Verified by 
Key points
- Feeling stuck in sadness or despair can be overwhelming.
- Using metaphorical reframes can allow a shift in perspective about balance.
- Changing a relationship with sadness often means doing and thinking differently.
Sadness, disengagement, loneliness, or stuckness of any sort can feel overwhelming and hopeless. The source is naturally different for each individual and each situation, but the way in which it often ends up making someone’s world very small is often shockingly similar. There are numerous therapies, medications, books, podcasts, and interventions focused on assisting individuals who feel low and hypoaroused, and some metaphorical reframes can be part of the journey to find a way out and back to present living. Thinking about a situation differently does not solve all difficulties, but it can be a part of the figurative U-turn that may be needed.
Reframe 1: Your Bed Is Not a Studio Apartment
When depression, grief, disappointment, or any type of sadness-based devastation is strong, there is often a tendency for humans to go inside and almost shrink into a smaller world. This makes sense in that something feels overwhelming, we can become hopeless, frozen, or desire to simply flee from the demands of life.
And making our world smaller is actually the exact opposite of what we often need at that time. We all need more rest, space, and breaks at times, of course; however, hunkering down into the smaller world, such as operating primarily from one’s bed or couch, leads to more sadness and despair. Sleep and time in bed are important, but our beds are not a studio apartment. We can’t really get all of our needs met adequately there for long periods of time, and reducing our world to this small footprint often lengthens rather than shortens the time of sadness.
The irony of this difficult state is that the thing we most often need is the thing we don’t want to do. We may not feel like getting up, taking a shower, making a meal, or getting outside, but any of those small steps are likely what might be needed most. Many people get too far ahead of themselves, thinking that if they can’t make it to work, why bother getting up at all. Often the task needs to be broken into much smaller tasks, and if that isn’t possible still, then we cut it in half again and again until it is doable. And sometimes getting out of bed or off the couch to expand one’s world is the start.
Reframe 2: Give Mickey Mouse Purple Ears
One of the myths about negative thinking that continues to persist in society is that people just need to think happy thoughts or stop thinking so negatively in order to be more content. Sadly, our brains do not work quite this way. It is true that much of the work around addressing symptoms of sadness relate to changing the way of thinking about the situation or one’s self; however, there is often a paradoxical way this can be approached.
If an individual is facing a thought of “I just should stop thinking that,” there is a reframe intervention that can be helpful. Some people use pink elephants or polar bears, but I like to use Mickey Mouse. I ask my client to think of any other cartoon character they can imagine but not Mickey Mouse. I give them a few moments and then note that if they are like most human beings, they have likely struggled to keep the image of Mickey Mouse at bay. We then try the experiment again but with a new goal: think of Mickey Mouse but make some small changes, like giving him a green bowtie or yellow nose or purple ears. Most individuals recognize that changing a thought is much easier than just stopping it.
So much about negative thinking is indeed unpleasant, but simply stopping it is generally not so easy or possible. Instead, we need to find ways to shift the thought, create a new perspective, layer it differently, or add in a detail that allows a tiny modification. Someone might decide, for instance, that instead of saying repeatedly to themselves “I will never have another relationship again” they shift to “I am having trouble finding a good relationship right now.” The emotional experience of those two thoughts may seem minor but actually leads to vastly different internal experiences.
Reframe 3: Kayaking Forward
When we are stuck in sadness, our brains often keep focusing in on the difficulty and what is going wrong. This makes sense but often keeps us more stuck than we might want. We find ourselves going around and around in a circle of despair. Just as paddling a kayak requires us to pull at the oar on both sides of the boat, moving forward in our life also often requires us to be regularly shifting how we approach steps forward. We need to work hard, and we need to rest. We need solo time, and we need some human contact. We might want to focus on the terrible details of the tragedy that has thrown us off course, and we also might need some time to focus on other calmer, pleasant particulars of life.
The principle of "both-and" is a concept popularized by Marsha Linehan, the developer of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, or DBT. Using the metaphor of kayaking in approaching rough waters is like practicing both—regularly and intentionally. By looking at multiple sides of a situation rather than getting stuck focusing on only one side, we are then often able to make some small steps of progress in dislodging the stuckness and circling.
Reflection Questions:
- Has your sadness created a smaller world of interests and engagements than might be ideal? Despite being potentially scary or difficult, would there be a way to take a baby step out of the small world?
- Are you aware of a more punishing or harsh way you or others may have attempted to get you to shift how you approach some of the low, sad thoughts? Is there a way to think about a little change instead of stopping?
- Can you consider a way to “kayak forward” by dipping your oar into the opposite side of your boat just for a few strokes? Is there something you might be able to do just a little bit differently for a brief period of time?
