When things get tough
Life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. (If you want to get technical, Austin is one of the sunniest cities in America and is only sunny around 60% of days; the sunniest city, Yuma AZ, averages 320 sunny days per year!) But, of course, we’re talking figurative sunshine and rainbows here.
Everyone has bad days, rough days, and less-than-stellar days. So what do we do when things get tough?
Some people would offer up a list of suggestions here on how to lift your spirits, turn your mood around, and turn that frown upside-down! As for me, I believe that if you really want to Live A Life You Love, you learn to appreciate and embrace the bad with the good. After all, if you can’t recognize the bad, you won’t be able to recognize the good either, and to run with the metaphor a bit longer, it’s the rainy days that bring the rainbows (and the best sunsets!).
So here are some ideas on how you might be able to better appreciate the days that feel… well, less like you’d prefer them.
Identify and Acknowledge Your Feelings
We’ve all seen the “This is fine” meme of the dog in the burning room. We’ve probably all heard the parable of the frog in boiling water, who doesn’t notice the temperature gradually increasing until it’s fatally too late. The covered pot that boils over… The metaphors abound! It’s common knowledge that pushing down our feelings causes them to bubble and boil until they blow our top off, usually at the most inopportune of times! If you’re having a bad day, and you try to smile through it and pretend nothing is wrong, you’re not fooling anyone but yourself… And the end result will likely be worse than the events of the day leading up to it. A huge blowout fight with your significant other, an embarrassing tantrum at your workplace, a loss of temper with your toddler, an impulse decision to eat an entire cake or spend $1,000 on a new tech gadget that your brain lies and tells you will make up for the bad day you’ve had… None of that gets you anywhere. What DOES help is taking a moment to acknowledge to yourself that you’re having a rough day, that you feel angry/sad/powerless/anxious/sleepy/hungry/whatever is true for you… And honoring those feelings. They’re valid. They’re real. They have an impact on your experience of life. And reminding yourself of those things is a tremendous act of Self Love that sends your unconscious mind and your body the message that you are loved, you are worthy, you are safe… And that it’s okay to start to let go of some of those feelings, once they’ve run their course, rather than hold onto them until the lid blows off.
Grieve the Unmet Expectations
Disappointment stems from unmet expectations. Not all expectations are created equal, and some are downright unrealistic (like expecting to win the $1.8B Powerball, for example—possible, but not realistic). If it’s your birthday, and you were kind of expecting people to make a big deal of it at work, thought you’d be getting a special call from your grandmother, and expected a surprise fancy dinner and extravagant gift from your partner, but instead the world treated it like just another day, take the time to feel the loss of the birthday you’d envisioned, feel the pain of feeling un-special on a day you expected to feel more special than usual, and let yourself hurt that your partner let you down by not reading your mind and coming through with your fantasy gift. When you give those feelings of loss and grief the space they warrant, you’ll be better able to see the role you played in this outcome: Did you tell anyone at work your birthday was coming up? Did you let your partner know you wanted to make a big deal out of this birthday? Did you expect your grandmother’s memory to hold up about your birthday better than it’s been holding up about other things in her life? Accountability isn’t about taking on blame; it’s about seeing how you influenced and contributed to the outcome, so that if you want a different outcome in the future, you know which choices didn’t work for you and you can try something else next time. Doing this may not make this one disappointing birthday feel any better… But it may very well help you feel a little hope moving toward the next holiday or milestone that’s important to you.
Start Identifying Other Choices
This one piggy-backs a bit on the last, but if you’re someone who feels the need to DO and FIX when things don’t go the way you’d like, here’s an actionable item for you: start making a list (mental, written, however you like, but keep in mind that studies have shown handwritten notes and lists have greater impact on changing the brain) of things you could have done differently. If your day started tough because you were late for work, write down that you have the option to set an earlier alarm tomorrow, or to arrive at the bus stop earlier, or to gas up your car the night before. If you were hungry and irritable all day, jot down that you could bring some emergency snacks to keep in your desk drawer at work, or identify some grab-and-go food options you can get at your office cafeteria or break room, or that you can make yourself a bigger breakfast or take a mid-morning snack break if your midday meeting is going to interfere with grabbing lunch. All of these, of course, are merely examples, but identifying choices that you didn’t make that might have reasonably resulted in a different outcome can be incredibly empowering and help you feel less like a victim of the circumstances of your day.
Wallow and Cry
This may seem like a joke, and it’s really not! Sometimes, life is just HARD, and it’s OKAY to feel overwhelmed, underappreciated, lonely, exhausted, depressed, lost… These feelings are all part of the human experience. Every single person on the planet can be expected to feel these things at some time or another, and there’s nothing wrong or defective with you for feeling them at any given time. Crying can be INCREDIBLY cathartic, and if you struggle to cry, taking some time to curl up under a blanket and feel sorry for yourself for a while IS a valid option. Not everything needs to be fixed or corrected! Some things just need to BE… So let it out, in whatever way works for you. Sob in the shower, create a blanket womb to comfort you, maybe sleep for 12 straight hours if you have the flexibility in your schedule to do that… The important thing is that you identify that you have this need, you allow yourself a predetermined amount of time to just roll around in the muck of the feelings, and when that time is up, you shake it out, brush yourself off, and move forward.
*A disclaimer here: clinical depression won’t adhere to timelines. If you find that you are truly unable to let it all out and move on after a reasonable and appropriate time, please consider consulting a professional, because you may need some additional supports to help you through this period of your life. At Kindred Life Solutions, we fully support the use of licensed psychological/psychiatric professionals and appropriate medications to address what your physiology isn’t able to address on its own, and seeking help is a sign of strength, NEVER weakness. You wouldn’t try to cure cancer through positive thinking and willpower alone, so please give mental illness the same respect and consideration.*
In the United States, you can call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org for help if you are experiencing a crisis involving thoughts of self-harm. If you are not located in the United States, please look up suicide prevention and/or crisis lifelines available in your area.
