#5 months has almost completely destroyed my physical recovery progress

[lbwings]

Listen to YOUR Signs

By that I mean your body signs. Today was my last day at what most would call my first ‘full time real job’ despite having several jobs that skated only an hour or so under full time previously in my life. This job was the one I spent two years at school being trained for and getting an associate degree in. While it is only one option of my field it is a common one. But I will tell you why it was not for me, a person who only recently came off medication for depression. 

1. My Emotions/ Mental Self: Several times I came home thinking of nothing else but the pile of work I had to leave. I only had about 3 hours off of work after travel time, eatting and sleeping. I was getting angry and angry but at the same time sadder because I could not do anything else. This job was 6 days a week. By the time I finally unwond from how tense I was it was time to sleep to do it all over again. I was getting such bad sleep that I was losing the ability to remember words and make full sentences with concentrating. And any change to my schedule felt like a threat. Any time I tried to do something i ‘enjoyed’ like artwork I would just fall asleep or felt bad that I wasn’t working.

2. My Environment: Among the things I didn’t have time to do was clean; clean my living space or myself. My hair was so dirty my scalp actual burned. It has never done that before in my life. Dirt and items have built up enough that my couch is covered, furinture so dusty its a different color, and the only space left is the walking path required to move.

3. My Career Prospects: This was a job I was warned that I would know if I liked it after a little while and they were right. I knew I didn’t like it but needed a job. So I started for as long as I could. But everyone in my office had been there for years, did not get many if any raises, and no health insurance. It was very clear that I would die at that desk which my boss moved at his discreation. All while never making enough money to live on my own.  

4. My Physical Health: Deterioranted on levels only I could tell. While some people began noticing my hair was falling out they could not see the other signs. My neck was so tense it became tight again. This meant I had trouble with my jaw, feeling my hands, and my shoulders began to curl forward into a tense position. I also put on about fifteen pounds, which no one noticed because I always wear loose clothes several sizes larger than I need. My nose is constantly bleeding. And lets just say things have not been coming out right from the southen end. My digestive system was in pain that match or beat my period often. (Those were getting worse too.) 

While all of this was happening I swore it was just because it was my first full time job. I stayed three months after I knew I wasn’t fit for a job because I needed a ‘real job’. But after months of being so aggiated and sick I finally had a talk with my family; who talked me down from tears because I could not see it. Now I am going to recover and try to make a new plan for what to try next as well as how to handle it. Next time I will listen to my body.

[scripttorture]

Hello! I’m a long time follower of this blog and first of all, I wanna thank you for your amazing work! I’ve learned so much from your analysis and explanations! My question is: I have a character that is kidnapped along with two partners/friends that are beaten to death in front of her. She then endures torture such as being repeatedly drowned, tased and whipped, and she spends most of the time in a stress position (hands tied above her head from the ceiling). That lasts about 2/3 days (1/2)

When they threaten her with rape, she says the information she’d been withholding in an attempt to escape it. Is this realistic, or does it go against the fact that the most you torture, the less the victim is likely to cooperate? Also, they end up raping her still, and shortly after that she is rescued by her friends. What would be the extent of her psychology damage? I don’t want her to bounce right back into work like nothing’s happened - that would be disrespectful to actual victims (2/2)

-

I find gauging/explaining the extent of psychological ‘damage’ difficult because one of the things I try to avoid here is grading people’s pain. We have a tendency to default to almost ranking these things and I don’t think that’s helpful. It’s a perfectly legitimate question (and I don’t think you are trying to rank how much this character suffers) but it’s a… cultural quirk that makes answering a bit more difficult.

 The truth is that with all of these things there’s a range of individual responses rather then one universal ‘right’ answer. So if you’re struggling remember that the target you’re trying to hit isn’t a pin, it’s a boulder.

 As you practice writing different survivors you’ll get more confident handling symptoms and long term mental health problems.

