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Teen Anger Workbook – Book Release

Book Release

Whole Person Associates
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CONTACT: Carlene Sippola

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Teen Anger Workbook

Facilitator Reproducible Self-Assessments, Exercises & Educational Handouts

By John J Liptak, EdD and Ester Leutenberg

Whole Person Associates announces publication of The Teen Anger Workbook: Facilitator Reproducible Self-Assessments, Exercises & Educational Handouts by John J Liptak, EdD, and Ester Leutenberg. Teaching teens to handle their anger is one of the most challenging tasks of counselors, therapists, teachers, and parents. The Teen Anger Workbook provides tools to help young people engage in self-reflection, examine their thoughts and feelings that lead to anger, and learn effective tools and techniques to effectively manage the inevitable feelings of anger they will experience throughout their lives.

Divided into five separate sections, The Teen Anger Workbook provides a myriad of tools to guide teens through the exploration of a difficult topic and to learn more about themselves and now anger impacts their lives.

Teen Anger Triggers Scale helps individuals explore what triggers feelings of anger within them.
Teen Anger Intensity Scale helps individuals identify how prone they are to anger and how strong their feelings are of anger.
Teen Anger Expression Scale helps individuals identify their particular ways of expressing their anger to other people.
Teen Anger Consequences Scale helps individuals explore the adverse effects of uncontrolled anger on their relationships and life.
Teen Anger Management Scale helps individuals better understand their skills in managing the anger in their life.

The Teen Anger Workbook: Facilitator Reproducible Self-Assessments, Exercises & Educational Handouts is one of a series of 12 books covering mental health and lifestyle issues familiar to all professionals working with teens. Being released concurrently are: The Teen Friendship Workbook and The Teen Aggression and Bullying Workbook.

The Teen Anger Workbook

Facilitator Reproducible Self-Assessments, Exercises & Educational Handouts
Written by: John J Liptak, EdD and Ester Leutenberg
No. of pages: 122
Softcover: Price $49.95
ISBN: 978-1-57025-250-1
Publication date: 2011

About the Authors

John J. Liptak, EdD, frequently conducts workshops on assessment-related topics. He has written three books on career-related topics which have been featured in numerous newspapers including The Washington Post, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Associated Press. His work has also been featured on MSNBC, CNN Radio, and on the PAX / ION television series, “Success without a College Degree.” John has many years of experience in providing counseling services to individuals and groups in a variety of settings including job training programs, correctional institutions, and colleges and universities. In addition, John has ten years of teaching experience as

an assistant professor. With Kathy Khalsa and Ester Leutenberg, he has written three other comprehensive books for teachers and counselors to use with their students and clients: The Self-Esteem Program, The Social Skills Program, and The Stress Management Program: Inventories, Activities & Educational Handouts. John and Ester Leutenberg continue to co-write books to add to their Mental Health & Life Skills Workbook series, published by Whole Person Associates.

Ester A. Leutenberg has worked in the mental health field for many years as a publisher, author, and advocate for those suffering from loss. She personally experienced a devastating loss when her son Mitchell, after struggling with a mental illness for eight years, died by suicide in 1986. Soon after, as a way of both healing and helping others, Ester co-founded Wellness Reproductions & Publishing with her daughter Kathy Khalsa and began developing therapeutic products that help facilitators help their clients. Ester is the co-author of the SEALS series for teen-agers, Life Management Skills series for adults and Meaningful Life Skills for older adults, as well as a variety of therapeutic card games, board games, and posters. Ester has co-written GriefWork —Healing from Loss, The GriefWork Companion, and Creating a Healthy Balanced Life.

Ester and John have co-written the Mental Health & Life Skills Workbook Series, the Teen Mental Health & Life Skills Workbook Series and are currently working on a Coping Workbook Series, all published by Whole Person Associates.

