7 Ways to be Totally Okay, Exactly Where You Are Right Now (part 3)
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Today is a perfect day for me to be writing this piece because I’m feeling pretty dang funky and out-of-it myself. Do I want to be writing a piece right now? Nope, I want to be staring glassy-eyed into my phone while I sink deeper and deeper into my pit of icky feelings (which is what I’ve been doing most of the day already).
So what’s going on with me? What am I thinking, that’s making me feel this way?
Oh, the usual stuff. “You’re not good enough.” “You’re not productive.” “You’re so behind.” “Something is wrong with you. (What though?) idk, just something.”
Just a casual drumbeat of drag-me-down thoughts accompanied by a sad, sluggish, lethargic feeling that makes me want to stare endlessly into my phone and do nothing at all.
And I did some brain-jousting, for sure. I questioned the story (because it is just a story). I tried on new thoughts. I reminded myself how insanely far I’ve come, and how excited I am to keep going. I applied a positive, loving frame to everything I’m doing, and to myself.
But let me tell you something (and this happens sometimes): today, my brain was just not having it. Today, it is convinced, and it will not budge.
Alright. So what do we do now?
You remember, in Part 0 of this series, we set up the foundational technique to being okay where you are: noticing what you’re thinking and deciding how to react to those thoughts and feelings popping up.
Then we covered two ways to react to your own brain: relax into it and treat your old thoughts like an optical illusion.
Here’s way #3:
3: Imagine the emotion as an object outside of you. Then just watch it and let it be.
This is my favorite, favorite technique for being okay where I am. I use it all the time, and I’m using it right now.
My sad funky lethargy is a hazy yellow cloud around my head. I have to squint to see through it, and it makes all my movements slow and molasses-y. It’s a cute fall-transitional yellow-grey color and it’s actually kind of cozy.
When I get angry — anger is a crackling black cloud with lances of white lightning shooting through it. I can hold it in my hands and watch it lash out at everything around it.
When I get afraid — fear is a heavy metal collar on my neck and chest. It’s black-grey and very shiny, like onyx. It’s heavy and it feels like it’s pressing down on my chest.
And when I’m feeling way too much, all at once, often I’ll imagine that I’m lying down on a hillside, and my brain’s mental tapestry is spread out in the sky. Look at that red streak of anger go billowing through it. Then the ugly beige lump of self-doubt. That black bubble of fear. And that sudden, sparkling ripple of good humor. Look at my brain twisting around and around itself.
And this is the key — the absolute key to it all: All I’m doing is watching.
I’m not fighting the emotion. I’m not trying to make it go away. I’m not wondering how much longer it’ll last. I’m not waiting for it to be over.
All I’m doing is watching.
And this helps me to just be okay where I am.
Why does this work? What am I doing?
What’s happening here is that I’m giving my automatic brain a job.
Remember: your automatic brain is an echo chamber.
Left to its own devices, it’s going to pick up on an emotion (especially a crappy emotion), and it’s going to build and build and build on it.
“You’re feeling sad? Let’s remember some sad things from the past. Let’s imagine some sad things in the future. Let’s look at whatever’s in front of us and make it sad. And then let’s get sad about being sad.”
What I’m doing here is interrupting it and giving it something else to do.
I’m saying, “Hey, can you imagine what this emotion looks like, please? Can you give me a very clear visual? What’s the color? What’s the shape? How does it move? What is it doing right now? I want a whole movie, please!”
And this shifts my attention, from being in the emotion and letting it build and build, to watching the emotion and just letting it be.
And it separates me from the emotion. It gives me that little perch of perspective — a single seat where I can sit and watch my brain at work instead of having to be so in it all the time.
All of which breaks the loop.
And after a while, like a fire without fuel, the emotion tends to shift on its own. I’ve interrupted the endless build-up. I’ve given my automatic brain a job. And eventually it starts asking, all by itself, “Wait, hang on. Is there another way we could think about this?”
And it comes up with its own solutions — often more subtle and interesting and effective solutions than any “positive thinking” I could have cooked up.
And all I had to do was sit and watch.