3 Toxic and Harmful Behaviors that Drain Your Mental Energy

Note: This article is by Mark Chernoff, who talks about the most important toxic and unnecessary behaviors that drain our energy and distract us from achieving our goals.

I was so nervous and confused after my husband, and I fought. Right after that, my 8-year-old dying of leukemia asked me if everything was okay in my life.”

1. “Today is the 10th anniversary of the day I intended to end my life. It is also the 10th anniversary of the day I was pregnant with my son. He was the main factor in my decision not to commit suicide, and he truly deserved all the sacrifices I made for him and the suffering I underwent. Perhaps most significantly, though, I now understand my value and deserve love.”
2. "This afternoon, I learned that the woman I had thought was the silly young mother of twin fifth-grade girls in my math class was their 25-year-old half-sister. Also, I know that her parents are divorced, and her mother gave birth to these twins from another husband. However, four years ago, her mother and her new husband died in a car accident. As a result, this 25-year-old girl - who was 21 then - has taken it upon herself to raise her twin sisters."

After obtaining the owners' consent from the coaching sessions we recently had with three trainees, I mentioned these three stories in the article. The one thing these three stories have in common must be the importance of a person's mental perspective. What we experience in our lives and how we feel about ourselves, our life, and the people around us depends to a large extent on our way of thinking. However, the scary truth is that our mental perspective on almost everything arises from our psychological state, representing a cage that locks our souls after adapting to and getting used to living in it. The following can be responsible for creating this psychological cage for our souls:

• A difficult, frustrating, and disappointing past.
• A secure, privileged, and wealthy life.
• Social influence.
• Mainstream popular culture and media stereotypes.

That cage starts gradually, without our knowledge, to drain our mental and psychological energy because of our adaptation and getting used to it, which makes us more likely to make bad decisions in various aspects of our lives. Hence, if we want to free our minds from that cage, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. But if you're looking for a smart starting point, your best bet is to take an overall life assessment and then stop one or more of the three toxic behaviors listed below if necessary.

These three interrelated behaviors have annoyed hundreds of our coachees in the over the past decade. As most of the roots of these behaviors come from the individual's possession of a limited mental perspective, and these toxic behaviors are represented by the following.

3 Behaviors that Drain Your Mental Energy

1. The inner craving to control the uncontrollable

It is one of the greatest difficulties and challenges which most of us - myself included - deal with and try to deal with on a daily basis because overlooking the issue of domination and control directly opposes or contradicts our modern and progressive way of living as we're full of life, and have responsibility over our lives. Additionally, we have the influence and power to build things and get things done on our own terms and way, and we don't rely our existence on others.

This is what I learned from my teachers, coaches, the movie I watched, the songs I listened to, the magazine and articles I used to read, and so forth. So, letting things happen on their own wasn't something that was naturally in my blood, and I've never been the kind of person who would relax and let go of the obsession with control and let things happen passively on their own without any resistance.

 

However, my perspective on life has changed over the years. I have realized, after suffering and dealing with difficult experiences, that a great deal of control or dominance – that we think we have- over our lives is just an illusion that we deceive ourselves of. Since then, for example, I have met the following types of people in my life:

• A young man whose life was turned upside down and completely changed as a result of his cancer.
• A young girl and mother of two children simultaneously, her husband passed away at the age of 27.
• A family lost their home as a result of a hurricane.
• The employer who was having a successful business until the collapse of the economy.
• A hardworking employee who lost her job when her employer of 25 years declared bankruptcy.
• A runner who lost a leg in a car accident.
• A mother whose child has Down syndrome despite doing everything right during her pregnancy.
• Many people whose stories are similar to these stories.

We are exposed daily to situations that we think we have control over while in reality this is not true. So, the only option we have in this life is to give up our obsession over control and let things happen as they are while maintaining our awareness and attention.

We all receive in our lives a unique set of constraints, obstacles, and unexpected variables. Here, the question is how you respond to and deal with those constraints and variables that life imposes on you. You can ignore them completely, or enable yourself to go through life logically, making the most of every outcome that happens in your life, even if those results are tragic and difficult to accept.

I will repeat again that the mind or the brain is man's greatest arena of conflict or battlefield. It is where our strongest conflict lies, where half of the things we thought would never happen, and where our expectations always defeat us. Also, it is the place where we fall victim to our cravings to control the uncontrollable. If we allow these thoughts and desires to dwell or settle in our minds for too much, they will succeed in robbing us of peace and joy and ultimately depriving us of our lives, and we will fall into the pit of despair and anguish, and it may even lead to depression.

There are many things in life that we cannot contro; therefore, it is illogical for us to waste our energies trying to control them and then neglect all the things that we can control blatantly. Then, we neglect all the things we can control on purpose. We can choose how we will spend our time now, we can choose to be grateful for the blessings we enjoy, and we can choose the people we will engage with and with whom we will spend our lives.

We can also choose to love and appreciate the people in our lives for who they are or to love and value ourselves. Also, we can choose how we respond to life's surprises and disappointments and whether we view them as curses and misfortunes, or as opportunities for self-development.

Most importantly, our choice to change our behavior, to forget all our worries and let go of worrying about things we can't control frees us and enables us to take the next step forward in our lives. However, if you refuse to give up your obsession with controlling the uncountable, you will gradually drain your mental energy, consume your soul, and your physical health as well.

