People who can don't get mad and just go with the flow, how do you do it?

guyrocket, 5 months ago

Shit happens. Often. Choose to not let it control you and your mood.

Being stressed and / or tired usually makes my reactions worse. Get rest, lessen stress, and use stress coping techniques.

You can control your reactions. You cannot control the shit that happens.

Serenity now...laugh at life and yourself. It is not really that bad. You knew that, right?

kindenough, 5 months ago

I've been homeless for a long time, violent upbringing, seen the worst in people on the street so most troubles I encounter today don't compare. When the weather is bad the sound of the wind and rain against the window makes me happy. When I feel dirty I step in the shower instead of having one 5 times a month in a shelter. The small things don't trigger me.

My son has adhd and autism, it will make you learn to have patience, restraint and order in time and home enviroment.

People though, certainly old boomer people in supermarkets that want to walk right through you, try to skip the line or pushing the shopping cart in your ass, block the path because they want to discuss with other old people their hip replacement or next funeral to attend, or in too large vehicles (that are really useless to them) in traffic, driving the wrong way, to slow, trying to park for 5 minutes et cetera...I will turn me into a drooling rageaholic.

Woosah.

electric_nan, 4 months ago

Train yourself to observe yourself. With some practice, you can kind of see yourself from an outside perspective. Watching yourself have a tantrum over spilling some water, or banging your head or whatever, is pretty funny.

prole, 4 months ago

I can’t tell you. I experimented with psychedelics in my 20s, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that change in behavior was one take away from that time… It’s easy to say life is meaningless, but to personally experience it (or at least what felt like it at the time) is a whole different thing.

After that realization, you get some perspective I guess.

amanneedsamaid, 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

This probably isn’t a helpful response, but for me, once something is inevitable I don’t see a point in getting upset, so I don’t. For instance I’ the dogs tracv dirt through the house, I’d definitely be a bit annoyed that I have to clean it up, but actually letting it get to me would only serve to make my night worse.

MonkderZweite, 4 months ago

You should take a sabbatical or however else a time out.

Ookami38, 4 months ago

The secret isn’t not getting mad. The secret is going with the flow despite being mad. If you’re constantly triggered by small things (like your dog getting some mud inside) then there’s proooooobably something a bit deeper that needs to be addressed. But either way, do the things, mad or not. Emotions happen, they’re never “wrong” but you can also determine what to do with them, or what to do despite them.

Hestia, 4 months ago

Someday they’ll be dead, and I’ll be passing on their grave. Then I’ll be “going with the flow”

Sasuke, 4 months ago

i need to adopt a cat-owner mentality

Barzaria, 4 months ago

For me: get enough sleep and/or do exercise. Getting 9 hours is my ideal but I settle for 7 more often than I should. As for exercise: running, hitting the heavy bag, jump rope, rowing, weight lifting, swimming, walking, VR boxing (got too sweaty for it to be a long term thing), rock climbing; all these things have been good over the years or whatever you want. Cortisol builds up in your system and exercise breaks it down. You can’t be stressed if you’re exhausted. I think of the two as shielding and loading. Sleep increases my shielding from stressors and exercise decreases my baseline stress load. The two together are the actual answer, in my opinion.

ZeDespo, 4 months ago

I’m going to be echoing a lot of these comments, but it really is a matter of perspective. In a day, a week, or a month after the anger inducing event, will you really be proud of yourself if you got angry and died on that hill? Once I realized that it really helps with a lot of other negative emotions like doubt, anxiety, and sadness.

indepndnt, 4 months ago

In the movie Point Of No Return, the main character is taught by one of her trainers to say “I never did mind about the little things.” To demonstrate the appropriate use of the phrase, later in the movie a guy shoots her friend then looks at her to see how she’s going to react and she says it to him. Given the time and perspective thus afforded her, she later kills that guy before he kills her.

I dunno, I just think of that phrase a lot. Also I’ve been through a lot of big things that make practically everything seem like Little Things in comparison.

WittyProfileName2, 4 months ago

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and then try to envision everything my body just did to take that breath.

The intercostal muscles expanding an’ the diaphragm contracting to make a vacuum in the thoracic cavity.

The air rushing down my trachea, into my bronchus, then into the bronchioles.

The alveoli swelling individually as the air fills 'em.

My lungs filling the vacuum that the muscles created.

It’s a lot of things to keep ahold of all at once, so there ain’t the space in my mind to keep thinking of what annoyed me (until some daft bastard goes and does it again mind you).

oxjox, 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

“Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s all small stuff”.

It’s about adjusting your perspective. Some things can be looked at as new challenges and opportunities for creativity. Some things can feel very important and weigh on you but given a day or two can be irrelevant. Other things like death, finances, or relationships are difficult to get past, but you will eventually. Taking a breath to step outside the situation or looking at it from someone else’s perspective can really help.

I absolutely have these little moments every day. I get mad, say some ‘what the fucks’ out loud, call myself an asshole, etc, then move on seconds later. Giving your emotions a reasonable amount of time to smack you up is a good thing. Allowing them to take over isn’t helping anyone.

Edit: Come to think of it, I was just around my mother for the holidays. She is agent of chaos. She has a short temper, she yells, she’s erratic, she very much exerts her irrational stress upon others. Without getting into my entire childhood, I’ll share that it took me many years to figure out why I was so short tempered and angry at everything. The quote I started this post with was what sparked the change for me.

axont, 4 months ago

it depends on what I’m getting mad at. For instance, I don’t tend to argue/yell/confront people in real life. I only get mad at people if it’s online. In real life if I can look into someone’s eyes I’ll feel different about it. If it’s some racist person or someone being annoying, I look in their eyes and often see a little kid trying to rile people up, so I just feel sad. Or sometimes I’ll see nothing in their eyes. If someone is pure evil, I just don’t sense their soul anymore, so getting emotionally invested in them is like throwing a bucket of water into a black hole. Anger at them would go nowhere. I dismiss people like that, acknowledge what they are, and tell them to stop doing whatever they’re doing. Don’t say racist or transphobic or whatever stuff around me, simple as that, you know? usually being direct works the best. I have a 100% success rate so far, because people like that do get embarrassed easily if they’re in public, trying to confide something bigoted with me, then I’m not having it.

Anger at situations though? I don’t deal with that in a healthy way at all. I turn all of it into self-hatred. I blame myself for every problem I have. If there’s a way out of doing that, I’d love to know, because this sucks.