Latest / College Is Fine, Everything's Fine / #70 From Overwhelmed to In Control: How to Handle Hard Things Wisely with the R.E.A.C.H. Guide

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#70 From Overwhelmed to In Control: How to Handle Hard Things Wisely with the R.E.A.C.H. Guide · College Is Fine, Everything's Fine

Handle Hard Things Wisely[00:00:00]College Is Fine Podcast: Um, I think it's really funny that we're recording a handle hard things wisely episode when both of us are probably pretty fried, especially you. I just wanna give you some real, you know, some real credits to doing this. I can tear the, I can um, totally care. Oh my God, I can't even speak words. I mean, our brains are so fried. I canLiz: I know.College Is Fine Podcast: about giving this information out because, for our listeners, Liz is in the kind of one of those perfect storm weeks where everything's happening at once. Um, with all, a lot of the supports that she typically has. And it's, it's been crazy. Um, and she is, has been ama a trooper, but,Liz: Um, well, thank you Sarah. And I really feel like this is a time where I say like, I practice what I preach and these are life skills. So I actually think like there's some lemonade of lemons in terms of finding time to sit down and talk about these skills, [00:01:00] um, so that I can maybe cope ahead for some, um, hard things that are coming up in my future.So, um,College Is Fine Podcast: safe,Liz: we're here.College Is Fine Podcast: It's just been a lot of stress. A lot of stress,Liz: Yes, lot of, lot of stress. Um, and so we're here, we're talking about the H and our REACH acronym, which is Handle Hard Things wisely. And I also think it's good timing, like the start of the school year is happening. A lot of hard things kind of happen during transitions, so we're excited to kind of unpack all the skills that go into this part of our guide.College Is Fine Podcast: and we did do a little bit of this during our live episode. It's just that we went through it so quickly there. We ran out of time. We wanted to give time for questions that, um. You know, so we're, were we doing that, that letter, so to speak, but you had said, I remember really clearly you said it probably a bit more efficiently than I would, just knowing you, but, um, that no matter, even if you're doing things really [00:02:00] well in college, stressors happen.You know? And then I also tend to think that if you're doing something you care about and it feels important to you, stress justLiz: Mm-hmm.College Is Fine Podcast: If you care about school, you're gonna be stressed about your grades, most likely. If you care about your friendships, you're gonna. Most likely worry or pay attention to relationship difficulties if you feel like things aren't going awry.So we also see common stressors when things really aren't going. So typically. So perhaps someone made a social mistake that they are really embarrassed about, right? Like 10Liz: Mm-hmm.College Is Fine Podcast: agree, maybe you shouldn't have done that. And whatLiz: Right, right. Right.College Is Fine Podcast: Um, you fail a big test that you are hoping, um, to, to do better at while you're struggling and it's gonna impact your GPA, um, getting into trouble for something.Maybe you did do it, maybe you didn't, but either way, you're in trouble. What do you do? And I think a big part of what we're trying to say is. hard things happen and we all stress out, our natural [00:03:00] instincts tend to be pretty reactive, right? If we're angry, we wanna attack or yell. If we're anxious, we want to kind of avoid things or perhaps retreat or run away, um, maybe freeze and kind of have that like deer in headlights approach and just don't do anything. Um, I think that it's something where, when all. know, all cylinders are firing. Oftentimes, that's when if we're really hotheaded, that we can get into more trouble. And so this is our way of saying, Hey, hold on. Yes, if stressors happen, no big deal. It happens to the best of us. And how can you push pause so that you can think through the situation without making things worse?Liz: Right That like this is one of those things I'd be very surprised if at some point during your college years, um. You don't have something really, really hard that's difficult for you to manage, and we want, um, for you to have a roadmap of like, how do you make sure your emotions don't get in the [00:04:00] way so that you act impulsively or maybe don't think about long-term consequences or give up right.And feel really helpless in response to something that's difficult that you're dealing with. Um,College Is Fine Podcast: I tell aLiz: and I, and I think one of,College Is Fine Podcast: to,Liz: yes, sure.College Is Fine Podcast: daughter asked me if I ever drank too much. Okay, so she's 11 and I'm, you know, gonna have to go look through her YouTube, um, history really quickly. But she started to ask me if I ever did and, um. I'll start again 'cause that's actually not true. So the other day I was talking to one of my clients who's about to go to college.He's gonna be a freshman next year. I'm so excited for him. Um, but he asked me, he had a little bit too much to drink, uh, in high school, um, like the previous weekend and asked me, Hey, did you ever drink too much in college? I was like, uh, yeah, yeah, I did. And we were just thinking through like, what happens when you do make