How do you deal with negative emotions?

[ruminator]

Many people say that if one is feeling sad or any such negative emotion, you should accept the emotion, allow yourself to feel it, and do something that makes you happy as a way of self-care. I know people who do this. If they are feeling depressed, they don't fight it, they just let it be, and watch a funny movie, go for a walk, take a hot bath, spend time with loved ones, paint, listen to music, etc. They take their mind off of the thing that is upsetting them, and focus on something that makes them feel good.

This TED talk is sort of about it:
She talks about how you should not fight or resist the negative emotions, and should accept them

But I see a huge problem with all this...

A lot of times negative emotions are caused by a distorted belief. "I am a failure"; "I will never get another chance"; "I needed that person whom I lost"; "It was all my fault." As long as that distorted belief is still there, you will continue to feel the way you're feeling, no matter how many happy activities you do.... In fact, it seems unhealthy to do the acceptance/self-care route because you would be accepting the emotion and therefore the underlying belief rather than fighting it. Why would you validate a distorted belief? These beliefs are not true, so it seems like it would be better to fight it and convince yourself it is not true.

What I usually do is - sit and try to figure out what I'm feeling and why I'm feeling it, to get at the underlying belief. Once I find the underlying belief, I analyze it to convince myself it's not true so I can get rid of it and make myself feel better. I would try to come up with reasons for why it's not all my fault, reasons for why I'm better off without that person, reasons for why I have nothing to feel bad about.

My method seems to be supported too because I do hear about the importance of cognitive behavioral therapy, introspection, understanding your emotions, etc. But this all seems to contradict with the self-care, accept it and do happy things advice... so I am not sure if I am understanding this properly

Honestly, I hate doing my method because it is time consuming and takes a lot of energy, thinking, and analysis. I would much much much rather take the self-care fun route. I'm just worried about whether it's a good idea to accept something that is based off an untrue belief, rather than working on getting rid of the belief.

So what do you think about the acceptance/self-care method vs. the challenging beliefs/analysis method? Do they contradict or are you supposed to use both at different times? What is your method?

 

[Pyropyro]

The self-care method only works on the emotions/feeling part.

Using a dental issue analogy, I think self-care is more of addressing the pain of a tooth abscess rather than ignoring the pain and fever associated with it.

The belief system needs to be talked to/worked with another confidant/therapist. I think that you're feeling tired because you are self-caring for something that needs to be resolved by more than one person.

Continuing with my analogy above, it seems that you are trying to operate on the tooth abscess with your set of skills rather than visiting a dentist.

EDIT: I've listened to her talk. If you noticed it's because her teacher didn't buy her mask of strength that she was able to start her journey to healing.

 

[Hadoblado]

Depression is a set of negative thoughts/beliefs, emotions/moods, and behaviours.
Just because you are accepting of the fact you felt, thought, or did something, does not mean you are affirming that thing.

The demonstration of this in uni was the yellow elephant test:
How many times have you thought about yellow elephants up until this point? "Zero".
So you're not someone that spends much time thinking about yellow elephants. Now, spend just one more full minute not thinking about yellow elephants.

Try it. About 80% of the class admitted they then thought about a yellow elephant. The fact that you have to even process not thinking about something, make you more likely to think about it. So when you try and control negative thoughts, you're making yourself more likely to think them.
This also has potential knock on effects in that you are trying and failing something that intuitively seems like it should be easy. It will externalise your locus of control as you no longer feel like you have control even over your own thoughts.

But none of this implies endorsement of yellow elephants. Paradoxically, by letting yourself think the negative thought or feel the negative emotion, you are letting it resolve and reducing the chances you will do it again.

In neuro 101 terms, that which fires together, wires together.

Think of it as an internet troll. Intuitively you want to argue with them, but this just feeds them and makes everything worse.

 

[baccheion]

Feeding into emotions can make it easier to do in the future, decreasing resistance and increasing weakness. I can usually tell when I should wait it out and when I should force it away. The main problem in the latter case is procrastination or some idiot getting in the way.

Meditation. Brainwave entrainment audio. If depression lingers and isn't clinical, then vitamin D + magnesium.

It's strange. I've never been depressed.

 

[Black Rose]

What I usually do is - sit and try to figure out what I'm feeling and why I'm feeling it, to get at the underlying belief. Once I find the underlying belief, I analyze it to convince myself it's not true so I can get rid of it and make myself feel better. I would try to come up with reasons for why it's not all my fault, reasons for why I'm better off without that person, reasons for why I have nothing to feel bad about.

