Your life journey is an observational platform on which you form preference through contrast.
Preference is simply a choice made through the process of elimination based on experience. Challenging experiences help you to expand your catalogue of preferences and are an important process of personal growth. Preference then drives you to make alternative future choices to consciously create your physical experiences.
Start to look at your past difficulties as valuable reference points that have helped shape your preferences. Without them you would have no contrast to form judgment. These experiences held no emotional definition until you gave them one with reaction. If the emotion definitions are self-destructive, reprogram them and let them go.