Emotional Support – Page 2 – in thriver words

Let The Sun Shine In

Today, I feel like I’m going back to kindergarten to sing, so let the sun shine in…face it with a grin…smilers never lose and frowners never win! Why? Like this song, I want to talk about focus.

hand writing with pen in journals on table

I recently had the experience of sharing my guest room with someone who noticed every single bad thing that happened to them. Even the slightest inconvenience was viewed as a personal attack. In their world, everything was personal, and all negative events were deliberate attacks. They put a lot of energy into selling this version of events as the only possible way to view things.

The free drink someone sent over to their table? Didn’t register. The line of thinking being they deserved that free drink because it didn’t even begin to make up for the guy at the car dealership who talked to them like they knew nothing about cars earlier in the day. And on top of that, the woman at the bank misled them and on and on and on and on. All day. Every day.

Needless to say, they were miserable. It was an awful way to live. And there were some real difficulties. But there were good things happening every day as well. Just like the free drink, the positive was minimized or ignored totally.

When we suffer a traumatic event or a long-standing hardship, habit can creep in. We can begin to focus on the negative things that are happening. That focus turns our heads away from kindness, connection, and support that promote healing and positivity. We can get in such a groove that we keep good things at bay.

We often hear about practicing gratitude. It’s a great thing to do! But we may also need to practice receiving kindness, love, praise, and connection.

During hard times, we may learn to stay braced for yet another blow. This can mean we don’t fully embrace a kind gesture or supportive words. We may express quick appreciation while breezing through the good feelings we can absorb by lingering in the moment. Think of how many times you’ve brushed away a compliment to shift the focus elsewhere.

It’s not selfish to fully embrace kindness, support, and help. And it doesn’t just help us. It helps the giver too.

If you’ve never tried letting the sun shine in, create a receiving journal. For 30 days, keenly observe and record kindness, positivity, laughter, and serendipity. Don’t try to turn bad into good. Just be willing to see the good. Then sit with it. Linger in feelings of satisfaction, contentedness, lightness, happiness, and warmth. Stick with each feeling as long as you can.

Once a week, go back and review all the positivity you’ve experienced that week. Try to put yourself back in the emotional space you were in as you remember each experience. At the end of 30 days, see if you feel better.

I’m not suggesting this will be a quick cure-all for anything, but letting the sun shine in is good advice. And the more you practice receiving, the more you will receive because you’ve become more adept at letting in the good.

Where our focus goes, so do our lives. While it may sound hokey to say let the sun shine in, face it with a grin, in practice, it’s effective. Let’s do it with the gusto of a four-year-old singing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyX4TOOgKY

Tri It!

When struggling to take care of yourself, just tri it!

Three happy people jumping with snow in background.

Often the thing we need to meet the everyday challenges of living with a chronic condition is support. We look to our families, but they may be busy or overwhelmed themselves. We look to our friends, but we don’t want to put a damper on every occasion. There aren’t always support groups available for the kind of support we need.

When we have to reach beyond our everyday contacts and we’re already feeling under water, it can seem daunting to locate the resources we need. We may imagine what feels like a big obstacle into a bigger mountain than it has to be.

You only have to add one wheel to make a bicycle stable and a third leg to keep your camera stand steady. Three isn’t a huge number, but it’s enough to create a scaffold for a tomato plant.

And it may be enough to create a scaffold of support as well. If you’ve created a lengthy mental list of the support you need to stay on a healthy path, hone it down. Choose three things based on: what is most readily available, most in line with your values, and most easily adaptable to your everyday lifestyle.

If you’ve imagined an intricate, layered, and vast support system because your needs feel huge, a three-pronged support system may sound insignificant. But that’s just because you need to adjust your expectations. You really won’t know the effects until you scaffold up and see what happens. Keep in mind, positive builds on positive.

What does three-pronged support look like?

Everyone’s lifestyle, resources, and ideal plan will vary. The possibilities for adaptations will be endless. A little imagination, observation, and flexibility will let you devise a system that works.

It’s okay to start with the lengthy list of things you’d like to have in an ideal world. You can chisel that down to a workable three. After a period of time, you may discover one prong isn’t working like you thought it would. Remove that one and replace it.

For instance…

Your ideal plan includes a personal chef. Your revised plan might be to have your mom keep the kids half a day each week so you can prep and cook several meals while listening to your favorite tunes or podcast.

If that doesn’t work, a fresh meal subscription service could be a good option. It will save you time and mental preparation.

You want a personal trainer. You may be able to find a virtual personalized program.

If that doesn’t work, you may have a neighbor who’d like to walk with you every morning. There could be a rowing team in your area that needs an extra person. Your local library may offer free yoga classes.

You need something to feed your mind and spirit. A painting class, free lecture series, or even a book club can fill that spot.

You might try singing in a choir, fishing with your grandkids, rocking babies in NICU, or reading to the elderly.

I know some of those things sound like I’m saying you should put energy you don’t have into other people. Some of them start that way. But getting away from your house and its to-do list to rock a baby so it will thrive will feed your spirit in ways you don’t imagine.

Another thing to keep in mind is that no plan is perfect. Planas don’t have to be. Sometimes, when we pay close attention, it’s the things we never planned on that make us feel better.

Support can also look like setting better boundaries and saying no. In fact, if you’re not sure where to start, start by saying no. A lot. Removing noise can clear the path to better awareness of what we need vs what we want.

