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Your Path To Personal Empowerment · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Good to talk to you today.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to it, man.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: What I want to talk to you today is we're going to stay in the same vein, but we're going to talk about kind of like uh a meta skill, some people would call it.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And all that means is like there's a there's a challenge or situation or goal you're working on or toward.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And a meta skill is a skill or ability that will help you achieve that goal or objective that acquire that outcome, but it's not that.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, um, let's say I I want to my goal is to lose weight, a meta skill would be uh, you know, regular exercise.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in other words, if I focus on losing weight, exercising gets secondary attention, and I think, I think in this bigger picture, if I think about it like a meta skill, and forgive me for using such weird words, then here's the deal.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Today's a win if I just exercise.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if I focus on the the skill that I'm trying to develop that will help me achieve the outcome I'm after, I focus on the skill, not the outcome.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of like staring at my weight or my dimensions or whatever, how that dress fit or how that, not that I wear dresses, by the way, how that those pair of jeans fit or whatever, but if I focus on, I've decided that if I could get my exercise, if I could exercise four days a week.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So what I do is instead of thinking and watching and staring at the outcome I want, I work on this meta skill and I develop the habit of working out, knowing that it's going to indirectly and directly affect me in the achievement of my goals.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Here's another way to say it: work on your habits, your daily routines, and not your goals and outcomes.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, does that mean you shouldn't set goals?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm saying is if you stare at the goal, you can stay frustrated because the weight's going to change slowly, or whatever it is, a relationship.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: You have a relationship that you're working on and you want some things to change.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you stare at it and kind of assess, well, you know, he didn't act differently today, she didn't act differently today, boy, I sure didn't handle that situation well, then it just is hard to get your hands around that.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: But what we want to talk about today is in the same vein we've been in, but we want to talk about work on habits, not goals.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like let's say, remember, we've been talking about ABC, the ABCs of emotions.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: A is an activating event, an external activating event, some other person's behavior, a situation, a circumstance.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: C is my corresponding response.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, A triggers me, C is boom.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you ever had a moment where you said to yourself, how in the world did I get here?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you probably on the end of it would say, again.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning, how in the world did I react like that?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've I've said to myself a thousand times, I'm not gonna do that anymore, and yet here I am.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of like, I'm gonna break that habit, I'm not going, I'm not gonna end up over here and act that way anymore.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's probably just saying that, working on that, committing to that, is not gonna help.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is a habit, a meta skill, if you will, that would help me not be sparked and triggered by A and end up at C, boom, so fast.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Work on habits, not goals.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: What does this have to do with ABC?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: What does that this have to do with managing my emotions?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: What does this have to do with those three epidemics?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Heart disease, renegade emotions, and victimization.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: All right, a couple things as we get rolling.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's this thing called negativity bias.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Negativity bias.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Would you agree that the vast majority of us have a tendency to lean toward negative interpretations of events, assigning, like here's here's a one way of defining it.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Negativity bias is one of the strongest human biases.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And here's how here's a definition of it.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's our tendency to mentally weigh negative events and feelings as more significant than positive ones.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: It means that a single insult, a single moment where you're treated in a way that you don't think you deserve, a single insult or negative moment feels worse than three to four compliments or good moments.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, we we weight the negative experience as more important and we assess it as more likely to happen.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: It means one failure hurts more than the satisfaction of a half dozen successes.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: It means one awful news story will upset you five more than five happy ones, far more than five happy ones.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we have this negativity bias.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing we have is what you might call a confirmation bias.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: A confirmation bias means I believe this.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And another way to say it is you see what you're looking for.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So if I believe this, I've decided, I've decided that I'm I'm lazy and I don't I'll never amount to anything.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've decided that I'm not attractive.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've decided that, you know, I just don't mix well with people and I'll never be accepted by that group of people that I'd like to be accepted by.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I've decided, now not necessarily consciously, not necessarily intentionally, but I've made this assessment.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, confirmation bias means that going forward, you see what you're looking for.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I acquire, combine the two, negativity bias with confirmation bias, and what happens is as you go through your day, number one, you wait, you put weight on negative experiences more than positive ones.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, someone kind of snubs you, you know, you're talking to someone and they're always looking around, like they're the feeling you get is well, they're they're looking for somebody better to talk to.