FOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL TOOLS for journalists

1.  Ta-da! failure Tool         

2. Mindful Tool                           

3. Powerwalk              

4. Shelving Tool    

1. Ta-da! Failure Tool

 THE TA-DA! FAILURE TOOL

Whenever you fail – drop a ball, say the wrong thing, take a wrong turn, fail an exam – you can go through negative emotions and you can also give yourself a “ta-da!” Proudly pump your fist into the air and exclaim I failed! Then sing-out ta-da-a-a-a-a-a!!, hold your hands out to an imaginary audience and shake them so your fingers flutter like wings. You will smile and feel better about yourself as you celebrate your failure and your humanity.

 The Ta-da! Failure Tool is most effective when shared in a group. In a game of catch the ball, give a group ta-da! whenever someone drops the ball. It makes for fun and laughter. Share failure stories and give a group ta-da! and applaud the failure. Being able to show human weakness and vulnerability is a sign of strength; it protects mental health. Caroline and I give each other ta-das! whenever we can. It brings fun, laughter and togetherness.

 With this tool, you celebrate the failure. This is liberating. Failure is OK. We can learn from the experience, but we don’t have to. If you want to learn from it, remember that

 Success is success, Failure is success,

It is only in not trying that you really fail. 

 THEORY

 We are human beings. No matter how hard we try to achieve, we will fail. I do. You do. Everyone. What can we do when we fail? Pick ourselves up and try again, but this is not always easy in the midst of difficult feelings, including being judged by others and harsh self-judgment. But what if we didn’t judge? What if we became like children playing, wanting fun alone? With a ta-da! we celebrate failure, just like children can. In a group, sharing failure stories and being applauded for failure is liberating as it goes contrary to societal norms.

 Clowns live outside of societal norms. They look at life with curiosity. And they can celebrate failure. They invite us to pause, look at our hypocrisy and stifling conventions, and learn with curious wonder. Medieval court jesters would entertain, challenge and contend with us taking ourselves too seriously or creating too many social burdens. Till Eulenspiegel was a “wise-[owl]-mirror” and Arlecchino, Pierrot, Columbine, and Punchinello exhibited pathos and wisdom. Few people are “wise enough to play the fool” and many Shakespeare plays feature clowns with insights.

 Failure is difficult; we fear rejection and humiliation. Yet; we all fail. We are all human, so celebrating failure is celebrating our humanity. Our humanity is worth celebrating in a society where we often can feel like functions rather than human beings.

 You can be judged for what you do, but not for who you are.

You are a human being, not a human doing.

Ta-da!

The “jazz hands” which accompany a rousing Ta-da! is featured in Broadway Musicals, Comedy Revues and Cheerleading. Choreographer/director Bob Fosse (Sheet Charity, Cabaret, Chicago, All that Jazz) used jazz hands with shaking fingers as an expression of inner excitement. Jazz hands helps us move from fear of failure to celebratory excitement through the brain reinterpreting fear’s arousal as the arousal of humble excitement.

2. MINDFUL TOOL

3. POWERWALK

Remember, Notice, Walk

The power-walk tool is based on the James-Lange Theory of emotions. Imagine you come across a bear on the forest. In this scene, your heart starts racing and you begin to run away THEN you become aware of fear in you. The point is that the body responds before we are aware of the emotion. For the power-walk, we choose to use the body response to embody a desired emotion to make it easier for you to choose courage.

REMEMBER a time when you felt Powerful

NOTICE how your body is responding now. Do you smile, bring shoulders back, stand straighter?

WALK during one chosen day-walk as a Power-walk. Bring the smile, straight stance, shoulders back or whatever else you notice into your walk and this will help create in you an emotional state more conducive to choosing courage.

4. Shelving Tool

BACKGROUND

 The shelving tool is the result of my own failure story. After years of psychotherapy with people who had experienced intense trauma, I was heading for burnout. I cut down on work and learnt the difference between empathy and compassion. This helped me change my approach. I researched the effects of vicarious trauma (compassion fatigue) and published a paper on a psychological tool for health care workers. With Caroline’s help, this tool was refined to become The Shelving Tool. Our surveys show that it helps significantly to relieve daily stress.

THE SHELVING TOOL EXPLAINED

The shelving tool is a mind-exercise using body movements. It is in three parts:

1.     Before your day      

2.     During your day

3. After your day

“Your day” means your work, uni study, caring for an elderly parent, volunteering at a charity, or any daily chore that may stress you.

