Have you ever felt knocked off balance by a difficult life event or emotional outburst? What if, instead of being victims of these occasional triggers, we could develop the skills to harness them as teachers on our path to growth?
In the latest episode of the Vet Staff Podcast, host Julie South examines this compelling concept of transforming our triggers to build emotional resilience. With an influx of calls from veterinarians blaming external factors for their struggles, she spotlights the critical need for inner work and self-inquiry.
This episode promises a way forward, guiding on how to break free from self-destructive patterns. Want to build self-awareness around your emotional triggers? Keep reading for an overview of the key takeaways.
Defining Negative Affect
- Involves emotions like anger, anxiety, guilt
- Suppressing makes things worse long-term
Childhood Coping Strategies
- We often maintain unhealthy mechanisms from early on
- Need to take responsibility as adults
Blaming Others and Geographical Escapes
- Repeating negative cycles in new places without self-work
- Dangers of “doing a geographical”
Building Emotional Intelligence
- Introduces tool “DISC Flow” to understand behavioural triggers
- Fosters self-awareness and communication skills
By courageously examining our triggers, we can unlock lasting resilience.
Satisfy your intrigue by listening now to learn constructive strategies.
About DISC-Flow®
DISC is a research-backed and science-based personality profiling tool used to understand our behaviours, communication styles, and work preferences. It’s about understanding what makes you – and the people you work with – tick.
Julie South is a DISC Flow® Certified Trainer, who describes DISC-Flow® profiling as being like having a cheat sheet to better understand yourself and other people. When you know this, it helps you play to your personality strengths, work better in teams, and communicate better.
If you’re keen to find out what your personal DISC type is, what type of leader you are, or what your clinic’s team composition looks like, then get in touch with Julie to find out what's involved.
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Julie South [00:00:00]:
You're listening to the vet staff podcast, the place where you, the veterinary professional, can go to get your head screwed on straight so you can get excited about going to work on Monday mornings and be the most fantabulous version of you you can be. This is episode one seven nine and I'm your show host, Julie South. I help veterinary professionals strengthen their resilience and help them get their heads screwed on straight so they can be the most resilient and fantabulous versions of themselves they can be to live their best lives.
Julie South [00:00:42]:
Excited about going to work on Monday mornings?
Julie South [00:00:46]:
You can find back copies of the Vetstaff podcast@vetstaffpodcast.com. This week has been one of those weeks. Not in my life, but in many of the phone calls I've had. It was almost as if there was something in the water. There was definitely a common thread, vets and nurses falling into familiar self destructive chatter. Chatter inside their heads of self blame, powerlessness, or believing that something was inherently wrong with them, a breakup, not getting a hoped for promotion, perceived value, plus other difficult situations that triggered their witchy, demonlike voice, which I talked about a couple of weeks ago, which then started attacking their self worth, their self confidence, and their self efficacy. Thought spirals like here I go again, messing everything up or I'll never get anything right or even I'm a useless vet which is totally untrue, started to take over and then drown out their reason and their perspective. In psychology, the term effect refers to the experience of feeling or emotion.
Julie South [00:02:17]:
Therefore, negative effect, which is what these vets and nurses were going through, relates to negative emotions or poor self concept. These include emotional states like anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, fear, nervousness, anxiousness. The opposite of negative effect is guess what? Yep. Positive effect, which involves positive emotions like joy, enthusiasm and interest. Now, negative effect isn't only about temporary feelings like having one bad day. It can also be a regular personality trait, meaning that some people are more prone to experiencing negative emotions than others. High levels of negative effect can play out in life as depression, anxiety, and even mood disorders. It can also affect someone's perception of the world, influence their behavior, impact their physical health, and it was how it affected various careers this week that had me wondering whether there was something in the water.
Julie South [00:03:28]:
Being able to recognize negative effect is crucial because it plays a huge role in our overall well being and our quality of life. Refusing to take responsibility for our own lives and the circumstances we find ourselves in will just keep the cycle continuing. Instead, when you address your own negative effect, it means you can start working towards improving not only your emotional health, but reduce the impact of negative emotions and how they can destroy your professional life. In other words, you can really start living your best life. Our childhoods shape who we become. The ways we learn to cope with stress and trauma in our early years often stay with us into adulthood. While some of our coping strategies help us have resilience and help us bounce forward from life's pearshaped moments and events, others can be unhealthy or even harmful and destructive. As adults, it's important that we have self awareness, emotional and social intelligence so we don't relapse into childish behaviors and tantrums, and instead we act our ages.
Julie South [00:04:58]:
And not our shoe size, that as.
Julie South [00:05:01]:
Adults we've left the inappropriate and or even maladaptive coping behaviors we may have adopted long ago in the past where they belong, we need to start looking.
Julie South [00:05:15]:
At ourselves, listening to others, and taking.