 I’ll circle back to that, let’s tackle the question of whether people ‘talk’ first. I think a lot of people get confused by this because there are a lot of factors at work and it’s difficult to picture the knock on effects of all of them at once.

 Torture does not lead to accurate information. It fundamentally can’t. And it can’t because of mixture of factors including:

how our memory works

how our nervous system works

how torturers behave

the effect torture has on organisations more broadly

the erosion of public trust torture causes

 The question of whether an individual victim ‘talks’ or not concerns the first two points. Which (putting it briefly) are: pain and trauma cause memory problems meaning that torture actively destroys the evidence it claims to seek and that we are stubborn creatures who become a lot less inclined to actively cooperate with people who hurt us.

 However the issue is bigger then the victim here.

 When an organisation uses torture they lose the public trust, people stop volunteering information. And volunteered information is the main source of accurate information for any organisation.

 This means that the majority of people arrested by these organisations typically know nothing. They are then tortured and given a big incentive to lie.

 This creates a cycle of increasing misinformation. I talk about this effect in more detail here.

 On top of all this torturers… how to put this… They don’t give a fuck about genuine investigation.

 They claim that they do. But their actions tell a different story.

 Torturers don’t record what their victims say. They do not fact check what their victims say. There are multiple recorded incidents of torturers continuing to ‘interrogate’ prisoners who did not speak the same language and of torturers continuing to torture when victims were clearly physically incapable of responding.

 There have also been cases where victims have reported trying to give up information only to have torturers completely ignore it and carry on.

 And torturers are no better at telling the difference between lies and truth then anyone else. They often believe lies told by victims who know nothing. And they are equally likely to dismiss the truth.

 The main point to understand here is: there’s a difference between a character giving up information and a torturer/organisation that tortures obtaining accurate information.

 Personally? I think it is easier from a writing perspective to have the character lie, especially if this is your first time writing something like this.

 Writing torture is hard. It will be a lot easier to avoid falling into the common torture apologia trope that ‘torture works’ if the character lies. Especially if you don’t think the narrative has the time and space to explore the knock on effects of torture on the villainous organisation.

 So this isn’t so much an issue of realism as what you feel you can take on in this story.

 A small number of people do try to tell torturers the truth or give up information. But the scale of misinformation that torture produces is so vast that any small truths get lost among the lies.

 Conversely readers expect that if they see a character telling torturers something true, there are going to be narrative consequences. They expect this to mean the Bad Guys ‘know everything’ and will act on it.

 Realistically… torture can’t produce that sort of coordinated, thought through response. Because for everything this character says there are twelve others in separate cells contradicting that information. Because her torturers may not actually want to hear the truth, because they’ve probably sunk a lot of time, effort and personal prestige into a lie they heard a month ago being ‘true’ instead.

 But that’s not a leap most readers will make. It isn’t a context you can expect the average reader to understand. That isn’t me disparaging your readers it’s just… accurate information on torture is hard to find or access, so most people believe the apologia they see everyday. It’s another kind of trope and we’re all used to tropes playing out a particular way.

 Question whether your story has the space to explain this context and whether it can be done in a way that’s narratively satisfying.

 If the answer is ‘no’, or if you just feel like it’s a lot to tackle, then I think you’re a lot better off with the character lying to her torturers.

 Looking over the torture scenario itself I think you do have a survivable scenario here.

 I would say that it’s uncommon for victims to be put in stress positions for a few hours: generally the typical time frame is around 24-48 hours. Using a stress position in this scenario would still be painful but you don’t need to use it. You already have a lot going on with five separate tortures (six if this character is beaten as well.)

 I don’t see anything wrong with keeping it in here if you feel it adds something to the story. But if you want to drop one of these abuses the stress position seems like the odd one out.

 Circling back to the beginning and the psychological problems torture causes, I think a definition of ‘disability’* is helpful here. Disability is any impairment, mental or physical, that has a substantial, long term, negative effect on daily life.

 That’s what we’re talking about with torture survivors.

