When Life Has You Down, Look Up
This life is guaranteed to come with trouble, challenges, and situations we wish we would not have to go through. When hardships come, they can crush us or make us stronger. The difference in either wallowing in the pain, or rising above it, often lies in what we turn our thoughts to as we face the difficulties.
At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, like everyone else, I was disappointed by the cancelling of so many plans that I had been looking forward to, and the isolation from others was a hard obstacle to overcome. However, in order to get my eyes off only my own sadness, I thought about those around me in my neighborhood and got my family involved in an outreach plan. Together we gathered Amazon gift cards along with a hand drawn picture from our young kids and sent each neighbor a mailed note of encouragement. This worked in not only brightening their day, but it also transformed my own thoughts into being more hopeful and bright.
When we ourselves have gone through situations that cause grief, we are better equipped to recognize and reach out to others facing similar circumstances. Before having my first child, my husband and I experienced a devastating miscarriage. The grief I felt was unlike anything I had ever experienced before then. Those in my life had varying degrees of responses to our painful loss, but the ones who were most understanding and compassionate were those who had walked down similar journeys in their own life. They knew to come alongside us, and let us express our grief in helpful and healing ways. After we had experienced this kind of empathy in our life, it made it that much easier to understand how to offer it to others who found themselves walking that same tragic road later on.
Hardships can be like walking along on a sunny day and suddenly you trip and fall into a hole in the ground. There are two ways to go at this point, up or down. If you immediately start worrying and complaining, it’s like giving yourself a shovel and digging deeper and deeper into the hole until all you can see is the dirt and you lose track of the sun. Hope is lost and you feel yourself cave under the pressure of the circumstances. However, if you want to go up instead of down, you will need to learn to lift up your eyes to focus on the good around you, no matter how small. It might start with the thought that the sun is still shining or that you have a friend nearby who you can call out to. These seemingly little thoughts can be what saves you from being buried alive by tragedies and what changes your perspective to help you reach out to others too. Strength to rise above is often found in the small moment by moment choices we make. This is where our challenges become either battles lost or victories gained.
Challenges/Points:
Everyone will face difficult circumstances, but changing our perspective or focus during troubling times, can lead us more quickly to helpful outcomes or healing.
Finding ways to reach out to others can have the added benefit of actually being a positive boost in how you handle tough times and can shift your mental energy to something more uplifting .
Victory is won, not in overcoming every obstacle, but in changing the way you think or react when hardship comes your way.
Questions:
When you go through difficult circumstances, what makes it hard to see beyond the immediate happenings and instead focus on little bursts of goodness or opportunities to reach out to others?
In what ways can you take what you have experienced in challenges and use that knowledge to help someone facing a similar struggle?
If you are facing a struggle today, what is one good thing, no matter how small, that you can be thankful for or focus on?
To talk more about this or something else on your mind text the number 494949 to chat with our team or visit RemedyLIVE.com/chat anytime, day or night.
Did someone send you this post, and you want to subscribe to our free self care guide? Text CARE to 494949 to receive daily posts.
