We’ve each experienced those times when our plans just fall flat. Maybe you wanted to lose 5 lbs within a month and gained 2 instead. Or perhaps you envisioned finishing a work project and then got hit with the flu and you missed your deadline. It may be a situation where you have been disappointed by a partner or spouse and ended up feeling rejected and hurt. These breakdowns in life are common and often debilitating because we lose our perspective and often find ourselves spinning our wheels in response. I have learned two major lessons about breakdowns: 1) they usually get resolved so we don’t always need to sweat the small stuff and 2) we can reach out for help as required, because two heads are better than one. I have discovered in my four years as a widow that moving from breakdown to breakthrough is an inside job. What do I mean by this? Let me give you a personal example. I dread spending Sunday’s alone. There is a personal history involved with this – Both my husband and father died suddenly on a Sunday. When dread overwhelms me I feel vulnerable, scared, and incapable of comforting myself. The ways I repress the dread revolve around food and money. I mask it by overspending, overeating, and yes drinking too much at times. So I am learning now, 4 years into the journey as a single woman, to reach into a tool box of inner resources. A few days before Easter, I did not have definitive plans. I dreaded the thought of being alone and not included and yet I did not take action to create plans. I recognized that I was playing a familiar game of waiting for a particular kind of invitation, predicting that I wouldn’t receive it, and then I would end up being alone and not included. No big surprise: being alone is a large part of being single. One of the inner resources I pulled from my tool box was recognizing the familiar pattern, reaching out to my good friends, and making plans that ended up being fun. I did not overspend or overeat, bit I did indulge in too much champagne. Hey I am not shooting for perfection but for those whispers of wisdom that are there for me if I listen closely, feel deeply, and think clearly about what is happening in my inner world.

Part of the journey of life requires developing a strong mental muscle that allows us to step back from a situation, talking to ourselves in a strong and loving way about what is happening, and to ultimately not react from a young and impulsive state of mind. We have seen little kids screaming, crying, and just a bundle of emotions – they have not developed the mental muscle I am referring to in this post. Here’s the not so good news: we adults still react from a very young part of our minds when confronted by challenging situations. Hence the high rates of impulsive drinking, eating, and buying behaviors we observe In ourselves and our friends.

My prescription for developing mental muscle in order to have a breakthrough: Stop, take a deep breath, calm down, evaluate what is occurring, identify the not so positive, yet familiar inner story we are telling ourselves, think things over before responding, and then file this information for future reference. In my case, I will plan to have people over to my place when the next holiday arrives. People love my place on the ocean! Cheers!