Minding the Mind

You don't listen, do you? I don't think you ever really hear me. You just ask the same questions every week. "How's your job?" "Are you having any negative thoughts?"  

All I have are negative thoughts. 

- Arthur Fleck (Joker), played by Joaquin Phoenix

It's a relaxing Sunday at home and I'm feeling reasonably well-rested. It was good to finally get out of the house yesterday to have lunch with Myra at the Starling Mall. Like everyone else she was feeling a lot of anxiety over her loss of livelihood due to the pandemic. But I was happy to hear that she had over the last few months managed to act in a some telemovies and music videos. 

I advised her not to compare herself too much to others as she always feel that she is underachieving. Having goals is a good thing, but once they are set, we need to focus on the here and now. When you are always trying to peer over the horizon, you'll get a lot of anxiety as your destination appears to be never arriving. 

The future goal merely serves to help you lay down the direction of your track. But once a train is moving on the track, it never needs to look too far ahead. It just needs to look at possible obstacles immediately ahead, and ensure that nothing derails it. By doing just that, the train will arrive at its destination safely.

That's what I advised Myra.  Everyone feels inadequate about herself. There's always someone better than you. In a way, we'll never arrive at a point where we'll be completely satisfied with ourselves as there are always bigger goals to achieve. What is more important is to be better than who you were yesterday--that shows that you are growing and learning. 

That's what I've always felt to be my goal: to learn. What have I learned today that I did not know yesterday? It is important that we are constantly moving ahead and not to be weighed down by our past, at the same time ensuring that the pull of the future does not over-strain us.

This balancing act between the past and the future, is the essence of living in the present. True happiness is found in the here and now... That's what all the self-help gurus will tell you. And in your mind, you'll be thinking like The Joker in the quote above. ("But all I have are negative thoughts!").

How does one stop this flow of negative thoughts that keep coming incessantly into our present?  A thought is a vrtti--a whirlpool, or simply a wave in the mind. There are only 2 ways to stop a wave: 1. Attenuate it. 2. Neutralize it.

Attenuating a negative thought-wave is done by not reinforcing it. If we instinctively agree and follow its suggestion, we'll only increase its amplitude. All oscillations die away due to friction.  This is what mindfulness meditation trains the mind to do. 

You see a thought-wave coming, and you tell yourself: it is what it is. Nothing more nothing less and it too shall pass. And over time, your mind gets purified as less and less of its constituents will resonate with these thoughts. The half-life of every thought would be significantly reduced.

Sometimes you'd need to follow strategy 2, which is to neutralize a thought with an opposing thought. This is a bit of a 'brute force' method, but it is handy to have as a technique to douse a flame before it gets too large--you simply pour cold water to it. This is what many self-help books teach: to make positive affirmations: injecting a crest to neutralize a trough.  

But what if we are not mentally strong enough to pull ourselves together? That's when it is alright to seek the help of a friend or mentor. The mind is a peculiar thing. Even a cliche repeated by a friend can sometimes trigger a change, because we simply cannot pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. A helping hand, a small nudge in the right direction,  a shoulder to cry on, or even just a listening ear can often bring about a fresh perspective and restore balance.

As we like to say here in Malaysia during this pandemic: kita jaga kita. Let's take care of each other during these difficult times. And mental health is as important as its physical counterpart. By giving advise to Myra, I also remind myself to practice what I preach, which--more often than not--is not the case.