How to recover the illusion at a bad time: 5 recommendations
Feeling excited about any issue is the engine that keeps us motivated, alert, happy and with hope for the future. However, when this illusion is lost, our reality is perceived as gloomy and pessimistic and we do not find the energy to do our daily activities and much less to think about plans for the future.
How can we recover the illusion? All of us have gone through or will go through a similar stage and there are resources to be able to get out of this bleak state and recover the illusion.
- Related article: "Emotional stagnation: when nothing seems to change"
5 Tips to recover the illusion
Like many feelings and stages of the human being, the loss of illusion has its own process, and we must understand that what we are feeling is normal, has an explanation and has a solution. Here we will review the most effective tips to recover the illusion.
1. Express what you feel
A complicated step for some, but very necessary in the recovery of any grieving process, is express our emotions openly .
There are people around you, friends or family who will be willing to listen to you. However, if you think that to speak freely you would prefer not to do it with someone close to you, you can go to a therapist or self-help group, where there will always be people willing to listen to you.
There is no need to be afraid to express our emotions. We think that anger, resentment, sadness or even envy are sensations that we must hide and repress and so that nobody knows that we feel them, but the opposite happens. If we want to recover the illusion, we must begin by venting and learning to express , dominate and channel our emotions so that they are not the ones who dominate us.
2. Reflect on the cause of our loss of illusion
In addition to emotions, there is a rational part that we must find in the middle of all this tangle of sensations that we experience when we have a loss of illusion. This rational part is to look for the root of the problem.
In some situations it can be very obvious: having suffered the death of someone you love, a divorce or love breakup, facing an illness or losing a job. But there are other circumstances that do not come into view so easily and that have us in a state of reluctance and disappointment without knowing even explain what it is that has us like this.
It's time to sit down and think. Make an analysis of our life . If we have practiced the step of talking with someone about what we feel, surely we can clarify the situation about the cause.
These causes can be diverse , how to feel dissatisfied in our work or some unresolved problem with our family or partner. Everyday life leads us to get up every day and carry out our activities without time to stop and think if this is what we want and if we can change it. Thinking about it will help us find what we need to change to get out of emotional stagnation.
- Maybe you're interested: "Types of motivation: the 8 motivational sources"
3. Seek support
These types of processes are not stages that we must overcome alone. Extreme self-sufficiency makes us think that we must solve it without the help of others and without being aware of what happens to us. There are those who have a hard time showing themselves vulnerable in front of their loved ones, but when we have lost the illusion and motivation, we must consider that the support of friends and family will be a powerful tool to return to feel illusion.
Talk to a friend or family about how we feel, request their understanding and support, go to therapy or find a self-help group where people who have gone through the same thing as us meet, will eliminate the feeling of loneliness It tends to overwhelm us when we feel in a somber state without motivation.
Asking for support among the people around us is not just for us to listen to. We may require you to accompany us to perform procedures when someone has died, to find solutions to the loss of work, to make a move in the case of a divorce and to carry out these activities with the help of someone you love. It is a good way to reduce the feeling of desolation in us and disappointment that is afflicting us.
In this sense we must think that if we would be willing to offer support to someone we love and who needs it, surely someone will do it for us too.
4. Find the positive aspects of your life
When we are in a state of sadness, performing this exercise is more complicated than it seems, but it is necessary to do so.
With pen and paper in hand, make a list of those good things you have today and the achievements that at some point have made you proud . Here there are no more explanations or "buts" after scoring a positive aspect.
We have to focus on the concrete facts. Nothing of "I have my children but what is the use if I no longer have my partner". No, we have to focus on what we do have and what is positive and that has given us joy, stability and hope.
The objective of this exercise is to "return" our mind to reality that is full of good things and not so good and that is full of nuances, so if at this moment we feel that everything is bad, do a review of the good things will bring us back to reality.
5. Plan ahead!
When we lose the illusion, what we least want is to think about the future. The sense and motivation is lost .
Precisely because of this is that an important point to recover the illusion is to take back plans and tastes that excited us and put them back as goals.
While it is true that we must live in the here and now, future plans are often a powerful engine to get up and work today to get things done tomorrow, so we put back on the table activities that had previously moved us, it is a primordial step to recover the illusion.
Bibliographic references:
- Cuijpers, P .; Muñoz, R. F .; Clarke, G. N .; Lewinsohn, P. M. (2009). "Psychoeducational treatment and prevention of depression: The 'coping with depression' course thirty years later." Clinical Psychology Review. 29 (5): 449-58.
