Serious How do you 're-center'?

[Six]

What's your method, if you have one?

How do you restore or re-balance your mind when you're overwhelmed, behaving frantically, pondering, stressing, worrying, you name it. How do you calm yourself? Are you able to? Do you actually follow certain steps to focus on your breathing through mindfulness, do you confide in someone, does your religion play a role? Is it music, reading a book, journaling?

Let's hear it.

 

[Shu]

There are two things that come to mind that I have not really done for myself lately.

1) Going for a drive (or just walking around) with music has always tend to cool my head and start to collect. It's one of the many things that in the past I used to do as while I was in my late teens. I tend to over process information from time to time and need the ability to actually put my mind to something aside from the external self. I believe in existentialism so it's a bit of make or break sometimes for me. When I break, well driving with music is a go to. If I don't have a car, just straight music and walking around outside does help.

2) Water. I sometimes like to put my head below water and drown out the world. It could be lake water or it could be pool water. My issue is there is so many senses where an empath can literally not block out. I generally think about others before I try to make a dent in myself. To recenter myself I have to get my mind to quiet along with the atmosphere around me. It's a technique where you hold your breath and close your eyes and slowly let out air. While doing so focus on trying to stay near the bottom of the pool. (can't say the same for lake). It's a common meditation while above water, but below water it's just want more sense to mute. (hearing)

 

[Paddy McGee]

I do pretty simple breathing and visualisation exercises. When I'm overwhelmed, I try to excuse myself from the situation, close my eyes and focus on my breathing. Inhale, hold.... Exhale, hold.

By following a pattern, I find I can retain some sense of self during the issue. I only really need to do it when I'm particularly upset or out of whack- major family rows, etc but I try to be mindful whenever stressed.

I find I can program better when I'm relaxed and have a modus operandi.

As for stresses and such- I find getting away and smashing stuff somewhere alone helps a lot. I really should take up some combat sports training, like kickboxing.

 

[Jake]

Probably not a surprise to anyone who actually knows me, but my escape is music. I listen to music a lot

I like to just hide my phone somewhere, turn off my laptop and Internet devices and just get myself lost in cheesy pop-rock hits blaring way too loudly in my house. It sounds so silly, haha, but you know what? It works for me really well! It's like a mental detox. Sad songs are good too since they're usually slower in tempo and less energetic. Of course then I might just make myself sad too... but that usually passes. Follow this with a nap and even the most stressful days don't seem all that bad anymore.

 

[Bambi]

My signature move is bottling things up for months then exploding ina glorious fashion. Makes me look like an absolute psycho but it works. I'm not one for talking about my issues, I will just eventually rant in someones direction, probably threaten to stab a motherfucker then harmony is usually restored until something else pisses me off and niggles away at me

 

[charmy]

This is actually something I’ve been working on for the past couple of years as I tend to worry too much about a lot of things. If something didn’t go well, it used to stay on my mind for a while - it could be a week later (or longer) and I’d still be thinking about it!

I tried a lot of mindfulness strategies which I think have helped a lot over time - even just little things such as writing down three positives for the day so that I focus more on this rather than the negatives. Writing down how I’m feeling has also been a good outlet.

However, my number one thing to do when I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed is music. I’ll go to my room and put on my favourite tracks and just get lost in my own world. If I want to brighten my mood, I’ll try something upbeat, and if I want to relax I’ll go for something slower.

 

[blakstang98]

Music, plain and simple. When I'm at work and things are crazy and busy, I just put my headphones and go back to work. When I'm working in the office, I am completely separated from any conversation, idle chatter, gossip or even outside life stresses.

I suppose when I'm outside of work I don't really center myself. I tend to have a hard time shutting my mind off. Music can help me sort of put everything on hold, but when the music goes off, the problems come back. I never really let a problem go until it's solved, so I guess I dwell on it. But hey, at least I don't have unproductive "solutions", like drinking them away or worse. Not to sound too much like Mr. T, but life is full of problems and there is no easy way out of them, unfortunately. So get your 8 hours of sleep, don't do drugs and drink milk!

 

[Galadín]

Like most I reckon, my preferred way to re-balance my mind is to plug in to music. I take a bit of alone time, and space out to some tunes, not thinking about much of anything while the music just flows or rushes along. No matter what genre of music, I find this pretty peaceful.

I'm actually really bad at taking the time to clear out the negative mind stress, although I listen to music a whole whole lot, I also need the personal space in order to get some perspective or calm. It can get difficult to distance oneself from the maelstrom of life and/or responsibilities to refocus and find your footing. However, although I have been struggling with this, there have been times where even a few minutes on a bus journey or walk to and from work/college with music playing in my ears, which has given some peace of mind or realisation of what I can or cannot control, and as they say, "Every Little Helps!".

