The Mindset

A Mindset. What is it? Can I eat it? No. A mindset is not eatable, but it can include eatable things. Allow me to explain. Google defines Mindset to be a person’s set of attitude. Even though very accurate this does not help anyone unless one already knows what a mindset is.

A mindset does not include emotional state, attitude may. Even though emotions and mindset do affect each other. But is one important difference: The mindset can and should be a conscious choice, whereas emotions are out of our control. As a result, the mindset is more steady than emotions.

How we handle our emotions may very well be a matter of our mindset. And how we choose to form our mindset may be influenced by our emotions. But they are not the same. Mindset can include eatable things, as it determines, what exactly we think about food.

The dictionary defines Mindset as a person’s way of thinking and her opinions. I like this definition. Because we can choose the way we think. We get to have control over that. Our mindset includes every attitude and also our general approach to life, the universe and everything. It includes our attitude towards working, relationships, spirituality, money, health, politics and climate change. As well as our opinion on art and literally everything around us. It also includes our goals and our wishes. Our desires and dreams. And our attitude towards those.

The most known and hyped mindsets are probably the minimalist mindset and the mindful mindset. But I do not believe that we have to choose one of the two, to form our own mindset. Keep in mind, that the mindset is probably one of the most personal things. I believe that a mindset can be changed. I believe everyone should tailor their mindset to their own needs to find happiness. But that is a whole new blogpost, that is what I am planning to write next.

A mindset does not only define our way of thinking and our attitude, a mindset can and in my opinion should define our whole life. The reason for that is simple. We have control over our mindset, if we define it such that it will take control of our life, we control our life by transitivity.

A passive mindset, will not affect a person’s life very much, in contrast to the active one. To understand that imagine Anna being criticized by her friend. She understands and even agrees with the criticism and moves on with her life. If Anna entertains an active mindset, she will improve, it may take her days, weeks or months depending on what the criticism was about, but in due time, she will not repeat that mistake. Anna takes responsibility for her life. And she deals with things. If she had a passive mindset, Anna would nod and smile and forget about it. She agrees, but her mindset is not to take action.

Improvement comes easier if one has an active mindset. Because with an active mindset, we have realized that this world does not do anything for us. As long as we have a passive mindset, our lives will not change the slightest bit. At least not in the direction we want. Because we may have dreams… but those are not coming true by chance. And concerning the little things in life, we don’t even really know what we want. We don’t really care. A passive mindset is just the result of ones upbringing. Just the sum of one’s surroundings.

An active mindset does not only contain the dream, it contains the steps to reach it. It contains a detailed roadmap. Someone with an active mindset will check back in with that roadmap and see if his or her actions bring him or her closer to that dream. Which at that point is not a dream anymore, but a goal.

The problem with switching from a passive mindset to an active one is, that it is so much work. We don’t only have to figure out what we want and how to get there. We have to motivate ourselves. And that turns out to be way more difficult, that it sounds. Taking the action of switching mindset, is already something that would be inherent to the active mindset, that is the very thing we are trying to acquire. And so we end up in a vicious cycle.

Most people with passive mindsets do not even realize, that their mindset is passive. Because it is how they have always lived. And when they don’t feel their best about their lives, they don’t realize, that it is not just a little thing bothering them. It is not just their job, friend or partner that is problematic. It is their entire mindset. Their way of thinking. Their attitude. That makes them unhappy. And they do not realize that unless they find a way to fix that, they will never find true peace and true self-confidence.

In addition I believe that many young people don’t quite understand the concept of a mindset. They all want to grow up and be their own boss, but they cannot take control of how they think, because they are still entertaining the same mindset they entertained as teenagers and children. I think, that we cannot be truly gown-up unless we understand how to take control of our own mind. This is true freedom. True independence.

What we want to vs. what we have to do

There is no such thing as “I have to do this.” But the alternative is to deal with the consequences.

Last week was exhausting. I had a midterm on Friday and the whole week I kept thinking: “I am so exhausted. I don’t want anything but sleep, but I have to keep going. I need to study.” But when the midterm was over and I had some time to make new to do lists and think about my whole situation I noticed a few things.

