If you're feeling like you're going under for the last time, you're not alone.  Here are ten lifelines from those of us who have already been down there and managed to climb out and come up smiling!

1. Get some practical help if you need it. Whether this is police protection, the ability to deliver a good pre-emptive strike, financial advice, medical assistance or just a bit of help with the cleaning, we all need a hand sometimes and there is no particular merit in trying to cope with everything on our own.

2. Get clear about what you really want from life. Create a Vibrant Vision.  Write it down, draw it, paint it, sing it into existence if that's your thing, or make a vision board filled with pictures of how you choose your life to be.

3. Spring clean your life. Declutter your living environment. Pass stuff on, recycle it, organise what's left. Think Zen.  It's amazing how your internal clarity increases with the awareness of organised space around you.

4. Do something meaningful and worthwhile. If you were a hundred and ten and looking back on your life, what would you like to be remembered for? If you haven't done it yet, how soon can you start?  Now tends to be a good kind of time.

5. Be careful of any statement that begins with the words "I am", whether you are thinking them in your head or saying them out loud to other people. These are the self-fulfilling prophecies which end up forming your sense of identity (and other people's impressions of you).

Your identity is not something you are stuck with. You create it by choosing your "I am" statements rather than leaving them to form by themselves by default or by going along with what you think others say about you.  If you constantly replace: "I am one of life's victims" with: "I am strong and resourceful and I make my own decisions about my life", then you will soon come to believe that that is what you are…and therefore that is what you will be.

While some people may be born into more helpful circumstances than others, resourceful, successful people are not born that way, they choose to be resourceful and successful, and some of them have surmounted considerable challenges on the way (and perhaps become stronger and more resourceful because of what they have learned from them!).

6. Learn to recognise the tricks your emotional brain plays when you're angry, upset, scared or otherwise emotionally aroused. It's called black and white thinking. For example "They are wrong, I am right, and there's no common ground in between".  Such thinking is often illogical: "It always happens to me because I'm a Sagittarius" and global: "Everything is terrible!"  Get into the habit of eliminating the words "everything" and "always" from your vocabulary and your rational brain will thank you for it. A passing challenge is not necessarily a catastrophe.

7. Find ways to unwind.  Whether it's meditation that helps you to feel peaceful, or Tai Chi, or Qigong, or Yoga, or swimming, or sitting by a stream, or playing football, the important thing is to have few strategies that work for you when you feel the need to chill out and calm down.  The calmer your mind, the more easily you can start to see things in a clearer perspective.

8. Phone a friend or ask the audience.  You know what they say about a problem shared.  It's good to unburden ourselves and sometimes hearing some fresh thoughts on a subject can help us to get a handle on it.   The more we get out and meet new people, the better chance we have of meeting a few who are on our wavelength and will be there for us when we need them.  And of course we can also be there for them when they need us. It's amazing how helping other people can make us feel better very quickly by taking our mind off our own concerns for a while.

9. Make a habit of looking for the best in life and people. You have probably heard the tale of the two prisoners looking through the same window. One sees the bars, the other sees the stars. What you put your attention on tends to become your reality.

10. Find ways of using your natural strengths and talents to get your emotional needs met.  For example, if you can ruminate about your problems well enough to make yourself feel really bad, then you obviously have a brilliant imagination, which might be more usefully employed in developing a vision of the future that you would prefer to create.

In general:

Life is an opportunity to be lived, not a problem to be faced

So you might as well be happy