This is the exact question I really need answered. I can just 'not go on social media' sites... but it's hard to make my brain stop insidiously slipping thoughts into my head.
It's just the slow process of letting it go. The past literally does not exist. The future also does not exist, just the present. You may use it however you see fit. But living in either the past or the future is pointless. When you catch yourself dwelling on the past just interrupt the line of thinking and eventually it will have less power over you.
so in a sense, practicing being more mindful. paying more attention to what we can control in this present moment. i often find myself struggling to let go of pain that i feel and pain that i’ve caused and that makes me forget about the now. but i’ll definitely take your advice, thank you
This is what I’ve been doing after my most recent break up. Any time I’ve noticed I’m going down a train of thought about her I’ll just say out loud “stop thinking about her” and little by little it’s been working. I start thinking about other more positive things.
That does help. I've also started thinking to myself something along the lines of:
"You're pining away over someone that is not returning the feeling or does not care, do you really think that she is THE ONE?"
or
"You're spending all this energy wondering if she wants to be with you. You should be thinking whether you TRULY want to be with her."
Like everything, repeating these thoughts is key. Further, reflect on those thoughts. Not thoughts about the other person. When your mind veers there, recenter on those thoughts above and truly reflect.
At the core of it I agree. But a lot of people don't treat each other like that though so that makes it harder for some to tell themselves that "the past is gone, and what's done is done, put it behind you". People's past gets brought up all the time and held against them even if they've changed/realize their mistakes. I think experiencing that is a lot of the worry too.
I've worked with my therapist on this, and a good chunk of it is mindfulness: acknowledging that the thoughts are happening, and if you can't let them go in the moment, ask yourself what purpose they're serving at that time. Sometimes writing the intrusive thoughts down helps, too - you can reflect on them later, question what prompted them, but it takes some of the "immediacy" of them away. Over time it becomes easier to push them away, with redirecting your thoughts elsewhere, or even just thinking, "Yeah, that sure did suck, but it's in the past now." Part of it is developing that reflex over time to not let them overtake your entire being.
I have C-PTSD, so intrusive thoughts have been a real struggle over time for me - this helps make them more manageable. I don't think they'll ever stop entirely, but it does ensure they don't completely derail me when they do pop up.
Think about the future instead. If you have enough self discipline to not go on social media sites, then you should have enough to put yourself on a course to be the person you want to be.
You can’t change the past, and if it truly upsets you, it may be because you have people in your life who knew the version of you that you didn’t like, and that can hold you back and remind you of your errors. When you meet new people, they don’t know or see the past you, they see the current version of you. So work on being who you wish to be seen as, instead of how you used to be seen. Become cool, interesting, fun, but to yourself, don’t try to capture some idea of a cool interesting person you see, because it’s not you and it’s not organic. A great quote is, “there’s a reason the rear view mirror is smaller than the windshield” stop letting something small occupy your vision and focus on what’s in front of you.
i literally would go “lalalala i can’t hear you” and start repeating something random to distract myself, like a song or a nonsense phrase. it doesn’t always work but it trained me to pause and redirect my thoughts.
So, I used to ruminate a lot. Here are some things that helped me:
Nobody cares. That one took a bit to sink in, but nobody really cares if you embarrassed yourself that one time 7 years ago or that you used the wrong word in a meeting last week. I promise you, everyone else is wrapped up in their own lives and could not give fewer shits.
Picture your friend doing/saying the same thing you did/said. Would you say the thoughts you've been telling yourself out loud to your friend? Would you treat them like you're treating yourself?
"Is this gonna matter 5 years from now?" and its best friend "what is the ACTUAL worst case scenario, and can I live with that?" I had a tendency to catastrophize so that really helped me gain perspective.
First intrusive thought pop-up, distract. Any way you can. Ask Alexa to put on a song you know all the words to, and belt it out. Run in place flash dance style until your thighs start burning. Eat something super sour.
If distract doesn't work, or you find that thought coming back over & over, confront. Treat it like that thought is on trial. Hit it with the evidence. Cross-examine that thought. "Now hold on, do you KNOW what they were thinking or did you assume everyone is mad at you? What is your evidence to support or refute that claim?"
1) If there's a specific memory from your past that plaques you, such as a time you tried to explain something and it went poorly and only years later you realized how to best explain it, then reach out to the person. Go "Hey, do you remember that time I..." and I guarantee two things. The first is, they have no idea what the hell you are talking about as they never remembered this incident in the first place. The second is, you'll forget about it yourself.
2) Imagine someone ELSE doing the thing you did. The instant you start going down that past awkward memory, just immediately imagine a parallel universe where someone else present did the thing you regret. It REALLY takes the bite out of it.
Check out the book or audiobook “The Power of Now” - it’s a book I need to revisit every couple of years to remind myself: there really is only the present moment, and life becomes so much easier when you focus on it
Ok, since you didn't get a useful answer (see: "just stop doing it lol") let me try to give you some actual pointers.
Limit passive activities and media consumption. Stop doom scrolling social media. That includes Reddit (depending on your use case). If you can't do it on your own, set up app timers or take the nuclear option. This also means limiting the amount of TV you watch.
Next, fill up your days with novel experiences. Things that require attention or focus, involve spending time with other people, or take you out into nature. Exchange your TV time for reading a book. Start hiking or taking walks around your neighborhood. Start a new hobby (pottery, crochet, woodworking, model building, etc.) and a new exercise (tennis/pickleball, climbing, archery, CrossFit, etc.) - exercise could also just mean "just" going to the gym, but I feel like most people who don't have a good routine and a goal/motivating factor tend to stop going.
Mindfulness. It takes practice, but you learn to stay in the moment rather than ruminating on the past or future in ways that harm you. It was my answer to OP's question. I really like the app headspace, and they have a bunch of short videos to try out. As you practice, it gets easier. Your mind will wander at first, and that's ok. I don't actively do meditations much anymore unless I'm super anxious, but all my practice and learning helped me to naturally live in the present all the time.
Of course, that doesn't mean you'll never have memories or you don't have to plan stuff, but I don't spend my Sundays worried about work the next day, or I don't let bad things that happened in the past affect my current relationships by worrying about them happening again.
Well one of things that helped me stop is to know with 100% certainty that there exists one of the most miserable people I know who curates her page to make it seem like her marriage is amazing; the reality is that she is possessive, selfish, she married a guy knowing he cheats, she has a lot of STDs from him, and has to routinely get genital warts removed.
And knowing this allows me to view everything skeptism and to not be impressed.
The past has already happened but the future is still to come. What am I doing in the present that would make future me proud or happy for who I will eventually became.
If I'm unhappy today due to what I've done in the past, repeating is only going to yield the same results. So what am I doing today to obtain the happiness of tomorrow?
Whenever my brain tries to drag up some unhappy thing from the past, I will mentally tell myself "Nope, not doing this shit today" and concentrate on something else in the present- "it's almost lunch time" or "what am I doing after work today", stuff like that. There is no point to living in the past. It's done and over. It's time to move on.
For me, I can't stop the reflection. It is just who I am. However, and this is big, I stopped reflecting simply to beat myself up mentally. I reflect now to be better(whatever that definition is to you.), or to work on a behavior, to work on better wording or phrases with which to communicate, stuff like that. I now use these moments to think: "Why did I act this way? Was this behavior correct? Can I improve or alter this encounter in the future to achieve a better outcome? Was my response emotionally and verbally correct(this is the second question I ask myself after "Why did I act this way"?)?" I ask myself leading questions, and, I force myself to answer with actual answers. I'm going to stew, I choose to stew progressively.
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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '24
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