“Don’t Shoot The Unicorn!” Finding transformative happiness, peace, and resilience through developing your “Anditude”!

Format

Workshop

First Presenter's Institution

Bridge Builders Counseling, and The University of North Carolina at Pembroke

First Presenter’s Email Address

bruce.garris@yahoo.com

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Bruce Garris began a second career as an individual, group, and family therapist after 15-year career as a national-level trainer, Program and Executive Director with the YMCA in several cities across the country. His research and clinical interest centers around adolescent wellness/ resilience, happiness, and the relationship between “thinking and feeling”. Having conducted more than 15,000 therapy sessions, Bruce maintains a private practice near Wilmington, NC, and is a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. His book “Don’t Shoot The Unicorn (What a Therapist knows about Happiness after 15,000 sessions!)” is expected to be published in the Spring of 2022.

Second Presenter's Institution

The University of North Carolina at Pembroke

Second Presenter’s Email Address

gary.mauk@uncp.edu

Second Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Gary W. Mauk, a Professor in the College of Health Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, has also worked at the K–12 level in NC as a licensed school psychologist. His research and consultation interests are child/adolescent development and mental health promotion, social-emotional learning supports, and understanding and support for loss and grief issues among school-age youths.

Location

Session Three Breakouts

Strand #1

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Strand #2

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Relevance

This presentation meets criteria for Strand IV- “HEALTH: MENTAL & PHYSICAL HEALTH”, as it focuses directly on mental health. This program is designed to empower and develop skills in those who work professionally or as allies to youth who suffer from a variety of disorders including depression, anxiety, impulsive disorders, anger/ violence, substance use, eating disorders, self-harming ideation, and emotion regulation disorders. This program is particularly aligned towards treating the mental health of those care-givers who work with youth, helping providers to effectively develop and maintain their own optimal emotional health and resilience.

Brief Program Description

“As a care-provider and leader in your community, you understand the challenge of keeping your own resilience high, and maintaining an attitude of hope. This transformational, uplifting program will equip you to develop the skill of happiness, empowering you to lead youth by demonstrating positive approaches in your own life, and impacting them with “Infectious Resilience” as they learn to adopt your Anditude!” Remember- Happiness is not a feeling, It’s a SKILL!

Summary

Working with children and/or teens is challenging. And it’s not even the kids that are often the problem! Piles of paperwork, administrative nightmares, budgetary demands and conflicts… all take a toll on your personal level of energy and passion. Some days, just maintaining even a minimally positive attitude can be difficult. Soon, we start to doubt ourselves, our skills, and even our commitment and passion, as we start to think of what we do as “work”, and ourselves as burned-out, ineffective, and even hopeless. We forget that Happiness is a SKILL, that we have to PRACTICE!

As a leader, educator, and support for youth at risk, “you can’t give what you don’t have”. If you are tired, carrying feelings of guilt, worried or anxious about your effectiveness, or are just mentally exhausted… how can you give others what you, yourself, don’t have? Hope, resilience, and self-acceptance…? How can we get back to leading from the front and empowering our kids to find the strength to continue their own fight? Answer: “Don’t Shoot the Unicorn!” as you learn to develop your “Anditude”!

This practical, fun, and highly interactive session will introduce attendees to the power of one simple word: “And”. Through developing your own personal “Anditude” you will find freedom from self-judgment, hopelessness, and from self-defeating thoughts that limit us from giving our best to our kids and selves. Based on Cognitive Behavioral, Dialectical Behavioral, and Strengths-based counseling concepts, the program will introduce simple, specific, and research-based techniques to facilitate you and your youth in developing the SKILLS of happiness and resilience.

The concepts presented here are focused on reducing risk-taking behavior in adolescents through promoting thriving, and by empowering you to demonstrate infectious resilience that will be impossible for others not to want to imitate! This dynamic workshop will include lecture, discussion, guitars, videos, music, games, unicorns, audience participation, and will center on an all-inclusive (and fun!) PowerPoint presentation that leaves LOTS of room for audience participation. We will get you out of your chair, out of your old ways of thinking, and into a bright, future where you can restore your level of energy, your resistance to negative emotions, and learn to take well-deserved pride in the smallest victories. Lots of handouts and resources will be provided, and customizable electronic documents will be made freely available on request.

Evidence

Fully based on the well-researched and SAMHSA-designated “evidence-based practices” of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, this program is organized around a proven and effective therapeutic approach that has been implemented across a variety of settings, from schools, sports leagues and community organizations, to PRTF/hospitals and therapeutic foster care settings. For almost 50 years, the approaches used in CBT and DBT have been shown to be effective across a diverse range of clients including adolescents at risk for self-harm, anger/violence, substance use/ abuse/ addictions, sexual misconduct, gang engagement, eating disorders, school problems, and failure to thrive in social/ family/ community settings.

Learning Objective 1

Participants will be able to Identify opportunities in daily life to implement the SKILL of Happiness

Learning Objective 2

Participants will be able to learn to manage difficult, emotional situations without self-judgment or weariness

Learning Objective 3

Participants will be able to solve problems and correct distorted thoughts in such a way as to generate resilience in work life and daily living

Keyword Descriptors

Happiness, Resilience, Thinking, Feeling, Hope, Mindfulness, Safety, Contentment, Emotions, Peace

Presentation Year

2022

Start Date

3-7-2022 2:45 PM

End Date

3-7-2022 4:00 PM

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Mar 7th, 2:45 PM Mar 7th, 4:00 PM

“Don’t Shoot The Unicorn!” Finding transformative happiness, peace, and resilience through developing your “Anditude”!

Session Three Breakouts

“As a care-provider and leader in your community, you understand the challenge of keeping your own resilience high, and maintaining an attitude of hope. This transformational, uplifting program will equip you to develop the skill of happiness, empowering you to lead youth by demonstrating positive approaches in your own life, and impacting them with “Infectious Resilience” as they learn to adopt your Anditude!” Remember- Happiness is not a feeling, It’s a SKILL!