3 Steps on How To Regain Your Sanity

When it feels like everything is falling apart, what is that you can do to keep yourself sane?

As of lately, I’ve been under a certain amount of stress and anxiety from worrying about the future and specifically my financial situation.

It’s so easy to fall down the rabbit hole of anxiety and let yourself spiral, and it can feel impossible to get out of it and stop worrying.

Over the past few days, I’ve had to remember some of my good old tricks that helped me get out a very difficult period last year.

Breathe

Breathe, because that’s the only thing you can control.

When your mind is spiraling and your thoughts are racing a thousand miles an hour, you begin to feel powerless and the slave of your mind.

Taking a minute, just a minute, or sometimes even a few breaths, can completely change your perspective, or at least stop yourself from completely spiraling into the abyss.

You can’t always control your circumstances, but you can always control your reaction.

And that oftentimes starts with taking a deep breath.

Take responsibility

“You can’t always control your circumstances, but you can always control your reaction.”

Assigning your happiness only to a specific outcome is a recipe for disaster, and will almost always leave you miserable.

However, surrendering control, and admitting, no matter how hard you want to argue, that you are not in control of the outcome, but you are always in control of your reaction and how you choose to feel, is what will truly bring you peace of mind.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is a choice.

It’s easier to try and control life around you than it is to cultivate a Stoic state of mind.

Trying to control the outcome instead of your reaction is like giving up the reins of the horse you’re riding in order to take up the ones of there person next to you, and then try to steer them away from colliding with you.

Just as pointless, and just as painful.

Guarantee what you can

“The outcome is not guaranteed, but my effort is.”

Aside from my reaction and behavior, my effort is the only thing I will ever be able to guarantee.

I know it may seem hopeless and terrifying but remember your most powerful asset.

Your mind.

Your life and how you live it begins and ends in the mind.

Surrendering control is not easy, nor should it be.

Taking responsibility for your reaction is not easy until you try.

And putting in the work that you don’t know will pay off can sound disheartening, because having your hopes shattered is not a fun experience.

But really, in the end, will the energy you spend on stressing and worrying about the future amount to anything? What about your efforts and work?

Our futures are never guaranteed, no matter how much we wish otherwise, but our reaction is, and ultimately, that’s what matters.

Start taking back control by taking a single breath, and see where that leads you.