Negative Thinking

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Negative Thinking

Postby Sanfung » Tue Jul 17, 2012 3:55 pm

I hope no one minds if I ask for advice here. In the earlier "how do you balance martial arts with your life?" thread, I expressed a need and wish to change the way I think. I realize that my constant misery isn't helping anyone. Let me preface this by saying that I have already come a very long way from where I was only a year ago.

However, I can't shake this from myself. My biggest problem perhaps relates to autistic savantism. When I say that, I trust that fantastical ideas about savant syndrome don't fill people's heads. I don't have the ability to remember dates particularly well or other things like that.

Instead, I'm cursed with, among other things, a remarkably fast reading speed and an ability to understand allegory and other cues in literature and speech. I over think everything, and often can't focus on things because I'm too paranoid about double meanings and the like. I truly can't focus on other things at many times because I'll loose track being paranoid about something else.

It's very hard to deal with these emotions when training, but I'm usually in a better position to refocus my mind in Brush Knee and Twist Step than when I'm trying to get something written on the computer. Worst of all, it simply annoys people. When I'm always asking them repetitive questions about whether they're secretly angry with me, they actually do become upset with me.

I clearly don't want this. As much professional help as I have received, my training, my Sifu's advice and my time here with the YMAA forum has actually helped me along further. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I truly want to get rid of my negative feelings.

Thank you.
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby Josh Young » Tue Jul 17, 2012 4:43 pm

Sanfung wrote:My biggest problem perhaps relates to autistic savantism.

Sounds familiar.
:wink:
Can anyone point me in the right direction? I truly want to get rid of my negative feelings.


There is no simple answer or cure.
It is part acceptance and part mind control.

Mantra meditation and other such mind training methods can yield excellent results, although you may find that you also begin to have multiple thought processes running simultaneously after such training.

Introspection into the source of the negative feelings is important. Take note when they arise as to how they arise, when they arise, what you were doing and or thinking at the time etc, use this information to revise and condition your mind.

You could also construct thoughts (like programs-complex or very simple), that run and prevent negative thought patterns. Internal energy path mediation...?
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby Sanfung » Tue Jul 17, 2012 4:58 pm

Josh, if you don't mind me asking about the way that you replied there, are you an autistic savant as well? I hope that wasn't too personal. When I'm meditating on particular point or mantra I can quiet my mind quite well, though it sort of wakes up afterwards like you had said. Internal energy path mediation sounds like an excellent idea to work at quieting down the mind in my usual day-to-day chores or at work. Thank you for the idea.

One of the biggest sources of negative feelings comes from talking with other people. If I ever get upset around them, I tend to stay upset because I feel that getting happy after I've ended up upsetting someone else is somehow a disservice to them. This surely must sound completely insane, but it's something that I feel powerless to break.

Please note that I said that I feel powerless. I know that there has to be some way around these things that I merely haven't discovered yet, and like I said I am already improving from where I once was. I take it that my thought patterns are erroneous. That being upset around other people is not doing a service to them?

Thank you. You've already helped me a lot.
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby Josh Young » Tue Jul 17, 2012 6:32 pm

Sanfung wrote:Josh, if you don't mind me asking about the way that you replied there, are you an autistic savant as well?

I wouldn't say savant, but yes I am a high functioning autistic person.
It is genetic in my case, fathers fathers father and the like, lots of cousins with formal diagnosis.

I get to have an interesting perspective on it because I have children and some of them are strongly autistic, so I see it from many angles in terms of behavior.

It reminds me of food allergies.

Let me explain, you can't generally speaking cause a food allergy to go away. To cope with this a person has to be vigilant about their diet, otherwise they could have a bad reaction. Autism is similar in some ways, instead of a food though the thing causing the reaction could be a situation or event or some pattern disturbance etc. In this case diet can also be a big deal, in my children and myself who display strong autistic tendencies diet clearly influences and affects behavior.

Humor is perhaps the best tool you can use in terms of dealing with negative thought patterns...
if you find yourself laughing at yourself being so serious you will be ok
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby wpgtaiji » Tue Jul 17, 2012 8:54 pm

Josh Young wrote:Let me explain, you can't generally speaking cause a food allergy to go away.


Just to be clear, I have no objection with anything that was written. The only clarification you have to be aware of is that there IS a way to cause food allergies to go away. i have seen it happen to about 50 people over the past 2.5 years. There is a treatment system that does, in fact, do exactly that, remove an allergy. The program is called NAET (that is the correct spelling). I have talked with people who had some SERIOUS allergies (one was allergic to the air around them). And in short times (less than 6 months), they werent any longer.

If you do a search for NAET, you will come up with some crazy claims! Yes, it is not "normal". That said, how much of what we, as internal artists do, is normal? LOL It is very interesting to look into. The only problem is, you need to go to a GOOD practitioner, which may be hard in some areas of the world.
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby Sanfung » Wed Jul 25, 2012 3:37 am

By NAET, are you referring to Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques? I've heard of them. Aren't they a certain form of applied kinesiology? I'm assuming that the mention was only really in reference to Josh's statement, and not otherwise in reference to the comments on mental health. NAET is controversial in many clinical circles, but like you said it's very interesting to look into. I do not know enough about the therapy myself to make any judgment, but if you know people who have been aided, naturally no less, I'm glad for them.

I don't mean this the wrong way at all Josh, but the fact that there's someone else here who deals with a similar condition makes me feel a little at home. I hope it wasn't wrong of me to say that at all. I have a set of savant skills, and keeping them occupied so to speak is a challenge. I like what you said about pattern disturbance. As someone who also grapples with OCD, in the clinical psychology sense, I can really identify.

I'm working to get to a point where things don't bother me as much. You're completely right about humor in every way. Recently I've been having some problems about rejecting aspects of whimsy and such. It's as though I only ever wished to see the world through a very logical lens. I also always chastised myself when I'm not doing even the simplest of tasks in accordance with the way that we were taught to do them in school.

For a while, I even had this problem while training as I internally tore myself down with all of the self-loathing that one of my teachers would have showed me. I've finally had a major revelation about myself though - I'm not in school any more, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying life. I shouldn't have to beat myself up all of the time just because my teachers were unhappy with their students all the time when I was younger.

Now, I fully admit that it's going to take a very long time to work at this. I'm dealing with erroneous and harmful baggage I've carried for a long time, but I'm finally on the right path. I don't want to have to say to myself all the time that I shouldn't be enjoying myself when I'm working, reading, training or whatever. Please let me know if I have misspoken at all.
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby Josh Young » Sun Jul 29, 2012 6:59 pm

You have not misspoken at all, nor have you offended me.

I wish you luck, my internal art brother from another mother.

I do a lot of things to help myself manage my autism, I play several instruments, I paint, draw, write, research, experiment, do martial arts etc. in other words I express myself in many ways, this helps me to gain insight into myself and my emotionality, and it also yields other benefits, such as getting better at everything I practice.

I take a lot of walks, sometimes walking many miles a day. I chant mantras whenever my mind has thoughts I don't want. If I have a negative thought i will go chant sacred syllables in my mind, this works very well.
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby wpgtaiji » Sun Jul 29, 2012 7:46 pm

Sanfung wrote:By NAET, are you referring to Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques? I've heard of them. Aren't they a certain form of applied kinesiology? I'm assuming that the mention was only really in reference to Josh's statement, and not otherwise in reference to the comments on mental health. NAET is controversial in many clinical circles, but like you said it's very interesting to look into. I do not know enough about the therapy myself to make any judgment, but if you know people who have been aided, naturally no less, I'm glad for them.

