Barking Up The Wrong Tree July 10th, 2023 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my new book become a bestseller! To check it out, click [here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- 5 Rituals To Keep You Happy All The Time ([Click here]( to read on the blog) We all get a little sad sometimes. It feels like the universe is a twisted gameshow called "How Can We Torture This Poor Soul Today?" -- and youâre the contestant. Other times it can escalate into full-on depression and that dark cloud of emotions follows you around like a fart in a spacesuit. Trying to get anything done feels like trying to climb a mountain of razor blades with a backpack full of anvils while a broken sound system plays a perpetual loop of Sarah McLachlan's greatest hits. No one looks good in existential angst. It's not a flattering color on anyone. So we seek out the emotional MacGuffin of happiness but often itâs as elusive as a tax loophole for the middle class. The lifetime risk of depression is actually pretty high: roughly 20 percent for women and 10 percent for men. Here's the good news: depression isn't a life sentence, and it doesn't come with a no-return policy. If youâre seriously depressed, by all means, stop reading this and get help. But if itâs just an attack of the blues, if youâre just dealing with a tough time, there are some things you can do on your own to reduce the difficulty level on the video game of life. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has the power to brighten your day, dissolve those bad feelings and help you be the person you pretend to be on Instagram. Itâs [so effective]( it even helps with treatment-resistant depression. Its secret? Mindfulness. Yeah, that Swiss Army knife of inner peace. No, you donât have to pay $2,000 to spend a week with strangers in the woods, meditating for 18 hours a day. (That's not spiritual growth, my friends; that's a hostage situation.) And it has effects that go deep down to the neuroscience level. The brain is a mystery. A Jell-O mold that canât remember your own phone number but can sing every word of the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" theme song. When depressed, we become too identified with negative thoughts and all that rumination strengthens the âfeel badâ connections. Meanwhile, mindfulness downregulates amygdala signals and reinforces those self-compassionate pathways through that game of cerebral Tetris known as [neuroplasticity](. The text weâll be drawing on this time is â[The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression]( Ready to feel better? Letâs get to it... 1) Get Off Autopilot Researchers estimate only 5% of our behavior is truly intentional. Most of the time we put little thought into what weâre doing. Often this isnât an issue but sometimes we get stuck in bad mental habits. We get caught up in judgments and stories we tell ourselves about the world that donât produce the best results but we never step back and question them. It can become an endless dance of self-sabotage. ACT says that depression isnât something you have, itâs the result of what you do. The bad mental habits get us stuck in a loop that perpetuates the negative results. Two of the key negative habits are suppression and avoidance. We try to suppress the bad feelings and this doesnât work. Instead of offering us emotional Kevlar, the emotions only come back stronger. Meanwhile, avoidance is when we dodge anything that leads to feeling ugh â and we end up squeezing out the positive as well. We become the Houdinis of escapism, devising ever more elaborate schemes to dodge social engagements or avoid confrontations. You spend all your time trying not to trip over your own emotional baggage and your life sadly shrinks in the process. But your nervous system doesnât work by subtraction. You canât prevent thoughts and feelings from showing up. ACT teaches us that trying to control your emotions, avoiding the situations that produce them, is the problem, not the solution. Being mindful is key. Noticing whatâs going on in your head. Becoming aware that your thoughts and feelings are just that, thoughts and feelings, and do not have to be obeyed. We need to be less reactive â blindly following those bad mental habits â and start making conscious choices to act on our values. To notice moments of choice. And to make good decisions that arenât reactive or avoidant. Blindly following the same old scripts is like being stuck in an elevator with the most dreadful person you know -- only to realize that person is you. So how do we do this in the moment? How should we handle it when negative emotions pop up? Life throws challenges at us like some kind of demonic dodgeball coach while reality delivers a swift kick to our collective shins. How should we respond? 