Today we learn acceptance.

Acceptance is often the best route if the problems you have cannot be solved, or you're unable to solve them right away.

Three paths to acceptance are - observing your thoughts and moods rather than judging them or acting on them, keeping the big picture in mind, and acting in accord with your values even when you are distressed.

How are thoughts related to anxiety? In this episode we go over some text and also do an exercise to identify the thoughts we had in an anxious situation.

Today we learnt that anxiety has physical and mental symptoms. Anxiety comes in two behavioral forms -

1. Avoidance

2. Safety behaviors

Copping behaviors should be adopted to reduce anxiety over time.

Today I go over chapter 14 of book "Mind over mood" and understand about anxiety. I also finished chapter 4 from previous episode. We learnt about mood severity and anxiety physical symptoms. Start rating your mood on a scale of 0-100% and start noting down your physical symptoms of anxiety. Here is the worksheet that helps - https://infosheets.mindovermood.com/MOM2-worksheet-14-1.pdf

Today, we're continuing to understand ourselves by learning how to identify moods. Reading chapter 4 of this book - "Mind over Mood", we learn that:

• Moods can usually be described in one word
• Situations and behaviors can be described by asking yourself: Who? What? When? Where?
• Identifying specific moods helps you set goals and track progress
• Thoughts are the words, images, and memories that go through your mind.

Summary: Today I go over the book "Mind over Mood", and read its chapter 3 "It's the thought that counts".

• Thought affects mood
• Thought affects behavior
• Thought affects physical reaction
• Environment affects thought
• Life experiences determine the attitudes, beliefs and thoughts that develop in childhood and often persist into adulthood.

Reversing Anxiety and Conquering Incongruence - https://www.healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/A_E/Anxiety-reversing-the-vicious-cycle#, https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1441-1
Summary:

• Anxiety can have a significant impact on one’s behavior and daily life
• Anxiety feeds itself in a vicious cycle
• Anxiety arose from incongruent personality
• Incongruent personality has distorted sense of self
• Incongruent people become defensive and denies reality thereby increasing anxiety
• Avoidance and safety behaviors can also fuel anxiety
• Gradual confronting feared situations is a the medicine for anxiety
• Coping skills such as Breathing and Thinking help conquer the mind when facing anxious situations

Today I went over Self love, which is a crucial part of our personality building. Here is the reading link - https://www.forbes.com/health/mind/how-to-practice-self-love/

The main points of today were:

• Self love helps with mental and physical health
• Happiness, self-acceptance, self-esteem, self-awareness and self-foregiveness are mental benefits of self love
• Keep a gratitude journal
• Give yourself compliment
• Speak to yourself like a friend
• Practice mindfulness
• Celebrate small wins
• Limit time on social media

Today, there is an opinion question about upcoming episode suggestions.

Today I take feedback from yesterday's practice and learn more about Tone and Clarity. I go through these two webpages to learn about today's topic - https://www.tonyrobbins.com/love-relationships/watching-your-tone/, https://www.quora.com/I-speak-too-fast-and-unclear-how-can-I-improve-this

• There are 4 components of voice’s tone - Pitch, Volume, Pace, Timbre
• Pitch - High pitch is immature & defensive voice, and Low pitch is unnecessarily heavy and unpleasant
• Volume - Low volume is inaudible, and high volume is argumentative
• Pace - Slow pace is boring, and high pace is difficult to understand
• Timbre - Imparts personality - frustrated, rushed, sad, happy
• To improve language clarity, do - meditation, visualization, practice, abdomen breathing

Today I pick up one of the most critical types of conversation skills - conversation skills at work. Work meetings are boring for everyone, but if we slack(pun intended) on proper communication, it doesn't take much time to fall behind, and even, lose the job. That's why, it is important to train to listen and respond properly at work meetings.

Today I read from this article - https://hbr.org/2021/12/how-to-become-a-better-listener

Today I went highlighted some of the difficulties in communication that I face.

1. Improper Listening
2. Lack of recall from conversations
3. Miscommunication under stress
4. Conflicts during conversation
5. Lack of consciousness while speaking(Lack of thought clarity)

To address the first problem, I went through the following blog and learnt what research says about active listening, from one of the founders of humanistic psychology, Carl Rogers. Rogers was the first to develop a talking based approach to learn more about humans. If Carl rogers can learn deep truths about a person by just talking to them, he might have a thing or two to say about listening effectively!

https://aeon.co/essays/the-psychologist-carl-rogers-and-the-art-of-active-listening