About the Illustrator

Amy L. Brodsky, LISW-S, has worked assisting children and adults in psychiatric crisis. She is well known for her creative illustrations of the Emotions product line, over 35 therapeutic books, including the Life Management Skills and SEALS series, the Teen Relationship Workbook, Crossing the Bridge, GriefWork—Healing from Loss, The GriefWork Companion, Creating a Healthy Balanced Life, and the Liptak/Leutenberg Workbook series.

Grief: A Natural Stress

The greatest distress most of us ever have to survive is the death of a loved one. Grief is the process we go through when we are recovering from a loss. It can be a major or minor, and the amount of grief experienced by each person will vary. Some losses are simply more painful than others.

If you are going through the grieving process, allow it to happen. You need time to recover from the injury. If you were suffering from an illness, you would give yourself some time off. Death isn’t any different. Take your time; find other things in life to focus on, to spend your love and energy on. This is not to say you will ever, ever replace the person you lost. You will learn to accept your new normal. There is no replacing a loved one — people aren’t things. You need an outlet for your stress energy. Let yourself lean on friends and family; join a support group if you need to. Don’t be afraid to reach out during this difficult time.

You will never get over your loss. You will always love and miss the person who is gone, but you can and must accept their passing and move on. You are forever changed, but you continue on with a new strength and purpose, becoming a stronger person who experiences life on a deeper level.

*Click here for Grief Resources from Whole Person.

One Stage at a Time

There are many ways to handle the stresses caused by life stages. An important one is not to take yourself too seriously. Laugh at the little things in life, and remember that all stages in life – the terror of being out on your own for the first time in your twenties, the confusion of processing death at 70 – will pass with time. Be patient; it’s all just a stage! Keep in mind as you age that coping skills won’t always work the same way.

Aging helps you develop a fuller, deeper perception if you let it. Keep in touch with friends both older and younger than you. It’s amazing to see someone go through the same stages you did, and it’s helpful to see someone go through those that are approaching. Watching others helps you see first hand the benefits of accepting aging as a part of life. Continue forward instead of looking back. Some people live in the past and others can’t seem to stop worrying about the future. What we should all try to do is cultivate today’s joys, because they become the future. Today’s joys also become tomorrow’s cherished memories. Be patient, have a sense of humor, and accept life in all of its stages. Things will be a lot less stressful.

Stages of Life and Stress

Here are some of the stresses and joys of each life stage.

Breaking Loose	Leaving home, focusing on/conforming to peers, testing our wings, loneliness, attachment to causes, changing lifestyle, throwing out family morals.
Building the nest	Searching for identity, intimate friendships, marriage, intoxication with ones own power, great dreams, making commitments, taking on responsibilities, launching a career, working towards goals, doing shoulds, finding a mentor, thinking about having children.
Looking around	Raising questions, recognizing painful limitations, gathering possessions, moving up a career ladder, questioning marriage, settling down, having children, desiring freedom, what do I want to do with my life?
Mid-Life rebirth	Awareness of mortality, diminishing physical energy, emotional turmoil, parenting teenagers, finding new friends and developing deeper relationships with current ones, asking deep questions, changing careers, second adolescence, divorce, remarriage, conflicting pressures, learning to play again.
Investing in life	Life reordered, settling down again, embracing new values, focusing on relationships rather than on possessions or power, nurturing a few good friendships, grandparenting, having more freedom, enjoying life, adjusting to an empty nest, facing lost dreams.
Deepening wisdom	Softening and mellowing, steady commitments, deepening richness, simplifying life, adjusting to limitations, loss of energy, retirement, quiet joys, self-knowledge, and facing death.
Twilight years	Loneliness, freedom from shoulds, dependence, mind sharp/body failing and/or body fine/mind failing, death of mate and friends, preparing for death, achieving a sense of peace and perspective.

Where are you now?
How are you experiencing changes physically?
Are you holding on to some things that may be best left behind?
Are you stretching yourself too far forward?

*Find out more about our Stress Management and Wellness Promotion Resources and Self-Care Products.

Growing Older is Stressful!

