So, you didn’t get that job or apartment that you wanted and now, you have a collection of reneged offers, rejection letters, and acquired hopelessness. We’ve all been there. You’re in the process of a huge transition and receiving bad news doesn’t make the change any easier. “Is this meant to be? Should I keep going?” you may ask yourself. Life surely doesn’t promise us immediate happiness and success, however, it does promise that it will change. Constantly.
Life transitions can foster fear, unease and discomfort. As an emerging adult, I can personally attest to this rollercoaster of a transition into adulthood. My main take away from the wisdom adulthood brings is: life will often be confusing and unstructured. In a nutshell, life will bring many necessary times of transformation, which can often bring about — yes, you guessed it — stress.
So here is the big question; what can we do to ease stress? Research shows that the main supporters for managing stress is optimism and self-compassion. Nevertheless, positive self-talk in the form of self-compassion and self-kindness reportedly increases well-being and decreases stress (Neely et al., 2009). Brisette et al. (2002) also reports that greater optimism leads to greater use of active coping, planning and positive reinterpretation and growth.
Here are some tips that may be helpful in fostering self-compassion and optimism throughout stressful transitions:
Life is unpredictable, accept it:We’ve already discussed that life is vastly unpredictable and tools to cope with that unpredictability. Acceptance of unpredictability allows for one to let go of the illusion of control. With this, we allow ourselves space to experience variability throughout life transitions instead of judging or berating ourselves when things don’t go as planned.
Compulsive negative thinking vastly affects productivity, motivation, and outcome: Negative thinking is normal, however compulsive negative thinking without correction can be detrimental. Practices of judgment and resistance of one’s negative thoughts often result in a greater internal struggle. It is essential to give yourself self-compassion. By using the practice of self-compassion in our self-talk, we allow ourselves to be human. Express doubts, actively observe w/o judgment and finally, apply empathy to the parts of yourself that are speaking out of fear. Often, fearful and negative thoughts represent a part of ourselves that want to protect us from suffering or disappointment. Send that part some compassion and reassurance. It is perfectly okay to be afraid; it’s apart of the process.
Use your failures as leverage: You’ve had 4 interviews within the last month and didn’t land any of those jobs. Perhaps now you feel frustrated and hopeless? That’s okay. Give yourself space to feel these emotions. Then, use those failures as leverage. Does your resume need tailoring to fit the job? Were you asking engaging questions to your interviewer? Can you create a portfolio of your creations and accomplishments? It’s important to allow room for failure because these failures (while they may suck) allow us to learn from and rectify mistakes that we have made. Every failure is a lesson — use it as such.
Be realistic: Its great to be positive and to believe that things will always work out for us, but using discernment is just as important. Knowing and understanding our boundaries is a pivotal lesson in self-care. Don’t ignore real difficulties with the hope that everything will go perfectly. Take precautions and move with calculated intelligence. That too is a huge part of embodying mature optimism.
Cultivate hope and faith: Faith and hope are two things that are essential in maintaining optimism. Do you have a belief in something or someone higher than yourself? Can you ask this being to strengthen you in hope and faith? Can you, for one second, visualize a better you? Who would you be? How would you get there? This is your life. You have all of the cards in your hand to create a better (or worse) future for yourself. Hope is a choice. It takes courage to wish and focus on goodness when the cards you’ve been dealt are the worst. But perhaps a bit of courage is all that one needs to move out from the rain of the storm into the warmth of the shelter.
References:
Arnett, J. J. (2015). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens through the twenties (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Brissette, I., Scheier, M. F., & Carver, C. S. (2002). The role of optimism in social network development, coping, and psychological adjustment during a life transition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(1), 102–111.
