Join us at Positive Woman Connection. Donna Skell will be our speaker.

Tuesday, August 24 from 12 – 1 at Prestonwood Country Club.

Here are some thoughts about facing disappointments.

In a Rut

Are you stuck? I mean emotionally stuck, grieving or frustrated by the way things turned out. Getting stuck can happen to any of us, often without our even recognizing it. We may be traveling delightfully along life’s pathway, when—boom!—things change, and we must adjust. Often our emotions are still lingering in pain. When our heart sinks at the loss of a dream, we can be deeply saddened because things didn’t turn out as we thought they should or would. We can grope through a wide range of feelings such as frustration, disappointment, anger, and grief.

We must adequately face our grief, but we must also accept our new set of circumstances and move on. The challenging question is how do we move through grief and toward acceptance? Most of us have never taken a course in “How to Handle Disappointment.” We simply stumble through the emotions and pain, hoping to find joy once again. How do you know if you are stuck in a rut? Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are your thoughts constantly consumed with your disappointment?
• Do you continue to rehash the situation over and over again in conversations?
• Are you holding a grudge against the person who hurt you?
• Do you keep playing the if-only-this-hadn’t-happened scenario in your mind?
• Are you savoring a poor-me mentality?
• Do you repeatedly tell people who are trying to help you, “You just don’t know how hard my life is”? (Exception: if you are in an abusive situation, be honest. Get help and tell a counselor or friend how bad it is immediately.)

If you identified yourself in any of these statements, you may be stuck, but you can move forward. I know it has been hard and you must grieve over your loss, but there comes a time when you need to climb out of your sadness and grief and move on. Honestly, it is easy to wallow in a rut without recognizing it. Some people stay there because they like playing the victim role. Others enjoy the attention they get from their sad story. Many people stay in a rut simply because they don’t recognize they have fallen into it, and they haven’t thought about how to get out. They just don’t know how to take a first step toward happiness again. Yes, we must grieve our loss, and at a certain point we must move on.  Next week’s blog will talk about some steps to take in moving forward.

This blog entry comes from an excerpt of my book Thrive, Don’t Simply Survive – Passionately Live the Life you Didn’t Plan (Howard Books, Simon & Schuster)