Does this sound familiar?

“I never should’ve done that.”

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

“I wish they would’ve said something different.”

“Why is this happening to me?”

“What did I do to deserve this?”

When hardship strikes, how often do we find ourselves thinking about what we could’ve or should’ve done? How much time do we spend lamenting the forces in the universe that caused this to happen to us and what we did to warrant it?

It’s normal to reflect on mistakes and it’s extremely common to think about what you would’ve liked to do instead. But after a certain point, “reflection” can become maladaptive – when it’s preventing you from moving forward, or becoming non-stop internal chatter, it starts to cross the line into rumination.

Rumination is the act of continuously replaying events or thoughts and can be one of the symptoms of depression and anxiety. When we spend too long thinking about a failure, a mistake or a negative event, it actually encourages our brain to think of similar connections. Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, a psychology, and researcher at Yale University found that “when people ruminate while they are in depressed mood, they remember more negative things that happened to them in the past, they interpret situations in their current lives more negatively, and they are more hopeless about the future.” Being in this state makes it more challenging for us to take action that will propel us forward.

In order not to get stuck in the endless negative feedback loop, the best thing that we can do when facing hardship is: surrendering and accepting your circumstances so that you can focus and think ahead.

Surrendering is choosing the difficult circumstance that is going on in your life so that you can completely remove the resistance to it. It is a conscious choice. Not only do you accept the adversity that you are facing, you also accept that this is your journey and that there is a specific reason why this is happening to you. If the reason is not clear in the moment, it will be one day.

Surrendering is powerful because it buffers us against, not only rumination but the negative impacts of stress on the body. When we’re under stress, our heart rate increases and our blood pressure rises. Being under chronic stress puts our body at risk – for anxiety, depression, digestive issues, heart disease and more. It produces all of these chemicals that impact the body’s chemistry – but by surrendering we can reduce stress by changing the way that we interpret our life. And by being able to not only accept things, but choose them -surrender to them-  we are literally changing how the brain is orchestrating our bodily functions.

And it’s not only the physical body that encourages surrendering  – There are several disciplines and philosophies that focus on surrendering, or acceptance, as a necessary component of growing from difficult circumstances.

One example is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a form of counseling that uses acceptance and behavior-change strategies to overcome difficult situations. The core idea behind it is to encourage clients to:

• Accept their reactions and be present
• Choose a valued direction
• Take action.

This is similar in premise to surrendering by accepting and acknowledging what can and can’t be controlled in order to redirect mental energy into planning for the future.

And psychology isn’t the only application of surrendering – acceptance and non-attachment in Buddhism encourages us to transcend suffering by reminding us not to hold on to things at the emotional level. It asks us to stop expending energy resisting the way things are, and focus on the present moment, whether we like it or dislike it.

Surrendering to a difficult circumstance doesn’t mean that you have to want it, that it’ll be permanent, or that you can’t change things – it means that by accepting it for what it is, you’re allowing yourself to shift your focus from victim to being centered. In this new found space of clarity, actions that were previously not on your radar will call you forth to powerfully deal with what’s in front of you.

Self-pity, rumination, and feeling like a victim aren’t helpful – it won’t change the events that occurred, it won’t make any positive impact on our present lives. At worst, it’ll actively impede us from being able to move forward and be resilient.  By accepting our circumstances, we can eliminate rumination, and focus exclusively on the events that are within our control.

To facilitate this process, we can engage in a deep process of reflection and ask ourselves these questions to begin to shift our way of thinking:

What are the facts of my situation? By objectively laying out the reality of the circumstance, we can get a better understanding of what’s in front of us. We don’t need to assign judgment or values or emotions to the facts; we don’t need to add any additional layers. We can simply write down the facts and practice accepting them.

What is out of my control? 
Write down all of the things that you can’t control or change – every single one, like people, their responses, their choices, and their reactions. By reviewing the list, you’ll have a clear view of what you need to let go.

What is in my power to control? 
This is where you can take action and make a difference. Begin writing down all of the things that are within your reach, and how you can improve the situation. This is where you should channel your energy.

By releasing the past, and the circumstances that are out of our control, and being clear about what is within our control – like our reactions and behaviors – we can save ourselves angst and create the best possible outcome in a difficult situation.