When an upsetting situation or event happens in our lives, very few of us would stand up and shout "Yippee! That's JUST what I was hoping would happen!" No. We aren't wired to feel that way unless we are true psychopaths/sociopaths without a conscience and without empathy.
Instead, when something "bad" happens to us, we generally feel any one of a number of negative and raw emotions as a result. We might feel depressed, sad, defeated, helpless, empty, overwhelmed, desperate, angry, anxious, terrified, ashamed, guilty, alone, abandoned, betrayed, used, abused, rejected, out of control...need I go on? Feeling bad, let's face it, can feel REALLY bad depending on what has happened to us or someone else we care about.
What we don't realize as we are feeling all these raw emotions is how we can so easily fall into the trap of our own cycle of suffering, or a destructive emotional mindset, as a result. Instead of our raw emotions remaining separate from our thoughts, we start thinking certain things that are not good for us...or for whatever other people we involve in it. For example, we might start thinking things like "I'm gonna knock the crap out of him/her/them. I don't get mad, I get even. I'll show them, they'll be sorry. Screw everyone. Screw everything. I can't deal with this anymore. Nobody understands me. They'll never forgive me for this one. *$)# it; I need a drink. I can't stand this; I gotta call Joe (drug dealer). I'm so stupid; no wonder he left me. I should just cut myself now and get it over with. Nobody cares if I die anyway. Nobody loves me. I have nothing to offer anybody......" blah blah blah.
Easy to do isn't it? Because we all do it to some extent. Instead of separating what just happened and our negative raw emotions/feelings from the REAL FACTS of the situation...we don't. We let our minds drift into thinking and believing certain emotion-driven thoughts that are self-destructive to us---and/or destructive to other people we've involved in our thoughts. Once we let these emotion-driven and negative thoughts keep on keeping on...they inevitably lead to behaviors that are not good, not appropriate, and do nothing to properly cope with what happened in the first place. Examples of these emotion-driven coping behaviors include substance use and abuse, physical aggression, verbal abuse, throwing temper tantrums, overeating, undereating, bulimia, withdrawing ourselves from others, isolation, sleeping too much or too little, suicide attempts, threats, gestures, cutting and other self-injurious behaviors, stealing, cheating, having affairs, getting involved with unsafe people, gambling...blah blah blah.
I had a friend last year who was hit by a car while crossing (with the green light) a street where she (as a pedestrian) had the right of way. The woman who hit her wasn't paying attention as she went around the corner at 40mph. We still don't know if the driver was texting on her phone or not at the time she hit my friend. My friend broke several bones in her back, her wrist, and an ankle. She is very fortunate to have lived.
Now, just over a year later, my friend still suffers from chronic neck and shoulder pain, but thankfully she can walk and do her job. In light of what happened to her, she HAD to separate the event from her raw emotions, negative thinking, and emotion-driven potential behaviors if she was going to heal. Imagine how easy it would have been for her to try and find this woman and "get her back" in some way. And how would have THAT helped my friend in any way, shape, or form? It just wouldn't. What it would have done is make my friend's recovery even harder than it already was to begin with...might have landed her in jail (or worse)...and actually do NOTHING to "make" this woman who caused the accident to get her sh** together.
Yet we like to believe (the lie) that we are more powerful than we actually are. It's a core belief of any criminal enterprise that exists; it's what drives criminals to keep on keeping on until they are killed or locked up for life. Recently, I have been reading about the Kray twins (now the focus of the recent movie "Legend" starring Tom Hardy) who were the original "Gs" of the 60s in the east end of London. Actually, as I have been reading their biography ("The Profession of Violence"), it is pretty pathetic how both of these men threw their lives down the toilet by living in their own Cycles of Suffering until the day they each died.
We get so caught up in "what happened" and then "how I feel about what happened" and then "What I think about what happened" and finally "What I'm gonna do about what happened"...that we miss the FACT that THIS what creating and maintaining one's own Cycle of Suffering is all about! This destructive and emotional-based mindset is what prevents us from seeing how "all of that" is affecting our life (consequences and losses) and how it ultimately affects our feelings and thoughts even when something hasn't happened! (We become more depressed, more angry, more hopeless, more paranoid, more rejected, more traumatized, etc. etc.)
It is at this point we feel worse than we ever have before, we have more problems, more losses, and more emotional pain to bear. Our lives have gone from bad...to worse. We are stuck in our own cycle of suffering and we don't even get it about how we got there.
Until now that is.
Make the call if you need help with this.
Until next time....