The Mental Health Moment January 13th, 2020

Welcome to the mental health moment. It’s mental health Monday and I’m your host Joe Newman from Life Launch Centers and on this show we talk about how to deal with hard emotions improve your mental health and really just find answers for life. I want to start by inviting all the listeners out there if you or a loved one is struggling with depression, isolation, anxiety is taking over your life there is help it doesn’t have to be a lifelong thing you deal with but rather to actually overcome these hard emotions and that’s what we talked about on the show and if you got any questions like you need some specific answers that really the best way is to just give us a call number is 833-803-3883 or happy to talk about your specific situation roll some ideas around with you kind of give you a phone consultation all free of charge and and but also there’s a lot of great information on our website so you can jump on there at life lunch centers.com all of the archives of this radio show are on there and so I’ll be referencing some of the material from our curriculum or resilience curriculum and you know I’m familiar to you and you want to learn more about it that’s the best place to go live launch centers.com you can hear more about each step of the resilience model and I kind of get a better idea of what we’re talking about but we’ll try to keep it pretty basic today cuz today I talked about different aspects of our emotional resilience curriculum and that we teach at life watch centers in our group counseling format so we work with Youth and Young adults teaching him how to be emotionally resilient and it’s important that parents and the rest of the family also gets this education because one wants those principles become part of your family culture then that’s where the real girl speaking there’s a Common Language accountability to one another for these principles and really starts to really starts to help so but I realize that if you’re not professionally trained in this it can be kind of hard to know how to implement it at home so today we’re going to talk all about the second step in the resilience model and that’s called being emotionally hijacked so what is emotionally hijacked me well first of all just like in you know in real life with it what is a hijacker do right of the hijacker is someone who forcibly takes control of a vehicle like a car ebosser airplane and says we’re going to point this vehicle in the direction I want to go I don’t care about all the rest of the passengers it’s often too great Peril of the other passengers and they’re saying we’re going where I say and nothing else matters so that happens to us emotionally and who is it or what is it that’s hijacking us well we got to understand a little bit about brain development in order to understand emotional hijacking so in our brain there’s basically three parts in our brain that we talked about is that a hindbrain and the midbrain and the forebrain okay the hindbrain is kind of your your basic survival instincts like breathing eating digestion heart beating those kind of life sustaining functions okay that’s what all your your your hind brain is responsible for later on your your mid brain develops and embryonic development in early stages of life and that’s where your emotions start to originate from right that’s where we feel these intense emotions and and then there’s the forebrain which is where logical thought process happens and that happens a little bit later in life in fact that brain development doesn’t even complete until we’re about 26 years old so our brain is continually growing pruning away unused neurons and refining systems you know in the forebrain I tell you about 26 and so it’s very understandable that especially in our young gear sorry Youth and Young Adult years there’s a whole lot of figuring it out going on and to be totally honest I think as adults all of us can agree that we’re still trying to figure it out I like to admit but the goal is to try to spend as much time in our forebrain where we can make logical decisions and and not let our emotions rule over us okay so within our midbrain there’s this tiny little part of the brain that does the hijacking it’s called the amygdala okay in this little bean shaped piece of our brains responsibility is to is to scan our environment and look for threats and when it does it sounds the alarm hijacks us with the fight flight or freeze response okay when are amygdala has fire that response then we don’t even really get to choose what we do at that point based upon what we have already decided or learned or just reacted we’re going to either fight or either going to flight run away or freeze okay and so the more that we can Define what that looks like for us to in when people get motion hijacked it’s the experience it differently right some people their instinct is to fight and other people’s instinct is to run away or two Summits to climb up and freeze right and so as you one thing that we Define for the Youth in and also helping parents in the program understand is that what do you look like when your project and I can kind of be a scary question for a lot of us a lot of us don’t like ourselves when we’re emotionally hijacked cuz we’re not acting in our best way and so sometimes that personal analysis can be uncomfortable but as you openly and objectively analyze it recognize that that when you do this logically you’re in honestly then you’re going to be able to respond how you want to respond instead of react right I think we can all relate to how way too stressful situation comes up and we do something or reactant away and then later regret it and that’s when we have been emotionally hijacked so this happens all the time to everybody and it’s part of life and that’s totally okay we see it dramatically in our youth and young adults because of the brain development that still happening and also that it seems to be a little bit easier to recognize it and other people I tell you when when you hijacked lot of times I don’t everybody else can see it but I don’t think I am I in fact that happened just last night and talking to our teenager there was some discussion happening and I was starting to let my emotions get high but I know I got this like my skills are still there I’m not no letting