We’ve all faced those moments in life that throw us a curve ball right out of left field. One day you’re chugging along thinking everything is going well then all of a sudden you’re being faced with changes and challenges that you were not expecting. This can be devastating at the best of times for most of us, now add in anxiety and you can find yourself spiralling out of control just trying to make some sort of sense out of what just happened.
One of the biggest challenges that we face when trying to understand or just even make sense of a sudden change in our life is to find a reason for why this change is happening. Our mind quickly goes to work trying to justify and reason with everything that is happening. This can send us into many panic and anxiety attacks leaving us feeling like we have just lost control of our lives. If we’re not mindful our challenges can continue to grow perpetuating the situation or event allowing it to take control of our life creating even more confusion and turmoil. Left unchecked we can end up in a state of depression, feeling totally overwhelmed and stuck with no end in sight. We will often lose the motivation to move forward as we are unable to see or find a way past our current lot in life. We become stuck in a loop trying to find the answers to questions we can’t answer or searching for a reason that we will never find.
Many times we are letting our emotions or feeling drive us, especially when we feel that we’ve been wronged or hurt in some way. Its normal to want to be heard or validated, many times thats just not going to happen for us and we need to learn to heal on our own. When we are faced with negative feelings or emotions it can seem like the hurt, pain, anger, frustration or disappointment is never going to end. One of my best habits that I use to move through challenges, setbacks, or failures in my life is to write. I write with a purpose to remember and to be grateful for the positive experiences that I enjoyed before having to deal with the current challenge or situation that I’m facing now. This works great in any situation whether you’re dealing with a person, event, change in career, a loss, setback or failure. When we take the time to look back we can always find a nugget that we can be grateful for, some experiences that have helped us to grow or the kindness from others that was once there.
This can take practice, its not always easy to find a positive or something to be grateful for. Take your time, maybe you’ll have to try a few times before you can find something. Its ok. When I first started to practice this new habit, I would spend hours trying to find one good thing out of a negative situation that I could hold onto but when I least expected it I would find it. The more you practice this habit the easier it will become, you are retraining your mind to seek out the positive in every situation.
I’ve learnt that it is really hard to hold onto all the negative emotions or feelings that we have around a situation or even a person when we can remember the positive emotions or experiences that we used to feel. This is a practice that we are doing for ourselves, we’re not excusing or accepting any bad behaviour from others or even trying to justify a situation all we are doing to finding a way to move forward and to regain some of our inner peace so we can continue to heal and learn from our experience. Its important to note that it can take several times of writing out the positives to really feel the shift forward, keep practicing, it will allow you to move forward with your life faster with peace of mind and clarity. Your body will thank you too, allowing you to release stress and tension, I find that I even sleep better!
Nicole Michalski
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