Why is it that whenever you get on a plane in their safety briefing, you know that one I am talking about, that one that you have one eye in your magazine, or book and I eye on it. Well why is it do they say “If event of depressurization, and the oxygen mask falls put yours on first then focus on the others around you?”
Because if you are not taking care of yourself first, you won’t be able to help those around you.
Life can catch us off guard. You can be doing your thing on your life, somethings are going good, and sometimes things can just keep happening that you didn’t plan for like you are in the middle aisle and the window person has to go to the bathroom every 20 minutes and it disturbs your flight.
Today I wanted to give you 3 very specific ways to protect yourself from the effects of this world and the people around you. The one good thing is that when something shifts your life or changes an emotion for you, it gives you a chance to re-evaluate the direction that you are going in.
Do I quick inventory right now, within this weekend, how many times can you think of when you saw something, read, something, heard something, did it change the emotional state that you were in.
I know there have been times that I have needed to re-evaluate by watching the news, and what was going on halfway across the world would affect the emotional state that I was in, it would bother me all day long and get me into a negative state.
So here is way #1 – Be aware of what you digest.
When you eat something, and well it doesn’t really sit well, you get an upset stomach, maybe, well I am not going to go into that.
But when you digest something that affects you emotionally, does it knock you off your feet for a bit, maybe you got an email, that contracted what you believe. Maybe you saw something on the news that wasn’t in alignment to what you value. Maybe someone said something to you, that hurt, and wasn’t supportive to what you were going towards.
Whatever it is, think about it, think about how it affected you, did it really turn your stomach or maybe change the way that you thought about things, did it question your values or your beliefs.
Perhaps, it didn’t affect you at all. That is what you are striving to do.
There will always be things that are going to shake you, somethings will shake you to the core, and others well they will fall off, like water off a ducks back.
You need to know how each affects you and what you can do to adjust your life and your way of thinking so that you can get control of your life. The more aware you are of how you digest the things that come into your life, the better you will be at handling how you feel when they do.
I personally know that when people negatively question what I am doing, I get bothered, I feel that I am doing something that is very honorable and am going to help thousands if not more people, learn to live life with PTSD.
But there are always times that people are going to have an opinion of that, there are always going to be people who think what I am doing isn’t possible, and you know what maybe it won’t be for them. But I know it was for me, and I know that it was for lots of others who have come to pass though coaching.
How do I handle those time, I limit them, I have now surrounded myself with people who are for my cause, not against it.
That is what you will have to do, remove the things out of your life that aren’t serving your purpose, that aren’t moving you forward. If something or someone affects your equilibrium then you acknowledge it, learn from it and adjust to grow into someone better.
Because if you aren’t growing into something better you are what….. that’s right dying.
AND IT IS NOT YOUR TIME TO DIE. Let’s keep going and growing.
Now the 2nd to protect yourself is to take every event for what it is.
It’s a single event… That is, it.
Your life is full of single events that are happening to you every single day. When you think about it, you actually never do the exact same thing more than once, Even if you have been working the same job for years, every day will have been different.
So why would it seem that when we have gone through a tragic event would it be the same as the last time, it wont.
There maybe similarities, but it wont be the same event, it will be a new event.
You will have grown from going through the similar event once already, you will have learned about you and others, while going through that event.
I know that they may seem similar they may seem like you are going through the same thing over and over again, but you aren’t.
Now I want you to really feel this today, I want you to personally acknowledge this today. Know that you aren’t going through the same event that you have already gone through, there might be similarities, but they aren’t the same event.
What we do sometimes is we see this event as the same event that we went through and we think “Wow, I can’t believe that I am causing this same event to keep happening to me.
But for one, it isn’t the same event, it is a new event of something that you have already been through. You should be looking at it through that lens, seeing it like, I have already gone through a similar event like this once and I handled it this way, and that didn’t work out so well for me, so let me shift this time and see how I feel after responding to it this way.
If you begin to look at every, event that you go through as a single event, then you wont be able to stack as easily.
What do I mean by stacking, let me give you a picture:
Imagine you have a backpack on, and every negative event that you are going through you add a rock to your backpack, now the size of the rock will be determined by the size of the event that was in your life, at first you are able to walk around with the weight on your shoulders but over time it get heavier and heavier until, you are almost at a crawl, then eventually, this backpack is going to become so heavy that you are forced to stay in one place.
This is what is leading to depression and PTSD, because you are so weighed down by those events in your life.
Now let me give you another picture:
Imaging that you go through an event in your life and again determining the size of the event will determine the size of the rock, but when you get the rock, you look at it and see how happened how this event can mold you into a better person, to help build resilience for your future events. And when you are done you take this event and roll it down a hill, never to think about it again.
You get excited about the events that come into your life because you know that they are going to provide you with some kind of incite of your life or direction that can give you a better life than before.
Which is a better way that you would want to live. Probably the second one.
So, today and forward, any event that happens in your life, see each event as a single event, a stone that you are going eventually roll down a hill.
Finally, #3- Know that you are on your own journey.
We all have a path in our lives, my path is going to be different than yours, and yours is going to be different than mine.
The outcomes can be the same, your goals can be the same, but the journey to get there is going to be different.
You are going to learn lessons, that I may not have to go through, and I am going to go through storms that you might never see.
I have found that when you know that what I go through you might not it can give someone a sense of relief and more drive.
To say something like “ I don’t want to go after that goal, or there is no way I could do that in my life because of this and this, but you did this and this so that is why you achieved it.”
There are many stories that we tell ourselves to not face the fear and go after what we want.
But don’t base those negative stories on how my journey has gone or someone else’s journey has gone.
You could have a smooth journey to get the outcome that you want, you really don’t know how the journey will go until you take it.
So, let’s do a quick recap, The three ways to protect yourself are
1 – Be aware of what you digest
2- Take every event as a single event.
3- Know your journey is your own
Today, take the pieces that moved you and that are going to bring you along your journey, and get rid of what doesn’t matter to you.
This is your journey and what you learn and don’t learn is going to be up to you.
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