WHERE IS YOUR INNER DEVELOPMENT LEADING YOU
By Melisa Marzett
People happen to fall into the trap and I am not an exception. Do I know where my inner development is leading me? That is a good question I will try to answer with the following article. Therefore, there are many special-made psychological pictures and unfortunately, I belong to that kind of person who falls within most of them. Let me tell you about a few out of them so you could get an idea of my inner development.
A trap of promising future
This is kind of a trap I got it when I was a student. This trap, in which young people more often fall, can also be called a trap of unfulfilled expectations. The trap of a rainbow future lies in overly optimistic expectations about the future and the reassessment of one’s capabilities.
In particular, the majority of adolescent girls present their future husband as beautiful, attentive and well-to-do, without thinking about what the actual percentage of handsome, thoughtful and wealthy men is to the total male population, and how big the competition is in this regard.
As one gains life experience from a person who adequately perceives reality, ideas about their capabilities and prospects change, becoming more objective, while a person trapped in a rainbow future, not noticing the obvious, continues to hover in the clouds until painful disappointment will not lower him to the ground.
Frustration, in this case, turns out to be much more difficult and painful than it would be for a person who is more soberly assessing reality. In this case, the pain is caused not so much by the circumstances that led to the collapse of hopes, but by the destruction of the carefully cherished and fostered “picture of the bright future.”
As a result, not too tragic life events can be perceived as a catastrophe, as “the end of everything,” although in reality, this is not the end of life, not the future, but the end of an unrealistic dream of the future, which, you see, is a different matter.
The counter-act, in this case, is the realization that our life, at any moment, can change in one direction or the other in the most unpredictable way. Instead of clinging to dubious fantasies about the future, increase your possibilities in the present, try to see and use the chances that life gives you, learn to be flexible and ready for change, and then, perhaps, in time you will achieve even more than you wanted — at the beginning, avoiding the pain and disappointment arising from the collapse of unfulfilled expectations.
The past-positive trap
This is what is happening to me now after divorce. It is one of the most common pitfalls that people over 30 years old mostly fall into.
Instead of living for today, a person with nostalgic melancholy recalls the past, dreaming of returning the “golden days of childhood,” first love, friends, the lost feeling of lightness and lightness of being, etc. As a result, he has the belief that “everything the best is over, «that he will never be so happy and other thoughts of this kind.
Living in the past, a person not only spends his emotional energy on nostalgic experiences but also programs himself to the fact that “he will never be so good again.” It is quite natural that under such conditions, he has neither the strength nor the desire to look for positive experiences in real life, in the events taking place now.
The counter-reception may not be a selectively positive memory of the past, but more complete memories, in which the good along with with with the bad, the pleasant with the unpleasant. This will help to understand that childhood or youth, as well as life now, besides enjoyable experiences, was also filled with problems and conflicts.
Remembering unpleasant episodes from the past, one should rethink his life strategy and understand that the problem is not that the present is worse than the past, but that a person immersed in nostalgic memories does not make active attempts to make his present better, to find more joy in it and opportunities.
A negative prediction trap
This trap is my current condition, along with the trap mentioned above. None other than our instinct of self-preservation places the trap into which many people fall. Thanks to civilization, man has got rid of practically all the dangers threatening him in nature: predators, hunger, and thirst do not threaten him or cold, even diseases, with rare exceptions, are treatable. As a result, the remaining almost out of work, but the instinct of self-preservation that has not disappeared switches from real danger to a person to imaginary threat, and the person begins to present all sorts of troubles that have not yet happened, but may well occur.
The mass media also contributes to the strengthening of negative fantasies – from the news that continually talks about the horrors of our lives and ending with soap operas, whose heroes suffer from compulsive regularity from misfortunes falling on them. Empathizing with the screen heroes, some people identify with them and begin to imagine that something similar could happen to them.
The experience of imaginary future troubles, tragedies and disasters not only takes a tremendous amount of energy, but also does not allow a person to focus on the events taking place at the moment, and effectively solve current problems. In most cases, negative forecasts are not justified, but despite this, the damage has already been done.
Often, the fear of what may happen, especially the pursuing of a person over time, does more harm than the unpleasant event itself.
The counter-act, in this case, is control over your thoughts. As soon as you notice that you have fallen into fantasies about a negative future, turn your attention to the present. Look for the right side in life; try to think about positive things. Predicting the future is impossible, and worrying about what you do not know is utterly pointless.
Convince yourself that if any trouble happens, you will find a way to overcome it, and having overcome it, you will forget about it.
About the author:
Melisa Marzett is a freelance writer and is fond of psychology. She is currently working for http://
