This episode was prerecorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. So I'd like to welcome you to today's presentation, Child Development 101, The Middle School Years. This is an ongoing presentation or series that we've been working on starting with Infancy, Toddler Hood, Elementary School, talking about middle school. We'll finish up with the high school years because a lot of us, if we're not dealing with child clients, we're dealing with parents who have children or we're dealing with, guess what? People who once were children. I know it's hard to believe everybody was a kid at one point. They just may not remember how to be a kid anymore. So what we want to do is look at what are the particular developmental tasks at each stage, if these tasks are not accomplished, what's the potential fallout from it and how can we prevent it from happening through effective parenting and all that kind of stuff. But if it did happen, how can we remediate it? So we're going to review the developmental tasks that are supposed to be accomplished at this stage, examine how their thinking patterns in middle school are different than that of both toddlers and even elementary school kids and adolescents, explore ways to assist children in enhancing their self-esteem. And we're going to introduce in this particular presentation, Colberg's Theory of Moral Development. Colberg's theory is a lot less tied to age and has a lot fewer stages in some ways than Piaget or Erickson. So we're introducing Colberg here because at this point, children are able to make a leap to the next stage of moral development. And so we'll get right into Colberg. Level one is your pre-conventional morality, which is zero to nine years roughly. So I mean, it encompasses a little bit of elementary school, and then kids start jumping into conventional morality at 10 years old, which is roughly fourth grade, but we're going to start talking about it here. So up to nine years, kids have no personal code of morality. They're not thinking, is this the right thing? Is this the moral thing to do? They're not questioning authority. Moral code is shaped by the standards of adults and the benefits and consequences of compliance or non-compliance. So the little kid is going, let's see, I know that I could potentially get in trouble if I do this. Now are the benefits of doing it anyway, going to outweigh the costs if I get punished? They're smart. I mean, kids are really smart in the way they think. So it's important to kind of give credit where credit is due. In stage one, your earlier stage of development, if a person is punished, they must have done wrong. This is how the child thinks about it, which makes sense. What we've learned about children that are under nine years of age, they tend to think very dichotomously and very egocentrically. So if somebody's punished, then they must have done something wrong. They're focused on one aspect. They did something wrong. They got punished. So it's centrated, it's egocentric and it's dichotomous.  So this is really in line with pre-operational thought. As they get a little bit older, stage two of pre-conventional morality is individualism and exchange. And in your quiz, I'm not going to ask you specific details about what stage came when. What I want you to do is get the overarching concepts. And that's true for any quizzes that you will take with us. So don't get yourself all bogged down in remembering which stage is at what level and yada, yada. Basically, little kids think dichotomously, egocentrically, and they think about, is it going to benefit me? How, you know, if I do this, what are the risks versus risks versus rewards for my benefit? So then stage two is individualism and exchange. They start to recognize that there can be multiple right views. And remember, we talked about this a little bit with elementary school students starting to be able to take other people's perspectives and going, you know what, I can see where Johnny might have thought that. There might be multiple explanations for something. So they're starting to get out of that dichotomous thinking a little bit. They're starting to be able to consider multiple outcomes. They are able to understand that different individuals have different viewpoints. And this is really true of concrete operational thought. They can understand that mom thinks one thing and I think something else doesn't mean that either one of us is wrong, doesn't necessarily mean either one of us is right. And that's when it starts getting a little bit hinky at this age, trying to figure out what all that means. But once they move into conventional morality, they've started to internalize moral standards of valued adult role models. So when we say, where did you get your values from? Who taught you that? What did you learn? We really want to look at what were the influences in this child's life, because this is now what they're trying to decide. Remember, before they were able to say, OK, we've got two different perspectives. I don't know which one's right, which one's wrong necessarily. However, you know, generally they're they're focusing on what parents have said level two, they're starting to be exposed to other children, they're taking in more media, they're taking in more input, and they start identifying valued adult role models. It may be parents, it may be teachers, it may be their best friend, Sally, you know, kind of depends on the age, but nine and up peers start playing a bigger role. And so does the media. Authority is internalized, but not questioned. So any authority figures, your teachers, your parents, your pastors, your ballcoaches, are likely not going to be questioned a whole lot at this age or at this stage. And this is nine plus years, which means it can go forever. These are people who take in, you know, the somebody tells them something and they take it for, you know, that's just the way it is without questioning it. And one of the things that we find with a lot of our clients who have low self-esteem is they've taken in some of these messages and they've not questioned it and that now they're not able to feel like they live up to these messages. For example, in order to be lovable, you need to be successful and being successful is a CEO of a company or rich or, you know, driving the best car. And so they take in all of these things and they're figuring out their values. You know, we can think in terms of values and morality as they go together. What's right? What am I going to strive for? But they've taken in these values and they're not questioning them.  Maybe they're not able to buy a Lamborghini. So does that mean they're not lovable? At this stage, reasoning is based on the norms of the peer group. So, you know, middle school peer group, high school peer group. When you get into adulthood, whatever your peer group is there, whether it's the people at work, the people that you socialize with, the people on your bowling league, whoever your peers are, are going to influence what your values are at that point in time. And yes, our values can change. The peer group also includes significant others. So if you end up getting married or in a domestic partnership and then you have peer group that happens to be in-laws. And whether you take in those values or not depends on your level of development in terms of are you willing to question authority? If your in-laws say something, do you take that as, you know, 100% across the board, what is? If your parents say something, do you take it that way? At the beginnings of this stage, so we're still talking, you know, middle school to high school, a lot of reasoning is based around developing good interpersonal relationships and desire to be seen as a good person by others. So basically, you want to ask, in your peer group, who's a good person? What makes them a good person? Tell me about some of your role models and what makes them good people. That gives you an idea about where their values are laying. And then encouraging them to maybe look at those values and question them in later life, you know, in middle school, in high school. As parents, we can help children navigate this a little bit as they come home and they start telling you what the values are in their school or, you know, I have to have these special pair of shoes or I have to have this or I have to do that. You know, we can talk to them and ask them, what do you think about that? Is that important to you or is it important to your peer group? And it's really hard for children in middle school especially and even early high school to separate the two. But in both middle school and high school, children really are seeking that external validation. They're trying to figure out their place in the world and we'll get to Eric's in a minute. But they're trying to feel competent. They're trying to feel lovable and accepted. So they really want to take in whatever the values are of the peer group without question because they don't want to face rejection. Stage four, maintaining the social order, comes later, like college age, but I threw it in here just to kind of give you a prelude to where people may be going. Awareness of the wider rules of society and judgments concerned upholding the law and avoiding guilt. So as people get older, they start to become aware of, you know, the laws, the rules outside of just their small microcosm. They start reading the news and becoming more aware of that sort of thing. But as far as kids go, as far as the series is concerned, we really stop at that good interpersonal relationships. So that's where a lot of preteens and teens energies and interests are focused. Ages seven to 11. Now, again, remember I said there's some overlap here. Most of this is elementary school. Children are being able to evaluate things on more than one characteristic. Okay, that's great. So they're developing this skill. By the time they get into middle school, they should be able to start evaluating things in a complex array. They're able to use inductive reasoning, drawing general conclusions from personal experiences score. They're really good at this by now. They're still developing deductive reasoning. And it takes a while for a lot of people to develop deductive reasoning or the ability to use a general principle to predict an event. So abstract and hypothetical thinking, even through high school is still being developed. So these general principles that we're throwing out there in terms of society, in terms of living, in terms of quality of life, make it really hard for them or they struggle bringing it down to what does this mean for me? So as parents, as teachers, we can bring it back down for them or help them bring it back down and go, okay, so what does this mean for you? In terms of later life, you know, reparenting or re, whatever, that we're talking about children who have had faulty inductive or deductive reasoning are probably going to have a lot more cognitive distortions. You'll probably hear a lot more all-or-nothing thinking over generalization, egocentric and thinking and personalization. So as clinicians, we can help them identify those. Now formal operational, abstract thinking and hypothesizing begin, and you can see the little wheels turning. My experiences led me to predict, this is inductive reasoning. So when I've gone to a new school in the past, it's been scary, but it's been okay. Or when I've gone to a new foster home, my experiences have led me to predict. Deductive reasoning would say, and we'll take the foster home example, deductive reasoning would say as a general rule, foster homes are supposed to be safe places where I can grow and basically hang out until mom or dad can get me back. So that's the general principle that we hope is true. Helping children figure out if whatever happens doesn't fit their reasoning. Helping them figure out why that happened is important because throughout life we're going to have outliers that don't happen. Think about stoplights. You know, stoplights, you drive up to a stoplight, it's red, then it turns green after a little while. But what happens when you drive up to a stoplight and it's red and then it blinks red and you're like, no, no, no, no, it's red, yellow, green. That's how it's supposed to go. But the outlier, the general principle is it's supposed to be red, then green, then yellow, then red again. But when that doesn't happen, how do you work that into your system? When something you expect to happen doesn't happen, how do you accommodate that? For children, you know, 11 to 14, which is really what we're talking about with middle school, the data that they have to use is really quite limited. So they have difficulty making a lot of hypotheses, or at least accurate hypotheses, because they don't have a lot of knowledge.  