Getting through Life when Things Aren’t so Blissful

As everyone knows, life is not always blissful; it can and will be difficult some days, weeks or even years. However, this is what forces us to appreciate and even recognize the blissful moments in our lives. As I discussed in a previous blog post, if life were great all the time, everything would just be neutral to us and we would not get to experience joy like we do now. This is why it’s important we learn to accept and appreciate the bad times just as much as the good times and remember our perception is everything.

When I am going through a difficult time or feeling depressed about something, I first try to change my perspective on the situation and really try to live my life trusting the universe and believing everything happens for a reason in divine timing. For example, I started to hate my job a couple of years ago- like really loathed going into work every morning. It started to negatively affect my life outside of work and I felt so unfulfilled. Then one day work was so bad (I am pretty sure I cried in my car during my lunch break lol) I went home and searched for jobs and applied to a new job. That new job is now my current job which I absolutely love! When I come across obstacles now, I always try to think of that example and remember if my day hadn’t been so miserable at my old job that specific day, I would not be where I am today.

We don’t always have to label negative emotions as being bad because they actually show us meaning. These negative emotions alert us that something needs to change in our life and they can help motivate us to make those changes. We are the only ones who can perceive something as being good, bad, neutral etc. We love to put an emotional label on every situation, it’s what we are conditioned to do. But you know how much better life feels when we don’t automatically label a situation and just let it be neutral? I think doing this works best for those minuscule annoyances that happen in our day to day lives such as getting stuck in traffic, your favorite store closing, your sports team losing and so on. Trust me, I hate traffic and still get annoyed at first when I am stuck in it, however, I am slowly learning to adapt to this new way of thinking and perceiving things. After my initial, negative reaction to traffic, I take a deep breath and tell myself how it doesn’t have to be negative, it could give me more time to listen to a podcast I’ve been wanting to listen too, call a friend/family member, practice mindful meditation (yes you can do this in traffic lol). The more we try to rewire our brains into thinking this way, the happier we will feel and soon enough it will become a habit and we will skip right past that negative, frustrated stage.

Now I don’t think trying the above strategy will help with everything, nor do I think it should. Life will throw huge, curveballs our way every now and then and I think it’s important we let ourselves feel our way through the tougher times. My favorite saying is “FEEL TO HEAL” and that is something I learned a couple years ago from a podcast and it has always stuck with me. It’s natural for us to want to avoid feeling anything when something really bad happens. Nobody likes feeling bad. So what do most of us do? Feed into our addictions to numb the pain whether it be drugs, alcohol, food, tv, relationships etc. In reality these activities just numb the pain temporarily and end up prolonging the pain because we’re not actually allowing ourselves to accept and feel the emotions. Take control of your feelings and allow them in, grieve, cry, replay those memories in your mind, write your feelings down, whatever you have to do so you can move forward with more ease. The most difficult part to me around this concept, is allowing yourself to feel and then learning to let it pass instead of getting stuck in your feelings for too long. However, I don’t think there is one timeline everyone should follow as everyone is experiencing something different and has different coping skills, support systems and so on.

It’s also so beneficial to allow yourself to enjoy the little things in life during these rough times. People say this a lot, but I think very few people actually do it. It’s so easy to be stuck in a negative mindset when you’re in pain, mentally and/or physically. But if we could all start to appreciate the “small” stuff around us, we will start to notice the small stuff is actually the most important stuff. This will be different for everyone, but we all can slow down and be more appreciative. Sometimes for me it’s just being grateful to have a few moments to enjoy a cup of tea or coffee on my patio on a beautiful day and feeling the warmth of the sun on my face. Some may say it is difficult to be grateful these days with so many horrible things going on around the world, however, I think this can be a time a lot of us can observe how much worse life can really be and appreciate ours a little more. There are precious moments to be grateful for every single day regardless if we are going through a horrible time.

Difficult times always pass…and so will good times. Every situation in life is temporary. Emotions too are temporary. If you’re going through a difficult time, think about all the previous times in your life that were hard and remember you got through those times and you will get through this time as well. We’re all stronger than we think.