Events in our journey through life can sometimes trigger unexpected emotional distress right when we need to stay focused on making sound decisions about how to perform in school, at work or in other more personal relationships. Our emotions may interfere with our capacity to reason about major or minor issues.  As as student, we want to sort through, prioritize and do class assignments and concentrate on getting good grades.  At work we have a similar desire to stay on top of things rather than let things slide.  In personal relationships, our hearts yearn to know the right thing to say or do to cause things to work out for the best.  Just when we thought it was safe to swim in life’s waters, suddenly we may sense that “Jaws” is lurking somewhere too close by!  No matter how strong a swimmer we may be in calmer waters, in storm-tossed waters we may fear being seized and pulled under by emotions too big for us to handle alone.  If it happens to you, it need not jeopardize your performance in any role or deprive you of your gratitude for life.

Circumstances and Events May Affect You Differently than They Do Others

Emotionally upsetting circumstances and events that may throw you off stride more than you expect vary from person to person.  What’s most important is how one or a combination of them may be affecting you.  Here’s a list of some, but not necessarily all, possibilities that may factor into your mix:

• living away from the comfort zone of family and friends from our past, especially if we’re living in an unfamiliar city, culture or climate;
• adjusting to challenging or stressful family members, roommates, instructors. bosses, colleagues or class and/or work schedules;
• facing our own or a significant other’s illness, disability or financial crisis;
• dealing with a death, divorce or domestic violence affecting ourselves or someone close to us;
• encountering the loss of a significant relationship and feeling alone and adrift;
• discovering that our use of alcohol or other mood altering substance may have become more problematic than we’d foreseen;
• coming to terms with emotions carried over from being adopted, in foster care or feeling neglected, abandoned, rejected, bullied or abused in our past;
• coping with a potentially challenging or confusing sexual and/or gender orientation – our own or someone else’s;
• fearing rejection or exclusion by others if they discover things about us that we feel ashamed of or
• experiencing another form of separation, threat to security or social disruption that conflicts with our hopes, dreams and expectations.

On account of any number of life circumstances and events, we may find ourselves more emotionally upset than we expected to be and feel powerless to do anything effective to regain our balance and self-confidence.  Our sense of loneliness, powerlessness and helplessness can disable our coping skills, send us into a downward tailspin and leave us feeling adrift as if floating away from safety without a lifeline to haul us back or a lifejacket to keep us afloat when we feel fatigued.

Other events that throw us off stride may involve radical change of a more positive and yet still emotionally stressful nature.  For example, a parent’s new marriage or improved financial circumstances or the arrival of a family member may surprise us by how it affects us.  Gaining a new boyfriend or girlfriend may cause a torrent of emotions we find hard to channel constructively.  The very fact that we are suddenly freer to make our own decisions and not endure close supervision may release more intensely distracting emotions than we’d expected.  Become independent may leave us feeling lost and alone.  Growth, expansion or other cause for celebration can still generate emotions that sweep us along like an unexpected current or undertow just when we need the waters to be calmer while we stay afloat in school, at work and/or in intimate relationships.  Sure, in your head you may think that you should be ready to celebrate, but the timing may put more stress on you than you feel the capacity to handle alone.

Building Trust Counteracts the Impact of Stress on Your Productivity and Self-Confidence

Whatever the triggering event(s) or change(s) may be, our emotional reactions can sometimes prevent us from using our full capacity to make decisions and move forward in pursuit of academic goals. When you wonder how to keep your head above water and not drown academically, it’s important to know how to call for help and trust others to be helpful.  When you “call on Art,” I’ll help you connect with the assistance you both need and deserve.  This is not the time to judge and condemn yourself for any reason or tear yourself down as if you are at fault.  Feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, resentment, confusion or paralysis need not derail your studies or your life.  This is the time to ask others to help you see things from a clearer, more optimistic perspective and learn that you can swim better than you may believe and have more resources available to you than you know.  Take heart!  Keep the faith!  Even the most powerful feelings of shame, guilt and dread of facing the future can be resolved successfully in your favor with help from those who care. And there are always those who care about your welfare!  You may not yet know who they are but I can help you to meet them and learn to trust that they do care competently.

