Win your mood - Nidhi Singh Chauhan - Review

The ebbs and flows of life does derail a majority of us off the track and diametrically shifts the direction of thought, mostly for the worse. Within the said context, it helps a lot when we have the tools to discard unresourceful thoughts mixed with deep emotions and replace them with resourceful ones, needless to say that it’s an ongoing and dynamic process.

Let’s start with the most defining component of our lives which is termed as perception. “There is no such thing as reality, only a perception of reality” stated by an renowned Indian-American author, Deepak Chopra. It means that an event occurs due to a combination of blocks that we are able to perceive while subliminal ones are not even factored. Another person can bring up an alternate point of view which can totally shift the perception of reality. Should we admire at the depth of dimensions or rue at the limitation of human senses?

When we follow it up by what Sadhguru states, we get a broad picture of perception. He says, “The level of perception that you possess determines the quality of your life.” I can't agree more. 

An average human goes through a range of emotions on a day to day basis depending on what he encounters. By and large, bad moods can be turned around to good mood if we pause for a moment, reflect on what’s going through our mind and correct the following aspects

(i)Breath – Our breath becomes shallow during a negative frame of mind. It’s important to observe our breath and focus on deep inhalation for a few minutes.

(ii) Inner dialogue – There is possibly a voice that’s disturbing us, try to mute it.

(iii) Posture – Hunch back and chin down are sending negative signals to our body. It’s important to correct our posture by standing or sitting erect, pushing our chest forward while the chin is brought up.

Similarly, journalling or writing down what we feel can greatly help to declutter our thoughts. All of us go through roughly 50K thoughts on a daily basis, it’s not surprising to be messed up once in while, it’s bound to happen.  

On the other hand, we are bound to go through breakups, loss of job, unsupportive managers, regressive family expectations and many more such experiences that are bound to have a profound negative impact, potentially pushing us into a state of depression. In such cases, it’s important to re-visualize the experience from a positive standpoint and look at the possibility of a blessing in disguise. We also need to assess the situation from 5X5 principle, which is to gauge the significance of the event 5 years later, if it doesn’t matter in the foreseeable future then it’s better not to dwell over the experience for even 5 minutes.

Anxiety in another emotion that deeply disturbs us and it’s important to understand that the same arises on the expectation to accomplish a desirable outcome which apparently appears uncertain. A stream of uncontrollable thoughts fuelled by anxiety leads into a never-ending spiral, let’s look at a 3 step process to tackle it.

Step 1: Ask if the thoughts are true, if false then ignore and in case of being true move to step 2

Step 2: Determine if it’s helping you in any way. Again, ignore on a negative response.

Step 3: If Yes, then work on a strategy to counter the situation.

The given three steps helps you to cut the clutter and focus on aspects that really matters. In essence, what we focus on keeps growing be it problem or solution. Hence, it’s imperative to focus on solution rather than problem.

On a final note, Nidhi states that happiness doesn’t mean everything has fallen perfectly in our life, rather it’s our willingness to look beyond imperfections.

Win your mood gives us a framework to get ourselves back on track and live a joyous life. Good read and highly recommended!