When the Excrement Hits the Fan--Use Those Negative Experiences

One of the reliable facts of life is that stuff happens. Bad stuff. Negative stuff. No matter how smart you are, or how capable you are, things will occur over which we have no control. This has seemed especially true lately, where we’re been ravaged by hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, crime, civil unrest, threat of war, and political divisiveness, to name just a few.

Even if those events haven’t touched you personally, most of us have smaller negative things happen more often than we’d like. Whether negative things happen to you daily, monthly, yearly, or only occasionally, each of us will at some point be challenged to handle some sort of negative experience.

Whether that experience is big, small, or life-changing, we must each be able to figure out how to handle it when it comes. Because it will come. At some point, you or someone you love will get sick. You’ll suffer damage to your house or your car or your prized possession. Someone you care about will die. 

I don’t remind you of this to bring you down. Having negative things happen now and then is a universal given. The challenge is what you do about it. 

Obviously, big negative things like earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, or war do damage that is especially hard to handle. The challenge is so BIG that it overwhelms those in the middle of it. Something like that requires a huge influx of resources. If it is happening to you, reach out. Ask for help. In these situations, survival becomes the key. Rebuilding comes later. If it isn’t happening to you and you have the capability, reach out to help. Give of your time, your money, supplies. If you can’t go to help personally, help spread the word about what is needed.

Certainly, the big stuff gets our attention. But how many people struggle along privately, dealing with negative circumstances in their own lives? If that is you, I hope you’ll reach out. To friends, to professionals who can help with your situation, to your community.

When we’re dealing with that excrement that hits the fan, I think the key is in finding a way to deal with it. There are a lot of possibilities. 

• Step away from the fan. Get out of range of people and situations that bring you negative experiences. Step away from their drama. You don’t need it, and it doesn’t serve you well.
• Use those negative experiences to turn yourself into a warrior. When someone puts you down, or tells you that you can’t, decide to prove them wrong. Do it in spite of what others think. Get their opinions out of your head. What someone else believes is true says more about them than it does about you.
• Trust yourself and your intuition. Although things may seem hopeless or grim, they won’t always be that way. Especially if you decide that you’re going to turn things around.
• Reach out for support from others. One of the toughest things about dealing with negative situations is doing it alone. Don’t have anyone you can turn to? Call your United Way. They’ll know of local resources that can help you. Reach out to people who have helped you in the past. Although you may find support on social media, be cautious about who you bare your soul to. Not everybody out there wants to be supportive. Cull out the ones who aren’t by blocking them. You don’t need more negativity.
• Believe that this situation will pass. Know that it won’t last forever. Look for small signs that things are getting better. Ask yourself, “What’s the first small sign I’ll notice that will tell me things are getting better?” Listen to the answer that rises up from your subconscious. Watch for it.
• Give up the idea or belief that you deserve bad things. Most likely, it isn’t true. If you aren’t sure, talk with someone who knows. If you’ve done some bad things in your life, look for ways to make amends. You may not be able to undo what you’ve done in the past, but you can certainly make sure that the present and future are different. 
• Speak kindly to others. Even though you’re going through a difficult time, it doesn’t mean you have to take it out on others. Give them a hand when you can.

We all have negative things happen to us at some time or another. What speaks to our character is how we handle them. If this is an issue for you or has been an issue in the past, put a plan in place to handle it differently the next time something happens.

If you want some help with moving beyond negative experiences from the past or present so that they don’t ruin your future, feel free to reach out to me. Email me at Linda@InnerResourceCenter.com or call me at 865-983-7544. I’ll be happy to talk with you to help you plan your strategy for moving on. I’ve got some tools that help people move away from negative experiences quickly, or I can help you plan your own strategy.

I believe in reaching out to others. I want people to create their own happily ever after and to know what to do if negative events threaten it. I believe that we’re here to help each other, to live with meaning and authenticity. One of the key elements in living your life’s purpose is to overcome the obstacles that life sometimes throws in your way. Step by step. Become a warrior for your own life. You can do it; I know you can.

How Can You Prepare for the Unknown?

Waiting and wondering seems to be the theme lately. Depending upon where you live, you wait and wonder about different challenges. In the northwest and far west, you wonder about wildfires. In Idaho and Mexico, you wonder about earthquakes. In the Houston area, you wonder about rebuilding and how you’ll recover from Hurricane Harvey. If you’re in the Caribbean or Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, you wonder what Hurricane Irma will bring to you and/or those you love in its path. There are other challenges globally that affect millions of people. Some of them are natural disasters. Some of them are terrorist plans, or saber-rattling from countries threatening war. Others are actually engaged in war, sometimes with their own citizens.

No matter what the threat, we’re called upon to somehow, be ready. That isn’t always so easy to figure out. Do you leave your home? If so, where do you go? Are you facing something that your government will help you navigate? Or is that part of the problem?

For me, Hurricane Irma has grabbed my focus as I think about how to keep family members safe in Florida, especially my 94-year-old mother who doesn’t intend to leave The Villages in central Florida. Luckily, my brother and his son have gone down so that she won’t be alone. They are as ready as they can be. My sister and her husband in Gainesville, and my niece and her family (and their restaurant) in Gainesville have had to get as ready as they can, not being sure what Irma will be like by the time she gets to them. 

My colleagues and I who have a conference planned in the Atlanta area next week have to wait and wonder whether we can proceed or not. Irma is predicted to head north through Georgia, but we don’t know whether that will mean flooding, power outages, and/or closed roads. Actually, there have been some predictions that Irma will head north to Tennessee and bring rain, wind, and tornadoes to our area, or if it will be further west. 

Not knowing is one of the hardest things about getting ready. If you have a pretty good idea about what is likely to happen, it is easier to prepare for it. When there are a lot of unknowns, and when the timing isn’t clear, it makes it tough to prepare. 

