This is a great answer. I was going to say something very similar, but rather than a therapist, I’d recommend meditation!
Talking to yourself about yourself and seriously debugging, can be a lot of effort but long term, it is very rewarding.
I always say to people, “Emotions and intuition are just a complicated set of logic you don’t understand yet”.
Emotions can be a fog in your mind, blocking you from seeing the path from where you are to where you want to be.
Putting in the time to understand the root causes of your emotions, start to help map your mind and you can better navigate and find paths to your final goals.
Have you seen a therapist? It's hard work to reprogram your own brain, and even harder if you try to do it alone. I think of it as a microscope trying to examine itself.
Even a few sessions can do a lot to point out your blind spots, give you objective feedback, and drill down on questions that you subconsciously avoid asking yourself.
If you cannot get professional help: work to get in touch with your emotions. What are you afraid of? What exactly makes you anxious? Are these feelings matching reality?
Also: everybody fails sometimes, everybody has problems, perfection does not exist.
This sounds super cliche but was tremendous help for me. I considered myself super rational and suppressed my feelings for most of my life. That means living fantasy, not knowing yourself and without truth about yourself you cannot change
A little different from the rest of the comments here, but have you considered going to therapy? It’s a deep dive into your own interior life, which I’ve found is useful in connecting with others. Another way to put it: how can you understand others if you don’t understand yourself?
Not saying it’s a silver bullet, but it helped me!
At the risk of being a bad trope, if you’re struggling with the emotional half of things I would recommend therapy.
Even if you don’t “discover” something traumatic in your past that explains everything, having someone to explain your feelings to often does wonders for your emotional well being in general. A lot of therapists will also specialize in procrastination, and may have extra strategies that help.
Therapy is the best for this kind of thing. Strongly recommended.
I delayed therapy for years, thinking it was for people with "major psych problems" when really, you're just learning how to identify and manage your emotions. While this sounds almost stupidly simple, it's actually extremely hard work that most of us never learn! A good therapist will act like a master coach, helping you through the process, as you learn "how to drive" emotionally.
Finding a good therapist is also hard. And there's very little help for you in that process. Here's some advice I got from a trusted psych, which turned out well for me:
* Look for therapists who focus on only a few therapeutic orientations (I like CBT)
* Avoid therapists who offer CBT alongside psychodynamic therapy, or family therapy - these are different, largely incompatible modalities
You'll probably have to meet with / call a few before you find someone you click with (which is important). Patience is important. The whole process takes time - took me 2 years of weekly work, but it was tremendously helpful.
Also, exercise. It doesn't have to be anything special / major, just get outside (preferably) and move your body. A walk around the neighborhood is fine. This has a number of positive psych and physical effects.
Yeah, therapy has done wonders for my ability to take action instead of letting frustration build up. For me, your emotions are your emotions, you can't just leave them behind. But you can often release them in a constructive way or at least vent them a bit :)
If you’re interested in doing this, but find it hard to sit it the feelings, consider trying Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which involves investigating the root of your feelings within your mind.
It’s best to do DBT with a professional, but there’s a large community of DIY DBT practitioners out there. [1]
If your unable to investigate the source of some feelings (e.g. because your brain shuts down when you interrogate them) there is a new-ish practice for detangling your thoughts without all the interpersonal unpleasantness of Talk Therapy (that doesn’t mean it won’t be unpleasant in it’s own way).
It’s called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Again, working with a professional is best, but it’s possible to be successful with a DIY approach. [2]
Disclaimer: I’m not a professional in any form of health, mental or otherwise. I’m just a happy self-administered DBT & EMDR patient :)
It does sound immature, but I wouldn't blame it on you. It's a state that you're in, that you want to get out of. Emotional maturity has to grow too, and you have to put effort into growing it, just like mental and physical growth.
People often recommend meditation because it's a quick, dumb fix for this. Sit still. Observe your emotions. Let them go. Eventually you see these emotions boiling up, but they don't control you. As time goes on, you get into the root of these emotions and pull them out.
If meditation is hard, therapy is similar and more precise, where someone else goes in and debugs you for a price. It's more time-effective, but you still have to put in the time to release the negative emotions.
There are reasons you feel this way, but telling yourself that it's irrational doesn't stop them. It's also quite common for more senior devs who have gone through the death marches and such.
This is good advice. As sensible as the suggestions in this thread are, probably no one is going to be able to help you without a fairly detailed understanding of the emotional issues which are holding you back.
Tom, could you please share how you've worked on your emotional wholeness? This is an issue I recognize in myself, but do not know how to begin to heal.
The saying time heals is true, it just takes time. My only advice to you is don't let the emotions drive you to do anything negative. It's okay to have emotions just don't let them take you over. Try not to ruminate and get lost in your own head. It can become like OCD. Exercise helped me a lot with ruminating and was a way I could improve myself - take all the negative energy and turn it into something positive. Reading is also good way to shut the mind off. I read a lot of books on how the mind works. If you have a therapist talk to him about what happened and how you feel. Therapy isn't always about looking for a solution to your emotions (root cause) it's a place to talk and get stuff off your chest and to help you find closure. Find someone who can just listen and offer advice when needed or when asked. Life is just random and has ups and downs and the bad things that happen can over shadow all the good. I can say this, if you want to learn from this and move on, you can. You just have to be patient and with time it will get better.
