Crisis Survival Skills: Improving the Moment & Pros and Cons

Hi.  I'm Marsha Linehan. I'm a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.  I'm on this program to teach some behavioural skills. Now these behavioural skills are ones that I have been developing for a really long time - years. And I've done lots of research on them also. And the good news is these skills are very effective.

The skills I'm going to teach you are a special set of skills and they're called Crisis Survival Skills. I'm going to go through 2 sets of skills. So if you happen to have the Skills Manual that I've written or if someone has given you some handouts that have these skills on them, probably want to pull those out now. What you're going to be wanting to look at, if you have it, is Improve the Moment Skills and Pros & Cons Skills.  Those are the two sets of skills that we're going to go over in this program. 


USING CRISIS SURVIVAL SKILLS

So when do you need Crisis Survival Skills?  Well, of course you need then when you're in a crisis.  But, they're really great skills for any situation that's really distressing and has any one of the following characteristics. 

First, if you're in a situation where the problem can't be solved right this minute. For example, imagine you're on you way to your mother's funeral and you have to switch planes in the middle on the way. So you're going the night before and you get to the airport and you miss your connection.  They have mechanical trouble in the first plane. You miss the connection. There are no more connections. There's no train; there's no car that will get you there. That's not only a crisis but it's a crisis that can't be solved. What do you need?  Crisis survival. 

So what's another situation? Well, it's any situation where you've got a big problem and it could be solved except that you don't have the skills. So, imagine you're driving your car, you're out on the highway, and you have a flat tire.  Now that's not a crisis.  You know how to change a tire.  And it's not a crisis if you're in town somewhere and there's someone who'll come by and change it for you.  But what about you're on the road somewhere, you're far away.  There's nobody nearby.  You've got everything in the car to change the tire - well, no one taught you how to change the tire.  You don't know the first thing about how to even get the jack out.

What about a situation where it's a crisis, the problem can be solved - it can actually be made better.  And you've even got the skills.  The problem is, you just can't figure out a way to get those skills to come out of you. Maybe you're sick. You're so sick that you can't act skillfully.  Maybe you've just had ten other crisis and frankly you're worn out from dealing with all those crisis and this is just one crisis too many.

So what do you need when this happens? You need crisis survival skills.

Now it's important to distinguish a crisis where you need crisis survival skills and a life problem where you need to use problem solving skills. Most of the time in life we need problem solving skills. What I mean by this is, you know, you can't live your entire life in survival mode.  Have you ever noticed how some people do that?  Life itself is a crisis.  Now if that's true for you, if life itself is a crisis, if you're saying 'Hey, listen, I'm always in a crisis.' Then you're going to need problem solving skills to figure out why you're always in crisis.

So what is a crisis? Generally crises are highly stressful; very intense and immediate. Crises are short term. They don't last forever. And, in a crisis, there's a really intense pressure to resolve the problem now or right this minute.



So when do you need Crisis Survival Skills?  You need them in any situation that doesn't have an immediate problem solution.  And it's really intense.  And you need Crisis Survival skills in any situation when you have a really strong desire to do something that's going to make your life worse.



Got that?  Think about it for yourself.  Think of two types of situations where one, it's a crisis, it's intense, it's got to be solved now and there's no solution.  Or two, it may not even be a crisis but you've got an intense desire to do simply to do something that's going to make your life a whole lot worse.

So what kind of situations are we talking about? Why don't you imagine that you've had a really terrible day. I mean you've had everybody screaming at you all day and you come home, and frankly, all you want to do is get drunk. And you're a recovering alcoholic. You need crisis survival skills.

Or, what if you're on the highway, you're driving, someone cuts you off and you get so angry that you have an immediate urge to run that person right off the road.  You need crisis survival skills. 

In other words, you need crisis survival skills anytime you have an impulsive, intense urge to do something that, in your better moments, you would never do. 

So generally, what sort of situations are we going to look for?  Well, the first thing to do is look for situations where you're trying to escape. You're either trying to escape the situation or you're trying to escape from your feelings. That's usually when we have urges to do things that half the time make things worse. What are those things?  Well think about what you have urges to do when you want to escape situations that you can't solve.

