Spirituality in Health and Healing | Tools for Therapists

I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on spirituality, meaning, and working toward a rich and meaningful life. I'm your host, Dr. Donnisee Snipes. Think about how often acting without considering options or consequences has ended up causing people harm in the long run. Whether it is disregulating or losing their temper or saying yes without thinking even when you know it will cause you to be overwhelmed. Like John says, "Can you help me move this weekend?" And you're like, "Well, I've already got 16 things to do, but sure, why not?" Um, just saying yes to people, please to appease or numbing, avoiding instead of managing distress. going to sleep, getting on video games, doom scrolling on the internet, you using any of those things um can be reactive responses when someone is experiencing distress or sometimes experiencing even a choice. They've got to do one thing or the other and they don't know which to do so. So, they're just like, ah. Um and we really want to look at that. A lot of times this may come because the clients we're working with have grown up having to react in the moment just to survive. They didn't have a chance to think, "Oh, well, what would be the best choice right now?" Dad says do this, so you darn well better do that or bad things are going to happen. Um, and we need to help people get to a place one way or another that they can downregulate, tolerate distress, and get into their thinking mind. But even in their thinking mind, if you don't know where you're going, it's hard to know which choice is best. You know, maybe you're thinking, where do I want to go on vacation this year? There's the beach or the mountains. Now, one's north and one's south. And when you get to that fork in the road on the interstate, you got to decide which way to turn. And if you don't know what your destination is, you're just sitting there kind of like a deer in headlights going, "Well, do I turn south or turn north?" Today, we will explore how a spiritual framework can help people move toward a rich and meaningful life. Some people will, you can just see them visibly tense up when you say spirituality. You may find a different word for it if depending on the population that you're working with, but basically we're looking for an overarching framework that helps provide um meaning and purpose to a person's life where where am I going? What's my destination? What does a rich and meaningful life look like? We will today define spirituality. Try and try to differentiate it from religion. And there's some gray areas in there, but there are also some clear demarcations. We'll explore the spiritual principles of a few different spiritual practices. Not everybody's Christian or Jewish or, you know, fill in the blank. So, let's look at some different approaches and then we'll explore the perfect model of spirituality, which is what I tend to refer to as more of a secular model of spirituality. Spirituality is the search for meaning, purpose, and connection to something larger than oneself and the present time. It's something that I can stop and I can go, well, this might seem like the best choice right now because it makes the pain stop. But in the big picture, you know, spirituality is the big picture. In the big picture, is this helping me move toward what's important? Spirituality is that search for meaning, purpose, and connection. And recognizing if I make this decision now to maybe make the pain stop right now, how is it going to impact all of those things that I'm connected to? My work, my family, my finances, my fill-in-theblank. Religion is an organized system of shared beliefs and practices that may facilitate that search. Depending on what religion, there are different beliefs and practices that one might engage in. Um however there are a lot of people who um have experienced harm or abuse or rejection from certain religious entities and or religious do we'll say entities. I don't know what word I'm looking for here. Therefore they may hear spirituality think religion and think oh heck no I've already been rejected. I've already been hurt. I'm I'm not going back there. All religions are spiritual. All religions help people search for meaning, purpose, and connection. But not all spiritual people are religious. Some people who are extremely spiritual have decided for whatever reason, experience or just personal choice that religion, organized religion does not fit for them. Spirituality is designed to provide a framework to help us move toward our rich and meaningful life as we define it. And meaning is right in that definition. Think about when you're given a project without knowing what the end goal is or what the important outcomes are. How does that impact your motivation and effectiveness? A client comes in and says, "Doc, I want to feel better." Well, that's great. I have no idea where to start or what to work on because I don't know what's wrong. Um, and that's, you know, and I don't know where you want to go. How do you define happiness? It may be different than how I define happiness. Encouraging people to define that end point and the bigger picture as opposed to where just where they are in the moment. or it's grant season and your boss walks in and hands you a SAMSA grant and says, "Write this for me." A lot of those grants are very ambiguous. They have some guard rails, but it's like, "Okay, you can get up to $300,000 a year for for the project that is going to best meet these uh meet these needs." And you can do it however you want. And some people that just kind of makes their mind explode um because that requires a lot of uh big picture thinking, metacon concept thinking before getting into the nitty-gritty. Now those of us who are uh temperamentally intuitive, we're big