Daily Mindfulness Lab

If you could have a conversation with yourself back when you started your career in healthcare, what would you say? What does that person need to know in order to sustain their mental health over the arch of their career? Would you talk to them about naivete? Or how to approach one's naivete as it comes up in their career? Consider where you're at today in your career. Would you be willing to talk to yourself about owning your naivete?

After 12 years of working in a large hospital setting, in outpatient mental health and substance use disorders clinics, I can admit that I naively behaved and spoke as though I was exempt from the stressors of life, and the stressors on the job. I was naïve to how things would eventually start to breakdown in my personal life. Which they eventually did. Some of the breakdowns were preventable, but my naivete interfered with seeing clearly.

I reference the following paper during the podcast:

Self-awareness Questions for Effective Psychotherapists: Helping Good Psychotherapists Become Even Better” by Samuel Knapp, Michael Gottlieb and Mitchell Handelsman.

The questions they encourage providers to consider to assist in becoming more self-aware:

1. Do I recognize my immediate emotional reactions?
2. Do I judge my competencies accurately?
3. Do I recognize that I might harbor implicit prejudices?
4. Am I aware that I might succumb to cognitive biases or unhelpful heuristics?
5. Am I fully aware of my values?

Connect with me:

www.dailymindfulnessjournal.com

www.mentalevents.com

 

What happens to the healthcare industry as providers go home feeling like they could have done more to care for their patients? While at the same time struggle to care about things in their personal life that used to be important?

My name is Todd Brossart, and over the past 15 years of my career as a clinical social worker, I’ve struggled with highs and lows, ups and downs, with compassion fatigue, moral injury, and a near-fatal injury while on the job that could have been prevented. Join me each week as I share the little details of how I’ve learned to survive the healthcare industry.

If you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, you’ll know that I hold a belief that there’s still someone out there who I haven’t met yet, that will change my life in profound ways. This episode is an attempt to honor someone who left a lasting impact on my life. In April 2019 during my lengthy stay in the hospital, I was privileged to have a very special person care for me. Her name was Rachel Petersen. Rachel was a nurse at the Anschutz Medical Center, in Aurora, Colorado. Sadly, Rachel passed away recently. The news was devastating to read about, and my wife and I are still trying to process her sudden loss. To learn more about Rachel, and the first annual 5K Scrub Run honoring her visit, https://5kscrubrun.org/. 

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Looking to further your mindfulness practice? Check out the Mental Events mindfulness journal. It’s dedicated to examining the workability of the mind’s proposed solutions to problems, and offers an opportunity to step back from giving over your life to negative thoughts. . Wanting to integrate mindfulness into your life? Sign up to receive my free Mindfulness Framework video. .

Watch this video to learn more about Mental Events Therapy.

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Watch this video to learn more about the benefits of online therapy with Mental Events.

. As always, we’d like to hear from you. Send your questions via email - [email protected].

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Connect with Mental Events on social media:

Instagram @mentalevents

Facebook @mentaleventstherapy.

We all have to do things. Some things we are excited about. Other things, not as much. Rarely do we consider what we get to do in our lives, taking it for granted. In this episode I offer a quick mindfulness reframe to help you shift your perspective to living with more presence and gratitude. Because when we get to do something versus have to do something, we show up more completely and openly.

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Looking to further your mindfulness practice? Check out the Mental Events mindfulness journal. It’s dedicated to examining the workability of the mind’s proposed solutions to problems, and offers an opportunity to step back from giving over your life to negative thoughts. . Wanting to integrate mindfulness into your life? Sign up to receive my free Mindfulness Framework video. .

Watch this video to learn more about Mental Events Therapy.

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Watch this video to learn more about the benefits of online therapy with Mental Events.

. As always, we’d like to hear from you. Send your questions via email - [email protected].

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Connect with Mental Events on social media:

Instagram @mentalevents

Facebook @mentaleventstherapy.

Should self-care always mean you get to feel calm? Should self-care be limited to feeling good? Let’s reimagine self-care for a moment. Instead of adding things to your life in the name of self-care, consider what you could subtract in order to practice better self-care. Continually adding activities of self-care could become exhausting, and may make you feel worse. What could you let go of today to make room for your health and well-being?

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Looking to further your mindfulness practice? Check out the Mental Events mindfulness journal. It’s dedicated to examining the workability of the mind’s proposed solutions to problems, and offers an opportunity to step back from giving over your life to negative thoughts. . Wanting to integrate mindfulness into your life? Sign up to receive my free Mindfulness Framework video. .

Watch this video to learn more about Mental Events Therapy.

 .

Watch this video to learn more about the benefits of online therapy with Mental Events.

. As always, we’d like to hear from you. Send your questions via email - [email protected].

.

Connect with Mental Events on social media:

Instagram @mentalevents

Facebook @mentaleventstherapy.

What doesn't kill us, can make us stronger! On the two-year anniversary of a near death experience, I invite a friend of the podcast, John Evans to sit down for an extended conversation about post-traumatic growth. Post-traumatic growth refers to the positive psychological changes that a person can experience as a result of adversity. John and I cover a lot of ground in this episode, referencing Stephen Joseph's book, What Doesn't Kill Us, Judith Herman's book, Trauma and Recovery, and Stephen Pressfield's book, The War of Art.

