7 Ways to be Totally Okay, Exactly Where You Are Right Now (part 1)

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In Part 0, we talked about the foundational technique that underlies everything in this series: deciding what to think about your unpleasant thoughts, feelings, actions, and results.

Normally, you break down a situation as:

• Circumstance: the objective, inarguable facts

• Thought: what you think about those facts

• Feeling: what you feel when you think that

• Actions: what you do & don’t do when you feel that way

• Result: the effect of your actions on you

With this technique, you put your own thoughts, feelings, actions, and/or results in the Circumstance line.

• Circumstance: “I notice I am thinking… I notice I am feeling… I notice that I’m doing & not doing (or wanting to do & not wanting to do)…”

• Thought: what you think about your own thoughts / feelings / actions / results

• Feeling: what you feel when you think that

• Actions: what you do & don’t do when you feel that way

• Result: the effect of your actions on you

This is the Model about the Model. This is you deciding what to think about the thoughts in your brain, the feelings in your body, the actions you’re taking, and the effect you’re having on yourself.

So what the heck are you supposed to think, when you’re full of thoughts you don’t like, feelings you want to get away from, and actions you want to quit?

Let’s go over one technique today.

1: Relax into it

Think about the last moderately painful thing you experienced. Not crazy, intolerable pain — just moderate. It could be getting your legs waxed, or powering through a tough workout, or getting your blood drawn.

Really remember what that sensation felt like.

Now try this, either with your memory of the sensation and/or the next time you do something moderately painful.

Think about how that sensation feels when you tense up against it. You’re anticipating how it’s going to feel. You’re dreading and wincing and shrinking away. Your muscles are stiff, your face is pinched, and the tension and avoidance make the pain worse.

Now think about how that sensation feels when you relax into it. You take a deep breath and try to relax your muscles. You accept that this is happening and it’ll be over soon. You don’t try to shrink away — you just let it be what it is. It’s not fun, of course. But you don’t make it even worse for yourself by trying to avoid it.

You can use this same technique with thoughts, feelings, and urges that you don’t like.

Because remember, an emotion is the name you assign to physical sensations in your body.

Which means you can relax into unpleasant emotions in the same way you can relax into a mildly painful experience.

Let’s look at an example.

The original model

• Circumstance: I find a leaky pipe under my sink. Everything in the drawers under the sink is soaked through and starting to go moldy.

• Thought: This is so inconvenient.

• Feeling: Angry

• Actions:
  Take everything out of the drawers and dump it on my bed
  Look at my bedside tables and wonder why there’s so much crap there and where I can fit everything
  Wonder if I should move to a different bathroom and decide that would be inconvenient too
  Complain to everyone
  Go around in a rush, trying to fix the problem

• Result: I inconvenience myself.

This was me for approximately two hours yesterday morning 😅

And I know that all this was “just” caused by my thoughts. But yesterday morning, in the full swing of irritation, I was in no position to “just change my thoughts” on a dime. (Trust me, I tried, and my brain said “FUCK. NO. THIS IS INCONVENIENT and that’s the end of it 😡😡😡”)

So let’s look at two ways I can react to my own emotions.

Look at the intention behind these two “Models about the Model.”

In Reaction 1, I’m trying to get rid of the feeling. And ironically, the more I think “this feeling shouldn’t be here,” the more of that feeling I get.

In Reaction 2, I’m letting the feeling hang out as long as it wants. And (just as ironically), when I let the feeling just sit there without worrying about how long it’ll last, it dissipates much more quickly.

This happens because your brain is a self-reinforcing echo chamber.

If you feel crappy…
And then you feel crappy about feeling crappy…
“Original Crappy” and “Crappy About Crappy” feed on each other and turn into a self-reinforcing loop.
(If you’re really good at this, you can even feel “Crappy About Crappy About Crappy” and work yourself into a frenzy.)

If you feel crappy…
And then you can feel neutral about feeling crappy…
You can break the loop in your brain.
The original feeling will still be there, but it will peter out on its own because you stop reinforcing it.

Most people, when they feel a negative emotion, want to get away from it as quickly as possible.

But you already know how to handle a little discomfort. You do it every day — from tough workouts, demanding kids, beauty regimens, and medical procedures.

Handling an uncomfortable emotion is no different at all. You already know how to do this.

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➡️ Intro | Part 0 | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash