My Support Forums - View Single Post - how do you know when you are feeling feelings vs. dwelling on them?

(JD) · Oct 19, 2010, 06:33 PM

It's good to realize that you are feeling and perhaps not thinking correctly (but running on how you feel instead.)

Ruminating is running the same thoughts over and over again, the same worries or scenes over and over again in your mind. If you are doing that with thoughts of your feelings, then I guess you could stop it the same way.

One way is to set aside time during the day when you focus on ... your feelings... for instance. Maybe all your feelings during that day? You have a time limit (depending upon how many and much you want to cover, but no more than 15 minutes I would say.)

Once you've ended the time, then whenever you find yourself being selfconscious about how you are feeling, tell yourself, " NOPE not now, I already worked on that, I'll address it again tomorrow."

You can really let the feelings run and ruin your life. It's okay to push your feelings at times, when it's good such as when you are enjoying something and then you focus on how feeling good etc is feeling. But don't dwell on it, as that will take you off track. (Especially if you are depressed, all those negative thoughts will come in too.)

Distraction is a good tool for stopping negative feelings. I personally use the game arcade here when I can, when the pain is enough to make me not be able to think happy thoughts

but I can still manage to distract myself with the game to play. This keeps me from sliding down that slipery depression slope of how miserable my life is when the pain increases, etc.

Again I have to refer to the sticky post in the psychotherapy forum that lists the 10 common cognitive distortions and what to do about them. You might be battling more than one of them.

Good wishes.