If fate throws you trials again and again, the question of how to survive difficult times may not be at all philosophical. Sometimes life is not at all rosy, it alternates between white and black stripes, and it seems as if the bright stripe flies by instantly, and the joyless dark times drag on endlessly.
You can prepare for tests, but sometimes they turn out to be so unexpected that you give up. If your plans do not include resigned existence under thunderclouds, it’s time to open your psychological umbrella and take advantage of the tips from this article.
Keep a positive attitude
Life hands us exactly what we are focusing on at the moment. Pregnant women look around and are amazed at how many of their equally pregnant colleagues have divorced. Those who dream of a car of a particular brand begin to see these very cars on the streets day after day.
In reality, of course, there were no more pregnant women or cars. It’s just that our brain, focused on its own, filters the surrounding reality and lights a warning light: “Here, look, pay attention urgently!” - when he sees an object corresponding to the topic of his thoughts. Psychologists call What's the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon? This is the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.
The conclusion is simple. The more bad you expect, the more you will get.
It will crawl out of literally every crack, driving you deeper and deeper into depression. And vice versa: by thinking about the good, believing in the best, you change the settings of your own brain - and it is the good that becomes the focus of your attention. An optimistic attitude may not solve all your problems, but the world around you will become much brighter.
Content:
- What you need to know about adolescence? Why is it difficult for children?
- Why is it difficult for parents?
- For girls
- Parents' mistakes in education
- Advice to parents from an expert psychologist
Make lemonade out of lemons
It sounds like a broken record, but nevertheless, this approach often works. Yes, there are situations in which we really cannot change anything. However, there are others when it is enough to take a step back or to the side to look at the problem with a fresh look, use a little creativity - and voila, an elegant and profitable solution will be found. And not at all where you initially expected. A classic example of this approach is the story of William Wrigley - the man and the chewing gum.
In the 90s of the 19th century, the company he created unsuccessfully tried to enter the market by selling household items - soap and baking powder. Things were going so-so, and in order to at least somehow stand out from the competition, Wrigley came up with the idea of attaching a penny piece of chewing gum to each pack of baking powder.
Alas, the company continued to operate at zero, or even at a loss, clouds were gathering over the business, and Wrigley was ready to accept the fact that he would not make a businessman. However, at some point, an unlucky entrepreneur noticed that people sometimes buy baking powder for future use just to get a pack of chewing gum along with it. If Archimedes were in his place, he would have exclaimed: “Eureka!”
Wrigley limited himself to completely reorienting the business to the production and sale of chewing gum, which before him had not been considered a promising product. The result of this creativity and the success that followed it is chewed upon by the whole world (literally) to this day.
Who to ask for help to get through difficult times
Destructive behavior and excessive risk are reasons to consult a psychotherapist. Destructive behavior is usually understood as excessive alcohol consumption, use of drugs, weapons, willingness to spend all available money, complete and uncontrolled immersion in work, etc.
Seek help as this will make it easier for you to get through difficult times. However, it is not necessary to immediately go to a specialist in the field of psychology.
Close people are the best support.
You are already a happy person if you have someone you can always count on, with whom you can just have a heart-to-heart talk. Appreciate this, because many are deprived of such happiness.
It's great if you have a close friend with whom you can meet and just chat. And even without alcohol, you feel your soul become warm and light. What is important here is the absence of strong drinks. The fact is that during gatherings with a bottle, you are in company with the liquid, and not with another person. Friends become the background, like the news on TV, while each of you is left alone with yourself.
Creation.
The opportunity to pour out experiences on paper, express them in dance, convey them through music is also a great success. Because you receive a container in which what is currently going on inside you will be stored. And mental anguish turns into something more, into art.
If you don't know how to work with paints, and colored pencils and markers seem like childish fun, use a pen and notepad to depict your feelings. You will immediately feel how much easier it has become.
Use words to convey your emotions - this could be in a journal, a letter to yourself or to another person. It doesn't matter whether you send it or not. Write until all the accumulated feelings pour out of you. Take every opportunity to pick up the pen again, because now you need to get through difficult times as painlessly as possible.
Use your body movements to talk about what is happening to you. This could be a dance, pantomime, or a skit where you will be the only actor.
Search the Internet for artistic works by photographers that convey your current state. Gradually, they will turn into a film in which there will be a noticeable transition from gloomy shots to lighter, calmer and full of hope.
