Quote:
Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot  Oh. Was that what Protagonist was confused about? |
I'm not sure, actually I used the expression to emphasize the concept of the feeling taking different gradations and forms, because when Protagonist says
"they just make me feel nostalgic and slightly pissed that I'm not on the track or with said friend" it got me thinking that feeling nostalgic is sometimes such a good feeling for me, and I would certainly embrace it - depending on the context of the memory of course - and get in a good mood, even if it's not the happiest feeling I can generate. But now that I pay attention to it more closely, I think we can take this a step further and break it down to this:
@ Protagonist:
If a memory or a nostalgic thought makes you slightly pissed off:
1) You might want to choose a different thought or memory and
2) You are not focusing on being grateful for having had good experiences, instead, you are focusing on the absence of this particular experience in your life right now. In other words, the perception of this is what causes the emotion of being pissed off and if you're pissed off, you're not going to feel grateful, you will just remind yourself and focus on what you don't have. So, if bringing up memories lead you to focus on the absence of the experiences in your life (and I don't know if that's the case, but just in in case it is) you can either shift your perception in a way that you can feel grateful for these things while disregarding the perception of lack OR maybe using memories is not the best tool or approach for you to generate the feelings you're looking for - in which case you could go for a more "in the moment", experiential kind of thing, like listening to uplifting music, going for a walk, singing, or whatever makes you feel good in the moment.