perception

Where your mind is at is where you are at.  If you are thinking in your mind that your situation is horrible then the situation cannot be anything but horrible.   However you have a choice.  Someone else in the same situation understands the possible horrible nature of the situation but experiences it in an entirely different way, perhaps more positive, by exercising choice of perception.

Our situation is only as our mind makes it.  Reading accounts of Prisoners of War who survived you will find they spent their days in the mind to find peace. They could find the positive in the retched. They could not be broken because of the mind, spirit connection.  Survivors understood that the retched captor could not capture the mind/spirit. It is only our mind that can truly jail us.

This mind spirit connection can be summed up by something I believe in.  "Where ever your mind is, thats where you are".  Further explanation comes from a quote by Pema Chodron.

"Whether we regard our situation as heaven or as hell depends on our perception"