So they don't have that information. It doesn't mean they're dumb. It just means they didn't have that knowledge. In school, children are starting to be encouraged to develop their reasoning by the introduction of things like algebra and science labs, where they are taking a general principle and hypothesizing what will happen if, based on these other theories. Socially, again, we're still staying with reasoning. Children may think something to the effect of my experiences with this group led me to expect, you know, to be treated fairly from anyone like them. So this is a stereotyping activity or a stereotyping procedure. One of the things, activities that you can do in group or with an individual is put up posters or give them worksheets and have general titles that are there, like teachers, and have them write down everything they know about teachers because this is their general rule. This gives you an idea of what experiences they've had with teachers. And then you can talk about exceptions to those rules. And why did that happen? Encouraging them to look at the fact that, especially when dealing with humans, it's really hard to lump everybody together because there are always outliers. The general rules. You can have an activity, and again, this is more fun to do in group, where people list general rules and you want to make it a little bit more specific, otherwise they're all over the place. But you can say general rules at school or as a general rule, this is how people interact. And have them brainstorm what they know about meeting new people, about starting a new school, about using alcohol and drugs. Any topic that you want to talk about that's going to relate to their development, how they feel they fit in, their interaction with other people, all of those have general rules. We've created schemas about all of those things. So let's start pulling those schemas out and challenging them. And we may find they are spot-on. So awesome. We also may find that they are somewhat inaccurate. And when you have multiple people sharing their general rules, a lot of times you find that their general rules conflict. And that gives you an opportunity to talk about, well, why might this be true for Sally, but not true for Sam? You can do this at home. You know, if you've got kids and they have different opinions of things, my kids just came back from a vacation. And one had a really good time and another is just stressed out as can be. And they can't understand each other's perspective to save their life. So talking about different perspectives and how one person had a really good time and the other one is just like, oh my gosh, that was so stressful. What was different for each of them? And in what way was it stressful for one versus the other? Another general rule that we talk about with regard to maybe social situations is no good deed comes unpunished. A lot of people say that, but is that true? And if we teach people this general rule, how is that affecting their psyche? If they do something good, then they're waiting for the other shoe to drop. That increases anxiety. If they think, well, no good deed goes unpunished.  How does that affect their interactions with other people and the world? Another general rule, if you want to say, is karma. You know, some people will talk about karma, what goes around comes around, however you want to talk about it. But then if they see somebody do something really bad and there aren't any immediate consequences, or maybe never are any consequences, how do they rectify that in their mind? So encouraging children to start learning how to question things that are going on and not to rely 100% on general rules because a lot of times there are exceptions. At this age, there's also a lot of emotional reasoning and blaming. Children in middle school, you know, they're trying to figure out where they belong. They're trying to develop a sense of competence. They're going to fail sometimes. They're going to have hiccups sometimes. They're going to have embarrassments, which for a child and most middle schoolers still don't have really strong coping skills because, hey, you know what, they're not developed yet. And that's not a knock against the kid. That just means they tend to be more emotionally reactive. So their emotional reasoning starts coming out. They feel bad. They feel devastated. So they may start blaming other people or they may change their behavior. You know, if, you know, maybe they were in class and they passed gas and, oh my gosh, people heard it. Everybody laughed. And I am never going to be able to go to school again. If you're a parent or you've worked with kids, you've probably heard a similar scenario. So that is a prime example of emotional reasoning. Something happened. They were devastated. In their mind, it is totally prominent and they just keep playing it over and over and over again. So they're stuck. And the only logical explanation or resolution they can come to is just never to go to school again. Can't do it. I need to, I need to transfer schools. So talking about the reality of, you know, what's going to happen and exploring it with the child, exploring how are they going to handle it if somebody brings that up again is going to be important. Also encouraging them to not get centrated, not get focused on that one thing. The fact that, okay, yeah, that was embarrassing. I wonder if anybody else did anything embarrassing that day and how likely is it that everybody will remember and it's going to be important enough for them to remember tomorrow or a week or a month from now. Now we move on to Maslow and remember all of these things kind of overlap because Maslow talks about our basic needs, our biological needs, our safety needs, our love and belonging, our self-esteem, and then self-actualization is off the screen. When we're talking about middle schoolers, they are still dealing with and developing their self-esteem, their sense of love and belonging, not only being loved by others, but being able to love and like themselves and be okay in their own skin, which is really hard when they're growing as quickly as they're growing and they'll have some awkward moments and they start having breakouts and their voices may be changing and there's all kinds of stuff going on that can be really overwhelming for kids and their coping skills aren't super developed yet so all of this seems just so vivid to them. What can we do as parents, adults? We can help them develop an effective, independent sleep routine so they know when they need more sleep. There are going to be times that they're going through a growth spurt and they need more sleep. They will be able to figure out how to identify that and helping them really start learning about sleep hygiene now is crucial. Nutrition, they need good building blocks for a healthy body and brain, reminding them, we started this in elementary school, but continuing to remind them to be mindful of eating for hunger and if they're having particular cravings maybe talk with you about it to figure out if there's something particular that they may need because as growing, rapidly growing little people sometimes their needs for certain minerals or vitamins or whatever go up and down so maybe we can have more healthy foods in the house that provide those foods, provide those minerals. At this age we can start making them aware of the impact of stimulants and sugar on their system. High C fruit drinks, I mean any of your fruit drinks even if they're not like fruit punch if they're apple juice have a lot of at least fruit sugar in them. So how does that affect that particular child? Make them aware that chocolate is a stimulant. Things like Coca-Cola have caffeine in them so they need to be aware of how that affects them and also how it affects their sleep. If they're drinking regular caffeinated sodas an hour before bed that's probably going to interrupt their sleep quality.  It helps set their circadian rhythms and it increases their vitamin D. These are all things we're doing preventatively but retroactively we can also have people do it if we have adults that came in and they haven't learned how to effectively get good sleep and just any sleep isn't good sleep. We want to make sure that they're getting good quality sleep with a couple hours of deep sleep in there. So how do you do that? What do you need to do? We can encourage them to look at that and I have other presentations on sleep hygiene so we won't go into that now. We can encourage them to educate themselves about what their body needs now. If they're seeing us they're probably experiencing some depression some anxiety, something going on which prompted them to come see a therapist so we might want to have them talk with a nutritionist or talk with their doctor to make sure they're eating a well balanced diet that supports the formation of the neuro transmitters and encourage them to get sunlight because seasonal affective disorder is real and for people who work inside all day long they can experience symptoms of seasonal affective disorder if they're in a building that has like no outside windows. I worked in a building for many many years where the inner core that I worked in had no access to the outside so you didn't know if it was raining, if it was sunny if you couldn't tell which means your body couldn't tell either and we also want to make sure they get plenty of vitamin D because inadequate vitamin D has also been linked to anxiety and depression sunlight helps with that again if it's you live somewhere like Oregon where it's really rainy a lot or it's just been a particularly rainy period or it's winter encourage them to talk with their physician to get their vitamin D levels measured medical care if you're in pain everything else just starts falling down after a period of time I mean we can deal with pain for a day or two or three but if you're in pain a lot or seemingly all the time it's important to get that looked at because it affects how you sleep it affects your ability to focus for children as they grow and like I said they're growing really fast and they can grow and they have insperts and they get aches and you know kinks and this and that that's normal so helping them figure out stretching and exercise and those sorts of things is good but if they have persistent pain or they have inordinate pain or they have pain that's keeping them from sleeping like maybe gastric reflux making sure that they get the medical care they need so they can be well rested preventing a lot of vulnerabilities emotional dysregulation when they go to school and have to deal with all the input encourage exercise for stress relief, self-esteem building to raise serotonin levels and again help them figure out how to work within this body that's theirs we went over those last time so I'm not going to belabor it this time now safety safety is becoming more of an issue at this age because children are a lot more attuned or at least a lot more interested in what their peers think about them so there's a lot more listening to words that are said, there's a lot more paying attention to nonverbals if somebody gives you a sideways look in the hallway many kids will take that very personally and feel embarrassed or feel ostracized however they feel so it's important we help them understand that this is a time where there's going to be a lot of emotional ups and downs so what can we do about it as parents and caregivers if we are in this early parenting stage where we're raising the child we can try to eliminate as much low grade chronic stress as possible now this can be from home stress if there are bills financial issues, marital issues whatever take it away from the kids they don't need to be privy to all that because kids may hear something that's a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10 as far as importance or devastation but in their mind it's a 10 because they don't have the ability to scale it and figure out oh my gosh this is going to be a problem I'm not going to be a problem eliminate