Yes. It was only in reference to the idea that allergies dont have solutions, and it wasnt meant to be argumentative, just informative! And YES, it is out there! What do you mean i can hold this "charged" vial of clear liquid and you massage my back for 10 minutes, and if i avoid the allergen for 24ish hours (depends on the person and the allergen), i can be "strong" to it? Yet, I have seen hundreds of intelligent and grounded people use it with amazing results.

To look into it, try to find the best practitioner you can find. The internet is sketchy, as you never know who you are talking too (like me! I could be a bullchitter, cept that Josh found me.. so maybe i aint..) :) The one i met and spent 2 years around was also a chiropractic doctor, so it was interesting to see how she blended the practices. If you find JUST a NAET practitioner, you may want to keep looking to get a more complete idea of the practice. With only NAET, the person COULD be off balance (as many in the alternative arts can be). :)
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby Sanfung » Fri Aug 03, 2012 5:05 pm

I'm only now fully realizing my potential to actually manage my autism. It was misdiagnosed for a long time, so the old therapies were mismanaged anyways. I'm learning to appreciate those things that I can't do while capitalize on those that I can. I'm also enjoying walking much more than I used to. I would always draw out my mind to negative things when I was trying to walk alone, and focus on awkwardness in conversation if I was walking with someone else. Advice like yours has finally enabled me to enjoy things like that fully.

Thank you for the addition information about Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques, wpgtaiji. I'm only just now learning about the fact that I shouldn't listen to everyone. That's not to say I took medical advice without concern, but I did let everyone on the sketchy Internet get me down when they disagreed with me. I'm learning now, however, that's a completely ridiculous way to think.
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby wpgtaiji » Fri Aug 03, 2012 6:15 pm

Sanfung wrote:... That's not to say I took medical advice without concern, but I did let everyone on the sketchy Internet get me down when they disagreed with me. I'm learning now, however, that's a completely ridiculous way to think.


mate, my seniors have been drilling that in my head for about a year now! It isnt until you actually see the people you are discussing things with does it hit you. The internet is full of bogus, arm chair masters in every field. The difficulty is recognizing the truth when you see it, which is difficult on its own.
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby pete5770 » Sat Aug 04, 2012 4:38 pm

wpgtaiji wrote:
Sanfung wrote:... That's not to say I took medical advice without concern, but I did let everyone on the sketchy Internet get me down when they disagreed with me. I'm learning now, however, that's a completely ridiculous way to think.


mate, my seniors have been drilling that in my head for about a year now! It isnt until you actually see the people you are discussing things with does it hit you. The internet is full of bogus, arm chair masters in every field. The difficulty is recognizing the truth when you see it, which is difficult on its own.


Sort of off topic, but I don't believe you can KNOW people simply by having a conversation over the internet. You can THINK you know that they are the real deal or bogus but wpg is pretty much on the money when he says you have to see and or meet these people and spend some time with them before you know them. i.e. you could read 20 books about me and still not know me.
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby Sanfung » Fri Aug 24, 2012 2:14 am

As for not being able to know someone online, that's sort of a two-way street I guess. Historically, a lot of people wrote very touching letters to people that they never met face-to-face. People in chat rooms or on instant messaging clients will say things to people online that they'd never want to say to someone face-to-face. Of course, stories of what people do on social networking sites have been so drawn out that they're sensationalized in the media.

However, on the other hand, it's pretty difficult like you guys say to realize when someone is just full of it online. Some people use a lot of perfumed words, and if you never meet them you'll never really know it. For that matter, some people get way more emotional on the Internet than they ever would in real life, so they get all heated and whatever.

Perhaps the biggest lesson I needed to learn with it was that people online don't necessarily understand me as a person and they've never met me. I shouldn't accept their advice as though it were a necessary roadmap, and I'm assuming you guys would agree that it's not disrespectful to tell someone that they aren't helping and you'd rather discuss something else. It took me forever to realize that, but I'm glad I did.

