How to deal with bad news without denting your confidence

By bad news, I mean news that you just don’t want to hear.

Having just had this experience myself, I wanted to share with you how I managed my process.


Even though I’ve done a ton of personal, spiritual and professional development – it doesn’t make me immune to Karma and a human experience! Life can be a roller coaster and as women when our emotional body takes a hit we can end up on the ‘Drama train to nowhere.’

Listen to your intuition

Rather than look for the big solution in the moment I choose to listen to my intuition,  took a breath, went for a gentle walk. My spirit wanted to be around a lot of creativity, beauty and a lot of people, (but not a heavy conversation!)

This is all simple stuff that we ignore when we are in emotional overwhelm – I’m not suggesting that you ignore the reality of the situation rather keep your focus on short term, like what can you do in the next 10 mins and simple.

What’s your question?

A little bit of self-coaching can go along way! I asked myself ‘What can I do to take myself out of myself?’ (i.e. I didn’t want to sink in to a sad soup or a pity party.) For me it was easier to come up with a question rather than the answer straightaway.

In response to this, I knew I wanted to be around a lot of creativity, beauty and a lot of people but not have any heavy conversations.

Instead of rushing home to mull and a bowl of Sad Soup, I choose to go to the Victoria & Albert museum. It’s a place that has been lovingly curated with creativity, beauty and history and it was easy for me to get lost in that environment.

Things might feel topsy-turvy for a bit

As women we don’t allow ourselves the time to be in a crappy topsy-turvy place and just be OK with it. With so much ‘self-help’ around in the form of workshops, books and online courses I have noticed that we feel the pressure to get to the solution. It’s made us very hard on ourselves in judging that we are weak for feeling anything, especially those sad negative thoughts.

When dealing with bad news, no matter your Soul group, your female body is wired for emotion and ignoring this won’t fix you.

Give yourself permission to feel topsy-turvy! It’s not going to last forever and by allowing yourself this time to begin with it can save you time and heartache in the long-term.

Mindful distraction

Give yourself permission for some mindful distraction will shift your focus from ruminating on your bad news. You know that ruminating feeling when you go round and round in a circle making yourself feel worse and powerless to do anything different.

I was just about to go home after the V&A when I remembered that I was within a hop and skip to Harrods – so I popped along to Harrods. A little bit of luxury goes along way!

Like the V&A everything in Harrods is the ‘best’ and has been created with such care and attention to detail. Somewhere like Harrods is more than just shopping, it’s a melting pot of luxury, artistic endeavours and business acumen. It’s a magnet of prosperity and that’s a uplifting vibe to relax in.

From this Christian Dior pane to the Chanel handbag concession – all are a product of someones creativity and love.

 

Rather than letting the bad news eat into my confidence and spirit – the choice I made to go somewhere beautiful mindfully distracted me. It allowed me to step off the Drama train and spend sometime with myself.

Mindfully distracting yourself with creativity and beauty is the fastest way to heal from bad news.