Well, sometimes what people want to do is they want to quit important things.  If you wanted to quit things that you knew weren't in your interest to quit, but you wanted to do it anyway and you had to figure out a way to get yourself not to quit. Or, have you ever had such... just a bad day or bad week and just decided to have sex with the next person that walks by.  Now you know that's not a good idea.  You're trying to get yourself not to do that anymore.  Maybe it's become kind of a habit with you.

Or, are you a person who throws tantrums?  Lots of times have you noticed how you just start throwing tantrums, you get so angry, you get so upset and it just becomes a crisis all by itself. You're trying to get yourself not to scream, to keep cool.

You know what some people do is they try to kill themselves. They get in a crisis situation and they can't stand it.  They decide to kill themselves. Now those are people who actually think that they're not going to have a crisis if they're dead. Just in case you're thinking of that, which I certainly hope you are not, but I just want to remind you of one thing, just in case. There's absolutely no evidence that killing yourself will help a crisis out.  There's not data whatsoever - it's not been in the New York Times.  You want to remind yourself of that.  You know a crisis could be worse if you were dead.  Who knows?  You don't.  Neither do I.

Some people take drugs.  Are you one of those people?  I hope not. But the urge to take drugs, especially if you're a person who's taken drugs in the past, well, that's a crisis.  You need crisis survival skills to get yourself through.

So think through.  Maybe there's other things that you're thinking about that I haven't mentioned. Just kind of review in your mind, when do you need these skills. 

Now my experience is, teaching people these skills, that you're probably going to learn them a lot better if you take notes.  So my advice to you is that before we get started you hit the pause button on this program. Get up, go get yourself some paper, get yourself a pen or a pencil, sit back down and hit the start button and get the program going. And while you're doing that I'm going to go get myself ready.  I'm going to get all my notes together.  Get all my thinking clear.  I'm going to be ready to roll as soon as you get back, I'll be back and we'll get going.

We're going to go over two sets of skills in this program. The first set is Improve the Moment skills.  And the second set is Pros & Cons.


IMPROVING THE MOMENT

If you can't solve the problem, if you're in a crisis, got to function, you could try improving the moment in your mind.  So improving the moment is trying to make the whole thing better in your mind.  I'm going to give you seven improve the moment skills. And the way to remember these skills is to remember the word 'Improve':  imagery, meaning, prayer, relaxation, one thing in the moment, vacation, and encouragement. 

Imagery
So let's start with imagery. Imagery is when you try to change a situation in imagination.  In other words, you're going to try to imagine that the situation is different than the one you're in.

So if you're in the middle of a crisis you could just imagine that you're somewhere else.  You could imagine you're lying on a nice beach.  Or in a forest that's beautiful.  You're imagining being somewhere else. Your mind get you out of the crisis.

Now another kind of imagery can be really helpful. Which is you can imagine that everything is going well.  In other words, rather than trying to imagine that you're somewhere else, try to imagine that you're coping well. Imagine that the crisis is happening but you're doing really well. Or imagine that it's turning out ok.

The other thing you can do that can be extremely helpful if you feel threatened by something.  Especially if you feel threatened when you're not really threatened. Is to imagine a place inside yourself that's safe. So, for example, you could imagine that inside of yourself there's a room and in that room you're very safe. It has locked doors; everything about it is really wonderful.

Now the trick to using this skill in a crisis is to practice it when you're not in a crisis. So what you have to do out of the crisis, kind of build the room. You're going to want to build the room and practice going into it. Get pretty good at that. Then when you get in a crisis, you can just use that skill.  Go within yourself. Practice being in the room.

Meaning
So the next letter's M.  And M stands for meaning. It can be really hard to go through extreme pain or lots of problems if you start thinking it's irrelevant.  Look back on your own life. Have you ever had just really painful things happening in your life and you found yourself saying, 'Oh, this doesn't matter. Surviving this is not going to do me any good. I've got to get out of this.'  If you said yes, ask yourself next, did that help?  My guess is that it didn't. 

Throwing away meaning usually makes crises worse.  So how do you find meaning?  Well if you're spiritual, you can try to find a spiritual meaning. You can read spiritual books, you can listen to tapes, listen to radio shows, watch tv shows that are spiritual. Try to find some spiritual value or meaning in what you're going through.  If you're spiritual you might talk to a minister or rabbi, your local priest, spiritual director. You might ask someone else to help you find a meaning.
If you're not spiritual, you might ask yourself, 'How could I grow?  How could I find some purpose or some value?'  So what you're going to do is look for value. Try to figure out what's in this.  Maybe, alright 99% crisis, 99% trauma, so you might want to look at how does this fit into the universe as a whole. Or how does this fit into the world.  Or how am I connected to other things through this. You might realize that you're going to understand other people who are in pain, that you'll be able to cope with pain in the future. 