that if you watch the news together it's fine, it's great some people really advocate for it and if your kids are on the internet supervised or unsupervised it's important to be able to process with them what it all means if something happens there's a bombing or this or that or the stock market takes a dump or whatever it happens to that child help them bring it back and say in the big scheme of things this may be unfortunate but for me it's not really going to make a difference or it is and this is what I need to do if there are events like I said bombings anything like that like 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina both of those the media really re-traumatized a lot of children playing this stuff and even though the older children knew it wasn't happening over and over again it kept this tragic tragic event just paramount in their mind and kept them thinking about when is it going to happen to me or am I safe so we definitely want to look at um monitoring and processing what our children are exposed to that may cause them chronic stress that may cause them to worry that they're going to lose their house or they're going to get killed or some of those big things that unfortunately our kids worry about today um if the person is an adult and was exposed to low grade chronic stress when they were growing up they may have some adrenal fatigue or HPA axis dysfunction you can google that and this is very true in people who have PTSD so you want to look and see is their stress response system responding or are they having panic attacks because their stress response system is starting to malfunction or they're depressed because they've just been so stressed for so long their bodies turned down the sensitivity and said I got no more to give you're just going to have to I got no more happy I got no more sad nor epinephrine um that I can use to balance out everything else so we want to help people figure out is there something they can do to fix this even if they were exposed to it and Dr. Gabor Mate I also linked to his video in the additional resources just a fascinating physician does a lot of discussion of the impact of low grade chronic stress on the child and the adolescent brain fabulous series if you want to watch it it's on YouTube as adults can we completely undo all the damage that's unknown but as adults if we know that there was damage done we can remediate it quite a bit so people can live happy healthy lives and recover from a lot of the stress if they realize that they've never had a recovery period from childhood and adolescence to a very stressful adulthood and there's no breathing room there's no okay things are good so we want to help them figure out how can they recover we want to help them protect themselves from emotional harm so being mindful of what is it that's important to me and how am I feeling because we are more vulnerable to emotional harm we are vulnerable if you're tired, if you're sick if you're already stressed out we need to start teaching kids as young as knee-high to a grasshopper however old that is when you're feeling not so good how can you take care of yourself this isn't gluttonous this isn't self-serving well kind of is self-serving but it's in order to help you be the best you can be because you can only run on empty for so long before you finally just kind of run out of gas teach them to stress tolerance some of the activities that work really well with kids are my favorite four three two one identify four things in the room you see identify three things you hear two things you smell and one thing you feel this forces them to kind of get out of whatever that is that's swirling and focus on something else that's in the here and now it's also a great activity for people who have flashbacks with PTSD if they can get themselves focused on the here and now which is safe as opposed to the out there wherever that was that was not so distress tolerance that's one activity they can do they can also focus on breathing Google distress tolerance and a range of activities pick one or two or three have the person try it if it works great if it doesn't try something else and kids are not going to be as persistent about finding interventions that work for them so as parents it's incumbent upon us to go how did that work if it didn't work why didn't it you know tell me what felt weird about that and then give them something else to try interpersonal effectiveness and communication skills kind of sounding like dbt again isn't it we want to help them figure out how to make friends but also how to interpret other people's behavior because it's not always about you how can you effectively communicate how can you create those win-win situations that will help keep you safe we also want them to use that when they're communicating with themselves to the back of my head because I'm thinking about the voice in the back of their heads that when they're telling themselves you're not good enough you're not smart enough you're this you're that it's important for us as parents to reinforce that they are good enough and help them develop effective communication skills inside and outside of their own head this website here dbtselfhelp.com excellent articles and activities that you can help and has all of the dbt acronyms on it so it's a really good one-stop if you just want some of the dbt tools we want to help them continue to explore attributions the global ones everybody always or I am always versus specific you know I may not be good at you know public speaking but I excel at writing or math or video games or whatever they excel at encourage them to identify any faults or any self-criticism specifically instead of globally it's not I am this always and all the time in some general term like bad at school or unlovable look for external reasons encourage them to look outside themselves to why this might be happening if they fail their test and in math let's talk about you know is it because you're dumb at math and of course I wouldn't use the word dumb with a child but for the purposes of this is it because you're not good at math or is it because you didn't get enough sleep last night because you're sick because you studied the wrong material because you know let's look at some of these other things or maybe you didn't do your homework all semester and you know so you didn't learn this stuff let's look at some reasons outside of your inherent abilities that may explain this because we can we can address those stable versus changeable you know if it's an inherent ability if you don't have I have very very poor spatial orientation when it comes to anything but loading a dishwasher my son on the other hand can recreate the house that he lived in when he was six on the computer and almost exactly and it just boggles my mind that is a stable characteristic I don't I mean I could probably improve a little bit but it's not a trait that I have changeable things are like you know my daughter is going through algebra one right now and geometry and I'm learning how to find the surface area of pyramids again I don't remember that but that's changeable it's a skill I don't currently have but it's a skill I can get we want to share this with kids kids often look up to us as parents or role models or caregivers as being perfect and we want to be able to say to them you know what I have no clue every once in a while so they realize we're not perfect but we also want to show them what we do when we have no clue you know if it involves spatial orientation I go get Sean's father and I'm like dude I have no clue you need to help him figure that out and I'll probably hang out and watch just for giggles but after you know 45 some odd years I know that's probably not a skill I'm going to develop but if it's something like finding the surface area of a pyramid then you know I'll show Haley okay we're going to go to YouTube and we're going to find a video on how to do the surface area of a pyramid I'm going to review it and then we'll talk about it together so we want to admit that we're imperfect but we also want to show them how to address any specific things that need to be addressed introduce and explore the concept of locus of control and this is a new one at this age we've talked about a lot of other things but once they get into middle school we want to start talking about what are the things in this scenario that you had control of or that you will have control of awesome what are the things in this scenario that you won't have control of if they're talking about public speaking you know that can be really intimidating for a lot of people so what is it in this scenario that you don't have control of well you don't have control of the audience if there's somebody in the audience that's going to be ugly then they're going to be ugly and fix that what can you control in that situation though you can control how it impacts you now let's talk about how you might do that so we want to introduce the concept of what's controllable but we also want to help them see that being in control or thinking they're in control of everything all the time is really stressful and or feeling like they have control over nothing all the time is equally stressful realizing that somewhere in the middle is where their locus of control is there are some things they have the ability to control and some things they don't starts helping them reduce the ups and downs of this emotionality because they know one of the things they can control is their own reaction to a situation have them start doing self esteem exercises when they're young and it doesn't have to be anything big it doesn't have to be any production encourage them to identify things they're good at remind them regularly about things that they're good at instead of just always harping on will you failed your math test or you didn't do the dishes right remember the good stuff they're hearing the negative stuff and they're just holding on to that going oh I failed again but we want to put that good stuff in there too because it seems as a general rule for every negative that they hear it takes like three or four positives to kind of counter balance it because those bounce off they don't hear that as being I'm good and unsuccessful they heard the I'm unsuccessful so we want to try to so they start hearing the yeah I'm all that but they can also handle the constructive feedback continue with the concept of acceptance and commitment accept whatever it is and who you are and that's a huge you can talk for hours about that help them start looking at acceptance and commitment therapy we talked about this last time being the best you can be for those of you who weren't here you can present a list of value words and have them identify all the words that they want to represent them and then you can have them pair it down to only eventually in its process pair it down to only the top three if you could only be known for three things what would it be and then you can start talking about what that would look like and what they're doing in terms of their activities and their actions and how they behave that is making them become more like those three things that are so important to them another thing you can do as a family if you're working with a parent is find a family value that you all agree on like compassion or I'll just use that one and you can talk about that each night at dinner or at breakfast in the morning what did you do today or what are you planning to do today to show compassion it's easier in the evening what did you do today that was compassionate for somebody or for yourself because you got to be compassionate to yourself too and this can help keep those values activities in the forefront and help them stay focused on what's important to them what they've identified as being important to them identity role confusion 12 to 18 years so middle school all the way through high school they're trying to figure out who am I what do I want to do when I grow up and that is overwhelming I remember being in college being overwhelmed by that question so you can only imagine what it's like for a 12 year old trying to figure out what group do I belong in what are my interests what am I good at the world is their oyster if you will but the world has a whole lot more facets and it's hard to find the oyster with the pearl I was going somewhere with that metaphor anyway search