We now enter the second part of the map — the "Prisons of Perspective." In this part, we will no longer remain merely on the level of theoretical exploration. We will bravely, with clear eyes, walk into the darkest, most painful corners of the inner world that many have experienced or are experiencing.
The first prison we will visit is the one called "depression." This is a place shrouded in gray mist, where time seems to stand still, life force is drained away, and the world loses all its color. Countless people are trapped within it, feeling isolated and helpless, as if there is no way out.
Yet, the tool we will use is not the scalpel of traditional pathology, but the searchlight of a "psychology of possibility." We will use this beam of light to illuminate the structure of the prison, to see clearly how its walls were built, brick by brick, by our own rigid "observational patterns." We will discover that depression is not a "demonic entity" dwelling inside us, but an extremely narrowed "observational state."
This chapter is not about affixing new labels to those who suffer from depression. It is about providing an "escape map" for walking out of the prison. Understanding the prison's construction is the first step to finding its "weak points" and "exit." We will analyze the workings of this "gray filter" — depression — in four progressively deeper parts:
Trapped in the past: We will see how the core mechanism of depression forcibly locks our searchlight of attention onto the "possibility snapshots" of "failure" and "loss" in the inner "ground of possibility," playing them on an endless loop.
"I should have...": We will delve into the "thought lines" of depression, analyzing how the self-blame and regret-filled "counterfactual thinking" solidifies the storylines of past and present, completely locking any path to the future.
Energy depletion: We will explain from an energetic perspective why depression leaves people feeling so exhausted. It is because all our mental energy is consumed by an extremely energy-consuming task — maintaining an extremely narrow "observational consensus" called "I am a failure."
Practice: Finally, we will provide a concrete, actionable practice — "Searching for Color Spots Buried Under Gray" — as our first key to pry open the prison, beginning to reintroduce a trace of color into that gray world.
If you are lost in the fog of depression, or if someone close to you is, I hope this chapter can bring you a measure of understanding, a sliver of hope, and a tangible sense of strength. Remember, you are not a prisoner. You are merely an "observer" who has temporarily lost direction. And any lost observer has the ability to rediscover a perspective from which to see the light.
"Depression" — this word is becoming increasingly common in our culture, but our understanding of it is often filled with misunderstanding and stigma. Some think it is just "thinking too much" or "being too fragile," a failure of willpower. Others equate it with simple "unhappiness," believing that "cheering up" is all it takes. The medical world tends to describe it as an imbalance of brain neurotransmitters, a "biochemical malfunction" requiring medication to correct.
These views perhaps touch on certain aspects of depression, but none of them capture the full picture of depression as a "subjective experience." They cannot explain why a person feels enveloped by a huge, invisible, gray shroud, clearly knowing the sun is outside, yet unable to walk toward it.
The "psychology of possibility" offers a new explanatory framework. It holds that depression, fundamentally, is an "observational disorder." It is not about what you "are," but about what you "see" and how you "see."
Imagine you are wearing a very special pair of glasses. The lenses of these glasses are a powerful "gray filter." Not only that, they are also a "zoom lens" that automatically, compulsively locks your focus onto all the objects in your field of vision representing "loss," "failure," "defect," and "hopelessness." At the same time, it automatically blurs out, even blocks out, all objects representing "hope," "achievement," "beauty," and "possibility."
Wearing these glasses, the world you see is naturally gray, full of defects, utterly hopeless. This is not because the world "really" is that way, but because your observational tool has been "hijacked" by a powerful program.
Depression is the state in which our inner "observing system" has been hijacked by such an invisible "gray filter."
This filter does not appear out of nowhere. It is the result of our past experiences, traumas, belief systems, and biological susceptibilities, all co-creating and reinforcing it over time. But no matter how complex its causes, the "operating mechanism" it ultimately manifests is something we can clearly observe and understand.
Understanding this core metaphor gives us a lever for intervention. Our goal is no longer to futilely "smash" the seemingly indestructible gray world, but to learn to "notice" that we are wearing a pair of glasses, and to learn how to gently, consciously, try to "take them off" for a moment — even if only for a few seconds — to see the unfiltered, more real, more complete world.
Now, let us analyze in detail the three core operating components of this "gray filter."
Trapped in the Past: The Cyclic Observation of Negative "Possibility Snapshots"
Time, for a person in depression, seems to operate in a very strange way. The future seems to disappear, becoming an impassable wall built of despair. The present also becomes lifeless, like a faded, blurry photograph. The only thing that is real, clear, and occupies the entire stage of the mind is the "past," full of regret and failure.
