How do you get through the day without dwelling on how meaningless and futile everything is? Do you distract yourself or have you found away to address this feeling?
I’ve struggled with an existential dread of death since I was about 9, and I have a spectrum of coping strategies which work for me to some extent. YMMV.
First and most important is trying to break the habit- and it is a habit- of thinking about things which set off that introspective nosedive. It’s not easy, but CBT offers s good tool set for mindfulness and thought stopping. The essential “trick” is to recognize those thoughts, and then redirect without spending too much time on the recognition or redirection.
Distraction can work, but occupation is even better. In other words, listening to an audiobook or doing something fun and distracting helps, but being involved in life, work, friends, etc is much better. The greater your connection to the real world of people, the easier it can be to disengage from the internal world of your own thoughts.
Don’t go deep! If you find yourself trying to think your way to the bottom of your dread, you will discover that there is no bottom, and it’s easy to get lost.
Consider whether or not this might be clinically significant, i.e. depression, anxiety, and such. If so, it may be worth seeing a professional about this, as your preoccupation with futility may be a symptom and not a cause.
Get sleep, and especially try not to get lost in your own thoughts late at night, or when you’re tired. Everything seems worse and feels worse at night, and when you’re tired. Audiobooks or radio can help as a distraction to get to sleep, and I recommend listening to something you’ve already heard so it doesn’t engage you too much. Put the volume down until you can just make out the words.
1. You don't. Like any other thought, it is always there to think. It is up to you to refocus if you do not desire to focus on it.
2. You give in. Let it consume you. And then let it leave you. Don't spend time there looking beneath each rock, but observing as if from a moving train, behind glass. The lynch/felinni movie changes from 1st to 3rd person, and you can reframe the mindset.
3. Behaviors aren't erased,but replaced. Find a replacement feeling/thought/action. One that is always appropriate.
4. Install the new behavior. Find the trigger, then find a new trigger that reliably happens before the original one. You reroute behavior, not actually replace it.
5. Run the path, make a trail. Starting just by imagining yourself achieving outcome. Then 'make' yourself veer toward the old behavior and notice the new behavior begin to take over. 3 times confidently is the magic number.
6. Revisit after a while. All installed automatic processes need to be reviewed as your life changes. Behaviors are only good or bad in relation to the environment. A new location, or stage of life, needs new programming.
7. Laugh. Everything is only as meaningful as you make it. There is fleeting joy in existance. Do something stupid, that you love, and just awash in it. The hedonists aren't on the path to nirvana, but they sure get closer than the stoics.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 17.4 ms ] threadFirst and most important is trying to break the habit- and it is a habit- of thinking about things which set off that introspective nosedive. It’s not easy, but CBT offers s good tool set for mindfulness and thought stopping. The essential “trick” is to recognize those thoughts, and then redirect without spending too much time on the recognition or redirection.
Distraction can work, but occupation is even better. In other words, listening to an audiobook or doing something fun and distracting helps, but being involved in life, work, friends, etc is much better. The greater your connection to the real world of people, the easier it can be to disengage from the internal world of your own thoughts.
Don’t go deep! If you find yourself trying to think your way to the bottom of your dread, you will discover that there is no bottom, and it’s easy to get lost.
Consider whether or not this might be clinically significant, i.e. depression, anxiety, and such. If so, it may be worth seeing a professional about this, as your preoccupation with futility may be a symptom and not a cause.
Get sleep, and especially try not to get lost in your own thoughts late at night, or when you’re tired. Everything seems worse and feels worse at night, and when you’re tired. Audiobooks or radio can help as a distraction to get to sleep, and I recommend listening to something you’ve already heard so it doesn’t engage you too much. Put the volume down until you can just make out the words.
Meditation.
Hang in there, it will get better.
2. There's a God. and I just ain't him.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/acatholicthinker/2015/08/there-...
2. You give in. Let it consume you. And then let it leave you. Don't spend time there looking beneath each rock, but observing as if from a moving train, behind glass. The lynch/felinni movie changes from 1st to 3rd person, and you can reframe the mindset.
3. Behaviors aren't erased,but replaced. Find a replacement feeling/thought/action. One that is always appropriate.
4. Install the new behavior. Find the trigger, then find a new trigger that reliably happens before the original one. You reroute behavior, not actually replace it.
5. Run the path, make a trail. Starting just by imagining yourself achieving outcome. Then 'make' yourself veer toward the old behavior and notice the new behavior begin to take over. 3 times confidently is the magic number.
6. Revisit after a while. All installed automatic processes need to be reviewed as your life changes. Behaviors are only good or bad in relation to the environment. A new location, or stage of life, needs new programming.
7. Laugh. Everything is only as meaningful as you make it. There is fleeting joy in existance. Do something stupid, that you love, and just awash in it. The hedonists aren't on the path to nirvana, but they sure get closer than the stoics.