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. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on using groups to address anger, anxiety, depression, and addiction. And you might be thinking to yourself, why am I putting all of those together? Well, because you know what? A lot of these skills and tools are applicable to all four. They're trans diagnostic skills. And a lot of times you're going to be doing groups with people who have multiple diagnoses. So let's see how many birds we can kill with one stone. I need to find a different metaphor because I don't like killing birds, but you know, I'm weird that way. So we're going to review the benefits of the groups real quick. Let's identify some modalities for group. Let's get creative here because it's cost effective. How can we make it benefit our client base, our population? We'll talk about goals for psycho educational and skills groups addressing anger, anxiety, addiction and depression in each different activity and explore activities that can be used to enhance group engagement. Sitting down and going, all right, group. What do you want to talk about today? Not only is that unstructured, but a lot of times you're not going to get very far. So even if you can just provide one teaser to get the group discussion started, you may be able to run with a whole group from there. So groups are cost effective. You can have 15 people to one therapist and skills and psycho-wed groups can be done by unlicensed clinicians. So if you've got interns, if you've got masters level clinicians that haven't gotten their license yet, groups are perfect for them. But I mean, granted they can do individual therapy too, but you have a lot more latitude in what you can do with those kinds of groups. Groups provide peer feedback and support. So it's not just me spouting out whatever I think. They're hearing it from their peers and like we talked about before, kind of like teenagers hear stuff from their peers and take it to heart. Whereas if mom and dad say it, they're like, whatever, I roll. The same thing can kind of be true in treatment. So hearing stuff from their peers and hearing it echoed from two or three peers can give it more with your clients. It encourages people to develop interpersonal skills, become more confident in discussing and sharing opinions and all that stuff that a lot of our clients are not super good at doing. It reduces isolation and uniqueness because people are talking about the symptoms they've had or the experiences they've had and other people are going, yeah, been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and burned it. So people don't feel as much like I am like the only one in the world who feels this way. And it also provides you many observers. When you're sitting there and even if you are on your A game and you're doing your best to pay attention to your client in an individual session, you know, there are things that you're going to miss when you've got 15 people paying attention to the one person speaking, you're going to get a little bit more. And when you're in group, they kind of self monitor each other so they may help you manage the group a little bit better as they start to norm and develop that relationship. So modalities. This is fun. Think of groups as something that's fun and can be creative, not something that you have to do. Face to face are traditional everybody come into a room and let's talk.  I enjoy doing them because I like the human contact. You can do web meeting type groups if you're doing psycho ed or skills groups. I would really caution you about doing any sort of therapy groups online, simply because HIPAA and high tech and 42 CFR, your federal regulations for confidentiality, all apply. Once you say I am so and so and I provide substance abuse or mental health treatment, then pretty much anything you do falls under the rubric of the higher level of confidentiality than someone who's just in an AA support group meeting. So if somebody is participating in a web meeting group, especially, well, video or not, and they've got six other people in the room that you don't know about, you know, that obviously is a breach of confidentiality. You can't guarantee people are going to use the best judgment. So web meetings can be really helpful for skills groups and psycho ed groups. I prefer to have them with video that way I know that there's not six other people in the room. But that's your, your call what you feel comfortable with. And again, it has to be encrypted and you have to have business associate agreements and all that other stuff. You can also do asynchronous groups where you have a psych psycho educational video, like some of the counselor toolbox videos, people watch them. And then they participate in a discussion forum, and they answer five or six questions and they respond to one another. And this is all moderated by the therapist and the therapist goes in and, you know, provides prompts and suggestions. There are a lot of different ways, depending on the material you're covering and obviously the sense sensitive nature of the topic. There are a lot of different ways you can get information out. But there are a lot of skills that we can teach to clients I mean think about dbt skills groups and stuff that don't require that high level of confidentiality people aren't going to be sharing stuff that's super duper personal or they don't necessarily have to. So if you're in a rural area, or if you're in an urban area and people are working all the time and getting schedules organized is not going to happen. Try to get creative, see what people are willing to do. And today's generation. And I date myself by saying that but today's generation is so much more used to participating in things online in chat rooms, etc. So there is less apprehension than, you know, from my day, when it was kind of a big scary thing. So trans diagnostic groups. One of the first things I start out with when I do groups is to help clients learn about the general reason they're there. Learn about anger, anxiety, depression and addiction and their symptoms. How are anger and anxiety related remember they're both fight or flee. And so they're flip sides of the same threat coin. And then usually occurs when there's been too much stress the person has been stressed out anxious, whatever for too long, or there are some hormonal imbalances or something else going on. But a lot of people develop depression, subsequent to having high levels of anxiety and or anger. And addiction can develop as a way to try to cope with this distress that we're talking about, but addiction also monkeys with the neurochemicals and can cause anger, anxiety and depression. So helping them see the interrelationship between these things that they're not unique things out here, but they're all symptoms of an underlying issue that, you know, poor coping skills or lack of effective coping skills. So effective social supports too much stress cognitive issues and we're going to talk about a lot of those things as we go through this. Then we go on to I help them learn about the mind body connection and this is still generally in the first group, and we talk about causes of symptoms. So what might be a cause of difficulty concentrating what might be a cause of fatigue and lack of energy. You know, and I'm thinking, let's rule out the big ones first, thyroid issues, hormone issues, nutritional issues, sleep issues, and our big C with cognitive issues and not necessarily cognitive dysfunction but irrational thoughts cognitive distortions, all those things, which most of our clients have, most of us have. It's just a matter of how well you keep them in check. So we identify what the symptoms are we brainstorm, you know, it could be caused by a lot of different things. This gives hope to clients who tried treatment before and it hasn't worked, or who've been on three different antidepressants and they still haven't worked. So we start talking about, let's figure out what worked for you, instead of trying to fit you into a diagnostic label. Let's figure out what your symptoms are and how to address them. We talk about the effects of symptoms because this helps people figure out which ones are bugging them the most. And I've said before that I don't do well if I don't have adequate quality sleep. You know, that's just one of my biggies. Now, I know a lot of other people who can get three hours of sleep and just be grand. So if I am having difficulty sleeping because I've got a head cold or whatever, I know it's going to potentially trigger other symptoms that are going on. So that's one for me that is going to be important to address early. Whereas other people, there might be the sense of hopelessness and helplessness or persistent worry about a variety of things. You know, they'll pick the one or two that are most problematic for them. And then we start talking about what are some interventions. So I have clients identify what causes or worsens the symptom for you. What makes it worse or better for me is different than for Jim and John and Jane. We want to know what makes it worse or triggers it for them. We'll make a list of those things so they can figure out what they probably don't want to do or need to look at changing how they've dealt with the symptom in the past. If they've done things and they've helped even if for an hour, let's put those in the win category and we can start enhancing those skills, those strengths. And we talk about the impact of the symptom because I want people to maintain their motivation. If you know that sleep deprivation is bad for you, and it just has a cascade of negative effects, then maintain that in the front of your mind. Because it'll be more important when you're making that decision about, well, do I go out and stay out till 2am, even though I got a meeting at seven, or do I really need to, you know, go to go home and go to bed. So encouraging clients to be aware of the significance of their choices on their mood. So that can be one or two groups depending on how interactive your group is. Negative triggers is the next one. And this is usually group number three. And we talk about those things that cause or worsen the symptom. Remember, they identified those already. But I have them go a little bit deeper into it, because a lot of times they identified two or three things that they know triggers it, like for me, drinking coffee after two in the afternoon is destined to monkey with my sleep schedule. So, but that's me. Now, going back through it, we also want to look at what other things make, you know, let's stick with sleep and fatigue and exhaustion as a symptom. If I'm hungry, if I'm not getting good nutrition, if I'm angry, does that keep me up? Well, yeah, keeps my cortisol levels high. Loneliness, maybe, maybe not. If I'm tired, does it impair my sleep? And we know those people who have been on bed rest or who've been clinically depressed who are sleeping all the time and they're always sleepy, and they can't seem to get good sleep because their circadian rhythms are out of whack. So if you slept and took a nap during the day, it might impact you later. Fear, false evidence appearing real. So how does fear impact your symptom? What people make the symptom worse, or what relationships and social situations make the situation worse or trigger the symptom? You know, just going in to speak my, the place I used to work, the CEO intimidated the heck out of me.  So whenever I would have to go talk to her, my heart would start racing and my palms would start sweating. And I knew exactly what it was. And as soon as I finished talking to her, I felt fun again. But knowing that, knowing that that was a trigger for an anxiety symptom, helped me understand, you know, how to deal with things. What places make your symptoms worse? You know, for some people, they've had negative experiences in a hospital. So when they go to a hospital, it's oppressive in a courtroom, maybe at work. So thinking about what places you go that make the situation worse, because later we're going to talk about how to improve all of these things. But things make it worse. Things that you do, things that you see, movies. And are there any times of day, anniversaries or holidays that make the symptom worse? So some people start to get really blue in the evening, you know, when they're winding down, getting ready for bed, and it starts to get quiet, then they're alone with their own thoughts and it start anxiety or depression starts to get a lot feel a lot more oppressive. So having them be aware of those things so they can figure out what to do with them.  