Before you read the title of this post and think ‘this girl is nuts’ she loves a bad day?! Hear me out…
On Sunday, I woke up really missing my mom. Missing her warmth, positivity, company, and just her mom-ness. I was really sad. This turned into feeling lonely and a bit isolated in general – something I struggled with the past few months. So I texted her and told her that I missed her, laid in bed and I cried for a little bit. Yep, this 30 year old (almost 31) laid in bed and cried because she missed her mom.
Over the past few years, there’s been a huge shift towards more positive thinking. It’s really become a movement. As you scroll through Instagram, you’re likely inundated with those types of power, positive messages. As a glass half full kind of girl, I love the inspiring words and totally believe in the power of positive thinking, but society and culture are proclaiming that there’s no space for negativity, negative emotions, or bad days.
There are bad days, worse days, and just plain old shitty days, and they happen to all of us on the reg. We’re all familiar with the phrase ‘when it rains, it pours’. Sometimes it feels like the bad moments and news just keep coming, and we can’t imagine or remember the feeling of the good ones.
I tend to be an ‘emotion repressor‘. When I start feeling sad, angry, bad, or even ‘too happy’, I shove the feelings aside or push them as far down into my soul as they can go. I blink my tears back, choke down a cry, and rarely let elation take over. I’m not a psychologist or therapist, but using a little bit of introspection, it’s very clear that this is my safety net; it’s my defense mechanism.
If I never feel too much, I’ll never be able to get hurt, right?
Wrong.
The positivity movement is teaching us that it’s not okay to be sad, mad, angry, or less than 100% positive all of the time, but this can be a really dangerous place to live. Repression causes us to bottle up our emotions, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful and keeps us from letting the most authentic version of ourselves shine. Not only does this hinder your ability to connect with yourself, it creates disconnect with the other people in your life. It’s hard to fully engage with others and cultivate new relationships when you’re not a the truest version of yourself.
When I push those emotions aside they always (and I mean always) present themselves later, often in really funny, ridiculous ways like getting annoyed with someone for no reason, acting like a b*** to someone who is really fabulous, and crying at a Hallmark commercial (okay, maybe I just always cry at those).
Repression can come in a lot of different forms…
Pretending not to be sad when something, for whatever reason, makes you feel blue
Powering through a bad day and acting like everything is fine
Glossing over something that hurt your feelings instead of being open and honest about it
I want to tell you that it’s not only OK to have a bad day, it’s actually a really great thing because guess what? You’re a human. You have emotions. Congratulations! Being a positive person doesn’t mean never having a bad day or crying or being angry. It means being positive most of the time, feeling and experiencing your emotions, and having the tools to use your bad days as opportunities to to the future.
The ability to show your truest emotions in an honest, safe way is actually such a super power. If you already have this, I’m so envious. It’s something that I work on all the time.
In the past, I would have forced myself to get up out of bed and go do something to distract myself from feeling all the things, but what I’ve realize over the past year or so is that feeling the things makes me a better version of myself.
It makes me happier long-term, it makes me more perceptive of the world around me, it makes me more empathetic and accepting of others, it makes me more authentic, it develops my friendships with others, I am more accepting of who I am, and it helps me grow.
Embracing the bad day and ‘negative emotions’ as opportunities to become the best version of myself has totally shifted my perspective on what it means to have a bad day. So, yeah, while I don’t totally love having a bad day, the ability to connect with your emotions authentically can play a huge role in your ability to have good days and connect with your deeper sense of self.
The growth and perspective that develops from accepting, recognizing, and valuing negative emotions and situations is really profound.
Here are my 4 steps for making your next bad day your best day:
Recognize
The first step is to recognize that nasty emotion as it starts to crawl up your spine. What is the emotion – is it sadness, anger, fury, happiness, elation, joy, fear?
Say hello to that emotion – wave, give it a wink, whatever works for you. Let it know that you see it sitting there waiting to come up.
Recognizing this emotion on a conscious level will prepare your mind for the next steps.
Accept
Tell that emotion that you recognize it, accept that it’s there, and will be waiting for it to fully express itself.
Express
Once the emotion has arisen in full-form, express it. This could be tears, screaming into a pillow or laughing hysterically. Letting the emotion come out of you will let the emotion know that you’re okay with it and willing to release it into the world. If it’s anger or sadness, you’re less likely to have them reappear in different situtaions.
Reflect
This is the most important step. Ask yourself, what is the learning experience here? How can I use this experience as a golden opportunity to develop myself.
Perhaps you made a mistake that you feel angry about. How can you improve that for the future?
Maybe you got feedback at work, what is the nugget of truth here that you can use to develop?
If your feelings are hurt, how can you be open and honest in a meaningful, kind way with the person who hurt your feelings so that your relationship can develop to another level and not stay stagnant.
Finally, you must know when to pull yourself out.
While it’s important to feel negative emotions and have bad days, misery does not love company. You must be able to follow the steps for your emotions and then use it to grow into positivity and turn it around. Negativity is a vicious cycle, one that is all too easy to fall into on a regular basis, and I know that your truest self is a happy, positive, vibrant one.
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