What bad day?
11. October 2005
Well after having rather amusingly deleted my previous entry around so called bad days I am back to have another shot.
What makes a day “bad”? We all have days where we feel out of whack in some way, at a low ebb etc. This may be prompted by some known event such as a poor nights sleep because of a teething baby or by other life difficulties. At other times we may just feel that “we got out of the wrong side of the bed in the morning”.
So what do we do about it? I know I prefer to feel in whack rather than out of it. Can we get back in whack at will?
Yes, by listening to ourselves.
The technique that works best for me is to follow my discomfort rather than trying to escape or avoid it. It goes like this:
- Firstly you have to recognize that you actually do feel out of whack. Accept it rather than denying it. How are you? “Oh, I’m fine.” Know the pattern? Come out of denial and learn what is happening.
- Feel into your discomfort, and I do mean feel rather than analyze. Its almost as if you are parenting your self. Any discomfort in your life is a call for your conscious attention, for healing.
- Now ask inwardly what you need to do for yourself in order to resolve these uncomfortable feelings.
- Thoughts and ideas will spring to mind immediately, watch these pass much as if you are scanning a dinner menu.
- Notice which, if any, of these possible options feels the most uplifting even if it does not seem especially rational.
- Your mind maybe telling you to snap out of it and rationalizing your way back into avoidance or some other familiar pattern of denial.
- Keep directing your attention towards a solution. Ask yourself what is here now, what do I need?
- Listen, feel, observe, have the courage to honour your needs, be meticulously honest with yourself. You may need a nap, you may need to call a friend, you may need fresh food, you may need a new job…listen and act. Follow the feelings and you will bring your self back into alignment, what feels good is good. And the good feelings will empower you to follow through with the necessary action that will further support you.
- But be truly honest, eating a whole tub of ice-cream is unlikely to be much of a solution. You are looking for a much more whole and “complete” feeling than the soft anesthetic of impulse buying or comfort food.
Using this technique you are bringing a “greater” aspect of yourself into your life as an ally. You become the observer of you, the compassionate observer, and this simply takes a great deal of the charge away from your problems.
There is a flow to life with a wave motion, an expansion and contraction, peaks and troughs. In all things and areas of our lives. Generally we prefer the expansion part because this feels full, exciting and hopeful. The contraction aspects take us away from our previous feelings of well-being but can be equally satisfying if we relax and flow with the wave. By observing yourself as you traverse these contours of life you will become far better able to deal with life’s setbacks from the viewpoint of an empowered co-creator.
tags: abundance, consciousness, moods
Previous Entry : Having A Bad Day
I just thought I’d just drop a line to say I really enjoy reading the posts on your blog. I’m definitely going to bookmark you! By the way, I am Neil. Check out my blog whenever you have the time.
Since you’re really into blogging, I thought I’d ask you to try this personal blogging software called Qumana. It’s got amazing features that really add to the fun of blogging. You can drag-and-drop pieces of text and pictures while surfing and edit on the fly. It also has Technorati tags, which I see you are already familiar with. You could download it from http://qumana.com/download.html it’s totally free!
I found your “what bad day post?” quite amusing. You know I think I might just give your 9 step to get whack a shot. I hope it works as well as it did for you. Do email me at neilk@netscribes.com and let me know what you think about the software.