Sober Word Of the Day + Quote + Reflection From The Daily Llama For The Week Of April 11 – 15, 2022

April 11, 2022

The Daily Llama, by Sober Curator Staci DesRault, brings you short, one-word meditations and a corresponding quote plus a reflection for your complete wool-being (#seewhatwedidthere?) for Monday, April 11th – Friday, April 15th, 2022.

WORD OF THE DAY: F.A.S.T.

MONDAY, APRIL 11, 2022

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

 “All people at any given point in time are doing the best they can.” -Marsha Linehan

MEDITATE ON THIS:

Today we continue to reflect on interpersonal skills as presented through Dialectical Behavioral Therapy by Marsha Linehan, and consider the acronym F.A.S.T. to remind us how to be more effective in our relationships with others.

F stands for Fair. Fair represents being fairer to yourself and to others. We use honesty but with tact. Being fair means considering your feelings but also the feelings of those with whom you are interacting. It’s essentially the Golden Rule: treat others in a way that you would like to be treated.

A stands for APOLOGIES. Do your best not to make unnecessary apologies. We often apologize quickly for mistakes that are not our own which presents us with a sense of unnecessary guilt.

S is STICK TO YOUR VALUES. Here we recognize which of our values are non-negotiable. Sometimes we betray our values to please others or seek their approval, which can then lead to resentment or anger, or create conflicts within our relationships. We prevent resentment by sticking to our values.

T stands for TRUTHFUL. Be truthful by avoiding exaggerations, excuses, and lies. Being truthful also means holding yourself accountable for your actions.

The Daily Llama Fun Fact of the Day:

Today is National Marketing Operations Appreciation Day, National Submarine Day, National Pet Day, National Barbershop Quartet Day, National Eight Track Tape Day, National Cheese Fondue Day, and Education & Sharing Day.

WORD OF THE DAY: ALL-OR-NOTHING

TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2022

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“The problem with all-or-nothing thinking is that it stops people even taking the first steps. The thought of never having pepperoni pizza again somehow turns into an excuse to keep ordering it every week.” -Michael Greger

MEDITATE ON THIS:

Today begins the Daily Llama’s series of reflections influenced by the work of Aaron Beck, founder of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and we start off with examining “all-or-nothing” thinking, which can also be called polarized, absolutist, or dichotomous. All-or-nothing thinking describes “the tendency to place all experiences in one of two opposite categories; for example, flawless or defective, immaculate or filthy, saint or sinner” (Beck, Cognitive Therapy for Depression).  

Looking at the world through this distorted lens can have a tremendous impact on our mood, behaviors, motivation, and relationships because we will have trouble viewing the complexities, nuances, or “shades of gray” in people or situations. For example, your neighbor was a saint until she let her dog poop in your yard. Now, you cannot stand her. Or, you got constructive feedback from your supervisor at work, so you now feel you have failed at work and are in jeopardy of being fired even if you generally receive praise from your supervisor and nobody mentioned anything about letting you go from your job.  Or you’ve decided to eat healthy foods. But today you didn’t have time to prepare a meal, so you had two slices of pizza and a Coke.  This immediately leads you to conclude that you’ve failed, so you decide either to keep eating like crap for the rest of the day or give up on changing your eating habits altogether.

What situations have you viewed through an all-or-nothing lens? How could your life change if you stopped giving into polarized thinking?

The Daily Llama Fun Fact of the Day:

Today is National Library Workers Day, National Licorice Day, Yuri’s Night, National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, National Big Wind Day, and International Be Kind to Lawyers Day.

WORD OF THE DAY: OVERGENERALIZING

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 2022

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“All generalizations are false, including this one.” – Mark Twain

MEDITATE ON THIS:

In his book Feeling Good, David Burns describes overgeneralization as the process of arbitrarily concluding that “one thing that happened to you once will occur over and over again.” He argues that overgeneralization is almost entirely responsible for the pain of rejection and gives the example of being turned down on a date morphing into the conclusion “I’ll be lonely and miserable all my life”.  When you overgeneralize something, you take an isolated negative event and turn it into a never-ending pattern of loss and defeat. With overgeneralization, words like “always,” “never,” “everything,” and “nothing” are frequent in your train of thought.

What situations have you tended to make overgeneralizations? How could your life change if you stopped making overgeneralizations?

The Daily Llama Fun Fact of the Day:

Today is National Peach Cobbler Day, National Scrabble Day, Thomas Jefferson Day, and National Make Lunch Count Day.

WORD OF THE DAY: MENTAL FILTER

THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2022

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude” -Thomas Jefferson

MEDITATE ON THIS:

Mental filtering describes our tendency to focus on one detail, usually negative and often taken out of context, and ignore other more important parts of an experience, mostly the positive parts. For instance, when you receive a performance review at work and it contains one criticism amidst ten compliments, you barely register the praise and instead fixate on the negative comment. Mental filtering is draining and straining all positives in a situation and, instead, dwelling on its negatives.

Have you ever mentally filtered out the positives and focused exclusively on the negatives of a situation? How did that way of thinking impact you?

The Daily Llama Fun Fact of the Day:

Today is National Look Up at the Sky Day, National Reach as High as You Can Day, National Pecan Day, National Ex-Spouse Day, National Gardening Day, National Dolphin Day, International Moment of Laughter Day, and Maundy Thursday (Christian).

WORD OF THE DAY: DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE

FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 2022

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

 “A good laugh is sunshine in the house.” -William Makepeace Thackeray

MEDITATE ON THIS:

Disqualifying the positive is very similar to mental filtering, but is notably different in that this distortion is about taking something that is positive and dismissing it for having no value for whatever reason. For instance, someone provides you a compliment, but you think they’re just being polite and not telling the truth. Or you believe yourself to be unlovable because you are not currently in a romantic relationship, but discount the love of family and friends because “they don’t count.”

When we stop disqualifying the positive in our lives, we let the sunshine in.

The Daily Llama Fun Fact of the Day:

Today is National Rubber Eraser Day, Titanic Remembrance Day, Passover (Jewish), Take a Wild Guess Day, National Anime Day, National Laundry Day, National Glazed Spiral Ham Day, Good Friday (Christian), Jackie Robinson Day, and Pesach (Jewish).

THE CARD DIVO: Each week Actor, Comic, Host, Patient Leader, Spiritual Mentor, and Sober Curator Daniel G Garza AKA The Card Divo will bring us quick-hitting and intuitive horoscopes for sober people on the go.

Resources are available

Resources Are Available

If you or someone you know is experiencing difficulties surrounding alcoholism, addiction, or mental illness, please reach out and ask for help. People everywhere can and want to help; you just have to know where to look. And continue to look until you find what works for you. Click here for a list of regional and national resources.

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