Dear Jessica Brennan,
When something awful happens, the quicker you can move from “Why me? I don’t want this to happen. How can this be happening? Please, don’t let this be happening,” to “This is happening. Now what?” the less stress you will feel and the more apparent the way forward will become.
When terrible things happen (and they happen to everyone), there will be pain—plenty of it. Don’t add more anguish by playing the victim or resisting the pain. Remove the “I can’t believe this” and the “Please no” and try something a bit more truthful and useful like, “This is happening. Pain is part of it. I’m in pain. I truly hate it.”
Love,
Mum xo
PS—I couldn’t decide what picture to use for this post, so I chose the obvious: an alpaca.