for a sense of self and personal identity through exploration of personal values beliefs and goals relating to many roles now in middle school a lot of it is still interpersonal where do I belong what group do I fit in with am I likeable and lovable what is my identity kind of as a friend and as a human we're not talking about occupation at this point fidelity involves being able to accept others even when there may be ideological differences so as parents we can help people work through any challenges they may have with their friends because it's unlikely to have every friend that you have be exactly on par and have the same exact belief system that you do on everything so when differences come up how can you handle them how can you accept them and still be their friend even if you have different ideological values about things it's important that we help them see this as adults if we're working with someone who didn't successfully develop that fidelity we may have adults who either change their values whatever group they're trying to fit in or whatever relationship they're trying to make work they may hold fast to their values and have a hard time befriending other people because anytime any little hint of disagreement about anything comes up they just push that person to the curb we can help adults start to see how to be faithful to themselves as well as their friendships and accept individual differences social influences at this age pubertal self-help is what it's called you know it's middle schoolers helping middle schoolers deal with all these growth spurts and oh my gosh I have a zit as big as the planet of Mars in the middle of my forehead what do I do they help each other and it normalizes what's going on social support they protect each other against turmoil and obviously you know bullying is back up in the safety area but for social support they're helping each other going yeah this really sucks or you know if somebody likes somebody else and they don't like them back how do you deal with it in middle school the relationship start forming around a lot of this stuff and how do I fit as a person identity formation they're starting to look in the mirror they're starting to form friends that have similar ideologies that have similar interests that mirror a lot of their values so again if they have this really great friend who mirrors 9 out of 10 of their values but not the 10th one do you kick them to the curb or how do you deal with that so it's important as adults for us to help them figure out what to do with that information and social influences also help with values clarification they act as a sounding board if somebody is taking something to the nth degree their friends may say you know what you are getting all riled up and there's no point in this unfortunately it can go the other way too from a parent's perspective you can see children egging each other on in the wrong direction such as toward alcohol and drugs or promiscuous sexual behavior or sexting a whole host of things that you're just like oh please don't as parents we need to be able to be there to help our children clarify their own values in terms of some of these hard topics which may be in conflict to what their friends actually believe the same is true with the exception of pubertal self-help in terms of adult formation of results that are trying to formulate what their identity is because they have been little chameleons for so long just trying to get that external validation from somebody we need to help them start being able to validate themselves and saying I'm a pretty good person I'm an okay person and then start looking at the company you keep do they reflect your values and in what ways do they enhance your values how you feel about you failure to establish a sense of identity may cause the individual to be unsure about themselves and their place in society because again they're looking for that external validation they fear at this age isolation rejection and failure they don't want to be the odd man out they don't want to be the last one picked for dodgeball they don't want to be the one that everybody snickers as you walk down the hallway and they're terrified of this what middle schoolers do or a lot of what they do is geared towards acceptance from other people sometimes that means at the expense of their own values and that's where adult role models can help out pressuring someone into an identity can result in rebellion in the form of establishing a negative identity or the opposite of what's expected so if Johnny's expected to grow up to be a lawyer like his dad Johnny may feel pressured and go the opposite way and have a criminal record as long as my arm before he's 18 because he is not going to do that um attempts to merge the expected identity with the preferred identity can also result in problems because if you're getting pressure from your parents this is how you should be and you want to be this way and you try to merge them together to get everybody's approval um in the late 90s and early 2000s they started talking about the super woman stereotype who was trying to be the mom and the wife and the housewife and the CEO of the company and trying to do everything all the time um and it caused a lot of burnout so looking at is that something that you want to do or is this your attempt to pacify and get approval from everybody tips become a student of your child or your inner child if you're an adult listen to what you want we all have that little inner child in us that goes I want ice cream um every once in a while you can give in to him or her um but listen to your inner child and sometimes if that inner child is having anxiety you need to kind of be the parent and talk yourself down talk yourself out of it use some distressed tolerance skills becoming a student of your child means learning what stresses that child out learning what that child's interested in and what that child thinks he or she is good at and what that child's values are insist on and show respect not only to others but yourself be direct but not too direct if you've ever called your kid in or you remember being called in by your parents and they said come here sit down we need to talk oh boy that that never ends well so sometimes if you're having a discussion with your child it's easier to say hey let's go on a walk we need to talk about a couple things and it's less intimidating if you're not sitting there staring at each other um feeling like you're getting grilled be available when he or she is ready which is not all the time so maybe it's at three in the afternoon maybe they come down and you're just getting ready to go to sleep and they're like hey can I talk to you about something okay um turn on the light and talk to them because they're ready they're they're there for you and also schedule some and teenage I roll bonding time we have mandatory family time every week and it's important to keep that up that way you're available one of the things that I try to do is schedule time where my daughter and I will go out shopping or somewhere because she talks a lot to me when we're in the car and says things that she wouldn't necessarily say at home around her brother and her father ask why engage in role value related discussions with and model perspective taking encourage openness and this includes with yourself if you feel that you need to do something ask yourself why why do I need to do this why do I need to and is it important to my values pay attention to what your child or you love to do too often we get kids so wound up in extracurricular activities in school and everything else we don't even know what they like so encourage them to keep up with things that they like but as adults we need to also pay attention and do some things that we like because life is about living it not just getting through it identify what you're good at and create as many chances as possible to hone skills in that area if you're a parent do the same thing for your child if they have something they really want to learn about try to help them try to nurture that keep computers laptops and televisions in common areas so you can monitor what's going on help prevent some of the sexting model and engage children in dbt skills mealtime mindfulness encourage focusing on what they're eating and being aware of how they are do a check in with each person at the dinner table guide children through distress tolerance skills put the accepts acronym on the wall or the improve acronym on the wall so children can refer to it younger children may need to look at it middle schoolers may not want to ask what it is but if it's there they'll probably consult it start discussing the concept of radical acceptance meaning accepting that reality is what it is that the event or situation is causing you pain and there's a cause for it but life can be worth living even with painful events in it so sometimes you're going to hurt and it's going to suck but life can be worth living and schedule time for non-digital fun unplug for a little while talk about sexting let them experience and accept responsibility for real life consequences teach kids to make it right with others when they make mistakes we do this not only by telling them to do that but also by modeling it ourselves when you discipline try to discipline behaviors explore the rationale and forgive quickly it's not that you are a bad child it's you made a really bad choice explore the rationale that led them to make that choice and talk it out and then be done with it forgive quickly do that to yourself too even when you make poor choices because we all do be careful when kids confess and watch your reactions because they are very very hypersensitive as adults if they didn't receive a lot of effective parenting pay attention to your internal critic you may hear your mom or your dad in the back of your head going you are such a stupid loser so it's important to silence that internal critic in our adult clients middle school children are starting to explore identity and becoming more able to take other people's perspectives they want to be a good person in other people's eyes and fears of isolation rejection and failure impairment because of their lack of knowledge and lack of experience the world and people are still relatively unpredictable and reasoning can be faulty because of the lack of experience and data they often still fall into traps of over generalization stereotyping and all or nothing thinking which whether it's an 11 year old or a 21 year old we can help them address the cognitive problems in counseling middle schoolers are better able to understand the concept of radical acceptance although it still takes people a while to wrap their head around it and they're growing as fastest toddlers so their increased vulnerabilities include awkwardness because of physical changes hormone fluctuations needing more sleep and weight changes or insatiable hunger so it's important to be aware that any of these things can make them more emotional turmoil much of their reasoning is still often emotion focused so help them become more fact focused use the CPT challenging questions worksheet distress tolerance skills are also of paramount importance at this stage because these kids even through high school have a lot of high emotionality adults who experience setbacks during middle school years may need to grieve a lost childhood they wished they felt like they should have been able to well they weren't so helping them let go of those resentments and grieve that lost childhood they can more easily develop the emotional and self esteem skills they missed as adults though so it won't take as long for them to kind of get up to speed once they grieve that and quit holding on to the I wish I had are there any questions okay well thank you all for attending today and I will see you um next week we will pick up where where we left off happy holidays and stay safe if you enjoy this podcast please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on youtube if you want to attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes you can subscribe at hgtbs.com slash slash all cus.com slash counselor tool box this episode has been brought to you in part by all cus.com providing 24 seven multimedia continuing education and pre-certification training to counselors therapists and nurses since 2006 you can use coupon code counselor toolbox to get 20% off of your current order if you're a podcast listener especially on an apple device it would be extremely helpful if you would review counselor toolbox to do this on your apple device go to the podcast app search for counselor toolbox select the icon for the podcast tap the reviews tab in the middle you should then see an option to click write a review we love to see five star reviews so if there's anything we can do to make this podcast even better for you please email us at support at allcews.com


