this site has one setting
Iโm laughing, but thereโs a super useful corollary, which my husband callsย โthe Red Balloon.โ He was a defense lawyer and had a fair number of drug addicts come through, and there is a thing where if youโre like, on your first offense, theyโll do a thing where you can go to treatment and if you complete it theyโll take the conviction off your record.ย And he would tell his clients,ย โLook, everyoneโs going to tell you not to do drugs. Theyโre going to say it over and over again. And itโs like, if people tell you not to think of a white elephant, youโre going to think of a white elephant. But the trick to not thinking about a white elephant is to think of a red balloon. So you need to find your red balloon. For some people itโs yoga. For others itโs woodworking. For some people itโs scrapbooking or gardening or any of a long list of things to do. They focus on that, itโs a lot easier to succeed in ignoring the white elephant.โ So yeah,ย โwatch yourselfโ is one thingโฆ but the better idea is to watch something else. (Even if itโs fanfic about werewolves fucking.)
Itโs a form of productive dissociation, and is super, super helpful. Itโs easy for me to get bogged down in how much pain Iโm inโฆ but some of the most painful periods of my life have also been the most productive, writing-wise, because writing is one of my red balloons.ย
