One of the core mechanisms of depression is a mode of observation we call "negative past tense locking."
In this mode, the "searchlight of attention" in our inner observing system is forcibly, persistently directed toward the area in the warehouse of our inner "ground of possibility" that specializes in storing "negative experiences." Moreover, the beam of the searchlight is turned extremely bright, the power cranked to maximum, playing those negative "possibility snapshots" on an endless, high-definition, slow-motion loop. In psychology, this process is commonly called "ruminative thinking."
"Rumination": Grinding Pain on the Millstone of the Mind
"Rumination" is originally a biological term referring to the process by which cattle, sheep, and other animals bring semi-digested food back from the stomach to the mouth to chew again. This metaphor is extremely precise in depicting the state of mind in depression.
A person in depression has a mind like a "mental millstone" that cannot stop turning. And the "grain" fed into this millstone is always those painful "possibility snapshots" from the past:
Snapshot A: "That public speech where I was humiliated."
Snapshot B: "That relationship that ended in betrayal."
Snapshot C: "That major opportunity I missed because of my carelessness."
Snapshot D: "That hurtful thing my parents said when I was a child."
The mental millstone grinds these snapshots over and over. Each grinding is not simply a "recollection," but a profound "re-experiencing" and "re-processing."
High-definition re-experiencing:
In rumination, we do not merely "remember" the event — we return to that scene with our entire mind and body. The brain mobilizes all sensory resources to reconstruct every detail of that snapshot. You can clearly "see" the contemptuous look in the eyes of those present, "hear" the tremor in your own voice, "feel" the twitching in your heart and the cold sweat in your palms.
This process is like your inner observing system being forced to watch a VR horror movie in the highest resolution, starring yourself. And you have no remote control to pause or change the channel.
Detail magnification and negative distortion:
In the process of repeated grinding, the negative details in the snapshot are enormously magnified, while neutral or positive details are ignored or distorted.
In that failed speech, you might have also said a few brilliant lines; there might have been people in the audience applauding you. But under the "gray filter" of rumination, these "color spots" are completely bleached out. You can only see that ten-second awkward pause when you forgot your lines due to nervousness. That pause is magnified into the entirety of the entire speech.
The filter might even actively "add" negative details that did not originally exist. You begin to "imagine": "Those people in the audience must have been laughing at me, thinking I was a clown."
Cyclic reinforcement of emotions:
Each high-definition, distorted "re-experiencing" re-coats this snapshot with thick, fresh negative emotions — shame, regret, helplessness, sadness. And these reactivated strong emotions provide more "energy" for the mental millstone, making it grind more vigorously, more deeply.
This creates a vicious cycle: negative snapshot -> negative emotion -> more focus on the negative snapshot -> stronger negative emotion.
This cycle is like an energy black hole, sucking in all your mental strength, leaving you feeling completely drained, without even the energy to get out of bed.
Why does the mind fall into such a self-tormenting cycle?
On the surface, this ruminative behavior is utterly pointless — pure self-torture. But from the perspective of a "psychology of possibility," there is often a distorted, tragic "positive intention" hidden behind it.
This intention stems from a very primitive function of our brain: the "problem-solving" module.
Our brain is a natural-born problem-solving expert. When it detects a "problem" (for example, a experience of failure), it automatically launches a program: "Analyze the problem -> Find the cause -> Formulate a solution -> Avoid repeating it in the future." This is a very effective survival mechanism.
However, in a state of depression, this "problem-solving" module gets "hijacked" and sinks into a fatal logical error:
Logical error one: Treating the "past" as a problem that can be "solved."
The brain mistakenly believes that if it "analyzes" that negative past snapshot hard enough, repeatedly "replaying" every detail, it can find some magical "answer" that will "fix" the past that has already happened. It is like a programmer trying to modify code that has already been burned onto a read-only disc. This effort is doomed to failure, but the program itself does not know this, so it can only run endlessly.
Logical error two: Treating "feeling bad" as a signal that "you are solving the problem."
In the normal "problem-solving" mode, mental effort is often accompanied by a sense of tension. The brain may mistakenly interpret the pain of rumination as evidence that "I am working hard, I am processing this problem." This leads to a tragic addiction: the more pain we feel, the more we feel that our "analysis" is valuable and necessary. We are deceived by our own feeling of pain.
The essence of being "trapped in the past" is a "problem-solving" program that has been activated but can never be completed. It is trying to use an invalid method (repeated grinding) on the wrong object (an unchangeable past) to achieve an impossible goal (repairing history).
