Comment by koheripbal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by koheripbal | Hacker News Reader

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I find that emotional compartmentalization is a critical skill.

A couple years ago, I faced a very tough time in my life. My business was collapsing, my family's finances were in jeopardy, and there was a serious health issue going on.

The emotional stress was incapacitating. I couldn't sleep, let alone focus enough to fix my problems. It was the downward spiral nightmare scenario.

If I didn't have dependents (wife + 3 kids), I might have withdrawn into depression. Instead I was forced to fix my emotional state...

I constructed a personal prayer...

    I am the man in the dark room.
    In here, I am my loves, my principles, and my ideas.
    Who I am cannot be changed by circumstances outside this room,
    My loves are my legs which carry me to life outside this room.
    My principles are my shield from the burdens the world assaults me with.
    My ideas are the sword with which I shape my life.
    When I return to myself in this room, the world remains outside, and I evolve to be better prepared tomorrow.

I found that even just stopping to say "I am the man in the dark room" was often enough remind myself that I wasn't defined by my circumstances.

To sleep, I found I could play the audio from old familiar TV shows to drown out the worries to fall (and stay) asleep - it was a surprising turn-around.

These two things changed my life. Hope this helps someone else.

Thank you for sharing this powerful prayer/mantra.

I too had to go through a time like this, for different reasons, but I lost and fell into depression. I didn't have dependents unfortunately and my self-esteem was completely shattered.

I recovered and became productive again since a while now. But I'm still haunted by anxiety sometimes.

I'm in a state of extreme productivity and self-confidence right now, but part of it is feeling chased by my failing in the past, as if I have to (or could) catch up.

At the same time I know that patience, focus and time are key to do the right thing(s). This is also being addressed in the linked article.

My strategy is to talk, be open about my feelings (which I had to learn the hard way) and to take time to meditate and appreciate silence, deep focus, my loved ones and the beauty of nature.

Mantras and prayers are like magic tricks: You condition yourself to focus on a positive, powerful thought and with time you can activate that state with little effort as you described.

Ill be contemplating some of the thoughts in your prayer. Some of the phrases are very powerful, tangible metaphors.

It's pretty useful for most day-to-day things, but (1) who you are can absolutely be changed by external circumstances - see TBIs and other long-lasting traumas, and (2) there are medical illnesses where you can be mostly robbed of your ideas - which by this mantra leaves you powerless to change your world.

I'm not saying that to take away anything from the well-being brought by this interesting personal prayer, because it holds some insights about resilience. Only adding some context for the people out there whose depressive disorders, schizophrenia, or brain injuries, could leave them on the curb when it comes to these thoughts. Those people might need surgeries, medical treatment, or external support, before being able to strengthen themselves with this sort of thought.

You're right about that. I was in such a situation: I had strong feelings of anxiety, sadness, low self esteem. I went to a psychologist & psychiatrist and got a bit anti depressive medication, many books to read, meditation exercises, mindfulness. All these things were good and helpful, and I guess in most cases it's what's needed.

But nothing of all that totally helped; I still had this sadness and anxiety and lack/absence of self confidence.

Then many years later turns out I have an illness, hypothyreosis, that causes this. And medication (levothyroxine) made all this go away, and I'm a different person nowadays.

> who you are can absolutely be changed by [...] circumstances [...] illnesses

That's very correct. I've been two different personalities — one sad, anxious, withdrawn, another happy and social. It's weird what hormone levels can do to the brain and who one ... who one is? one's personality.

Anyway, if someone has depression and anxiety feelings, and meditation and self help books won't make that go away — then, a blood sample test, it's just 5 minutes. (Well, plus bus / subway / something to the health clinic.)

>who you are can absolutely be changed by external circumstances

Yes, but that's focusing on the very unlikely external circumstances and defeating the point. 99.99% of the daily stuff that seems important actually is not and it's healthier to live a model assuming it's not important rather than worrying that everything could be that devastating brain tumor or IED taking out your bus.

In the US alone, for TBI alone, there were almost 3 million TBI-related emergency department visits in 2014[0]. One in 4,000 babies born in the US have hypothyroidism[1]. At the lower bound, there is 0.25% of the US population subject to schizophrenia[2]. If we go and look at things like Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), 2.7% of US adults have had it in the past year, 32% of which had serious impairments associated with it[3].

