How to develop psychological stability: the experience of the author of the book "The subtle art of indifference"

I played a little with them. Some had interesting features, many did not. Some gave good advice, but most did not. I took notes and decided I had enough. But I forgot that notifications are turned on in all applications. Therefore, for the next week, a stream of platitudes and sentimental nonsense fell on me every morning:

“You have a wonderful smile, Mark. Don't forget to share it with the world today."
“Whatever you want to achieve today, Mark, you can. Just believe in yourself."
“Every day is a new opportunity. Today is your hour. I'm proud of you".

From such notifications, my mood immediately deteriorated. How can the phone know what kind of smile I have? And how is it that someone is proud of me, even without knowing me? And that's what people subscribe to? To be doused with a bucket of narcissistic slop every morning?

I started going into apps, and I was immediately bombarded with positive affirmations about how special I am, how I should share my unique gift with the world and remember something that I'm proud of right now. And please subscribe for just $ 9.99 per month.

If this is now considered advice for improving mental health, then we simply pour kerosene on the burning pile of garbage. Because such recommendations help to develop not emotional stability, but an obsession with oneself.

You cannot develop psychological stability if you feel good all the time. It develops when we learn to experience the bad.

In the constant pursuit of convenience, for the miracles of science that will fulfill our every whim, for the positivity and approval of our every step, we ourselves have made ourselves weak. Every little thing seems like a disaster to us. Everything offends us. Crises await us everywhere, everyone has one of them.

Timmy got a deuce for the test. Catastrophe! Call your parents! Call your grandparents! He has a crisis of self-confidence. He has a self-esteem crisis. Only the problem is not that the student is sad because of a bad grade, but that he is too busy with self-pity to learn his lessons properly.

If I made a mental health app, you would receive notifications like this in the morning:

“Congratulations, you have one less day left to live. What will you do so that today's one is not in vain?"
“Think of the person you love the most in the world. Now imagine that he was attacked by a swarm of killer wasps. Now go and tell him that you love him."
“Andy Dufrein swam half a kilometer in the sewer for the opportunity to find freedom. Are you sure you're not wasting yours?"

Psychological resilience grows not from positive emotions, but from the effective use of negative ones.

That is, when you take anger and sadness and turn them into something useful and productive. Or you can use your experiences of failure and self-loathing to get better. Today it is an almost forgotten art. But I'll tell you how to achieve this.

1. Start worrying about more than just yourself

When in a difficult situation we are focused on ourselves, we panic and cannot budge. When focused on others, we overcome fear and take action.

Many people today experience anxiety precisely because of the constant reflection on themselves. Let's say someone switched to a new job. And so he begins to think. Do they blame me for this? Should I be concerned about others' judgments? And if I'm not worried, then I'm insensitive? Or am I getting too worried about whether or not I should worry about it? Or am I bothering too much about bothering too much? And because of all this, I worry too much? So where is the sedative ?!

When we experience anxiety, we become obsessed with how to prevent future pain. Instead, you need to prepare yourself for the pain.

Because sooner or later little Timmy will get a deuce. The question is, will you be willing to help him learn from his mistakes? Or will you become one of those parents who blame teachers?

In order not to avoid difficulties, but to prepare for them, you need to have something in life that is more important than feelings. Find some goal or mission that will guide your actions.

2. Focus on what you can control

I have two news for you: good and bad. The bad news is that you have virtually no control over anything.

You cannot control what other people say, do, or believe. You cannot control your genes and the circumstances in which you grew up. Year of birth, soaked cultural values, natural disasters and road accidents are all beyond your control. You cannot completely control whether you develop cancer, diabetes, or Alzheimer's. You cannot control the death of loved ones. How others feel and think of you, how they see you and how they touch you. That is, almost everything in this crazy world is beyond your control.

Now for the good news. What you can control is more important than anything else. These are your thoughts.

As the Buddha said, when an arrow hits us, we get two wounds. The first is physical, it was inflicted by a tip that stuck into the body. The second is our thoughts about what happened. We start to think we didn't deserve this. Wish it never happened. And we suffer from these thoughts. Although this second wound is only mental and can be avoided.

But we often do not seek to do this, we like to do what psychologists call the catastrophization of pain. That is, we take some trifle - for example, someone did not agree with our opinion - and inflate it to universal proportions. In the age of social media, people do this all the time.

