The “Scary Times” Success Manual

From time to time, economic and political events make people anxious and fearful about their futures.  Strategies, listed in this article will help you to increase your confidence, sense of direction and capability in all areas of your personal and business lives.  We hope these strategies  will support your creative thinking, communications , and actions.

1   Forget about yourself, focus on others

Uncertainty can drive people into themselves, making them feel isolated and helpless.

The best strategy here is to go in the opposite direction, expanding your connections with others – focusing on helping them transform their negatives into positives.

The more you contribute in this fashion, the less you will need to worry about your own situation. You will become a source of confidence for everyone else.

2  Forget about your commodity, focus on your relationships

In uncertain times, people become frightened about the viability of their “commodities” – the things they sell and the jobs they hold. A more strategic response here is to disregard your own commodity and focus on deepening the power and possibility of all your relationships – with family, friends, team members, suppliers, clients, customers, and prospects.

Every time you strengthen a relationship, the viability of your commodity will increase.

3.  Forget about the sale, focus on creating value

Most people don’t like being sold at the best of times. When the future is less certain, they turn off, hang up, and slam shut.

What people want at all times is value creation – that is, solutions that help them eliminate their dangers, capture their opportunities, and reinforce their strengths.

When you focus on providing these three solutions, the sales will naturally follow.

4.  Forget about your losses, focus on your opportunities

Things you had and may have taken for granted sometimes disappear. Some people never get over this. They keep trying to replay their old games.

A better strategy is to start an entirely new game – using new ideas, new energies, new tools, and new resources.

As the world changes, opportunities suddenly become available to achieve far more than you ever did in the past.

5.  Forget about your difficulties, focus on your progress

Because of some changes, things may not be as easy as they once were. New difficulties can either defeat you or reveal new strengths.

Your body’s muscles always get stronger from working against resistance. The same is true for the “muscles” in your mind, your spirit, and your character.

Treat this whole period of challenge as a time when you can make your greatest progress as a human being.

6.  Forget about the “future”, focus on today

The future is an abstraction. It doesn’t exist except as an idea.

The only future that has any reality is the one that you continually create for yourself through each day’s contributions, achievements, and results.

This is an excellent time to ignore all those experts who never saw the present circumstances coming. Focus on what you can do over the course of each 24 hours, and you will be the only expert on the future you will ever need.

7.   Forget about who you are, focus on who you can be

Many people define themselves by external circumstances. When these abruptly or unexpectedly change, they don’t know who they are, so they keep trying to be who they used to be.

From now on, take your cues from the inside – from your dreams, ideals, values, and operating principles.

These need never change, regardless of the circumstances. Take advantage of external confusion to become self-directed, self-managed, and self-motivated.

8.  Forget about events, focus on your responses

When things are going well, many people think they are actually in control of events. That’s why they feel so defeated and depressed when things turn bad. They think they’ve lost some fundamental ability.

The most consistently successful people in the world know they can’t control events – but continually work toward greater control over their creative responses to events.

Any period when things are uncertain is an excellent time to focus all of your attention and energies on being creatively responsive to all of the unpredictable events that lie ahead.

9.   Forget about what’s missing, focus on what’s available

When things change for the worse, many desirable resources are inevitable missing – including information, knowledge, tools, systems, personnel, and capabilities. These deficiencies can paralyse many people, who believe they can’t make decisions and take action.

A strategic response is to take advantage of every resource that is immediately available in order to achieve as many small results and make as much daily progress as possible.

Work with every resource and opportunity at hand, and your confidence will continually grow.

1  Forget about your complaints, focus on your gratitude

When times get tough, everyone has to make a fundamental decision: to complain or to be grateful. In an environment where negative sentiment is rampant, the consequences of this decision are much greater.

Complaining only attract negative thoughts and people.

Gratitude, on the other hand, creates the opportunity for the best thinking, actions, and results to emerge. Focus on everything that you are grateful for, communicate this, and open yourself each day to the best possible consequences.

Resources:
Adopted from Strategic Coach, Dan Sullivan, "The Scary Times" Success Manual

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Self-Compassion as a Coping Strategy During Stressful Life Events

Self-Compassion, as a psychological strategy for coping with stressful life events, appeared in the psychological literature only recently with Dr. Kristin Neff’s (an educational psychologist in the University of Texas, the world’s foremost expert on self compassion, and the author of, “Self-Compassion: The Key to Human Happiness” ) publications in 2003.

