Life is like taking a rafting trip down the river. The water can be calm, or become very rapid and, in some places, rough. You know you will encounter unavoidable rapids, obstacles, and turns. But unlike a rafting trip in which you can choose the river difficulty, in life you may find yourself navigating routes for which you feel completely unprepared. Life doesn’t come with a map and an extra life jacket. As you experience the twists and turns, you may be able to enlist the help of guides, mentors, and trusted people in your life. Ultimately you will have to bravely face and overcome challenges with confidence. How can you prepare to safely cross the rough waters and handle the uncomfortable swim in freezing water when falling out of the raft?
The first reaction to adverse events, like rough river waters, is typically fear. And everyone reacts differently. There’s no one “right” way to courageously face challenges. You have to figure out your own unique way to be brave, to muster the courage to do the thing that scares you the most. Here’s a secret about courage: it’s always there deep inside. But you need to be willing to access it and trust yourself to apply it in order to overcome the fear when danger seems imminent. To fear is human. Fear is natural. It is an instinctive reaction to a perceived threat. Courage, on the other hand, is a skill that needs to be cultivated. There is no other way to become courageous than by facing your fears. Courage and fear are often enmeshed emotions. When you feel fear is when you have the opportunity to courageously navigate the way through it and find out what you are made of. Simply stated, what you want is on the other side of fear. But to get there, you have to re-direct your mental energy toward the positive using the following five steps:
Feel the pain: allow yourself to be vulnerable, to effectively “metabolize” the pain. Then let go in order to move forward. Remember, fear is just a feeling. Feel the emotion, then reframe it.
Accept the things you cannot change: living fully involves risks, constrains, challenges, and lessons. Some things cannot be undone. Embrace the unchangeable. Remove yourself from the unacceptable.
Shift your focus to the things you can change: identify the things you are willing, able, and ready to change. It may take time for the possibilities to come into view. Brainstorm ideas for action.
Outline your options to redefine your action plan: think about the big picture of what you want to achieve and determine a sequence of steps to take, to start moving to get unstuck.
Be kind to yourself: treat yourself the way you would someone you care about. Let go of impossible perfection, harsh self-criticism, and self-flagellation. Appreciation your own wholeness, gifts and flaws.
When you are facing a challenge, it will test you physically and mentally. Our emotions stem from our thoughts. Thus, you can reframe your mindset to start your upward spiral. Choose hope as a practical strategic response. Practical hope is an action plan designed to solve challenges. Practical hope can move you from a state of fear and panic to getting a grip through focus on action and the realm of possibilities still within your control. Hope is about bringing awareness to your inner experience, so that when you feel overwhelmed thinking “I can’t do this,” you learn to “see” that there’s a way forward. Real life is like TV, you can switch the channel. Don’t get stuck in the same script. Try a new program. Find new resources. Explore your options to chart a new path. Hope is choosing to do what you can regardless of the web of conspiring circumstances. It’s about doing the right thing in the moment. The rightness is in the action itself, not the outcome. Being hopeful should be about using discipline, taking one small step at a time, to override fear and ride the waves of uncertainty to your destiny.
Being practically hopeful means knowing at the deepest level possible that you can transcend apparent limits, that while you may be down, you are not out. Yes, you have seen the darkness and have felt the pain. You were caught in the storm and got drenched to the skin. But you can get up, shake it off, and rise up. You are not defeated. Recognize that you can change your life at any point. You can always try again, keep trying and do more. As painful and unpleasant as the experience may be at the present time, it needn’t determine the future outcome. The human spirit is as expansive as life itself. No matter what the challenge is, you can prevail. World-changing ideas are being thought up daily with the potential to improve the lives of people and the health of our planet. How can you apply practical hope and creative problem-solving to better your situation and direct your future?
Comments