An introduction to emotional resilience | Rail Wellbeing Live

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Cliff Hawkins is a clinical psychologist with considerable experience working with people with learning disabilities. He has also served as an expert witness in legal proceedings. In the second episode of our Hidden Disabilities series, Cliff discusses trauma and its possible impacts on individuals involved in legal proceedings, with intermediary Carla Millington.

Click the link to listen: http://www.communicourt.co.uk/podcast

If you would like to contact Cliff, contact us using the box below.

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Communicourt runs regular CPD training for our intermediaries. One of our most recent programmes focused on emotional resilience. We asked three of the intermediaries who took part in the training to tell us about their experiences:

Where this started:

We have been finding different ways to keep our skills updated during the challenges of lockdown. Communicourt has been very proactive and a few weeks ago, we were invited to join some online emotional resilience training.

Emotional resilience is a term we have heard a lot during the Covid-19 pandemic. We thought it was about pushing your emotions to one side and powering on. We all consider ourselves quite strong people, we have all survived a very strange and very difficult 12 months. So, we went into this training thinking we were very already very resilient.

Our sessions were hosted by Cliff Hawkins, a consultant clinical psychologist, and the first thing we learned is that we didn’t really know what emotional resilience is. Emotional resilience is not just about how quickly you can bounce back from adversity, it is about how you can adapt to cope with stressful situations.

Stress and ‘The Goldilocks Principle’

Cliff introduced us to the concept of ‘The Goldilocks Principle’. This means that stress can be a result of too much or too little pressure. It surprised us to think that stress could result from too little pressure, however after further discussion this made more sense. Due to the nature of our job, many of us experience a fluctuating work routine. Whilst this keeps things dynamic and interesting, it can also lead to periods of pressure. On the flipside, if we have a few quieter days in our diaries it can feel like unproductivity.

Whilst our work is both rewarding and valuable, it can often come with the exposure to traumatic or stressful situations.

Developing Emotional Resilience:

So, how can developing emotional resilience address some of these issues? Cliff explained that there are many factors to consider when developing emotional resilience, including:

• Knowing boundaries
• Cultivating self-awareness
• Seeking helpful connections
• Practising acceptance
• Practising mindfulness
• Expecting not to have all the answers immediately
• Allowing yourself to be imperfect
• Allowing others to be imperfect
• Practising self-care
• Considering your possibilities and goals and taking realistic steps
• Expressing yourself
• Keeping things in perspective
• Practising optimism
• Noticing your warning signs
• Nurturing a positive view of yourself
• Trusting yourself

We discussed each of these in turn in our ‘breakout groups’. We explored each of these areas, picking out the ones we feel we do well and also considered the areas that needed some improvements. With the aim to reflect on our progress in the follow up session, Cliff asked the group to pick an area to improve on and identify realistic goals over the next two weeks.

We all agreed that having an awareness of emotional resilience is important, particularly in a job like ours, and we all chose individual aims to work towards.

Briony’s Goal: I decided to focus on practising self-care, since the varied working patterns and staying away sometimes makes me neglect my work-life balance. Over the weeks to follow, I decided to be mindful of the hours I work, ensuring I have time to ‘switch off’ during the evenings from the pressure of work or anything stressful I may be exposed to that day.

I wanted to implement a regular time to stop working in the evenings, and to practise self-care by doing more regular exercise or taking time to do activities which I find relaxing.

Emily’s Goal: The goal I chose after the emotional resilience training was to notice warning signs. I feel that sometimes I can push past the signs that I need a break, or I am not being as productive and try to carry on. This can lead to completing something that is not to the best of my ability.

With sometimes having days where I have less structure, it is easy for me to find myself not managing my time as effectively as I know I can. I would keep pushing myself to work despite needing a break, and then felt guilty when I did take a break.

So, I decided to set a time to complete work, but if I felt that I needed a break as I have been working for too long, I promised myself I would step away from my work. I would allow myself to take a break.

I would also review how I am meeting this goal and how much this has assisted with my productivity, quality of work and work/life balance.

Mollie’s Goal: I decided to work on allowing myself to be imperfect. It can be really challenging when we all have this desire to know everything about this job within a short period of time (which is almost impossible!).

Even with a fantastic training programme and the ongoing support from colleagues, it can be disheartening when we are struggling to find the right strategy to assist a client. It’s important for us to remember that not all strategies are going to work for every single person we work with.

