Mindfulness, Self-talk & Optimism

In times like these, your mind might work against you, exaggerating and dramatizing everything …

“Oh, what if I didn’t find toilet papers in the supermarket ! how will I clean my shit then” “What if my company goes bankrupt” “What if this situation continues …”

These are just examples of how far your brain will go, probably to alert and protect you. However, this can have severe consequences on your mind and body such as constant anxiety, weaker immunity, and bad decision making.

You need to be mindful and optimistic

The only solution I know for this problem is mindfulness, which is (from my experience) training yourself to observe your self-talk, understand where it comes from, handle it by accepting or rephrasing to a more positive and optimistic narrative. There are many articles and content about mindfulness out there, you can use meditation, yoga, focus exercises … however, the way I learned to be mindful was by pushing myself to observe my self-talk as much as I can, until it became a habit.

Let’s see a practical example: say you observe your mind saying,

“Shit, what if I go tomorrow to the supermarket and found it empty?”

At this point, you have the choice of moving in this direction, overthinking and then running to the supermarket and overbuy everything and even after that, you will still be anxious…

The other way is to handle this thought by thinking about it positively as well as putting a Plan-B, you can say,

“I don’t think this will happen, it is impossible for all supermarkets to be empty, even if that is the case, it will refill the next day, and even if it didn’t, I still have 2–3 days of food anyway, and even if I didn’t I can still ask my friends for help”

You can also use acceptance to your advantage, in cases where you have no control just ask yourself:

Would it help ?

Finally, try to invest your energy thinking about the positive aspects of Corona like the positive effects on climate change and the extra time you got by working from home.

It might take you months to change your mind towards being more mindful and optimistic, but trust me it is worth it, mental skills as such will help you make better decisions and have a better relationship with your colleagues, family, and friends …