Understanding Your Difficulties So You Can Overcome Them

Now that you have your recovery capital in place, it makes it easier to deal with tackling your difficulties. But first, you need to understand your difficulties. This is one of the first things you would talk about with a therapist after having your assessment, at least in the UK. Thus, understanding your difficulties is an important step in improving your situation, with or without the help of a therapist.

 

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored article, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

 

 

Why Should You Care About Understanding Your Difficulties?

 

Whether you have mental health problems or not, we can all find ourselves struggling if our difficulties are left unresolved. This can lead to us feeling stressed, bringing us down, and leading to burnout. But when you have mental health issues or develop them as a result of unresolved difficulties, this can make it exponentially harder. This can result in even simple tasks becoming an uphill battle (My Online Therapy).

 

Unfortunately, it’s common for people to want to avoid and ignore their difficulties. That’s because our difficulties can be connected to emotionally charged events in our lives. For me, the trauma of my childhood stayed with me for a very long time, and I just wanted to pretend like it never happened.

 

However, my mind had other ideas and took every opportunity to remind me of my trauma. This is why trying to avoid and ignore these painful difficulties doesn’t really work, leading people to more extreme ways to continue to ignore and avoid these parts of us, such as abusing substances.

 

 

The Benefits Of Understanding Your Difficulties

 

Provides clarity

Writing down your difficulties helps you gain a better understanding of your situation. This can help you see things from a different perspective and provide clarity on the issues that you’re facing. Writing it all out can help you organise your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. This can help you gain a clearer picture of what you need to address, increasing your self-awareness. You may also start to notice patterns or recurring themes regarding your difficulties as a result of your increased self-awareness.

 

Problem-solving

Understanding your difficulties by writing about them can help you identify the root cause of the problem and develop a plan to address it. There are many ways to problem-solve your difficulties, but if you’re struggling in this regard, then check out my problem-solving article by clicking here.

 

Support

It can be easier to seek support when you know what your difficulties are. For example, it can make it easier to talk to your GP if you have an idea of what your difficulties are and you can condense it down you your short appointment time. However, you don’t have to wait. A therapist will help you identify your difficulties if you’re not sure during your sessions because they’re trained to do that.

 

Another method of seeking support, especially for those who are facing difficulties, such as addiction, is to search for a rehab centre. It can be daunting to research this on your own, but there are lots of resources out there to help you find a place that is compassionate towards your situation and will offer all the assistance that you’re looking for.

 

It can often take someone else helping you to really understand the difficulties that you’re facing. Coping with them alone can be a struggle, and it’s always nice to have someone at your side who can support you, provide good advice, and be there when you need them the most.

 

Another good reason for understanding your difficulties is that it’ll make it easier to share your difficulties with your loved ones. Often, people can find it hard to know what to do during conversations regarding how people are struggling. This doesn’t mean they don’t want to be there for you. It can just be hard to know how to respond. But, if you know what your difficulties are, then it’ll make it easier for them to understand because it’s easier for you to explain your difficulties to them.

 

 

Control

Bottling up our difficulties can cause more problems than you think. Therefore, when you feel overwhelmed by your difficulties, writing about them can provide a sense of control. That’s because you’re taking a step towards addressing the issues that are causing you distress. This can help you feel more empowered and in control of your situation.

 

Reduce stress and anxiety

As a result of gaining more control over your difficulties by understanding said difficulties can help reduce anxiety and stress. Just the act of writing about them can lift a weight off of your shoulders, which is why journaling is such a useful self-care habit. It helps us process what’s bothering us and was how I overcame my childhood trauma.

 

 

Understanding Your Difficulties Worksheet

 

Taking the time to work out our difficulties can help us problem-solve how to overcome them. My worksheet, which I designed to help people overcome their difficulties, makes for a useful starting point. This will also make it easier when having a conversation about your difficulties with someone else. Sometimes you need to get your thoughts together first. Below is a snippet of that worksheet with an option to download it.

 

You can download the worksheet by clicking here.

 

Summary

 

Outlining your difficulties can be a valuable tool for improving your mental health and overall wellbeing. When you understand your difficulties, can lead to several mental wellbeing benefits. Benefits such as providing clarity, reducing stress, and increasing self-awareness.

 

Therefore, if you’re struggling with mental health issues, consider writing down your thoughts and feelings. But remember, it is important to approach the process with self-compassion. Furthermore, just because you can work through your difficulties on your own, that doesn’t always mean it’s the healthiest option.

 

I published my article on recovery capital before this article for a reason, and that’s because other people play an important role in our wellbeing. That can be loved ones, mental health professionals, or other professional people in our lives, such as your GP.

 

Please reach out if you need to. You don’t need to go through this alone. There are always people willing to listen. Just check out my Global and UK crisis line pages for a starting point of where you could get more professional support.

 

As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, please share your experiences with working on your difficulties in the comments section below as well. Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, then sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, get push notifications for new articles by clicking the red bell icon in the bottom right corner.

 

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