State, story and strategy, the road to recovery
You’re about to get in your car and you notice something. The tyre is flat, and it appears to be damaged. Do you just get in and drive anyway because you need to be somewhere? Of course not, but how many of us do something similar with our minds and our bodies though?
This is a post for those times when we need to recover from something. When we just can’t drive on and need some kind of recovery. Something might have happened, a loss, setback or a crisis. Something that really affects us.
Whatever it looks like, I’d like to share a simple framework to help you deal with tough situations. Just follow these steps.
Settle your state
When we’re up against it, our bodies are likely to be up against us. Stress chemicals, like cortisol and adrenaline, are likely to be released and they won’t make us feel good. We’ll probably have difficulty sleeping as well and have an extremely short fuse.
It will also be hard to think with all of this happening. If it goes on we could even lose executive function, where our memory and self-control are compromised. It’s like trying to drive that car with the flat tyre.
This is where we acknowledge the problem and ask for help. We can also reach into our wellbeing toolkit, practice self-care and do things that help us feel better and start our recovery. That’s why it’s so important.
Focus on your story
We all create stories around our lives and our place in the world. We often forget though that we’re the authors of this story, and it can be positive or negative.
Someone finding that flat tyre could easily make it part of their negative story. Conclude it’s unfair, that things like this always happen to them and they won’t be able to deal with it. How do you think they’ll react to the damaged tyre if they adopt a negative mindset?
Someone telling themselves a positive story though is likely to have a different experience. Remembering how they have overcome problems like this in the past and appreciating that this could have been a lot worse if it happened while they were driving would be a good start. How do you think they’ll respond to the damaged tyre if they adopt a positive mindset?
Recovering from any kind of mental health issue is a great example of where our story is so important. We could fall into the trap of considering it some kind of failure. Something negative that we need to keep hidden. This narrative often overlooks the hard work though.
The road to recovery is often filled with incredible achievements. Times where we’ve overcome and endured. Don’t let that be forgotten. Whatever situation you’re in, think hard about the genuine positives in your story and focus on them.
Create a strategy
When we’ve started to recover, we can plan ahead. Going back to the tyre again, this is the part where we deal with it. We come up with a plan and put it into action. This would probably involve changing the tyre ourselves if we could or calling someone, for an actual recovery.
This is all about thinking ahead. Thinking of what we can do to move forward, past the situation we’re in. Making effective plans.
I’ll leave it to you to work out what this is likely to look like. Just be aware that following the first two steps before we reach this point is so important. This is the bit that will probably take some work, so we need to be ready.