Are you in the midst of a life storm?
At some point in your life you may experience a real life storm, one that sweeps through your front door, causes havoc, brings about the greyest clouds and completely turns your life upside down!! Yes I have been there.. several times! My near death experience almost 4 years ago still continues to give me lessons about life and how to handle those unpleasant storms. Here are my go to strategies to help me through the tough times.
1. Surrender to what you cannot change
Repeat I surrender what I cannot change..
I am of the understanding that we can change a lot of things when something goes wrong, but sometimes we can't change what has happened. Instant gratification is not a thing in adulthood, unfortunately we aren't really taught this as children and can find ourselves feeling frustrated when things aren't going well. People also love to avoid pain, I mean who wants to feel pain right? But there is a whole process to go through when life hands you the most shittiest of times and there is no getting around it. So surrender to the idea of the way things should be, life doesn't work like this.
2. Gain Control of What You Can Change
I was hospitalised at 25 weeks pregnant for the remainder of my pregnancy, for the time I was there I developed a routine. Wake up, eat breakfast, take medication, wait for the cleaner and have a chat with her, shower, for the entire day watch gossip girl, see my husband and son from 3.30pm until 5.30pm, eat dinner, cry and go to sleep. Repeat. Basically every single day was like this apart from weekends. What I learnt from this though, was that during my storm I needed certainty because there was zero available to me, I had three conditions that each had the risk of making me bleed to death with our baby baking in my stomach. This routine would see me get through the day, and let me tell you everyday was hard for almost three months. All I had available to me was this simple routine to give me certainty and it did, I managed day to day like this. When your in a storm this generally can happen where your living just for today. Thankfully storms don’t last forever.
Ok so maybe your not stuck in a hospital bed, but what are the daily rituals or routines that you can do every single day that help create certainty within your mind that allows you to handle whatever the day is going to throw at you. For example Tony Robbins has his hour of power every single morning, he gives an hour to himself. In this time you can meditate, exercise, read a book, say affirmations whatever is going to help you get focused for the day. Remember one thing, it’s the little things you do during your day that equate to the outcome, so brainstorm some ideas of rituals that will get you to the other side of the storm.
3. Beliefs
I was hands down, surrendered on the floor ready to give up for good. Life did not exist in me and I felt like an empty shell lost in darkness, how did my life come to this I would ask myself every single moment for three weeks. After some motivation by a beautiful friend, and a timely reminder of who I am and my beliefs, I decided to fight. See I have always had this belief that I’m strong and can face any lion coming at me. I had forgotten this belief for a brief moment in time. So with this reminder I picked myself up off the floor and focused so much on the fact that I will survive, and I will survive with my mental health in tact. Each day I fought a battle in my mind, it was like life was shooting bullets at me in a war and I was having to protect myself from them. Sometimes the bullet would hit me and it hurt, however I stood back up every single time because I wanted to survive. I held these beliefs true to my heart and I know that had I not experienced these realisations before going into surgery I wouldn’t of survived.
Maybe you don’t have a belief that will serve and support you right now, but it doesn’t mean you can’t obtain it. The really awesome thing about our brain is it will believe whatever we tell it to be true. If you have the same thoughts over and over again everyday, eventually this becomes your natural state. So why not use this to your advantage, make beliefs up that will help you. Read these beliefs every single moment of the day and act as if they are true until they feel real to you. Some examples of beliefs that will help you during a storm may be, “I am strong and courageous” – “I can overcome anything” – “when the going gets tough the best in me comes out”.
Like the saying goes “this too shall pass”, sometimes it can feel like a never ending hole but time really does heal. Sending love and light to you if your going through a storm and know I am always here for you xx