Children.
When it becomes sad, there is a desire to snuggle up to the child, feel his smell and give free rein to tears. I want to feel small, climb onto the bed, bury myself in the pillow and have the child stroke my head and ask: “Who hurt you?” You can also try to use the baby as a shield, because the offender will not touch you as long as the child is nearby. Sometimes everything is less scary, and you just need to lie next to each other, read a book together, enjoy the warmth, a child’s voice, and laughter.
Yes, you can turn a child into a confidant, an ally, a best friend. As he grows up, he will turn into “hope, protection and support” or a close girlfriend - it all depends on gender.
The problem here is that we are talking about usage. The child, due to his age, is not able to share the experiences of his elders; instead, he turns into a repository of parental suffering. You give him your fear, anxiety, hatred, melancholy, loneliness.
Such difficult feelings should be shared with adults; your children do not need them. Even when you just cry, hugging your child, he absorbs your pain.
If we talk about grown-up children, this also has its own difficulties, because they still remain your children. By perceiving your son as hope and support, as a person who will not follow the path of his father, you are building a relationship with your son, and not with your husband. Then a considerable burden falls on the son: he has to replace the mother with her man. Obviously, this place does not belong to him. He has his own life, in which there should be another woman and another relationship.
Nature.
Enjoy free and so beautiful things: dark and damp tree trunks after rain, golden leaves, soft grass, fragrant mushrooms, wind, thunderstorms, cold sunrises and warm cozy sunsets.
Learn from your mistakes
What exactly drove you into a stalemate? Analyzing all the circumstances can be painful, but extremely rewarding. Take the events that preceded the deterioration of your affairs into pieces: what went wrong, where you made a mistake, what could have happened if you had acted differently... As a result, you will get a fairly clear idea of how you could have avoided the onset of a dark streak . Going through difficult times is much easier if you know that the chances of them happening again are slim to none.
Features of the transition period
For girls
What happens to girls during adolescence:
- looking for themselves, their own style, experimenting with appearance and clothing, striving to attract attention;
- interest in boys as objects of the opposite sex appears, the first love arises;
- mood swings often occur: unbridled joy is replaced by deep melancholy;
- increased anxiety appears associated with school performance, answers at the board, relationships with classmates;
- strive to independently resolve problems without the help of adults.
In boys
What happens to boys during adolescence:
- become aggressive, rude, angry due to increased production of the male hormone - testosterone;
- concerned about their appearance
- they strive to amaze others with bold actions and are prone to posing;
- often demonstrate protest behavior: skipping classes, running away from home;
- try alcohol, cigarettes, smoking mixtures;
- strive to belong to the “group”, to be part of it.
Be grateful
And life - for the experience provided to you, and to those people who surround you. Think about this or that close person: what he brings into your life, what he teaches, what he lends his shoulder to, how you would live without his support.
Write a short (or long, depending on your mood) letter explaining why you are so grateful to life for having this person in it. Then call him or her and read out your creation. The difficulties you are experiencing at a particular moment will begin to seem less significant when compared to the real values that you have in your life.
Personal qualities of a person.
Now I will tell you how personal qualities can influence people’s lives.
There are a huge number of qualities in a person. Human? Throughout my life, I am amazed at how much he can do. And musicians and programmers and engineers and teachers, artists, craftsmen. And each of us has qualities that can change both our lives and the lives of those who are dear to us.
For example, the quality of gratitude will help us learn to appreciate life and protect what is dear to us. And attentiveness and development of this useful skill can greatly make our existence easier.
So the first thing I want to tell you is to learn to identify your qualities, both good and bad. Learn to see yourself. And then you can prioritize only those qualities that will bring you improvements in your life. That's how it was with me. I was a pessimist, whined, showed negative emotions and qualities. And what is the result? I acquired a circle of whiners, pessimists, unlucky, envious acquaintances.
Focus on what you can control
You may have made many unsuccessful attempts to correct the situation. So much that you give up and you no longer believe that you can change anything.
Looking for what is still in your power and focusing your attention on it is one of the most effective ways to combat learned helplessness (this is the name of the condition that you are currently experiencing).
Yes, you can’t improve your business globally, but you can brush your teeth, right? Go ahead and clean it. Can you start running in the morning? Run.
The more things in your life that you can control and manage, the faster your self-confidence will return. And with it comes the will to overcome difficulties.
