Blog #3: "This sucks, but what comes next?"

By Andrew Pansky, LCSW, LCADC

Curiosity can be an unexpected tool to cope with pain and uncertainty. Taking a curious stance promotes acceptance of your reality and allows you to engage in the here and now by wondering what comes next. We cannot erase unpleasant feelings but we can cope with them in a way that reminds us that there is still hope for the future.

All experiences of pain are subjective and perspective can go a long way. Try to take a step back and remind yourself that emotional experiences are fleeting. No emotional experience lasts forever.

Now begin to ask yourself, what comes next? It can be hard to fixate on anything but the worst case scenario, but how likely is that to happen? The worst case scenario is very specific in nature. By definition, absolutely everything has to go wrong for the worst case scenario to happen. This makes it statistically the least probable outcome.

Accompanying this dire mindset is the belief that we will not be able to handle the worst case scenario. That somehow it will crush us. Of course, anything that has the possibility of crushing us is going to prompt our anatomy to deliver crippling doses of anxiety to keep our attention on it. But it doesn't have to be this way. Once we take the risk to become curious, we can turn our attention to other possible outcomes and reestablish a sense of control.

For more on acceptance and control check out my last blog post by clicking here.