Do I Want This Or Do I Need This?

Wants vs. Needs

I really let this sink in. The key to me is in times of wants, pause. Is this something healthy? What alternatives are there? Before jumping into a want that's comfortable but has brought me pain and upsets my vibe, pause.

I can apply this to many emotions

The audio mentioned loneliness and stress. I know my main emotion (does it qualify as an actual emotion?) is anxiety. When I am feeling anxious what I need is to calm down, but what I do is to ruminate, catastrophize, go to others for reassurance, and make myself nearly ill with worry. This leaves me unable to focus and paralyzed to do anything productive or positive. Sometimes, I react impulsively in ways that damage relationships or my own self-esteem because I just want the anxiety to go away. I tend to intellectualize as a way to avoid my feelings, so I think it would be best to say what I need in calming down is to calm my central nervous system. That’s what my first meditation on here was. Breathing exercises could also be good, but because I don’t have a lot of positive coping skills in my repertoire, I will use that initial mediation for now and hopefully learn some additional ways to calm my nervous system.