My mind automatically makes false negative assumptions

[Spikeycloud]

Hi,

I will try to explain my problem as clearly as I can – because words are not really enough to describe it. For a very long time now I’m suffering from depressive symptoms. I already have help for this and they advised me to do more mindfulness and do this daily. The mindfulness is going pretty well but at the same time still suffer a lot from automatic negative associations in daily life.

This basically means that my automatically makes a neutral situation negative most of the time. Recently I got aware of this more and more and I realize that it is a negative reflection of the mind and it is not what is really happening but that still doesn’t stop getting identified with the negativity more than 100 times a day which is very taxing to say at least. Also I of course want to change it because why would you like to live in a false negative perception all of the time.

Also a big problem is that now that I can observe myself, I also see a that I’m now afraid and expecting that my mind will make the situation negative and this seems to happen automatically as well….even when writing this post I get negative thoughts every 2-3 seconds. So what I really hope to get out of this is that I get less taken over by the mind and get more positive thoughts that are helpful eventually. Even though observing is better than being identified, it is still not nice to observe a mind that is negative most of the time. I try not to jugde it but often I forget that.

Do you guys have any practical tips how to handle this situation?

Edit: It often feels that I'm possesed and it feels that I have no choice what so ever.


Thx!

[monkey]

Hi Spikeycloud. Welcome! I'm sorry to hear about your depression and negative thoughts, it sounds very hard. It also sounds like you are really doing amazingly to be making such efforts to look after yourself, even in the face of those experiences.

I haven't had bad depression, but I went through what sounds like a very similar stage. I think there are three phases of the practice when you're learning it. Firstly concentration, where you just get used to sitting and trying to maintain focus, secondly awareness, where you start to be able to observe what your mind is doing, and thirdly kindness (also called compassion or metta).

I also found that when I became more aware I realised how negative I was, mainly about myself. I could hear the thoughts and I found it very difficult to live with them, to know that I was telling myself this poisonous stuff all day every day and that I could do nothing about it. I tried to think my way out of it, argue with the thoughts, list my good qualities, all that but it only seemed to feed it, or it would work for a bit and then come back. I posted on here about it at the time, and more recently in the mindfulness stories bit:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4918

It's the third paragraph I think - you don't have to read it all!

For me, and I know there are others on here who would agree, the third practice, of kindness and compassion is really important. It helps you to cultivate kindness for yourself, as well as for others (although they turn out to be very closely related actually).

There are different ways of doing the practice, you could google Kristin Neff or Chris Germer, they have self compassion practices on their sites. I am reading a book called 'Boundless Heart' by Christina Feldman about it, which I really like, but it is from a Buddhist perspective so they may be off putting. I will try to find some links to instructions.

[Spikeycloud]

Hi Spikeycloud. Welcome! I'm sorry to hear about your depression and negative thoughts, it sounds very hard. It also sounds like you are really doing amazingly to be making such efforts to look after yourself, even in the face of those experiences.

I haven't had bad depression, but I went through what sounds like a very similar stage. I think there are three phases of the practice when you're learning it. Firstly concentration, where you just get used to sitting and trying to maintain focus, secondly awareness, where you start to be able to observe what your mind is doing, and thirdly kindness (also called compassion or metta).

I also found that when I became more aware I realised how negative I was, mainly about myself. I could hear the thoughts and I found it very difficult to live with them, to know that I was telling myself this poisonous stuff all day every day and that I could do nothing about it. I tried to think my way out of it, argue with the thoughts, list my good qualities, all that but it only seemed to feed it, or it would work for a bit and then come back. I posted on here about it at the time, and more recently in the mindfulness stories bit:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4918

It's the third paragraph I think - you don't have to read it all!

For me, and I know there are others on here who would agree, the third practice, of kindness and compassion is really important. It helps you to cultivate kindness for yourself, as well as for others (although they turn out to be very closely related actually).

There are different ways of doing the practice, you could google Kristin Neff or Chris Germer, they have self compassion practices on their sites. I am reading a book called 'Boundless Heart' by Christina Feldman about it, which I really like, but it is from a Buddhist perspective so they may be off putting. I will try to find some links to instructions.

Thank you for your post - I can really resonate with a lot of things you say. The thing in the bold part is exactly what I'm struggling with - as I try to solve that with thinking as well..I of course know that thinking about will not change it. But I often forget this - I think this is also the thing about unconsciousness. In my experience, when you are unconsciouscios or having a pain body attack like Eckhart Tolle says – as long as you are in that state you have no control and you don’t even know at that moment you are taken over. I often cannot make that distinction between de painbody and me which worsens the problem. Like why the heck can’t I stay out of this.

I have to admit that I did not do the kindness part much yet – I find this incredibly hard to do because it kinda feels the painbody is working against me. I did it sometimes tough - I accept that those thoughts and emotions are there... but it does not take too long that I’m hating myself again (automatically). Leading to even more confusion and self hate. It is really one heck of a mindfuck haha.

What I hope with mindfulness is that I can reduce the power that the painbody has over me - and regognize its place so tha tI can do the things I really want.

I’m going to read ur story now

Edit:

What I hope to reach with meditation is to teach my mind to be focussed on the present moment. So that it goes automatically. Instead of now that I constantly need to think to do it.

[monkey]

I think that the more you practice the more you find that during your everyday life you become aware of what's happening. And then you can see a choice, or a space to ask yourself whether that thought is helpful, or true, or kind, or how much you actually believe it (I've realised that a lot of my thoughts are speculative: 'I'm a failure - does that sound right?'), Is there an action to be carried out, or a decision to be made? What emotion is there underneath it? And then you can be kind to yourself (the compassion practice helps with this) and maybe say something like 'wow, this is a hard thing I'm experiencing. May I be peaceful, may I be safe, may I be happy.' Or whatever is an expression of kindness and goodwill to yourself. So you aren't really engaging, you're just looking at what's there and being kind to yourself about it.

I also find that if emotions or thoughts are too much, or if I know a cycle of thoughts is a regular one that has no purpose or use and spirals pointlessly (eg I often have 'oh my God I have so much to do and it will never all get done and then a huge disaster will occur.') that just paying attention to the sensations of my body is very grounding and gets me out of my head. Could you try that?