Uncomfortable, Icky, Negative Feelings

When you feel a negative, uncomfortable feeling, stop and (1) recognize that you are feeling it, and (2) question it. How do you question it? Ask yourself, "what is the thought behind this feeling? What image came to mind that produced this feeling?" Take a few moments and try to concentrate on the source of the discomfort. Don't get frustrated if you can't remember what you were thinking about that made you feel bad.

It took many months for me to be able to recognize the thoughts that triggered such strong negative feelings (I hope you find clarity faster than I did!). If you can't readily identify the thought, the perhaps it feeling bad resulted from your immediate environment. Ask yourself if the feeling is justified given your current physical surroundings. For example, if you feel sad, is there anything in your current environment to make you feel sad? Was it possible that you quickly glanced at the photo of a loved that is no longer in your life? Is there violence on the TV? Is a sad song on the radio?

For example, one day I was in the shower and all of a sudden, I felt very anxious. I couldn't figure out why I suddenly felt anxious. Part of me felt sad, too, because I was often feeling anxious and it saddened me that anxiety was becoming a regular part of my life. At this particular time in my life, the anxiety lasted for days on end, just under the surface, but I could always feel it. It had control over me and my life because I couldn't understand why it came and went. I didn't know when it would arrive or how long it would last. Suddenly, with no apparent warning, I would just be anxious. Even worse, I didn't know why it left and I would go back to feeling happy, fulfilled, and optimistic again. I was starting to wonder if I had a chemical imbalance; that I was "born that way" and it just took until adulthood to act up.

This day in the shower was different, though, because when the feeling of anxiety again swept over me, I heard my inner voice say, "STOP. This feeling is not reality." This one thought from my true self shifted my view point of my life, my value as a person, my self-worth, and my self-esteem. I recognized that the anxiety was not a part of me, it was not a genetically pre-determined aspect of my personality. I did not have to live with it for the rest of my life, where it would come and go as it pleased, without warning, wreaking havic on my emotions. I saw the anxiety as separate from me.

And, being such, I could indeed control it and stop it from controlling me and my life. That is what this website is all about - recognizing that thoughts and the feelings they evoke are not in control of you. With a few simple techniques, you can change around your thinking and thereby your life and the way you view yourself. Stopping the pain in your life by changing the way you respond to your thoughts has been the key to peace, joy, and fulfillment for me. It is the main focus of this website.

It was a big change in my behavior to recognize that I was feeling anxious and then to question whether or not the feeling was true. "Was it justified by reality? Does reality support feeling this way?" What is your reality?

It was an important step for me to take stock of my physical surroundings because often, when I have negative feelings, there is an image of what my future looks like associated with those feelings. Focusing on what my present reality is, is a tool for breaking away from my imagined future.

Accept that the thought may return and that you may feel the same negative feelings again. It is probably there to protect you, in its own strange way, from an imagined danger. Accepting that the thought might come back is powerful because it shifts the notion from "something is wrong with me" to "Sometimes I have a particular thought and I have a negative feeling associated with it".

Without this thought or the bad feelings, how would you be? How would your life be? What kind of person would you be? Take a minute and let that sink in :-)

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