my emotions rule over me and you know this morning as I was kind of reflecting on that situation I realized well I may have had some of my skills but the skills that I really want weren’t available and that’s how I know I was emotionally hijacked so we’re going to talk about how to define your skills cut off we’re going to talk about how to define what you’re triggering events are and how to openly analyze that honestly because because the more you understand us about yourself the better you can teach it to others your your loved ones at home who may be struggling and the more time we’re going to spend in our logic forebrain and avoid problems so you know a lot of people ask Will what’s wrong with emotions anyway and I like I like having big emotions that helps me feel alive right and that is absolutely true emotions are a kind of spice to life we shouldn’t be afraid of emotions we shouldn’t be trying to repress emotions but rather emotions are designed to come and go we’re supposed to allow emotions come into our life but not fixate or stick to those emotions or add to them right if we if we don’t let emotion go then it could be really damaging in the long run a bottling it up as what some people say or shoving it down we talked a lot about shoving emotions down under has different ways of how we shove it down but basically when you don’t let go of those those hard emotions it’s kind of like having emotional rocks in a backpack sometimes we get hard emotions to deal with we off to do shove it down and it’s kind of like putting those emotional rocks in a backpack instead of dealing with them as they come instead of properly analyzing and letting go of difficult emotions you rather just shove it down and not deal with them but but but but just throw them into this figurative backpack carry him for a while well the more we do this the heavier than emotional burden we carry becomes and it takes a toll on you and eventually will wear you down to the point of a nervous or emotional breakdown shoving it down seems helpful at first and there’s usually good intentions to actually dealing with it later but eventually the emotional burden becomes so great it shows up in physical ways why can somnia or depression anxiety or stomach problems headaches chronic fatigue and you know so if you recognize these these symptoms in yourself or with your loved ones then you can probably rest assured that they’re often becoming emotionally hijacked and not not dealing with E the emotions I’m as they shut so you know shoving hard emotions down will continually take a toll on your body and eventually you’ll become overburden and overwhelmed and that’s what I think we’re seeing a lot with the Youth and Young adults today and so I got to take a break and it’s crazy how fast time goes but on the next half we’re going to talk about ways that we actually deal with those heart emotions so give me just one minute will be back talking about emotional hijacking this is Joe Newman with the mental health moment and will be back in just one minute tell you I just can’t take this kid anymore be having problems with Dawson again what the heck is that anyway kids lights really that hard, you know like really is different for kids these days what did you guys do to help it was an Audi but really we just needed to learn some emotional tools tools like what like what it means to be emotionally hijacked how to talk out the stories in your head and really the distress tolerance tools help that I’m interested. It took some dedication from all of us but he’s doing great now and it was totally worth it you can actually overcome anxiety and depression in just two to three months with group counseling at bike launch centers don’t wait until they get them the tools they need to successfully launched into life start by calling 833-803-3883 welcome back to the nice lunch centers talking today about emotional hijacking this is the second step in the resilience model that we teach both youth young adults parents fan how to become emotionally resilient how to how to have difficult emotions in life but then overcome them and become a stronger person for having a duratec that’s the whole point of resilience and so today the second step in emotional hijacking is so important because first of all being able to Define what it looks like for you when you’re so critical now it doesn’t work when you’re in the middle of the high emotion when you are hijacked your before brain has shut off it literally loses electrical synapse is loses power to do The Logical thinking so that’s why you have to take the opportunities like this where you’re in a calm state where you can openly and honestly evaluate what it looks like for you and so first thing we do with with aren’t our clients is to help them understand what are some of their triggers you know what what things in life get them emotionally hijacked in and when does this happen Okay when they can understand that then you look at while when that happens what physical Sensations any motions happened so I’m first-half I mentioned last night have had a interaction with my my teenagers at work I was getting emotionally hijacked and so then I have to Define for myself what are the physical Sensations and emotions but for me I get kind of anxious I get like I feel like I’m self-important like everything I say is it’s got to be listened to right now because it’s so important urgent as a good as a good and my physical Sensations I often you know a lot of people at scary because you know in your physical presence you get larger it looks like you’re ready to fight and while I wouldn’t dream of physically attacking looks bigger and scarier than other people interpret that ass fight right so that’s going to get them more emotionally hijacked so recognizing that about yourself what you look like when your emotion hijacked and what emotions and Sensations you’re experiencing can help you. I got to I got to apply the rest of the resilience model Ryan I got to use these other steps so then you also look at your what fonts do you have when you’re emotionally hijacked and I mentioned a little earlier usually for me I think about like I have to get this point across right that’s usually where I get stuck where my place too much emphasis on them and but for other people want to get out of here like I