are. But that’s like, all right, I know I’ve got to do that eventually. I just can’t do it right now, versus I’m just going to ignore that, I’m not going to go get my heart checked out, I’m not going to the doctor, I’m not going to the psychologist, even though I’m under massive amounts of stress or something like that. I’m not going to actively try to relax and take things easy and do something to help myself. That would be ignoring, and when you ignore, you’re missing that window of opportunity to actually form a plan for your chimp and to ensure that you don’t actually enter that third stage of stress, which is chronic, chronic stress.

Okay, so let’s talk about the resilience stage, the second stage, before we talk about the third one. The resilience stage is where the mind moves into action and there’s actual hormones released. During all of this it says, okay, chimp, I hear you and I’m going to make a plan for you and I’m going to do things to help you settle down. And the chimp typically says woohoo, like thank you, thank you so much, and we’ve talked about how to form a plan in the previous episodes on depression, anxiety, panic attacks, the chimp versus human. That’s a basic one. But first we identify like where’s the alarm coming from, like what is actually wrong, and I’m going to throw in some DBT here.

Okay, this is not in the book here, but I think it’s always helpful to check the facts, which is a dialectical behavior therapy, dbt concept, like is this real? What’s going on? Is it line up with the facts? Is my reaction proportional to the facts? You’re getting some really big bad news. You’re going to have a stronger reaction than something minor here. The chimp really is sending a message for a reason and I need to listen to that. If you have a no on that one, like no, my reaction doesn’t fit the facts, then you’re going to start also looking at okay, what are the beliefs going on underneath here that are driving this reaction? So let me take a look at those, see if I can modify some of them to my benefit, for my benefit. So it’s a pause there.

We’re pausing here and saying, okay, let me figure out what’s the real cause of stress, what’s going on and what kind of plan do I need? Do I need a big plan? Do I need a small plan? What do I need to do? Small plan what do I need to do? And let me look at the beliefs underneath so that I don’t go into that third stage, which is chronic stress over time which creates all kinds of you know, not so great physical reactions in this. A lot of this came first from the medical community before the psychological community that you’re seeing Like, oh, people have got to handle the stress in their lives or else they end up with autoimmune or aches and pains, muscle soreness, heart problems, migraines, headaches, like all kinds of physical stuff happens if we let it get to the stress stage. So we’re talking about this intermediate stage, the resilient stage, where we make a plan so that we don’t get to that extreme one. Okay, so here we go.

This is the bulk of the podcast. Right here is how do we make a plan, how do we work with our beliefs? Because the real goal here is to return to a steady state of mind, to feel better, to feel grounded, to feel like, okay, we can handle our day, nothing big is going to overwhelm us, we don’t need to escape per se. Sometimes we’re in that first stage. We have a feeling of wanting to escape and se. Sometimes we’re in that first stage. We have a feeling of wanting to escape and hide.

Sometimes this is where addiction comes in. That’s honestly long-term ignoring right Like I’m going to drink or use drugs or whatever your substance of choice is. Numb out in front of the TV for days, not just you know a show. I think everybody binge watches a show at this point. But maybe you’re doing it to the point where it feels really bad to you. It’s not just oh, this is a great show, I want to keep watching. It’s like, oh, just mind numbing, and sometimes I’ll, occasionally I’ll do that and I’ll just drift in and out of sleep. Feels awful, okay, and finally I’ll realize it’s happening. I’m like, oh my god, I got to turn off the TV because it doesn’t feel good to me. So I will turn off the TV and I’ll get out my list of everything I can do besides watching TV.

I made a huge list at one point and basically you want a list of things that make you feel better, or some actions to take that make you feel calmer. So that’s part of your plan for the chimp when something hits you and you’re like, oh my God, this needs to be handled. It’s in that first stage, alerting, and now I’m moving into resiliency stage. I need a plan to help myself feel better. You can pull out that list things that help me feel better and also what do I need to do to handle this. So part of that plan is to first establish the facts and accept what can and can’t be done. It’s page 280. Can’t be done, it’s page 280. Establish the facts, except what can and can’t be done.

