M astering the Gift of Self Care

1. Mastering the Gift of Self Care Annual Street Outreach Workers Conference Austin, Texas June 13, 2011

2. Learning Objectives:  • By the end of the workshop presentation, participants will: • Increase knowledge, skills and attitudes regarding personal and professional self-care and its relevance; • Gain insights into sources of workplace stressors and professional grief; • Recognize the vital role agencies play in supporting the well being of staff • Learn traditional and nontraditional strategies and techniques to promote holistic health and enhance wellness; and • Increase opportunities for future growth and self-development in adopting healthier lifestyles

3. Background • As seasoned professionals and outreach workers, we are expected to perform to a certain standard with regard to staffing changes or high turnover; changes in processes and procedures; changes in case loads, or illness or personal problems all which impact an employee’s ability to do his or her job

4. Background • As outreach worker professionals execute their tasks with precision and fortitude, there is a greater call to remember the human side and the passion that goes into the work.

5. Maslow Hierachy of Need

6. Maslow Hierachy of Need

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8. In Order to Be Happy… • Truth, rather than dishonesty. Goodness, rather than evil. Beauty, not ugliness or vulgarity. Unity, wholeness, and transcendence of opposites, not arbitrariness or forced choices. Aliveness, not deadness or the mechanization of life. Uniqueness, not bland uniformity. Perfection and necessity, not sloppiness, inconsistency, or accident.

9. In Order to Be Happy… • Completion, rather than incompleteness. Justice and order, not injustice and lawlessness. Simplicity, not unnecessary complexity. Richness, not environmental impoverishment. Effortlessness, not strain. Playfulness, not grim, humorless, drudgery. Self-sufficiency, not dependency. Meaningfulness, rather than senselessness. Source: C. George Boeree, 2006

10. The Premise: Wellness and Health • Food & Nutrition • Stress Relief Strategies • Inner Healing and Transformation • Avoidance of Toxic and unhealthy substances • Aerobic/strength exercise • Loving relationships (with self included) • Creative expression • Spiritual connection and healing

11. Holistic Self-Care • The physical you requires good nutrition, appropriate weight, beneficial exercise and adequate rest. • The emotional you needs to give and receive forgiveness, love and compassion; needs to laugh and experience happiness; needs joyful relationships with yourself and others. • The mental you needs self-supportive attitudes, positive thoughts and viewpoints and a positive self-image. • The spiritual you requires inner calmness, openness to your creativity, and trust in your inner knowing.

12. THE WORLD OF WORK- 2011 PRESENT PARADIGM POSSIBLE PARADIGM

13. Positive Relationship Building The Motivational Iceberg

14. Behavior Change Theory • Pre Contemplation • Contemplation • Determination • Action • Maintenance Prochaska & Diclemente

15. Premise • When you become involved in the work of an agency, whatever the program or area of involve- ment, you run the risk of being emotionally involved. (CAS, 2009)

16. Stressors Exercise • Based on the following categories, rank in priority order your most significant stressors in the workplace [1 being most high to 3 being moderately high]: • Relationships with Management & Co-workers • Bureaucracy/Red Tape • Performance Demands • Balancing Professional and Personal Life • Challenging Patient Population • Recovery Management • Health Issues • High Burnout and Turnover Rates • Boundaries

17. Accountability and Responsibility • You are responsible to yourself to: • Keep yourself healthy • Keep yourself sane • Keep your mind clear.

18. Manage Stress • Identify the Cause • Monitor Moods • Give Yourself Time • Manage Anger • Consider Your Priorities • Cut Yourself some Slack (APA, www.apa.org)

19. Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity. ~ Hippocrates

20. Characteristics of Professional Grief • Regular, continuous professional loss • Grief may be chronic or delayed • Aloof and distant mourner • Grief transformed into other emotions: • anger, anxiety, blame, helplessness & guilt • Cumulative, unexpressed grief results in • vulnerability, burnout, compassion fatigue • or post-traumatic stress syndrome

21. 6 Facts About Grief • We grieve all losses. • Grief is more than an emotional experience. It is also experienced as a physical, psychological, spiritual and behavioral reactions. • We cannot control where we grieve or what will trigger grief. • Grief is an uneven process with no timeline. • Grieving means going on with our life; while maintaining memories, connections, and feelings of grief and loss. • Over time, most people learn to live with loss.

22. Four Major Tasks for the Professional • Accepting the Reality of the Loss • Experiencing the Pain of Grief • Adjusting to a Changed Environment • Going Forward Emotionally

23. 10 Tips for Maintaining Balance 1.  Reach out for support from your peers, friends and families. 2.  Remember that you don’t have to be a hero and go it alone. 3.  Create opportunities to debrief, and use professional counseling when appropriate.

24. 10 Tips for Maintaining Balance 4.  Be kind to yourself and have fun. 5.  Remember that you don’t have to — and can’t! — be perfect. 6.  Stay healthy through restorative self-care and remember to laugh.

25. 10 Tips for Maintaining Balance 7.  Set healthy boundaries. 8.  Acknowledge your own wounded-ness, and use it to be an empathic source of wisdom. 9.  Create rituals to delineate work time from personal time. 10. Reflect on powerful or difficult experiences through journaling and the support of peers, spiritual teachers and mentors to recover a sense of meaning, purpose and connection in life.

26. Personal Renewal: Visioning The Best Year Yet-2011Four Basic Questions for the Journey • Question One-What Did I Accomplish? • Question Two-What Did I Learn? • Question Three-How Did I Limit Myself, and How Can I Stop? • Question Four-What Are My Top Four Goals for This Year-the remainder of this year?

27. Requirements - 2011 • ALWAYS Do Your Best • Don’t Take Anything Personally • Be Impeccable with Your Word • Don’t Make Assumptions 27

28. Affirmations & Guided Meditations

29. Letting Go Affirmation Statements • I am worry free. • I release all fears of not being perfect. I am good enough. I am perfect in my own way. • I let go of all expectations. I am free to live the life I've dreamed. • I let go of the need to control others. I allow others to make their own way.

30. Letting Go Affirmation Statements cont. • I release! I let go! I coast along with my hands off the controls. • I breathe freely without constraints. My energy flows without care alongside the wayward winds. • The past is gone, the future uncertain. Today is now and I face it head on. • I let go of my regrets. I am grateful for lessons my past missteps taught me. • I release my chaotic monkey mind. My mind is clear of distractions. I am focused.

31. Healthy Ways to Get Yourself out of a Funk Definition of a funk - lack of motivation and low energy • Go for a walk - I'm not talking about a marathon here. If you can only manage a walk around the block you'll be better for it. Be sure to take in some deep breaths while you're outside to clear your lungs. • Do a Random Act of Kindness- Stop feeling sorry for yourself and make someone else's day special. Afterwards, you will both feel better. • Clear out Clutter- One of the quickest ways to generate new and fresh energy moving into my space is to clear away stagnant energies by throwing out useless materials. Tossing out trash may seem like work, but it is totally energizing once you get the hang of it.

32. Healthy Ways to Get Yourself out of a Funk • Try a New Recipe - We all get in ruts eating and preparing the same foods again and again. Maybe you won't like it... so what! Where's your adventuresome spirit? The whole idea is to get you out of a funk, right? • Volunteer at a food pantry - Put yourself in a position of service to those who are less fortunate than you are. Your own worries will seem less troubling when you see firsthand the plight of others. • Hug a Tree - Spending time with nature is my favorite way to feel better. Put on your hiking boots and get lost for a couple hours near a babbling brook. If you can't get out of town, at least go for a barefoot run through the grasses in your yard.

33. Healthy Ways to Get Yourself out of a Funk • Change your bed sheets - Better yet, go out and purchase a new set of colorful bed linens to brighten up your bedroom. When is the last time you changed your linens anyway? If you let your routine weekly sheet change slip by then you're certainly in FUNK territory. Crisp, clean, and colorful bed linens to curl up inside at bedtime will offer comfort when you most need it. • Go see a funny movie - Forgo the tear-jerkers and dramas at the theater this time around. You need a good belly-laugh to break that funk, viewing a comedy is your best bet. Invite a friend to go along with you and see who laughs the hardest/longest. • Spend quality time with a child - Take your niece/nephew or a neighbor's child out on a special outing to a zoo or playtime at a nearby park. Even a quick trip to get corn dogs and a root beer float will be appreciated. Children love it when adults give them special attention. Plus, you'll get the satisfaction of not only bringing about a joyful smile on a child's face, you'll be smiling too! • Pamper yourself - Do whatever it is that brings you the most joy. It might be indulging in a bubble bath, reading a saucy romance novel, or breaking out of your routine to go inline skating. Don't tell yourself that you don't deserve it. BECAUSE YOU DO! Source: Phylameana lila Desy, About.com Guide

34. The Secret Everything that’s coming into your life you are attracting into your life. And its attracted to you by virtue of the images you are holding in your mind. Its what you are thinking. Whatever is going on in your mind you are attracting to you.

