I discovered a life hack last year that works wonders for recovering from difficult, awkward, or even painful situations. I have a hard time forgetting such situations and I tend to replay them in my head. Mindfulness meditation and floating have reduced this tendency, although it still happens more than I’d like. What I’ve found helpful for dealing with this is to revisit the places where those bad experiences occurred and have good experiences in them. This way, I have something positive to think about, which balances out the negative and takes a great deal of weight off my shoulders.
Most of my travels have been fairly smooth and largely free of issues. However, I have had some negative experiences in Alabama and Orlando, Florida, within the past few years. What’s helped me accept and move past these experiences is going back and having fun there. Both of my enjoyable experiences happened to involve swing dancing: I went to Orlando last year for an evening of dancing and I went to Alabama earlier this year for Lollies and Lemonade 2019. At this point, when I think about the hard times I had in those places, I can also think about the good times I’ve had there, which always makes me feel better. This has also gotten rid of the fear and anxiety that I developed after those negative experiences and replaced it with a sense of peace and excitement. As a result, I’ve been able to go on a lot of trips and keep a positive attitude, knowing that I can take steps to avoid most potential problems and find solutions for any that do occur along the way. This has made my trips much smoother and more enjoyable and allowed me to indulge my love of traveling.
This also works when I’ve had an awkward interaction with another person. After such an interaction, I’ll often give them space for a while so we can both process what happened and respond in our own ways. Once we’ve had some time to do that, it’s easier to reconnect and have a more enjoyable interaction the next time since I now have a better idea of what to avoid doing. Even if I’ve had some awkward interactions with other people, having a lot of positive experiences with them definitely makes me feel more at ease around them and I’m sure it works the same way for them as well. Whether I use this life hack to feel better around people or places, it always does the trick and allows me to move forward in life with excitement and confidence. And I hope it does the same for you.