 Recovery is possible. Life for survivors can get better. Every common psychological condition torture causes can improve with time, treatment and life style adaptions.

 But we are talking about disability. Improvement and a happy life doesn’t mean that someone goes back to the way they were before.

 Let’s take a few examples from the list of common symptoms which you can find here.

 An ‘easy’ example to think through would be something like chronic pain. I think most of us can imagine how being in pain every day would have a negative impact on your ability to do things.

 It can make it harder to perform normal, daily tasks. People with pain in their knees might struggle climbing stairs and walking long distances for instance. People with pain in their arms or shoulders might struggle to get dressed, hang washing on a line and access things on shelves above chest height.

 Chronic pain can also make it harder to interact positively with people and socialise. We’re rarely at are best when we’re in pain.

 A harder example to think through might be the kinds of long term memory problems torture commonly causes. You can read more about them here.

 One possible type of memory problem is a sort of general forgetfulness that a lot of survivors experience. It is not dementia, it isn’t a progressive loss of memory. But some survivors find it a lot harder to remember information and that can have a huge impact on a person’s daily life.

 Typical examples are things like:

forgetting medical appointments, which can lead to people being denied treatment

being consistently late for work, which can lead to loss of employment

difficulty managing money

forgetting to pay bills, leading to essential services being cut

forgetting meetings with friends, leading to reduced social life and isolation

 That’s not a complete list but hopefully it gives you an idea of some of the ways this particular symptom impacts daily life.

 This thought process that I’ve outlined is what you’re aiming for when you’re trying to think through symptom severity. It imagining the knock on effects on daily life and ensuring they’re at a level where the character is disabled.

 That will look different depending on the combination of symptoms you pick.

 Survivors don’t typically experience every possible symptom. As I said there’s variety; survivors of the same traumatic event can come out with completely different sets of symptoms and we’re not always sure why.

 Given that I think the best thing a writer can do is pick 3-5 symptoms from the list for their character and show those symptoms consistently over the course of the story.

 Remember that symptoms can improve. A person’s mental health problems can get better; but this means ‘easier to deal with’ rather then ‘no longer there.’

 It’s also worth keeping in mind that the same mental health problem can look different in different people. It’s common for people with depression to experience insomnia but it’s also common for people with depression to feel tired constantly, sleep excessively and find it impossible to get out of bed.

 Decide on the symptoms you want to write then take a moment to think about how they should manifest in this particular character.

 I find it helpful to consider what it will add to the story. If a symptom works well with a theme in the story or creates interesting narrative opportunities then it’s usually a good pick. When thinking through the severity of the symptom consider whether this particular disability would create interesting challenges for the character as the story progresses.

 Recovery and learning to live with disability takes months or years. It’s not linear and there are some people who will require regular assistance.

 Essentially because symptoms are so varied between survivors and because they can manifest is different ways I can’t give you a perfect road map to writing trauma. There isn’t one ‘correct’ way to do it because there isn’t one way it manifests in life.

 But it isn’t necessarily as hard as it sounds. Writing this stuff well takes practice, trial and error. That shouldn’t stop you from trying.

 If you can I’d recommend finding a beta reader or writing group. Having other people reading over your stuff and giving feedback can really help. It’s a good way to make sure your scenes are coming across as you intend them to.

 I’d also recommend taking a look through ScriptTraumaSurvivor’s archived blog here.

 I hope that helps. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*I’m quoting from UK anti discrimination law here mostly because I think it’s a clear, helpful way of picturing what we’re talking about.

[trendingnewsb]

How I Bounced Back From a Fiasco

“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” Bill Gates

20 years ago, I went through a deep teenager crisis which completely disrupted my life trajectory. From being best student in class and a competitive judo player, I became the shadow of myself, dropped out of school, and picked up multiple addictions.

This experience changed my life forever. I was only 18 but I thought back then that I was like already dead and would never feel joy again. Surprisingly, though, this fiasco turned out to be the most fruitful phase of my life.