Having a small son with a serious mental illness, she had to cope with such tragedy, passed through feelings of grief, despair and anger to developing a new psychological approach to helping people to deal with the most painful and stressful experiences in their lives.

This article will inform you of  new strategies that focus on developing a new self-to-self relationship based on warmth and compassion. These strategies will always be under your control and can be used at any time, including the time when you lose, fail and are disappointed as well as when you win or excel.

 “You are going to have painful experiences – absolutely every one of us is – are you going to turn them into something healing or are you going to let them destroy your life?” – Dr. Kristin Neff 

1: Developing Self-Compassion: Changing self-criticism to compassionate self correction

Consider your answers to these questions:
● Are you compassionate to yourself when you lose, fail , or face disappointment as well as when you win or excel?
● Are you kind and forgiving to yourself when you feel regret and sadness?
● Do you treat yourself as well as you treat your friends and family? 

How do you feel if people criticise or bullying you? How does it feel? The unpleasantness will make you feel anxious and upset because those threat emotion systems in your brain have been triggered. This will affect your stress systems and your stress hormone, cortisol, will increase. If the criticism is harsh and constant it may make you feel distressed and depressed. Our own thoughts and images can do the same.

Learning to spot self-criticism and learning what to do about it will be a key issue in developing self-compassion.

Kindness involves understanding one’s difficulties and being kind and warm in the face of failure or setbacks rather than harshly judgmental and self-critical.

Imagine two teachers teaching a young child. One focuses on their deficits and picks on them when they make mistakes. The other teacher focuses on what the child does well and encourages the child to improve and learn from their mistakes and offers clear guidance. Which one will help the child’s confidence? Which one do you really prefer?

Compassionate self-correction is about being open to all our weaknesses and limitations (remember, we did not design our brains) but with a genuine wish to improve. Compassionate self-correction is based on being open-hearted and honest about our mistakes with a genuine wish to improve and learn from them.

We need to recognize that our genuine wish is to improve.

Self-criticism, on the other hand, comes from a “fear – and –anger based place”. It is concerned with punishment and is usually backwards-looking, related to things we have done in the past. The problem is that you cannot change a single moment of the past, you can only change the future.

There are many reasons for becoming self-critical. 

One common reason is that others have been critical of us in the past and we simply take their views as accurate. We do not stop to think whether they really wanted to help us and really cared us – in fact they may just have been rather stressed people who were critical of everyone. We just go along with their criticisms of us and never stop to think if they are still reasonable and accurate.

Lots of people tend to beat themselves up and get into the habit of using self-loathing as a way to self – motivate. ” If I didn’t kick myself, I’d never do anything.” This view goes back to childhood where parents and teachers over-focused on the child’s errors and not on their positives. As a result, the child becomes good at self-criticism and punishment but poor at seeing their good points, self-rewarding and valuing.

But when you stop and think about it when has name calling or accusing someone of being a “big loser” ever motivated anyone?

It may also be that we are trying very hard to reach a certain standard or achieve something or present ourselves in a certain way. When it does not work out as we would like this can frighten us because we might think we have let ourselves down or others will be rejecting of us.

“Compassion and gentleness are your right when you lose, fail and are disappointed as well you win or excel.”, Dr Kristin Neff

Research reveals that in comparison to self-esteem, self-compassion is associated with greater emotional resilience, more caring behaviour in relationships and less reactive anger. “
 With self-esteem it’s about how you measure up against others and is, by definition, focused on social comparison, “says Neff. “ You have to be cuter, smarter, faster and richer or you’ve not good enough. So many surveys have shown that Americans rate themselves as ‘above average’ or ‘superior’ on almost every task you query them about, whether it’s level of driving skill or reading speed. Feeling you’re much better than average creates a distinct sense of separation, a sense of distance, and for many it leads to narcissism. Self-esteem so often hinges on winning and is contingent on the attention and approval of others.”

2: Developing Self – Compassion: Recognizing that any experiences, no matter how painful are part of the common human experience

Consider your answers to these questions:
● Isn’t it true that I am not the only one going through such difficult times and that all people experience things like this, or worse, at some point in their lives?
● Can I feel my feelings of pain without getting lost in the drama or storyline of my situation?

When people fail, experience loss or rejection, are humiliated, or confront other negative events, they often feel that their experience is personal and unique when, in reality, everyone experiences problems and suffering.