Julie South [00:05:17]:
Responsibility for being where we are in our lives and our relationships. Unless you have a serious psychological condition, you, and only you, are responsible for the words going on inside your head and or the destructive behaviors that you have. No one is holding a gun to your head to make you say or do things in a certain way. It's only when we recognize you, recognize your unhealthy emotional and psychological patterns, that you can make a conscious effort to replace them with more constructive and much healthier coping mechanisms. Now, these mechanisms may that you have in your life going on right now, the ones that you default to. They may temporarily relieve the bad feelings, but ultimately they just exacerbate the situation or the problem. Unchecked, they can negatively impact relationships. Like I said before, your self image, productivity and your overall well being and your career.
Julie South [00:06:25]:
However, with self compassion, professional support, and a commitment to positive change, we can all learn healthier coping strategies. If you find yourself wishing that you could reinvent yourself, or you wish you could wake up when this, whatever this is, is all over, then it's totally understandable to feel desperate for a fresh start somewhere new. Twelve step programs call this doing a geographical the wish, the dream, the hope is that by physically moving, whether that's across the country or even overseas, you can leave behind all the negative influences, maybe even leave behind people, environments, difficult transitions like a breakup or a job loss, and start afresh where no one knows you. For people. For some people, the allure and the glitter and the seduction of reinventing themselves or pursuing dreams in a new place can seem irresistible. Doing a geographical, though, doesn't always mean upping sticks and moving from one city to another. A similar mindset could be thoughts along the lines of when I lose weight, stop smoking, get fit, change jobs, ditch this relationship, whatever this is, you insert it into that sentence whenever I do whatever that, your life, my life will be perfect. However, if you don't do the psychological work to uncover your unhealthy emotional patterns or those thought processes, geographical escapes and or blaming others provide nothing more than temporary distractions.
Julie South [00:08:14]:
Self destructive behaviors have a way of creeping up no matter what superficial change we make because we haven't dealt with the core issue, things like denying personal responsibility and blaming others for our situation tend to resurface because we end up only treating the symptom, not the cause. So rather than looking inward at the cause, there's often a tendency to blame external factors like other people for why problems persist, even in that new location. The thing is, we can come up with all sorts of valid reasons, especially difficult colleagues or an ex who are all at fault but not ourselves, which doesn't really make sense when we think about it rationally because we're the only common denominator in all of these different situations. Failing to look inwards and take ownership of the ways our mindsets and behaviors manifest again and again and again just keeps the cycle going. The cycle just keeps on a never ending loop, with each repeat situation just getting possibly worse and worse. How do I know this? From experience, because no internal attitudinal change has ever taken place. Unfortunately, there's no easy shortcut because lasting change comes when we put on our big person knickers and do the psychological work. The psychological work, the attitudinal change necessary to change our attitudes and quit the blame game.
Julie South [00:09:59]:
Resilience is built and strengthened when we examine our emotional baggage rather than pretending we don't have it and or continuously running away from it and or blaming others for us being the common denominator in all of these different situations and circumstances. When you're ready to quit the blame game because your life's not working for you and or if any of this rings true for you and you're ready to do some self reflection and have a change in attitude so you can start living your best life, then please, let's chat. If you're wondering if it's going to hurt, that depends on how much you want to continue to blame others or finger point and or justify your doesn't do you any favors behavior until the cows come home. When you're the only common denominator in all these different situations you find yourself.
Julie South [00:11:03]:
In, then it's going to hurt.
Julie South [00:11:06]:
If you don't want to look inside, it's going to hurt. The first place we'll start is with some tried and tested personality and social intelligence profiling. You may not know that I'm disc flow certified. As far as I'm aware, I'm the only certified practitioner specializing in helping veterinary professionals live their best lives. I'm also the only advanced certified practitioner in functional imagery training fit training from the University of Plymouth in the UK specializing in helping veterinary professionals live their best lives as well. If you're familiar with the personality profiling tool, Disc Flow upgrades the classic extended disc assessment with a focus on building emotional intelligence. It takes Disc's identification of behavioral tendencies, the behaviors we default to when we're under pressure, and provides concrete guidance on improving your critical competencies like self awareness, empathy, communication and stress management. By spotlighting these emotional skills and development areas with disc flow, you'll be empowered to take greater responsibility in your relationships at work and at home, rather than defaulting to the blame game when challenges arise.
Julie South [00:12:32]:
I hope you found this episode helpful as a way to keep or get.
Julie South [00:12:37]:
Your head screwed on straight.
Julie South [00:12:39]:
Strengthen your resilience and get excited about going to work on Monday mornings again. If you like the Vetstaff podcast and you find it helpful, can I ask you to do me a favor? Please? Please help me spread the Vetstaff podcast word by telling three of your friends or colleagues about how this show helps veterinary professionals get their heads screwed on straight and build their resilience so they can get excited about going to work on Monday mornings. Thank you.
Julie South [00:13:06]:
I really appreciate that.
Julie South [00:13:08]:
And a review where you're listening to it is also helpful too, because it helps the algorithms raise us to the top of the list. This is Julie south signing off and inviting you to go out there and be the most fantabulous and resilient version of you you can be. Remember, if you want to know more about yourself and how others see you, then please get in touch. Julie at Vetstaff Co NZ the Vetstaff.
Julie South [00:13:40]:
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