How many times have you heard a child say they can’t wait to grow up? Did you chuckle to yourself? Why is it that as a kid, you want to grow up and as an adult, you want to go back? It is because growing older can be stressful. The stresses of going through the aging process are numerous. Some people turn a blind eye to getting older, but they’re only fooling themselves. Aging happens whether you’re paying attention to it or not. However, if you are aware of the ways that you’re aging, you can prevent a lot of distress. If you accept that the years are passing, you can view that first grey hair with a laugh, and think of it as a physical sign of your growing wisdom. If you don’t accept that you’re aging, you’ll probably panic and just pull it out. (Be warned, however, that it’ll just grow back!)

Do you feel as though you’ve acknowledged that you will age?
Are you putting off coming to grips with reality, or are you accepting the passing years gracefully?

Life Changes and Stress

Internal or external change is unavoidable. If too much happens too fast, you’ll end up feeling stressed. If things change too slowly, you’re bored. Both positive and negative changes are stressful and your mind and body need time to recover. Increased stress is medically linked to illness, so take it easy. It’s no simple task to do so, since life changes come in clusters. Think about it. When you’re moving, you’re not just changing your house; you’re changing your physical climate, job, friends, church, schools, grocery store, and social activities. Some changes are easier to handle than others, but trying to prevent change altogether is asking for trouble. We all need change in our lives.

If things are too static, try saying yes to something you haven’t done before. If things are changing too fast, say no, and don’t let yourself feel guilty! We all need time off, and you can’t please everyone.

Sometimes, life will spin out of control. At crisis moments, you need a survival plan. Remember coping skills that have worked in the past, and apply them to your current disaster. Hold on to what works. Let go of what doesn’t.

Life Changes Checklist

Mark all of the life changes that you have experienced over the past year.

PERSONAL CHANGES

Personal injury, illness or handicap
Pregnancy (yours or a partners’)
Change in religious views or beliefs
Change in financial status
Change in self-concept
Ending a relationship
Change in emotional outlook
Change in roles
Buying or selling a car
Aging
Change in habits

-Alcohol

– Drugs

– Tobacco

– Exercise

– Nutrition

FAMILY CHANGES

Marriage
Family members leaving home
New family member(s)
Separation/divorce
Trouble with in-laws
Partner stopping/ starting a job
Illness/healing of a family member
Death of a close friend or family member
Parent/child tensions
Change in recreational patterns

WORK CHANGES

Changes work load
Change in play
Starting a new job
Promotion/ demotion
Retirement
Change in hours
Change in relationships at work
Change in job security
Strike
Change in financial status

ENVIRONMENT CHANGES

Natural disaster
Holidays
Vacation
Remodeling
War
Major house cleaning
Crime against property
Moving to a new
House or Apartment
Neighborhood
Climate
Culture
City
State
Country

How did these changes affect you?
What was one change that had a surprising effect on you?

· What was one change that had a surprising effect on you?

Commitment versus Surrender

Commitment is your belief system in action. It is the decision to invest in particular goals, values, beliefs, and concepts. It seems as though there are a million things you want to do with your life, and even more you have to do. These want-to’s and have-to’s in life create stress if you don’t make good decisions about which is which. You’ll feel stressed if you only pay attention to either one. Maybe you try too hard to do it all. If you find yourself saying there isn’t enough time, then you’ve got too much on your plate. It can make you feel panicked, rushed, and overwhelmed. On the other hand, having too little on your plate leaves you feeling unchallenged, bored, and depressed.

If you’ve taken on too much, you need to surrender something. We don’t like to surrender. We hate feeling we had to give in or that we lost, but surrendering isn’t failing or losing. It’s the flip side of commitment, not the opposite of winning. It’s adjusting, and it can be as simple as changing your pace or realizing when a commitment is unrealistic.

Are you trying too hard to include all the want-to’s and have-to’s in your limited time?
Is there anything you want to surrender? Need to surrender?

Understanding Self-Concept

Another part of your belief system is your self-concept. These are subjective ideas that are stuck in your head about yourself. Self-concept includes ideas about your limitations, abilities, appearance, emotional resources, your place in the world, potential, and even your worthiness. These alter your everyday choices and model the way you think. As an example, you may think you’re a lousy public speaker, but it turns out you’re really great. You, however, believe you’re no good at addressing a group, so you turn down an opportunity to speak at a conference even though it could do wonders for your career. You doubt your own ability so you opt out, and limit your potential.

