METAMORPHOSIS - ep. 5 - How to Accept Change as a Part of Life

In times of hardship, we are all the same. Fear, as the ultimate guardian to our lives, takes the lead and makes us feel small, bitter and anxious facing what has been thrown at us. I’ve talked about fear on a few other ocasions, here, here, here and here. The basic definition is clear: an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm. By its very nature, life is unpredictable and by that somewhat scary.

We don’t know what lies ahead, we don’t know what to do in certain situations and we are all afraid of death. It is the Everest of fear. “What if I do this and I die?”, “What if it will kill me in the end?”, “What if I’m not strong / pretty / prepared / lucky / etc. enough? What if it will kill me faster?”. 

The basic and most obvious thing that you should realize is that we are all bound to die at some point. That’s reality. It’s the way life goes and has been going for thousands and thousands of years. We all feel this fear, this angst. But we all survive most of these moments. 

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose” 

(Steve Jobs - Stanford Commencement Speech, 2005)

We already have nothing, why are we so scared? Because of all the attachements we create day in and day out. We love so many things, so many places, so many activities, so many persons, that the simple thought of losing any of those generates a crippling fear inside our bodies. And we cringe. We lose focus, we are all the time expecting something awful to happen. And we forget to live. In time, we forget to love, to feel, to be.

But how do you learn to let go? To accept? Nobody ever taught me that. I was an overachiever since I can remember, and one day telling me that I am bound to live with a lifelong chronic condition that will have unpredictable episodes was mindblowing.

The first reaction was “I’m the champion! I’m going to beat this!”. The second one was grief: “What will happen to my life from now on? It will never be the same after this?”. The third one was fear: “What does the future have in stall for me? What will happen?”. We all get here at some point. And some of us are stuck. For a long while.

The truth is that we are the only ones who can get ourselves out of there. Nobody’s going to be able to do anything for us if we don’t let them. And I don’t mean let THEM do something for us as we sit down quietly and wait for results. I’m talking about actively engaging in our lives and help others help us.

All in life is about relationships. Relationships keep us strong. When we open ourselves to people and let them see past our pride and see our fear, that’s where compassion comes in. That’s when the true healing begins. I said begins, not takes place. It’s a process that we need to follow, that we need to repeat all the times that will be necessary. Things are not fixed in the world. They are flowing. They are constantly changing. If today I feel better and happy, tomorrow I might be overwhelmed with fear and anger.

This is even more true when living with a chronic illness. The trick here is to accept it, adapt your day around that feeling and overcome it by living, by doing, by dreaming, by being with others. There are some of us who need time alone to recharge and feel better. Take that time. Do what makes you feel good again. But don’t stay there too long. Get out there and live.

This too shall pass. We all have our ups and downs in this rollercoaster. We might as well learn to enjoy the view, because it’s not stopping anytime soon. 

That was all for today! See you next Friday!

For more episodes of the METAMORPHOSIS Project, click here.

Love,

Alexandra

How To Deal With Anger Without Damaging Your Relationships? (+ DOWNLOADABLE FREEBIE PDF JOURNAL) - #LifestyleFriday

When was the last time you were angry? Do you remember why? What made you boil up inside? Was it annoyance? Anxiety? Fear? Was there a mix? Who did you backlash at? What were the consequences? To all these questions I’m going to shed a little light so that we can all start the weekend more peacefully and a bit more calm.

Like all human emotions, anger has been explained on and off by psychologists and regular people alike. Today we’re going to treat it like a result to a perceived threat, as a result of the fight-or-flight response, the mechanism that helps our survival for millenia.

When we are facing some type of danger, our brains have two possible choices: to help us stand and fight or make us run for our lives. Dealing with multiple sclerosis, this gets a bit tricky, and in some cases even impossible. We have to put up with an illness we have no control over, with a danger that we can’t escape from.

Enter frustration. This one is a natural response to the lack of options we have in order to deal with our anger. Therefore, everything begins to anger us: not having a cure, being surprised by a nasty symptom, having a relapse, losing some of our abilities, and so on. We become more sensitive to external stimuli. Who wasn’t annoyed by the simple: “it’s all in your head!”?

The biggest and most widespread human fear is that of the unknown. Life by itself is unpredictable and a stress bringer now and then. But humans adapt. Multiple sclerosis only adds to this uncertainties, making our lives even more stressful. We are all diferent and so are our coping mechanisms, but there will always be a time to snap / vent / melt, call it as you will.

A moment in time when all the uncertainty, fear and expectations get to us and we become Mr. Hyde.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Hyde is a novel character, in the book “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by …. It is basically the dark side of each of us, the “monster” that lies within, our deepest and most secret impulses, primal violence and such. When I say that we become Mr. Hyde, I’m describing how we can literally transform from the most kind person to a raging ball of fire, that snaps at people, causing only pain and resentment. 

This is one of the main causes of why people around us get distant, and sometimes leave. Relationships get tared, bonds get cracked. They’re already scared, our anger only adds up to their feeling helpless and more frustrated. Not a happy place to live in. Could you bear this forever? Think about it!

What I’ve learned so far, having my own large dose of being angry, is that you need to deal with it. I went deep within myself and analysed the reasons for getting so angry. Clearly it was an over-the-top reaction, that in other conditions wouldn’t have happened. For me, daily journaling helped put things into perspective. 

We all thing the reasons why we’re angry are so legitimate, others so ignorant and we ourselves so missunderstood. Wrong! In most cases, we overreact. I know I did! When I began accepting it, things gradually got better. Time helps you to better understand your triggers and to catch yourself before you snap. Or help you to snap less, to be honest! 

We all have good days and bad days, we all have ego colisions with other people. MSers tend to become a bit more sensitive that other people. We develop a type of vulnerability that not many people can understand fully.

I chose to transform this vulnerability into something positive. It’s damn hard! It takes a lot of focus and dedication. But when you do it daily, you CAN transform anger into love. Agression into compassion. Frustration into gratefulness. I experience those two opposing forces on a regular basis. 

Of course it’s easier to snap, yell and take some steam off. But is it really worth the effort? Is it really worth the damage? You get dear ones angry, you become stressed, the whole thing could turn into a full blown conflict and for what? For multiple sclerosis? REALLY?

Accept your anger. Let it go and search for the love within. Find reasons to be grateful and happy for your life. Focus on what you can do and do more of that. Capitalize on your strenghts.

There are millions of people who go through the same issues as you do. Of course we are all different, but in the end we all have multiple sclerosis roaming around in our brains. The true secret is the way we choose to react to what’s happening to us. The way we let it get to us. Or not. Accept, adapt and overcome.

I prepared a printable journal to use as a tool for getting to know your triggers and focus on what is good in your life. Download it by clicking this link Accept.Adapt.OvercomeJournal

Let me know your story with anger in the comments below. Subscribe for more articles!

Lots of love,

Alexandra