I would invite you to seriously challenge the formulation of your idea: it's not that 99.9% of stuff "seems important and it's not", it's that not 99.9% of people have the ability to deal with it through just the one therapeutic aspect of self-talk. Moreover, there is a propensity to share these words because they are inspirational, yet there is very little put forward for the people who do need more than that - and who, in turn, tend to suffer from ailments which in many cases could be alleviated if as a society they were more acknowledged.

If you re-read my message, I hope you do see that I am appreciating the original words, and simply highlighting additional options to people out there who need more than that. That's all.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/get_the_facts.html

[1] https://www.rightdiagnosis.com/h/hypothyroidism/stats.htm

[2] https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/schizophrenia.sht...

[3] https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/generalized-anxie...

I believe you and hear you. Not all events are under our control, and not everyone is able to lead a pain-free life. The general audience here may have some skewed (and perhaps limited) experiences.

Those of us fortunate to have good health and the ability to improve our circumstances should be glad for those opportunities, not take them for granted, and try to extend them to others.

Nicely written : )

> Those of us fortunate to have good health and the ability to [...]

And it's not easy to see from the outside if that's the case for another person -- I think often they'd want to hide things like anxiety and depression. Or me, when I had those anxiety and sadness problems -- I spent most time at home alone

Among women, about 5% have hypothyreosis, and depression/sadness and anxiety are some of the consequences (varies from person to person). And 2% of the men.

@pathseeker wrote: "very unlikely external circumstances"

But it's not just 1 - 99.99% = 0.01% that needs medication and other help than "just" meditation. Looking only at hypothyreosis, it's more like 2% or 5%.

@cmehdy it seems to me that you 1) work with health care, or 2) you have something like hypothyreosis or GAD yourself or people you know? or 3) you're a researcher? or 4) TBI happened to someone you know? (If it's too private then obviously no need to reply : ) And best wishes with your work)

Without getting into the details: kind of a combination of things, indeed :)

I just think it's time we as a society accept and understand that having support and medication for things that relate to our mental health is fully part of the toolbox of healing, and not a fringe thing that remains on the sidelines for an insignificant proportion of people.

Most people will spend some amount of time in a hospital or clinic in their lives, for a broken bone, a disease, or some functional change to their teeth, or whatever else. It's all pretty accepted, nobody thinks that it's a fringe thing.

We should accept that the way we look at psychiatry or targeted support for mental illnesses should be similar to surgery for broken bones: if you have a sprain just take good care of things at home with basic knowledge, but if there's a chance you have a fracture you won't make your bones heal well by praying or by finding a blog post, you need professionals for however long that situation lasts. And there are way more mental fractures out there than people like to admit to themselves and each others.

> who you are can absolutely be changed by external circumstances

I believe the point of the last sentence is exactly that your experiences in the external world can change you. But the difference is that you should decide how it changes you. You should decide how you can bring smarter nuance to you principles to avoid the exhausting emotional drama in the world, and you should decide how to alter your ideas/strategy (the sword) to better shape your life to meet your life's goals and serve the people you love.

This is the ideal - it is often not a reflection of our very human reality. ...but it is, through years of practice, something that can be closely attained. The prayer is the acceptance that we are flawed emotional humans - and it is just a simple tactic to remember to aspire to being in control of our emotional state - rather than letting it control us.

We can identify our self-worth according to who we are inside (our principles, thing love we have, and the goals we have), rather than passively allow the world to beat us what it finds useful.

Mental illness falls outside the scope of this prayer. If someone has mental illness, then this (or any) prayer isn't going to solve their problems and they should seek professional help.

Awesome mantra. Been through similar circumstances and came up with a similar (though not as explicitly stated) coping mechanism. You come through such trials so much more emotionally resilient. Salute.

Great mantra, very Stoic!

I read your post a few hours ago, and it stuck with me long enough that I've returned to up-vote and reply.

Thank you, genuinely.

This is such a good mantra. I will remember this. Thank you.

This is a really wonderful way to reframe your perspective.

Wonderful. Stoicism in action. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks man. <3

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