CBP S1E9: Whatever Happens, I Will Handle It

Sometimes life can be pretty crappy, and it seems like there’s so much fear and anxiety about what will happen next. In this episode, I’m talking about something that gives me comfort when I’m freaking out about what will happen next. Whatever happens, I will handle it!

Referenced in this episode: 

• Give Yourself the Gift of “I Will Handle It”
• No More Mr. Nice Guy | Robert Glover [affiliate link]

Other Links:

• Subscribe to our mailing list at: https://www.coffeegritandinspiration.com/subscription
• View the video of this podcast at: https://youtu.be/puJfUVW9eXc

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Transcript

Hello and welcome, this is Dianne Whitford from Coffee, Grit and Inspiration, and this is the weekly Coffee Break podcast. Welcome to the show! Hey everybody, by the time you’re listening to this, I will be having my gallbladder taken out. I will be knocked out, doped up, completely incapacitated. And so hopefully technology for once works for me to where this video and podcast and everything is scheduled just like it’s supposed to be. This week’s podcast is a little bit, kind of by the seat of my pants. I had a lot of stuff going on this week and trying to get ready for the surgery and stuff like that. And so I was not quite as prepared as I normally like to be. But, what I did want to talk about today is the stress and stuff that comes with not knowing what’s about to happen. So a few weeks ago I did a blog post called Whatever Happens, I Will Handle It.

And I got that idea from a book that I read called No More Mister Nice Guy [by Robert Glover; affiliate link]. And this book is intended for men that are trying to get comfortable with the idea of being men and…before people get upset about gender equality and roles and gender roles and all that stuff. I’m not saying anything in regards to that, just that I believe there are differences between the genders. They look at things differently, they think about things differently. They process things differently. Whether you, whether you are a man, you identify as a man, you’re a woman, you identify as woman or whatever. You don’t identify as anything at all. Point being that it’s a benefit to you to, to really get comfortable with what you are. No More Mister Nice Guy [by Robert Glover; affiliate link] is geared towards men, and I read it because I wanted to understand a little bit more about the male perspective. And in it, the author talks about how – anyone really – doesn’t, it’s not just men, but how anyone really can sort of alleviate a lot of the stress and concern and fear and anxiety that they feel about things by just reminding themselves that they can handle it.

Whatever happens, they can handle it. One of the things I tend to do is, my brain goes into overdrive when something like this is happening, like with my surgery or something similar, my brain goes into overdrive. What if this happens? What if that happens? What if a comet falls down from the sky and crashes into my house? And I try to make plans for all of these things that could possibly happen. Most of them never do, but my brain goes into overdrive trying to plan for every eventuality. And what that does to me, I think, is it psyches me out. It gets me freaked out. Like with this surgery, I’m like Googling everything that could possibly go wrong and, and I’m got all these crazy, you know, on one hand I’m super excited to get the surgery over with because it’s helping to alleviate it hopefully will help alleviate a lot of the symptoms I’m having, like really wacky stuff – chest pains and back pain and everything that doesn’t really seem to be associated with a gallbladder but is, and so on one hand I’m really excited about that.

On the other, I’m starting to think about the fact that I’m going into surgery, I’m gonna have an organ removed. They’re going to have to like cut me open and like go in and take things and, pull it out and it’s just really gross! And it’s freaking me out a little bit, you know? And so I’m trying to have all these plans for what if this happens and what if that happens and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the reality is that whatever happens, good or bad, I’ll handle it. I’ll handle it. What’s so powerful about that is that it frees me from having to worry. Yes, my mind is still going to be preoccupied with all the things that could go wrong. But when I tell myself that whatever happens, I’ll handle it, it alleviates some of that pressure that I feel to have a plan for every eventuality.

I still wonder what might happen. I still think about those things, but I don’t feel, I don’t feel as stressed or anxious because I know that even if the worst happens, I’ll handle it. I think the reason I do this, why I get so worked up and why many of us might get so worked up about things is because we’re afraid. We’re afraid of what might happen. We’re afraid that we will fail. We’re afraid that this thing will happen and we won’t be able to deal with it. And when we give into that fear and we give in to to that feeling of helplessness, we sell ourselves short a little bit. Right? Cause if you think about in your life, all the things that have happened, you, I’m pretty sure you know, you can’t really get past the age of like three without bad things happening to you.

