Navigating Negative Feelings

Hardship, loss, and humiliation are universal human experiences. No one is immune to life’s inevitable negative experiences. Since no one escapes these moments, we all have to find ways to deal with them.

The true challenge lies in finding the strength to cope and move forward. We have to help themselves. Even counsellors help people to help themselves. Eventually it’s we. We have to find, reflect, try what works for whom or what support to take. I am here sharing my coping strategies. Someone may just find them useful.

Prayer. When troubled I take refuge in prayer. My prayer is simple. When I feel low, I find comfort by sitting in my home’s prayer corner. I just sit quiet watching my thoughts drift by. I talk to myself and I feel lighter. Sometimes I find solutions to my problems and sometimes I find strength to cope.

Then, I find great solace in quote therapy. I have my personal collection of quotes which have appealed to me at different times. I take a dip in my collection and very often emerge wiser and stronger.

I recall one instance – In April 2020 during lock down. I developed symptoms and went to imaging centre for my lung X-ray. From there I was sent straight to the Covid hospital. Covid was not confirmed yet the chances were high. While my husband was driving me to the hospital on the deserted street, I was thinking about these lines from  Annie Johnson Flint poem .

❝God has not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through;
God has not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.❞

and I felt strong and ready to face whatever was instore for me.

Similarly the following lines from WB Yeats’ The Ballad of Father Gilligan always make me feel safe and loved and fill me with gratitude.

❝He Who is wrapped in purple robes,

With planets in His care 

Had pity on the least of things

Asleep upon a chair.❞

Another poem ‘Asha Ka Deepak’ (Beacon of hope) that fills me with hope and optimism at the time when the going gets tough, is    written by the great hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar

And there are times, when I take to journaling. When I am hurting from what someone has done to me, when I’m smarting because I’m wronged, when I’m writhing because I became a victim, when I get no rest, when my unceasing thoughts don’t let me sleep, I pour all those disturbing thoughts on paper.

I keep those papers with me thinking I’ll sometime show these to the right person at the right moment. That does not happen. After sometime things change and all the thoughts, words become irrelevant. When I look at those papers much later, I feel I was either overthinking or overreacting or that these are just thoughts that mattered then but not now. This has happened quite a few times in life. But pouring those thoughts and emotions on paper has provided me instant relief and peace. 🤍☁️🌿🍃✨️

This is about me. I’m definitely going to read other answers to know more about coping strategies. Till then…