Ask yourself…”Do you prefer good times…or interesting times…?”
We’ve talked about how to recover after a crisis or trauma so you can get back up. Let’s take another step. Let’s talk about making use of your experiences so you can — and will — move forward. First and foremost, like letting go of the memories of falling short in the past. A failed grade, a missed touchdown, the end of a relationship, a project that didn’t impress your boss… or all those times you were late in picking up the kids… or forgot the cupcakes for the classroom on your child’s birthday. Or those painful devastating memories when you over-reacted to your child’s mistake and left her heartbroken. These are the interesting times: how they help you and others depends on how closely tuned in you are to the lessons to be gained and put into practice.
If you continue to revisit these moments of moral failure and apologize for them over and over, you’ll likely find yourself stuck in shame, remorse, and regret. These feelings can be so crippling. And you can find yourself immersed in interesting times… how to recover..?
Move forward and build a rewarding life. To do that, you just must find the way within yourself to LET GO of the past. Only then can you invest in the present and the future, as well.
Let go of the pain, too. A broken relationship, the memories of dysfunction, conflicts, betrayal, harsh, vicious words. All of these create scars, and scars can hold you back, tether you to those experiences and hold you in the past.
So, you have to let those memories go, release them, and embrace your experiences of today. Allow yourself to enjoy the new developments in your life.
Without these crippling memories and the pain…which tend to become the more interesting times that can help you eventually… without them you can’t learn how to exit them. To rise above them. To build your own good times with the insight that you have learned how to navigate another corner of life… because of the challenges, pain, and obstacles you worked to overcome.
Another thing to think about…and apply… is that when someone says something that annoys you, and you allow yourself to react, you’ll be the one who suffers. A big step toward letting go and moving forward is to let go of the need to have the last word, to punish the speaker with your anger, and to lash out.
It’s far more liberating to step back, put on your “logic filter” and run their comment through that. Leave your emotions locked in the closet until you have seen the situation logically, calmly, and with compassion toward yourself and the one who is speaking. Be the presence of peace in the conversation.
Build your sense of optimism on a pragmatic foundation. Rather than thinking of optimism as a DisneyWorld sort of reality, with streamers and balloons and fireworks and cartoon characters skipping around, think in terms of what has happened and the good outcomes that can emerge along with the bad ones.
Dig in to find treasures in your life. Ways you can make the world a better place for others, or just for one person. But watch for those opportunities. Watch for interesting times, how they can help you and others make better decisions on this go round.
Putting Trauma in Its Place
To move forward, there are certainly things that you can do to invite a more hopeful frame of mind. But there are also traumas and pain that have to heal and be put behind you so the “overcoming” efforts can bear fruit for you.
If you’re like most people, there were painful events, confusion, and even trauma and loss that emerged this last year. 2020 is a year we’ll not forget. Odds are, you acquired some trauma and sorrow in the process.
Avoid wallowing. Grief must be faced, then suffered, and put away soon so you have the room in your mind and heart to embrace the good that’s emerging…along with the bad.
The pandemic was …interesting. Not good times. And yet…good things happened. Babies were born, learned to walk and talk, some companies did well. Some employees excelled, and so did some students.
Look back at your resilient moments. What did you learn? Can you take it with you to next year and the year after?
Careers Have Been INTERESTING, TOO Lately… And oh yes…RELATIONSHIPS!
It’s not at all uncommon to enter a career path, and advice comes from everywhere telling you to stick it out, have tenacity and perseverance.
That’s just great advice for lots of things. But how do you know when it’s time to let go?
Well, no one can determine that but you. Whether it’s about a career path, or a relationship, or the city you live in… We know we can miss so much if we cut bait and leave before giving the current situation a chance. (At the same time, when you can see you’re going down with the ship, it may be time to swim for shore before it’s too late.)
Your heart may not want to let go, but your experience says that this is not going to recover and you need to save yourself…to try again another day. Interesting times and how they help you gather the tools you need to move forward, giving your room for more good times to enjoy your life.
Some principles apply to multiple types of situations… like relationships, jobs, projects…Here are some questions you can ask yourself as you work through your decision:
- Do you sense a lack of respect for you in your environment or relationship?
- And maybe most of the time you’re giving more than you take?
- Do you find that you think more about the past than the present? Are you in a good ol’ days mentality?
- Are you crying more than laughing far too often?
- And what about anger? Is it more commonly the way you feel…or is love, contentment, and peace the way you usually feel?
- Is the passion and joy gone?
Do you find you feel “less than others,” because of others’ attitudes toward you?
Do you feel physically and mentally exhausted…most of the time??
If you know what it is to be appreciated, supported to grow and excel, and you’ve been stuck in a situation for a prolonged period of time, it’s possible you are ready to let go. And move forward.
And as you embrace that purpose, you begin to gain from not only the experience, but what you did with it. Purpose, direction, and hope can build and grow in you as a result. And with hope, strength and resilience.
You don’t have all the answers, and neither do we. We’re all seeking to learn from our experiences so we can move forward in life. Because life isn’t perfect for anyone, is it? Fostering resilience is a great place to start.
At Innovative Psychiatry, we wish like you do for the good times…but keep learning that it’s the interesting times that give us more to help you.
It’s also true that sometimes choosing to face the obstacle of interesting times and push through it is overwhelming. Sometimes to face those interesting times you need depression, anxiety, and trauma treated effectively. That’s where IV ketamine treatment can come in.
IV ketamine can do things other medicines haven’t … and it can do so rapidly. That’s why we opened a separate arm of my practice that’s specifically equipped to provide IV ketamine treatment. Ketamine treatment has demonstrated repeatedly its unique ability to smash depression symptoms, sweep away anxiety, and stop suicidal thoughts in their tracks.
Because making this remarkable treatment available to whoever is a candidate for it is so important, we encourage communication from your healthcare team.
We want you to have hope.
And, because the pandemic is still making people sick, we have equipped our offices with technology designed by NASA and the Department of Defense, to clean viruses, bacteria, and molds from the air to help you stay well. We’ve taken every precaution to protect you from infection when you’re with us.
The result is peace of mind so you can focus on getting better.
We invite you to reach out for a treatment that works rapidly in most people, even in interesting times, to restore your motivation, initiative, hope…and creativity. You should have a rewarding and fulfilling life.
Lori Calabrese, M.D.