Learn from your difficulties

Interestingly, the Chinese word for ‘crisis’ is made up of two

characters, one
meaning ‘danger’, the other meaning ‘opportunity’. Embedded within
the
Chinese language and culture is the belief that opportunity arises out
of our
difficulties. By believing this, we can start to feel positive about our
ability to
deal with any situation.
A simple procedure that can be used to develop this viewpoint is
learning to
‘reframe’ whatever situations come our way. This will in turn develop
our good
feelings about ourselves. Mistakes literally become opportunities to
learn and
difficulties seen as opportunities for change. We might then find out
that there
is ‘no failure, only feedback’.16 We feel better about ourselves as we
begin to
learn from our mistakes. Try repeating this simple sentence to yourself
every
time you are in difficulty:

- What can I learn from this?

So, ‘an error of judgement’, can turn into an opportunity for greater
understanding. If we do something ‘wrong’, the wrongdoing can
become
something we can change next time around. The more we ask
ourselves, ‘What
can I learn from this?’ the more we see ourselves in a positive light.
Instead of
feeling you are a person who does things badly, makes mistakes and
is generally not good enough’ you can become a person who feels
good about who you are,
and you learn from your circumstances.

Learning from past events helps us to resolve any emotional blocks

resulting
from them. If we do not learn from them, similar situations will bring
up the same feelings again and again. An emotional ‘pattern’ occurs.
We may often
blame other people who have said or done things that bring up these
emotions,
but the more we take responsibility for our lives, the more we realize
that we are
reacting because we have unhealed emotional wounds.