There is a meditative technique that I learned about from The Power of Now and several other places. It involves “watching” my thoughts instead of getting stuck in them. This took me a long time to understand and be able to do, so I’ll explain what I mean as best as I can.
I start by closing my eyes and taking several slow, deep breaths, focusing on each breath as I go. After a few minutes of this, I feel like I can “step back” from my thoughts and watch them as they come up, almost like watching the different floats in a parade. It then becomes easy to avoid labeling any of my thoughts as good or bad. Whether I begin thinking of a happy experience or an upsetting experience, I can sit back and simply observe the thought (as well as my reaction to it if I have one) instead of identifying with the thought and losing myself in it. If I start to get hung up on a particular thought, I’ll acknowledge how I’m feeling about it (which is as simple as thinking or saying “That feels like an angry/sad thought” without condemning the thought or feeling), make a conscious effort to let go of that feeling when I exhale (sometimes it takes several breaths before I can fully let it go), and then return to focusing on my breath. That helps me get back to a place of neutrality and mental quietude.
I normally do this shortly after waking up in the morning and right before going to bed at night. Recently, I’ve started doing it at several points during the day, especially when I feel myself getting overwhelmed. This practice has been incredibly helpful for avoiding stress and managing it when it appears. I used to identify with nearly every thought that entered my head and give it a great deal of energy by continuously thinking about it, which gave me crazy mood swings and made me miserable much of the time. When I started looking into controlling my mindsets, I would try suppressing negative thoughts and only thinking positively, which worked for a little while but resulted in me exploding when the pent-up emotions all came flooding back at once. Watching my thoughts has been by far the best strategy I’ve ever tried for handling my emotions. If I’m really on the ball, I can notice when negative thoughts begin to appear and start observing them rather than letting them take me over; when I’m too late to prevent that from happening, noticing that I’ve lost my way and watching my thoughts helps me settle down and regain my composure. Being able to distance myself from my thoughts also helps me heal from painful experiences as I can see them more objectively instead of getting trapped in the pain from the memory. I highly recommend trying this out for yourself and seeing if it helps you. As far as I can tell, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.