Sometimes our own mind is the enemy.

Rethinking a negative mindset.

One evening, after a particularly difficult and emotional day, I realized that everything I was thinking in that moment was negative, judgmental, and self critical. There were no major events, crises, triggers or concerns that I had noticed, so the mere recognition of my mindset was both jarring and confusing. Why was I feeling this way? As a therapist, catching and reframing negativity is a superpower of mine, and can often come as easy as breathing— except when I’m focused on anyone else but myself.

This particular day, my “superpower” seemed to be faulty when it came to looking within. I hadn’t noticed the small and gradual progression of my thoughts from the mundane, routine and neutral, to the destructive, self-loathing and overwhelming. Despair crept up on me like a whisper, and before I knew it I was having an awful, no good, terrible, bad day.

When I catch my thoughts here, often my immediate response is shame. Shame for not somehow rising above the humanity of having a bad day, shame for not being able to “practice what I preach,” shame in the thought of having to ask for help, be vulnerable or even worse — hear my own wisdom parroted back to me. There is shame even now in admitting this.

Brené Brown talks about the pervasiveness of the shame narrative: “Shame derives its power from being unspeakable. That’s why it loves perfectionists—it’s so easy to keep us quiet. If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we’ve basically cut it off at the knees.” She goes on to say that the development of language around shame destroys it. Shame is made less powerful when we notice it, even as it attempts to strangle our voice.

What we pay attention to matters. Our minds flit from thoughts to ideas and plans in an instant. Most of the time we don’t bother to consider the content of our thoughts on a moment to moment basis, living life seemingly unaware of the impact of constant self doubt and negativity. That is — until all of a sudden the only things we can think about are the anxiety-provoking, depressing, negative, awful, shaming, horrible bits that we would rather not remember.

Sometimes in therapy sessions, people will ask me how to “get rid of their anxiety and shame for good.” I try to be honest in those moments and say that sometimes it’s not possible to remove negative emotions completely but instead to work with it, and attend to it in a different way. Healing negative and anxious thoughts are more about what we notice and pay attention to, and how we shape that into something moldable and useful for our needs. Anxiety, fear, shame and self doubt have been around for hundreds and thousands of years in different forms. It is bigger than our will and ego.

That same evening I wrote in my journal:

I’m blessed but I can’t seem to see it.

I’m in abundance but I don’t know how to feel it.

I’m full of life and yet right now I feel numb.

The reality is, that despite my best intentions, the only things I could pay attention to in that moment were all of the things I was not, instead of everything deep down I wanted to be and knew that I was. When I get to this place in my mind, I forget all of my best ideas. Coping suddenly feels like an uphill battle I was totally unprepared for. Bad days have a way of choking the hope out of you.

So what now? How do we escape (even temporarily) the chokehold of a bad day? The simplest answer I can give, and the one that I’ve tried to practice with the most success is to expand my awareness and attention. Not just shifting my thoughts or changing the content of them to something different, but opening my mind to notice everything around me.

The tiny details of life, only observable from my perspective. Like the way the light hits the floor of my living room, the way that my dog gently sighs as he dreams, or the intermittent coolness of a fan that’s oscillating around the room.

When I happen to catch myself in mental despair, gridlocked into “not enoughness”, doom, or overwhelming worry about the future, I invite my mind to become an investigator. Not forcing the bad out, but welcoming everything in.

This process is effortful, and requires a deliberate and intentional expansiveness that starts within. We are not everything we think, and not all of our feelings are facts. Settle yourself into the knowledge that there’s no wrong way to observe. Everything is from your perspective. Add in the details around you and allow yourself to get grounded into your environment.

Consider this as a call to action to change the way we respond to our negative thoughts and internal crises. Instead of closing yourself off and letting the darkness be your focal point, can you practice bringing the light in? Can you observe and notice other details around you?

Because this mindfulness is so effortful, it is not just a short term coping skill. By teaching yourself to slowly open up to the world around you, you teach yourself a different way to respond to internal spirals that are more sustainable. Practicing opening up to both the good and the bad is a foundational component of DBT mindfulness (also known as Wise Mind). You can experience both negativity and appreciate the world around you. You can feel gratitude and guilt. You can feel ashamed and validated. Wise mind, and mindfulness practices are about opening up to the multiplicity and complexity of your day to day experiences.

Not everyone loves mindfulness, or finds benefit in this practice right away. It is certainly not a skill that can be perfected in one try, and can feel frustrating when you’re focused on “doing things right,” rather than letting yourself be.

Take your time. You can feel many things at once.

—Meg