Ways to Keep Moving Forward When Life Gets Hard
On a scale from 1 to 10..
How upset do you get when someone tells you to “think positively” or “be grateful for what you have” while you’re going through a crisis?
When people put it that way it feels like they’re annulling your feelings and the hard times you’re going through.
But is there some truth to it, or is it just a figure of speech? I honestly don’t know!
When life is so hard
I definitely don’t want to hear, cheer up, it could be worse, what do you think?
What does practicing gratitude when life is hard actually mean?
Saying something nice to someone when you are hurting on the inside, not the easiest thing to do?
But give it a try!
Is practicing gratitude when life is hard a helpful strategy?
Yes, I think so.
Should we ignore pain and suffering?
Absolutely not.
Positive Psychology
Positive psychology has often been criticized for being “too negative about negativity”, or rather for denying the importance of negative emotions in difficult times.
When we’re going through a trauma, there’s no amount of “positive thoughts” that can, or even should wash away the sadness, anger, disappointment, or pain.
These are normal emotions that play an important role in our psychological coping and wellbeing.
How can you get ahead and move forward with a positive outlook when you just feel that you’re drowning in endless pain, depression, debt, grief, loss?
Stop Doing These Things When Life Gets Hard
Stop trying to control what you can’t control
- Our thoughts
- Our emotions
- Other people
- Mother Nature
- Decisions already made
What we do have control of:
- Our reactions
- Future choices and decisions
People who do best when life gets hard ultimately focus most on what they can adjust in their life.
This is so good!
Taken from playing mindfully.
Stop asking why!
“When life gets challenging, many people fall to their knees and ask ‘Why?
Why me?
What did I do to deserve this?”
The problem with this mentality is that most of the time, there isn’t an answer to your question.
I’ve actually found in my years that ‘Asking Why’ causes people to:
- Ruminate and hyperfocus on the event
- Believe that you could have done something different to prevent your situation (see point 2 for why this doesn’t work)
- Develop a victim mentality
Ultimately, asking why keeps you from moving forward. It keeps you angry and feeling bad about yourself.”
Remember..
It will change, life changes and you can change.
Your circumstances can change too, but it’s up to you to do the work.
Separate your future problems from your current problems.
I am a planner which means to me place everything in categories and look days to months ahead of time.
However, when I realize my goal on finances, self care, or my future did not meet my expectations or my time calendar I completely get in the funk.
The I suck funk!
After mind clarity, journal writing and therapy, the only problem we need to solve is immediate care and needs.
We don’t need to know the future.
We could respond to new needs as they emerged.
It’s clearly not a healthy long-term behavior to ignore the future, but in a crisis, clarifying where action and decisions are needed has been helpful in de-escalating anxiety, fear and self sabotaging.
We need to take each day as it comes, think of yesterday gone and tomorrow a new slate.
This post was written by Lauren K., and published by Convenient Counseling Services.
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