2) Openness You donât have to change anything just yet. Just be open. This is the first step to fostering resilience: being open to what occurs inside you. Donât try to control the feelings; just notice them. And donât react. Heck, donât do anything for a second. It's all about breaking free from the autopilot mode that keeps us locked into negative thought patterns, like a malfunctioning GPS that leads you straight into a lake. It's all about letting them in without letting them take over. No, this isnât easy. The bad feelings come, sucking the joy out of the room with the force of a thousand joyless Hoover Dam turbines. Youâre going to want to act on those bad habits. To respond impulsively, to shout, give up, suppress or avoid. All of which makes things worse. This is where everyone tells you to focus on your breath. And theyâre right. It anchors you in the present moment and focuses you on your body â which means you are not focused on the growing tsunami in your skull. Observe what youâre feeling and donât judge it or react. Witness whatâs going on like an insurance adjuster writing a report. Label the feelings but donât get emotionally caught up in them. Get curious about them. Yes, this is hard. Experiencing strong negative emotions and not reacting seems as compatible as Kim Kardashian and a public library. But give it a shot. Now describe the emotions without judging them. Donât get all caught up in the awfulness. Examine them in a critical, nuanced way like an oenophile with a glass of wine. Break out the mental thesaurus. You've got your standard-issue feelings like happiness and sadness, sure. But then you've got all these weird off-brand emotions like "schadenfreude" and "ennui" that sound more like IKEA furniture than actual human experiences. This will prevent you from overreacting or from doing a faceplant into a puddle of our own insecurities. The emotions are like the weather â something that happens but not something that controls you. Something you can make a choice about how to respond to. So far all this has been less enjoyable than a dental appointment with the Marquis de Sade. But you avoided being overtaken by the negative feelings. What now? 3) Acceptance By and large you canât just choose to change internal events like spontaneous feelings or thoughts. So you know what we do with things we canât change? We accept them. Emotionally you are now a Walmart greeter, welcoming all those thoughts and feelings with open arms. In the moment this seems like an insurmountable challenge, akin to scaling Mount Everest in flip-flops. Those emotions are gnawing away at the very marrow of your soul. But following your old mental habits usually makes things worse. Acceptance is not âgiving in.â Acceptance is when someone crazy is ranting at you and you just nod your head. You acknowledge that they are speaking but you donât have to agree. And that is how we handle the sad, angry or scared emotions â as someone crazy trying to make us crazy. We donât have to give in, but we do accept that they are here for the time being. You donât have to engage with the mental Cirque du Soleil thatâs unfolding. Accepting negative emotions is like welcoming an annoying relative to a family gathering: we may not enjoy their company, but we acknowledge their presence and offer them a polite nod. This is where true resilience comes from. Itâs not suppression or avoidance. Itâs acknowledging and accepting but not giving in. But the negative emotions are still yelping. Theyâre calling your name like a drunken karaoke enthusiast who's just discovered "Bohemian Rhapsody." And you're desperately scanning the room for an escape route or perhaps a conveniently located trapdoor. How do we make this stop? 4) Detachment One of the keys to mastering ACT is learning to detach ourselves from our negative thoughts and feelings, like breaking up with a clingy ex who just can't seem to take a hint. So far youâve done a good job of not engaging the thoughts and feelings. Now we need to fully relinquish ownership of them. So how do we do it? One way is to give the feeling a nickname. If it has a name, itâs not you. And the thought or feeling probably deserves a name because youâve likely met it many times before. âOkay, Saddy, I hear you.â Another way is to simply thank your mind. Your brain is just trying to help you, following those same (bad) habits itâs always followed. Treat it like a child that is trying to help but isnât doing a very good job of it. âThank you, mind.â Youâre dismissing the smartphone notification. Not screaming at it to stop or questioning its nefarious existence. Think of how a boss often ends a conversation with an employee. That âthank youâ is actually communicating âweâre done here.â Yes, this takes practice but with time naming it or just thanking your mind can make those bad feelings vanish faster than a magician with commitment issues. So the mental calamity has died down enough for you to make a decision. What now? 5) Act On Your Values Youâre not impulsively reacting to negative thoughts and feelings. Thatâs great. Now itâs time for the big questions: What do you want life to be? Who do you want to be? Wow. Thatâll make your mind go blank. Our values are often as coherent as the plot in a David Lynch film. So take the time to think about them. This is how you build the new habits you want your brain to react with in the future. Consider some possibilities:
- I want to be a good parent who doesnât just yell.
- I want to be a supportive partner who responds to conflict with empathy.
- I want to be a resilient person who doesnât get depressed when things donât go my way.