So, say no. Try something, rinse, repeat. Three pillars of support can vastly improve how you feel. Tri it!

Getting Comfortable with Discomfort

Making any sort of lasting change requires getting comfortable with discomfort. I know, sounds oxymoronic, but bear with me. Doing the familiar is more comfortable than doing something new. But doing the familiar means little to no change. That’s what keeps it familiar.

Change requires doing something you may not feel comfortable with. Making lasting change takes time, commitment, and repetition. If you can’t settle into some discomfort, you’ll likely be ineffective in achieving significant difference.

We often seek to avoid discomfort. Avoidance comes in so many forms we may not recognize it. Denial is a form of avoidance. Busyness can be a form of avoidance. Drugs or alcohol can be used to avoid. Video games, social media, binge watching, excessive volunteering, and sleeping can all be used to keep discomfort at bay.

But when we restrict each day to our comfort zone, we miss out on the many layers that define a full life. We miss the entertainment of friends who think differently. We miss disruptors that can deepen our understanding. We miss soreness that means we’re gaining strength or flexibility. We may miss our best health, deep connection, awe inspiring views, innovative ideas, or flavorful food. It’s worth considering that we could be missing out on life’s best moments in order to hang onto comfortable ones.

Ever cry when you smash your finger only to have your dad say, “My dad would have said stop crying or he’d give you something to cry about.” It’s not a bad thing that pain and injury often meet more compassion now. But not all injury or pain is catastrophic, and expectation of immediate and complete relief from all levels of discomfort is unrealistic. Reassessment of your perspective may be necessary if you believe all discomfort is bad.

As you begin to build tolerance for discomfort, it can be helpful to dig deeper. Underneath a general feeling of nervous energy you may find a specific emotion or group of emotions related to the change you’re hoping to make. Identifying fear, sadness, embarrassment, sorrow, longing or whatever feeling(s) applies will help you develop an appropriate plan for handling whatever bubbles up.

We often avoid making change because we don’t want to feel emotions we deem bad or negative. Emotions are not inherently good or bad and our relationship with them can change. We can view pain as a punishment or a helpful signal that there’s something we need to address. When you find a sticking point, imagine how you might feel if it were opposite day. You can approach this as a game. Play with it and see what happens. You’re learning to reframe. Reframing is a powerful tool at everyone’s disposal.

A lot of us watch elite athletes overcome injury and think, they can do it because they have amazing doctors, and facilities, and support. It’s true, they do. But they still experience pain and discomfort. A good takeaway may be that discomfort is easier to tolerate with support.

Once you have a framework and support, it’s just a matter of practice. Let yourself stay in discomfort for a minute longer today than you did yesterday. Slowly, but surely, you’ll get comfortable with discomfort.

Build Resilience

When healthy habits fall outside the norm, it’s important to build resilience. Being adept at recovering from and coping with difficult situations is beneficial for anyone and everyone. It can be especially important for those of us who must buck a few norms to be healthy.

I’ve been standing out like a sore thumb this week. I’m cleaning out a building in a small town that tends skeptical toward things nontraditional. It’s an environment I understand. I feel the pressure to conform. But rather than taking a pause on my healthy routines when they don’t fit in, I choose to take the stare down I got from a total stranger yesterday.

No matter where you live or work, it takes some fortitude to consistently and gracefully navigate lifestyle choices that seem foreign to family, friends, and co-workers. Developing resilience is key to coping without feeling depleted.

How do you build resilience?

By doing. If I had a nickel for every time I hear someone say, “I can’t” instead of “I’ll try,” I’d be retired and living the high life. Any time you start with I can’t, you won’t. You’ve made up your mind. You never build resilience, or new skill for that matter, by taking yourself out of the game before it starts.

I’m not saying you should do everything that comes along. I’m not planning to run a marathon. And I couldn’t… today. But I believe with the proper training regimen, I can work up to it. Dismissing anything you aren’t comfortable with or capable of right now is a good way to

lessen your ability to pivot when needed.

By getting support. If you feel too embarrassed to meet a challenge on your own, bring a friend. As they say, there’s strength in numbers. Support can look like anything that helps you recognize, build, and rely on your internal strengths and abilities.

By learning. When you try out new ways of navigating the world, you will sometimes feel as though you performed poorly. You can label this failure and stop trying or you can label it Step One toward resilience. Failure is not a permanent state unless you make it one. Review, learn, build, and do it better next time.

By sticking with discomfort. As you advocate for your health choices, you may experience fear, frustration, embarrassment, and rejection. Feelings are just feelings. They will dissipate and morph. Don’t try to avoid every negative feeling. Stick with it for a moment to build tolerance. Let the feeling go. Rinse, repeat.

By bragging. Okay, maybe not exactly bragging, but it’s okay to feel proud of yourself and let someone know. It’s great to keep a written list of every single step you make toward trusting yourself and feeling powerful.

Nothing is too small to note. Put a reminder on your phone, a sticky note on your monitor, a lipstick list on your mirror – or post it publicly if/when you feel comfortable.

So many things are immediately available these days, we tend to be impatient and forget the value of building slowly over time. But resilience isn’t a sink or swim kind of skill. It’s one forged by fire, slowly, in layers.

When you make healthy choices in an uncomfortable environment, you build resilience. When you advocate for yourself against resistance, you build resilience. When you speak up for someone else facing circumstances similar to yours, you build resilience.

And when you need it, resilience will help you overcome a challenge. We can all become more resilient. All it takes is to build resilience is practice.