Step 1: The Right Attitude
The holiday season can be full of stress and anxiety for many. In order to combat this impending anxiety, Dr. Marty Tashman of Somerset New Jersey has developed a three-part method in which he calls “FAB” which stands for Feelings-Attitude-Behavior.
Handling difficult issues well involves having the right attitude.
Dr. Tashman wishes to emphasize that although this method is a good one to adopt in everyday living, “if you are having severe personal problems in your life, or with your partner, or family, you will need help applying the strategies that I’m going to show you. It can help a little bit, but making these techniques work in very troubles situations, you may need in-person counseling to make them effective.”
As long as this is understood here is his first step for combating stress in this three part series:
The First Step - Attitude
Dr. Tashman first recommends taking a look at your attitude, and by that he means “what are the conversations going on in your head like? Do you make everything do or die? Are you telling yourself “I’ll never get this done”? Or do you say to yourself “This is too much for me”; or “I can’t do this”.
The first step is listening to what you are telling yourself.
Think about what you could say in answer to yourself.
Some examples that answer the above sentences are:
“I’ll do the best I can.”; “I don’t have to be perfect”. “This (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years) is only one day. “I’ll do a little at a time.”
“Not doing everything isn’t the end of the world”
Notice the story you are telling yourself about what is going on. Does the story have a happy ending or a catastrophic one?
After all, if you can’t win the conversation battle in your head you won’t win it in the outside world.
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