The human will look inside, inwardly, to see if your conscience is clear and that you’ve done the right thing according to your values. Now, this is really interesting. You don’t see this a lot in a lot of self-help books. Okay, I will say this is unique to a path through the jungle, but he says very clearly the human is going to look at the bigger picture, to bring things into perspective. So I accept the facts of something that happened. I gain strength would be working with your values. I see the bigger picture is I gain perspective and I check my conscience. I have done the right thing. Those are your values. So let’s look at an example of this so that it’s easier for us to understand.

All right, someone’s been unfairly criticized by a few people on social media. This happens. The comments were untrue and unkind and he feels upset, distressed by the situation and his chimp has gone into a bad place. He’s unsure what to do. He wants to fight back Very common reaction of social media right or run away Maybe I’ll just delete that post but feels like he can’t do either one. Okay, so one is to fight, one is to run. Feels like he can’t do either one. Okay, so one is to fight, one is to run, another one is to freeze. I just can’t move. I don’t know what to do.

This is the alerting stage and sometimes all those hormones go on. Maybe you have a body flush, maybe the heart rate raises, maybe it’s just a sense of uncomfortableness Okay, so at this point he gathers some facts. Some people can be unkind. I can’t change that. There’s always going to be trolls on the internet. Can’t change that. I have a choice about whether I want to listen to them and believe what they want to believe or not. Like, does that fit with what I believe? If my chimp won, won’t settle. So maybe the chimp keeps sending a message.

I can put out a statement of truth according to his own values. It’s not worth getting unkind or unreasonable people to change their minds because they won’t. This is in the book, this example in the book. So he’s saying, hey, unkind people don’t often change their minds, don’t go down that path. People who love me know the truth. It’s my choice where to put my focus and thoughts. Okay, so that’s all like. Gathering some facts here is responding going to work for to change people’s minds. He decides, no, it’s not going to work.

People who really know me know the truth. Yes, okay, and you see this all the time. Sometimes, when I’m watching TikTok which I love, you know I see the videos where they’re responding to unkind comments and I just sort of always skip them by because it’s like, look, if you follow someone over time, you start to get a better sense of who they are. I think if they’re, if you feel like they’re being authentic. You cannot ever really know the truth if you don’t know them in person. But you feel like, okay, they’re being authentic. I know this isn’t true about them. Someone just came in and tried to stir up some trouble. My perspective is like, why even respond to that? But I understand the instinct. I totally do understand the instinct.

I got like one bad Google review of someone I never even saw and it’s like, oh geez, full body flush, anxiety, anger, like I never even treated you. How could you give me a one-star review? They weren’t happy with how I responded when they called me and so I got it. Part of my truth was sometimes I have a bad day. I’m not perfect and it’s okay to not be perfect. I can tolerate bad day. I’m not perfect and it’s okay to not be perfect. I can tolerate making mistakes. Those are some of the statements I actually write down for myself. Right under that one is I have a lifetime of making good decisions. So it’s like I have a lot of evidence about really good decisions I’ve made and good days, and I’m sorry I had a bad day. It resulted in something I didn’t like and sometimes that will happen in life. That’s it, that one you’d sort of have to respond to because, google, if you want to go and leave me a great Google review, feel free. Although I think my profile is like suspended right now my business profiles If you’re listening to this, in the future you can Google me up and say I love Dr Bonet, I love her podcasts, because hopefully that suspension will be lifted at some point. I tried to change the address and whenever you do that on Google, chaos ensues. People Chaos. So anyway, okay, now back to the book.

George now adds perspective. So he says most people will forget pretty quickly what was said on social media. Most people don’t care. It’s true, a lot of people don’t care. A few weeks time, everything will have moved on. Look at my whole life. This is trivial, and everyone suffers unfair criticism at some point in their life. So he goes through all of those things to give himself perspective and to calm down the chimp. You’re basically talking to the chimp like whoa, hold on here, we don’t need to be hopping around so much. Thanks for the signal, but now we’re going to go into calming you down.

