If there were no night, we would not appreciate the day, nor could we see the stars and the vastness of the heavens. We must partake of the bitter with the sweet. There is a divine purpose in the adversities we encounter every day. They prepare, they purge, they purify, and thus they bless.
— James E. Faust
» Logistics
» Gaining Even More Control Over Your Life After Your Car Accident
» Journaling, Eating Well, and More After a Louisiana Car Crash
» Resting, Meditating, and Connecting with Others After Your Car Crash
» Getting Your Finances Rock Solid After Your Car Accident
Odds are, you already had a lot of stuff going on in your life before the crash. Maybe you were in the middle of looking for work. Maybe you were in the middle of a family or debt crisis. Perhaps you’re nearing retirement, or maybe you just got your driver’s license.
In any case, post-accident, most people find that they struggle to deal with emotional, physical and financial concerns. To that end, let’s quickly go over some strategies to help you manage these areas of your life.
Logistics
A car accident can create lots of uncertainty and extra “to do” items… in addition to obvious problems, such as demands on your time, pain, and medical and car rental costs. So how can you deal with this tidal wave of “to-do items,” reduce the uncertainty in your life, and get back to feeling a sense of control, and calm?
Here’s a useful exercise.
Rope off about three hours to do it. Using a pen and paper or a computer Word document, write down all of your commitments down. Every. Single One. Include simple things like “I need to go to Office Depot to buy pens” as well as items like “I want to climb a mountain with my brother one day” in addition to urgent concerns like “I need to find a Louisiana personal injury lawyer immediately.”
Don’t worry about what to do about this information right now; just write down everything on your mind, so that you can get these things off your mind. The brain, after all, is very bad at storing information.
To your surprise, just doing this exercise should quickly lead to a feeling of calm and hope. You will see, as you go through this exercise, that you probably only have a few hundred (at most) things lingering on your mind. Your to-do list is not endless.
Plus, only by knowing what you are not doing in any moment can you feel comfortable with what you are doing at that moment. And being present in the moment will allow you to make better decisions, even while you are in pain or facing an insurance crisis or family drama.
Gaining Even More Control Over Your Life After Your Car Accident
Collecting all the loose ends of your life is just the first step in what could be a more involved process of getting organized. After all, if you don’t process what you’ve collected, organize it in some fashion, review it, and take action on it, your sense of control will be temporary, at best.
Go through the items on your list (which we discussed in our previous post), and figure out two things about them.
- What is the final result you want to achieve regarding each item?
- What would be the next step you would take towards achieving that goal, if you wanted to work on that item right now?
For instance, if the project is pretty simple, such as “find an injury lawyer,” your next step might be to call your cousin for a referral or just to finish reading this book. In other cases, you may need to do a bit more thinking.
For more insight into this process, check out this excellent summary of David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” methodology.
You don’t need to follow this exact recipe, obviously. But the general point here is that you should try to take stock of what’s going on in your life, create written lists of what needs to be done, and use a process to get on top of your “stuff,” so that you don’t feel so overwhelmed.
For immediate insight into your Louisiana car accident, call the Law Office of Keith L. Magness, LLC right now at (504) 264-5587.
Journaling, Eating Well and More After a Louisiana Car Crash
We talked earlier in this blog series about injury journaling, where you track the progress of your injury from day to day. This is helpful both for medical reasons and for legal reasons, since such a journal can lend supporting evidence to your claim that you’re suffering from back pain, for instance. A journal can also help you work through personal, emotional and even financial issues.
Diet and Exercise
Taking care of yourself physically after an accident can be quite challenging, because when life knocks us down, we often tend to revert to “comfort habits” that may not be particularly good for us.
For instance, maybe you were lifting weights or doing yoga, but an injury from the crash has prevented you from working out. Or maybe you had been eating a healthy diet, but now you’re snacking constantly on Little Debbie snack cakes, Ding Dongs and Coke or Pepsi, and you feel terrible because of all the refined sugar flooding your system.
With the note that this book is obviously not a health book or a medical guide, here are a few strategies to consider – along with your doctor – when it comes to your health and wellness.