I would always end up focusing on everything I can't do, and people would naturally draw me into these long discussion sessions of why I can't do things and why they can't do things. Then they'll try to give advice, and even if they're well meaning they often don't really understand the problems you're going through. Eventually, I realized that while it might sound corny, this kind of thinking is self-destructive and a paradigm shift to thinking about things that I can do as opposed to those that limit me is much healthier.

I guess one of my other big erroneous beliefs was that I couldn't appreciate the skills of others if I didn't have some semblance of those skills myself. Take, for instance, the game of professional football. I don't play on a football team, needless to say. For the longest time, that made me avoid watching football with my dad. Once I started training, I realized just how arrogant, awful and limiting that sort of personal philosophy is. I don't want to regress into that way of thinking ever again.

Thanks for giving me this sounding board; it has helped me out quite a bit. Please let me know if any of my thoughts are essentially faulted.
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby caesar » Fri Aug 24, 2012 3:33 am

Thanks for giving me this sounding board; it has helped me out quite a bit. Please let me know if any of my thoughts are essentially faulted.


Thanks for your input! I appreciate your honesty. Even behind this "internet masks", it's still difficult for many to open up in internet. Ego wants to protect, even the nickname. I've learned a lot, reading this topic.
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby Monsoon » Wed Sep 26, 2012 7:50 am

I am not sure how helpful this is going to be, but I will offer it anyway. One method you might like to try is 'sincere fakeryTM'. Try every waking moment to act happy, irrespective of how you really feel. Walk down the street with your head held high and smile at people. Behave as if you have not a care in the world, that everything is just wonderful. If you are vigilant and keep this up, in time you will find that you are no longer faking but actually do feel great! It takes a bit of discipline, but the mind is powerfully addicted to patterned behaviour.

Note: this method may not work for everyone.

When I think about it, I used this idea of relentless enthusiasm to deal with divorce, stopping smoking after 25 years of habit, and more recently reversing diabetes II in just 3 months post diagnosis (my GP says I was one step from hospitalisation when I was diagnosed).

Sometimes weird sounding stuff just works. Don't really know why.

Monsoon
peace and harmony

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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby Sanfung » Thu Sep 27, 2012 12:56 am

Strangely enough, someone was just criticizing me for what you just described, Monsoon! Granted, she is a very depressed person that I have been trying desperately to cheer up. Your advice is actually really good. She was critiquing me for, well, basically feeling happy in the face of adversity. Sometimes, though, you just have to tell yourself to be happy. If you convince yourself of something, over time it really will become true, just like you said.

Unfortunately, that's usually a bad thing. At least it has been for me. I've usually convinced myself of the worst possible things, and over time gotten really upset over them. Of course, most of these things are either untrue or completely out of my control. Either way, they're not something to get worked up over. Nevertheless, I've made myself sometimes very seriously ill with just a thought. I know a lot of people use the term hypochondriac rather casually, but I'll admit to being diagnosed a hypochondriac in the way that clinical psychologists use the term.

Changing paradigms is an extremely powerful thing. I used to get depressed every single day. I am now going on my 35th day without doing so. It's great to hear that you got through three very serious things like that. Divorce, quitting smoking and ending diabetes must have all been incredibly difficult things. I have no doubt you are a stronger person for having gotten through them.

Thank you for reminding me of the power of this deceptively simple technique. I'm grateful to all you guys for keeping me going.
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby Monsoon » Thu Sep 27, 2012 3:24 am

No problem. I don't really think of it as advice but more a recounting of something that worked for me. Take smoking as an example. After many years of attempts at giving up, I finally realised that 'giving up' is a process, and that because it is a process it has built in failure. I also realised that this is the perfect excuse for smokers who try and fail. So, one morning I saw that I had no cigarettes left and I said to myself "I don't smoke". Not "I am giving up" or " I have stopped smoking", simply "I don't smoke". I had about 2-3 days of slightly jittery nerves and nothing since, not a single craving. If I could bottle and sell this method I would be millionaire!

