Life Happens

Sometimes life happens – whether it’s a death, sudden news of an illness, being told you will no longer have a job, the loss of a friendship/ special relationship for example, and it can send us into a spin. After all, our brains are trying to accomodate a piece of unplanned information that can be life changing, while trying to go to work, study and/or raise a family that still requires us to be functioning at maximum capacity. It’s a lot.

Changes in our life situation can challenge our identity – for example, who am I now in the context of this news, create worry and fear about the future – how do I do life? How long is my life? How do I live life in the context of this change? And put extra pressure on ourselves to keep functioning at the normal pace despite the stressor or life challenge. We can also experience grief in relation to who or how I was before the change that can exacerbate our anxiety or emotional pain associated with the new life situation.

To help feel more in control in situations that are totally out of our control, it’s important to focus on what we can control . This might be :

1. exercise despite my sadness/anxiety/grief because I can still do that

2. Attend my regular activities despite my emotional pain e.g. work or sport

3. Allow friends and family to comfort me as a way of self caring

4. Accept help where possible

5. Be kind/compassionate towards myself when I can’t do what I was doing before or getting down on myself – ask myself “if this happened to someone else what would I expect of him or her ? What would I say to them?

6. Seek help – don’t wait , book in with a psychologist or other support to ensure you have a space to be vulnerable and process what is going on with you

7. Link in with a support group – formal or informal so you can connect with others whom you can relate to

8. Get in touch with your values to help guide your next steps – ask yourself – now that *this* has happened , how do I want to act, feel, be, whom do I want to be with, what do I want my life to look like going forward ? And put those ideas into action.

While we can’t control what happens in our lives, we can choose to focus on what I can do right now despite this change