It's All In The Way We Perceive

Ruben Hill has a four piece theory for crisis events and/or stress in our lives.
His theory, called ABCX looks like this:

His thinking in creating this model is that our life events do not create stress; Our feelings toward such events create the results we have made them to be.

Samuel Clemens said, "I have suffered many catastrophes in my life. Many of which never occurred."
In many cases we are perceiving experiences as having a greater impact than need be.

For example,
I was chatting with my sister the other day about how things were going. She confided in me that she was full of anger and resentment toward another of our sisters for giving her advice and putting a foot in her life as though she could not handle it herself. She said, "She thinks she has things all figured out, and because her life is perfect and mine isn't, she has to fix me and organize my life."
My advice for this sister was to talk to the sister that was bothering her and tell her how her words had hurt her.
She followed this advice and returned to me later saying that she had perceived it all wrong. The sister she had been angry with was only sharing her concern and love for her sister. She had been through a similar situation and hoped to be of some help.
What was perceived as mean and hurtful was meant to be full of love and care for her sister.

In order to avoid stress or having our life experiences becoming a crisis is to teach ourselves to react differently. To react the way we would want to if we were able to step back and see the hole picture.
Start small, rather than responding with tears-try smiling. Instead of telling yourself you are going to fail your test, tell your face to tell your head that you will try your best. Instead of seeing your sister as big-headed and arrogant, try giving her a hug and telling her you love her.
Think twice before responding how you normally would.

It is not our fault that we have these misconceptions. We have probably learned to do this throughout our other life experiences. What we need to do now is have our thought and then change our feelings regarding that thought. It will become easier with practice.