This episode is all tools for stepping back from the process of negative rumination and choosing a different path: awareness, neutrality and openness. A lot of what we live through is created in our mind, and thoughts catalyze more similar thoughts. When it comes to negative rumination, a lot of these thought sequences are based in old, strong emotional imprints from long ago that are triggered in the present.

When we get into a negative thought loop, a sequence of feelings is created by an initial thought. For example, “I am sad because I am alone tonight, and this person didn’t call me back.” Which catalyzes, “Where am I in my life?” Which catalyzes, “Now I feel emotionally low” which triggers the brain’s desire to double down on this feeling and wallow in this rapidly increasing feeling of sadness. This catalyzes the next thought and the next one and the next one after that.

I am doing something super simple in this episode: I am writing directions for how to dismantle these kinds of thought sequences. What happens is our brain is fighting for control over feelings of pain, powerlessness, and ego-threat by rationalizing it: giving it a logical set of terms and labels. When we have a blip of anxiety or pain, we say, “This feeling is from this present-day thing in my life.” And we have already jumped on the bandwagon of that sequence of feelings, thinking we are in control of managing it when in reality, we are creating it.

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Ep 239: Doom Spiral – Sorting between old and new feelings