“When you have self-compassion and something awful happens to you,” says Neff, “you’re able to step back and say, ”Yes, it’s very difficult, what I’m going through right now, and I’m going to acknowledge and feel this grief, but there are many other people who are experiencing much greater suffering. Maybe this isn’t worth getting quite so distressed about.”

Realizing that one is not alone in the experience and that imperfection is part of the shared human experience reduces people’s feelings of isolation and promotes adaptive coping.

It is how Dr Neff is talking about her personal life journey:
“ ...I started to think about how all families have issues and difficulties related to their children at some point in life, even if their children are “normal” and healthy.  I began to see us as just another family and my son’s illness was just one of the unique features of the fabric of our family, not a punishment or defeating disaster. I started feeling a connection with other families rather than isolation.”

3: Self-Compassion: Mindful Acceptance - Maintaining balance and perspective through mindfulness

Dr Neff identified mindfulness as a core component of self-compassion and suggested people who are able to maintain perspective in the face of stress and approach the situation with mindfulness cope more successfully.

Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to your life, on purpose, in the present moment in a non attached way. By observing, non judging or analysing thoughts and feelings, allowing them to ‘come’ and ‘go’ as they come and go. Mindfulness is an intentional way of ‘being’ in life. The present moment is emphasised – the past is in the past and the only influence we can have over the future is to live fully and consciously in the ‘now’.

We highly recommend reading:
Mindfulness as a Practice

Being mindful allows us to be aware of important feelings and other problems that interfere with the daily management of life’s difficulties – this then allows us to make conscious effective decisions about life challenges. The opposite of mindfulness is ‘mindlessness’ where our thoughts and actions can limit our conscious decisions.

Mindfulness takes patience and practice and takes time to develop, it is more a way of being than something you sit and do. Over time you will develop new habits and develop new skills to break free from limiting or unhelpful habits. 

Consider your answers to these questions:
Take a few minutes before you go to sleep and review your day.  Ask yourself :
● Where was I hard on myself?
● What events (internal or external) triggered that harshness within me?
● What feelings did I experience – anger, fear, disgust, shame, frustration, guilt?
● What were the thoughts that triggered these emotions?
● And most important – what beliefs do I hold that fuel these thoughts and feelings?  Beliefs are the cement that holds it all together.
● Finally, stop and imagine what it would feel like to be kinder on yourself in those moments when you believe you “fall short”. What happens to your energy level when you release your judgment?
●Spend five minutes remembering kindnesses that occurred in the day that went well.

Self-compassion is a skill. If you find that developing self-compassion can help you to deal with your life challenging events, we recommend you to consider taking a compassionate mind training (CMT). Results showed that CMT resulted in a significant decrease in depression, anxiety, shame, and self-attacking tendencies. Alternatively, if you would like to learn more about mindfulness or need some professional guidance please contact our counselling unit for an appointment 02 9542 4029.

Resources:

● Self – Compassion with Dr Kristin Neff, Jim Porter

● Self – Compassion, Stress, and Coping, Ashley Batts Allen and Mark R. Leary

● Training Our Minds in , with and for Compassion by Paul Gilbert PhD FBPsS

● Why Do We Continue to Think Self-Compassion is Self-Indulgent? http://intentionalworkplace.com/2011/03/14/why-do-we-continue-to-think-self-compassion-is-self-indulgent/

● What is Self-Love? It’s You Being Compassionate to You, Dr Annette

Healthy Relationships Checklist: How do you know if it’s still working?

Remember the feeling when a relationship is new?

The excitement every time the phone rings, the long hours spent together that just fly by and the giggling conversations with girlfriends or good-natured teasing by mates, over how you were meant for each other.


Sometimes even the closest relationships can go wrong. But how do you know if you or your partner may need help, or when should seek help for your relationship? The glossy magazines have quizzes on how to tell if you’re in love, or if he/she loves you, but not if it’s not working. 

What can we measure our relationship against to know if it’s going in the right direction, and if it’s not what can we do?

