Seven essential strategies for navigating life’s challenges
In our personal lives, as well as on a global scale, we face challenges that test our emotional capacity: Injury, illness, unemployment, grief, divorce, death, or even a new adventure with an unknown future. Here are seven strategies to help cope with life’s difficulties.
Turning Toward Reality
Often we turn away from life rather than toward it, we are masters of avoidance, but if we want to be present – to enjoy life and be more effective at it – we must orient ourselves toward facing reality, and when we are guided by the principle of reality, we develop a deeper ability to deal with life more effectively, and what was once difficult is now easier, what used to scare us now feels familiar, life becomes more manageable, and there is something more profound that we gain because we can see that what was once difficult is now easier. what was once difficult is now easier, what once frightened us now feels familiar, life becomes more manageable, and there is something more profound that we gain, because we can see that we have become stronger, we have more confidence that we can achieve greater strength, and this is the basis for a sense of capability, which I think is a precursor to a satisfying life.
Accept life as it is
The Buddha taught that the secret of life is to want what you have, and not to want what you don’t have, and being present means being present in the life you have here, right now, and there is freedom in life as it comes to us – good with bad, wonderful with tragic, love with loss, life with death. When we embrace and accept everything, then we have a real chance to enjoy life, value our experiences, to discover the treasures we have, and when we surrender to the reality of who we are, we give ourselves a chance to do what we can do.
Take Your Time
As the story of the tortoise and the hare tells us, slow and steady wins the race, and by being in a hurry, we avoid our success, get ahead of ourselves, make more mistakes, and may learn the easy way but not necessarily the best way, and the adage puts it this way: The slower you go, the faster you get there, slow, disciplined growth and inflation is the kind of approach that leads to lasting change.
Practicing Gratitude
It’s easy to dwell on our troubles, but such an attitude undermines our ability to take advantage of the good we’ve been given, seeing our lives as essentially a gift and a change in perspective can make all the difference, recognizing and receiving good with gratitude is a recipe for emotional health and well-being, and this attitude expands the possibility that we can take advantage of the good we’ve been given and even use it to deal with the difficulties we inevitably inherited, so we should always feel gratitude.
Accept all feelings, even the painful ones
Many times we find our feelings scary, heavy, and confusing, so we try to keep them away, but we need our feelings to find satisfaction, meaning, and pleasure in life, getting rid of feelings is not only counterproductive, but it also drains us of the psychological energy that makes life worth living, and feelings are the gas in the engine of our personalities, the source of motivation, the energy, vitality, and elixir of life, without them, our life would have no personality, dimension or color, there would be no joy, creativity or pleasure, without our feelings nothing matters.
Accept success and failure as part of life’s journey
The dynamic process of life – trying, succeeding, failing, and trying again – is the only way to develop lasting confidence in ourselves, we learn through experience that we can succeed and overcome failure, we also learn to be humble and develop a view of ourselves as limited creatures, who will always need the help and support of others, no matter how mature or successful we are.
Taking care of our relationships with those we love
It’s easy to neglect what matters most: Mature love – whether in marriage, family relationships, or friendships – is a living, breathing experience, it is something you choose every day, it is something you earn every day, it requires commitment to maintain, it involves a daily process of overcoming distance and dissolving separation, it is an acceptance of the fact that we will hurt each other and be hurt by each other, it is the nature of being human.
These pains are unavoidable, and we can only devote ourselves to doing what we can do to face them and repair them, so love is essentially a restorative act, so we must accept the pain, try to heal from it, express our concern, take responsibility for our mistakes, learn to say we are sorry, we try to make things right, learn to forgive, accept someone else’s regret, and fall and get up and fall and get up again.
