Do you ever find yourself falling hostage to your emotions in a way which makes it difficult for you to show up at work as you would like to? This can particularly be an issue when you are on the receiving end of something that you can’t control. In this month’s blog I share some ideas for how you can help yourself to manage these types of scenarios better.
In last month’s blog I shared that I had recently got some difficult news and how that led to me considering how best to manage myself when with clients as I dealt with it. Since then, I’ve also been learning what I need to do the rest of the time so that I can function with some sense of normality and effectiveness. While I am only a study of one, I hope that sharing what I’ve learned may be useful to you too… and I should note that I’ve not got this nailed either … some days are better than others but knowing how to navigate the not so good ones so that you are keeping psychologically healthy does help.
So here are some current thinking approaches that are helping me right now:
Self-compassion:
While showing myself self-compassion may be a behaviour, it’s by thinking about some key ‘rules of engagement’ that I manage to do it. I’ve needed to tell myself that I’m human and I am going to feel bad at times and that’s ok. What’s not ok for me at least is to allow myself to wallow in that bad feeling and start to feel like a victim… the tell-tale signs are when I hear my inner voice saying ‘why me?’ or something similar. That’s not helpful and doesn’t take me anywhere but down.
Resourceful thinking:
If we want to avoid wallowing, how do we do that? Firstly we have to recognise that we are not our thoughts. While our brain may think many things, we have the ability to review and refine our thoughts, to discard them and to replace them. I call this ‘resourceful thinking’ and it has helped me to turn a day around when an early unhelpful thought could otherwise have me spiralling. If I notice myself ‘rubbing salt in the wound’ by ruminating on what is happening, with the accompanying negative assumptions that often go with this, I firstly change my physical state; I find that going outside and taking some deep breaths or taking a 10 minute walk around the block helps to bring perspective and from there I can make the day worthwhile again.
Forward-facing:
Linked to avoiding the victim mentality, I’ve found it helps to focus my thoughts on looking forward and on what I can control that enables a sense of possibility about my future. It’s not easy at times and I recognise that sometimes some backward reflection can help us learn from what hasn’t worked; I suggest that this is done later though once the emotions are less severe. I’ve found it useful to make plans for the immediate weeks ahead both in terms of what is needed to deal with the unwanted change but also to make sure you have a support system in place. Being with people that can let you be yourself but also have the same forward facing mentality can help make things a little easier.
Finally, while not a thinking approach, I’ve found it can be useful to tap into the way that your moods can be affected without you even consciously being aware of it by the influence of external stimuli that are associated with a particular neural pathway in your brain. For me, this is listening to music which I have strong positive memories of – I have a few go-to tracks that work every time to get me to a more positive place.
If a particular search has brought you to this blog because of unwanted change, I hope that you may be able to journey forward with hope, whatever you might be currently going through.
Leave a Reply