9 Ways to Get Through Tough Times
Photo: Gabriella Clare Marino/Unsplash
2020 was a year of much loss and change for many of us—lives, jobs, homes, relationships.
Challenges in life—whether trivial or tragic, personal or global—are unavoidable and not new to these times. In a period of four years, I lost my mother, father, a close aunt, and my younger sister from brain tumors, bone cancer, breast cancer, and suicide. After I wrote my first book about those experiences—Vita’s Will, Real Life Lessons about Life, Death & Moving On—I realized I had many natural ways of coping when faced with tragedy and grief. Below are nine of them that I hope will help you to survive and thrive during these unprecedented times.
1. Divert Your Attention
The more you think about negative situations, the more they amplify, often increasing feelings of anger, depression, and self-pity. Doing something more positive will give your mind and emotions a much-needed break. This gives you permission to escape for a while and have some fun. Work on a hobby. Play with your child. Binge watch a funny TV series. And, definitely stay away from the continuous gloom and doom of everyday news for as long as you can. It also helps to attend to someone else’s needs and happiness. There are many people right now who need assistance or cheering up. You’ll be surprised how good it feels to serve another person with a kind word, a meal, or a favor.
2. Call Upon Friends
Research shows that social connections have a positive effect on well-being. These days, it’s difficult to physically meet, but there are many other ways to reach out to friends, whether via video or just old-fashioned phone calling. You’ll feel less alone, and a sympathetic listener with a kind word or two is sometimes all you need to cheer up. This is not the time to be stoic. Ask for help! Let friends know you’re in a dark place. While this might seem uncomfortable at first, you’ll find that most people really do want to help others in need. On the other hand, be sure you’re also reaching out to friends who may need your help.
3. Find Gratitude
There is something to be grateful for in every minute of every day, whether it’s the warm sun, a phone call from an old friend, or just another day of living. When you make a list of everything that’s great in your life, it mitigates your problems. What are problems anyway, but merely learning opportunities? People will always have challenges in life, many of whom would trade their problems for yours in an instant. I find that a good practice is to make a mental list of everything you’re grateful for just before going to sleep each night. It’s not only a good reminder of how wonderful life is, but also a nice prelude to your dream state.
4. Lighten Up
It’s okay to laugh, even when times are rough. Laughter is as much of an emotional release as crying, particularly when we can laugh at ourselves. And given a choice, I’d much rather laugh. There’s always humor to be found in any situation as long as you’re willing to look for it. In fact, if you think of life as a giant play being performed, it can be quite funny. Sometimes you have to look beyond the obvious big ugly picture to find isolated moments and times that are funny, just by themselves. Some of us are born with a better sense of humor than others. I don’t think I really tapped into my sense of humor until I faced tragedy.
5. Accept the Past
You can find little things to do that will help make a dire situation better, like visiting a sick loved one or cooking dinner for a neighbor, but you must accept the things you can’t change—namely anything that’s already happened. If someone has died, they will remain physically dead. If you’ve lost a job, that particular job is gone. If a hurricane or fire flattens your house, that house can no longer serve you. Those are the facts, and nothing you do or say will change them. If you dwell on things you can’t change, you set yourself up for more stress and unhappiness. Instead, accept what you can’t change and spend your precious thoughts and time on what you can.
6. Connect Without Control
Amid the turmoil in my life during the time of all those tragedies, it was prayer and meditation that calmed me down and made me feel like I was not alone. I’m not referring to a specific religious belief. Prayer and meditation are merely forms of communication that connect you to your inner spirit and universal power. They allow you to give your problems up to a higher power, while letting go of things you had no control over in the first place. It’s quite liberating to surrender in this way and know that things work out exactly how and when they are supposed to work out.
7. Move On
No matter what challenges you might be facing, know that nothing ever stays the same. Your problems will eventually change. And yes, sometimes they get better, sometimes worse, but life keeps moving on, with or without you. When you live in the past, whether that’s a negative or positive experience, you get stuck in the past. That’s baggage that drags you way down. Let go of bad moments, bad decisions, and bad people like hot potatoes! Only then can you allow new positive experiences, opportunities, and people into your life. Time is always on your side. Don’t rewind, go backwards, or regret. Just move on, because whatever concerns you now will eventually pass.
8. Stay Optimistic
I’ve always seen the glass half full, and I’m grateful for that. Even though not everyone is born that way, anyone can learn how to be optimistic. If you look hard enough, you can find the silver lining to every difficulty. You just have to be open to the positive. I never believed things would get continually worse in my family, but they did. Regardless, I stayed focused on the small victories along the way and the life lessons I would have never learned outside of those tragedies. And since I could not predict the future, I chose to believe that something better was around the corner, rather than something worse. After all, there’s a fifty-fifty chance, isn’t there? Anything is possible! For some of you, you’ll have to “fake it, till you make it”. Even if you don’t believe it (yet), smile more, think positive, and stop all negative words and thoughts.
9. Return to Love
I wasn’t always the best at everything in life, but I always felt special and that’s what made me like and love myself. Given that, I’ve also always genuinely loved people. Not in a romantic way, but in a human connection way. I admire most people for whatever special traits they have and I like to tell them so! I believe that when you send messages like that into the world, you naturally attract that same love back to you, tenfold. When you have love in your life, problems become much more palatable. There is no power in the universe greater than love. Accept it thankfully and return it unconditionally.
Everyone is dealt a unique set of cards in the game of life. How you play them is up to you. All you can hope to accomplish by the end of the game is to have an overflowing cup of love, gratitude, compassion, acceptance, joy, and kindness for yourself, others, and life.
By Debbie Gisonni
P.S. Get 24-weeks of help getting through tough times with the SELF POWER NOW! online course series. Click here for more info.