So, finally, george looks to his values. I know the truth. I live by my values. I have done the right thing. I’ll hold my head up, okay, so that’s an example of everything that’s gone pretty well. But what if he really hasn’t done the right thing? What if you look inward and you’re like, oh, I did something wrong and the comments made were true? This is example that I just gave you about myself. I did do something wrong and so I had to go to some of my own values and facts, make some perspective statements. So these are the ones from the book and you’ll hear them that I made similar ones and I think all of this happened before I read this book, but I had some helpful autopilots going on Facts I have done what I’ve done. I can’t change the past, but I can change the future. I can apologize and make amends. I can try to put things right. I can accept responsibility. I did apologize in my response. I’m sorry that it didn’t go well and I gave some facts.

I can’t always take everyone in my practice Perspective. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone does something that they wish they hadn’t done. Mistakes can be amended or compensated for. This isn’t my first mistake and it won’t be my last. If it isn’t too serious, then you get a sense of humor and laugh at yourself. Okay, so laughter humor very good for adding perspective. It also tells you that your thinking brain is online when you start to make jokes or throw out some humor. Okay, they know this. That, like prefrontal cortex, comes back online when someone moves into humor because it gives us such perspective on ourselves.

And then the values section says I can accept responsibility and be honest. I can say sorry, I can try to put things right. I can say sorry, I can try to put things right. I can forgive others. Then I need to forgive myself. So the values are going to be particular to you, although there are some like universal values that most of us agree on. Like most of us feel like it’s a good thing to try to be kind to each other. That’s a universal value.

Let’s say I was listening to some podcast about dating and they said that if someone’s unkind on a first date, it will almost always take the date for the potential partner, for the other person Like oh no, I don’t want to see them again. Sometimes they don’t even quite know why, but then when you ask them more they’ll say, oh, he was unkind. He was unkind to the waiter or waitress, or he said something unkind to me, or she did or she made fun of me in a way that was unkind, not like playful banter, let’s say Anyway, that’s one to think about. But we have all kinds of universal values and then you have your own personal values. Once we have this clear, then if we need to do an action to also help us return to a more steady peace of mind. Then we go ahead and do that, we move into action. Maybe the example dude George does post something else on that social media post, maybe he does delete it, maybe he decides to make a new one, whatever gives him peace of mind. Maybe he says I’m going to forget about this, I’m not going to worry about it, I’m going to go surfing and take my mind off of it. Who knows? You’ve got to come up with what works for you and for me. Like you can go to an actual list that you make. Maybe journaling will help you, maybe something more active like exercise or getting out of the house or something like that, maybe something more creative.

Dr Peters does address what happens if my plan doesn’t return me to peace of mind. So sometimes we have to refine it or come up with a second plan. He actually says it may fail because you don’t allow yourself some time for your chimp to get over the situation, time for your chimp to get over this situation. So sometimes we need a few weeks or a few days or a few hours to process and express ourselves before we can bring ourselves back to a more steady mind and steady energy. Sometimes when I’m seeing someone and they say, why do I have to run this through my mind for like hours and hours and hours? And it’s like, oh, perhaps you really just need to process it. That’s what you’re doing If you’re replaying a conversation that didn’t go well and you’re processing it and you’re seeing, do I need to make a plan here? Do I need to go back to this person and redo something or say something different, or do I just need to let this go Like what will be most helpful for me? And so sometimes you need time to do that, and people need a different amount of time depending on how they’re built and how they work and how they process, or depending on what has happened, whether it’s smaller, whether it’s larger.

But as long as there’s a plan in place that offers a way forward, there’s going to be energy there. Energy will diminish. When a plan fails and there seems to be no way forward, we call that helplessness. And if that goes too deep or too wide, if it becomes more of a, if it becomes more of the Nile than just a little mountain trickle, then that becomes depression, that feeling of hopelessness or helplessness. There’s no way forward here, there’s no way out, and that’s dangerous. That doesn’t feel good and it’s not a great place to be in the plan. Hopefully helps you not go there. That’s what the plan is for.