picture thinkers. We love those. Um it's writing the grant itself and getting down into the weeds that can get a little honorous. Or residential treatment edicts. And I used to go through this with my staff a lot. Um, in our residential program, the residents had to get up at a certain time, they ate at a certain time, they had group at a certain time, they had to do chores in the evening. Now, it wasn't a lot of chores, but a little bit um keeping their space tidy. And there were certain uh clients who would push back, why do I have to do that? Why do I have to go to group? Why do I have to do chores? And when staff says because I said so, that's in the moment. Or because those are the rules. That's in the- moment thinking. We need to connect it to the bigger picture. How does this help you move toward that recovery that you're looking for? We're helping you get up, show up. We're helping you reset your circadian rhythms. We're helping you develop routine, big picture thinking, giving meaning to what you're doing. Why? What's the purpose? Why am I doing that? And again, spirituality, a search for meaning and purpose. What do we ask ourselves when we get out of bed every day? What's the purpose? Why am I doing this? And our overarching goal can help us get that way. Now, CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, and many other approaches are wonderful for providing the what to do, evaluating your thoughts, addressing those, um, becoming more aware of the connection between your thoughts, feelings, and actions. There's lots of tools that we have, and they're wonderful, don't get me wrong, but motivation and success also require the why and the how, the meaning and purpose. Why am I doing this? And how is it helping me move toward what's important to me, not what's important to you? Thinking about this, how does spirituality help us find meaning in what happens and what we are doing? Spirituality, this overarching concept of, you know, the meaning of life, what makes the world go round. Not only why am I doing what I'm doing, but why does whatever happens out here impact me the way it does? How am I connected? What's that give and take? And helping us find some sort of understanding why this happened. Why did I not get that job? Well, you know, maybe I just botched the interview. Maybe it was a bad fit. There's meaning to it. there's meaning to what happens and finding meaning in that. I I went to that interview and it was an opportunity for me to learn. So that was the purpose. You know, maybe I didn't get the job, but that's okay. Spirituality also helps us act purposefully. Choosing behaviors that help us move toward and nurture those things that are important in our rich and meaningful life. How is this going to help me? Or how is my behavior, whatever choice I make here, going to impact those things that are important to me? And that can be really important. The shortcut question, which is on the last slide, but I'll tell you it now. encouraging people to just stop and ask themselves, is what I'm doing, feeling, thinking, or about to do helping me move toward what's important or away from what's important in my rich and meaningful life? That helps people get out of the in the- moment, reacting, I need to make the pain stop right now, and think about the consequences and the ripple effects of their choices. Spirituality and motivation help us become motivated. But we need to recognize that it's only part of the puzzle. Spirituality requires some level of faith or belief that if the good if the principles are followed, good things will happen. Now, it doesn't say faith in a supreme being or even a higher power. It says faith that if we do the work, good things will happen. And people have to have faith if they're in the 12step program. They have to have faith that if they work the steps, they are going to be restored to sanity. uh that faith and hope that something can happen that kind of comes in with that spirituality figuring out okay this is my destination and now I can make a plan for how to get there and if I follow that plan more or less I will move closer to what's important in my rich and meaningful life to get buy in to just about anything not just spirituality people must have the basics basics and this is my new pneummonic for today made it up this week. The basics stands for they have to have belief in the process. If they don't think that what they're doing is going to happen uh is is going to make any difference then they're not going to do it. If I don't believe that exercise is going to help me be in better health then you can darn well bet I'm probably not going to be at the gym frequently. um they have to have belief in the process. They have to have awareness that certain beliefs or behaviors are causing a problem. They have to be able to see that okay when I get distressed and instead of addressing the issue, I just go to bed and sleep. They need to recognize how that might be moving them away from or keeping them from moving toward those things that are important in their rich and meaningful life. Skills or their internal capacity um or sorry that should be on two different lines. Their skills people need to have the skills to actually do it. If they don't know what spirituality is, if they don't know how to define a rich and meaningful life, if they don't know how to evaluate their options, then they're going to have a lot of difficulty using this concept. We need to make sure they have this, not only have the skills and can tell us about them, but they can actually use them. And encouraging them to apply the principles in session, apply the principles on worksheets. All of those things can be really helpful to translate knowledge into practice. I stands for internal capacity. People have to have the bandwidth. A lot of times clients