these. Go, things go too far and the next day you wake [00:05:00] up and you're really, really maybe humiliated. Um, and, and sick and so on and so forth. So, you know, these are things that even though Liz and I maybe are at this point where we're not going out and been drinking quite the same way we might've in college, you know, we were there.We, I think, I don't know Liz, I know that you were perfectly, um, you know, everything went beautifullyLiz: Uh,College Is Fine Podcast: in school. Like,Liz: no.College Is Fine Podcast: there. But, um, yeah. These are things we.Liz: Yeah.College Is Fine Podcast: We probably could have used back in the day.Liz: Right. Yes. College Liz, um, had a lot of fun. So, and, and I agree and I agree that sometimes even if I recovered from a mistake or got through handling like a stressful situation, not the most effective way. I, I think the, the ride would've been a little bit more smoother emotionally and, um, if I maybe would've handled things a little bit differently.Um, so, so we're, we're hoping, like, again, I recognize that all of [00:06:00] us can sometimes bounce back, but maybe we don't bounce back as easily from hard things that happen, and hopefully some of these skills might. Be helpful to you. So, um, I, I think one of, there's a concept, you know, within DBT, we've talked about dialectical behavior therapy, but it's something called willingness and willfulness.And whenever I'm teaching these concepts, and I'll get into some skills around it, I talk about, I lived in New York City for ish years and you know, for those of you in other parts of the world. When it rains in New York City, it's quite an interesting experience because you're essentially walking on a sidewalk that's, I don't know, Sarah, I'm really bad with distance.I don't know, like three feet wide. And there are about hundreds of people with umbrellas. Um, and so what I would do is I would pack an umbrella when I knew it was gonna rain, but I'd be like getting out of the subway and I'd be like. I really don't wanna put it on up an umbrella because inevitably what happens is you're banging into people, umbrellas are hitting [00:07:00] each other, and I would just kind of pray to the gods that the rein's either gonna stop or stay light.Stay light. And the, the umbrella would stay in the backpack.College Is Fine Podcast: know what'sLiz: Um,College Is Fine Podcast: nice in New York when people have their umbrella next to you and their water is rushing in from their umbrellaLiz: yes.College Is Fine Podcast: 'cause it's so crowded. So even if you had anLiz: So crap, it's not even, yeah. So. But the thing that I would do that was really ineffective, I would refuse to accept the reality that it was raining and I'd miss this window of time of getting at least some coverage with an umbrella. Um, and inevitably I'd end up getting soaked. Right? And I was just like, so even when I talk about it, if you can see me on YouTube, I'm like clenching my fist.'cause like I would. Be so angry at the fact that it's raining and I'm outdoors and that like I got outta the subway and it was sunnier in the other part of the city that I was in. Um, but that concept of like refusing to accept reality, what, even when it's like staring you right in the face is an example of being [00:08:00] willful, right?And there are certain signs that we can notice that we're being willful about something. So one of them is rejecting reality and it might not be as simple as something as like the rain. It could be that you're rejecting the reality that. You've failed every single exam that you've had so far in the semester and you haven't done anything about it or, or asked for help.Um, so a lot of times our behavior is being really willful. We can kind of see that we're avoiding a problem. We also can see that we're maybe like overly. Trying to problem solve something that we can't change. That's being really willful too. Like maybe trying to like fix a friendship when two friends have just decided that they're not, you know, right.For each other. So we can be willful with our behavior, our language, 100%. We can be willful in terms of, um, like the way we're thinking in terms of thoughts that we're having, we're really judgemental or rejecting of our current reality. Um. I'm not very flexible in our thinking. And the last thing I'll say that is really [00:09:00] important, and I know I've talked about this in another episode, 'cause I think it's underutilized, is our body can signal willfulness.So clench fist, right? Maybe a lot of tension kind of within, within our facial expressions. I know for me that I'm definitely being willful if I just look at my hands. Um, they really communicate a lot about how accepting I am about a situation. So the opposite of willfulness is willingness, and willingness is, and the more effective state to be in.We're willing to be more skillful, we're more open to what's needed in the situation. We're more flexible, accepting. Maybe willing to kind of compromise or be cooperative with others. We're not fighting what our current reality is. Um, so for example, like owning the truth, coming clean about something, apologizing when you've done something wrong, right?It's a more approaching difficult situations. Um, so I think when we're talking about handling hard things wisely, I think it's pretty. Obvious that [00:10:00] being willing to kind of accept your current