One of THOSE Days

The challenges I describe here are the frustrating or ‘spilt milk’ incidents people experience in daily life. I think we’ve all had days like this and they reveal something important about how we deal or don’t deal with them. A little progress each day adds up to big results.

It was one of those uphill days for this beetle, Alexander and me. I felt jangled, like something was off, and grumpy, too. When my children were little, we read about Alexander and they loved yelling at the top of their lungs, "Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" every time the phrase occurred in the book. (Judith Viorst, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, pub. Simon & Schuster, NY, 1972) It happens sometimes from the moment you wake up like it did for Alexander, with gum in his hair and me feeling grumpy and out of sorts. The beetle is just doing its beetle thing but is doing it uphill for some reason.

Normally I’d take time to sort it out but not today. Normally I would be up early to write while all is quiet and my mind focused, but not this particular morning. I woke up when my son poked his head in the door saying he needed to get to work a half hour earlier. His job is like that. Bottom line, I’d slept in and I needed to be in the car driving in 10 minutes. Do-able if I hurried. My wild bed head of hair needed a brush and I couldn’t find it. I found another brush, a hat, and raced out the door remembering, after the fact, that my brush was already in the car from yesterday’s trip.

I’m on track, I thought. Nope. After a half hour of driving, I was sitting outside the coffee shop ordering my partner’s favorite breakfast on my way back home. Balancing 2 coffees and a sandwich, one of the cups of really hot coffee tipped and spilled its contents over my thigh, onto the seat and onto the floor mat beneath me. I quickly sent healing energy to my thigh until the burning stopped and continued to mop up with available napkins. Back I went into the coffee place, ordered another coffee and scooped up more napkins. Twenty minutes later I was on the road again.

Still smoldering about the spill, egged on by my inner critic, I just about didn’t see the crosswalk lights flashing and a pedestrian starting to cross.. I DID stop, but it was a ‘stomp on the brakes, food on the floor’ kind of stop. Good thing the sandwich was wrapped well and the new coffee stayed in its drink holder! Mouthing “sorry” to the pedestrian and his dog, I was ultra vigilant the rest of the way home. I think Alexander trips on his skateboard and accidentally drops his favorite sweater into the sink while the water is on. Anyway, it was all I could do to not snap at my partner when he pointed out I was gone for longer than my usual morning 'run'.

I collected myself and thought, surely other people have this kind of day. Isn’t it just an inconvenience when looking at the broader picture of life in general? “Why can’t I just get over whatever this is?” I said out loud to myself. “Alexander and his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day”, says that ,”some days are just like that…” Well, yes, some days do seem like that, but as an adult, I have skills to deal with a bad day and know better than to subject myself and others to my grumpiness. I thought about it some more as self-abasing thoughts continued to rise in black cloud puffs above my head. Sighing, I went through the process. “Yes, I’m still grumpy and I know there’s a reason for it, so thanks a lot.” I retorted. Just acknowledging my bad mood and knowing there was something else irking me was calming enough to start listening to all the parts of me.

Then I heard:

1. Be kind to yourself. “Yes,” I thought, still a little grumpy, “accidents happen.” It’s OK to remind your inner critic that life gets messy and occasionally there are accidents. Perfection is the mind's expectation and not realistic nor possible I told myself again. How does that saying go? We’re perfectly human?

2. Where did your jangled state originate? I spent some time tracing where my feelings really came from. I felt an abnormal amount of guilt about spilling coffee in my son’s brand new car even though I knew his reaction would be one of understanding, and it was, but I woke up feeling jangled and still didn’t have a clue about why. I stopped punishing myself and purposefully replaced it with acceptance. “OK, I’m having a less than stellar day.”

3. Choose your state of being. This is where you, the adult, can do some adulting and choose to get out of grumpy and into awareness and compassion for the mood you’re in. Immediately, I felt the surge of empowerment that comes from consulting and aligning with my soul, my inner genius.

We tend to like commiserating with others about our struggles until we feel better or until the next time a similar experience comes our way. We all do it but then we don't benefit from the gift hidden inside whatever is causing the challenge. If it was particularly traumatic for us, we feel the need to tell our story over and over again to multiple people over many years sometimes until we find that gift and unwrap it. Those are called our “patterns” or “stories” and they need to be genuinely heard and healed, not judged nor dismissed.

I chose to let the grumpy part go but I wasn’t done yet. I had to know what the source of my mood was. What was really going on with me today? I thought about what had happened, then requesting firmly that my mind pause its thinking so I could listen, I was able, only then, to identify that I was feeling overwhelmed. Awareness morphed into understanding and I knew exactly what that jangled feeling was. I need, like I need water and food, to carve out substantial time every day to create. It feeds my soul. It energizes me. It lifts me up. It balances me so I can return to myself and to my authentic being. It’s kind of strange that the process of finding out the why of emotions suddenly turned my grumpiness into cheerfulness and that’s part of the gift. I needed to acknowledge that what I nurture myself with is important, and not just for my body.

At the end of his rough day, Alexander wants to move to Australia. At the end of mine, I realize that too many demands made on my time and energy demeans who I’m being to the people around me, to myself. Too many instances of saying 'yes' instead of some version of 'no', starts the spiral downward of diminishing energy and empowerment. I had allowed the day’s events to overtake my needs. And the beetle? Thanks to its diligence, the eggs laid in the ball will have a good start in life.

Finally sinking into bed that night, I said a heartfelt thank you to my morning’s jangled state. I thanked the day’s challenges for the gift of self-awareness I needed to get serious about nurturing myself. Besides, today is another chance to change something, or everything.

PS The kind people at the car dealership cleaned the upholstery and carpets in the car.

PPS The beetle featured in this post is a dung beetle and part of the scarab family which lays its eggs in dung balls fashioned through rolling with its hind legs.