don't come to us until they are already gh overwhelmed. They are exhausted. They are on their last nerve. They, you know, they're struggling with their relationships with just about everybody right now. They feel bad about themselves. I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on. And you say, "Okay, well, let's just start learning this new concept or examining how to apply spirituality." They may look at you like you've got three heads and they're like, "Where do I where do I do that? I'm already juggling 16 things. I can't juggle a 17th." So, as clinicians, we need to say, "All right, I recognize that you are at max capacity right now." And so let's see what we can do to help you reduce the drain, reduce the um energy you're spending on some things. So we can free up some energy for you to work on your recovery. So we can free up energy to for you to work on your issue, however they define it. And that's important. Therapy is a job. And I dare say for a lot of people, therapy takes as much energy as a full-time job. Therefore, if they're already working a full-time job and they've got three kids at home and they're trying to go to school, then starting therapy, we've got to look and say, "Okay, now what's going to give?" Because therapy is going to take some time. It's not just once a week. Therapy is going to take energy because when we talk about things that are distressful, it's potentially going to drain you. When you have to make hard decisions, it's going to be mentally exhausting. So, what can we do to free up some bandwidth? And again, that's on us before we even go down into moving toward that rich and meaningful life. We need to evaluate how much bandwidth does a person have to even work with right now and what can we do to help them free some up. They may not have clarity about where or how to start. If you say, "Well, you need to develop a spiritual framework. What does that mean? Where do I start? What do I do?" Or even once they define their rich and meaningful life, this is what they want. this is what's important to them and you know where they hope to be in two three five years whatever well that's great but that's off there how do I start there's like 17 things I want to do I don't know what to work on first and that um overwhelm that lack of you know which one thing do I start with which one task do I do first can keep people paralyzed can keep people stuck. And then the last S is self-confidence. Just like people have to have belief in the process, they have to have belief in themselves. Belief that they will they will take the next right step, do the next right thing. And in addictions, we talk about it a lot. We don't talk about it as much in mental health, although I think it might be a good idea because people will start doing the next right thing and they'll be on a roll and then they're going to potentially backslide a little bit when they start feeling better and then they lose confidence. If they relapse or have a resurgence of their depression or their their anxiety, they may feel like they were unable to get over, fix, heal their depression or their anxiety. That's not it at all. And when you were using the skills, it was working wonderfully. So let's look at what changed. So basic stands for belief in the process, awareness of the problem, skills to do what you need to do, the internal capacity to actually start something new, clarity about where to start and how to start, and self-confidence. I mentioned we were going to go through some spiritual frameworks. And the first one we're going to start out with is Buddhism. And there are some approaches uh that are loosely linked and some more directly linked to Buddhist principles. And that's fine. Um what I encourage you to do is find commonalities, find overlaps. How does this sound like something that we talk about in my spiritual framework? Because there is a lot of overlap. The words are a little bit different. The order is a little bit different, but there's a lot of overlap. And I'm not going through all of them by any means. I just kind of picked a couple. But as we go through these, think how do these principles help people act purposefully, find meaning, and move toward their rich and meaningful life. The noble eight-fold path. And again, Buddhism is more than just these eight things. We could spend weeks studying all the tenants. However, we're just taking a snapshot here. The right view or understanding means seeing reality clearly. Understanding the four noble truths karma and impermanence. Impermanence means that reality is changing constantly and recognizing what is changeable, what is not changeable, what the truths are, the facts in this context at this time, what we can control. So that right view is very cognitive behavioral in nature in a lot of ways and it encourages people to try to step out of their own lenses and view reality with a clear head. And that's difficult because we all have lenses through which we perceive life and experiences based on our prior experiences. Um and that's where Mindful awareness can be very helpful. That's where talking with others can be helpful. Number two is the right intention or the right thought. the aims of releasing what is unhealthy, sending goodwill and thinking with nonharm, not thinking harmful, not thinking I want to hurt you, recognizing um the goodwill in other people, recognizing the inherent lovability of a human even if you disagree with what they do or what they say and releasing unhealthy thoughts. thoughts like holding on to and dwelling on anger and resentment because that does no good. It rots the bones. Right speech, no lying, harsh speech, divisive talk, or idle chatter. Now, I think we can all agree that no matter who you are, those things are going to be harmful to your relationships and to your