Then we move on to which ones can be avoided or prevented. You may not be able to avoid going to work, but what can you do to improve the situation at work and prevent things. And, you know, forgive me, I would try to avoid having to go over to the main building, which we lovingly refer to as the big house, whenever I could because I knew that was just going to provoke anxiety. So I'd stay on my side of the campus and everything was grand. And then I deal identify three ways to deal with unavoidable negative triggers, you know, so when you have to go see that person that scares you to death, or triggers an anxiety reaction, if you want to put it a little nicer. How do you deal with that, you know, take a few deep breaths, positive mantras, whatever you want to do, encourage people to figure out and have a game plan written down. And I'll say this over and over and over again, write it down because when you're stressed, you're not going to be thinking, what did we talk about in therapy? Have them write it down, have them keep a notebook so they can refer to it, even if it's just one of those little tiny, you know, notepads that they can fit in their purse or something. That's a good thing. Then a whole different group is on positive triggers because too often we talk about negative triggers and things that cause things to get worse. So we want to talk about positive triggers. What can you put in your environment that reminds you what you're working towards, that helps you be happy, that triggers happy feelings and reminds you to do, use your therapeutic tools. So, you know, think real basic at first, what sights, sounds, smells, and things can you put in your environment that make you walk in and go, I'm happy to be here. If you like fish, a fishbowl. If you, I always feel bad, people have little betas in a fishbowl and I know they like to be alone, they fight if they're with another beta, but I always feel bad for them because they're all alone. So betas aren't my number one choice, but some people love them because they're beautiful little fish to watch.  What can you do to make that more comfortable and positive and happy for you? And then things that can remind you to use your new tools. If you have a sponsor or a coach or a best friend that can periodically send you a text on a day that you know you're going to have a really stressful day. That's awesome.  You can program it in so you send yourself a text periodically too, but you know, it's better to have the social involvement if you can. Smells are greatest memory trigger. So ask people what smells they like and I'm not talking necessarily essential oils. I'm talking about what smells do you like? Jasmine, sugar cookies, what is it for you? And figure out how to bring that into your current environment. A lot of them, they have the tarts out right now that can be put in the little warmers that are plugged into the wall because we can't use candles in most any agency I've ever worked at, but you can have the tarts there. So being aware of what smells make you happy can help improve your environment. You may not even know it because it'll kind of go back into the recesses of your mind. And sounds. Now some people like a lot of noise. Some people when it's too quiet, they start getting stressed out. Some people like the sounds of birds, some people like music, whatever it is that that person likes that can trigger happiness in them. Encourage them to do that. I mean a lot of our white noise machines now I just got my daughter one and it has some wonderful babbling brook noises and those sorts of things and I love thunderstorms so it has a great thunderstorm track. But you can also go on YouTube if your agency hasn't blocked it. And there are YouTube tracks or videos or whatever you want to call them that are like eight hours long that are nothing but nature sounds and you can choose the different nature sounds and have that open in a window in the background and playing while you're doing your work. So, you know, there are things you can do to make your environment feel more welcoming. And I encourage clients to do this at home at work and in the car. Some people get really stressed out when they're driving. So if driving is one of your stressors or traffic or, you know, it's just that time that you're winding down after a long day or getting revved up to go in. What can make your environment in the car more pleasant. The next group we do is on vulnerabilities and you know, going back to basic dbt but and then some. We talk about how vulnerabilities are the things that make you hey more vulnerable, more likely to react strongly in a negative way to life when it hands you a curveball. So we talked about some of the most common vulnerabilities.  How does that affect the rest of your day, how does that affect what you see what you pay attention to how well you concentrate. So it's a vulnerability. There are going to be days that you wake up and you feel like that, and it is what it is. So then we start talking about how do you deal with it if you wake up and that's your reality. How can you improve the next moment. Mental vulnerabilities can include just somebody who's a negative Nelly having unhelpful thoughts, you know someone who was regularly using cognitive distortions that keeps them worried anxious depressed yada yada. And for some of us fogginess is a vulnerability. If I can't focus when I'm at work when I'm trying to get something done, I get frustrated and then I get angry and you know I start getting all worked up and stressed out over the fact that I can't focus, which makes it harder to focus. So doesn't make a lot of sense. Physical vulnerabilities pain exhaustion illness and medication effects and side effects. Really, we talk about stressful people and environments and abandonment fears, if somebody has underlying abandonment fears, then it's going to impact most of their relationships, you know wherever they are on a regular daily basis. So, how do you deal with relationships when you have those fears, kind of right front and center, because we're not going to fix all of these in two weeks, or even 12 weeks. So how can you start dealing with them so you mitigate the impact. And then environmental like I talked about before, if it's too chaotic or quite to chaotic stresses some people out and too quiet stresses other people out. For some of us this organization, big vulnerability, hard to focus get frustrated because you can't find anything. If it's too dark, sometimes people get sleepy start feeling depressed their circadian rhythms get all wonky. So being aware of the environments that you're going into you may be going into a an environment that is sort of vulnerability prone, it's likely to trigger a stronger reaction. So it's not just, how do I feel right now, but it's also when I go into this situation what vulnerabilities are there that might trigger a stronger reaction, which takes us to mindfulness. Because most of us aren't really aware of what triggers feelings and sensations we just, you know, don't even really notice them and go about our business. We're encouraging people to learn about the purpose of mindfulness and the benefits. So they're not wasting their energy they're able to identify their needs and wants in the moment, and figure out how to best meet those needs, instead of pushing them all down, and then not feeling like they're getting their needs met, or worse yet getting angry anxious or depressed. I start out in my groups with these three mindfulness exercises because I find they're relatively easy for most people. The anchored scan is the one that I've talked about in other groups, or other classes. At every meal, I have people go through and say how do I feel emotionally. How do I feel mentally and my positive and my negative and my foggy headed. How do I feel physically, energy, pain, anything like that hunger. How am I feeling in terms of relationships and my feeling lonely, isolated, supported, what's going on, and you know is this environment conducive to my needs or is there something I need to change. As it gets to be summer here, I have to turn down the air conditioning before I come into teach because all of the electronics put off a ton of heat. So I know ahead of time that when I come in here, I'm going to have to turn that down otherwise I get hot and cranky. So encourage people to start doing that if they do it at every meal. That's at least two to three times a day. They're checking in with themselves and going, what do I need. What are my potential vulnerabilities right now and how can I address them before they cause a problem. Those three minute thoughts for three minutes clients will spend just writing down or tape recording if they don't like to write everything they think just that random association that Freud used to talk about let them free associate for three minutes. They will be interested to see, hopefully, where their mind goes, and then you go back through and you review those thoughts in terms of how many were negative. How many were just neutral, you know, there's something on the floor. What were they thinking about, and this will help them figure out kind of where they are when they're not paying attention to their thoughts because they're thinking things a lot.  And for three minutes, they write down everything they see, sense, notice, and then they come back. I love doing this in group, because you bring 15 people into a room and do this and then you start to process it. Nobody has all the same stuff. They've all seen something a little bit different or noticed something a little bit different. So it helps people realize how much they may be missing by not being mindful, by not being present in the moment. And then I differentiate it. I do spend a little bit of time differentiating it from meditation because some people are freaked out by meditation for whatever reasons. And so we talk about how you can be mindful without having to meditate, but when you are meditating, you're also being mindful. So you can do these three activities without, you know, none of these are meditation activities. But they're helping you learn to be in the present moment aware of what you need and accepting them, what's going on non-judgmentally. And so we talk pretty extensively about awareness and non-judgmental acceptance starting in this group. Then we start talking about interventions and developing a plan, a written one, to become more mindful of strengths and needs in order to prevent vulnerabilities and mitigate the ones they can't prevent at home, at work, and particularly in family and social gatherings, because, you know, they may have a great family, but get stressed out in social situations. A lot of our clients have issues with someone somewhere. So helping them figure out when you're in these situations that are vulnerability prone, how can you prevent it from getting to you? You know, maybe instead of going over, you know, Aunt Sally always rubs you the wrong way. So how can you deal with that? And whether you want to call that prevention or mitigation, if you have to talk to Aunt Sally, how do you deal with it so it doesn't get to you and trigger you? Prevent unnecessary distress. So if clients know they're going to have to go in for a job interview, for example, and that's stressful to them, which is stressful to most people. What can they do ahead of time so they're best prepared and best energized for it? Plan what they're going to wear ahead of time. Plan the route, how they're going to get there. If they need to ride the bus, know where the bus stops are and get to the bus stop early. Have everything planned out ahead of time, maybe even rehearse it. I used to go find my classes the first day that before the first day of the semester. That way I knew where they all were so I wasn't stressed the first morning trying to figure out where my classes were on campus because I can't find my way out of a paper bag. It's just one of those things. And how do you mitigate unavoidable distress?  