It started as a reaction to a minor tension between my parents. I was probably not mature enough to understand and accept what was going on. As a result, the paradigm of success I had at the time was not making sense any longer and it exploded in pieces.

In a desperate attempt to numb the pain, I indulged into self-destruction. I stopped sport competitions, started to smoke, first a cigarette, then a joint, then a bong, etc. I was hanging out with the wrong crowd.

I needed meaning but could not find it anywhere. I had picked up philosophy classes but what they were teaching there seemed superficial and did not answer my questions –or my distress. I dropped out of university after a month.

I felt increasingly isolated. I stopped talking to people. I would just write notes to my mother. I had built a hut in the forest where I would spend most of my time, in the loneliness of my morbid thoughts. So when people say “If only I could be 18 or 20 again…”, I think to myself that it was actually the worst time of my life.

It took me some time to recover. My parents had the wisdom not to push me. I did not want any help. They were confident that I would somehow get back on track. The odds seemed against them at that time. But actually they were right. I made it through.

In retrospect, I realize that there were many steps involved in getting over failure and building my life back. Let me try and share them with you.

1. Give up the victim mindset

When something bad happens, we tend to picture ourselves as victims. As a result, we adopt a passive attitude: if the world did us wrong, then it should also make things better again for us. It is as if we were trying to convince ourselves that there is nothing we can do to bounce back. After all, it is a comfortable thought: if there is nothing we can do about it, we have nothing to do but bemoan our fate.

The first step in my “recovery” process was a mindset shift. I simply realized that nothing was going to change by just waiting for it. I had been through tough times but I could not expect the solution to come from outside. I had to hold myself accountable for what was coming next. No one will look after you if you don’t start by looking after yourself.

This realization did not come overnight. It took me almost a year to get there. Of course it was frightening. When you are at the bottom, you can’t fall lower. If you try to come back up, you expose yourself to failure again.

But the biggest risk at this stage was not to take any risk at all. By maintaining self-destructive behaviors, I would just lose any chance of a better life. What did I have to lose but the hell I was living in?

I had touched the bottom and pushed it with my foot. I was ready for action and committed myself to getting back to the surface. There was a long way to go.

2. Change the setting

Our lives are deeply influenced by our environment. The place where we live, the people we know, etc. They are part of our identity; they are constant reminders of who we have been to date. To a certain extent, they anchor us in our past.

This is natural, and even comforting. But it may be unhelpful when we strive to create change in our lives. People sometimes expect us to behave in a certain way which makes it difficult to adopt new behaviors.

When I decided to rebuild my life, I felt the urge to break free from the past –at least temporarily. I enrolled at the university in a town where I knew no one. It made it less awkward to try and be the new me that I wanted to be. There was no sign from the past; I could focus on the present. It was like a cocoon in which I could be born again.

Sometimes changing the outside makes it easier to change inside. This is what behavior psychologist James Prochaska calls “Environment Control”.

Depending on the severity of your setback, you may not have to go as far as moving country or city. But taking a 1- or 2-week break at least can prove beneficial. It will facilitate the introspection process and help you get a fresh perspective on the situation.

3. Know yourself

Major breakdowns shatter our identity. In order to move on with life, we have to rebuild a sense of self.

Who am I? How did this fiasco come along? Where do I want my life to go from now on? I knew I needed answers to these questions in order to get back on track.

When life doesn’t go the way we want, we tend to avoid mirrors and the ugly reflection they send back to us. Yet facing the mirror and raising awareness is essential to pick ourselves back up after a fiasco. Without self-awareness, any behavior change process has very little chance to mature.

I used two mirrors: reading and dreaming. I would read voraciously anything that could help me understand the situation better: psychology papers, books on mental illnesses and spiritual experiences, biographies from people I felt somehow related to, articles about substance abuse, etc.

This is also when I started to write down all my dreams. I had a Dictaphone next to my bed and I would wake up at night to record a few words and remember the dreams the next day. I became an expert dreamer! I could remember up to 20 dreams per night very vividly. I didn’t feel the need to analyze them. By simply acknowledging them and exploring my subconscious, things were getting clearer: my fears, my aspirations, the people I loved, what mattered to me.

