Have you heard it said, that no random act of bad luck... No unpleasant words directed at us... Nothing can really effect our mood and outlook? Our mood and outlook are entirely dependent on how we view, react to, and deal with all random acts of bad luck and hurtful speech. {Do you 'swallow' this?}After all, a bad headache is a bad headache and it hurts... No matter how good an attitude we have about it. And cruel words hurt, no matter how we rationalize why they were said. No matter how much we do not accept this person's bad view of us. Yes, they do. In themselves, these 'hurts' hurt.
But do we make ourselves be in a lot worse shape and in more pain, by our own view of them? By how we deal with them? In other words, can we "awfulize" all over the place and thus, make ourselves hurt even more? Can we keep the pain, front and center in our minds, and never try to distract ourselves from it? Can we dwell and dwell and dwell on the 'bad luck'... And on all the possible reasons it befell us?
Or with the headache, can we seek pain relief? And even when the meds don't fully relieve it, could we try to fill our minds with some personal pleasantness, and refuse to dwell and dwell and dwell on each jab of the pain? {I don't know, can we?}
In the case of someone saying disturbing things about or to us... Can we work on how we react to this? Telling ourselves that we are not all that bad. The person is mistaken or prejudiced or just plain malicious. Or even, if we do agree that we are exhibiting some of the disturbing behavior we're accused of.... Well, we can make up our minds to work on not doing it, in the future. If we can react in our chosen way, then it's not the vicious things said of us, which can bring us down. It's how we react to them being said. {I don't know, is it?}
Do we have to dig and dig and dig, to find all the past reasons for our being angry or depressed or etc.?
Or could we work on dropping all the blame-of-things-persons-past? And work on ourselves, in the present? No matter how people were unkind to us, in the close or distant past, we don't have to keep this front-and-center in our minds, in the now. No matter how much 'bad luck' befell us, in the distant or near past, we don't have to keep dwelling on it, in the now. {Do we?}
Could we try this different approach? Would it be worth a try? Does it have a chance of working? Have you ever considered this? Tried it? Did it work? Did you give it your 'best shot'? If you worked more on it, could it maybe work better, in the future?
Or is this all more 'pie in the sky' type advice/thinking? {I don't know. Please tell me your view.}