So how do you deal with that? Do you call a friend? Do you pray to your higher power? Do you meditate? What do you do? Because sometimes you're going to get those curveballs. And I encourage clients when they're trying to figure out things to start with their strengths. What have they done in the past that's worked? So they're going to go back to that list of the vulnerabilities that they made, the things that they know make them more likely to react strongly in a negative way. They're going to figure out which ones can be prevented and how. They're going to figure out how to mitigate the other ones. You know, when they can't avoid them, how do they deal with it so it doesn't make them go off the chart in the other direction? And then what things can they do to prevent unnecessary distress? You know, sometimes it's a matter of planning ahead of time.  It's going to help so you don't get sick. If getting sick is stressful, which I think it is to most people. And then goal identification. So they know their vulnerabilities. They have an idea of what causes their issues. They're learning about this mind-body connection. But where are we going with this? What's our destination? So encouraging them to brainstorm. What are five things that are important to you? And I like to do this one as a big group and they just shout things out and we put them up on a whiteboard, but clients can also do it on their own paper. So they identify what things are important to you. Housing, you know, for some people they may need a, you know, large house that they own on five or 10 acres of property or something. Whereas other people are just happy if they have a roof over their head and, you know, electricity. So knowing what is important to you? Are you going to work to have that big house on lots of acreage? Or are you going to work to keep a roof over your head and divert your energy and resources to other things that are more important to you? And that, you know, really depends on the person. What is important to you? So things are those tangible things. Clothing, do you need to have, you know, $250 re-box or are you happy going to Walmart and picking up a pair of Dr. Scholz off the shelf? It's going to be a big difference in how much time, effort, energy you have to exert to get that. And again, that depends on the person. So we're talking about tangibles here. Then we move on to relationships and five is kind of an arbitrary number. What relationships are important to you? And what do you want them to look like? I can say my relationships with my kids are important to me. Well, yeah. But what do I want that to look like? What does a good relationship with my teenage daughter look like? And I'll tell you when I figure it out. What types of things do you want to do with that person? What types of communication, contact? What does that look like to you? And then what five personal growth goals are important? Now, this could be career, this could be relaxation, this could be skills, this could be a bucket list. But we've got to narrow it down because you could have a list that goes on forever, but there's too much to focus on there. So I want to know after you make that huge bucket list, what are the top fives because that's what we're focusing on here. Those are the ones that are most important to you right now. Well, you have that. And I've got this beautiful picture painted of what my destination looks like. So what are my top five values that are going to help me achieve that? So going back to, you know, maybe one of my personal growth goals is being CEO of a company. So one of my values may be diligence and integrity at work or diligence and integrity.  And you can go online and Google top 50 values and get values sheets that you can hand out to your clients so they can go through. I mean, there's all kinds of honesty, integrity, friendliness, compassion. There's 50 or more that you can easily list. So it can be a fun activity to do with clients. And you can also go through different values if you want to spend two groups on this and have them talk about, OK, what does compassion look like and how do you do that? What does loyalty look like? And how do you do that if that's important to you? And encourage them to talk about how to actually manifest these values. So distress tolerance, because clients with mood or addictive disorders tend to get stuck in their unpleasant emotion and impulsively may act to try to eliminate or escape from the distress by acting out, by eating, by sleeping, by doing something, which doesn't usually solve the problem. It either makes it worse or it just kind of pushes it to the side for a moment and then it comes back. Helping clients realize that urges come in waves. They don't have to be acted upon. I use the B metaphor.  But if a bumblebee lands on your arm, big furry little teddy bear looking guy, your first urge may be to swat it off because a bee is landed on your arm. But generally if you swat a bee, it's going to sting you. You know, that's just what happens. It's not actually going to have the outcome you intended. However, if you just wait, that bee is going to fly away. So urges don't have to be acted upon. You can see it's there and go, okay, nope, not going to do that. Don't want to get stung. You can tolerate the bee on your arm. So distress tolerance skills help clients practice the pause so they can stop and go, let me think about this. What is the best choice in this situation? So, you know, if you're working with a group, you've probably heard distressful situations, somebody's in a breakup, somebody has lost a job, somebody has relapsed, somebody's on probation, and something happens. And they have a choice between acting or acting on it in an impulsive way or choosing to let it go or choosing some other course of action. Distress tolerance skills help them get into that wise mind so they can take a breath and stay, okay. You know, my near jerk reaction is to do this, and it would feel really good right now. But my long term goals are to get off probation. So, you know, putting my fist through this guy's head is probably not the best choice and moving on from there. So, encouraging clients to use distress tolerance as a method of practicing the pause. It doesn't mean it fixes anything. It just helps you get into a place where you can think clearly about what's the best choice for me that will help me move towards my goals. You can address a lot of the distress intolerant thoughts using the ABCs. The activating event, so brainstorm triggers, you're at a restaurant, some guy looks cross-eyed at your girlfriend, makes you angry. So what were the beliefs? You know, we usually do the activating event and then the consequences.  So, this is unbearable, I will lose control and go don't, and I will lose control and go crazy if he doesn't stop looking at her like that. This is going to keep going on forever.  And then we can dispute them with alternate statements in terms of how can you get through this without having to react impulsively or aggressively. And then evaluate which outcome represents a more effective use of your energy to help you get closer to your goals. So if there's stress at work, the consequences, you're stressed, you hate your job, you don't want to go in, what are the beliefs? This is unbearable. I hate going to work. This is going to go on forever. I'm never going to be happy. So we want to go back and dispute those looking at what would make you happy at work, and what can you do to improve your situation. And, you know, maybe it means looking for a different job, but we want to start looking at instead of feeling like you're a victim that is stuck in this situation we want to look at the beliefs and say what can we do to improve the next moment. So your distress intolerant thoughts are over here. You can Google those that dbt 101. Talk about the wave metaphor reminding clients that when we feel something it comes in it crests and it goes out in about 20 minutes. So if they can recognize that and be okay with that, figure out what to do if they're really angry. And that'll probably dissipate in about 20 minutes if they don't sit there and dwell on it and, you know, just really nurture it. So what can they do to ride the wave. A cloud metaphor is another one people use just think about it as clouds going through the sky you can't stop them.  You notice them acknowledge the feeling and let it go out. Discuss the concept of radical acceptance different differentiating it from agreement or powerlessness, accepting that something is is not agreeing that's the way it should be. It's not saying I give up I give in I'm going to let the world walk on me it's saying this is how it is in this moment. Now I can choose to improve the next moment. I use the house metaphor for this if your house, the contractors screwed up and they built it 10 feet over the property line. Well, you know what, it is what it is no amount of leaning against it with your shoulders going to push it onto your property.  It doesn't mean you think that's where it should be. But you've got to figure out. Okay, now what do we do. How do we fix the situation or improve the next moment. Have clients brainstorm ways and create an action plan to improve the moment and accept reality. So again, these are things you can Google dbt 101 improve stands for imagery finding meaning prayer relaxation activities, focusing on one thing at a time, taking a mental vacation and self encouragement. Get those up one one word on each at each station what can you do for positive guided imagery. How can you use imagery to help you get through a particular situation. How can you find meaning in things. So when something bad happens. How can you find meaning in it or find the silver lining. And so on for each, each letter of the acronym, except stands for activities, do something different, you know, get yourself involved in something that is pleasurable, because you can't be miserable and content at the same time.   Finding something that activates the opposite emotion, pushing away those thoughts just telling the thoughts nope not going there right now, not going to think about it. And actively thinking about something else.  