 

[Miko]

I tend to be a very angry person (Or maybe just easily angered?) and calming down is really hard for me because in the moment I don't want to be calm, because I'm angry

A lot of people posted (a year ago, sorry!) about music being a good therapy, but for me it only helps me get out the anger when I play my 'beast mode' playlist & work through the moment. I get a lot done during this time though!

When I'm stressed I have two go-to things, depending on the type of stress and extent. The first, usually, is to just sleep. Take a nap, go to bed early, sleep in, whatever. It's hard to do now that I've got a kiddo and he's a little older (and into everything!) but I try and nap when he does when I really need it. They say adults need 7-9 hours of sleep a night but I swear I require more! Also, while I agree you shouldn't always go to bed angry with your spouse/SO, I find that in the morning I'm just so much better! But we usually only ever 'fight' over silly things, and usually it's because one or both of us is tired. By morning we're both over it, rested up & are just able to let go of that minor difference we had.

My second method of calming down, de-stressing & whathaveyou is to clean. Honestly I hate cleaning but I like a clean house. It isn't so much cleaning (dusting, dishes, vacuuming, etc.,) that I really like more than it is just organizing and seeing the results. Last month I came home from work one night, walked into our closet, and just sat down and went through everything. little. thing. It took 3 hours! Then the next day I would just walk in every few hours just to look at it .

It's interesting how it's different for everyone! I'm a homebody and I enjoy my time alone as well.

 

[Mitsuki]

Everyone has pretty much mentioned methods that I also use as well, from music, to journaling, cleaning / organizing, going to the gym, etc. Talking to close friends helps immensely, but I confide to online friends than I do with friends irl.

Oh and emails, where I can quietly listen and collect my thoughts.

Next month - early July I will be out of state visiting my brother in Wyoming, and we will be driving up there so I'm looking forward to it. I think tuning out the environment that stresses me out should definitely pick me up and recharge my battery. So, I guess a trip far from home counts? Being surrounded by nature, streams, birds chirping... that's my kind of peace.

 

[Daenoxiis]

Like as in, without smoking weed?
The way I center myself sober is by overloading my brain with an infinite amount of distractions and life just goes on. I kind of call it "tricking The Observer Effect" because similarly to The Observer Effect, my feelings will meander about uncontrollably unless I have more cognitive thoughts than hours and days ahead of me, and even then, I mean it's not full-proof. Eventually, I have to allow myself to feel what I feel and deal with negativity directly, but I have to micromanage it instead of letting it overwhelm me. This is something that due to depression and the massively, massively fucked up life I've had, that I'm only just now getting around to figuring out how to do for myself.

The general idea is that I first make a list of things I want to do such as cleaning around the home, or grocery shopping, or doing something genuinely productive for myself to get me started in good habits again after coming out of a depressive episode. Like with cleaning a messy room, ya just kinda gotta pick a spot and start, and once you start it gradually gets better.

I brainstormed a list of video games, movies, and shows for myself years ago, as well as a series of academic subjects to watch documentaries on or read up online about that I find interesting and so when things get hard for me I defer to these things first because I have the most amount of a time-sink developed in these things.

Learning to actually wade through the waters and manage my feelings though, is a whole different thing. That's something that I do in solidarity. Ir's a very delicate practice in development and just as disordered thoughts can be triggered so can micromanaging myself and so that is why I try to do so alone, as to eliminate the factors of the potential influence of others against me that could turn out to be a negative experience instead of a positive one.

Nothing makes me actually feel though, like playing my bass guitar. Any musician will have a stronger relationship to musical outlet than they will probably to anything else in existence, especially if you keep up with it.

I've also began a diet and exercise plan as practical focal points. I've never been particularly "in-shape," but there's always room for self improvement and as I'm getting older my health is growing considerably more important to me faster and faster. I'm never gonna be the muscle dude, but I mean, I'd like to get back to the healthiest point for my body that I've been at in my life and so because of my age being a factor as a motivator I'm again using that as a focus and timesink as well.

Almost nothing about me is "normal." I stick out enough that people have found me online under different handles and usernames over the years purely based on how I write. That, kinda freaks me out a bit, so that's part of why I'm a bit paranoid about socializing even online in too much detail.

Bottom line being:

Basically, I try to keep my mind focused on other things, and jumping from one thing to the next, so that the negativity never totally catches up to me to the point that it consumes me. The great irony of this is that almost everything that creatively and artistically influences me has origins in negativity. However, none of that actually reflects how I feel in the moment, my creative influences are not the same as my mood or feelings. It can be if I allow it to be, but on the general whole it usually isn't.

I need to write less novels in posts. x_x