20

Sesssion 20

Strategies for Coping with Adversity

In my opinion, all that is in italics and/or with a line MUST be included on the screen, with or without pics, because it helps with the narrative...

-          „Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam

-          They are not long, the days of wine and roses” – Horace

-          Some may feel like that and we all pass thorugh traumas

-          Bertrand Russell in The Conquest of Happiness explains the futility of intense anxiety about events from the future, which we could not control

But there are ways to cope with negative, traumatic events:

-          ABCDE

-          Not like the ABC from Glengarry Glen Ross!

a.      The A from ABCDE: Adversity:

-          Describe a recent Adversity.

-          Include the details of the situation.

-          Don’t let your beliefs get you down!

-          Remember Hamlet : „There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”

b.      B stands for Beliefs:

-          Record what you were saying to yourself in the midst of the Adversity

-          Very often, the belief is wrong

c.       C comes from Consequences:

-          The consequences of your beliefs can be serious, if based on imagined adversity

-          Do your Consequences make sense given your Beliefs?

d.      D is Dispute:

-          Generate one piece of Evidence to point out the inaccuracy in your beliefs:

-          I have achieved great things in the past, for instance

e.       In some versions, there is only ABCD, without the- Energy:

-          Think about how your disputation changed your energy.

There are other means of course:

-          When facing adversity, instead of sitting idle and worry, get outdoors for a walk

-          Bertrand Russell in The Conquest of Happiness explains the futility of intense anxiety about events from the future, which we could not control

-          Forgivness and its extreme in South Africa

Finally

-          The last three minutes of Dostoyevsky

-          Aliosa from One Day in the Life of Ivan Dennisovich