The Negavitiy Negation Equation

Hi all! Happy Monday!

It’s week two of the streak and I hope it continues to grow strong. There’s been a serious lack of retention of ideas. They come at the most inopportune moments when I don’t have something to record them. On the other hand, some ideas keep popping up without the need for any sort of retention. They’re like bloatware that comes with devices and uninstalling them is a pain in the ass. And sometimes it’s not even possible to get rid of them!

Very often in my days I get quiet lulls and I often end up going over all the bad and embarrassing things I’ve done. Remember the time you locked yourself out of the car and had to wait for someone to save your sorry ass? Yeah. Remember that time? And remember the time you when you answered the teacher’s question incorrectly and the whole class laughed?

These seemingly insignificant memories play a huge role in my life. They make up most of my days and my mood. They trigger emotions ranging from sadness to rage, and at night when I’m trying to sleep, insanity. But perhaps my biggest problem is my inability to express most of these emotions. I’m stunted in that sense or perhaps I exercise a great deal of uncontrollable self-control. I tend to bottle my emotions when these thoughts arise and as a result I become a ticking time bomb. It scares me to think about what I’ll do when I do go off. I don’t want to hurt my friends or family. This is why I prefer to spend so much time on my own with the reasoning that if I isolate myself, I can only hurt myself and no one else. But how much of that is true? If I had no family and no friends, then perhaps that would be completely true. But fact is, I do have family and friends. They’re hurt too when I isolate myself.

It’s a fine balancing act and sometimes it’s a losing battle for me. But having friends that are proactive and know my situation really helps. They drag me along on their adventures and like Bilbo, I begin to see the happiness and joy in the rest of the world. There’s so much more to see and experience than just the confines of my own room. Too often we’re too hard on ourselves and far too critical. We don’t see the positives in our lives and we tend to focus purely on the negatives. We focus on what we’ve failed to do and we forget that we’ve accomplished so much more in light of all these failures.

For those practicing mindfulness, notice how the thoughts come and go and don’t judge them. Just watch and observe them from a neutral stand point and notice what your body’s reactions are to it. Try and focus on the now and not later or before or ohmygodthestoveisonfire! Okay maybe focus on that last piece. But remember to be patient with yourself. It’s a tall order and it has a steep learning curve but once you get the hang of it you’ll start to loosen up. At least that’s my experience of it all. I haven’t mastered it at all but in those brief moments, I am at peace.

Stay tuned for my next post! And as always your thoughts and comments are welcomed!