36. PART II: HIV PREVENTION STRUCTUAL INTERVENTIONS FOR WOMEN OF COLOR Capacity Development for Working with Women of Color Austin, TX June 2011

37. Social Determinants Women’s Vulnerability to Dis-ease • Gender stereotypes and double standards • Socio-economic disparities • Homelessness • Income • Poverty • Health care coverage • Dynamics of power in sexual relationships *Factors are prevalent however may not be specific to women.

38. Maslow Hierachy of Need

39. Empowerment Theory In order to reverse increasing dis-ease rates for U.S. women of color, there is an urgent need to: • Empower women and transform the way women and men relate to each other • Recognize empowerment is important for women of color • Recognize risks that are further exacerbated by male control of sexual decision-making, male partner violence, and histories of child sexual abuse.

40. Gender Responsiveness • Gender-sensitive approaches recognize that the prevention, care, treatment, and support needs of women and men are often different and provide services to meet the different needs of women and men. However, these programs do very little to change the social and economic conditions that create gender-related inequalities in the first place. • Gender-specific approaches consider the social and environmental context in which women and men live and then structure information, activities, program priorities, and service-delivery systems to counteract the factors that contribute to women’s unequal status relative to men and consequent vulnerability to dis-ease.

41. Gender Responsiveness • Gender-transformative approaches seek to create more equitable relationships between women and men and challenge existing gender and societal norms. They seek to change the underlying conditions that create gender inequalities. They also seek to involve both women and men in prevention interventions because they recognize that both women and men are key players in effective prevention and treatment.

42. Rights to Women’s Health • Right to health • Right to life and survival • Right to privacy and confidentiality • Right to the benefits of scientific progress • Right to information and education • Right to marry and found a family • Right to maternity protection • Right to decide the number and spacing of one’s children • Right to liberty and security of person, and • Right to non discrimination.

43. Becoming Part of the Community:Preconditions for a Successful Community Outreach Program

44. Staff Characteristics Required To EnhanceWomen’s Ability To Use External and Internal Resources

45. BARRIERS TO REACHING WOMEN AT RISK • Our biases, values, and attitudes that may interfere with effective work with women if we are not aware of them • Our inability to speak the language, dialect, or lingo of the target population • Our fear of the target group and the environment • Our lack of identification with or understanding of ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation considerations.

46. CLIENT BARRIERS TO REACHING QUALITY OF LIFE • Denial (“Addiction or HIV/AIDS doesn’t affect me—I only have one partner.”) • Addiction • Absence of trust (fear about outreach worker being a “snitch;" feeling of being “used” by programs) • Personal stresses/other responsibilities (children, etc.) • Loyalty to/protection of partners • Fear of partners • Other needs that are more immediate or pressing • Oversaturation with prevention-related campaigns.

47. COMMUNITY BARRIERS • Negative attitudes of law enforcement or other officials toward target group or about outreach into target neighborhoods (“It makes no difference; nothing will work.”) • “Closed” neighborhoods, barrios, or reservations that make entry difficult • Stereotypes (“Addiction or HIV/AIDS only happens to those kinds of people.”) • Denial (“Addiction or HIV/AIDS doesn’t exist here.”) • Lack of financial resources to help target population • Poor choice of program location.

48. Effective Prevention Interventions for Women & Girls SISTA SIHLE

49. Sisters Informing Sisters about Topics on AIDS (SISTA) • This group-level, gender- and culturally- relevant intervention, is designed to increase condom use with African American women. • Five peer-led group sessions are conducted that focus on ethnic and gender pride, HIV knowledge, and skills training around sexual risk reduction behaviors and decision making.

50. Sisters Informing Sisters about Topics on AIDS (SISTA) • The intervention is based on Social Learning theory as well as the theory of Gender and Power. The SISTA project specifically targets sexually active women.