Surviving a hard day

Some days are just a bit (or a lot) 'extra'. Too many curveballs, too much bad luck, too many tense interactions, a disagreement, an inconvenience, a request that you really just didn't have any resilience for… And then you snap.

You lock yourself in a room and sit there staring numbly at the wall. You grunt with frustration (silent grunts are grunts too), maybe you shed a tear, or scream into a pillow (everyone should try it). You feel like *f&ck it all* *to hell with it* and *they should know better than...*.

And those days feel hard. And they happen. 

So what do we do with them? 

The hardest thing is to choose to navigate these experiences in a constructive way. The urge might be to seek comfort - whether that's a drink to take the edge off, a bag of chips or cookies, a Netflix show to forget all about our problems, or some other kind of numbing/comforting/avoiding.

And in those moments, the hardest thing is to choose to benefit from the experience in some way. Because it feels so good to sulk, to allow ourselves to wallow, and to feel like a victim of it all. And it's okay to sometimes go there since that's where we rest. 

But if there's any grain of resilience left in us, we have a choice - to succumb to the 'poor me' feeling that pulls us in like a massive magnet, or to turn around and with all our willpower choose to turn the struggle into a gift. To turn it around when the 'momentum' of the day seems to have taken us way past the line of 'acceptable' into the territory of 'let it burn'. 

But what would happen if we did the hard thing?

…And yes, it is, extremely, painfully, hard. What would happen if we sat with the emotions, the pain, the rage, the frustration, the overwhelm? And then listened? Listened to what our inner voice is screaming for. And stayed with it, instead of running away, hiding, avoiding, and numbing. What would we discover?

For me, this was today. There were good things that happened, but there were also deeply frustrating and uncomfortable things that happened. And all my previous wiring was telling me to lean on the self-soothing - avoiding and covering the pain with something easy, a quick fix.

And then I chose, for the sake of this research and experimentation, to do the hard thing. I asked myself how I could do ‘the hard thing’ in that moment. And for me that meant sitting with the feeling, not running away from it, and opening up to it instead. Leaning into the frustration, being with it, and seeing what's there for me.

It was difficult to hear the voice, but it came through. This voice felt soothing, loving, and calm - exactly what I needed, and it guided me to stop what I was doing, leave my environment, change into comfy sporty clothes and take myself out for a leisurely stroll alone so I could be with my feeling some more. So I could get to know it more intimately. To take my feeling, emotion, state out on a date. 

And as I opened to this inner wisdom, stars aligned and a friend invited me for a walk. Perfect, I was going to go anyway. We had a lovely time connecting and chatting about all kinds of things and my earlier tense and frustrated state was replaced with gentleness, warmth, curiosity, and ease.

So now I can say that leaning into the difficult choice served me well, and I will do my best to lean into it next time as well. I can’t and won’t promise myself that I will, because life happens. But I am more open to it now. The hard choice does seem to bear fruit and that is encouraging.

And so I would invite you to pause next time you’re feeling on edge and invite that inner voice of wisdom to speak. The loving, caring, supportive voice we have inside. The inner parent (the good one!), the inner friend, the voice of true self-care, not the ‘dopamine junkie’. And check in. What is it telling you? What is it trying to open you up to? What does it want for you?

Best of luck to you, and remember - you’re not alone in this. What you’re experiencing is human and we’re all here for it.

Take care, and reach out to me if you’re open to support.

Empathically yours,

Natalia