Going on everybody, Sam here, late in sports cards, doing 22 Penning National Treasures baseball hobby, 4 box, full case break, number 13, random division style, here's a look again at your random results. As always you can find these on the website under the results tab as well as the link that is in chat. It's good luck here everybody, let's get going. For NT baseball man, this stuff's been really good so far, I pulled some monsters out of this. Absolute monsters. Getting guys 8 to go on our XR full case, random division style, get 4 teams per spot you purchase. Definitely going to be a fun one. We've got Colossal Luis Frias, the 25 for the Diamond Becks, NL West and Alex Kirolov, 299 for the AL Central, get this, recast everything on this. Retro, that is Mark McGuire for the Cardinals, NL Central, 6 of 25, Braylon Marquez, that's 52 out of 99, die cut material signatures for the Cubs, NL Central. Nice one here, NL Central again, that's going to be Hedbert Perez for the Brew Crew, 22 of 99, Encard Prospect Auto. Jared Kelnick, 51 out of 99, AL West, nice one here. Going to Floyd, 89 of 99, RPA, that is O'Neill Cruz, boom. Congrats on that, our second big Cruz RPA on the day. Congrats Floyd, NL Central, there you go buddy. Awesome hit there man, get that Mac for you buddy. Another nice one here, this is going to the AL East, we've got Oswald Paraza, 5 of 25, Echler's Choice, so sick man, nice prospect auto. Going to save the booklet for last, we do have a Isan DS, that is 94 of 99, 3 colored RPA for the Marlins, NL East, Michael S. See, we've got a Legendary Signatures Awards, 205 booklet of George Kell, for the Tigers, nice one there, AL Central, 10 time All-Star George Kell on the cut. Congrats on that, Brett V with the AL Central, final game of the 1949 season. Wow, so cool man, I love those like, those are like so historic. They're a thick one, have another treasure chest to be coming? Oh boy, Dan Vogelbach for the Metz NL East, oh jeez dude. We're actually going to have to look for majority on this too, because it's divisional. Boba Shep going to the Blue Jays, 11 of 25, back to back dude, unreal. Nice one here is going to be Rogers Hornsby, one of one for the Cardinals, nice one there. One of one, can bag this one, one of the best MLBers of all time. Rich dropped the price on XR Football, way down. Give this a look right here, full case of XR Football, spots on sale. Give that a check if you guys are excited, or guys are interested, not excited that was weird. Check that out, XR is now on sale, thank you there Rich, appreciate that. Danny Mendek for the White Sox for the AL Central, got David Peterson, that is for the Metz NL East, 6 of 99. Hassan Kim, 36 of 49 on the Patch Auto, going to the NL West Colossal Patch Auto, followed by a Jake Myers, 43 of 99 for the AL West, the Astros. Nice one here, 12 of 49, Ted Simmons, class of 2020. And we pulled one of 25 last break, now we've got two of 25, 32 Treasure Chest, different one this time too. So it is, Seth Beer, Spencer Strider, Mike Bowman, Jaren Duran, Gavin Sheech, Jake Berger, Tony Santillon, Ryan Vallee, Matt Manning, Seya Suzuki, Jake Myers, Brandon Marsh, Bobby Witt Jr., Reed Dettmers, Chas McCormick, Edward Cabrera, Brian De La Cruz, Hans Krause, Aaron Ash, Fionnial Cruz, Joe Ryan, Camilla DuVall, Tyler McGill, Cal Raleigh, Wanda Franco, Kevin Smith, Bedel Bruhan, Josiah Gray, Josh Lowe, Juan Yepes, Shane Baez, and Matt Brash. So yeah, pretty wild, going to have to take a look, make sure there's a majority on this. I'm going to do that after the break on this one, assuming there probably won't be, but there you go, two of 25. So it's a different one than we pulled last break, but yeah, Treasure Chest. So back to back on those, swear to God if you're pulling in the next one too.  This guy, this forest guy. Brandon Marsh, 3 of 10. No, Brandon Nimmo, 3 of 10. Nice one there for the NL East. Got to AL Central, or NL Central, Dylan Carlson. Geez, back to back mess ups there. I know. Thank you, James, took a spot in XR. Again, the spots are on sale in XR football. Let's go, James. Thank you, James. That is Albert Poole, 72 of 99. For the Cardinals, NL Central. We've got Josh Smith, AL West, 44 of 99. That is Hawks legend, Josh Smith. Jay Smooth, going to the AL East, Clark Schmidt, my guy. The Anx, 62 of 99, Clark Schmidt, AL East. Got 6 of 25, AL Central, George Valera. Going to the NL East. We've got A, Jonah Dome. I guess Forest isn't the only guy to pull this. Yep, we've got the back, Frank Thomas. Treasure Jersey numbers, 27 of 35. We've got notable nicknames. That's a big poppy. Nice one there, 1 of 25. Congrats on that, AL East. Big poppy, nice one there. Backed for you, AL East. Beautiful card. Congrats on that, David V. Large father. And booklet, 53 of 99. Shane Boz, Matt Manning, AL Central, Brett V. And AL East, David V. That'll be a random. Yeah, Forest has 2 to buy. I'm going to be bugging Shane for that BGO, man. Shane is not safe from me now. All right, we are down to 7 to go on XR. The price has been reduced. Spots are on sale for XR. Spots on sale, very good price of it. For it, I have to say. So check that out if you guys are interested in football. Only group break with spots left. Only football break of the night. When you want me to send my phone number. I can just email you, Shane. That's probably easier. Zach Collins for the AL East. Toronto, AL East again. That's Josh Lowe. 37 of 99. There's Alex Breitman, 64 of 99. There's AL West. There's literally no joke for us. Shane had the Astros in the last break and hit a Craig BGO patch. I was not going to be bugging him for it. There's a Jonah Dome, and an AL East, 7 of 99 for the Nationals. Me? Yeah, true. 53 of 99, AL West, Brett Honeywell. MLB the show at 21, legend. Another spot gone. Thank you there, Phillip. We're down to 6. Spots on sale. Thank you guys. Unless I was looking at the wrong one. Unless there was a refund, which I don't believe there was. Yeah, shouldn't be. I see two orders for it. Unless there was a refund for it. I don't know what happened there, but... 6. Yeah, there we go. 6 now. 46 of 99 is Chas McCormick for the AL West. Chas Manian Devil. That's sick, dude. Look, Chas Manian Devil. Chas McCormick. That's cool. Forrest, did you see the big dumper card? Yeah, I sent it to him. So awesome. 84 of 99, we've got a Luke Williams. Damien, AL West. Our first sighting of this guy today. Apprentice, Inc. Julio Rodriguez. Boom. There you go. 32 of 99. There he is, ladies and gents. We've tracked down Jayrod. Julio. He can run, but he can't hide, John. Julio. There he is. Got A. Josh Baez, 23 of 25. For the Cardinals. That shot. Legendary materials. Harry Haleman. Very cool, man. That is the 1923 season. Unbelievable. Going to the Tigers. AL Central. Congrats on that. And then AL Central was the bias. That'll do it for the break, guys. I gotta figure out this treasure chest. Give me some time here. Gotta take out the abacus to start doing some math here on everything.  Alright, give me one sec. AL Central, AL Central. And AL East. And AL East. And AL Central. AL West. AL West. AL East. AL East. AL East. AL East. AL West. AL East. AL Central. Yeah, no majority on this. The most that anybody has is seven. Seven. The AL East, the AL West, and the AL East all have seven. So what I'm gonna do is put the teams in the sheet. All of the teams. Not gonna do the divisions. Just gonna do the teams. And whatever team is on top after the random. Whatever team that division is in, we'll get the card. Fair? I think that's good. I think we'll do that. I did that to save time, and the first card was Diamondback, so that didn't save any time. There was one that was like that. I think it's meant to be like that. Upside down. The upside down, yeah. We could send in a box and wrapper with that, but I think there's a second... That's the second one I've seen of a different guy that's been like that. Diamondbacks. And we gotta do the boss and the manning. We'll do that after. Wraves. Orioles. Red socks. White socks. White socks. Reds. Rockies. Tigers. Astros. That's not... I spell Astros. Cubs. Angels. What's the deal? I'm typing in a treasure chest random. That's what it is. I say we do a paddle royale to the death to see when's the treasure chest. Good God. I'm down with that. Giants. Not surprising that you're down with that. Rays. Rays. Rays. Rays. One, two, three, four. A's. Nationals. Cardinals. Mariners. Alright, let me do this really quick again. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm putting all the teams in. I'm putting every single team that's like shown and then we're doing the random whatever team of the division that... I'll explain it. I just gotta get this typed in. Diamondbacks. Braves. Orioles. Red socks. White socks. White socks. Reds. Rockies. Tigers. Astros. Royals. Astros. Cubs. Angels. Angels. Marlins. Brewers. Twins. Mets. Who's that? Phillies. Mets Phillies. Pirates. Giants. Mariners. Rays. Rays. Rays. A's. Nationals. Cardinals. Mariners. Alright, let me take you guys over to the random screen. I'll explain how this is gonna work. So, we're doing a random for the 32-way treasure chest booklet. The way this is gonna work is I typed in, divisional break. So, there's six participants who each have one division. Nobody had majority. What I did to make it easier is put every single team of the players that are on the booklet. So, i.e., that's Seth Beer with the Diamondbacks, that's Spencer Schreider with the Braves, Mike Bowman with the Orioles, Jared Durant with the Red Sox, so on and so forth. Gonna do the random. Roll the dice. Whatever team is on top after the... We do the roll after we do the dice roll, which is gonna be eight times. Whatever team is on top after eight times, that division is gonna get the booklet. Okay? So, if it's the Diamondbacks on top, the NLS will get it. Braves NL East, Orioles AL East, so on and so forth. So, it gives everybody the same amount of chance to get it. So, good luck here. Let's do it. Eight times. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Pirates. That's NL Central. NL Central. That is the O'Neill Crew Spot with the Pirates. NL Central. NL Central will get that. Pirates. Again, that is Pirates on top. Alright, now I'm gonna go type in the other one now. Right, exactly. Everybody, the proportional amount of chance. Thank you. Dual. That's... Who's on this? Boz and Manning, right? Yeah, so... AL Central. NL Central. AL East. AL East. Alright, so back to the random screen. Now we're doing the random for the Matt Manning and Shane Boz. That is Matt Manning, AL Central with the Tigers, Shane Boz, AL East with the Rays. So, whatever division is on top, this one's a little bit more straightforward. After three times. One, two, and three. Going to the AL Central. Now let's do the... Now let's do the recap. Here we go. Broke my brain for a second there, Sean. Josh Lowe. You and me. Zach Collins. Albert Pujols. Dylan Carlson. Brandon Nimmo. Boba Shet. Dan Vogelbach. Mark McGuire. Alex Kierloff. Luis Frias. Joshua Baez. Luke Williams. That's Chaz McCormick. Brad Honeywell. Jonah Done. Jonah Done. George Valera. That is Clark Schmidt. Josh Smith. Jake Myers. Ted Simmons. Hassan Kim. David Peterson. Danny Mendic. That's Isan Diaz. Oswald Paraza. Jared Cullick. Hedbert Perez. And Braylon Marcos. We had our treasure chest booklet going to the AL Central with pirates. No, that's not it. That's it. We had the Matt Manning, Shane Bosdoul going to the AL Central. We had a George Kell for the Tigers, AL Central. And Harry Haleman for the AL Central also for the Tigers. Magged guards now. We had Rogers Hornsby. One-of-one printing plate. Game used bat for the AL Central. AL Central, O'Neill Cruz, 89 of 99. That's Big Poppy. Notable nicknames. AL East, 1 of 25. And Apprentice, Inc. AL West, J-Rod, 32 of 99. That'll do it for the break, guys. Thanks again for the fill. Next up, another NT case. Last one of the...


Welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. This podcast was created to provide you the information and tools Doc Snipes gives her clients so that you too can start living happier. Our website, docsknipes.com, has even more resources, videos, and handouts, and even interactive sessions with Doc Snipes to help you apply what you learn. Go to docsknipes.com to learn more. Hi, everybody, and welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes, practical tools to improve your mood and quality of life. Today we're going to talk about 10 ways to achieve your goals. The first step is to get clarity. Understand what you want to do, as well as why you want to do it. So for example, if you want to get in shape, that's great. Well, first, what does that mean to you? Does that mean running a marathon, or does that mean being able to walk up a flight of stairs without getting out of breath? What is going to be different for each person? Some people would rather be bodybuilders and not focus on cardio. So what does getting shape mean to you? And then you want to answer the question, why? Why is this important to me? Because right now, not being in shape, whatever you're filling your time with, is serving a purpose. It is fun, it's relaxing, it's something. So you want to know what's the reason to change your behaviors? Because when you change, it involves a little bit of hard work. So we want to know why is it? Is it because you want to feel better in your clothing? Is it because you've got a vacation coming up and you plan on wearing a swimsuit? Is it because you want to be around for your kids when they are 60 years old themselves? What is your preliminary, well, what are all of your reasons for wanting to get in shape? The same thing is true, you know, if you're trying to quit smoking, for example, you know, what is it that you're going to do? Quit smoking. Now, some people may want to cut back on smoking or may want to switch to e-cigarettes or whatever your goal is, you need to define what your goal is and then look at why you want to do it. So when it gets tough, you know, when you're wanting to have a cigarette or when you're not wanting to go to the gym or whatever the case is, you can look back at your why reasons and go, yep, I really need to do this. The next step is to make a plan. Now you know what you want to do. You know why you want to do it. So you're kind of getting motivated. How are you going to do it? And making a plan is where you identify all of the steps to get there. You're at a one right now. Your goal is a 10 or maybe a six if it doesn't have that many steps. But you want to break it down into steps, just like you break down changing the oil in a car or cooking something from a recipe. It's one step at a time. So if you want to get in shape, for example, you first need to have workout clothing, you know, tennis shoes. It doesn't have to be expensive shoes, but you need to have proper shoes to work out in. And then you need to figure out where you're going to work out. You know, if it's in your neighborhood, well, then great. If it is at a gym, then you might have to get a gym membership. And then how are you going to work it into your day? So if you're working out, are you going to do it before work, on your lunch break, after work? How are you going to make this happen? And how are you going to stay motivated? You know, you've probably tried to do this before. And obviously, since you're trying again, you weren't completely successful. What helped you stay the course before? Sometimes getting social motivation, you know, getting a friend to do it with you, or just telling somebody about it so that they can ask about it and you can feel like you're being held accountable can help. Add time constraints. There is a theory that if we don't have time constraints that a task will expand to fill whatever time's allotted. So if you need to get the house cleaned, for example, holidays are coming up, that can start taking a long time unless you say, I need to get the guest room cleaned on Saturday. Well, then you're going to get the guest room cleaned on Saturday. If you don't put that time delay on, you may do part of it on Saturday and then dilly-dally and do a little more on Sunday. And there's still stuff to do. But if you give yourself some time constraints, it'll help you stay a little bit more focused. Tip the decisional balance. That means remind yourself all the reasons that you want to do this and all of the reasons that you don't want to stay the same. So that's the first half of the decisional balance. So why are you doing this? And why don't you want to stay the same? Why is it that you want to make this change? And then you've got to look at whatever this change is that you're making, which may be a little bit uncomfortable at first and figure out how to make it as comfortable as possible. So let's go with working out. Initially, what can you do to make it as enjoyable as possible? Starting out by going in and running three miles your first day, probably not going to do it. You're going to be really sore afterwards and it may be miserable getting through it. Getting to the gym and walking on the treadmill for 15 minutes. That's something that's doable. So you're taking the pain aspect out of it because you don't want to have unpleasantness come out of your new behavior change. If you're trying to quit smoking, for example, that is challenging. There's a lot of cravings. There's some irritability. There's a lot of stuff that goes on with quitting smoking. So how can you make that as painless as possible? And it's not going to be completely pain-free. You don't get me wrong. It's going to be a challenge. But how can you address some of that? Medication designed to help with cravings, nicotine gums, there are a variety of things. Talk with your doctor about different interventions that can help you get through that initial period. And for the irritability and some of that other stuff, exercise does help. But also letting the people around you know that you're trying to quit smoking. So they can give you a little bit of support but also give you a wider berth.  So tipping the decisional balance just to recap means figuring out all the reasons you want to do this change. All the reasons you don't want to stay the same and making this change as pleasant and as painless as possible. Prioritize. Achieving goals means trying to fit something in. This change into your life. So you're gonna have to prioritize and figure out what's most important. And this goal ideally is going to be one of those priorities. So if this is a priority, it's gotta be in there just like a meeting with your boss that you put in your day planner in ink. It's not something you can erase or fudge on. It needs to be a priority. That means you may have to get rid of some other priorities. So you gotta look and say, what can I get rid of to make time for this? Or what can I do differently for this? And how can I prioritize this goal? How can I make this really important? Which may mean providing reinforcers for doing it. So if you go an entire day without smoking then providing a reinforcer for yourself. Ideally not food, because a lot of people already gain weight when they stop smoking.  Have a laser focus. Too often when people set goals, they set too many goals, they set broad goals, they don't define their goals. There's a lot of reasons. When you set a goal, you wanna have a laser focus and this is what is important to get done.  But set aside time, for example, if you want to get a promotion at work and that's really important to you. Then when you're at work, then work needs to be your laser focus, not what your coworkers are doing, not whether or not you got invited to go out to lunch, not what your kids are doing at school. This needs to be your laser focus when you're at work. And then when you're home, you can have home time. But if you train yourself to focus on that one thing during that period of time, you'll be more effective at accomplishing your goals. If you're talking about trying to work out or get in shape, your focus needs to be on that. How can you work that into your day? This is a non-optional thing. So laser focus means maintaining those priorities and getting rid of other things that may creep in going, oh, but you wanna go out for drinks with your friends after work instead of to the gym. No, my focus is on my goal, which is to get in better shape and I work out after work. Maybe I can meet you at the restaurant after I work out. But laser focus means pushing some of those other things that creep in that you go, oh, that would be fun. Push them out of the way and say, no, right now, this is the time for this goal. Get over your fear of success. You may be thinking, wait a minute, that's fear of failure, right? No, we have fears of success as well as failure. Fear of success means that if you do something and you succeed at it, then you may have further to fall, for example, if you fail. If you do something and you succeed at it, then people are going to expect more out of you. So sometimes fear of success holds us back. For many people trying to get in shape, lose weight, quit using drugs, stop smoking, they fear success because, number one, they're not ready to give up that part of themselves. There are some really rewarding things about whatever they're doing and they're not quite ready to give that up yet because if they succeed in changing, they won't have that anymore, the cigarettes, the food, the drugs, whatever it is. So that's the first part. But also, if you succeed, then you've gotta maintain it and maintenance is a lot of hard work. And if you fail to maintain it, then maybe people will be disappointed, you'll be disappointed in yourself. So if you don't try, you can't fail and, but you also can't succeed. Now fear of failure, we know about. So we wanna look at failure as a learning opportunity. When you fail, you learned how not to do it. That's the easiest way to look at failure. Failure is the best teacher. It doesn't mean that you are a failure. It means that you've got more to learn. It means that you overlooked something. It doesn't mean anything about you as a person. So getting over your fear of success, letting go of that thing and getting over your fear of failure, looking at failure as an opportunity to learn more about yourself and how to do it better next time. Get support and encouragement from other people. That sounds easy. But it's sometimes a little bit hard to do because you feel kind of silly going, hey, I'm starting this exercise plan. So can you be my cheerleader? But what you can do is find people who also work out. I belong to an online community called Spark People. And you can download the app and monitor your food, your exercise, your moods. You can keep journals. There's a lot of stuff you can do in that app but it has a really active community that's really supportive. So finding support and encouragement for whatever you're doing. Also giving yourself support and encouragement. Silencing that internal critic that's going, you can't do this or I knew you'd fail. Making that person shut up and giving yourself support to do it. And if you start to backslide, if you start to get a bad attitude about it, acknowledge it and say, you know what? Today is really tough to do this. What can I do to help myself get through it? Encourage yourself, you know you can do it, but what do you need to do to support yourself? And for some things, let's go with quitting smoking. Maybe that means you're having a really stressful day and you need to take a time out and go on a walk around the building or something in order to kind of breathe and get your stress under control so you don't have as many cravings to smoke. There's a lot of people smoke to relax. For going to the gym, find battle buddies that are willing