 1. Before your day, take 15 seconds to build a shelf in your mind. Put your hands out in from of you, about 50cm apart, and picture a shelf in between. In your mind and with your hands, place this shelf to the right of your head. It is made in anticipation of stress which may come your way.

 2. During your day, when a negative incident happens – someone yells, you’re under time pressure, an adverse event happens – find a minute soon after to be alone. While alone, take the stress and dump it onto your shelf. Picture yourself taking a lump of stress from in front of you and throwing it on your shelf to the right. Throw it; dump it; chuck it; together with any emotions. The shelf will hold it so you can get on with your day. You will deal with it later. Do this as often as needed.

 3. After your day, and during the transition time between work and home (before dinner), take 5-10 minutes to process the accumulated emotions on your shelf. Do this as you walk home, walk the dog, take a shower, exercise, or sit alone for a minute. After work, I stop off at a park to walk and process the emotions before I arrive home.

 Take a shelved incident and its emotions off your shelf. Deal with it in 4 steps:

1.    Feel the feeling                          

2.    Label it with a word                               

3.    Express it with a gesture                     

4.    Let it go with a shake and a sigh.       

 1 Feel the feeling. Relive the incident in your mind. Notice it, notice your reactions, and feel it in your body and mind. 

 2 Label the feeling with a word. What is that feeling? Give it a name with the most accurate word you have. Is it anger, resentment or frustration? Is it humiliation, shame or guilt? Is it fear, panic or anxiety? Is it sadness, gloom or despair? Use a word for the severity: moderate anger, intense jealousy, very severe panic, mild desperation. Spend some time on this to link your thinking and feeling. Your brain will process and file this experience and emotion under ‘I understand now.’ This saves you going over it again and again.

 3 Express the feeling with a gesture. This may feel artificial, but you are alone and ritually processing emotions. Use clench fists for rage, hand over your forehead for sadness, hand on stomach for fear, shrinking down for humiliation, whatever you think embodies the emotion. Express the emotion in words with volume and tone of voice to match. Be emotive to safely get it out. If the event was too strong, or you do not feel safe doing this, seek professional help.

 We know that The Body Keeps the Score (Bessel van der Kolk) but the body can also help process and release new emotions. This tool, however, is for controlled expression of daily emotions, not for processing long-term built-up trauma. Please use your discretion for what’s best for you. Stay safe. Stay in control.

 4 Let it go. Like a balloon, imagine the emotion and event going into the air, hold your hands up and shake out the tension while you breathe out a long sigh.

 Steps 1–4 will need to be repeated for each item on your shelf. You may laugh at how ridiculous this may look (thank goodness you are alone). With an empty shelf, you can now get on with your evening. You may choose to build up a lexicon of words on emotions and a repertoire of gestures.

 THEORY

 Behind this tool, lies the theory of controlled re-exposure to difficult memories to alleviate stress. Decades of evidence supports this, as seen in the treatment of PTSD. It is here applied to small, daily, emotion-laden events.

 The tool also applies the well-established theory of defence mechanisms, used by our brains to combat stress and anxiety. Maladaptive defence mechanisms like denial involve distorting reality. Adaptive mechanisms face reality and cope. They’re incorporated into the shelving tool with embodied actions which focus thinking and feeling in lived experience. These defence mechanisms are incorporated in the tool:

 Anticipation, contained in building the shelf every morning for daily stress.

Sublimation, taking the energy of say anger and putting it on a shelf rather than have a verbal altercation with someone.

Suppression, dealing with emotions later rather than avoiding them.

Altruism, in the time taken to do this for yourself and for others to benefit.

Asceticism, in denying yourself the pleasure of a substance or drink; or unloading onto others. Instead, you develop a routine.

Humour, in laughing a little at the silliness and having some fun.

USE THESE 4 PSYCHOLOGICAL TOOLS TO HELP FACE YOUR FEAR

RESOURCES

Heim, C. (2020) “Preventing vicarious trauma: a private psychological tool for health care workers.” International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and Human Resilience, 22(2), 6-10.

Link to page on how to determine and live by your values

CONNECT WITH US ON

LINKEDIN Christian Heim

Caroline Heim

INSTAGRAM @drchristianheim (for general mental health reels by Christian)

@collegementalhealthpodcast (for specific university mental health reels by Caroline)

WEBSITE www.drchristianheim.com (Blogs, Scientific Articles, Books etc)