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hello everybody and welcome to this brief video on Surviving your past eight daily
habits I'm your host Dr Donnelly Snipes now before we get started please click the like
and the Subscribe button that way you're notified every time we put out a new video
so the mnemonica created for these eight habits is champion because when we are
surviving our past we are becoming champions C stands for choose how your past impacts you in
the future when you wake up each morning you have a choice to let your past drag you down let your
past haunt you or choose to let it be a part of who you are and encourage you to move forward
H stands for be honest with yourself and others about your thoughts wants and needs
what is it that you want and need to move toward your rich and meaningful life it doesn't have
to depend on your past what is it that you in the present deserve what is it that you and the
present want what are your thoughts in the present a stands for accept things that can't be changed
some things just suck your past can't be changed again you can choose you can change how it impacts
you in the future whether it drags you down and makes you feel depressed and hopeless and ashamed
or if you process that stuff and recognize that you have moved forward and you've gotten stronger
as a result not that you would have wanted to choose that path but it has made you stronger
m stands for mindful compassionate awareness of your needs and I know this isn't necessarily an
order because you need to be mindful of your needs before you can be honest with yourself
and others but it just worked for the mnemonic mindful compassionate awareness and compassionate
or non-judgmental whatever word you want to use is so important don't shoot yourself to death if
you wake up in the morning and you recognize that hey I'm starting to get burned out I need to take
the day off or I need something else don't be hard on yourself instead be compassionate and go okay
if this is what you need right now then let's make it happen being compassionate and paying attention
to what your mind and body tell you are very important and that is something that a lot of
people who survive trauma or stressful traumatic childhoods have often not done even if you have
a great childhood if you had a stressful traumatic period you may have learned to
just shut off your own needs so becoming Mindful and compassionately aware of your needs in the
morning you get up and you check in with yourself hi self how you doing what are your needs today
how is my past going to impact me today what is it that I need to be honest with myself
about about how I feel my thoughts my needs and what do I need to be honest with others
about if I'm having a crappy day maybe I need to be honest with them and say you know what
I'm having a crappy day and this is what you can do to help me or get out of my way
P stands for purposeful action that is using your energy to move forward toward your rich and
meaningful not life not dwelling and stewing on the things that cannot be changed you've accepted
those you're using your energy to say how can I improve the next moment how can I use my energy
today to nurture or develop something that's important to me whether it's my relationship
with myself or my relationship with somebody else or a hobby or my health or whatever it is
how can I purposefully use my energy and a lot of times when I talk about purposeful action I
talk about mobile devices and a lot of us have a limited amount of battery on our mobile device
so we need to choose how we use that battery could we watch videos on it sure however that would
probably completely drain your battery before the end of the day and if you can't recharge
then you might not have enough battery to call people or to do other things that are necessary
you have a certain a finite amount of energy yourself every day and you only get to recharge
periodically like at night when you get good sleep so how are you going to use your energy
in the best possible most effective way to move towards that rich and meaningful life
I stands for inventory who you are today who you are today may not be who you were yesterday may
not be who you were six months ago or a year ago continuing to hold yourself hostage for
mistakes that you've made or for things that you didn't know that you've since learned
is not helpful who are you today what do you deserve today and forgiving
yourself for past mistakes making amends where possible for example
but again not continuing to hold yourself hostage or um criticize yourself for mistakes you made in
the past or things you did that you look back and you go oh I wish I wouldn't have done that
oh is for observe your cognitive distortions a lot of times when we have gone through a traumatic
period whether it's in childhood or adulthood our thoughts become much more extreme and what some
would say distorted they're not a hundred percent accurate some of these cognitive distortions that
are particularly problematic in people who've survived trauma or survived a traumatic past
include all or nothing thinking everyone is out to get me nobody is safe I can never feel safe so we
want to address that all or nothing thinking by looking for exceptions what would have to happen
so you could trust someone so you could feel safe thinking back in the past even if it was
for a brief period of time when did you feel safe or was there somebody that you were able to trust
mind reading is another skill that we've developed to survive traumatic or dangerous situations we
try to guess what our um the people around us are thinking that way we can meet their
needs and keep them from getting angry or upset or you know dysregulating in some way
however a lot of times we are not effective at mind reading therefore it causes a lot of
excessive stress we may assume somebody's upset with us or assume somebody's upset when in reality
they're not they were just you know daydreaming about something and then we get stressed because
they're stressed but or we think they're stressed but they really weren't so we want to adjust mind
reading and look at the facts what is this person needing right now what do we know what are the
facts not what are we assuming but what are the facts and then ask them oh my gosh New Concept
communicate jumping to conclusions is similar to mind reading but not always the same jumping to
conclusions is assuming you know what happened or what's going to happen in a situation again
you want to look at the facts of the situation and personalization is the final one that we're
going to talk about because a lot of people who've gone through traumatic experiences were
blamed for what was going on or felt like it was their responsibility or their fault
so they start to personalize everything look for alternate explanations besides it's all about you
now why do I have this in Daily habits because during the traumatic event or events
your thinking changed so it's important to observe throughout the day make it a habit
to observe your thoughts and notice when you're using these extreme um thinking or when you're
jumping to conclusions and start to address it when as you make it a habit then you will slowly
start altering the way you think and you'll notice that you use those distortions a lot less
and finally n stands for nurture your inner child if your trauma occurred when you were a child then
that inner child may be scared it may have low self-esteem it may feel ashamed of things ashamed
of who they are so it's important to nurture your inner child and let them know that they
are lovable they are okay they are safe now and that you're going to move forward if your trauma
did not happen when you were a child you still have an inner child that inner child may be happy
which is great so connect with that inner child remember what it was like to feel footloose and
fancy free to be able to just have fun and laugh at things so your inner child even if it wasn't
the trauma didn't occur during your childhood you still have that inner child and we want to
get that inner child for everyone to a place where it can be a kid where it can allow us to be silly
sometimes to cut loose to not always have to be so serious and worried about what other people think
if you want more information on this topic I have videos on the YouTube channel youtube.com
I have videos on the inner child complex post-traumatic stress disorder and Trauma
mindfulness and addressing cognitive distortions so feel free to check some of those out