By seeing a therapist and working through the emotions and it’s causes.
I learned that I shouldn’t suppress. I analyzed and unentangled the feelings that I had to get out.
I learned to be more generous towards myself and other but at the same time be more critical of ideas. They where too entangled in my mind before therapy.
Now I am much better critiquing and idea while at the same time being warm, kind, encouraging and funny towards myself and others.
Going against the grain here. The only person who can help you is you. A good therapist can help you realize that earlier too.
You're going to get many perspectives of how you can help yourself in this thread, some will resonate and some won't at all.
Facing your longing for happiness and reason may be the very thing preventing you from obtaining it. Sometimes in order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.
In other words, you have to listen to yourself in terms of how to turn your life around. Maybe even the fear of being successful paralyzes you from beginning.
In general, I strongly recommend finding a good therapist. It can take a few tries to find one that works for you, so don't give up if it takes awhile.
To your specific questions, I've had some similar experiences and find that it's helpful to think in smaller terms. Find small things that interest you and explore them without threat or promise or waiting. Also follow the RAIN framework with feelings of envy: recognize, accept, investigate, nurture.
The easiest way is to find someone who is emotionally sane. You probably have at least one such person in your life. That person tends to remain calm, yet seem to be fully aware of what is going on around them. They might quietly step in to calm the situation, or perhaps, just their presence seem to calm any panic of fear. People tend to go to them for advice, not necessarily for solving problems, but because hard problems don't seem to seem as hard when you talk to such a person. It might be your mother, father, or grandmother, or grandfather. It might be be a mentor or a teacher. You ask them for help with getting in touch with your emotions. If you have someone like this in your life, and they know you well, then they'll be happy to help you on this... often because they can see how you suffer from being unable to process emotions well.
There are other approaches:
- Take the 10-day Vipassana retreat. You would get in touch with the things that arises within you.
- There are various shamanic medicine ceremonies using some form of psychedelics. These are guided, though the quality will vary. Since psychedelics alter your experiences, it opens up ways to experience emotions.
- You can go to a licensed therapist. Like gurus, meditation teachers, and shamans, quality varies ... and sometimes, therapists will have their own pet theories (as you can see in other parts of the thread on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). A licensed hypnotherapist, or a psychologist/psychiatrist that knows how to use hynotherapy and practices meditation themselves are likely to be able to better help you with this. (Since we're not talking about behavioral modification, we're talking about becoming more self-aware). There may be other indicators, but I don't know this space well. There is usually stigma attached to this since people associate this with going to get "fixed" rather than going to get advice.
- There are also lots and lots of different kinds of seminars, workshops, etc. related to this, often crossing into the woo.
Books are the last resort, though if you read a method and like it, you can check out their their CDs, videos, and attend seminars. Books are good for sampling techniques, though without an in-person guide, it might be difficult to touch intense emotions. On the other hand, if you do have someone in your life that is emotionally sane, you could ask them to help you work with techniques from the book.
One book that is interesting is called the Sedona Method. I want to preface it to say that, what is written in the Sedona Method is not unique, though sometimes the language might make it appear so. The methods are solid though, and the authors used NLP to guide you through the experiences step by step. It is fairly accessible.
Finally, if all else fails or you have more questions or want other ideas or where to go looking for this skill, feel free to contact me. Indirect means of contact are in my profile.
With regards to underlying issues, you can really go deep with this. I just took Rick Hansons positive neuroplacticity training and it gave me solid tools to observe my own thought patterns and where emotions were making me afraid of taking steps forward and being in alignment with my true self.
Thank you for the thoughtful response and empathy! The second paragraph pretty much hits the nail.
I've been analysing, dissecting, journalling my upbringing for the past 10 years and have made substantial progress I would say. But mostly on a cognitive level and on a level of being able to understand that it was not normal/healthy. I'm not so sure about the level of emotions / truly internalising. I realised over the past year that I cannot fully heal alone, so I finally looked out for therapists (after pushing it away for months). Many books/articles/videos/podcasts about psychology, narcissistic parents, CPTSD as well as discussing everything with my siblings (we are 4) have helped validate my/our feelings and enabled me/us to understand. I've already read several books other commenters suggested. On a deeper level I still feel a bit broken, low self-esteem, passive / somewhat avoidant, daydreaming about being a hermit in a forest, full of self doubts, unsure who I am, etc. very often.
I hope therapy will lead to some breakthroughs on that level and, yeah, I will make sure I'll try to find a good fit.
Talking to yourself about yourself and seriously debugging, can be a lot of effort but long term, it is very rewarding.
I always say to people, “Emotions and intuition are just a complicated set of logic you don’t understand yet”.
Emotions can be a fog in your mind, blocking you from seeing the path from where you are to where you want to be.
Putting in the time to understand the root causes of your emotions, start to help map your mind and you can better navigate and find paths to your final goals.
reply