But if we don’t manage to form and execute an effective plan, then we do move into the stress stage and this is actually seen in the brain by resilience hormones being suppressed by the stress hormones. This is like a lot of concern and worries and feelings of being trapped. It can cause anxiety, panic attacks, disrupted sleep, binging or comfort eating or restriction in eating, which then causes dangerous weight loss, fatigue, tearfulness, loss of confidence, rumination. Rumination is when you’re worrying about the same thing over and over and over. I put out a newsletter about thought loops that just go over and over and over. I put out a newsletter about thought loops that just go over and over and over in our mind. If you’re not on my newsletter, go join it. You won’t get that one, but that one is on my website under a blog post so you could look it up. You could search thought loops on my website and see what I have to say about them. But I say like all right, you got to make some plans to change those thought loops, you got to recognize what’s going on. This is what he’s saying in this book. You got to recognize what’s going on and make a plan for some change to address it.

So the acute stage of stress has two progressions Move back to the resilient stage or move into a chronic stress state. So let’s look at the four steps he gives to return to the resilient stage. One recognize you’re under stress and work out exactly what the cause is. Sometimes the cause is something real, tangible in the world. Sometimes the cause is our thoughts, what we’re telling ourselves. So you’ve got to figure that out. Step two accept that there’s a problem to address and that it needs addressing. Like hey, yeah, something is going on here, I’ve got to address it. Sometimes we’re in the in-between stage, like, is something going on, I don’t know? Sort of like am I in pain? Is my left knee bothering me or no? That’s just a little, it’s okay, it’s just a little tweak, that’s all, it’s okay, it’s going to be fine. Sometimes it’s that in between, but eventually we say, oh, yeah, there’s a problem and it needs addressing here.

Three accept that there’s a way forward. It just needs some time to work this out. So again, you may need some time to figure out what that plan is. This is not always immediate. This is not always even a day or two. Sometimes this is months. Occasionally this is years for people that they’ve got to figure out their plan forward.

Four acknowledge that the way forward might include having to accept that something is not ideal or a compromise, or that something can’t be changed. So the way out of stress involves a lot of acceptance, working with reality and truth. In other words, moving from your chimp brain, because the chimp’s going nuts sending the message to your human brain, the human forms. The plan for the chimp look, you can learn relaxation techniques to help ease anxiety, but alone those aren’t going to help. If you’re, it’s not addressing the root cause of the stress and anxiety.

This is going way back, but when I was pregnant with my youngest daughter, one of my friends came from California who I’d known a long time, a very close friend, and she said you’ve got to accept that you need a plan. We’re going to make a plan forward for you out of this marriage. This marriage is so abusive. He was emotionally abusive and the very end he got physically abusive, which is when I was like this is done, okay, done. I was not working at the time. But she said we’re going to make you a two-year plan, like you’re not leaving at 37 weeks pregnant. Okay, I didn’t have a job, I wasn’t working, I had another child, I did not have the kind of mom where I could like move home, like I’m going home, I’m going to live with my parents and work things out Not going to happen for me. So she’s like we’re making you a two year plan. I said okay, she was functioning like my human at that point, because often when you’re in the middle of an abusive relationship, your human is often offline. This is a point that people don’t commonly understand. They’re just like why don’t they just leave? And your human’s not online? Your ability to make a plan is actually impaired often, so you need help doing that.

There was another relationship years and years after my divorce where one of my friends said you’ve got to call women in distress. This guy was sort of dangerous. Not sort of this guy was dangerous. I did not know what to do. She said you need to call women in distress, make an appointment. So I did not know what to do. She said you need to call women in distress, make an appointment. So I did and they gave me a plan Women in Distress. This is in the US. It’s an aid organization for women in domestically violent situations.

