Creating Sanity in Troubling Times

By Deah Curry

Although "sanity" has specific meaning under the law, as a subjective mental-emotional sense of personal wellness, creating sanity starts with looking at how we can use different thought processes to change our perceptions of and assumptions about what is happening. By changing the ways we think, our emotions will shift about what is open to us as new options, opportunities and possibilities.

Creating Sanity in Troubling Times -- updated for the world of the 2020s -- is a helpful guide during times of overwhelm, anxiety and fear that impact personal growth, effectiveness and health. Relationships, creativity, critical thinking, emotional balance and physical well-being all are adversely stressed during times of trouble and trauma.

This self-health guide walks the reader through easy to understand explanations of the need for self reflection and critical thinking, and includes exercises for assessing current and needed thinking and stress management skills. Tools for developing solid thinking and healthful attitudes that help meet the challenges of dealing with today's world are provided. A set of 20 common sense creative coping alternatives provide readers with ample options for putting this new learning into action. By interacting with the ideas presented here, readers will create a renewed sense of sanity in a world gone crazy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Liminal Realities
• Release date: Mar 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005646967

Deah Curry

Deah Curry PhD is a retired psychotherapist, business coach, and educator who specialized in helping women and solopreneurs in the healing arts. As a worrytamer, she worked to empower others with her solid knowledge, proven skills, and creative alternative approaches to contentment and success. Now she is taking that background into the world of fiction, memoir, and personal essay.Dr Deah earned a multidisciplinary masters degree combining teaching, counseling, and health systems at Antioch University Seattle, and a doctorate in psychology at Saybrook University in California. She was given the Jourard Award for research in humanistic psychology by the American Psychological Association. She has lived and traveled in Asia, Europe, and the US.

Book preview

Creating Sanity

in Troubling Times

A Self-Health Guide

by Deah Curry PhD

A Liminal Realities Publication

Copyright © 2004 Liminal Realities

Updated and Expanded © 2012 Deah Curry PhD

Updated and Expanded © 2021 Deah Curry PhD

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or utilized in any form or by any means, digital, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as intended for personal use by the purchaser, without permission from the author. Address permission requests to: [e-mail]

All suggestions, concepts, and information in this ebook are provided solely as personal self-health education and is not intended to replace mental health treatment or professional coaching. Reading and trying any suggestion in this ebook does not create a therapeutic or coaching relationship with the author. The reader is solely responsible for any and all results attained or not achieved from implementing or attempting to implement any idea presented herein.

Thus sayeth the lawyers.

I thank all the many psychologists, researchers, theorists, philosophers, and others whose work has informed my own. Although I have avoiding burdening this publication with citations and references, I am grateful for these contributions to my knowledge, and apologize if in preparing this publication any unwitting replication of proprietary intellectual property has occurred.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Table of Contents

How to Use This Self-Health eBook

Initial Self-Assessments

What’s Sanity When Your World Seems Insane?

What is Self-Reflective Thinking?

Self-Reflective Thinking Exercise

How Does Critical Thinking Help?

Critical Thinking Exercise

Knowing What You Need to Know

The Knowing Exercise

Developing Creative Options

A Stimulating Creative Options Exercise

Nurturing Yourself

Self-Nurturing Assessment

16 Suggestions for Staying Sane

Accept the Things You Cannot Change

Change the Things You Can

Have Two or More Kindred Spirits in Your Life

Make Contracts for Success

Ask for Help

Take Personal Responsibility Only for What is Truly Yours

Keep Relationships Healthy

Reality Test Your Expectations

Cultivate Trust

Practice Compassionate Acts

Engage in a Spiritual Practice

Focus on Breathing

Engage in Play

Connect to Your InnerSelf from the Heart

Allow Yourself One Indulgence

Be Grateful, Commune with Nature, Celebrate Creativity

When Troubling Times Turn Traumatic

Four Extra Suggestions

Conclusion

Select Reviews

About the Author

More from Dr Deah

How to Use This

Self-Health eBook

If you always do what you’ve always done,

you’ll always get what you always got.

~ Attributed to Henry Ford

You’ve heard that saying, right? Well, a large part of what we do is tied to how we think – or how we react without thinking. Since sanity is a mental state, creating sanity starts with looking at how we can use different thought processes to change our perceptions and assumptions of what is happening. By changing the ways we think, our feelings will shift about what is open to us as new options, opportunities, and possibilities.

Creating Sanity in Troubling Times is written to be used as a helpful guide at times when you are feeling overwhelmed by the events around you and their impact on your life. As such, you will find questions to respond to, and assessment quizzes to take throughout this ebook. By interacting with the ideas presented here, you can create a renewed sense of sanity in a world gone crazy.

Whether you set aside a specific time of day to work with this guide, or keep it on your mobile device for those otherwise unoccupied moments such as waiting in a doctor's office or dining out alone, you'll get the most benefit when you engage with this work at least several times a week until you feel your sense of sanity shift to a more empowered state.

This initial self-assessment is intended to bring your current state of sanity to more concrete awareness.

Initial Self-Assessments

Rate how in control of your daily life you feel at this time:

76-100%

51-75%

34-50%

26-33%

not at all up to 25%

Rate how calm you feel about your control in your daily life:

76-100%

51-75%

34-50%

26-33%

not at all up to 25%

Name the troubling times you are currently facing.

Describe how you are being affected by these current life or world events.

Describe what are you seeking for yourself in regards to sanity