Note, this definition makes no mention of the types of efforts used to master, reduce, or tolerate stress. "Active efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress." (Weiten, 2014) This may not come easy and if you find that you cannot tolerate uncertainty, risk, and unpredictability so much so that it is causing you intense anxiety, you may want to seek the assistance of a mental-health counselor in identifying ways to cope.įrom a psychological perspective "coping" is defined as, If you're someone who feels as though you need to control everything and everyone, you can work on letting go of this tendency. Even if it's only incrementally over time and even if you have to seek outside help to do so.įor starters, here are a few things that may be within your control. You may have to work harder than you're used to impact your thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors, but you can. One thing you can generally control is yourself, even though grief has a tricky way of making you feel like you can't. So if you can't control the world and other people and you can't just give up, then what do you do? I would suggest the best thing you can do is claw your way towards the middle of the continuum by (1) identifying the things you can't control and then (2) focusing on the things that you can. This end of the spectrum is not good either. Someone who has developed learned helplessness may stop trying to escape their pain, stop looking for solutions, and/or give up on efforts to cope with or improve their overall situation. There is a psychological concept called "learned helplessness" that occurs when a person passively gives up because they've learned from their experiences that bad things happen regardless of their actions. On the other end of the spectrum, some people may come to the conclusion that they have no ability to exert influence on their environment, to control the things that happen to them, or to manage their intense grief emotions. It's impossible to prevent any and all future negative experiences and trying to do so is an all-consuming full-time job. But here's the problem - there are things that are out of your control. When a person feels truly helpless and vulnerable for the first time, they may think to themselves – "Nope.never letting this happen again." So they attempt to control their emotions, their environment, and the safety and health of their family and friends. Some people will evaluate their situation and say to themselves – “I hate feeling like I don’t have control” - or - “I hate feeling like I could lose control” - or - “This happened because I didn’t try hard enough to control” - so - “.let me try really hard to control things from here on out.” As always, grief responses exist on a continuum. How you made sense of what happened and how you ultimately cope with life’s inherent risk and randomness depends on a number of different factors. Your loved one’s death undoubtedly challenged your assumptions about life and forced you to face realities that you had previously been more than happy to ignore. If the world is erratic and unpredictable, then what does that mean about one's ability to control what happens to them and to their loved ones? When something bad happens that's beyond a person’s control, like the death of a loved one, they often reevaluate their entire understanding of the world and their role within it. Grief isn’t an emotional experience, it’s an entire paradigm shift. Anxiety, Seeking Order and Control, Life After Loss, Grief Articles for Beginners
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