Honestly, I hate doing my method because it is time consuming and takes a lot of energy, thinking, and analysis. I would much much much rather take the self-care fun route. I'm just worried about whether it's a good idea to accept something that is based off an untrue belief, rather than working on getting rid of the belief.

So what do you think about the acceptance/self-care method vs. the challenging beliefs/analysis method? Do they contradict or are you supposed to use both at different times? What is your method?

When I have active beliefs I don't try to convince myself they are not true. Because the belief is itself is inseparable from the feelings. These beliefs happen for a reason but fighting them and saying I am not stupid, I am worthless, I am not creative, All that does is reinforces them when I do fail. I cannot accept these beliefs are not true by ignoring what caused the feelings that caused the beliefs.

What caused the beliefs are what caused the feelings. Rejection, Failer, Not being good enough.

Why am I not good enough? What caused the emotions that TUNED INTO beliefs?

Beliefs are not the problem, they came from what caused the emotions. From not being good enough. What caused the emotion of not being good enough? What happened to you that made you feel inadequate? For me, it was not being able to do my ideas and having no one I could get help from. I was alone and helpless. So I felt stupid and inadequate and a failer, not good enough.

I don't know what to do about it but I always feel like crying and I hold it in. My anxiety went away in April but because I became extremely self-conscious in a public situation. I can't let my feelings out because I am still unable to feel not alone and I am not able to do my ideas. Somehow I need to stop suppressing why I feel not good enough. I need to feel sad that I feel inadequate. It does not matter if I say no I am adequate. The feeling still hurt. The belief came after the feelings. And they came from me being sad I could not be good at something and me being alone. I need something to make me feel like worth something. Like I am good enough.

 

[Niclmaki]

Hmm. Negative emotions are more like a “dark mood” that sets over me. If I exert a little bit of self control and continue as if I am NOT feeling negative emotions they simply pass.

A good deal of the time I’m just content. Not super jolly or sad/angry. Maybe a 5 or 6 on a scale from 1–10.

It is not a perfect supressiom though, I may be a bit snappier / sarcastic than usual. Is that what “fighting emotions” is? I’m not sure I really understand the concept.

 

[Ex-User (8886)]

What is your method?

I usually post on INTJforum how I feel and these ppl solve problems for me xD

My own method only works in very deep sadness or depression, so I don't practice it often.

Spoiler: method

I buy pack of cigarettes, go for a walk, intoxinate myself with them, get as low as I can with my sadness, think about problems, find how irrelevant they are, make a plan, don't really focus on executing it - it's just a guidance, finally after some time I realize problem is solved.

for everyday life I feel okay with my negative emotions; you may be surprised, but I like to be sad or angry. those feeling motivate me; what I don't like is being enthusiastic and stupidly happy. also, my favorite month is November, when it rains all the time, when people go to graveyards, leafs felt down, it's gloom and dark. I'm the most productive at that time.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I agree with OP in the sense that ad-hoc solutions after the fact won't work unless you have a good set of ethics and principles to live by to begin with.

I've read a bunch of stoic and existentialist philosophy which helps me deal with bad shit. When bad shit does happen, I look at it in terms of: have I made any mistakes or deviated from my principles, and if so, what can I learn from the experience. If there is something I can learn from, I analyze that. If it was something out of my control, I try to accept it as a part of life. That usually lets the emotion loosen its grip of me.

There is, however, one issue which I have never learned how to properly master – which is... hypochondria. I've never been to a shrink or anything but I'm pretty sure I would be categorized as a fully fledged hypochondriac. Like, it really fucks with my mind on a regular basis. I think one problem is that I never talk to anyone about such problems, so I have only my own brain to rely on for comfort. My only tool for hypochondria: calculating the probability of having certain ailments given certain symptoms (using Bayes' theorem, for those who are curious). However, even if you know that the probability is 0.01% of whatever, it's hard to translate the numbers into emotional comfort.

 

[Polaris]

I think it is tricky for people who are not attuned to their emotions. You may feel uneasy, but there is no specific reason you can pinpoint it to, for example. So you may get irritable or grumpy instead. I think I turn most of my emotions into irritability and/or anger. So it is confusing because I may be irritable all day, but unsure of what exactly has triggered it. I have started writing things down as they come to my mind, and somehow managed to tune into my subconscious. There is a lot of interesting stuff I'm discovering, and now that I understand psychology better, I am able to link anxiety, depression and irritability to stuff I had not considered before. Before that, I was kinda just unsure about everything and doubted the validity of my own emotions.

