Hi Eishita,
Welcome to this forum/site. I suspect mood swings are partially the product of your age and the associated changes that are happening with your body and mind.

I have learned that it takes time to change our thinking and behavior. I would say hang in there. Note and celebrate the good times. When you get your lows, go to your gratitude journal and take note of what is good about you and your life.

Be gentle with yourself and acknowledge what is special about you.

Metta,
Mark

Hello Eishita,

I just joined this forum and was about to write my first post, but felt compelled to respond to you first 🙂

I have this view/theory on trying to conquer negative thoughts with positive affirmations: it doesn’t stop the negativity, but it just introduces another voice into the mix. So there’s going to be a battle between two separate voices, each telling you a different truth. This can feel like an endless circle or constantly bouncing back and forth between two extremes.

My view on meditation is that it’s the time when you silence those voices completely. All of them. You stop verbalizing things and explaining to yourself what’s going on. You simply experience things without creating a story about the experience. To me, it’s been a real blessing to learn how to do that, and it can be learned with a bit of practice. The momentary relief from the chatter is wonderful. That’s when it’s easier to see that life is actually pretty neutral. You are neither good nor bad and there is no such thing as “not good enough” or “better than others”. To be able to compare, you need words, and if the words are taken away, you’ll exist in a space where everything is as it should be, and there’s no better or worse.

So I would propose that you take a moment and just try to stop verbalizing what you’re feeling, seeing, hearing… For example, look around you and allow your senses to gather information, but don’t start analyzing it. If you see a glass, just see it and don’t start telling yourself “that is a glass”. I know you will, but just try to practice being aware that you constantly produce words that explain to you what’s happening. Then try to let go of that for a moment and just be. Allow your surroundings to just be as well, without attaching descriptions to everything. You’ll get better at it with practice.

It’s honestly a really good skill to have, because you can then create serenity when it’s needed. The purpose is not to stop feeling, and there’s nothing wrong with being emotionally sensitive to the events in your life. That is just one of your great abilities. The point is to stop ruminating over the pain (yes, I see the irony of my nickname) and creating an identity based on a passing thought. The point is to let go of words that are hurtful and not internalize them. Not only the ones that your own mind creates, but also those that pass the lips of other people. With social media, it’s so common to just blurt out every passing thought without actually thinking of the consequences or whether the words are true or not. As a result, we have masses of people stuck in a cycle of being hurtful and getting hurt. It’s good to give yourself a moment of rest from all that.

Since our identities also rely on words, it can feel a bit weird when there’s no way to describe what you feel and who you are, but rest assured: you’ll not disappear. You’ll just have another view on what reality actually is without some of the constructs of the mind. You might realize your own power and how limiting words can be. You can also put it all in perspective, because you have the power over the words, not the other way around. They are a tool for you to use, not shackles that describe your existence.

You’re much more powerful than you realize and will ever be able to describe 🙂 We all are!

Cheers,
Armi