How to deal with problems
Problems do not allow you to live in peace, there is no strength left, the difficult period has dragged on. How to survive problems? Recommendations:
- We make lists. We describe all the difficulties point by point. When information is transferred to paper, the head is freed. We arrange them in order of importance. What needs a quick solution? What can be left to chance? What situations can we let go of? As a result, there won't be many problems left. We pay attention to the most important ones and develop a solution plan.
- Let's leave the worry. How to cope with problems without anxiety? Let us spend 30 minutes a day worrying, during which time we list all the horrors of what could happen. We spend the rest of our time searching for a solution.
- There is no need to blame anyone for your troubles. Only we ourselves are responsible for our lives. Negativity, anger and envy towards other people will only slow down the way out of a difficult situation.
- Letting go of the past. We try to live here and now. No need to hold grudges. Look for patterns of events in the past. The situation has already happened, no one knows how life would have turned out, whether it would have become more difficult or easier for you.
Video: speech by Viktor Frankl, a psychologist and concentration camp survivor. He managed to take this terrible experience as the basis for his scientific research.
Surround yourself with people who understand you
Surrounding yourself with loved ones is one of the most important things you can do when you find yourself in a difficult situation. You need their love so that you have something to compare what is happening around you. You need to take care of them in order to feel important. You need their honesty to hear the truth and advice from those you truly trust. It is important for you to understand them and accept you for who you are, so as not to lose faith in yourself.
If for some reason there are no such people near you, find a community whose members have already gone through or are going through what you are currently experiencing. From them you will receive the necessary support and experience that will allow you to overcome difficulties.
Finding a way out
But it is worth noting that there are also positive aspects to passing through zero. It is necessary to present these advantages in detail:
Acceptance of the situation. The ability to realize that at this moment a person feels bad and everything seems to be a failure is the best opportunity in understanding to move on.
The opportunity to understand that at the bottom there is still support for moving up and salvation. After all, when a person recognizes the entire situation completely, its creation by his thoughts, then the awareness of the life stage of change comes. Living through your own powerlessness and fatigue in this way helps to gain inner strength and revive self-confidence.
In this situation, in the hole, a certain internal resource of self-help, self-knowledge and a reserve of strength opens up. Peter Mamonov said this well: “If you are at the very bottom, then you are actually in a good position: you have nowhere else to go but up.”
An opportunity to consider self-reliance and personal skills. After recognizing these thoughts, there is an understanding that in this way the world tests people’s strength and resilience before important and big ups.
This happens most often when a person decides to make a certain and necessary choice for life. Just remember that you don’t need to blame your inner state on fate. If people say that this is how fate turned out, then where were they themselves? Did you pass by? Not at all.
Such zero situations and difficult periods are a kind of test of a person’s strength in order to show that very personal runway
At this time, it is important to feel that although small and weakened, you are still alive.
This is an experience, a life lesson. The world trusts the person it passes through life zero. Shows him the path that there is something to strive for - upward, towards his goals and improving his life.
There is also a formula for getting out of the deadlock (how to overcome life’s difficulties)
World is Small
Learn to forgive and let go
It happens that difficult times have a specific culprit. “If it weren’t for him, everything would have gone according to plan!” - you think and exhaust yourself with hatred for this person. This reaction is natural, but destructive: you focus on negative experiences instead of looking for ways out.
Yes, let the person really be to blame, but... You won’t be angry at the rain because of which you got wet to the skin? Or seek revenge on the gust of wind that broke your umbrella? No, you will do your best to get home as quickly as possible and make yourself some hot tea, and then repair your umbrella or buy a new one. So it is here. The culprit is an “element,” which is important to leave behind as quickly as possible, focusing on more significant things.
GETTING SERIOUSLY ILL.
The method is effective. Fight fire with fire. Any everyday problems recede before a fatal disease. And if you manage to get rid of it, such a rethinking, such a value in life appears! Some people only allow themselves to live to the fullest when they come face to face with death. Nothing revives you more than the nearness of death.
This method has disadvantages: you may not get the hang of it, then you will have to say goodbye to your hopes for a happy life, it could end right now, and what you have done is done. If you managed to get away with “a slight fright” and “a little blood,” then the price can also be quite high - minus the organ, serious marks on the body, you definitely won’t become any more beautiful. Minus a lot of money and wasted time of your life.
