Posts by Chris Shea
Social Connectedness And Addiction: The Unparalleled Key To Success
Social connectedness is what I feel is the key to a life of recovery from addiction. Social connectedness is that which holds us, as a society, together in support of each other. We function as a group of individuals in our ability to sense and believe in social connectedness. But what happens when I lose that sense of connectedness? What happens when society chooses not to allow some people to regain their connectedness?
Social connectedness is an issue I’ve seen during the past 20 years I’ve witnessed the disease of addiction manifest itself in many people, thousands probably.The textbooks and courses I studied were beneficial in theory. Those with whom I counseled taught me everything about what addiction means to them. They taught me why they’re addicted, what makes it so challenging to live a life of recovery, and why is it so difficult to stop doing what they’re doing.
Willpower Alone
As I begin this reflection on my understanding of addiction, let’s start with a pet peeve of mine. Through the years many people have questioned me “why don’t they just stop?” Let’s think through this question for a moment. Of the thousands of people that I’ve dealt with who suffer from this disease of addiction no one, I mean no one, ever said to me that their life goal was to be addicted. No one ever told me that they loved the life that they were leading while in active addiction.
Everyone at one point or another during treatment would reveal to me that they do want to stop and that they’ve tried multiple times to stop. But something was blocking them from stopping. If this were just willpower alone, don’t you think that at some point someone thought to themself, “maybe I should just stop.”
Disease of Addiction
Regardless of your personal view about addiction, it has been classified as a medical disease. In 1957 the American Medical Association classifies addiction as a disease “not unlike any other medical disease.” For some reason that classification didn’t take hold in our society or even the totality of the professionals. But again, just because a person believes that addiction is a willpower issue doesn’t make them correct. For me, I’m following the AMA, whose definition and classification has remained unchanged for over 60 years!
Not only has the definition stood the test of time, but the definition of 1957 has also been reaffirmed by modern science. There’s a high number of research within the last couple of decades explaining the chemical changes in the body and the chemical changes in the brain happening to those suffering from this disease. Since there are body changes and adaptations as a direct result of a person’s addiction, then the addiction is a medical, body disease not unlike any other medical body disease. Conditions causing bodily adaptations and neurologic changes are hardly a force of willpower.
Coming from the unfortunate view of willpower, complicated by the illegality of some actions, society tends to treat those with addiction as “less than.” Society stigmatizes the person, their actions, they’re attempts at recovery. We end up treating people suffering from a medical disease by penalizing them, throwing them into the judicial system, and kicking them out of treatment programs for failures and relapses.
But recall, we are doing this to people suffering from a disease not unlike any other medical disease! (AMA, 1957)
Heart Disease Analogy
Allow me a moment to use an analogy between the treatment of a person suffering from a medical disease, heart disease, and another person suffering from a medical disease, substance addiction.
When a person suffers a heart attack, they are rushed to the ER for immediate care, as they should be. Once stabilized, the doctor provides the patient with a treatment plan of life changes: take your medicine, change your diet, exercise, avoid stress. The patient is informed that if they choose not to follow these directions, they may have another heart attack (a relapse).
But unfortunately, it’s not easy to make a lifestyle change, and they start to falter a bit, eventually not doing what the doctor advised. Their choice to stop doing what they were told leads to another heart attack and another trip to the ER. The process is repeated time and time with no stigma placed on the person, and very little blame placed upon for the multiple relapses. As a society, we give them a pass since they have a disease, and making a lifestyle change isn’t easy.
Yet, a person who overdoses on narcotics is rushed to the hospital, treated, and recovers are told before discharge that to avoid another overdose, they need to make some lifestyle changes: stop using drugs, see a counselor, go to support meetings. They are advised that if they don’t, they risk another overdose. These instructions are not that different from the heart attack victim. And both patients are told that their choice to follow or not follow the directives of the doctor will affect their outcome.
Yet, if the person overdoses again, they will be stigmatized, lectured, and over time, banned from treatment facilities for “non-compliance.” Both patients were admitted to an ER, both were medically treated, both were given treatment plans for lifestyle change, and both informed that failure to make those life changes could result in a relapse. What’s the difference!?
Connectedness
A reason people tend to use drugs or alcohol in an addictive manner is that they don’t feel connected to society, family, or to others. Therefore, we as professionals and a society need to guide them back into a feeling of connectedness in a healthy way.
We need to reconnect them to society, with family, friends, and support groups. Yet what we as a society tend to do is continue the disconnection. We place them outside of society through stigmatization, incarceration, refusing them treatment, making it difficult to obtain employment while in active recovery. As such, that lack of connectedness is reinforced, and supportive recovery stunted.
Those who, in active addiction, are picked up by law enforcement on certain drug charges will now have a felony record. When released from jail and attempting to make a change in life, they find out quickly that most employers won’t hire a person with a felony charge. So much for the attempt at being a productive member of society. Once again, the person, now in recovery, is stigmatized and disconnected from society. Recall that both of these factors are contributors to relapse.
I don’t have all the answers, but what I know is that what we’re currently doing to help people with addiction is not working. Social connectedness is needed as the key to bringing about a healthy, productive recovery. This requires a societal change. Are we willing to make this change?
