Getting through it is not easy at all. Here are coping strategies to emerge better off
Harsh times assault our life, as when robbers get into our house. We are not prepared for it. We haven’t invited them, but they will come as if we have.
These times are unavoidable. They will arrive, whether you wanted or not.
This is why you maybe aren’t having your best day now, week, month, or even year. You and I and many more feel that exact same feeling at several points in our lives.
I had them, recently.
A few months back, I experienced a sequence of harsh events that made me think to give up and blame the universe. I was upset.
Before these events, I was trying to help my little son to get through his freaking fear of rain and thunder. Believe me, I was already in a really tough battle.
Troubles never come alone
On a certain day, my mother-in-law suddenly passed out and got into a crisis that was admitted to the hospital.
By then, she took care of my son during the day while I worked from home. So I had to stop my chores and take care of my son.
That day had something else, another unexpected and harsh event was still incoming.
I was living in the countryside and usually, whenever there’s rain there are power blackouts. It’s going back and forth as hell.
It happened again. A dark storm did start and the energy went away for a while.
As I told you before, by then I was facing my son’s rain fear. I wanted to protect my son, so I picked up and hugged him in the darkness.
While holding him up, I tried to sit down on the hammock, but we fell down on the floor, unfortunately.
Pain in the shoulder started. It started to increase fast. I broke my collarbone.
For the sake of brevity, I just told you a part of the sequence of events I faced in a really short timeframe.
Harsh times come in when you least expect them. That’s life. Thanks, to God, we are still alive.
Getting through them is not easy at all, but you can still follow a few coping strategies to decrease the burden.
Take your time — Acknowledge your situation
I know it, my friend. At first, it is not easy to think this way at all. It’s not easy to acknowledge and embrace a tough time right away.
It takes time. So take your time. Again, at first, it’s just fine to blame and ask questions like why this is happening to me?. Yet, you cannot live for so long asking and blaming the universe forever. What’s the point of doing it?. None, right?.
I have gone through different harsh times in my life. So I do believe that a reasonable time will help you to acknowledge your current situation. This could be one day, one week, or even more.
The time will definitely depend on the level of awareness and resilience you have built up to that time.
Keep kind to yourself in the midst of the chaos
Don’t try to ignore your emotions. Don’t try running away from them. They are part of you. You need to take over them, instead.
I know it. Getting through harsh times feels like you are putting out fires endlessly.
You will ask a thousand times — why me?. Everywhere looks dark. There’s no such light at the end of the tunnel at all.
Yet, you need to be kind to yourself. Don’t hurt yourself up. This will pass, not when you desire it, but it will eventually.
Keep kind to yourself in the midst of the chaos. This will add the feeling you are the captain of your life.
Breath, breath. Do nothing. Do nothing until you have control of your emotions, then take action upon them.
Use your limited energy wisely
Under harsh times, the level of energy both mentally and physically goes down like hell. You can’t find willingness nor any force to move forward. Even to do a tiny step.
As I said above, take your time to acknowledge it. Take your time to cry. Take your time to blame God or the universe. But let it go after a while.
Don’t waste your limited energy on things you can’t control while on these times. Use any remaining energy on actions that act as soldiers fighting against your situation to emerge better off.
Don’t hesitate to adjust to new tools
If we depend on one income stream and plus work as freelancers when harsh times come up, we will certainly be in a critical financial situation.
Back then, I needed to work. I was freaking obsessed with paying off debt, so I needed to keep being paid but also put more money into my pocket somehow.
Yet, I had a big problem. My right-side collarbone was broken.
I am a software engineer and a writer. My hands are crucial to doing my job.
If I wanted to reach the goal of keeping and bringing more money, I needed to find other ways to keep creating content and coding that didn’t necessarily need my hands as the main tool of input.
I decided to write with one hand. But I needed supportive tools for the heavy work if I wanted to reach that goal.
I started to use the microphone to create the scaffold for any new article.
I quickly realized I was faster having a raw article with the main idea and key points, doing it that way.
Since then when commuting, on the bus, or when standing in line at the bank I use this technique to have raw articles ready for editing.
I just adjusted to new ways and tools — supportive and faster ways to continue doing what I really enjoy.
Fun fact.
I created this article using that technique.
Become an expert on your current circumstances
Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it — Charles R. Swindoll.
Dear reader, it’s not about what happened, but how you react to it.
My broke collarbone was the second broken bone in two years. I broke my left hand playing soccer first.
Thanks to that, I learned tips and advice on how to recover faster. I dived into this.
I became an expert on what to eat, exercises, and why a 15-min sunlight routine heals and helps bones to fix faster.
I did huge research about this matter because I wanted to understand and know how bones work.
As a result, I was becoming a real expert on this and healing my bones faster. But not only that, I was helping others facing the same and copping them to emerge better.
Final Words
Getting through harsh times is not easy at all. Yet, we talked about a few coping strategies to emerge better off.
Keep in mind that troubles never come alone. Yet you don’t need to be prepared because that is something you don’t know ahead.
You just need to face uncertainty and what comes with it.
Under tough times, you need to take your own time to acknowledge them. It’s not easy to do that and embrace it right away, hence you need time.
Remember to be kind to yourself. Don’t try to ignore your emotions. Don’t try running away from them. They are part of you, so be kind to yourself.
Thanks for reading. I hope this piece turned to be out helpful.
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