relationship with self if nothing else. right action, no killing, stealing, or sexual misconduct as you define it. Um, now there are no there are potentially qualifiers on this for some people like no um malicious killing whereas if there's an animal suffering maybe you euthanize it. I don't know. I'm not Buddhist. But right action basically means not harming others. Be nice to others. Right livelihood means earning a living without harming others. And a lot of the other spiritual frameworks that I looked at don't really directly address this, but recognizing how what we do for livelihood impacts other people. Are we earning a living on the backs of or harming other people? For example, back I don't know 10 15 years ago when some of the treatment centers and recovery residences were going just popping up everywhere and becoming extremely corrupt in Florida. Uh Florida had a really bad spate there and you had a lot of people that were opening these facilities not to actually help people be but because they saw dollar signs and when people would go in there with the hope of getting better, they think that's what treatment is like. They don't get better then they start to feel more hopeless. So, not only are we not helping them get better, we're actually causing harm because they're like, "Well, if this is treatment, then treatment doesn't work, so screw it." Um, and that's harmful. Right effort means cultivating wholesome states and abandoning unh wholesome ones. Needing to define what you're cultivating. Are you going to cultivate uh gratitude and creativity and awe and wonder and compassion? Or are you going to cultivate irritability and resentment? What is it that you're spending your time and your energy feeding? And the word cultivating has a lot to it because when you cultivate a garden, you've got to prepare the soil. You've got to keep it weed-free. You've got to make sure the nutrients are in balance. You plant the plant the plants, keep the weeds out of it. You're cultivating, you're growing, you're nurturing. And that's what right effort is. Using your energy to nurture those states within yourself that are going to help you move toward the person you want to be and the life you want to have. Right? Mindfulness means a clear present awareness of body, feelings, mind, and moment. Flashbacks can be difficult. Um, reacting in the present moment as if you were reacting to something in the past. And we do that a lot. Um, that can be really problematic for a lot of people where they experience trauma in their past and when they're triggered in the present, they react as if they're that scared six-year-old or 16-year-old when in the present moment they're actually quite safe. Right mindfulness means being aware of my favorite fitcat, the facts in this context at this time. and write focused having a focused unified mind developed through meditation being able to turn your attention. Now that doesn't mean having complete focus all the time um and meditation is really ambiguous. So for those people for example who have ADHD and have a really difficult time quieting their mind for any long periods of time you know there's open awareness meditation where you're just paying attention to everything out there that can work for people but focusing on again what's important unifying your mind to say okay when I am making a decision when I am moving forward. When I'm using my energy, I am going to use it to work toward this one goal. I'm going to unify my energies and my efforts to move toward this rich and meaningful life. In Christianity, again, thinking how this helps people act purposefully, find meaning, and move toward their rich and meaningful life. And Jesus talks for a long time, but he talks about being humble. And that doesn't mean being a doormat. That means being aware that I, we ourselves are not the beall endall. That other people have knowledge. That other people are just as important as we are. And we're not above or below others. We are humble and we're willing to take um constructive feedback. Take what's useful, leave the rest. We don't have to take everything, but a humble person is willing to learn, is willing to grow, is willing to accept that they're not perfect. being respectful and responsible, mourning for what is wrong, thinking about all the things in the world, you know, poverty and um disenfranchisement and all that. You I could go on a huge list. There's a lot of stuff that's, you know, kind of screwed up right now. recognizing and mourning the fact that those things exist and respecting the fact that other people or ourselves if we're part of that group deserve better. Being respectful um of others as equally deserving of love and safety. Be gentle and compassionate. Yeah, there are some really challenging people in the world and there are some really unsafe people in the world. It doesn't mean we have to invite them into our home. It doesn't mean we have to be best friends with them. But it Jesus does say that we should be gentle and compassionate to everybody treating others as we want to be treated. Um, and for every person, what gentle and compassionate looks like may be a little bit different, but it doesn't mean abandoning your boundaries. It doesn't mean saying, "Okay, you know, walk all over me." No, it means seeing a person's pain and wanting for them to feel better, not wanting people to suffer. seeking knowledge, discernment, and right action. That's pretty self-explanatory. When we're acting prudently, when we are making good choices to help us move toward our rich and meaningful life, a lot of times the first thing we have to do is downregulate, get into our wise mind, get the information, the knowledge about what's actually going on right now. determining or discerning how we need to act or react to it in order to move toward our