How to Heal Through Challenges
Chin up, buttercup!
Let's be real, sometimes things happen that just suck. There's no way around it.
You get fired from your dream job.
Someone you trust betrays you.
A loved one passes away.
Or even more mundane things. (Have you ever been one belt-loop-getting-stuck-on-a-door-handle away from LOSING your mind?)
There are parts of life that genuinely just suck to go through. For anyone.
I had one of these bombs 💣 dropped in my lap yesterday, and it drudged up all the feelings of rejection, being a failure, feeling like people are happier when I'm not there.
It's a message I've been told repeatedly throughout my life - That I'm too much, I make everything worse, etc.
And maybe that's true for how others receive me. But I don't have to let it define my relationship with myself.
When these tough situations or crises arise, toxic positivity would have us brush it under the rug and pretend like it didn't happen... along with all our feelings.
But the biggest opportunity for healing is when we're in the midst of hurting.
So this weekend as I process my pain and look directly at some of my deepest core wounds, I'm offering myself gentleness and compassion.
It's times like this that I'm SO grateful I already have my core values down, I have a vision for the woman I want to become, and I know what is important to me. It’s like Brene Brown says, "Don't go looking for evidence that you're unworthy, because you'll find it. Look for evidence that you're worthy, because you'll find it." When you have a foundation of claiming your worth, you're able to heal through the process of pain rather than be more wounded by it.
When you find yourself going through a tough time, follow the steps below to come out the other side healed and feeling good about yourself.
How to Get through Challenging Experiences
FEEL THE FEELS & EXPRESS THEM
It’s totally natural to want to stop the painful feelings when you’re in a tough time - run away from them, distract yourself, avoid them, push the feelings down, eat them away with a pint of ice cream. I get it - the painful feelings suck.
But the truth is, the only way out is through. Like Winston Churchill said, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.”
When you avoid your feelings, they don’t actually go away. In fact, when buried, the feelings get more intense. I like to think of it as a child who is trying to get attention. What happens if the parent ignores them? They start screaming louder. So stewing on your feelings will only make things harder in the long run. And they will start to come out sideways - snapping at someone you didn’t mean to, making decisions that aren’t aligned with your values, etc.
A great way to get your feelings felt, processed, and out is to express them. This could be through talking with a therapist or a friend, crying and wailing (tears are shows to reduce cortisol levels - the stress hormone), journaling about your experience, movement with yoga or running (or punching a pillow!), using your voice to sing (Alanis Morisette’s You Oughta Know is one of my fav’s to get out the anger) or using your voice to hum (humming is shown to lower cortisol and blood pressure, and increase endorphins and oxytocin).
Regardless of how you get the emotions out, expression and creativity can bring some life force back to you, and also moves the emotions so they don’t get stuck in you. When you feel it, you heal it.
REGULATE
When you’re in the midst of a challenge, especially when it’s unexpected, it’s so important to regulate your nervous system. I get when things are so challenging that it feels like you’re in crisis/survival mode. But being in fight/flight/freeze is not helping anyone.
I remember when my younger brother died suddenly in a motorcycle accident, and it felt like being shattered into a million pieces. And THEN I had to travel to Austin and handle all his affairs, all while dealing with tricky (read: dysfunctional af) family dynamics. Needless to say, my nervous system was wrecked.
And the best advice I got (it’s great to have a bunch of therapists as friends in times like this) was to take care of the basic fundamentals: Eat 3x a day, drink water, walk and get some movement in, spend time in nature (even just an evening walk through the park), and get some rest.
All of these things regulate your nervous system, so you can stay functioning. I was so much more capable of handling real crisis when I was able to function. You can’t get wounded enough to heal others. So make sure to regulate ESPECIALLY in times of challenge.
Some of the best ways to do this are to move your body and to get in nature. I know what’s it’s like to be so devastated by something that I couldn’t even get out of bed. Have you ever fallen to your knees in grief? I get it. But if you can just get outside and get some fresh air, even for a 5 min walk, it will work wonders.
