Loss of a job, the end of a love relationship, forced abandonment of a dream — collapse or a chance for a new life? Sometimes it’s our failures that make us change. Experts from the Italian Psychologies told how to cope with failures and benefit from them.
Our careers collapse in one moment, great love suddenly ends, friendship evaporates. Some put all their money into a business that is doomed to bankruptcy, others give all their love to the wrong person, and their energy to work that does not live up to expectations. It often happens that a person chooses a path that leads to defeat. I just want to review my life from the very beginning, like a feature film, and find scenes in it that I would like to re-shoot …
Alas, life is not a movie, and in the real world we constantly have to deal with what psychologists define as the fear of loss. We can’t sleep, we can’t eat, or, on the contrary, we begin to “eat” our grief, we feel guilty.
How to get out of this defeatist state? How to turn a blow to your own pride inflicted by failure into an incentive for self-development?
Dealing with disappointment is not easy. The best medicine in this case is conversation.
From the 48-year-old teacher Simonetta, the husband left for a young girl. “In cases of this kind, people experience a particularly acute sense of failure, which greatly undermines self-esteem,” explains Rosie Paonessa, a relationship consultant. – This means that you need to work on yourself and accept the work of the emotional path, as one accepts the idea of illness. At the same time, it is important to understand that we are not alone, as it might first seem to us: we have friends, neighbors, colleagues.” One of the greatest obstacles to rebirth is to internalize our limit.
“Dealing with disappointment is not easy. The best medicine in this case is conversation, explains Giuseppe Pozzi, professor of clinical psychology at the Bicocca University of Milan. – Speak and listen, speak and feel that you are heard. Stop thinking about the usefulness of self-help groups, as well as psychological support phones: it’s time to act.
Thanks to classes with a psychologist, Simonetta realized that over the years she had set rules for herself, which over time became more important than feelings. She swore to herself that «I would never take the role of a mistress and would never take a man away from another woman.» Before being “reborn”, she had to understand herself and, most importantly, move from feeling like a victim (“I gave him my best years, and he …”) or from feeling guilty (“I failed to keep our love”) to feel completely responsible. After all, both guilt and victimhood are a trap. There is some mechanism that can be conditionally called “enjoyment of a complaint”: a person experiences a certain satisfaction, blaming everyone around for his troubles, and things do not move forward.
The word «failure» does not exist as such; there is only our way of interpreting what happened to us
This is what happened to 26-year-old Monica, who was going to enter a prestigious business school., but failed the entrance exams and became desperate. It took some time before she realized that this was not her way. In the end, this failure served her well, as the girl was able to discover other talents in herself. Even losing your job can be the first step towards change. Of course, it is very difficult to look at failure in this way, because for us it is like a sudden hurricane that blows our beliefs and confidence to shreds.
50-year-old Maria, the head of a small firm, knows this firsthand. — as a result of the restructuring of the company, it was reduced and a real panic seized it. “20 years of work went down the drain. To say it was a complete failure is an understatement.» However, as psychologists explain, the word «failure» does not exist as such; there is only our way of interpreting what happened to us. If our interpretation is honest enough, it initiates a vital upsurge.
Here you can not do without analysis, consisting of questions that you need to ask yourself: “Why didn’t it work? Have I set too difficult goals for myself? Raised the bar? Did you use insufficient funds? What did I learn from this lesson? How do I start over?» Alessandra Pasinato, a psychologist at the University of Milan, replies that the best remedy in this case is self-affirmation. A quick and decisive method that allows you to bring out the best that we have, any reserve energy: “What is the main driving force that we have at our disposal? Wish. As strong as the need requires. For this, self-affirmation is needed — for the remobilization of desire, which will entail reflection on new opportunities that open up and the choice of fate. Many thus discover in themselves not only the desire, but also the ability to return to the game.
The simplest and most enjoyable exercise is to close your eyes and remember the best moments of life.
“The easiest and most enjoyable exercise in the course of self-affirmation is to close your eyes and remember the best moments of life. This is how you get in touch with the deepest part of yourself. And then? Then one decides to have a child, another to get a divorce, a third to become a priest, and the one who lost his job finds another,” says Pasinato.
How are Simonetta, Monica and Maria now living? The first changed her image and found a man, he is married. The roles have changed, and now Simonetta has become a mistress. Monika found her calling in stage design. Maria opened her own consulting office, and the business is progressing quite successfully. All three women suffered, each from their own failures, but in the end, it was through these failures that they were able to change and become who they are now.
Writer Margaret Atwood said: “Defeat often tastes salty, like tears, with one sweet note somewhere in the depths. It is worth remembering that sometimes victory has the same taste.