The result is that our entire "observing system" is occupied by this background program that has consumed all CPU resources. We lose the ability to observe the "present" and envision the "future." The screen of our mind is forever stuck on that blue screen interface displaying: "Analyzing error, please do not operate..."
This locked past is not just a series of isolated snapshots. It is also connected by the brush of our thoughts into an inescapable narrative full of self-blame and regret, centered on "I should have..."
"I Should Have...": The Solidified Narrative and the Unlockable Future
If the cyclic observation of negative snapshots is the "base color" and "raw material" of the painting of depression, then what organizes these materials and gives them devastating meaning is the "brush of thought" in the depressive state, a brush filled with self-blame and regret.
This brush most excels at painting a story line we call "counterfactual narrative." Its signature phrase is: "I should have..."
"I should have tried harder, then I wouldn't have lost that job."
"I should have said something different in that relationship, then the outcome wouldn't be like this."
"I should have chosen another major, then my life would be completely different."
"I should have been a better son/wife/friend..."
This "counterfactual thinking" is a mental mode that constantly compares the "imperfect past that actually happened" with an "imaginary perfect past," and suffers over the "gap" between them.
It is not merely a simple review of the past. It is an active, creative, extremely painful process of "narrative reconstruction." In this process, the brush of thought plays three tragic roles: an unrealistic "ideal scriptwriter," a cruel "prosecutor," and a merciless "prophet of the future."
Role One: The Unrealistic "Ideal Scriptwriter"
The brush of thought in depression first paints a "perfect version" parallel universe of the past. In this parallel universe, you always make the most correct choice, say the most perfect words, and possess the wisdom and courage you did not actually have at the time.
It disregards "the context of the moment": It forgets that when you made that "wrong" decision, you were under immense pressure, lacking information, or emotionally confused. It uses the information and perspective you have "now" (hindsight) to judge the "past" you — which is inherently unfair.
It fantasizes about "perfect control": It makes you believe that if you had just made that "correct" choice, you would definitely have achieved the "ideal outcome." It completely ignores the countless variables in life that you cannot control — other people's choices, changes in circumstances, pure luck. It reduces a complex multiplayer interactive script to a single-player game where, as long as you play your role correctly, you are guaranteed to pass.
This created, unrealistic "perfect past" is like a distorted funhouse mirror. The more you look at it, the more ugly and failed the "real you" in the mirror appears. That "should have" world becomes a "spiritual paradise" you can never reach, yet which constantly tempts and torments you.
Role Two: The Cruel "Prosecutor"
Having constructed that "perfect past," the brush of thought immediately transforms into a cold, merciless "prosecutor." Its task is to indict the "real you" for the unforgivable crime of "failing to live up to that perfect version."
The logic of this "prosecutor's" indictment usually includes the following characteristics:
Equating "mistake" with "personality flaw": It does not say, "You didn't do that thing well." It says, "You are a failure." It elevates a specific, isolated action (a mistaken "snapshot") into an eternal, overall negative conclusion about your "essence." This is how the depressive self's "observational consensus" is built and reinforced.
Delivering harsh moral judgment: It does not merely point out your "incompetence" — it attacks your "character." "How could you be so selfish/stupid/weak?" It makes you feel that not only did you mess things up, but you are also a "bad person." This inner shame is far more painful than simple frustration.
Refusing any defense and never closing the case: This prosecutor will never accept any of your explanations ("I did my best at the time") and will never announce that the "trial is over." It repeats, day after day in your mind, the long "indictment" listing all your faults. You are sentenced to "life imprisonment," confined in a cage of self-hatred.
Role Three: The Merciless "Prophet of the Future"
Having delivered a devastating verdict on the past and present, this brush extends its strokes into the future. Based on the core verdict that "you are a flawed failure," it begins to paint an equally bleak picture of what lies ahead.
Its prophetic logic is linear and deterministic:
"Because I (always) messed up in the past (solidified narrative), I am (essentially) a failure in the present (solidified consensus), so I will (necessarily) continue to mess up in the future, utterly hopeless (locked future)."
This unbreakable causal chain painted by the "I should have..." narrative — stretching from the past through the present to the future — completely "locks" any possibility of a different future.
The foundation of future possibilities is shut down: In the warehouse of your mind's "ground of possibility," the doors to all areas leading to "success," "happiness," and "change" are sealed by this brush. The only door left open is the familiar old road leading to "repeated failure."
