What to do when life gets tough?

There’s a deceptively simple act of making a list, suggested by authors Ilene Segalove and Paul Bob Velick. I say deceptively simple because we’ve been making a list since we went to the store to get our school supplies. But what a different approach to list making? When we are in the middle of a tough transition and sifting through our thoughts and experiences, we might make these lists, as suggested by Segalove and Velick:

• List the real reasons you are inspired to stay alive
• List all the times you knew something but didn’t trust your intuition.
• List all the prayers, sayings, and chants you’ve been taught that make you feel better.

Then we could think of our own topics for lists…a good/bad list about a time in the past; a list of those things in the past that you’d like to bring forth in the future in a new form; a list of things you assumed before this tough transition happened.

Perhaps you are at a point in the transition when it’s time to make some external changes. Here are a few examples Segalove and Velick give for times like this:

• List how you’d like to change your outer life right now
• List how you’d like to change your inner life right now
• List all the times you’ve fallen flat on your face
• List the major changes you feel you need to make in your life right now.
• List all the times you’ve gone off the beaten track.
• List the ways you sabotage yourself from getting what you want

Or if you just need to amuse yourself for a break, you could make these lists:

• List what’s in your glove compartment
• List the fantastic pranks you’ve successfully pulled off

Listing as therapy…listing as fun…listing as insight: who would have thought something so “ordinary” and “simple” could be so helpful?

Dr. Elizabeth Harper Neeld offers wisdom and practical insights to anyone whose life is in a time of transition, change, grief and loss of any kind. As an internationally recognized and accomplished consultant, and author of more than twenty books - including Tough Transitions and Seven Choices: Finding Daylight After Loss Shatters Your World - she is committed to work that helps lift the human spirit.