We can’t change what happens to us. There are some things in life that we have no power to control. There will be days when stressful situations come out of nowhere, without us playing a part in its occurrence.
Your boss might be having a bad day and decides to let it out on you. Or you figure in a conflict with someone you encountered on the sidewalk while on the way to work.
These things are beyond our control. Accidents happen all the time, and we can’t always predict what kind of things we encounter in our daily lives. But we still have a part in turning bad situations into good ones.
We might not be able to control the world, but we can control our emotions. There’s a therapy called CBT that can help us turn our attention to the brighter side of things.
There are several ways to react to a stressful situation. It’s either you let yourself be entirely affected by it, or you decide to face it with your chin up high and your heart strong. Here are healthy ways to react to a stressful situation.
Examine the situation
There’s a thing called past emotional baggage. These may comprise of experiences or events that happened to us in the past where we were affected emotionally. If these feelings remain unresolved, there’s a high chance that we carry them with us and let them affect how we perceive daily situations.
If something bad happens to you, take a moment to examine the situation. Before getting angry or having an outburst, you have to ask yourself if it’s really worth getting angry about. Sometimes, we just feel like it’s a bad situation when it actually isn’t. That’s your unresolved emotional baggage getting the best of you.
Focus on the matter at hand, and think before you speak or react to it. You’ll feel much better after choosing not to be affected negatively by a minor situation.
Take a breather
When we’re really tired or under pressure, we feel high levels of stress. Imagine being caught up in all your work, and someone decides to bother you. Your first instinct would be to get annoyed or angry. But in reality, you really aren’t.
When you start to feel stressed, take a few minutes to unwind. Stop working for a while, go out for a walk, and get some fresh air. This will greatly help in improving your mood and releasing your stress.
Don’t dwell
When bad things happen to us, we have the tendency to dwell on them. When we do this, we’re actually reliving the moment in our minds, which causes us to feel the anger, sadness, or stress that we felt back then.
If you spilled coffee on your clothes in the morning, try not to dwell on the situation. Instead, let it go and begin your day in a positive attitude and mindset. Otherwise, you’ll find that these emotions will eat at you and affect you for the rest of the day.
Come to think of it, there’s no such thing as “waking up at the wrong side of the bed.” People tend to use this as an excuse to wallow in their anger or bad mood. If you didn’t wake up on a good note, you can change the way you perceive the situation and focus on welcoming positive energy.
