Greetings from Seville, where the mosaics are shining in the January sunlight. I came here to get a little bit of warmth into my bones, and it’s been a treat thus far. This morning, I had a coffee and a little treat and then ambled around the Jardines de los Reales Alcázares where I saw some lovely architecture and some stunning accompanied flamenco dancing. The streets are full of orange trees and apparently if you come here in late February or in March, then the fragrance of blossoming oranges is at its most intoxicating peak – I’ll be back.
Gentle Reader,
Who amongst us who has not suffered? I was inspired today by this tweet:
It looks like Anthony had a very bad accident and ended up as a quadriplegic. Looking at his photo both gave me strength but also made me a little ashamed – it feels silly sometimes to complain when you see somebody showing their fortitude in a much tougher situation.
But it’s not right to compare yourself to others, in terms of either your merits or the hardships you are experiencing. Everyone is going through something different and even those who are smiling are sometimes coping with a desperate inner monologue, a health issue, a fear, a loss of a loved one.
In life, we all go through hard times, and since these challenges take on different forms, we have to look at general perspectives that can help people across the board, regardless of the cause of their troubles. Here are some ideas that might make you feel better – I think the last one is probably the most important.
1. Keep your mind in check with fear-setting
When something bad happens, at least to me, the mind tends to get a bit carried away.
I start looking at all the possible permutations and possibilities and my a black cloud descends over me. I lose perspective and I am not in my body. The worrier has taken control and every thought I have is tinged with an undercurrent of fear.
Controlling this is easier said than done. Since the job of the brain is usually to prepare for the worst case scenario, it won’t spend much time considering that everything might be just fine. This is good, because your mind is protecting you and trying to plan, but it’s also making you miserable.
You can let it do it’s job, but there has to be a limit. I recommend doing a ‘fear-setting’ exercise, recommended by Tim Ferriss. Sit down and do all the thinking. Going through this basically lets the mind have its way – instead of using energy running half-assedly in the backgrouned, give it free reign for twenty minutes.
Once you’re done, you usually realise things aren’t as bad as you thought. And your mind is pretty happy – it can stop running in the background now that you’ve processed everything and developed a plan of action.
2. Remember other hard times
Remember that really tough situation you found yourself in, way back when, when you thought it would never end and life would never be the same again?
When you are sick it can be impossible to imagine what it feels like to be healthy and in the depths of winter it’s hard to even imagine warmth, sunlight, long evenings.
Usually, you get better, the winter passes, you return to living your life. But, when you’re stuck in a sticky wicket, you lose all this perspective.
Take out a pen and paper and write these situations down. You might remember some commonalities such as:
Believing you will never be the same again
Things were darkest before the dawn
You didn’t let yourself see the silver lining
There were factors you overanalysed and other factors which you didn’t think about
A tendency to catastrophise
That might not have been your experience, but it’s worth looking back over things. Humans tend not to change very much in their attitudes and how they approach things, and if we missed low-hanging fruit to feel better before, we will probably miss it again unless we take stock of things.
3. Maintain perspective
When I worked in rural emergency departments, sometimes patients would come in with something stuck in their eye. Usually, it would be something metal from welding, or sometimes from working with wood.
Even though the speck of metal would be tiny and generally not visible to the naked eye, it dominated their day-to-day existence, although usually not for long, as only the most stubborn of farmers would put up with it for longer than a couple of days.
This tiny speck define their experience for that short period. When the foreign body was removed (sometimes quite a fun task), they were back to normal. But when it was embedded in their eyeball, it seemed like they would never see again.
The problem you are going through might be bigger or smaller, but make sure you don’t make it any bigger than it needs to be.
One way of doing this is by experiencing gratitude. Keeping a gratitude journal is a good idea for everyone, but during times of need is when it really comes into its own.
Write down what you are grateful for. This includes people, memories, physical things, experiences, faculties, and pretty much anything you can think of.
I was sceptical of this, before. One day I made a list and it was full of the sort of obvious things that anyone could write without thinking. But then, I really thought about it – what else was I grateful for?
I was really grateful, for example, for my laptop, my Macbook. At first, I thought this was a silly thing to write about, but it wasn’t because it made my life so much easier. And I was typing on it at that very moment. I tapped into that feeling of gratitude. I imagined life with the shitty Dell computer I had to use for work once, and then I brought the Macbook back into the picture – it felt great.
At the time, I had also been doing some metta meditation, so it was probably a bit easier for me, than usual, to send and receive gratitude. Once I thought of the laptop, lots of other things for which I was grateful came to mind, and it felt great.
Speaking of meditation – that leads me to our next point.
4. Have a practice
It’s important to have a practice which gets you out of your head, during tough times. The above, the gratitude journal and fear-setting exercise, are great practices, but you also need a regular, spiritual or at least embodied routine.
This can be:
Meditation
Yoga
Exercise (if health permits)
Going to the sauna or having an ice bath
These techniques are all effective for quieting the mind. They are also good for you. There will be a personal preference here, so if you prefer to do something like knitting or coding or writing or getting out into nature, then do what feels right for you.
You might feel resistance to the activity, which makes it harder to do. This is a sign that you need it more than ever.
Pick one or two, and try and do it everyday.
5. Feel the feeling you are trying not to feel
If I wrote this list a year ago, I wouldn’t have included this point because I did not know what it meant.
As an emotionally disembodied person, I had no idea that it was possible that there was a feeling which I was not…feeling.
I had a very simplistic view of emotions. I thought they arose and went away. I did not realise that they can simmer in an unhealthy way, until I caught myself doing it.
I was sitting in the jacuzzi and I was mulling my problems over. I began to examine the permutations and I realised that one of them was quite bad. I did not have a good answer for how to solve or fix it. As soon as I came to this permutation, I automatically pushed it down, just before the emotion arose.
The emotion, however, was still there, just suppressed. It turns out that I do this all the time and it’s bad because it tends to gnaw at me. Now, if I feel that feeling, I try to embrace it, let it come out…and when it’s gone, it’s gone. Not forever, of course, but I get new clarity, a way to move forward.
It was also manifesting in a more obscure way. The feeling was knocking on the door, but I didn’t realise what it was. I heard the knocking and thought…oh, I’m bored. I should go on Twitter or watch TV to feel better. Nope, it turned out that that what was pretending to be boredeom was often an emotion which was more refined. Look at the wheel below which I found on Tara Schuster’s Substack. For example, if you feel angry, it might actually be a feeling of being let down, and this feeling of being let down might actually be a sense of being disrespected. This has been helpful for me.
It probably should be said that you should avoid the activity and interrogate the feeling, and that if you use substances such as alcohol to not feel the feeling, then you should try and find another strategy.
6. Talk to people
This might be obvious to you. It wasn’t to me. When you talk to people, it gives you a chance to vent and be heard, and you will feel better.
When I had a problem, I sometimes used to think there was no point in talking to people as they could not solve my problem.
But solving the problem isn’t the only goal of talking to people. When you have a conversation, you get to feel heard and understood and, sometimes people might even give good advice.
In my experience, during a hard time, sometimes 50% of the bad feelings come from the hard time, and 50% of the feelings come from not being able to express yourself about the hard time, of not speaking to someone who understands it, or cares about it, or wants to know about it.
Not everybody knows the right thing to say when you’re struggling. Having been on the wrong side of this, it informed me of how to be more empathetic, not just as a doctor but as a person. There’s always something you can say to someone that helps them. Don’t assume that mentioning it will frighten them and don’t pretend the problem doesn’t exist. If you bring it up, lean into it if they give the right signals — this can be really cathartic for them.
That’s all for now, friends. I hope to talk to you soon :)