Pink Elephant - Guest Blog by Julie Davis

It's not that bad.

I'm busy.

S/he'll handle it.

It'll go away.

It's not my problem.

I can't do anything about it.

 

What's that thing in the middle of your life that you keep tripping over but refuse to deal with?

 

This week, I invite you to face it...

 

...from afar: Observe and collect data.  What is the pink elephant? When/where/how does it get in the way? What is your contribution for it being there? What would today be like if it disappeared? How do you get rid of it? Do you want to?

 

...up close: Bring it up to others who are tripping over it, too (whether they know it or not). "Hey, I think there is a pink elephant in the room that I/we keep tripping over and I'd like to talk about that, is this a good time?" If met with defensiveness, avoidance or confusion, you are talking to a pink elephant (not useful) and might need to move to the next step.

 

...head on: "I respect your interest in living with a pink elephant in the room. I'm not interested in that, however, and will be [over there]. If you are interested in having a collaborative discussion on how to remove and live without this pink elephant let me know. Otherwise, I'll be [over there].

 

Julie

 

Ps. If you are buried up to the eyeballs in pink dung, please call for help to get shoveled out FIRST.

Julie Davis, LMFT
Licensed Marriage Family Therapist Certified Rapid Resolution Therapist 704-807-1101, appointments available in California, New York, & North Carolina eMail, Website, Subscribe to weekly article

Autumn Hahn is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist practicing at Clear Mind Group in Weston, Florida. Call 954-612-9553 for a consultation. Follow Autumn on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Sign up for the e-newsletter HERE.

Life Lessons - Guest Blog by Martha Denton

Life Lessons from a Communications Specialist 

a guest post from Martha Denton of The Presentation School

A communications specialist is someone who helps other individuals communicate through writing, presentations, navigate cultural differences, visual graphics and/or presentation coaching.  We either do this through completing these tasks for our clients directly, training them to do it on their own, or some mixture of the two.  I’m one of the rare breeds that do all of the above for presentations.  Sure, a lot of my work involves grammar, margins and talk of software function, but it’s all for the same end: helping one individual be understood by another individual.  In fancy communication specialist lingo, we start that with something called “stakeholder analysis,” which means we walk people through thinking about everyone who could care about that speaking engagement and what it’s like to be in their shoes.  The other big task I help people through is feeling more confident when they speak to other people.  And most importantly, I help people avoid this statement, “Wait, no, you didn’t understand me.  That’s not what I meant.” 

In my work, there are some life lessons that I've learned that I try to integrate into my

life all the time.  Lessons that I think anyone could benefit from, especially anyone who wants to feel more connected to other people in a more authentic manner.

1. Think before you speak.   If you’re about to say something that you know will have a huge affect on the person you’re speaking to, think about the wording.  Try not to insult them.  Find the right tone for what you really mean (firm but kind, supportive, boundary setting, etc.)
2. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes.  Think about how they like to communicate, it can be revealing.  Sometimes just going through the exercise of wondering what it’s like to be the other person can help you find compassion for them.
3. Good posture goes a long way.  There are various studies that have been done that prove that standing up straight will help you appear more confident.  There are even a few studies that have found that good posture changes your brain chemistry so you actually feel more confident.
4. Repeat questions that you don’t understand.  When facilitating a group, I suggest that facilitators repeat the question they hear in a way that more of the room could understand.  This is worth doing with your loved ones, too, especially if you’re emotionally charged up and are trying to calm your system down.
5. Rehearse tough talks. Definitely rehearse your presentations so you can go into autopilot when on stage (we never know what can happen during a presentation).  It can also work for tough things you need to tell people.  Say it out loud; see how your message sounds.  Maybe you’ll realize you’re saying something offensive.  You’ll also gain some practice in saying tough things so it’ll be easier to stay calm the next time you need to deal with your issues.
6. Look people in the eye. When giving a presentation, it helps you connect with your audience.  It also helps you connect with whomever you’re speaking with.  Avoiding eye contact can make you look shady.  We don’t want to be shady with our loved ones, do we?