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The Greatest Threat To World Peace – What Is It?
The greatest threat to world peace, as I see it, is the fear caused by anxiety. My message is consistently about finding one’s inner peace. Yet, the greatest threat we have to achieve that inner peace is anxiety and fear. One’s anxiety quickly turns to fear, and fear can turn us against ourselves and against one another. Here are my 7 practical tips to reduce the greatest threat to world peace.
The greatest threat to world peace is more profound than what we hear about in the news. The media will tell us that war, terrorism, poverty, climate change; these are the greatest threat to world peace. While I won’t argue the point, what’s the common denominator affecting societies and cultures? Anxiety and fear.
According to the American Psychological Association anxiety is defined as an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure. And what tends to cause most of our anxiety? The unknown, a sense of feeling out of control.
When we don’t know what the future may bring, or we feel a lack of control in our life, our anxiety rises. As the tension increases, the feeling of loss of control leads to fear. What I don’t know, understand, or control can be fearful.
In these terms, think now of the greatest threat to world peace. The more we don’t understand what will happen, and the higher our feeling of a loss of control, the greater our anxiety and fear. And if I feel afraid, I will either hide or fight that which I fear.
Therefore, when other cultures, societies or countries feel a loss of control, they will become anxious and afraid of that which they perceive is the source of their loss of control. In my opinion, simplified greatly, the greatest threat to world peace in the Middle East is fear rooted in the ignorance of other cultures. Both Western cultures and Middle Eastern cultures tend not to understand each other. Therefore we are anxious and fearful of that which we don’t understand. Unfortunratlrey, the response to the feeling of fear is to fight rather than dialogue to understand each other. This fear, by the way, is felt on both sides, the West and the Middle East.
Bonus: Download Chris Shea’s booklet on Life Coaching & is it for me? Click here to get it
Unless you are a diplomat or have international influence, the question we ask ourselves is, “how does this relate to me?” It relates to us since most of us interact with other people. How we interact with people who are of a different culture or different religion from our own, let us know the level of anxiety and fear we hold inside ourselves. This level of anxiety influences and affects not only how we feel but how we treat others.
Think now of the solution to the greatest threat to world peace. If each of us, everyone in this world, took the time to learn about that which we fear, we would most likely not fear others. If everyone in the world ceased to fear each other, the need for terrorism and war and sanctions would disappear.
I fully understand the complexities of life and take into account the problematic realities of the situations we face in the world, yet devoid of naïve “answers.” In place of answers, I propose the following practical tasks to work on as we develop ways of reducing our anxiety and fear of unknown people and situations. As we accomplish these tasks, we will feel a sense of hope, a hope fulfilled by each person.
- We aren’t alone. The struggles of coping with a world in turmoil are not yours nor mine to struggle with by ourselves. Many people feel similarly. Seek out others who feel the same as you and, instead of complaining or despairing, work together on practical solutions to local problems.
- We aren’t victims. A victim is a person who suffers as a result of events happening to them for which they are powerless to control. You may say that, according to that definition, we are victims of what is happening in the world! But if we change our perspective on how we define “world,” not meaning the entire globe, instead, define my world as consisting of my local community. In this way, we can create reasonable expectations. Creating reasonable expectations allows us to actually do something resulting in our expected change. For example, it is unreasonable to make our goal that of world peace. Yet, the purpose of creating a peaceful home, work, or local community is reasonable.
- Empower yourself and others. Educate yourself about the struggles and solutions tried in the past. Learn what worked and what didn’t work, figuring out why it didn’t work and what you may do differently to make it work. Find and obtain the resources needed to carry out your goal. Our ability to work with others to find a solution to problems removes the label of victim, replacing it with survivor. Although we need to be educated about the issues, it is also essential to keep a balance, allowing for some news-free periods in our day.
- Regain your power. Once we realize that we are not powerless, our desire to implement change brings about renewed strength and optimism. Recognize the power and strength that you individually, and you as a group, possess. Find creative ways of using your energy for the good. Do not let the power itself take over, for hubris makes one feel invincible. In reality, even though we may have power, we will not always make the proper decisions. Knowing how to learn from our mistakes is a sign of strength, for the knowledge gained from the error will help you to avoid that, or similar mistakes, in the future.
- Focus your energy. Our power and abilities are limited, so wisely focus your energy on those tasks which can be completed and not on those tasks you know are impossible to achieve. No one person, or one group, can do everything.
- Empathy. As we learn about the issues affecting our world we begin to realize that many of our problems originate with people not understanding each other. We tend to view the world from our perspective and our history, failing to recognize that those with whom we may disagree are also seeing their world from their perspective and past. Finding solutions to problems presupposes that all parties agree on the nature of the problem. Empathy, placing ourselves in the shoes of another, provides us a deeper understanding of the concerns of others. By viewing the world through their eyes, we can be better informed and so better prepared to find and carry out solutions. Empathy does not mean I agree with another’s opinion, only that I view the other’s opinion as viewed by themselves.
- Self-care. The realist in me recognizes that to accomplish all of this, I will end up draining and wearing myself out. But, I realize the need for self-care. Take time for yourself; keep up bonds with family and friends; find activities or hobbies which do not relate to the work at hand; spend time in meditation and quiet to focus yourself.
