the art of mental excavation
I’m normally a pretty introspective, level-headed person. The past week I’ve found myself more frustrated, bottled up and prone to irritation than usual, though. When that happens, my first priority is to get myself in a setting where I can take a beat, breathe, and zoom out.
The second strategy I employ is what I call the art of mental excavation. I imagine myself as a sort of juvenile Indiana Jones, scuttling about the pyramids or some archaeological site with a shovel, only the site is my brain and the shovel is a simple tool: the word “why.”
Most of the time, in the busyness of the day, I (and I imagine a lot of other people) feel frustration or shifting negative moods, but because the day is so busy and there’s always a next thing to do, we just let those moods linger in the background and unconsciously affect our outlook AND our outputs for the day. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we give that mood or frustration the courtesy of a single “why am I feeling this way?” (if the source is not obvious), but even if we do, that only scratches the surface. The real root cause of the negative emotions is often a few layers deeper, and requires more diligent excavation.
And if we don’t perform that excavation, those negative emotions can keep simmering in the background, a humming electric current of negativity that has the potential to spill over into other parts of our life and wreak continuing havoc.
Let me give you an example.
The other day, I found myself sucked into the vortex of Instagram, despite my best efforts. Amidst my scrolling, I saw some other PT’s story post showing their success in their business.
My subconscious brain immediately lit up, but not in the positive way of “good for them!” that I would have hoped. In a more negative way. Resentment, envy and inadequacy.
I just didn’t realize it.
I closed my phone and got back to work. But that negativity was still simmering in the background. An anxiety hanging over my head that I felt, but didn’t take the time to address. And it began to spill over into my mood. My motivation. My interactions with other people. Hours later, I could feel that my overall demeanor and outlook on the day had taken a sharp downturn.
It got to the point where I paused and realized I had to acknowledge that something had changed. “Why am I feeling this way?” I thought.
I repeated that question a few more times, digging down through a few layers of “why’s”, until I reached my destination in a deeper layer: the social media story I had seen.
The story had made me feel less than. As if seeing someone else’s success made me less of a good PT. As if someone else doing well meant that I was going to do less well by default. Truly preposterous, but it was how my brain had interpreted and stored that data.
I unloaded a final “why?” and descended yet another layer deeper. Why would seeing this story trigger such a reaction?
What I discovered was something that I probably already knew. It was fear. A fear of inadequacy. A fear of being an impostor in my work. Even after years of practice, there’s still a scared kid inside me who just wants to be good enough, who is afraid of being “found out” as not being good enough or being an impostor. Who is afraid of being unsuccessful, and who isn’t quite where he wants to be yet.
And that fear is what had been triggered when I saw that post.
Although this realization didn’t solve the fear—that’s something that will take much longer to heal—the awareness that it creates was pivotal. It’s one of many additions to my mental and emotional frameworks that help keep me sane, and stay in control of my mood and actions.
If you’re finding yourself in a mental or emotional funk, or struggling to process just about anything, I’d encourage you to try some mental excavation. It can be uncomfortable, but the illumination you can provide is invaluable.
