When you have a "negative situation", there are two things you could do about it:
(1) Focus on it, and try to reach for more-positive thoughts about your situation (plenty of examples are found in, say, the book "The Astonishing Power of Your Emotions").
OR
(2) Take your attention away from the negative situation.
The problem with (1) is that if you feel very negative (eg very angry, or very frightened) about your situation, you may find it almost impossible to think any positive thoughts about your situation. If that is the case, then the immediate thing you can do is (2).
Eg if your mother has just made you mad, instead of immedialey trying to think positive thoughts about your mother, you may want to go exercise, or keep yourself busy at work, or do something else for a few hours.
When you have calmed down, you can start thinking about the situation with your mother again, and try out (1) again.
I have to say that (2) is a powerful approach in itself, and not always. or necessarily, just something you do, when you can't do (1). Many people do have a tendency to obsess over problems which seem like very real problems to them personally, but wouldn't be problems at all to other people.
To give a rather drastic example, a few years ago, the newspapers in my country reported a story about a teenager who killed himself. This kinda shocked everyone because he appeared to be quite a normal chap, did relatively well in school, came from a stable family background, had good freinds in school etc.
Based on his diary, it turns out that he was terribly upset with his penis size. He felt that it was abnormally small. Autopsy revealed that his penis, however, was quite normal in size.
As I said, a drastic example. But based on the number of "penis enlargement" spam ad emails I get, I'd guess that a huge number of men in the world suffer from the same insecurities (albeit to a lesser extent than that teenager I mentioned).
Still this is what I mean by problems not really having an "objective" reality. In fact, if this teenager had other more-engaging things to think about - an absorbing hobby? lots of challenging exams? domineering parents? - maybe he'd be too busy to worry about his penis size ....... and wouldn't have killed himself.
Now substitute "penis size" with your own personal problems ..... and ask yourself - does your personal problem really have an "objective" reality? Or is your problem only as big as you think it is? (Haha, no pun intended).
If so, try (2). Take your attention off your problem. You may find it shrinking rapidly.  |