How do you respond when life kicks you in your soft bits?
How do you react when things don't go your way?
How do you feel when you suffer a setback?
The way that we respond to the uncontrollable things that happen to us in our lives due to external forces is such an important thing...
It is important because this is something that we have power over. We may be powerless to affect the negative life events that cause us hurt, but we have all the power in the world to control how we react and respond to them.
Depression, anxiety, catastrophising, overthinking, anger; all of these things are often how we respond to a major negative life event. And yet, I am sure that most of you would agree that these responses are hardly in our best interests, nor are they particularly helpful. If anything, they worsen the effects of the negative life event, amplifying the initial hurt...
It is like a rock dropped into a pond. The rock disappears quickly, but the ripples play across the surface for a good while after the rock has dropped out of sight and come to rest on the bottom of the pond. And in a small pond, the ripples bounce off the edges and double back on themselves, and ripples create ever more chaos on the surface of the pond...
I find in my own mental health journey that it is often not the huge changes in one's life that make the difference to the quality of it. Sure, challenging the negative patterns of a lifetime is important, but sometimes you can bite off more than you can chew...
I find it easier to be a little bit subtle, or perhaps sneaky, about it...
Little changes can make as big a difference as big changes, if they are targeted and applied in the right way...
For example, I have taken to applying a simple behaviour modification technique in my life, and it's worked wonders...
Now, when a negative life event impacts on me, I respond in a particular way. Instead of responding in all the negative ways that I used to, I have a nice glass of wine and celebrate...
A setback is merely an opportunity to take a breath, reappraise where you are at in your life, and to continue on (maybe in a new direction) with renewed vigour... over the course of the decades, even major setbacks fall into place in the end, and we end up wondering what all the fuss was about... some setbacks end an old life and start a new one, and years later we can come to thank those at-the-time terrible things that happened to us...
It is indeed a great reason to celebrate... for if life went totally according to plan all the time, it would be dull and predictable, lacking in creativity...
So yes, setbacks and knockdowns have become a cause for me to celebrate. And most especially as a bipolar person, it helps to cut down on the melodrama in my life. Cheers, peeps...
Much love to the community... hugs and happy vibes beaming to you all...
) within myself regarding my parents... it's not perfect, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much as it used to...
