Accept-Cope-Adapt
Most people believe that being happy all the time would be great. I'd like to challenge this. If happiness is the only emotion you have, then you miss out on other beneficial emotions...even if they don't feel so great. Fear, for example, protects you from potential danger. Anger promotes a sense of justice and can be a motivator to find answers or work for something you feel strongly about. Sadness helps you determine when you need some time to yourself to manage personal challenges.
And yet when life becomes difficult and those uncomfortable emotions surface, it can feel like something has gone wrong. There is a belief that you need to do whatever it takes to move beyond the difficulty, avoid as much pain as possible, and get back on a path toward feeling happy again.
When you feel sad, lonely, inadequate, frustrated, discounted - notice how you get attached to ridding yourself of those feelings. Observe the desire to barricade yourself and escape them. What if you do something different instead, and allow your feelings to change you? If you give those emotions the full attention they seek, they will release their grip on you and begin to dissolve when you give them consideration.
BRING IT ON
Start by accepting your situation. It's happening. Rather than engage in a fight against what is happening, recognize the truth. This requires personal insight and vulnerability. Acceptance doesn't mean you approve of or agree with the reality. It means you acknowledge its existence.
Next, gather support from friends, family, or a professional, to strengthen your coping skills. Work on managing your situation, and learning how to sit with the challenging thoughts and feelings./ Coping is about perseverance; resilience and grit. This step benefits from outside help.
Finally, figure out how to adapt. It might entail adjusting to new conditions or making changes in order to move forward in a positive direction. Adapting is about making improvements.
PAY ATTENTION TO
Be realistic about when you can/cannot control. Trying to manipulate something that is beyond your control is a waste of your energy.
Be careful not to "catastrophize". If you take what is happening today and use that to predict a future of doom, you risk spiraling down into a helpless depression.
Have compassion for yourself. This is not about throwing yourself a full-blown pity party where you sacrifice any sense of control. Respect your emotions, sit with them a bit, and allow them to become less all-consuming on their own.
Once your emotions naturally dissolve (without fighting them), you'll have more capacity to focus on a solution and not feel trapped in the sludge of your problems.
Accept that this is the way things are right now. You won't feel this way forever. Reach out for support and give space to the range of your emotions. You will adjust. You will be okay.