When life brings pain your way, it's important to know it might actually be just the thing you need to move forward. Here's how to bounce back from any heart-wrenching situation.
1. Whenever you find yourself seeking an addiction in an attempt to run from pain, remember — pain is part of life. By accepting it, its intensity is reduced. Do not resist it. Resistance to pain brings tension and anxiety, anxiety leads to fear. Fear of pain is worse than pain itself. Pain will pass. It has to. Hmmm, intense. Okay, translation: It's always your choice. You can either (a) sit with the pain now, or (b) avoid the pain now and potentially feel even greater pain later, thereby delaying the healing and its incumbent path to self-growth.
2. Once you allow the pain to come, become aware of where in your body this pain is landing: throat, heart, stomach, back, head. Feel it in this body part; then breathe it out of this body part. If possible, give yourself specific times to grieve and breathe. Sounds weird, but it is known to work.
3. Keep a journal. Tracking your healing process will show you progress is being made. Classify your entries into the oft-quoted five stages. Quickly, stage one — denial and isolation (“This is not happening to me”), stage two — anger (“How dare this happen to me?”), stage three — bargaining (“Just let me get X, and I won't care about Y”, or “If this doesn't happen, I promise to...”), stage four — depression (“I can't bear going through this”), stage five — acceptance (“I'm ready. I don't want to struggle anymore”). And, remember, after you pass through stage four, that final stage of acceptance is right around the corner. Whew!
4. Recognise that you are an unfinished self in progress. Like so many of life's challenges, experiencing and overcoming pain can reveal emotional depths and perspectives you didn't know you were capable of.
Re-focus on the excitement of all the new changes in your personal being and your life journey ahead.
Motivate yourself to stretch your mind — and always seek to find the most healthful interpretations and positive lessons in all your life challenges!
During dark times, we all need to face and feel the harsh light of glaring truth. Feeling means you're dealing… and truly healing
