Is What We Do After We Get Bad News Ours to Choose?
We all get bad news sometimes. But what we do after we receive it is up to each of us to choose.
One of my best friends wrecked an ankle long ago. Like, thoroughly destroyed it. They repaired it with pins and plates, and it served him for nearly 2 decades.
But over time, the pain levels associated with that ankle became unbearable. For several years he’s been fighting the constant pain, and it was negatively impacting his life.
At long last, they had an idea to get him some relief – and they did a surgical procedure to remove most of the plates and pins, hoping it would alleviate the pain.
At first, it seemed to work. But then, during recovery and rehab, the pain returned. This led to the bad news. His best option is to have the ankle replaced. FYI – he’s under 50.
That’s bad news. But you know what? He took it in stride. It was not unexpected – this surgery was not necessarily going to truly fix his ankle. At least now he knows what to expect and is planning accordingly.
This perfectly illustrates something we all experience at one time or another. We get bad news. And when that happens – we choose what to do next.
But first, let’s recognize and acknowledge a few truths we all must live with.
It does not matter who you are – you will receive bad news. And it will take any number of forms.
Everyone receives bad news from time to time
The bad news you receive might be about some overarching matter that you cannot control. Results of elections, decisions by the courts, school shootings, and everything else that happens in the world around us.
The next level of bad news we receive tends to still be indirect, but impacts people we care about. The injury of a friend, someone losing a job, a cancer diagnosis, a divorce, and that sort of thing. Bad news for people we know and care about – but that still doesn’t impact us directly.
This leads to bad news that directly affects us. A relationship we’re in ends, we get fired from a job, receive a terrible diagnosis, injury, or illness, and the like. Bad news that directly impacts us and our lives.
Everyone experiences this from time to time. Some is easy to deal with and move past. Some is a lot more difficult and might require ongoing action or treatment to handle.
Whatever it is, bad news generally presents an immediate, visceral reaction. And it’s always negative. We get upset, depressed, sad, angry, disturbed, uncertain, scared, and even sometimes a nasty combination of each of these all at once or in waves.
What we must recognize and acknowledge is that this is utterly, completely, and totally normal. It’s going to happen – and we can’t avoid it, disregard it, ignore it, or otherwise pretend it’s not a thing. That would be a form of toxic positivity, just FYI.
Because this is a normal human reaction, we need to accept it and even embrace it. Losses happen, bad news comes to each of us, and we can and should feel the bad feelings we have, grieve, and allow them to be.
For how long we allow them to be, however, is a choice.
Mindfulness provides choices
Conscious awareness of ourselves – in the here and now – is mindfulness. What does that look like? It’s a combination both of being aware of the world directly around us through the input of our six senses, alongside awareness of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. Together, that puts us in touch with our conscious awareness, our mindset/headspace/psyche selves.
Mindfulness of what we are thinking, what and how we’re feeling, the actions we take, and the intentions behind them are conscious awareness. When we have that awareness, we can alter our thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions how we see fit.
What’s more, we can see how our subconscious beliefs, values, and habits impact who, what, where, how, and why we are – in the present. Beyond that, we also gain clarity of how our ego reflects and projects both to the world and to ourselves.
Hence, we get to choose – after the initial, visceral reaction to bad news – how long to hold onto the negativity that it produced.
Let’s take a moment to recognize and acknowledge that I am not suggesting that we don’t have that immediate, visceral reaction at all. It’s normal and natural and unavoidable. But we do get to decide if it will dominate our lives going forward – and how long we allow for it to do that.
When you are able to move past the negativity that the bad news presents is variable. What the news is, how it impacts you, and the feelings it produces are all unique to you. Thus, so is when and how you move past it.
But via mindfulness, you do have a choice.
When does bad news stop causing pain?
This in and of itself presents a couple of different challenges. And again, there are things we need to recognize and acknowledge.
Some people go numb after bad news. They stop processing and appear to be alright. Maybe they are. But not necessarily. This is a post-visceral reaction reaction and is still under our control. But it can be hard to recognize – especially if we’ve closed ourselves off to avoid or dull any associated trauma and pain – mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical.
Allow yourself to feel what you are feeling. It is perfectly valid and you’re not wrong for feeling it. This is all part of the human experience.
But then, you do have a choice. Allow the negative feeling or numbness to dominate your life going forward – or choose what to do, and what your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions will be.
No, this is not easy. When you are reacting to bad news, it is going to take time to feel like you have any control whatsoever. But you do – when you choose to take it.
Everyone has three basic choices every day for how to approach and live life:
- Let life live you. What is, is, and just let it happen.
- Curl up in a ball and await death. Accept life is awful, you have no control, and don’t bother to experience anything that life offers you.
- Grab life like a bull by the horns and go for a ride. Take what control you can and experience life as fully as possible.
Everyone will go through all three of these experiences to a greater or lesser extent at one time or another. That’s just human nature.
But the truth is that we always have options and choices available to us.
This is your life and your path, but…
You will have negative experiences, receive bad news, and sometimes feel hopeless, disgruntled, dissatisfied, and otherwise negative. Congratulations – you’re human.
However – we all have the power to choose what we think, what and how we feel, intentions, and actions. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, nor that it is always so. Life is a paradox, yin and yang. Every single one of us lives between all the known extremes. This includes good and bad, positive and negative, right and wrong, black and white, and so on.
While we do always have the ability to make choices and decisions for our individual life experiences, that doesn’t mean that we always do. Bad news can cause us to freeze up, lose hope, and do naught but just exist for a time.
But how long that will be is up to us. We get to choose to release the pain and negativity – or not. And we might not be able to do it ourselves – it might require help. That might be therapy or just a deep conversation with a good friend and/or confidant.
Lastly – no matter what bad news you receive, you are worthy and deserving of all the good you seek in life. Bad news is a natural part of life and everyone gets some along the way. Some bad news is much worse than others. But there’s always a choice for what we choose going forward after the initial visceral reaction.
What did you do the last time you received bad news that directly impacted you?
This is the five-hundred and fifty-second exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
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