Moms and Dads
Having A Breakdown? A Life Coach Shares How To Deal
Everyone has their share of bad days… but a breakdown? That’s on a whole other level. Life coach Bam Santiago shares a tip that could change the way you deal with breakdowns
On my podcast, I recently spoke to a woman with a serious life challenge. Her mom was very sick and had been confined in a hospital for a couple of months already up to that point we spoke. Obviously, there was much emotional and financial strain on her and her family.
She narrated how she eventually had a breakdown and it affected her romantic relationship as well. She ended the relationship.
After she shared, I went into my own self-reflection, which is what I always do when I have conversations with people about their very personal life stories. I had mentioned that I had a similar breakdown just a week before we spoke.
I wondered what lessons we could draw out from each others’ experience.
So I started probing.
How do you feel now that you’ve shared this? What actions did you take after the emotional whirlwind died down?
She began to share her realizations.
She explained that she had created an expectation of people around her, her romantic partner in particular. She had an awareness, after the fact, that she was actually very toxic and became very demanding. I of course understood that under the circumstances anyone would likely have a breakdown too.
She continued to share, in a very calm manner, that she had realized just how overwhelmed she was feeling and that how she treated her partner and others around her was not fair at all.
She said she apologized and that she realized when no one seems to be around when we have our breakdowns, we can be there for ourselves.
I asked her what that meant for her. She mentioned she started doing deep breathing and giving herself affirmations. She then went on to journal her feelings and the actions she wanted to take when she felt better. I was so proud and happy for her. But not all of us have this self-awareness to help ourselves.
When we have our inevitable life breakdowns, you are lucky if you have someone you can go to, call, speak to in the heat of that moment. Otherwise, you will have a tendency to explode and say so many unkind words In anger. The words many of us have spoken to people we say we love that we later on regret.
What we all need
What if we all carried around a small index card that had the list of 4-5 names that we call specifically for when we have a breakdown? This is a metaphor of course, since we can just have those same people on speed dial. I like the image of the index card because once we bring it out, we are declaring to the universe that we need help!
I think having a realization of our need for support is a very powerful thing.
A lot of us love giving support and encouragement to others but many of us rarely ever ask for support when we have our breakdowns.
A listener was kind enough to write down what I had shared on the interview regarding the index card.
Here’s what I mentioned:
When you have your breakdowns, make sure you have this index card that has:
- The name and number of someone who you know will just listen allow you to vent
- The name and number of someone who will pray for you
- The name and number of someone of the same sex you can go to for a word of wisdom
- You can fill this in with whatever ideas you may have….
Of course every single role here can be done by just one person, consider the names as options when that one person you are trying to call isn’t available or is going through a crisis of their own(this is exactly what happened to my guest, as she was having her breakdown she reached out to me while I was having my breakdown.
It’s always good to have that list so while in your state of anger, fear, anxiety etc. you can just scan down and ring the next person in line until you get yourself to a better state.
You probably are on someone’s list already. Wouldn’t it be great if your name was on that list for someone else?
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