2. Resisting your current reality

When you think that life has to go a certain way in order for it to be good enough, you simply neglect all the real opportunities that are available at the moment and deprive yourself of them. You waste all your mental energy resisting life and preventing yourself from living a life of purpose, instead of making the most of it. However, unfortunately, this is how the majority of people live, where they are stuck in a continuous cycle of resistance to happiness and achievement.

However, you don’t have to live in this circle of endless resistance. You can free your mind and get rid of it. When you deliberately decide to give up the desire to control your life in a certain way according to what you think is correct or appropriate for you in order to be happy, you free your mind and enable it to deal with the uncertainty of life, while will eventually lead you to greater success.

You must be flexible enough to accept life's truths and be able to learn and evolve. You can learn from your mistake and others' mistakes and perceive the world fairly without prejudice. Allow yourself to move forward in your life with a clear mind and great goals. It is all about accepting the present you live in, forgetting past events, and having faith and confidence in your journey in this life.

It is not important what title or address you will give to this change in your life, whether you call it closing the door to the past, ending a certain chapter of your life, or turning the page on the past. What really matters is your ability to find the strength to let go of the past so that you can take better care of your present life. You can never control the things that happened in the past, while your current behaviors and actions can change everything.

Know this is completely different from living a lifestyle that reinforces and strengthens this fact. It is never easy to forget, forgive and change your way of thinking, as it is a journey or a long walk that we take gradually.

It can be challenging and painful to forget about a situation that you have lived in your life for a long time and leave it in the past, even when your intuition or inner wisdom tells you that the situation is not right. It is time to let go and forget the past.

At this point, you can decide to let go of the past and take on the sudden pain of letting go of the familiar things you used to have in the past, to make way for a new chapter or phase in your life. Or, you can stay where you are and suffer from the constant pain that gradually corrodes your heart and mind and destroys you from the inside like a malignant disease until one day you wake up and find yourself buried deep in your powerlessness caused by that situation or condition that you couldn't forget. This will lead you to barely remember who you are or your life goal.

For this, I advise you to decide wisely and choose which way to go. As unexpected and unwanted things that you can't even control will happen in your life, you can always decide to take the next step, no matter how simple it is.

For this, be brave enough to make mistakes and to learn from them, while being able to forget about them and move on. Additionally, decide to stop clinging to the past and improve the way you think about the past and the present so that you can make the best possible use of the rest of your life and invest in its virtues intentionally and deliberately.

3. The unnecessary participation and preoccupation with negative events

The two previous behaviors mentioned above lead directly to this toxic behavior. Whenever we demand and insist on controlling things that cannot be controlled, or stubbornly resist the current reality of our lives, unnecessary drama and tragedies occur in our lives, resulting from our internal struggles with the external events and problems around us.

Thus, the tragedies you suffer or go through at any given moment are not fueled by the words or actions of others nor fueled by any external sources around us. It is your mind that gives these tragedies importance and meaning that is mainly responsible for fueling them, and it is the mistake that we all make against ourselves at times.

However, we get nervous quickly, feel exhausted, and get drawn into tragedies and dramas because the world around us is not the happy, wonderful, orderly, and predictable place we hoped it would be. We want everything to be easy, comfortable, and well-arranged day and night around the clock. Unfortunately, life has its ups and downs, and one must be smart enough to get used to it.

People around us demand our time, or we are not quite as prepared for something as we would like, or we feel resentment because of the frustrations we receive from our family, but we have a lot to do and learn and process in our minds.

This leads to the escalation of conflict within us, but I will remind you once again that the problem doesn't lie in the world around us or the thoughts and actions of the people around us because these aspects of our lives will always be messy and a bit unpredictable.

Instead, the problem is that we cling too strongly to ideals and imaginary ideas that do not fit or match reality.

We also subconsciously create expectations in our minds of what we want others to be, what we want to be, and how our relationships, work, and life should proceed according to them. Our attachment to luxuries, and imaginary and idealistic ideas raises feelings of anxiety in our minds and stress in our lives.

In other words, our resistance to accepting things as they are and our rejection of that is what fuels the drama and tragedies in our lives. We don't want to be part of those tragedies - at least that is what we tell ourselves - so we blame others and hold them responsible for their occurrence, which is, in turn, exacerbates these tragedies in our lives.

However, we can get rid of tragedies, move away from them, find peace, reconcile with reality, and accept it through a simple exercise that I will suggest, which you can do whenever you feel stress, psychological pressure, inner resistance, frustration, and anxiety, or find yourself suffering from any of the other stressful mindsets or ways of thinking that drain your energy and fuel tragedies in your life.

Therefore, focus precisely on your feelings, and don’t ignore them by distracting yourself. Instead, increase your awareness of them by giving them more attention, embrace your feelings, and be positive with yourself.

Notice the passage of those feelings throughout your body and the exact locations of each of them, and the unique characteristics that you enjoy. Also, note the tension that possesses you and controls your body and mind as a result of your feeling those feelings in particular, and try to soften the tense areas of your body and then calm the tense parts of your mind.

You can focus on your health by closing your eyes, inhaling while sensing it entering your chest, and then exhaling it slowly. You can repeat this exercise repeatedly until you feel calmer and more relaxed.

Find a little space or quiet space within yourself after you have reached your most relaxed and calm state as a result of this exercise, and in that space:

• Allow yourself to rediscover your intrinsic goodness, which is present in every moment of your life.
• Allow yourself to rediscover the essential goodness and kindness in this present moment, which is always available whenever you are ready to focus on it.