For me, one of things that sometimes gets in the way of being happy is the everyday barrage of unpleasant thoughts, often about relatively minor things I have to do, things that might go wrong, things I’ve screwed up in the past, and so forth.
In the past I’ve tried various techniques to lessen the unpleasant feelings associated with these thoughts, with varying degrees of success, but this is still an issue I have. This morning on the subway on my way to work, I tried something a little bit different. I tried imagining that my feelings were like fireworks, and that I was a spectator, watching the show. Instead of getting caught up in the content of the feeling (such as “just great, I have to send those insurance forms in and I don’t know where the receipts are and it’s probably too late and I hate doing it”), I tried to focus on the feeling itself, as in “ooh, there’s one now, that’s an interesting one”.
This isn’t really anything that new, as many thinkers in the past (roughly in the Buddhist style) have suggested becoming an observer of your thoughts and feelings so that they don’t overwhelm you.
This got me wondering if the technique of “imagining things” in a certain way in general might be a useful technique in helping us feel happier. If you imagine that your feelings are fireworks, or that your feelings are not you but something outside of you that you observe, might it help you feel better?
As another example, I’ve heard from several sources that one way to be happy is to be like “a child at play”, meaning that you’re engaged with the world and projects and things you’re trying to do, but you’re not too concerned about the outcome of those project. I’m not sure this is really how children view things (some children I know can seem very attached to the outcomes of their games!), but perhaps there’s something to it. For example, if you viewed things “going wrong” in your life as challenges to be enjoyed instead of setbacks (as you might in a game), perhaps you’d be happier and even possibly be better able to do what needed to be done.
So how did the fireworks technique work for me? Although I didn’t have anything particularly upsetting on my mind this morning, it actually did seem to work and I did feel like I was able to escape the negative thoughts for little while. Of course, sometimes new techniques are most effective in the beginning, but I’ll try it again and see how it goes.
Follow on Twitter
Visit on Facebook
Subscribe to RSS Feed
I find this method fascinating. It is intriguing that you suggest rightly to “externalize” not just negative feelings, but feelings as such when they tend to overwhelm. Perhaps this is to say that there is something misguided in categorizing feelings in such a binary way; maybe the task is to truly realize the tapestry of feelings and see the interconnectedness that blurs the positive/negative dichotomy. In this way too one would more properly observe the feelings instead of “participating” in the activity of assigning some +/- value to them.
Theory and my random musings aside, this is something I am going to make an effort to practice. It is no doubt difficult and I’d love to hear peoples’ views on how to remember to observe the sea of emotions instead of drowning in it…
Glad you found the method interesting, would love to hear how it works out for you. It’s also an interesting question you bring up about whether feelings can be categorized into “positive” and “negative”. My own take is that this positive/negative aspect is one part of feelings, but that there is a lot more to them too. I also suspect that paying attention to feelings and thinking about them in certain ways (such as by imagining yourself to be watching fireworks, or by “not resisting” them, etc.) may change that positive/negative aspect. In some cases, perhaps it could lessen or remove the negative aspect of the feeling (the dream!)