Build Up your Bounce-Back Mindset (part 1)

This article is a special report on it’s own! Because it’s so long, I have decided to spread it out and make it a 2-part series. Look for a podcast version by October 4, and don’t forget about the FREE Teleseminar with Randi Pierce on October 7 to learn even more!

You have suffered a trauma, betrayal or some kind of setback in your life. It might be you found out your husband has cheated on you, or that your closest colleague at work has be sabotaging you and stealing your ideas. Maybe you’ve had a health scare, a mole or lump that turned out to be nothing but caused many sleepless nights in the mean time.

It doesn’t matter what the trauma is, the reality is you have come face-to-face with the idea that you don’t like what your life looks like right now. Somehow the real You got lost along this path called life, and you are ready to get Her back.

Here are 5 steps to build your resilience, help you bounce back, build a stronger foundation, and discover the real you along the way. The result is a happier, healthier and richer life than anything you could have built while stuck in your old, numb, life.

1.    Relax on the positive thinking.

Don’t try to force feeling good, just work on feeling better.

This goes against a lot of self help experts and their advice. But the only thing worse than betrayal or trauma is having people tell you to see the bright side of things and be grateful. I’m all for positive thinking, I teach it and use it in my own life, but there is a difference between faking happiness and feeling better. You can act happy, but you are lying to yourself, and nothing is more poisonous to your spirit than lying to it. This causes more harm than good and you cannot use happiness as a band-aid to hide behind. You will be happy again, but you have to ease your way up to it rather than try to jump in immediately.

Right now you do not feel good. You are depressed, anxious, resentful or angry. You might be crying a lot, eating emotionally (or not eating), sleeping more than usual (or not sleeping), or drinking to ease the pain. Deal with that first. Abraham-Hicks teaches moving up the emotional scale. Instead of trying to go from depressed to joyful or thankful or even hopeful, find something that gives you relief. For example, when I come across someone who is purposely trying to ruin my day, burst my bubble or is just out-right vicious (I call them Trolls and they are a type of toxic person), I used to get down on myself, doubt myself and curl up in a ball to cry and give up. Now I work on feeling better, not worse, so I usually picture the troll in a funny, but unfortunate experience. Maybe the troll spends her next date with spinach in her teeth the whole time. Or maybe the troll’s dog pees on him. These are imaginary circumstances that make me feel better. Yes they’re mean and they’re vengeful, but the point it to feel better, not act anything out…and it works like a charm.

Imagine your cheating spouse wearing expensive khakis to a meeting with an important client, and sitting on chocolate pudding. Then laugh your butt off.

2.    Revisit the past briefly.

Why did this happen? Look back for the gifts so you can build a better future, but be careful not to dwell.

This is probably the hardest exercise to building up your resilience muscles, but it’s also vital to your success. In my own life, and with those of the people I work with, the crummiest situations are the ones that turn out to be blessings in disguise (and I realize this is cliché, but it is true).

Take a completely unrelated part of your life that is going well. Then look backward and follow the circumstances that occurred for it to work out so well. This I best demonstrated with another example from my own life.

When my husband and I were looking to buy our home, we were newly weds, with brand new university degrees and jobs that were less than ideal. We had run down old cars and I had a big fat student loan to pay back, let’s just say we were not rolling in money and trying to buy in a sellers market was scary. But we knew that if we were every going to be able to afford anything, we had to buy. So we jumped in with our tiny down payment and looked at what we could afford.

It was heartbreaking, finding beautiful homes way outside our price range, and then looking at what we could actually afford in the city. We decided we would have better luck in the suburbs and expanded our search. BINGO! We found something good enough that had been on the market for several months and was  just outside our price range, but with some belt-tightening and financial manoeuvring it could be done. We put in an offer for full asking price, made sure our agent let the buyers know we were serious and this was the best we could do. We figured that since the house had been for sale for awhile, and since we were offering full asking, it was a done deal.

Wrong. My heart was broken and I was angry at the obvious greed of the sellers. I remember crying to my husband because I felt like it was my fault that we couldn’t afford more. I was the one with the crappy job, and the huge student loan.

Luckily, I pulled myself together and I have a very patient husband who assured me that something better was out there, we just hadn’t found it yet.

Less than a week later the perfect house appeared only 2 blocks away from the other one. And it was perfect. I had a huge lot, mini fruit orchard, lots of grass a two car garage and another garage/man-shed. The house was perfect for two young professionals starting out. It was also priced to sell, and for some reason there were only 2 other offers on the table. Ours was the best and 6 weeks later, just in time for our first anniversary, we were settled in.

Here is what came out of NOT getting what I thought was my perfect house: I got something much better. I got a bigger yard, space for both of our vehicles and slightly closer to amenities. Even though we bid more than the asking price, it was still easily affordable, and did not add financial strain. I changed jobs 6 months after that, where I began to make more money and my husband got a raise. Then I decided to go full force with my business and I could afford to do it because we didn’t have the strain of a mortgage we couldn’t afford. Oh, and we both got to upgrade our vehicles.

Looking back now, I see what the first house was not meant for me, but at the time it broke my heart.

I can also see how several of the jobs I held in the past prepared me for my true calling by teaching me patience, empathy and non-judgment, even though several of them caused me great anxiety and depression while I worked in them.

Everything has a way of working out in the end, honest.

“In the end it will be okay. If it’s not okay, then it’s not the end.” Unknown

So look back at your life. How have major disappointments made you stronger and helped you develop into the person you are today?

PART 2 (containing Steps 3, 4 & 5) will continue this week.

If you already know that you need some guidance with your bounce-back mindset, join me and Gina Bell for the Fall 2010 session of The Master LIFE Cleanse. We are clearing out the junk to make room for some happiness, health and wealth! It’s the perfect way to recover from a setback and redesign your life from the ground up.

Want to use this in your eZine or on your blog? Sure as long as you don’t change anything and include the following:

Grab your FREE Copy of “Dump The Junk, and Be Happy” eBook at http://kimberlyenglot.com. Kimberly Englot is CEO of  The Center for Authentic Self Development. She is the courage you need to put yourself back on your priority list, without feeling guilty or selfish.