Situations that should ring alarm bells are when your partner:

• lies or is secretive constantly about where s/he is, what s/he is doing or who s/he is with
• needs to know your detailed whereabouts every day and constantly rings to check up on you
• tries to make you sever contact with friends or family, because really you only need him/her
•  demeans your thoughts, feelings and other relationships
•  questions your past constantly, yet you know very little about his/hers
• inspects your finances and needs to know where every cent is spent, yet you have no idea how much s/he even earns
•  constantly needs to be with you and gets angry and spiteful if you want to go anywhere with anybody else
•  wants to pick fights or arguments with others if they look at you
•  yells and screams and threatens you if you don’t do what s/he wants
•  turns to physical violence then apologises, but says you ‘made him/her’ do it

If you can tick any of the above, you might need to speak to someone about your relationship and explore how to improve it - or leave it.

We highly recommend reading:
8 Secrets to a Strong and Happy Family

Couples often experience difficulties due to each others’ ‘baggage’ - but with commitment from both sides, these should be temporary. However where only one party is making an effort they can be insurmountable. If someone loves you they want to lift you up, make you happy, not pull you down and have you live with humiliation or violence.

If you are not happy or not feeling safe and comfortable in your relationship only YOU can change this.

There are people and organisations who will be there for you, will understand you and support you. 

Please call  us for the individual counselling session on 02 9542 4029 .

We provide a professional service with fully qualified counsellors.

Power of Attitude of Gratitude

Gratitude is the feeling of being thankful and it comes from the Latin words:

                     gratia , meaning favour, charm and thanks and,

                     gratus, meaning pleasing and grateful

Gratitude is an inspirational force that causes us to draw our attention to the good, the beautiful, and open up a host of possibilities. It is exactly what we need when we are in pain and it can help us to cope with our loss.

It has been irrefutably proven that every emotion and every thought has a measurable frequency. Emotions and thoughts of love and gratitude resonate at a frequency that brings about balance of all the cellular functions of the body. Many studies show that practicing gratitude may be the fastest single pathway to the emotional wellbeing, long life, and prosperity.

Your brain can only hold one thought at a time! Choose that thought! Choose to live in “An Attitude of Gratitude”. If you are grateful for something, it is impossible to hold on to thoughts of anger, grief, and hate.

Most of us are thankful for the good health, families we love, our jobs and for our opportunity to live our lives the way we want to. Yes, it very easy to be grateful for pleasant and peaceful experiences.

The difficulty comes in being grateful for the things that upset, offend, hurt and injure us. Grief can be the result of many events such as the loss of a family member, friend or pet, serious illness, separation or divorce, or a move to an unfamiliar town.

 “How can I be thankful for anything when I am grieving and in pain? I can’t begin to think about appreciation or being grateful”.

Nothing and no one can truly be destroyed.

When you heat an ice cube, it turns to water. If you continue heating that water, it turns to steam. The essence of the ice cube remains; just the form is different.  

Maybe not everything in our lives is the way we want it to be, but some things are wonderful, and the things that aren’t so wonderful will get better in time. Experience of emotional pain is opportunities to learn love. Even the deepest, darkest sorrows have an equal amount of joy – the sooner we find it, the sooner we experience the blessings. Developing a mental “Attitude of Gratitude” will give you inner strength that will bring you inner peace in such difficult time of your life.

When times get tough, everyone has to make a fundamental decision: to complain or to be grateful. Focus on everything that you are grateful for, communicate this, and open yourself each day to the best possible consequences.

Developing Attitude of Gratitude:

 ● List three achievements you are proud of accomplishing. For each of the achievements you listed write five ways you received help from others. 

● List the three most recent act of service you have performed. Then write five ways these acts of love helped you fulfil your own inspired dreams. 

● When grieving, if anger hangs around too long in your thoughts, switch your attention to a person, place, or thing you are grateful for.  Use your self-talk to change the scene: “I have this anger and rightly so, but I am choosing to be thankful for all of the help I am receiving from my friends/my family. I am truly grateful.”

"Be grateful for the learning experience of loss.

You cannot change what has happened – it has happened.

You can change the way you think about it!!

Feel gratitude for the life-enhancing opportunity to learn and grow from this."

                                                                        Ken B Marslew, CEO of EIE

Resources:

Time to Take a Chance/ by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Grief and the Attitude of Gratitude by Joseph Burgo, PH.D.

Keep your attitude of gratitude – even during grief by Ann Ulrich Miller

How Gratitude Will Reduce the Pain of Grief by Lou LaGrand

Teaching Your Child Active Listening Skills

Active Listening is one of the most important communication skills you can have. People often think that confident communication skills are about being articulate, telling a good tale or having a wide vocabulary. Yes, all of these are important, but the ability and willingness to listen to others is more important. How well you listen has a major impact on your job effectiveness, and on the quality of your relationships with others. Listening actively is required in every area of life.

