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I have had a respectable career, undoubtedly a market leader in my field in a relatively shorter period than usual. I premise this most vulnerable piece with an estimation of strength so as to help readers understand that, the most resilient may have their moment. This post aims at helping anyone who may peradventure find themselves close to a Nervous Breakdown reconstruct from those ashes. Like the mythical Phoenix, these ashes are the place for rebirth and renewal. I wish to reflect on a module for a happy life for people like me who may have known too little affection and have a burden of self-worth to proof in order to be accepted and loved.
For the purposes of background, nervous breakdown is generally viewed as a period when physical and emotional stress become intolerable and impair one’s ability to function effectively. One experiences physical, psychological, and behavioral symptoms when going through a breakdown. The signs of a nervous breakdown may however vary from person to person but a diagnosis is usually conditioned on the following symptoms: depressive symptoms such as loss of hope, anxiety with high blood pressure, tense muscles, clammy hands, dizziness, upset stomach, and trembling or shaking, insomnia, extreme mood swings or unexplained outbursts, panic attacks, which include chest pain, detachment from reality and self, extreme fear, and difficulty breathing, paranoia, such as believing someone is watching you or stalking you and flashbacks of a traumatic event. I will digress to tell two stories from which I shall pull it all together.
A story is told of David in 2nd Samuel 23: 15-17, a king longing for water is privileged to have three of his strongest men get him water against all odd by breaking the Philistine camp, David considering the effort sacred and worth as much as the blood of these soldiers poured the water as a sacrifice to the Lord. It was on Friday, when I had left a branch review and with the whole bank’s end of day outstanding, I run to get a card, a gift for a loved one. I had sought to join another lane, completely mindless of a military convoy, saved by only a dent of grace but carefully insulted and humiliated by a military man whiles everyone looked on. The tale gets shorter with the card been rejected and pretty much embarrassing moments which I have very little strength to recount. At the same time I had cost business dependents considerable loss of time as end of day needed to be approved.
Early, in the week, my Chief Operating Officer had called me indicating how much of weight I had lost and that I had to take care of my health and work as I was not the person he knew. It is an obvious fact of science that urban life presents considering stress as the meta analysis by Reddy and Chandrashekhar (1998) revealed higher prevalence of mental disorders in urban area i.e., 80.6%, whereas it was 48.9% in rural area. Mental disorders primarily composed of depression and neurotic disorders is twice as likely in urban setting as so I am sure most people reading this can relate to the acute stress and its related consequences. Herein I share my opinion for finding peace in our hyper stress environments.
- Pursue Positive Self-affirmation. Narratives of people we consider important affects how we think of ourselves. These thoughts affects how we behave and value ourselves. Science professes the therapy called, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a talking therapy aimed at helping people solve problems by changing how they think and behave. The premise of this help says that, the concept that your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and actions are interconnected, and that negative thoughts and feelings can trap you in a vicious cycle. The obvious commonsensical approach therefore is to opine that we stay away from negative thoughts and people. This can however be counterproductive and we end up focusing more energy on the negative. I think it is more productive actively tendering towards the positive rather than seeking to stay away from the negative. Positive people and environment may not be common yet I think God has gifted each of us with at least one person who loves and treasure you, just as you are. The difficulty however is usually, we do not like these people and end up been the source of negative environment to them. The task therefore is of us to be positive and endearing to the gifts of love God has given us, be positive to those who seek us and to actively value those who affirm our personhood rather than dwelling too much on those we have over esteemed their opinion of us. Do not perpetrate the hurt of rejection you receive from those you love. Love when despised for your love to someone is all the energy they may need. I had always believed been with someone you love rather than someone who loves you but that way of thinking is can be a problem when your love is never enough. You must thank God for the gift to love and learn to love those who love you, we can be flexible to those who are nice to us and by allowing ourselves to be appreciated by others, the loathe of those we love will matter less over time. Allowing ourselves not to overestimate the value of the loss is important as that consequently undervalues anything else that may be had.
- Renew you calling, a wise woman told me in the midst of these challenging times, “you cannot lose twice.” Whatever we want, for which we are stressing ourselves is not comparable to the blessing of what we have now. Denmark is known to be the happiest country, with people having a good work life balance. The ultimate secret is argued to be contentment. Contentment does not mean mediocrity but it means understanding what is important in life. Denmark is a beautiful country with its people focused on what makes them happy and fulfilled. It is a rich country where people contribute to the overall meaning by focusing on what they do best. This engenders societal trust and an enabling environment for beauty to thrive. I love what I do but in those moments, I did not have the energy to do work as I love to, the secret however is, whatever we do not have or may have lost should not make us loose the things that could potentially give us the positive self-assurance we need. Giving up all noble pursuits is a likely trap but the key is to know those pursuits are windows from which we may escape the darkness we find ourselves.
- Appreciate Life for purpose and its big picture. All the stress of life reaches out to an irreconcilable mess if everything is resolved to be random. The sure endless conclusion will be to no end if it is all deemed meaningless. I think one of the most powerful thought patterns than can help us overcome every darkness is to believe and know, it is intended to building the new us required for a new level in our life.
In conclusion, let with reflect on Abraham Lincoln who suffered many of life’s setbacks and went through circumstance that could stress the most resilient and yet the 16th president of United States is deemed to have a distinctively human and humane personality. His opinion of the way out is such gloom is known in his quote “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” Happiness is therefore not a goal but a way of living. You can be happy if you want to, right now. See the beauty in anything, look at the positive side, and count your blessings. A research by Harvard of 740 leaders indicated that 84% suffered from chronic stress which undoubtedly affected their effectiveness. The signs are obvious in the increase in addictions and attention clamoring with the shock and awe sometimes in all the nudity, but the cure in perhaps a change of mind. Let us actively engage our minds and direct it on the course of positivity for wherein is our sanity.