So that's finding meaning. Meaning can help.

Prayer
Let's go to the next skill.  The next skill is P.  P is for prayer.  Prayer can be really helpful in a crisis. It's amazing to me how many people pray but they don't pray in a crisis.  Now there are two kinds of prayer that can be helpful in a crisis. 

The first kind of prayer is the kind of prayer with words. You just talk either to god or to Buddha or to the spirit or to the universe - it really depends on what you believe in. But you can talk.  Or you can read spiritual things.  If you can't think of a prayer, you might be able to find one in a book. 

The other kind of prayer is the prayer of opening up.  And that openness is the openness of acceptance.  Prayer can really help if you're trying to accept. And you don't have to have words.  Don't worry about finding words. You don't really need words. You need an attitude.  You need a willingness. You need to turn your mind.  But that's it.  That's all you have to do. 

I just gave you two ways to pray.  But you may have a way to pray. What is your way?  Do you have a way?  If you do, and you have a way for prayer that's been helpful to you in the past, you want to remember that in a crisis.  That's all you have to do.  Remember what you've always done.

Prayer isn't for everyone. And I'm the first to admit.  But if it's for you, don't forget it.
Relaxation
The next skill starts with R.  And R is for relaxation.  Ask yourself, are you the kind of person who in a crisis you tense yourself up? Do you get all tight?  If you're a person who does that it can really be helpful to relax.

Sounds easy, doesn't it? Probably people have said to you, 'Just relax would you.'  And you've thought to yourself, listen if I could relax I would relax. So I'm going to tell you how to relax.

The first thing to know about relaxation is it's not as hard as it seems if you know a few little tricks.  So what are the tricks?  The first trick is this, if you tense a muscle and then relax the muscle it will get more relaxed than it was before you tensed it.  So to do this one, you want to scan your whole body and ask yourself, 'Where in my body am I tense?' So just look for the parts of your body that are tense.  And when you find those parts, tense them, let them go.  Tense them, let them go. 

Try that right now.  Do that with me.  Take your fist, we'll just try with our fists.  And tense your fist.  Hold it, tight. Pay attention. Notice it. Let go.  Tense.  Let go.

I'll tell you another one that really works in public - that one's kind of hard to do if there are a lot of people around.  What if you're in a crisis, you're at work or in a meeting or at a funeral, so I'll give you another one. Try tensing your stomach muscles.  Just sit there - try to be unobtrusive. But while I'm talking, you do it too.  I'm doing it.  I'm pulling my muscles in.  So just sit here and just pull your muscles... I mean tight, just as tight as you can.  Feel them really tight. Pull them in.  Feel it?  Are you doing it? Now let go.  Ok, you might not want to let go all the way but let go. Do that 2 or 3 times.  You'll be amazed.

You could try breathing. You know lots of times when people get in a crisis they start to panic and if you start to panic, you should notice that you're starting to breathe really fast, in and out, in and out, in and out. Listen, in and out, in and out, in and out, that'll create more panic. Not the thing to do. Breathe slowly.  Hold it.  Breathe out.  The idea is to try to breathe a little bit further each time for the first couple of breathes. 

You could even try walking and noticing your breathe.  Try walking and breathing in, and breathing out.  You could try counting your steps. That can be useful. 

One Thing in the Moment
The next letter is O.  O stands for one thing in the moment. The idea here is to stop making one moment worse. The way a lot of us make the moment that we're in worse is we start thinking about the past. Have you ever noticed that? Do you do that?

You're in this moment and then you spend a lot of time thinking about 'Oh, it's always been this way and look what happened before and this happened before. This is my 8th crisis.'  On and on and on - so what's that do? I mean, this moment may be bad but think how much worse it is. Now you've got not only this crisis but every other crisis you've ever had in your life.

