How can we have a better perspective on life's obstacles?

In our lives countless events, which to our perception are disastrous, unwanted, and we spent lot of time trying to understand what happened, as well as causing uncomfortable feelings and emotions. Who would like to look at it differently? Lets do this!

"Don't let the force of an impression when it first hit you knock you off your feet; just say to it: Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test." - Epictetus

But first I would like to introduce the concept of perception, which in my opinion is the basis of this article: What is our perception? In a few lines we can describe it as follows:
Our sensory receptors are always working since we were born, all this information is captured, organized and interpreted building our perception. So it can be said that these perceptions are a compilation of sensations.
In many cases, the obstacle is not as big as it seems from first glance. Our tendency to react quickly to emotional impulses harms us by denying a clear, direct, point of view free from evolutionary despair.

This is our fisiology. The information received by our brain first goes through the instinct and survival part and then reaches the part of rationality and reason (For those who want to go deeper into the subject, I recommend the book Emotional Intelligence written by Daniel Goleman).

And it is important to realize that two impressions come to mind when something unwanted happens:

1- "It happened" - Fact
2- "What happened is bad" - Perception

There are three principles that i keep in mind that help me to help me face challenging situations:

1- Focus on being objective instead of listening to the first emotions that come to my mind. At this point we can see that when we evaluate an event that happened as a major obstacle, we now have two problems. The first is the event itself and the second is our mind´s desperation.

2- It is not possible to reverse the past but we have control of the present that will give rise to the future. Give yourself the freedom to focus just at the present is the key to feel comfortable at these moments.

3- Trying to see a positive point of view of what happened and not being totally under the influence of emotions. We can induce our brain to see the positive side of things by practicing to observe the different perspectives of the event and act according to observation. I find very useful to know self-observation, recognizing unwanted emotions and watching with practicality and objectivity.

4- Put events in a long-term perspective and ask the question:
Will this event be very significant in the long term?

All of this is a process that leads to a great liberation in the emotional part and in my life it has brought a lot of lightness, because we begin to realize that we must not always act in the first impulse if we put these exercises into practice.
Each of these logic I learned while watching myself, practicing self-awareness and I am still constantly working on it but I know it can serve as a basis for many people and bring a more emotionally stable and consequently a more balanced and happier life. This tool has always been available for you to start applying. The ball is in your court!

If you liked the content and want more articles addressing this type of subject. Or I would like to talk about … feel free to write to me, it will be a pleasure!