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Now that you have finished dealing with D&D – at least for a while -- you may want push all thoughts, feelings and images connected with this area out of your awareness.
The common-sense solution is to fill your mind with something else. You can get busy and to keep busy: “Don’t stew, just do”, or "Cope, don't mope".
A variation is to plunge purposefully into a “transition activity”. This is something that people do to blot out the previous part of the day so they can proceed to the next part with a clean mental and emotional slate. The best example used to be the cocktail hour during which people would switch gears with the help of alcohol. Some people still drop into the pub on the way home, while others exercise, meditate, listen to music, watch the evening news, or go to their study for a brief period, Hopefully they emerge ready to be totally involved with family or friends.
Discussing the day’s events helps some people to move on, but for many it is simply a continuation of the day’s problem solving. It may simply stir things up especially if there is no progress towards resolution. In any case, it is a good idea to do some transition activity afterwards.
Another kind of transition activity is to indulge in stimulating behavior, such as the extreme sports or other activities mentioned in Manipulating the number of people who leave life through payoffs and costs. Doing so will put you into a state of exhilaration or aggressive arousal that crowds out concerns about leaving life. It can give you the reassuring feeling that you are fully and powerfully alive.
You can also call on danger-reduction rituals. For example, you may believe that if you worry enough, the feared event won’t happen. You may find that prayer or doing good works will also help you to feel safe.
The other approach is simply to wait. You can firmly remind yourself that most things fade into the background if you give them enough time and if you do not reinforce their presence by obsessively worrying about whether you will be able to get over them.
Counseling and medication can help if you cannot leave painful feelings or images behind. A counselor or therapist can suggest ways to stop thinking about something, and she can help you to plan a strategy to deal with unwanted thoughts or exaggerated fears.
12.1 What do you do when you want proceed from your world of work to being with family or to other activities? Do you usually engage in a “transition activity” to help you leave the world of work behind? Can you think of one that would work for you:
12.2 Are there other ways that you have learned to deal with obsessive thoughts or with fears that you know are out-of-proportion to reality:
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If you have made your way through much of the LLQ, you will have thought about a lot of things that you would rather have left to others, to God, or to chance. I hope that you are able to return to your life with things seeming pretty much as you left them, except that you now have the potential to help yourself and those you care about in some new ways.