so my brain is being really weird lately. lately i have “compulsive crushes” on people where my brain tries to force myself to fixate on them and think about them and makes me have thoughts of wanting to kiss them or date them, but it doesn’t feel natural and feels more platonic than anything…
furthermore, i have a gf (5-6 months) and nb queerplatonic partner (5-6 months) but my brain is obsessively, almost, convinced i need more when i myself am or am trying to be without my thoughts, happy with just them.
my brain also keeps telling me i don’t deserve love or happiness, i feel empty sometimes, it makes me feel bad at everything because of my neurodivergence and it keeps telling me to break up with my partners, especially my gf since we’re more romantic, and the thought won’t go away even though i don’t wanna break up.
these aren’t my thoughts. it’s calmer right now at least though.
Easier said than done, but just letting the thought pass through, saying “huh, neat, that’s a thought” and then letting it pass by can be a way to make them “go away” in a sense.
Trying to resist the thought, or conversely feed the thought gives it more attention, and it’s a spiral. It takes a LOT of practice, and it can be messy. But it’s the concept behind meditation as well, and one technique in an arsenal of many. If it doesn’t work for you, you can try something else.
Wishing you some reprieve in the meantime 🩵 /gen
Being peace by Thich Nhat Hanh
Highly, highly recommended, and frankly worth having a physical copy of on your shelf.
Do you have more recommendations like that?
Well for starters Thich Naht Hanh has written a lot of books. Personally my next recommendation would be No Mud, No Lotus. There is a fair amount of conceptual overlap between his books, so it’s probably not necessary to read every book he’s written unless you find his specific philosophy compelling and want to emulate it.
I think of Being Peace as a good entry point for a person looking to change their mindset, a sort of reset. It’s good guidance for getting some control of the emotional noise of daily life, especially anxiety, fear and anger.
A good next step is Getting to Where You Are by Steven Harrison. This has practical guidance for regular meditation as a practice, without any of the mysticism. It is a signpost on the path to self-regulation and self-acceptance (but I think not the best starting point if you don’t already have some grounding in mindfulness and meditation).
After the others, I think Journey Without Goal by Chögyam Trungpa is worthwhile. This one does lean heavily on the religious background of its philosophy, and I think it’s necessary for the reader to know what they’re looking for while reading it, to understand the mythology as allegory. The value of this book is in changing your concept of how life might be lived entirely, a sort-of restructuring of your perspective on existence and your path through it. I don’t think it should be jumped into without an established foundation of meditation practice. Frankly, if you haven’t already established patience within yourself and built that place of internal calm, and taken at least some steps toward self-understanding and self-acceptance, this won’t do you any good. I think it’s important to note that in spite of the title, some people heard this message and believed that it was a pathway to enlightment as some sort of end goal. No such thing is promised, and if you go into it expecting that you will get lost.
So yeah,
- Being Peace - find calm, and begin meditation practice
- Getting to Where You Are - self-acceptance, and refine your meditation
- Journey Without Goal - self-knowledge, and looking forward
…in that order.
Some other books I’d recommend which kind of extend these ideas:
- Rules For A Knight by Ethan Hawke
- The Analects (of Confucius)
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
- Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
There’s a few things you can do and they work differently for everybody. Just letting the thought pass through your mind is one way. You hear the thought. You react to it in short fashion. Nothing more than ‘huh, weird,’ or ‘strange,’ or ‘next thought please,’ then let the next thought come to you. Don’t dwell on it. If you do that’s when you get trapped and your whole day can go down the toilet.
Another thing you can do is physically change your environment. Go to a different room. Go outside. Go for a walk. Your mind will take in every change that occurs to your environment sort of forcing you to flush the previous train of thought.
Listen to music. It’s simple but it works.
look just from this post I can tell you have some ability to be conscious of the difference between your fastest and most thoughtless reaction vs a thought that is more productive
so that’s good
perhaps scaling that up a bit would be even more helpful