I was just getting sick of always being either angry or apathetic. However, I thought for a long time it was normal, but after seeing a psych for a while (one I decided to trust), I have started taking emotions more seriously. All the little stuff I considered insignificant were actually quite big things, but I rationalised everything away. You know: "That's life, deal with it, blahblah". Which was not my own voice, by the way, but those of others. I wasn't even looking at it from my own perspective, but always rationalising from their viewpoint. So now I'm trying to tap into my own voice, and that is really difficult because I'm still rationalising by default, and I have to "catch" myself doing it.

So yeah, basically telling myself that current patterns are the result of past conditioning, and that I'm also allowed to feel bad about something bad happening to me, and not just brush it under the proverbial carpet. Not wallow, just acknowledge, and to acknowledge, you must allow yourself to feel something. Which is fucking hard because it's like reverse engineering.

I'm sort of using my own thread here in the creative section experimentally to express some of the crap. It seems to be working because by writing things down in a stream of consciousness style, I'm stumbling across things that I had forgotten or most probably suppressed. Even if I don't feel connected to it while I'm writing it I can go back later and go: "Hm, that was kinda fucked up, where did that come from."

I realise how often I'm avoiding a topic as well, by going on tangents, but perhaps this is a necessary part of the process. Now that I have written some things down and acknowledged how fucked it was, I am actually able to move on. However, it requires that I do not somehow squirm away from it and dismiss it as trivial.

Because, if it was trivial, why am I still coming back to it x years later; ruminating, analysing and finally dismissing? Then, rinse and repeat. Instead, I must examine how it must have made me feel (not everyone else), and focus on that for a while until I understand the ramifications, for me, personally. And then it's like, "oh fuck, no wonder then". I'm not a robot, I'm also an emotion machine - accept that, and I will be free of all this toxic crap seeping into everything I think and do.

Tl;dr fuck, why do I always write a novel: In short, if I'm having trouble dealing with stuff in the present, it is almost 100% certainly linked to crap in the past, so I must go back and re-examine, and most importantly, stop invalidating my emotions around it because the invalidation is most likely the voice of someone else, and not my own.

So yeah, it feels weird to own my own person, finally.

 

[Niclmaki]

I never thought my negative emotions or bad moods were ever really CAUSED by something that is actually bugging me. They just seemed to pop up at random.

Even if I try and meditate on what could have been the cause I get nothing. I could just make something up I suppose, but that’d be disingenuous and probably not help at all. (I had some spiritual guy also really pressing me endlessly, “Now tell me what is REALLY bugging you”)

It is also a rare enough of an occurance that it hasn’t “earned” enough of my attention I guess you could say.

 

[redbaron]

i'd say they're often not a conscious thing, but the reason something makes you feel bad is likely rooted in some experience somehow. behavioural disorders are demonstrated to often have roots in particular developmental experiences - unless they're innate physiological disorders

even if you feel bad for a reason that you can't explain or figure out, it doesn't necessarily mean that there really is no reason or that it's entirely random. whether it's linked to a past experience or a repressed issue is a bit of an unknown, but i'd have more trouble taking your statement at face value that it's truly random than someone who was to say that it's related to something that's happened in the past

 

[Niclmaki]

Well not exactly “RANDOM” in the maths sense. But just slightly different brain chemistry / diet / wakefulness. A specific combination yes, but not caused by a singular event in my past I could point at.

I have noticed that I’ll have negative emotions if satisfy enough of these things. But also, sometimes not. Just seems increases the chances.

I’ve stayed up really late
Feeling sick or ill
Haven’t listened to music in a while
Haven’t visited my dog
Did not have my daily walk
Had not spent much time alone
General disappoints of life
Have a lot of caffeine

That’s what I can come up with in about 5 minutes anyways. There are probably many more.

Perhaps it really only applies to people who actually have disorders.

P.S. I also have a lot of delight if people are upset with ME. I’m not sure if it is related, but it makes me giddy.

 

[Hadoblado]

P.S. I also have a lot of delight if people are upset with ME. I’m not sure if it is related, but it makes me giddy.

Negative attention.

From wiki:

If as a child, the person did not receive much attention from their parents or their peers then they may grow up feeling neglected. Those feelings will then be the main drive behind the person's attention-seeking behavior. Children of abusive parents and parents who are always absent may feel overlooked, and so the child may grow up becoming an attention-seeking adult.

Sometimes adults seek attention because of jealousy. When someone finds themselves threatened by another person who takes all the attention, they may respond with attention-seeking behavior.

Lack of self-esteem can be another cause for attention-seeking behavior. Some people think that they are overlooked and so they think that the only solution to restore their balance is to bring back the lost attention. The attention they will get in this case will provide them with reassurance and will help them think that they are worthy.

I also found when I was younger that I liked arguing because it was a comfort zone for me relative to other people. They would feel less comfortable while I was in my element. Hence, whenever I didn't feel comfortable, I'd pick a fight. I think people that nitpick a lot have similar reasons behind their behaviour.

 

[Minuend]

So I believe pretty much everyone is dealing with and relating to their emotions the "wrong" way (including myself). When I say wrong, I mean it's not the optimal path for maintaining mental health and emotional stability and emotional "peace"

We're pretty much taught from young age our feelings are the irrational enemy we need to control and dismiss. We can't be objective and emotional, we can't be rational beings if we allow our emotions to roam free. We're not taught to allow them to be the source of information about ourselves they are. Even the feelings we feel (heh) work against us can be helpful if we figure out how to approach and understand them.

In fact, I think being in touch with our feelings and allowing them to exist will more easily help us see through our biases and allow us to become more at "peace". Even though it seems it would lead to chaotic people with uncontrollable feelings, on the contrary I think it would give more grounded individuals.

The problem arises because we live in a society which dislikes anything that remotely seems "spiritual" or "new agey". And alas, the attitude towards feelings/ emotions come across as exactly that.

So basically, we'll continue to be fucked psychologically and emotionally because we're taught to work against them and never learn to process and live with them.

We label emotions as negative or positive, while in reality we can use what's considered negative feelings to learn and develop. Negative feelings are also able to help us. Like, when you feel anger, you can use that anger to establish boundaries to tell someone they are not treating you well. If you feel sad, that's information that tells you something is making you unhappy or stressing you and you'd want to look at that. Something is going against what you want or consider good. Being nervous makes you alert and can make you focus better.

At least if you start to consider emotions as tools and as something that tell you where things went wrong like physical pain, it becomes easier to understand other people. After changing my perspective about feelings, I've become better at recognizing the emotional blocks people have, where they constrict their feelings and why.

A lot of people have some feelings that try to communicate some need or problem, but that are left ignored and evolves to a bigger issue. Because if you think rationally you have a good life, but your feelings tell you otherwise, you're gonna trust your logic. And suffer for it.

Obviously, when the feelings are raging it's not easy to do this type of thing, but I do think giving people a new perspective and relationship with their emotions is crucial to develop as a human being

 

[Black Rose]

If you do not have an outlet then the emotions internalize causing residual damage.

 

[Minuend]

If you do not have an outlet then the emotions internalize causing residual damage.

It's not just about having an outlet. It's about having a relationship with your feelings where you work together, rather than you reacting dismissively to your feelings.

You can't escape your feelings of rage by taking it out on something physical. That's an outlet, but it doesn't address the issue. It doesn't connect you to the understanding of why the rage is there

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

You can't escape your feelings of rage by taking it out on something physical. That's an outlet, but it doesn't address the issue. It doesn't connect you to the understanding of why the rage is there

Indeed. In fact, in my experience, letting rage run free is not really "taking it out" as much as simply fueling it, and making it easier for that reaction to reappear in the future. It simply becomes a habit (a very unhealthy one at that).

In general, following the logic of "letting out" emotions, we would have that for example people who have been depressed for a long time should suddenly start to laugh and joke around, because they have so much happiness built up inside. Whereas in reality, the more you get into the habit of negative emotions, the easier they will reappear. Emotions have a certain momentum, as opposed to reversion to the mean.

 

[Black Rose]

If you cannot do anything about your situation then it would be hard to work with your emotions having a relationship with them. Most times I can't do anything about my situation and the emotional problems only get worse because of it. (helplessness)(frustration)

 

[cheese]

I also found when I was younger that I liked arguing because it was a comfort zone for me relative to other people. They would feel less comfortable while I was in my element. Hence, whenever I didn't feel comfortable, I'd pick a fight.

This totally explains what Nathan Fielder is doing. Actually he's even implied basically the same thing himself.

