How to survive a difficult period in life. How to survive life's difficulties and not let them break you

Life is not simple and not fair - it’s not for us to tell you about that.

“She was caught in a storm and when the wind was blowing in the other direction, she adjusted her sails to it.”

Elizabeth Edwards

Elizabeth Edwards is no stranger to life's struggles: she has battled breast cancer, suffered the infidelity of her husband (John Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential candidate), and faced repeated harassment from the press. Despite all this, she held on and saved face.

Elizabeth Edwards demonstrated an undeniable truth: we all experience internal struggles, and in some cases they can be terribly difficult.

We are all human and we learn from our mistakes, but only to a certain extent.

Any difficulty along the way can teach us something, and Elizabeth Edwards understood this even in her final days.

Harvard University Study

The Harvard University study on the formation and development of personality is considered one of the longest studies in history: it lasted as much as 75 years. Researchers tried to find an answer to the question: What is the secret to a happy and successful life? (Hint: it's not power or money).

George Vaillant, a psychiatrist who has led the study for the past 30 years, was able to reach a final conclusion based on a huge amount of evidence: the happiest people are those who can see the good even in the worst situations.

The ability to accept the negative things life throws at us has a significant effect on social support and overall well-being.

Keep a “test notebook”

Based on the research, Vaillant advises everyone to keep a notebook in which to write down all the trials and difficulties that you have encountered. Moreover, Mr. Vaillant argues that the happiest people always ask themselves certain questions when life presents them with difficulties.

Here are 4 questions you can ask yourself in any difficult situation:

What can this teach me?

It's easiest to see any difficulty as, at best, an annoyance, and at worst, as something that can break you. After we overcome another difficulty or solve a problem, it is important to ask ourselves: What can this situation teach me?

And no, the answer “nothing” is not accepted. No matter what the situation is, it can always teach you something new.

Let's imagine that you were fired from your job. Ask yourself: “Is this what I dreamed of?”, “Was this my calling?”, “What can I do better next time?”

Just answer honestly. You might surprise yourself.

Did it make me stronger?

Try to perceive the difficulties along your path as new opportunities. Whether you realize it or not, life's challenges make you stronger. If we are able to recognize this, we can not only cope with difficulties, but also discover hidden strengths and abilities within ourselves that we never knew existed.

How can this situation be beneficial for me?

Life's challenges can provide you with invaluable opportunities for personal development.

Let's imagine another situation: your children leave their parents' nest, go to study or somewhere far from home for the first time in their lives. Will you be sad? Definitely yes. You love your children and they will always be a part of you.

But if you look at the situation from the other side, you can understand how beautiful it is. For the first time in their lives, your children have a wonderful opportunity to see the world around them and find new adventures. You will have more free time, which you can devote to what you really like.

How can I use my experience to help others?

Here's another example: military wives who are experiencing long separations from their husbands.

Women whose husbands serve in the army, navy or marine use their experiences to help others, tell them how to cope with a long separation from a loved one and what to expect.

Again, a situation that at first glance seemed difficult and heartbreaking can become favorable.

If you haven't been through a particular challenge, you won't be able to help others cope with similar situations.

Being persistent does not mean being indifferent. You go through this test, you experience certain feelings, you fail and you experience pain. You fall, but nevertheless, you find the strength to get up and move on.

Overcome difficulties - Take them lightly!

- What is difficulty?

- What is difficulty?
— 5 tips for overcoming difficulties
— How to take difficulties lightly?

Difficulties are obstacles in a person’s path that arise in unfamiliar, unusual circumstances for him, when he has to solve non-standard and therefore difficult problems, which we often call problems. It is difficult for him to solve them because he simply does not know how exactly it should be done, and not because they are very difficult in themselves.

That is, those obstacles, obstacles, obstacles, obstacles that we perceive as difficulties arise primarily in our head and relate specifically to us. In fact, difficulties can be the same ordinary things that a person does in his life all the time, without even thinking about how difficult they are for him. But if they turn out to be unusual, unusual, non-standard things for him, which he does not know how to do, he will have difficulties. In other words, we are talking about new life tasks, for the solution of which it is necessary to understand them. And until a person understands them, they will remain difficulties for him.

A difficult situation is simply an unusual situation when a person is faced with tasks that he has no experience in solving. That's all, actually. And there is nothing wrong with difficulties. This is very important to understand, friends. After all, the devil is not as scary as he is painted.

Difficulties become difficulties only because we treat them as difficulties, giving this concept a negative meaning.

1) Some people tend to exaggerate. They can turn a small difficulty into a huge problem. Maybe this is not a problem at all, but you just decided that you have it. Perhaps you have been given a difficult task and you just need to solve it. There is no need to perceive it as a problem. This small change makes life a little simpler and easier.