My real problem was my mindset
I wanted to study. I did not want to be sleeping or binging TV
But I couldn’t, because I was so tired
I’m not tired because of the workload, I am tired because of my mindset and the season

The more we force ourselves to do stuff, we don’t feel like wanting to do, the more tired we get mentally and the less energy we have. Often we just need to remember, why we want to do something. And remember, that we really don’t have to do it, if we don’t want to. This is a very empowering shift in mindset. It allows us to get back in control.

The other problem is the season. There are really nice aspects to it: it is cuddly weather and we get to wear the comfy clothes and drink tea and hot coco all Sunday long. It is perfectly acceptable to just stay in bed and do nothing for a little. We get chestnuts and gingerbread, chocolates and cookies. We light the scented candles and start listening to all the beautiful winter songs again. On the other hand there is the darkness and the cold. We get a Vitamin D deficiency. We dial back our physical activity. And this is what makes us so tired. For me there really just is one thing: more working out and a better sleep schedule. It gives a sense of control and it battles the exhaustion.

And again: we do not have to work out. But I want to. Because I want to study. And I want to be confident. And I want to have energy. And I know that regular work-outs will provide all those things.

Happiness: An elaboration

Here’s the thing: We all strive for happiness. But I think the term “happiness” is overused and therefore without meaning. So let’s have a closer look. I have found there are three kinds of happiness:

Momentary emotional happiness: excitement
Long term emotional happiness: base level happiness
Rational happiness

Excitement is the kind of happiness where someone is jumping up and down in joy, because the happiness cannot be contained. This kind we experience, when we for example see something pretty, or when we get a phone, or dress. It is the kind of happiness, that lasts for minutes, hours and in rare cases for a day or two. And it needs a trigger.

Base level happiness is way less outgoing. It is a state where a human being is content and no matter what happens in one’s daily life, we trust, that it will be alright. And while of course, we get mad or sad from time to time, we still have that underlying happiness and peace to keep us from letting the negative emotions get to us. It is however an emotion, because we feel happy at the core, even if we are going through a though patch.

Rational happiness is tricky: This is when we do not feel happy. We may even feel sad, but we know that we have no reason to feel that way because our life is more or less very good. It is when we keep telling ourselves, that we are fine. When we try to feel better, because we cannot see the reason for not being happy.

How do these affect our mental health and how can they be utilized?

Excitement is, what we get, if we are depending on someone or something for our happiness, this is why depending is an issue. Excitement can keep us from becoming base level happy. While it really only makes us momentarily happy. And that’s how we develop addictions. We feel happy for a bit, then it goes away and whatever it is that made us happy: we need it again. That can be drugs, alcohol, shopping, sex and watching TV or even things that we would not typically be viewed as potentially addictive like studying or reading or playing with a pet.

The problem with excitement really is the dependence, which again only occurs, if we are not happy on a base level. Let me explain: There is nothing wrong with having a glass of wine to loosen up once in a while. But we have a problem if we do not feel comfortable when we are sober anymore. This also ties in with my latest post about relationships: of course we get excited about our relationships. And of course we experience happiness beyond description. It is natural and great as long as we do not depend on that to make us happy. Because excitement is not base level happiness, which is really what makes us happy in the long run.

Rational happiness is what many of us have. We nourish it by practicing gratitude and by focusing our mind on the good things in life. It is what we can experience even when we are at our lowest emotional state. This can lead to frustration. Because we feel bad, but we know we should be fine. And we start faking. We start hating ourselves, for feeling down for no reason. It can also lead to us questioning if we are actually bad or if we make ourselves miserable.

On the bright side however rational happiness can help us tab into base level happiness. Because we can actively tell ourselves that our lives are good. And if we tell ourselves often enough at some point we will believe it. Of course we need experience to back this up, but in essence that is how it works.

And finally there is base level happiness. And I have hinted at it a lot: it is what we want to achieve. Because the others are either not emotional or they are to momentary. Both of them can help to achieve it. Because with excitement we can experience why we are happy. And rational happiness helps us to preserve that excitement. Helps us see, why we are actually happy. So in essence base level happiness is what we get when we combine excitement (pure emotion) with rational happiness (pure rationality). But there is another aspect to it: and this is the longevity of base level happiness. And this is what ties happiness to positivity and awareness: We experience the calm of this happiness, because we stopped searching for happiness outside our lives. We stopped thinking: “Once I do this or that life will be better.” or “Once I get this or that, everything will be easier.” and instead started loving what we are doing on a daily basis.