The greatest threat to world peace is the fear caused by anxiety. One’s anxiety may quickly turn to fear, and fear can turn us against ourselves and against one another. Empower yourself through knowledge so as not to fear the unknown, but to make the unknown known. The known reduces anxiety, rids one of fear, and allows you to feel a more profound sense of inner peace.
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Changing Perspective On The Holiday Season
Changing perspective on the holiday season is so crucial for us in finding happiness and peace. The stress and busyness of the holiday season have me reflecting on the topic of keeping perspective on the holidays. If I change how I think about, or view, the holidays, then how I view and cope with the stress of the holidays will change.
(This article is based on a transcript from my podcast episode posted December 21, 2019)
When I talk about the holiday season, I’m not talking in any particular religious meaning. Regardless of your belief or how you celebrate this time of the year, the fact remains this a very hectic time. In changing my perspective on the holiday season, namely, my expectations will change how I view the season, and so reduce my stress.
Expectations
Many of us have expectations of what this time of the year should be. Families and our traditions place these expectations upon us. So when we’re looking at these expectations it puts a high level of achievement, a high level of making sure that what we do equals previous years’ celebrations.
Expectations on celebrating and honoring one’s traditions is a worthy goal to have as long as it is a realistic goal. When I talk about perspective maybe we need to shift our thoughts and views about some of our traditions in our approach to this season to give it a whole different perspective. I know this time of the year there’s talk about getting away from the commercialization of the season. I agree that as a society, we’ve allowed the holidays to become consumerism focused.
Consumerism
When you think about it, the consumerism of the holidays tends to give us stress! So it begs the question, what is the real meaning of the holiday season? Since there are many different cultures and religious traditions that celebrate this time of the year, let’s examine the purpose of the season in a very large and general picture.
The holiday season was meant to be, from its inception, a time to spend with family, with loved ones, and a time to take stock of what life really means. Given the longer nights of the Winter season, this is a perfect time for us to take stock of our lives.
Yet, as the Winter progresses, the days get a little bit longer as we experience a little bit more daylight each day. This little bit of sunlight each day gives us hope. This sense of hope impacts our perspective and any changes we wish to make about it.
If my perspective on the holiday season is based solely on appearances, decorations, parties, gifts, etc. as the only meaning of this season, then my view, shaped by society and tradition, places such a demand (expectation) on me that my stress will be high. So how do I lower my stress? Change my perspective on the holiday season. To quote the Grinch, “maybe Christmas means a little bit more.”
Perspective Shift
So what is important to you in life? Is it appearances and material goods? Or maybe it’s family and close friends. If I can focus on the importance of love of family and friends, then the rest of the” things” of the season aren’t as important. I’m not saying that we get rid of all consumerism, but what is your priority this time of the year? What in life genuinely makes you happy, peace-filled, and feel loved?
Surrounding oneself with loved ones while celebrating your togetherness is relatively stressing and expectation free. It’s only you being yourself, knowing you’re respected and honored simply for you being you. It can’t get much better than that.
Now imagine a holiday focused on the expectation of pleasing and impressing those same people. The more you believe, the more your stress increases as you think of all that has to now be accomplished and done with perfection. Which scenario do you choose?
Consumerism grows as material goods build upon material goods. You purchase one item, but now you need some of the accessories, and some of those need special connectors and cords. Now you’re buying more and more, and needing to carry with you more and more things. See, all of these things build upon each other so that one material good equates to many more material goods, If we’re looking for a way to find some peace in our lives begin to change your perspective and declutter. I’m not advocating that we get rid of all of our material goods, but to re-examine the products we already possess.
As an example, I turn to one of the persons in history who inspires me; Saint Francis of Assisi. He was a Catholic preacher and monk back in the 1100s and 1200s who gave up everything he owned to live a life of complete poverty and ministry to others.
As Francis’ reputation for caring and compassion spreads throughout the area, other men decide to follow Francis, and they too give up everything they own. Francis and his followers are proud of their accomplishments in ministry due to their freedom in not owning possessions.
On one occasion, it’s documented that some of the Brothers asked Francis if they could purchase an educational book for all of the brothers to use. Francis himself was not against learning, but he uses the opportunity to explain to them the importance of not gathering material goods. Francis replies by asking if we get a book where we going to store that book? We need a place to store the books so that the book stays safe. So we’re going to have to build a building. Yet if we build a structure to put the book in we’re going to have to make sure that when we’re not around, that book remains safe, so we may have to put some locks on that building.
And then once we put the locks on the building, people will get suspicious of what’s in a locked building that we may have to hire some people to keep an eye on that building. Francis’s point being is this one book; this one material object is causing them to build a structure that will need to be secured.
Francis’ other lesson in his response to the Brothers pertains to one’s focus and priorities. If the book were in the guarded building, how focused would the Brothers be on the ministry to others versus on the status and care of the book? The takeaway from the story is not that Francis is anti-education, but that Francis wanted his Brothers to be wholly and entirely focused on serving God without any other care or stress. In other words, a perspective shift on the meaning of material goods.