rich and meaningful life. Showing mercy and forgiveness, loving your enemies, and praying for those who persecute you. We've talked about this in a lot of um other classes and this one can be a real stick stickler for a lot of people who've experienced interpersonal trauma. Um which again is why not every spiritual framework works for every person all the time. However, this is not saying you love and forgive and forget. No, it's okay. It's it's more saying loving people for being people. You can really hate their behaviors. You can disagree and dislike what they think, but loving people as human beings, giving them the respect you would want them to give you or the space at least, and possibly praying for those who persecute you. um sending love and warmth. Um it can be hard to try to send love to someone who hasn't shown love to anybody else in 50 years, but sending that love um and there is something out there called the loving kindness meditation that people can practice sending love to a person they don't like. sending love to the whole universe because everybody deserves it. Having a pure heart, knowing what's in your heart and having a heart that is working toward loving others, working toward creating meaning um in a way that is meaningful to the person and of course doesn't hurt other people. working for peace, doing what's right even when it's hard. And this is that um endurance and respect and stuff that we're going to talk about in a little while. Recovery is hard. Apologizing is hard. Uh sometimes getting up and going to work in the morning is hard. However, is it the right thing to do in order to move toward your rich and meaningful life and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, said in other chapters as loving your neighbors as yourself. If you did something horrible to somebody, and hopefully you wouldn't, but if you did, would you want them to retaliate and do something horrible to you? Probably not. So, we want to do to them what we would want them to do to us. We would don't want them to do something horrible to us, so we're not going to do something horrible to them. and thinking about that. Um my mother used to say what goes around comes around. Before we act, before we you know scream and you know get up in somebody's face, is that how we would want them to react toward us? Um and if not, what would we want them to do in order to handle the situation? It doesn't mean ignore the situation. And and all of these principles are tools we can use to help guide how we use our energy, what thoughts and feelings we hold on to when we nurture, what thoughts and feelings we let go of, how we feel in terms of our place in the universe. Do we think that we are at the center and everybody revolves around us? Hopefully not. Um, do we recognize that all people are worthy of love and worthy of care? And what is it that we can do to create that harmony that we would like to see in our rich and meaningful life? Now, we may not be able to do it everywhere, but even if you just look at the people and places and things and experiences that are important in your rich and meaningful life, if you can create love and harmony in those circles or within those people, what effect does that have on the people that are important to them and the people that are important to them? So, it's kind of a ripple effect. If you start in your own backyard, it will grow. The 12step program is said to be one that is spiritual but not religious. However, a lot of 12step meetings start with um the Lord's or end with the Lord's prayer and refer to God in the 12step literature, which can be a sticking point for a lot of people. Even when it says God as you understand him. There are multiple 12step programs in which a community of people that means something greater than ourselves. There's a bunch of people and what I do impacts the fellowship. So something greater than ourselves seek to help each other implement new skills and tools to move toward their rich and meaningful lives. the 12step programs. There's Codependence Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, um Narcotics Anonymous, Emotions Anonymous. Emotions Anonymous is a really good program, although there aren't a whole lot of meetings. Um but it's really excellent for people who struggle with dysregulation. um if they can or are willing to explore a 12step framework. Those are 12step meetings are free. There are some that are online. They're mostly everywhere. Um it can be a resource. Doesn't have to be the only resource, but it can be a resource. Anyhow, the spiritual principles of the 12 steps. There's one spiritual principle for each of the steps. The first one is honesty. When the person admits powerlessness and unmanageability. So you see this is taking a slightly different twist than you know what Buddhism and Christianity kind of looked at. Um but the person is getting honest and recognizing the realities of what they can and cannot control and how it's impacting their life. Step two is hope. They believe that recovery is possible that they can be restored to hand restored to sanity. Faith is number three. They trust and submit to a higher power as they define it. Some of the literature literature has changed the wording to higher power. Some still says God as we understand him. Um either one of those can be problematic for some people. Okay. Uh when I worked in substance abuse, uh our program was a 12step program and was very clearly a 12step program which is where I came up with perfects which is the sum total if you will of good orderly direction. uh God stands for good or or good orderly direction stands for God as the pneummonic uh and it helps us use principles to move toward our rich and meaningful life. Anyway, we'll get there. Number four is courage. Taking a fearless moral inventory. We