How to handle life’s plot twists, according to a therapist

Positivity might not actually be the best approach.

The power of the inner voice never ceases to amaze me. It catches me off guard, too. While you can know all the mind’s tactics and what you need to do to combat its booby traps, actually putting this knowledge into practice is another thing entirely.

When things go pear-shaped, as they inevitably do at some point in our lives, outside influences on our inner thoughts can be tricky to navigate. In fact, they might make you lose your grip on reality. 

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Without even realising, everything you consume can play a part in the narrative that you begin to tell yourself. The accounts you follow and the people whose stories you compare against your own can play a big role in how you feel about yourself. This matters all the time, but especially when you’re recovering from a big life event.

When you go through these sudden or unexpected plot twists in life, where the rug has been unceremoniously pulled from beneath your feet, managing the outside influence on your inner thoughts is key to reshaping your mindset. 

Those social posts that tell you that you should or shouldn’t be feeling a certain way, or the sales pitch from a coach online who tells you to stop scrolling and change your life today – these all contribute to the idea that you are not moving through life at the right speed, and that you are grieving or processing in the wrong way.

You can’t be happy all of the time 

While there is no right or wrong way to move through hardship, transforming your perspective from a negative to a positive can certainly be helpful. 

It’s important to remember, though, none of us actually nail this mindset shift all of the time. And what’s more important to understand is that aiming for constant positivity is completely unrealistic and entirely unhelpful. It’s fanciful, in fact.

It can send you into a spiral of toxic positivity – that unattainable, fantastical landscape of Pollyannaville where “everything happens for a reason” and “God only gives us what we can handle”. Unhelpful platitudes like this, and a forced belief that you must find a positive spin for every situation, can really have the opposite effect. 

It’s simply not possible to be happy all of the time, nor to feel positive about certain life events. Thinking that you must achieve this state can actually be quite harmful.

You need to give yourself permission to feel the full spectrum of emotions that comes with being human. When bad things happen, it is absolutely okay – imperative, in fact – that you allow yourself to feel sad, angry, hurt, betrayed, distressed, anxious, scared, worried. Whatever the feelings may be, you don’t have to chase that unrealistic happy place.

Sit with the discomfort

When life throws a curveball, a healthy way to move forward is to acknowledge those feelings and when you’re ready, start to take some steps forward towards a new normal. You can do this by learning to sit in the discomfort of those low ebbs in life and adjust your expectations around how and what you should be feeling. There are no ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’ts’ in these difficult times. 

Give yourself the time and space to expand into your new reality. Try to filter out the noise from your social and online worlds so that you can really tune in to what you’re actually feeling. Acknowledge and accepting your emotional state, wherever it may be in that moment, instead of struggling against it. That, in itself, is a positive mindset shift.

Knowing, learning and practising the conscious switch out of one mindset and into another is an important skill to acquire, but no one ever masters it to perfection. Each new situation adds new dimensions and viewpoints to work with. 

No one is perfect. No one manages their mental health flawlessly 100 per cent of the time. No one manages their self-care, secures their boundaries or achieves a faultless outlook 100 per cent of the time. That’s kind of the excitement of life. 

But moving away from the idea that you should be aiming for a constantly positive outlook is important. So, step away from the socials and unfollow any wellbeing influencers who preach about an enduringly positive mindset. The underlying message there is that negative emotions are bad and if you’re feeling those, you need to bury them quickly.

Change is the only constant 

Remind yourself that it’s the journey and not the destination that helps you to grow through your pain.

While no one would willingly invite these plot twists into their lives – at least not the tough ones – we know they’re inevitable. Change is really the only constant we can expect in our lifetime. Understanding that is a huge part of unburdening yourself and accepting where you’re at. And believe it or not, accepting that you’re not always going to have the answers or do things perfectly  (or even well at all), actually supports you through those difficult times. It’s like letting yourself off the hook so you can just be. 

Although a positive outlook is helpful, it should be only one part of the equation here, instead of the end goal. Adopting a mindset that allows you to acknowledge the path that you have already walked, while looking for moments to celebrate as you gingerly take those new steps forward, is a much healthier approach to positivity in the long run.