Negative feelings have been a dime a dozen with me lately. I’ve written frequently about my experiences over this past year after leaving my job of 19 years. In fact, it’s coming up on the one-year anniversary of the phone call that changed everything. I fully intend on writing about it.
To discuss what strategies I use to cope with negative feelings would require me to first analyze what the negative feeling is. Negative is a very broad term. After that phone call last year, and even in the months afterwards, I harbored a lot of anger and resentment about it. I still do, but therapy has helped me lessen those feelings. So I could say that talking about it and analyzing it has helped me cope. I think that’s true for most negative thoughts and feelings.
Then there’s good ole’ anxiety. I feel this very intensely at times. In fact, it’s always intense. There’s never “just a little bit” of it. When it’s there, it’s very annoying and concerning. When it’s there for an extended period of time like it was a couple weekends ago, it’s disruptive and almost crippling. My therapist has taught me several strategies for dealing with the pop-up anxiety. Usually I can identify a trigger and work my way through the feeling using several of the mindfulness techniques she’s coached me on. But other times, that doesn’t work. That weekend when it showed up out of nowhere and made it’s home in me for two solid days, a nap worked on one day. Nothing seemed to work the other day. In cases like that, simply giving it time is what cured it. I woke up on Monday morning and it was all gone. Anxiety is funny like that. Pops up suddenly and is gone just as quickly.
So many other negative feelings that I’ve encountered at sporadic times over this past year…sadness, irritation, impatience… With all of those, honestly, like anxiety, giving it time seems to be the best coping strategy. These feelings aren’t permanent and they do go away. Granted, they often come back, nobody is happy and positive 100% of the time. But while I am (impatiently) waiting for them to go away, sometimes all it takes is distraction. Turning to my hobbies to divert my attention helps. Yesterday’s post about getting lost in myself is a good example of the things I do that take my mind off of things. Even the post about movies and t.v. shows I’ve seen more than five times is a way to cope. I talked about watching the same movies every Saturday and Sunday evening. That helps with anxiety.
There are so many types of negative feelings and so many reasons for them. Sometimes, no reason at all. And while I have my own coping strategies that work most of the time, there really is no cookie-cutter solution for every feeling. Especially when the feelings are too big. Things don’t always work. But I think, for me, that’s part of what I’m enjoying about this journey of self-discovery I’ve been on. Which, ew, that sounds cliche’ and cheesy to say, but it’s true. I am experiencing all the feelings at various times. It has truly been all of them. And that’s o.k. I’m learning about what’s important to me based on the feelings I get about certain things. I’m learning new strategies for dealing with the new feelings. Whether it’s a feeling I’ve never felt or a topic I’ve never felt that particular feeling about. It’s all new, sometimes it feels all over the place, and yet, I am all for it. I want to know everything there is to know about myself right now. I’ve never met this person and I’m very excited to get to know her.
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