Hopefully these tips can help you communicate with your loved ones more authentically and effectively.  We all know that can help us feel happier!

Martha Denton is the Founder of www.ThePresentationSchool.com, a communications consultancy that helps individuals plan, write, design and deliver presentations more effectively.  She also designs infographics.  Some of her clients include major companies, non-profits and startups like: McKinsey & Company, The Economist, VF Corporation, Legolas-Media, and NYRR.  You can follow her on Twitter at @marden928 and @presoschool

Breaking Through

There are those moments in one's career that bring things all together.

In December 2010, I was working for an outpatient substance abuse clinic, seeing adults for individual and group therapy who had been using drugs or alcohol, generally for a great many years. Substance abuse is a funny thing in that it's not generally the addiction that you're treating, but all the stuff that was done that fed the addiction - the lying, stealing, prostitution, homelessness, death, and loss of trust. There's a lot of guilt and shame in substance abuse, especially long-term use, that needs treating so those issues don't become reasons for using again.

Specializing in trauma, also prevalent in substance abuse, I attended a training for trauma and hypnotherapy. I was a self-taught hypnotist, but did not practice it. I thought it would be a good fit for me, and boy was I right! Knowing nothing of the training, the methods, or the trainer, I signed up for level 1 at what, to me, was a pretty hefty out-of-pocket price. There was so much information thrown at me that I went home after each of the three long days of training with my head swimming. Rapid Resolution Therapy is a way of conceptualizing a case through the lens of how you see the person as if they were to walk out your door completely free of their burdens. This seems like what every therapist should be doing with every case, right? But we're never taught that in college - at least I wasn't. Once you start seeing clients as whole and fixed, it it's just a matter of getting them there; but that is in Level 2, which I immediately signed up to attend.

I went home from that training, eager to try out the things I'd learned and start seeing my clients as resolved. Into my office that first week came an older-looking gentleman that we'll call Earl. Earl looked about 70, but was only in his mid-50s. He'd been using crack for over 20 years steadily and was referred by the justice system. My job was to get Earl to answer a grueling 2-hour questionnaire on his history of substance abuse and mental health issues. The more of the story he could give me, the faster I could make it go, but Earl was stonewalling me at every turn with yes and no answers, and sometimes just a steady silence. Working in community mental health is always a balance between getting the mountainous job down quickly and really getting the good work done. I needed Earl to go more quickly, but pressing him wasn't going to get me anywhere. I turned aside from the computer and said "Earl, I know the court's making you come here, and you're trying to get yourself out of trouble, but if you could change one thing about your situation, what would you want to do? How can I best help you to get where you want to be?" Earl looked at me for a long while, saying nothing. You could see his gears turning. As a trained therapist with almost a decade under my belt, I was going to ride out his silence - and if the questionnaire didn't get finished in time, we'd reschedule and I'd own that to my supervisor.

Then something happened, as we sat there in silence, sizing each other up. Earl broke down crying. "Miss Autumn," he said, "do you really care?" "Earl," I told him, "you're stonewalling me left and right. I see you have a lot of defenses up and I don't know why, but it's not going to do either of us any good. There's something going on with you that you're here for, not just court. If you're willing to tell me what it is, I'm willing to help see you through it." He looked at me again, a hard clear look and began to tell me about his daughter who was "about your age", though she was about 10 years younger (I get that a lot) who hadn't spoken to him in years due to his drug use, lying, and stealing. "I stole from my family," Earl said simply, and it was clearly the worst thing he could think to ever do. I helped Earl see himself as free from drugs, as clear of mind, as happy and himself again. We finished the questionnaire in record time. "I don't know what you did to me, Miss Autumn, because I don't tell nobody about my daughter, my life." But he left smiling.