 

[Niclmaki]

P.S. I also have a lot of delight if people are upset with ME. I’m not sure if it is related, but it makes me giddy.

Negative attention.

From wiki:

If as a child, the person did not receive much attention from their parents or their peers then they may grow up feeling neglected. Those feelings will then be the main drive behind the person's attention-seeking behavior. Children of abusive parents and parents who are always absent may feel overlooked, and so the child may grow up becoming an attention-seeking adult.

Sometimes adults seek attention because of jealousy. When someone finds themselves threatened by another person who takes all the attention, they may respond with attention-seeking behavior.

Lack of self-esteem can be another cause for attention-seeking behavior. Some people think that they are overlooked and so they think that the only solution to restore their balance is to bring back the lost attention. The attention they will get in this case will provide them with reassurance and will help them think that they are worthy.

Of course there’s a name for it, shoulda know, heh.

Pretty sure I’ve been like this since at least the 3rd or 4th grade. By then I was already unanimously regarded as “gifted” so I already had plenty of ‘positive attention and encouragement’. But I’d still enjoy ‘negative attention’.

For example; I would take Lego things that I had made and just smash them to see the shock on my teachers / adults faces. I had memorized how it went back together though, so it wasn’t really an issue.

Maybe it was because my brother was born 18 months after me. Or that another brother shares my birthday with me, just exactly 5 years later. Seems flimsy to me, but who knows. A shrink would pin it on SOMETHING I reckon. I could spitball for days.

I’m just an all-around “shit-disturber” -to use some of my Canadian slang- I guess. The “whys” just seem so... airy to me...

 

[QuickTwist]

@ruminator,

I appreciate that you are not willing to just accept without thought to accept or validate your emotions, however, there are some problems with what you have said.

The first thing that I noticed (and where I stopped reading) was that your premise was wrong. All the things that you said spurred on negative emotions all have one thing in common: they are all based in shame. So, while, yes, shame does cause a lot of negative emotions, even "normal" people (and I use the term normal very loosely considering a lot of people have problems with shame) have negative emotions sometimes. I think you should probably be able to see that even healthy minded individuals have negative emotions sometimes. Now the distinction between a negative emotion based in shame and a negative emotion not based in shame is that the thought that dictates the negative emotion based in shame is essentially "I AM bad" and not "This bad thing happened to me."

Next, we have to talk about why validating your emotions are good even though they may be based in shame. It's a pretty simple idea actually. Basically, the reason behind validating emotions (both negative and positive ones) has to do with closure. If you never get closure to your emotions, they tend to come out sideways, wrapped, and generally just make a breeding place of more unhealthy thought processes. Now when you DO have closure to your emotions, it allows you to move on from them. Validating the emotion also can change the thought process behind the negative emotion which can change how you might respond the next time the emotion comes up and give you some awareness as to what is the root cause of the emotion in the first place, which is good because that is a sign of growth for an individual.

Finally, IDK if this is accurate or not, but I'm inclined to think that perhaps the reason you decided to focus on shame-based emotions is that you experience them regularly yourself. If that's the case, I might suggest seeing a therapist.

[Edit] I should probably talk about what I mean by validating the emotion. Basically, all that is is just walking yourself through the emotion. Literally just repeating to yourself (either in your head or out loud) "I feel ______ and that's ok." That's it. That's where you start anyways. Later down the road, you can ask yourself a follow-up question on what the emotion is which would be "Why do I feel ______?" In which case you may or may not be able to answer. If you can't or even if you can, just repeat back to yourself "I feel ______ and that's ok" again.

 

[Reluctantly]

In the military, they called it resilience. The idea is to accept the negative experiences, without bringing yourself down in them. That means separating and accepting how you feel from feelings of negative self-worth or failure. It also means being introspective and critical of your own beliefs about yourself. They considered self-awareness as its analog and necessary to achieve those aims.

But that can be a lot easier said than done. Especially when somebody experiences something really bad and may not feel like they want to live anymore. I think that's the one grip is that it only works if you want to live. If you aren't sure about that anymore, resilience kind of loses its motivating factor. And I think what everyone is willing to live with is different and hard to mold or change. But I guess if you've dealt with the worst and still find some internal motivation to live, those people might be the hardest to break.

 

[QuickTwist]

In the military, they called it resilience. The idea is to accept the negative experiences, without bringing yourself down in them. That means separating and accepting how you feel from feelings of negative self-worth or failure. It also means being introspective and critical of your own beliefs about yourself. They considered self-awareness as its analog and necessary to achieve those aims.

