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We are currently living in difficult and surreal times. As I thought about what I could share in this video that could make a difference, I realized something about the Solution Focused Approach that I am not sure I had thought of before. A lesson sparked by someone I met at an event several years ago. I hope it makes a difference for you.
With all of the crazy things going on in the world right now, as we deal with this virus that is spreading and disrupting our way of life. I was thinking today, I was thinking, you know as I make this video, what can I get across and what can I share with you that wouldn’t matter? And that would, that would kind of, like, help your solution focused understanding and help you go on this journey through this world, even not a solution focused just is like dealing with all the things that we have to deal with.
And I was driving around today knowing I was gonna make this video thinking like, what do I want to share and how do I want to share it. It was really kind of on my mind all day, and I realized something. I realized it’s moments like this where I think things like solution focused brief therapy become even more important. And let me tell you what I mean by that, I think just as people, like, we have a tendency to take for granted, Um, the things that happen in our lives normally and I met a guy. I did a conference in Canada,
and I met someone who was with the Mohawk People in Ontario. Name was Joe, a really remarkable guy.
Joe if you’re watching this. shout out to you, Joe. But I met a guy named Joe and he was telling me that one of the most important tenants in the Mohawk culture is gratitude.
So we have this conversation about gratitude and he said, “Elliott, people like you don’t understand gratitude”. And I thought,
“What do you mean? How do you know?” I was just meeting him at this event he’s telling me that,
like, people like me don’t understand gratitude. So I was like, “Joe, what you mean by that?” And he said,
“Because sometimes when we ask people to express gratitude, the art of our culture, they say things like,
‘You know, I’m so thankful that I have a really cool cellphone or a really nice car.’ And really gratitude is I’m thankful that I have speech”.
See what I mean? So it’s like I’m not thankful for the phone. I thankful that I have speech. Or like, I’m thankful for the breath that I have, the ability to breathe in and breathe out.
I’m thankful for my feet that are able to walk. Like, instead of saying I’m thankful for these really cool shoes.
I’m thankful that I have feet that can support my body. I can stand on this I can’t tell you how often people come to my office and I say, “So what’s been better since we last met?”
And they say, “Nothing. Nothing has been better”. And then I always ask this question. I always say,
“Well, if I had a video of every moment from the moment you walked out of my office last time I saw you, to this moment, at what point in your life would have had a hard time noticing nothing was getting better.”
And the shocking thing is, people answer it and they’re like, “Well, you know, I did get along better with my teenager” or, “my husband” or, “wife” or, “this really wonderful thing happened”.
And what Solution Focused Brief Therapy does, it has a tendency by language, asking clients like, slow down and noticed the good bits. So like, slow down and noticed the highlights and the good moments in their life because,
quite frankly, we take them for granted, and one of the things, we’re just 3 months in to 2020 and I don’t know about you,
but this has been a doozy of a year so far. We have had really impactful global people pass away, the economy and political system is in turmoil.
Now we have this virus going all over the place. And I think it’s important to recognize that like, it’s times like this where we need to be able to focus on good things in our life.
And once we come out of this turmoil, we need to remember the lesson from Joe and the Mohawk People.
We need to remember that you should really, really be appreciative and not take for granted the good moments.
Because, as we can all see as we’re dealing with all this craziness, you just never know what’s gonna happen.
So you might as well notice attend to ,and appreciate the good things that happen in your life. And I feel very honored and blessed and lucky
and fortunate, that I get to do something like Solution Focused Brief Therapy. That this approach came into my life at a time where I was able to learn it and process what it was, And now I get to share with the world through my books and work and videos like this,
it means the world to me. And if I could, if I could ask everybody in the world to do one thing,
it’s don’t take the good bits for granted. So now that we’re sitting here in this, in this storm,
I want you to look around and just attend to the good bits of life because we’re gonna learn from Joe.
Not that I’m really excited that I have, uh, you know, a television. I want to be excited that even though this turmoils still going on,
that I have breath in my body, that I have oxygen to breathe, like that’s true appreciation. And that’s really, I think, one of the underlying things of Solution Focused is
we use language to ask clients to slow down and notice the good bits. And this will, you know, this will pass eventually.
You know, we’ll get this virus under control, the economy will stabilize and political system will do what it does and those sorts of things.
And I hope we always remember that, let’s slow down and appreciate the good things and the good people in the good moments in our life,
because that’s why we have them. And I think too often, too many of us, me included, by the way.
We take those things for granted because they’re so consistent. But let’s learn a lesson and really focus on what makes us great and the great things in our life.
And we need them in our hard moments. But we need to practice in our good moments.
So thank you for watching this video. Please share this video. Man. I want so many people to see this video.
I hope that it touched you. Like this video. Comment. If you’re watching this on my YouTube channel,
subscribe. If you’re watching on my website www.elliottconnie.com I just added a feature to my website where you can search my video library of these SFBT moments, and you can find whatever thing that you can search for ‘couples’ and you can search for ‘anxiety’. You can search for all of the things that I’ve been talking about in these now nearly 200 videos that will help you kind of and get your questions answered immediately instead of going through all 200 videos to try to figure out where was it that Elliott
was talking about this thing. Just searched the keyword or subject in the search feature on my website. It’s really cool.
And it will come right up for you. So with that, you guys be great. Notice your good moments and make people smile.
Man, it’s awesome. Fist bump!
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