When life throws us lemons - Let’s make lemonade!

Sometimes I genuinely think life is pretty crappy. No truly. It seems to me that after living through the biggest lockdown New South Wales (the State Sydney is a part of), having family members crook, herding the kids, and hearing their please “is COVID over yet?”, all seem to sap a little bit of energy every day. Now I hope this isn’t all doom and gloom and in fact, the very point of this BLOG is that there is an upside, but I’m genuinely just wanting to keep it real.

Well, you might have heard of this saying when life throws you lemons, let’s make lemonade. Let’s have a look at the upside.

Well, the psychology research points to something very interesting when we talk about our general mood and wellbeing. In fact, the “Normal state” of a human being, not being in lockdown with a global pandemic, is slightly more positive than what reality is. Ie when someone is cruising through life and they are feeling a little bit more positive than is probably the reality, that is very normal (cue the reality music when I go to try clothes on sometimes at the factory outlet … whose is that guy in the mirror?). So what does that mean?

Well, the research found when e take that further and we go through a traumatic experience, eg a global pandemic, and we see the silver lining in the situation … when we express gratitude about the situation, it actually transforms the situation in our memory to be something that actually added to our life in some way. Built our lives, slowed us down, sharpened our resolve, made us more healthy … in some way added resilience to our lives (love that groovy psychology word).

I’ve loved in the last few weeks hearing my clients talk about this some of them will miss the by-products of lockdown in our city/state. I’ve heard things like … I’m really going to miss the family time we’ve been having, and I’ve discovered we had a back yard and it is pretty cool .. They have been talking about bushwalking and getting back into nature, have picnics with good friends, and learning how to use technology to connect in a whole new way. Overall though, most people have lived through this situation and it is making us better people (if I can say that).

So the point of today is that when life sends us lemons, let’s make lemonade. Let’s find the silver lining and wonder in every day and keep looking forwards to the bright future we all have.

Thanks again for reading! It really is a privilege.

Exciting news! We have a new psychologist has started at Next Step Psychology & Counselling! Her name is Anna Madigan-Singh and she has over 23+ years as a psychologist and counsellor.

Please contact us if you would like to book an appointment with Anna! Please be quick because she is filling up fast!