The human experience offers us a variety of experiences and opportunities throughout life and one of those experiences is the everything is going wrong experience.
There have been times in my life that I was offered the experience so often and so frequently that I sometimes just had to laugh at the ridiculousness of it. One time I came home after a long day of many things going wrong and stopped to get my mail and my entire mailbox fell over because the post had rusted through at the base! I felt like I was unwittingly part of some kind of sitcom. I remember thinking is this for real? Did that really just happen?
The good thing about all those experiences is that I started to develop a strategy to help me cope and move on. Here’s a list I’ve found to really work:
1. Get up. Literally. Get out of bed, get off the couch, get off the ground. Whatever that means for you in this moment – GET UP.
2. Get wet. Get in the shower, bath, pool, ocean, whatever. Water is restorative and refreshing. This is a good time to cry if you need to cry, to pray, to practice mindfulness, to sing. Use this step to release the negative and ground yourself in the current moment.
3. Get dressed. Preferably in something you like and feel good about yourself in.
4. Reach out to someone you can vent to/get support from. If you can’t think of anyone, write a letter (you can trash it later). Get those junky thoughts and feelings out. Don’t leave them ruminating inside you. Talking or writing about it helps you process and often we find solutions (and sometimes humor) when we get out of our head.
5. Make a list of all your blessings. Every single thing you can think of that matters to you, that makes you smile, that makes your life easier, that is good. Everything. This helps you get perspective and practicing gratitude is healing and powerful.
6. Eat or drink something, slowly. The healthier the better, but I’ll never begrudge anyone a Snickers and Coke moment. 🙂 This a function of daily living and you need to do it, even in high stress situations.
7. Engage in something you enjoy: reading, writing, music, working out, watching a favorite tv show/movie, talking with a friend, looking through photos, playing a game, etc. This offers you a nice distraction for a little while and can help you regulate your thoughts and emotions.
8. Start a list of things you need to do/take care of to move forward. Set a few deadlines for yourself of the things you know you have to do first. Add in a few things that are kind of easy so you know you can check them off. Action is empowering and coming up with a plan or strategy for even the smallest tasks can help you move forward.
9. Put something good out into the world. Do something nice for someone else – whether it’s an email, phone call, card, prayer, back rub, leaving the quarter in the shopping cart at Aldi as a freebie for the next person – whatever. When we feel like things are going all wrong for us, it’s easy to start operating from a scarcity mindset and to feel like we need to be greedy and scared. Focusing on doing something simple but nice for someone else helps you shift out of that mindset towards a healthier one.
10. Look at yourself in the mirror and be amazed. You made it through the day. I bet you can do it again tomorrow, and we only have to make it one day at a time.