As with a lot of thing in life, attitude can be incredibly powerful, but you have to be persistent. Through groups in my work (University) I get a lot of young guys asking how to speak to women - they see that I have no real problem with this, although I used to be terribly shy. I tell them it is really, really simple: have no agenda. That's all. If you speak to anyone (not work/service related) with an agenda in your mind it colours the way you behave. Girls are really good at picking this stuff up. There are lots of people around me who wish to talk to me, not because I have anything interesting to say, but because I am not calculating, only listening. It's frighteningly simple, and I wish I had known this as a younger man!

So, give the 'fakery' a go. Keep it up for as long as you comfortably can. If you waver, don't worry, start again. It's like a relationship, it always seems more exciting, more alive in the early days, and yet it can lead to a deep contentment.

And regarding people around you that are negative: do not try to change them, you will fail. Change yourself, be the best that you can be, be persistent and eventually the effect becomes contagious!!

Sorry for the ramble, bad habit of mine. :roll:
peace and harmony

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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby joeblast » Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:48 am

one thing to remember is happiness is a choice - we are in control of our own awareness, and "your focus determines your reality" to a certain extent. another of my teachers loved the saying "mind is gravity" because if your mind is dull and heavy, so the rest of your being will be also. cultivate awareness! more aware, larger perspective on the world. why let someone else's misery make you miserable also? smile, give a big exhale, let your own heart be light, buoyant, shining. for in the grand scheme of things, if you are miserable then in a sense you are actively cultivating misery - if one is mindful of the ripples of effect we propagate into the world, then ideally the ripples we send off we'd want them to be propagating good effects and not dragging others down - for the benefit of all sentient beings, happiness sent out into the world is good karma indeed :)
Even in mildly complex systems, any outcome is the wrong thing to target, with the process being where the focus should be.
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby pete5770 » Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:45 pm

Sanfung wrote:I over think everything, ........ I truly want to get rid of my negative feelings.

Thank you.


Perhaps part of the problem is you over thinking everything. I don't know if it helps or not but you can rest assured that the rest of the whole world's population has negative feelings. Possibly not on the scale you have but frustrations, worries, problems, etc. just the same. No one is living in anything close to any kind of sublime blissfullness.

The only thing that solves problems and negative feelings is working on the causes of them. There are no exercises or meditative states that are sure cures for all your problems, or anyone eles's for that matter. You, me, us, them, are all part of the human condition and we ALL have "issues" in life. I realize your issues are different than mine but don't start thinking that yours are worse than mine or anyone elses.
We all have our demons(if you will).
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby wpgtaiji » Thu Dec 27, 2012 1:11 pm

pete5770 wrote:... i.e. you could read 20 books about me and still not know me.

Well, it depends on what you want to know about someone! For instance, while i have no idea who you are as a person, which, btw, aside from the negative attitude, would be an interesting conversation, from the aspect of Taiji, i know exactly what you have to offer! I knew it from the first posts you put up (especially about qigong).

And the comment, in and off itself, shows ignorance of truth! The reality is, you could study yourself everyday, ALL DAY for your entire life and still not know who you are!
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Re: Negative Thinking

Postby pete5770 » Thu Dec 27, 2012 8:14 pm

wpgtaiji wrote:
pete5770 wrote:... i.e. you could read 20 books about me and still not know me.

..... from the aspect of Taiji, i know exactly what you have to offer! I knew it from the first posts you put up (especially about qigong).



I'm happy for you. Being able to tell all about what someone knows or doesn't know about a subject by reading a few lines on an internet forum is quite the accomplishment. :wink:

What if I'm not who or what I claim? What, in particular, have I claimed anyway? Other than a dis-belief in Qigong? Is it so hard to believe that someone doesn't believe in something that you put bunches of faith in? I'm pretty sure that, quite possibly, I have things that I put faith in that you might find just a bit sketchy(if you will). After all, reading a lot of your posts seems to leave the impression that there are plenty of things AND people in Tai Chi that you have no faith in. Am I not allowed the same latitude of beliefs? :?
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