How To Make Your Bad Day Better

[success]Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.–Joseph Campbell[/success]

This journey of life that we’re all on can be brilliant at one moment and drop us into a dark hole the next. It’s the one step forward, two steps back syndrome. And it can happen to every one of us.

Fear not, I have a tip or two that might help.

Used to be that I thought growth would be a continuous upward progression.  ‘Till I discovered for myself it most definitely wasn’t that.  And if you’ve found yourself slipping backwards in the making and shaping of the life you want…read on…and remember, I mess up, so you don’t have to.  You can thank me later.

It can happen to even to the most aware and awake beings, those times when it’s easy to believe that what’s happening now, our current situation, is all we have going for us.  Those times when we return to the belief that we’re separate from others and our conscious mind/ego, seeing us as alone and helpless, tends to step in and solve every problem we think we have.

And we have a bad day…or two…or three.

Recently I realised that my mind had been working overtime, hurtling rapidly from one topic to another and back again.  I was caught up in a torrent of thoughts.

I somehow had wandered back into an old way of being, I’d gone back to being just a bundle of old habits over which I exercised absolutely no control. And as Warren Buffet likes to say, first you make a habit and then the habit makes you.  

Hmmm, fine when your habit serves you well in making your best and most beautiful life, not so good the rest of the time.

Until we all become super conscious beings, it’d be helpful if we recognized that unless we stay awake, then our old and very likely negative habits of thought will be running our lives.

I’d been letting my conscious mind, some might say, my ego run the show.    And the big problem with that, is that our conscious mind only knows about the past, and bless it’s little heart, even though it wants to help, it can only create a future based on what it knows.  Not always a good thing. Think about some of the things in your past that you’d much prefer don’t show their pretty little faces again, and you’ll get the picture.

The big trap

Who hasn’t fallen down the rabbit hole of being outer distracted?  It’s too blooming easy to get caught up in what we want to accomplish that day, that week, or in our life. My mind was basically caught up and very much attached to it’s own personal agenda.  And probably very busy at recreating my past as my future. Because it can’t do anything other than that.

I was entertaining all kinds of thoughts about relationships, things that happened yesterday and last week, even delving into things from years ago.

Then I’d be focused on how I was going to solve a problem I thought I had…don’t yell…I do know that trying to solve a problem with the same mind that created it is the height of silliness.  What can I tell you, I was totally enslaved by old thinking.

So what was I going to do about it?  Good question.

Time to slow down

Since our bodies are expressions of our mind, you won’t be surprised to know that having thoughts rushing from one thing to another meant that I was dashing around like a demented fool, unable to stop and take a breather from this crazy experience I was calling my life.

We are all capable of having a sudden ‘flash’ of awareness that we’ve been running on automatic.  The trigger might be as simple as we can’t find our car keys, or our reading glasses [yep that would be me] or a not very nice experience with someone, or a crummy phone call.  Anything. The most advanced souls among us can suddenly wake up to the fact that they’ve been deeply unconscious, although for them it might be a few seconds rather than a few hours, days or weeks.

Thank you Lord.  I had that flash…can’t remember the trigger…it might have been as simple as taking a minute to give thanks for the gorgeous blue of the sky or the radiance of the fresh new leaves on the spring trees. Or it might have been looking at a pile of vitamins in front of me and not being really sure which ones I’d taken.  Okay that’s the true story.

I breathed a deep slow breath and slowed down.  It was enough to get in touch with the essence that was truly me.

The here and now

I began to say to myself, be here now. And I was brought right into the present moment. And being in the present moment allowed me to relax and that in turn expanded my perspective on life.

Much of what my mind had been focused on looked pretty trivial from this perspective.  I felt energised and more in touch with what soothed my soul.  It was a peaceful, easy experience. And I remembered I wasn’t alone…we’re all in this together.  So my ego didn’t need to view me as some forlorn orphan in need of its help.

For regular readers you know that I ‘ve confessed to being something of a serial controller, wanting to control outcomes and events…yes, I’m still practicing the releasing technique for this…you can find it here and here.

And I discovered that reminding myself, often, to be here and now, meant there wasn’t any need to control outcomes, I was simply here.

Instead of being focused on all that old stuff I was able to let it go and with no effort I could see the incredible treasure in this moment.

We can’t see the joyful moments when our mind is racing, running along pell mell, entirely missing the point and missing the main event, which is to live the pleasure of each moment in unbridled joy.

My awareness, my inner being was once again awake and alert and in charge, and I was given the gift of time.  Time to respond and not react. Time to say, hmmm this is what I’m feeling, how do I want to respond? And time to ask what was I thinking and so be in a position to change those thoughts that would most definitely drop me down the rabbit hole again.

When we slow down and relax, life itself will carry us to our next best adventure.  No need to worry over a bad day, don’t be discouraged, your bad day might just be the next stepping stone to your success.

Allow it to be and it will all come to you naturally.

Can you relate to this topic?  I’d love to hear from you in the comments below with your ideas and strategies for dealing with a bad day.  As always your voice might just be the one someone needed to hear today, so do share.

Encourage one another.

Love Elle
xoxo