2) In such situations, when it is difficult to cope with a new task, always remember that for someone else things are much more difficult. When a person is completely fixated on his problem, it prevents him from seeing the positive sides in the current situation. Be grateful for what you already have in your life. You can always see the positive in the most difficult situation. In other situations and matters, it is better not to compare yourself with others.

3) Every difficulty or problem always contains some lesson and an opportunity for you to grow as a person. Believe that this situation happened to you to teach you something. All you have to do is unravel its secret meaning, extract and learn its lesson. And you won't have to deal with similar situations anymore. This is how you become more experienced and wiser in life.

4) Try to immediately solve the problem or eliminate its consequences. Instead of wasting time lamenting and showing emotions, it is better to think about what can be done. What can I fix at this point? Perhaps a few minutes will be enough for you to eliminate the difficulty and you will see that everything is not so scary. It’s better to do this as early as possible, without putting it off until later, until tomorrow.

5) When you have tried all the above methods and nothing works, then accept the situation as it is. Sometimes it happens that as soon as the situation is accepted and the struggle stops, the problem solves itself. This happens, but rarely. Sometimes, a solution emerges only after some time. You may not want to come to terms with something, not accepting the situation, this can only make the problem worse. Accepting everything as it is allows you not to waste your nerves worrying in vain.

Remember, in life you will always encounter various difficulties, difficult periods, trials. Without them, life would not be so colorful. After all, everything is learned by comparison. Difficulties temper a person and make him stronger; going through life becomes easier. These are your hidden teachers who actually arise for your benefit. And everyone has their own. But believe that after difficulties there will always be something bright and joyful in your life.

— How to take difficulties lightly?

The essence of a simple attitude to any problem is as follows:

1) Rest assured, this is a temporary phenomenon. Nothing lasts forever, including difficulties. It won't always be like this!

2) Everything that happens in a person’s life, he is able to overcome. Cultivate self-confidence in your abilities. Over time, it will become your unshakable quality;

3) If you feel bad, help someone whose situation is even worse. Then you will understand how happy you are;

5) Don't worry about future possible troubles. Anticipating possible difficulties, just be prepared to solve them. Do everything possible to prevent an unfavorable scenario from developing. Once you have done your job, be satisfied with your actions: it is impossible to predict everything. However, to a greater extent, you will be ready for any troubles and will easily cope with them;

6) Focus on the positive aspects of your life. Even when restoring a destroyed house, you can think not about your loss, but about the future new, even better house. Learn to enjoy life despite any adversity, be grateful for what you have. The feeling of well-being will not leave you if you learn to appreciate everything you have;

7) Be prepared for losses. This is an integral part of our life. While we lose something, we still gain something. You need to be able to see the positive, beneficial sides in any situation;

8) It is useless to be angry because difficulties have arisen. Just try to quickly cope with the situation, without wasting your strength, without complaining about fate. By mentally or out loud repeating your complaints, you attract more and more troubles;

9) Be active, work physically. Even a simple jog can remove heavy thoughts, making it easier to cope with a difficult situation;

10) Stop complaining and make efforts to overcome a difficult situation. Think, look for a way out, direct all the energy of your thoughts to find a solution and simply do the necessary work;

11) Having dealt with the problem, rejoice from the bottom of your heart! Capture a useful experience in your memory. Everything that does not kill us strengthens us.

There are really difficult situations in life, deep grief, when we lose loved ones, ability to work, our health, property. Then use these tips:

1) Repeat to yourself: “I will overcome this!” Ask God for help. If you don't believe in God, ask the Universe for strength. These forces will come, rest assured! We attract what we think about. When you ask the world for strength, you will certainly receive it.

2) Ask your loved ones for help if you feel like you can’t cope with the situation. Often human participation fills the soul with new strength, relieves tension, and negative emotions go away;

3) Choose the right thoughts: those that create, not destroy. After the storm there will always be sunshine.

The material was prepared by Dilyara specifically for the site

Marina Nikitina

It is difficult to find a person who does not know what the difficulties of life are. But there are millions of people in the world who do not know how to overcome these difficulties. They lie to themselves, denying the existence of difficulties, give up, stopping any attempts to solve problems or understand them. What does this lead to? Nothing positive. A person falls into prolonged depression or develops nervous and mental illnesses.

If you are a strong-willed person, accustomed to facing the truth, then this information will not be useful to you. If you don’t have the courage to solve problems, work on yourself from today, because you have already taken a small step in this direction - you have decided to learn how to overcome difficulties.