They were functioning as a human. They said, okay, this is what you got to do, step by step, step by step. They said how to get his stuff out of my house he wasn’t living there, but you know, he had some, a few things in my house from sleeping over and stuff. How to keep him calm, how to not upset him, how to just pretend that things are good for now, until I could make my move. They were my human. They made me the plan. Sometimes we need help with that. Sometimes that’s what a therapist does. They help you make the plan because you don’t know. Maybe you have watched all kinds of stuff on the internet or read or whatever and you still don’t know. Okay, talk to another human. Like, I really don’t suggest talking to AI. They make you some really bad plans right now. Hopefully that will change in the future, but, believe me, very bad plans have been circulating that AI made. So I say, if you can at all afford it, talk to a human. That may be a friend, that may be a good parent, that may be an organization that does free services, or maybe you pay for some services where someone helps you make a plan. Okay, so we’ve got those four steps.

Now what happens if you move into the chronic stress stage? Because, remember, you could move to the resilient or you can move into chronic stress stage. Move to the resilient or you can move into chronic stress stage? It can occur from two main causes. Is what Dr Peter says that we can’t see that we are stressed? Or that we’ve come to believe that how we feel and the symptoms we experience are normal? It is very common for people in chronic stress to think that what they’re doing is normal, how they’re reacting is normal, that there’s no way out of it too, like, oh, I’m always irritable, I know I’m a warrior. They start to think of these symptoms as traits instead of things that can be solved, and we already reviewed what happens when you’re in chronic stress all kinds of physical problems as well as mental. So how do you remove chronic stress? It’s a process. That’s what I’m going to say.

Some people, in some situations, you are in chronic stress period. Okay, for a while you may be making plans to how to tolerate that situation. I’m thinking about someone who’s chronically ill or a relative who’s chronically ill, someone declining in their health. You know, I don’t think anyone in war is listening to this right now. They’re concentrating on staying alive. That’s a different situation. I’m not pretending all this works for war, although there’s a very famous book, Viktor Frankl Man’s Search for Meaning, which he wrote because he was in a concentration camp in World War II. So even he was trying to work out how do I make meaning out of the worst situation you could ever find yourself in, pretty much Like how do I survive this psychologically? So his human was well online there. I’m not going to say that you can’t do this in extreme circumstances you can.

But also give yourself some grace. This is hard stuff and you may be in a very difficult situation where you have to work out some of the underlying beliefs going on, some helpful autopilot, some helpful thoughts for yourself instead of the negative coming up. What Dr Peters recommends is that you work out what you think the ideal situation will be and how you will be when the stress is gone. You can make a list of problems that have been created or resulted from this chronic stress and how you will solve them when perhaps the stress is gone, because it can cause sleep disruption, obsessive behaviors, habitual worrying. It causes all of this. You can ask yourself if someone else were in this situation and didn’t get stressed, what would they do? What feature do they possess that I don’t have? Can I work on developing that? You can search for long-standing gremlins or goblins that create stress. We’re goblins that create stress. So the point here is it’s difficult sometimes to realize and recognize what normal would feel like, what better would feel like, because our minds get into these habitual stress patterns. But we can do some things to help us along the way. So some helpful autopilots you can develop of.

It’s okay to want to be happy and feel more comfortable. That’s a good one. I believe in my resilience and ability to change and learn and grow. There may be some meaning in the situation that I’m in, a lesson that I’m learning. I can tolerate this right now. I can tolerate doubt and uncertainty. I can find small things to be grateful for or small moments of happiness and joy.

Loss also means change. Sometimes, when someone’s on chronic stress, it’s involving a loss that’s gone on. It’s okay to end a chapter and start a new one. I think that’s a lovely one. So many times we don’t think of our lives in chapters. We just think of one long, continuous life, which can feel overwhelming sometimes. It can feel stressful in itself, sometimes Like this is never going to end. I know with my daughter’s health problems that I’ve talked about here on the podcast. It feels like my God, we’re never going to figure out what’s wrong and how to help her. The thought has occurred to me. That’s not a helpful thought. I wrote one that said I continue to try to find ways to help her. That’s a more helpful thought.