Place Francis’s story into your modern life. Think of the material goods we have. Is it not true that once we obtain an object that it might mean we accumulate other objects to go along with that object and/or the debt of the object(s) indicating the longer, we may have to work, taking us away from our family. Yet honestly, what’s more, important to us; those goods we’re working for or our family?
The Challenge
My challenge for all of us is to refocus our lives on those things which are meaningful to us. Then examine what our priorities are now. If my priorities are causing me stress and defocusing me from my priorities, then what changes in my life do I need to make to realign my priorities and my life?
So that’s my challenge for us during this holiday season, to change your perspective so that your priorities in life match your actions such that you find hope and enjoy peace this holiday season.
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Christmas – A Spiritual Journey
My gift to you!
“A Spiritual Journey of Christmas”. In this short booklet, I spiritually reflect on Christmas, Mary, and New Years. The holiday season is filled with mindful opportunities for reflection and meditation toward improving our happiness and inner peace. I hope this booklet of my reflections helps guide your reflections. -Chris
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Coping With Family Stress To Bring Peace To The Holidays
Coping with family stress during the holidays can seem like a given. Many of us anticipate that family will get on our nerves, make us upset, or get us angry. Understanding that stress, especially during the holidays, will happen, then coping with family stress becomes more manageable and doable since we expect to feel and experience that family stress.
Coping with family stress comes with the season. Sure, family stress happens all year. Still, during the holiday season, it amps up, becoming stronger and more widespread amongst families. Family stress is defined as a disturbance in the steady-state of the family system. The disturbance can emerge from the outside, from inside the family, or both simultaneously.
Why does this happen? Why during a time of the year when we try to be cheerful and happy are families more stressed?
I feel that the answer to that question is two-fold. The holiday season itself can cause stress. Families need to make preparations for travel, the arrival of other family members, meal prep, getting gifts, decorating, and meeting the expectations of traditions. There’s a lot of responsibility placed on many people during a short couple of months. But we all know how the family will talk for years to come if just one aspect of the holidays doesn’t go as they wanted or expected. That’s a lot of pressure to place on people.
Bonus: Download Chris Shea’s booklet on Life Coaching & is it for me? Click here to get it
The other part of the answer to the question is that families who may spend much of the year physically separated are now coming back together. Children out on their own for the first time, feeling that sense of freedom, are now back in their parent’s house, struggling with being an adult while once again being treated like a child. Or family members who get along well through phone or video chats, find that living under the same roof, even temporarily, is a reminder of why they moved away.
Put these two reasons together, not unlike distant family members coming together, and we have the answer as to why coping with family stress is such an issue this time of the year. Tensions are high to achieve perfection, and family members are moving back, the perfect storm in which to brew stress.
So what can we do about this? Do we resign ourselves to an uncomfortable holiday as we assume stress to be inevitable? Not at all. Actually, the “answer” starts with the formulation of the question itself.
Expectations
If you know there will be family stress during the holiday, base your expectations as such. If you know that one uncle will be drunk once again, or that cousins whom you can’t stand will be at a function, base your expectations as such. If that uncle gets drunk every year, don’t act surprised when he does it yet again. Why would you expect him to act any differently? Enter the holiday season with realistic expectations as to how people will act and plan accordingly. Therefore no surprises or hurt feelings. Actually, if for some reason they act in a healthy way, such as not getting drunk, then you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Keep your expectations realistic. No family is or will ever be perfect.
Feelings
I write and often speak on this topic of feelings and how no one makes us feel any such way. Our nature tends to seek blame for when we don’t like how we are feeling. If I’m feeling happy or joyous, I’ll own that feeling! I’ll tell everyone how “I” feel. But, if I’m angry or sad or disappointed, I need to find the person or situation for which I can blame for those feelings. So if I’m disappointed in how the family gathering is progressing, I’ll be sure to vocalize how uncle so-and-so “made” me feel. Yet, in reality, no one makes us feel anything. People act, we react. But we have a choice in our reaction. If I kept my expectations based on reality, and uncle so-and-so is once again ruining the evening, I can choose to feel what I want since I already prepared myself for his actions. I don’t have to feel disappointed. And if I do feel frustrated, that’s my choice, just as it’s your uncle’s choice to do his actions.
It’s OK
When you’re creating your realistic expectations, remind yourself that it’s OK to feel how you feel. And it’s OK if not every family member agrees with the other members. A family’s bond is not in agreement with everyone, the relationship is in the love and the connections of the members. Yet, since each member of the family is an individual person as well, they may have different thoughts and opinions from others in the family. Remind yourself that it’s OK. Just as each family member has their own views, so too, you have your own opinions and feelings. You don’t have to convince others as to your opinion, nor do you have to justify your feelings. Be yourself, yet understand that as a member of the family, the family itself has importance. As you accept others in the family, accept yourself as a member too.
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The Holiday Blues How To Help People Cope
The holiday blues are a real phenomenon, with half of us feeling some stress and fatigue if not mild depression. The holiday blues are felt by people as a result of the holiday season. Yet, some people are entering the holiday season already feeling stressed, anxious, sad, grieving, depressed, etc. How do I enjoy the holidays while helping people I know to cope with their holiday blues?
