Riding the Roller Coaster:
Balancing Career and Work,
Thriving Verses Surviving
Colorado State Employee Assistance Program
(800)821-8154
Scott Cassidy, MS LPC
Goals
1. Explore the various ways that our
careers affect us and our families.
2. To understand how the emotional
intensity of our careers trigger biological
responses with in us.
3. To develop strategizes to move past
mere Survival and to learn to Thrive!
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The Roller Coaster of the Mind
• How does your career effect your thinking
patterns?
– Excitement
– Passion
– Dread
– Cynicism
Cynicism Quotes
• Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and
kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try.
Peggy Noonan
• There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he
has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.
Maya Angelou, in The Truth in Words (2005) by Neal Zero
• Nobody loves a cynic, except maybe another cynic.
Rick Bayan, Writer and Cynic. from, ‘What is Cynicism?’ at,
The Cynic’s Sanctuary website.
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More Cynicism Quotes
• The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man
and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl,
vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for
vermin, and never seeing noble game. The cynic puts all
human actions into two classes — openly bad and
secretly bad.
Henry Ward Beecher, in Lectures to Young Men: On Various
Important Subjects (1860)
• Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest
thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything.
Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a
rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us
or disappoint us.
Stephen Colbert, Knox College Commencement Address (3 June 2006)
Costs of Cynicism
• Hope for Future, Life in the Present
• Isolation from others
– Inability to Trust and be Close
– Others find it Ugly
• Inability to Risk
• Bitterness
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Battling Cynicism
• Honestly Evaluate the damage you have
created
• Find Courage to change
• Seek out positive, Avoid negative
• Invest in people
• Create safe places
The Roller Coaster of Biology
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What makes someone successful?
Increased Awareness
Increase Focus
Increase Processing
Increase Response
=
Hypervigilance
Hypervigilance
Emotional Survival For Law Enforcement
By Kevin Gilmartin
– Written for Street Officers
– Great for any High Stress Occupations
– A must read for Law Enforcement and High Danger
Occupation
– Best book on the impact of occupational stress
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The RAS Reaction
• The Reticular Activating System
– RAS The part of the reticular formation in the
brainstem that plays a central role in bodily and
behavioral alertness The American Heritage® Medical
Dictionary Copyright © 2007, 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
– The RAS is responsible for providing an integrated
(cardiovascular, respiratory and motor) response to
external stimuli. The ability to filter out information
from external sources and focus on one particular
fact, detail or thought is controlled by the RAS.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/reticular-activating-system.html
The RAS Reaction
Danger
Stress
Biological
Reaction
Biological
Reaction
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Benefits of the RAS Reaction
•
•
•
•
Energy
Enjoyment
Productivity increase
Staying on task
Biology is working for you, not against you!
Two Problems
• Staying up! (Creating Threats)
• Crashing down! (Living as a Zombie)
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Staying up!
Creating Threats
Roots of the RAS System is Safety
Danger/Stress
Biological
Reaction
Perceived
Danger
When we stay up, our bodies perceive issues and
problems as “Threats or Danger”
Crashing down!
Living as a Zombie
What comes up, must come down!
Danger/Stress
Biological
Reaction
Biological
Crash
Signs of the Biological Crash:
Low Energy, Social Isolation, Apathy,
Impaired Discussion Making
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Choosing Your Roller Coasters
Summery to this point….
• Roller Coaster #1– Our Thinking & Cynicism
• Roller Coaster #2– Our Biological Response to Stress
What if we had control…….
Positive Psychology
• Traditional Psychology– Diagnosing and Treatment Disorders-
• Positive Psychology– Study of Happiness and Success
• Where are you happy and successful, how to
leverage that
• What can we learn for those who are happy and
successful, how and we incorporate that in our
lives.
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Authentic Happiness
By Martin Seligman
Keys to Happiness and Success in Life
• Optimism vs Pessimism
(Our Battle against Cynicism)
• Living According to our Values– Not Moral Values
– What do we say is important
– (Our Battle against Biology)
Life Values Vs Resources
Life Values:
Life Resources:
1) Material- (Stuff/Security)
1) Time-
2) Family-(Nuclear/Larger)
2) Money-
3) Career-(Current/Future)
3) Energy-
4) Health-(Diet, Exercise)
4) Thought-
5) Community (Others)
5) Priority-
6) Self (Fun, Friends,
Adventure)
6) Affection-
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Living Life Proactively
• Define Your Values– (Write Them Down)
• Create Goals and Plans– (What does exercising those goals look like)
• Live Differently– (Success in life, often entails acting abnormally)
• Create Accountability– (How will you stay on target?)
Final Thoughts
• Roller Coaster #1– Our Thinking and Cynicism
• Chose our World View• Look for the Positive
• Avoid the Negative
• Roller Coaster #2– Our Biological Response to Stress
• Use Transitions
• Invest in Life, Rather than React to Survive
• Use your Values as Your Map!
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“Insanity: doing the same
thing over and over again
and expecting different
results.”
Albert Einstein
“Conviction without change is
wasted emotion”
Darrin Jones
Resources Cited:
• Martin Seligman, Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive
Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment,
Free Press, 2004
http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/default.aspx
• Kevin Gilmartin, Emotional Survival For Law Enforcement, E-S
Press 2002
http://emotionalsurvival.com/
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