Six Things to Do When Life Throws You a Curveball

“While I was in Double-A with the Cubs, my roommate got called into the office and was demoted to a Single-A club. He was leading our team in home runs and runs batted in and was the best offensive player we had, but he had to go down a level. The powers that be had ordained someone else ‘the best offensive player we have’, so our actual batting leader’s success was somehow unacceptable . . .

The curveball becomes that rude awakening that often derails us from our tried and true plan to go from A to B . . . [T]he curveball is often just a test — most times thrown to see if you will chase something out of your zone.”

– Doug Glanville, Major League Baseball Player (Source)

We’ve all had the experience of life throwing us a curveball. It may be completely unexpected, it may be horribly unfair, and it may be difficult to believe that something like this could have happened to you. Nonetheless, there it is. The question now becomes how you’re going to deal it with it. Here are six things to do when life throws you a curve ball:

Don’t Over-Generalize

Just because something unexpected has temporarily knocked the wind out of you it doesn’t mean that your life is over, that you’ll never achieve the things that you want, or that you’re doomed to fail and struggle for the rest of your days.

Kimberley Cohen, Founder, Facilitator and Personal Insight Coach of The Insight Technique, explains that the fact that you’ve struck out doesn’t mean that you’re out of the game. You’re simply out until the next time you’re up to bat. She adds the following:

“There will be another inning, another game, another chance, and ‘how’ you handle the curve balls is really up to you. You can lose your confidence, your spirit, your love of the game or, you can take your stance at home plate, swing like you have never swung before and know you have a chance at hitting that ball far out into the outfield or the stands.”

Release Negative Emotions

One of the first things you need to do is to find a way to release the negative emotions that you’re feeling as a result of having been thrown a curveball. Whatever emotions you may be experiencing—including anger, fear, stress, sadness, and so on—you can let those emotions go.

Once you’ve released any negative emotions you’ll be in a much better position to make clear-headed choices about how to proceed, instead of rashly reacting to the moment and thereby probably making things worse than they already are.

The three best methods I’ve found for releasing negative emotions are EFT, The Sedona Method, and just plain old laughter.

Emotional Freedom Technique

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is a self-help tool which consists of tapping on energy points located throughout the body with your fingertips in order to release negative emotions, memories, and beliefs.  I wrote a comprehensive tutorial on how to do EFT here.

The Sedona Method

The Sedona Method consists of a series of questions you ask yourself that lead your awareness to focus on what you’re feeling in the moment and gently guide you toward letting it go. Although the course goes into much more detail, to summarize and simplify, whenever you feel a negative emotion you simply ask yourself the following three questions:

• Could I let this feeling go?
• Would I let this feeling go?
• If so, when?

You can read more about the Sedona Method here: The Sedona Method.

Laughter

Laughter prompts your body to release endorphins, also known as feel-good hormones. Endorphins are your body’s natural painkillers and they contribute to a sense of well-being. In addition, laughter has been found to reduce three detrimental stress hormones: cortisol, adrenaline, and dopac. Laughter will help you to relax and to look at your situation from a different, more positive perspective.

If you need a good laugh go read my post, 31 Funny Videos, Books, Stories & Quotes.

Meditate

Meditating will allow you to slow down your brain’s rhythm, which is conducive to relaxation, stress-relief, creative thinking, and better problem solving, as well as for finding new ideas. To quote Albert Einstein: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

When a person becomes stressed, fearful, angry, nervous, or feels any stirring emotion—which are feelings that often accompany an event that has a negative impact on your life–, the brain’s rhythm increases and brain activity rises. The more stressed we become, the more rapidly our brain waves vibrate. All negative thoughts, as well as anger, fear, and compulsive cravings, tend to be fast.

On the other hand, slower brain waves are associated with people who are calm, confident, and at ease. Positive thoughts, like love, patience, and understanding, are slow.

Basically, meditating is bringing your brain waves down to the alpha brain wave level, and there are many ways to do this. The best way I’ve found to enter Alpha is by using the Silva Life System. You can download a free demo of the Silva Life System and see if it also helps you to slow down your brain waves. In addition, I wrote a simple meditation routine which you can read here: Meditation in Ten Easy Steps.

