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Emotional Physical Spiritual Approaches for Joyful Transformation
- Debra Meehl D.D.
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In this episode of “Healing From Within” your host Sheryl Glick author of The Living Spirit: Answers for Healing and Infinite Love is delighted to welcome Debra Meehl D.D. author of Joyful Transformation which integrates the principles of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) with the tenets of the New Thought Movement to guide readers through the 22 key areas of life transformation.
Listeners of Healing from Within well-know Sheryl and her guests share intimate experiences with various dimensions of life energy or Universal Source to create an environment for self-investigation and self-mastery of emotions in order to improve health, relationships, and a better alliance with both spiritual and physical life concerns and to truly value life in all its complexities.
In today’s episode Debra Meehl who is an interdenominational pastoral counselor, Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills trainer and a Board Certified Hypnotist is also the founder of the Meehl Foundation a non- profit residential treatment center in Texas. Debra speaks at national conferences on the topic of Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder with substance abuse. We will discuss finding life’s purpose defeating debilitating irrational beliefs and negative self-talk and discover as well as recognize and cope with triggers that derail progress toward authentic change.
Debra shares the challenges of losing her mother at the age of two and being raised by grandparents in rather less than optimal conditions yet suggests that those challenges helped her greatly to trust in her own intuitiveness and to develop great compassion for others. Sheryl suggests to us that as nothing in our life plan has been left to chance or luck we are experiencing a divine path to awakening and remembering our inner soul being not matter what the outside world looks like.
Debra tells us that Joyful Transformation is a psycho spiritual self-help guide and tells us what does psycho spiritual means and how does it applies to transformation. Exploring the words Awareness and Mindfulness show us how we begin to open up to change and recognizing our own part in any dysfunctional behavior. She shares that “Awareness is an understanding of a situation or subject at the present time, based on information or experience.” I think a more concise definition, for our purposes, would be: “understanding of a situation at the present time based on experience.” If we accept this definition, we see then that awareness is the outward expression of mindfulness. If mindfulness is the ability to watch your thoughts, awareness a conscious understanding of your reaction to your thoughts and what is happening to and around you as a result. Mindfulness is centered on what is happening in you, while awareness is concerned with what’s happening to you. It’s the difference between what you experience and what you do with that experience, then my self-talk. Do I blame others, do I blame god, do I blame myself, my stars, or my birth order? So, why is this important? Well, in any environment you simply cannot afford to go through each day blissfully unaware.
Our thoughts and beliefs = our feelings and emotions = our actions and reactions.
“This is one of those statements that I had to repeat over and over again in order to ‘get it.’ Part of being aware of our mind, body, and soul is to become aware of our thoughts and beliefs. Thoughts cause emotions, and emotions drive us to action. This is the pattern or our human experience, but your personal experience has a pattern as well. …And being able to recognize and alter those patterns is precisely why mindfulness and awareness are so important. By looking for patterns in ourselves, we can begin to be even more mindful of our lives. Pay close attention to changes in your mood, demeanor, and body language. Being aware of how subtle changes enable you to manage and influence situations, perceptions, and change can help you maintain balance and momentum in your life. Just as your body warns you of a cold, or stress manifests itself in the tightening of your neck muscles, your body can serve as an internal warning system for thoughts and emotions that are out of alignment.’
In the book Debra mentions many instrumental guides whose work inspired and helped her They included Marsha Linehan who created the modality of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), Combining insight from her own experiences and years of clinical research, Linehan blended behavioral science with Zen concepts such as mindfulness and acceptance to found an entirely new discipline of psychotherapy that has proven to be invaluable in the treatment of even the most complicated diagnoses; giving innumerable people around the world the skills and empowerment to create a life worth living. Similarly, Albert Ellis developed rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). Daniel Amen spearheaded the establishment of single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging as a diagnostic tool for mental and physical health. The Amen approach to brain health underscores many of the health and wellness principals presented in this book because Debra, Kristin, and the Meehl Foundation have used this approach to help numerous clients the world over embrace a healthier, holistic, more vibrant life—a life worth living. Others included Louise Hay and Ernest Holmes have both left indelible marks on the greater New Thought movement. Hay and Holmes blazed a trail through the Religious Science movement, with only the anecdotal evidence of their successes to prove the brain’s ability to shape our experience of reality. These two individuals transformed our belief in the power of human thought along with Wayne Dyer who originated similar subject matter, exploring the significance of intention and focus. It is the shift of attention and intention espoused in so many of Dyer’s works that underlines the neurological approach we take to change.
