Step 1: Slap yourself in the face. Hard, preferably. Because if a slap in the face seems too painful to consider, then whatever problem you’re dealing with right now is really not that big of a problem. You’re likely just milking it for attention or the chance to feel sorry for yourself.

It’s only when you’re truly wallowing in the depths of pain and failure that you think, “Hah! Slap myself in the face? That’s nothing compared to my problem. Watch, I’ll do it three times.”

So either slap yourself or shut your mouth and get on with your life.

Step 2: Don’t compare your suffering to others. No, it doesn’t matter if your brother had something twice as bad happen to him last year. It doesn’t matter if your cousin got hit by a car and never complained about it.

You don’t actually know these things, so you don’t get to compare yourself to these things.

We all feel things slightly differently. Therefore we all suffer slightly differently. Stop measuring how much of a right you have to feel bad and just let yourself feel bad.

Step 3: Identify the feeling. What is it? Anger? Grief? Jealousy? Sadness? Despair?

Step 4: Don’t repress it. Repressing negative emotions kills you.1, 2 That’s kind of literal. That means if someone close to you asks, “How are things?” You respond with, “I feel like dog shit,” not with, “Oh, I’m greeeeeeat,” and then run away to cry into your cereal bowl and wonder why nobody in the world cares about you.

Speaking of which…

Step 5: Go ahead and cry if you need to. No shame. It’s healthy.3 We all need to cry sometimes.