Consider the questions below about your own listening skills and tick the answers that are relevant to you.

While the other person is talking, do you:

□  Rehearse what you are going to say?

□  Wish they would get to the point more quickly?

□  Interrupt?

□  Mind-read?

□  Judge them by appearance or accent?

□  Filter what you already think or want to think?

□  Daydream?

Most of us do some of these some of the time. We might think we are listening but we are not. Active listening skills are  very difficult master . People whose profession is to listen have spent years being trained to do so. In a recorded counselling or therapy situation it is likely that the voice of the listener will only be heard for 10 % of the 50 minutes. The benefit to people of being able to just talk can be amazing. 

One of the best things that you as a parent can do is to become a good role model. Develop your own active listening skills. Adults and children make common listening mistakes. If you make them, your child could mimic you.

Our two previous blog articles provide some great tools and techniques to build active listening skills for adults:

• Active Listening
• Active Listening as an Anger Management Technique 

And as a parent, you can help your child to develop active listening skills and provide your child with foundation communication skills that last a lifetime.

Strategies for parents

1. Help your child to make better choices of activities to participate in during the day

Aim to develop your child's patience so he or she at least has the chance to pay attention to the person who speaks. Many studies conclude today's children suffer from a lowered attention span due to activities like TV and computer games.  Listening to action songs (songs that tell your child to do something) is an example of the activities that you could organise for your child. It's always fun to dance, and if your child follows along to the words, he's exercising his listening skills.

2. Read to your child then have him or her talk to you about what you read

Interact while reading together. Before you turn the page, ask your child to predict what might happen next.

This aims to help them to focus and teach them a briefly summarizing technique, as well as to develop their imagination.

3. When you say something to your child throughout the day, ask your child to say his or her understanding of what you said

Very often, children are required to keep quite and pay attention - so-called "listening" as they associate good listening with not interrupting and not saying a word, which creates "mindless" hearing in their relationship communication. Your goal in this exercise is to build a relationship and practice a correct response.

4. Teach your child to listen non-verbally

Have them maintain reasonable eye-contact with the speaker and develop other non-verbal skills such as facing you, not fidgeting, and maintaining good posture where appropriate.

Good listening skills take practice. The more your child practices, the sooner being an active listener becomes second nature!

Resources:
http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm

Tower of Power, Joshua Uebergang, http://www.towerofpower.com.au/free/

Active Listening Skills Improve Communication, Ranjit Das, http://www.suite101.com/

Perfect Confidence by Jan Ferguson

Fun Ways to Practice Listening

Michelle McNally

,http://www.savvysource.com/parenting/12761-fun-ways-to-practice-listening

Anger Management Using Active Listening Techniques

Communication is the greatest tool we have as human beings to deal with any situation

Anger – one letter short of Danger

Everyone has been angry and knows what anger is. We get angry when our expectations are not met – whether those expectations are about themselves, or about others. When our expectations are unmet, we revert to illusions of control, “unrealistically expecting all people to behave and all situations to turn out as we think they should”. Anger often leads us to blame others and shift aggression towards them.

Aggression is sometimes the appropriate response to anger, as it allows us to protect ourselves and things that are important for us from harm. However, in case of overreacting, our anger can get out of control and become destructive and damaging. In this state of rage, the individual can become a danger to themselves or to others. Even the nicest people who do not see themselves as violent and would never anticipate hurting others are capable of the most awful acts if they allow themselves to become overwhelmed with rage. In fact, this is obviously what is meant by the term "losing control of one's self."

Your anger is a natural response to certain threats. If you would like learn how to control your anger, you need to learn what triggers it in you and how anger affects you. There are many techniques to help you to handle your anger once you learn to recognize it and catch it early on.

Please check yourself:

□  Do you ever find yourself in a highly intense argument or an extremely tense situation with another person when your uncontrolled anger leads you to become extremely aggressive and even violent, to the point of no logic or reason? 

□  Do you often find yourself jumping to conclusions or to be overly critical during a heated argument? 

□  Do you control your anger or does your anger control you when you start angrily defending yourself, interrupting the other person instead listening to the other person’s side? 

If you answered Yes at least once, we suggest you to learn and practice Active Listening Skills as an Anger Management Technique to help you manage your anger through improving your communication skills.

