Nobody likes the pain and uncertainty of turmoil, tragedy, crisis or chaos. We like our lives predictable.

Unpredictability creates anxiety and fear of the unknown. It is uncomfortable not knowing how to proceed. Uncertainty creates fear of the future.

Faced with traumatic change, we look for anything to stabilize us again. Life as we knew it no longer exists. We were in control of our destiny – now we struggle just to stand upright. We are knocked off balance. And we do not know how to regain our sense of stability.

When we don’t know what to do we become apprehensive. We worry about doing the right thing or making the right choice. We may be faced with life and death decisions that are required right now. Or they may be decisions that can have long term consequences. How do we make those choices?

At times like this, old fears, emotions and thoughts from long forgotten events often surface and add to the emotional turmoil we are experiencing.

If we had difficulty resolving problems in the past, we will feel incapable of doing so now. Our self talk predicts what will happen now based on the past. We minimize positive solutions while maximizing perceived failures.

“I screwed up again. I never do anything right. I’ll never make the changes I want to. Others seem to handle difficulties real well, why don’t I. Why do bad things keep happening to me? I guess life is over – there is nothing I can do to make it good again.”

And we want to run away or crawl in bed, cover our head and shut out the world. We re-run all our failures, difficulties, hurts, etc. and forget about all the accomplishments we have made.

While challenging and replacing negative thinking is an important life skill to acquire, we need to have some immediate ways to reduce the fear and anxiety we are experiencing right now to lower our stress.

Here are some things you can do: 

1. First, reach out for support. Others have faced similar situations and have survived. This is not a time to be independent or stoic. Old mindsets of have to, should, and ought to can trip us up. No matter how independent you have been, we need support.

2. Calm your mind with positive statements and affirmations.

“Life is not over”; “Good can come from this”; “God will give me the strength and wisdom I need”; “Others have been through similar events and have survived”; “I only have to take one step at a time” and “I can do this.”

3. Along with affirmative thoughts, do some simple relaxation and breathing exercises. Breathe deeply and slowly from the diaphragm. As you release the air repeat the words, “letting go.” Internally visualize your fear and tension melting away.

You can do this anywhere: waiting for the elevator or appointments, sitting at your desk, etc. If you are in a safe place, close your eyes and visualize your body relaxing. Bringing your body back to a relaxed state will enable you to think more clearly and problem solve.

Facing our fear and anxiety honestly, lowering tension and stress in our bodies and affirming our ability to be flexible and find solutions regardless of our past are the first steps to stabilizing our lives again.

Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

Learning to walk is a process where we risk falling down and requires picking ourselves up many times to try again.

We have all watched children learn to walk. First they pull themselves up onto wobbly unsteady legs as they hang onto some piece of furniture. As their legs get stronger, they take some tentative steps while still hanging onto something. With encouragement of Mom and Dad, they let go of their “support” and take those first tentative steps to walking and running and roller blading.

Life is movement. When divorce, chronic illness, accidents, death or tragedy of any kind hits, we are faced with learning to walk all over again.

What change has in common is venturing beyond the world we have created or knew into unknown territory. I knew how to be a wife – I don’t know how to be a single person; I knew what I wanted for my family – I don’t know how to raise children, work full time and deal with a spouse who cheated on me but is still in my life. I knew how to make goals and achieve them – I don’t know how to move forward with a chronic illness that takes all my energy just to exist. I knew how to work within my career choice – I don’t know how to function without a job or the possibility of one.

When the shock wears off, we are left facing our loss and the fears, anxiety, and depression associated with it. This isn’t what I had planned for. This isn’t what I had expected.

In my last blog I asked you to get a notebook and write down what you are experiencing right now and to identify the specific emotions you are feeling. While it might seem insignificant, becoming better acquainted with our emotions uncovers the thoughts connected to them, like invisible threads that can either encourage or motivate or keep us discouraged, fearful and depressed.

Shock insulates us. When shock wears off, we want to resume life as it was before. We are willing to do anything rather than face what life has thrown at us.

But at some point we can no longer deny it, run away from it or bargain it away. We are faced with accepting the unwanted change. The time has come to sit down and face our pain, fears and anxieties and work with them.

Our emotions have a voice. They scream in our ears, I can’t do this. Eventually we acknowledge we don’t want to do this. Our thoughts paint pictures of what we lost and what we are left with. Lost is the excitement of goals we wanted to achieve, replaced with a lifeless and joyless existence filled with hard work, no satisfaction or pleasure. Everything looks gray or black.

Between now and my next blog on Thursday, in your notebook get some colored pencils and color the emotions you are feeling. Draw a picture of your loss and what this change means to you.

