When the Good Things are Hard to Find

I was checking in with a patient this week, who had recently received some bad news and a diagnosis that was hard to hear. We were discussing the upcoming procedure and although it seemed spooky and daunting, with a bit of digging we were also able to also see some positives in the overall picture. Together we agreed that there are always still some positives in life, just sometimes they seem harder to find. They are still there when we get bad news or have a bad day, and they are still there - even when it can be hard to see them. So when things are looking a bit dark, it’s important to search for the good - even if we need to grab a flashlight or a magnifying glass to find them! 

Rather than focusing only on the bad, see if you can spend a bit of time thinking about the things that are still good. You may feel like you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel and that these are things you would normally take for granted - but still, put them on the list and get them in your head. What’s good today might just be something simple that on good days wouldn’t even make the cut or be noticeable on your radar, but use it for today. Maybe you have a house, or a dog, or a car, or a relationship to be thankful for - it all counts. Try a gratitude jar, journal or calendar. These are a bit more long term projects but they can be very helpful to trigger some joy for you when you need it most. For the jar: write down on a little piece of paper something you are thankful for that day - remember it can be anything big or small, and then put it in the jar. After a few weeks, if you’re having a bad day, you might want to revisit the jar and there you’ll find a whole host of excuses for positivity on a day when it’s hard to find. The journal and calendar kind of work the same way. The journal might be longer, the calendar is just one or two words (that you put down on each date) that you’re thankful for or that made you happy that day. Flip back through whenever you need a bit of encouragement. 

When healing from illness or injury, it can be very frustrating and sometimes hard to see the improvements you may have made when you’re in the throws of it all. When we compare one day to the next they might all appear the same, so in these cases, expand your horizons. Maybe think back to weeks or months or even a year ago at this time (assuming you had the same condition then). Perhaps a couple months ago you could only walk for 5 minutes and slowly slowly you’ve managed to improve so that you can now walk for an hour. Comparing the 5 minute day to today can help illuminate the improvements and progress you’ve made. You might surprise yourself when you see how far you’ve actually come! For longer standing challenges, it may be that at this time last year you tried to do the same activity and were unable to do it or had many more challenges with it than you do today. So my advice for the frustrating days when dealing with chronic illness or injury is to take it one day (or one minute) at a time, but also be sure to zoom out so that you can see just how far you’ve come!  

I was recently visiting my nieces and nephew and it would appear “Hide and Seek” is the top game at their house right now. The challenge they were having was that due to some age gaps, the younger two could never seem to find the older one, and the older one would get frustrated about not being able to hide in tricky spots - or even “easy spots”. I recalled a remedy to this situation from an old babysitter of mine -who needed to navigate the same hurdle with our family. When you need help, the one “seeking” would call out “Little Bo Peep, Little Bo Peep lost her sheep”, then everyone hiding would have to “baaaa” like a sheep (loud enough to be heard). A clue to help you find the ones hiding in the tricky spots but not a complete give away! No help needed in your search? Then no need to call out Little Bo Peep, but when you get stuck, the option is there for you. So what the heck does “Little Bo Peep - style” hide and seek have to do with finding the good things? Well, I think sometimes when the good things are hard to find, it can help to reach out to your friends, family or other members of your support network. They can probably offer you some good hints on where to look for your positives and remind you of the good things in life. They themselves are likely one of those positives in your life, so track them down. Heck, with the right people even a trip to the grocery store can end up being a pretty fun adventure to help remind you that there’s some good available to you right now. 

So if things aren’t going as planned and the good things are hard to find, remember that they are still there and they are definitely worth looking for - especially during the times that you need to search a little bit more for them!