Decide or Slide

A friend of mine broke her upper arm recently. Considering she’s a massage therapist who’s been out of work on and off all year due to COVID, plus having a hastily re-organized virtual wedding as opposed to the long planned-for wedding of her dreams, along with the death of her beloved grandmother, this was just one more “yikes!!” she has had to deal with. She feels like she’s been tossed around like a rag doll by events. Nothing like the calm, ordered, happy life she’s experienced most of her adulthood.

Heaven knows, she’s not alone. So much is going on these days that challenge us: the political scene, the pandemic and all its economic consequences, yet more fires and hurricanes, not to mention friends/family with COVID or other illnesses and injuries. 

It’s easy to slide into negativity, into hopelessness and despair. Even with the best positive attitude in the world, these are trying times. What to do?

Decide! In other words, when you feel yourself sliding into negativity, into gloom and depression, decide. Be conscious, not knee-jerk reactionary unconscious. It’s beneath you. Instead, summon up your inner Captain Marvel, and take a stand for the forces of good. Your good! Yes, set a timer for 20 minutes and allow yourself to rant, weep or whatever you do when in the throes of “It’s not fair!!” I usually put the dogs outside (otherwise they’d try to comfort me and I’m not up for that yet), and then abuse umpteen pages of paper with scrawled histrionics. But once that timer dings, you’re done! 

Figure out what you can do to either make yourself feel better or make the situation better. Get creative. You are a powerful human being with far more resources (inner and outer) than we generally give ourselves credit for.

Get mindful. Focus on one thing at a time and give it your complete, undivided attention. Decide that you ARE going to get through this, that you deserve to give yourself the best of yourself, and that’s your “can do,” “always a way” self. 

Decide or slide. The choice is yours.

 

A Magical Question

Do you have those days when you not only feel like you got up on the wrong side of the bed, but that your whole day is one long “wrong side of the bed”? Well, in this podcast, you’ll be pleased to discover a simple question that can turn the “wrong side” into the “right side” with surprising ease!

Check out this episode!

Three Practical Ways Out of Depression

Ever get the feeling that you've just plain run out of steam? Not that you're physically tired, but somehow everything seems to be too much; your "get up and go" just got up and went? In this podcast, we'll explore three ways to help you get out of the doldrums and back on track!

Check out this latest episode!

More Hope and Less Angst

My best friend and I had a vigorous discussion recently about the relative merits of process versus results. She was extolling the virtues of process and processing, and I was nattering on about “results, results, results.” Yet the obvious conclusion at the end of our conversation, was that both are necessary and valuable. Without process/processing, there is no valid result. Without a result in mind, process/processing is so much mental-meandering.

Which got me thinking in a different way about our present situation. The pandemic. Which we’d all like to see over and done with like, yesterday. A final resounding result to this seemingly unending situation. Which as is increasingly clear, will not be the case. But what if we viewed it more as process? As something we quite literally are processing (like it or not!), which according to The Free Dictionary, is “To gain an understanding or acceptance of; come to terms with.”

Take four-year-old Madison and her dad Dan Presser. At first, Dan’s idea was just to find something fun for Madison to do, to help his daughter come to terms with the long months of isolation. What was it? He re-created little videos on his iPhone of famous movie scenes, with Madison as the lead, and posted them on the Internet. So there was the “Lion King” episode, a “Mrs. Doubtfire" episode and a "Forrest Gump” episode, along with many others as our stay-at-home continues. Mom (aka Mrs. Presser) would make the costumes, and baby brother (21 months old) would occasionally grace the scene with an appearance. Madison’s friends were included via their phones as sometime supporting players.

Much to Dan’s surprise, the videos garnered a growing following. With that, Dan was inspired to use the videos’ popularity as a teaching moment for his daughter. How one could help people in need, in particular those who didn’t have food on the table regularly. To date, the father-and-daughter team’s videos have generated more than $12,000 for Feeding America, with the help of matching donations from Disney. What a creative and heart-felt way to help Madison – and others – understand and come to terms with some of what the pandemic means.

Process! If all Dan did was sit around and bemoan the situation, waiting for a good result to fall from the sky, he would never have been inspired to come up with his father-and-daughter videos. Not that we all need to become mini-movie-makers, that’s not the point. What would benefit us all, is to stop and think for a moment. What could I think or do or share that would help me – and possibly others – come to terms with the situation which exists, no matter how disliked?

You are more creative than you know, and stronger than you think. You can, given a willingness to do so, come to terms with our present situation with more hope and less angst, until such time as the much-desired result comes to pass.