In Joyful Transformation Debra discuss four ways to react to any problem in life. There are only four ways to solve any problem:
solve it,
change how you feel,
tolerate it,
or stay miserable.
Understanding the many irrational fears or ideas most people get caught up with are essential for letting go of beliefs that are untrue and no longer serve you and is the path to transformation and the creation of new thoughts actions and lifestyle.
There are also five steps for disputing and eliminating irrational ideas:
- Write down just the facts of the situation. For example: your husband is talking and laughing with a woman at a party, versus your husband is flirting with a woman at a party. One is just fact the other is conjecture.
- Listen to (and if you can) write down your self-talk. State all of your judgments, labels, assumptions, beliefs, and predictions of the future. Look at the list of irrational beliefs above and identify any that fit this situation.
- Write down all of your significant emotions. Just one- or two-word answers, such as:. worry, abandonment, fear, anger, loneliness, etc.
Debra goes on to tell us that before you can react effectively to any problem in life you have to understand how irrational thinking affects most of us…..If your self-talk is untrue or irrational, you experience stress and emotional distress. For example, “I can’t take this anymore. I cannot bear to be alone,” demonstrates the kind of self—talk that leads to emotional distress. No physically healthy person has ever died merely from being alone. Being alone may be uncomfortable, undesirable and alienating, but you can live with it, and live through it. To tell yourself otherwise is irrational.
Other Irrational thinking may be based on outright misperception or it might be the by-product of childhood experience. Examples of this first type include thoughts such as, “I can’t get out of bed;” “Life is not worth living;” “I will die if I have to . . . ;” or “the money will come as soon as . . .” Such thoughts arise because our perception of an event or situation is skewed from reality. So these statements become the stories we tell ourselves. And because thoughts = emotions = actions, these stories dictate our interactions with, and ultimately create, our experience of the world. The second most common type of irrational belief includes statements such as, “Life is hard;” “people are untrustworthy;” “People will try to take advantage of you;” or “Having a job you hate is better than having no job at all.”
At the root of all irrational thinking is the assumption that things are done to you: “Even not making a choice is choice, because you evaluate the information available and then decide that neither option is good for you. You choose to remain indecisive. It goes a little something like this: You experience an event. You engage in self-talk. You experience an emotional response. Our thoughts/beliefs = our feelings/emotions = our actions and reactions.
Much of the difficulty in uncovering irrational self—talk results from the speed and invisibility of our thoughts. They may be lightning quick and on the edge of awareness. This is where mindfulness comes into play. Rarely will you be aware of a full sentence, as in the statement below. But once you have the ability to slow the mind and become mindful of your thoughts, you will soon become more aware of your negative self-talk. Then, you can ask yourself, “Why am I responding this way? What am I afraid of? What drives this response?”
Debra goes on to describe how she discovered Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Eighteen months after marrying her soul mate, Mark, life came to a crashing halt. There was screaming, fighting, and incidents with him driving us at 120 miles an hour down the freeway, and him spending money on our charge cards like a drunken sailor. What I knew at the time—and what I know now—is that he never wanted to do any of those things. But he was driven by brain chemistry. I knew the core of this man, and knew he was the kindest, smartest, most considerate man I knew. I also knew that he had no emotional regulation and no distress tolerance at times, and he also had a way of pushing all my buttons until I had none left to push.Thus began hundreds of hours of research during which I found Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). DBT had an 87% success rate in treating emotional regulation disorders, but it was so much more than that; it actually offered step by-step instructions that might allow Mark to move out of suffering and into joy. Years later, I would realize how the God of my understanding had led us the entire way, preparing us for the work that we would do to help others.”
The definition of Dialectical Behavior Therapy is a type of cognitive process that tries to identify and change negative thinking patterns and pushes for positive behavioral changes. DBT may be used to treat suicidal and other destructive behaviors such as bi-polar conditions and borderline personality syndrome.
Albert Ellis developed a system to attack irrational thinking and belief, and replace them with realistic statements about the world that we live in. He called this system Rational Emotive Therapy and introduced this approach in the “Guide to Rational Living.
Everyone has irrational beliefs in some area of their lives. Some of the most common are:
- It is an absolute necessity for an adult to have love and approval from peers, family and friends. Statements that express this belief are: “I need others to approve of me;” “I want everyone to like me;” “I find it hard when others go against what I think;” “When others don’t like me I’m crushed” or “I need my mother and father/family to approve of me.” versus: “I like the respect of others but I don’t have to have it.” ‰
- You must be competent and almost perfect in all that you do. Statements that express this belief are: “I hate to fail at anything;” “I avoid things I cannot do well;” “I don’t want to compete if I have no chance to win;” “it is important to be successful at whatever I do;” “it upsets me to make mistakes;” “it upsets me when the children make mistakes;” “what would others think?” or “I become upset over the mistakes of others” versus: “I seldom blame others for their misdeeds.”
