- 10almonds
- Posts
- 10almonds Gets Radical!
10almonds Gets Radical!
We address some important "what ifs" and give you the tools to manage your life, your way!
The 10almonds Team
February 19, 2023
It’s Psychology Sunday at 10almonds, and we’re here to give you bite-size, approachable ways to benefit both your health and productivity. At the end of the day, “mental health is just health”, and we can never completely separate mental and physical health—each affects the other, a lot!
So, if you’re sitting comfortably…
🗣 SUBSCRIBER VOICES
A Tip from Robin
Before we get to psychology, a quick tip from Robin, one of our subscribers, who brought to our attention a problem we hadn’t encountered in our own testing of our emails!
❝I finally figured out why none of the video links have worked for me. I need to open your email and read it in the browser, instead of my inbox. I was wondering if you might consider just mentioning that option, in a quick line, so others who are not tech savvy like me, know what to do. Thank you for considering this suggestion. Keep up the excellent work. Hope you have a wonderful day. :)❞
We’re not yet sure what caused this problem for Robin (as it works in our inboxes), but if anyone’s encountering the same problem, then:
That’s one way to fix it
We’ll also start putting alt-links under videos, so if the embedded version doesn’t work automatically, you can just click the link to open the video directly on YouTube.
Thank you Robin for bringing that to our attention, and if anyone else has any feedback (technical or otherwise), we’re always glad to hear from you! Just hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget included 😎
👀 WATCH AND LEARN…
Sticking to Habits with ADHD
How to stick to habits and routines without falling off… This video (and its entire channel, actually) is by and for people with ADHD, but its lessons are useful to everyone!
😎 RADICAL, BABY
Radical Acceptance!
A common criticism of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is that much of it hinges on the following process:
You are having bad feelings
Which were caused by negative automatic thoughts
Which can be taken apart logically
Thus diffusing the feelings
And then feeling better
For example:
I feel like I’m an unwanted burden to my friend
Because he canceled on me today
But a reasonable explanation is that he indeed accidentally double-booked himself and the other thing wasn’t re-arrangeable
My friend is trusting me to be an understanding friend myself, and greatly values my friendship
I feel better and look forward to our next time together
But what if the negative automatic thoughts are, upon examination, reasonable?
Does CBT argue that we should just “keep the faith” and go on looking at a cruel indifferent world through rose-tinted spectacles?
Nope, there’s a back-up tool.
This is more talked-about in Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT), and is called radical acceptance:
Radical acceptance here means accepting the root of things as true, and taking the next step from there. It follows a bad conclusion with “alright, and now what?”
“But all evidence points to the fact that my friend has been avoiding me for months; I really can’t ignore it or explain it away any longer”
“Alright. Now what?”
Maybe there’s something troubling your friend that you don’t know about (have you asked?)
Maybe that something is nothing to do with you (or maybe it really is about you!)
Maybe there’s a way you and he can address it together (how important is it to you?)
Maybe it’s just time to draw a line under it and move on (with or without him)
Whatever the circumstances, there’s always a way to move forwards.
Feelings are messengers, and once you’ve received and processed the message, the only reason to keep feeling the same thing, is if you want to.
Note that this is true even when you know with 100% certainty that the Bad Thing™ is real and exactly as-imagined. It’s still possible for you to accept, for example:
“Alright, so this person really truly hates me. Damn, that sucks; I think I’ve been nothing but nice to them. Oh well. Shit happens.”
Feel all the feelings you need to about it, and then decide for yourself where you want to go from there.
👋 HELLO DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND (QUICK TIP)
Recognizing Emotions
We talked in a previous edition of 10almonds’ Psychology Sunday about how an important part of dealing with difficult emotions is recognizing them as something that you experience, rather than something that’s intrinsically “you”.
But… How?
One trick is to just mentally (or out loud, if your current environment allows for such) greet them when you notice them:
Hello again, Depression
Oh, hi there Anxiety, it’s you
Nice of you to join us, Anger
Not only does this help recognize and delineate the emotion, but also, it de-tooths it and recognizes it for what it is—something that doesn’t actually mean you any harm, but that does need handling.
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
Beyond Balancing The Books - by George Marino, CPA, CFP
We hear a lot about the importance of mindfulness, yet how can Zen-like non-attachment to the material world go well with actually surviving (let alone thriving) in a Capitalist society?
Books that try to connect the two often end up botching it badly to the level of early 2000s motivational posters.
So, what does this book do differently? Mostly it’s because rather than a motivational speech with exhortations to operate on a higher plain and manifest your destiny and all that, it gives practical, down-to-earth advice and offers small simple things you can do or change to mindfully engage with the world of business rather than operating on auto-pilot.
Basically: how to cut out the stress without cutting out your performance.
All in all, we think both your health and your productivity will thank you for it!
What did you think of today's newsletter?Sorry to bother you. But the feedback really helps us. |
Wishing you a healthy day of productivity and night of rest,
The 10almonds Team