The Day that Self-Doubt and Fear Won

The other day, I had one of those no good, terrible days. One of those days when the monsters of self-doubt and fear in your head seem to be confirmed by the real-life events of the day.

It was one of those days where the positives and blessings of the previous days were washed away by the negative thoughts that take over your mind. One of those days where you know you are drowning and you know you can save yourself, but you just can’t figure out how. Yup, the day was awful.

I think you get the point.

I am lucky. I don’t have days like that very often. I have bad moments during the day, but I typically can work through things or shake them off pretty quickly. But, not on this day. On this day, I wanted to call it quits at 5:00pm. I wanted to go to bed and wake up in the morning to try again.

If you know me at all, you know that I always search for the beautiful lessons hidden in our challenges. I knew this horrible day was going to teach me a thing or two. Or four. Here are some lessons I learned the hard way that day.

1. Positive people have terrible days too. Being positive is hard work. And, sometimes I. Just. Can’t. Do. It. I really try to keep any negativity I feel inside my head because I don’t want to take it out on the people around me. But, negative feelings certainly do exist inside this sunshine and rainbows exterior. It takes hard work every day to keep them from taking over. Once in a while, I fail.
2. Bad days teach us to be empathetic. There are people suffering from persistent depression or atrocities beyond our comprehension. There are people who never learned how to work through the bad and to focus on the good. That terrible day reminded me how some people feel on a daily basis, and it is dreadful. I so appreciate my terrible day for just that reason. It showed me the deep well that we can fall into and how difficult it is to pull ourselves out of it.
3. Problem solving can wait until tomorrow. I need to staple a “note to self” on my forehead that says this: never, ever do anything when you are feeling super emotional or defensive. I repeat, back away from the keyboard. Lock your lips and toss away the key. Put the problems off for today and think about them again tomorrow when you are in a different state of mind. I promise they will still be there in the morning. Or, better yet, they won’t.
4. Terrible days come to an end and we do feel better in the morning. You know how they say to never go to bed angry? Well, that doesn’t work for me sometimes. Sometimes, I just need to go to bed on a problem and wake up to a fresh new day. I have found that so often the major life-changing problem doesn’t seem so major when I wake up in the morning. Funny thing is, the problem doesn’t change overnight. I do.

To be honest, on that very bad day, I was not thankful for the constant pit in my stomach and the self-doubt and fear. Looking back, though, once again I see the beautiful lessons that are buried in even the worst days. Even I get derailed on the path to serendipity, we all do. The difference between us and them is that we do what it takes to get back on track and we know the sun will come out tomorrow. Hmmm, this reminds me of a song…

When I’m stuck a with day
That’s gray,
And lonely,
I just stick out my chin
And grin,
And say,
Oh

The sun’ll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
‘Til tomorrow
Come what may
Tomorrow, tomorrow
I love ya tomorrow
You’re always
A day
Away

–Tomorrow from Annie