Distress is somewhat universal to us all on one hand and yet intensely isolating on the other hand. The demands of a difficult time seem beyond what we can handle. Here are four ways that can help to endure the worst.
- Shut down a part of yourself, keep it in a compartment, but be thoughtful to remind yourself that you will pursue that part of yourself again. When you go through a longer-term hardship, you don’t have a lot of resources to devote to yourself other than to make it through the day. It can hurt to think of a happy dream and feel so far from it ever becoming a reality. So in order to protect yourself from continual pain in that regard, balance encouraging yourself with that happy dream with intentionally not getting so engrossed in the happy thought that you have a harsh return to your current reality. You don’t want that let down moment of disappointment and despair to make your enduring more difficult instead of more hopeful. But encourage yourself that somehow, some way you will have a time where you will be able to allow yourself to experience that dream again.
- When you are forced to deal with nasty people, stay largely in the current moment. Yes, this person has done horrible things and you need to be mindful of how they operate in order to protect yourself and/or others, but you cannot dwell on a hundred traumatizing moments all in one moment or else you will have nothing left of yourself to make it forward with. Look to the past for a piece of wisdom you need, but don’t dwell there at the expense of looking out for your emotional well being in this current moment.
- Engage in your spiritual life in a manner that builds you up. Sometimes reading a book or listening to message related to your faith will be profoundly encouraging and exactly what you needed. At other times, a message would be a little too tidy and feel completely foreign to your circumstances and you will respond by feeling isolated or less than. If keeping your faith in your heart and saving it in a safe place within yourself as discussed previously works for you, then that is okay. You know how sacred it is to you and you know it is your dream to be able to pursue it more openly when you are not in such a dire survival mode. Don’t let yourself feel guilty or ashamed because your faith journey is not what others may expect of you.
- Do not feel like it is your fault for all that you lose because of your terrible circumstances. You will most likely grieve a lot of things you missed out on because of difficult times. You will not have a lot of life experiences that many other people take for granted. That will make it very difficult to relate to your peers, but also to a lot of people in general. You have to deal with the consequences of that, but you do not have to receive the blame for that. Other people acting their worst towards you is not your fault.
It is difficult to move on from devastation, but, thankfully, it does happen. Sometimes your life may improve and you will look like everybody else yet feel wildly cut off from being able to relate to others around you. But you are okay anyway.
And you may not be as alone as you think – a lot of times nobody else wants to revisit their pain and face possible rejection from their current community by admitting to sad places their journey has taken them any more than you do. No matter what, you are not alone. You’ve got this!
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