There's a Six Word Memoir project hosted by Smith Magazine. As the name implies, people write their memoirs, but you only get six words to do it. When they published the first volume of them, the title of the book was one of the favorite memoirs: "Not Quite What I Was Planning". It's hard to look at that book title and do anything but shake your head and say to yourself "boy, ain't that the truth?"
Very few of us have our lives play out like we expected, if we even had a clear sense of what we were expecting to begin with. For most of us, at some time in our life, something big doesn't go according to plan, and it's often something pretty bad. Divorce. Cancer. Addictions. Job loss. Death of a loved one. Mental illness. The list could fill a page.
Even though I'm a psychologist, I am hardly immune to life's hardships either. The biggest one that I'm facing now is that my wife of 26 years, also a psychologist, has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. The diagnosis was made a few years ago and she's pretty advanced in this disease which progresses faster when it's early onset. She rarely speaks in complete sentences, gets confused often, needs full-time care, and repeats the same questions many times over in the course of a day.
So, what are we do to do when facing the really hard things in life? I say "lean into it all." By this I mean, don't shy away from the fullness of any of it. Cry, grieve, laugh, live, embrace everything and everyone. Pretty much every day I cry with grief, but rarely does a day go by either when I don't stop to see the opportunities in the day and am grateful. And I laugh, every day, over something, usually several times each day. Alzheimer's in a loved one gives you the gift of being more in the moment - letting go of yesterday's regrets and tomorrow's anxieties. We share more sunsets and hummingbirds. There's opportunity in everything, even in the really bad stuff, if we look for it.
A faith life, a community, a support group, loving friends and family can all be magnificent ways to embrace and thrive in the midst of life's hardest challenges. We're not 'wired' to face this stuff alone. Reach out to others, let them know of your struggles, but also remember to ask how they're doing too. It's way easy to become self-absorbed in the tough stuff and we can forget that others have lives too!
So, live life to its very fullest in all ways - let every emotion, regardless of what it is, flow through you. You'll learn to become more courageous, and to be less anxious. If you're trying to do these things, but you can't get there from here, in the Chicago area consider seeing someone from Heritage Professional Associates. Outside of the Chicago area, ask someone whom you trust for the name of a reputable mental health professional.