The motivation for action is stripped away: Since the future has already been judged as "utterly hopeless," any effort in the present becomes meaningless. Why try? Why change? The outcome will be the same anyway. This "learned helplessness" caused by the narrative is the fundamental psychological reason for "loss of motivation" and "behavioral inhibition" in depression. You are not "lazy." You have been convinced by a story of despair into immobility.
The "I should have..." narrative, by "idealizing" the past, "criminalizing" the present, and "despairing" the future, constructs a logically self-consistent, emotionally closed, temporally coherent "gray prison."
We are trapped in a story told by our own thoughts. We believe this story, identify with this story, and ultimately, live as this story.
To escape this narrative prison, what we need is not to confront it head-on with a "more positive" story (which often provokes a more ferocious attack from the inner prosecutor: "You failure, how dare you be so optimistic?"). What we need to do is learn how to become an "observer of the story," rather than a "believer of the story." We need to learn how to create a tiny "gap of awareness" between the automatic writing brush and the lines it draws.
But to truly understand why it is so hard to escape this prison, we must also see the enormous, invisible "energy" cost required to maintain this gray world.
Energy Depletion: When All Mental Strength Is Used to Maintain a Narrow "Consensus"
Everyone who has experienced depression remembers that profound, bottomless "fatigue." It is not simple physical tiredness, but a depletion of life energy at the level of the soul. This fatigue makes the simplest things — getting out of bed, showering, replying to a message — feel as difficult as climbing Mount Everest.
Why is this? From the outside, a depressed person seems to be doing nothing — just lying or sitting — so why do they feel more exhausted than someone who has just run a marathon?
The answer is that depression is an immensely energy-consuming "inner labor."
All our life energy (or "psychological resources") is poured into a single, continuous, extremely arduous task: maintaining and defending an extremely narrow "observational consensus" called "I am a worthless failure."
In Chapter One, we compared the "self" to a "whirlpool" in a river, a "flow pattern" maintained by the water that continuously flows through it. A healthy self is like a natural, relaxed whirlpool that broadly flows in the same direction as the river. Maintaining its existence does not require much extra energy.
A "depressed self," however, is an extremely unnatural, unstable whirlpool that goes against the natural flow of the river of life. It is like someone using a giant mixer in a calm river to forcibly create and maintain a whirlpool that spins in reverse, at high speed, and in deep water.
You can imagine that maintaining such an "artificial whirlpool" requires a continuous, massive input of energy into the mixer. Once the energy supply stops, this unnatural whirlpool will immediately be smoothed out and dissolved by the river's natural flow.
The "fatigue" of depression is the result of your entire mind-body system depleting all its "fuel" to drive that "inner mixer."
This "mixer" — the inner labor of maintaining the depressive consensus — is primarily engaged in several extremely energy-consuming tasks:
Task One: "Filtering" and "Distorting" Information — The Arduous Duty of the Cognitive Guard
To maintain the core consensus of "I am a failure," your mind must be like the guard of a heavily fortified fortress, constantly vigilant against any "hostile information" that might challenge this consensus.
Continuous negative scanning: The guard (your attention) must remain constantly alert, actively searching the external world and inner world for evidence that can "confirm" the core consensus. This is a never-ending "patrol" task that consumes immense focus.
Blocking and refuting positive information: When a "positive piece of information" (for example, a compliment from a friend, a small success) tries to enter the fortress, the guard must immediately recognize it, intercept it, and use powerful "cognitive weapons" to "destroy" it.
Interception method one: outright denial ("He's just being polite, he doesn't mean it.")
Interception method two: minimization ("That was just luck, it doesn't count.")
Interception method three: external attribution ("This task was too easy, anyone could do it.")
Interception method four: turning it negative ("I succeeded this time, but I'll definitely mess up next time — the pressure is even greater now.")
Each such act of "blocking" and "refuting" is a complex cognitive operation that consumes significant psychological energy. Imagine your mind playing a game of "whack-a-mole" all day long, where any "positive mole" that pops up must be immediately and forcefully smacked down. How could that not be exhausting?
Task Two: "Suppressing" and "Manufacturing" Emotions — The Forced Operation of the Emotional Engine
Under the depressive consensus, certain emotions are "forbidden," while others need to be "deliberately manufactured" and "maintained."
Suppressing "incompatible" emotions: Any spontaneous emotion that does not fit the consensus "I am a failure" — such as a flicker of joy, a moment of relief, a surge of hope — is seen as a threat to the fortress. Therefore, the mind must expend energy to suppress them. Emotional suppression is an extremely energy-consuming psychological defense mechanism, like trying to hold down an inflating balloon with your hand — you must apply constant pressure, without a moment's relaxation.
