Overcome Being Overwhelmed

Overcome being overwhelmed by recognizing the pattern. This pattern includes exaggerated thinking – “I have a million things to do” – confused emotions – “I’m so stupid” – relentless mind chatter and physical sensations of fatigue, frustration and fear.

Knowing that you want a change is easier than knowing what to do. We are intelligent beings. We are also emotional beings. When overwhelming emotions take over, thinking takes a holiday.

The secret to keeping our total behavior of thinking, doing, emoting and physical responding is found in breathing. Slow. Deep. Purposeful. Deliberately. Allow incoming oxygen to calm the passion and send blood flow to the brain to re-engage rational thinking.

Think rationally about your to-do-list. Yes, several things demand your attention but it is nowhere near a million.

Gracious thinking about your self-esteem. You may have made a less than stellar choice, but you are not stupid.

Conscious, focused breathing calms the body’s systems to respond humanely. Use it for you to lessen opposition. Gently give it to your perceived adversaries. Without fanfare, allow him to take a minute to calm down. Do not demand answers.

In heightened emotions, we do not have answers anyway; we only have rationalizations that cloud rather than clarify. Or defenses that destroys rather than build.

The higher your energy level the more efficient your body – your total behavior. Focus helps you to prioritize your choices to pursue and to eliminate.

We become overwhelmed when we take things personally – as though we are the savior of the world – and it’s all about us to do or die.

We overcome when we come to terms that the stress from the situation is more about our own thinking than it is about the actual tasks at hand. That is not to discount the responsibilities of work and home and community involvements. It is to say that trying to do – or think about and plan for – at the same time is humanly impossible. It is too confusing; mind-boggling,

Go for excellence by doing the best you can do while in a state of calm learning. Let go of the paralyzing, stressing idea of perfectionism.

Don’t Cope. Overcome. Once you buy into being aware and put the awareness into practice, you become empowered - which is the highest form of power/control there is - internal rather than external; control of self rather than control of others. When we are in control mode, our forced control over the others backfires into making them push back with equal or greater force (whether that force is aggressive or passive). When we give up control techniques we are in a much greater position to influence the offender to the positive.

Take Charge of Your Life

 Take

Charge

of Your

L  I  F  E 

As a tribute to the late Dr. William Glasser you are invited to attend a free presentation based on his book Take Charge of your Life. The focus in this course is application to one’s personal life. It is involves the empowering notion of making our own choices in every area – thinking, feeling, acting, relating, responding… The concepts are easy to learn easy to apply and produce amazing results.

Learn How to Get What You Need

• Gain effective control over negative feelings such as anger, guilt, depression and choose more positive thinking behaviors
• Become more self accepting and less critical of others
• Learn specific techniques for resolving conflict - inside oneself or with others
• Add happiness and connect better in important relationships

The sessions will cover…

• Knowing what you can control and what you have no control over
• Needs, wants and things that are important to you
• Relationship habits
• Perceptions that shape our reality
• Behavior choices

Date: Friday, June 6, 2014 

Time: 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM (lunch on your own) 

Location: Hotel Indigo - 211 Clay Avenue - Waco, Texas

Preregister to receive a downloadable Participant’s Manual

Mona Dunkin, 254-749-6594

mona@monadunkin.com

For June and July 2014 schedule this introductory course to be presented to your business, school, church or civic organization.

• There is no limit to the number of participants.
• It can be taught in one 6-hour session, two 3-hour sessions or three 2-hour sessions.
• A limited number of spaces are available. 
• Call today. 254-749-6594 Mona Dunkin 

Dr. Glasser has written many books based on human behaviour. He will always be remembered for founding Reality Therapy Psychology, resulting from his experience and research in a mental hospital and a correctional institution. He described how he believed people chose their behaviour and could therefore alter it. Counselors, psychologists, social workers and educators enthusiastically welcomed his work and began implementing it in schools, clinics and correctional institutions. As time passed Dr. Glasser developed an educational reform program now known as "The Glasser Quality School". Dr. Glasser's Eulogy

To schedule Take Charge of Your Life for your business, school, church or civic organization, please contact Mona Dunkin, 254-749-6594.  A limited number of spaces are available.  Call today. 

Miscommunication

“I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure
you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” Bonnie Libhart

What?

Communication is sharing information with another person in such a way that they understand not only what you say but also what you mean.

We speak in words but think in pictures. When what we say does not match the picture of the one with whom we are speaking, we have a miscommunication.

Example, my grandchildren and I returned from swimming and I asked them to hang their wet suits on the swing. The picture in my mind was the porch swing that we had just passed while entering the house.

Later as I was gathering laundry, there were no swimsuits on the swing.I inquired about the swimsuits; they insisted they were on the swing.

And they were.

They were on the swing they pictured in their minds - the swing set in the yard.

I chuckled as I thought of my friend Bonnie’s amusing transfix of words about how what we say is not always what is heard. If we do not give and or get corresponding pictures, then we have not understood one another.

Sometimes those miss-matched-pictures of miscommunications are humorous, sometimes they are irritating and sometimes they are dangerous.

Perhaps the three most common communications errors are 1) talking too much, 2) listening too little and 3) failure to understand. The failure-to-understand-coin is two-sided; incorrectly assuming we have spoken accurately and thus, equally incorrectly assuming the one to whom we have spoken has heard what we meant to say.

When instructions are given, there is always a speaker and a receiver. Know that things are not always as they seem. Consider the context. Consider your audience (i.e. age, life experiences). Be gracious. Rather than insisting your communication was 100% right on, be willing to see it from the other person’s point of view.

What I say, plus what you hear. What does it equal? What I have said? What you have heard? Neither? Where is the break down? Was it with the receiver? Was it with the sender? Both?

If your message is not getting across, spend time thinking and learning how better to express yourself. If you are not receiving information well, spend time thinking and learning how to seek understanding.

In both instances be patient, gracious and develop empathy. It’s worth the effort.

A good place to start is with St. Francis of Assissi’s prayer:

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, To be understood as to understand, To be loved as to love… ”