It's The Small Things That Matter

When you have been working on the big things in recovery sometimes you can lose sight of the small things that make a big difference.

Transcript

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It's time again for Doc Jock, your addiction lifeguard podcast. I am Dr. Jock DeBerker, a psychologist, licensed professional counselor, and addiction specialist. If you are suffering from addiction, misery, trauma, whatever it is, I'm here to help. If you're in search of help to try to get your life back together, join me here at Doc Jock, your addiction lifeguard, the addiction recovery podcast. I wanted to be real clear about what this podcast is intended for. It is intended for entertainment and informational purposes but not considered help. If you actually need real help and you're in need of help, Please seek that out. If you're in dire need of help, you can go to your nearest emergency room or you can check into a rehab center or call a counselor like me and talk about your problems and work through them. But don't rely on a podcast to be that form of help. It's not. It's just a podcast. It's for entertainment and information only. So let's keep it in that light. All right. Have a good time. Learn something and then get the real help that you need from a professional. Finding inspiration in the small things can be difficult when we are faced with incredibly difficult task of overcoming our addiction are the thing that plagues us. And so finding inspiration in the small things is something that people do sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes when they find their life has become extremely difficult and extremely challenging. So how do you find inspiration in the small things? And what are the small things? What are those things that you can look for, for affirmation, confirmation of your progress? it's it's interesting when people uh come to me and they're looking for help they really are at the end usually when they come in the the door in my office the first thing is they've gotten it's gotten so bad that they've just about given up they really are they've tried everything on their own they've tried fixing things on their own but at this point they have come to realize that they need something more. So it's at that point when the realization that their life has come to this crossroads, if you will. So that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is they've worked on things for a while. They've started to make some progress. They're finding ways that they can improve their lives. And yet they're having trouble each day. So what happens a lot of times is people take these kind of mini inventories. They ruminate on the crap that they've been living. And it's that rumination that will end up tripping them up. So in terms of psychological care, we call that rumination, ruminating thoughts. Those are the things that they dwell on. That's the list of the many things that they've done that are the bad things. And certainly we can get caught up in those bad things and we can ruminate on them. Interestingly, they have a difficult time focusing on those things that are the good things. So the ruminating on the bad things, okay, they can do that. They really have a struggle trying to get past the bad things. they lose sight of the good things so what i'm going to suggest is that the small things the small things that can make a difference i was kind to one person today i did something good for myself today i didn't get angry today i really didn't remember being short with anybody or thinking bad about myself i didn't i got through the day without focusing on that it used to be 200 years ago, as Adam Carolla would say, you know, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, people were out in the fields and they didn't have time to worry about depression or anxiety. They just had to get through the day. And certainly that was true when survival was the main thing in your life. But today we have a lot of extra time. Our society has gotten to the point where we can get through the day without really too much stress and you know, focusing on survival. So now we can focus on the way we feel. That can be problematic in some ways. In other ways, it can be a good thing. We can now become more aware of who and what we are. We have the luxury of doing that. Whereas 200 years ago, Only if you were exceedingly wealthy and you had no real sense of purpose of survival, your survival was just getting up that day and that was it. Those people could really kind of focus on their feelings perhaps and ruminating on things. And, you know, I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but today a lot of us can do that. And so we have survival is not necessarily the first thing on your mind. And when you're working on recovery, survival is not the first thing on your mind. When you've been working through your stuff, you've gotten through the survival part. Okay, now you're at the midpoint or the end point in your recovery. But trying to get out of the thoughts of depression and anxiety and being upset and angry and resentful and emptiness and loneliness it is the small things that will help get you out of that i believe and so thinking about those small things thinking about the things that that were the positives for the day um did you get through the day without you know Getting angry. Did you get through the day without being depressed? Without being anxious? And certainly lonely is another one. Did you get through the day with that? Okay, that's a good thing. That's one thing. That's a small thing. Maybe you offered help to someone. You offered a helping hand, a kind word to somebody that perhaps you noticed. Perhaps you were presented with the idea of emptiness. Not loneliness, but emptiness. Like I didn't have much that was there. So I filled it with something. I filled it with a good deed. I took a walk. I exercised. I meditated. I listened