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
If I was a day of the week, I would definitely be Sunday. Sundays, for many, are days spent in reflection on the past week, communion with God, enjoying time with loved ones or simply sitting in silence. For me, Sunday’s are my self-care days – a full day dedicated to listening and doing whatever it is that I want to do.
Packed with the knowledge that each person will have their own ideas of what self-care actually looks like, how do we define it? Self-care is simply the practice of taking action to improve or preserve one’s health. This can mean physically, mentally or spiritually. Ideally, self-care consists of a combination of all three- nurturing the mind, body, and soul to foster love, kindness, and compassion to oneself. However, self-care also includes more raw details such as holding space for oneself in the midst of stress, pain or grief. Basically, anything that entails leading to a better and healthier you fall under the scope of self-care.
I personally consider myself a self-care connoisseur. I love being relaxed, soothed and peaceful. For me, self-care is essential to my daily life. There are a numerous amount of ways that one can incorporate a self-care day or practice into their daily routine. It all depends on what you believe is best for you. A simple practice that I have been cultivating over the last year or so is simply sitting in silence or meditation at the beginning of my day and asking myself “Jannah, what do you need from me today?” Although it may sound a bit odd, this simple questions allows me to create a space in which I am completely in tune and listening to myself and my own needs. It is very often that we are consumed with doing what others want us to do or even doing things we don’t want to do – but feel we have to. How does our subconscious process this behavior? In the act of listening to others over ourselves, we reinforce this internal idea that we are not as important as the rest of the world. In reality, the world will continue spinning regardless if we take 5-10 minutes to take care of ourselves. Time will not stop. Life will continue to go on. As soon as we are finished, we can return to our tasks, duties, and obligations with our complete and total attention. If we don’t take care of ourselves than who will? In truth, the most important person in this world who is need of love, attentiveness, and care from yourself is YOU. You deserve love, kindness, and compassion. You are enough. Love, embrace and nurture everything that you are – because you deserve it just as much as anyone else. So in the name of self-care ask yourself this very question – “___________, what do you need from me today?” See what answer you come up with. You may just surprise yourself.
Genuinely Jannah 