to go with you. I'm much less likely to skip the gym if I know that somebody's gonna meet me there. But there are a lot of other things that you can do to encourage yourself to go ahead with this goal, even when the going feels a little bit tough. Visualize success. Now this is super important and you may think, oh, that's kind of silly. No, it is important. You wanna start your day and end your day visualizing what it's going to be like when you achieve your goal, when you're in shape, when you're not smoking, when you get the promotion, whatever your goal is, you want to see yourself achieving that goal and how things are gonna be different and better in that new state of being. It doesn't take long, but it does help reinforce your desire to go forth. A lot of people, at least when I was younger, when we got ready for spring break, we would buy our swimsuits ahead of time and then you would envision yourself in that swimsuit as you were trying to get in shape for spring break because you'd probably put on a little bit of weight over the holidays. You know, everybody does it, but envisioning yourself in that swimsuit in a healthy body is one way to get there or envisioning yourself in that swimsuit as you are, you may be like, oh yeah, I don't wanna do that. So that'll help you stay motivated to keep on your physical fitness plan and embrace the unknown. Change always involves unknown. What is it gonna be like if I never smoke again? I can't imagine myself a non-smoker. What is it gonna be like if I get in shape? What is it going to be like if I get this promotion? What's gonna change in my life? And some things you can anticipate and hopefully they're going to be positive and the things that you anticipate that are not so positive, figure out how to put a good spin on those and embrace all of the other stuff that you don't even realize is gonna happen yet as a byproduct of your positive change. You know, some things you can do when you're trying to keep yourself motivated for change, going back up to that tipping the decisional balance is write down what do you think the benefits are gonna be?  But what are some other sort of ancillary benefits? How much money will you save each month?  What are the other things that you can identify that are positive reasons for changing? Hopefully this has given you some ideas and some tips on achieving your goals and can help you understand some of the reasons why you may not have achieved your goals in the past when you've tried. So just to sum up, get clarity, define what you're doing and why you're doing it, make a plan with time constraints, give yourself deadlines, tip the decisional balance, make sure that you're motivated to do it and you're motivated to give up the other behavior, whatever you're doing right now. Prioritize because you're gonna have to have energy and time to probably make this goal happen. Have a laser focus during your goal time. If it's when you're going to the gym, if that's after work every day, make sure that you have a laser focus and nothing gets in the way of you going to the gym after work. Get over your fear of success and failure, which means also letting go of whatever this old behavior is. There's something positive about it and sometimes it's hard to imagine yourself never being able to do that again or never wanting to do that again. So getting over that and envisioning yourself smoke-free or healthy or whatever it is. Get support and encouragement from yourself, silence that internal critic, be kind to yourself and from others. Have cheerleaders, have battle buddies when you start to make a change.  Thank you for tuning in. If you like this podcast, you can subscribe on your favorite podcast player. Join our Facebook group at docsnipes.com slash Facebook. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash all CEU's education or join our community and access additional resources at docsnipes.com. Thanks for tuning into Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. Our mission is to make practical tools for living the happiest life, affordable and accessible to everyone. We record the podcast during a Facebook live broadcast each week. Join us free at docsnipes.com slash Facebook or subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast player. And remember docsnipes.com has even more resources, members only videos, handouts and workbooks to help you apply what you learn. If you like this podcast and want to support the work we are doing for as little as 399 per month, you can become a supporter at docsnipes.com slash join. Again, thank you for joining us and let us know how we can help you.


I want to welcome your holiness to the United States and on behalf of the American people, say how pleased and privileged we are to have you among us. We're just returning from a mission of peace and I can think of no more fitting clothes to this journey than to be here in the presence of your holiness who has worked so diligently for recognition of the rights and dignity of the individual and for peace among nations. I can assure you your holiness the American people seek to act as a force for peace in the world and to further the cause of human freedom and dignity. Indeed an appreciation for the unalienable rights of every human being is the very concept that gave birth to this nation. Few have understood better than our nation's founding fathers that claims of human dignity transcend the claims of any government and that this transcendent right itself has a transcendent source. Our Declaration of Independence four times acknowledges our country's dependence on a supreme being and its principal author and one of our greatest presidents, Thomas Jefferson, put it simply, the God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time but no one knows better than your holiness that the quest for human rights and world peace is a difficult often disheartening task. In the face of turmoil and tragedy in our world we must always remember the central message of your own ministry that the quest for peace begins with each of us. When I began this journey on Easter Sunday I asked the American people to join me in a prayer for peace, a prayer that the nations of the world would renounce the agony of and heartbreak of war and learn to live in love with each other. We must never underestimate such efforts. Far more can be accomplished by the simple prayers of good people than by all the statesmen and armies of the world. Only when the fellowship of all men under the fatherhood of God is recognized and acknowledged only then will the world finally know true peace and understanding. To us your holiness the holy sea and your pastorate represent one of humanity's greatest moral and spiritual forces and your visit is particularly significant coming as it does soon after the reestablishment of relations between the holy sea and the United States. For over a century we maintained warm and fruitful but informal relations. Now we have exchanged ambassadors and we hope to build on this new relationship to our mutual benefit and to the benefit of peace-loving people everywhere. In a violent world your holiness you have been a minister of peace and love. Your words, your prayers, your example have made you for those who suffer oppression or the violence of war a source of solace, inspiration and hope. For this historic ministry the American people are grateful to you and we wish you every encouragement in your journeys for peace and understanding in the world. I also want to say how grateful I am for this opportunity to meet personally with you to discuss matters of vital concern to the holy sea and to the United States. We deeply value your counsel and support and express our solidarity with you. On behalf of the American people, I welcome you and I extend to you our warmest greetings. Praise be Jesus Christ. Mr. President, dear people of Alaska, esteemed citizens of America, it gives me great pleasure to visit Alaska once again and from this northern state to send a greeting of special warmth and affection to all the citizens of the United States of America. As you know today I have begun a pastoral journey that will take me to Korea, Papua, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Thailand and I am delighted that this pilgrimage enables me to stop here in Fairbanks and to be among you. I am deeply honored by the presence of President Reagan who himself is just returning from an important trip to China. Mr. President, I thank you for your kind welcome on my arrival and I wish to reaffirm through you my friendship and esteem for all the citizens of your great nation. My thanks go as well to Bishop Willen for his much appreciated invitation to the diocese of Fairbanks. I also extend my good wishes to Bishop Kaniecki and I pray that the Lord will grant him many joyful years of service to the church. I would also offer a word of greeting to the carnal and bishops of the United States Episcopal Conference who have shown their fraternal union with me by coming here on this happy occasion. When I arrived on my first visit to your beautiful state, dear people of Alaska and it is beautiful, your state. Remember being welcomed by a lovely little child, Molly Mary, who reached out and handed me a bucket of forget-me-nots, your state flower. Shortly afterwards that little girl was called home to her heavenly father but her loving gesture is not forgotten and her memory is held in blessing. I found in what she did at that time a living truth about the people of the vast Alaskan territory that in your thoughts and in your prayers you remember the Pope. Today I am here in person to give you the assurance that I have not forgotten you. Even when I am miles away I hold the people of Alaska and those of the whole of the United States close to me in my heart. I do not forget you for we are linked together by bonds of friendship, of faith and of love. In some ways Alaska can be considered today as a crossroads of the world. President Reagan is returning from visiting the beloved people of China even as I am making my way to a neighboring area in the far east. The city of Fairbanks reminds us also of another direction for it is called the heart of the Golden North here in this vast state 65 languages are spoken and peoples of many diverse backgrounds find a common home with the Eloids, Eskimos and Indians. This wonderful diversity provides the context in which each person, each family, each ethnic group is challenged to live in harmony and concord. One with the other to achieve this aim requires a constant openness to each other on the part of each individual and group. An openness of heart, a readiness to accept differences and an ability to listen to each other's viewpoint without prejudice. This openness to others by its very nature excludes selfishness in any form. It is expressed in a dialogue that is honest and frank, one that is based on mutual respect. Openness to others begins in the heart. As I stated at the beginning of this year in my message for the World Day of Peace, if men and women hope to transform society they must begin by changing their own hearts first. Only with a new heart can one discover, rediscover, clear-sightedness and impartiality with freedom of spirit, the sense of justice with respect to the rights of men, the sense of equity with global solidarity between the rich and the poor, mutual trust and fraternal love. Here in Fairbanks you have the opportunity to rediscover such values and to express them in your harmonious relationship with your neighbor which reflects the stupendous harmony of nature which pervades this region. May God grant you the strength to express this harmony in your own lives, in your relationships with others. May He give you the courage to share generously and selflessly the blessings that you yourselves have received in abundance. God bless America.


