Look. What’s life doing to me!” you say to yourself. And the chain of gloomy thoughts sets in. You have to break it by reminding yourself that it originates from the flotsam of your own subconscious mind.
If you do not, it contaminates the springs of your mind.
The dominant feelings then are of despair, hopelessness, agony and self-pity. These gray thoughts invade the citadel of your mind. Gloom pervades. Like tape recording it plays, sapping your emotional and nervous energy.
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Gloomy thinking symbolizes a kind of mental sickness. Unless you break this chain of unhealthy thinking, your mood and your life will be engulfed in emotionally suffocating “gas.”
How can you climb out of your emotional dungeon?
You should realize that there is one part of you, which stands apart from it. This is your escape route. It may look blocked because of long passivity, but it can be activated.
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Kick the aforesaid mental sentinel into action. It will negate the gloom. There will be protests from the domineering gloom, but you should ignore them.
Try it again and again. You will realize that you are getting less and less dependent on this emotional crutch. Once you throw it away, dependence disappears.
You do not want to be miserable. Ironically, your own daydreaming of misery is the thing you have always fed your mind on. The only thing, which can break its stronghold, is your own mind.
Feed your mind on: “I find it useful to have cluster of positive assertions that cut at the negative. But these have to be simple, positive and clear. Mirth is better than misery.” Or as Charles Lamb said, “laughter is worth a hundred groans in any market of the world.” I acquired the habit of gloom. Now, I must acquire one of bloom.” These assertions will dislodge defeatist thoughts.
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Thus, you generate your own oxygen, as it were. You put yourself on your own life-support system. It injects a feeling of well-being and confidence.
True, you will, like anybody else, get some hard knocks. But these should not throw you out of gear. You are not born a favourite of fate. If you think like that, you generate misery and resentment.
You waste energy on morbid satisfaction from misery. You must provide another goal for your energy.
For example, lots of women past thirty, for one reason or the other, have dumped their desire and hope of marriage, and become miserable. They have pulled the curtain down on possible fulfillment.
A simple affirmation “I have a nest ready. A bird will come and settle in it,” changes the emotional climate for a depressed woman. The logic is simple: negative and positive thoughts cannot co-exist in mind.
A little humour can brighten your outlook, a new study suggests. People who watched a 15-minute comedy video scored higher on a survey of hopefulness compared to those who didn’t get the chance to guffaw.
The finding suggests humour could be a strategy to relieve stress and maintain well-being.
A report from the University of Maryland Medical Centre found humour makes blood vessels function better, causing the tissue that lines the vessels to expand, increasing blood flow.
Maybe just by inhibiting negative thoughts, humour can stimulate thought and cause you to toss out automatic behaviorual responses in favour of more creative pursuits, Texas Rosen said.
That leads to a greater sense of self-worth and a tendency to develop plans of attack for dealing with problems.
Cultivate cheerfulness. It comes from a positive mental attitude. Circumstances do play a role but it is your reaction to the happenings that makes or mars your mind. It is up to us to believe whether the atmosphere is romantic or cloudy.
Create your own support system. Mix with people with whom you are more comfortable. Make friends, not enemies. Win over your opponents. This strengthens your support system.
Mrs. P., a retired government official, has joined Senior Citizens’ Club and also works for the Red Cross once a week. A widow, living away from her son, she shows no traces ‘of unhappiness or loneliness.
Befriend people who are happy rather than the ones who are generally sad. A support system gives you a wall to lean on and is helpful during bad patches of life.
Take a balanced view. I know a woman whose life has had suffering enough to daunt the bravest but who faces all with a shrug. “Well life is like that, life’s like that”
She has shown herself uncommonly tough in standing up to misfortunes, and is full of bounce and good cheer. Sensible acceptance of reality is a help.
Self-help matters. Many things that distress you can be changed with a little effort. A widow complained that she suffered for want of a cup of tea in the morning. A practical neighbour suggested her to have electric kettle by her bedside for making a cup of tea at any time.
Half of the minor distresses and frustrations of life can be removed by applying a little imagination and effort. Don’t you run for shelter when it rains?
As soon as you start thinking about action on unhappiness, you begin to feel better It is partly because it generates hope of an improvement, but also because there is satisfaction in making an effort.
A good deal of your misery may not really be a big misfortune. It is tiredness, temporary nervous strain, boredom, unsatisfied sex urges or unreleased anger.
Pin point your misery and find out what you can do about it. You have set in the process of recovery. A good hobby, preferably a really constructive one, as learning a language, playing a musical instrument, gardening, photography, or a handicraft, can help a great deal. Change is refreshing, too.
A good television programme, a good film or play, can work wonders. It depends on your temperament and mood of the moment. Bouts of depression are common than cold. It is during that period that some fun, amusement, distraction or hobby can be useful. Smile and whistle attitude can work well in some cases.
Self-control is necessary in life but if you bottle up grief and resentment and a host of minor irritations, you are your own adversary. By not allowing them to fester inside you, you become your best misery-killer.
Let your life flow outwards. There is danger in storing up misery. Spend it. Whenever a misery-manufacturing situation arises, tell yourself, “This too will pass.” Mirth, like any other habit, can be acquired. Misery, like any other, can be dislodged.