Three Life-Giving Choices for a Nose-up Attitude
Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude. — Zig Ziglar
If you look past the cliche-ish nature of those words, there is some truth worth listening to. The right kind of attitude while grieving makes a difference.
I’m not talking about an artificial positivity but rather a grounded optimism that carries you through the rough days and helps you keep your head and nose pointed in an upward direction. The polar opposite of a nose up attitude will not serve you or help you invite life to walk alongside your grief.
The key is to realize you have the power to chose your attitude — even when circumstances are overwhelming because of loss. Choosing a nose up attitude matters and is something you and I can do by making certain choices.
Three Choices That Will Help You Shift to a Nose-up Attitude
An airplane actually has an attitude indicator. It’s a gauge on the dash board that tells you the direction of the plane compared to the ground. If the nose of the plane is pointed downward, you have a bad attitude. If it’s pointed upward, you have a good attitude.
While grieving, I’m not suggesting at all that sadness and the many other negative emotions are equated with an downward attitude. They need to validated. What I am talking about is the way you think and frame your situation.
Choice #1: Choose tempered—optimism
Optimism is “the quality of being full of hope and emphasizing the good parts of a situation; a belief that something good will happen.”*
Pessimism is “a tendency to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen; a lack of hope or confidence in the future.”
Tempered-optimism is the ability to hold the reality of negative emotions with a belief that there are still good parts to you life you can embrace. It’s the ability to have hope for tomorrow but find a way to grind it out each and every day.
Having your optimism tempered means you find ways to cope with your loneliness, fear, brain fog, inability to focus, and the numerous other feelings, thoughts and reactions that show up after a loss.
A nose up attitude is not airy fairy positivity but a positive perspective that goes hand in hand with routines that help you get through your toughest days.
When I was being pulled down towards the ground, I’d go for a bike ride, walk my dog around the block, meet a friend for coffee, and indulge in short-term distractions to pass a little bit of time.
Choice #2: Choose realistic expectations
Expectations can be a friend or foe. They’re a friend when the final outcome matches your expectations. They’re a foe when the outcome is nowhere close to what you expect.
When hit by loss, expectations of what you hope for takes a huge hit and requires expectation management to keep you on track. There are two ditches I tried to stay out of. The ditch of having no expectations and the ditch of having unrealistic expectations.
Having no expectations sounds appealing but unfortunately leaves you motionless and limp. Unrealistic expectations, on the other hand, create disappointment and false hope.
I learned to stop predicting how I thought my grief would go and where I was on some artificial time line. I gave up my need to predict how I would think or feel on any given day.
Realistic expectations helped me relax and deal with both pain and pleasure. They helped me keep my nose up and strengthen my resiliency muscles.
Choice #3: Choose a long term view
The grief journey is a marathon not a sprint. Everything within me wanted my grief to pass quickly but it was completely outside my control. I decided to take the long view and sit with my pain, sadness and suffering. I simply let my grief pass over me in whatever way it needed to.
When you embrace a long term view, you embrace character and resiliency growth. A long view helps you take your hand off the wheel and in time find the healing and newness of life you can only hope for.
Shortsightedness during times of grief leads to missed discoveries.
Once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about. — Haruki Murakami
A nose up attitude does have the patience for the long haul and will help you learn to live again when you’re ready.
Reflection Questions
What’s one thing you are positive about right now?
What’s a daily practice or routine that will help you cope with what’s hard?
What barriers do you face that may be keeping you from embracing a long-term view?
