Every aspect of life is a series of ups and downs. You have summer and winter, day and night, work and play.

You clean the house and all of a sudden the dust has built up again. The laundry is clean and then you look and the laundry basket is full again.

You get a job and you may lose it. You fall in love and then back out of love. One day may be full with energy, another full of challenge just to get out of bed.

That is the dependability of life; it is full of ups and downs. How you handle them is up to you. It is easy to deal with the ups in life. They are enjoyable and inspiring at times.

You anticipate with excitement the prospect of an upcoming trip. You will have time off from work. You are visiting a destination you have never seen before with lots to do and see. You absorb every minute of the trip and it flies by. The day comes when you awake to find it is the last day of vacation. Its time to return to the job, the house and the day to day activities. You have just experience the up, the vacation, and the down, returning to every day life.

Would you have missed the up of the vacation just not to experience the possible down of retuning to everyday life? Probably you would not have. You know that a day or two back into your everyday life and you will be back on track. Life will have leveled off a bit until the next up and down cycle.

There is a popular saying when challenging times appear. This too shall pass. Well this is just as appropriate when the wonderful things of life come. Life has ebb and flow to it. It is never static.

So how does one approach the ups and downs of life?

1. When you are in one of the up times enjoy it, absorb it and learn from. Affirm to yourself that you are truly deserving of good things and stay present to what is happening.

2. Do not project onto the future with thoughts of this is too good to be true, its going to turn bad any moment. Dont waste time trying to look for signs of a down time approaching. Definitely be aware of your surroundings but looking for demons when they are not there wastes time and energy.

3. When you realize you are in one of the down times of life, a lost job, a failed romance, or even just a plain old singing the blues kind of day, take solace. You have experienced good times before. That is your best evidence that you will experience them again.

4. Take a realistic look at the situation. Are there adjustments you can make? Can you take steps to regain your equilibrium? In the most basic cases you just may need to take care of the cleaning, shopping or laundry again. In a tougher case you may find your self updating a resume or brushing up on your networking skills. Assess and correct wherever possible and then take a breath and try to relax.

5. Remember that experiencing a down time in your life does in no way mean that you are living a bad life. You are not a victim nor do you have a black cloud over your head.

6. Step back and take an overall view of your life. The greater majority of folks asked will acknowledge that their lives have contained a mix of ups and downs and that they have learned from both perspectives. It is in experiencing the downs of life that we gain greater enjoyment from the ups in life. In experiencing the ups of life we gain the assurance that we can withstand whatever the downs in life may bring.