How to Move Forward When Life Gets Tough
Curve balls come at us all every so often. For the most part, they can be pretty easy to sort, just a bit of an annoyance. But sometimes, the curve ball that gets thrown is more like a wrecking ball.
Life is always changing. It’s just the way it works. But when one of these curve balls strikes, you can be left dealing with aftershocks on an immense scale. Figuring out how best to handle these is not easy. You’ve probably got a ton of thoughts swirling around your mind. These thoughts are often not the least bit helpful.
What’s left? Unless you plan on curling up in a ball and staying that way for the rest of your earthly life, you’ve got to do something. But what? Well, moving forward is your only option. You’ve just got to figure out how.
Here are some ideas to help you get unstuck when life has gotten sticky:
Get mad, take action
Inertia can take hold of you during difficult periods. It can creep over you like a shadow; before you know, it you’re detached from the situation. You can’t be an audience member of your own life. So, letting your challenges silence you is just never going to be an option.
Anger is okay sometimes. Reasonable people still feel anger. If you’ve found yourself in a situation out of your control and it’s harmed you, being angry is totally normal. It’s what you choose to do and how you’re going to use this anger that matters.
Smashing something up is not constructive, and it’s not a helpful way to use your anger. But channeling it into finding a car accident lawyer to fight for you is. Using your anger to get proactive can seriously reduce your rage. Once you’ve chosen your lawyer, you can let them take over the battle on your behalf.
Sit awhile
Discomfort is a feeling we seem hardwired to seriously try and avoid. The thought of simply sitting with it might sound crazy. But it may just surprise you.
Sitting with those feelings can cause you to feel majorly uncomfortable. But you can’t attempt to avoid them indefinitely. Feeling that discomfort and everything else about your situation that makes you uncomfortable is essential.
It’s only when you just let those uncomfortable feelings exist that things are going to start changing. Staying with them, just letting them exist, may sound counter-intuitive. But give it a try. Staring down these thoughts and sitting through the discomfort robs them of its power.
Keep breathing, and continue reminding yourself that you did it. That bad thing happened, yet still, here you are. You keep showing up, you keep on accepting that yes, something bad did happen. Changing what has already passed is not possible. But changing how you choose to deal with it is in your power.
Avoidance is an easy option when you’ve experienced a challenge in life. But, it feeds into the incorrect idea that it’s too big for you to process. The more you avoid it, the bigger it’s going to get. A bad situation can define you. You’ve most likely seen that in other people before. An event many years before continues to haunt a person. It eventually becomes a part of their identity. Don’t let this be you. Your story is about so much more than a bad thing that happened one fateful day.
Let it flow, and then go
You’ve sat with it. That foreboding shadow has lost its edge. It doesn’t control you, and it won’t define you. But what do you do with it now?
It’s time to let it flow away. A horrible situation may lose its power when you can look back at it directly without hiding away. But it sure does throw up a lot of baggage for you to unpack.
All your thoughts and feelings may feel like a tight ball of knotted string right now. They may be twisting around in your mind. That’s a lot to carry around in your mind. It’s also pretty distracting and frustrating. Feeling confused is normal, feeling upset is normal, too.
Letting all these emotions flow will help you release them. This is all a part of the process. Let them flow out of you in any way you choose. Maybe you will see a counselor, and you can speak about how you’re feeling. Speaking honestly and openly to a therapist is certainly an ideal way to let all those blocked-up emotions flow freely. You may choose to have a few sessions to talk things through. Maybe you’ll keep going to see them for many more years to come. Either way is absolutely fine.
Talking works and writing helps, too. Not everyone wants to go over things out loud with a stranger. Maybe you prefer to process things more quietly. Keeping a journal works effectively for lots of people. Grabbing a pen and a notebook and letting the words flow out of you onto the page can provide a fantastic outlet for your emotions to pour out of you. So get writing and let it all flow.
Start slow and take the next step forward
Recovery is never about racing for an endpoint. Sure, you may have a goal or two you want to make happen. But they don’t have to be achieved by next week. Or even by next year.
Applying too much pressure to yourself is a massive mistake. Don’t jeopardize your incredible progress by rushing ahead now.
Setting goals can be helpful. Just make sure you don’t use them to put yourself under pressure. If you do make goals, break them down. Smaller goals give you something to aim for without too much pressure.
Instead, simply show up for yourself every day. The accident happened, and it changed things. But you’ve learned how to deal with it. You’ve reclaimed your power. This means you’ve nothing left to prove.
This is your story and you get to choose what comes next.