- Certain people are evil, wicked or villainous and should be punished. Statements that express this belief are: “Bad people deserve what they get;” “Immorality should be punished;” “I blame and criticize others when they are wrong;” “the fear of punishment keeps people good,” or “it is unfair that ‘the rain falls on the just and unjust alike’—versus: “people are basically good, but their behavior can be bad” or “I forgive easily.”
- External events cause most human misery; people simply react as events trigger their emotions. Statements that express this belief are: “People cannot be happy under certain circumstance;” “I cause my own bad moods;” “The more problems people have the more unhappy they will be” or “More people should face the unpleasantness of life” versus: “Problems are a great opportunity;” “Man makes his own hell within himself” or “If a person wants to he can be happy under most circumstances.”
- I depend on others to make decisions for me. Statements that express this belief are: “I have to have an authority to make important decisions” or “I let others decide for me” versus: “I stand on my own two feet;” or “Other people’s opinions are helpful, but I do what is best for me.”
Debra wrote, “There is no way to achieve emotional maturity without being able to adapt to change, and live without symptoms of anxiety. Most of us though were never actually taught these skills. Even as a pastoral counselor and an ordained minister (these things, too, have become reality since I decided to change myself), I can testify that you cannot just “pray it away” There are actually hundreds of other Distress Tolerance skills you can consider in any given moment, techniques and thought patterns that will launch you into emotional maturity and radical acceptance. Many? Yes, because choosing just one and repeatedly using it, over and over, and not seeing any results is pretty good evidence that something is missing; that is, you need many tools in a toolkit, not just a hammer or a screw driver. That being said, there is a profound comfort in knowing that you are never alone. Somewhere along the way on my personal journey I would truly come to know and believe that I was a divine child of God. I would also come to know that God was way ahead of me—pulling me forward into a plan that we both wanted.”
One exercise to begin to find your real life path is to start to think of what interested you when you were younger your dreams goals and aspirations hobbies interests talents etc….When you were younger, what was it you wished you could do? Start with anything. It doesn’t matter how outrageous or silly.
Sheryl says “When I was about 17 years old, I went to a Broadway show “Man of La Mancha” and heard the song..The Impossible Dream. The show was about an older man who was very different from others and he wanted to fight the injustices in the world and help others no matter the cost or difficulty. The song suggested to me to reach for the stars and go where others were afraid to go and to live boldly and gloriously.
Sheryl discovered intuitive energy healing work and meditation leading her to find the source of Creation..She has done exactly what that song awakened in her although it took some time to put it all together. Sheryl’s experiences and efforts have been guided towards awakening the eternal energetic force of creation within and she has experienced many emotions tied to the unfolding of her soul life.
In her book The Living Spirit Sheryl wrote. “Everyone has spiritual gifts. But for some it is a life purpose, a call to be an extension of God’s love in service to humanity. They grow to understand as I did, how difficult the transition can be from the mind-centered consciousness of this dimension to realizing our true duality as spiritual beings having a human experience. When people are first called to do spiritual work—whether energy healing, mediumship or in my case, a combination of the two—it is quite common to doubt whether it is real. In fact, they may even doubt their own sanity. This is exponentially harder when friends and family do not believe what they are experiencing as real. Then not only do they think they are going crazy, but that they are going to be crazy and alone. They don’t yet realize that we are never alone for Spirit is with us always. “
Other ways to find life purpose may include thinking the following thoughts:
Do you feel restless about your current job or career?
Do you have the feeling that you should be doing something different in your life? What might that look like?
How would you like to make a difference in the world? What kind of difference would you make?
Are you afraid of what others might think of your desire?
Excuses are you telling yourself that holds you back? Are you too smart, too dumb, too white, too black, too old, too young, too little time, too little support, etc?
Do you get to whine about your unfulfilled life? Do you get something out of that?
Are you ready for change?
Can you live with down-sizing?
Are you willing to live without a new car, new clothes, or the latest high-tech gadget?
“On January 12, 2017 (about the time this book comes out) Mark and I will have been married for 16 years. It has consisted of both the best and the worst years of my life. But, on balance, I am doing all right—fulfilling my life purpose. I am a life coach/pastoral counselor, trained in DBT. I am a certified clinical hypnotherapist, an Amen Brain Healthy Coach . . . and I know beyond any shadow of doubt that change is not hard; resistance is hard. I know that “that which I desire, desires me.” I know that God is my source and my supply, that no person, place or thing can be my supply.”
