In light of the discussion about the actualism flow diagram, I’ve been looking at my own process in a lot more detail and thought I might share how I typically go about getting back to feeling good before investigating.
While I’m in the moment of feeling bad (or loving emotions), my ‘feeling bad’ feels very justified, and any trying to ‘talk myself out of it’ will only be insincere or lead in circles. It is much more productive to get back to feeling good first, by any means possible.
It more or less looks like this:
“Parents Stopping Babies From Crying Follow These Tips”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OWkFa87b6c
It’s basically just distraction.
That can be a big or small distraction, so just try different things and then check in with your emotion again to see where you are. If I’m still in feeling bad (or loving, which is layered over bad anyway), then the distraction didn’t work. No problem, I just try another distraction, then another distraction, until something does work.
For something major, that might require a more significant intervention, such as taking the rest of the day off work, changing your environment / going for a walk someplace, separating yourself physically from the trigger for some period.
And sometimes - frequently, actually - it happens very immediately, like within 3 seconds.
Earlier this morning I was feeling unhappy because a friend of mine is flying to Morocco to surf for some amount of time, he has recently finished commercial fishing and got a big check and has no commitments. And I don’t have extra money to go do that, so I was feeling bad about it.
After a little while of going in circles feeling bad, I remembered about the method and set about getting back to feeling good.
Basically I just started looking for something that I felt good about. I looked around my room at the view, looked at the trees outside in the stormy weather. Nope, still felt bad.
I focused on my body and the comfortable position that I was in lying in bed. That often works for me. Sometimes I’ll notice I’m not comfortable, and moving to a more comfortable position works to get back to feeling good. But, not this time.
I looked around for another distraction. As I was looking around, I noticed that my continued activity of just looking for something, worked! I was definitely feeling good now. I guess because I was sensuously using my attention on what was around me. Either way, I’ve succeeded at getting back to feeling good!
And then, when I looked at my ‘issue’ again, it didn’t seem like such a big deal at all. After all, I’m happy here and now. One day I’ll be able to travel again, just not this month. That’s ok.
Now, when I next start to feel bad about not being able to travel, I’ll already have ‘gone there’ and can nip it in the bud - thanks to getting back to feeling good!
That was pretty easy!
Note: One of the the nice things about this type of ‘quick intervention’ is, it’s very easy to remember to go back to the trigger & investigate it, because it’s only been about 1 minute since I was completely caught in the emotion. I’m still in a good position to dedicate attention to figuring it out.