So I encourage clients, you know if nothing else do 4321 because that'll take you out of the stressful mental situation until the adrenaline can bleed off, but have them develop a list of their own tools that they're going to use in order to find meaning or relax because just telling somebody do relaxation skills. But what does that mean to john. And what does that mean to Sally, could be two different things. So I want to know what they do to relax. And it's written down. Cognitive distortions and irrational thoughts, they're biggies. So we've helped them figure out what their triggers are they're starting to address some of the things they can easily like nutrition and sleep and being more mindful of what they need help clients learn about what cognitive distortions are and brainstorm when they've had each one. Again, this is a great one to do on in stations or even as a group. Arbitrary influence, for example means drawing conclusions without sufficient information. So my girlfriend didn't call me when she was supposed to that must mean she's cheating on me. Really. Where did you come up with that. Where's the evidence for that. So arbitrary inference is something that some of our clients use. So we want to have them identify ways they've used it. The impact of using that distortion, whichever one it was or ones, and figuring out how to address them. So in the case of arbitrary inference, they force themselves to stop and think about three other possibilities for why his girlfriend didn't call him. So you can go through each one of these with clients. Talk about how they're used and ways you can you can counter them irrational thoughts kind of follow with cognitive distortions and I always do distortions first, because most irrational thoughts have cognitive distortions embedded within them. So that's one of the first things we start identifying is do you see any distortions in these thoughts, you must have love and approval from others all the time. Well, there's some all or nothing and exaggerated thinking there. In order to be worthwhile, you must be competent at everything all the time. So I help help them see how these are thoughts that we may hold. But they're also just laden with all kinds of cognitive distortions. So then we start looking at where did you learn this from who said, who taught you that you have to be loved by others all the time. And why is that important to you right now. Because a lot of times we take on beliefs from we learn things in our childhood we never question them. And then if you start to really stop and think and question them and go, you know what, I have no idea why I think that because that's not realistic. People can start knocking off their own irrational thoughts. So you can go through these these are the most common ones that you know they're everywhere on the internet. The challenging questions worksheet or activity is one that I like to do with both cognitive distortions CD and irrational thoughts. I are. So for each of them, when somebody uses it all say okay tell me what your evidence is for and against this belief. I want I want to hear both sides, which encourages them to walk that middle path you hear the dialectics in there. I encourage them to look and see, say do they have the big picture, or are they focusing on one aspect. So in the case of, you know, john's girlfriend didn't call him so she must be cheating. You know, we want to ask john. What's the big picture, she didn't call you that's true. That's one aspect but what was going on with her.  Was she running late at work what else was going on in her world that might have impacted the situation that you're not accounting for. How reliable is the source of the evidence. You know if you're hearing it from a friend of a friend of a friend versus if you've seen it firsthand. Are you using emotional reasoning reasoning. I feel anxious that she's going to abandon me therefore she must be cheating on me. So we want to look at the reasons why you feel anxious that she's going to abandon you, but it may come down to emotional reasoning there's no factual basis to it you're just afraid. Does the belief contain all or none terms. If so, what are the exceptions. And are you confusing something that's possible with something that's likely. So again this is really easy to take all of these questions and apply them to each one of these things and talk about ways to dispute irrational thoughts using challenging questions. You can also talk about things that clients present with like everybody always leaves. But your evidence. Do you have the big picture or are you focusing on one aspect maybe your girlfriends always leave, but you've got friends who hang around well then we might want to work on your romantic relationships a little bit. So you can walk through this locus of control. I explained to them the concept of internal versus external locus of control. And have them look at if they have an internal locus of control that they think they can control everything. How does that increase stress, and how does that decrease stress. We do the same thing for external locus control if you're totally external, you believe that destiny controls everything. How does that increase and decrease stress because they both have positives and negatives. We talk about reality what we want is something in the middle realizing that we can't control everything. Where I've worked, we use the serenity prayer, and I encourage clients to explore the stressors that are within and outside of their personal control. We talk about how it feels and what it means to not be able to control something and clients often give examples of things they haven't been able to control like when a loved one got cancer or when a spouse was using. We talk about what powerlessness represents in that person's life because sometimes people want to control everything, because they're terrified of being powerless because of stuff that happened in the past. So that interpersonal skills group starting to come in a little bit. And then we talk about ways to cope with those things that are out of personal control. How do you deal with it when somebody doesn't like you? How do you deal with it when you fail at something? Because we all make mistakes and we all fail. How do you deal with it? And they share supportive techniques. We move on to attributions, explaining what they are, internal versus external. So whatever happened was either about me as a person or about the environment. Stable, it's always forever true versus changeable, self-explanatory. Global versus meaning that it's about me as a whole person or the world as a whole or specific. It's about one person or one situation. So we talk about how changing attributions change how people feel about situations. And I'll give you three examples here real quick. If I'm clumsy, I can either think I am a lumbering ox, which sometimes I feel like a bull in a china shop. Or I can say, you know what, I was a klutz today. I tripped over my own shoelace. That means it was something external that happened today. It's changeable. And it's very specific. I'm a failure at everything I do versus another person had skills that I need to develop changeable in order to get that type of a job specific. So encourage clients to reframe things in terms of internal, in terms of external, changeable and specific. Have them look at the purposeful action pathway. So that got all these tools now, what do we do with them? Well, when something happens, you can either go towards your starting point, which is not what you want to do. Negative feelings, distress and tolerance, cognitive distortions, physical issues, relationship issues, self-esteem issues, or you can move towards happiness. What do we use? So when the present issue happens, you can use impulsive escape behaviors, distress and tolerant thoughts, and a need for external validation from other people. Or you can choose to use some of these new skills that we've been talking about in order to keep you moving toward your destination. Self-esteem, your relationship with yourself. So I asked clients, what do you look for in a friend? And we're starting a self-esteem group. They look at me like I'm crazy. And I'm just like, just tell me, what do you look for in a friend? And then I go on to ask them, which of those qualities do you already have and how can you be your own best friend? How can you be loyal and compassionate to yourself? How can you help yourself instead of holding yourself up to this unreasonable high standard that you don't hold anybody else to? Then I have them describe who they think they should be versus who they are right now. And we look at the similarities. So what have you already succeeded at? And then we look at the differences and have each person assess, are those differences important? If they are, then we need to develop a plan to help you start working on them. If they're not important, how can you let go of that idea that it's something you should be? Interpersonal effectiveness is being able to ask for what you need and get what you want. Creating win-win situations, 80% of the time, nobody's going to get it all the time. Being able to set and maintain healthy boundaries, which is the whole situation of being able to ask for something and get your needs met. But also being able to say no when somebody asks you for something and not feel guilty about it. Being able to say, you know what, I can't do that right now, but I can or whatever it is. And we've done other videos on all of these skills. So if you want to learn more in depth about any of these groups, we've already got some videos on them on the all CEU's Education YouTube channel. And then being able to develop and maintain supportive relationships, communication skills. And then encouraging clients to learn how to be assertive, not passive, not aggressive. And it sounds like a simple group, but it's actually a pretty challenging group because it's challenging for clients to use assertiveness skills when they are under stress. Problem solving. So you take everything we've done been talking about for the past 24 groups. And all these skills, when something happens, and I'll ask some people in class in class to say, who wants to volunteer something that happened this week that was really stressful. And, you know, by this point, they've got some comfort with each other, somebody volunteers. And I say, okay, you had four choices, stay miserable. If you would have done that, what would have been the effects. You could have tolerated the distress and just, you know, grate your teeth through it. What would have been the effects in this situation. You know, maybe they were getting a ticket or the other lights turned off or whatever. You know, tolerating the distress if you got your lights turned off, not really going to help the situation you need to improve the next moment. Change how you feel and think about the situation. Well, that has some positive effects or change the situation. You know, sometimes a situation just needs to be changed. Sometimes it can't be changed. So they need to change how they feel and think about it by addressing those cognitive distortions irrational thoughts and being mindful of what they need. So groups are extremely cost effective. You can reach a lot of people, touch a lot of lives, provide a lot of really useful skills and actually practice them. It's not like we're doing in depth therapy, where people are going to be exposing their souls. But we can do things where people can apply it to situations that happened last week, or talk about how they might use it next week to deal with something and share with one another. What's going on, how they might adjust it, the skill or the tool to work for them. This 24 groups that we just talked went through provides the foundation for clients to begin living a happier life. I mean, these are all pretty basic skills that people need to have in order to kind of deal with ever changing life. I recommend you use written and visual material for people to look at, you know, PowerPoint or whiteboard or handouts for your visual learners. Lecture for your auditory learners and interactive applications so everybody is taking the information and connecting it with things. Memories they have things that are meaningful to them. So they're strengthening those memory pathways. When looking for group activities, consult self help workbooks, use activities to launch discussion or create discussion stations around the room, and then have somebody present from each station, what's on, what's on the station, and you can talk about it as a larger group. Excellent resources. So the first three are new harbinger books.  But the one from Kimberly Roth on surviving a borderline parent I have used dozens of times in group, and it is an amazing group for clients to use individually, as well as to integrate into a group treatment setting. The second recovery, which is available on Amazon is the book that I wrote, and it was actually created as a method of guiding residential group treatment. So, you know, a lot of the activities in there are designed to be used in a group situation. If you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. You can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. This episode has been brought to you in part by allceus.com providing 24 seven multimedia continuing education and pre certification training to counselors, therapists and nurses since 2006.


