3. IDENTITY BASED VALUES
Empathy Creative Open-minded Trustworthy
Loyalty Curious Genuine Brave
Logical Independent Kind Communication
Passionate Hard-working Respectful Helpful
Honest Responsible Collaborative Wise
Courageous Generous Active
4. Practice One: Unbundling your feelings
• When our feelings are intense, we often bundle several of them together into one predominant
feeling. For this practice, think of it as peeling the layers of an onion, noticing whether other
feelings are hidden below the prevailing feeling.
Practice Two: Notice your ‘self-talk’ or ‘automatic thoughts’ that create and sustain angry
moods
• Mood is defined as “a state of enhanced readiness to experience a certain emotion”. When a
person feels a degree of anger, this can be expanded into a mood by repetitive thinking about
anger and the story one creates about the event that triggered anger. In this situation, you can (1)
stop the self talk that is consistent with the anger and (2) state your self talk to yourself and out
loud which allows you to notice what is accurate and true and what is inaccurate or not true about
the situation.
Practice Three: Practice gratitude each day
• One time per day, take a few quiet minutes and write down 2-3 things you are grateful for this
day. It is useful to keep a journal or piece of paper nearby so you can track things that come up.
This will help interrupt worry and negative thinking.
Practice Four: Identify methods that calm and support you without negative consequences to
anyone else
• Review some situations in the past month that involved some degree of stress or pain for you.
How did you manage your emotions in these instances? It’s not uncommon to use strategies that
may seem positive and supportive but that actually betray and hurt you. This happens when we
manage emotional safety by giving away our voice and authority for the sake of the relationship,
which ultimately contributes to long term pain. Think about which effective methods of self-
soothing strategies that you would like to practice more often. How will they benefit you (and
others) in the long term?
Practice Five: Acknowledge what you did today that was useful to you and others
• List three things at the end of each day or week that made a contribution and demonstrated your
competence. Watch your progress in beginning to appreciate yourself.
Practice Six: Go within and count to ten before speaking
• Sudden, intense emotions often hijack the part of our brain that allows for conscious choice.
Breathing and allowing ten seconds before reacting can free up resources so we can choose a
response rather than just react.
Practice Seven: Acknowledge and reward yourself for handling a painful situation in a
positive way
• Think about a difficult situation that you resolved in a positive or effective way, take note of the
situation…what happened? What did you do? Identify the actions, behaviors, and feelings that
you are proud of.
Practice Eight: Notice what is essential for you to feel trust and confidence with others
• Authentic trust is maintained by using moments of disappointment and erosion of trust to open a
real conversation. Identify specific people and situations where you lost trust or the trust was
eroding, then identify the factors that influenced this situation and why these factors matter to you
and how you uphold expectations for trust.
5. Practice Nine: Be aware of how your judgments of others reflect your judgments of yourself
• Our negative judgments of others is typically a reflection of a part of us that we do not like. So
instead of judging, try to reflect on how you experience that characteristic or behavior in yourself
or through the powerful messages you have received about this in your life.
Practice Ten: Focus on one thing you appreciate about the other person or citation
• Practice noticing one thing you appreciate about people you interact with regularly in your day
(can be at school, work, home). When this is difficult, watch and listen without judgment. Even
an irritating person may be offering you the gift of practicing patience.
