There are days when I’m overwhelmed by a flood of difficult emotions. When various things don’t work out, and I try to salvage as much as possible and go to sleep to start anew the next day. These are the days when it’s even more important to take care of myself – although it’s a more difficult task than usual.
These don’t have to be days marked by major crises. Sometimes it’s just a sudden change of plans that disrupts the intricate system of interconnected vessels created to manage everything. Other times, something refuses to cooperate – head, leg, stomach, or the vagus nerve show me the middle finger and tell me to slow down. Yet other times, the weather is bad, I’m fighting to stay awake, and something small happens – the bus doesn’t arrive, or trash falls out of the neighborhood dumpster, and I don’t know how to squeeze in my own bag of trash. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to go from “holding on” to “this is too much.”
Usually, on such days, a few deep breaths are enough (as long as I’m out of the dumpster 😉 ). However, sometimes some events cause my mental fuses to blow, and I wander around the house not knowing what to do with myself. During a crisis, the most important thing is a psychological first-aid kit.
A psychological first-aid kit is nothing more than a list of things that can improve our mood. Things that recharge our batteries, give our heads different stimuli, allow us to experience something outside the world of frustration.
My experience has shown me many times that when I’m exhausted or trying to recover from worse moments, I usually have a blank mind and don’t know what to do with myself. I kind of feel like doing something, but I don’t. And I don’t even know what else I could do. It’s as if in such a state, the head is unable to figure out how I can give myself respite.
Thanks to the list, I can take care of myself in such moments. Instead of checking if someone has texted me or browsing Netflix and saying to myself “noooo, I don’t feel like it today,” I simply choose what might be helpful. And I act. And that’s what it’s for – so that when I notice that something is wrong, I can reach for something that will be helpful. Not to remain in a state of brooding, but to distract myself as quickly as possible from things that drain the battery, so that I can recharge it at least a little.
The point of creating a first-aid kit is not to create a rigid action plan. The goal is to have a list that shows how many ways we can take care of ourselves. And to reach for it when we feel we need something – but due to fatigue or overstimulation, we simply don’t know what. Such a list allows you to choose something for the moment, and also to take care of your well-being more consciously on a daily basis.
Once my list had only ten items, now there are many more. Sometimes some items fall off the list, others return, or recently appeared for the first time. At the moment it looks like this:
Recently, I’ve noticed that I less and less often need to reach for my first-aid kit. Certain things from the list, like reading books, have become my habits. I tolerate stress, tension, and uncertainty much better. However, there are still moments when I want to immediately reach for something that will improve my mood, or I wander around scrolling social media and not knowing what to do with myself.
When I wondered what was different in these moments, I realized that they involve more or less strong negative emotions. Although a precise term for them is: emotions that I don’t get along with. Ones that I don’t want to feel. These are also states or thoughts that I don’t associate well with, that are difficult for me to come to terms with, difficult to understand, analyze, experience. Or to apply to them tools that can be applied to thoughts and actions.
In short – I don’t know how to “bite” this feeling, but it has no qualms about biting me.
Studying psychological literature and reading slightly more spiritual or reflective literature (including the works of Anthony de Mello), I noticed that emotions can be approached in at least two ways. One involves action – getting enough sleep, working with thoughts, behaviors, setting goals so that certain states and emotions do not appear. For example – if I don’t know what my goal is, then scattering energy on various goals can cause justified frustration. So, when I set the first goals, e.g., for the next month, I have a chance to feel less frustration from this. The second way refers to the acceptance of certain states – specifically those that you don’t have much influence over.
And that’s what I’ve been experiencing lately. Emotions that are sometimes hard to do anything with. After all, I can’t deceive biology – so I have the right to sometimes feel some emotions more strongly or less pleasantly, especially when I’m again bothered by hot flashes or tearfulness associated with my menopause symptoms. I also won’t deceive myself (although I can try) – I’m not able to change and fix everything, which means that sometimes helplessness, sadness, and tiring uncertainty knock on my door. Sometimes huge anger. Escape, however, only makes the emotions intensify – similarly to trying to process them cognitively-behaviorally.
De Mello writes a lot in his books about observing oneself. About being with oneself. About accepting that certain things are – and that’s it. Delving into whether something is OK or not OK brings more frustration than accepting that something is. Recently, therefore, when certain states hit me again, I try to simply be with them and feel that they are. To accept their existence. To accept that they have the same right to be in my life and feeling as joy, excitement, a sense of comfort or simple satisfaction.
Having that in mind we need to make a distinction. There are such states, such intensities of emotions, that require decisive action to ensure our comfort of life. In their case, action is most advisable. However, there are such emotions or states that are a natural consequence of the fact that we live, feel. Sometimes we experience situations or things that we perceive as pleasant, other times we experience things that bother us.
And I have the impression that this “ problem” with feeling I have is something more than personal indisposition. It’s a certain tendency to see only what is good and to turn away from other, more intriguing or demanding things and states. It is a tendency to quickly conclude where stopping and reflection are needed. It’s a desire to escape from what is asking to be “digested” and integrated with personality.
So I try to be, to dive in a fact of pure existence, as far as my fear and apprehension allow me. I try to remember that this is just temporary state, not something that will last forever.
Reading about human physiology and brain behavior, you can find descriptions of how our body reacts under the influence of emotions. Much is said about how our thoughts and behaviors can slightly tone down emotions or stir them up to such a level that it is difficult for the brain to reach for “rational” thinking. The issue of reacting to what appears in our body is undoubtedly something that – for ourselves and for the good of our relationships – is worth working on.
At the same time, there are also states that simply are. There is joy that fades. There are also sorrows that fade. Neither the joy felt nor the sorrows felt determine who we are. And personally, I am moving further and further away from the thesis that in order to feel happiness in life, one must primarily feel these “good” and “desired” emotions.
More and more often I think: “this too shall pass.” Just as joy passes, so does sorrow pass. Emotions are something that happens to us, not us ourselves. Being aware of this, I use the first-aid kit more consciously – in order to actually take care of myself, and not necessarily suppress the emotions that are within me. Which, however, is the privilege of a time that is not a crisis and is not a time focused on survival, but a calmer time. Time, when one can build better future, plan and dream.