Sometimes, I have a bad day

I’m going to get quite personal here. Comfy? Then I’ll begin.

Despite all the stuff I read, and learn, and share… sometimes I have a bad day. I’m human, it’s only natural. You’ve probably seen a popular social media quote that says: it’s ok to not be ok …I know the sentiment of this statement is to reduce the negative association with mental health issues, but I don’t like it.

I don’t want to ‘not be ok’ – and I doubt anyone else does either. I don’t even want to be feeling just ok. I want to feel great. Fantastic. Spiffing. Wonderful.

So it really p***es me off when I feel low. I should know better, I tell myself.

Last week, I had trouble sleeping. I’m not sure why I couldn’t sleep, but it really made me low on energy, grumpy and irritable. I didn’t feel like doing anything much, and one morning, at 4am, I cried. I started crying and I couldn’t stop. I sobbed like something terrible had happened. I didn’t even really know why I was crying.

Here’s what I did next

Due to all of my learning, I did the following things, which had an almost immediate effect. Within 48 hours I felt lighter, happier, stronger – and I slept better, too.

• Exercise – even though I was super tired

• Journal – I wrote down 8 pages in my journal of all the things I was annoyed with, people that had let me down, stuff that was just buzzing in my head

• Gratitude list – I also wrote down all the things I had to be grateful for, from my able-body to the roof over my head to my husband’s hugs when I was sobbing

• Music – I put on some happy, upbeat music – loud – and I danced and sang

I know we all have low moments

It’s what you do to recover from them that matters. Recover fast. Recover well. Learn from your experiences. Move on. And get back to living the best damn life you can. Because life’s short and you deserve to enjoy every single day.

Make it count.