What Do I Do Now That I Feel 'Under the Weather'? (part 2)

There are many things that ruin our mood throughout the day, like stress, conflicts with certain individuals, school, work, etc. So far, I have written about handling stress and helping yourself take things slow. This time I want to talk about the ‘underrated’ importance of dealing with the issue that’s upsetting us, instead of avoiding it. Most of the time, when an upsetting situation finds its way into our day, we prefer not to deal with it immediately, and we tell ourselves we’ll ‘deal with it later’. The problem is that the more we prolong thinking about and dealing with the issue, the harder it becomes. We start overthinking, overanalysing, finding potentially non-existent relations to certain events, factors, or situations. These feelings pile up hour after hour, day after day, and when the time comes for us to solve the situation, it has actually consumed us so much that we’re tired to even think straight. But, after we’ve solved everything, we see that that whole case was not as bad as we’d made it to be in our heads.

Keeping something to yourself consumes you more than you think. It mentally tires you, and when that happens, it starts affecting your physical health as well. What concerns you is always in your mind, in an intentionally visible corner, lurking, potentially ruining every happy moment you may be having. It turns into a constant thought, it bothers you, it becomes an anxious obsession, until you decide to deal with it and solve the issue. I’m sure all of us have experienced what I’m describing, more than once in our lives. I am the person that even if something seems to be going badly, I tend to wait it out in the hope that it will become better. I noticed that that brings me a lot of unnecessary stress, and now I’m working on dealing with the issues as soon as they come. It might seem difficult at first, but I’m telling you, you will feel so much better once you start dealing with anything as soon as you notice that it’s not going the right way.

What I do first is, I let someone I can trust know about what’s going on and I try to get their point of view and advice on the matter. Then, considering that, I try to solve that issue myself, the best I can. If that does not seem to work for some reason, then I ask for more help until the matter is solved. In the beginning, I used to hesitate in asking for help because I didn’t want to ‘disturb’ the other person with my problems. Then, I realised that once you ask someone for advice or help, not only are you showing them you care about their input and opinion, you’re showing them you actually trust them enough to ask for what you need, believing that you’ll get the best assistance and care that they can give you. Realising that you can depend on someone to help you jump a hurdle along the way, helps you keep calm and confident throughout the clarification of the issue.

As Meg Cabot so simply, yet clearly puts it, “Sometimes in life, you fall down holes you can't climb out of by yourself. That's what friends and family are for-to help. They can't help, however, unless you let them know you're down there.” Asking for help does not show you’re weak or incapable; it shows you’re human and you actually know yourself well enough to understand when a situation is telling you that you need someone else’s help. Sometimes, past mistakes keep us from going to someone for assistance; we feel the need to prove to ourselves and others that we can make it on our own, that our mistakes are in the past and we can tackle the world all by ourselves. Past mistakes scare us in the present and prevent us from taking the right action. We should not define ourselves by our ‘missteps’, and seeing as they are a part of our past, we can rather choose to learn from them and understand that it is always better to have someone by our side.

The bottom line is: when a complication comes along your way, deal with it immediately, do not prolong the fight; and it is always better to have someone alongside you while doing that! I really wish that this helps, because you will feel so much better about anything that comes your way once you decide to have friends and family by your side no matter the issues at hand.

‘Till next time…