Something that has helped me live with my Cerebral Palsy is acknowledging and appreciating my abilities rather than my limitations. I sat in enough clinics through my childhood to see that while some had better abilities than me, others had to struggle with much more severe challenges. I never felt elevated over the latter, but I didn’t overlook the so-called silver linings or flip sides in my life.
Suffice to say, flip sides have always kept me in check, no matter what kind of situation I face. When I’m disposed to a pity party, my resilient brain will usually kick in with the flip sides. “At least you can…” “At least you have…” “At least you didn’t…”
I’m grateful for such an internal mechanism, with it sparing me a great deal of misery. As the saying goes, “Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.” The way you view what has happened dictates your response, so you’ll react better if you try to look at the flip side. Plus, people who think they have the worst-case scenario all of the time typically have a harder time coping with even simple setbacks because they magnify them into major obstacles.
Though it can be a gift when you have this natural fail-safe inside of you, most people don’t appreciate being told to look at the bright side. I’ve learned this on both ends, as others have snapped at me for trying to bring it out, and I’ve admittedly snapped at others for the same reason! In many cases, such efforts come off as insensitive, like you aren’t compassionate to the problem under discussion. In truth, however, it’s often said with the best of intentions, in hopes of alleviating some of the individual’s pain.
If you ward off those external voices, might you sometimes ward off your internal voice? If so, is that healthy?
While I truly appreciate my tendency to uncover the flip side, I’ve found that there are occasions when you should tune it out, at least initially. Granted, I’d discourage jumping right to the worst-case-scenario extreme, but you ought to allow yourself to experience the pain the situation merits. Even if it’s not the worst-case scenario, a troubling development or loss requires grief. More than that, it requires healing, and you can’t heal without pain.
Thus, it’s not wrong to dismiss those silver linings for a time. Accept that the matter affects you, and let yourself cry, mope, release a primal scream, or whatever coping mechanism you may have. In Turn Your Reeling into Healing, I compare healing from physical injury to healing from emotional wounds. Both healing processes take time, and you can’t simply will yourself to be completely recovered.
You might say the flip side is part of that recovery. In certain cases, you can skip right to it, similar to just slapping on a Band-Aid and almost forgetting about the wound. Other times, you may need to put a temporary mute on the flip sides until a bit later. Perhaps, you’d tell yourself, “Today, I’ll wallow, but I’ll look at the flip side tomorrow.”
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