Next question is from Jules Tilman. Can you put barbell squats and barbell deadlifts in the same workout? Or is it better to keep them on separate days?  Is it ideal? No. Yeah. Both of those exercises load the hips and the lumbar spine so much that if you do them both hard, the risk of injury does go up considerably. Now, one thing I would almost never do is do a heavy deadlift before doing heavy squats. I think that's dumb. I could see how that would really increase the risk of injury. And the reason why is you're taxing your low back, which is so important that it's completely strong going into a loaded back squat, right? So that's the main reason why you would never go that direction. Because people always ask that. We've said that before in the podcast. I'm like, I don't understand why not deadlift before squatting? Why can you squat before you deadlift? Yeah. Now, I'll do this, or I could do this, kind of lighter barbell squats and then do my heavy. But I would never go heavy, heavy and train lots of sets for both. It just loads the lumbar so much that I could see that, again, the risk of injury is really, really high. Risk versus reward.  You see CrossFit. You can do whatever you want.  You can do some ring muscle up, too, right in between. Yeah, it doesn't mean it's ideal. So you've got to listen to your body. When you're putting that much demand on stabilizing your spine specifically, you've got to be conscious of that.  I mean, I never do it, but I also don't think it's that bad unless you're loading heavy. If you're doing five or less reps and you're moving at 80% plus type of deal, then I think it's a terrible idea for the risk versus reward to your point. But I mean, if it's 15 reps or you're doing light or it's a technique day, I don't see anything wrong with it because the likelihood that you're really going to hurt yourself on 15 reps or 12 reps, the load that you have to do in order to do 12 or 15 reps, you'll probably feel your form degrading before you actually hurt yourself and can set the bar down. Yeah, I mean, consider this, right? The area that tends to be, not always, but the area that tends to be the weak link in a squat or a deadlift is the lower back, right? So if somebody hurts themselves on a squat or a deadlift, it's usually the low back. Definitely the deadlift, often in a squat because they both require such strong stability from your core. You've got to understand when you're listening to this, your hips are so powerful.  The thing that connects all of that is the lumbar spine and the core. And if that fatigues to the point where the hips are using more weight than the lumbar can support, now you're starting to run the risk of injury. And because they're both so intensive in that area, probably not a good idea. This is why you'll rarely see people load them both heavy in two exercises. Now, you will see barbell squats and a stiff-legged deadlift, but rarely will you see people do a stiff-legged deadlift the way people do conventional deadlifts, where they're doing singles, doubles, and triples type of stuff. It's typically higher reps focusing on form technique. So in our programs, the only place you'll see them in the same workout is, I think, pre-phase and maps on a ball. And it's really not hard workout. It's not like you're doing tons of sets of each. So I can see it on technique day, right? So I'm trying to teach a client to get better at squatting and deadlifting. I want to increase the frequency of both just for technique reasons, right? Like for practice reasons, I mean. So I don't have that much of a problem with doing this three times a week if the intensity is low. If it's low intensity and it's all about getting my client to practice squatting, getting them to practice deadlifting, and that's how we go into each workout is thinking like that. I'm not worried about their low back being fried because I'm not loading. But if I'm loading, I think it's a terrible idea to do those two exercises in the same workout.


You're the strange goblin wearing three pairs of boots. You can't see the other shoes, though. No, but there's like a foot lump, and then there's like the other, and it's like, what? There's some weird stuff going on. Welcome to Guest Quest, the fast-paced adventure of imagination and self-discovery. Today's episode of Guest Quest is brought to you by Dice Dungeons. If you're getting into tabletop games, use the code Dormonster to get 10% off all orders at DiceDungeons.com. Today's guest is John. John, how you doing? I'm doing good, how are you? I'm pretty good. I have an interesting adventure prep for you today. Really? As a game master, I will present you with a scenario and a goal, and you must achieve that goal with some creative thinking and lucky rolls of the dice. However, if you're truly stuck, do not fret, for you have three, count them, three wishes. But, be wary, each wish carries with it a terrible curse, each worse than the last, even I don't know how terrible these curses are. So, you know, feel free to use them however you want. Oh yeah, fantastic, sounds super safe. You're not completely in the dark. You will have a choice of one of four blessings to bring along with your journey. You'll have to know what the blessings are before you know what the journey is, and once I read all four of them, you have 10 seconds to pick one.  I am ready. Your blessings are the following. A claw shot arm, the hood of the umbral pack.  You have incredible luck. You have incredible luck. Go with luck? I'm going with luck. All right, the Goblin King grows old. You, being the smartest, sneakiest, and strongest of the goblins, are next in line for the throne. The Goblin King wishes for an audience with you one last time before he is willing to pass down the crown. He wishes for a valuable artifact, the Jade Owl, as it will guard him as he passes into the afterlife. If you can retrieve it for him, you get both the title, the crown, and his blessing, which is a big deal in goblin culture. The Jade Owl is currently in the possession of Veil Silver Star, an elven noble who lives in the nearby city of Solstice. The Silver Star Manor is heavily guarded by both guards and magic wards. Even Veil Silver Star himself is a renowned sword master. And thus, we begin. You are living inside your little goblin house. What do you think you have? Well, I guess as a goblin, I have a little club that I use for pretty much everything. You know, hammer, eating. A multi-tool? Yeah, lots of shoes. Lots of shoes. Lots of lulled shoes. Like, like, just collections of- Clothes that you've collected. You know, half pairs, quarter pairs. Is there anything you want to do before you leave goblin town? How much money do I have? Do I have money? You would have some money that you probably either earned or pilfered in one way or another. Are shoes currency in this town? No. Shoes are not currency. You can exchange currency for shoes. How would I need more shoes? That's the thing. You already have a lot of shoes. I will put on a few pairs of shoes and head out. So you put on some, like, shoes and then you put on some boots over those shoes. Nothing. You're not stepping on any nails. No, I'm absolutely not. I'm not going to deal with you today. You've been stalking out this place for a little while. Sure. I know a few things about it. It's inside a city. You got to get in that city. But the difficult thing is getting in that manor itself to retrieve the Jade Owl. There's a lot of guards around it. A lot of guards. And it's a big piece of property too. Like, it has an orchard on it. It is like a wealthy noble's manor that he pays people to guard. So you're ducking through alleyways. You're going through, like, sewer grates, maybe jumping on rooftops and then you see it. The Silver Star Manor. This is a huge piece of property. The actual, like, via itself is kind of pushed far to the back. There's a wall and then there's, like, direct access to the house. Okay. There's guards on the outer side of the wall. There's a few guards in the orchard. You've seen occasionally guards walk in. So you can only assume there's guards, like, inside the wall, like, outside the house. Okay. So how do you want to approach this? Front door. Just front door? Yeah, just go to the gate. Nothing's more suspicious than sneaking around. Okay. Interesting. All right, the outer gate is kind of on a city street. And it's, well, what time? It seems like late at night when you go to do this. What time would you like to, I guess? Probably first thing in the morning, I'd say. First thing in the AM? First thing in the AM. You know, he really wanted to see me, like, right there. You walk right up to the front gate. There's no guards in the outer gate because it's, like, a city street. Like, the only guards at this hour are, like, patrolling, right?  Gate's locked.  You probably fit through those bars easy if you want to. Do I know how to pick the lock? I'd say that's a reasonable thing that you can do. Really? Okay. Yes, you're playing on a heist here. Yeah, I mean, I will attempt to pick the lock.  