We didn’t choose Jacksonville Florida because the Mayo Clinic is here. If you’re not in the US, that’s one of the most well-respected medical centers in the US and they have different locations. But one of the locations is in Jacksonville Florida and they have a specialty POTS program. And so a GI doctor back last year said I think she has a mild case of POTS, you might want to look at that. I said okay. So after we moved here I made an has a mild case of POTS, you might want to look at that. I said okay. So after we moved here I made an appointment for her for the POTS program. They have run all kinds of tests, tests I never even heard of. She has seen multiple specialists in different departments cardiology, gi, allergy and the program is mainly run by internal medicine. Internal medicine doctors are the ones that figure out the mysteries. If you don’t know this, they’re not like a primary. Primary sometimes figure out some mysteries, but the really hard to treat cases they send to internal medicine. So anyway, they finally have a diagnosis for her. I’m going to say it in case it helps somebody else whose kid or themselves is going through this.

It’s called central sensitization syndrome. I have never heard of this term before two weeks ago. Central sensitization syndrome this is when your central nervous system gets so sensitive and more and more sensitive to things food, textures, exercise, temperature it’s all out of whack. Basically, it gets more and more sensitive to where the person dealing with it feels like they have to limit their life more and more to try to feel comfortable, to try to manage what’s going on, all the different symptoms. There’s only a few centers around the US that even have treatment programs for this. We happen to be in a place that has one. So the helpful autopilot there for me is I kept looking for ways to help her. We have a path forward. So the helpful autopilot there was. I’ll continue to look for ways to help her feel better, not helplessness and hopelessness, not I can never do anything about this.

Another helpful autopilot is I play the long game. I play the long game in helping her. I play the long game in my practice, meaning I’m not looking for quick fixes when you’re moving out of chronic stress. You’re playing a long game because it affects so many different systems. It affects your sleep and as a sleep specialist, I can tell you it takes a little time to fix that. You know we’re not talking years, but we are talking three to six weeks, sometimes a couple of months, where you’re going to get it back online, realign it so that you can sleep again. Sometimes people can do that during a real stressful situation. Sometimes that situation needs to resolve before they can do that. But that’s playing the long game. These are a list of my problems. I’m going to make a plan for them. I’m going to make sure that eventually I feel better. I’m not giving up. That’s another one. It’s okay to rest. That’s a good helpful autopilot.

If you’re under chronic stress, it’s okay to take care of myself. Sometimes people feel like, if they’re taking care of somebody else who’s really sick, that it’s not okay to take care of myself. Sometimes people feel like if they’re taking care of somebody else who’s really sick, that it’s not okay to feel good themselves. Like how could they feel good if their parent or their loved one is suffering? And it’s like wait a minute, it’s okay for you to feel good, to take good care of yourself so that you can continue to care for them. If you get so burned out, you’re not going to be a good caretaker. You’re just going to be resentful and angry and irritable and hate not them, but the situation you’re in. That doesn’t feel good for anyone. Take good care of yourself as much as you can, but you have to have the belief underneath that it’s okay. It’s okay to take good care of myself. They would have wanted this for me. If that’s the case maybe it’s not the case, but then you have to develop your own belief. Let’s say, even if my parent didn’t want me to feel good in life, I know that it’s important that I do so. Let me find ways that I can live life differently, with a more happy mindset or more calm mindset or whatever that is.

Lots of different ways to get to helpful autopilots and again, they’re not always easy, but I do encourage you to try to find some. And Dr Peters gets lots in his book and I think I’m going to publish a sort of a meditation episode. I don’t know what to call it. You guys, I really don’t Of where, I’m just saying them with like music in the background. Potential helpful autopilots I don’t know, I love them.

These are a little bit different than affirmations. Let me say this here at the end and we’ll wrap up. I know this is a long episode. I don’t usually run them this long. These are different than affirmations. Affirmations you don’t really believe You’re trying to get there, but you don’t believe them. Helpful autopilots is really looking into your own values and saying, okay, what do I believe and how is it going to help me here and how can I practice this one so that it pops up more often for me? It’s based in reality, it’s realistic and positive. It’s not pie in the sky. All right, let’s end here. I hope you are healthy and safe and I hope this information has been helpful for you. Peace.

Transcribed by https://podium.page