And then, what some of us also do, is not only do we bring the past in but we start imagining every crisis we're going to have in the future. So it's not only do I have this problem, but now I've got all my future problems.  'This is terrible. It's never going to stop.  It's really awful.  I can't stand it. What am I going to do? Datta da.  Datta da.' I mean really, you can go on and on. So what happens? You not only suffer this moment but you suffer the past moments and the future moments. 

Now I've got to tell you one thing.  When you're suffering usually the moment is enough. In other words the current moment is all filled up with suffering.  You don't really need more suffering and if you add more suffering in, the crisis just gets worse.  You're more likely to do something that'll make it worse. It's not a good idea. 

The idea in one thing in the moment is to throw yourself completely, totally, into the moment. You'd be amazed.  This is one of the most effective skills I teach. Most people don't like it at the beginning because it's hard to imagine it would work. And then people come back a couple of years later, I say to them, 'What's the most important thing you learned?' You'd be amazed how many people tell this was the most important skill they learned. 

I'll give you an example how you do it.  This happened with me.  I sometimes go to this really big church in Seattle. It's the cathedral.  It's really beautiful.  And, I have to tell you, the service, it's a little bit on the long side.  So I was there one time and they had this visiting person talking - he was giving a sermon. So he starts talking and I'm not saying it was a terrible sermon, I just would say it was boring. I mean, really boring.

So what did I do?  Well, I was sitting.  I thought about getting up and leaving. I couldn't though, I was right in the middle of the row. In fact I was actually with a friend.  So I really couldn't do that. So what did I do?  'Haaaaa' I started going like this:

 

'Oh...' Have you ever done that? You know how you kind of [sigh]. You know, it's amazing, the people behind me could tell right... I was so distressed.  Going like this and 'oh, god'. I'm thinking this, I wasn't saying it. I think I was hoping that preacher was going to look down and see me and say 'Oh, this must be boring. I think I'll stop.' 

However, I'm not kidding, he never did!  I'm not even sure he saw me.  And if he did see me, well he wasn't stopping that sermon just because of me. So after a while, I kind of noticed that I was just staying upset. I mean this was doing me no good.  He wasn't quitting and I wasn't feeling any better. And I couldn't get out of there. So, I started asking myself, 'Is this really worth it? I mean really, is this worth it?  Being this miserable?' So I thought, 'No. I think I'll try to feel better. I think I'll try to get through this.' So what did I do? I decided I'd practice one thing in the moment. 

What I did was I looked up at the sky and I said to myself, 'I'm attending.' I just decided I was going to pay attention to every single word that guy said - I was just going to hang on every word and every phrase.  And I just threw myself into it. You'd be amazed. The first half, must taken six hours.  The second half, took six minutes. It was over in no time. 

It's a fabulous skill. I recommend that you try it.

Vacation
So the next letter is V. V stands for vacation. The idea here is to try to figure out a way to get a vacation from your troubles.  Try to get out of things. Just for a little while.

Have you ever found yourself thinking in the middle of a crisis or when things are really going terrible, you're not feeling good.  You say, 'I need a vacation.' Well, if you can take a real vacation, like get on a plane or get on a boat or go to the mountains or do something like that, that's fabulous.  By all means, take the vacation. 

But sometimes, well, you just can't do it. So what do you do then?  How can you take a vacation.  The good news is you can still take a vacation. I'm going to give you some examples.

The idea here is to think about it as a mini-vacation. You could buy some chips, get yourself something cold to drink, turn on some good television, enjoy life. Sometimes just lying down on the couch.  You know those things they make that you put over your eyes?  You lie down, put them over your eyes, breathe in, breathe out, relax.  You could do that for five minutes. You could even take one of those for work. You could just close your office door or go someplace private at your office, put one of those over your eyes, close your eyes, turn a timer on or ask someone else to tell you when five minutes are up and just relax for five minutes. 

So that's the idea of vacations. Now, I'm going to give you a few rules about vacations because I... it is sort of easy to mess up vacations.  Some people take too many vacations.  Are you one of those people?  Have you noticed how some people are always taking vacations? So, these are the rules.

First, don't take vacations that will harm you.  If you've got a big deadline at work this is not a time to take a vacation from work.  You don't want to take a mental health day when everyone is expecting you to be there for some really important meeting. If you've got one crisis and you do that, you'll now have two crises.  The whole thing will just get worse. So don't take vacations that harm you.

