It seems today as if Murphy’s law is the only law. Ever have one of those days where things just can’t seem to go right and your own thoughts and feelings are making things even worse? I’d be lying if I’d say I have everything under control just because I’m working with mindfulness for myself now, but it did come in handy today.
My head’s a chaos for two days now over someone giving me sh*t and on top of that today has been a day with things going wrong wherever they could. As if karma is biting you in the ass for something and you haven’t figured out yet what for. Sounds familiar?
Now let me rephrase this for myself and those who have a lot of these recognizable days:
- I worry
- emotions run higher than usual
- thoughts take me away from the present
- I lose focus
- things always can go wrong and things go wrong more easily
- easily irritated, because of thoughts and emotions
- I worry about things going wrong.
And so the circle can be going on and on.
It sometimes feels as if things are ‘happening’ to us, and sometimes things do, but in this case and in most cases of stress it’s not just happening to us, meaning we can do a lot before it comes to a very bad ‘one of those days’.
I could intervene earlier, but how?
The ‘worry’ part.. In my case someone elses actions got me sick to my stomach. It really felt and still feels unfair. Sometimes it’s just more effective to remember that we have to accept what it is and not keep worrying. Doesn’t mean I do approve his actions, but means I won’t let myself get stuck in the negative. If it’s something you can do something about, but you have other very important things to do or it isn’t the time or place to do something about it, park it untill you can. There’s no way chaos in your mind will help you when it’s not the time to express (in this case) your anger. Accepting does not mean you’re not allowed to feel your anger, sadness or anxiety and so on.
To park these thoughts and focus on what it is you can apply a mindfulness exercise, making you pay attention to something entirely different than your thoughts, distracting you from them and training your attention to do what’s needed. If you tend to linger in the negative know that the smaller things can appear to be huge deals and less bearable. Don’t know what to do? Your breathing is always with you and your surroundings can always be observed.
And also you never have to push yourself to go through tough times alone. That’s why I called almost 2 hours with a good friend. It’s like I’m giving advice to myself in the past and present whenever I write stuff like this, but it helps me to keep practicing. Besides that, caring is one of my biggest qualities, if I may say so myself, and if I’m helping someone else out with this, just one, I’m really happy (:
