How to Deal with Being Thrown Off-Balance
Several times when certain unexpected things happen to us, we often do not know how to deal with the shock so we end up being thrown off-balance as a result. Sometimes by the time you realize it, it’s probably be “too late” to deal with it thus, leading to all forms of regret.
This is similar to what a lot of psychologist term cognitive disorientation in psychopathology.
Being thrown off-balance/ or caught off-guard can happen in many nuanced ways and if care is not taken, other very conspicuous ways that may result to one questioning their characters.
Being thrown off-balance and it’s bad aftermaths often occur due to unpreparedness and lack of balance of which mindfulness proves helpful to retaining your mental stamina and deal with the affector. I will explain how
Unpreparedness as a causal factor of being thrown off-balance
When you’ve not ascertained who you are and taken out time to discover your capabilities — likes and dislikes, good and bad, you’re as good as someone with lack of self-awareness.
Someone with whom everything goes.
If you lack self-awareness, you’re most likely unable to detect signals for when something is about to attack you and be prepared to deal with it. This could be in the form of physical danger (in which case fight or flight ensues) or mental danger (which requires healthy cognitive process).
Preparedness allows you to ruminate and understand firsthand, that life is full of ups and downs and to be ready. It allows you to differentiate when to relax from when to rise to deal with certain disturbances that may be cast your way.
Whereas the inability to prepare and stay prepared shows the degree of respective lack of self-awareness and mindfulness otherwise, causal factors for being thrown off-balance.
Balance as a helpful tool in dealing with being thrown off-balance
Practice makes perfect
When you’ve a sustainable degree of mental stamina or balance, it goes a long way to enabling you resist the forces that may attempt to pull you down.
Imagine when you’ve consistently been practicing wide range of self improvement techniques such as self-awareness and mindfulness, it creates a mental balance that outweighs anything that may try to throw you off-balance.
To put it in simple terms, being balanced invariably cannot cause you to be off-balance because in conjunction with preparedness and its advantages as aforementioned, you’re well adjusted/ or adapted through the countless dealings (with the key techniques mentioned above) of similar scenarios from the past — work, social, personal or family life name it.
This means that consistent practice to be and remain better at dealing with different circumstances you find yourself in, would lead you to retaining/or sustaining your mental balance for when it’s tempted to go off radar.
Emotional distress as a causal factor for being thrown off-balance
There’re times you need to be thrown off guard in order to return back to a balanced state of mind and deal with what’s been thrown at you and this is where the act of being present and yourself comes into play. More like immediate self-reflection.
Let’s assume for instance, you’ve just been involved in a heated argument with one of your loved ones and hence, been put in an emotional distress afterwards due to the kind of hurtful words he/she used on you — especially if you’re a sensitive person. You could lose the momentum to defend yourself or get your point across instantly because of that state of shock. This is a typical example of being thrown off-balance but the devastating effect from this could cause you deep emotional wounds as opposed to if you
- endeavored to be present and open minded that such thing is bound to happen
- Engaged in an immediate self-reflection by asking yourself how best to respond to the situation
- Practiced self-care and not let the effects of the argument affect you negatively
In essence, being present allows you to exercise a lot of fighting techniques — such as self-awareness, mindfulness/or self-reflection and most importantly self-care which will all help you sieve how much you let in and discard in order to continue to protect your sanity and hence, from being thrown off-balance.
Culture shock as a trigger to being thrown off-balance
A book titled “You Can’t Go Home Again” by the novelist Thomas Wolfe, explains the various unexpected experiences one can go through from returning to their culture of origin after having adopted or adapted to another (foreign) culture.
He further went ahead to add that these unexpected experiences can be problematic as the “said person” finds it difficult to fit back into the same culture that they used to know because of the strong influence on them from the other culture they were exposed to when they traveled.
This in turn, affects adaptability and can lead to constant or intermittent states of imbalance/ or cognitive disorientation.
This therefore helps emphasize preparedness in all aspects (physical, mental…) — through the self-improvement techniques as aforementioned, as playing key roles for gaining adaptability/flexibility, hence averting the grave disorientation afterwards.
What am I trying to say?
Being thrown off-balance or cognitive disorientation begins with the lack of self-awareness and ends ugly due to the lack of mindfulness/immediate self-reflection to quickly deal.
Consistent practice of the above, in conjunction with other self-improvement techniques like self-care (through avoidance/withdrawals from exposure of mentally distressing situations), will aid in foreseeing the signs, be prepared for what’s to come, become balanced and thus, enhance the ability to deal with the people/situations (affector) that may aim to throw you off-balance.
You can do this, you just need to make up your mind and stay mindful.
