IMO all the self awareness / meditation advice are moot. What works is to find brain hacks. Ways to either break the loop or move the loop to a different task.
- I listen to Youtube videos about plane crashes to get to sleep. Not too good for sleep, but better than ruminating, and it stops at the end of the video (10-20 minutes). I think it smoothes me to hear about people’s death, after a youth being harassed that I can’t let go. Plus aviation shows are always about engineering, it tickles my rational mind, everything is logical, as opposed to humans.
- Obviously, get a psychologist, to output your overwhelming thoughts, criticize your reasonings, and make plans for the future.
Alternatively, people standing against bullying earlier in my life would have been a good way to prevent me from doing all I’ve done, but I’ve learnt you can only expect so much from humans lol, there is an expected level of violence in society, and the only way to prevent bullying is to be a bully yourself. Or that’s what everyone taught me, don’t be a victim, standup for yourself, it’s ok to do x or y, and blah blah blah, i.e. be as savage as the average of society, which is, a lot. A lot savage.
God I wish things were different. Make it change. It’s Easter, let’s hope for a change ;)
In Our Time from the BBC is great for this.
Humans! Ha.
Two Approaches: Grinding and Flow
One approach is to do the task with perfect awareness and focus. We dismiss extraneous thoughts when they arise. We and focus on doing the task perfectly and without unnecessary pain or suffering.
We could call this Grinding, since we still feel effort.
Another approach is to enter a stateless flow. In this state, your awareness and focus and identity are no longer present as you do the task. You neither feel effort nor make errors as you do the task.
We could call this Effortless Effort, or Flow.