There was at least a year long period in which my thoughts darted and weaved wildly, with every mix of emotion, all at once.
“I need to finish this bug fix. But first I should get some coffee. That coffee in the hospital was so warm and comforting, in that styrofoam cup. Just what I needed in the waiting room… which is when the doctor told me her prognosis.
“Six months, he said. F*k. How can I do this? I need lots of coffee. But coffee is reminding me of bad things. How will I ever drink coffee again? Would be a shame to never drink coffee, though… it’s a big industry after all. Wonder what it looks Like to pick coffee beans? Bet it would be nice to just be picking coffee beans without any other care. But I have my own job to do… that bug fix. I’ll do that instead.”
Random thoughts of work, grief, jokes, and childlike daydreaming, all running together. All day. Every day.
The author of this captured this feeling insanely well, whether that was intended or not.
I can also relate in the sense that, that period of my life was perhaps one of the more intense periods of self improvement and introspection I’ve had.
Something about having so many thoughts, and needing to channel them to something positive to overcome the blatant and glaring negative, led to growth as a software developer, in some cruel way.
That aside, the rest of the piece is timely and relevant for me now.
I feel like there’s so much I can relate to regarding “resistance” and self doubt. Of casting aside bad criticisms from incapable critics as the author described from her MFA experience.
My heart is with the author through all of this. I hope to follow more of her work.
So out of existential need, I intentionally starting taking on large, creative projects at work that I knew would hold my interest and consume my thoughts. In some cases, this meant undertaking projects of my own volition and "asking for forgiveness rather than permission" at work.
In part because of a couple of articles I read on the scientifically shown improvement of outcomes of cancer patients with positive attitudes, and because I knew my mom already had several negative voices around her daily, I decided my role with her would be relentlessly positive.
An attitude of "we don't know the future, all things are possible, and anything can be overcome with the right set of inputs -- we just need to find what those are". I quickly adopted this attitude for myself, and it allowed me to embrace failure more - because the attitude wasn't predicated on being the best, but rather of overcoming.
Granted, this was all about 6 years ago. Since then, much has changed, and I do find myself facing similar issues again. Without the presence of something "existential" pushing me, I am finding it harder to overcome this time myself.
As with most things, though, feedback cycles are a thing. Negativity feeds on itself, and success begets success, so the first step is finding whatever you can to help break the feedback loop. Catch any negative thoughts as quickly as you can, and redirect them from fatalistic into something malleable.
Catch any random, distracting "I need to Google this" type thoughts as they happen, and write them down on a notebook as something you should Google later, but not right now.
One important thing at the start is that, you don't have to necessarily believe every positive mantra or habit you say, you just have to do it. Over time, the believability will come on its own.
If you can get momentum going towards the positive instead of the negative, break the feedback loop, and get onto the "success begets success" side of it, it gets much easier.
Hope that helps and makes sense. Wish I had an actual, easy answer, but a lot of it is just trying things until you see what works, and being consistent above all else.
Good luck, and if you come up with any of your own tips, please let me know, because as I said - for as much as I've been through this before successfully, I can see it happening again, and I'm realizing it's time to deal with it again myself.
The existential need you mentioned is really powerful. Now that you mention it, the last time I felt really mentally aligned, well, and focused was when I was out of work. I also had a situation where people were depending on me, and it…it wasn’t perfect but it really filtered out a lot of these other thoughts and impulses. Maybe there’s something there about a goal that exists beyond ourselves. Good callout, I’d totally forgotten about that.
I hear you on the consistency. I’m trying that myself too. Just committing to a few actions even if my brain is completely working against me. Again, mixed results, but I’m finding that something is better than nothing, and that, like you said, success begets success.
I had one this past weekend actually. I ended up writing about 15-20,000 words, but most of it doesn’t make any sense. I mean the sentences and paragraphs do, but there’s no coherence to any of it. “Impulses on the mind”, like you said. They’re really affecting my day to day life. I’ll have a period where I feel content and motivated—about my job, for example—and then I’ll have a sharp drop off where, sometimes for days, I’ll find myself in one of these down cycles.
In fact I’m unsure if anything I’ve even said makes sense. How have you dealt with these mental impulse?
Also this is a nice podcast with therapy demonstration at the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f80xs3MN9mY
Hope it helps with making sense.
If you get locked into a particular thought or topic, first notice it, then let it go.
It's extremely difficult to do but over time this practice of noticing builds a mental muscle and helps you focus your thoughts towards what you want when you want.
It’s been circling around in my head for a few weeks now. This might be the kick in the ass I need to give it another go. The stuff you said about getting locked onto a topic is something I have a lot of trouble with. It’s been a little jarring for me to “realize” that you’re not really in control of your mind, just parts of it, and maybe fewer than we like to think. It can just have all these thoughts and patterns without your consent, so to speak. It’s the locking on / latching on that uproots me.
I think it helps to make lists of things and ideas. Then
(1)prioritize. This will already generate more order and again some sense of control.
(2) just scratch out a lot of them, you do not need to follow all those paths. 10 or so can remain.
(3) only act upon the top prorities and just rely on the fact that you wrote down the gists of your other non scratched ideas, so you don't have to keep them all in mind.
(4) Some things of the list, you will find them outdated or silly after a while, so those become easy to scratch and let them go out of your mind as well.
(5)well done, you will find your ideas and way of working is a lot more organised!
I compare the lists to wishlists on ali or amazon. Instead of giving in to the temptation of buying something that is featured when you are shopping for something else, just add it to the wish list. At your next stop, maybe months later, you will see the wish list and say: what was i thinking?
What has characterized those periods of time? What changed? I don't think I've ever not felt like this.