To start doing that rational happiness can help. It helps to identify the nice things. And then we can start feeling that happiness. When we go to bed, we can look forward to getting up because we can go do our jobs. Whatever that may be. At this point there is one important realization: We are not getting up, for our alarm clocks. We are getting up, because we chose to. Because there is a day awaiting us. And it will be an awesome day. And sure, there will be moments, when we wish we could just walk away, but isn’t there a reason, we are not walking away? Are we not sitting through that meeting to get ideas on how to improve? Are we not trying to understand that mathematical formula to be able to solve problems later on? And are those goals not what we genuinely want?

This is the beauty of base level happiness. It allows us to be happy with our life for the sake of our lives. It makes us independent and self-confident. And it gets us through the rough patches, because it is not only the exciting things in our lives, that we love, but also the constants: the things we do on a daily basis. And even if these things fork (Good Place equivalent for f*ck) us up hard, we trust that it will be alright. Because when it comes down to it, we chose them for a good reason. In my experience this makes life so calm. We stop thinking about what others think of us, because we are content. The fear just goes away. And deep down we know that when it comes down to it everything is just fine. We stop hating ourselves, because we are living the life we want to live.

How the heck do we achieve base-level happiness?

Create a vision of yourself. A vision of our lives. I elaborated on this in a previous post. When we start doing what we want to do, which is exactly what happens when we start working towards our vision, we can love what we are doing, even when it’s hard from time to time. And the other point is to enhance the other two kinds of happiness. For example: get a hobby that we love doing and gets us feeling good. And of course, enhancing rational happiness by trying to make our mindsets more positive.

Noticing how independent we actually are, because at any point in our lives we have the possibility to just walk away. This means, we do have the power. Even if we are fighting some sort of mental illness, we can still walk away. We can still choose what our life looks like, which is really all we could ask for isn’t it?

The 2nd Step: when to see a therapist

Before I went into therapy I gathered opinions. Many of them. The thought that I might need therapy had occured to me after the second time I had cut. But at that point, I found, that I had it under control, at least that was one of the reasons I told myself and to be honest, it was true and for months I did not cut again.

When I started cutting again, a very close friend of mine told me, that I needed help. He kept pushing and pushing. At some point he declared that he did not want to hear anything about my self-harm until I was seeing someone. Today I think that was mostly a mechanism to protect himself from my pain. And though it did make me quite angry, I think I always understood, why he did that.

So I asked the people around me for their opinions. And I got them. Some said, it would be a good idea. Others said, I had to decide that on my own. And I think that is very true. Therapy will not do you any good, if you do not want to get better.

When we realize that you are sick, we need to want to get better and find a way to make that happen. We are not alone. And we can get the help, we need. But we are allowed to find our very own healing process. Maybe it includes a therapist, maybe it does not. In the end that is entirely up to us. We just need to be able to say: “I am working on getting better.” And as long as we can say that without lying, we are good.

But what is the point, where we do need professional help? I think it is the point where the quality of our life is significantly decreased and we are not in a position to change that. That may be, because we cut ourselves, or because we have panic attacks, or we black out, or we cannot contain our anger. And unless we have an actionable plan to get better, seeing a therapist to help you find that actinable plan is a good idea. But again: In the end everyone has to decide that for themselves.

Hating ourselves

Self-hate is a problem. For some it is a reason to self-harm. For some it is a contributor. And for some it is just something they bury deep inside them. It devours them. And comes to the surface every time they feel that they failed.

Let’s take a step back. Where does self-hate come from? Why do we hate ourselves? Why? I think there are a variety of reasons. But a prerequisite to hate ourselves is that we believe that we are in control. Because if we have no control, we do not get to hate ourselves. Because if we cannot do anything, we cannot be guilty. And if we aren’t guilty, why hate ourselves?

That’s good news, isn’t it? We are in control. Which means that there is something about us, that we do not like. And we can change that. But what if we make the same mistake over and over and over again? What if we fall day after day? And we reach that point where we feel like it has no point. We do not want to get back up. We want to give in. We just want to hate ourselves for falling.