The second rule is don't make your vacation too long.  Sometimes people say, 'Well, I think I'll just take a little break from studying. Ah, it's so hard, I've studied so much.  I think I'll just take a little break.  I'm going to go walk around the block.'  So that's the vacation - walking around the block.  'Then I'll come back to study because I've got three more hours to do.'  And they do that at 9 o'clock.  So, they meet friends.  They keep walking. They decide they need a second vacation. They say, 'Well, maybe I'll just sit in one tv show.'  And they get talking they think 'Well, a little snack.'  Go on and on, before you know it you've used way too much time for your vacation.  And now you've ruined those things up.  Now it's late and you're tired and you have an exam tomorrow. And what's happened? You have a new crisis.

So those are the two rules.  Don't take a vacation that will harm you. And don't make your vacation too long.

If you keep those two rules, vacations can be really helpful.  They'll give you energy; they'll help you get through a crisis. 

Encouragement
The last letter in the word 'Improve' is E.  And E stands for encouragement. This skill is all about how to encourage yourself.  What the skill has to do with is talking to yourself. It's kind of simple really, you just talk to yourself. You say things like 'I can do it.  I can stand it. I'll get through this. I've done it before. I'm not a jerk.  I can do it.'

The problem is, in the middle of a crisis, it can be really hard to think up those thoughts. It can be hard to say those things to yourself.  So one of the rules of encouraging is you have to say it like you mean it.  No halfway statements; no tentative... No 'Maybe I can do it. Maybe it'll be alright.' Imagine if you said that to a friend.  Or if a friend said that to you? How would you feel?  It's not very encouraging.  You've never seen a cheerleader yell and scream  ' Maybe you can win!  Maybe you can make a first down!' I mean cheerleaders don't do that. Cheerleaders cheer. 

So that's the rule you've got to follow otherwise it really won't work.  So try it in your mind, right now.  Why don't you say to yourself, say, 'I can get through things.'  Say it to yourself like you mean it.  'I can get through things.' Did you say it?  How did it feel? 

Let's try an experiment. Put your arms out. Now I want you to put your arms out with me. Watch. I've got mine out.  Now, throw yourself into the moment because we're going to do this for a little while.  'Cause I'm waiting for your arms to hurt. So just keep sitting there.  Just notice.  Let your fingers go down. Just notice your arms. Are you starting to feel sore?  Are you starting to want to drop them?  We're just going to wait. I want you to just notice how your arms feel.  Pay attention.  How do they feel? Is this getting hard?  Alright.  Now. Start saying, in your mind not out loud, 'I can't stand it.  When is she going to stop?  Ugh, this is awful.  Just can't stand it. Ugh, it's unbearable.  When is she stopping? Ugh, can't stand it. Arms they hurt.  Ugh.' Keep doing that. Notice how it feels. Do this in your mind. 

Alright. Now say in your mind, 'Huh, no big deal. I can do this.'  Now say in your mind, 'Huh, I can handle it. I can cope.  I can do this.  I'm strong. This ain't going to kill me. I can do it.'  Keep at it. You could say, if you're a woman you could say, 'Go girl!  Go girl!' How are you doing? Pay attention. Ok.  You can drop your arms too now. 

What's the difference? You notice a difference? Most people do.  It just feels better - it's easier.

The second rule is, when you encourage yourself, you have to say things that are true. You don't want to go around telling yourself you can do things that you could never do. That really, no one can do.  You're not going to say, 'Ok I've never lifted weights.   I can do it.  I can lift 500 lbs.'  No. Be realistic. 

Encouraging can be really effective. In fact, there's actually a lot of research on this. And the research shows that people who encourage themselves, who say to themselves and think to themselves, 'I can do it. I can do this.' can actually increase their ability. 

Conclusion
Those are the improve skills: 
I, imagery,
M, meaning,
P, prayer,
R, relaxation,
O, one thing in the moment,
V, vacation, and
E, encourage yourself.


PROS & CONS

We have one set of skills left and this is the skill of Pros & Cons. Thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of particular courses of action or doing certain things. So you think about the advantages of doing certain things and the disadvantages of doing them.  And you think about the advantages of not doing things.  And you think about the adv... disadvantages of not doing things.

