There’s a world of considerations out there waiting for you. Which will you choose?
When you get stuck in despair, fear, anxiety, anger, frustration, disappointment, confusion or any other emotion, the last thing you want to do is move on from that challenging place. Your feelings are real and raw, and holding onto them often times feels like the only way to keep you safe and secure.
If this is where you are now today, know that it’s OK. It’s more than OK, it’s what it means to be human. Do not suppress your feelings, but rather acknowledge them and allow yourself to feel them. Where do you notice your feelings in your body? In your stomach? In your lower back? In your neck your shoulders? If your face? And what does it feel like?
Take time to grieve and allow yourself to mourn and weep unapologetically, but don’t stay stuck for too long – as staying stuck can not only affect you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, it can affect those around you, including your children.
Staying entrenched in your emotions may serve you temporarily, until at one point, it won’t and will instead get you entangled deeper in even more emotions, such as: blame, distress, divisiveness, panic, worry, anger, and hatred.
When you are done grieving, see if you can take on a new perspective to your situation. You may find yourself challenged by your efforts, because your situation may appear as dark and as bleak as ever. Consider that taking on a new viewpoint to your situation is not about giving in or compromising. Trying on a new lens is not about winning or losing a battle, but rather is about your interest in and commitment to healing - healing yourself, healing your children, healing your community, healing your country, and healing the world.
Create a list of new perspectives, join a support group, or reach out to a friend, colleague, or religious leader who can help you in your efforts in choosing a new outlook, rather than wallowing in your stuck place.
Below is a list of quotes to help you in that process. See if any of them speak to you. Challenge yourself to take on a new perspective so that you can turn your current stuck spot into a source for energy and positive change.
There’s a world of considerations out there waiting for you. Which one will you choose?
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
“The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.” - H. Jackson Brown, Jr. “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.” - Steve Jobs
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” - Aristotle Onassis
“I told them (my children) that in the past, there have been presidents I liked and presidents I didn’t like, and that, God willing, it will continue that way for as long as I am lucky enough to live in a democracy.”- Carla Naumburg
“Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.”- Eckhart Tolle
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”- Viktor E. Frankl
“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”- Vaclav Havel
“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” - Pema Chodron
“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.” Buddha
“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”- Mahatma Gandhi
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”- Abraham Lincoln
“It's a long time until the next election, but it starts now. And if you truly want to see things change in the direction that our country is headed, you have to stay involved. You cannot quit now.”- Deb Fischer
“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.”- Maya Angelou
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” - Nelson Mandela
“The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.”- Abraham Maslow
“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”- Hippocrates
“No matter what happens, the sun will rise in the morning.” - President Barack Obama
“I have tried to keep on with my striving because this is the only hope I have of ever achieving anything worthwhile and lasting.”- Arthur Ashe
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” - Gandhi
“Facing our fears together can be a catalyst for healing.” - Rabbi David A. Schuck
“When we are no longer able to change a situation - just think of an incurable disease such as an inoperable cancer - we are challenged to change ourselves.” - Viktor E. Frankl
“We're all rooting for the U.S.A. Olympic team every two years, and we're all united against those trying to kill us. Hopefully, the ties that bind will be stronger than those that divide.” - Barry Alexander
“Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.”- Thich Nhat Hanh
“I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection.”- Leonardo da Vinci
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”- Anne Frank
“Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles is not a realist.”- David Ben-Gurion
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” - Martin Luther “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”- Martin Luther King, Jr.
“You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world's problems at once but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.” - Michelle Obama
“I find hope in the darkest of days.” - Dalai Lama
“Our human compassion binds us the one to the other - not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.”- Nelson Mandela
“I am hopeful that we will continue to move forward as a nation despite what I see as a step backward in many ways based on yesterday's vote.” Barry Alexander
“Leadership can not be measured in a poll or even in the result of an election. It can only be truly seen with the benefit of time. From the perspective of 20 years, not 20 days.” - Marco Rubio
“We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.”- Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Hopeful thinking can get you out of your fear zone and into your appreciation zone.”- Martha Beck
“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”- Thich Nhat Hanh
“I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death... I think... peace and tranquility will return again.”- Anne Frank
“Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.”- Elie Wiesel