have to have a lot of courage to look at ourselves and recognize where we may have screwed up, but also where we may be doing okay. Integrity, admitting the exact exact nature of our wrongs. When we act with integrity, um, it strengthens our relationship with our self, we know that, hey, I'm doing the right thing. I can hold my head up high. And it strengthens our relationships with others who look at them and they say, "John acts with integrity. John is going to do the next right thing. I can trust John." So that integrity is important in creating um and nurturing healthy relationships. Number six is willingness. Be getting ready to make that change. being willing to not do certain things anymore. Being willing to start to use new tools. And willingness is great, but you need to be ready, willing, and able. Humility is asking for shortcomings to be removed. Now, in the 12 steps, they're asking their higher power. in if you want to look at it as good orderly direction, you're taking an inventory of what those shortcomings are. You're recognizing what needs to change and making a plan to address those um as the 12 steps would call them, character defects. Number eight is brotherly love. Become willing to repair harm that's been done. And we in order to you know treat do unto others as you want them to do unto you in order to create a nurturing safe honest uh healthy relationship. We have to have brotherly love. We have to have love and compassion for one another. Discipline. Making direct amends responsibly without causing injury. And I would extend discipline to doing what is right. Even when you're not making amends, you know, you're doing what is right, so you don't have amends to make. Um, but being disciplined in your choices, not reacting in the moment, but taking a beat and reflecting on what is the best choice in this situation, even if it does require a lot of courage and integrity to or and even humility to uh implement it. perseverance, continuing that inventory and admitting wrongs. Staying mindfully aware of how we're acting, how we're doing, how we're influencing others, and how others are influencing us. It's important to be mindful. If you're doing all the next right things and you know just plugging along doing great and you start hanging out with a bunch of other people who are not doing the right thing, a lot of times that will they will pull you into their to their normal and continuing to take that inventory on a daily basis of are the people that I'm hanging out with are the things that I'm doing helping me move toward what's important, my rich and meaningful life or not. Step 11 is awareness. Developing conscious contact through prayer and meditation. Becoming aware again much more so than just, you know, how will this decision affect somebody else, but becoming very aware of how I'm connected to the world. um in 12step programs, in in re recovery programs, if you have somebody relapse, it affects the whole community. Um and recognizing how others impact you as well as how you impact others. Um and the environment, not necessarily just people, but how does the environment impact you if you are living in squalor? um how does that impact you if you are living if you're keeping your area tidy? How does that impact you? And by the way, there is research out there that shows that women tend to be more stressed out um or distressed by clutter than men. very interesting research and I'm not exactly sure why that is but anyhow um my husband was like oh you make so much more sense to me now and finally service with the 12 steps carrying the message and living the principles we learn things and we can continue to do things effectively when we practice them and carrying the message. There is in my opinion no better way to learn something than to teach it to somebody else and because that keeps the principles ever present in your mind. Blocks to spirituality, impulsivity and distress intolerance. Some people when they get distressed it's just like boom, you know, they've got to react. um they are their nervous system is what we will call traumatuned and it goes from zero to 250. There is no thinking it um it's from experience to reaction. We need to help people develop that um ability to downregulate the ability to recognize early warning signs of distress. And for a lot of people it starts out backwards. They get upset, they disregulate, but then at some point they realize, "Hey, I'm disregulating." And using those skills to downregulate and then think about what happened. As they get better at that, they will start to become more aware of what it feels like when they're getting ready to disregulate and they can start downregulating earlier. uh they'll become more aware of their distress early warning signs. Fear of powerlessness. A lot of people who go into churches, for example, uh Christian churches, I don't know about others, but they fear powerlessness because they've heard of this vengeful and angry god that will smite you. Um and that's terrifying. Uh now that's Old Testament God, New Testament God much nicer. You know, Jesus much more compassionate, but a lot of people are freaked out. Um and sometimes that's how the message is delivered in in churches if they've also experienced powerlessness in their daily life. They've been a victim of trauma, of crime, of something else. then they may have learned that the only way to survive is to stay in control. And when you tell somebody to admit powerlessness and unmanageability, they'll look at you like you've got three heads. They're like, "The last time I I tried to admit powerlessness, all hell broke loose. So, uh-uh, not doing that." That word itself is very scary. and helping them reframe it as recognizing those things over which you are powerless and those things over which you do have control because