Do you allow yourself to have Bad Days?
Hi
I love reading and I recently read a biography of a very amazing lady who has done so much wonderful work, she's oozing with kindness for so many souls. She is exceptional.
She shared in the book that at one of her speaking events someone asked her “What happens when you have a bad day?”
She responded by saying that she makes it a practice to always wake up with gratitude.
She explained that she chose to live her life so she can consciously choose the kind of day she wants to have. She explained further that if she slips into a bad day that it's her choice. She then went into how she tries to reach for a better thought and her reaction to the day is in her hands.
I realise that her definition of a Bad Day may be different to mine and anyone else's definition so in light of this ambiguity I wanted to discuss Bad Days so I can bring as many people as I can into more kindness for themselves around Bad Days.
When kindness is absent in our brain self talk (Click here to see my previous newsletter “Is your Brain always helpful?”) our Bad Days tend to keep repeating themselves and we never get a change in perspective.
I loved this book and her sharing and her messages especially around intuition were so beautiful.
However, when I read this part of the book it felt to me that it's a lot of pressure to put on yourself. I mean what if things don't go to plan or something out of your control happens to you or someone gets sick or you get sick?
Things happen, life happens.
The power and strength is in how you move through these “bad days” and not in trying not to have them or resisting bad days by being positive or being grateful for life.
I would like to highlight something I find helpful about Bad Days and shed some light, shift our perspective on this normal part of our human experience.
I know that no matter where my thoughts go to, shitty things happen sometimes and with 100% conviction I know that I can deal with it.
It may not feel like it at the time but we can.
We've all been there at that low place and eventually we all come back up even if it takes us longer than we would like. And I recently experienced just that having the Flu and being unwell for over a month!!!!
What I find soul destructive is to think we can't have bad days or that we can't handle them either. As human beings we are here to experience every gamut of emotions possible from joy, pleasure, excitement, to worry, upset, anxiety and overwhelm and all the rest - too many to mention.
That's just how we work as humans whether we like it or not.
Annoying at times for sure as we would like to never experience painful emotions.
Part of my journey right now is to bring more awareness around how I can be kinder to myself.
This is especially helpful on Bad Days when the brain chatter is amped up.
This is a challenge for me and I am sure for many others too.
We are not taught to be kind to ourselves, not blame or get mad at ourselves and how to love ourselves unconditionally.
I know that whatever happens first I must be kind to myself.
Only from that place of kindness can everything else fall into place, only from that place of compassion will those feelings transmute and I can wake up to my brain chatter and ignore it and I can breathe and I can hear my intuition.
How I would respond to the question “What happens when you have a bad day?”:
Sometimes I can't see that what is happening is that I am just having a bad day and it will pass.
And I know with 100% certainty that at some point I will remember.
And that's ok - I don't need to beat myself up about forgetting, after all I'm having a hard enough time as it is anyway.
And sometimes I am more present and I can tune in and recognise how my brain is speaking to me and check “Am I being kind to myself right now or am I beating myself up”
Either will happen and both are ok because I know it will pass.
The more I reflect on this, the more I can build my trust muscle that this is not permanent.
I am constantly rewriting what it means to have a “Bad Day”.
When I reflect on all the “Bad days” I've had in my life I can see just how much I've grown and evolved as a human and a soul. It's in these times of adversity and challenge that we learn and we grow. If all my days were smooth sailing where would I get the opportunities to learn and shift.
And how can we appreciate the great days if we don't have a contrast of not so great days.
We can all handle bad days.
We need to constantly remember that.
Sometimes gratitude just isn't available to us in every moment and no need to add pressure to ourselves. Just knowing I have support every step of the way I just need to call on my intuition is enough.
I invite you to be curious…
How do you handle when you have a bad day?
Do you have faith that “This too Shall Pass?”
Would you like to have more kindness for yourself when you have a bad day?
As always, if you feel called to share anything I'd love to hear from you.
Hope you’re having a wonderful day