Get Fresh Air and Sun
Obviously, you don’t want to roast in the sun and get burned and increase your risk for skin cancer. But new studies suggest that too little sun is just as dangerous as too much sun. Sun light can help regulate your sleep cycle, your Vitamin D levels, and beyond. Fresh air – taken appropriately – can refresh your spirit.
Improve Your Diet
This is obviously easier said than done. In addition to the fact that we are all individuals — and different people thrive on different diets — the science regarding what constitutes a “healthy” diet is in a constant state of change.
Obviously, this topic is way too deep and broad to cover in this book, but the point is that the quest to “eat healthy” is quite complicated.
However, while experts disagree about what constitutes the perfect diet, most people now say that reducing the amount of refined wheat and sugar can be quite helpful. Hopefully, researchers will do more and better science soon to answer the big questions about how to eat to be healthy.
Resting, Meditating and Connecting with Others After Your Car Crash
Rest is very important, whether you’re recovering from an accident or not.
Meditation
Studies show that people who meditate regularly – 15 minutes to an hour a day – score better on measures of stress, depression, and overall life satisfaction.
Meditation is a relatively easy process. You just need to sit or lie down, and spend time focusing on the breath coming in and out of your body. You may want to set a timer, so that you know when your session is up.
Don’t try to force the breath or hold it. Just follow it as it comes in your nostrils and into your chest, and then follow the out-breath as it leaves your body. Any time your attention gets distracted (which it will likely do during your session many, many times) just become aware of that distraction and bring the attention back to the breath. This is a really simple process in theory, but it can be quite challenging.
However, experts say it helps focus attention and improve decision making as well as emotional stability – good skills to have when you’re dealing with a major crisis in your life, such as the aftermath of an auto accident.
Reaching Out to Others
Seeking help from people after an accident can be tough. For instance, maybe you’re a very independent person who doesn’t like to call in favors, or maybe you’re not sure whom to ask and for what.
It helps to create a list of projects that you could, in an ideal world, assign to co-workers, friends and family, professionals, and even your children. Try to prioritize. Separate your “must-haves” from “nice-to-haves.” For instance, let’s say you generally like to have your yard kept up. But if your back and legs hurt, you may not be able to push the mower, rake leaves or weed the garden. You could hire a gardener or ask your kids to do the work. But maybe you could just lower your standards, temporarily, since having a neat lawn is a “nice to have” instead of a “must have.”
Getting Your Finances Rock Solid After Your Car Accident
A serious car accident in the short term can lead to many costs, including medical bills, therapies, medications, car rentals, and lost wages, etc.
A professional financial planner or accountant can help you go through your budget and identify how to cut expenses to make your finances work. Keep the big picture in mind. Financially pressed accident victims often unwisely settle too quickly with insurance companies because they just want “some money now.”
This short term gain can lead to long term pain.
For instance, let’s say you settle with the insurance company right away for $50,000. Had you resisted the company’s early offers, you might have been able to get $150,000. Getting $50,000 upfront might feel good, but you’re ultimately paying a big price ($100,000!) for that state of mind.
In some ways, this is like a balloon mortgage – it seems easy at first, but then the pain sets in months or years later.
Your Louisiana auto accident lawyer can help you prevent settling too soon, but you can also help yourself by gaining control of your money situation. To that end, here’s an exercise that you might find useful.
Imagine if you never got even a single cent from the insurance company or another defendant. And imagine if you faced the worst-case scenario for your injury — for instance, you’ll need $150 worth of therapy every week for the next five years. Something like that.
In that kind of scenario, what could you do to meet your fundamental needs? If you do some thinking (ideally on paper, and maybe supported by a spouse or a financial planner), you will probably be able to figure out how you could adapt your life and your budget to survive, if not thrive, despite the money pressure.
Once you understand that such solutions exist, you will likely feel a lot more comfortable about the reality of your case. Odds are, the worst case scenario will not come true. But now, even if it does, you will know that you can and will survive it. This knowledge should give you confidence to resist “low ball” insurance offers and to put your mind at ease.
Take the time to do some of the exercise we’ve discussed to eliminate uncertainties and experience a clear head and a calm heart.
For immediate insight into your Louisiana car accident, call the Law Office of Keith L. Magness, LLC right now at (504) 264-5587.
