I'm Nicholeen Peck, today we're talking about making a calm plan. Do you want to
know how to calm down when you're angry? I teach about parenting, good communication,
how to build strong family bonds all over the world through the principal,
self government. And in this video, we're talking about making a calm plan for your own success.
So in this video, we're going to be talking about what happens to us when we get angry. And
what we can do in order to change the tide, go in a different direction, by creating a very proactive,
calm plan. So even though I'm known all over the world for teaching about calmness, and people
probably think of me as a very calm person, especially after the BBC made a documentary of
our family called The World's Strictest Parents. And they brought two troubled teens to our home
to stay for eight, eight days who got angry and upset, and I just stayed calm. People probably
think, well, calmness must come easy for her. She doesn't have that German blood, or that Latin
blood or whatever it is. But honestly, I was not always calm and that's something that I think I
need to be right upfront about. So I know what I'm talking about when I say let's make a calm plan.
And what can we do so that we don't go down that angry path again, because I actually am a very
strong willed, passionate person. And I had to deliberately decide that I was going to be calm,
that I was not going to fall into some of those anger traps, those traps where I was saying
things that I regretted later, I didn't want that anymore. And when I decided to take in therapeutic
treatment care children to do foster care in my home, and they were going to be yelling at me,
I had to be the exact opposite of them. I had to be calm so that they would see that yelling
was not the way anymore and it is possible. So I made a calm plan for myself, I also helped
them make a calm plan for themselves to let's talk about what that is. So what happens to us
when we choose to get angry? Well, first thing is we're not often paying attention. So we might
be paying attention emotionally, we might take something that somebody says or does personally,
but we're not really paying attention to what's going on on the inside. When a person is angry,
oftentimes, they're partially absent minded, they are now hyper focusing on how they feel, instead
of on what they should be doing to solve the problem. Also, there's many people because they
go to the emotional part of their brain, which is the mid part of the brain, sometimes even the back
part of the brain, they forget that they aren't able to solve their problem will, which actually
requires a friend brain work. So we want to make sure that when something occurs that could make
us angry that we push ourselves to front brain, instead of allowing it to track us all the way to
back brain and that's the place where we say and do things we wish we wouldn't have done and then
we regret it afterward. Recognizing that when you get to that angry place, it can happen without you
even knowing it without you really even choosing it. Now I say that knowing that every action that
we make actually is a choice unless we've programmed ourselves to just go on autopilot
in certain circumstances, which many people do. Now these types of habits that seem like
autopilot can seem like they are impossible to fix. Some people will come to me and say Nicholeen,
I was raised by parents who yelled, I've been yelling all the time. I don't want to do it. But I
don't actually know how to stop myself. It happens before I know it even occurred. Well, that's how
you know it's a habit. You have now programmed it, it is the go to for your brain and body.
And so you need to make sure that you program yourself to do something different. Did you know
that you're a robot? In fact, every person is a robot. We all are programmed by our circumstances,
by our parents, by people that we know and we get the opportunity to reprogram ourselves if we want
to. Well, we can also program ourselves the wrong way or the right way. Right. So what I teach when
I teach self government is I teach people how to deliberately decide what they want to do to
program themselves so that they don't have to fall into that default programming that they may not
like. Now we need to talk about that calm plan but before we do, do you see that subscribe button?
Well click that subscribe button now because when you do you will then have more access to more
great videos just like this one; subscribe now. So what is involved when making a calm plan? Well,
usually you come up with a trigger that you are watching for in yourself. So how do you know
when you are starting to not be calm? Is there a certain thought that you have that comes through
your head or is there a certain feeling that you have, maybe you are starting to clench your
fists or your neck gets tight, or you tighten your teeth, or you get a knot in your stomach?
What happens to you when you know you are just about ready to lose it? Well, at that point,
you have got to do something, because you cannot fall over that cliff of that, not calmness cliff,
right? If you feel it building, you've got to shut it back down. And when I say shut it down,
I don't mean we're stuffing emotions or anything. We're just making wise decisions here. If you know
that you can identify when you're going to not be calm and choose calmness, you're not stuffing
anything. You're getting yourself calm, so that you can actually talk about something that needs
to have your attention and needs to be talked about afterward. So let's keep that in mind. I
have a lot of videos on this channel on emotions. So definitely see anything related to emotions,
if you want more understanding there about talking about emotions or things like that,
because that's not what I'm talking about in this video. This video, I'm specifically talking about
the calm plan so that you are prepared for those moments, when you feel those nonproductive motion,
emotions are on the rise. And you don't want to hurt relationships, or other people or even feel
guilty about what you did after the fact. So you need to know what that trigger feels like. For me,
it feels like a knot in my stomach and I know if I give into that knot, I just feel like oh,
if I just hit something or yell something, oh, then I'll feel better. I feel like I want to
release it emotionally. But I've taught myself no, the emotional release of this is never going
to be productive. So what I have to do instead is I need to determine that this feeling is just a
trigger to remind me to get calm. So most people might use it as a trigger to get angry. But you
can take that trigger that pushes you toward anger or losing control and now reverse it and
say actually, that's the trigger, that's going to remind me I'm almost over the cliff and now
I'm going to go toward calmness, I'm going to go in a different direction. So then after you
recognize your trigger, you know what it is you write it down, you say this is my trigger feeling
or my trigger thought because maybe I always get a certain thought that pops into my head.
