How Do We Get Through....

How do we get through difficult days? I keep coming back to this theme because we all have up and down days. And it’s important to remind ourselves that we do have tools to cope. As I watched my friend get ready for and then recover from surgery, as I myself went to an event that I knew would be stressful, I found myself needing to draw on my coping skills. I worried about her, I was putting myself out there career wise, and I had to cancel meetings with friends I had dearly wanted to see. It could have been overwhelming but it wasn’t because by now I’ve had practice with these tools and by now I’ve gathered evidence that no matter what, I will be able to cope. Here are some of the things I drew on:

1) Trust yourself. There is a reason you are feeling what you are. It’s useless as well as unfair to beat yourself up over any of it. If you think you are supposed to do something and can’t make yourself, ask yourself what you could do instead that might be useful and/or a good idea.

2) Do things that make you smile. And if someone you care about is going through a difficult time, do something that makes them smile as well. Laughter is healing and lowers the level of stress hormones in the body.

3) It’s okay to cry when you need to do so.

4) It’s okay to tell friends you are going through a difficult time. I do NOT mean expecting or asking them to solve the problem or cry with you, but at the event I went to, when I needed space, I said so.

5) It’s okay to enjoy yourself even when someone you care about is going through a difficult time. As Wayne Dyer says, you cannot be poor enough to make someone else wealthy, sick enough to make someone else well, depressed enough to make someone else happy.

6) It’s okay to make mistakes. That’s how we learn. Give yourself permission to be less than perfect and odds are you will actually do a better job at whatever it is you need to do.

7) Focus on what you love to do that you can offer to others. Choose to help or give or care in ways that empower and strengthen and fulfill YOU as well as whoever you are reaching out to help.

We cannot always choose what happens to us but we can always choose how we respond when it does. We can act in ways that empower us and put our energy in finding ways to still be happy—no matter what anyone else around us chooses to say or do.

Wishing all of you a happy and productive week and sending safe and gentle (((((((hugs))))))),

April_optimist