7. Ups and Downs

So, a few weeks ago I didn't have a great weekend. It wasn't down to the typical things that you'd first think of.... the weather was bad, a bunch of things went wrong etc. No, this time, and probably for the first time ever, I wholly mean 'I' didn't have a great weekend in myself. This feeling comes purely from inward thinking and self-awareness. I was grumpy with the kids, 'snippy' with my wife, and just felt like I was just in a totally negative funk. Despite all my positive reading and the small successes I'd been having keeping my mind in check, for some reason, on this particular weekend I just couldn't see past the miserable, sorry for myself, 'woe is me' kind of thinking. I felt like I suddenly had no control again, despite my new found self-awareness (although at this stage it is more I'm 'aware' that I 'need to be more aware'). It's almost as if my body or mind or some part of me actually wanted to feel angry or miserable. Cue Dr Joe Dispenza. In a nutshell, some of what Dr Joe (as I'm now going to call him seeing as we've spent so much time together on audible) is talking about in his book 'How to Break the Habit of Being Yourself' is about how we get so programmed into certain thought patterns that our body actually starts to become the mind. Ie: If we think the same thoughts enough, we generate the same emotions. If these same thoughts and feelings become so routine, we start to do them unconsciously - they become a habit, a go to response which our body no longer needs our minds permission to feel. You stop thinking, and instead your body just reacts in its routine way. It becomes the mind. To compound this, when we experience emotions or feelings our bodies create a chemical response equal to the way you were thinking - so negative thoughts create a negative cocktail of chemicals that allow the body to experience the same negative state. As suggested in an earlier blog - 'People are Sh#t', you end up in a perpetual loop of negativity, where these negative thoughts create our negative feelings, which in turn create more of the negative chemicals, .... which then make more negative thoughts, and so on. When the body and mind are in coherence this is what Dr Joe calls your 'state of being', and if you live in this negative state of being long enough it becomes a mood, then a temperament, then a personality trait, until it is essentially how you live day to day (I feel I must note at this point that this is highly condensed version of these principles, and so I would recommend taking time to look up Dr Joe and his work). Anyway, like any 'drug', when exposed to these chemicals repeatedly your body will start to become dependent on them...it craves them. It doesn't realise these are 'negative' feeling chemicals, and so try to avoid them, all it knows it that it is used to having them floating about your system, and it wants them. So much so, that if you actively try to change, your body might actually fight to get the release of chemicals it has grown accustomed to. It will trick you into getting angry or sad, or whatever state you usually live in, it will seek false pleasure to get you to stop messing with its mojo...it will do anything to resist the uncomfortable new, and try to revert to the familiar. This is why it is so important to create a new 'positive' state of being (when mind and body are both singing from the same hymn sheet or 'coherent'). Not just keep repeating positive affirmations (whereby the mind is on board but the body is still living in a state of negativity). Seriously, give it a look.... it’s pretty amazing to hear Dr Joe's take on how we need to re-wire our brains.

Anyway, the reason I've tried to explain this is that I feel like this is exactly what was happening to me. While I had been making progress with my mindfulness....trying to observe my thoughts and actively curtail the negative cycle of negativity (remember, our thoughts create our feelings, and our feelings dictate our actions, and our actions determine our results), I was potentially starving my body of the familiar balance of chemicals (angry chemicals in my case) that it has grown accustomed to. It was experiencing the 'uncomfortable new' where instead of erupting every 20 mins over something inconsequential, I was retaining my composure...keeping my cool. As such, was my body fighting to get the angry chemicals it has become addicted to...and so overruling my mind in order to get a 'fix'? It was determined to keep me low...impatient and grumpy until....arrrggghhhh! The mini hulk inside me made an appearance. Once my body got this, the negative loop began and one thing spiralled to feed the other - so back to square one?

No, is the short and sweet answer. With all this work you have to remember you are trying, really hard to change yourself, to better yourself. That in itself is commendable, so there's is no point beating yourself up and chastising yourself every time it doesn't go according to plan. This is hard work and is challenging your mind and body in ways that are all new - and for the most part your mind wants to live in the familiar past, where our primitive brain knows it is safe. The downside however is it highlights that I still have a lot to learn in becoming the 'observer of my thoughts' and so not at a point where I am able bring myself out of the 'funk'...to bring back consciousness to my thoughts and therefore control to my emotions. Or, as Dr Kristin Jones says -

So what to do?

In the short term, as part of my evening downtime with my wife that weekend, once the kids were in bed, I chose to watch a few inspirational documentaries to help lift my mood. Now I'm not sure whether it was just I made the right choices, but it definitely seemed to help. I cannot recommend enough 'The Dawn Wall' and 'The Barclay Marathons'. I will say no more, but both are really worth a watch. Keep in mind though, this was not a retreat on my behalf to binge watch Netflix and escape the uncomfortable feeling of failure I'd experienced that weekend - to seek false pleasures and ignore real life. No, this was an intentional choice to relax, and try and have some positive time with my wife after a turbulent weekend, choosing something that would both motivate and entertain me, and allow me to go to bed believing - 'I had a bad weekend...and that's ok. I will get back on top of this'.

In the long term, I need to really become conscious of every negative thought, so none slip through and cause me to drop into a negative spiral that is so familiar. For me, hopefully this is where journaling comes in, where I actually start to action some of the advice I've garnered from the various life coaching podcasts I've been listening to. So come Monday that's it...my journal starts. Who knows, it may turn out my thoughts make fascinating reading.... there could be a book hidden inside me, trying to get out and its finally going to get to see daylight.... then who knows, maybe a movie? "The fantastical mind of Mond (Ray-mond, see what I did there?) - How to become incredible". Maybe I should just focus on starting the journal first though, huh.