Surviving a day of the blues begins with a choice.

Surviving a day means changing your perspective, not for 1,000 days nor 1000 hours, but for 24 hours. It requires finding hopefulness instead of hopelessness one moment at a time until you have survived one day of angst, anxiety, or hopelessness. If you can find will-power (some call it courage) to live though a sad time, it begins with a choice to think differently.

 

To change your thinking, find a quiet place to sit and breathe deeply. Even if you're doing office work or managing the home, practice deep-breathing, focus on positive thoughts, and replace negative thoughts with positive ones. The master plan is to find ways to force yourself to think positive thoughts (past or present) one minute at a time, then ten minutes, then 30 minutes, and then 24 hours.  At any point during this time, monitor your thoughts and feelings. If you feel overly sad or emotional and incapable to achieving this, immediately call an anonymous hotline like 800-273-TALK to discuss thoughts and feelings, specific or general. Crisis counselors don't make judgments and don't give advice. Their purpose is to listen and provide resources by request. When you hang up the phone, find positive things to do and positive thoughts to ruminate on. Try not to isolate yourself. Just try.

 

 I learned as a child, "fake it until you make it." In other words, pretend you're happy, hopeful, and heavenly--even if you're not. Pretend you have something important to do like save the world, eat pancakes, or travel abroad. Pretend you are happy and that awful thing you experienced is not big enough, bad enough, or strong enough to keep you down and out. Remember and say to yourself, "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger." With repetition and practice, you'll come to believe it.

 

After 9/11, I suffered a setback, which I accidentally overcame through writing. I did other things to force myself to think positive, things like baking a banana pudding (email for the recipe); things like talking on the phone to my mother; things like walking the streets of NYC watching beautiful and not so beautiful people doing what it takes to live that day.But something I did on purpose also helped me overcome periods of grief and sadness--planning for travel and making arrangements for travel destinations I could not afford. Yes, booking the hotel, locating flights without buying tickets, and reading about tourism in a particular country, city, or town created positive thoughts and generated positive feelings.  One of my favorite articles on traveling to other places is included below.

 

Surviving anything takes a plan, takes will-power, and takes courage to do the hard work of changing negative thought patterns. By any means necessary, find ways to think positive thoughts, and challenge those negative, self-defeating thoughts every time. Remember to stop and deep-breathe; call for help when you need to talk things out; and "fake it 'til you make it." mdhjohnson (2015)