We all sometimes feel lonely, abandoned, and unnecessary. Such destructive thoughts can often cause depression and apathy. In this article, we will tell you about a method that will help get rid of destructive thoughts and sadness. Well, if you want to have fun and calm down, then you can play live blackjack.
The purpose of life is to enjoy life, every moment of it. And for this, it is worth getting rid of anxiety and stress. Well, let’s get started!
The Nature of Depression
Since the time of Freud, it has been established that depression is auto aggression, that is, aggression that a person directs at himself. He does not just suffer, grieve or grieve, he scolds, criticizes, condemns, and humiliates himself — in difficult cases, up to a feeling of disgust and self-hatred. That is why depression causes such internal pain and sometimes leads to suicide.
An internal monologue plays a huge role in the formation and development of depression — the very voice that does not subside in our head for a minute. For some people, it becomes an internal executioner — the brain is fixated on disturbing, unpleasant, or guilt-inducing thoughts.
The main skill that is important for everyone to develop in order not to fall into depression is the ability to treat yourself kindly: empathize with yourself in case of failures and refuse self—criticism. Now most psychologists tend to believe that a negative internal monologue has no pluses at all, only minutes. Self-criticism only lowers self-esteem and makes a person vulnerable to adversity. There is no use in it. All of us need to learn to take failures calmly and analyze our mistakes with empathy toward ourselves. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you.
The Feeling That Saves You from Depression
There is one amazing way to cope with an inner voice that is out of control. Psychology professor Ethan Cross wrote about this method in his book “Chatter”. The method is amazing — you need to experience a sense of awe. When you find yourself in the face of something impressive and inexplicable like the snow-capped Alps, the Milky Way, or a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, it’s as if you reduce your problems in size, and the negative inner voice subsides. This is similar to the effect of psychedelics: the sympathetic nervous system calms down and oxytocin is produced.
Our problems are reduced to something much bigger than ourselves. This makes it possible not only to touch the great and experience awe, but also to look at yourself and, perhaps, your generation as if from outer space. I think something similar was experienced by a psychiatrist, and psychotherapist Viktor Frankl, when, in the most difficult moments of his stay in Nazi concentration camps, he imagined himself performing on stage in front of the luminaries of world science with a report on his direction in psychotherapy, the foundations of which he laid here in the camp, distancing himself and studying the psyche of prisoners as a scientist (including his own).
As for the events of recent years, the books of historian Yuval Harari “Sapiens” helped me to remove emotional swings and reduce the painful intensity of passion, for example. A Brief History of Mankind” and “Homo Deus. A brief history of the Future.”
Thanks to them, I was able to look at the development of humanity as if from outer space. When you see the cyclical nature of many processes, the same mechanisms and behavioral strategies throughout the history of human civilization, the common foundations of various phenomena and concepts, etc., then you understand “where the legs grow” from modern events and why some things are so painful for different generations. And most importantly, your excessive emotional perception decreases, which allows you to think soberly and make more informed decisions.
But I will return to depression and a sense of awe. Psychologist Daker Keltner recently wrote a book on Awe. In it, he, in particular, recommends “awe walks” as a way to cope with stress and improve mental health. I think it’s a sound idea to look for something that will allow you to experience admiration and awe. And also try to look at painful situations from the height of something more global and lasting in time. This will not remove the external problem, but it will reduce emotional pain and get out of the inner painful circle.