Have you ever had one of those days, or months, or years, when you felt like life’s situations were locking a ball and chain around you, holding you stuck in a negative situation or keeping you trapped in a depressed or sad mood? Do you want to move forward but don’t know how to shake it off?

Help is here! ?

I’m delighted to have Karen Salmansohn as my guest today. She’s a best selling author of many books with over 1 million sold. Her newest is The Bounce Back Book: How To Thrive In The Face Of Adversity, Setbacks And Losses (Workman Publishing Company, 2008). It’s dressed in a symbolic red rubber cover. Just like a red rubber ball bounces back when it’s thrown against a wall, Karen tells her readers how to bounce back from a variety of situations.

The Bounce Back Book has gotten high praise from many impressive folks, including Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, and Lucy S. Danziger, Editor-in-Chief of SELF. It’s a great gift for someone you know who’s going though a personal struggle or for yourself. As Danziger says, “Salmansohn’s advice for regaining your footing after a life set back is smart, do-able and even fun. Chock-full of mood-lifting exercises designed to increase self-awareness and enhance resilience, this mini-guidebook makes clear that we all have inner strength, once we know how to access it.”

Tips from The Bounce Back Book
By Karen Salmansohn
Life is full of uncertainties, and what we have planned doesn’t always go as expected. In fact, there’s a big ‘ol “IF” in the middle of “life” that reminds us of lurking stipulations. My newest book, The Bounce Back Book, is chock full of tips on how to help you cope with these setbacks.

For example, Tip # 21 reminds you that when life throws you curve balls, hit them out of the park.

If you’ve been fired…consider starting your own company.

If you’ve had a bad breakup…consider moving to another city or country.

If you’ve been faced with an illness…consider training to run a marathon and becoming your healthiest self ever.

Change is good if you INSIST on making change be good. Don’t’ fight it. EMBRACE it. Go with the flow of your change by considering flowing in a new direction. Brainstorm crazy new ideas that are now newly possible.

And Tip # 23 from my book helps you harness this flow. “People are seldom happier than when they are in the flow,” says psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who has spent more than 25 years researching this phenomenon. He once described flow as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved an you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

A lot of people experience flow while exercising. I know I do. As a runner, I often want to give up midway through my workout. But that’s when I push myself though that wall of pain. I stay focused only on taking the next step, then the next step, then the next. Before I know it, I’ve completed my run.

To be clear, flow is not about zoning out. Any damn fool can sit in front of the television and forget their troubles for an hour (or six).

Seek out the thing that absorbs your attention utterly, the thing you look forward to, that takes your mind off your struggles, if only for a little bit. Flow can be illusive. If it was easy to get, we’d all be “flowing” all the time. You may not find your flow right away, but keep looking for it. And when you do find it, make it a priority to fit flow into your daily life.

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Karen is so right that when you find your flow, you can push through the pain! Her example of running resonated with me, as I do that when I run too. It hurts, I get tired, it’s hot, and I want to stop and go home. But I don’t! I talk to myself and stay in the flow of doing something healthy for me. Like Karen says, it’s not about zoning out. I stay in the run, or find other things that absorb me. Finding and staying in the flow does help me get through the negatives and come out the other side stronger. It can help you too!

Check out Karen Salmansohn and her terrific new title, The Bounce Back Book.

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