What To Do About a Broken Spirit:

Have you ever had one of those days or nights where everything comes to a head out of the blue? Like a machine that is old and decrepit, with smoke pouring out of it and gears popping and scattering across the ground, some of your daily habits you know you should have gotten rid of or fixed long ago cause your world to crumble. Now everything looks like ruins, and you sit there, trying to process how to begin picking up the pieces to make things right again.

This whole situation is, suffice it to say, overwhelming to the point of almost total mental and emotional paralysis, and with good reason—sometimes certain things have to come to an end, at least for a time, to undergo a reset, and make things better. Bad spending habits (even with the best intentions), terrible diets and exercise plans, poor time management, and general laziness and apathy towards pressing tasks are all tendencies that must change to generate a better quality of life. Corrupt ways of thought must be left behind in favor of what is better and works in the long run.

Let’s first discuss what it means to have a broken spirit; a broken spirit is defined as being overwhelmed with sadness and pain and completely repentant about what caused that pain, as well as wanting to make things right. It’s the sort of pain that truly hurts down to the gut and causes the heart to ache in ways it’s never ached before. It causes the tears to fall like rain from your eyes as your throat closes up, your stomach and lungs feel as though they are collapsing inward, and you flat-out weep until you are exhausted.

However, it is also brokenness that seeks to immediately do whatever is necessary to make everything right about the situation at hand, and with such intensity and humility that one will stop at nothing until all factors about a situation are resolved as soon as possible—at least in areas one has control over, such as making a financial situation stable and thriving, or giving a friend you have hurt deeply (in my case without any intention of doing so) the space to heal for a time before trying to attempt reconnection.

But what do you do about a broken spirit in the meantime? What does a person do when the grieving process makes it difficult to do even normal daily tasks, such as eating right or sleeping? The process of cutting away old habits that do not serve yourself or a particular situation often leads to a lot of pain, and if beloved friendships cease even for a short time, there is a grieving process involved that feels as though it lasts an eternity.

I should know…I had an unexpected situation occur in my life that led to a friendship of five years into deep distress. My own heart is indeed broken over this situation itself as well as myself and my friends and family involved, all of whom I love so dearly. As I seek to make things right on all possible levels, I find myself having a foggy mind, a tear-stained face, and just about every part of me aching.

So how does a person stay motivated even when it feels like a long road ahead to make everything right again?

1. Allow time to process the situation.

The shock of a situation coming to a head and imploding at unexpected times is enough to make a person’s head spin like a top. It is dizzying, nauseating, anxiety-inducing, and leaves a person in a state of mental and emotional paralysis that, if left unchecked, could lead to worse and/or lethal mental states down the road.

After such a situation implodes or explodes, it is best to work to let things settle mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It is important to allow time to grieve the loss. Release the emotions as best as you can. Take walks to mentally sort everything out. Take long showers or baths to get rid of tension. Read books—lots of them. Get involved in prayer, if you’re religious or spiritual. Play video games til all hours of the night. Give yourself a much-needed break. Grieving is a natural part of the process that not only comes first, but can last a long time, and is important to the process because in situations like this, where the problems that occur lead to a loss of relationships, a job you may have loved, a potential income, or anything else, it is only right and fair to allow yourself that time to work through it all. Keep in mind there will also be times when you may explode in anger at the unfairness of the problem even occurring, and you will need private grieving time to do that properly.

You must do this. Your well-being depends on it. Neglecting this crucial part of the process only leads to your own emotions backfiring at inopportune times, thus leading to further problems down the road.

2. Make plans to solve the pressing problems.

This part of the process is to be done either as you’re ready to do so in the grieving process, or soon afterward. This is an action that will help get the ball rolling on finding ways to solve the problem or problems at hand.