Again. Why? Why do we keep failing? We do we seem to be resistant to learning? There is no simple answer here. There are a few points that can be intertwined with each other. There are however a two major ones:

We do say it is a mistake, but we do not actually believe so.
We have not found the right way to avoid the mistake.

The first one is pretty much equal to lying to ourselves. It means that we are doing something that we like, but for some reason we think that it is wrong. Our believes collide with what we want. Well… sadly this has happened to me before. Several times. This can happen and sometimes we do not even know it is happening. We are not trying to lie to ourselves. But I think there is one crucial step we have to take, once we notice what is going on: Either we need to adjust our believes, to match our actions. Or we have to adjust our actions to match our believes.

And this is the second point: We might just have not found the right way to make sure we do not fall back into the same old traps. We need to develop strategies and techniques to trick ourselves into not making the same mistakes over and over. And it is fine to not find the right way immediatly. We all have to go our own ways. We are indviduals. We need to figure out what works for us. And often times that is a trial and error process. And that’s alright, as long as we keep going.

Now coming from someone who did self-harm and who has slipped down into the addiction of self-harm before that might sound very hypocritical. And yes. I have struggled with self-hate. Of course. I hate myself for cutting. And I hate myself, if I don’t. So yes. I might always be disgusted with myself, no matter what I do. But I also know that I do not have to hate. No one does.

Again: Failing is part of living. Falling is part of living. But Life is not about our failures. It is about how we got back up again. It is about how we grew from our failures. How we managed to go another day without cutting. How we lived our lives smiling a little bit more every day.

We do not have a reason to hate ourselves, for our mistakes. Not as long as we honestly fight them. Not as long as we try to become better. To not make them. Make plans to avoid them. Take action. Know that we are the ones forging our future. Or choose to make those mistakes. And then deal with the consequences. The choice really is ours.

But no matter what we do: There is no reason to hate ourselves. Because hate is only destructive.

Fake-It-Until-You-Make-It vs. Victim-Thinking

What is Victim-Thinking. My quick answer is: toxic! Victim-Thinking is what we can easily fall into, when we suffer from something like self-harm. We tell ourselves, that it is not our fault. Tell ourselves, that we need to love ourselves, and take care of ourselves. And it is so easy to become lethargic. To blame everything on our self-harm. Because when everything has it’s reason in a disorder that we have no control over, we cannot be held responsible for anything. Which is basic determinism. But if we cannot be held responsible we can get rid of our entire judical system.

But we do have control over what we think about ourselves and I say considering ourselves a self-harm-victim is not healthy. Because that allows us to give up the fight. But don’t we all want to live in peace? And why should we not stop fighting, if it allows us to be at peace? Giving up may seem like we are achiving peace. But we really aren’t. Because giving in to our pain, will not release us in the long run, but hurt us even more.

So, if we are not victims, then what are we? That is up to everyone of us. We have a variety of attributes, that make us who we are. And self-harm is not one of them. We can choose one or a few of those attributes and decide that we shall be known for those. This can be anything, your hobby, to the way you talk to other, to the attitude you have towards your daily life. Focus on those. Picture the person you want to be and become that person. Actively. Choose to be that person. Rather than “just the person, who is always sad and hurts herself”.

The other extreme you can easily fall into is Fake-It-Until-You-Make-It. It is not less dangerous then victim-thinking. And in my eyes it is just as immature. The difference between just faking something and what I described in the last paragraph is, that one is taking an attribute, that naturally is ours and enhancing it. Making that one better, which results in us being a better person. Say we would like to be more positive (I choose that as an example, because I think it is so important). Being more positive can be achieved by appreciating the things around us. But there are two ways we can do that:

Seeing a random thing and deciding to like it.
Being on the lookout for things that we like.

The first is faking it. Because weare forcing yourself to like something, while we might actually even hate it. This works for a little. And sometimes faking it can jump-start us to get to appreciate new things, that we think we might like. Studying for example. Getting started is hard. But if we are studying what we love at some point it will become easy. In those situations faking can be okay. But only for a little while. If we fake for longer, we destroy us, because we are working against our will.The second is exactly what we want to do: we are not inventing an entirely new us, but we find something that we like about ourselves and enhance it. So afterwards we have more reason to love ourselves and are actually better, than before.