When we don’t know whom to trust and feel alone as if there’s no one to trust, even normal situations can cause us to feel overwhelmed and incapable of facing the tasks that need to be done.  Being alone with no one to trust may cause us to feel thrown far from our comfort zone and out of our element.  A key factor in draining our confidence and capacity to focus under such circumstances arises from feeling alone and inadequately supported emotionally.  Others in our circle of family and friends may not notice or anticipate our need for emotional support or may feel helpless to provide support even when they want to help.  Especially when you are away at school or tackling an academic career that others at home may not understand or know how to relate to, feelings of loneliness and despair are actually natural.

It’s important that you not condemn yourself for having powerful feelings, even powerful feelings of feeling powerless.  As paradoxical as it may seem, having strong emotions is actually a good sign, a sign that you are a powerful person who is temporarily frustrated with the lack of opportunities to express your power.  Strong emotions can also be a sign that you care deeply about another person or issue and want to make a difference that you’re not yet sure how to make.  If you’ll “call on Art,” we can take up those topics and find your opportunities together.  I invite you to learn that there are people you can trust to be helpful.  I am one.  There are others.  In time, you’ll find the right ones for you and experience the relief that your heart cries out for.

How Calling on Art Helps You

Consulting with me may provide you the emotionally supportive help you need to make progress in tackling the tasks at hand — both the tasks that are academic and the tasks that support your academic success and personal happiness and satisfaction. In talking with me, you participate as a significant person in an empowering relationship with a person who understands the unsettling emotions of radical change because I’ve been in your shoes. While you and others around you may not be familiar with the emotional features of personal growth, life transitions and trust-shaking events, I am. With my presence as a resource — even in the face of shattered dreams and shaken trust — you can feel more confident and competent as you leave the past “status quo” behind, enter into new territory and find your bearings there. There may be no “magic” answers but there are solutions that you’ll find suitable and satisfactory.  I don’t pretend to be “the answer man,” but I do know how to help you feel more completely supported emotionally as you seek and discover the solutions and resolutions that work best for you.  The common goal we’ll share is the nurturing of your best interests.

It’s true that it helps to believe in yourself enough to seek help as if you are a valuable person no matter what may be going on that seems to say otherwise.  No matter how dark things may look, you are in fact always a valuable person.  No matter how much you may doubt it and conclude that events from your past and present prove your lack of value, that’s not an accurate conclusion. There is always more to the story.  When you “call on Art,” I’ll help you find the rest of the story and even help you write the next chapter of your story in a more favorable light.

Procrastination and Confusion as Signs of Potential Progress

When there’s a lot to be done and little emotional capacity to face it, it’s understandable to avoid emotionally loaded tasks and let them go until later. That’s sometimes called “procrastination.”  It’s not laziness.  It’s a sign of emotional overload.  Down the road you’ll be glad that you consulted with me and others for help and found the resources within yourself to move forward. I will help you scope out your options and establish a plan that works for you and those you’re most concerned about. It’s helpful to allow others to participate as allies in your life to whatever degree you are comfortable doing so while you also realize that you’re still in charge and that others have their own values and priorities that govern their lives.

The confusion naturally experienced after a significant change, loss, gain or other confidence-shaking or emotionally destabilizing development (even the demands of growth or dreams come true!) need not control the outcome or cause unnecessary frustrations or disruptions in your academic career, work life or personal relationships. One purpose in consulting with me is to establish an orderly process even in the face of the confusion that unsettling emotions can generate.

Call on me to talk about any situation or issue you are experiencing that you sense I may be able to help you resolve. I’ll let you know how I can assist you to overcome feelings of powerlessness and create the outcome you dare to desire but may not now envision is possible.  Don’t let temporary symptoms of feeling disheartened and discouraged prevent you from reaching out for allies and supportive resources.  There may be no magic solutions, but miracles do happen when you open your life to receive them.  You can reach me by phone at 773-899-3347 or by email at sent2art@gmail.com.

© Art Nicol 2018