What can you say after a bad divorce, cancer diagnosis or any difficult news? When life gets really
hard, when things happen that could throw you off your course, and when your
mind keeps going over and over the thing that is happening to you, it doesn’t
take a rocket scientist to understand that you aren’t going to be in a place of
great well-being. Probably you are feeling quite awful, and it just keeps
getting worse.
Here are three ideas
you might consider before you continue on the path you are currently following.
Each of these ideas may change your life … not just now, at this difficult
moment … but forever because of the difference it will cause in the way you
think about life.
Analysis,
Explanation, Defense & Regurgitation
This is what we do
instinctively. We analyze ad nauseam. We explain ad infinitum to all those
willing to listen. We often forget that some listeners are listening for their
own vicarious thrills, whether it’s because what we are telling is verging on
the scandalous or on the morbid. Conversely, many who listen do so with love,
but if we speak indiscriminately, we’ll never be able to tell the difference. And
we defend our actions – sometimes to whoever is willing to listen. What we are
not aware of is that in the telling, in the regurgitating of whatever it is
that is happening to us, we relive it
over and over again.
·
Analyzing
exactly why something happened the way it did may be of value once or twice,
but especially when relationships break up, people will often do this dozens,
if not hundreds of times. By so doing they remain connected to that moment in
time – even when years or decades have passed (see also Cellular Responsibility).
·
Continually
explaining to others what has happened to us weakens us. It keeps us at that moment in time energetically (also see Emotional and Energetic Vampires).
·
Defending
what has happened or what we have done or decided also weakens us because in
the defending we are tacitly buying into the idea that because something about
it is not right, we need to defend it.
Press
Release
I have friends who
send out a newsletter at Christmas. I know that some people find this less than
personal, and yet I find it wonderful, because I know that a lot of thought
went into it, because the sender only has to do it once, as opposed to thinking
how to write a personal Christmas card to everyone on their list. If they’re
trying to inject a personal note, they’ll add a few special words to each
individual, but the main newsletter is the same for one and all. Sort of like a
press release. And that is a little bit like what I have recommended in the
past for people who need to inform friends and family that they are getting
divorced, or that they have been diagnosed with cancer, or any other piece of
difficult news.
Why? Because in all
instances, if an individual attempts to tell each and every person they wish to
communicate this to personally, not only will they relive – over and over again
– whatever it is that they need to tell, but they will also have to deal with –
over and over again – with all of the reactions that the list of people will
give them. And that, in fact, may be even worse than the simple recounting of
the event or decision or diagnosis.
You see, especially
when people you love and who love you, react to something difficult that is
happening to you, they may unwittingly leach your strength. They will
commiserate, they will worry, they may cry, they may agree with you that your
ex spouse was indeed a louse, or that the last person on earth who deserves
such a diagnosis is you, and while all of that is understood in our culture as
someone showing you that they care about you, and that they support you, what
they are doing, in fact, is that they are not
supporting you because what you truly need under those circumstances is for
people to treat you – lovingly – but with strength, showing you strength, as
opposed to taking your strength.
And so if you send out
a missive of sorts to one and all, explaining that you are doing so in order to
save yourself the re-living of the event in the multiple telling of said event,
and that while you know they all love you and care for you, what you would
really ask of them, is that they be strong for you. Ask them when they speak to
you to discuss the subject in question if you show yourself to be so inclined,
and if not, to offer their strength to
you by treating you the way they always had, before this event. This will
keep you on a much more even keel – on all levels – than continually discussing
something that weakens you. And to reiterate, so that there are no
misunderstandings: I am not condoning pretending something is not happening,
but I am encouraging individuals to focus on their life in the NOW, as opposed
to focusing on their divorce or their health diagnosis.
Inner
Dialogue
Keep close tabs on
your inner dialogue. It is here that you decide everything, but only if you are
aware of it. If the inner dialogue or self-talk is mindless, it means you have
not yet woken up to yourself, you have not yet become conscious. If you are
reading this and do not know what I am referring to, ask yourself what thoughts
you have had over the past hour, and how they have affected the state of your
inner well-being, and how that has affected the outcome of the activities in
which you were involved over that period of time. (Also see Consciousness is a Full-time Job).
In order for you to
play a role in deciding what the inner dialogue will be, you must be conscious, and you will need to take the decision to
remain conscious for the rest of your life. The pot of gold at the end of this
particular quest is your inner peace and freedom.
***************
Also visit my book website: www.gabriellakortsch.com where you may download excerpts or read quotations from any of my books. My latest book Emotional Unavailability & Neediness: Two Sides of the Same Coin is available globally on Amazon in print & Kindle. You can also obtain it (or any of my other books) via Barnes & Noble.
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