Living with Uncertainty and Still Enjoying Life

Your world has just stopped in its tracks. I know mine did! You've been bombarded with devastating words. Cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, catastrophic loss, debilitating injury, death, divorce, suicide, financial ruin, and terminal illness are among the most alarming words in the human language. Words that explode in your ears as they indicate that you and your family are now on a journey of living with uncertainty, clouding your future and troubling your soul. They will—if you let them—topple you in the midst of your crisis. An earthquake has struck at your very foundation, and recovering from it will be no easy task.

Living with uncertainty and still finding ways to enjoy life is an attainable goal! Most of us would not volunteer for a difficult life passage, but that does not stop a life crisis from suddenly erupting. Some calamity happens from time to time in every life.

Everything in our world may feel like it is turned upside down! Many things that seemed really important may suddenly have turned out to not be so important after all! In learning to live with uncertainty, it is important that we refocus ourselves on making a safe landing through life enhancing decisions, rather than giving up and letting ourselves experience a crash.

This book will focus on the positive, encouraging influence we can have in our lives, even while battling extreme life crises, handicapping events, or serious diseases with uncertain outcomes.

There are two important aspects to conquering a life crisis. One is attempting to move as quickly as possible away from focusing on it, to a new focus on identifying and bravely approaching possible solutions. Following this is the process of adapting to the unpleasant situation itself, learning how to live with it day to day. Regardless of what the life crisis was, the people discussed in this book have learned to promptly start searching for a problem solving technique that gives them the best chance of making it through with the least possible damage.

The second equally important aspect is conquering and defeating the detrimental emotional effects that the crisis can have on the affected person and loved ones. Attitude is an important factor in the healing process, after encountering significant uncertainties in life.

My approach in this book is to look at life's uncertainties from the affected person's standpoint. The goal is to provide encouragement as well as a process that helps conquer fear and improve quality of life while walking through a challenging journey. Even beyond that, it is possible to keep joy and happiness through any difficult journey.

How can that be? There will be moments of sadness in this journey. There are techniques and mindsets which have been proven to help individuals maintain a positive outlook in their lives, even through very dark and disturbing crises. The intent here is to effectively describe a wide range of those approaches, so that you can find hope even in the midst of your uncertainty.

We encounter emotional detours when we find ourselves face to face with crises in our lives. They change the rules and block the direction we were traveling in. Uncertainty sets in. This leaves us wondering if our lives will ever be the same again. Remember that tomorrow is a blank page in the journal of your life! Write a great page! You are the author of that story. You get to choose what you write on the pages ahead of you.

If you focus on what you left behind, you will not be able to see what lies ahead! Strain to look ahead instead of being fixed on an unpleasant time in your past or your present.

Optimistically assume that you have the strength and wisdom to turn an unpleasant crisis into a positive outcome. Optimism that is still in touch with reality serves us well when navigating a crisis. We can accomplish amazing things as we emerge from a life crisis as long as we stubbornly refuse to let it engulf and define us!

It doesn't matter what the life crisis is. What matters is how you approach it. How you approach the crisis can result in a worsening of the situation, or it can limit it from stealing more than it already has.

A calm and serene life turns into an adventure that you never asked for. Waves come in life, and it is better to have a surfboard handy when they do. Though your serenity may be temporarily taken away, you can regain joy once you learn how to ride the waves.

Artists who focus on the end goal produce the most wonderful works of art. They cover over their mistakes by painting new successes over their prior failures.

Let your crisis situation stimulate you to embark on a beautiful transformation in your life. You may feel like you are crawling now, but you can emerge soaring if you focus on constructing a hopeful future.