So I decided that I was going to be more accepting, it is ok if I don’t have all the answers yet. Knowledge comes with time and I have a great support network around me, and years of experience that I can draw on.

Each of us were excited to see whether we would achieve our goals within the next two weeks. With the help of our positive and realistic steps, it certainly looked promising!

Two weeks later

When we met again for our second session with Cliff, we looked at what affects our ability to implement effective strategies to assist our emotional resilience? During the second session, Cliff explained that certain messages are instilled within us from a young age, which results in us acting in a way consistent with particular ‘drivers’. These drivers include the following:

• Be strong – don’t show your feelings and don’t ask for, or even accept help.
• Try hard – put in as much effort as possible, rather than focusing on the outcome.
• Please others – doing what other people want you to do is what matters.
• Be perfect – you have to do everything just right, even tiny details.
• Hurry up – you’ve got to get everything done quickly, and cram lots into your time.

It isn’t surprising that these drivers can interfere with our ability to develop emotional resilience. For example, if you have a ‘be strong’ driver, you are less likely to seek helpful connections or express yourself.

In smaller groups, we reflected on what we thought our biggest ‘drivers’ were, and the progress we had made on our individual goals in the previous two weeks. We were really surprised to hear that all of the people in our smaller group had made good progress. It can be so hard to keep focused on changes you want to make when life is busy. We all agreed we had been more conscious of our goals and have been taking realistic steps to work towards these. For some people this was just doing more exercise, taking time out to enjoy a cup of tea in the garden, or even committing to having a relaxing bath once a week.

Cliff gave us the opportunity to explore our mindsets, which many of us have never done. We now have a better understanding of the drivers that may explain how we behave and the things that we give value to in our lives. We also learned that you can adjust the influence of these drivers by making small changes.

Small changes

This was perhaps the biggest point to take home for all of us. The changes can be small, and probably should be small to be sustainable. You don’t need to throw yourself into a new hobby or start a course in your spare time. During the first lockdown, there was a focus on what you could achieve when you take away all of life’s distractions. You had all this time now and you could write a novel, or learn Welsh, or become an artisan baker! It was pitched as an opportunity at a time when many people were struggling to see it that way. They were scared, isolated, and unsure of how we would get back to life as it was before.

What we should have been telling each other is sit and drink a cup of tea in the sun. Take some deep breaths in the garden and listen to the birds. Set aside a time for you to read a book or have a bath. Go for a walk. It is the small changes we can make in our lives to help develop our emotional resilience. It is about finding healthy ways to process our feelings, not push them aside or bottle them up. It is about taking time to look after yourself and regularly check in to see how you really feel, which is something we will be more mindful of in the future.

For More Information

For more information on emotional resilience or to organise a workshop with one of our experienced psychologists, contact us using the box below.

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As part of Dr Boo’s Advent / Christmas specials, Dr Boo and Dr Cliff Hawkins analyse the film Love Actually.

Click the link to listen: Podcast – Cliff Hawkins – “Analyse This: Mental Health in Film & TV (Love Actually)”

If you have any comments, contact us using the box below.

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How to get your three year old to go to bed (without the shouting and tears)

By Dr Rachel Dunn (Clinical Psychologist)

Does this bed time battle sound familiar?

So there I was again at the end of a long working day chasing my child upstairs, downstairs into the bathroom and out of the bathroom as he refused to clean his teeth, refused to have a wash, and refused to put his pyjamas on. Shouting and kicking and wriggling out of my grasp.

I was feeling exhausted and hungry and utterly irritated by his refusal to comply with my reasonable requests. Why wouldn’t he listen, why wouldn’t he do as I asked him? It felt like groundhog day, another evening much the same as the previous evening and probably to be repeated the following evening and so on and so on into the future.

As he was clamping his mouth closed and I was trying to coax it open with the toothbrush (there is nothing more stubborn than a three-year-old at bed time), I found myself thinking how did I get here, I can’t go on like this!

I was counting down the hours and minutes that I had left of my evening. The time I had left to do everything I needed to do and just have some time to eat dinner before I had to go to bed myself. I was starting to resent the fact that this was eating into my time, and I was becoming anxious that I wouldn’t get an evening to myself yet again.

As a Clinical Psychologist I knew that this was a common scenario and I knew that bed times can be a challenging time for three-year-olds. I also knew that it was normal and that he was starting to feel and fight against the separation from me that bed time represented.