in most every situation there's a little bit of both and encouraging people to recognize like in in addiction you may be powerless over that substance. you know, you start drinking um alcohol and one drink is too many and a hundred's never enough. You're just once you start, you can't stop. You feel powerless over alcohol. But you do have the power to choose not to go into the bar. Um and that's where we want to look. What can where do you have power versus what things are you powerless over? They may fear a lack of direction because they don't know what spirituality is. They may be angry at God as they understand it or the universe for letting whatever happened to them happened to them. So the thought of spirituality and a higher power is very distasteful because they feel like they've already been abandoned or worse yet punished by that higher power. And it's important to process that with them um to help them come to some understanding. And it's got to be their understanding. They may have experienced religious trauma. They were going to a church of some sort that just really hammered in the guilt and the shoods. You should do this or you're going to hell. You should do this or you're going to hell. God won't love you unless you fill in the blank. That conditional love Jesus said we need to love everybody. Um, and I don't know what the other religions say because I haven't studied them, but a lot of people take from sermons that they should feel guilty all the time, they're never going to be good enough, that they're only lovable if they meet these conditions, um, etc. And then I have direct harm. There are some people who have been directly harmed by people in the church. And I'm not going to go into detail. You know what I mean? Um, and yeah, you know, the talk of spirituality to somebody who's experienced that could freak them out. Um, and maybe that's not a term that they're ever going to want to use, and that's okay. They may have fear of abandonment because they believe that they are not lovable and they fear that if they trust in some sort of higher power, it's going to let them down. The universe, God, however they define it, um they may fear that they will be rejected. Um, and there are other blocks to spirituality that I obviously didn't go over here. But it's important if somebody is resistant to exploring spirituality, they must not or they may not have a belief in the process. Go back to those basics. And let's look at why. What is it about the term spirituality or religion or higher power that just makes your stomach tie up in knots or that is very confusing to you? Um, and maybe you want to reterm it and that's okay. You don't have to call it spirituality. In terms of addressing blocks, we want to validate harms that the person perceives they experience. Whether you agree or not, it doesn't matter. If they feel like God abandoned them, if they feel like the universe is against them, tell me, you know, what happened that makes you believe that? Help me understand. Explore fears and facts in context like powerlessness and surrender. Okay? uh when you've experienced powerlessness and surrender in the past, maybe it was in the term in the context of trauma and you don't ever want to be there again. So even thinking about doing that makes you tense up inside. So let's talk about fears and facts in context. Um one of the things I do with some of my clients is I I go through a list of things and I say, "Are you powerful or powerless against that?" And I start out with, of course, the weather. Are you powerful? Can you change it or are you powerless against what happens outside? Okay, you're powerless over that. But if it's going to be a sunny day and you planned on going hiking and then all of a sudden, you know, it's Tennessee, turns out that it's going to be storming all day. Um, what do you have the power to do? Well, wear a raincoat when you go out. Change your plans. you do have the power to adapt. Um, and surrendering is is another term and and talking to talking through what those terms mean to that person and potentially restructuring them in a way that is empowering and more power more palatable. We need to differentiate coercive experiences from supportive frameworks. Coercive experiences are frameworks that force you to believe this, that force you to engage in these practices that coers you. Supportive frameworks say, "Hey, we want everybody to live in harmony and love and hold hands and sing kumbaya." Um, I don't know if anybody even knows what that song is anymore. That's what my mom used to say. But, um, those spiritual frameworks are supportive. They're like, "Okay, we all have a different endpoint, a different definition of our rich and meaningful life, but as a group, we want to all move toward and support each other in moving toward our own rich and meaningful lives." And these are the principles that we will follow to do it. And co-creating a safe values-based approach within the client's chosen framework. What is spirituality look like to you? You don't even have to choose one of the existing frameworks. You can define your own. So that secular spirituality that I referred to earlier, good orderly direction, the pneummonic God. Good orderly direction perfects and this is the other pneummonic prudence, endurance, respect, forgiveness, earnestness, compassion, truthfulness and selflessness. Those are principles that are present in most spiritual frameworks. Buddhism, um, Christianity, Judaism, you know, I haven't really looked at Hinduism or or Islam that much, but I'm going to guess. Therefore, you know, this is not going to contradict the spiritual principles of someone who espouses a particular religion or other um spiritual framework, which is good if you're doing groups. And a lot of times in in substance abuse, you are doing