In times of stress, it’s super easy to fall into “woe is me” mode. I say that somewhat flippantly, but I don’t actually mean it that way at all. It is easy, too easy, in fact, to think about all that we’re not enjoying at a particular time in our lives. These sorts of feelings used to fuel me to eat for emotional reasons, so I’m sharing this with you in case you’re dealing with the same thing.

I’m currently stressed to the gills myself, and though I’m working on this hard and fast every single day, it’s not a situation that can change overnight. Yesterday I found myself feeling particularly down — not a state I tend to stay in for long nowadays! — and yet this morning I woke up feeling better.

Why? Because I reminded myself of one of my favorite techniques that I often use in life and with my clients. I reviewed what is RIGHT about the situation I’m in.

In my case, my frustrating situation (I’ve mentioned that my husband — my best friend in the world — is traveling a lot right now for business) is something we can’t change at the moment. But being upset that he’s gone is actually good in a way because it means I really love him. It means we have a relationship worth fighting for, working on, whatever it takes, even when we’re miles apart.

Likewise, this fuels me to do other things, take other actions that perhaps I wouldn’t feel as motivated to otherwise — like concentrate on getting the next phase in my business rolling more quickly. I do a lot of my work when my son is sleeping (like now — a rare daytime break), but when my husband is home, I like to spend time with him instead of work whenever I’m able, whereas right now, I have lots of evening time to myself to get miscellaneous business tasks taken care of that will allow me to help more moms in the future.

And once I start thinking about who I can help to break out of their weight struggles, their struggles with emotional eating, so that they can feel the joy of being thin and healthy, well … that’s when I get excited, and the upset feelings fade away! Because there IS good in this tough situation. There are “right” things in our “wrong” moments.

Even if the good things aren’t immediately apparent, there is always something to learn from our difficulties. And if we aren’t learning, we aren’t growing and becoming the next, even better version of ourselves (which I personally feel is what we’re here to do — be the best version of ourselves that we can be, and it’s an ever-changing state if we learn and grow). So I’ll ask you this: What’s right in your wrong moments?