If you’re struggling with something, you can be damn sure that other people have wrestled with the same demons you are, they’re just not talking about it. For whatever reason you’re not sharing your insecurities, baby blues, fear of failure, or shame about something, consider breaking your code of silence. Tell a friend, call your mom, or write a song about it like this guy:
When I was a kid and didn’t feel good my mom used to make me a cup of hot chocolate and a grilled peanut butter sandwich. Because they were served by my mommy while I was recovering from an illness and were decadent treats that tasted delicious, I equated them with comfort, security, and unconditional love.
Next to me in my sick bed, I would always have my yellow blankie that I would rub on my cheeks or my lips to make me feel safe. Having a soft and silky blankie to cuddle with whenever I was feeling sick or depressed or hopeless became a balm I could use to help me heal myself. I still sleep with blankies – which Clare thinks is hilarious and obviously I don’t admit to hardly anyone – because they make me feel better. When I am down I have a cup of hot chocolate and a grilled peanut butter sandwich. The first present I bought my daughter was a blankie because having comfort measures is important.
What things do you do or have that make you feel better?
We all need to have confidants who we can vent to or use as sounding boards about our lives. And though just talking about things is important, it’s critical that we talk to the right people. If you’re going through an emotional transition, find people to talk to who have gone through the same thing you have. That way what they are reflecting back at you will be useful. And use discernment when discussing your emotional life with people who are not in a good place themselves. If one of your nearest and dearest is struggling, they will probably come back at you with advice they really need for themselves instead of accurately seeing you.
Many kudos to the brilliant Amy for the topic of today’s Smackdown.
In the last few days I have been in touch with many friends and readers of this blog who have lost their jobs. While having lunch with an extremely talented friend who was laid off from a job she loved, she described how the Inner Critic had more power over her than ever before. With every emailed resume she didn’t get a response to and every minute she waited for the phone to ring, the Inner Critic leapt into the communication void to whisper in her ear.
Do any of these phrases sound familiar? “You don’t have the right experience. You’re too old! You suck at interviews! You’ll never find a job! You’re not talented enough to get a job in this tight economic market!”
If you’ve lost your job, or are a freelancer like me and have to create jobs on a daily basis for a living, then we must battle that Inner Critic minute-by-minute. My Dad always use to say, “It’s easier to change lanes when you’re in the traffic than when you’re stopped at the side of the road.” True. But what if you are stopped on the side of the road by forces outside your control? Here are some things I’ve been stewing on lately.
Get dressed. I’ve written about this one before, but it’s so important. Put on the clothes you would wear to work so you’ll feel more confident. If you’re in your pjs or sweats, it’s easy to slip into inaction. Right now? I’m in my pjs. Whoops. One moment please.
Persue every lead. How do you figure out which opportunities to take? I believe it’s my job to put myself out there in as many ways and as often as I can. What comes back to me, is not up to me. So when doors open, I walk through them to see where they lead. Even if it wasn’t necessarily the right thing for me, I always learn some valuable lesson that serves me later in unexpected ways.
Face the worst-case and plan for it. What is the absolute worst thing that can happen? You’ll lose your house? And then what will you do? Lose your car? Then how will you get around? Though your circumstances may change in unpleasant ways, there is always a way through. Sometimes you have to change your career or your attitude, or your living arrangments. But there is always a way.
Be proud of yourself. Make a list of the moments in your life when you have been most proud of yourself. What did you do? What did you achieve? How did you handle a situation? Remember those moments now.
Do something that makes you feel confident. Make another list of moments when you have felt the most confident. What were you wearing? How did you walk? What are you really, really good at?
Find allies. If you have people in your life who take energy from you instead of helping you feel courageous, then ditch those friends or family members for a while. Call up the confident people you know and align yourself with them. Instead of hanging out with people who are scared and in fear spirals, find those who are scared and are rallying themselves for the fight with optimism and hope.
Use this time for self-exploration. Last week on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, they ran a story about a 40-year-old woman who was in the financial industry and lost her job. Instead of returning to the same industry, she decided to go to school to become a chef. These stories abound during times like this. But if you view this time as an opportunity, then you will not only survive this turbulent era, you will thrive.
How about you? Let me know how you continue to smackdown your Inner Critic while you hunt for work or have to make a scary transition so we can all benefit! And please remember to do something kind for yourself every single day. This is especially important right now.
Yesterday, a series of things happened that made me realize I am experiencing a pleasure deficit. First, I had a lunch with some really groovy folks. Jocelyn Hale, the Executive Director of the Loft Literary Center, Dennis Cass, the author of the hilarious and fantastic book Head Case, and Pilar Gerasimo, Editor-in-Chief of Experience Life magazine. We were discussing an article that is coming out in the December issue of Experience Life called A Real Pleasure in which the staff of the magazine describe how all the latest research in the fields of positive psychology, neurology, and psychoneuroimmunology show that pleasure is good for us. Yet, each of us at the table admitted to not taking proper care of ourselves by doing activities that really gave us joy. For instance, I absolutely love massages but I haven’t booked one since before Eva was born. She’s 8 months old.
Then I ended up at the eye doctor yesterday afternoon with what turns out to be a case of episcleritis. My left eye is all red and it hurts. Why? Because I’ve been staring at the computer for too many hours in a row. You got it. I’ve been working too hard, with too few breaks for fun.
The final straw was a voice message from Clare. She admitted she was totally exhausted. She’s working two jobs and has to work through the Thanksgiving holiday without a break.
Consider this quote from the Experience Life article: “Pursuing pleasure and feeling stress, it turns out, are mutually exclusive – which means that embracing pleasurable experiences may present not just an opportunity for warm fuzzies, but a very real antidote to stress and a very necessary ingredient to sustained well-being.”
Instead of letting the Inner Critic freak out on me and tell me I can’t possibly get up from the desk since there is so much to do, I flipped it the bird. After a business phone call I must take at 10:30 a.m. CST, I am outta here! If you don’t hear from me for the rest of the day, you’ll know I am off visiting a flower shop and inhaling as deeply as I can. Or maybe I’ll be tasting a cup of joe in my favorite coffee shop. Or perhaps I’ll even book a massage for later this very day. The only errand I’ll run is to buy myself a pair of reading glasses – promise!
So what will you do today, right this minute, to increase the joy and pleasurable experiences in your life?
In our house whenever we feel like we need a pick-me-up we have what we call Life is a Musical Day. And then we sing everything we do with a running commentary set to music. It doesn’t matter that a few of us can’t carry a tune in a bucket. What matters is that we end up laughing every time. We also choose the genre of the musical and switch it up often. For instance, sometimes we sing in wobbly opera voices, sometimes with a country music twang, and sometimes we do scary musical (think Phantom of the Opera or Tim Burton’s NIghtmare Before Christmas).
Today is a musical day because I started reading the news and got so depressed by the violence, economic crisis, and general negativity that I had to counteract it immediately!
This video will help inspire you to live today as a musical. Props to my stepkids for finding this one!
Being sick is prime time for the Inner Critic. A fever brings depression, which for me turns into the conviction that nothing in my life will ever change for the better. And because I’m sick, I don’t have enough energy to counter that conviction with positive thoughts. I don’t even have the energy to just stay neutral; it’s all downhill.
I guess the one thing you can always trust no matter what your fevered brain is telling you, is that nature is cyclical. That’s science. That’s a fact. So when you’re down there’s only one direction to go from there. (After wallowing in a dirty T-shirt and orange juice and bad movies on TV, of course. 