everybody forced here ripping 2022 museum collection baseball hobby six box half case number 36 pick your team style Andrew W. Yankees, Anthony P. Giants, Brian M. Pirates and Mariners Charlie C. Orioles, Chris D. Royals, Cody H. Braves, Daniel R. Nationals, Darryl W. Metz Donald L. Cardinals, Duke F. White Sox, Ed B. Phillies, Eric T. Padres, Reyes, Jonathan Q. Red Sox, Guardians, Rockies Kalen S. Marlins, Matthew K. Tigers and Twins, Matthew C. Cubs, Michael M. A's Nelson V. Rangers, Peter M. Angels, Roger W. D. Backs, Scott V. Astros, Sean H. Dodgers, Travis U. Bluejays, Troy L. Reds and Brewers. Good luck everybody. Here we go. Hey, that's even that's even better, Tony. Get everything done at once, right? I'll never get to know that thrill of joining Breaks while at work. Kind of, I'm kind of upset, you know, an alternate reality. I'm enjoying group breaks while working on my other job. That is not the latest four stars. Kenny, two gloves, bring them back here. Got Albert Pujols, one of the 99 Cardinals to start us off. The machine out of Thomas. Wow, five of five, rookie momentous materials, four color jumbo patch, Yanni Hernandez Rangers. That is freaking sick. That is game used. Dude, that's nuts. It's got to be a number, right? Yeah, it's got to be a number. Yanni Hernandez has a ranger. Beautiful four color patch. Copper Rookie, Bobby Wood, Junior Kansas City. Archival Autograph Braves, Andrew Jones, 25 out of 50. Put them in the Hall of Fame already. It's been long enough. Kenny, two gloves. Dude, are they going to block the defenders? You want to talk about a line that stinks? We're talking about the Bengals. Well, we got to talk about the Steelers. Arrow line stinks, too. Archival Auto Braves, John Smoltz, seven out of 50. Good box for the Braves here, too. On-card Autos for some Braves legends. Canvas, Don Mattingly, Yankees, a triple jersey, out of White Sox, Andrew Vaughn. Number at 73 out of 200. Who do you see in a little cup, Jake? You say. Really? Got a pet to make with you then. Real answer, France. France. Interesting. You and Blake must be on the same side then. They do. A bunch of other injuries, but they got them by play. Quad Jersey Yankees, Roger Clemens, five out of 25. Nice game use. Rocket, Quad jerseys. I think Qatar, they got it. They're the worst team in the tournament. Okunia, 69 out of 150. Atlanta, Atlanta still doing well here. Alec Thomas, a Lou Gehrig, Yankees, Canvas. And a Jersey card, Robin Yacht Brewers, 15 out of 50. Make sure to like the stream, everybody. We do appreciate it. Got an exciting baseball release this week. 2022 Bowman Chrome. It's on Wednesday. Brakesha listed on the site. Dual Jersey Auto, Joe Maurer twins. Nice card twins. Gold parallel 22 out of 25. Joe Maurer. Yeah, Bowman Chrome. You got PYTZ and random styles up for Wednesday. We'll be breaking a lot this following weekend as well after Thanksgiving. We will not be here in Thanksgiving. So you will have to spend time with your families, I think. Copper rookie Alec Thomas, D-Vex. Not me, though. Archival Auto, Orioles. Eddie Murray, 231 out of 299. There you go. Oh, it's not me, dude. I'm sleeping in. I'm relaxing. Might go to the Sorenners game that night before. That'd be a busy game, though, I think. That's a big night. That's a big night of the year. They're right for going out, for like people going out. It's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We got our cards for distributors. You're probably right. Corey Seeger, 61 out of 150. Rangers. Jersey Card, Braves Austin Rally, 32 out of 50. Braves hitting a lot. Is it Vaughn? We got our case hit framed auto. Going to the A's. Bronze frame auto. Ricky Henderson, 2 out of 10. Awesome, Ricky. Congrats, Oakland. That's a pretty sweet one. Seals King right there. Say, Suzuki, Canvas, Yachty Molina, a Quad, Raleigh, Randy Rosarana, 39 to 99 for the Rays. Yeah, I feel like all big cities are like that. People coming, people going. They're still going to get the ball back. 3rd and 12 for the Bengals here. Copper rookie Julia Rodriguez, Mariners, Abrams. You got dual Jersey auto Eric Osmer, Padres, number 274 of 300. Red Sox legend Eric Osmer. I don't know if people will play from this year. Yeah, for sure. But I mean, I just don't know the situation. You know, they should see Casas to be ready. Yeah, but they'll probably have to have someone there because Casas is a rookie. So 77, 150, Albert Pujols Dodgers, not Dodgers, Cardinals, Cardinals. Sorry, Dodgers legend Albert Pujols. It goes to Cardinals, that one though. Bobby Witt, Vladdy, Quad Jersey, Yordan, 14 to 99, Astros, Kenny 2 gloves. Got another chance here for Real Vaughn. Absolutely. Jersey card, Kyle Tucker, 49 to 50, Astros. Yeah, I think Casas has a good approach. So at the very least he's got that going. Bring Movawn. Yeah, I'm taking Movawn right now. He's probably still in the Cape League somewhere. Triple Relic Auto, Reyes, Austin Meadows, number 120 of 199. He's only 54, and that's pretty young. He could be like David Ortiz. Tell him now so you start getting in shape. Then he's ready to hit some tanks. Strasburg and an artist-proof canvas Raphael Devers, Red Sox. Yeah, Ortiz could for sure still hit 20 homers in like 100 games too. But you just have him chill with the team, basically, and have him DH like two times a week. The morale would be super high. You don't like listening to David Ortiz? Daniel Cruz Rookie, Quad Jersey, Anthony Rendon Angels, 51 of 99. That was a small call. To be fair, and I think this is just an industry-wide thing. A lot of the people, and okay, I'll single out Fox. A lot of people that Fox uses for their sports coverage are just there because of their names. Jersey Card, Bryce Harper, 15 out of 50 Phillies. Copper Rookie says Suzuki Cubs. Red Matt Chapman, 11 of 50. Blue Jays. Clemente, Canvas. And Jose Ebreu, dual Jersey Auto White Sox. 23 of 50.  I wonder why? Because they know they're going to lose Josh Bell, and they traded Red Sox would kind of lean to him. That would mean Hosmer gets traded somewhere else. You'd have to approve it though, but there's no money involved with it. Padres paying us out here no matter what. So 65, 150. Blue, Shane, Bieber, Guardians. Or they just don't play him, you know? Max Muncie, superstar, showed pieces out of 14 to 25 Dodgers. Yeah, Brayoon San Diego makes a ton of sense. He could bat like seventh in San Diego. He bat like sixth or seventh. It'd be fine. Power's a bit down, but don't matter. I mean, he was a 2020 MVP. Although it was a 60 game season. Yeah, third of a season MVP. It still counts. It's in the record books like that, all right? He was the best player in the American League that year. You know who was the ALCS MVP? Yes. Yes, of course I do. Mr. October, Randy Rosarino. Jay Rodericky. Patch card, Julio Orias, 25 to 25 Dodgers. Kenny, two gloves. Taking them down the field right now. Bregman, 37, 150, Astros. Dual, Relic, Otto Whitmer, Field of Royals, numbered 152 of 399. All the Red Sox had to do is trade for Otani, sign for Orlando, trade for Catel Marte, trade for Shane Bieber, re-sign of Valde. Signed Devers, signed Bogarts, and we're good. Boom, championship. Keep Whitlock in the bullpen. Boom, done. Easy. Copper, Helly, Aramos. Quad, Relic, Yankees. Garret Cole, 34 of 75. Why isn't the front office thinking about this? I really should. Just 400 millions into the luxury tax. 500 million dollars over the luxury tax threshold. Johnathan, you had no farm system. You got Archival, Otto's, George Springer, 43 of 125. I'm going to say your farm system is going to be... There's no farm system. It's just going to be... I couldn't trade Blake, though. I'll keep Blake. Yeah. Blake's off limits. It's like the Wood Sox come out just him. Trade all your teammates, buddy. I'm sorry. All right, that'll do it. Give me a sec. We'll do a recap here. Then for the future, you trade for Hullier, Roger. You guys, it's so easy. All right, Relics here. We got Angels Rendon, Astros Alvarez, Reiza Rosaraina, Yankees Garrett Cole, Astros Kyle Tucker, Phillies Bryce Harper, Braves Austin Riley, Brewer's Robin Yau, Dodgers Julio Orias, Yankees Roger Clemens, and that really nice momentous patch, rookie Yanni Hernandez Rangers. There he is. There's Blake right now. All right, we got Autos now, Royals with Merrifield, Piedra's Eric Osmer, Orioles Eddie Murray, got White Sox, Andrew Vaughn, Reyes Austin Meadows, Blue Jays George Springer, Braves John Smoltz, Braves Andrew Jones, White Sox, Jose Abreu, Twins Joe Maurer, Dodgers Max Muncie, and Bronze frame auto, Ricky Henderson A's. That'll do it. Thanks again, everybody. Clearly baseball is up next.