Don't blame yourself
Let us repeat once again: everyone has hard times. It's not that you are bad or improvident, it's just a black streak that is an integral part of life. Every life. Of course, difficulties occur differently for different people. This is the option you got. Take it as a test that is important to pass with flying colors, not as proof of how bad you are.
Even your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own uncontrolled thoughts.
Buddha
Enjoy simple things
One of the hardest things that difficult times bring us is the decrease in our comfort level. When you are doing well, you can find joy in dining at popular restaurants, traveling, hiring a housekeeper to make your life easier, and buying expensive things. When things start to get worse, you have to give up a lot, and this causes sadness.
Meanwhile, to enjoy life, sometimes very simple things are enough. Instead of dinner at a restaurant, find some interesting recipe and cook an original (albeit inexpensive) dish with your loved ones. Instead of traveling around Europe, make it a habit to get on your bikes on Saturdays and explore your surroundings. Minimalism is in fashion now. Try it for yourself now. When will such a chance arise again, really?
Puberty issues
Puberty (puberty) in adolescents is associated with the active production of sex hormones in both boys and girls. Hormonal changes entail changes in the physique, personality, and behavior of the child.
What is the period of puberty characterized by:
- the appearance of the first menstruation in girls and nocturnal emissions in boys;
- changes in height and weight;
- active work of the sebaceous glands, which often causes acne;
- development of mammary glands and rounding of hips in girls;
- the appearance of hair on the armpits and genitals;
- muscle development in boys;
- increased activity of the sweat glands and, as a result, the appearance of a sharp, unpleasant odor of sweat.
“Storm of hormones” entails such symptoms of adolescence as:
- increased interest in the opposite sex, including erotic interest;
- mood swings;
- worries about appearance;
- aggressiveness, irritability, outbursts of anger.
During this period, it is important for parents to:
- put aside shyness and discuss all issues related to puberty. It is better if mom or dad touches on these “sensitive” topics than if the child is “enlightened” by the Internet;
- Under no circumstances should you shame your son or daughter for their increased interest in sexuality. Many parents are horrified when they catch their son masturbating or their daughter watching a porn film. There is nothing terrible about this. Your child is growing. If earlier he was interested in cars, dolls and Legos, today he is interested in the relationship between a man and a woman;
- Do not ridicule the child’s experiences regarding his appearance. It is better to remind your son or daughter once again that all ugly ducklings someday turn into beautiful swans, you just need to wait a little;
- If a teenager is very worried about acne and excess weight, it is worth visiting an endocrinologist.
Cultivate patience
In childhood and adolescence, we sometimes feel as if we can get everything at once. And only with age comes the understanding that we cannot control time. No matter how strong our time management skills are, there are things for which “the time has not yet come.” A flower will not bloom in February, a child will not be born immediately after a kiss, a large reliable house will not be built in a day. If you want something valuable, you have to wait. It is important to understand and accept this.
You can have it all. Just not all at once.
Oprah Winfrey
Use words that develop thinking
The intelligence and thinking of children need to be guided through proper language. For example, when a child tells you that he can’t do something, correct him: “Do you mean that you haven’t learned how to do it yet?” From the outside it seems that there is nothing special about this, but in the future the effect will be colossal.
“One of my favorite educational studies is the work of my colleague Jeff Cohen,” Bowler says. — Scientists divided high school students into two groups. Everyone wrote essays and received feedback from their teachers. But for half of the students, teachers added just one sentence at the end of the feedback. Children who read this sentence achieved much greater results a year later.
What kind of proposal was this? “I am writing this review because I believe in you”
This shows how important it is not just to believe in children, but also to tell them about it and give them the right instructions.”
Bowler also advises guiding the child to independent discoveries and encouraging curiosity. Don't pretend to be an expert on everything with him or pretend that you understand something you don't know. It’s better to offer to figure it out together.
Take care of yourself
Many people omit this point, either getting entangled in self-accusation, or working their butts off, or simply putting it off until better times. Meanwhile, to survive difficult times, you need to take care of yourself. What if tomorrow you are incapacitated by overwork or clinical depression?
So please yourself no matter what.
Coffee in a cozy cafe. A walk in the park. A new book. Buying beautiful clothes or an accessory - even if it is a mere trifle, it will give you a piece of joy! Allow yourself to get some sleep, after all. We are the most important and most effective support for ourselves in difficult times. We can't lose her.