Maintaining "compatible" emotions: At the same time, to remain consistent with the consensus, the mind needs to continuously "manufacture" and "maintain" "compatible" emotions, such as sadness, numbness, self-hatred. This means that even in the absence of a clear negative stimulus, that "mental millstone" must keep turning, continuously grinding old painful snapshots to provide a steady supply of "gray fuel" for the emotional engine of depression.
Maintaining a constant, overwhelming state of negative emotion is like forcing your room to stay dark and cold on a sunny day. You have to draw all the curtains and run a powerful air conditioner at full blast. This is work that goes against the natural state, and is extremely energy-consuming.
Task Three: "Inhibiting" Behavior — The Self-Strangulation of Life Force
Maintaining the depressive consensus also requires strictly controlling and inhibiting behaviors that might bring "counter-evidence."
Social withdrawal: Interacting with people might bring connection, support, and joy — all direct threats to the consensus "I am isolated and worthless." Therefore, energy must be expended to suppress the impulse to "go out" and to find reasonable excuses for "not seeing people."
Avoiding challenges: Trying new things might bring success and a sense of achievement. To avoid this "risk," the mind must suppress all thoughts of "wanting to try," keeping you in the behavioral "safe zone" — which is doing nothing.
Abandoning pleasurable activities: Those things you once enjoyed, that brought you energy and joy (music, exercise, reading), are now "restricted areas." Because once you feel pleasure from them, it conflicts with the core consensus "life is joyless, I am numb."
The feeling of "powerlessness" in depression is not a "lack" of energy, but a "misuse" of energy. Your energy has not disappeared. It has all been mobilized by your inner system for a tragic "internal war" against your own vitality. You are using all your strength to prevent yourself from getting better.
Understanding this gives us the key to escaping "energy depletion":
Stop that internal war. Stop supplying energy to that "mixer" of the "artificial whirlpool."
This is not a matter of "willpower." You cannot use willpower to command a mixer running at high speed to suddenly stop. What you need to do is gently, strategically, step by step, "divert" the "electricity" being consumed by the "mixer" toward small things that can nourish life and align with the natural flow of the river.
For example, you may not have the energy to run five kilometers, but do you have even a trace of energy to gently shift your attention away from the millstone grinding the past and "observe" the sunlight outside the window, even for three seconds?
You may not have the energy to attend a party, but do you have even a little energy to gently stroke your pet, to "converge" that moment of comfort from a soft touch?
Each such tiny "energy diversion" is like pulling a thin wire from the mixer. At first, it seems to have no effect. But if you persist, when enough wires have been pulled, the machine that created endless fatigue and pain will, due to "lack of fuel," slowly, slowly, slow down until it stops.
And the first step in our "energy diversion" is that simple yet profound practice — actively searching for those "color spots" we have long ignored, amid the endless gray.
Practice: Searching for "Color Spots" Buried Under Gray
At the end of this chapter, we move from theoretical analysis to a concrete, gentle, actionable practice. This exercise is our first lever for prying open the entire "prison of depression." Its purpose is not to make you instantly "feel better," not to make you "think positively," and certainly not to deny the immense pain you are experiencing.
Its sole purpose is to train your "inner observer" to begin "seeing" those tiny but truly existing "exceptions" that the "gray filter" automatically filters out.
We call it the "Color Spot Awareness Practice."
The inspiration for this exercise comes from a simple visual phenomenon: when your eyes stare at one color for a long time, your visual system produces an afterimage in the complementary color. But here, we are doing the opposite: in a world you consider "pure gray," to actively, attentively, search for real "color spots" that are not gray.
The principle behind the practice:
This exercise directly challenges the two core, energy-consuming "observational habits" in the depressive state: "information filtering" and "negative scanning."
By giving you a clear, specific, neutral observational task ("searching for color spots"), it gently "interrupts" the automatic negative-scanning program that "looks for evidence of failure."
Every time you successfully "find" and "acknowledge" a color spot, you are introducing a small piece of "anomalous data" into a strictly censored, closed belief system.
This exercise does not ask you to "create" positivity. It asks you to "discover" the neutral or mildly positive realities that already exist but are ignored. This makes it easier for the depressed mind to "accept" than forced "positive thinking," because it is based on "facts," not "wishes."
