The next category of the stress management plan that we want to cover is
how to manage our emotions the first strategy is getting away from them.
Remember we talked about the importance not just of problem solving but also
disengagement from problems this is where we begin when we raise kids with a
very active strategy to disengage from problems we're doing drug prevention
drugs have been out there for thousands of years they're a great way of turning
off your brain and of silencing your thoughts and of escaping from reality
and it's our nightmare. We want our kids to do things that are healthy but that
also escape the emotion and it's got to be something, it's not about words you
say to yourself because telling a kid to just relax, just don't think about it is
like telling them to look at the man in the corner right. It's gonna have all
sorts of intrusive thoughts come in we want them to come up with strategies
that don't allow for any intrusive thoughts. So some things that are instant
vacations are things like hobbies. Hobbies are great right, going for a walk,
these are great things but they're not really great to have you escape from
those thoughts that are really overwhelming. There are actually two
strategies that have been proven to really work to give you an instant
vacation the first is reading a book. When you read a book you're imagining
the panorama you're seeing the sights you're hearing the sounds you're
smelling the smells and you're feeling the feelings, as a result there's no room
for intrusive thoughts and the other is mindfulness. Mindfulness is about using
the power of breath the calming power of breath to be fully present right here
and when you're fully present right here you're not thinking about the past which
is really another way of describing depression nor are you worried about the
future which is really another way of describing anxiety
you're just here and we know that mindfulness practiced 15 to 20 minutes a
day lowers depression lowers anxiety lowers blood pressure, powerful powerful
tool. You know what else I like about these two strategies, they're portable.
You don't have to take a massage table with you. This is you put a book in your
pocket you always have one with you or ya have it on your phone or you have you
you can always use the power of your breath to calm yourself
you know we just talked about escaping problems and escaping the way we
feel emotionally when we're exposed to a problem. But the truth is that sometimes
you got to deal with stuff sometimes you got to deal with your emotions and that
can make you stressed out and that can make you feel bad and you know what,
that's not the worst thing. Remember, a little bit of stress activates you. A
little bit of stress makes you more powerful. Our nightmare is not that our
kids have stress, it's that they become numb. What is it that makes you numb? What
makes you numb is and when you get exposed to so many things and you just
trap it inside of a box without ever expressing it. You just put it inside
this box inside this box inside this box more and more comes until the only way
you're gonna keep things inside is to make the container of that box really
thick and really heavy and when the most passionate themes of human existence are
trapped inside of a box, we stop feeling. How do we prevent our kids from getting
there? By teaching them how to express and release emotions. How to understand
what it is that's on their mind, to name it, and to release it. What you want is
for your kid to be able to fill in this sentence: "I (blanked) it out." What's the
fill in the blank? I don't know. I don't know your kid but I'll tell you some
things they might consider: I laughed it out. I cried it out. I prayed it out. I
talked it out. I wrote it out. I sculpted it out. I drew it out. I danced it out. I
slammed it out. I rapped it out. I don't know. What I do know is that
everybody needs something. So you can know what the problem is,
name it organize, it in your mind and then release it. Because when we do that
we have emotions we don't suppress emotions but they don't build up. Then
we're able to go on with our days.