What to do When Life Weighs Us Down
I know I'm not the only one who frequently feels the weight of the world on my shoulders...
For the past few days, I’ve struggled with feeling overwhelmed by life. It’s as if the weight of everything going on around me is piled on my shoulders and I’m running out of stamina to keep it all balanced up there.
I could sit here and continue to wallow in my worries and stressors like I have been. Or I can try to focus on the things I can control. I guess that’s the biggest decision I get to make right now. I’ll either A. fixate on the entire mess of crap or B. determine what is within my control and do something about it.
A good friend once shared a helpful analogy that I try to keep in mind at times like this. She told me to imagine a bowl on a coffee table. It’s a beautiful crystal bowl with intricate details. It’s clean and sparkles in the light. Imagine that bowl is filled with beautiful multicolored candies. As a whole picture it’s lovely to look at. But shoot… one of the candies is cracked and broken. It’s obviously out of place surrounded by the rest of the perfect candies in this delightful crystal bowl. As we stare at the one piece of candy, we get more and more frustrated that it’s taking our focus away from the rest. And we fixate on wishing that ugly piece of candy wasn’t in that bowl at all.
We have a few options within our control…
1. We can keep staring at the broken annoying piece of candy. Hating it. Wishing it didn’t exist. Spending all our energy on being angry that it takes our focus away from all there is to enjoy about the perfect candies in the pretty crystal dish.
or
2. We can remove the ugly piece of candy entirely so all we have left are the perfect candies in our view.
or
3. Or we can CHOOSE not to focus our attention on that broken piece of candy at all and enjoy the whole picture.
My friend’s point was, we always have a choice of how we handle our crap. We can be overwhelmed by it all, fixate on things we can’t control, fixate on things we can control but do nothing about it, ignore it all completely thereby not enjoying even the good things, or we can choose to look at the big picture and appreciate it for what it is.
If we spend our time fixating on the ugly, we get lost in it and can’t see the rest of the beauty that surrounds it.
I know I’ve been fixating on the ugly crap. Allowing myself to be overwhelmed instead of taking a step back to look at the big picture - appreciating the beauty and simultaneously taking care of the things I can control.
In these overwhelming moments there are options.
It’s ok to take a step away from it all and ignore it entirely sometimes. But always come back because it doesn’t simply disappear when you close your eyes. Take a step back to enlarge your view, because looking at things from a different perspective can sometimes uncover creative solutions.
Most importantly, focus on what you CAN control and then act on it. Break your stressors down into three categories…
1. Things we have zero control over.
2. Things we have some control over.
3. And things we have complete control over.
If I take a big step back and look at the things that have been weighing me down, I can categorize each thing.
The things I have no control over I just acknowledge their existence and then let them be. Things like what other people may think of me, how others may be living their lives, things that have happened to me in the past, or concerns for what may happen in the future. Why allow these things to consume my energy when I can’t do anything about it? Live and let live, so to speak.
The things I have some control over, I must decide how to approach them… alone, or with someone else’s help? Is it an immediate issue or can I put it off until later when I have a clearer head? For example, when the internet isn’t working. I can’t control that the internet stopped working, but I can take steps to fix it. Why fixate on being angry that it stopped working when I my energy is better spent on getting it up and running again.
And the things I have complete control over. Things like making sure I’m practicing self-care. From the most basic like personal hygiene and eating healthy, to figuring out how to self-sooth and regulate my emotions when I’m angry, stressed, sad, annoyed, etc. It’s funny, I can’t seem to think of things I have complete control over other than myself.
What are you struggling with right now and how would you categorize each stressor? Just like everything else in life, it takes practice being mindful about what’s weighing us down and recognizing we may not have complete control over everything in our lives, but we do have complete control over how we handle things.
Focus on what you can control. Acknowledge and let go of what you can’t. And reach out for help when it’s somewhere in-between.