Diagnosis of problems

To fight the enemy you need to know him by sight. Therefore, first we will determine the presence of difficulties and see which category they belong to. Life difficulties:

Serious problems from outside (loss of the most expensive property, a house burned down, a large sum of money was stolen, death of a loved one, incurable illness).
Difficulties of moderate complexity (you were kicked out of work, your wife is sick, you have no means of subsistence).
Difficulties in self-identification, psychological problems (feelings of inferiority or worthlessness, depression, panic).
Domestic difficulties (tired of cleaning, cooking, quarreling with my husband because of his carelessness, plumbing is out of order, not enough money, the phone is broken, difficulties in family life).

The problems described in the first two points are not necessarily the most difficult. The third type of problems - psychological - can be of any complexity. The subtle world called “psyche” is difficult to analyze, so to deal with this kind of problem, you have to try. Everyday difficulties from the last category are only at first glance inferior in complexity to the previous ones; they drag you into a pool of sadness, fear, sluggish, destructive hatred of yourself and the rest of the world. Therefore, any of the problems is serious, especially for the one who has it.

Making a strong-willed decision to fight

Giving a clear name is mandatory, because vague complaints like “I feel bad, my soul hurts, it’s hard, and I don’t know why” and “cure” are impossible.

After recognizing the problem, you already have a formulation. It’s not always easy to take even this step, but don’t think about it, do it in order, so to speak, in small steps. In this way you will go through the entire long, albeit difficult, path. Don't forget: “Great things start small.”

After looking your difficulty in the eye, the problem will already decrease in size. Now it will not pulsate in your exhausted brain every day or seem like a black bottomless abyss. No, after the bold step of identifying the problem, you have already seen your enemy and know its size. It turns out that this is not a bottomless abyss, although it is very deep in some particularly serious cases.

How often does it happen that a person knows a problem that has been bothering him for a long time, but does not want to fight, he is disappointed in life, does not believe in himself and walks around like a psychological corpse - Homo Sapiens lives, eats, breathes, but has lost interest in anything , life only by the fact of its existence is disgusting. What can I recommend?

Strange as it may sound, if it seems to you that the end has come for the person you previously saw in the mirror, this is good because there is nothing to lose in such a situation. All that remains is to make the decision to fight, to solve problems.

You may ask, what to do if it is completely unclear which direction to move? Should you do something even if you are not sure about the right path? Of course yes. Here's an example. Imagine that there is a small wooden box in front of you. It is filled with balls of the same size, but of different colors: first, a handful of black balls are poured, and the same amount of white balls is poured on top. The box is closed.

Now we draw parallels: one of the black balls is you. The ball lies at the bottom of the box, there are black balls around, there is also a large layer of balls on top and the situation seems completely hopeless, since there is no way to get up and the ways to solve the problem are unknown.

Now imagine that you pick up the box and start shaking it. Yes, at first glance you are doing things at random. You don’t know what’s happening inside, you know one thing - when you shake the box, at least something happens inside. Now let’s reveal the cards: in the process of such shaking, the balls in the box begin to mix. It happens chaotically, but everyone has heard the theory of probability.

So, according to this theory, the balls in the box will eventually return to their initial position with almost zero probability. So to do at least something is in a decadent mood. And then, you see, while shaking, you will understand in which direction you need to tilt the box and your ball will be pushed up by other balls.

Difficulties in a person's life

Imagine life without difficulties. It seemed like it could be better. You will be surprised, but it is the presence of difficulties that shows us how good life can be, gives us food for thought, and makes us, like the balls from the example above, move. If difficulties in a person’s life disappear, then there will be nothing to compare the rest of the events with; no one will even imagine what difficulties are, or what joyful events are. There won’t be any, since everything will be painfully the same.

To maintain vitality, to maintain self-control, you must always remember what was written on the ring of King Solomon. It said, “This too shall pass.” When he had, he looked at this inscription and calmed down, because there was an instruction that everything would pass. But he was in no hurry to rejoice too much, so as not to be upset later, because even in this case he looked at the inscription and was convinced that this too would pass, that everything in the world passes and passes.

Ways to overcome life's difficulties

Overcoming the difficulties of life is organized in many different ways. First way: follow the example of King Solomon. You can actually have your ring engraved in a jewelry store and always wear it on your finger. Another way to look at this wise expression is to make a beautiful sign that will hang in a prominent place in your home.

Let in your head not a picture of a sad development of events for you, but this useful phrase. In the meantime, you will begin to take any actions, at least to distract attention, then you will understand what to do to directly solve the problem.

Don’t be afraid to think about your enemy - about the problem that poisons your existence. It is better to take courage and analyze whether the grief is as great as its tortured brain imagines. Analyze this. Ask yourself: “Yes, I have a problem. And what follows from this? What are the consequences of an unresolved problem?” You need to present honestly: choose not only negative consequences, but also a positive outcome of events. After all, you must clearly understand that there are always several possible outcomes, and excluding positive ones, you leave yourself no chance to change anything.

