Reset-o

I have named this neat little concept ‘Reset-o’ because I got it from my girlfriend Sugiko. She comes from Japan and like many Japanese people she tends to put ‘o’ or other vowel at the end of many English words. I think that like Italian, Japanese words rarely end in a consonant and whereas the Italians tend to add ‘a’ to the end of English words, the Japanese often add ‘o’. I find it charming, so much so that I have now started to pronounce some of my words her way… Anyway, when I first met Sugiko she sometimes became flustered over the new challenges facing her in her new life in Berlin. When she realised that she was becoming cranky then she quickly went about thinking and acting differently about things in a process that she called, ‘Reset-o’. I really like this because in one word it encapsulates a very useful concept.

From time to time we get little emotional upsets and sometimes they cause us to think and to feel badly about ourselves. If we don’t take care to break this trend rapidly then a negative feedback loop can start up along the lines of, ‘I feel bad and recognising that makes me feel even worse and because I now feel even worse that makes feel yet even worse, etc’ until you spiral out of control. However the initial problem that started this trend probably signifies just a bit of noise in the overall scheme of things. Perhaps the general trend previously went gradually up or held fairly steady but because we naturally tend to focus full attention on immediate issues then the thing happening right now feels absolutely important and crucial. We tend not to think about the thing in context and relative to the trend of our entire past, other personal crises, or to all of the other problems that we could have. If we did so then we would get a better grip on this immediate problem and see it as a temporary aberration rather than a disastrous immediate drop-off going into a long-term decline. However if we don’t catch ourselves and quickly reset then we can find that we actually do create a decline in our feelings about ourselves.

By getting into the habit of noticing unpleasant feelings and realisations we can deal with them immediately and usefully. Firstly recognise that you are going outside of your preferred normal condition of feeling. Interrupt this by knowing that this happens from time to time and that we can never expect for life to go perfectly all the time and that to get out of condition sometimes happens – IT’S OKAY!! Say to yourself, ‘I just need to reset-o’ and this will help you to feel more in control and to feel more rational. Knowing that you can reset immediately gives you an edge of control and you can have confidence that you can quickly get past this aberration. Get a different perspective on the immediate situation by thinking about all of the good trends in your life and the good things that you have. Think about things you have achieved. Think about just how much worse things could be. After doing this think again about your current problem and see if it now fits into context better. Does it really represent a plummeting descent into an abyss? Probably not. Reset-o helps you to immediately GET REAL!

All of us stay on the alert at all times and consequently we all have what I call a ‘Worry Quotient’ where a part of the brain continually assesses the current situation, risks, problems and threats. This capacity for worry exists with everyone but what we worry about can vary enormously. Someone in great hardship might worry about where the next meal comes from, whether they will have a roof over their head tonight and whether they will find safety at night. Someone with great wealth will not have those worries but will perhaps worry about how other people perceive them, about their health, or about where to eat for lunch. If we let the worry get out of hand then it becomes immobilising. Reset-o allows us to get a grip on our problems relative to other problems very quickly and so eradicates a large measure of the potential for worry to overly preoccupy our thoughts and hence actions.

Life always remains a balancing act with constant small adjustments and sometimes larger ones. To expect to reach a point where everything balances perfectly from hereon out will never happen. Recognise the imbalance, adjust (reset-o) and get on with things. If you don’t adjust then you will tip over which could represent for you depression, a financial disaster, ruined relationships or whatever else happens when you normally fall over.

If you have problems in resetting and perhaps find yourself on the edge of a plummet then Breaking the Spell of Depression can help you find immediate relief.

If you have enjoyed this article then please comment or recommend it to one of the social bookmarking sites below. To ensure that you receive all future posts please subscribe to the RSS feed (use the button in the header bar above)