When you don’t have the answers, you can only guess, and do what you can. For humans, anxiety tends to accompany the unknown. We worry about what will happen to us. We worry about what will happen to our communities. We worry about what will happen to those we care about. 

I find that the best way to deal with that anxiety is to do what you can to prepare. Plan for contingencies as best you can. Use your “what if” problem-solving abilities to have multiple plans and resources. Reach out to others who may not be as good at planning as you are. Remind them of what sorts of things need to be done. Ask questions to make sure they are as ready as they can be. Offer your assistance or a place to go if you can. If you have the capability to help others, reach out. If you hear of resources that may be helpful, pass them along. 

The waiting and wondering is always the hardest, I think. I always feel better when I’m taking active steps to plan or handle a situation. The waiting and wondering tends to shatter my focus. It’s funny. When I’m in a situation when I’m waiting and wondering about something I’m facing, it’s hard to understand that others may be just going through their daily life as usual. They may not be aware that your community is flooded; that your community is on fire; that you’re unable to escape a dangerous situation.

I guess we all live in our own bubble, where the things we’re facing are #1 on our list. Others may have their own catastrophes or difficult situations to deal with. Those are things we may know nothing about. They may be trying to rebuild from the last catastrophe. They may be burying a loved one. They may be fighting a terrible disease. They may have just lost their job, or no longer have a place to live. Their only transportation may have broken down for good. 

Whatever challenges you face, please be aware that there are others that are facing something different. No one has the corner of the market on the biggest disaster. We each have our individual perceptions and perspectives of what we face and how ready we are to cope with whatever hits us.

There’s a lot of pain around us these days. Whether you’re actively experiencing it or not, please be aware that there are those who are stretched beyond their limit. Give them a hand when you can. Help them in the ways that they were there to help you and yours when you were faced with pain and challenges. 

We survive bad situations best when we help each other. If you are experiencing bad times, reach out for help. If things are okay for you, reach out your hand to help others. If you need somebody to talk to about your experience, I’m here to listen, and if possible, to help you connect with the resources you need. You can contact me through email at Linda@InnerResourceCenter.com or call me at 865-983-7544. 

Good luck waiting and wondering!

P.S. This was written over the weekend, 

and today the remnants of Irma are supposed to begin to hit us with high tropical storm winds and heavy rain. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has closed roads and campsites in preparation. And, in order to be timely, and make sure this gets sent, I’m sending it on Monday this week, instead of Tuesday. Be well, whatever you are dealing with.

Warmest wishes,

Linda

What Really Matters

Sometimes you’re going along, living your life the way your usually do, and then something happens that throws you off-kilter. It might be something that changes the way you think about things, something that makes you realize that your focus has been in a place that matters less than what is going on right this moment.

It may be something that stops you in your tracks and makes you realize what really matters. 

For much of my nation—the US—it has been Hurricane Harvey and its terrible aftermath during this past 10 days.  We’ve watched as torrential rains flooded our fourth largest city and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Water destroyed houses, washed away cars, and ruined all their belongings. But even worse, it killed people and animals. 

 

It took hundreds of thousand lives and turned them upside down for the foreseeable future. Whether you know anyone in that area or not, you can’t help but be moved by the ways that strangers reached out to help others: driving in with flat-bottom boats to help evacuate those stranded; forming a human chain to rescue someone out of a floating truck; arriving on horseback to help release other horses trapped and straining to keep their heads above water; opening homes, stores, and churches to take people in from the relentless water; arriving at shelters to volunteer; sending money and supplies.

Just as it has done at other times, this disaster focused us on what really matters. I experienced it close up last fall during the fires that killed fourteen and wiped out so much in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Or as it did when the tsunami hit Southeast Asia several years ago. Or when wildfires engulfed so many acres of land in the Western US. 

Whether the disaster gets national news or is primarily a local story, most of us are moved by the pain and suffering of others. We want to help. We hurt for them, imagining what it would be like to experience those events first hand. 

Television, the internet, and social media brings us first-hand stories and first-hand images that burn their way through our consciousness, reminding us of what is important. What is most important through it all are the LIVES.

 what is

Lives that are lost. Lives that are irrevocably changed. Lives that matter. 

All of us become changed by the experiences we have. If the experiences are positive, those changes may not be problematic. If those experiences are negative, they can be life-changing not only for the person who has the experience, but on others whose lives intersect with theirs.

I’ve spend a good portion of my professional life helping people move beyond trauma, whether caused by a natural disaster, a crime, an abusive relationship, war experiences, accidents, health issues, or any of the huge number of traumatic incidents that can change your life forever.

Trauma changes people, there’s no doubt about that. It can change brain functions, and how fully the person is able to live in the here and now. But there are ways to mediate trauma, to resolve it, to help people go from feeling as if all their resources have been damaged to putting it in its place and moving on. 

While I’m in full support of rebuilding homes, helping people restore their lives, I hope we won’t forget what really matters: helping people survive something terrible and come through it stronger, wiser, with all the inner and external resources they need to move on. Because that’s what’s really necessary to survive this or any other bad experience.

If you or someone you know needs help connecting with those resources, I hope you’ll reach out. Email me at Linda@InnerResourceCenter.com or call me at 865-983-7544. 

While I no longer work as a psychotherapist, I can teach you the tools to move on, or I can help you find someone to work with so that you can resolve whatever trauma has taken its toll on you. What really matters is to find the resources to move on. Your history of the trauma doesn’t change, but what can change is your reaction to it.

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a personal and business coach with nearly 40 years experience helping people uncover obstacles and resolve them in order to be able to MOVE ON. For more information, email her at Linda@InnerResourceCenter.com.