just keep swimming
when life takes a difficult turn – due to loss, heartbreak or another unexpected change – it can feel hard to hold it together. pip lincolne has some handy strategies for pushing on, slowly but surely.
LISTS, LISTS, LISTS Make to-do lists to anchor you and help map out your day, but don’t beat yourself up if you can’t achieve everything on the list – or indeed, much at all. Pushing through the day can feel like a giant to-do in itself, especially when people expect you to continue doing things like… umm… going to work, putting the bins out, and keeping food in the fridge. Frankly, it can seem like a lot.
But making a daily list of what you should and would like to achieve can be a total godsend when you feel it would be easier just to climb back into bed. A list is a trusty pal that will give you some purpose when you’ve forgotten what the hecking heck you’re here for. And excellently, you don’t need anything fancy for this strategy – just a notepad and pen.
The rule is simple: write everything down and review the list each day, making adjustments or starting afresh. Take note of what you’ve achieved, what you keep putting off, what you might want to scratch off the list, and whether you need to reassess some bits. Conveniently, when people ask, “Is there anything I can do?” you have a list right there – and they can actually help with things you’re battling to get done. Really, though, getting it all on the page and feeling some sense of clarity is the goal here. Getting things done is a total bonus. ...................
RETHINK YOUR SCHEDULE Researchers tell us that resilience is not all about having some sort of disaster-proof stoicism and being able to endure. Instead, it’s how we take time to recover and regain our strength that plays a huge part when pushing through hard times. Paring things back and giving yourself as much downtime as possible is super-important to optimise your recovery and make life more restorative. Anxiety and sadness take a toll physically. You’ll almost definitely feel exhausted, sick or fragile when you’ve had a rough trot.
Sleeplessness, intrusive thoughts, confusion, sadness and more may be interfering with your quest to get back on a more even keel, so it’s important to address those challenges – with a professional, if need be. This might mean you go and chat to your doctor about how hard things are, and perhaps get a referral to see a psychologist or counsellor. If you’re finding yourself unable to sleep, try flicking on the radio, a non-dramatic podcast or a soothing audiobook.
Think about what your days look like, and how you’re plodding along. Are you doing too much? Are you forgetting to block out a good wodge of rest time every evening? Perhaps you’re spending too much time on tasks that don’t matter so much right now? There are some time-saving strategies you can implement to spare yourself from relentless jobs, like setting your bills to automatic direct-debit payments or getting groceries delivered so you don’t have to schlep to the shops.
Resting and ditching as many tasks as you can is a vital part of feeling a little more human, defragging your brain and feeling better able to cope during overwhelming times.
PRACTISE THREE GOOD THINGS For Three Good Things, you simply write down… three good things you’ve experienced each day. For optimal results, you’re supposed to write about them in as much detail as possible, but I’ve found that even writing a very short sentence for each one still yields benefits.
Let me share some of my ‘good things’ with you, as a simple example. They may not seem good to you, but they’re good to me, and that’s the beauty of the practice. Your Three Good Things are just for you, and you don’t need to share them with anyone.
1. Noticed that someone had left two biscuits beside a public dog bowl when I was at the shops.
2. Heard two old gents offering to shout each other breakfast.
3. Did not leave the washing in the washing machine overnight.
The other beautiful thing about this practice is that it helps you look for life’s gems. When you’re feeling crappy, it’s easy to cast the entire universe in a dark light – but Three Good Things shifts that perspective to something brighter and provides a little optimism injection. You head into your day with a positive task in the back of your mind, more keenly on the lookout for the good. If you practise
Three Good Things regularly, you can start to redefine the things that matter to you, which is especially helpful if you’re feeling a bit stuck and anxious.
ENJOY NEUTRAL TIMES One of the best things about Three Good Things is that it teaches you to see the world through more hopeful eyes, which can be useful when you’re feeling bereaved, heartbroken or unwell. In fact, this reframing is a very important tool for pushing on. Expecting the worst and being constantly primed for negative encounters is simply no way to live. Living in survival mode, fearful of what’s next, is not only exhausting, but also adds a whole other layer of pain to our tough times.
Better to try returning to a more ‘neutral’ state, where you can slowly start to unpack any new trials and tribulations, and recast them in a different light. By a ‘neutral’ state, I mean a state in which you’re sorting your self-care and coping strategies so you can have some periods in your day when you simply feel OK… not totally crap. I understand that neutral is hard when you’re feeling incredibly sad or under siege. But as time ticks on, and you begin to understand how your own grief, sadness or struggle affects you, you may catch longer and longer glimpses of this calmer state.
Soak this up and notice it. In my experience, the more you acknowledge and appreciate the calmer times, the more restorative they can be. And the more often they pop up.
CREATE A ‘ME MAP’ You might already know what a mind map is? It’s a sort of diagram with a central idea in the middle, then lots of other related ideas drawn around it. What I want you to do is make a ‘Me Map’. It’s a way of accounting for the tasks, thoughts and issues you’re having in a visual sort of way – and then drawing lines between them so you can work out what the heck to do next.
The idea is to put yourself at the centre of it, and all around the map you simply scrawl the things that are affecting you right now. You can add to it over the days or weeks or months. And you can cross bits out. Or redraw it. Do it your own way. This will help you form a plan that accounts for the steps you need to take, the hurdles in front of you, and the progress you want to make. When I was at my lowest, what helped me inch forward was writing each tricky task – from sorting out my finances to finally posting a package – onto the middle of a blank sheet of paper, then scribbling all the elements that made up that task around it.
Finding a way to get stuck into ignored or ‘too-hard basket’ stuff can help shift other parts of life more easily, too. When one thing comes unstuck, other good things also start to flow. We gain confidence, and might even feel a little bit more resilient as we watch ourselves progress. But please don’t be at all surprised if at first it makes you feel horrible to write it all down. If it does? Honestly, stop. Take a break. Do it another time.
A crisis might not only mean grief or heartbreak, but also woes that are legal, health-related, financial, work-related, involve other people in our lives, or affect the roof over our heads. Although you possibly feel like putting your head in the sand, under a pillow or between your knees, it can help to unravel these sorts of things on a big piece of paper with a strong cup of tea.
Keep pushing forward, even by small degrees – progress is progress, after all, and another small step on the path back to wholeness and healing.