I have a friend who loves to grieve. Long term illnesses, deaths of close or even distant family members. Strangers will do in a pinch. But they are most likely to just revisit past losses.
I once knew a wonderfully successful man by any standard with a very exciting life who loved to be annoyed. He was not happy unless he had something to complain about.
It makes me wonder what negative emotion is my go-to misery of choice. Aloneness – I go there more often than others. Unworthiness maybe. Poor me, nobody will be at my funeral, nobody gives a crap about me. Yep – that’s it. That’s the one. Paranoia about being used and abandoned, convinced that most people’s displays of caring are temporary before they turn on you or simply abandon you. I know, it’s a dark way to view humanity. In my defense, my history has shown this to be true more often than not. But I certainly don’t need to dwell on the sad reality. (why be sad about reality?)
I suspect that we each have a favorite misery. That even if we rarely go negative, when we do, we have a favorite negative emotion: grief, anger, worry, annoyance, offense, etc.
If you can call yourself out on your favorite misery, I wonder if it would dissipate?
UPDATE: I have recently focused on creating connection – to myself, to this moment, to others, to my reality, etc. And this negative perspective seems to have disappeared completely.