Remember that you need to be sure to break the repetitive cycle of negative thinking. This is difficult because thinking patterns (the paths along which thoughts travel through the neurons of the brain) are already like well-trodden paths: the more they are followed, the larger they become. It’s already difficult to think differently, but you do it. All events in life move after your thoughts. That is, first you give an assessment of the event in your head, painting it in some color, and only then through the prism of your assessment you look at everything else. Throw away black colors from your palette of thoughts at least for a while. Any event for the universe has no emotional coloring, neither good nor bad. So for one person an event will be bad, but for another it will be good. Only people evaluate events, only you decide whether you will learn a lesson from what is happening or whether it will crush you with your own permission.

If your problem came from outside, for example, a loved one died or you were left homeless, then the positive thinking techniques described above will come to your aid. If the problem concerns your psyche and worldview, the “breaking the pattern” technique will help. The mechanism of the passage of thoughts (nerve impulses) through the neurons of the brain has already been described above. It is much easier for a lazy brain to let its thoughts follow already known paths - patterns of behavior. You will have to make a strong-willed effort to “pave” a new path.

In reality this method looks like this. Experiment with any thought (you don’t have to immediately think about the problem that’s bothering you). For this exercise, any statement that you don’t doubt at all and that is already firmly stuck in your brain is suitable. Usually it is from such thoughts and behavioral reactions that a pattern is formed.

Next, try to doubt this statement. This will be difficult to do, because it has already been established many years ago and it seems that there can be no other opinion. When you try to convince yourself that things that have been familiar for a long time may not be at all what they seem, you will feel a kind of resistance. It’s like cutting a path for yourself in the impenetrable jungle with a machete, sweating despite the fact that nearby there is a path already cut through the thickets.

If you work on yourself so regularly, you will definitely pave new paths. It cannot be otherwise, this is exactly how you once formed ideas about the world that you are now guided by, without subjecting them to analysis. But it is precisely for a conscious life, and not a semi-automatic one, that we are given the opportunity to become aware of ourselves, along with which we need to be responsible for our thoughts and actions.

There is another plus: when you look for new variations (logical connections), new connections are formed among billions of neurons in the brain, even if such thoughts seem fantastic at first - it doesn’t matter, the main thing is to cover the brain with a network of connections. Then one day a brilliant idea or an amazing solution to a problem will come to you, which you could not even think of before, because the overwhelming number of neurons are now connected to any of them, even a distant neuron (although the word “remote” does not fit the description of instantaneous neural connections ).

“If you cannot change your circumstances, change your attitude towards them” - stick to this rule.

March 23, 2014

No matter how our life develops, obstacles always arise on the way to our goal. How to overcome difficulties and not give up?

As they say, difficulties strengthen us. Thanks to them, we become stronger. Of course, provided that we overcome them.

Difficulties allow us to accumulate all our strength to realize our desires and make a leap forward. As psychologists say, it is in a critical situation that a person experiences such a huge release of energy that he is able to destroy everything in his path, so goals are realized much faster. Why? Very simple:

A person is able to clearly see his goal,
- know that his goal is what he needs,
- believe that he can handle it.

And these components are very important in overcoming obstacles.

When our life flows calmly and smoothly, this is great, but for the time being. As they say, everything is fine, but something is missing. A person needs bursts of emotions, otherwise there is no movement forward. Difficulties are the engine of progress.

Difficulties bring positivity into our lives, especially from the awareness of overcoming them. We become more confident in ourselves, and move on with calm determination.

I offer 10 ways to overcome difficulties.

1. There is no need to avoid problems and difficulties. They will still be there. You just need to treat them as a natural manifestation of life and an opportunity to show your best qualities.

5. Difficulties develop your resourcefulness. And it seemed like there was no way out, but it appeared. And if you show some ingenuity, then everything will work out in the best possible way.

6.Remember that you are not the only one who has difficulties. Everyone faces this. And if others can overcome it, why not try it too?

7. Think positively. As my friend told me: “Natalya, everything is fine with you in any situation: “the knives are not sharpened - the children will not cut themselves, the wind blows from the window - there is fresh air in the house.” Of course, you don’t need to wear rose-colored glasses, but you shouldn’t constantly worry about minor problems. There are worse situations in life.

8. Don’t get hung up on the problem, don’t grind it in your head, but try to solve it. And the sooner you start doing this, the better for you.

9. Never set yourself up for failure. Otherwise, why start something that obviously will end soon? As you tune in, so it will be. Thoughts are material, no matter how you look at them.

10.And also, if you have difficulties and you cope with them, then new opportunities and new chances await you ahead. Try not to miss them!

I wish you good luck in overcoming difficulties. May it always accompany you!