THIS is a bit of a personal column this time, writes psychotherapist and regular contributor, Jody Merelle.

We moved house last week and I am not going to pretend that it was an easy ten days!

Along with working full-time, every minute of spare time was spent packing up boxes, moving them from one house to another and trying to decide what to keep and what to give away or take to the tip.

Given that our new house is around half the size of the old one with almost no storage at all, that has proven to be quite a task. Most nights I didn’t get to bed until the early hours of the morning.

As with so many situations in life, this was an example of one which we hadn’t chosen but which we simply had to get through. Our previous landlord, the Diocese of Exeter, needed our rental house back so we had no choice but to move.

With all the challenges of the rental market at the moment I am not ashamed to say that when the news first came I felt very despondent indeed.

But I realised then that I had two choices. I could either spend all day thinking how terrible our situation was, or I could make a conscious effort to look for opportunities.

There are so many things in life which are not in our control that sometimes it can feel quite overwhelming. I have found that in these situations it helps to try and find the jewels that are hidden within the mud.

In my case, the biggest opportunity was a chance to declutter. I am not just talking about an unwanted pile of newspapers either. When my parents passed away I was living abroad so their possessions were put into storage and have remained virtually untouched since.

Going through them has felt like an impossible task until now, but I realised that this was an opportunity to face up to something I had been avoiding for so long. This mammoth task is still underway, and with no siblings to share the load it has felt very difficult at times, but at least now the process has been started and I am not avoiding it anymore.

Anyone who has been faced with sorting out the possessions of a lost loved one will know the emotions that this can involve. Every saved letter or birthday card can bring back a whole pile of feelings and these are not always easy to face. But I also know that a garage full of unopened boxes is not helpful either. I have been putting it off for years because it felt too difficult.

Our house move was not something I chose myself, but it has become an opportunity to get through something I have been putting off until now. I know I will feel both better and lighter when we are through the other side.

I have found over the years that almost every difficult situation contains within it a positive opportunity of some type or another.

We don’t choose a lot of what happens to us in life, but if we consciously look for the opportunities contained within those same situations can become a whole lot easier to face.