Or just, like, a makeshift rake. Yeah, something. Roll to pick that lock. All right. Let's see how good you pick this lock. Four. So, well, here's the thing. Like, you think you're kind of getting it and then you, like, do something and, like, one of your lock-picking and then it just kind of snaps. Okay. But you hear, like, a, and the gate, like, just a little bit. Like, it opens. Okay. But, like, your stuff is busted. Right. I can slip in? Yeah. I'm gonna slip in. All right, you slip in. Okay. So, you entered in, I would say, like, the west end of it. Okay. Um, stretching before you, on your right side, that's where all the fruit trees are. To your left, that's where the house is. Stone path, up, up a couple of steps. Second gate. Inside that, that's the manor. Okay. What do you want to do? Walk up the gate. Walk up the gate. There are two guards posted at the gate. Right. They're both in armor. Very clear armor. It's very shiny. Beautiful. Both of them have, like, spears. Right. Both of them have, like, little shields. And walk right up. One of the guards. He looks at you as you're approaching and he looks up and then he, like, realizes what he just saw. I'm gonna wave. And he'll awkwardly, like, wave back and then wait for you to properly approach. I said, hey there, I'm here to see the king who wanted to see me first thing in the morning. He wanted me to make his shoes for him. He's gonna be cobbling it together. You know, I love shoes. There's not a king that lives in here, it's just a lord. A lord, right. Okay. The lord of the manor. They both kind of look at you and they see that you have two pairs of shoes on. So you probably know a thing or two about shoes. They're gonna need some convincing though. Okay. 18. You can tell that they don't wanna be the one that gets in trouble for not letting a guest in and they're like, right away, sure. And they step aside and, like, one of them fishes out this big ol' ring of keys. Fantastic.  Okay. I mean, it's, like, about two stories tall with maybe, like, a little attic. And there is another guard at the door and there's a guard doing rounds on the inner wall. This thing I'm looking for, is it, do I know where it's at roughly? Have I scouted it out? Do I know? You think probably in, like, a study or, like, maybe a, not an entrance hall, but, like, kind of a foyer or, like, a parlor room where it's in, like, a glass case. You're certain it's on the second floor, but that's pretty much it. Okay. I would like to use a wish. So you can make a wish. However, you must ask your wish in a haiku. Oh, man, that's, what is that? It's five, seven and five syllables. I'm ready for this. I can't see through walls. I would like to see my goal. That would be great. That'd be swell. It's a haiku. It checks out, everyone. X-ray vision, please. Your mind fills with flowery thoughts of delicate poetry. You can now see through walls. Fantastic. Not, like, you can't see through the earth. You can kind of control it a little bit. Oh, that's very generous. I was expecting you to just be constantly seeing through walls. That would make everything horrible. That would ruin everything.  Okay, so now you can, like, kind of choose and you can probably see through, like, one or two walls. Okay. Like, a max. But that's a lot, mind you. That's, like, two rooms away. I would like to see on the second floor if I can see a study or library or any other display public area. Okay, so, like, you look in and you see the tops of bookshelves on the far right end of the second floor. The guard in the patrol, where's he at? So the guard in the patrol is, like, walking around kind of in a clockwise fashion. Right, where's he at right about now? Right now, he kind of, like, looked that you walked in and, like, the other two guards gave him a nod and he's, like, kind of proceeding. He's to your left and he's about to start going down. So he can see me. He can if he looks back. I'm gonna go and walk in the front door.  And tell him that I'm here to see the Lord of the Manor and fix his shoes. I'm not here to see him, naturally. You know, he's very busy. I'm here to fix his shoes. You know, he instructed me to come by first thing in the morning and his shoes need to be done before he goes on his evening walk or on his noon walk. And he's gonna be very angry if I don't get this done. So you tell this to the guard. The guard kind of, like, looks and he's, like, a little, it was, like, the same kind of, waterfall of emotions that the first two guards went through. Like, I don't want to be the guy that gets in trouble for not letting the royal cobbler get in. And the other two guards, like, kind of give him, like, a hesitant thumbs up. Sure. I'll let you in right away. And once again, big old ring of keys. And you see, there's like an entrance hall. There's a door straight to the back. And there's a door at the back and to the left. And the guard says, if you take the left door, that goes into the sitting room and you'll be able to find your way from there. That other room is just a closet. I'm going to go ahead and inspect the closet. And what kind of shoes do I see in there? There's some leather boots that look like traveling boots. There's some, like, slippers to wear around the house. Oddly enough, there is a pair of, like, weird-looking, taller boots that look like they're meant for wading in water. So, like, like, fishermen's boots, essentially. Will those fit over my boots? They'd be very hard to wear because they would, like, kind of crunch when they reach your midsection because they're, like, fishermen's, like, waiters. You're, like, probably a third as tall as this guy.  You could technically wear them. You would make a lot of weird noise.  But yes, you can wear them. I am going to grab them. Okay. And I'm going to walk upstairs with them. Or I'm going to walk over to the left with them. Okay. They are mine. You acquire a pair of fine fishermen's waders. Yes. I'll look over at the guard and be like, I'm gonna have to make sure these are working properly. I'm gonna put them on. They're big. They go, like, up to your armpits, basically. My feet have never been more safe. You have three pairs of shoes all the way up. Yeah, I'm gonna go upstairs. I'm gonna look for a way upstairs. If you use your X-ray vision and look kind of on this level, to your north, you see kind of a hallway and then more walls. And you can kind of, like, fuzzily see past that second wall. And there's, you see storage. There's storage. There's the servants' quarters. There's a kitchen kind of to the west of that little hallway. Directly to your west, there is a dining room. Okay. There's another guard in the dining room. And next to him, there's a stairway going up. I'm gonna go to the kitchen. There's something odd that you didn't notice. You kind of step in and there's a figure in the kitchen. They're wearing dark leather. They're kind of wearing a hood, too. And they're hunched over, like, a box.  And they notice that you're wearing three pairs of boots.  No. Me, neither. They take another bite of cheese. Do I see a wine cellar or any wine or alcohol? There's no wine cellar. There's, like, a hatch kind of near that.  But it's a very small wine cellar. I'm gonna go in there. I'm gonna get a bottle of the highest-proof wine. Roll to find high-proof wine. All right. I don't know if you know a lot about wine. I know 13 about wine. You know 13 about wine. 13's a very unlucky number. But it's also a very lucky number in your case. You find a very nice-looking bottle of wine. The glass itself is crystal. This is, like, an expensive bottle by itself. This wine better be good. And the elf kind of, like, peers down at you and, like, oh, hey, that was in there. I'm gonna go ahead and hide the bottle of wine in my oversized boot. And I am going to go ahead and make my way up to the... Where the stairs are. Okay, there's a guard to your right. Okay. And then there's the stairs. Okay. The guard lowers their spear, not pointed at you, but in front of the stairway and says, halt. Sorry, I'm the cobbler. I'm supposed to be fixing the Lord's shoes today. I really need to get them done. I'm looking for a book on how to do a little thing. It's a very specialized surgery on the boot. I just need to find a little bit of information on it. Do you know where the study is? I could borrow a book. The study's upstairs, but the Lord has ordered that no one can go up there at this time. If you know the name of the book, I can retrieve it for you. Oh, sure. It's cobblers for dummies, I believe. Roll up or sway this guy. All right. This is a weird lie. You're weaving. A nine. He's very suspicious of you. I am a very suspicious person. He says, wait right here. I'll have to fetch another guard.  While he's doing that, I'm gonna slip away. Just up the stairs? Yeah. Okay, roll to be sneaky. Okay. Here's the thing, you're wearing big old boots. Oh yeah. It's gonna be big old sneaky boots. Really unsneaky. Four.  The shoe is too big, you like catch the bottom of the stair and like kind of like plop. You don't fall on your face, but it's very loud. Oh no. And the guard catches you doing that. And at the same time, another guard runs in the room because he was the person the guard called for. Both the guards kinda look at each other and look at you. I'll blur it all. And then they start running at you with spears. I'm gonna take the bottle out of my, out of my, boop, and I'm gonna smash it, make an improvised weapon. All right, oh yeah, like a little bar. Okay, yeah, do it. I'm gonna smash it on. You wanna smash it on a guard? Smash on a guard. Okay. First guard. Roll to smash that guard with a wine bottle. 17. Okay, so that guard, he doesn't expect you to whip out like a crystal bottle. You just crack it right on the face. And he's like, oh, and he like falls over backwards. And it breaks. And the thing is it's like crystal. So it like breaks in like a million pieces. And you have this like really jagged, like end of a bottle. Yeah. And you're just like, ah.  The other guard or the one that fell over? The one that fell over. Okay, roll the stab on neck. All right. This isn't gonna be very high roll. 16. All right, you just. All right. That guard's dead. He did not see that coming. He didn't expect this to happen. You thought you were a cobbler. He believed you for like a minute there. He's out. He's bleeding on the floor. The other guard's running up to stab you though.  All right. Let's see how that does. Okay, so here's the thing. Gargots can stab him. Oh no. You take one damage. Oh no. With the spear. So you have six health. So I have five left. You have five left. I'm gonna grab the dead guard spear. Okay, yeah.  Try it, okay. So I go for the neck. All right, yeah. No, do it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the spear's on the ground. You just snatch it up and like. Four. Okay, so here's the thing.  He like parries it a little bit. Like you don't drop the spear or anything but like you're kind of at parody right now. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So what are you gonna do? I'd like to make a wish. Are you sure? Yes. All right, let's see if you have to make another haiku. Okay. What is your wish? My wish is to be able to control minds.  However, you take damage if you stop moving forward. Okay, I guess I will run forwards up the stairs and. So like trying to like, try to push this guard over and start running up. Yes, but as I'm running towards him, I'm gonna tell him, I'm gonna put, go into his mind. Tell him to kill himself. Roll to invoke that. 12. So you. He doesn't kill himself. But he looks very sad for enough time for you to run upstairs. Damn it. I'm gonna run back. He's kind of sitting there like, kind of like confused and like.  Do it. Roll the stab him.  All right.   The guard does not hit you at all. Like does a half-hearted stab at you, doesn't like pierce the waiters that you're wearing. Pushing him down the stairs with the spear. I'm grabbing it, pushing it, throwing it down the stairs. Roll, push him. Do a push. 10. He's off balance. He's distracted.  He's prone, he's not dead. I still have a spear? You still have one of the spears for the first time. Okay, I'm gonna kudig around this guy.  Do it. All right. Like it'll be really low. Won't be four. 18. Oh yeah, so you. Like right through the chest, he's dead. So you running in circles. What are you gonna do now?  Okay, I'm gonna go upstairs. You run up to the top of the stairwell. You are facing a wall, but as you look around, there's a long hallway. Well, I can't stop. So I'm gonna keep going. All right. I'm looking for, I'm just looking for the study. The study, okay. So you run, you turn the corner in this hallway. There's another guard. He sees you. Okay. He sees you in a broken. I'm not stopping him. Do you have the spear? Yes. Okay, he sees you, he sees the spear. Okay. He says halt and he lowers his spear to his head. I'm just stabbing him. Just gonna try to run through him. He's not stopping, just yeah. Do it. Run through him. Dammit. Okay. Six. So you kind of run at him.   Like kind of scrapes along your spear and you're like, but like you're kind of running. You want to try to like, what are you doing? I'm gonna pull out the bottle and I'm just gonna try to go through his neck. All right. Do it with the bottle. Leaping bottle. 11. Okay. So you leap up at him, kind of try to stab him and it can't go through. He has like a armor. He has like a helmet. So he can't really get through. Yeah. And it kind of like, and like some glass like goes into his helmet. He's like, ah, but it doesn't, it doesn't seem to do much to him. I'm gonna grab his helmet, look him in the eyes and stare at him. And I'm gonna tell him, I'm gonna use my mind powers. I'm gonna tell him to kill himself. You have so much possibility with mind powers and you're just like, die. One. Here's the thing. Damn. For any ordinary mind killer or any ordinary goblin, that wouldn't have done anything. You're extraordinarily lucky. Oh, am I? Yes.  And he's just like, ah, he literally just like collapses into armor and a blob of skin. Whoa, okay. So my, okay, okay. I think I understand. You can see what the luck does. I see what this does now. So in the study, you can see into the study through the wall, you can see someone in there. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go in there. And you can't stop, I guess. Going in the door. You bust open the door. Bail silver stars in there, owner of the manor behind him, kind of in the back right corner. There's a display case with a green owl necklace inside it. Might be what you're looking for. Probably what you're looking, it's what you're looking for. There's a window to his right. There's a large bookshelf to your left. He whips around dramatically with a flourish of his sword. He's like, ah-ha, he sees that you just keep running. He's like, hold on, what do you do? Well, he's caught off guard. Gotta kill him. I'm gonna drop a bookshelf while I'm just going. Oh, I try to tip it over? Yeah, tip it over, yeah. 12. Okay.  So you can't really tip him.  And I am going to throw books at him. He's just gonna start chucking him at him? Yep. Rolled chuck books. All right, chuck these books. Roll to one hand, I guess. Seven. You're very lucky. Oh no, I mean, yay. Like beans him right in the face.  Okay. What are you gonna do? Stab him in the neck. Roll the bottleneck. 16. Okay. You jump, you stab him. He's like, ah, but he's still up. He's not a pushover like these other guys. He's like, ah, he clutches at his neck and he's gonna take a swipe at you with his, he has like a, I should have mentioned this earlier. He's a short sword. Okay. He's gonna roll the slice at you. He swings at you. He kind of cuts low.  How? Cause like, dare he? Oh, okay. I thought you were asking how he did that. I'm gonna use a wish. Are you sure? Yes. Your final wish. I wish that he explodes into blood rain. Can I wish for that? Is that a solution to a problem? I'm gonna say yes, only because of the curse attached to this wish. Okay. You say, I wish you explode. He goes, but another identical version of him appears right next to the ice. I can't take it. There are now two of whatever you're fighting. Now there's one. Does he still have the neck? Cause he's identical. Oh, he's still hurt. Is he still hurt? It's kind of a weird series of emotions that goes, and then like he appears again and then there's just like a crater where he once was. Well, the one that cut my boots has been punished. So I'm going to use my mind powers on the second new copy. Okay. And I'm going to tell him to go away. Hold a mind power. Seven. It's very lucky. Oh no, is it ones and sevens? But here's the thing. He doesn't know where he wants to go away to. So he's resisting a little bit. He's going to fight back. I'm going to give him a chance to save against this. He makes it. Oh dang. So you say, go away. And he's like, no, this is my home. And he's going to like, he's going to start swinging at you again. Like he's recovered from this, him exploding and then reforming and then being told to go away. So it's you like running. It's him like ready to swing. What do you do? What's behind me? What's behind you right now is the bookshelf that's like half to dover with some books. I'm just going to move out of the way and let him just go past me. All right. He's going to swing at you. And so you're like dodging basically. Yeah, dodging. He like gives the bookshelf a little bit and it like starts leaning more and some of the books fly on. There's like a book still kind of hit the sword.  Owl is to your left now in a case. I'm going to jump up on him and off of him and onto the bookshelf. And I'm going to use my weight to just pull with that. All right. Yeah, do it. Roll, roll for it. That sounds cool. Seven. So you're very lucky. Three times lucky, by the way. That's triple seven. That's the thing. I should go to Vegas. That's the thing. You jump up on him.  You jump up on the bookshelf and you grab it. Just like crushed on top of him. He's under this bookshelf. You don't know if he's alive. You don't know if he's dead. You know, he's under a very heavy bookshelf. Is there his sword near me? Drop his sword by hand. Oh, yes. Well, he got, he got knocked over his sword. Like, like a dramatic movie scene. Right. Okay. I want to pick up the sword and I want to use the hilt to smash open the case. All right. So you'd like do a run by. You grab it and just, and it breaks without incident, which is weird. All things considered. It's a fake. It might be the fact that you have a sword sitting right there. Jade Owl in a display case open to the air.  That's what you came here. Is the king's feet exposed? Not a king. All right. What is the lord's feet exposed? No, he's under a bookshelf. The only thing that's exposed would be like the end of his hand or something. I am going to grab the Jade. I'm going to take the sword.  Roll the, uh, seven. So you're very lucky. I picked the perfect pathway.  And this guy through the window just, and like one of the guards is like, what? You jumped really high and like that would normally be a bad thing. Cause there's like a gate with spikes. You just soar over it.  No one could have seen it coming. You're the other side.  It was a different city. It was a goblin city, whatever city. Solstice was the city.  He's like, yes.  He's like, I give you the title, the throne and my blessing whenever you're done running. He places the crown on the throne and he gets up and walks out. You are now the rightful heir to the goblin throne and you can never stop moving. And some people say he's still running this day. So John, did you enjoy that adventure? I did. I very much enjoyed that murderous rampage. I don't usually play murder hobo, but you know, it didn't go the way I planned so I had to fix it. Like I honestly, I expected you to be very methodical and like, okay, yeah, we're going to like sneak this way. And like we're going to try to Jimmy open this window.  Like it was great. Front door. Best way to go. Always go to the front door. I love the haiku wish. That's pretty great. So John, anything that you'd like to plug while you're here. Okay, so for Dormonster, make sure you check out on Tuesdays and Thursdays, go to twitch.tv slash Dormonster TV and check out all our wonderful people doing games and streams and fun things for you to enjoy. Sometimes we'll play with people, sometimes like with the community and sometimes we'll be just playing a single player game and chatting with the chat, but come on by and have some fun. This has been Guest Quest. Thank you for watching. And also like to thank our sponsor, Dice Dungeons. Dice Dungeons has a wide selection of dice that you can pick from, including wooden, plastic, metal. They also have other things like cloth battle maps to bring your game to life. And if you use the code Dormonster, you'll get 10% off of any order that you place at DiceDungeons.com.


