Get certain that you can handle any problem, emotion, or situation in the future.

How many of you have suddenly found yourself in a familiar stressful situation, knowing you’ve been there, done that before? Maybe something has happened, or maybe you’re just in a bad mood. Maybe you ask yourself, “Why is this happening again? Didn’t I learn something the first fifty times?”

In The Family Secret, Iris O’Connell faced a major life-altering crisis that could have brought her to her knees. She suddenly found herself facing not just the DA, who was coming after her and her family, but also the community gossip. She had to hold her head up despite the whispers of people she knew, having her life and who she was dissected in the court of public opinion, all while reliving her experience of eighteen years earlier, when her husband left, walking out on her and their six children. Instead of being decent, her neighbors and friends spread rumors and lies, cutting her up behind her back, adding to her stress. People who should’ve shown compassion saw her as a target they could take shots at, making hurtful and nasty remarks that she must have done something, that he’d left her for another woman, that she’d never manage, that she was messing up her kids and not doing enough for them. And, most hurtful of all, they wondered what she had done to Raymond O’Connell.

I bet most of you have found yourselves in a situation like that, whether you were the one trashing someone or the one being trashed.

Just last year, four people from my dragon boat racing team, including me, stepped in to help another team in an upcoming race. Not enough people from their team were willing to commit to going, so we said yes, sure, we would help out and fill those empty seats. But what happened come race day was surprising: The few who hadn’t been willing to commit showed up at the last minute, and the four of us were suddenly seen as taking seats from those few! To make things worse, the coach of the team pulled everyone aside and gave a talk about how she knew a few people were upset they wouldn’t get to paddle because we were there, but she couldn’t just ask us not to paddle, as we had come all that way.

Now, as the four of us were listening to this, we figured out there was a problem. I could see the body language from everyone, from uncomfortable to angry. Where did I want to be in that moment? Not there! But there we stood, and I was trying to get my head around how we had been asked to help out but were suddenly on the receiving end of…well, let’s call it an issue. They had been short for the race, and we were there helping, and now they were angry? Go figure. Was it a team-wide attitude? No, there were a few on the team who made us feel welcome, but there were also those who went out of their way to make us feel as if we didn’t belong and shouldn’t be there, even going so far as to trash-talk one of the team members who had stepped in to lead, doing her best. Did I get angry then? Yeah!

It was hurtful. When this kind of thing happens, you wonder how people can act like that without seeing the truth. It goes to that old saying about telling two friends, and they tell four. At the dragon boat race, that was what had happened, with the complaints, the anger, and the sharing of their version of how they felt wronged. By the time the story comes back to you, all twisted and trashed in a way that is hurtful, it doesn’t even resemble the truth. At the same time, sometimes the truth isn’t really any of their business, anyway. I think Adele summed it up quite nicely in her song “Rumour Has It.” I love that song because it really says everything.

Remember that the way other people act is out of your control. You’re the only person you have control over. I’ve talked about this in other blog posts, about how it’s easier to take apart someone else’s life or talk about that person than to look in the mirror and fix yourself, because your reflection in the mirror sometimes brings with it a cold, hard truth and a reality you just don’t want to see. When you look in the mirror, who is looking back? When these types of situations arise, it’s not about fixing other people. When you read this, you might automatically jump to thoughts of a daughter, or a neighbor, or a friend, or even someone who has wronged you—but it’s not about them. It’s about fixing yourself. When you look in that mirror at yourself, the person looking back should be someone you totally love. You shouldn’t focus on how your face has blotches, or your teeth are crooked, or your smile doesn’t look right, or you’re too fat. No. Focus on how you’re perfect, you’re awesome, you rock! Instead of remembering how your problems gutted you at one time, instead think of how you fixed them.

Seriously, instead of feeling angst, look back in the past and remember the thing you fixed, even though it was horrible at the time. Because you did fix it, and you’re here now, right? So give yourself a pat on the back. Remember each of the problems or emotional situations you’ve found yourself in, and remember how you fixed each of them. Of course, there was likely a lot of emotion there, but don’t get stuck in that emotion again. Look at how you fixed it all. Really look back, and then get confident that you can handle any situation or problem when it comes up. The way to do it is by getting certain you can handle anything like that in the future.

How? Well, rehearse it. Seriously, imagine the problem in the future, but the trick is not to see the doom and gloom and disaster and feel the emotion of the worst-case scenario, which sets you up for a crappy mood for the rest of the day. No. See yourself fixing it confidently. I’m not kidding! Imagine it, and see yourself resolving that issue, that problem, that emotion. Do it over and over, because when you imagine something happening so vividly, when you can feel, taste, and hear it, the brain doesn’t know the difference between what you’re vividly imagining and what is actually occurring in the present moment.

If you’re not sure, then think about this: Have you ever had a dream that felt so real that you were convinced it happened? Okay, so everyone has, right? Great! Now practice. Why practice this? Because the problem is that you can have all the knowledge in the world and learn these tools, but unless you’re practicing every day, over and over and over until it becomes something you naturally do, you slip back into that old routine of getting stuck in your head, stuck in the emotion of a problem that steals all your energy. Instead of solving it and moving on, you keep creating it.

Have you ever met a person that could snap out of a mood or pivot from a bad situation? Those people are the ones who have practiced this, and I mean practiced it over and over, fifty times, one hundred times. When you do this, you know it so well that it becomes second nature. And when it’s second nature, when a problem or situation comes up, something that normally would have taken you to your knees, your brain instead says, Hey! I know this, and I know how to fix it. With that confidence, you can handle any emotion or situation that comes at you.