It’s impossible to go through life without experiencing negativity.

A cheating spouse, a horrible boss, a conniving friend or family member; the list is endless, and we’ve all had at least one negative experience in our lives.  It’s important, however, that we overcome those negative people and experiences so that we can learn, move on, and live.

Here’s how I overcame a negative personal experience.

I dated someone for nearly seven years and was expecting for us to grow old together, happily-bickering into our late years.  I was sorely mistaken, so mistaken in fact that I was caught off guard when he broke up with me… over a social network.  I later found out that he had been cheating on me for quite some time.

My initial reaction to the break-up was to harp on the fact that not only had he broken up with me, someone he claimed to love, in such an insensitive, cruel way, but on top of everything he had been so conniving as to be unfaithful.  I just couldn’t let it go; it consumed me and was all I could think about.  I was stuck.  I couldn’t begin moving on because I wasn’t allowing myself; I was just so concentrated on being outraged with the way he had treated me and our relationship.  Now, nearly a year after this experience, I have a completely different perspective.  Like that Cardigans song, “You live, you learn,” and here is what I learned one needs to do to overcome a negative experience:

Analyze Your Situation

My mistake in overcoming my negative experience was harping on what this man had done to me.  What we need to do when something negative happens to us, is understand that:

1. It happened.
2. Someone else perpetrated the negative action brought against us.
3. We cannot control what that person decided to do.

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