A co-worker of mine came in the other day with dark circles under her eyes and looked rather upset. When I questioned her about how she was doing, she said, "I just had a bad night." I could tell by her tone that she wasn't interested in expressing more then just that. I told her, "Everyone has those every once in awhile. It's normal. It's only a problem when they are more then just every once in awhile."
I've thought a lot about this simple statement I made to her. It is such a simple concept yet is rarely my point of view. It is easy to blow a simple bad day out of proportion as well as breeze over the frequent bad days.
My tendency is to give excuses for having too many bad days and ignoring the signs that things are headed in a bad direction for me. It isn't until things to get the point that it is a serious downward spiral of continuous bad days that I actually pay attention to what has been going on all along. Then it's a question of, "How do I make it stop?".
Paying attention to my feelings, and emotions and looking at the reality of what is going on, "Is this a one time occurrence? Do I have the ability to control this situation from here on out? Is this acceptable behaviour (for me to behave this way, or for the other party(s)" If I could stop and look at these things along the way and evaluate the situation as it is happening, I could prevent a lot of heartache, and turmoil in the future. When I make excuses, it is rarely to protect myself, but to protect the idea that things WILL be fine, that they WILL work out. It is avoiding the effort it takes to create a healthy life for myself, emotionally and physically, in the hope that it will "work it's self out".
I have found with the things that mean the most to me, it is rarely the case that it "works it's self out". It means a lot to me for a reason, and in order for those things to remain important to me, it take work and a lot of effort to ensure they are the best for me.
Over analyzing a single bad day take a lot of energy, but not letting those bad days compound is worth the effort. Give them the attention that is needed in relative terms and work to prevent the same bad day to repeat it's self frequently in the future. Always moving forward. If I stop making excuses for everything that happens and give it the appropriate value, that is energy well worth my while.
