After having similar experiences and feelings I found that a great deal of it was influenced by the stories I was telling myself. I would constantly replay conversations and past memories of perceived failings, longing for do overs, if only, should have, could have, a consent stream of negative self-talk.

Of course I was aware of all the self-help advice to change the stories and think positive however I wasn’t able to do that.

Like you my attempt at meditation and positive thinking would end badly as I got overwhelmed by past memories and associated negative self-talk. Worse I added the failure of not being able to create a better story or positive thinking to the list to make myself feel worse. (It occurred to me that I might be addicted to feeling bad.)

I wasn’t able to replace the negative stories with positive thinking but wondered if I could just stop telling story’s in those moments.

I set the intention to noticed when I was telling my victim or villain stories and the stop. Instead of filling the space with analyses or “positive” thinking, I would take a breath and focus on doing what I was currently doing.

It was odd as I started to notice an empty space in which in which I could be a detached observer and better respond to the experience.

I had to be careful as I didn’t want to become detached from my experiences or feeling and become apathetic. It’s a difficult balance as the lure to detach fully from feeling is a temptation for me.

However by not filing every space with a stories, replays and analyses, positive or negative, it has helped in creating a space where it became possible be and not get lost in frantic inner reactions.

I still at times feel empty, lost and detached, dead to my experiences, however by stopping the self-talk and not filling the space in I am less likely during those times to use the experiences to spiral deeper into the pit, essentially beating myself up for beating myself up, for beating myself up, for feeling bad, for feeling bad, for feeling unhappy, for feeling unhappy….. (Which is what I was addicted to, feeling something by feeling bad about myself)

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by Peter.