to a piece of music. I watched a TV show that I hadn't seen in a long time. I watched a good movie. I listened to a good podcast. I learned something today. Those are the small things. And I think when you add up those small things, they can become more than just one thing. It can be multiple things. I guess what I'm suggesting, and I'm not trying to be rambling or nonsensical with this, is that if you have the chance to take an inventory and your inventory is a negative inventory, the chances of you ruminating on that are far greater than if you take an inventory of positive things. And the positive things don't have to be huge. They don't have to be really big. I won the lottery. Somebody gave me a car as a gift or something. They don't have to be really large things. They don't have to be huge. They can be small. They can be a small thing that you can add to your list. So if you're going to make a list, and we're all list makers, especially those of us who have struggled with substance use, We're horrendous list makers of the worst kind. It's breaking through that and getting past the negative. Perhaps you were able to finally accomplish some small goal. You cleaned your garage. You threw out old clothes that you don't wear. It could be a very small thing. And when we're in recovery, everything that's tragic usually has gotten to the point where it's a huge thing, right? It's a very big, huge thing. But the small things, those things that we can add together to make bigger things. And that's what we tend to ruminate on when we are in our negative phase. The number one thing that causes problems with people's depression and anxiety is ruminating thought. And those ruminating thoughts take over our lives. So if you can find ways to free yourself from those negative ruminations, that's why when I'm suggesting people occupy their time with something where they can learn, because I talk about that all the time. It's about learning. Let's learn something. Read a book. Read a book. You don't have to read the whole book. You can read a little bit of the book, but read a book. Or if you're so inclined, you don't like reading, listen to a book. Learn something from that. And usually what you can do is when you when you're reading something about somebody else's life, for example. So you're reading a book about somebody else's life and how they struggled or how they overcame in their lives. You can learn something from it. And then typically what we do is we kind of think about it and we apply it to our own existence, our own life. And we think about how those things that were affecting those people could have affected us. I was watching a movie I'd seen years ago. It's called The World's Fastest Indian. And it's the story of Burt Monroe, who was a guy who was in his 60s. When he first got to the Bonneville Salt Flats. And he seemingly had gotten to the point where he wasn't going to fulfill a dream. And the movie... So it's a good movie. It's a little bit slow as you're watching it. It's the lead up to his life as he's trying to figure out how to... The dream that he had through his lifetime of taking his old 1920s Indian motorcycle to... Bonneville to try to break a land speed record with his motorcycle for his type of motorcycle. And so it follows his life. It starts with the point where he decides he's going to actually try this thing. And he's in his 60s when he tries it. And so he goes, he has no plan other than just to get there. He doesn't know that there are rules and there's regulations and there's safety checks and there's pre-registration requirements and all these things, all these things that he just is oblivious of. He just knows that they do this. And so he thought if he just showed up, he could just show up and get on his motorcycle and enter the race, the time trials. and when he gets there he he goes through all these trials and tribulations to get there um and he shows up and of course he can't he can't do it they're not going to allow him to do it because he hasn't done any of the pre-registration he hasn't done anything to meet the the building and safety requirements uh of his vehicle of his motorcycle and so they say no well So he's portrayed pretty much as he is in real life or as he was in the movie. His character, his always overcoming obstacles and just being positive. It really is really all that he was. That's all he had was positivity. And so he decides he's going to try to just overcome all that. And he just never really gives up. And they eventually let him run his motorcycle. The last 10 minutes of the movie is worth sitting through the other hour and a half to get to the last 10 minutes because the last 10 minutes are on the edge of your seat and you can't believe what you're seeing. But he was a wonderful example of somebody who never really focused anything on the negativity. He just would find some way to overcome it. um his thoughts his beliefs that he believed in himself and he believed in his capabilities and he just kept trying and trying and trying and he finally was able to do it and strangely enough the the land speed record that he had for his size motorcycle um stood for i don't know 20 30 years or more before it was broken again and he kept going back year after year after that because he just wanted to continue to participate in this thing. Then he had this love affair with going fast on a motorcycle. At an old age, he just wasn't able to do it before that. The idea that he just wasn't going to give up, I found it inspiring. I did not know his story. I never really knew anything about the man until I saw that movie. It's a very inspiring movie. He didn't have any addiction issues or anything, but he just, his ability to see simple things and to overcome is pretty amazing through his lifetime. And I think when we work on ourselves, the ability to get away from those things that are the negative things and ruminating on them. As I look around the world today, I