Sometimes it seems as we are buried under an ever-increasing mountain of worries, which threaten to overwhelm us completely. Here are a few tips to keep your equanimity in the face of life's challenges:
1. Don't complain.
We have two choices when it comes to a challenging situation - we can waste time complaining and wishing things could turn out another way, or we can do something about it! We often use complaining and blaming others as a defense mechanism sp we can avoid facing up to a situation and taking responsibility for it. Also by complaining and shifting the blame onto others, we increase our sense of helplesness at being able to do anything about the situation. As Albert Einstein once said, a problem cannot be solved by the same level of consciousness which created it, so instead try to turn your thoughts to dealing with the situation at hand.
2. Start with small steps
Try to focus your thoughts onto the present moment, and what practical steps you can do here and now to resolve the situation. By doing something, no matter how small, you create a momentum which will carry into the bigger steps. In addition, a challenge always seems most intimidating when you're standing in front of it waiting to take the first step - when you actually begin you get an idea of the true size and scope of the problem, and it almost always seems much smaller than when you first encountered it!
3. Be grateful
Part of the reason we so often feel overwhelmed by the setbacks we get in life is that we give them undue importance, and not enough importance to the positive aspects of life. In fact, when something bad happens, we tend to dwell on it completely, and forget about the positive aspects of life. If, in the midst of a crisis, you can take some time to be grateful for the positive things you still have, you get a more balanced picture of life and are able to deal with crises with a greater sense of equanimity. In fact, you can learn to to be grateful for any challenges that occur in life, and take them as experience that help you grow and gain inner strength.
4. Smile
Try and maintain a sense of cheerfulness no matter what. How can we do this? "You can do this through gratitude, by remembering that once upon a time you were cheerful, and by remembering what cheerfulness did to help you", writes meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy [0]. "So if you take depression as poison, then you will let cheerfulness come to you again. If you are cheerful, then you make progress. " I have to admit when I first read this piece of advice I was a little sceptical, thinking it cannot be simply a matter of deciding to be more cheerful. However the more and more I progress in life, the more I see that one does indeed have a choice: you can surrender to the forces of depression and despondency, or you can fight it, trying to keep a hopeful attitude to life no matter what. One thing that really helps in this regard is - a smile! Even if you give a smile - even if you don't mean it - some of the depressed attititude lits slightly. It takes great strength to tell yourself not to fall into the clutches of pessimism and despair, but with practice you begin to train your mind to see the glass half full.
5. A practice of inner calmness
If you can take some time for yourself for five or ten minutes a day to meditate, clear your mind of all thoughts and enter into the inner tranquility that lies deep inside. Then in stressful situations, you will spontaneously feel yourself responding with much more calmness and control than you would have done normally. When things go bad, we can feel all our problems closing in around us; however meditation gives you a 'bigger picture' to life and makes you realise that your immediate problems are not the sum total of all there is to life.