Gayle HI am thrilled that topics such as health, well-being, thriving, sleeping, balancing, enjoying life, and finding true success are all the rage now a-days. I believe the more we know and the more we action those topics for ourselves, the healthier and happier we will be.
But I find that all this information has me feeling guilty if I have a bad day.
You know, a day where you eat everything you shouldn’t because you don’t have the time, or desire, to figure out something healthier. A day where you clock in a total of one hundred steps. That day at work where urgency completely takes over your schedule. You’d rather be on a deserted island by yourself because family and friends are all just annoyances.
A day that just isn’t what you want it to be and there is no escape. A day where you want to cry, scream, hit something (or someone), or simply crawl back into bed because things are just bad. And you don’t have the energy or the desire to make them better.
Though you know you should, right?
The problem with the abundance of inspirational information and support we have at our fingertips is that we feel guilty if we can’t handle the bad in some healthy, positive, turn things around sort of way.
Why can’t we allow our glass to be half empty sometimes? When did being happy, healthy and successful become synonymous with perfection?
In my work as a coach I work with clients to find ways to put themselves back into the driver seats of their lives. To build good ‘stuff’ into their lives while reducing the bad ‘stuff’. To change ‘out of control’ mindsets to ‘control focus’ mindsets.
Because I believe that the more we do these things, the better life becomes.
But there are times that a client and I just can’t figure out how to claim control. There are days when things are simply out of control. There are times where things just suck.
And allowing ourselves to simply accept the feelings of craziness, sadness, defeat, or failure is the healthiest course of action we can take. Validation that things are not always fixable by eating better, sleeping more, exercising regularly, meditating, breathing or reading another inspirational quote.
Just allowing ourselves to cry, scream, hit something (please not someone!), be bummed out, pissed off, worry, stress, stay up to late working – because that’s what we want to do. We can’t fix it – so we just accept it.
Here’s the trick though – you must never let the bad become the norm. It’s the exception to the rule, but it must never be the rule.
Yes – embrace the suck! Then get a good night sleep and wake up the next morning with a renewed positive, constructive energy, ready to make your world a better place.
Easier said than done, right? Many times we allow a bad day to become a bad week, month, year. We never quite find our way back out of the suck into the light.
Because moving from negative to positive is much more difficult than just keeping status bad quo. Like a snowball rolling downhill, bad tends to pick up speed.
So how do we keep our bad day confined?
Allow yourself to have bad time up front. Things start rolling downhill? Realize that and put a time boundary around your need to be sad, work too hard, eat like crap, not exercise. Be clear with yourself – TODAY things suck. I accept that. I even embrace that! Everything I do today will be in totally support of this suckiness. But tomorrow is a new dawn. A new day. I will feel better. I will get back up on that horse.
By allowing yourself a time box upfront, you give yourself full permission to do what you need to do, regardless of how ‘bad’. Permission to fall completely into the hole of despair is very freeing – because you will fall, then it will be over. Done. If you don’t allow yourself to fall completely, you’ll simply stumble along for who knows how long, hoping to eventually pick yourself back up, but never really knowing if it’s possible.
Healing takes time and focus. Like having the flu – you need to fully invest in recovery for full recovery to happen. If you keep trying to recover while continuing to carry on as usual, full recovery will never happen.
So go ahead. Have a bad day. Sing a sad song. Feel sorry for yourself. Cry. Scream. Go into hiding. Shut yourself in your office. Hate stuff. Feel frustrated. Be angry. Embrace your bad time.
Then hit reset.
If You Do Nothing Else…
Realize that ‘bad’ is part of the fuller human experience and you should never feel guilty about a having bad day. Just make sure it’s time bound.
Gayle H
