Have you ever had a negative experience during the day and mostly pushed it to the side but then couldn’t stop thinking about it while you tried to fall asleep that night? I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve done that. I have an idea as to why this occurs and some things in mind that may help manage it.
Most people have tons of distractions around them during the day: electronic devices, books, other people, animals, and so on. It’s easy to get lost in one or more of these and be able to temporarily block out negative thoughts. As night approaches, however, things begin to settle down and the distractions start to recede. It becomes harder to find something to keep those negative thoughts at bay and they seem to slowly become more powerful. When it’s time for bed and there are no more external distractions (the lights are off, electronic devices are put away, everyone else is gone, etc), thoughts that were merely background noise earlier can become overwhelming. At that point, it’s much more difficult to simply shrug them off and focus on something else.
I think another part of this involves the failure to work through negative thoughts. This is understandable as working through negativity requires facing painful memories and that’s never a fun or enjoyable process. However, the alternative, which is pushing them to the side or burying them deep down, causes a lot of trouble over time. Emotions that are not transmuted or even fully acknowledged will reappear at some point. Maybe they’ll come back in the form of a nightmare, a sharp remark directed at a loved one, or a general feeling of unease. Someone who snaps at you may be using you as a target for frustrations that they encountered long before your paths ever crossed; because they didn’t work through their pain, they eventually took it out on you, punishing you for their own shortcomings.
This is why I think it’s important to spend some time in solitude and with as few distractions as possible. Getting away from the noise of modern life prevents you from seeking refuge from your mind in things outside yourself and forces you to confront whatever’s bothering you. After you’ve let your thoughts run for a bit (even if they’re thoughts you’d rather not have but feel like you have to acknowledge or express properly), you can focus on slowing your breathing and gradually entering a state of presence. Then you can work on healing that past pain and transmuting it through reframing yourself, giving yourself a state break, remind yourself that you aren’t responsible for someone else mistreating you, etc; this way, you can truly move past the pain without it sticking around to cause problems later on.
Although I’ve been doing most of the above for a good while now, I only just recently started feeling through whatever emotions arise, even ones I’d rather avoid. I think I was suppressing negative emotions for a long time while thinking that they weren’t getting to me. Since I started working through them more and feeling them fully, I’ve felt a lot better. I think being honest with myself about my situation also helps; I think I was simply mistaken about how I felt rather than intentionally deceiving myself, but either way something was getting lost in translation. I still find distractions (especially taking cold showers and doing other challenging activities that increase my mental toughness by getting my focus out of my head and into my body) to be temporarily useful by keeping the negativity at bay until I have time to work through it, but I’m trying not to use them excessively anymore so that the negativity doesn’t come back during quiet moments. This video from Charlie at Charisma on Command does a great job breaking down and explaining these concepts. I had written most of this post before I watched the video, so I was pleasantly surprised to find another great moment of serendipity and see how much it overlaps with my thoughts on this subject. Charlie’s videos have helped me out a lot and I hope they, as well as my post, can help you too, especially with incredibly important yet seldom-discussed subjects such as working through negativity.