Self-concept begins in childhood and is reinforced throughout your life based on your experiences. Perceptions about your own worth are very slow to change, even with a lot of positive reinforcement. When your self-concept isn’t in sync with reality you will feel distress. Others will have expectations and beliefs about you with which you are uncomfortable. You will constantly feel as though you’re not prepared for situations like the conference. How stressed would you be if you had to give a speech anyway and you had no trust in your abilities?

Do you often feel as though you’re out of place?
Have you begun to realize some of your perceptions don’t match reality?

Faith, Stress, and You

Faith isn’t necessarily religious. Many people have faith in God, but people also have faith in the Golden Rule, in Karma, in our spouses, in our grandma’s favorite phrase, or in the idea that family comes first. All of these are examples of faith and beliefs. These directly influence how you act. For example, If you genuinely believe that all are forgiven, you will forgive people more easily and sincerely.

Faith can be a great cause of distress for many people, especially when people have outdated or irrational beliefs. An outdated belief might be something such as continuing to believe you must not talk to strangers because you were taught not to do so as a child. An irrational belief is something such as “If everyone tries hard, they can do everything perfectly”. That kind of faith in people creates a lot of distress when someone somewhere messes up. Faith takes many forms, and while it can be a great comfort and a huge factor in our lives, it can also cause extra distress.

What do you have faith in?
What kind of beliefs do you hold close?
Does your faith ever cause problems for you in your everyday life?

DECEMBER Monthly Special

Dear Friends:

As a thank you to our loyal customers, our special this month is 25% discount on all our products*. Year-end is a great time to take stock of the materials you have and order new ones. Simply enter DECEMBER (expires 12/2010) in the coupon code as you check out, and the discount will automatically be applied.

The Ready-to-Run Workshops are now available in two formats: Print version and as an E-book. We’ll be expanding E-book offerings over the next year. Stay tuned!

Don’t forget to check out the website. Navigation buttons have been moved to the right of the home page for easier access. Many products now allow you a look inside the cover. New articles are posted to the blog regularly, special deals are in the clearance room, and, of course, you can order our monthly specials with a couple of quick clicks.

We at Whole Person Associates wish you and yours a joy-filled holiday season!

Carlene Sippola

Publisher

*Excluding Kicking Your Holiday Stress Habits and The Mental Health & Life Skills Collection.

Offer not valid with any other offer.

Bonus Special!

50% discount.

Check our website for details.

Visit our website for over 200 training, self-help, therapeutic and workshop development resources. Click here.

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December Special!

25% discount on all Whole Person Products.

Start out the new year with exciting new tools. Stock up now on professional resources in stress management, wellness promotion, relaxation, self-help, mental health activity books, coaching, and much more.

Offer excludes Kicking Your Holiday Stress Habits and the Mental Health & Life Skills Collection.

Dear Friends:

As a thank you to our loyal customers, our special this month is 25% discount on all our products*. Year-end is a great time to take stock of the materials you have and order new ones. Simply enter DECEMBER in the coupon code as you check out, and the discount will automatically be applied.

The Ready-to-Run Workshops are now available in two formats: Print version and as an E-book. We’ll be expanding E-book offerings over the next year. Stay tuned!

We at Whole Person Associates wish you and yours a joy-filled holiday season!

Carlene Sippola

Publisher

*Excluding Kicking Your Holiday Stress Habits and The Mental Health & Life Skills Collection.

Offer not valid with any other offer.

The Values in Your Life

Have you ever been in an argument where you found yourself fighting against something, but you’re not sure why? You can only explain that it’s what’s right. This is an example of a value coming to the surface. Values are what help you define the things you find important in your life. Understanding your goals, faith, and self-concept are more straightforward. Your goals are a conscious decision; values are a model of thought and behavior. Values are right under the surface, where they affect your actions but you aren’t consciously aware of them. You probably won’t notice values until they’ve been challenged.