But it doesnât stop with choosing your values. Influencers with more followers than brain cells will say you can just âmanifest your dreams.â Uh, no. Life is not some sort of cosmic vending machine just waiting to dispense success and happiness. (If just wanting something makes it comes true, I'd like to request a pony and a million dollars, please. I promise I'll think about them really, really hard.) You paused the onslaught of negative thoughts. You defined your values. Now itâs time to act on them. To be the person you want to be and achieve the things you want. And the more you act on these beliefs the closer youâll get to replacing those old defaults with new, healthier mental habits. Detach from the negative and act on the positive. May not get you a pony and a million dollars but itâs far more effective than glorified wishful thinking. Alright, weâve covered a lot. Letâs round it all up and learn about the thing that makes all of this much easier... Sum Up Hereâs how to get happier:
- Get Off Autopilot: Too often weâre not thinking; weâre just reacting. We fall into a funk and suppress or avoid bad feelings. Breaking these bad mental habits can feel like trying to un-toast a piece of bread. But first we need to step back and notice them.
- Openness: Let the feelings in. Itâs not fun but get curious about them. Notice them but donât get caught up in them. Yes, itâs hard. Not getting caught up in emotions is like trying to play Jenga during an earthquake.
- Acceptance: You canât immediately change bad feelings. But we can accept them. Acknowledge them like you do your crazy uncle. You donât have to agree but donât try and shove them away either.
- Detachment: Negative emotions can seem like glitter on a craft project gone wrong â they stick around forever. Give them a nickname or just thank your brain. Something to remind you theyâre not you. Theyâre just something that popped up in your brain. And they can float away if you let them.
- Act On Your Values: You donât need to purchase some silly manifesting course that costs more than a black-market kidney. Once the feelings die down, you need to take some action. Move toward being the person you want to be.
When youâre feeling down, doing all this stuff can feel like a lot. Like you donât have what it takes. And thatâs where the final key comes in: [self-compassion](. Self-compassion is offering feelings of caring and kindness toward yourself. Taking an understanding, nonjudgmental attitude toward your difficulties. And recognizing everybody deals with this stuff. Itâs normal. People who practice self-compassion experience lower levels of depression and anxiety. When we know itâs normal to experience problems, they donât overwhelm us. Everything gets easier when you remember we all have bad days, and we all occasionally screw up when trying to make them better. Youâre a âwork in progress.â We all are. So practice accepting difficult feelings, acting on your values, and engaging in some self-compassion. These skills are not something that can be acquired overnight, like a bad spray tan or an ill-advised tattoo. Sorry, just reading about them is not enough. That's like trying to lose weight by eating a cake made of diet tips. When we start accepting all emotions, life gets richer and we learn important lessons. No, youâre not always gonna be as happy as a mosquito at a nudist colony. Thinking like that is the problem. Nonstop joy is as unattainable as the secret location of my underground lair. Our obsession with happiness has led us to believe that life should be one continuous string of happy moments, like a dazzling necklace made entirely of sunshine and puppy kisses. But that's not how life works. Think like that and youâre stuck in a never-ending game of Hungry Hungry Hippos, except you're the marbles. Life is more like a quilt, a patchwork of experiences and emotions, stitched together with the threads of laughter and tears, triumphs and heartaches, and that time I accidentally superglued my fingers together while attempting a DIY home repair. Accept the bad feelings and then do something about them. You'll have battled the fiercest of foes - your own mind - and in doing so, you'll have proven to yourself that you possess a strength you never knew you had. ***If you are one of those lovely people who bought "Plays Well With Others" please leave a review on Amazon [here](. Thanks!*** Email Extras Findings from around the internet... + Want to know a very easy thing you can do to extend your life? Click [here](. + Want to know if "manifesting" really works? Click [here](. + Want to know how to do great work? Click [here](. + Miss my prior post? Here you go: [How To Become An Expert At Anything: 5 Powerful Secrets From Research](. + Want to know a simple way to stick to diet and exercise goals? Click [here](. + You read to the end of the email. You've learned to "thank your brain" -- and I'd like to thank you. I appreciate your attention. Yes, yes -- it's Crackerjack time: You'd like to be rich and you'd like to have a beautiful home. How can we do both? By stealing classic paintings from museums. No, I'm not encouraging criminal behavior. But it is fascinating to learn how art thieves work. How do they do it? It's very different from the movies. To learn more, click [here](.
Thanks for reading!
Eric PS: If a friend forwarded this to you, you can sign up to get the weekly email yourself [here](. This email was sent to {EMAIL}
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