Don’t be a Nancy when you don’t have to be..

It’s crazy to think that I started this blog such a while back, fresh off the boat from New Zealand and with little to no idea about how things would be two years on; let alone where I would even be.

The last post I wrote was in November. Even since then, my life has vastly changed, with some beautiful memories and then obviously, some moments which have been somewhat challenging. I have not written anything since, as I believed that this blog was done; it had served its purpose and I would move on to other things!

However, I feel this is the right time to reemerge and for those of you who are interested, I would share with you a very valid lesson I have learned along life’s yellow brick road.

I may still not be a full-time fairy, nor own my own café by the sea, but I am in a completely different place to where I once was and I view it all as largely positive. 

Although I may not have reached those abovementioned ‘goals’, I have started to see my own potential, have belief in my friends and have started to trust my own judgment. Moreover, I love the way I am starting to actually deal with life – with whatever it throws at me. 

Life. Four small letters which sum up what we are all immersed in. It can deal us some pretty tricky cards at the best of times. I have recently felt like the past three months have been what I coin ‘somewhat hellish’. You know those times where you think what more can go wrong and you start to believe that the world is really not on your side. 

It feels as if the pressure has been laid on thick, and no self-help book can quick fix the anxious panic boiling up inside. You feel as if life is about to break you. 

I was scared, I panicked and I guess I was left with three options:  

a) pretend it isn’t happening;

b) react to it (and by that I mean basically lose it); or

c) get through it. 

I must confess that I did dabble with options a) and b) but can now safely say that choosing c) has been my saving grace. Ideally, we all want to be strong enough to choose this option. 

We are the masters of our own universe. I use to have complete internal conflict with this mantra. It did not sound real or practical on any level. The truth is, when there is no-one else to come to our rescue, we must muster up all we have and take total responsibility for our feelings and current circumstances. 

We can all play the woe is me card to some extent, but it doesn’t get you out of your rut. You may receive a few sympathy cards here and there, but the truth is, the majority of people will only come to your pity party for a limited time.  No-one likes to be around a negative Nancy. The more you and Nance become alike, the more negative you are probably going to attract into your life. 

I was absolutely devastated when I heard my Dad was unwell. My Dad is the guy who I spoke with every other day (even though I lived in London) and my own life coach! When I needed advice I would call on him. He was and still is my personal guru. It’s a tough realisation when we start to truly appreciate our parents aren’t infallible. It hit me hard and given the circumstances, Dad has not been able to call / email me as often. I spent awhile feeling frustrated and pretty hopeless, being angry and upset and then fell into a big black hole. 

 

I became withdrawn and really did start to look at everything which was seemingly going wrong in my life. Things seemed to snow ball in a big way and I was falling even further down the hole.  Although I had experienced these feelings before and somehow managed to come out the other side, I remained down the rabbit hole. 

Work seemed long and hard, I belittled myself as to why I wasn’t doing what I thought I ‘should’ be doing career wise and I didn’t want to see anyone. It was during one of these broken moments when I cracked. I was literally sick of being like this. I realised in that very quiet moment, I DON’T HAVE TO FEEL THIS WAY…

Strange how seven basic words are loaded with such meaning. When we are locked in situations of pure rage, anger, sadness and frustration, it is hard to see the wood from the trees. We feel powerless and are locked into a negative mindset being controlled by emotion. It’s that emotion which has a tight grasp around us and although we may be trying to escape it - we just can’t. 

So what do you do? You stop fighting. Accept how you are feeling and realise that the only reason you are feeling this way is because you are focusing on everything that feels dire and is wrong. Take ownership and search deep to find courage that this too shall pass. Cling on to hope and stop feeding your inner Nancy. 

We can automatically feel low because we start to think about all the things that life does to us and this creates an avalanche of pain. We all know from our own experiences that this doesn’t have to always be the case. 

There have been plenty of bad situations which arise, whereupon you seem to have not fallen into the depths of the rabbit hole and have been able to soldier on. What makes what I have just described any different? It’s not because of luck or that you were necessarily stronger at that time, it was merely because you were being realistic. 

You realised somewhere down your path, that by feeding your negative Nancy, it was just going to depress you further and so you therefore chose not to play with Nancy. You didn’t change your immediate circumstances but you did change your mind set. You clung on to that feeling of hope that the crap you are facing is only transient and it isn’t going to define you and ruin your day; you took the control back. 

I’m no psychologist, let alone do I have any neuro-science background, but what I do know is that our emotions run on a cause and effect pattern. 

I recently thought about how two people can go through the same crisis but deal with it completely differently. I agree that we must all take some time to acknowledge how we are feeling; acknowledgement of pain is more than important as denial can be somewhat deadly but it doesn’t need to consume us. We cannot control the extent of things which can happen to us in our lives, but we can control how we choose to deal or react to it. 

In a nutshell what am I saying? With a positive attitude, choice of mindset, value can be created from anything that happens in life. You get to choose how you want to play your cards; you get to choose how you want to feel; you get to choose whether you are going to be a worrier or a warrior. 

I hope you too, are able to find this place, to channel life’s goodness and to ensure your own life is filled with abundance. 

It doesn’t matter what life throws at you – YOU got this. As my Dad has taught me, ‘it’s not why things happen, it’s how we best pick ourselves up. That’s what it’s important.' You don’t have to be a Nancy if you don’t want to; it’s your own choice.