Experience helps us grow
Our experience in our journey through life is filled with moments...
- Moments of love
- Passion
- Creativity
- Joy
- Connection
- Compassion
- Laughter
But understand that learning, evolving and growing starts through life's ups and downs. Experiences are what round us out and make us better as a person, both mentally and spiritually. The key is not to let life's difficult situation get the best of you.
FOUR TIPS TO OVERCOME DIFFICULT SITUATIONS
So here are 4 secrets to help you get through difficult situations.
First, think about the most difficult you’ve endured in your life. If you are going through something as you watch this right now, how do you feel? These feelings that you currently feel, even though you tell people you're ok, quietly affect your thinking, decision making, and the quality of your life. And we've all faced this.
Now imagine how you would feel if you were able to get over these feelings. By “get over” I mean no longer suffering over something that happened in the distant past. I know this is possible because I have both personally come to peace with extremely difficult, heartbreaking situation and I would like to share what worked for me...
- Practice noticing, and then letting go of, your ideas.
When a difficult situation from your past stirs anxiety, anger, sadness, and so forth, it means there’s some ideal you’re attached to that’s triggering your suffering. It can be tough to notice this idea at first, but with practice, you can see it with ease.
There may be an ideal situation you want to hold on to, that doesn’t match your present reality. But this ideal – even if it makes sense – is NOT helping you, it’s hurting you. If you want the past to be different than it is, you’ll be sad or angry or anxious for the rest of your life. Noticing what you’re holding on to is the first step.
- The second step is letting the idea go.
Make a conscious choice to let it go. It's happened, there's nothing you can do to change it and it's past. Letting go of this means embracing the reality that everyone is human and human beings sometimes make terrible mistakes. There’s nothing ideal about it, but that’s the truth, and it must be accepted.
Peace of mind in the long run is about allowing yourself to be perfectly OK with “what is,” rather than wishing for and worrying about “what is not.” “What is” is what’s real – the rest is just you, arguing with life.
- Release your judgments.
It’s impossible to get over a difficult situation – to let it go – if you’re still obsessively judging what happened. And then ask yourself:
- Do you believe it shouldn't have happened at all?
- Do you believe the outcome should have been different?
- Do you take what happened personally?
- Do you blame someone else for what happened?
- Do you blame yourself?
- Do you believe the situation is impossible to get over?
If you caught yourself thinking “yes” to one or more of those questions, then what’s preventing you from getting over it is judgment. Your judgments about what happened in the past continue to keep the situation present in your mind, and thus, it continues to impact your daily life.
Now you may be thinking, “What happened was unbelievably horrible – I can’t conceive of ever getting over it!” But releasing your judgment does not mean you’re pleased with what happened, or that you support it, but rather that you are eliminating the negative burden you’re carrying by continually judging it.
When you let go of your negative judgments, you automatically replace the victim mentality with acceptance and presence. And acceptance and presence together will free your mind.
- Find gratitude in the present moment, despite the situation.
Happiness doesn’t always make us grateful, but gratitude always helps us smile. Some may say that’s a cliché, but it’s not. Gratitude is the foundation. And happiness is simply the sacred experience of living with a genuinely grateful heart.
Expressing gratitude is so simple, though, right? So I know you're asking yourself how could it possibly make that big of a difference?
Being grateful starts with being present. You can’t appreciate your life when you’re not paying attention to it. And the truth is, we make our present situations much worse when we replay difficult past situations in our heads. In the present moment, our real situation is rarely as bad as we make it out to be.
So when your mind drifts into the past or speculates about the future, we must do our best to catch ourselves, and look at everything you’ve done from that situation till now, the present. Only then can we accept the moment as it is. Remember this is the real world, not an ideal world. And your reality always contains a silver lining of beauty, if you choose to see it.
A support system goes a long way
Another bonus tip is to ensure you have the right people in your corner. It's happened, it's in the past. Now, you need to realign your relationships with people that will be with you through difficult times and not only when you have high times. If they have to question your past, then they truly don't know you in the present.
The past is just that, and you've grown from the past into the person you are today, so don't get caught not having the right people in your life when you need a confidant to talk with the most.
The Power of Response
So the one thing my four secrets – above have in common, it’s the importance of responding to life’s difficulties more effectively. When you can let go of your ideas, judgments, and self-pity parties, you give yourself the space required to respond to life’s difficult situations more effectively… and that changes everything.
And this applies to everyday difficulties too, not just life’s larger scale catastrophes. Regardless of the situation at hand, when we respond in emotional haste and angst, we only compound our problems. Taking a deep breath, or ten, and responding calmly means we’re going to be able to better handle any difficult situation, whether it’s an emergency or the unexpected loss of a loved one.
Bottom line: You can’t control everything that happens (or everything that has happened), but you can control the way you respond. And in your response is your greatest power.
Your turn…
Comment below and tell me, Which point above resonated with you the most, and why? Do you have anything else to add to what I'm talking about, I would love to hear from YOU. Leave a comment below and share your thoughts and insights.
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