There are three steps in Pros & Cons and we're going to go through each one of them. So the first step is that you have to actually figure out what's the behaviour that you're trying to figure out whether you're going to do it or not. So, if you're in a crisis and you're thinking of doing something really destructive, you might think about what is that destructive behaviour.  Like you're having an urge to binge eat, drink, use drugs, drive too fast, stay in bed all day, drop out of things you start.

Right now, just for a minute, think through what are the things you do that get you in trouble, make your life go worse. You could just get yourself revved up, mobilized, motivated, on course, stop doing those behaviours, especially when you're in a crisis, your life would go a whole lot better. So that's step one.  Write those behaviours down.
Step two is actually doing the Pros & Cons.  The first thing you want to do is get out a piece of paper. Now on the piece of paper, make a grid. On the top, you're going to want to write 'Pros' and 'Cons'.  And then go over to the left side, write 'Yes' and 'No'.  So now you've got your Pros and Cons grid.



Let's go through an example. Let's say you're a person who's had a lot of problems with alcohol.  In fact, maybe you were an alcoholic at one point in your life. Now, well, you just got fired from your job, life's really difficult, you don't really have anything to do, so you start wanting to have a drink. It's kind of a crisis and you want to have a drink. What are the advantages? Well, you might be thinking, 'I'll feel calm immediately. I won't be in so much pain. I'll get to experience that really pleasurable buzz, that warm feeling I get as alcohol is going down my throat.'

What do you have to lose?  Well, you might think, 'I'll hate myself .  I'll have to start over and it'll be really hard and I'll feel ashamed.'  So you've got the Pros and Cons of drinking. 

Now, let's look at the Pros and Cons of not drinking.  What do I have to gain from not drinking? 'Feel really competent. I can look at my children in the face. I won't feel hung over tomorrow. I won't have pain and suffering in the long run.'  Now let's look at the cons. If you don't drink, what's the disadvantage? You're going to keep on having pain and suffering, at least for the moment. You'll be more irritable.  It's possible you'll keep on drinking - you'll have to start all over.  

Now, you've got the Pros & Cons, what do you do next?  You're the only one who can decide; no one can decide this for you. 'Cause no one can tell you what's really important to you. But, if drinking's a problem for you and you know it, then you're going to have to hope that you're going to decide that the disadvantages of drinking and the advantages of not drinking far out weigh anything you've got to gain from drinking. And my guess is, if you do this honestly, thoroughly, thoughtfully, that's what'll happen. 

The secret to a really good Pros & Cons is the first time, do it when you don't have the urge. Do it when you're calm, secure, not in a crisis. So that's step two, you've done your Pros & Cons.  I'm going to assume that you've done it. 

What's step three? Step three is don't throw that piece of paper out. You want to keep those Pros & Cons because you're going to need them in a crisis.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes when people get in a crisis it really seems like not only do they not want to get out of  the crisis, but actually they kind of want to stay in the crisis. Sometimes people think, 'If I stay in the crisis, someone else is going to do something.  I'm going to stay in the crisis to prove to them how bad it is.' Or, 'I'm not getting out.  And who's going to help me?'

Remember that story I was telling you about being in the church and moving around and being sort of miserable the whole time.  Well what's going on? I was trying to get somebody else to do something. It was like, if I stay miserable, he'll quit talking. Did he?  No. Usually it doesn't work. I just have to tell you that's not a road you want to go down. Lots of people have been down that road. I've never seen that road work.  The price is just too high.  So, do Pros & Cons on whether to use your skills. But if you decide you want to be effective, you want to survive, you want to get through this in one piece, you don't want to make things worse, these are the skills for you.


REVIEW

All right. So we've gotten through all the skills.  Now, let's review.  So what were the first skills we went over? They're the 'Improve' skills and you can remember them - you just have to remember the word 'improve'.
So start with I. I, imagery.  Imagery is when, in a crisis, you create a place inside yourself, sort of a place inside your mind's eye, that you can go to and that you will feel safe in. So that's I, imagery.  You can also in imagery remember... just imagine you're somewhere else, like in Hawaii.

M, what's that skill?  Meaning.  The idea here is to see if there's some way that you can create meaning or purpose. Can you find something inside the suffering that you're in that has some sort of value.  That makes the crisis a lot easier to get through, if you can do that.
What's the next letter?  P, prayer.  If you're a person who prays, now is the time to do it. A crisis is definitely the time to pray.  Well what kind of prayer? Most of us pray, 'Get me out!  Get me out!' That's... that's ok so alright so maybe you're going to do that.  However, a prayer that  might be more helpful getting through a crisis is going to be an acceptance prayer. It's going to be an 'I accept...' sort of prayer.  'You're will be done.' 

