In the article, we will get the answers to the following questions.
Why do we suffer more in imagination than in reality? Why do some life situations appear miserable? What kind of negativity do we think of in a difficult life situation? How to cope with a difficult life situation? How to change the thought pattern and deal with life? Why hope and optimism doesn’t always work and do we have to take action in negative life situations? How to get control over our thoughts and negative feelings?
Use this Simple Pattern in your thoughts and communication to live a more fulfilling day
Table of Contents
A. Wisdom
“We suffer more in imagination than in reality”
-Seneca, Stoic and Advicer of Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor.
“We suffer not due to unexpected events, we suffer due to not accepting an event”
-Rupam Das
B. Practical Excercise
Take up the thread that is troubling you the most at this moment.
Examples:
i) Partner and you are fighting all the time, and fighting never seems to end.
ii) Partner has left you.
iii) You are going through a divorce.
iv) You have lost your job.
v) You are not getting as many projects as you used to.
vi) Boss is appearing too toxic to handle and going to the office has become a hard task.
vii) You are not able to cope with people, their expectations, and their opinions.
Anything that is bothering you for some time, write it and think about it.
a. Thinking patterns
Now get aware of the patterns your brain is creating.
- it is unacceptable.
- I have done so much, the other person doesn’t understand replicate.
- One day I will show how worthy I am.
- I don’t know how to come out of this.
- I want to see how that company will survive without me.
- Huh, one day I will take revenge for sure.
- Once I get a great job, my girlfriend will come back
And you will experience a wave of negative feelings rushing through your body, and negative memories are flashing one after the other. You are going into a chain of thoughts, and your brain is imagining all sorts of solutions.
In all the above patterns, you see a future tense, a more acceptable future, a hope for a future, and a vengeance for the present times. This is what is meant by not accepting the present that you read in the second quote.
However hard or harsh it is, present is present, a reality, and the events have happened or happened in the current times. So, all you have to do then is to understand that these are momentary events, and just like the past events in your life, this shall pass too. It may take a week, or it may take one month, or it may take one year, but the events will pass. And the very fact that you have not yet died out of the situation is proof that the events that are bothering you are not perhaps as bad as you think.
(I know it is easier to say, and I know you must be thinking that those who suffer only know the suffering and it is easy to give gyaan about these but hard in reality. I agree with you that your actual suffering is hard for anyone else including me to comprehend or understand. However, at the same time, the theory that is presented here is not hard to understand either. Is it? You can not change the situation that has happened in your life, but you can read this article and try to follow the methodology for a few days. I can promise you one thing you will not see any adverse effects of using these article techniques. If anything you will benefit. And if you do not benefit, do not continue them. Simple no?)
b. Type of visual patterns
Not only you would go into a negative feeling, but at the same time, you may see visuals of a grandiose scene where you are taking revenge, or people who you think have done injustice with you are suffering. You may see the visuals of becoming very rich and everyone sitting in front of you, where you are judging them.
These visuals that you see in the brain have nothing to do with reality. Sometimes such patterns would give you an illusion of soothing. However, because imagination at times appears like a reality, the more your brain sees such patterns to be false, that you are not really sitting over a billion dollars and people are not standing before you with folded hands, you will get sad about the situation.
Whenever you start seeing these grand visuals, imaginations, all you do is, just go out and start walking, and start walking really fast. You do not stop, you keep walking fast. You keep walking till your brain does not stop these visuals. You know that by imagining a revengeful situation, or by imagining a grand future you will not be able to achieve that future. Can you? It is better therefore to work harder to better your present bit by bit every day. If you live your life hoping for a great and bright future as you saw in your dreams, you will be frustrated, and sad, every day and will be patient. This will exhaust your energy, and you will not even have the energy that is needed to get better every day.
C. Take Action(Accept Acknowledge Act AAA-Lyfas Therapeutics LYTH-AAA-02)
Now that you understood that the patterns are inside you, and no one but you have control over them, make the change. Just change the way you feel and talk about the statement.
(Current Situation) I have lost my job, (Problem) How can I support my family? (feeling)I am feeling so worried(the opportunity-however)however, it is also a good opportunity for me to start from basics(worst-case acceptance) even if don’t get a job, at least I will learn so much about the job market.
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Example implementations of the model AAA-Lyfas-Therapeutics LYTH-AAA-02
Scenario: The girl I loved so much, left me and went away
(current situation)my girl, my love, the girl with whom I was so happy and both of us were so happy has gone away from me and I do not know if she will ever come back or not.
