Our ultimate goal is to be emotionally independent. No, that doesn’t mean that we give up our friends and live life on an island. It means we can go through most days without having to share the "less than pleasant" details of our life with someone else. We can work through those little bumps in the road by using our own emotional stability. As with self-esteem, each time we accomplish this we gain confidence in our emotional strength and can realize our ability to overcome most emotional problems on our own.

I find that one way I know that I am gaining emotional strength is by coming away from a "pity party," which I have for myself on occasion, without needing to share it with a friend. I might do it my reading a particular chapter(s) in a self-help book which relates to that area of life or by making a list of the pros and cons of the problem.  I also write down what is the worst possible outcome of this problem. Then analyze and make a list of what I can do to work toward the best outcome and avoid the worst. As much as I don’t want to deal with the worst case scenario, I try to accept that if that is the outcome, I will have the strength to accept it and go forward.

If the "pity party" is a result of emotional hurt or pain I have received from someone, then I start to analyze the different aspects of the relationship, how can I improve it, do I need to apologize for something I might have said or done in the past to hurt that person. Sometimes it may be that the other person is going through a difficult time that I am not aware of it. Sometimes I may be tired and stressed and simply blowing the situation out of perspective. Consequently, there are times in our life when we just have to accept the fact that we cannot do anything to change what has happened. We can either let it depress us or we can accept reality and go forward. Whether we believe it or not, we always have that choice.

A book that was very important to my growth in the last 2 years is "Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway" by Susan Jeffers, Ph.D. Jeffers uses several different graphs and grids to explain her points. One of my favorites is the "Whole Life Grid."

The purpose of the grid is to give us a look at how we spend our time and make sure that we are balancing our life. If we are not spending quality time on several of the areas of our life, we could be devastated and traumatized if we lose one area. For instance, people who retire and don’t have other interests have a higher percentage of death close to the time of retirement than those who have created other hobbies and/or interests which will now consume otherwise "empty" hours in their day when they no longer work.

I am being a little more detailed in my grid because I want to explain how I spend some of my time and possibly help you to discover how you are spending your time in these different areas.

Jeffers also talks about a woman in one of her classes who stated that even though she has a full life and many activities, relationship is the only thing that has any meaning. Jeffers’ suggestion to her was to start "committing" herself 100% to each area of her life. For instance when we are at work, we should give those hours 100% of our self. When we are with our children, try to clear our mind of other interruptions and be with them completely.

Support System -4 (Continue)