Communication doesn’t always have to mean being able to talk about one’s feelings openly – it also means being able to listen intently to others. And listening is of great importance when trying to keep your anger at bay.

Active listening is a two-way process that involves listening and responding in an empathic way, combined with the right questioning and summarizing techniques. It involves the receiver (the listener) with the sender (the speaker). The receiver in active listening process is as active as the sender.

Active listening techniques will help you to understand the message the other person is trying to convey, including the unspoken message, meanings and feelings. Using active listening skills, you will avoid jumping to conclusions and overreacting, so you will be able to handle and control your own possible anger. 

Building Active Listening Skills

Step 1: Understanding what is not Active Listening

Remember 5 Don’ts of Listening that can cause the anger reaction during communication:

A      Silent listening

N     Interruptions and not allowing the speaker to complete his or her thought

G     Critical response and teaching – a response that expresses a form of  criticism resulting from a natural tendency to judge, approve, or disapprove of a message received

E     Advising. It should be given when requested.

      Before offering advice , make sure:

• that other person really wants to hear your suggestions
• the other person is ready to accept it
• your advice is correct
• that receiver won’t blame you if advice doesn’t work

R    Changing the subject or moving in a new direction during conversation

Step 2: Understanding Questioning during Active Listening

During active listening we ask for additional information to get a clear understanding before responding.

Questioning in active listening skills is more about the quality of the question.

Only one question should be asked at a time and, if necessary, unclear responses should be played back to check understanding. If there is something you do not understand, then ask your partner to rephrase, restate, or repeat the statement.

The two main approaches are to use open and probe questions.

Open questions are general not specific. They provide room for people to decide how they should be answered and encourage them to talk freely.
Open questions help to create an atmosphere of calm, for example:

● What do you feel about that?

● Tell me, why do you think that happened?

● Tell me, how did you handle that situation? 

Probe questions seek specific information on what has happened and why. They can:

● show interest and encouragement: “I see, and then what?”

● seek further information by asking “Why?” or “Why not?” or “ What do you mean?”

● reflect views: “Have I got the right impression, do you feel that..?”

Combine your questioning skills with body language because it will communicate an interest towards your partner. Make good eye contact. Face your partner and show the person you are their primary concern.

Step 3: Understanding Summarizing Technique

Summarizing involves rephrasing what the person has said in your own words.

The secret here is “in your own words” and without adding any justification or interpretation. 

Summarizing is a great technique because it develops a connection and builds intimacy in your relationship. The other person hears your summary of what he or she said and knows you understand or will then restate what you do misunderstand.

Here are some examples:

Paraphrase back what the other person has said with phrases such as:

● ” What I hear you saying is...” OR You can use a phrase like the following:

"I'm going to repeat in my own words what I just heard you say to make sure that I understand what you're saying. Please correct me if I misinterpret anything you've said."

● When someone criticizes you, refrain from reacting defensively using the next steps:

1. Hear them out, wait until she or he finish, look for a core of truth in what they’re saying

2. Agree with that using summarizing technique: “It is true that I leave my clothes on the floor.”

3. If you do not agree with another’s person’s point of view, acknowledge nojudgmentally that your view is different from theirs: “But I disagree with you when you say...”

When someone is speaking, wait until she or he finished before you begin to speak

Step 4: Empathizing (empathic listening and empathic response)

Empathizing identifies with speaker’s emotions and opinions. Through empathic listening the listener lets the speaker know,

“I understand your problem and how you feel about it, I am interested in what you are saying and I am not judging you.”

The listener conveys this message through words and non-verbal behaviours, including body language. The listener encourages the speaker to fully express herself or himself free of interruption, criticism or being told what to do. Empathic listening requires an actual acceptance of the speaker’s feelings, no matter how different they may be from the listener’s. 


Acceptance does not mean agreement; it does not mean the listener has to agree. It simply means showing personal acceptance and concern for the speaker’s point of view:

“I understand you and I am interested in being a resource to help you resolve this problem.”

Here is some examples of empathic responses:

● Use of brief responses like “ I see”, “Wow”, “OUCH”, “My Goodness”

● “ I can see that really hurts”

● “I know how important that was to you”

● “ I think I’ve felt that way too”

Responses like the following are not empathic responses:

“Don’t worry about it”

“It’s nothing to get so upset about”

“That is a silly way to feel”

Step 5: Practice with your partner!