(feelings)I feel alone, and incomplete.
(Problem) We did so many things together, like talking for hours, doing business every day, cooking, walking, making love, taking care of plants, how can I do everything alone now?
(the opportunity-however)However it is also a good opportunity to focus on improving myself every day and do business, cooking, plantation, walking, as well as making myself fitter. Now that I don’t have her to spend extra time with, I can use this extra time to make business, home, my mind and body better. I can also write daily letter to my girl, as if I am talking to her and sharing with her. If I get an opportunity, I will give these expression of my love, and if not, then at a later date, I can publish them as a book.
(worst-case acceptance) Even if she doesn’t return ever, I will be wealthier and fitter and can then spend my years travelling and exploring the world, and then writing about them.
If you look into the above pattern, I am not complaining about the girl going away from me. I am accepting the reality. I am not denying the feeling that I am lonely and that I am feeling incomplete(as there is no one to share with). I am also looking at the opportunity, that because I do not have the girl who was an integral part of me, I have more time. I now won’t have to teach her, help her regulate her mood, or help her to deal with her insecurities. And this extra time now can be used for fitness, business, and home.
Finally, I have eliminated the grandiosity of taking revenge, bringing her back someday, and eliminated the hope that one day God will give her back to me. I have taken into account the worst-case possibility.
With this model, I transformed my imagination of taking revenge on people who took her away, teaching her a lesson in the future, etc, and replacing them with a simple act of improving daily.
Because love starts from self, and if we do not love ourselves then why should someone else love us, and how can someone else love us? Love is all about care and growth. If I care for myself better daily and grow better, then I will accept myself better. My own company will not trouble me so much.
Always remember, irrespective of how much we try to control life, and its events, life will always surprise us with tests and challenges. However, when you look back at your life, all the challenges made you a better person, a person who understood the world better. And so the current situation is also designed by your life to make your life better. If it was not, then you would have already died.
Similarly, you can create a practical narration about a situation, and write it down. Read the writing several times and commit to it. Life is not worth wasting in wishful thinking, hope, imagination, vengeance. Time is limited. Life is about acting. You need not to prove anything to anyone. You need not teach any lessons to anyone. You need not pursue anything or anyone. All you have to do is take small actions.
Because our actions follow our thoughts and we do not have any control over our thoughts, it is better to write them down, read them every day, and commit to them.
D. Explanation
Just like the example of a love partner going away, you can take any situation in life and you can write down a narrative in the given format. Then you can take action. Always remember just like our time on this planet is limited, so is our energy. There are so many forces that are acting in any situation, that it is hardly something we can control. We know ourselves better than the others, and we know ourselves more than the world and the life. We are closest to us. So, invest that time and energy into you, but all along do not try to push your brain away from feeling bad about the situation.
You don’t have to divert yourself from the situation. You do not have to trick your brain to comfort with the imagination or hope for a better future. You do not have to change anything to show anyone.
So you are eliminating all the wastage of time, energy and emotions into trying to deny, defend, or deflect the situation, and taking action to use the bad current situation and the negative emotion as the string of your bow to slingshot the bow of your life further.
1. You are narrating the situation as is, without any imagination.
2. You are narrating the real problem.
3. You are accepting your true feelings.
4. You are giving a future direction to the brain.
5. You are taking away the fear of failure from the brain. It is okay even if you fail the way you are planning, still, that will have some positives.
E. Redo the Exercise
Now practice this with several different threads. What you will observe is that you are not going into endless negativity and a chain of thoughts. Your imagination ended, and you are much more relaxed now.
F. Conclusion
One change a day, for life, bit by bit, brick by brick, we get better.
(Now write this post’s summary in your growth diary). ->Remember writing habits? The brain doesn’t work in two different ways.
Cherish the current moment. Life is beautiful even in hunger and footpath.
do not ruminate, imagine, deflect, divert, deny, deviate, just Accept, Acknowledge, and Act,
Remember, life is so unpredictable that none of us know whether we will get up tomorrow and we will live tomorrow in the first place. We are only aware of this moment in life when we are alive. We have to make the current moment more meaningful and give us a better opportunity for tomorrow. If we live tomorrow, then we have to repeat the same thing of making tomorrow better, and then growing a little, so that if we live day after tomorrow, we get a better life day after tomorrow. You had no control over the past, and you will have no control over the future. The only thing that is in your hand is the way you feel about the past and the present and the optimism you look at the future. Focus on what is in your hand and let other things play their own.
