How to Overcome Set Backs in Life?

 

Image Source: Painting from gallery of the Global Vipassana Pagoda

During Buddha’s time, a women named Kisa Guatami was married to a wealthy merchant. When her only child was one year old he fell ill and died. She could to bear the shock of her only child’s death. In deep pain and suffering, she took dead body of her child in her arms, and went around the town and beseeched people to bring her dead son back to life.

 

When nobody could help her, she went to Mahatma Buddha with high hopes. She told her story to him, he said, “Kisa Gautami, there is only one way to solve your problem. Go and find me four or five mustard seeds from any family in which there has never been a death."

 

She was delighted to hear this, and with high hopes she around in the town to find a house which has never experienced a death. But very soon she understood that every house has faced death in their family.

 

She understood what Buddha wanted her to understand from experience herself- suffering is a part of life and death is inevitable. When the she experienced the truth, she calmed down and gracefully accepted death of her child.

 

Similarly, everyone experiences through suffering in her or his life, this could be due to a bad marriage, sour relationship with parents, financial loss, death of a loved one, business failure or lay off from a job. 

 

These are the times of high emotions; it seems that the whole providence has conspired against us to bring us misfortune. The life seems to be falling apart. The mind does not think straight. One starts to loose hope , it is all gloom and doom everywhere.

 

People who can handle these challenging times effectively will be able to make a fresh beginning in their lives and rise from the ashes of their adversity or else they would live a miserable life.

 

Most of the successful leaders, entrepreneurs, reformers, spiritual leaders, inventors etc have one thing in common, they have all gone through set backs in their lives. They did not allow their set backs to define them. They learnt from their failures or difficult times and came out stronger and better.

 

They used their set backs as a stepping stone for a better future and a better life. They treated it like a comma and not a full stop.

 

Let the set back not define the course of your future. Wipe out your slate and make a fresh start. You may use following strategies to navigate through difficult times in your life:

 

            Have a Right Perspective
 

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

 —Victor E Frankl

 

Every human being has problems. A problem free life is a myth. The life is supposed to be full of problems and set backs. For the set backs and problems pave the way for our future success.

 

When we face a set back we feel that we are the unluckiest person on this earth. We ask ourselves and God Why Me??

 

We feel we did not deserve it. We wallow in self pity. We become emotionally and mentally weak. Any and everything can trigger a strong emotional response in us.

 

 Don’t have pity on yourself. That is the worst thing you can do to yourself. Whatever set back you are facing, has been faced by other people also( except for a few rare set backs). Remind yourself you are not the only one who is going through a set back or suffering in your life. Every one on this planet is going through one or other set back, only the intensity and nature of set back may be different.

 

Ask yourself, has anyone in this world faced the similar problem? Has he/she managed to overcome that problem? If someone on earth was able to overcome a similar or more grievous problem then why can’t you?

 

Be tough on yourself. Do not allow yourself to drown in self pity. Yes, time is tough, but the tough times calls for tough measures!

 

As Robert Schuller said, “Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do.”

 

Nothing on this earth lasts forever, thus your problems will also go away eventually. You jut need to hang in there and have faith on yourself.

 

Change the way you look at the problem, change your perspective. Instead of taking it as a disruption take it as a diversion. Take a fresh guard, do a course correction and start your journey once again.

 

You need to make a choice what you want for your life? Choose life over despair! Choose happiness over sadness? Once you make the choice then go ahead and make a choice to live a life of your dreams.

 

It all starts with a simple thing, making a right CHOICE.

 

            Have a Confidant
 

 

 

The first reaction after we face a setback is to get into our shell. We prefer loneliness. We stop speaking to our friends and family members. As a results of this we keep ruminating over the unfortunate events all the time. We keep adding fuel to the fire, and we become an emotional wreck.

 

This is the time you need a shoulder to cry. It takes courage to share your feelings with someone else. Muster the courage and reach out to your closest friend and share your ordeal with him. Use him as a sounding board and shoot all your hurts, fears and concerns at him.

 

He may not be able to help you out but you would be able to release some of your pent up frustration and emotions out.

 

     Accept It

 

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

—-Victor Frankl

 

When something bad happens to us, we do not accept it. It takes whole lot of time to accept that this could happen to us also.

 

You must get out of denial mode and accept what has happened. The sooner you come out of denial mode, faster you would be able to take corrective actions to make your situation better.

 

It is natural to experience strong emotions during such times, don’t resist it’s presence. The moment you resist, it is a signal to your subconscious mind that these emotions are not good and every time these emotions arise in you your subconscious will start fighting it.

 

We all are human beings and can not forget the bad things that happen to us immediately. We may also feel sad, which is a natural reaction to any unfortunate event. There is no need to control your emotions, let it  come out.  All this is ok till such time you do not spend bulk of your time feeling sad and your emotions do not affect functioning of your normal life. Prolonged exposure to sad emotions may lead you to depression.

 

You may set aside some time to think about the incident say 10 min or 15 mins or 30 min and after that you get on with your normal life.

 

      Express Your Emotions

 

It is essential that you find an outlet for your emotions. There will be so many thoughts in your mind which you may not be able to share with others.

 

Pull out a rim of papers and start writing a letter to the other person who has hurt you ( if that is the cause of your pain) . If there is no one involved then simply write your thoughts on a piece of paper.

