When you are healthy, most of your stress comes from the way you respond, not the way life is. And when you adjust your response, all that extra stress is gone.
Adopted and adapted* from a variety of articles on https://www.marcandangel.com by Marc & Angel Chernoff
There is a real opportunity in every difficult situation to understand yourself more deeply, and also to improve your life.
I encourage you to reflect on recent situations where you’ve felt let down – where life’s outcomes were nowhere near as good as you expected. Rather than focusing on the uncontrollable things that were “done to you,” consider instead your part in what went down. For example, perhaps your gut told you not to do something, but you did so anyway. Or maybe you were deceived a second time by the same person, and wish you had let go of the relationship sooner. Or perhaps you just weren’t paying attention and ended up missing out on a great opportunity.
It’s so easy to be negative when things go wrong, or blame others for negative outcomes in your life. But do negativity and blame change anything for the better?
No!
Truth be told, the best time to take responsibility for your own peace of mind is when you don’t feel like it. Because that’s when doing so can make the biggest difference.
No matter what the specifics of your troubled times are, taking a moment to look inward at what you could have done differently and how you could potentially avoid similar situations in the future can be a healthy exercise. This is not to blame yourself or shame yourself, but simply to give you the opportunity to learn, on a higher level, from your experiences.
It’s about learning to choose the most effective response in a difficult, uncontrollable life situation.
It’s about learning to think better so you can ultimately live better, no matter what.
The key is to realize that no matter what happens, you can choose your attitude and inner dialog, which dictates pretty much everything that happens next. Truly, the greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another – to train our minds to see the good in what we’ve got, even when it’s far less than we expected.
It’s about choosing: Will I allow this to anger me? Will I choose to stay or walk away? Will I choose to yell or speak? Will I choose to react or take the time to respond?
Today, remind yourself that there are hundreds of people who live their entire lives on default settings, never realizing they can customize everything. Don’t be one of them. Don’t settle for the default settings in life...
Dare to make edits and improvements. Dare to make your growth a priority.
The truth is, you won't always be a priority to others, and that's why you need to be a priority to yourself. Learn to respect yourself, take care of yourself, and become your own support system. Your needs matter. Start meeting them...
Don't wait on others to choose you. Choose yourself today!
Seriously, it’s not your job to curb or contain yourself in order to become someone else’s idea of a worthwhile human being. You are amazingly worthwhile and capable right now. Not because other people think you are, but because you are in full control of the next step you take.
If you feel differently, or if you've been holding yourself back recently, realize that the real battle is in your mind. And your mind is under your control, not the other way around.
You may have been broken down by adversity or rejection or stress, but YOU are not broken. You are not stuck! So don’t let your mind, or anyone else, try to convince you otherwise.
Heal yourself, and grow beyond the default settings in life, by refusing to settle for the way things have always been.
Choose to take up a lot of positive space in your own life today. Choose to give yourself permission to meet your own needs. Choose to honor your feelings and emotions. Choose to make self-care and personal growth top priorities!
Choose to think better about yourself, so you can live better in spite of the challenges you face.
And YES, I know that's sometimes much easier said than done.
Thinking better takes guidance and practice… And choosing to start doing it!
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*For KC CoDA purposes, articles are edited to come from an "I/me" perspective. They also may have edited content and format.