One of the ways that I’ve taught myself to deal with unpleasant thoughts or feelings on bad days is to just tell myself this:
Relax, dude! It’s just one of those days!
What does that mean? Sometimes when we’re having a bad day we end up getting stuck in our heads for too long, so it’s helpful to remind ourselves that this specific day or moment is not definitive of our entire lives.
If you keep a daily journal, you’ll have solid proof where you could see that we experience all different kinds of days. Even within just one day, there is a variety of moments. Some fantastic ones, some not so noteworthy ones, and some low ones.
I remember one day I was just feeling out of touch with my emotions. My blog had just hit a milestone and I just could not feel anything for it. I knew I was supposed to be grateful because I’d made a commitment to myself to not take the good things in my life for granted anymore. So it worried me a lot that no matter how I looked at it, my “gratitude” just felt mechanical and detached.
Instead of getting worried about that and ruminating over this “problem” of mine for the next few hours and making my day worse, I decided to just leave it and tell myself that I was just having one of those days. A few days later I was doing better and I could actually feel the feelings of happiness and thankfulness again.
We can try this same approach when we become upset with other people too. We can try to see that maybe the other person is just having one of those bad days and that poor interaction is not representative of your entire relationship, instead of totally freaking out about it.
Feeling depressed? Just one of those days. Feeling like a failure? Just one of those days. It’ll pass too. Feeling confused and lost? It’s okay. It’s just one of those days and soon you’ll feel better enough to see through to your problems and figure things out.
If this moment sucks, try not to linger on it for too long and make things worse by obsessing over the “wrongness” of it all. Try letting go and look forward to a better state of being. Get rid of that unnecessary anxiety and negative thoughts.
Sometimes, you just need to wait for the clouds to part.
Faiza 