The benefit of pragmatism when it comes to confronting who we are

I've been struggling with hay fever/cold/flu symptoms lately, which has left me at the mercy of my mental vulnerabilities, as my energy just feels like it's going into the ground. But it's not enough to be bedridden, so it's like a life goes on sort of thing. I also feel sad and regretful after cutting off a wristband from my honeymoon last year.

Basically, almost every part of me just wants to be somewhere else in my mind right now. And, yes, I could just try and distract myself with this or that, but I've long previously had issues of finding myself stuck in distraction, culminating in procrastination and addiction issues.

So it feels like a mental purgatory right now of what to do next. I'm confronted by what I should be doing next when it comes to taking care of the admin of my life, but yes, it can feel overwhelming when you feel so low.

So it's asking yourself, 'What do you do at times like these?' And for me, what I've come to understand in therapy work is the perhaps underrated value of pragmatism. But this kind of needs to come with an ability to accept what is, rather than what isn't.

For me, it means making daily plans, devised with my first coffee in the morning. These are not just time structured to incorporate what I need to be tackling when it comes to the aforementioned life admin, but also to incorporate the likelihood that I'm going to struggle with my energy and therefore be often distracted.

This means there's a structure set in place that means even if my day is still likely going to be a tonne of failures and false starts, at least I'm 'failing' in the right direction – i.e. a direction that matters to me.

In CBT, this is pretty much what a (firstly) top-down approach to tackling a problem looks like. As in I've given myself enough to get something going in a better direction for now, whilst lingering and nagging deeper issues can be explored if they're still proving too distracting.

But sometimes there's still something strong enough that holds someone back from implementing a plan like this. In which case it's necessary to go deeper with someone (bottom-up). Sometimes it's not just the 'what's the matter' that gets in our way. Oftentimes, a lot of people don't know what actually matters to them (their own core values, often obfuscated by years of distraction in response to childhood trauma). So to stop ourselves from living in circles, it's trying to get into the heart of who we are.

What I've learnt over the years is that we can really become attached to a way of thinking that gets us more away from who we are. This is accepting 'what isn't' – such as the excessive use of conjecture, overthinking, distraction, and addiction to get more away from the problem than confront it.

As the heart of who we are tends to be in the place we feel mostly vulnerable. This would be accepting 'what is' – the actual feelings experienced in response to an unwelcome environment. But staying true enough to the problem here, which is also a tough exercise in stillness, means we're going to stay true enough to an actual solution that's going to get us off some kind of vicious cycle and open up a straighter direction in the mind instead.

But if you're going to make plans, you've got to consider the likelihood that a strong enough proclivity for distraction, especially when you feel like I do today, is going to take hold. So, yes, make a plan today that gets you a little stronger to incrementally tackle the bigger problems, but remember to incorporate kindness to yourself in said plan at the same time.

This means planning for breaks, treats and rewards. And yes, our own egos can be cunning. There might be that part of yourself thinking, 'Well, I don't need a carrot on the end of a stick to get myself going'. But if you see how the last weeks and months have gone, a smart play would be to perhaps at least give it a try.