Values cause distress when they clash with other values – sometimes those of others around you and sometimes against your own. Perhaps you value friendship, and you also value having down time. So, if you get a call from a friend who wants to go out while you’re relaxing, you will want to do both, and end up feeling bad if you stay home, but ruffled if you go out. Examine your actions and reactions to find out your values.

What sort of things get your attention?
What kinds of things irk you?
What makes you upset, or tired, or excited?

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Your Goals and Your Stress

Goals help you decide how to use your time and energy. They are motivators for long or short term plans. Some goals are concrete; get a degree, clean the refrigerator, get an oil change. Others aren’t as clear cut; be a good friend, increase self-esteem, be happy. You may feel distress if you don’t spend time on the goals that matter to you. Maybe you want to get a degree, but you feel trapped by your full time job. Your goal of getting your degree is making you feel pinched at work and panicked that you’ll never have time.

Having conflicting goals, or too many a once can also cause distress. If you are unsure of what your goals are, you will drift from one meaningless task to the next. A vague uneasiness is associated with a lack of goals, rather like that nagging feel when you think you’ve forgotten something.

Do you have too many goals? Too few? You may be comfortable with one goal to work consistently on, or you may prefer to have as many goals as hours in a day. We all have to figure out exactly what number of goals we each individually feel good about committing to; everyone is different.

What kind of goals do you have?
What kind of goals would you like to have?
Is this a good amount for you?

Activity Scrapbook

Find more wonderful activities for children and families in Children & Stress.

Stuffing yourself on Thanksgiving can add pounds

I asked my husband what I should write about for Thanksgiving week and his immediate response was, “the turkeys in our lives.” After I stopped laughing I decided to focus on the real Thanksgiving turkey.

To stuff yourself or not to stuff yourself on Thanksgiving, that is the question.

There’s a part of me that says, “Oh what the heck, it’s only once a year.” Then the responsible-me remembers how miserable I feel when I overeat. Plus, my husband and I have Thanksgiving, Christmas, both of our birthdays and our anniversary from mid November to New Year’s Eve. So we can careen from one reason to overdo it to another and find ourselves on January 1 feeling like stuffed turkeys.

To counter this, in early January every year for two days, we eat nothing but apples. We purge ourselves of all of the stuff we’ve eaten since my husband’s birthday. It feels good. I’ve been doing it since the late 1960s.

But I also consciously remind myself throughout the holiday season how uncomfortable it feels to overindulge. Plus I don’t want the added weight to add up over the years, which would require that I shop for new clothes, something I hate to do.

Remembering Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean phrase, “Moderation in all things,” can help, too.

Think of this immoderate estimate of how many calories the average American eats on Thanksgiving Day:
* More than 4,500 calories and 229 grams of fat! (Source: Caloric Control Council)
* The Council finds that most of these calories come from all-day snacking in front of the TV watching parades and football games.
* FYI: one pound equals about 3,500 calories.

The National Institutes of Health and the Medical University of South Carolina found that the average person’s weight gain over the holidays is just over one pound. So, it’s OK to eat anything and everything you want since one pound is not much, right?

But the researchers also found that 85% of study participants still carried that extra pound one year later. If you gain and retain an extra pound each year they’ll add up. Duh!

Striving for balance and moderation is usually good advice no matter the concern. So if you eat too much lefse (the Norwegian delicacy I make for my family) over the holidays try making it last longer than just for the holidays. If you drink too much alcohol maybe you should consider setting a limit on how much you allow yourself. If you feel uncomfortable when you overeat why not use a small dinner plate and fill it only once?

So, what, if anything, will you do to avoid overindulging on Thanksgiving? Whichever choices you make, make them conscious ones. Identify what would define moderation for you. Then over the holiday weekend and for the next month keep an eye on yourself (without obsessing) and set appropriate limitation on your excesses.

Above all, enjoy Thanksgiving and all that it represents.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple.

