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MAKE SPACE IN YOUR HEART
FOR THOSE REALLY BAD DAYS

Everyone has bad days. Sometimes they are really bad. I’ve found that making space in your heart for those really bad days helps to keep them in perspective and to make them seem more manageable.

Making space in your heart for those really bad days involves learning to expect that, every once in a while, you’re going to have one. It means making allowances for the fact that, while no one likes them, really bad days happen to all of us. No one is spared or exempt.

On the surface, it might seem that when you expect an occasional really bad day, you would be planting a negative seed, setting yourself up, or being pessimistic, but that’s not really the case. When you expect something that is inevitable and built into the human experience, you’re not being negative but rather accepting. And, the nice thing is, acceptance is at the root of not sweating the small stuff.

Being accepting of an occasional really bad day is no different from being accepting of an occasional rainy day. Most of us don’t freak out when we see rain; instead, we accept it. We make allowances. We might not prefer it, but we accept it. Same thing with a really bad day. Rather than freaking out or thinking it’s the end of the world, we can say to ourselves, “Oh well, it was inevitable. I’m glad it doesn’t happen very often,” or something like that. Often that little bit of perspective, and maybe even a tiny bit of humor, keeps you from making things even worse or thinking that things are worse than they are. Without acceptance, it’s easy to convince yourself that “this always happens” and that your life is somehow falling apart.

Kelly said that when she was eighteen years old, she had what she believed was the “worst day of her life.” Among the horrible things she experienced that day were that her mom’s car was hit in the school parking lot, and her backpack, which contained the only copy of her research paper, was stolen. She said that her desire to not sweat the small stuff, along with her acceptance of the fact that everyone has an occasional horrible day, saved her sanity. While she wouldn’t wish a day like that one on her worst enemy, she was able to recognize that, as bad as it was, things could have been much worse. No one was hurt in the accident, and she could re-create her paper in less time than it took to write it the first time. She said that keeping her cool enabled her to get through the day and deal with each problem as effectively as possible.

Embracing this strategy won’t prevent you from having an occasional really bad day, but it will help you remember that even bad days will end, to be replaced, it is hoped, by much better days.