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No matter how beautiful your life is at the moment, you will sooner or later have to deal with worse times. There will be setbacks in your path that will test you and possibly change your life.
Loved ones will die, you may have an accident, become sick, you may become unemployed or become embroiled in other problems.
Setbacks are part of life, but how can you deal with setbacks in a positive way? How can you ensure that the difficult times in your life help you grow and not permanently damage you?
In the first place, it is important to realize that you cannot prevent many setbacks. You can still do your best to keep your life in order and still be told that a good friend has breast cancer. You can't change anything about it, you can't keep it away from you.
Setbacks are part of life, so you can't make most people disappear. You can learn to deal with it.
One of the best ways to survive difficult times is to prepare yourself psychologically. You develop a strategy to deal with it. You have a tool kit that you can get started with as soon as it fails.
The strategy that you develop for difficult times helps you to come out of the pit with minimal damage. In fact, if you can handle setbacks well, you can even grow in these periods.
The better your strategy works for difficult times, the easier life will go. It will be easier to give setbacks a place and to continue with your life. You remain easier in balance, and you are less vulnerable.
Everyone develops their own strategies. One goes to work out, the other talks to a good friend and another goes to the cinema to forget everything. Usually, it helps to undertake 'fun' things, because this way you can get rid of your problems.
However, there are other, more internal, strategies that you can use in times of setback. We have explained the most important ones below.
Every disadvantage has its advantage. Every event has its beauty, something that you can appreciate in it. Searching the positive aspects of the event in setbacks can make it more bearable for you. Do your best to see something positive.
Those who believe that everything happens for a reason usually endure setbacks better than people who believe that life is based on chance. If nothing is a coincidence it means that this event will happen to you to grow, to make you a stronger person. This realization gives hope and support.
Who are feelings of itself depreciates can better cope with problems? By writing, you organize your thoughts and you get a better insight into your life. Grabbing a diary in difficult times can improve your life considerably.
Nothing is permanent. Your life is temporary, the problems in your life are temporary and even this planet and the universe will not always be there. Your problem will someday disappear, it's not permanent.
Who meditates is more stable in life and can deal better with stress, setbacks, and difficult emotions. By meditating you come closer to yourself, and you get more support for yourself. You realize that you can be happy from within, that you are free, and that the outside world is separate from who you really are.
Try to put your problems and setbacks in perspective. Place them in a larger whole, and see how small and insignificant most problems actually are.
Those who are afraid of death are vulnerable. Fear is a paralyzing emotion that is also at odds with what life is all about: love. Being afraid of death makes many setbacks more difficult. Death is not something to be afraid of, it is part of life.
