We are humans. As humans, our life is supposed to go through some dark phases. You know there will be good moments, but what about the bad ones?
The ones that
- Drive us crazy because of a fight, argument, a particular person or a situation
- Destroy us because of a tragic event
- Unsettle us and our peace
- Overwhelm us through expectations, pressure, failure, or life big events
- And hurt us when our expectations don’t meet the reality
I want you to remember that,
NO PROBLEM OR SITUATION IS BIGGER THAN LIFE, EVEN IF IT IS, IT’S SOLVABLE.
Life can get pretty hard. It can bring us to our knees. What is important is, we learn how to ground ourselves, how to calm ourselves, soothe ourselves and be finally ready to face everything that life brings.
In this article, I’ll be sharing 5 Easy Steps which don’t need any prescription from the doctor, but solely your willingness to try and your efforts to give rest to yourself despite the challenges of life.
Sit Alone with Yourself
From my experience, I have hand huge troubles or I would say my set of struggles, bitter moments, heartbreaks, failures, childhood trauma, unstable childhood & adulthood, career setbacks and many more.
I would not say that I have lives my entire life by now, but I have seen some to guide you. All problems need something from us, and that is to make us get comfortable dealing with it. Its easy to say so but very difficult to live through it.
Problems have an underlying message. It wants us to self analyze as to how we can eliminate this problem and move ahead. We have to sit alone and be with ourselves in order to better handle our life. It can be triggering at first. It might seem frustrating but that’s the part of healing process after a troublesome event.
At this time especially, it’s also difficult to sit with yourself. This is the core time when you would want to get out of your zone, out of your own focus. You might want to release the stress and pain to your friend, close friend, family member, spouse or a trusted person, instead of sitting with yourself. You might also have so much unresolved emotions and thoughts.
It’s okay.
You can take your time. As you want to ground yourself, you can slowly incorporate alone time in your day to day life. At least 30 minutes to yourself or 1 hour can make a huge difference.
Sitting down with yourself can
- Bring all the emotions to yourself so that you can scan them one by one. It’s not necessary that you do this right away, but at your won pace
- It will better help you to listen to your intuition and guide you better
- You will be better at understanding your role in the situation and how you can make it better or heal from it.
I believe sitting alone can take us far ahead in calming ourselves and solving the problems that has presented itself.
Cry if it feels like
This is a big one. Do you know? When you cry, you release a lot of pent up emotions and years of baggage from your mind and body. It helps to cleanse you and lighten you.
On the other hand, it is also said that those who cry have the biggest strength to deal with it. Crying is like letting go of all the control in your life and allowing the healing to take place.
In overwhelming situations or traumatic moments, crying is inevitable & important too. If you were angry about something or had a fight, you are likely to have feelings about it. You might have the thoughts, which you must be fighting back. In this battle, crying can dissolve those thoughts and clear your mind to think properly. Hence, don’t forget to cry if you want to. If you are a man or a woman reading this, you would not want to think about whether you can cry or not. It shouldn’t be the feeling that you can’t cry, you have to toughen up and be a man. It’s a societal concept, instead of a healing concept. In healing concept, you are allowed to feel whatever you want to feel.
Take a walk wherever you are
In my experience, I’m a blogger, but I’m also a 9-to-5 employee doing the work and meeting the corporate deadlines.
Whenever I have done a humongous gigantic task, or a task that required a lot of focus & concentration, or a meeting where big deliverables were delivered or decided to work on, I would feel like I have had enough and I need to decompress.
I need to release and come down from hyperactivity to calm, peaceful and normal state of being. In his case, I go out of the office and take 2-3 rounds of the big corporate office.
This is an additional tip. I would listen to the music I love. You name it. Either it’s pop music or Punjabi beats, I love that time to relax and ground myself. Once I do this and come back to office, I’m at the perfect state of mind to start or resume my work again.
Next is, don’t walk so fast. Walk like you are going to your bedroom to get your clothes for sleep time. That should be the pace. It is said that walking can help manage hypertension. It can improve your mood, reduce anxiety, depression and release the hormones called endorphins which can improve the mood and bring relaxation.
So whenever you are having trouble feeling stressed, go out and walk. Even if you have to ground yourself indoors, you can take small walks at home or scale your entire house.
Write down all your thoughts
Now, this is very important and I have included this point after the walking stage for a specific reason.
When you walk, you will come down to your natural core stage. Your mind will become blank and at this stage, your mind will be clearer to think.
Here, you can write down all your points from a more real and raw perspective. You will write all that matters as you will have less energy to write about thoughts that don’t matter. You will focus on what is the core message or concern at the moment and this will help you become calm and composed. You will turn from a reactive stage into a much more calmer and actionable stage.
For me, writing my feelings down is so transformational that it opens my perspective and my brain. I’m left with so much clarity about my feelings, thoughts and my life. I know what I have done and what I’m going to do about a particular situation. It’s about removing the clutter and focusing on the core message, the core action after any event.
Pray for a better outcome
There are things in life that are out of our control, out of our line of action. We can decide about our action, but we can never know what might be the outcome. Whenever you are calming yourself down, you always think of that power, i.e., God, who will always be there to help you, guide you, and protect you from any obstacles. You will be searching for answers regarding your situation, what should you do in a particular situation, how should you approach it and many more questions.
No matter what troublesome, nerve wrecking, distressful, inconvenient event took place, Lord is there watching you and is answering your prayers. It’s not your time, but its his time and the best time. In crisis, we may not always do the right logical thing. We may shatter, break apart or do nothing. This is completely okay. Life is not a step by step process. It will not always be known as easy. It can be unpredictable and scary. But, that’s life and we are sailors of this ship.
We can only guide it better during the tough times and be grateful of the good ones.
So, I hope this blog will help you ground yourself in any situation that life throws at you.