One of the main challenges in a period of cognitive restructuring is knowing how to read what is happening to us. Not misinterpreting it, not mistaking it for something it is not.
Over the past few weeks, more than once, I thought I was regressing. Going back to those thoughts, those mistakes, that state of genuine suffering. But then, thanks to metacognition and the progress made, I started reading the moments instead of being overwhelmed by them.
Reading the moment, not condemning it
I understood when I was tired from a full day, not a heavy or negative one, simply full. I understood the season. We are heading into summer, the heat is building, and with anthropogenic climate change factored in, tiredness is felt differently. Heavier. Especially when you are building, changing, and working at the same time.
I have not discovered anything new here. But being aware of it, having metacognition active during these periods, changes everything.
Do I spiral about liquidity? Yes. Then I understand I am overestimating the problem. I overestimate because I am tired, because it is hot, because I have invested a lot in myself. Breathing exercises, grounding, reading, and agency comes back. I see the real situation clearly, complex and nothing more. No anxiety, no catastrophe. And I focus, work, continue with the Go stone strategy.
Micro-gratifications do not disappear, they hide
Even in these difficult moments, if we open our minds, something positive becomes visible. That something is nothing other than the stone placed months ago that is bearing fruit today. In work, in personal life, in relationships.
Perhaps the most important cognitive effort in these moments is not forgetting the micro-steps, the micro-gratifications. Those parts that build the medium and especially the long term. How do we resist the trap of wanting everything immediately? By remembering that Go stones do not produce immediate effects, but they do produce.
The activities that actually recharge
For me recharging comes from three things mainly. Reading, from novels to essays, from history to science, to the occasional comic when lightness is needed. Structured video games, the ones that require thinking and strategy, more than casual titles. And golf, which I have not played for three months for various reasons and which I miss more than I expected.
Go and chess play a different role, more strategic and structural. But these activities are not hobbies. They are tools for bringing the mind back to metacognition, to agency, to the ability to face the period instead of enduring it.
The body that hasn’t updated its software yet
I want to close with what I find most important about all of this.
Sometimes we think we are going backwards. Regressing. But most of the time it is not regression. It is the body conflicting with the mind. The mind has already tuned into something new, it has made the leap. The body, scientifically, has not yet aligned. And that strange sensation, almost a malaise, is nothing other than the body discovering the new path.
If we listen, and notice the power of that word, we can grow. Move to the next step. And perhaps next time we will be tired, but without that malaise.
On the journey in progress I will add only this. I see improvements personally, in work, with people. On the last point, both with those who genuinely matter and with the dead branches I have learned to recognise. Because not everything that looked like connection actually was. And recognising that, even when it hurts, is part of the restructuring.