“If one were to devise an experimental set of circumstances which would test the integrity of an individual’s mood control, one would invent the year-end holiday season.” Jonathan Himmelhoch, Psychiatrist, Western Psychiatric Institute, and Clinic
The holiday blues are real, and according to at least one study, about half of us experience the holiday blues (the survey reached 786 adults, 18 years or older Fall of 2006). But some people suffer the holiday blues because they entered the holiday season already feeling sad, depressed, anxious, etc. The seemingly joyous time of the year enhances their depression and anxiety.
I don’t think there is any other time of the year, which evokes such strong emotions as does this time of the year. For some of us, we are excited, joyous, filled with wonder and anticipation! We visit family and friends, host parties and gatherings, spreading joy everywhere we go! But yet some of us feel quite the opposite this time of the year. I think of those who recently lost a loved one, suffering from physical or mental health issues, separated from loved ones, and even estranged from the family. There are those whose past experience of the holidays wasn’t pleasant, and those who feel trapped in life situations.
Bonus: Download Chris Shea’s booklet on Life Coaching & is it for me? Click here to get it
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” While these song lyrics may be accurate for some, they’re not necessarily right for everyone. I’m not writing this to bring down the mood, but what I am saying is that we need to be mindful of people around us who may be suffering while we celebrate. Some of my current clients are dreading these next few weeks, while other clients are looking forward to a new beginning!
Regardless of how we may feel about the holidays themselves, this time of the year finds many of us feeling the burden for perfection. As joyous as we may be, the expectations for a “Rockwell Christmas” haunt the best of us. While we still have our day-to-day tasks to complete, we must also decorate, buy gifts, and attend social functions. These expectations, especially if we feel obligated, can cause stress and anxiety even in those who enjoy this time of the year. Now imagine the stress and anxiety felt by those who are merely trying to cope with life, let alone the added expectation of the season.
This time of the year, we tend to focus more of our attention on helping others and on giving back. Therefore, what can we do to either help or give to someone who is suffering during this holiday season?
- Create an awareness within yourself and your children that not everyone feels joyous this time of the year. This awareness is not meant to place a burden on us, but as a recognition for the reality of others.
- Create an environment where all people feel open to sharing their feelings honestly. While attending or planning, parties and gatherings don’t encourage everyone to participate, be respectful of those who are having a difficult time participating. Try to plan activities that would allow a person to participate in the degree in which they feel comfortable.
- Be mindful that your expectations of what makes up a holiday celebration may not be the expectations of others. Allow yourself the flexibility to be open to the traditions of others as well as to how others may be feeling. For example, if you are organizing the family dinner, take into account any family members who have had a challenging year. Allow them space or the time to speak, or not speak, if they wish. Be aware that their showing up may have been a difficult task in and of itself.
- If you know someone struggling to cope with a mental illness, or emotionally struggling, be a supportive friend. Allow time in your holiday schedule to be present to them, even if words aren’t spoken. Never underestimate the positive effect and healing quality of presence. If possible and appropriate, encourage them to join you at small gatherings and surround them with people who have their best interests at heart. Isolation, especially during the holidays, is not healthy.
- Encourage them to do activities focused on taking care of themselves and their emotional health, regardless of the expectations placed upon them by themselves or others. Help them to understand that It doesn’t make you a selfish person when you prioritize yourself, it is actually essential toward your well-being.
- Take time from the busyness of this season to be an active listener to those who wish to share their feelings. Encouraging and allowing others to share how they feel may be the most helpful thing you can do for them. If they are reluctant to share, lovingly help them by letting them know that you will listen without judgment regardless of what they wish to talk about and share.
During this holiday season, as many of us join together with our families and friends, let’s be grateful and joyous in our traditions and fellowship. But let’s not forget those who are emotionally suffering at this time of the year. Being respectful, understanding, and lovingly present is the best holiday gift a person can receive.
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Confidence: How To Embrace It As I Did
Confidence is not something we’re born with, it’s something we learn as we mature. My personal story is one of a shy boy transformed into a confident man. How did I do it? How can you do it? Let’s talk about how I eventually learned to embrace my confidence.
“Confidence isn’t walking into a room with your nose in the air, thinking you are better than everyone else; it’s walking into a room and not having to compare yourself to anyone in the first place.” -Anonymous
The other day I was asked, “Have you always had this confidence?” I was somewhat taken aback by the question as I don’t typically think of myself as having confidence. My current life activities consist of family, life coaching, writing, teaching at a university and college, hosting a podcast, giving lectures, and speaking at conferences. I keep myself active, but I enjoy all that I do. Is my enjoyment in what I do the confidence people see in me?
Confidence is defined as a feeling of trust in one’s abilities and talents. Yet, this definition presupposes that I have an awareness of my skills and talents. I feel this is the reason why many people lack confidence; they don’t recognize their own abilities and, therefore, wrongly assume they are unable or incapable of performing a task. Pull the word, confidence, apart, and you’ll find the Latin words of “con” and “fide.” When translated, we get “with trust/faith.”
Bonus: Download Chris Shea’s booklet on Life Coaching & is it for me? Click here to get it
Trusting in oneself, which is what confidence describes, means I have to believe in myself and my message. What message, you ask. Our beliefs, morals, and values are the messages we send to others. Your level of trust in yourself with your message equates to your level of confidence. How much do you believe about yourself to be true? Is the message you’re sending different from your belief about self?
