I get lost in my thoughts, like every other human being in the entire world. For me this “getting lost” is most prevalent in the morning. They are thoughts fueled by anger and sadness and before I know it I have spent a good hour shuffling through my morning “doings,” and sometimes even driving while lost in them. I go on this kind of automatic pilot while my mind travels with the injustices I have been dealt; that person that flipped me off, how time is rushing by, and basically everything I think is wrong with me and “my life.”
These thoughts are always all about me, centered on myself and they don’t feel good. Frankly, I make myself angry with the stories I attach to the feelings. It’s not long before my thoughts begin attacking one another. A little voice comes up that tries to find the solution and ward away the angry thoughts by justifying why I’m angry or feel resentful, and before long there is a litany of people who are at fault. The next round of thoughts start trying to talk me out of those angry feelings: “there are so many people worse off in the world,” “just breathe,” “relax,” “they are just feelings they will pass soon,” and this resistance causes tension to mount in my body. I start to deploy tactics I’ve read about or that have worked in the past to get away from the anger and sad feelings buried deep inside. Then I get angry all over again. I’m not exaggerating, I can literally get lost in this cycle for an hour. It can sometimes repeat itself 20 times within an hour; angry, list of the causes of anger (i.e., resentment), trying to beat myself internally for feeling the anger, and then trying to get away from myself with tactics to stop the feelings I don’t like. I’m not going to soften it, I don’t like feeling anger or negative feelings, and I’m pretty sure it’s because they don’t coexist well with the self-image I’ve created all of these years.