Last week I was asked to write about help in
“Dealing with adversity and negativity and trying to turn your life around.”
That’s a tall order for a single blog post, but I’ll do my best!
Let’s dive in.
Firstly, for trying to turn your life around you get respect. And if you aren’t getting it from your family, peers, or social circle then…
start at the best place – by appreciating yourself.
No wait, I mean actually taking a minute out of life to consider that you are doing this, saying useful supporting statements to yourself.
So start by thinking about someone you DO actually appreciate. You can take a moment to see that person ‘BBB’ – Big, Bold Brightly in your mind’s eye.
Allow yourself to think appreciative thoughts about that person. Imagine sending strong feelings of appreciation to that person. Once you’ve done this, just imagine looping those same feelings (or th same flavour at least) of appreciation back onto yourself, and allow yourself to feel appreciated by erm.. yourself.
(I know it’s weird but sometimes weird works)
Note: it doesn’t need to just be feelings of appreciation. you can do this with forgiveness, gratitude, love (works particularly well) or anything nurturing or supportive.
Following this, I will often do the following with clients, either as a part of a guided visualisation – or a naturally occurring trance state – a bunch of my clients have reported it to be both a comfort and ’emotionally bolstered’ by this micro intervention.
Here’s a quick and dirty guide to how to do it.
“You’ve got this..”
“I’ll always be with you”
“I’ve got your back”
“I’m with you”
Give this simple exercise a try – it’s just one component of a bigger set, but I still think it will be of use to some people.
Then there is the dealing with adversity and negativity part.
There are a bunch of different mindsets or mental frames we can work from here are some of them – remember there is nothing wrong to switching to what works for you in any given time, and wisdom is recognising when it’s time to switch to a different frame. Remember folks, mental flexibility is king here.
1.
Choose to define yourself by almost the opposite of what your naysayers and haters say and do, vowing never to be like them and let every negative thought and discouraging word to be fuel to add to the fire that is gong to power your way out of this god-awful situation.
2.
Accept them and accept the situation as it is right now, allowing that to be only what it is in this moment. Observe these components without judgement as much as you can – it’s ok if you fake it at first. Look at this post for a useful Mindfulness exercise).
N.B. If there’s something that you cannot in this moment accept, then you can accept the fact that you cannot accept that for now. I know this sounds like a cheap linguistic trick, but it genuinely seems to work.
3.
Start with the end ‘you’ in mind. That is, visualise build grow and in an ongoing way tweak and modify your ‘best self’ – or rather, the you who can absolutely endure, no, FLOURISH in this scenario.
Map out how this ‘you’ stands, breathes, speaks to themselves and others, what he/she believes and values, and how he/she is connected to a greater sense of purpose and most importantly, how this person SYSTEMATICALLY operates and ‘is’.
Once you’ve done this, step into it, claim it own it get used to wearing and being it as often as you can so you adapt to it.
4.
Ignore the negativity as best you can while trying to stay focused (good luck with that).
I’m going to close by just saying give these things a good exploration. Some may work for you, some may not.
If they don’t make sure it’s not you quitting too soon without actually giving it a good old bit of old timey effort. Either way, please do like/share/comment or whatever you crazy yound social media ninjas are doing these days.
P.S. This post has been tougher to write than I thought it would be.
Have a supreme weekend.
DONE!