It’s been a week.

My friend’s father died, another friend was in a serious accident (he’s recovering), and my son had emergency surgery (he’s doing fine, thankfully).

Life throws curveballs, challenges, and sometimes enormous situations that we need to find our way through.

And through it all, there are waves of emotions that we somehow need to manage—sadness, anxiety, worry, fear, grief, despair, and other unpleasant “visitors.”

Denying or suppressing these emotions may at times temporarily help us through, but in the long term, it can have negative consequences for our mental and physical health. On the other hand, becoming overwhelmed and overtaken by these emotions makes it hard to move forward. Both are human reactions to stressful events. Our nervous system can naturally go into fight, flight, or freeze mode in the service of trying to protect us.

In the face of such difficulties, we may not be able to choose our circumstances or our initial reactions, but we can choose where we place our attention. When we focus on things that bring “cues of safety” to our nervous system (to help offset the threat response), we help create the conditions for self-compassion, clarity, perspective, acceptance, problem-solving, and other inner resources to emerge, to sit side-by-side with our more difficult emotions.

Here are four ways you can direct your attention to help manage challenging situations:

Personal agency (identifying what is in your sphere of influence, even if very small) can help lower anxiety and stress. While lack of control can be a perceived threat........

© Psychology Today