As a sensitive and emotional person, often very small things have a disproportionately large effect on me. Something my husband says can spiral into a black hole of self-doubt. If the slightest thing doesn't go according to plan, I have been known to flip out and call the whole thing a failure.
It feels like my mind is a camera. For me, it is very easy to zoom way in and focus on one particular thing. And my reactions (or over reactions) are caused by the fact that I can't see anything outside the frame. Finding a way to zoom out is far more difficult because it means you have to expand your perspective.
It is much easier to just take the whole camera and point it at something else. We all have distraction techniques, right? Watching television, a certain game on your smart phone, spending hours on Pinterest, or even grabbing a bag of chips or a glass of wine. These are all ways to escape our minds. Everyone uses different escapes, but we all have them. And there is nothing wrong with escaping occasionally.
But, when we are done escaping, we always come back to the same situation we were escaping from. Nothing has changed. The more challenging and more rewarding technique to learn is to zoom out. Putting your situation in a different perspective can often show you new possibilities you hadn't seen before. It opens your mind to creative solutions that were previously blocked out. Do you know how to activate your zoom?
Because of the way our bodies and our minds work, there are a couple of things that are common for everyone. First, do something physical. For me, I like to go for a long walk and get as far out into the open as I can. It could be another form of exercise, yoga, stretching, singing, at least stand up off the couch or your chair. Whatever you do, be sure to breathe deeply. This sets off a whole series of things in our bodies that help to get our minds "unstuck." Notice this is the opposite of what we do to escape or zone out. Secondly, connect to something or someone outside yourself. Give your mind something new to contemplate. Literally try to zoom your mind out and think about something bigger than yourself, people in a different place experiencing different things than you.
This takes practice, but when you do look back at your own situation, which is still in the frame, it often looks and feels a lot different.
(NOTE: Can you spot the person in the lower right corner of the picture?)