Acknowledging and confronting our fears and anxieties is the first step to making change work for you instead of against you. Untangling the web of emotional thinking is the next step.

©2013 Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

What do you do when confronted with a change that you didn’t expect, ask for and definitely do not want?

Change is part of life that is on-going and will happen whether we like it or not.

When we make goals we are directing positive change in our lives that help us plan for careers, direct our daily life and reflect our dreams and passions.

But then some life-altering event strikes that tosses our goals out the window, turns our lives inside out and upside down. We discover we have cancer or chronic debilitating disease, an accident changes our physical abilities forever, death claims a child or spouse, our life savings has been wiped out, or divorce has come out of nowhere and knocked us flat. Life as usual has not only been disrupted, but changed forever.

And when we pick ourselves up, we ask now what. Where do I go from here? What do I do? Will I ever be happy again?

It is exciting and motivating to orchestrate the change we want – it is not so exciting dealing with the unexpected and unwanted change.

If we know that change is the one constant that we can rely on, is there a way to prepare for it? It’s one thing to know it will happen – it’s another to know what to do when we experience it.

You may be dealing with a change right now that leaves you scared, anxious, hurt, worried or unsure. Get a notebook and start recording what is happening to you.

Write down what has happened and the emotions you are feeling. Be as specific as you can. Sometimes it is difficult to identify our emotions because they are too scary. But unless we acknowledge them, we will not be able to focus attention on what we can do.

As we continue this series on change, record in your notebook ideas, suggestions, and revelations about yourself. Remember that as painful and difficult as change can be in our lives, it is usually where we grow, we acknowledge and accept our limitations and celebrate and build on our strengths.

©2013, Marlene Anderson

A new year is the start of new beginnings – people revisit old resolutions and determine to make new and better ones this year.

But what is a new beginning? What do we do with the old – what do we leave behind? What do we bring with us? What needs to be revised or redefined? What do I want anyway?

There are so many “have to’s” in life – and therein lies the rub – we have to work, we have to get up in the morning when we feel like sleeping another hour, we have to get the kids off to school, we have to check our e-mails, we have to send that thank you note, we have to get more training – the list goes on and on and before we are half way through, we are too tired to think about what we really want.

Being sick for a week and out of commission gave me an opportunity to reflect on my goals. Are they out of proportion – out of place? Will they continue to require too much time and effort?

While reflection happens any time, when our energy levels have been drastically reduced, our goals don’t seem as important as they did when we are bursting with enthusiasm and motivation.

But can we learn from those down times on how to take the next step forward in our lives without throwing everything out the window?

Sometimes that new beginning – that next step – is the result of a drastic change that has been thrust on us. Sometimes, it is just stopping long enough to allow that creeping uncertainty to catch up with us so we can address it.

A new year gives us a legitimate opportunity to challenge our status quo. Change can be daunting – but it is always evolving. We can be a part of it – or we can try to stop it. We can harness it and channel its course or we can run away from it.

Change is constant. It is what we take away from it that really matters.

This month of January I will be speaking to change, new beginnings and discovering more of ourselves.

©2013 Marlene Anderson

Happy New Year.  As you celebrate all the blessings of this past year, may you be excited and motivated for the opportunities in the new year to reach out with love to family and friends and community.   

Blessings to each and every one of you.

Marlene Anderson

With the tragedy of the school shooting in Connecticut, old wounds are opened, old losses resurface along with all the unanswered questions from our past. 

And we are left wondering: is there no escaping the losses that keep coming and coming sending us spiraling into despair? 

Losses create pain. And when we are in pain we will do almost anything to get out of it. We medicate ourselves with pills, drugs, alcohol, violence, contrived merriment or avoid dealing with it by placing fault on somebody or something else – anything so we don’t  have to feel our pain. 

We play events over and over again, hoping we can reverse the reality.  We continue to blame ourselves or somebody else for what we are experiencing.

Yet nurturing resentments, guilt, anger, revenge do not take away the pain. They only keep us locked in it. 

Where do we begin and what do we do to heal from our losses, both in the past and in the present? 

Step One: Start where you are

Stop medicating, stop avoiding, stop running away from it, stop denying, stop stuffing it, and stop isolating yourself.

Step Two: Acknowledge the reality 

Shock and denial help us absorb losses and tragedies until we can process them more adequately. But at some point in order to heal it is necessary to address events, tragedies and our feelings.

Step Three: Acceptance 

Accept what has happened Accept that your loved one is gone. Recognize the major problems you are facing. Accept that the marriage may be over and the relationships you hold dear are battered, bruised and broken. Accept that you may have made a mistake or someone else made a mistake.

Accept that you can’t change the past, fix everything or prevent bad things from happening.  Accept the fact that you may not find answers or meaning to tragedies that assault our sense of reason and right and wrong.