Once you know that you've identified it, you can write it down, then you can make a plan
for what to do after that. So the second part of your plan is determining how you will handle
the circumstances when you have identified your trigger thought or behavior. So for me,
I actually have a process that I go through where when I noticed, I'm getting that feeling of anger,
then I'll take a little mini step back. And I'll ask myself a question, am I calm? I'll say in my
head, and calm this, for me means a certain voice, a certain type of body posturing, a certain type
of thought processes? And if the answer is no, that I am not calm, then my next part of the plan
is where do I go. So I go to my room and in my room, I sing hymns. And I might sit in my chair in
my room, I might say a prayer to ask to have that feeling of anger gone for me, I have my calm plan.
And part of my calm plan is also to look at my cue cards. So I have some teaching self government cue
cards that remind me of the skills that I have at my disposal to use it anytime. I look at the
cue cards, and I plan out exactly what I want to say, when I go back to the circumstance. Sometimes
I've even written out word for word what to say. So that when I go back, I do not fall into the
habit. That would be not calm. Okay, so then I go back, and I have the conversation with the person
I do the correction. I say whatever it is, that needs to be said in order to handle the problem.
And I do it with calmness and afterward I check up with myself, how did I do there? Could I have
done anything in any kind of a different way? And if the answer is yes, then I make plans for what
to do in the future. I might even write down a goal for myself. But if the answer is "no," then I
congratulate myself for following through with my calm plan. So that's my calm plan. Everyone needs
to have one. I remember my grandpa told the story of his grandmother, which would be my great great
grandmother, and she would sometimes disappear when the grandchildren were all getting wild and
crazy. One time his little cousin said, Let's go see where grandma goes. And they tipped
down the hall of that her little house, looked around the corner, and there's grandma
sitting in her rocking chair going, Merci. Merci. Merci. So that was her calm plan, she had a rocking
chair, that was her place that was going to get her calm, she was going to stay there until she
felt prepared to handle the circumstances. And I thought, what a wise person. Now a big part
of my calm plan is also that I will not handle a circumstance until I am calm, which means if
it has to take days, then it'll take days. But I don't take days to calm down. I know some people
like to hold on to their anger for a long time. But I try to let it go. When once I've decided I'm
going to be calm, I say that's a lie, that anger is a lie or that stress is a lie. I don't need to
listen to that anymore, I can be calm. And I just call myself down, nice and easy, by telling myself
the truth, instead of buying into the lies. So if you hold on to your anger or your bad feelings for
a really long time, you might need to do some practice on dropping the subject, which is one
of the skills of self government. And you might also need to remind yourself that some of those
feelings of offense are actually lies. They're meant to hold you back. So whenever possible,
you try to just declare them as lies and say what is the actual truth? The actual truth is that
person really wasn't trying to hurt my feelings or they're human, they're going to make mistakes,
just like I will. And I need to forgive it and move on. Right. So you just tell yourself the
truth, and you move on once you get yourself to a place of good deep breathing. So let's talk about
a complex for the children. When we're talking about children and creating a complex for them,
we want to predetermine ahead of time, what is their complex. Now, when children are older than
like age six or seven, I use do something called the Rule of Three to help them go
to their front brain, so that they can be calm that way, just kind of instantly, if possible,
stop them from going out of control. When they're younger than age like six or so six, and under,
we might have a calmed down spot that they go to, they only go there to get calm. The second they
are calm, they don't have to be on the calm down spot anymore. We talk about the circumstances and
do any corrections that are needed. So then having a calm down place is also a very valuable thing.
So help your children determine what they are going to sing or say or do when they are in the
calm down place so that they can get themselves calm as well. Now, I want to warn you that
focusing on distractions is not a good way to get calm. So even though I would sing and say prayers,
those things were purposely to bring truth and light to me because light and dark cannot occupy
the same space at the same time and I know people are thinking, but what about the color gray? Well,
then it's dark. Okay, so light and dark cannot occupy the same space at the same time. So what
that means is if I have a feeling like stress, anxiety, anger, that's going to be me going that's
dark, that's dark inside me. I want light to come in. So I'm going to bring in light. That's why I
would sing hymns, or say prayers and I'm going to be specifically asking for that feeling of light
and truth to come in. Now, I know not everybody maybe prays or sings, hymns. We're all a little bit
different. But you also could make a gratitude list about the person that maybe you're having
a struggle with. So you could list things that you're grateful about them for because you've got
to start bringing light and truth and connection in somehow so that you don't get trapped in those
feelings of anger anymore. I have so many more things I can talk about related to calmness. It's
really one of my favorite topics. One day, I'm going to write a book about it. Anyway, it's in
the works right now. So watch for that sometime in the future. But I will say that I could teach you
more. In fact, I have a calm parenting toolkit that I would love to give you. Whether you are a
parent or not, it could absolutely help you learn 10 tools for calmness that could be beneficial and
it will build on the training that we just did here. In the description below this video there
is a link to a calm parenting toolkit. The link says teachselfgov.com/toolkit. If you click
on that link right now, it will take you to the column parenting toolkit for free. You can have
it for free. It's my gift to you. So click on the link to that toolkit now and I'll see you there.