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When You Just Can't Get A Break |
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Written by Laurie B. Freeman
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Does it ever feel like you just can’t get a break? One bad thing happens and then it seems that life is just piling it on. The tax bill comes, there are troubles at work or worse yet, a job loss, then a parent becomes ill. In this time of economic stress, H1N1 and an increasing number of alarming stories on the national news, how is a person supposed to maintain a positive attitude? It feels like, in the words of my father, “there’s always something.” In some ways, my father is right. There is “always something” and there will always be bad things and stressors in our life. Yet unlike my father, we don’t always need to choose to be a victim of our circumstances and respond with sadness or hopelessness. I tell my clients that for every bad thing that happens in a day, there are also good things. There were babies born on 9/11. Even when someone dies, there are gifts that come in the grief..new friendships or new awareness of one’s resilience. The trick is to believe in the power of making a choice about how one feels. This process is intuitive for some. For others, it must be learned. It does not mean denying sadness when something truly sad occurs, but it does mean confining the sadness to the sad event versus allowing the sadness to permeate through one’s life. It does not suggest a superficial happiness to mask the bad things in life, but rather allowing a more balanced perspective of life as a whole as opposed to one event or aspect of life. Here are some ideas for how to choose to feel positive in the face of life’s challenges:1. Become aware of the self talk that accompanies a downward shift in mood. Things like “bad things always happen to me” or “I knew this would happen” only serve to amplify bad feelings. Try to shift the self talk to something that acknowledges the feeling but doesn’t generalize to one’s whole life. For example, “I’m disappointed, but this will pass” 2. Remind yourself of good things that you have in life and try to be grateful for what you do have. For example. “I lost my job but I do have my health and my family and we will get through this”. 3. Don’t face life’s challenges alone. Shame prevents some from sharing a job loss or failure yet isolation only serves to magnify pain. Tell your friends and family and allow them to provide support. 4. Find additional resources to help express pain or frustration. These vary by individual but some resources could include faith, meditation, journaling or exercise. More important than any individual technique or idea is the belief that one has the power to chose how to respond to life’s events. The above ideas may be helpful if you are dealing with minor periods of frustration. If you are feeling hopeless, suicidal or the frustration reaches a level where it is hard to handle on your own, please seek professional help. Sometimes it takes the support of another to help overcome long held thought patterns or especially difficult circumstances.
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