What's the next letter?  R.  R is for relaxation.  Relaxation is a great way to cope when you're in a crisis, mainly because it changes your body.  When you change your body, from very tense to relaxed, you can often survive a whole lot better.  So when you relax you might just want to go through your body, find each part, see if any of parts of your body are tense. You can either say the word 'relax' let them go. Or you could tense them first and then relax.  So that's R.

What's the next one. O. What's O stand for?  My very favorite skill - one thing in the moment. This is a fabulous skill.  Do you remember it? This is when, in a crisis, it feels overwhelming, what are you going to do?  You throw yourself into the moment.  The key thing to remember is that if you're in a crisis, generally the crisis is bad enough. You just want to suffer the crisis.  One thing in a moment is the way to set it up so that you suffer the moment but not every past crisis you have ever had. And you don't suffer everything in the future. So how do you do that? Do you remember? You throw yourself into an activity. Just one thing. 

What's the next letter?  V, vacation.  ...so do I. This is the one where you just take a vacation.  Now what's the secret of vacations? Do you remember, what is the secret? You weren't thinking of taking a long vacation were you?  No. That's not going to help.  That might take it... make it worse.  So vacation is short, brief.  Kind of short and sweet. 

We just have the last letter, and what's the last letter? You got it.  E for encouragement.  Encouragement is when you encourage yourself. It's when you talk to yourself.  You're sweet to yourself. You cheerlead yourself.  You say, 'Hey, I can do it. I can make it. I'll get through.' That's encouragement. 

Alright, so those are the improve skills.

Now, let's go on to the Pros & Cons. Pros & Cons, you're going to think about the advantages and disadvantages of doing things. So the Pros, which is the advantage and the Cons which is the disadvantages. Now remember there are three steps in Pros & Cons. What are they?

The first thing you want to do is figure out what's the behaviour that you've got a really strong urge to do.  In other words, what behaviour are you trying to make a decision about. Are you trying to figure out 'shall I do it or not.' So figure out that behaviour. 

And the second thing you do is you get a piece of paper and you write down the advantages and the disadvantages of the behaviour.

The third step is that you review your Pros & Cons.  You read it over and you think through, 'What's the weight of the argument? My Pros & Cons say do what?' And based on your Pros & Cons, most of the time, you're going to know what's the wise thing to do. Alright, so then, of course, there's the fourth step, you have to do the wise thing.  So that's Pros & Cons.

Now let me just give you a little hint.  You're a lot better off if you write out the Pros & Cons for behaviours that you sometimes do that make your life go worse.  If you write out those Pros & Cons when you're not in a crisis, 'cause the facts of the matter are when you're in a crisis it is unbelievable difficult to write out Pros & Cons. 

Why is it so difficult?  Well, your urge sometimes to do something, to run away or escape or do something destructive, well, it's so high that if you write out the Pros & Cons they're going to convince you to do it.  The only reason they're convincing you to do it is you want to do it.  So, write your list out some other time.  Now, if you do that, you can't lose the list. So you've got to put it someplace where you remember where you put it.

So do you Pros & Cons, keep your list somewhere. If you get in a crisis, you're overcome with an urge, pull your list out, read it over, do the wise thing.

Alright. So those are the two sets of skills: Improve the Moment and Pros &Cons. Now, one final thing that's really helpful to remember.  And that's the following: Crisis survival skills work if you survive.  Lots of times people say, 'Oh, I don't feel better.  I wanted to feel better.  I'm not happy.  These skills don't work.' Or they'll say, 'Well, the problem's not solved.  The skills don't work.  Well I've still got the crisis. These skills don't work.'  You want to remember, these are not skills for solving problems. And they're not skills for improving your life.  And they're not skills for making changes in yourself.   And they are definitely not the skills that right this second are going to make you a lot happier than you already are. What these skills are for is to help you get through the moment without making it worse.  So ask yourself, 'Did I make it worse?' If you say no, the skills worked. 

So, it's the end of this program.  The really bad new is I have to say goodbye.  The good news, well, there is another program that has a whole other set of Crisis Survival Skills.