Practice Steps
Preparation:
Set an extremely low, easily achievable goal: Do not tell yourself "I need to find evidence of happiness." This goal is too big and can easily trigger the "inner prosecutor's" attack. Your goal is simply: "In the next 24 hours, find and record 3 'color spots.'"
Prepare a "spot notebook": This can be a physical notebook or a memo on your phone. This "physical" act is important — it makes the practice more concrete, more ceremonial.
Understand what a "color spot" is: A "color spot" does not refer to earth-shattering good things. It refers to any tiny, neutral or slightly pleasant moment of experience that does not fit the gray narrative of "everything is terrible."
Examples of "color spots":
That ray of sunlight coming through the gap in the curtains when you wake up in the morning.
That trace of warmth and aroma when you take the first sip of coffee or tea.
Seeing a tree in bloom or a cute little cat while walking down the street.
A stranger's friendly smile to you on the bus.
That dish at lunch that tasted unexpectedly good.
Completing a very, very small task at work (even just replying to an email).
A passage of music that briefly makes you forget your troubles.
The comforting sensation of warm water streaming over your skin during a hot shower.
The comfort of lying in a soft bed just before sleep.
Note that these are not "happiness." They are not even "good things." They are simply "non-gray," truly existing "sensory facts" or "behavioral facts."
Execution:
Activate your "spot search" mode: At the start of the day, gently remind yourself: "Today, my task is to be a detective of 'color spots.'" Begin your day with this intention.
Maintain "gentle alertness" in daily life: No need to actively search — that would add pressure. Simply, in your daily activities, maintain a sliver of openness: "Could there be a 'color spot' hidden here?"
Once discovered, immediately "capture" and "record" it: When you notice a "color spot," no matter how trivial, immediately write it down in your notebook. The recording format can be simple:
Time: 10:15 AM
Spot description: Took a sip of water, felt very refreshed.
(Optional) Instant feeling: A tiny bit of comfort.
Time: 3:00 PM
Spot description: A colleague sent a funny meme on WeChat.
(Optional) Instant feeling: I think the corner of my mouth twitched.
The act of recording is crucial. Because it "solidifies" a fleeting experience — one that the gray filter might immediately erase — into a piece of "physical evidence" you cannot deny.
No judgment, no exaggeration: The most important thing throughout the process is not to "judge" the spots you find.
Do not judge it as "too small": "What kind of thing is this to write down?" — Remind yourself that the purpose of the practice is to see the "small."
Do not use it to "attack" your depression: "If I can still feel this, why am I still so depressed? I'm so useless." — Remind yourself that gray is the mainstream, spots are the exception, and both can coexist. Acknowledging the existence of spots does not mean denying the immensity of the gray.
Do not expect that finding a spot will immediately make you "happy." The goal of the practice is "seeing," not "feeling."
At the end of the day, review your record: Before sleep, open your notebook, gently and without any expectation, read through the 3 (or more) spots you found today. Do not analyze them. Do not exaggerate them. Just read them. Simply let your inner observing system see this evidence, written in black and white, collected by you. This evidence silently says: "Today was not 100% gray."
Long-term persistence:
Make this practice a part of your daily life and continue it. 3 spots per day is a very sustainable goal.
At first, you may find it very difficult, very artificial, and you may not find anything at all. This is normal. It means your "gray filter" is very powerful and your "cognitive guard" is very dedicated. Be patient and clear with yourself. Maybe on the first day, you only find one spot, or even none. That is fine. Tomorrow, try again.
When you persist in this practice day after day, some subtle but profound changes may begin to occur:
Your attention may become slightly more flexible. It is no longer 100% "stuck" on negative information. It begins to have a tiny capacity for "active choice."
Your belief system may begin to receive some "anomalous data" it cannot easily refute. The absolute belief that "everything is terrible" may begin to develop tiny cracks. It may slowly modify itself to: "Most of the time, I feel terrible, but occasionally, there are moments that are not so terrible."
Your energy may recover slightly. Because every bit of mental energy you use to "search for spots" is a unit of electricity diverted from that energy-consuming "mixer."
This practice is like using a small spoon to gently tap the same spot on the wall of your airtight gray prison, day after day.
At first, you see nothing, hear nothing.
But if you persist, one day, a crack will appear there.
And through that crack, you will see a ray of light you have long forgotten — light from the outside, real light.
That light is hope.
And this is only the first step out of the "prison of perspective." In the chapters that follow, we will continue to explore the prisons called "anxiety" and "trauma," and learn more, more powerful tools for unlocking them.