But I was exhausted, resentful and close to losing my patience. There was a real conflict in our needs. He needed to feel close to me and I needed him to go to sleep so that I could get everything done that needed to be done.

I knew that I had to do something about my child’s bed time and if you’re reading this you’re probably thinking the same thing. I knew that there must be a better way to begin my evening, here’s what I did and what I invite you to try too.

What you can do to make bed time calmer

So you might already have a bedtime routine but if you are reading this I’m guessing it isn’t working for you. I also had a routine that wasn’t working for me so I get it. Creating a mindful bed time routine was what changed things around for me.

My first suggestion is to stop thinking about the bed time routine as a list of jobs you need to get through before you can say goodnight and go off to start your next job. I believe your child can sense when you are thinking about them as a job, I believe mine do and they don’t like it!

Instead begin to think of the bed time routine as an activity in itself, a chance for you and your child to reconnect and decompress before sleep. This is even more important if you have been separated from you child during the day.

7 steps to create your mindful bed time routine.

1. Start earlier: Do yourself a favour and give yourself more time, what you lose at the start of the routine you’ll gain at the end when your child is happier to say goodnight. This will take the pressure off, allowing you to relax and your child to feel calm.
2. Slow it down: Children hate to be rushed, and everyone know that they do nothing quickly. The only exception being running off in the supermarket when you are trying to juggle the shopping! So slow down the routine and allow them to do some things for themselves. This might be choosing between 2 different sets of pyjamas, or washing their own face with a flannel so that you can then just finish off the bits they miss.
3. Be playful: Remember that the bed time routine is now an activity and not a job, try to have fun and make up some playful games. We have a tooth brushing game in our house that has won over my serial tooth brush refuser. She now really looks forward to that part of the routine, and she even gets me the toothbrush — big win! When I started to struggle to get them to leave their toys to go upstairs and begin the bedtime routine, I introduced a “last one upstairs is a rotten tomato” game. I’m not sure how calming this was really but it got them up the stairs happily.
4. Keep in the moment: Resist the urge to keep focusing on what you still have to do. Allow yourself to enjoy at least one aspect of the routine and really tune into it. You can practice focusing on your breathing or you can practice paying attention to the sensory elements of the task. So if you are giving your child a bath you can pay attention to the sound of the running water, the warmth of the water and the smell of the soap. You can encourage your child to do the same. Don’t think about what you need to do next just really connect and enjoy this moment with your child.
5. Keep the connection going: Sometimes small children need to know that you are still there for them throughout the night and you can do this in different ways. One idea is to focus less on the goodnight and more on what will happen in the morning. Another idea you can try, and worked for my son, is telling them that you will come and say goodnight to them when you go to bed yourself. Make sure you do though! I would leave him my wheat bag and he would bring it back to me in the morning.
6. Understand and appreciate your differing needs: Your’s to get the job done and the pile of jobs you have to do next, and their need to spend time with you and be reassured that you love them before the bed time separation. Attend to any of your urgent needs before you start the routine. Don’t think that you’ll go to the loo or have a drink once your child is fast asleep in bed, that will just make you even more frustrated and focused on the end goal. You’ll feel even more uncomfortable and depleted at a time when you really need all your patience and positivity. So do what you can for yourself before you start. I always get changed out of my work clothes and into my more comfortable clothes before I begin my children bed time routine. It helps to put me into a different zone and helps me to enjoy the process more.
7. Finally keep calm: Easy to say and harder to do I know. When you start to feel the irritation and the annoyance rising, when you are about to shout or yell, when you feel like you just can’t deal with them anymore, pause and breathe. Check out this video for an easy grounding exercise for just these occasions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDm2c5FDLNI

More tips.

If you found this helpful and would like more tips on keeping calm when your child is not, you can download my free ebook here: https://rachel-dunn.newzenler.com/f/tantrum-ebook/tantrums

Contact us using the form below to speak to one of our psychologists and for further help.

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Cliff Hawkins and Dr Boo discuss What’s Eating Gilbert Grape – considering the characters and family from a psychological perspective, and talk about how neurodiversity is portrayed on screen.

Click the link to listen:

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Click the link to listen: Podcast – Cliff Hawkins

If you have any comments, contact us using the box below.

The post Podcast: Cliff Hawkins appeared first on Cliff Hawkins Psychology.