see a lot of people who love to ruminate on things We like to pile on to negative things. popularity, notoriety, seemingly silly little talents that people have. They will try to exploit them in a great way. It's a lot of look at me kind of things that go on today. That's narcissism. But if you can ruminate on positive things, think about how much your life would be transformed rather than ruminating on the negative. The ability to forgive yourself, the ability to transcend or overcome those negative things that have happened to you have great value and they are lost many times when people get mired in the destructiveness of their own addiction and the things, the chaos that they bring to the world. There's chaos that you bring naturally when you are an addict and the ability to overcome those things is one that is rather difficult. because we will focus on those negative things, much to the elimination of the positive things, even when you're being positive. I had an opportunity to work with somebody recently, and they had a problem with they could do 25 good things, and it could go on for days, weeks, sometimes a month. And yet one thing would happen and they would have one little slip in the way that they behave towards their family or friends or maybe at work and all would be lost. That's what their mentality was. All is lost. I have lost everything that was good because everything that was bad is just like what I did in this one instance. So they did one thing bad. They did one thing wrong. They said the wrong thing. They said it the wrong way. They acted a way that was an old way that they'd been working to overcome. And all of the good was suddenly worthless. It's all or nothing thinking. And it's a concrete all or nothing thinking that many addicts get lost in. And so they would do one thing wrong and it would immediately eliminate everything that was good that they had done for weeks or days. And I'm not sure that that actually is what happens. We learn from our mistakes, perhaps. But in this instance, I don't think that they actually were learning from the mistake. They were just beating themselves up. It was an opportunity to attack. The mistake was the opportunity. And their definition of themselves was based on that negative experience. And so they were just It was almost like they were waiting for the next bad thing to occur. And that's how they were evaluating themselves. And it's unfortunate because they were making such amazingly good progress in their recovery. But every time something would happen that was negative, they would say something the wrong way. It's not the drugs or the alcohol. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about their behavior. The substance use was gone. at that point now it's just we're working on self and so every time the person would have anything that would go wrong they would go right back to where they were when they were using as far as their mentality their thinking and that's the unfortunate part because the thinking wasn't the problem it was the feeling and they couldn't get out of that negative cycle of feeling The rumination on the negative. They were stuck in that. And that was the problem because they actually were doing very well. None of this was causing them to relapse or reuse or even have thoughts of reusing, ironically. It was just they were beating on themselves. They could not understand how to forgive themselves. And so they couldn't get the positive results. thing in their life so you know my response to that was if you have a good thing that you do each day and you thought about it and you had feelings focused on that one good thing per day imagine what it would be like if you made one good action one good word one good thing that made that part of your life and the next day you added to it with another so now you had two and they were small like you said hello pleasantly to somebody or you help somebody in need like you had to help them pick something up or something like that just think if that were the case and you had one good thing and then you built on that the next day and you did two small small things imagine what your life would be like after months of that and If you thought about something that was bad and you were focused on that and you decided to answer it, you responded to that critical voice. You responded in a way that was positive. What your life would be like if you were able to do that. If you were able to figure out a way to be able to quiet that negative voice. Now, I know there are psychological, theoretical, or orientation toward that dialectic behavioral therapy cognitive behavioral therapy and perhaps that's there's some usefulness in employing those techniques but overall it's just a matter of can you focus on something that's positive and then start like remembering it through the day ruminating on the positive I'm actually a good person I actually do good things I'm actually capable of doing good things and And it's not a negative. Imagine how your life would be transformed if you were able to do that. So that's my message for today is let's figure out a way to make that a reality for you. Your life would be changed. Well, I hope that you got something from this. I was perhaps feeling like I was rambling a little bit, but hopefully not. So that's this episode of Doc Shock, Your Addiction Lifeguard. And listen, if you need help, go out there and get it. Check into a rehab. Go see a counselor. Go to a psychiatrist. Go to your emergency room. But listen, don't try to save your addiction by ending your life. That's just idiotic. So go out there and do something to help yourself. And if you need help from me, you can always reach out to me. I'll help you. You can reach me through my website, wellspringmindbody.com or psychologytoday, I'm listed there. And if you would like to talk, I will talk to you. So until the next episode of Doc Shock, Your Addiction Lifeguard, this is Doc Shock saying see ya.