Trusting in oneself, or, having confidence, also involves a sense and personal understnading of one’s conviction. How strongly you believe in yourself and your message is this conviction. A firm conviction, coupled with a desire to spread your message, is the confidence for which many desire.
Conviction, historically, evolves from the word for “opinion.” Our conviction is our opinion on self. The Latin parts of the word are again “con,” or with, and “vicere,” meaning to win or conquer. Since “con” is part of this word, then with what do we win or conquer? The word literally means “to win with.”
The answer, as I see it, is confidence. We win with confidence. We have beliefs about ourselves and the world around us, our convictions. These convictions, or beliefs, are what we trust in our confidence. Therefore, to “win,” we need a conviction and the confidence to make it happen.
While growing up, I was extremely shy and unaware of my abilities and talents. This lack of self-awareness, coupled with my shyness, reinforced in me a belief that I wasn’t capable of much in the way of outward achievement. As a child, and even though my early adulthood, I enjoyed the solitary pursuits of reading, studying, and writing. Sure, I had friends with whom I enjoyed doing things, but my friends were few and not among what was known as the” in-crowd.” For me and my shyness, they were “safe.”
A lack of confidence is typically coupled with a person’s self-esteem or sense of self-worth. In my experience, though, that assumption wasn’t right. Although I lacked insight into my gifts and talents, I did feel positive about myself. I enjoyed my hobbies and the people I chose to be close to; ultimately, life was good. My sense of self-worth was high, while at the same time, my confidence was low.
How can this be? In my early life, it meant that I did well in school, for when I was given a task of importance to complete or asked to give a speech, my mind would immediately jump to the thought “Me?! I don’t have the skill to do this? There have to be people better at this than me!” At the time, I failed to realize that I was asked because someone else saw the talent and ability in me. I was unable to take into account the perspective of the asker because I failed to recognize my own confidence. If I couldn’t see it in myself, I was never going to accept that someone else saw what I could not.
So, what changed in me, given my history of lack of confidence and shyness, that now I can speak to large crowds, teach university classes, and train groups of peers? There’s no one event, moment, or “aha experience,” which made all the difference. For me, it was a progressive shift, and practicing meditation, where I became more self-aware of my giftedness as well as my weaknesses. It’s in accepting both aspects of oneself that lead to one’s sense of confidence.
Here are some reflections I have learned in my adult years, which have impacted my ability to have conviction and confidence:
- I’m not responsible for another’s happiness. I am responsible for my feelings and my actions toward others. This helps my confidence in that I don’t seek nor need the approval of others to know that I am good at what I do. The constructive opinions of family and close friends I respect but needing to be liked by everyone is no longer a goal of mine.
- Not knowing is ok. Early in my career, I stifled myself as I felt that if I didn’t know everything, there was to know in my field than I was a fraud. I now recognize how wrong I was. Still, it was in me eventually realizing that even the “experts” in my field didn’t know everything for me to gain confidence in my own knowledge and experience of my field. What I don’t know, I will learn from others and so continue to grow.
- I became empowered in my confidence every time I stepped out of my comfort zone only to realize that I did well. The more times I gave something a try and ended with positive results, the more I became confident in my abilities. Yes, those times when it didn’t go well seemed to set me back more than the positive times moved me forward, but regardless, I kept on keeping on. I’m not perfect when it comes to public speaking or teaching, etc., but I do my best, and more times than not, there is positive feedback from the audience. Had I not moved out of my comfort zone, my self-confidence would still be quite low.
- As I mentioned above, confidence is not to be equated with always being right or knowing everything. Confidence grows from an understanding of who you are, the positives and negatives. We all have growth opportunities, so don’t let the fact that you are not “perfect” stop you from feeling confident. Feel confident knowing that you are both talented and flawed, perfect in some aspects yet need to grow in others.
- Take time for yourself. Self-care is vitally important to physical and mental health. Spending time nurturing yourself and meditating provides you the opportunity to know yourself better. In this self-knowledge, you will find your confidence and your growth opportunities. Work on both!
In my continuing journey of confidence, I realize that I don’t need to be perfect in all knowledge or skill. Still, I do need to be self-reflective with a willingness to grow. Take the time to learn about yourself, then step out of your comfort zone and give it a try! If it works well, fantastic, do it again! If it doesn’t work well, excellent, learn from it, then do it again!
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How To Find Hope In Life
How to find hope in life is not always an easy task. Yet, a life without a sense of hope can be dark, depressed, anxious, and lacking in motivation. In this article, I write about ways of finding hope in life, and so finding happiness and inner peace.
To find hope and to keep hope are essential to living a happy and peaceful life. Yet most of us know what it’s like to live a life devoid of hope. A life where nothing seems to be going our way, and no one seems to understand. The encouraging “you’ll snap out of it,” or “sleep it off,” or, my favorite, “just get over it,” is not at all helpful. If only it were that easy to overcome the feeling of hopelessness.
