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Re:Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help by dominotw on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @10:03AM (#15960663)
I would say fooling your mind is not easy. Definition of mind is "something that seeks" to want a "mind that doesn't seek" is meaningless and absurd. Its like wanting a nose that doesn't breathe.

Sure you can come up with various philosophies like stoicism, Buddhism ect but you are merely trading one loop of seeking for another. Now you are stuck in a 'non-seeking' loop and failure to achieve 'non-seeking'.

Re:Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help by wenc on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @01:38PM (#15962692)
> I would say fooling your mind is not easy.

Just responding to this: fooling your mind is not hard. Even very rational, skeptical minds engage in self deception all the time. Our minds are so unbelievably malleable. We are all wired to be prone to biases and unexamined schemas. These just look different for rational types.

On the other hand, it is possible to achieve results by not fooling your mind, but simply by reframing one's own thoughts. This is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which works very well in helping manage negative feedback loops.

Often times our negative emotions are caused by feedback loops, therefore it stands to reason that we need a method to moderate these overactive loops. CBT is one of a few approaches that have been shown to work well for a significant number of people (nothing works 100% of course).

Guy Winch alludes to this in a TED Talk (I think TED talks are oversimplifications, but this one does present some good salient points about emotional hygiene and loneliness which I have found to be helpful in my own life)

https://www.ted.com/talks/guy_winch_the_case_for_emotional_h...

Re:Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help by dominotw on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @02:16PM (#15963156)
> reframing one's own thoughts.

Who is this entity that is reframing the your thoughts. Is it also not you? This is some sort of psychotic thinking to divide yourself into many parts, one part passing judgments and rulings on the other. This sort of thinking of is at the root of why we are so conflicted and full of suffering. This just perpetuates that style of thinking without examining why we are so divided in the first place.

Re:Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help by wenc on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @02:40PM (#15963443)
No, it's your therapist working with you.
Re:Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help by dominotw on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @06:06PM (#15965307)
sure but its actually you thats telling yourself to think differently.
Re:Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help by tinymollusk on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @12:17PM (#15961764)
You don't have to fully stop seeking to see benefits. I have seen many benefits to my mental health through yoga, where you practice seeing the seeking/avoidance patterns and learn to breathe into them and accept it.

The practice (IMO) isn't to break the loop as much as it is to see the loop. And to see it while it's happening/during triggers.