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If you're wondering how to move through feeling stuck, and hitting plateau's in day-to-day life, John gives some helpful insights from his 13 year recovery. We also talk about the importance of finding a survivor mission, and transforming the meaning of personal tragedy by making it the basis for social action.

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Looking to further your mindfulness practice? Check out the Mental Events mindfulness journal. It’s dedicated to examining the workability of the mind’s proposed solutions to problems, and offers an opportunity to step back from giving over your life to negative thoughts. . Wanting to integrate mindfulness into your life? Sign up to receive my free Mindfulness Framework video. .

Watch this video to learn more about Mental Events Therapy.

 .

Watch this video to learn more about the benefits of online therapy with Mental Events.

. As always, we’d like to hear from you. Send your questions via email - [email protected].

.

Connect with Mental Events on social media:

Instagram @mentalevents

Facebook @mentaleventstherapy.

So often we feel hopeless and powerless after tragedy and trauma. I know I've felt that way recently with the tragedies in Atlanta and Boulder. Both events serve as reminders of how violence can devastate community, trust, and desecrate the ideals, values, and freedoms we hold as sacred. In this week's episode, I discuss what moral injurious events are, and offer a mindful approach to touch feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness.

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Looking to further your mindfulness practice? Check out the Mental Events mindfulness journal. It’s dedicated to examining the workability of the mind’s proposed solutions to problems, and offers an opportunity to step back from giving over your life to negative thoughts. . Wanting to integrate mindfulness into your life? Sign up to receive my free Mindfulness Framework video. .

Watch this video to learn more about Mental Events Therapy.

 .

Watch this video to learn more about the benefits of online therapy with Mental Events.

. As always, we’d like to hear from you. Send your questions via email - [email protected].

.

Connect with Mental Events on social media:

Instagram @mentalevents

Facebook @mentaleventstherapy.

Life serves up discomfort to us in many ways. At times we've all avoided challenges in order to escape the stress that goes with feeling uncomfortable. This week's episode examines how our struggle against discomfort can cause additional suffering in our lives. 

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Think of unhealthy discomfort as something you do to avoid coming into contact with what doesn't feel good. Healthy discomfort on the other hand tends to be a more open, willing, and engaging way of managing what is already present.

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Looking to further your mindfulness practice? Check out the Mental Events mindfulness journal. It’s dedicated to examining the workability of the mind’s proposed solutions to problems, and offers an opportunity to step back from giving over your life to negative thoughts. . Wanting to integrate mindfulness into your life? Sign up to receive my free Mindfulness Framework video. .

Watch this video to learn more about Mental Events Therapy.

 .

Watch this video to learn more about the benefits of online therapy with Mental Events.

. As always, we’d like to hear from you. Send your questions via email - [email protected].

.

Connect with Mental Events on social media:

Instagram @mentalevents

Facebook @mentaleventstherapy.

“Just breathe.” Depending on how stressed you might be, hearing those words may not be well received. Enter box breathing! It's a proactive breathing exercise aimed to help you regulate your nervous system.

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Box breathing is a common breathing technique used by Navy Seals, mindfulness practitioners, and recovery programs. During my time as the lead facilitator of the mindfulness group at the Veterans Administration, I would lead the group through box breathing. 

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If you can envision drawing a box in your mind, and follow your breath to the count of four, then you can do box breathing.

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This week's podcast episode outlines what box breathing is, and I'll walk you through a brief box breathing exercise toward the end of the episode.

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Looking to further your mindfulness practice? Check out the Mental Events mindfulness journal. It’s dedicated to examining the workability of the mind’s proposed solutions to problems, and offers an opportunity to step back from giving over your life to negative thoughts. . Wanting to integrate mindfulness into your life? Sign up to receive my free Mindfulness Framework video. .

Watch this video to learn more about Mental Events Therapy.

 .

Watch this video to learn more about the benefits of online therapy with Mental Events.

. As always, we’d like to hear from you. Send your questions via email - [email protected].

.

Connect with Mental Events on social media:

Instagram @mentalevents

Facebook @mentaleventstherapy.

Do good things only happen to good people? Do bad things only happen to bad people? And are all honorable actions eventually rewarded? The Just World Belief states that your actions are inclined to bring morally fair and just consequences to you, or others. But what happens when something unexpected and traumatic happens to you?

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To be honest, I'm not so sure where I fall with this belief/hypothesis? Nonetheless, in this episode I try and make sense of the Just World hypothesis, while leaving you with a few thoughts to ponder.

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Looking to further your mindfulness practice? Check out the Mental Events mindfulness journal. It’s dedicated to examining the workability of the mind’s proposed solutions to problems, and offers an opportunity to step back from giving over your life to negative thoughts. . Wanting to integrate mindfulness into your life? Sign up to receive my free Mindfulness Framework video. .

Watch this video to learn more about Mental Events Therapy.

 .

Watch this video to learn more about the benefits of online therapy with Mental Events.

. As always, we’d like to hear from you. Send your questions via email - [email protected].

.

Connect with Mental Events on social media:

Instagram @mentalevents

Facebook @mentaleventstherapy.