Self-understanding leads to self-acceptance. It is the cornerstone of any genuine reconstruction process.

4. Body first

Critical setbacks in life leave us with a lot of uncertainties. We doubt whether any activity is worth pursuing.

At the peak of my personal crisis, I wouldn’t listen to any music anymore because I could not identify myself any longer with anything. Why would I listen to this song rather than this other one?

The first certainty that emerged out of the chaos was the importance of physical health. I did not know which life track I would eventually follow, but I was sure that I would be better equipped under any scenario if fit. This fundamental belief was where I started my reconstruction process from.

I went back to a healthy life with regular exercise, pushups every day, a balanced diet, no smoking or drinking, etc. The downward spiral was over. I was engaged in a process of progression which helped regain self-confidence.

When we are in good shape, our thoughts are clearer and we manage our emotions better. Our body is ultimately our home, our temple. Treating it with respect is essential to rebuilding a positive sense of self.

5. Mull it over and get it out

A life crisis is a traumatic event. We can be tempted to avoid thinking about it and live in denial in order to reduce our pain. Yet this can’t be fruitful in the long run. We have to face reality and confront our suffering if we want to go beyond it.

At the same time, we shouldn’t get stuck in unpleasant thoughts and relive in our mind the fiasco we have been through again and again. We need to eventually get it out of our system.

The way I did it was through writing. For about a year, I wrote poetry. I had some very strong feelings inside that I needed to crystallize in order not to drag them along. This was my emotional catharsis.

Creative activities such as journaling or painting can be immensely helpful in getting you over the bad aftertaste left after a personal fiasco. The point is not to create a masterpiece, but to let go of limiting emotions.

6. Set goals

Goal-setting probably saved my life! As I engaged in a reconstruction process, I felt deeply frustrated with where I stood. Setting personal objectives allowed me to set eyes on a new horizon and move forward. I was perhaps very far from where I wanted to be but I was on my way there, step by step, day after day.

I wrote a list of the goals I wanted to achieve in life, organized them by category (physical, intellectual, artistic, etc.), and kept a daily log of the activities that were me getting closer to these aspirations. This provided me with a sense of direction and helped me be at peace with my present self.

By setting goals, you make yourself responsible –you adopt the viewpoint that you can do something about your situation. By having goals, you take ownership of your destiny and become the architect of your life.

Don’t set too many at first. Try with three to five simple goals, with a focus on daily or weekly habits. Make them S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound); e.g., exercising 3 times per week, reading 20 minutes per day, or drinking 2 L of water daily.

When failure becomes an opportunity

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill

If you had asked me back then, I would have told you that I would rather have avoided this fiasco. It’s only years later that I recognized how beneficial it had actually been. A breakdown may shake you but it does not destroy you –it de-constructs you. The bricks of your life may be scattered all over the place but they are still here. This gives you a rare chance to rebuild from scratch the life you want.

It took me some time to get back on track. I eventually managed to enter a prestigious university and started a career in investment banking. 12 years later, I launched my own venture to help people reach their own life goals. It was a way to close the loop: failing, growing, and sharing.

The lessons I have learned and the habits I have picked up through this personal crisis stay with me to this day. This fiasco ended up having a positively transformative impact in my life.

When you experience personal chaos, you may not see the light at the end of the tunnel right away. It may feel like everything is over. Don’t freak out, it could well be instead a blessing in disguise and a rare opportunity for you to step back and build the life you want.

The post How I Bounced Back From a Fiasco appeared first on Lifehack.

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2vaUsJS via Viral News HQ

[trendingnewsb]

How I Bounced Back From a Fiasco

“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” Bill Gates

20 years ago, I went through a deep teenager crisis which completely disrupted my life trajectory. From being best student in class and a competitive judo player, I became the shadow of myself, dropped out of school, and picked up multiple addictions.