Hope is a mechanism developed by the human brain to cope with contexts and situations unfavorable to survival. Without a sense of hope in the future, or hope in one’s ability, where would we find our motivation, our drive, to move forward? In the worst of times, it’s hoping that drives me forward. That “knowledge” telling me there is something better in the future if only I get there. Hope compels me to find the impossible as possible because I believed it to be possible and so acted as if the possible were already the reality.
Bonus: Download Chris Shea’s booklet on Life Coaching & is it for me? Click here to get it
The author and evangelist Hal Lindsey says it so well: “Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air…but only for one second without hope.” Here are some of my suggestions to find hope in life:
- Do what you know you can do. Take steps forward by accomplishing the tasks you know you can achieve. Maybe you can make the bed, or actually get out of the bed, celebrate the little wins as eventually, these wins will become the lessons needed to find hope.
- Perform an act of kindness. Helping someone else not only shows them there are good people in the world but gives you a sense of accomplishment and outward pride in supporting a fellow human. This sense of pride, felt healthily, will lead to a feeling of hope, knowing that if you can help someone else, you can help yourself, too.
- Surround yourself with optimism. The attitudes of people around us influence our mood. If you surround yourself with positive and hopeful people, you, too, will become positive and optimistic. Learn who the positive people are in your life and follow them.
- Allow for inspiration. Read inspirational books or quotes, strengthen your faith, return to your place of worship, whatever it takes to believe and feel the presence of a being more significant than yourself. Knowing that a prayer community is willing to help you, and the belief that something out there is higher than you, gives us hope in that we aren’t alone.
- Spend time in nature. Feeling, seeing, sensing the depth of the beauty of nature is awe-inspiring. Notice the small insects and bugs, reflecting on how they, given their size and lack of intelligence, somehow survive and even thrive in their environment. If the insect can do it, you can do it!
How to find hope in life is necessary for us to move forward in life, to find the motivation to grow and mature into the best person you can be. Don’t let yourself lose hope. Hold on tightly, and try to enjoy the ride.
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How To Overcome Fear But We Need Fear To Live
To overcome fear, one needs to believe they will be happy on the other side, and that getting to the other side of fear is possible. Knowing and believing are two very different attitudes. In this article, I use my own childhood fear as an example throughout. Keep in mind, we need fear to live, so be careful in what fear you try to overcome.
As a young child, I had many fears, as I’m sure most children experience. For me, my most significant event to overcome fear was the weather, specifically thunderstorms. I was convinced that every storm would spawn a tornado which would ultimately find and pulverize my house, with me in it! Now, please know that I did not grow up in tornado alley or in a tornado prone area. Yes, we experienced the random water spout and once a decade, or so a tornado would develop. The tornadoes were far enough from my house not to see the funnel of destruction but close enough that the local newspaper printed articles about the twister.
I have no idea of the origin of my fear, but I knew exactly how to overcome fear in this situation. To overcome fear is not easy, primarily when our fear is rooted in reality. In my childhood situation, the fact was that tornadoes did happen in my area, do spawn from thunderstorms, and are capable of demolishing houses. Therefore, to that extent of reality, my fear was justified.
Yet there’s another perspective, or reality, to be examined if we want to overcome fear. In my case, reality also demonstrated that a tornado never formed in my neighborhood, at the time I had never seen a tornado, and in my 18 years growing up in my childhood home, it was never demolished by a tornado (actually that home still stands to this day). So yes, there was a reason for my fear, but also yes, my childhood fear was unfounded.
Bonus: Download Chris Shea’s booklet on Life Coaching & is it for me? Click here to get it
Fear is powerful, convincing us to either flee or fight against a known or unknown danger waiting to harm us. The threat, for our first ancestors, was primarily focused on physical survival issues, life, and death situations. Today our fears tend to be focused on emotional survival issues. Emotional survival is as essential to our overall survival as is physical survival. Fear is instinctual as a means to protect us in situations where protection is needed so that we survive and reach the other side of that which was threatening.
Since fear serves to protect us from both physical and emotional harm, guiding us along a path of survival, why then even talk about how to overcome fear? Shouldn’t we embrace fear as our protector? Fear is actually not our problem, as such, I should change the title of this article. The problem we have is how we cope with our fear. The initial reaction to either flee or fight is helpful, but becoming stuck in either mode is detrimental to moving forward. It’s so much easier to flee or fight when the situation is physical. Yet when the threat is emotional, fleeing or fighting is more difficult to notice, and so we become stuck.
As a child, my response to thunderstorms was to hide under my bed or to run into the basement. The latter is the preferred location if there actually were a tornado present, yet for me, it was an escape, a fleeing, to where I felt safe. My becoming stuck was not fleeing to the basement, but doing so, when there was no need to do so. I would leave friends, activities, family, etc. to flee to the imagined safety of the basement. Fleeing when it leads to safety is healthy and wise; fleeing solely out of fear is unhealthy and being stuck.
What have I learned from my childhood into adulthood on how to overcome fear?
- Reflect: When you feel afraid, take action to protect yourself. After you’ve acted, reflect on yourself and the situation to determine if your response to your fear is healthy or not, using the example I gave above.
