Sometimes we're lucky enough to travel through our daily lives without too many bumps in the road. We've got enough money to meet the month. We might even have a little to spare. We have a supportive partner, great children and a home filled with love. 

But there's just one constant niggle. It might be short-term - a new commitment that impinges on everything we hold dear and challenges our deeply held values and beliefs - or, heaven forbid, something in just one part of our life that we know perfectly well we've got to face almost every day. How can we endure this? We can't change it. We can't get away from its impact. We're completely stuck with it.

Well, you might say, that's an easy fix! Just get rid of the thing that's affecting that one part of your life.

But what if you can't? What if you've made a commitment - and you never go back on your word - and you know you've got to endure the niggle until the very end? It affects your life both awake and asleep. And now it's affecting your health.  

Short-term, with a light appearing at the end of a tunnel, this is probably bearable. But when you know perfectly well that there's no way out of this dilemma for the foreseeable future, what on earth can you do about it? Because let's face it, the dilemma isn't going to change or go away. So how can you change, because you must if this one situation is not going to affect the rest of your life - which is working perfectly well at the moment!

Now here's a thought ...

At this point, you might like to go to Chapter 14 of my book, 'It's your thoughts that count - how to use your thoughts to transform your life'. If you haven't got a copy (yet) just let me know and I'll tell you how to get hold of one. The chapter is called 'Borrowing other people's thoughts'. It sets out how you might consider a part of your life where you are completely happy, confident, capable, whatever, and deal with 'that thing' that you feel completely unable to face, deal with, solve, etc. It asks the question, 'What would happen if you could transport your prowess and confidence from the environment where you're confident and competent to the environment where you have doubts?'

It's about creating an 'anchor' that you can turn to when the 'bad' stuff comes to the top of your mind and you feel helpless, hopeless, worthless and completely incapable of dealing with it. I don't want to repeat what's in the book and it needs a bit of explanation. The point of mentioning it is because it is possible to change the impossible to the possible, the unsolvable to the bearable, the despair to hope.

Trust me - I've been there.

It takes continuous work and it may feel as if you're pushing a massive boulder uphill, to begin with. Keep hoping and keep working and the light will appear at the end of the tunnel and the situation you can't separate yourself from in the near future will become much more bearable.