Accept that we are all imperfect and vulnerable, in need of healing, forgiveness and grace. In acceptance we can allow ourselves to feel and heal.  Acceptance says I will start where I am.

Acceptance doesn’t mean we forget. It means that we want to heal and move forward.

Acceptance is an on-going process that gradually takes us out of denial, blame, anger, bargaining, blame and resentment as we let go of the past and the pain.

Step four: Grab hold of hope, grace, and love

As we reach out to others and share our stories, pain gradually becomes balanced with understanding, forgiveness, and gratitude. As we go through our pain we can celebrate the lives of those we have lost and put in place happy memories that create joy instead of pain.  Reach out to God and accept the healing power of love and grace that He extends to us every day.

Step five: Act on that hope

Acting on hope is believing that there is life after tragedy and death.  It is letting go of what was in order to live today and tomorrow. 

Hanging onto our pain does not reverse events.  We don’t forget.  As we are willing to let go of our pain, we can take our memories with us and find the good in them. We can remember all the happy times and rejoice in them.

Reach out to others and give them a hand as they struggle with their grief and losses. You do not have to find an explaination for things that happen or even understand why.  We just need to honor our journey and the journey of  others.

I will be sending out a special newsletter on healing from pain in the next few days.  If you haven’t already signed up to receive my monthly newsletters, please do so on the website.

Marlene Anderson

All of us watched with horror as the story of the grade school shooting in Ct was played out over and over again in the media.

We watched because we wanted to understand, give support and better prepare ourselves for the future. We wanted to believe that this horrendous act would not happen in our neighborhood, our schools, to our children and families.

Mental illness can take many twists and turns. It never stands alone in such events – nor does evil. There are many factors involved – many of which we will never know in this incident. A break from reality is one – personal responsibility is another.

Treatment, understanding, forgiveness and love are also necessary to heal deep wounds to the spirit and soul and mind. What is important for us is not to rush to judgment – for if we do, we do ourselves, our children and others a huge disservice. And we will miss the most important healing component we have for our lives – love.

True love is the only weapon against the assault of hate. Without love, we are lost. Without love there is no hope for us as a people on this earth. It’s a time for humility and honesty and openness.

Love – Hope – Peace

We speak to these themes each Christmas in our Christmas card mantras. Peace is thought of as something that involves a battlefield somewhere between countries or cultures. We view hope as something we want but have become jaded about. And love: well, we have been rejected and hurt too many times to trust or love anyone anymore.

Love, hope and peace begin in our hearts. It cannot start anywhere else.

But how are we to love that person who has taken advantage of us, hurt us, used and abused us? We don’t get that ability from our culture or love songs or peace rallies.

A love that can bring hope and peace to our hearts starts with God and that little baby in the manager. A love that risks all – embraces all – gives all – endures all. That is what we received when a helpless, vulnerable baby boy was born.

What parent wouldn’t willingly sacrifice their own life for that of their child? God, our heavenly Father demonstrated that when He gave His only Son to die for us so we might live.

As we pray for comfort for the families whose children were killed this last week as well as the adults who loved and worked with them, let us also remember the thousands of families whose lives are torn apart by hate, hurt, pain, greed, isolation, bitterness, and revenge.

Love, hope and peace are only hollow words unless they are followed by positive personal action. 

Marlene Anderson

If you have a story of hope and endurance and faith that you would like to share with others, please let me know so I can post them on upcoming blogs.

The holiday season can be very difficult especially when it triggers memories of happier times.

As we go through unstable and uncertain days, we find ourselves wondering whether there will be rest from the constant struggle to survive.

Over the years, I have found peace, strength, hope and wisdom within the pages of the Bible. For me, The Message, by Eugene Peterson, has been especially helpful as it speaks to us in today’s language.

As a counselor, therapist and teacher of psychology, I have taught and personally applied the many life strategies that are found within the science of human behavior and psychology. From challenging negative and sabotaging thought processes, replacing unrealistic and biased beliefs, and teaching ourselves to remain in the present moment, we can begin to live out the promises of God.

In the upcoming days, I will be posting and podcasting messages of hope taken from God’s Word and personal stories of application. Download them on your MP3 and when anxiety, fear, and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness overwhelm you, play them to remind yourself that you are not alone and that God is in control of those things we have no control over.

I welcome your stories of hope, encouragement and peace. Send me your stories via e-mail at [email protected] and I will try to post as many of them as I can on my blog. As we share we give one another support.

For all of  you who have subscribed to my Newsletter, you will be receiving your second subscription today entitled The Next Step.  Encourage your friends to sign up to receive their current copy and back copies of a series entitled “Yes I Can”.

Marlene Anderson