This was interesting, putting everything into the context of: ourselves doing whatever they can to avoid pain.
I started doing a similar counting down thing a few years ago, in order to make myself get into ice cold showers in the middle of winter, before I was used to it :) I made it a game, I'd just go, "3, 2, 1, GO!" and then have to jump in no matter what. It worked well, now I always just jump in right away. It's still uncomfortable, but I just don't worry about it til I'm already in...
Never thought of doing it for negative thoughts. Though, is this sort of related? I have a little thing I say to myself, which I got from a book once - I say "I am me myself", and this is my cue to immediately be focused, calm and feeling like my most normal self... I've been doing it for years. Originally I started doing it almost as a joke, to dispel any entities which might be possessing me (this is what it was for in the book I read), but gradually it became a general "I don't feel like myself. I want to feel like myself now." thing. It's really quite weird how well it works, having inadvertently trained myself with that phrase.. Any mental noise immediately stops and I'm suddenly aware of how all of my body is feeling.
Gonna start doing the 5,4,3,2,1 now!
("5, 4, 3, 2, 1.5, 1.25, 1.125, 1.0625, 1.03125................." - Brandon "Zeno" W.)
I started doing a similar counting down thing a few years ago, in order to make myself get into ice cold showers in the middle of winter, before I was used to it :) I made it a game, I'd just go, "3, 2, 1, GO!" and then have to jump in no matter what. It worked well, now I always just jump in right away. It's still uncomfortable, but I just don't worry about it til I'm already in...
Never thought of doing it for negative thoughts. Though, is this sort of related? I have a little thing I say to myself, which I got from a book once - I say "I am me myself", and this is my cue to immediately be focused, calm and feeling like my most normal self... I've been doing it for years. Originally I started doing it almost as a joke, to dispel any entities which might be possessing me (this is what it was for in the book I read), but gradually it became a general "I don't feel like myself. I want to feel like myself now." thing. It's really quite weird how well it works, having inadvertently trained myself with that phrase.. Any mental noise immediately stops and I'm suddenly aware of how all of my body is feeling.
Gonna start doing the 5,4,3,2,1 now!
("5, 4, 3, 2, 1.5, 1.25, 1.125, 1.0625, 1.03125................." - Brandon "Zeno" W.)