Remembering to HALT

By Lynn Rasmussen in Happiness/Mental health, Relationships & Marriage | Comments (1)

I ran into an artist friend of mine the other day, who reminded me of a very good tip from Alanon:

When you’re losing it, when you snap at someone, or when life seems hopeless,
remember to HALT — Stop and ask, “Am I Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired?

Maybe the problem isn’t your partner or your life. Maybe it’s just time to get those needs met.

I googled HALT and found it in a blog post by a recently widowed mother of twin toddlers. Wow. When wouldn’t she be hungry, angry, lonely, and/or tired? She put it all into perspective. Despite the tragic loss of their father, lucky twins to have her as a mom.

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One comment for this post.

Comment from David Ing on September 27th, 2007 :
Nice. This reminds us that we’re all biological.

I’ve been lecturing in a master’s program in Finland, recently. One of the personal development activities that I do with them — they’re not exclusively engineers, but a lot are — is to run a Belbin team roles test with them, as well as encouraging them to do a Myers-Briggs test (e.g. the Keirsey temperament sorter at http://www.advisorteam.com/temperament_sorter) and an Enneagram (e.g. at http://similarminds.com).

Although the inclination is for each person to reflect on who he or she “is”, I encourage them to think about how they communicate with each other, and how they are perceived by each other. Of course, doing such tests is more logical than intuitive, but it seems to help these prospective managers think about how they’re dealing with others interpersonally.