reality is the more effective state to be in. And there are certain things we can do to cultivate a willing mindset.Um, one of them is what I just talked about. There's something called willing hands. So willing hands essentially is kind of tossing your hands up to the universe or God or whatever you might believe in, right? And kind of. Practicing acceptance as what it says with your hands. So a lot of things, like I said before, happen in our brain, um, through our physiology and our physical state.So sometimes the first step if you're like, okay, I am not handling this well, is to just open up your hands. And relax them, right? And maybe lean them on like your chair rest or something like that. So practicing a willing stance with our hands is a way to cultivate willingness. There's also something called a half smile, um, which I really struggle.And now that, you know, we're really videotaping everything, uh, with this [00:11:00] I. This is something I laugh with my patients about all the time, so I have like a really flat smile. So it's kind of hard to mimic this, but we'll, we'll share some links around this. But essentially a half smile is not like full on like teeth, like a glamor like smile.It really is about just curving the corners of your lips up, right? Okay. And just that little change in your physiology and the expression on your face has been shown on brain imaging to change our, our emotions. So, and that can cultivate willingness as well. So these are, there are certain things you can do with your facial expressions and with your body that can.Uh, have a willing stance and sometimes that's a good first step before you try to be more willing with your thoughts, right? In terms of accepting reality and being more flexible, and you're thinking about doing what you need to do, um, to get you towards making effective actions being the last step,College Is Fine Podcast: Yeah. I also, I always am thinking like, [00:12:00] or everyone just waits to kind of have the thoughts go their way, right? And, and, andLiz: right?College Is Fine Podcast: sometimes it's quicker, maybe not easier, but quicker to have our muscles talk to our brain.Liz: Yes.College Is Fine Podcast: to have our, our mind, make our muscles do something we wanna do differently.Liz: Mm-hmm.College Is Fine Podcast: so I love that idea. And by the way, yes, your hands as you're talking, Sue, they say so willing, so willing to do this episode despite all the crap you have to do. Right? As soon as we push, um, stop. So, um, the next thing we'll talk about, we have a microdose episode on, so we're not gonna go to it through it, so. Over. You know, we won't go through it so, so much. But once you are willing to do something again, that's the first step. If you're not willing to do it, you know, and you wanna just try it your way, then fine. Sometimes people just need to learn the way they need to learn. so if at some point though, you find, okay, I'm actually willing to engage in some strateg. Then one quick stop, and it's kind of one of those, like a lot of things in one, [00:13:00] is to practice the poise approach. So with that, you wanna pause, create space between your emotions and your racing thoughts and that physiology of your body, right? And then what you wanna do. So you have all these things that are firing inside of you, and then there's a pause. Before you react. All right, so, because we talked about when you're stressed, you wanna attack, you wanna yell, you wanna avoid, you wanna run, and those are all reactions, really instinctive reactions. So creating a pause there is really important. And then noticing, to your point, as you said, I notice that my hands are clenched, and that's aLiz: Mm-hmm.College Is Fine Podcast: I notice that I typically have just a tightness in my chest. That just kind of feels tight. Other people might feel hot. You know, you might just notice that your thoughts seem to race. I can't, I'm too distracted, or I'm, I'm overly focused on one thing after the next, or I keep on replaying that image in my head over and over again.But observe what's happening inside your body and also [00:14:00] observe your situation around you. You know, what are your supports right now? Are you around people who you can trust? Do you need to take space or time from the outside world? And then inhale and exhale. All right, so inhale and exhale is the next step because taking that breath is also a way that our body can communicate with our brain that we're in a safe place.We have time to think, and then stretch out your options. That's the S stretch out your options instead of that initial quick reaction that you tend to do when you are anxious, mad, et cetera. We all kind of probably know our go-tos. Stretch out your options a little bit. Can you think about ways, maybe done it in the past that have worked a bit more effectively.Can you see that someone, you know, a classmate or a roommate or a friend has tried it differently? And kind of learn from them, stretch out your action choices. And then the next part is to [00:15:00]engage in effective action, something we talked about before. So. Saying, all right, I have a few different options.And then who, what's the, what's the way I wanna be right now? What is the what? Who is the me that I wanna be in this situation? What values do I want guiding my decisions? How can I think about long-term versus short-term consequences