A good friend of mine recommended this Philosophical Meditation exercise to me because he saw that I was stressing out. This exercise is meant to help sort out your thoughts when you feel overwhelmed by asking you a series of questions that you write down on a piece of paper (or Google Doc!). For a detailed set of instructions for this exercise click here.
In the rest of the post, I share my own responses to the questions in the exercise.
Enjoy!
The Brainstorming Session
The first part of the exercise is meant to help you identify what’s on your mind. You only need to answer each question with a word or phrase because it is meant to be a brainstorming session.
For instance, someone told me that he didn’t think 1 million dollars was a lot of money and that got me upset. So for the question “What am I currently upset about,” I wrote down “million dollars.”
What am I currently upset about?
- Million Dollars
What am I currently anxious about?
Pressure cooker
Need to be perfect and fast
Not enough time
What am I currently curious or excited about?
Blog
social media engagement
1st mover advantage ⇒ blockchain social media
Diving Deeper
In the second part of the exercise, we answer a set of questions that help us analyze the stuff we brainstormed about in the previous section. You only need to answer the questions that are relevant to your situation. I only answered the questions that were relevant to me below. For a full list of the questions, click here.
Upset questions
Retell yourself the upsetting incident in great detail as if you were telling it to an extremely kind and patient friend.
An acquaintance told me that he didn’t think 1 million dollars was a lot of money. This person is wealthy.
You’ve been hurt. It’s normal to be hurt. How have you been hurt?
Hurt is too intense of a way to describe how I feel about this incident. I am upset. It shouldn’t bother me but it does. It bothers me because money is always on my mind.
I realize that money stresses me out more that in should. No matter what happens, at the end of the day I am able to pay the bills. I shouldn’t allow that comment to get to me but I think it bothers me because, although I didn’t grow up poor, 1 million dollars is a life changing amount of money for myself and all the people I know.
How might a nice person have ended up doing what this person did to you? If they weren’t actively mean, what other explanations could there be for the hurt they have caused?
The person that got me upset is a good and well intentioned person. He definitely didn’t mean to upset me during our conversation. He grew up in a situation where money was never an issue for him and I am happy that that was the case for him.
If this were to carry on, what might be the catastrophe?
There would be no catastrophe whatsoever.
What are you afraid might happen if this were to continue?
There is nothing to be afraid of if this continues.
Have you been affected like this before?
Yes. I get offended too easily. I am pretty sure this is because I have a delicate ego. I should take steps to make sure that I don’t feed into that ego.
If you had to pin down an incident in the past that this somehow reminds you of, what would it be? Is there a pattern here?
I have a pattern of getting easily offended. I don’t like this tendency in myself.
If this had happened to a friend, how would you advise them?
I would advise him to act in the moment and then let it go afterwards.
If you hear something you don’t like, bring it up at the moment but keep it light and control your emotions. I would recommend making a light joke about it that lets that person know I think he is being ridiculous without making a big deal over the situation.
If this starts an argument, talk about it and then let it go. Don’t ruminate about the results of that argument after the fact. People have a right to their own opinions and more importantly, they do not owe you anything. If you linger too much on words, it will only distract you from your long term goals. Remember, it is not the person in question that is ruining your day, it is your over sensitive ego.
What might you be able to learn from this upset?
I have an unrealistic emotional response to something that ultimately has no long term impact on who I am or my goals in life. I need to focus on not letting something as small as words have such an impact on my day-to-day life.
That’s it for Part 1!
Check-in next week to see what I answer in the “Questions for Anxiety” and “Questions for Excitement” sections! If you are feeling overwhelmed and need to organize your thoughts, do the exercise to recenter yourself. Click here for a full list of questions for this exercise.
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