One of the things I like to do when making plans is to take walks on a trail. A long trail with good terrain allows me to hunker down in my mind for a while and sort things out. I can create a good schedule for myself in terms of what it will take to accomplish everything that I need to take care of, and that includes solving my problems both big and small. It’s like coming up with a list of top priorities that must be taken care of within a reasonable time frame. I treat it as a time to sort out what needs doing first and how to restructure my time accordingly to meet the needs of resolution to my big problems, be it financial or relationship-oriented.

For folks like myself who happen to believe in God and submit to him, making plans also include sincere prayer about the problems at hand as well as being grateful for what is being done thus far; taking walks on a trail happens to be perfect for that as well. The reason why this is so is that we as Christians recognize and know full well that there is only so much that can be done on one’s own steam; the parts of the problems that are beyond our control are left to God for Him to work towards a solution that is within His sovereignty.

Another idea is to also take up journaling as a means of working through your anxiety about the situation, as well as a means of organizing your mind on what steps need to be taken to rectify the situation and figuring out your heart's motivations on why you need your situation resolved. People often recommend journaling as a means of relaxing your heart and mind to move forward, since (and this is especially true if you’re still in the grieving process) anxiety, depression, and anger about the situation can cause a mental and emotional paralysis that makes it difficult to get things accomplished. Journaling allows a person to set his/her mind on what needs to be done, and that direct focus on those goals gives that person a chance to know what they need to do and to get out there and do it.

3. Find solutions to other problems that contribute to the bigger problem.

Sometimes bigger problems that led to the broken spirit have a bunch of smaller problems that require resolution as well and serve as a means of breaking down the larger problems into more manageable pieces. This could be paying back smaller debts first and letting those snowball into paying off bigger debts, taking steps to build trust and reconcile with all parties involved, or resolving some once-hidden but now-exposed fears within yourself.

This is where journaling also helps, because as stated before, journaling helps a person get his or her mind sorted out on what needs to be done, and that includes taking care of smaller issues as well that have led to the buildup of the larger issues. An easy way to think about this is to do a mind map of sorts that centers around the big issue or issues you want to rectify, and then branch off to smaller bubbles that deal with the smaller issues that are either a symptom of the situation at large, or a side-effect. With that, make a list or two of possible ways to take care of the situation (if it’s financially based, consider perhaps taking out a loan or line of credit that will give you the funds to consolidate debts that led to the big blow up, or if not that then consider ways to make more money to pay off debts), as well as a plan of attack on the big and small issues to get them resolved.

4. Take action as soon as possible.

This may happen while grieving the loss, and may still be difficult even after coming up with good resolutions to the problem at hand, but planning will only do so much. There comes a time when a person has to take action, and the best time to do that is as soon as you can. Please keep in mind, that if you are still grieving heavily over the situation, you can and should give yourself time to process and mourn. However, you cannot allow yourself to be stuck there for long periods. If you want your life to turn around and become better, especially if you are the one who brought these problems on yourself (which is what I did), then you truly have no other choice than to get on top of the situation and solve your problems.

It may feel like tough advice to say that, but I have found that the sooner I take action to get my issues worked out and resolved, the more in control of my situation (at least financially) I feel. If I let that snowball into greater and greater success in getting out of debt, the easier the grieving process gets, and I become more able to get other matters hopefully resolved in due time. Granted, there are things I can never have full control over, but getting a hold of what I can control and make better for myself will go a long way towards personal healing, and may even help play a role in resurrecting what was lost in the future. I at least have that hope to cling on to.

Dealing with a broken spirit and a contrite heart is not easy; the loneliness of loss likes to take over and steal whatever joy you may have had before and turn it into pain. The intense depression and anxiety of not only wrecking what was there before, but also worrying about the future for yourself and those you care about, makes for a long road to recovery and reconciliation if that is even possible. However, this brokenness of spirit also leads to the desire to make things right again however possible in all areas affected.

If you or someone you know struggles with a broken spirit over a situation that ended abruptly, consider these steps mentioned above, and seek to work through it as best as you can. It’s never an easy road regaining control over a situation that went haywire and backfired like a crumbling machine, but with time and active work comes healing, and eventually a resolution of the problems at hand.