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Then five minutes later, you're talking to someone and they you have their total attention.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And an hour later, somebody comes over to you and wants to talk to you about a challenge they're having in the work, and they see you as someone who's a really great resource.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that one experience where you were talking to somebody and they were looking around for somebody better to talk to in your interpretation, that that affects you more than two or three of these other positive biases.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's negative bias.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Confirmation bias means what you what you're sort of making note of and keeping track of is that those interactions and experiences that support your already established theory.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you see a person who indicates, you know, now when I have this kind of issue, I'm not coming to you, you know, questions asked, and and nobody even thinks to ask you what you think.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: You you um you you build up a case of negative leaning thoughts and that confirm what you already believe about yourself.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what am I getting at?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've been talking about the ABCs of emotion.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: A external activating event, C is the my corresponding response.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: A is an outside event, person, experience, situation.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, I'm repeating things because I want you to get this.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's so powerful.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: C is my corresponding response.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, where I end up.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: I end up sad, I end up, you know, feeling sorry for myself, I end up disempowered, I end up, you know, not taking risks and challenges and and things that that would be good for me and that would expand my experience of life and uh and help me.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so most people think A, those external events cause C, the way your husband talks to you, the way your wife talks to you, the way your kids talk to you.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: When in reality, A external event pretty much totally outside of your control, C, your response to that event, corresponding response to that event.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: A doesn't cause C.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're you're giving up so much of your of your your power.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: What A passes through B, and B is your belief system, B is how you're thinking, B is how you're talking to yourself.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I start off today by talking about focus on, work on, building habits, not outcomes.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the outcome, well, I want them to stop treating me well.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, probably not a great outcome to focus on because you can't directly control it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: What if you focused on, you know, I want to learn how to manage my emotions better no matter what happens out here.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say it again.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of focusing on the external activating event that you have very little direct control over.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can ask people to treat you better, you can ask people to stop that, start this, whatever, but you really have very little control over what they do.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Your corresponding event that passes through your belief system is something you can do something about.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of focusing on the outcome of other people's behavior, and I wish they would stop doing that to me, and I wish this would quit happening to me, and all that kind of stuff, instead of working on that outcome, work on your mental, spiritual, and emotional habits of managing how you respond internally to what's happening around you.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And again, A plus B yields C.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you work on B, and that's what we're talking about.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about how you can not focus on the external events, the behavior of other people.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, listen, man, I get it.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be so much easier if people just did the right thing, and that includes us, by the way.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: But not a good place to put your focus, not a good place to expend your energy because you can't directly influence that.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what if you said, you know what?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna figure out how to address my B.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: What is my B?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: My B is my belief system, my B is how I think about myself, how I think about God, how I think about my needs, and how to get them met in healthier ways.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're all about.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're not all about, you know, life's gonna be perfect, but we're all about this.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us experience pain in an encounter with someone at a seven or an eight.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: That if we learn to manage B, our belief, our thoughts, what's going on inside our own head, if we learn to manage it, we could take that eight down to about a three.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, is three the same as zero?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is three better than eight?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: You bet your life it is.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So what we're talking about is empowerment, not in a humanistic weird way, but in a in a very practical, powerful way.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, what we're talking about, focus on habits you can develop to manage your thought life better, that will change how other people's behavior, situations and circumstances, all this craziness going on around us right now, you determine the full extent of the impact it has on you.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Can you get it down to zero?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not, but you can sure get it from an eight down to a three.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but I can handle a three.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can handle a three all day long.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's helpful, and I can't think of a better word than empowering.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it definitely drives out that sense of victimization when I realize that taking responsibility for managing my internal world of thoughts, feelings, actions taking responsibility brings me into a place of greater freedom.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Giving it up leads me into a higher and higher state of bondage to other people, their choices, and the circumstances I find myself in.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry I've been going long lately for my eight minute mind shift.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, I hope this is helpful to you.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Love you guys.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.