Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH!
Happy first day of Autumn, TNTH readers! I am so happy that the summer season is officially over, and that sooner or later we’ll be all wearing light jackets and sweaters and not sweating. Also, happy weekend to everyone who’s had a very long, busy and stressful week; I know I had.
This past week has been a stressful one; one that I haven’t experienced since… probably grad school. If it wasn’t me preparing for my class for Thursday, it’s me handling personal business regarding my physical and mental health.
Due to me handling everything for the last couple of days, I’ve been experiencing some bad days. My emotions have been all over the place, I’ve been a bit more anxious than usual, and it’s just beginning to feel like these bad days are here to stay.
But when my mind is running down the spiral staircase of negative thoughts and feelings, I have to remind myself that at any given time, I can stop running down the stairs. I can walk back up those stairs. In my personal growth and mental health journey, it’s really important to remember that you, and only you have the power to turn your day around.
A while back, Claudia Sulewski, a lifestyle YouTuber, mentioned something that always stuck to me due to how real and raw it was; she said that one thing that helps her to keep going in life is reminding herself that
your mentality is your reality.
In a nutshell, a positive and optimistic mentality will grant you a positive and optimistic reality, and vice versa. Many other people that I followed over the years mentioned something similar to this quote, stating that happiness rarely stems from an outside source. Happiness begins with you. As a society, I feel as if we forget to check-in on ourselves; what are we doing to make sure we control our happiness? What is something that we do that makes us happy? Is it waking up every morning at a specific time? Is it getting your favorite coffee order before work? Is it your hobbies and interests? It’s crucial that we understand these things so that when we aren’t feeling so great, these are just some of the things we could look forward to, and do. Of course, happiness isn’t so concrete; sometimes happiness is just an emotion that comes whenever it feels like.
But what happens if it doesn’t come at the end of the day? What if you’re just in such a crabby mood to the point where you don’t feel like doing anything? What if you’re drained out? What if nothing brings you happiness that specific day?
Newsflash: it’s okay.
We’re human beings. We feel an entire spectrum of emotions on a daily basis, and sometimes happiness just isn’t one of them. Bad days are bound to happen, even to the happiest people in the world. We’re allowed to have them; sometimes things aren’t just going our way and we need a breather from life and time away from people, and even from our responsibilities. (And I mean an hour or two away from work that has to be done in your own spare time, not during work hours or anything else that requires your undivided attention.)
And yes, that bad day can turn into bad days, and even a bad week. And if the bad days last longer than two weeks, then it’s time to reconsider why these bad days are occurring so frequently and speak to your doctor about possibly seeking professional help.
In the most generalized scenario, bad days are temporary. Every time you go to sleep and wake up in a new day, you are granted another chance to make the most out of it. I feel like we forget sometimes just how temporary bad days are in life, and it’s really up to us to make sure they stay as temporary as possible.
So yeah, I had a bad week. I felt like the bad days were here to stay. I felt myself indulging in that sadness and anxiousness and tiredness of those bad days, and on most days I did that fight the urge to “turn my day around”. I kept walking down those spiral stairs.
But I stopped myself from reaching the bottom, and I started walking back up.
-Liz. (:
Letters From Liz. 