How To Change The Habit Of Suffering?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Sometimes, in one way or another, we all have to deal with painful events (parting with a loved one, loss, complete collapse of hopes, disappointments), loss of stability (sudden layoff or dismissal, moving to another city, country), routine - monotony and monotony of life events - "Groundhog day" as it is customary to call this phenomenon in everyday life. But if for some people such events are nothing more than a black streak - a temporary phenomenon, and all complex, painful experiences associated with it end over time, then for others pain and suffering become a part of life. And the whole difference between them is that the latter, faced with the same life trials, get stuck in complex painful experiences and thus prolong their pain. Of course, people choose to suffer unconsciously, not realizing that they themselves are the creators of their suffering.

Why is it like this?

Once upon a time, when the character was being formed, a person mastered this type of behavior. For example, a child received attention and care when he cried for a long time: “Sometimes I cried on purpose for longer, then my mother took me in her arms, hugged and stroked”, or a sad face helped to get what she wanted: “Most often requests did not bring any result, then I became very sad and lowered her face, seeing this, my mother began to try to cheer me up and still bought the toy that I wanted. Having mastered this way of behavior in childhood, a person will reproduce it in adult life, for example, in a romantic relationship, unconsciously trying to influence a partner: I need something from a partner, but I do not know how to understand what and / or cannot say about it right, then I begin to unconsciously manipulate myself, becoming sad, so that he will notice me, pay attention to me.

The ability to see everything in the negative and expect the worst is acquired in the family: the child receives all the information about the world that is still unfamiliar to him through his parents or other people close to him and over time begins to look at the world through their eyes. And if a parent often repeats: "Nothing is easy in this life", "Life is one work", "Happiness must be earned", "I wasted and suffered all my life, you will follow in my footsteps", "Life is a hard thing, to live life is not a field to cross”,“It will only get worse”,“You will live badly, because you don’t know how to live well,”then the child learns this as a postulate.

The habit of not feeling, avoiding joyful emotions, isolation and low emotionality is also formed when there was a ban in the family to rejoice

("Do not be happy - you will cry", "How much you laughed, you will cry so much", "Do not tell anyone, otherwise you will jinx it", "Mom / dad / aunt has a headache / troubles / bad mood, but you have fun", "Brag ugly, you have to be modest ")

or the child's joy, his achievements were depreciated ("So what?"

In such cases, the child understands that in order for everything to be fine, he should not be happy, should not show his emotions, but should suppress and restrain them. Or joy does not even have time to be born, it is interrupted by the depreciating and depressing "So what ?!"

There is an opinion that we notice only what already exists in our subconscious, that is, a person, once "infected" with negative attitudes in childhood, will continue to focus more on problems and troubles, losing sight of positive moments, incidents and opportunities. And the more we focus on the negative, the more and more it will be in our life - after all, this is how we gradually lose the ability to notice something else.

Undoubtedly, it is very important to understand what influenced us (how we got to such a life), it is important to notice the primary source in order to assess what impact it had and still has on our life. For example, if you found that the family had a ban on rejoicing, then think about how you are now dealing with this feeling (do you feel joy, is there enough in your life, how do you usually react and how do you feel in situations when something happened good when you are unexpectedly presented with a gift, when praised for your achievements, when you have accomplished something better than expected - do you feel joy and if not, then what instead of it). And it is equally important to see how right now we ourselves are increasing our pain, how we are doubling or tripling our suffering. We are stuck in suffering when we replay in our heads the unpleasant events that happened to us, when we try to predict the future, looking back at the painful past. Some people tend to "run" into the past and get poisoned there by negative experiences, others - "run" into the future and poison themselves with negative fantasies about it, but there are also those who rush between the past and the future, finding neither there nor there peace … And in order to put an end to this running and winding yourself up, you need to return to the present, to the reality that surrounds you: to return to your body (switch your attention from thoughts to sensations in the body - how do you feel different parts of the body: hands, fingers, hands, shoulders and so on), focus on breathing, look around: what you see, what surrounds, what you notice.

Having realized all the prerequisites that influenced our "stuck" in the negative, our actual actions with which we create or intensify our pain, and before moving on to changing the situation, it is also important to understand what can keep us in pain. This may sound unexpected, but suffering has its advantages, in psychology it is called latent benefit.

I will list some of the main ones:

- when a person feels bad, when he suffers, those around him seem to become more attentive and more willing to show concern;

- there is a reason to feel sorry for yourself and allow yourself what was previously, perhaps for a long time, forbidden: overeat sweets, lie in bed all day and watch movies, allow yourself to skip workouts, leave work on time, deny a friend with her obsessive requests in to sit with her child for the hundredth time;

- suffering helps to avoid boredom, unhappiness brings variety to life and makes it somewhat exciting, excites the blood and tickles the nerves;

- suffering for some - payment for bonuses ahead or payment for happiness behind;

- suffering is a distorted form of self-love (when a person does not know how to take care of himself and treat himself well, except in those situations when he feels extremely bad);

- suffering is a resource for creativity: many creative individuals created their works in this state of mind.

Knowing what bonuses the habit of suffering brings into our life, we can begin to change the situation. To do this, you need to add them to your current life (it is not necessary to wait for depression to cover you again, you can delight yourself every day, allowing yourself what you need). For example, you love sweets, but constantly forbid yourself, and when you find yourself in a state where nothing pleases you, when your heart is hard, you can sit down a whole cake. Think about how you can still add sweetness to your daily life: maybe, allow yourself a little bit of some delicacy every day, setting aside a special time for this, perhaps serving beautifully, enjoying its view, and then taste, savoring each a piece, or maybe replacing it with fruit or dried fruit - find the option that will be comfortable for you, so that you can indulge yourself in something pleasant without overusing it.

And some more useful tips:

• If you realize that most often you perceive life negatively, expect trouble and bad news in advance, try to communicate more with positive people, ask how they endure difficulties, how they meet with failures, how they perceive them, find something useful for yourself and take it into your piggy bank, applying it in life.

• Get rid of the habit of replaying unpleasant events of the past in your head and fantasizing about failures and negativity in the future: as soon as you catch yourself in this process, switch your attention to the body, to the surrounding objects, to people (I already wrote about this above).

• Replace your negative attitudes with the opposite, such that you like it.

• Notice your bad mood and analyze what contributed to it.

• You may have to give up watching some movies, reading books and listening to songs if they trigger painful thoughts and experiences. Especially sensitive and impressionable people, when watching a movie, reading a book or listening to songs, can easily lose the position of an outsider observing the plot, they are imbued with the experiences of the main character, begin to experience the same feelings and moods that he did, and then for some time are impressed. If this sounds familiar to you, try to avoid those films and books that can affect your emotional state.

• Do not hesitate to seek help from a psychologist if your attempts on your own do not bring results or you feel the need for additional support.

• And the last, rather commonplace, but certainly important - without it the previous advice will not work: do not demand quick changes from yourself.

It took you several decades to form and consolidate the habits, reactions and behaviors that you now possess. And changing one of them in one day is unrealistic. Give yourself time and persistently walk forward step by step.