What to Do When Life Gives You Lemons

Perhaps January was off to a productive, promising start. Your intentions were set, your plans were sketched, and all was well as you were settling into your 2024 productivity stride. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, an unfavorable life event occurred, shifting your energy and focus in a downward spiral. Throughout this post, I refer to these unfavorable events as curveballs, lemons, and stumbling blocks.

Maybe you experienced some of life's lemons, leading to a bout of demotivation, low mood, increased distress, anger, and even hopelessness and discouragement. You probably lamented to yourself, “How did I get here? Things were all good a week ago!” Frustrating, right? Yes, I know. However, life has a way of throwing us curveballs that we simply cannot anticipate. I intentionally describe this phenomenon including the pronoun “we,” because yes, sometimes this happens even to me. I wish being a psychotherapist exempted me from life's ups and downs but it doesn't. They happen to us all, so I get it. Sometimes they are so powerful that they can feel like a physical gut punch, taking your breath away and hijacking your productivity momentum. Not to worry. When this happens, it is important to remember that (a) this is a part of the human experience and (b) recovery is key.

In this post, I will share with you five practical, actionable next steps to get your life back on track and continue to power forward into this year with confidence.

Step 1: Give Yourself Space and Time to Process

When we experience one of life’s misfortunes, it is important to give our brain, heart, and nervous system space and time to grapple with the fact that the curveball (negative experience) actually happened. When you are in a positive space in life and suddenly something negative happens, it is expected to be shaken and in shock. Do not try to speed past the impact of this event via avoidance (distracting yourself with busyness) or denial. It is healthy to take a pause. We are not invincible to life’s lemons—no matter how strong we are. Take some time to process your thoughts and emotions before jumping back into your usual routines, habits, and obligations. Processing our thoughts and feelings involves more than just feeling the feels. It also means taking the time to acknowledge the impact of the event, working to accept and make sense of it, and then finally letting go of what happened so you can move forward.

Step 2: Get Some Rest… This Comes in Many Forms

When we experience one of life’s misfortunes, our brain, heart, and nervous system become even more taxed. It is common to feel a spike of grief, anger, disappointment, hurt, disbelief, and/or frustration. Give yourself time to grieve for yourself and the situation, as needed. Be patient with yourself, as you work through elevated levels of psychological distress. After all, you are doing emotional labor, and recovering from labor requires rest. With deadlines, bills, and other adult obligations looming overhead, rest may seem like the last thing you can afford. However, if you gift yourself with it, you will shorten your recovery period and be back to your usual level of performance before you know it.

There are several ways to rest. Rest doesn’t always mean sleeping. Rest means to refresh, lie down, pause, and relax. Rest may mean that you do not take any phone calls for a day or so. Maybe you will choose to take a day trip to “your happy place.” Perhaps you may feel most relaxed snuggled on the couch with a loved one or pet, watching your favorite show. Rest could be meditation, spending time in silence, spending time unplugged from technology, people, problems, and obligations, spending time in nature, or it could be as simple as sleeping your Sunday afternoon away. Whatever activity soothes you and helps you feel at peace—that is your form of rest. Gift yourself whatever that is, for it is essential in how you recover and reset.

Step 3: B for Big Boundaries

When we experience a hit from life, it puts us in a vulnerable position. Most of us become hypersensitive to potential threats to our well-being and any form of additional psychological distress. During our period of recovery, boundaries can help keep us from further injury, as we work to return to a stronger condition.

In my previous post, entitled Self-Love Is Self-Care, I emphasized the important role that boundaries play in protecting us, defining boundaries as rules that protect you from behaviors of outside others that could potentially reduce your quality of life (intentionally or unintentionally). Boundaries inform others of what’s OK for you and what is not OK for you. Boundaries, simply stated, are the terms in which I feel safe interacting with you—if these terms are broken, our interaction will become limited or terminated. Boundaries are a vehicle of self-love and -care–they say, “I care about you, and I care about me too.”

Step 4: Be Kind To Yourself

When we experience a hit from life and a recovery period ensues, we may tend to be hypercritical of ourselves for not being able to “take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’” or automatically “charging it to the game,” as the old sayings go. These antiquated phrases of indifference may have been created as protective mechanisms for resilience but often inflict more psychological and sometimes physical damage in the process. If you tend to be hypercritical, impatient, and unforgiving of yourself—stop. This is a form of self-perpetuated abuse. The curveball was enough pain to endure, don’t add to it by being unkind to yourself. Acknowledge, accept, and honor your humanity, by offering yourself kindness, forgiveness, patience, and grace.

Step 5: Ease Back Into It All

Once you have taken some time to recover and stockpile some energy, it’s time to get back out there in the game of life. However, I strongly suggest that you do not dive into the deep end, putting the pedal to the metal, and performing at the high-octane level that you were before the mishap. Be gentle with yourself as you return to your usual routines, just as you would after experiencing a physical injury. Ease into your routines, slowly building up your endurance each day. Depending on the level of impact and length of the recovery period, the time you choose to take it easy as you gradually build yourself back up will vary. Meet yourself where you are each day, perhaps testing the limitations of your mind from time to time. However, patience is key. You will be back at your usual performance in no time.

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Takeaway

It is normal to get knocked off course from time to time. We are humans, with feelings and super fragile nervous systems. Don’t get hung up on the fact that you felt the stumble. Give yourself permission to be a human who experiences a full range of emotions. Pause, process, rest, reset, let go, and keep on going (growing).

Happy healing and recovery. I’m excited for your future ahead! If you should cross another one of life’s curveballs, stumbling blocks, or lemons, don’t worry, simply come back to this post and “rinse and repeat."