Life can be very unpredictable, and most of us expect to live with occasional upheaval and unexpected changes. But what happens when life throws a major curveball? A knock you off your feet, never saw that coming, will I ever get up again, sort of curveball.
Curveballs come in all shapes and sizes, sometimes you sense it coming at you long before it lands, sometimes you have been knocked down before you realise you've been hit. They can be thrown by people close to you, perhaps ending or making you question a relationship. They can be thrown by life, sudden bad health or an accident, the loss of employment, a change in circumstance you hadn't anticipated. They are often things you can't protect yourself from, or easily avoid.
So how do you cope, when life launches a major curveball? When you feel like something has destroyed the life you know, changed everything you take for granted. How do you stay standing in the face of something powerful enough to knock you off your feet? The truth is, sometimes you don't. You crumble, you hit the ground, with the wind knocked out of you, and you wonder how you will ever stand strong again. Perhaps the first step to surviving a curveball is to accept that it got you, good and proper. And that that's okay, you've been hit hard, and you are going to take a moment to simply lie there and catch your breath. We often pressure ourselves to bounce back quickly, but there are times when the first step to recovery is to simply breathe through the pain.
The next step can be a hard one, getting back on your feet isn't easy when you've been winded by shock, pain and possibly grief and loss. Perhaps the way forward is to allow someone to help you back onto your feet, to take the hand offered to you, to allow someone else to support you, while you regain your balance.
If life has thrown you a curveball, and you are struggling to recover, reach out and let someone help. Whether it is a friend, a family member or a therapist, allow someone else to take the weight for a moment, to support you while you find your way back to some degree of equilibrium. Talking it through with a professional may be the quickest way to understand the changes the curveball brings, the way you learn to stand strong again, even if the landscape around you has changed. It may even be the way you learn to accept the new normal and even embrace the changes, and regain the strength to move forward in life.