“When I Find Myself In Times Of Trouble..”

---

There’s been a lot of inactivity here on this blog for a while now. I thought I might sit down and talk about my noticeable absence but the truth is there’s nothing ‘noticeable’ about it at all. No one cares enough about the blog at this moment in time to actually ask “where’s my content?!”. Which is pretty much fine by me because it puts less pressure on the whole creative process and enables me to just write when I feel like it. Not when I feel like I have to do it because someone’s pestered or asked me to.

Long story short, I haven’t posted in so long because a spanner has been thrown into the works and it has come in the form of tragedy. Without revealing what said tragedy was or still continues to be, I’m going to take this opportunity to talk a little about how it is I’ve been dealing and coping with it and adversity in general.

We all have to face it in some form or another in our lives eventually. So when it came knocking at my door I didn’t exactly fall down on my knees and ask ‘why me?‘, like a lot of people sometimes do.

I find it a very foolish question to ask because there is no answer to it. And if there is you’re definitely not going to get down here.

But apart from that it is an immediate assumption that you did something to deserve what has happened. Which 1.) is absolutely detrimental to the healing process that takes place afterwards I think. It makes it ten times harder to get over the experience if you still hold some part of yourself responsible for it. And 2.) is just a ridiculous assumption in general. Things happen every day that have no rhyme or reason to them. Some days it rains, some days your stuck in traffic going to work. None of these things happen because you did or didn’t do something in your life. They just happen.

And that’s one of the key points that I really want to emphasise. There is no good fortune or bad fortune. There are just things that happen. Sometimes they can be good and other times they can be devastating. One thing that I’ve learned to do is to not separate or classify the two in to good or bad.

When adversity comes knocking out our doors what can often follow is becoming quick to look on the dark side of things. We subconsciously start to focus on the bad stuff happening to us. So much so that we can forget the good stuff in our lives.

I’m not talking about the material things that we own. The fact that you have the latest BMW shouldn’t be a comforting thought to you in times of trouble. If it is then you obviously are finding happiness in the wrong place.

I’m speaking about the little things that we take for granted. In every day life we can be quick to forget about them too, I won’t lie. But when we have to endure crisis we tend to forget about them quicker. We focus more on the bad things happening to us. Which is unfortunate because those are the times when we need to remember them most. Because that’s when they matter the most.

And I have definitely found that it is very grounding to recall them in these times. It puts the situation into a bigger perspective in my opinion.

Little things like asking yourself, ‘Can I walk? Are my legs ok? Can I breathe? Are my lungs ok? Can I see? Are my eyes ok? Are my senses all working fine?”, can ground you the most in stressful times because they remind you that even if you answer ‘yes’ to all of those questions, statistically speaking, someone around the world has had to answer ‘no’ to at least one of them.

I’ve trained a little bit in the ways of mindfulness and I must say I find them cropping up more and more in my behaviour at this moment in time. When I take a moment reflect on it words such as non-judgemental and non-reactive spring to mind.

At the start of it all I was very worried that there was something wrong with me, because I didn’t feel anything at all. I even said it in a conversation with someone when I was opening up about the whole affair.

I mean when I got the terrible news of what had happened I started smiling profusely and had to try to hide it because of the seriousness of the situation.

So what I’m saying to anyone reading this  who is going through a rough patch at the minute or is having to deal with stuff like this, don’t worry if you don’t feel anything. Don’t worry if you don’t feel sad. Don’t worry if you don’t feel happy. It’s normal and everyone reacts to things differently. If your coping mechanism is to eat a lot or to stay up late or to become disengaged emotionally similar to what I do, don’t worry about it. In time as you adjust to your new reality it’ll wear off.

But it’s important not to let ‘coping’ be your full-time status. You can’t suddenly let a tragic event that happened in your life become your life. Because that mentally can be very harrowing and just completely unnecessary in my opinion. Yes, something bad has happened or is happening at the moment, but wallowing in the aftermath of it isn’t going to do any good for anyone.

Which brings me on to my final piece of advice:

When adversity strikes it can be very hard to deal with. But what can certainly make it easier for you is making sure to look after yourself. 

The very second blog post that I published on here was about this exact topic, Self Care. It pretty much details what I’m about to say; making sure that you live your best life is really important in times of hardship. Now I’m not telling you to go out and become a yogi or master meditator or anything. I’m simply saying that best way to self-care is to make sure you do all the basic things. That’s going to bed at a decent time and getting enough sleep, going for a walk/run and getting some exercise, drinking some water and staying hydrated. All the little things, which seem so simple and basic to do but when working in tandem together make a huge difference and makes everything a little easier to face.

---

That’s really all that I can say at the moment on the subject.

I hope you have enjoyed this post and found some of it useful. If so I would love to hear some feedback. You can like and share this post or follow this blog. Anything at all would be a great help.

If you are going through any strife at the minute and would like to speak about it or need any advice you can always e-mail kidmentalist@gmail.com. I would be glad to help.

You can also follow the blog’s Twitter via @kidmentalist and see what we’re up to.

 

Stay posted,

K.M