How to stay in a good mood after self-healing

After self-healing, there is no need to be in a "hard concave" continuous good mood. Being able to accept the natural ups and downs of emotions and not treating occasional depression as a failure of healing is the core of maintaining a stable state.

There are two common sayings in the healing circle. One is that once you are healed, you should always stay positive. The emergence of negative emotions means that the healing is incomplete and you have returned to your original shape. The other is that if you want to be happy all the time, you have to block out all the people and things that may make you unhappy. Even the complaints from close relatives and friends and normal communication conflicts at work must be avoided to preserve the results of healing.

When I just came out of a state of persistent anxiety two years ago, I believed in the second theory, and deliberately blocked all the friends in my circle of friends who liked to complain. Even when my mother complained at home that I had not washed the socks I had saved for a week, I would immediately hide in my room and wear headphones to listen to mindfulness audio, for fear of being affected by "negative energy." As a result, during that time, my mother always secretly asked my father if I had been wronged outside, and the atmosphere at home was even more tense than when I was anxious before.

Xiao Zhou, who I did cognitive behavioral therapy with before, was even more extreme than I was. After she got out of her depression, she listed a two-page "good mood rule" for herself. She had to drink a cup of hot milk tea and spend 15 minutes in the sun every day, she was not allowed to quarrel with anyone, and she had to write down three happy things every day before going to bed. Even if she was not happy, she had to make it up. As a result, at the end of last year, she was scolded by her boss because of a problem with the project. She couldn't hold back her tears on the spot. She broke down when she got home. She said that it took her more than half a year to get better. Why was she so useless that she cried at the slightest suggestion? She was depressed for three more days before she recovered.

Later, the two of us chatted with the consultant and came around. How can there be any "eternal good mood"? Just like you have finally repaired the leaky roof, you can't just hope that it won't rain every day just because you are afraid of leaking again, right? When there are two raindrops floating in during a shower, just wipe it with a rag. Just because there are two drops of water, you can't think that the roof is repaired in vain. It has to be dismantled and repaired, right?

I have released the blocked Moments for a long time now. Occasionally, I will comment on my friends complaining about working overtime, and they will join in the fun and scold the boss. When my mother talks about me, I will tell her, "This is called washing together to save water." I turn around and hand her an orange, and she forgets to scold me. Xiao Zhou also threw away those two pages of rules. Now he carries a small notebook as big as his thumb with him. When he really feels bad, he will take it out and draw a little crying face. After drawing, he will do whatever he needs to do. On the contrary, in the past six months, there has never been a moment when his whole body collapsed.

In fact, there is really no need to think of "maintaining a good mood" as a KPI that must be completed. It is never a fake flower in a glass cover, which will break when touched. It is a sunflower planted randomly on your balcony. Occasionally, you forget to water it and it wilts in the sun for two days. If you pour some water and turn it around, it will stand up again the next day. It is useless because after it wilts once, you feel that you don't know how to grow flowers.