to things? So engage in effective action. And so a lot of times when I'm working with my clients, I'll just say, just poise. The word poise allows them to, it's kind of a quick hit. And this, even though it took me maybe a few minutes to describe that. If you start to practice it more quickly, oftentimes just being like, okay, practice poise it. It's milliseconds before you're able to do it really fluidly.Liz: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I, I think the other thing too is that sometimes when we're in that first part of poise where we're kind of pausing and observing or noticing things maybe about our breath, um, we might be in a situation where it's [00:16:00] like a five alarm fire going on in our body and that we're not able to maybe think clearly.And that's where there are a set of skills. Um. Called Tip and within DBT that can be really helpful to calm our nervous system down so that we can think a little bit more effectively, like Sarah was saying, stretch out our options and kind of weigh the pros and cons and, and take a action step towards solving the problem.So we'll go through tip quickly. We'll also sharing in the show notes. Um, some further resources on 'em, but I always say like, if you kind of rated your emotions zero to 100, if you're like above a 70, you probably should not be making any decisions about whatever you're struggling with. And your first step should be to calm your body down so that you can access more logical thinking and be able to really evaluate all your options.So the first part of tip. I always think it's really cool. Um, maybe you can let me [00:17:00] know if you do, but, um, it's learning that all mammals have a, a diverse reflex. And this aspect of our diverse reflex is that, um, when we submerge our head into really cold. Water. Um, it can mimic something that happens to mammals in terms of being able to take our one part of our nervous system, our fight or flight, and get into the other part of our nervous system really quickly.The key things about using cold temperature, again, most people know when they get upset they actually get warmer and that makes sense 'cause that's what's happening in our nervous system. The key thing about the temperature part of TIP is I always say that. The more upset you are, the colder the temperature probably has to be, and the more intensely you have to do, uh, the submerging of your head into an ice bath.So I can count on my hands how many people, like some people who really have a lot of panic attacks really can do this and have access to these things. But sometimes in college you don't have access to a bowl of ice water. Um, I don't even [00:18:00] know if I had ice, like loose ice in my dorm. I probably,College Is Fine Podcast: uh, no. JustLiz: probably not.College Is Fine Podcast: just is always a warm back in my day,Liz: So like, yeah.College Is Fine Podcast: we didn'tLiz: So.So you know, if you are in a place that you don't have ice water, like a modification, you can splash on cold water in your face. If it's a really intense emotion, maybe you have ice packs and if you're having a lot of really intense emotions, you have ice packs, so you kind of activate. You definitely could go to the health center or you can find ice, right?The whole idea is to put cold temperature underneath your eye area. And to tilt your head. If you're not putting it in a nice bath, you're putting it in between your legs and you're holding your breath for 30 seconds and you're trying to mimic this reflex in the same way. You know, when you hit your knee at the doctor's office with that tool, your leg kind of goes out.This is an automatic reflex that we have that can really change our body chemistry really quickly. So that is the t and tip. Um, Sarah, do you, do you [00:19:00] wanna talk about intense exercise in the I.College Is Fine Podcast: I mean, and this is really quickly. I don't think I, everyone, I, I can imagine people know what intenseLiz: No.College Is Fine Podcast: exercise means, and that the two words together mean to exercise intensely. But we, some people need something that's relaxing. Other people need to expend a lot of energy to really get outta their head, right?And so intense exercise kind of reboots. Our nervous system and allows us to finish out the stress process. If our stress process says we need to fight or run or attack. By doing intense exercise, we're allowing our body to kind of flush out those, that system and complete it to kind of go through the fullLiz: Mm-hmm.College Is Fine Podcast: So intense exercise is one that. Perhaps a lot of people don't do necessarily, but even just spending some time, you know, kind of doing some boxing moves or some jumping jacks or something, it just is aLiz: Mm-hmm.College Is Fine Podcast: reboot. So, um, it's not one people [00:20:00] think about often, but it's an often overlooked very useful skill.Liz: Yes, I agree. Um, okay. Pace breathing. So I think this is one of, uh, a more used strategy, um, and can be helpful. 