Neely, M.E., Schallert, D.L., Mohammed, S.S. et al. Motiv Emot (2009) Self-kindness when facing stress: The role of self-compassion, goal regulation, and support in college students’ well-being. 88. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-008-9119-8
You are the light of my life. You are strong. So beautiful- inside and out. I love you for your resilience. I love you for your depths. You look to see, to feel, to know the core of every soul that you meet. For that, I am grateful. You often have a million things on your mind, tasks to complete, people to help and you are unsure of where to begin. At times this keeps you from starting anywhere at all. Do not let the fear of not being good enough, not being heard keep you from accepting who you are today. Time inevitably makes you recreate yourself over and over again. Remember, nothing in this life is fixed. Things are constantly moving, constantly changing. You are unsure of what tomorrow holds – you barely even know what will unfold today. That is okay. Leave the future up to God. It is His work to do and His only. Continue to pray; even when things are at its best. Continue to imagine and dream because The One knows you are a powerful creator and your thoughts can come to fruition. You are a co-creator with the Master of this Universe. That in itself is a gift that He has given to you. Continue to work. Even when no one gives you credit. You have God-given gifts, talents and although you know you have them, others may not see it in you. That doesn’t matter either – as long as you see it in yourself.
You are something special and everyone who knows you knows IT. From that seductive look in your eyes to your big hair, your long eyelashes and tiny frame to your soothing soul and big heart- yes love, you are special indeed. A gift from the God above, proof that He is real. Proof that He is good. Proof that He is love. And you came from Him so you are love as well. This can never be stolen from you. It is your essence. Even when others tell you how wrong you are. Even when you doubt or you question. Truth, often cannot be understood from the mouth but felt in the heart. It lies in between the heavens and the earth. In God’s knowing. So you are love. And love is you. And there is no separation, only the one that you perceive which is your greatest error. You are a creator. You are a writer. A healer. A lover. A daughter. A sister. An auntie. A best friend. A teacher. A student. You are whole. You are here. You are. And I’m so blessed that I get to play this role of you in this lifetime and hopefully into the next.
“Never treat any person as a means. Treat everybody as an end in himself, in herself—then you don’t cling, then you are not attached. You love, but your love gives freedom—and, when you give freedom to the other, you are free. Only in freedom does your soul grow.”Love, Freedom, Aloneness: The Koan of Relationships: Osho
In a culture that proclaims to be vastly individualistic—romantic relationships have quickly become the overall goal for acquiring love, commitment, and acceptance. While love in itself is a wonderful feeling and emotion, the apparent stressed importance of experiencing love through romantic relationships seems to be a bit exaggerated. For decades, the mentality of ‘finding one’s other half’ has been marketed and sold to the masses. Books, movies and social media (a.k.a ‘relationship goals’) serve to reemphasize this apparent importance of ‘finding your other half’. However, something that is even more important than securing a romantic relationship is nurturing the relationship with ourselves.
When we talk about looking for our “better half”, we subconsciously enable this idea that wholeness relies upon someone else. While love is integral to our being, it does not only lie within the confines of a romantic relationship. Wholeness, as well as love, is self-made. When we are able to maintain this truth— that we came into this earth as fully whole and capable beings- the search stops for someone or something else to complete us. Time has proven again and again that no amount of external validation, gifts or people will mask how we feel about ourselves internally. A person can love us with everything they have but it will never amount as much to us loving ourselves.
Furthermore, when we sit in our wholeness we are able to accept being alone. Aloneness is not to be confused with loneliness. Loneliness speaks of lack; feeling that something is missing or being incomplete. Very often, loneliness is the feeling that one runs away from when they are in futile search of something external to complete them. Aloneness, however, is maintaining personal individuality, love, presence and being. When one sits in their aloneness, their validation, love, and wholeness come from within- from the acceptance of who they are, the enjoyment of what they like and knowledge of simply being enough. When a person is able to come to this remembering- that they always have been and are whole, then those proceeding relationships come from choice and not a necessity. This means that if someone is not treating us the way we deserve to be treated, we leave. Being alone isn’t a threat to our happiness, not honoring ourselves is. If someone not in alignment with us and our path, we bid them farewell and wish them the best. Life is a journey for each of us so why would we knowingly restrict someone else’s or even our own experience and growth?
Going through the process of nurturing ourselves, sitting in aloneness and embracing our wholeness allows for the most beautiful of relationships to form: the one with ourselves. When a partner does show up—just as whole and loving—one gets to experience a love that is not based on conditions of filling a void but is fulfilling, nurturing and free.
Genuinely Jannah 