[New post] Stop, learn and listen | Mental health and wellness series with Preya Gopie
reallifemumsite posted: " It's 2am, you're still working while the rest of your household is asleep. Your back aches, you're tired, but your mind is racing with countless things that need to be done before the next day and your anxiety level is through the roof. You need to Stop,"
It's 2am, you're still working while the rest of your household is asleep. Your back aches, you're tired, but your mind is racing with countless things that need to be done before the next day and your anxiety level is through the roof. You need to Stop, I'm sharing a wonderful life changing technique to help you.
Mental health and wellness is so important it affects how we think, feel, and act as we cope with life.
It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood and aging
This week I had my monthly podcast and vlog with Preya Gopie. Preya is the head of PG Leadership Consulting based in London. I have enjoyed partnering with her over the last few months to share some wonderful techniques to help you with anxiety and stress that affects your mental health and wellness.
STOP
everything going on in our lives perhaps we listen carefully to ourselves first before we get ready to ask someone how are you doing, or probing to ask how are you really doing. Maybe when we get flustered or angry or anxious just STOP and by this I mean literally stop. So S is for Stop, then T is take three nice long deep breaths, O is for observe and ask yourself these types of questions: what am I thinking? What am I reacting to? What am I feeling in my body?
Then there is P which is pull back, put in some perspective, see the bigger picture. Is it a fact or opinion? How would someone else see this?
Finally and this is the key with forming a new habit is Practise what works: what is the best thing to do for me, or for others or for this situation
These are STOP cards which Preya shared and uses herself which you can print and keep them in the kitchen in the bathroom to look at whilst brushing your teeth which helps you with all the imperfections and distractions in life and to help cope with stress and anxiety in your daily life. Pop me and email if you have difficulty saving this image and I will gladly email you a copy: reallifemumsite@gmail.com
STOP cards, do save and print.
The 4 learning habits
How do you learn? According to Mumfords learning style there are four types of learners: activists, theorists, reflectors and pragmatists. As you read through each one think about how you like to learn because self knowledge is powerful as when we learn more deeply about who we are and how we learn it can be helpful when trying something new.
The Activists, Activists like to get involved in new experiences, they act first and think later, they are open minded and enthusiastic and flexible.
The theorists. Theorists like to think about facts and think in a logical way, they are disciplined in the way they think.
Reflectors think before they act, they like to think before they act, they prefer to stand back and observe.
The fourth type of learning style is the pragmatist and pragmatists are people who like to try things out they believe in action rather than discussion, they see the practical side of things and results of theories. And as you think about how you learn whether you are an activist, theorist, reflector or pragmatist it could be that you are a combination of the two. Let me know what you think you are in the comments section below.
Listen
Lets think about the question 'How are You' and when we ask that question how do we respond to the person who shares the answer, so when someone answers I am fine perhaps try asking 'How are you really doing' and when they open up to you think about how you respond.
There are ways we listen and respond to conversations and there are 6 listening habits and we must be mindful of these habits because it might be the case you don't know how to listen. Being aware and conscious of how we listen, is one way of improving our listening skills.
6 negative listening habits
The first type is the Faker as all they do is appear to listen. There is the nodding, makes really good eye contact and gives the occasional uh huh but they really aren't concentrating on what the person is saying. Their mind is somewhere else and on something else. Perhaps the faker tries to remember a small fact from the speaker but doesn't remember the fact correctly.
Then we have the interrupter who cuts the speaker off and does not allow them to finish and doesn't ask clarifying questions so the example I gave just then with how are you versus a clarifying question is how are you really doing because you are trying to seek more information from the speaker, you want them to really open up because you care about their answer. This listener is too anxious to speak and interrupts and doesn't really care about what the speaker is saying. They show very little concern. This may be because the listener feels uncomfortable with the message or topic the speaker is discussion. I have been in situations like this and it can be really aggravating. The interrupter may try to change the topic that the speaker is talking about.
The third type of listening habit is the intellectual listener. This type of person is always trying to interrupt what the speaker is saying and why. They hook onto one or two words the speaker is saying and judges it. They rarely ask about the underlying feeling or emotion attached to a message. They try to fit what is being said into a box.
The fourth type of listening habit is the happy hooker and this person uses the speakers words only as a way to chip in their own story. When the speaker says something and frankly, it could be anything, the happy hooker steals the focus and then changes it to their own point of view, opinion, story or facts. The favourite types of happy hooker lines are 'Oh that has happened to me too…' 'I remember when I was da da da and that happened to me'
There are two more types of listening habits and the fifth one is the rebuttal maker. This person only listens long enough to make a rebuttal. A rebuttal being similar to a dispute or argument, they use the words against the speaker. At their worst, it can sound almost argumentative and they wish to prove you are right and they are wrong. At a minimum, the person always wants to make the speaker see their point of view.
And finally the Advice Giver. And yes, giving advice is sometimes helpful, however at other times this behaviour interferes with good listening, because it does not allow the speaker to fully speak about their feelings or thoughts, it stops the speaker solving their own problems. It can stop the speaker from venting and sometimes it is good to vent. It could almost belittle the speaker by making their problem small by offering a quick solution. But is it appropriate? How do we let people solve their own problems and work out their own solutions.
Advice given too quickly and at the wrong time is off putting to the speaker.
And those are the 6 negative types of listening habit: the faker, the interrupter, the intellectual, the happy hooker, the rebuttal maker and finally the advice maker
And those are some of the golden nuggets that was shared on the podcast on vlog by Preya Gopie.
So guys, when you make that call and ask that special person in your life, hey, I thought about you and how are you really doing? By doing something kind for someone else has amazing benefits for you and your soul.
Preya Gopie is conducting a free Live Mindfulness through meditation at Work series for 10 working days sponsored by Staff Treats. The series starts on 23 July - 5 August 2021. This series has been developed with hectic schedules and current workloads in mind, so you can fit this around your life and business as usual to face your work life with mental clarity. To register to join this online class, at 9:30am South African time.
I hope you enjoyed this mental health and wellness series. I would love to know if you have benefited in any way. Do share back with me your experience on reallifemumsite@gmail.com
WordPress.com
No comments:
Post a Comment