Overwhelmed? Time to make a bucket list? (Not THAT one.)

Sometimes it can feel like life throws a lot of curveballs at once, and they come at us so fast that we feel like we don't know which one to try and catch, or if we should even bother to try. Or if we should try to juggle all of them until we fall down exhausted.

Caregivers have a special relationship with curveballs.

Here's a way to look at what's going on in your life in a way that might help to reduce your anxiety.

Managing your your responsibilities as a caregiver is one challenge. Others might include a bill that has to get paid, a relationship problem, your boss’s bad moods, your child’s last report card, that leaky sink…

Put each challenge in its own bucket.

Then, go from one bucket to the next, one at a time rather than all at once. As you examine what's in each bucket, ask yourself: What do I have control over here and what do I not have control over? Is there anything about this problem that needs my attention? What do I have to do? What do I have to accept?

As you examine what’s in each bucket, decide:

What you can and can’t do about the problem.

What your action plan is (don't forget to focus on what you can actually control here).

How important it is to solve this problem, compared to the other challenges you are facing right now.

And ask yourself: Is this something that I need to learn to sit with, as I am learning to sit with life as life is, and not as I wish it would be?

Line the buckets up, with the most important bucket first in line, followed by the others, in order of importance. In other words, ask yourself which bucket you want to dive into first. Hint: it’s important to care for the caregiver, so I would put that self-care bucket first in line, and keep it there! What does it mean for you to take care of yourself?

Take action – realistic action – and then move on to the next bucket.

This isn't magic. Your challenges aren't going to magically go away. But you can at least see where you are making headway and where you aren't, and you can see what you need to do. And maybe you can even see where you need to relax.

The point is to look at your life challenges in a way that provides you with the opportunity to see where they can, individually, be managed. It's when we see only this big mass of trouble that we feel overwhelmed.

Part of coping with life is realizing what we can change and what we can't change, and then deciding how best to go with the flow.

I would also encourage you to reach out for support. Friends, family members, who can listen objectively when you need to talk. You might also consider reaching out to a mental health professional to help you to maintain your perspective as you deal with these challenges.

Anticipating a happy 2011

Yes, in spite of the title of my post, I write that without sarcasm. So you might be asking, how can I have a happy new year when I'm feeling anything but happy?

It is a human to be continuously hoping for more in life, to wish that things were different than what we actually experience, to not understand why our best efforts don't always seem to pay off, to be amazed that other people behave as they do. Feeling disappointed at the unfairness of life. The world just doesn't work the way that we think it should.

For better or worse, it's normal to feel this way. Someone in my house feels this way at times. Since I live alone, it must be me. Yep, it's me.
What I have learned to do in my own life, and try to help my clients to do, is to "sit" with disappointment. That doesn't mean welcoming disappointment, and it doesn't mean wallowing in it.

Sitting is really about accepting. When we sit with our disappointment, we accept that life isn't always what we wish it would be or think it should be (even if, darn it all, we are absolutely right!). It means living life on life's terms. Acknowledging that things aren't as we would have them to be, picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves off, moving on.

Hoping — and striving — for something better is what keeps us moving forward in our lives.

I know this isn't easy for you to do. It's not easy for me, either. And I know that if you are experiencing clinical depression, living with disappointment, picking yourself up and moving forward, takes additional help in the form of medication and therapy. I remind my clients that asking for help from the mental health profession is a sign of strength, and resilience, that will to live that is inherent in all human beings, and not weakness.

We are all surrounded by lots of evidence as to why we feel disappointed. No disputing that. But I would also encourage you to look for the evidence that there is also a lot of good in the world, and the people who live in it. We're all in this together.

As humans, not having our expectations met, as reasonable as they are, is part of the deal. Accepting that our expectations won't always be met and, sometimes, never seem to be met, can help you to give up the internal battle: The battle of you against the world and the world against you. I would encourage you to relax the need to always be in control and, instead, to go with the flow.

Life is what it is. Let's work with what is.

What we do have control over is our ability to choose — to choose to see the possibilities, to choose to reach out for professional help, to choose to bring supportive people into our lives, to choose to make the absolute best out of our own lives and the lives of the people we care about.

So I will say it again. Happy New Year! I am thrilled to be friends with so many fellow travelers on the road of life. By being strong for each other, we also become stronger as individuals.