“3 Ways to Make Receiving Feedback Easier”

Link: https://href.li/?https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/functioning-flourishing/202008/3-ways-make-receiving-feedback-easier

FEEDBACK! FEEDBACK! FEEDBACK! One of the EASIEST ways to learn about yourself and grow, and yet one of the MOST difficult things to handle. No one, including myself, enjoys being told something negative about his/her self. Negativity, however, is a key element for personal growth, and provides us with insights that we may not have noticed.

The article speaks about three different types of feedback: appreciation, coaching, and evaluation. The article also mentions three different types of triggers to feedback: truth, relationship, and identity. Our main focus when it comes to feedback is to stay as open-minded as we can, and take ourselves “out” from the feedback. Taking yourself “out” (or self-distancing yourself) from what is in front of you, helps you recognize insecurities and soft spots in your personality.

Imagine if you were watching a movie, and in that movie is you (receiver of feedback) and the other person (giver of feedback). By doing this we are able to “watch” the receiver and the giver without any bias, without any triggers. This is no different than when you watch an actual movie. You have an internal monologue within yourself about what may happen next, what the main character should do, the story line, and so on. If you act like a stranger towards yourself (weird, I know) then you will have the most unbiased opinion about yourself and the feedback that is provided.

You want to watch you as if you did not know you. A bit wordy, but in its essence crucially important, otherwise you will fall down the rabbit hole of triggers. Triggers are natural and we all have them, hence why we become so emotional to certain things. Triggers are a perfect way for your body to tell you about “red flags” or insecurities you may have within yourself.

Example: You are at work reviewing your evaluation with your superior. While reviewing your evaluation, you notice that you became upset when your superior said, “I am surprised you did not improve as much as we thought you would. Not to worry, let us focus on what we can improve on for the next evaluation.” One reason you may become triggered at this statement is because it gives off the impression that your superior was not impressed with you AT ALL and may be disappointed with your work performance.

The trigger in this scenario could be a truth trigger or an identity trigger (it could also be a relationship trigger depending on the comfort of the relationship). You could argue that it is a truth trigger because the superior may not know what he/she is talking about. You question the credibility and knowledge of your superior. It could also be an identity trigger in that you feel personally attacked, as if you were not good enough. Whichever the trigger, you must always maintain perspective and remain calm.

Lastly, if you find yourself having trouble with feedback, ask yourself “why?” Why is it that I do not like this or that feedback? Why do I act so [your emotions] when this happens? Even if you proactively search and ask for feedback, this mitigates the amount of “damage” that you receive and prepares you for the worst. You are more prepared for feedback when you ask for it first as opposed to when it is being brought to your attention like a surprise gut punch.

Feedback is one of the most helpful “tools” in humanity, and triggers are one of the least helpful. In order to have a clear head when receiving feedback, it is best to be prepared, be open-minded, and remain calm. If you find it difficult to listen to feedback, remind yourself that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but WORDS can never hurt me.” At the end of the day, feedback is just abstract words floating around to greet our ears–and they cannot hurt us even if they tried.

Open-Minded,

E.

#feedback #triggers #staycalm #personalgrowth #growth #careerdevelopment #psychology #philosophy #mentalhealth

“Placebos prove powerful even when people know they’re taking one”

Link: https://href.li/?https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200806133509.htm

Ah, yes, the ongoing question on whether or not the Placebo Effect is real. Does it work? Does it not? Is it an illusion in all of our minds or an actual medical effect? Hint: It’s both.

For those of you who have not heard of the placebo effect, it is by definition “a beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient’s belief in that treatment”. Wow, what an unnecessarily difficult definition. Simplified, the placebo effect is the belief that a fake drug or treatment has a benefit simply because the patient decides in his/her mind that it does in fact have a benefit/healing properties.

I say “fake drug” because the drug itself does not have any harmful or beneficial effects on our physical body. It would be as if you ingested a spoonful of sugar or drank some salty water (ew…). This “fake drug” is the placebo drug and has little to no impact on our physical body, but is highly likely to influence our opinion on the effects it has on our body. In other words, the placebo effect is a way to trick our own brain into thinking that the placebo drug we took actually healed us in some way.

This would mean that the placebo effect is actually about “mind over matter,” which means that we could essentially heal ourselves on our own accord. The article states,

The first experiment found that the nondeceptive placebos reduced participants’ self-reported emotional distress. Importantly, the second study showed that nondeceptive placebos reduced electrical brain activity reflecting how much distress someone feels to emotional events, and the reduction in emotional brain activity occurred within just a couple of seconds.

