In today’s episode, we kick off The Alphabet of Happiness Boost with the letter A for Acceptance.
Klaudia Mitura explores how being at peace with all our emotions, even the tough ones, is key to happiness. Discover why fighting unpleasant feelings only makes them linger, and learn the science-backed practice of emotional granularity. Tune in for a practical tip to help you embrace your emotions and boost your mood in under five minutes!
Remember:
⭐ Get a quick summary of each happiness principle—follow along as we reveal a new letter every day!
🏆 Join the competition: Share your thoughts on each principle, tag me (@Klaudia Mitura on LinkedIn / @thehappinesschallenge_klaudia on Instagram), and tag a friend for a chance to win one of three signed copies of The Alphabet of Happiness!
Hello everyone. My name is Klaudia Mitura. I'm a work psychologist and certified chief happiness officer.
To celebrate the launch of my new book, the Alphabet of Happiness, I'm bringing you 26 days of science backed happiness principles, one for every letter of the Alphabet. Inspired by my book, each day you'll get a practical tip in under five minutes designed to give your mood a real boost.
And this challenge is our official countdown to the big book launch party on 31st of October at the Science Museum in London. FL Foreign and today we are kicking off with the letter A for acceptance. So what is acceptance?
I personally think about acceptance as being at peace with our thoughts and emotions, even the unpleasant or unwanted ones.
And I think often in the moment this may seem counterintuitive to want to embrace our challenging emotions when our instincts might be screaming for us to avoid, fix or control them.
But research shows that the more we, let's say, fight with our emotional experiences or want to influence our emotional experiences, the longer they last. In reality, any strong emotion that causes physiological reactions in our body should last approximately 90 seconds. So.
So acceptance is very much about taking a pause to observe your experiences with interest, describe them, name them, and actually watch as they change. And in the Alphabet of Happiness, I explore various techniques of managing our emotions with more ease and comfort.
And today I encourage you to practice one of them. That is practice emotional granularity. That means practicing naming and describing your emotions as precisely as you can.
Because there are so many fascinating studies that show that those with high level of emotional granularity are better at managing their emotional experiences. Because ultimately we need to really understand what we're feeling before we can manage accept what we are experiencing.
So to practice emotional granularity, try to expand your vocabulary regarding your feelings. So for example, you can try to describe your emotions using metaphors.
Like I often say, I have hair on fire, to let other people know that actually I'm having a very stressful, hectic day. You can borrow words from other languages.
For example, there is a Swedish word, resver, which means the mixture of nervousness and excitement before traveling. I love that word. So again, look at other languages. Could you choose different vocabulary to describe how you're feeling?
You can even come up with your own concepts.
I think that the person who created the word hungry, as in hungry and angry together, because let's be honest, when we are hungry, we often are angry. It's a genius really because it showcases such a mixture of emotions in one word.
If you give this a try, I'd love to hear about it, what kind of words you can come up with, how could you describe your emotional experiences and most importantly, how that impacts your happiness and your relation with your emotions? You can share your thoughts on LinkedIn or Instagram. Please tag me Claudia Mitura on LinkedIn or the Happiness ChallengeClaudia on Instagram.
Remember to tag a friend so that both of you can win one of the three signed copies of the Alphabet of Happiness. And of course, if you cannot wait, you can grab your own copy and start your happiness journey straight away.
So I see you tomorrow for a next letter and another happiness boost. Bye.