If you have ready access to nature (maybe this is your excuse to take a weekend in a cabin in the woods), being around the earth, trees, the ocean, a mountain, the desert, whatever your landscape is so healing. Allow the earth to help you hold your emotions. I like to envision each step I take as my pain draining down out of my feet and giving it to the earth. She is capable of taking it and transforming it into a healing and loving energy to give back. So get some fresh air (even if it’s cold in the winter or blazing hot in the summer), some sunshine, some water, put your bare feet on the ground, do some yoga, and let your body re-regulate to the rhythm of the earth.
PRACTICE GRATITUDE
You physically can’t experience gratitude when in a survival state (fight/flight/freeze/fawn). So if you find yourself in this state, finding something, anything, to be grateful for will help regulate your nervous system and pull you out of the survival state.
This will also help you with shifting your attention back to what IS working, which will feel nourishing. It will even help cultivate a feeling of hopefulness again - that all is not lost and you can find a new beginning and new future after you have fully processed this experience.
UNPACK YOUR BELIEFS
Once you’ve expressed some of your emotions, grounded and regulated your nervous system, and found some gratitude, now we can dig in and start sifting through the beliefs that are tied to this experience. It might feel tough, but it’ll be SO cathartic, and this is your real opportunity to heal what you’ve been carrying.
I like to get all the painful beliefs the experience has drudged up and write them all out. It sucks because it’s mostly negative message about how unworthy I am, but it’s good to get them out on paper because they’re floating around in my consciousness anyway. So may as well see what we’re working with!
Once I have everything out on the page, I’ll then investigate with some questions: Are these beliefs about myself really true? Where did I first learn this belief? What belief do I want to adopt instead?
A belief is just a thought you think over and over again.
Since a belief is just a thought you’ve repeated to yourself long enough, you have the freedom to choose your beliefs, and you get to rewrite old ones that don't fit anymore.
Instead of holding onto all the old beliefs, I'm choosing to create new beliefs about myself: That I'm likable and lovable, that I have meaningful connections, and that my presence is a gift to the world.
ENVISION WHO YOU WANT TO BECOME
Now comes the fun part. By processing the old beliefs and replacing them with the new ones, you can start to envision who you want to become. Envision the future you who has come out the other side of this challenging time:
What did she learn/takeaway from this experience?
What values does she embody?
How does she carry herself, love herself, support and nurture herself?
Who does she have in her life and who is she surrounded by?
What does she tell herself on a regular basis?
You get to completely envision who you want to become, what you want to embody, and what kind of life you want to create.
One thing I have been so grateful for is having a such a strong sense of self and knowing who I am in the midst of crisis. If you have a foundation of knowing who you are, what you value, what’s important to you, and how you want to show up - then when something comes and knocks you down, you have a center of gravity to come back to yourself. Those who don’t have a strong vision for who they want to become will get lost when challenges arise.
So if you’re ready to take this challenge and turn it into an opportunity to explore your strengths and set yourself up for alignment, join me in the “Find Your Passion. Live Your Purpose.” program. This exploration of learning who you are and creating the life you want is exactly what I walk my clients through in this program. And they come out the other side of it crystal clear about their purpose, their direction, and how they want to show up in their lives.
This 6-week course teaches you how to unlock your potential, discover your divine gifts, and reclaim your purpose in life. I walk you through the process of really coming to know yourself and what is driving you in life. You’ll have more clarity and purpose than ever before!
Learn more and enroll at sarahbyrd.com/fyplyp
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Hello Lovely, I’m Sarah Byrd
EMPOWERMENT COACH & YOUR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT BFF
EMPOWERMENT OBSESSED, ENNEAGRAM 3 (ACHIEVER), MASTER’S IN COUNSELING STUDENT, HUMAN DESIGN PROJECTOR, CAPRIQUARICORN CUSPY BUDDHIST
I’ll help you awaken your inner Divinity, start loving yourself again, find power in your relationships, and finally start living that powerfully bold life you are meant to live!