Two test groups presented with emotional images to invoke an emotional response. Both groups knew about the placebo drug. First group was told placebo drug would reduce negative feelings, if they so desired. Second group was told placebo drug would improve the clarity of the physiological readings the researchers were recording.

This means that the first group was affected differently than the second group. The placebo drug for the first group resulted in the participants being less emotionally distressed (less anxious, disgusted, horrified, etc.). The placebo drug for the second group, however, reduced the amount of brain activity that occurred.

The placebo effect was a success because the first group felt less negative emotions, and the second group had slower brain activity (which means that our brain actually slowed itself down in order for the researchers to receive a clearer reading of each participant). The participants minds were performing the chosen direction of the participant himself/herself. This was strictly mind over matter. This was a person saying “this will work because I say it will.”

Mind over matter, and matter undermined (see what I did there?), so simple anyone with consciousness can do it. But if it is so easy, why can we not heal our wounds, fix broken bones (or broken hearts…), or become invincible? Well…believe it or not, we do all of that already, just not instantaneously. When people have strokes, heart attacks, break bones, or anything else, we heal. Slowly, but surely.

The key takeaway is that our minds are capable of doing extraordinary things, whether we realize it or not. All we have to do is trick our mind, believe in what we want to believe in, and hope that we never have to drink salt water (still gross).

Consciously,

E.

#placeboeffect #mindovermatter #believe #psychology #wellbeing #mentalhealth #health #placebopower #healing

My Purpose and I

Hello, hello, hello! Welcome to the blog that will shape your life in an unimaginable way, but first a word from our sponsors (AKA me, because I don’t have any sponsors yet…)

I didn’t come from much, I certainly don’t have much, but I am grateful for what I have and the head that is on my shoulders. What I DO have, however, is a piece-of-mind, the ability to recognize when something isn’t quite right, and the mindset to fix the issue as best as possible. I try to stay open-minded to everything in life, and attempt to make sense of everything, too. I do not believe in coincidences because really? You want me to believe that I just SO HAPPENED to be somewhere at an exact moment and time, and due to this “perfect timing” my life has been altered for better or worse??? Yeah, okay, I’ll definitely believe that… I digress…haha. I want to make the world a better place, and since humans are a MASSIVE part of this world we have to take a closer look at what made us who we are, who we currently are, and who we will be. Also known as the Past, Present, and Future Me/You/Us.

This is going to be a very long journey for everyone, and a fulfilling one at that. What we are about to do is something that people pay for and spend years of their life trying to achieve. It will make us feel uncomfortable (only for short period of time), test our patience, combat our integrity, and force us to be completely truthful and honest with ourselves. The great thing about being this insanely introspective is that you will become wiser, smarter, more understanding, and more emotional (not in a bad way; there is no such thing as being “bad” at emotions). Your Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual senses will be tested, strengthened, and better than ever!

The steps to achieving a new and improved you are very simple, but the most difficult aspect will be the honesty you give yourself; not to mention the awareness we will learn to acquire that is constantly “active” throughout your day (similar to an app running on your phone in the background). It won’t be easy, but practice makes better (not “perfect,” nothing is perfect in this world; and to be honest, “perfect” is an unrealistic standard in all sense of the word). Below are the steps we will take.

First: Enlighten. This is the gaining of knowledge, wisdom, and perspective. Simply put, we will read an article, look at a picture, analyze an inspirational quote, and perform a myriad of other learning techniques. Meant to be a stepping stone, this will engage the cogs in your mind and have you start to think about more than what is simply in front of you.

Second: Enhance. This is the improvement, elevation, and polishing of one’s skills and talents. Once we finish Enlightening ourselves, we will have a conversation about what we just learned. This opens the floor for dialogue and diversity since everyone will be speaking from a different perspective. This is the fun part, because we will learn about ourselves and other people at the same time!

Third: Express. This is the showing, revealing, and practice-what-you-preach aspect of our new found knowledge and wisdom in accordance with our discussions. In layman’s terms, it is your authentic, unfiltered, and true self. This part is completely up to you and encourages you to follow through and share what you learned with everyone around you.

Welp! There you have it! Three “easy” steps to become a mastermind of Psychology and Philosophy, also known as the The Three Es of this blog. As I keep reiterating, this won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. All good things are worth the work. Just remember, you are not alone on this journey and curiosity did not kill the cat, it just made it wiser. (Plus, cats have nine lives so I’m pretty sure the cat was fine haha).

We’ll stay in touch! Good luck and thanks for ALL of your support!

Excited,

E.

#psychology #philosophy #thethreeEs #self-improvement #firstblogpost #smileyface #zerotohero