When Nothing Seems to Be Going Your Way, Here’s Exactly What To Do

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Start by saying it out loud: life isn't fair

  Mel opens by validating a long list of unfair things, big and small: losing a house or a parent, melting ice caps, corporations dodging taxes while you can barely pay yours, being born diabetic, caring for aging parents or young kids alone, acne, a supermodel sister, a parent favoring your brother, a friend's pregnancy after your miscarriage, an unaffordable housing market. Ignoring it or feeling bad about it isn't working, so she has listeners shout it with her.

• 02

  It will always be unfair, but this is a scene, not the ending

  Some painful things will happen to you and not to the person next to you, and much will stay out of your control. Mel says complaining, venting and even feeling sorry for yourself have value, but it's 'one stop on the journey,' not where you live. The more powerful fact: through your attitude and actions you can move the needle a little.

• 03

  Step 1: Give yourself a deadline for feeling bad

  A deadline is permission and a boundary at once. It acknowledges you deserve time to be sad, disempowered or grieving, and it marks on a calendar that this chapter will end, so it doesn't take over your life. Until then, play the sad songs, live in pajamas, cry, scream into a pillow. The exact date matters less than the intentional act.

• 04

  Strong feelings in an unfair situation mean you're mentally healthy

  Mel credits clinical psychologist Dr. Lisa Damour: feeling sad, overwhelmed or depressed after a loss or breakup shows your mind is working properly, as long as the emotions match the situation. You don't need to fear or run from them.

• 05

  Suppressing emotions after trauma prolongs symptoms

  Mel cites a UC Irvine study of how Americans coped after 9/11. Six months later many still had heightened anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms, but people who actively managed emotions right away (seeking support, planning ways forward, processing what happened) healed faster. Those who shoved feelings down, distracted themselves or just got back to work still had PTSD and anxiety symptoms months and years later. 'It's not time that heals; it's what you do with the time.'

• 06

  Step 2: Accept reality, which is harder than admitting it's unfair

  You can shout 'it's not fair' and still secretly wish it hadn't happened. That wish is resistance, and Mel says most internal suffering comes from wanting things to be different than they are, an idea running from Stoicism to Buddhism. The relationship is over, the diagnosis is here, the cancer is back; wishing only makes the present more painful.

• 07

  'Let life live through you'

  Mel quotes Rumi: 'Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead, let life live through you,' and calls it the 'let them' part of her theory. When life hands you a 'poop sandwich,' you don't have to choke it down; set it on the plate beside you and move on. She says her worst news has often revealed the best things about herself.

• 08

  Step 3: Ask what's in your control, then make a plan

  Paralysis blinds you to the fact that there's almost always something you can do. Instead of searching 'life isn't fair,' search your specific situation ('my marriage just ended, what should I do?') and learn from people who've been there. Mel is convinced someone has faced the same thing or worse and figured it out. What stops people is despair, not capability, because without hope you skip the small actions that change things.

• 09

  Step 4: Find meaning and choose your attitude

  Mel calls Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, with more than 15 million copies in print per her edition, one of the most important books of her life. Frankl, a psychiatrist, survived four Nazi camps by holding on to thoughts of his wife and imagining someday lecturing on the psychology of Auschwitz; his wife and family did not survive. She reads his line: 'Everything can be taken from a man but one thing... to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.'