Life Challenges-Gaining Perspective While Dealing With Adversity

Creative Ways to Transform Challenges:
Loving and Nurturing Yourself

Gaining Perspective by Helping Others and Balancing Your Life Laura Berman Fortgang

TOUCH ANOTHER LIFE TO FIND YOURS

One of the women attending a recent London seminar of mine approached me afterward and told me she was very well-known and had been involved in a very public scandal. I didn't recognize her and she didn't tell me her name or provide any further details. In the aftermath of the scandal, she had been trying to make herself feel better by spending lots of money on shopping and vacations. But now she wanted some concrete advice about getting her life back on track.

My suggestion was simple: "Get your hands dirty! Go out and hold dying babies or sing to an old person or serve food in a homeless shelter," I said. "You'll find yourself again." She seemed stunned for a moment but then something seemed to register with her. She thanked me and left.

The advice I gave this woman basically boils down to this: nothing will pull you out of your own stuff faster than realizing your stuff isn't so bad. Intellectually, you know that many other people are worse off than you, but seeing what really is going on in the world firsthand is a wonderful way to put your own life in perspective. You and your problems are not as important as you think they are. Nothing will make you realize this more clearly-or make you feel better about yourself-than when there are grateful eyes looking back at you because you improved someone else's condition a little bit.

"That's all well and good," you might respond, "but will it make my problems go away? Will it pay my mortgage? Will it heal my child's life-threatening illness?" Maybe not. But it will give you perspective. A mountain climber can't get a sense of where she is on the mountain by staring at the ground beneath her feet; she must look up or down to get a sense of where she must go next. Similarly, through gaining perspective, you may gain the clarity to hear your own wisdom directing you to take a certain action or find a resource that can help get you where you want to go.

WISDOM IN ACTION

I call this the self-centered challenge. For an entire week, I want you to strike the word "I" from your vocabulary. This is the most overused word in the English language, and you'll find it's not easy to avoid. As you realize how much you use "1." you'll find yourself much more interested in other people. This exercise may make you feel baffled, humbled, or even a little sad. Such feelings aren't permanent. They're just the result of your ego's shrinking and feeling very sorry for itself. Having a healthy ego is not a bad thing, but we could all stand to gain a little perspective on our place in the world. This perspective invites the ease and satisfaction I've been promising.

GOING TOO FAR

Although helping others is a very effective tool in helping you gain perspective on your life, it's also important that you not go too far. If helping someone else results in your neglecting your own life, then it defeats the purpose of gaining a healthy perspective. Being of service to people should not mean sacrificing yourself. When you sacrifice in this way, you end up not getting over yourself but losing yourself.

Giving has nothing to do with loss. Giving need only be sharing, and when you share, you lose nothing. However, if you are avoiding your own pain or responsibilities in taking care of others, not only do you not gain perspective but the help you are giving may actually be less effective than it would be if you were clearly giving to share.

This is because when we overwhelm ourselves with helping other people, we often become resentful, stressed, overburdened, and even numb. But when we give to others in a balanced way, we find ourselves instead of losing ourselves in the process.

GETTING SOME DISTANCE

Besides doing for others and not taking things personally, great perspective can come from simply getting some distance from a situation. This can be done literally: If you are having trouble at work, get up and go outside for a walk to take yourself out of the environment that's causing you so much stress. Even if you are in the middle of something, break your thinking pattern by clearing your head with a walk and you'll be so much more productive when you get back.

Getting distance can also be metaphorical. Sometimes we need mental space more than physical space. If you are having trouble with a relationship, try moving your mind away from it by engaging your creativity. Draw a picture about how you feel, do some work on a workshop or craft project, read a short story or even a kid's book. All these activities take you someplace else mentally and are sometimes enough to gain the perspective you need to come back to the relationship and deal with the issues more objectively

If literal and metaphorical distances do not release the grip your mind has on you, I'm afraid you'll have no other choice than to give up and laugh.

Excerpts from Living Your Best Life: Ten Strategies for Getting from Where You Are to Where You're Meant to Be (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. New York, 2001).

Laura Berman Fortgang is also the author of Take Yourself to the Top: The Secrets of America's #1 Career Coach and a highly sought-after speaker and popular media source. She is a founding member of the International Coach Federation and the president and owner of InterCoach, a coaching company that supports individuals and companies to create extraordinary futures with less struggle. She has been featured by The Oprah Winfrey Show, NBC's Weekend Today Show, CNN, MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fast Company, Money, Entrepreneur, Executive Female, Working Woman, Glamour and Good Housekeeping among others. Laura lives in Montclair, New Jersey with her husband and three children. You can visit Laura's website at www.laurabermanfortgang.com.

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