Unhelpful feelings don’t have a long half life if we don’t feed it with more thoughts or narratives

Have you ever had an external or internal stimulus that triggered a feeling like intense frustration or anger. If one is not careful, a thought or a narrative may arise from that feeling, which then perpetuate or intensify that initial feeling. This may become very prolonged and unhelpful. It might turn into something much bigger that what it actually is.

Many folks including many of our patients, may then fall into the trap of trying to argue, reason, detach, suppress, or finding ways to avoid or distract from those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. This often doesn’t work in the long term. It’s our fight, flight or freeze response.

Finding a way to pause, observe with curiosity, defuse, hold space, and not put thoughts or create a narrative from those feelings, may serve as a pivot point to dissipate and shift those feelings through taking value based actions.

Unhelpful feelings don’t usually have long half lives if we don’t feed it further with more thoughts or narratives.

I wonder if you know what I mean.