'cause a lot of people tell you to focus on your breath when you're like upset. And I'm like, oh my gosh, if you tell me one more time to like take a deep, deep breath, I'm gonna lose it. Right? So, but, but knowing that your breath really is portable, it's always with you and it communicates a lot.To your brain about how you're feeling. Um, so when we are upset, we tend to take very short breaths. They tend to be in our chest and they tend to not really have a long exhale. There's a magical ratio. Science is shown. It's called four seconds In, six seconds Out, we call this paced breathing. And the really key factor here is that your exhale is longer than your inhale.And so when we lengthen our exhale, it moves the breath. Lower throughout our body into our diaphragm. This is where [00:21:00] belly breathing comes from. And that, um, slowing of the breath and the lowering of the breath out of the chest can again, get us out, tip us out of that part of our nervous system, the fight or flight, and get more into like our relaxation part of our nervous system.And that can kind of calm our body down enough that we can access other parts of our brain that that's what we wanna do. How can I kind of. I no longer feel like I'm hyperventilating and I can't breathe or talk clearly. Um, so that's pace breathing.College Is Fine Podcast: And then the final P two Ps.Liz: Final pace.College Is Fine Podcast: weLiz: Okay.College Is Fine Podcast: about this one for too long either, only because you're not gonna do it. No one's gonna do it. It's so great, but no one does it. It's progressive muscle relaxation. Now I'm joking a little bit, but I, whenever I do progressive muscle relaxation, either with the client or in a group, um, everyone loves it.By the end, they're like, I've never been more relaxed in my life. Um, it's essentially where you take each muscle group and then you can do quicker versions or longer versions of this, and [00:22:00] you intensify the tension of that muscle. So if you have your fist, uh, you wanna kind of make a fist and really tense the muscles, you'll start to notice the tightness all the way up. Your arm and you hold that for maybe about 10 seconds, and then you release it and you'll notice that your arm feels so much heavier and lighter, kind of the warm flush that goes through it, and you kinda let that happen for about 20 seconds. So just starting to notice that. With each muscle group, even your jaws, your forehead, all of it, all the way down to your feet, that you will become a, you will have a much more natural physiological state.It's incredibly helpful. I think whyLiz: Mm-hmm.College Is Fine Podcast: do it is 'cause it takes time and it takes some energy. So sometimes I'll ask people to perhaps identify an area of their body where they could really use it. You know, if it's yourLiz: Right.College Is Fine Podcast: or if your stomach, try it in those situations. But we'll, we'll provide an audio link if you wanna try progressive muscle relaxation. Um, but [00:23:00] again, we, there's plenty of resources out there for that if you need it, and we're happy to provide them. I think that this was the quickest hit and really just an introduction to.Liz: Hmm.College Is Fine Podcast: want people to handle hard things wisely. There are plenty of episodes where you go into more detail, especially on things like bouncing back from social mistakes and what you might need to do.So if it's something where you want some more information right now, we'll include some resources, but also comb through our episode library. The other thing, the other part is when to know. That you need more help. Um, the environmentLiz: Yeah.College Is Fine Podcast: bigger than you can manage. Emotions are sometimes bigger than you can manage.So of course, mapping out your supports on campus, whether that is an ra, whether that is an upperclassmen that you've met, whether that is your counseling center, of course. Um, and any sort of online. A lot of places have. Coaching abilities outside of the counseling center that you don't even have to walk in, um, or when to seek professional help.So looking at Psychology [00:24:00] Today or other resources like that, and, um, because I think that there are times where we don't want you to think because you know these skills and use them beautifully, that then everything will be fine. It'll just either keep you. You're head above water until you find the more help than you need, or you're head above water until things naturally calm down or you figure out what to do next. Um, but this is justLiz: Mm-hmm.College Is Fine Podcast: one of what to do next. And that should be either that you're naturally calming down, things are resolving, you figured out a way to problem solve it, or you have gone to the next step and gotten more support.Liz: Right.College Is Fine Podcast: All right, Liz, which one are you gonna use first?Liz: I mean, I think I could use a little bit of tip in my life and I actually, this might be a case like maybe before I go to bed tonight, I might do like a progressive muscle relaxation. 'cause I definitely have been carrying a lot of tension within my body. Um, but we'll circle [00:25:00] back guys. I really feel like September's gonna come around and I've.Gotten over the hump and I've handled everything like pretty effectively. And if I haven't and learned something along the way, I'll share it with you guys.College Is Fine Podcast: we'll get back and Shipley again. I went straight to doing shots. No kidding. We are so excited to give you the final letter of our reach toolkit and.Liz: I.College Is Fine Podcast: We will be here for you throughout the semester with other episodes and guests. But in the meantime, good luck with this first semester and make sure to subscribe and we will see you soon.Liz: Bye.