This experience changed my life forever. I was only 18 but I thought back then that I was like already dead and would never feel joy again. Surprisingly, though, this fiasco turned out to be the most fruitful phase of my life.

It started as a reaction to a minor tension between my parents. I was probably not mature enough to understand and accept what was going on. As a result, the paradigm of success I had at the time was not making sense any longer and it exploded in pieces.

In a desperate attempt to numb the pain, I indulged into self-destruction. I stopped sport competitions, started to smoke, first a cigarette, then a joint, then a bong, etc. I was hanging out with the wrong crowd.

I needed meaning but could not find it anywhere. I had picked up philosophy classes but what they were teaching there seemed superficial and did not answer my questions –or my distress. I dropped out of university after a month.

I felt increasingly isolated. I stopped talking to people. I would just write notes to my mother. I had built a hut in the forest where I would spend most of my time, in the loneliness of my morbid thoughts. So when people say “If only I could be 18 or 20 again…”, I think to myself that it was actually the worst time of my life.

It took me some time to recover. My parents had the wisdom not to push me. I did not want any help. They were confident that I would somehow get back on track. The odds seemed against them at that time. But actually they were right. I made it through.

In retrospect, I realize that there were many steps involved in getting over failure and building my life back. Let me try and share them with you.

1. Give up the victim mindset

When something bad happens, we tend to picture ourselves as victims. As a result, we adopt a passive attitude: if the world did us wrong, then it should also make things better again for us. It is as if we were trying to convince ourselves that there is nothing we can do to bounce back. After all, it is a comfortable thought: if there is nothing we can do about it, we have nothing to do but bemoan our fate.

The first step in my “recovery” process was a mindset shift. I simply realized that nothing was going to change by just waiting for it. I had been through tough times but I could not expect the solution to come from outside. I had to hold myself accountable for what was coming next. No one will look after you if you don’t start by looking after yourself.

This realization did not come overnight. It took me almost a year to get there. Of course it was frightening. When you are at the bottom, you can’t fall lower. If you try to come back up, you expose yourself to failure again.

But the biggest risk at this stage was not to take any risk at all. By maintaining self-destructive behaviors, I would just lose any chance of a better life. What did I have to lose but the hell I was living in?

I had touched the bottom and pushed it with my foot. I was ready for action and committed myself to getting back to the surface. There was a long way to go.

2. Change the setting

Our lives are deeply influenced by our environment. The place where we live, the people we know, etc. They are part of our identity; they are constant reminders of who we have been to date. To a certain extent, they anchor us in our past.

This is natural, and even comforting. But it may be unhelpful when we strive to create change in our lives. People sometimes expect us to behave in a certain way which makes it difficult to adopt new behaviors.

When I decided to rebuild my life, I felt the urge to break free from the past –at least temporarily. I enrolled at the university in a town where I knew no one. It made it less awkward to try and be the new me that I wanted to be. There was no sign from the past; I could focus on the present. It was like a cocoon in which I could be born again.

Sometimes changing the outside makes it easier to change inside. This is what behavior psychologist James Prochaska calls “Environment Control”.

Depending on the severity of your setback, you may not have to go as far as moving country or city. But taking a 1- or 2-week break at least can prove beneficial. It will facilitate the introspection process and help you get a fresh perspective on the situation.

3. Know yourself

Major breakdowns shatter our identity. In order to move on with life, we have to rebuild a sense of self.

Who am I? How did this fiasco come along? Where do I want my life to go from now on? I knew I needed answers to these questions in order to get back on track.

When life doesn’t go the way we want, we tend to avoid mirrors and the ugly reflection they send back to us. Yet facing the mirror and raising awareness is essential to pick ourselves back up after a fiasco. Without self-awareness, any behavior change process has very little chance to mature.

I used two mirrors: reading and dreaming. I would read voraciously anything that could help me understand the situation better: psychology papers, books on mental illnesses and spiritual experiences, biographies from people I felt somehow related to, articles about substance abuse, etc.