There are several reasons for this. Firstly, we are just so spoiled and lazy that any inconvenience seems to us a real crisis. In addition, we receive a reward for this: sympathy, attention, a sense of our own importance. It comes to the point that for some it becomes part of the identity. We say: "I am the kind of person who constantly has something crazy going on." This is how our relatives and colleagues know us, this is how we see ourselves. We get used to it and even begin to defend such a lifestyle.

As a result, the second wound becomes much larger and more painful than the first. The catastrophizing of pain, like intrusive ruminations, hides an obsession with oneself. It is based on the belief that our experience is special and no one understands the pain and difficulties that we have endured.

Remind yourself often that you are not experiencing suffering that millions or even billions of others would not have experienced before you. Yes, you cannot control your pain. But you can control how you think about her. Do you consider it irresistible or trifling? Do you believe that you will never recover from it, or do you know that you will rise again.

3. Become an optimist about yourself and a pessimist about the world around you

Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and philosopher, wrote about his everyday life: "When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people with whom I have to deal today will be annoying, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, envious and rude."Try writing this down in your morning gratitude journal!

Marcus Aurelius is one of the most famous Stoic philosophers. They did not fixate, as we do now, on happiness and optimism, but believed that you need to imagine the worst outcome of the situation in order to mentally prepare yourself for difficulties. Because when you tune in to the worst, another turn of events will be a pleasant surprise.

There is some truth in this. If we are optimistic about everything that is outside our control, we will be doomed to suffer, because everything very often does not go according to our plan. Therefore, you should be pessimistic about the world and optimistic about your own ability to overcome obstacles. That is, to think that life is damn hard and the world is full of shit, but I can handle it and even get better in the process.

4. Find your inner masochist

As much as we want to feel good all the time, the little part inside us loves pain and suffering. Because overcoming them, we feel that there is meaning in our life. The most important, defining moments in life are often the most unpleasant: the proximity of death, the loss of loved ones, divorce and separation, victory in a painful fight or overcoming a difficult ordeal. It is by experiencing difficulties that we grow and change, and looking back, we even feel grateful for them.

It happened to me too. I remember how I started my business in 2008 and worked 12, 14, 16 hours a day. I remember how I fell asleep lying with a laptop on my stomach, and in the morning I immediately started working.

At first I worked so hard out of fear and necessity. I was broke, the economy was below the floor, I had nowhere to go. I lived with friends on the couch, then my girlfriend supported me. Most of the months I could not help with the rent. Sometimes I didn't have money for food. But I was determined that if I failed, it wouldn’t be because I hadn’t tried. Over time, these crazy working hours became the norm.

Then I realized that I had unintentionally developed a superpower in myself.

I remember a few years later, when my friends and I were renting a house for a coworking on the beach, I noticed that I was the first to get up and was the last to turn off my computer at night. I worked on weekends and holidays, not even knowing that it was weekends and holidays. Over time, it has become something that makes me proud, a part of my identity that I like to indulge.

Of course, workaholism has its downsides, and now I've learned how to turn it on and off as needed. But I still get some perverse pleasure out of him, and I'm just as proud to be able to work through the weekend.

We all have such an inner masochist. In athletes, it manifests itself when they test the limits of their physical capabilities, in scientists - when they obsessively analyze data, in soldiers and policemen - when they risk themselves for the sake of others. When do you have? What kind of suffering do you enjoy? And how can you use this to your advantage during life's difficulties?

5. Don't Suffer Alone

You've probably heard that you need to invest not in one thing, but in different things. Then, in the event of a crisis, not all of your funds will suffer.

You can think of human relationships in the same way. We all have to invest in ourselves. If good happens to us, we feel good, if bad happens, bad. But we can also build relationships with others, and each time it will be an investment of a piece of our happiness in another person. Now it will not depend on something or someone else. Your emotional health will become stronger. You will even receive dividends in the happiness and joy of other people.

Strengthen relationships with people, because one day, when life puts you on both shoulder blades - and sooner or later it will - they will become emotional insurance for you.

They will be able to share a heavy burden with you, listen and be close, cheer you up and prevent you from diving into the abyss of self-pity. Because no matter how cool you think you are, none of us can do it all the time. We have evolved to be somewhat emotionally dependent on each other, relying on each other and needing each other, especially during difficult times.

If you are suffering now, the most rewarding thing to do is reach out to people, talk about your problems, share your pain. This is necessary to cope with any psychological trauma.

And if everything is fine in your life - super! Use this time to strengthen connections with people, share your success, and build a support system. Because the good times can't last forever. And when the next blow of fate falls to your lot, it is better not to be alone.