Stress Energy Economics

You are one person and you are subject to limited energy. Many of us use too much of our valuable energy when we don’t want or mean to. Overspending your energy is an unhealthy habit shared by a lot of us. If you panic when you can’t find your keys, or get angry when someone cuts in line, or you keep fighting a lost battle, you are overspending your limited energy. You can underspend your energy too. This would be something like if you were to allow a relationship to disintegrate, if you were turning a blind eye to something you could fix. Underspending and overspending are both problems.

You can see if you are wasting your stress energy, or not using enough of it by asking yourself three questions. First, does a threat really exist? Second, is the issue important? Third, can I make a difference?

If you answer no to any of these, it isn’t worth getting stressed over. If you answer yes to all of these, then it’s a good reason to use your energy.

What sort of things are worth using your stress energy?
What kind of things aren’t?
How often do you waste stress energy?

Stress: A Matter of Perception

Stress can be caused by events, which will produce different reactions in each of us. Events are not good or bad within themselves, but our needs and experiences add context to them. The personal lens that we see events through can make them stressful.

Every day you face events that you either see as threatening or non-threatening. Which one it is depends on the perception habits you’ve learned. These are learned from a young age; you absorb them from people around you. If your parents fought about money, you’re likely to feel finances are stressful. There are many factors that change your perceptions growing up, like your peers, your geographic location, economic status, etc. If you judge an event as threatening, you’ll feel distress. Your unique perceptions change the amount of threat from an event; seeing a large dog may not threaten you at all, but may cause distress for your friend who was bitten by a dog. The amount of distress from an event will change, depending on the level of value you place on what’s being threatened. Maybe you don’t feel threatened by having to miss going out with friends for a work function. But if it were your best friend’s birthday you were missing for work, you would probably feel bad. Perception habits are hard to change, but being aware of them can help you reduce your distress.

What kind of perception habits do you have?

Assess your emotions before a confrontation

You swear you’re prepared to speak calmly and professionally to a coworker you believe is intentionally sabotaging you. But the second you open your mouth to say something, BAM! you’re practically yelling at him! The first moments of an encounter set the stage for the entire conversation and you know you’ve blown it. But how can you control your aggression?

Use advice from the great book, “Crucial Conversations” by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler (McGraw-Hill, 2002.)

Defensive emotions once engaged are difficult to turn off. And the more defensive you are the more convinced you are that you’re right, giving more fuel to your emotions. If you’ve blown it you may want to apologize and arrange to talk later after you privately take responsibility for your emotions. Here’s how.

Last week I wrote about the book’s advice to identify the other person’s behavior and ask yourself why s/he is behaving that way. Your answer is what actually causes your emotions, not the other person’s behavior. It’s vital to understand this so you can move beyond your defensiveness.

For example, you and I are working on a project together. I discover that you’ve met privately with our boss. Plus, when we both attend meetings you “hog” the time, making it seem like you’re in charge of the project, which you’re not.

“Why” do I think you’re hogging the limelight and excluding me from meetings? My answer: “Because you want all of the credit.” Doesn’t this assumption fuel my anger and resentment?

But just because I believe this doesn’t make it true. If my “why” answer is defensive and judgmental, which it is, I need to identify your behaviors and the facts of the situation before speaking to you.
* Fact/behavior: you had two meetings with the boss that I wasn’t notified of so couldn’t attend. You didn’t inform me later either.
* Fact/behavior: when we presented our idea together you spoke for several minutes while I spoke far less.

Separating the facts and your behaviors from my assumption that you want all of the credit balances me emotionally. I feel more in the driver’s seat of my own life, which decreases my stress therefore my defensiveness. I can assertively speak to you by using this formula:
1. State the facts from my point of view;
2. My interpretation of their meaning;
3. How I feel about it;
4. Ask if I understand correctly.

E.g., “Tom, you didn’t inform me of the meetings you had privately with the boss. This makes me think excluding me was intentional. I felt resentment and was hurt by this. Was I purposefully excluded and if so, why?”

