Great advice. I would add that another strategy that has been useful to many is that when you are feeling negative emotions stirring up uncontrollably, it’s important to remember they aren’t real. They are just feelings. At the end of the day all you have is your body, mind, health and wealth. However you feel about those things will change quite a bit throughout the average persons lifetime. What matters today might not matter tomorrow.
I think they are real. Just because they are a temporary state or contradicted by other real feelings doesn’t make them not real. For me it has been helpful to remember that how I’m feeling now is not the only way I’ll feel and how I’m thinking about a subject is not the only way I have to think about that subject. Feelings and thoughts change, as you said.
I think what suifbwish is getting at is the more meta-physical nature of emotions. What I mean by that is one has strong vivid thought about some doom that will come or some horrible thing that happened in the past and they are strong emotions. It's easy to get caught up in them and lose the present moment. When you lose the present moment your mind can not differentiate between now and a memory, so it thinks the memory is now and responds accordingly.
Memories and emotions are not "real" in that they are not the present moment, and being able to stay grounded in the present moment while having these thoughts can help. In metaphor, it's like pinching yourself while dreaming.
What imo helps the most is realizing everything is impermanent / temporary. If you have a particularly gruesome emotion you can know you don't have to do anything, because it will go away on its own, like a rain cloud, in due time. So you can relax even while freaking out.
> ... it’s important to remember they aren’t real. They are just feelings.
what helps me get through the day is exactly this. we're just a sack of liquid chemical that constantly chances its structure. the feeling I experience within a time span of 30 minutes alone between waking up and having my first coffee, or in between forcing myself to put on my running gear and returning from a run, are changing everything. and if things can change in only a few minutes, how I perceive the world over a longer time can too.
some of this comes naturally with age when hormones change. it does have upsides when not everything and everyone is able to spoil my day.
these days I make sure I do not add things into my life as the first approach but to see what I can subtract in order to troubleshot my body and feelings. only after I can't take anything away any more do I see what I might need (and where others earn money on me and are motivated to push me into that direction. some examples that help me personally battle decades of depression:
- eat only half the amount or try intermittent fasting for a month
- cut the booze or weed (one day a week max less if I can)
- take daily walks/runs of at least 30 mins.
- start the morning with a cold shower (prepares me mentally that my day might not be smooth and certainly won't start comfortable)
- leave your phone at home when going out and see how that makes you feel. if you think this is nuts or makes you uncomfortable think about why the lack of an electronic device makes you feel this way.
- always shower right after returning from work (or finishing work). matter of habit for me since I didn't always have an office job. it allows me to unwind and "wash away" all the work stuff. reminds me that I am now at home and prep myself to have different thoughts (if you prefer a bath that's cool but in my case with kids/family I never had time to disappear into the bath the moment I got home. 10 mins shower was always possible). I find this really valuable in a WFH scenario. these days I run/exercise right after work so the shower is simply needed anyway
in case of burn-out:
- compartmentalize my work and private life as much as possible (time wise but if possible also location: in WFH this means work-laptop/phone remains in my home-office powered down as an extra hurdle to avoid me popping in at 23:00 to check up on an important thought ...).
- in case of burn-out: maybe my job is, but my private life isn't a hamster-wheel. cut the training-plan crap and goal setting to a minimum. it's OK to just go for a run and not worry about reaching the correct times set out in the training plan in prep for a marathon where I'm competing against thousands of others. it's OK to compete for fun but don't overdo it.
but everything what parent & GP said too.
About brain fog, mind-wandering etc: I have this since at least 2012. It came with my burn-out back then and a complete melt-down and dissolution of my personality. I feel like my head is wrapped in cotton or there is some barrier between me and my outside world. at the same time I have this I also gained the ability of sitting still without any desire or urge to push forward with anything if I want to. Might be an age thing but I'm now able to play with my own thoughts all day long and don't get stressed by the idea of not communicating with anyone. I still enjoy company and conversation but I also value being able to spend time simply sitting there and thinking (like a lunatic perhaps idk).
