When Times Are Hard, How Do You Help Yourself? Here Are Some Ideas For You

When times are hard, it's easy to think that things will never change.

Life grinds to a halt.

Everything feels more difficult, and the everyday necessities of life may often feel like impossible tasks to accomplish.

Maybe it's a friend who is going through a difficult transition. Or maybe you or a family member have received bad news.

Whatever the specifics, when times are hard you are challenged on many fronts and tend to feel jarred and jostled off track.

What do you do when times are hard?

Hard times affect your energy, your feelings, and they also affect both the choices you make about your time ADN how you feel about time, in general.

What if you're feeling the pinch, economically? Maybe you lost your job, or business is slow. Economic constraints affect the range of time choices that feel available or accessible to you. Things like vacations, new educational pursuits, or new appliances may not even make it to your consciousness.

Instead, you pull back and pull in.

And what about feelings?

When times are hard, it's easy to allow worries to gnaw at you. This is a big, and very challenging time trap. Not only does it rob you of precious time, but it also saps your energy and creativity right when you need them most.

So, a key time choice is to recognize the debilitating effect of this and use self-talk, time boundaries, and self-discipline to turn your mind away from nagging anxieties.

Consider replacing worry-time with self-care time. Plugging in a positive where a negative had taken root shifts your energy and will do you a world of good.

Or, try picturing your worries as weeds that sprout up in hard times. Next, make a conscious choice to uproot worries by slowing down and focusing on ways to simplify and declutter your life.

Whenever you do this, you alter your experience of time. That's because simplification expands and deepens your experience of your moments, much as silence and stillness do. And in that expansive place, needless worries lose their power.

Gratitude, no matter what...

Finally, whatever challenges life brings your way, an attitude of gratitude will carry you through. Know that you have the capacity to pause in ANY moment and think of something for which you feel genuinely grateful. I guarantee that your energy and your moment will be transformed whenever you make that choice for yourself.

So, are you or a loved one facing hard times right now? Step back for a moment and consider: How does this affect your time and your self-care choices?

Would you like to be able to approach this differently?

http://ezinearticles.com/?When-Times-Are-Hard,-How-Do-You-Help-Yourself?-Here-Are-Some-Ideas-For-You&id=9918860

Message From the Universe: When Setbacks Are Just Temporary

"Since you're in a position to help so many, please remind them, when necessary, that setbacks are only ever devastating when one thinks they'll last forever.

They never do.

Thanks,

The Universe"

There is always an end to everything, including both the good and the bad times. When you travel to tropical destinations for vacation, that will also end, even though it can be very hard to come back to frigid cold temperatures. The same goes for hard times. The storm can only last a little while but at the end, when you are stronger and can get back on your feet after that storm, you can be proud of your accomplishments.

Many let life take control of who they are, and when the going gets tough, they break and let themselves venture into a path of self-loathing which ends to self-destruction (alcohol, drugs, crime etc..). It doesn't need to be this way. We all go through hard times in life, and even the most successful people can and will suffer from that same predicament. No one is waived from uncertainties in life. We all have to walk that same path sometimes in our lives. There is no escaping it, just like taxes or death. Since we all know we will have to go through this crap eventually, sooner or later in our life, there are really no surprises. So come on, what are you waiting for? There are so many opportunities out there waiting for you. Get up! Get moving! Get doing.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Message-From-the-Universe:-When-Setbacks-Are-Just-Temporary&id=9651939

5 Silver Linings You Can Find in Hard Times

Finding strength, clarity, and joy even in the most unlikely places.

Major negative life events, such as the death of a loved one, the dissolution of an important relationship, or the diagnosis of a serious illness, can be painful and isolating. But these experiences can also sometimes bring about unexpected positive changes. Here are 5 of them:

1. You become more compassionate and less judgemental.

Experiencing suffering yourself can make you more compassionate towards others who are suffering. Often, when witnessing others’ hardships, people look for reasons to blame the victim for their plight (e.g., “He’s struggling financially because he doesn't work hard enough," or, "She’s sick because she worked too hard and didn't take care of herself’), thereby reducing their own sense of vulnerability. But when you've suffered deeply, you’re more likely to recognize that everyone is vulnerable, and that bad things happen to good people all the time. Someone else’s suffering no longer represents a threat, but rather can be a source of connection and kinship.

2. You discover that you’re stronger than you thought you were.

In the early stages of a negative life event, you may think to yourself, “There’s no way I can get through this.” But somehow, day by day, you manage to put one foot in front of the other, despite the pain you may feel. One of the things that hardship does is show you your true strength—the strength you didn’t know you had until it was really tested. Supporting this idea, research on affective forecasting suggests that we tend to overestimate how devastated we’ll be by negative life events and how long the pain will last—in other words, we’re more resilient than we think. 

3. You learn who your true friends are.

In difficult times, certain relationships are likely to deepen, while others may fade away. Discovering that some people are fair-weather friends, disappearing when you need them most, can be painful, but it’s also an opportunity to develop a new appreciation for the people who do stick around, and to focus your energy on those relationships. Research suggests that sometimes even weaker social ties--people you weren’t very close with to begin with—can rise to the occasion and prove to be very supportive in high stress situations.

4. You get greater clarity on what you want in life.

Sometimes a crisis can jolt you into re-evaluating your life in a major way. It can force you to ask yourself if you’re really doing what makes you happy and spending your time how you want to, or with the people you want to spend it with. Jarring as these re-evaluations can be, they can push you to make positive changes that may not have seemed like realistic possibilities before, for one reason or another—fear of failure, concerns about what other people would think, or just the inertia of the status quo. But these factors just don’t carry as much weight when the reality that life is fragile and unpredictable takes hold.

5. You find joy in unexpected places.

When your world is shaken up, it can cast a dark cloud over everything, making it difficult to enjoy what you once enjoyed. But sometimes joy can sneak up on you in the most unexpected ways and remind you that there is still beauty in the world, despite all the suffering.

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-love-and-war/201504/5-silver-linings-you-can-find-in-hard-times