And even then, like the worst thing in the world is when you’re a two year old, the worst thing in the world is being told no, you know? So even at two you’re still having to deal with disappointment and failure. And I think when you look at all the things that you’ve gotten through and accomplished and overcome in your life, even if you’re still working through a lot of that stuff, even if it leaves scars and you still experience trauma, you still survived. In one form or another. Right? And, and I’m not saying that we survive unscathed, and I’m not saying that, you know, this is a magic set of words that will prevent us from ever having to feel pain again because I don’t think that’s realistic. But when we remember that we have made it through those things and we did survive, and if we need help, we can ask for it.

It helps to, to think back over that stuff and realize that when something like this is happening in, you’re afraid of what’s going to happen, at least know that whatever happens, whatever happens, you’ll figure out a way to deal with it. I like to call this evidence. So if you, if you take like 15-20 minutes, sit down, write down all the things that happened in your life that maybe at the time you thought you were never going to get over or something that was super difficult to overcome and look at each of those things and realize that you have managed to overcome a lot. You know, I think we are all way more capable than we believe. And we can handle a lot more than we think we can. Maybe not well, maybe not perfectly, but we can do it. And when you look at the things in your list of all of the things that you’ve accomplished or that you’ve overcome, maybe you wished you would’ve handled something differently or maybe you could have handled something better, or maybe it would’ve been great to have a different outcome.

Or maybe you’re still working through some of the fallout from some of those things. But just looking at that list is evidence that you can make it through something bad. One way or another. And maybe as time goes on and you look at the way you reacted to some of those things and the way that you, the mechanisms that you used to cope, maybe you find new tools or new ways of doing it. But the reality is that all of that is proof that you are living and learning and making it through. One of the things I really like about saying I can handle it or I will handle it is that it, it just, it’s almost like, okay, yes, all this stuff might happen. All this stuff might go wrong, but I’ll handle it. And it’s, and it’s kind of freeing and it de-stresses you. You kind of lift, you take that opportunity to acknowledge, yes, I’m feeling anxious.

Yes, I’m feeling stressed, I’m feeling uncomfortable. I don’t like this feeling. And rather than try to shove all that down or aside and pretend that you’re not feeling it or, or, you know, hide it. You’re acknowledging, yes, I’m freaked out. I’m freaked out about all this stuff and that’s okay. And I’ll handle it. It’s not I, if I didn’t feel all this stuff, I could, it’s, I’m feeling all of this and I’ll handle it. So I guess that’s my message for today is life is tough. Sometimes life is shitty. For me, I don’t know if you guys feel this way too, but sometimes it feels like every day is a struggle and something goes wrong and nothing ever goes right. And that is so upsetting sometimes and it’s discouraging. But even with all of that, even with all of that, having the proof that even when it sucks, even when it’s bad, I will still make it through. And you know, the only way out is through sometimes. The only way out of a situation is to go through it. And going through that, being comfortable with how you’re feeling about it and still doing it anyway and still realizing that you can handle it. Maybe that’s sometimes all you need.

So I hope this helps. I hope you guys have a wonderful week. I’m going to be scheduling this podcast and probably next week’s as well. So the next couple of weeks you’ll still get your podcast. But it will have been recorded in advance. If I can make technology work. Technology is one of the things, I tell you what, I just struggle with all the time. I’ll put a link to the book that I was just talking about. No More Mister Nice Guy, I’ll put a link to that into the description. There’ll be a transcript on our blog. If you, hopefully, if you’re listening to this on iTunes or Spotify and you can give us a rating, please don’t hesitate. Send us a comment over on the blog or an email. You can sign up for our newsletter at www.coffeegritandinspiration.com/subscription. I hope you have a great safe, wonderful week and I’ll see you next time. Bye.