“In”: the only way out!

As living ones, we are made by our emotions. Even when we say , “I am an emotion-less or emotionally-controlled person”, the fact is that’s an emotion we are expressing loud.

The mind is made up of all the thoughts we have, what we did in past, what we saw and what we have lived, good or bad, great or not so great, but all we lived through has shaped a lot of what we are right now. And the rest is shaped by what we think about the future us.

There are times when things are in line and we feel we are in charge. Think about people, who are always in charge for their life and for those around them.

But change does happen. It’s inevitable. The sad part is the change undesired. Something that should not have happened, something you have had sorted out and its unsorted again.

It’s hard when the syllabus changes just few days before exam and you had read 80% of old syllabus already. It is a bad feeling, worthless and disappointing feeling. But it happens! That is the fact, it will happen.

So, now, How this impacts us? and How we may deal with this?

Impacts:

1. Some are visible ones like crying, feeling empty, feeling cheated by person or God or world ( :P ), feeling hurt, sleeplessness and losing interest and hopelessness.
2. Some impacts are not visible ones, they are like, messed up thinking, indecisiveness, seeking help which may not be required, relying on someone else when this was the problem for you to solve, loosing you, your strength, your self confidence and belief.
3. These invisible impacts may extend to things like irritative nature , anger, sadism and self hurt.

Another thing I observed is social media, when you are sad you literally look for memes and thoughts that resonate with your mental status, sad to feeling more sad, revenge to feeling more revengeful, active to feeling more active. Songs start making more sense, we understand quotes/ poems / videos which were insignificant earlier. This situation is hard. And it is worsened when you are alone. When you do have plenty of people around but there is no one to open your heart with. This tells life is hard. It also tells it is a journey where you walk alone on some roads. It may be sad to reach this stage but we did not choose this.

So the only thing left is to come back, gain control back. How do we do that? Not sure. May be I know 10–15% of this, but here is what may help.

1. Calm down. It is undoable but has to be done. Heightened up feeling of anger or crying or revenge or happiness, is something where we aren’t in control so calm down first. Avoid making things right, then and there. Think. You will bounce back plenty of times to the same situation and expect a different outcome. There is no control, so let that happen but just try to reduce the bounce backs next time, reduce your energy invested there and after all come back. Do not stay in the same problem again. You think something is right and you try to make it so, but if it’s not happening, then acknowledge. There is no point digging in a mine which is not yours anymore. It takes tons of effort and if you do not know its yours, leave.
2. Use social media for positivity. Thoughts/ quotes/ shorts/ poetries/ videos, use them but now use them to help you positively. Use them to tell you how to be stronger, what is really important, do not let them remind you of the old, do not let them push anything non positive into you. Use them to fill you in with something that helps the future you or the today’s you. But do not let it circle you back.
3. Start reducing your activeness in heightened negative emotions. They come, try to avoid those situations or at least just try not to act upon the harmful ones. Acknowledge that this is a tough state and your are doing your best to not harm. Instead of piling up on more guilt or grief, it is better to be unanswerable sometimes. Not everything needs to be cleared and not every situation needs to conclude. Few things might just fade away.

In the end, let’s just hope positive. Let’s just live positive. May not be fully today but increasing everyday.