Why can’t most people figure out what they need to do to feel better?
Why can’t most people fix their moods?
A few days ago, I was helping a friend feel better because she was severely depressed. Whenever I gave her advice, she nodded and said that I was right. But the critical question you should have asked yourself is, why didn’t my friend come up with such advice on her own?
Simply because most people have serious self-understanding issues that prevent them from helping themselves, what do you usually do when your mobile phone signals a low battery?
You charge it because you understood what the signal means. Emotional problems work the same way; as soon as one of them occurs, your brain will send you an alert so that you react. Now the problem happens when a lack of self-understanding prevents you from understanding the meaning of the signal.
How to fix your emotional problems
To be able to fix the emotional problems, you need to do the following:
- Learn what each signal means: When you get a terrible emotion, don’t panic but instead try to find out precisely the purpose behind that emotion. As soon as you understand the meaning behind that specific emotion, you will become aware of the action you need to take to get rid of it. Here is a straightforward example, if you feel guilty, then saying sorry can help you get rid of that guilt while doing anything else won’t help.
- Learn how to separate emotions apart: Because life is complicated, so as in the human mind, there is an excellent possibility that you will be experiencing more than one lousy emotion at a time. The problem is that many people fail to describe their feelings when more than one horrid emotion haunts them. For example, you might be feeling stressed at a given point because of your workload, anxious about an upcoming event, and sad because of something that happened a few days ago. Learning how to isolate each emotion and understand it separately is one key element that will help you eliminate destructive emotions.
- Understand what matters to you: Most people make the mistake of believing in the advice that others give them without really understanding what matters to them. Advice such as “don’t make a fuss out of nothing” or “just move on with your life” will do nothing but direct you away from what matters to you. And because your mind won’t stop sending you bad moods before you pursue what matters to you, such advice will only lead to more harmful attitudes.
- MOVE!!: The purpose of any destructive emotion you experience is to motivate you to take action. As long as you don’t take any steps, the lousy sentiment will remain, and it might even become more serious. Many people get this point wrong and start moving in the wrong direction. People who try quick fixes instead of real solutions always fail to get over their depression even though they take action.
- You need to change your outer world first: whoever told you that you could be happy by fixing your thoughts or emotions was wrong. I bet you tried convincing yourself that you are good hundreds of times but that never worked simply because there are things in your outer world that you don’t like. If you want to become happy, you need to change your external world, and these changes will undoubtedly change your inner world. For example, if you don’t like your paycheck, then find a way to earn more instead of convincing yourself that you can be happy with what you have.
It all About Understanding Yourself
The advice people give to others might work for them, but will it work for you? That’s a question that only you can answer when you get a deeper understanding of yourself.
Fixing emotional problems is all about learning how to tweak your own emotions after correctly understanding how your mind works.