Active listening does not come naturally – it is a learned skill. 


It is an active process that must be practiced and practiced. Mastering the art of active listening is similar to mastering the art of driving a car. In the beginning you learned the necessary skills, but you still really have to concentrate on every aspect of doing it, and continuing practice, driving becomes your second nature.

Exercise:

1. Find a subject on which you and your partner seem to disagree – a moral issue, philosophical or personal task 

2. A makes a statement, B paraphrases the idea and feedback to A (only what B has heard without adding any interpretation or justification) 

3. A responds to B whether the response was accurate or what change needs to be done 

4. B then summarised the revised statement or uses right questions for clarifying information, again check till B and A understands correctly 

5. B and A can reverse role and repeat the process 

Conclusion:

How do A and B feel? Is there A greater understanding? Do they feel better? How such techniques can be helpful in life?

We would like to finish this article with the quote by David Roush, National Juveline Detention Association, which states that active listening may not just clarify thinking and provide a necessary emotional release, but facilitates problem - solving :

"When in doubt about what to do, use active listening."

Resources:

Controlling Anger: Tips, Techniques, and Resources , http://www.squidoo.com/anger-management-resources#module46941432

Consequences Of Anger, by Swami Sivananda

Rage and Its Consequences, by Allan N. Schwartz, LCSW, Ph.D.

Guidelines for Empathic Listening by Richard Salem

Manage your Anger by Learning to Communicate Better, http://www.angermanagementstrategies.com/Learning-Better-Communication-Techniques.html

Roush, D.W. (1996) Desktop guide to good juvenile detention practice. National Juvenile Detention Association. pp.133-134

Peer Pressure and Risk Taking

Peer pressure negative or positive will have lifelong consequences. Insure good doses of positiveness in a young person’s life.
- Ken B Marslew, CEO of EIE

Youth is a period characterised by rapid psychological and physical transition, where young people progress from being dependent children to independent adults. In this stage of life, people may be vulnerable to the influences of peer pressure, and may be inclined to experiment, push boundaries and take risks that could impact on their immediate and longer term health and wellbeing. 

These risky behaviours include risk drinking, illicit drug use and dangerous driving with some of the potential consequences: being charged with criminal offences, being involved in an accident or violence; hospitalisation and, in some cases, death.

Youth is often the stage of life when young people begin to experiment with alcohol and other drugs, often followed their peers’ ‘everyone is doing it’. 

The difference between negative and positive peer pressure

“A healthy part of every child’s development is involvement with their peers. This is especially true during adolescence as teenagers develop a sense of independence from their parents.” – by Bruce A.Epstein

We all feel pressure (either from inside or outside ourselves) to be like other people. Peer pressure plays a big role in determining who we are and how we talk, act and dress. 


How we chose to react to peer pressure defines who we are as an individual. Are you a leader or a follower? Another thing to remember is that people in groups act differently and do things they’d never do on their own. Why? Because we all lose at least some of our identity in a group. And the normal controls we put on our behaviour can crumble before the need we all feel to fit in and be respected by others.

The difference between negative and positive peer pressure is the outcome. Good friends can encourage teens to get involved in positive activities, help them learn good social skills and other ways to work out problems, and give teens good advice.

Negative peer pressure is when teens feel pressured to do something they know is wrong, such as doing drugs, smoking, drinking, stealing, or something they don’t want to do such as having sex, etc.

Why young people (and not young too..) are vulnerable to negative peer pressure?

● To be accepted and liked by people their own age

● To appear grown up

● Afraid of being rejected

● Afraid of losing a friend

● Afraid of being teased /bullied

● Don’t know how to say “no”

● To be a part of the group, don’t feel alone
● Don’t know what they really want

Tips for parents

" Parents should not underestimate the role of peers in a teenager’s life, but should try to encourage their child to have his own ideas, opinions and wants. " by Jolien Sichien

“Adolescents want to be independent and dependent at the same time,” says Benjamin Siegel, MD, paediatrician. “On one hand, they want to assert their independence. On the other, they need their parents.” 


Yours rules and structure give your teen a framework for understanding the world, even if he protests. 

When teens were asked what their parents could do to discourage drinking, the answers were surprisingly simple:

● Talk to us.

Teens say they want to know what their parents think and how they make decisions

● Punish us.

Teens who break rules typically wait to see what happens. If there are no consequences, the rules don’t matter.

