(This blog post is the last of my 3-part series. If you didn’t get a chance to read the first two, What were you expecting, and My Life didn’t look at all like I had planned - you can read them on my website )

When life doesn’t turn out the way we’d hoped, planned, or expected, we feel tremendous disappointment and start doubting everything, including ourselves. What we need to acknowledge first is that we aren’t in as much control of our lives as we think. Things can change on a dime. Events happen, life happens, as we all just witnessed this past year with the Covid pandemic.

But what we can control is how we react to the things we can’t control! In order to do that, it takes a bit of effort – it has to be intentional.

There are several things I incorporated into my life to help me. First, accepting where I’m at in my life today (and that’s no easy feat) and second, keeping me looking forward instead of back, because hey, there is no future in the past, and we can’t go back. Plain and simple. You know, some people are optimists, some pessimists, and I guess I’m somewhere in between – I consider myself a realist. So, here are some of the things I did to make all of this easier:

I started practicing Gratitude. I’ll admit, there were (and still are) days I wasn’t grateful at all. It took everything I had to find just a few things to add to my nightly gratitude journal – things like, my morning coffee, a shower, a bed to sleep in.

It wasn’t too much of a reach, but I seriously couldn’t think of anything other than the basics to be grateful for – and I know, my basics are someone else’s luxuries, but that wasn’t how I was feeling at the time.

I made it a practice to start noticing good things, beautiful things, living things, and to make a note of them during the day. Nature – yes, flowers, sunshine, ocean breezes, trees, clouds, an early evening rain shower, a new coffee shop in town that I needed to try.

Practicing Forgiveness – when we think about forgiving, we usually think of forgiving someone – well, now is the time to forgive ourselves. We forgive ourselves for past mistakes or bad judgement, for not knowing better. Our past is just that, our past – and if we don’t let it go and stay present or future focused, we become prisoners of that past, victims in that story. We hold on to hurt, grudges, and regrets. (I have some great forgiveness practices if you’d like me to share them with you. Just send me a message and I’ll email them to you!)

Journaling -I wrote about it – a lot! I would free-write, using prompts, such as:

· I’m sad because . . .

· I’m ashamed because . . .

· I’m disappointed because . . .

· I’m scared because . . .

· I feel guilty because . . .

· I’m angry because . . .

As you write, don’t analyze, edit, spell check, or judge. After you’re done writing, take a deep breath and acknowledge your courage in working on this exercise. Then you can either rip up the paper in tiny pieces or burn it. This helps you to fully release the energy of your emotions.

Staying present – being mindful. Focus on the now. When we look too far ahead, we can become fearful, and if we keep looking back, we can become sad, resentful, or depressed. Being mindful is simply noticing what you are doing in the moment – whether it is enjoying your cup of tea, washing the dishes, writing a letter – focus on that activity – stay with it – 100%.

Having a purpose. When we have a purpose – we stop focusing so much on ourselves – we get out of that victimhood mentality. A purpose can be anything that gets you up each day and out of bed. It can be as simple as tending to your houseplants, your garden, your pets, or something major such as volunteering, helping the homeless, fighting human trafficking, finding a cause that touches your heart. When we are busy helping others, we help ourselves as well. Life becomes bigger, and can become much more meaningful.

Feeling and honoring all of my feelings. I honored all those things I wished would’ve happened or panned out. But then accepting and appreciating the way things are today. The best thing we can do is to stop dreaming about the life we never had and start living the life we’ve been given.

Trusting my future. Trust the future, whether trusting the universe, God, or yourself, to bring wonderful things into your life. It’s not over till it’s over – and we still have time. As long as we’re here, we still have the opportunity to create a life we love – a life that is gratifying. (Work on letting go of the past. You can visualize taking all those painful memories of your past and forming them into a ball. Feel the heaviness of the ball and notice how it weighs you down. Then imagine throwing the ball as far as you can. This allows you to see that you and the ball of the past are separate. You may find that this helps you to lessen the emotional impact of your memories.)

So, after years of wondering how my life seemed to have gotten so off track, judging myself, feeling a combination of both shame and guilt, I got tired of throwing myself endless pity parties (those parties consisted of watching daily episodes of Sex in the City, eating baked Lay’s potato chips and rice pudding!) I knew I need to take control the way I was thinking about my life instead of letting those thoughts run my life. It took me some time to figure it all out, but better late than never, right? If you are where I was at and could use some help cleaning up after your own pity parties, let’s work together. Having a coach who encourages, supports, motivates, can make all the difference.