I'm Laura O'Grady and I'm on the committee of ELT Ireland for the Publications Officer for the Bulletin and I work in CES in Dublin where I am a senior teacher and the social media coordinator for all of the schools in the UK and Ireland. What I'd like to talk to you today about is integrating M learning into a traditional ELT classroom. I'll follow this up by explaining what is M learning, what framework we can use to introduce this, how we redefine our task types, what I did and how I introduced it into my classroom and the benefits for teachers and students and then I'll give you some useful apps and websites that you can use in your classroom. So what is M learning? M learning is the introduction of learning methods and materials that involve use of mobile phones or handheld devices. So it's the next step on from e-learning. So instead of using a desktop we're going to use the resources that we have in our classrooms with our students and introduce technology into the classroom. So what are the acronyms?  It's bite-sized, it's small. We don't do the whole lesson on your mobile but you integrate it into different task types. It's just in time. So when you have that question and you go, oh my goodness, I don't know if it's on a controversial issue for example. Everyone take out your devices, let's go to Sky News and see what it says. Integrated reading activity. DNA, it's device neutral applications. So as we have Android and we have iOS, you have to get ones that can go with both so that everyone can participate in your class. Obviously we need Wi-Fi or data but most institutions and language schools have this on hand. So how do we introduce it? We need to change our framework. So we use the TPAC framework. So it's technological, pedagogical and content knowledge and we integrate that together. So we already have our pedagogical knowledge from our training and from our experience. We have our content knowledge for level-specific classes. What TPAC tries to do is to include the technological knowledge and reinvent our framework for our classes. Okay? How do we do this? We use what was called a smart model, okay? I will explain that in a moment. What we do is we look at our task types, traditional writing. What do we do? We normally get our pens and our papers and okay guys, let's write. In reality, how often do we write? We don't. We email. We text. We tweet. We Instagram. We YouTube. We send images immediately. So writing as a skill, although necessary, once the students leave the classroom, is it functional for them? Unless they're in a university or a course of some kind. So what we do is we do direct substitution. We change the writing and we get them to type. Send the email versus write the email. Then we move on to a functional improvement. So we've changed from paper. We've gone via email. Everyone can share us. Then we move on to a task redesign where instead of just correcting the email, handing it back, finished, it's over. We continue developing that resource and we can change it into a class block so everyone can have peer feedback and everyone can see it and have access to the information and the knowledge. Finally with this smart model, they say a complete redesign. Create new tasks. So how can we use this email that you've sent to the teacher in class? Screenshot. Take a screenshot if it's on your computer or if it's on your phone and we can peer correct in class. Everyone can share us. WhatsApp. Have a WhatsApp class group and then you can focus on, okay, identify linking devices. What one did Peter use? What one did Emma use? Compare and contrast. Okay, it's a really easy thing to do and this is the idea. So it was developed by Dr Ruben Puenteura and it starts with substitution. Substitution. So technology acts as a direct substitute with no functional change. Then we augment this. Technology acts as a direct substitute with a functional improvement. We've gone from paper to email. Then we modify it. Technology allows for significant task redesigns. We've modified it now into a blog. And the final stage in the smart model is redefinition. Technology allows for the creation of new tasks previously inconceivable. So if we think of our mobile devices that we have, if we've taken a screenshot, we can go in and we can create a gap fill or an info gap or find the missing word.  And then pair work. Using the phone, guess the missing word. Which linking device should be here? How can we do it? And it's just no paper all on your phone. So it's good for the environment as well. What I did, what I'm going to do next is just explain, I know there's a lot of images here, how I decided to introduce mLearning little by little into my lessons and why I did it. I went to a talk recently on what is mLearning. So I'm new to it as well because I knew about eLearning and I did not know what mLearning was. It just stands for mobile learning. Anything you can do when you're mobile. So I started off really simply by substituting my big heavy learner dictionaries for the Cambridge English Online Dictionary. We have Wi-Fi in our schools, it was great. I didn't have to lumber all of those and we know the size of them, they're big.  This, I found, was really good in class. I substituted it and it was really efficient, it was fast. Students, if you notice, are not accustomed to looking for words and dictionaries anymore. They just Google where they translate it. So the process of going A, B, C, which is the next letter and turning the page and finding the words is quite difficult for them, especially at lower levels and especially for, well, from my experience, my Arabic learners because it's the opposite direction and my Asian learners because the alphabet's different. So looking in a dictionary physically, they find very cumbersome, I think, is the word I'd like to use. It's difficult for them, it's a challenge and then other students who are accustomed to doing that are frustrated. So we avoid the frustration because we can work in pairs very quickly using Cambridge. Students responded well to that. What I did next, actually, is I did a WhatsApp group. So I have a class WhatsApp group. It's only for my class, nobody else has access to it and I use it for homework. Every day, there's a task. A student has a nominated day.  Today you have to screenshot a photo of something and ask a question. Everyone participates in the group and they have to type. So small integrated homework skills where they have to type, so it's spelling and grammar and they have to read to understand the other people's responses and it's a bit more normal because everyone has WhatsApp groups, that's how we interact. Okay? Day two, Sunday, Emma, you're going to ask a question but you're going to record it. Everybody has to listen and they have to respond by recording their answer. So then you've alternated it to listening, speaking and pronunciation which is great. They do it in their own language. You see them responding orally all the time. So transfer what they're used to over to English. They respond well to that and they find it less daunting than here is your present perfect homework. Please complete this. Or did the sentences structures? I could give them a question with the form and see how often they try and reproduce this in class when we do homework correction using the audio. And then what I did was I used the journal in Sky. I choose these over the Irish Times because they're short and they're easier to read and they're less scary for the learner and it's topical. It's controversial sometimes often but it's what they're seeing in the news so why not use it in class. Again this can be used as just a reading comprehension. If I want them to look at articles based on I don't know Irish rugby for example I can tailor questions for those articles. They do it in pairs and they answer or you can do it as a systems. What are the linking devices using the article? Identify four types of reported speech are a passive presence. You can focus it on different ways you can tailor the tasks. You can do it for context you can do it for vocabulary like I said screenshot erases what word is missing. Two seconds is all that takes and also Sky News you can do for listening and I used it for they have a video section but for lower learners lower level learners because they have the subtitles so you can do it as a listening or reading and find the answer. Google is Google we can use that anytime and web quests. Does anyone know what a web quest is? Yeah it's just you're going you have a plan you have something that you have to find online using a series of questions so it's more active research and there's lots of websites that you can tailor at a web web quest for particular topics a web quest for different skills as well to find the information. This you can use as an integrated lesson. If you do it in pairs one person has to find the information and dictate it and the other person has to listen and write and then you flip for the next question so everyone gets to practice using all of their skill set. As this happens with web quests often vocabulary comes up so then you go back use your Cambridge dictionary and we develop our vocabulary as we're using the internet the way we would in our daily lives. The AE sounds app I would I used for present perfect continuous and present perfect simple revision. I had them create words using the phonemic scripts and the other students had to guess what they were using the sounds on the app and they found it quite fun because you look at the phonemic script and they go oh I don't even know what that is but when they start pushing the the script and hearing the sounds they work out what word it is so it's a nice way to integrate a different type of pronunciation into your class versus back chaining or drilling constantly. I use cahoots not so often because it does take some extra planning it's a quiz if you want to use it for revision for vocabulary everybody gets a code and they join you display it on a powerpoint and there's a question and there's a time limit and they have to answer and choose the correct answer so it's a little bit of Friday fun time generally the same with heads up for vocabulary because it's physical movement and they they enjoy doing it in class it gets them up it gets them active this can be done for two minutes at the end of class every day um that is how i've tried to introduce it into my lessons just little by little and only short tasks because i don't think we're at the stage of using m learning for a two-hour lesson but the students use the devices it prevents them looking at their instagram or their facebook and their whatsapp if you make them use their device so then they're actively participating in the lesson very quickly because i'm out of time these are the benefits i got access to online resources we have more flexibility in our teaching increased learner motivation increased learner involvement the students have access to authentic materials learning flexibility better participation and better performance from the students and finally these are some apps you can use for listening listening listening explain everything is a shared whiteboard application where everyone can see everyone's work and we know the rest of them and obviously youtube i didn't put on but you can use that for many different levels because you can slow down the speed of the audio thank you for listening


The House of Representatives Committee on Finance has invited the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, the Nigerian Custom Service and the Budget Office of the Federation. They are to appear on Monday to explain issues surrounding the collection and appropriation of the Nigerian Shippers Council, especially a 2% ports development levy. The committee issued the summons in Abuja on Tuesday at the ongoing public hearing of the 2022-2024 medium-term expenditure framework and fiscal strategy paper. The Executive Secretary of the Shippers Council Emmanuel Jimmy had lamented that the main source of the council's revenue of 3.1 billion Naira was collected by customs and sent to the Accountant General's office. Chairman of the committee, James Felikin, has now directed the secretariat to invite the concerned parties.


My name is Chris Chapman, I'm 15 and I've been working on the game engine for our project. Cool, thank you, next up? I'm Dylan Dwy, I'm 14 and I've been working on the user interface. I'm Hal Batty, I'm 14 and I've been working on the sort of front end user interface of our project. I'm Harry Jones, I'm 14 and I've been working on the game code for our project. Hi, I'm Tim, I'm 16 and I've been working on everything but safe. Brilliant, thank you very much. So, it's been quite a hectic week. What do you think have been the most difficult parts? What's been harder perhaps than you expected? Yes, I'm doing the better stuff. What about working together? Did you do your own project? Perhaps that was a little bit easier in some ways? Yes, and I was the only person who wanted to do it. I enjoyed working with my own. So, what about the rest of you? Did you all fall into natural jobs as part of getting it done? We worked together. There was a lot of, what do you want me to do now? I have nothing. I used to use a database on the server. So, I used to be kind of in charge of getting that working. But then we moved to local storage with our thing. So, my role completely changed because we got rid of the whole database on the server side. So, I had to work on getting a lot of the code working on the local storage thing and working on the game engine. So, would you recommend that other people do it next year? Is it a worthwhile thing to do? Because you've given up your free time to do this, haven't you? I use Google Maps more than anything else, but there's a lot about how JavaScript works in local storage. So, I think it's a valuable experience to learn all from it. Has it made you think about... Thank you, Hal. And we got that. That's just an added bonus. Like a little Easter egg. I have a key on my keyboard. I have a key on my keyboard. Really? I have a key on my keyboard. Nobody saw that coming. A key on my keyboard. Well, you press it whenever A Hal starts singing, which has happened more often than you might think. Have you had to do stuff at home in the evenings or have you managed to get everything done in the day here? I've had to do things at home. They have. I haven't had time. Have you found it really tiring or not too bad? I haven't found it that bad. So, in terms of your school and qualifications and what you want to do next, what are your aspirations? Are you going to be doing A Levels and things? Because we talked at the beginning of the week about how a lot of you have taught yourselves in your own spare time. What do you see as your career path, your future? I hope to go into some kind of development job in future. I'm not sure whether it's web development, app development, because there are so many different types of things you can do in that whole field. I guess it changes all the time too as well. So you can't really plan for... We're talking three or four years away, I suppose. I might even be doing a job in future that doesn't exist right now. OK, so what's next? Have you finished everything? Oh, no. No. I have a girl star. This is looking good. I found she's working on her own. All done and dusted. I'm going to code when we get to the custard factory. I'm ready to be coding until after. We may need to be coding on Saturday morning before our presentation. But you fancy your chances when you do get it done. I think...