“Good, we’ve learned something.”
“It’s okay to feel this way.”
“Step back. Breath. Make a call.”
There are a number of ways we can choose to react to setbacks.
We can get dragged down by feelings of rejection and failure. Focus on the way we want things to be and the way they aren’t. More times than not this is our automatic reaction, subconscious and not so subtle.
Alternatively, we can step back and admire the process. Acknowledge that in a week these emotions will be nearly impossible to remember, a mere speck in our experience. What will be left is a challenge that we either tackled and learned from or let beat us down.
Oftentimes the only difference between joy and suffering is where we choose to focus- on how the situation has failed to meet our expectations or on cultivating gratitude for what we currently have. The choice is ours.