Substituting my assumptions (“hogging” and “wanting all the credit”) with the facts of the situation including your behavior plus using this formula to address my concerns can help balance me so I’m less likely to become instantly defensive.

Next week we’ll look at additional ideas to improve your ability to handle your “crucial conversations.”

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple.

Anger may be an emotional castle built on sand

The Importance of Crucial Conversations
Jacquelyn Ferguson, MS

Do you avoid difficult workplace (or personal) conversations where you fear the outcome will be uncomfortable? If so, read “Crucial Conversations” by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler (McGraw-Hill, 2002.)

According to these authors an organization’s effectiveness is strongly determined by its employees’ willingness to have crucial conversations. They found in the worst organizations poor performers are ignored then transferred. In good organizations supervisors eventually handle problem situations. In high performing organizations’ employees willingly and effectively speak to someone who fails to deliver on promises. Everyone is held accountable regardless of their level.

Difficult conversations usually trigger your stress cycle; therefore defensive behavior (my words not theirs,) bring out your worst behavior (their words). What’s your worst behavior? It’s not pretty, is it? You’d probably be as embarrassed as I to have people you respect see you behave that way.

To move beyond your automatic, defensive reactions and your worst behavior determine what – or whom – is actually causing your problem. Is it really that co-worker who aggravates you so, or might it your own interpretation of that person?

I’ve frequently written about how negative judgments of others trigger your worst behavior. These authors approach this formula differently, which may help you see that your own interpretations determine your emotional reactions and behavior.

Their advice is to ask yourself why the other person is behaving as he is. A simple example from a program I recently presented, “Collaborative Communication.” During our lunch break an attendee had to wait a long time at a Subway shop where there was only one employee working. He was doing his best and actually, according to my attendee, was doing quite well. He waited on four people at a time, taking each sandwich through the same steps together. All four customers had to wait for all four sandwiches to be made together.

Upon his return to our classroom, my attendee explained his own impatience was because the employee was disorganized (negative judgment). In my attendee’s mind, it was the employee’s disorganization that made the attendee impatient. Another attendee offered a different perspective. She suggested that the Subway employee probably didn’t want to take off and put on his plastic gloves repeatedly, so he made multiple sandwiches together. My attendee thought this seemed a likely explanation and said he probably wouldn’t have been impatient if he’d looked at it that way.

In other words, the label “disorganized” is what caused the attendee to become impatient, not the Subway employee’s system.

Who drives you the most nuts? Why is that person doing what he’s doing? Your explanation, your “why,” triggers your emotions therefore you reaction. The other person doesn’t make you feel as you do, therefore cannot be responsible for your reaction.

To have an important conversation that you’re now avoiding, prepare for it by asking yourself, “What’s your problem person’s behavior and why is he acting that way?” Next week I’ll address how to handle your negative why.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple.

Wellness Coaching Reviews

INSPIRING, INSTRUCTIVE, INDISPENSIBLE

“Inspiring because Dr. Arloski strengthens my belief that we can help people get past the obstacles that keep them from seeking a deep sense of wellness. And because he teaches us how to inspire positive change in others.

Instructive because the book shows us the psychological stages people pass through as they attempt, and hopefully succeed, at creating lasting lifestyle change; we just need to stay with them as they move along the path.

And indispensible because it’s the perfect handbook for health and wellness professionals to keep handy; to remind themselves to review the steps, to stay with the client where they are and to ride out the waves of change with patience, compassion and joy.”

-Suzanne Ballantyne

A book to come back to time and again

“If you are a Health and Wellness Coach you will want to have this invaluable book by your side. I’ve read just about every book there is on health and wellness coaching, I’ve even written one myself and this is still the best.

-Anne Marshall, Author of The Health Factor: Coach Yourself To Better Health

Book Release

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The Importance of Crucial Conversations Jacquelyn Ferguson, MS

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INSPIRING, INSTRUCTIVE, INDISPENSIBLE

A book to come back to time and again

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The Importance of Crucial Conversations
Jacquelyn Ferguson, MS