There are crazy days, hectic days, and then there are the butt kicking days. You know, the kind of day that start wrong and end up giving you a run for your money.
We've all had those days, the type that makes us wish we never got up in the first place and wants us to run away screaming hoping it'll make it move faster just so it can end.
Yeah! We've all be there!
Often, you can't even really predict those kind of days really, even if you woke up with the best positive intention, you could suddenly find yourself in an infernal cogwheel of things going wrong : toilet not flushing, right before you stepped in your dog's poopy accident in the middle of the living room, and facing a tea kettle that decided to bail on you... Usually this kind of chain reaction gets worse and worse as the day progress if you can't snap out of the bad mood that you got into at the very start. And frankly, as in favour of the law of attraction and positive thinking woo-woo as I am, they are probably just lessons to make us appreciate the good ones more. Seriously though, these days happen to everybody, and frankly, from experience it is better to accept that any form of resistance is futile from the start. Trying to fight these days, is pretty much like attempting to swim against a hard current : you'll only end up exhausting yourself further and faster (don't do it it is stupid).
When one of these days of hell come upon me I usually adopt a much saner approach: by not trying to make it a better day, but to try to salvage what is left of it.
On days like these, I set my expectations on low, VERY low. Over the years I came to see these as cue that maybe I need a break, and just stop achieving insane productivity at all cost, and focus on myself. Ticking off everything off my to-do list goes off the table and the couch becomes my best friend (along with Netflix). On those days, my goal becomes to keep everyone alive and fed and I'll count any small wins as a bonus. Deadlines can wait, my sanity can't.
A cup of tea makes everything better, but if you rolled your eyes at this, I'm going to say "Go ahead and fix yourself a cup of coffee instead". When everything seems to be going wrong during the day, I tend to favour comfort everything : clothes, food, activities and warm beverage. The reason I particularly favour tea (me being a tea addict set aside) is that the very act of holding a steaming cup of tea and waiting for it to cool down while inhaling the aroma is near meditative. As long as I remember to keep the cup on a level, hard surface in front of me and not on my lap, I'm good to go. And if tea fails? Well! There is always wine...
For as long as I can remember, I used to go walk the stress, anxiety and frustration away and that has always been my to-go activity whenever I needed to clear my mind. It's the cheapest, easiest way to leave your problems in the dust : slip on your shoes, grab your keys, and walk out the door listening to some music while your pound that negativity away. Walk as long as you need to to feel calm again, and then go back to taking care of yourself until bed time.
Tomorrow is another day, one you will probably start on the right foot if you accepted the reality of an off day without feeling guilty about it. I find there is a lot of comfort in taking those taxing, challenging days easy, it reminds me we are all human, that we never were meant to work like robots and that maybe it was the only way my body could let me know to slow down a bit. In the spirit of mental health awareness day, I urge you to not push through a bad day (or week) and take all the time you can afford and need to focus on your own well-being first.
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