You know how it feels when your world turns upside down.
Divorce dissolves your marriage.
Downsizing forces you to lose your job.
Your mom or dad dies.
I have been sucker punched a few times during my 44 years on planet earth. I lost all my money. I went bankrupt. My mom was diagnosed with a terminal illness. My entire family seemed to turn on me.
Tragedy and trauma strip away fear and pain if you allow yourself to feel the experiences genuinely. I learned to stabilize myself after suffering shocking blows by following these tips.
Feel What Arises
I am writing these words from Chiang Mai, Thailand. Before dawn every day I see Buddhist monks walk the streets for alms. Humble, relaxed and poised, the monks emanate a calm, peaceful, balanced energy irresistible to most sentient beings. Experienced monks master the art of accepting what is, feeling emotions arising from moment to moment.
I vividly remember the call from my brother-in-law, explaining my mom’s diagnosis. After hanging up I simply cried in a cruddy hostel in Laos. I sobbed for a good 30 minutes. I began leveling off slowly but surely by feeling the fear and pain triggered by the diagnosis over a period of months. Feeling these energies helps you face and release the sensation of being thrown around, topsy-turvey.
Help People
As you slowly and gently feel fears arising in response to trauma, shift your focus to helping people. Serve people to move higher on the energy scale, toward love.
Most people make the mistake of drawing inward and burying emotions after facing tragedy. You cannot get over what remains in you. Focusing solely inward does not work as a long term solution because your greatest happiness and healing occurs by helping other human beings.
I doubled down on working my blogging business after my life turned upside-down. Solving people’s problems while facing and embracing my fears helped me find balance again.
Do Not Be Ashamed to Admit You Feel Like You’ve Been Blitzed
Imagine being a 120 pound, scrawny weakling stepping into the ring against Mike Tyson in his heyday. You are guaranteed to be overwhelmed in seconds. Save enlightened beings, every one of you should feel shocked, stunned and steamrolled after a close relative or friend dies.
Foolish Western conventions relate “being strong” to not showing emotions during periods when any sane, honest human should be crying. Burying fears and pain over a fresh coating of shame only makes it feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath you every single day.
Admit it; you feel as if you’ve been blitzed. Your world was turned upside down. Be honest to allow yourself to feel whatever arises as you explore your feelings.
Be Flexible and Open Before Finding a Routine
Do not try to force yourself into a routine after suffering trauma. Force negates, deepening your fear and pain.
Be flexible and open to doing things differently. I watched more movies than I normally would to begin processing my emotions during these raw, difficult days. Stepping away from my routine allowed feelings to arise so I could clear these energies and feel stable again. Break your routine to allow yourself to break down. Breaking down precedes your build up and balanced energy.
People generally offer the “get into your routine again” advice for you to forget fears and to bury emotions, but buried fears eventually manifest as physical or mental illness and you can never forget a fear until you face the fear.
Life can and will become stable for you after you’ve been put into a spin cycle.
Find balance by following these tips.
Be patient, persistent and loving with yourself as you find balance after suffering through traumatic events. @RyanBiddulph (Click to Tweet!)
Ryan Biddulph is a blogger, author and world traveler who’s been featured on Richard Branson’s Virgin Blog, Forbes, Fox News, Entrepreneur, Positively Positive, Life Hack, John Chow Dot Com and Neil Patel Dot Com. He has written and self-published 126 bite-sized eBooks on Amazon. Ryan can help you build a successful blog at Blogging From Paradise.
Image courtesy of Sasha • Stories.