- Act: Take action, not to overcome fear, but to overcome your unhealthy response to fear. As I grew older, and while hiding in the basement, I happened upon a very old book set somewhat hidden under my Dad’s tool bench. As I uncovered the books, I noticed that one of the books was about the weather, explaining the forces and science behind how the weather works and safety tips. My action was in learning about that which I feared, causing me to have a respectful fear of Mother Nature. I now know when seeking shelter and being afraid is necessary and when it’s not. As an adult, I now spend free time chasing storms. I enjoy sitting on my deck to watch the beauty of the lightning show, and I’ve even been in storms which spawned tornadoes that I was able to see. Some of these experiences produced no fear in me while others produced much fear, and healthily, I respected the power of nature and took shelter.
- Fight: Fight within yourself to believe that you can overcome your fear. When I first started to learn about the weather I “knew” I could handle my fear, yet it took years of maturing and study to “believe” that I could overcome fear and respond healthily. Start with “knowing” but continue to fight and work until you get to “believing” in yourself.
- Flee: It’s important not to think of fleeing with a negative connotation. Fleeing from a harmful situation is wise for survival and for providing time to create a plan of action. In modern life, physically fleeing, or leaving a person or condition may be the healthiest action to take for your own emotional well-being. Similarily, emotional fleeing from a situation, controlled and not permanent, can have the same healthy effect as does physical fleeing. Keep in mind that healthy or unhealthy flight is dependant upon your motivation and the reality of the threat. An emotionally abusive relationship might require a person to flee physically. Yet a person who simply doesn’t like a situation, their fleeing may be an unhealthy escape. Sometimes circumstances may be able to be fixed if you stay and fight.
Yes, we need fear to live and survive, but how we respond to our fear is what makes the difference in our emotional health. If you want to live a happy and peaceful life, practice believing in yourself that you can overcome fear by the way you cope with your fear.
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How To Not Sweat The Small Stuff And Find Happiness
Learning to not sweat the small stuff is a phrase filled with much wisdom. The important piece to this statement is learning to live in the moment. But how can we learn to stay more in the moment so that we don’t let the little things bother us so much that we lose our happiness? Here is my technique on how to not sweat the small stuff.
Step one is to actually reframe the question of how not to sweat the small stuff. If something is bothering someone, then it’s not “small stuff” to them. Judging another’s perception as to the gravity of a situation negates what they’re feeling and expressing. Although, I do hope to eventually get them to a point in the future where they can laugh at it and say, ah, that really was small.
But, to not sweat the small stuff, to get to the point of recognizing the smallness of some of our concerns, the question I’ll ask the client is “in the scope of everything going on in your life and in the world today, where does this issue fit?” If they’re honest with themselves and with me, they’ll understand the inner challenge in that question. Placing our perceived large stressor in judgment against the stressors of the world gains us a new perspective on our place within the larger community.
To clarify, I don’t typically advocate comparing one person’s troubles to another person’s troubles since we all cope in different ways, even to the same stressors. But in cases when an issue which is seemingly small yet perceived as large, then changing one’s perspective through comparison can be eye-opening and therapeutic.
When we sweat the small stuff and get stuck in our focus on anxiety, we need a strategy to guide us in healthy non-anxiety producing coping skills. The approach I use is what I affectionately call “the shiny object” strategy.
This strategy diverts our attention to focus on something different from that which is producing our anxiety, similar to shaking a shiny object in a dog’s or baby’s face to divert their attention to something else. Eventually, while diverted, we forget that which were focused on and which was causing the anxiety. This exercise guides us to reframe our perspective on ourself and our world.
Bonus: Download Chris Shea’s booklet on Life Coaching & is it for me? Click here to get it
I’ve spent a couple of decades working with people suffering from the disease of addiction, and one of their complaints to me is how their fellowship sponsor responds to them when they share they have a craving. They tell me they would call their sponsor and say, “I have a craving to use.” Invariably the sponsor would reply with something to the effect of, “Hey, did you watch the game last night?” The conversation would turn to sports, or whatever topic the sponsor wished to discuss. But it was invariably any topic other than the issue of the person’s craving to use a drug or drink.
My clients would complain that the sponsor isn’t helping when they reach out with a craving. They complain that the sponsor will talk about everything except for the reason they called, their craving. My question to the client, when they were done complaining, is always “did you use? Did you give in to the craving?” The client would always answer with one word, “no.” Isn’t that the goal the client wanted? They didn’t want to give in to their craving, and in the end, they didn’t.
This is a prime example of the shiny object theory. Keep focusing on your craving, and the craving will increase in intensity; stop focusing on your craving, and shortly, it will go away. In the same way, if I have a headache and I’m focused on my headache, my headache gets worse. If I have a headache but take care of that headache and return to my day’s activities, my headache seemingly goes away.
If someone decides to sweat the small stuff, remember that to them the issue they are sweating is not small. There is a reason they are sweating the issue, so don’t focus solely on the issue itself, rather, spend the time to learn why the issue is bothering the person the way it is.
If you’re feeling something irritating you, annoying you, bothering you, sticking with you, spend time reflecting on the deeper issues. Take time out, take a breath, focus on it, and dig in to figure out what’s happening so you can solve the root problem. When you solve the root problem, you will no longer sweat the small stuff.
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