Navigating Difficult Situations
Navigating Difficult Situations
Teenagers, FOMO and Managing Difficult Situations
In this newsletter, we provide you with notes on To All College & High School Students and People That Love Them, an episode of Flusterclux With Lynn Lyons: For Parents Who Worry.
Hosted by Lynn Lyons, a therapist, author, speaker, and one of the world's experts on helping parents, kids, and teens manage anxiety. She talks with co-host and sister-in-law Robin Hutson, the co-founder of Flusterclux.
Read our notes below.
Topics Covered in this Summary
What is FOMO?
3 Skills to Navigate Difficult Situations
Advice for Teenagers and Young Adults
What is FOMO?
FOMO means “fear of missing out." If you’re a teenager or a young adult, you will be feeling a lot of things. You might even feel as if the world is a little shaky under your feet.
There’s this urgency to play catch-up because there's so much you've missed and you think you’ll never be able to catch up. The reality is that we all miss out on things that we can’t redo.
Even if you feel like the college you’ve chosen wasn't the best fit for you or you're having difficulty academically, that‘s not something you have to blame yourself for. Here's the thing, your brain is incredibly malleable. You are learning and growing. The more that you understand and appreciate how changeable you are, the better off you're going to be.
Acknowledge the situation and make sure that you give yourself a little more room, grace, and time to figure these things out.
3 Skills to Navigate Difficult Situations
It’s absolutely normal to get overwhelmed by your emotions, to have difficulty with relationships, to experience heartbreak, and to have difficulty with conflict.
Here are 3 skills that can help you manage difficult situations:
You've got to learn how to be flexible rather than rigid in all areas. When things don't go the way that you expect them to go, you recognize that as a normal part of life and you figure out how to adjust.
The ability to pay attention and learn what makes you feel better and what makes you feel worse because your mood is greatly impacted by what you do or don't do.
Give yourself the connection that can make you feel fulfilled. If you are feeling alone, disconnected, or isolated, think about who you're going to spend time with that will fill you up. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
When you’re having difficulty with your emotional self, remember that these feelings are only temporary and that social and academic interactions are constant series of adjustments.
Advice for Teenagers and Young Adults
If you feel particularly worn down by what you've been through, haven't been out in the world, and have been hard on yourself, one piece of advice for you is to give of yourself.
Here are some suggestions:
Find ways to volunteer and offer meaningful connections with other people. Doing something for other people is much more impactful than most other things that you could do.
Exercise. Move your body, go for walks, or hike a mountain.
Meet with your friends to hang out, play touch football together, or go to a place that needs volunteers.
This is a time for you to take care of yourself in ways that are not sedentary, isolating, or internally focused. Hang in there and keep in mind that it’s okay for things not to go well.
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Listen to the original episode