groups. Um the prudence, patience, and knowledge. You stop. You get into your wise mind. You get the facts and then you decide how to apply those facts in a way that's meaningful to help you move toward your rich and meaningful life. Endurance of distress is pretty self-explanatory. Sometimes life sucks. Sometimes the stuff we have to do is hard and we have to do it anyway. And maybe it makes us stronger, maybe not, but we need to do it. respect for self and other in speech and action. And I think it's important that we recognize self and other. We need to respect ourselves in what we do. We need to do what's right for us, setting our boundaries, maintaining our boundaries, um but also respecting other people's boundaries, and doing what is as close to best for both people as possible. Forgiveness of self, letting go of guilt. And forgiveness of other, letting go of resentment. Earnestness or acting with integrity. When we tell ourselves we're going to do something, we do it. When we tell other people we're going to do something, we do it. And we don't do it halfway. We give it our best. If we say we're going to do something, we give it 100%. How does that impact people's lives, their relationships, their work, their ability to succeed? A lot. If people know that they can trust you, that you're going to be respectful, that you're going to, you know, keep your word and live with integrity, you're going to have compassion for for yourself as well as others, and you're going to be truthful. You know, that goes a long way to creating a an environment that draws people in that says that hopefully share the similar principles. And selflessness means helping to the extent it will not harm self. If we help to the extent that it harms self, we are being disrespectful to our self number one. But then we can't help anybody else. We get burned out. So selflessness means having compassion, wanting to help, and helping to the extent we can without draining our battery. Have people define their rich and meaningful life. That's their end point. That's where they want to go. That's their Eden. Introduce the perfect framework. Discuss how each principle can help people act more purposefully and use their energy for behaviors that will nurture the relationships, things, and experiences that are important in their rich and meaningful life. For those who are religious or otherwise spiritual, encourage them to overlay or add important principles for them because perfects may not cover everything for them. So is there anything else you need to add in your spiritual framework? And when people are faced with challenges, have them work through the framework step by step. Prudence, what knowledge do you have and do you need to make an informed choice or address this issue? And how does this knowledge apply in this situation? Enduring distress. That's the second part. How will you tolerate or mitigate your distress in this situation in a way that helps you move toward your rich and meaningful life? So, how will you tolerate the discomfort of doing what you got to do or just tolerate the discomfort until it can pass um and still move toward your rich and meaningful life. Respect for self and other. What action or solution is most respectful to you, the other person, and those important in your rich and meaningful life? And that's really important. Sometimes we can make a decision. I'm like, this is the best decision for me is what I want to do. And then when I think about it, I'm like, well, but maybe it's not best for my husband, my kids, my animals. Um, and I may make a different decision because the world ain't all about me. My rich and meaningful life is about those people and creatures um within it. Forgiveness of self and other. Again, we're just processing the framework addressing this issue. What can you learn from this situation and how will you prevent it in the future? We don't want to just forgive and forget. We want to accept that it happened, learn from it, prevent it in the future, and then figure out how to stay safe. And it's continuing to give this person or situation energy by being angry or resentful or feeling guilty. Is that the most prudent and purposeful response? Is that a good use of your energy to just stew in those negative feelings? Does it help earnestness or integrity? Ask the person what response will be most true to you and what is important to you while also respecting the other person. What would be the most compassionate response in this situation for you and others? And some of these may kind of be repetitive. Um respect and compassion may kind of overlap, but that's okay. We're just going to go through the structure. What aspects of this situation are you not being con completely truthful about to yourself or to others? And we lie to ourselves a lot because there are certain things we just don't want to see. We know they're there, but we're going to lie and tell ourselves they're not. So, what aspects are you not being completely truthful with yourself or others? And how will truthfulness and authenticity in this situation help you move toward your rich and meaningful life? What boundaries do you need to set? so you can be helpful without burning out, being triggered, or relapsing. And in what ways does setting boundaries and doing what you need to do for you strengthen you so you can continue to be helpful and nurture what is important? And what is the difference between selflessness, as we just defined it, and selfishness? Spiritual frameworks help people consider the long-term consequences of their actions on themselves and all of those things important in their rich and meaningful life. When people have a framework that helps them make decisions and move them toward the life they want, decisions become clearer and time and energy are used more effectively.