Follow the Law of Least Effort

In his book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Pocketbook Guide to Fulfilling Your Dreams, Deepak Chopra explains “The Law of Least Effort”, which is basically the principle of no resistance. Chopra indicates that if you observe nature at work you’ll notice that it functions with effortless ease:

• Grass doesn’t try to grow, it just grows.
• Birds don’t try to fly, they just fly.
• Flowers don’t try to bloom, they just bloom.

When you’re in harmony with nature you can make use of the Law of Least Effort, and you achieve this harmony by removing your attention from your ego and placing it within. Even if you feel you’ve been treated unfairly and that a great wrong has been done unto you, you need to stop thinking along the following lines:

• How dare they do this to me?

• Don’t they know who I am?

• They’ll be sorry they did this.

This kind of thinking pulls you out of harmony with nature and consumes an enormous amount of energy. In “The Art of Dreaming” Don Juan tells Carlos Castaneda:

“[M]ost of our energy goes into upholding our importance . . . If we were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur; and two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to . . . catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe.”

That is, by releasing your need for ego-aggrandizement you’re freeing up energy you can better use to create the circumstances you envision for yourself.

Another component of the Law of Least Effort is acceptance. Chopra explains that when you struggle against the moment you’re struggling against the entire universe. You can wish for things to be different in the future, but at this moment in time you have to accept things as they are. He advises that you say the following to yourself: “this moment is as it should be, because the whole universe is as it should be.”

In the book Zen And the Art of Happiness, Chris Prentiss asks you to imagine that God appeared before you and said: “I promise you that everything that happens to you from this moment forward will be of the greatest benefit to you and will bring you the utmost fortune. Even though what happens will sometimes appear unfortunate or hurtful, in the end your life will be wonderfully blessed and hugely benefited by whatever happens.”

The author adds that if you‘re willing to give this concept a chance—that is, if you’re willing to accept that at this moment everything that’s happening is for your ultimate greater good–, you will be rewarded with a lifetime of happiness.

Instead of standing rigidly like an oak tree that cracks and collapses in a storm, be flexible like the bamboo tree that moves and bends with the storm and, as a result, survives. Another way of saying this is: roll with the punches.

Ask Yourself the Right Questions

In Living Your Best Life, Laura Berman Fortgang explains that we need to stop asking ourselves questions hoping to come up with information in order to understand a situation or circumstance. Information questions, such as “Why did this happen to me?”, “Why would they do that?”, “Why didn’t I get it?”, and so on, keep you stuck in the past. They make you rehash the negative scene over and over again in your mind as you struggle to make sense of what happened.

What you need to do instead is ask yourself questions that will help you to move forward. This includes questions such as the following:

• What do I need to get through this?
• What will get me what I want?
• What is the solution?
• What can I learn from this?

The basic premise is that you need to move away from trying to understand a problem and instead look for ways of solving it. Laura adds that the most powerful question you can ask yourself is: “What do I want?”.

Focus on What You Can Control

Stephen Covey explains in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that our “Circle of Concern” is where we focus our time and energy. That is, it comprises the things in which we have mental or emotional involvement and can include things such as our health, our children, the national debt, problems at work, and so on.

Within our Circle of Concern there are some things over which we have no control, and other things we can do something about. If we draw a smaller circle within our Circle of Concern we have our Circle of Influence, which includes all those things over which we can exercise some control.

You need to focus your efforts in your Circle of Influence instead of your Circle of Concern. When something negative happens to you, instead of thinking endlessly about things over which you have no control, focus on what you can do within your Circle of Influence. This approach is closely related to the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

-Reinhold Niebuhr

Conclusion

In case you’re wondering, life did indeed throw me a curveball. It happened Wednesday of last week. It wasn’t one of those huge, life-altering curveballs, thank goodness, but it did leave me feeling like someone had just punched me really hard in the stomach. By following the steps outlined above I’m feeling much better now. In fact, I think I may even have found a way to turn lemons into lemonade.

Editor’s Note: This post contains affiliate links.

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photo credit: Waldo Jaquith

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