Debra reminds us that we live most of our lives in the past, with all of our past experiences clouding our vision. Our life stories are most likely made up of good times and bad times, but all too much of the time we focus on and talk about the bad stuff. This is a great deterrent to living purposefully and to allowing for joyful change and transformation so it is to be released as it is harmful for moving ahead.
One must recognize and cope with the triggers that derail progress toward change. In order to recognize cues and triggers, you will have to be mindful. To navigate those triggers in a more effective manner, you will need to use alternate coping techniques (affirmation, meditation, mantras, etc.). This is called ‘Distress Tolerance.
The term “trigger” refers to any stimulus (such as an event, smell, sound, sight, etc.) which evokes feelings of emotional dysregulation. Those poorly chosen words—the ones that ignite hidden feelings and emotions—or the anxiety-laced event that leaves you ready to bolt at the first available moment are triggers which are both insidious and, at times, pervasive. They have the ability to control or affect the lives of everyone in their vicinity. They may be caused by minor events, such as picking up a dirty sock, or major events such as a death in the family. All of the events, subjects, thoughts and conversations in between these two extremes may serve as potential triggers.
There are always three elements to triggers: chemical, physical, and emotional. Understanding each of these elements and the role they play is important in your ability to control, reduce and eliminate many of the triggers in your life. Awareness plays a critical role in recognizing the manifestation of each of these elements early, allowing each aware person to be proactive in taking control of the triggers that so often intrude upon life. The physical manifestation of a trigger is the most important element to observe and become aware of. Be it a nervous tick, a furrowed brow, or a twitching finger, there is often a physical reaction to a trigger—a sign that something is not right. The emotional outburst, the rage and anger, the confusion, the anxiety, and fluctuation in your emotions are the final (and most damaging) reaction to a trigger. When you react to the trigger, the neuronal connections (synapses) fire and wire together, reinforcing your subconscious reaction to the trigger.
Rarely is the obvious trigger the real cause. The real, underlying, bottom-line trigger hides among the chaos of emotions, beliefs and stories we have created and needs to be uncovered and pulled from under the rock that is your subconscious. It is also fear of losing something: our personal power, our security, or our self-esteem.
By identifying the triggers (the subjects and the causes) you can recognize the situations that set you on edge, avoid them where you can, and have a plan to minimize their damage when they do occur.
Debra also shares ways to improve our physical health by detailing the toxic effects of nicotine caffeine and alcohol all of which derail the chemical balance in our brain responsible for emotional processing, interpersonal bonding and rewarding social interactions, moral judgment, and the ability to understand the mental states of others. Care for ourselves through good nutrition, exercise, sleep habits, and times to rest and relax are all important elements in your joyful transformation program
In summarizing today’s episode of “Healing From Within” Debra Meehl has successfully lived through challenging times and as a result her understanding of physical challenges, mental, chemical imbalances has led her to effectively use the process of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and an Amen Brain Healthy Program which realize the need and value of meditation, spiritual awareness, mindfulness, and gratitude, as a force for multi-dimensional healing and the creation of Joyful Transformation. Our health or lack of health are opportunities to discover the true nature of physical and spiritual energy.
As Debra wrote “Life is for me.” “I am thriving and loved in a universe that conspires to help me.”
“ Another way to respond to situations which cannot be changed—one which I feel warrants its own separate chapter—is acceptance. Some call it radical acceptance, others call it reality acceptance. Regardless of the moniker you choose, the concept remains the same—complete and total acceptance of reality. We all have to accept the actual facts of life. We are all limited by our biology and our environment, by our own past behavior, and by known inevitabilities. Everything in the universe is governed by the law of cause and effect. Clawing against this cosmic order will only bring you more pain, frustration, resentment, and suffering.…….Despair, resentment, guilt, and shame are all, generally, the result of failing or refusing to accept the reality of existing facts and instead choosing to struggle against the facts of reality . . . or accepting distorted facts which have no evidentiary justification. You do not have to accept things that are not true. …….You can maintain your values, your beliefs, your drive, your integrity and still accept the position you are in right at that moment. Similarly, you can acknowledge your inability to change the situation immediately without abandoning hope of ever changing it at all.”
Debra and I would have you know that circumstances that present themselves or are already evident in our life story are not there randomly or purposelessly but are the means to remembering our true magnificent nature as spiritual beings having a physical life and the help that may come to us when we become aware and open to change and the possibilities for real growth.