 

Write whatever comes to your mind, pour out your emotions on the paper. Have no inhibition in expressing yourself, all hurt, all blame, everything you wanted to express, write everything down on that piece of paper.

 

Once you are done with writing, set the papers/letter on fire. With it visualise your fears, concerns, hurts etc getting burned to ashes.

 

Now take out another piece of paper and start writing How Would You Want Your Life to Look like In Future?

 

Be explicit in your expression. Be very vivid while describing it. Be very deliberate and thoughtful while writing as this would act as a guiding star for your life.

 

Once you have written down the document, try to condense it to max 1-2 pages, as a summary. This is your life’s mission statement, read it first thing when you get up in the morning and last thing before you sleep. You may also go through the mission statement a few times during the day, whenever you get time.

 

Whenever you read the mission statement, internalise it, read it with faith and conviction. Put your emotion behind it.

 

    Do a Stock Taking- Take Inventory of Your               Assets

 

When we have just faced an unfortunate event we feel we have lost everything. We do not have anything left worthwhile in our lives.

 

There is never a hopeless situation. A set back does not take away everything from us. Though under the influence of emotions we do think that we do not have any assets to cope up with the situation and make a come back.

 

This is the time to take an inventory of all the assets you have. When you sit down and start writing, you shall be amazed to see how much you still poses, which you could use, to tide over the current situation. When you think everything is lost, you may be surprise how much more you have in your life to live for.

 

Your list may look like:

 

1.       A sound health

2.       A well paying job

3.       Friends

4.       Spouse

5.       Children and parents

6.       Your skills

7.       Your young age

8.       Faith

9.        Your ability to work hard

 

 

           Embrace Humour

 

 

 

Norman Cousins was diagnosed with an illness which rendered him immobile. He healed himself by watching comic movies. He attributed his healing to a powerful drug called laughter.

             

 He said," I made the joyous discovery that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep,"

 

We all know humour is the best medicine, however in our daily lives we forget to practice it deliberately. Think when was the last time you laughed your heart out.

 

When you laugh all your worries, fears, sadness flies out of the window. Laughter is the best anecdote to our sorrows.

 

Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep, and you weep alone…Ella Wheeler

 

 

     Serve Others
 

Candy Lightner is an epitome of how to channelise your extreme emotions. Her world came down crashing when her 13 years daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunk driver with multiple offence on his record.

 

 A few days after the funeral, the grieving mother vowed to help saving lives of other people by starting a movement against drunk driving.

 

 In 1980, this housewife was joined by other mothers who had lost their children in drunk driving accidents. They created an organised MADD-Mothers Against Drunk Driving. They have even able to reduce the number of alcohol-related traffic deaths each other.

 

 

If you want to forget your sorrows then go out and find some one else who needs help, and help him. We are anxious, fearful etc because most of the time we are preoccupied by thinking about ourselves.

 

When you serve others we will stop think about our own sorrows, pains etc. When you lose yourself in the service of others you will find yourself.

 

    Take Responsibility

 

When things go wrong, we have a tendency to blame others for our emotional state. Take responsibility for how you are feeling emotionally right now.

 

You chose to feel miserable or bitter or angry because of the story your told yourself. Don’t blame the other person for your misery. For the other person also has his own version of the story.

 

And don’t blame the circumstances either, as there are many other people who have thrived in  similar circumstances. When you hold something or someone outside of you responsible for you life situation, you loose the control of changing it.

 

Having said that I do not mean that you blame yourself for the unpleasant situation you are in.

Emphasis here is to take ownership for your feelings and mental state. If you take ownership for your not so good mental state or feelings, you assume control over it. And when you assume control over your feelings and mental state you can change it.

 

   

   Immerse Yourself into a Hobby or a passion

 

Immersing yourself in a hobby has been proved to be a very effective way to cope up with a set back. There have been instances where people who faced serious adversities in their lives, have taken up marathon running, cycling etc. This has made huge positive impact on how they handled the aftereffects of the set back.

 

Find a hobby or a passion and immerse yourself in it. Channelise your emotions into that activity. The activity will provide an outlet for your pent up emotions. You could take up running, cycling, swimming, painting, singing etc anything which resonates with you and touches your chord.

 

 

    Forgive and Forget

 

 

 

 

I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.

---Victor Frankl

 

 

If someone has wronged you, it is natural to harbour resentment against that person. You may be filled with so much of rage that you want to get even with that person. You may be cursing him/her with every breath you take.

 

Your resentment, anger etc towards the other person is like acid stored in a plastic bottle. The acid eats the bottle away from the inside. Don’t let negative feelings eat you from inside.

 

Forgive the person who you feel has harmed you. It I easier said than done. But it is the best antidote to your sufferings. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “ The weak can not forgive,  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

 

Be strong and forgive. When you forgive the person you can live in peace. More importantly you can focus all your energies on yourself rather than the other person. You will live in present rather in the past

 

Summing Up:

1.Have a Right Perspective

2.Have a Confidant

3.Accept It

4. Express Your Emotions

5. Do a Stock Taking- Take Inventory of Your Assets

6. Embrace Humour

7. Serve Others

8. Take Responsibility 

9. Immerse Yourself into a Hobby or a Passion 

10. Forgive and Forget

Let the adversity make you Better not Bitter!

 

 Do share which strategy do you use to push through difficult times!