don’t like this interaction and so the more that we recognize those things about ourselves as well as each other men, situation is the better we can interact with each other right and so helpful discussion and calm settings about this thing these these principles really really help also you got to look at urges what do I usually want to do in that moment so again my wife she wants to climb up she wants to run away she wants to avoid the conflict for me I want that conflict because I feel like it’s got to be resolved or else we’re not going to make progress right and it’s that’s those to conflict in and our kids often you know some of them react in a aggressive way some of a reactant in a in a way of climbing up with pulling out so we we have to recognize those things about them again also that the I think the next question is really helpful is what what do I usually do in that moment so there’s that feeling of what do you want to do versus what do you actually do so honestly in my heart when I’m in motion hijacked and I’m like I got to make it this point across do you want really want to express myself in call and wise matters know like I told my kids are I really wish I could be more like Master Oogway from Kung Fu to just speaks in these wise and calm unassuming kinds of ways that people inspire people to think you know I wish I could be like that all the time but my when I’m emotionally hijack what usually happens is it comes off as no you need to listen to me right now different styles of communication and talking with your kids about this kind of principles how did they experience emotional hijacking it is so helpful so that when those times come up you going to better understand each other so you know once you have to find those things then we got to look at we’ve got to look at how do we deal with these hard emotions okay because it’s all about coping now in today’s culture there’s a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms we built them right into our our personal being almost you know that especially a lot of a scope by going to be like Tronics today and or just distracting ourselves you know turning our attention away from that that difficult interaction from those hard emotions you know we call that numbing and so numbing really prolong the problem if you don’t deal with the the heart emotions then they will like those rocks in the backpack I talked about in the first half will add weight emotional wait until that burden become so heavy to bear that it affects you even physically and so what are some ways that people know there’s a lot there watching TV being there’s apparently that but it’s how well that we approached them if we’re using those mediums to avoid problem or avoid dealing with issues then that’s when you know my response to a conflict is disproportionate to the conflict so you know that’s it’s really that parents on the road where if you’re following somebody that’s 5 miles an hour to slow then you get all you know raged and you like guys going to try speed up past them and you know yell something angrily at them and you know it’s really that that reaction is not really proportionate to the you know to the conflict just for someone going with slower but sometimes people do that and not dealing with hard emotionally don’t give that emotion effective space or place to to let it live let it ride let it go right we just like jump from one extreme to the other that’s not a very healthy way to to cope another one is being two-faced and being two-faced is basically where you just pretend like there’s no problem that doesn’t help either because when that amygdala actually it is very primitive and its way of distinguishing threat it doesn’t know the difference between internal or external threat so you know if there’s a bear on the on the past on a hiking path that’s a real external threat but when you lie to yourself or distort the truth or reality to yourself your brain knows it and your amygdala will trigger and say I’m being deceived and that’s a threat so being two-faced inside you know where you try to pretend like there’s not a problem or pretend like everything’s okay and the more that you know that there’s a balance of this one though we teach that you can’t just necessarily culturally walk around with your emotions on your sleeve all the time we have to balance out who are those safe people that I can go to to Really let my tell processes emotions with and and to get real with them and it’s so important to take those opportunities to get real with those people in our lives because that’s how we process Heart In Motion so you know there’s there’s so much more I wish I could cover it all in one radio show but but that’s their guys the reason why folks in our group they you know what’s an 8 to 12 process where they come three to four times a week and we explored these principles together and actually give them opportunity to practice that’s really the power of that group counseling setting it’s not that they just hear the practices like we do there on the radio show but actually in group and we take that opportunity to to write down these descriptions and understand how it looks for you and apply it personally so I’ve got to wrap it up and I hope I hope the listeners got some helpful ideas out there about how to improve your families mental health I don’t feel bad for getting emotional hijacking out to all of us and I hope that we can hope this has given us some ideas and strategies or how to recognize it how to have healthy discussions with our families to minimize those times have better relationships at home so if you have any more questions feel free please give us a call at 833-803-3883 or happy to give you a free consultation help you understand what you might want to do in your specific we got a lot of resources available recommendations we can make our website and information I Promise You Don’t Have To Rule your life there there is help and you can overcome anxiety and depression and I want to wrap up the show with this great quote from Jack Kornfield “In the end just 3 things matter.  How well we have lived, how well we have loved, and how well we have learned to let go. Join us again next time on the mental health a moment right here in St George News Radio at 5:30 until then keep those kids safe and keep your sanity!