How To Reach Out (When it Seems Impossible)

Good morning my lovely roses! I hope you all are having an absolutely lovely day so far- and if you're not, I'm sending love and hope that you do feel happier and more at peace soon.

This morning, before getting ready for work, I saw my best friend and social media manager, Kayleen had responded to a Snapchat story of mine: "You should write a post about reaching out." Since life has been particularly difficult recently, I figured shoot- let's give it a go!

If life is kicking at you and you're just letting it happen, please just try to remember a few things:

1. You absolutely do not deserve to be treated in a way that is out of alignment with who you are and what you value. If someone is harming you personally or in a business situation, you have the rhyme and reason to get the hell out of there. If you have made mistakes and you are mentally beating yourself you need to take a moment, gather yourself and stop right there!

Think about it this way: If a dear friend of yours made a mistake and was talking down about themselves in front of you, what would you say? You'd recognize that they did something wrong, but by no means would you grab a whip and say "darn right you're wrong, here's another one." No! You would be loving and supportive and help them to come up with ways to solve the problem.

Be compassionate with yourself. You get to live with yourself for your entire life- so making yourself your own best friend really should be a top priority.

2. There are places to reach out. If your home life is stressful and you just need to get out- call a friend! If everyone in your life happens to be preoccupied with their own lives, or you just aren't sure how to approach them, here are some tips:

Reaching out and coping:

(What to do)

1. Address yourself first. When you just can't take it one your own anymore, it is so important to reach out to people- but it is also incredibly important to check in with yourself as yourself first and foremost. If something tragic happens to you- going through a breakup, losing a family member, losing a job, having to move to a different state or country, becoming incredibly (and/or randomly) depressed, seeing someone else get promoted over you and your valiant efforts- it is so important that you connect with yourself first. Give yourself a moment to gather your thoughts and feelings and expel them as necessary. If you need to get to your car so that you can be alone and just cry for a bit, get to your pillow so you can beat the crap out of something or grab your journal/laptop and write your feelings out that's okay. If you have no idea how you feel about something, how is someone else going to know how to help or what to say? While it is entirely possible and often efficient to skip this step and talk to someone, it is still incredibly important that you connect with and let yourself feel so that you can start to build that loving rapport.

2. Call Someone. After touching base with your feelings, you may not feel much better. That's because, as Tony Robbins says:

"Stay in your head, you're dead."

When crap hits the fan, it is so important that you urge yourself to take some sort of action to inspire change. If you're doing the same things over and over or doing nothing at all and expecting change- well, you know where this is going.

The easiest next step to healing through a difficult process is reaching out to someone. There are a few different ways to do so, but to name a few:

-Tell a friend through whichever outlet makes you the most comfortable (meeting in person, calling on the phone, or sending a message or letter) and let your loved one know that:

--"Hey, I'm going through a hard time right now"

--"Something happened and I really need to talk someone"

--"Please if you can, be patient with me because this is really hard for me to do, but can I open up to you about something."

--"You don't have to respond, no pressure, can I please just vent to you about something for a bit?"

--"I'm not sure how to ask for help, but have you ever been in a situation where (generic situation), how did you handle it?"

Sometimes, after harboring so much pain and feeling, it can be incredibly difficult to interpret such emotions on your own let alone with someone you care about:

3. Write a letter: Sometimes, our emotions get so backed up that we just don't know how to talk about them. We fight an uphill battle for so long that tripping over a stone (aka reaching your mental break) threatens to send you tumbling all the way back down to your core- leaving you raw. Facing this emotions can be very difficult, especially if you're used to keeping them to yourself.

If you just can't seem to get up enough courage to tell someone how you feel; write it in a letter.

I know, this seems super outdated- but try it. While speaking with someone can be immensely helpful, it can also be just as terrifying. In this case, rather than having to stumble around, hesitantly looking for the key to your soul, all you have to do is write whatever comes to mind. This letter doesn't have to be sent to anyone- it is rather the action of writing your thoughts on paper that stimulates your brain in both the Broca's area (writing) as well as the Limbic System. Stimulating different parts of your brain gives you awareness on several different levels and therefore makes it easier to interpret the way that you are feeling.

Now, what you do with the letter after finishing it is entirely up to you. You can give it to someone, or you can tear it up, burn it, flush it down the toilet, or save it for a journal. This step will determine the sort of "farewell" that you would like to give to such emotions- chose wisely.

No matter how you decide to do so, this can be a difficult (yet still necessary) process. Oftentimes we are faced with hardships that just don't make sense. It is so important to know the distinction between whether or not something is your fault- it will make the process of recovery so much easier if you realize that it is not your fault. Life brings us all in different directions, so it is very easy to get walked into a situation that is very much so not ideal. For times like these, we've got to work on our self-compassion so that we can understand ourselves enough to

I ended up getting much more excited about this topic than I had expected. If you liked this post, leave me some feedback or let me know if you'd to see a part 2.

Until next time,

I love you

Savanna Rose