Bad days.
Dark mental states.
This series is based on those times when you feel like you’re in some kind of a mental hole.
Perspective on life sort of seems to shrink down to this kind of dark corner, and all kinds of negative states can be part of this.
And so in these videos, it’s my attempt to sort of think through this and think of ways to maybe shift perspective and look at things.
I still get in these states sometimes.
Some people are in them very often.
And it seems like, although there’s never any quick fix at all, there maybe can be some ways that we can shift mindset.
One thing: just to accept that we are in a mental hole, and to see it as a mental hole, and to see it as, you know, I’m not seeing the world quite clearly.
There is more outside this hole.
I know there’s stuff out there.
But I just happen to be in the hole at the moment.
And the next thing would be to to say that it’s OK to not be OK.
It’s OK to be in a dark state.
It’s not necessary to be happy all the time.
I think this idea of needing to constantly be happy, or there’s something wrong, if you’re not OK, you have to identify what’s wrong and then fix the problem immediately: some days are just not OK.
And we don’t need to add an extra layer of anxiety about it by wondering oh, why can’t I be OK? What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I be OK right now? Just accept that it’s OK to have a bad day, or many of them.
And then there’s various tricks we can play on ourselves when it comes to our own value.
Sometimes we can feel like we have no value, like we’re sort of worthless people in some way, based on maybe things that other people have said to us, or things that we say about ourselves and think repeatedly.
We can start to feel that we don’t have value.
So I look at what does it mean to have value? Where does our value come from? Then there’s the idea of all the things that we don’t accept about ourselves, our shadow, everything that we’d rather pretend isn’t there.
And trying to be a certain type of person, then anything that doesn’t fit that mould, that becomes this kind of hidden shadow, that if we don’t accept it can sort of strike out when we least expect it and almost act as an antagonist within ourselves, striking against ourselves.
And it seems like the way to use this is to integrate the power of the shadow, so that our dark side becomes part of ourselves, united together.
And that way we can bring its power into the fold and use it for our own benefit instead of fighting against it.
Then there’s all the issues of anxiety.
This is this worrying about the future, this being stuck in sort of loops of thought about concern about what’s going to happen, what’s going to go wrong, all the things that could be disasters.
I look at different ways of approaching this idea of future risk and future disaster, and ways that we can approach it without this anxiety loop, where we can sort of accept disaster and have a different way of looking at it where we’re ready for whatever.
Whatever disaster happens, it will just happen, and deal with it then.
Of course easier said than done to say, you know, “Don’t worry.” Very easy words to say.
So it’s all these little mindset shifts that I hope can in some way help to shift that way of thinking in the ways that the phrase “Don’t worry”: it’s pointing in that direction, and yet it needs so much more to be able to get there.
Then I look into the ways that we often trick ourselves into negative states.
All kinds of overthinking.
Modes of operating where we’re chasing after happiness, and we expect it to be there, and if it’s not there, there’s something wrong.
And this sort of loop of chasing happiness really seems to create misery.
And then the whole idea of sort of living on words, living in an abstract realm, where we separate ourselves from our real feelings, and we just sort of live in this world of ideas and concepts about what we think should be, the way I should be, the way the world should be.
We can get lost in this kind of world of abstract concepts and become detached from the reality of our body and our feelings.
And this can also lead to this kind of alienation from ourselves.
All sorts of fear, sulking, negative thoughts: this kind of feeling of these sort of dark loops of thought, and they’re always there and there’s always- our mindset is always shifting, and there’s always, I believe, going to be dark times.
But I believe by applying some strategies to shift the way we look at things, to try out new perspectives, even in a purely experimental way, just try out shifts of perspective, we can find ways to move beyond the dark hole.
And in fact, the dark hole can become a source of power moving on.
And so I hope that some of these videos will be of some use to someone out there, as they have been for me.
#badday #darkmentalstate #mentalhole