One of the aspects that accompanies major changes/transitions in life is the feeling of discomfort. While it may be easier to avoid the discomfort, directing our energies in this direction only offers a sense of being stuck and trapped. For example, moving into a new community, be it a neighborhood, a college campus, a church, or a new country, can bring about discomfort. “What if no one likes me?”, “What if I am the only one like me in the new community?”, “What if I never meet anyone new?” may be running through our minds. We need to keep in mind that we do have choices that we can make about handling the discomfort. Our energies can be focused on the discomfort and result in retreating to the four walls of our home. On the other hand, we can switch our focus to the opportunities that lie ahead of us in meeting the many elements of a new community. The first choice does not offer the possibility of the increase of self-efficacy that is needed to overcome future life’s obstacles. The second choice, addressing the discomfort directly by our actions, builds an internal sense of resilience that can assist us for the rest of our life in dealing with difficult situations. How we choose to handle our discomfort today, impacts how we experience future life changes/transitions.
Key Takeaways
A natural element of changes/transitions is discomfort.
Focusing our attention on the positive outcomes of our actions helps us further build our sense of self-efficacy.
A resilient mindset offers a strong platform to address future changes/transitions.
Best Practices
Choose role-models that exhibit the behaviors that we need to learn and observe their approach.
Maintaining a balanced diet, www.choosemyplate.org, to help minimize the physical discomfort of negative emotions.
Find an individual from history who models resilience and self-efficacy and read about them.
Things to Limit
Masking your discomfort by not addressing it.
Withdrawing from your surroundings.
Delaying action until the “right time.”
Quote of the Week
“Our finest moments most often occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. It is only in such moments, propelled by discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways of truer answers.”
~ M. Scott Peck
In conclusion, living with discomfort is a natural result of changes/transitions and addressing it is a component of developing a resilient mindset. Resilient living results in growing from adversity.
Be well,
Dr. Francis L. Battisti, PhD and Dr. Helen E. Battisti PhD
The paraDocs
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The paraDocs are Dr. Francis L. Battisti, PhD, Psychotherapist, Distinguished Psychology Professor and former Executive V.P and Chief Academic Officer and Dr. Helen E. Battisti PhD, RDN, CDN, Chief Nutrition Officer at SpNOD, Health Promotion Specialist, Research and Clinical Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and former Assistant Professor.
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