But that can be a lot easier said than done. Especially when somebody experiences something really bad and may not feel like they want to live anymore. I think that's the one grip is that it only works if you want to live. If you aren't sure about that anymore, resilience kind of loses its motivating factor. And I think what everyone is willing to live with is different and hard to mold or change. But I guess if you've dealt with the worst and still find some internal motivation to live, those people might be the hardest to break.

Yeah, doing things a normal person probably couldn't live with themselves doing means you're basically fucked if you are in the army on the front lines doing combat because you WILL have to do things you regret.

 

[ruminator]

Just because you are accepting of the fact you felt, thought, or did something, does not mean you are affirming that thing.

Think of it as an internet troll. Intuitively you want to argue with them, but this just feeds them and makes everything worse.

Thanks @Hadoblado

Hm okay so you are making a differentiation between "I think I am stupid" vs. "I am stupid." And you are saying .. if you ever get an "I am stupid" thought, that leads you to feel sad, you should reframe it as "I think I am stupid" and accept that you are sad because of that thought, without believing it as true?

 

[Hadoblado]

Hmmm... That's not how it's framed in my head, but yes, kind of.

I meditate, and do the whole observing-thoughts thing. In this state, everything that crosses your mind has the tag of "this is just a though". When doing this, it's super obvious just how stupid and biased a lot of my thoughts are, and it doesn't feel like I have to recategorise or reframe them, it's just obvious what's happening. Because it's obvious, I'm not manipulating the thoughts, not firing them repeatedly, and thus, not reinforcing them. I just accept that maladaptive thoughts were thought, that that's okay, and this helps me move past those thoughts without [OHGODYOURNAMEISLITERALLYRUMINATORYOUAREBEYOND
REDEMPTION] ruminating.

Even better than that, after a while it becomes sort of a passive ability where you don't even have to actively meditate. The thoughts have been reframed, and without that framework they stop fucking your brain to bits.

That's not to say it never happens. But it happens less often and when it does happen it doesn't feel like as big of a deal.

So what you said is true, but rather than reacting to the thoughts, I have been proactive, and this has worked much better for me. It's pretty freeing to no longer think so many negative things about myself and others.

 

[QuickTwist]

Just because you are accepting of the fact you felt, thought, or did something, does not mean you are affirming that thing.

Think of it as an internet troll. Intuitively you want to argue with them, but this just feeds them and makes everything worse.

Thanks @Hadoblado

Hm okay so you are making a differentiation between "I think I am stupid" vs. "I am stupid." And you are saying .. if you ever get an "I am stupid" thought, that leads you to feel sad, you should reframe it as "I think I am stupid" and accept that you are sad because of that thought, without believing it as true?

Probably more "I did this stupid thing, and that's ok, everyone makes mistakes sometimes."

 

[QuickTwist]

Hmmm... That's not how it's framed in my head, but yes, kind of.

I meditate, and do the whole observing-thoughts thing. In this state, everything that crosses your mind has the tag of "this is just a though". When doing this, it's super obvious just how stupid and biased a lot of my thoughts are, and it doesn't feel like I have to recategorise or reframe them, it's just obvious what's happening. Because it's obvious, I'm not manipulating the thoughts, not firing them repeatedly, and thus, not reinforcing them. I just accept that maladaptive thoughts were thought, that that's okay, and this helps me move past those thoughts without [OHGODYOURNAMEISLITERALLY
RUMINATORYOUAREBEYONDREDEMPTION] ruminating.

Even better than that, after a while it becomes sort of a passive ability where you don't even have to actively meditate. The thoughts have been reframed, and without that framework they stop fucking your brain to bits.

That's not to say it never happens. But it happens less often and when it does happen it doesn't feel like as big of a deal.

So what you said is true, but rather than reacting to the thoughts, I have been proactive, and this has worked much better for me. It's pretty freeing to no longer think so many negative things about myself and others.

Works with more than just thoughts too. Can work with emotions, bodily sensations, and beliefs as well.

 

[Hadoblado]

Yeah definitely.

Beliefs are a little trickier, since they're a lot deeper entrenched than a thought or feel. But yeah.

 

[QuickTwist]

Yeah definitely.

Beliefs are a little trickier, since they're a lot deeper entrenched than a thought or feel. But yeah.

I agree there, but the process is essentially the same... "What do I believe about X?"