Ever have one of those weeks—or years 🥵—where it feels like every plan you made has gone sideways?

I can relate.

At one point in my life I downsized from a 3,000-square-foot house with a pool to a trailer (by choice), found out I have an eating disorder called orthorexia, experienced an epic mental break with my kiddo, had no hot water and sometimes no toilet in our new abode...

...and there were plenty of other things I simply didn’t have the bandwidth to name.

But here’s the thing:

Life’s curveballs don’t wait for us to be ready.

They just keep coming.

You’ve probably felt it too.

Every time you stand back up, something else comes along to knock you down.

And it’s exhausting.

But what if you didn’t have to start from scratch every time?

What if you had a way to regain your focus, find your footing, and keep moving forward no matter what life throws at you?

Because life is going to keep life-ing.

And that’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t ALSO have the freedom, success and luxurious vacations you’ve been dreaming of.

Here’s the process I use.

Step 1: PAUSE

We’ve been trained to power through when things go awry.

Something happens and we click straight into survival mode.

Adrenaline starts pumping.

Everything “trivial”—like your mental state and emotional well-being—gets shoved to the side.

And we get to werrrrrk.

I’m suggesting changing the program.

The program is based on old behavior designed on a cellular level to keep you the same.

Its default—regardless of your intention—is to make sure you never move beyond this exact spot in your life.

Which means we have to override the program.

And these moments on the ground are where we have the opportunity to do that.

The only way to avoid immediately reinforcing the old program and make space for a new reaction?

Pause.

When the thing happens, notice it.

Be aware of it.

Kind of put it down in front of you.

Don’t act yet.

This is different from avoidance.

Avoidance would be numbing out and pretending nothing is wrong.

That is NOT what I mean.

This is acknowledging that something happened and clearing enough space around it that you can choose what to do next.

Write it down on a piece of paper and go for a walk.

Sit outside and stare at the view.

Take a drive.

Go to the gym.

Instead of immediately moving into problem-solving, imagine turning the event over and over in your hand like a rock.

Just notice it from all angles.

Step 2: FEEL

You’re going to have feelings about what happened.

Then you’ll probably have feelings about the feelings.

And thoughts about the feelings.

You may judge yourself.

Other people.

Your Higher Power.

Your partner.

Your children.

The response team.

ALL of it.

Our instinct is often to find someone to blame.

Because if we know who’s responsible, we know who should fix it.

This becomes especially true when we feel powerless.

Even if we don’t know what to do, having someone to exert pressure on can feel a whole lot better than saying:

**“I don’t know what to do.”**

None of this is particularly helpful or empowering, but it will probably be there.

And you have three options.

You can feel it and move it through your body so it doesn’t continue hijacking your thoughts.

You can pretend it doesn’t exist, practically guaranteeing it will explode out of you at the wrong moment and probably at the person closest to you.

Or...

You can sit in it like a tepid stew, waiting for the people responsible to fix the mess they got you into.

My suggestion?

Feel it.

A very practical way to do that is to write.

Start with:

“The way I’m feeling about [insert big blindsided moment] is…”

Then write.

As you do, feel the emotions in your body.

Breathe them out.

Feel the next wave.

Breathe it out.

Step 3: MAKE A LIST

Once you’ve paused and felt the feelings, you’ll have a little more mental space to move into chosen action instead of reaction based on old programming.

Make a list of everything that needs to change for the situation to improve.

Or even better...

What would need to happen for this to become the best-case scenario?

Create a checklist.

For anything outside your control, ask whether you can influence it.

Can you call someone?

Send an email?

Ask for a favor?

Ask for support?

If you can’t even influence it—aka you cannot personally make it stop raining—send out a request to your Higher Power for it to be dealt with.

Then put a checkmark next to it.

It’s being handled.

For everything you *can* control, put the items in priority order.

What needs to happen first?

Then what?

What can’t happen until something else is finished?

Get it?

Step 4: WHAT DID YOU LEARN?

This step comes MUCH later.

Wait until everything has settled and you’re regulated again.

I’ve found this to be a crucial part of resolving an incident instead of leaving it sitting in an open loop where it can come back to haunt you.

Ask yourself:

What happened that changed me for the better?

What changed me for the worse?

How can I resolve anything that made my life worse?

You can even use the list method again here.

And to be clear...

This is NOT about “finding the silver lining.”

I find that line of thinking destructive, minimizing, and often a way to avoid actually feeling and experiencing what happened.

This is simply acknowledging a very real fact of life:

We learn and grow from everything that happens to us.

That is the nature of human beings.

So no matter what happened...

Let’s learn from it.

Let’s grow from it.

Step 5: RELEASE

This step is only relevant if it’s relevant.

If, down the line, you notice the event created a new fear or limiting belief...

Resolve that shit.

Don’t let it haunt you or hold you back for the rest of your time here.

You may need an unconscious process such as NLP—Neuro-Linguistic Programming—or ELD—Emotional Loop Dissolution—to help deconstruct the neural pathways created during the traumatic event.

I wish I could close this out by reassuring you that life won’t do this to you again.

But I can’t.

Life is going to keep throwing curveballs.

The difference is that now you have tools to help you catch them with more confidence and grace.

When the unexpected hits, remember:

Pause. Feel. List. Learn. Release.

Each step helps you move back toward living life on your terms instead of allowing the challenge to define your path.

Life is going to keep life-ing.

You can keep dreaming big anyway.

You can keep taking action anyway.

And you can keep trusting your own strength.

You’ve got this.

💜Abi