● Limit overnight visits.

Not having to go home can be too much freedom to handle

● Wait up for us.

Knowing they have to face mum or dad, or both, in a few hours makes most teens think twice about the shape they will be in when they get home.

Parents need to set clear expectations for behaviour, establish rules about communicating where and with whom their teenagers are spending their time. By communicating your expectations and consequences, your adolescent cannot claim they “did not know” that you would be upset.These boundaries need to be included in your teenager's internet use.

If you really believe that a particular peer group is negatively impacting you child, it is important to deal with reasons your teen is being influenced in this direction. An adolescent is drawn to a particular group because it “feeds” them in some way.

He or she may have problems with self-confidence and self-esteem and feel it is necessary to fit in any way possible. Parents will not change the teen’s attitude by forbidding access to these peers. They can only change the attitude by dealing with the primary issues that cause it in the first place.

“Talk to your children about peer pressure. Explain what a powerful force it can be, and... tell them that you will never accept the excuse that “Everyone did it”... that they will be held responsible for their actions.” Tom McMahon

If you believe your concerns are serious, talk to your teenager about behaviour and choices – not the friends. Encourage your teen’s independence by supporting decision making based on principles and not other people. Encourage reflective thinking by helping your teen think about his or her actions in advance and discussing immediate and long-term consequences of risky behaviour.

If you are in Sydney, please contact our Counselling Unit to arrange a private counselling sessions with your teen on 02 9542 4029.

Tips for Adolescence

It’s important to have a strong self-image because it develops confidence in what you do and how you relate to your peers and loved one.

Peer pressure is testing your will to refuse something you don’t want to do, or know that is wrong for you such as high-risk behaviours.

What consequences?

Drugs and alcohol have really consequences that can affect the quality of your life for a long time. Think about the changes in brain chemistry that can follow periods of drug use. Think about it. You can be involved in an accident, violence crime, and hospitalisation.

Learn how to handle peer pressure

Peer pressure can be direct or indirect. Peer pressure can be negative and positive. But even pressure to do good things can be bad for you, if you don’t learn to say NO when you need to.

Practice ways to say No: 

Avoid following PEER PRESSURE such as, "...if you're my friend, you'll help me; if you love me, you'll have sex with me; if you want me to be happy, you'll go along with my plan." These are bully tactics -- don't fall for them!

You can say:

● “Not tonight. I have to study.”

● “No, thanks. I am in training.”

● “Hey! No way!”

● “Just leave me alone.”

● Alcohol’s NOT my thing.

● Back OFF!

● Why do you keep pressuring me when I’ve said NO?

● “I’m fine.”

Learn to Say NO nicely – “N.I.C.E” to say NO

N: Say “No”. Not “maybe” or “later”.

I: Follow with an “I” statement: “I’m not going to .... , it is not part of my life plan”

C: If pressure continues, “Change”. Change the topic. Change your conversation partner. Change the location.

E: If these strategies do not help, you need “Exit “plan. Leave a bad situation immediately.

Sometimes you can feel pressure just watching how others act or dress (indirect peer pressure), without them saying a word to you. This “unspoken pressure” is especially hard to resist, because instead of standing up to a friend, you are standing up to how you feel inside. In this case, your best strategy is to decide what you really want and always being true to yourself and your values. 


Think about your options and what consequences will be of your decisions and actions.It actually takes courage to be your own person. Don’t forget, there is no other person exactly like you. We are all unique, and can’t really be compared to anyone because our experiences have all been different. Have confidence that you can do what you set out to do in life, without relying on what other people think.



A true friend will take NO for an answer and not try to make you do something you don’t want to do. 


And you will find that when you are self confident, you exert an energy that makes others want to be around you.

Enough is Enough have been successfully presenting programs in primary and secondary schools, Juvenile Justice and adult Correctional Centres for over ten years. 

Programs include responsibility, resilience, leadership tools, alternative schools of thought and tools for positive change. These programs are suitable for students, teachers, youth at risk and those who work with them. We also have programs for those with special needs. Programs are presented nationally. 

Resources:

1. Denise Witmer, The difference between negative and positive peer pressure.

2. Jennifer James, Peer pressure and choices: How to Think for Yourself.

3. Joanne Barker, Brunilda Nazario, MD, Teens and Peer Pressure.

4. Port Clinton, Help Teens Say No!

5. Parents, Speak Up! U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

6. ABS Statistics