This is also when I started to write down all my dreams. I had a Dictaphone next to my bed and I would wake up at night to record a few words and remember the dreams the next day. I became an expert dreamer! I could remember up to 20 dreams per night very vividly. I didn’t feel the need to analyze them. By simply acknowledging them and exploring my subconscious, things were getting clearer: my fears, my aspirations, the people I loved, what mattered to me.

Self-understanding leads to self-acceptance. It is the cornerstone of any genuine reconstruction process.

4. Body first

Critical setbacks in life leave us with a lot of uncertainties. We doubt whether any activity is worth pursuing.

At the peak of my personal crisis, I wouldn’t listen to any music anymore because I could not identify myself any longer with anything. Why would I listen to this song rather than this other one?

The first certainty that emerged out of the chaos was the importance of physical health. I did not know which life track I would eventually follow, but I was sure that I would be better equipped under any scenario if fit. This fundamental belief was where I started my reconstruction process from.

I went back to a healthy life with regular exercise, pushups every day, a balanced diet, no smoking or drinking, etc. The downward spiral was over. I was engaged in a process of progression which helped regain self-confidence.

When we are in good shape, our thoughts are clearer and we manage our emotions better. Our body is ultimately our home, our temple. Treating it with respect is essential to rebuilding a positive sense of self.

5. Mull it over and get it out

A life crisis is a traumatic event. We can be tempted to avoid thinking about it and live in denial in order to reduce our pain. Yet this can’t be fruitful in the long run. We have to face reality and confront our suffering if we want to go beyond it.

At the same time, we shouldn’t get stuck in unpleasant thoughts and relive in our mind the fiasco we have been through again and again. We need to eventually get it out of our system.

The way I did it was through writing. For about a year, I wrote poetry. I had some very strong feelings inside that I needed to crystallize in order not to drag them along. This was my emotional catharsis.

Creative activities such as journaling or painting can be immensely helpful in getting you over the bad aftertaste left after a personal fiasco. The point is not to create a masterpiece, but to let go of limiting emotions.

6. Set goals

Goal-setting probably saved my life! As I engaged in a reconstruction process, I felt deeply frustrated with where I stood. Setting personal objectives allowed me to set eyes on a new horizon and move forward. I was perhaps very far from where I wanted to be but I was on my way there, step by step, day after day.

I wrote a list of the goals I wanted to achieve in life, organized them by category (physical, intellectual, artistic, etc.), and kept a daily log of the activities that were me getting closer to these aspirations. This provided me with a sense of direction and helped me be at peace with my present self.

By setting goals, you make yourself responsible –you adopt the viewpoint that you can do something about your situation. By having goals, you take ownership of your destiny and become the architect of your life.

Don’t set too many at first. Try with three to five simple goals, with a focus on daily or weekly habits. Make them S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound); e.g., exercising 3 times per week, reading 20 minutes per day, or drinking 2 L of water daily.

When failure becomes an opportunity

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill

If you had asked me back then, I would have told you that I would rather have avoided this fiasco. It’s only years later that I recognized how beneficial it had actually been. A breakdown may shake you but it does not destroy you –it de-constructs you. The bricks of your life may be scattered all over the place but they are still here. This gives you a rare chance to rebuild from scratch the life you want.

It took me some time to get back on track. I eventually managed to enter a prestigious university and started a career in investment banking. 12 years later, I launched my own venture to help people reach their own life goals. It was a way to close the loop: failing, growing, and sharing.

The lessons I have learned and the habits I have picked up through this personal crisis stay with me to this day. This fiasco ended up having a positively transformative impact in my life.

When you experience personal chaos, you may not see the light at the end of the tunnel right away. It may feel like everything is over. Don’t freak out, it could well be instead a blessing in disguise and a rare opportunity for you to step back and build the life you want.

The post How I Bounced Back From a Fiasco appeared first on Lifehack.

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2vaUsJS via Viral News HQ