How can I feel good when the world is in chaos?
I get it. The world feels like a mess right now. It would be very normal to feel overwhelmed, anxious, angry, hopeless, frustrated, and more given we have a world-wide pandemic, there are threats to democracy and human rights in many places on the planet, the climate crisis needs to be addressed, and so on. So how can we feel better?
When you feel emotional pain, you can start to take control over your internal world by first organizing your brain. This means identifying those “second” arrows shot by your brain (see my previous post).
For example, when I watch the news, I feel bad. My brain gives me feelings of fear, anxiety, anger, helplessness, and more. To feel better, I can take a break from the news (which is a good approach for most of us) but I also want to figure out what arrows my brain is shooting me with. I do that by first writing down the names of the feelings I’m having, like anxious, angry, frustrated, scared, irritated, ashamed, down, hopeless, and so on. This starts to create order in my brain.
I then identify the thoughts that go with those feelings. Those are the arrows my brain is shooting into me. I do this by finishing the sentence I feel [feeling word] because … The part after because is the thought. Here’s what I mean:
I feel scared because humans can’t seem to get their act together; we keep screwing stuff up.
So my arrow is Humans can’t seem to get their act together; we keep screwing stuff up. This is the upsetting thought that is holding some of my fear. So I write that down so I can work on it. Then I do another one:
I feel angry because people should stop feeding hate – it is SO horrible and a waste of the precious little time we have on this planet.
The upsetting thought that holds some of my anger is the part after because, which is people should stop feeding hate etc… So I write that down so I can work on it. And so on. I create a list of the arrows my brain shot me with, which are all the upsetting thoughts that contain my emotional pain.
Once I’ve done that, I’ve created some order out of the swirling mass of emotions and thoughts in my brain. I now have a chance to work through my pain. In my next post, I will go into the next step of the process. If you can’t wait, it is all in my short and free e-book. Warmly, Karin
