When You Have a Bad Day
Like most people I expected to start the new year filled with serenity, energy and enthusiasm. Like most people, my expectations have been far from my reality.
Rather than the anticipated (and hoped for) optimistic approach to life and living I had envisaged in the dying days of 2020, I find myself being a lot less than cheery.
Instead I am often:
- Irrational
- Insecure
- Incoherent
- Impatient
- Irritable – and almost certainly irritating
- Intolerant (and no doubt often intolerable)
- Increasingly Indolent
In truth, I am experiencing the Coviditis* and Burnout that I have been supporting clients through for 10 months.
The ongoingness of this pandemic – the uncertainty, the unknowing, the unpredictability, the instability – is taking its toll on all of us. The endless worrying is wearying and the constant change is challenging.
Most of the time I am able to coach myself out of the funk and do my work effectively and lead my life constructively. But some days – the days I am impatient, irritable, insecure, irrational and intolerant – it just feels too hard to keep on keeping on and all I want to do is lie around eating chocolate and reading trashy novels (that’s the indolence). And I am coming to terms with the fact that that’s ok!
In the very early days of the hideousness that is our current reality, a medical expert warned us that we needed to view this journey, not as a sprint or even a marathon, but as a march. It is only now that I am truly starting to assimilate this truth; that we are going to be trudging along, day after day, taking small but incremental steps towards a better experience and kinder reality.
Some of the days will be easier and some will be harder. The trick, I think, is to appreciate and celebrate the easier days, and acknowledge and support ourselves to feel better on the harder days.
It’s probably not the best idea to retreat to the couch with a bar of chocolate and a book every time I am struggling, but there is always something I can do to help myself feel a little better (go for a walk, put my face in the sun, have a snack, have a nap, phone a friend, pat a dog, tickle a cat, have a weep, have a giggle…). The same is true for you.
I’d love to hear your tips for coping with bad days.
As with all healing journeys, the first and most important step is acknowledging and being honest about our struggles and unhappiness. Tell yourself (and everyone around you) the truth about how you are feeling, and then you (and they) can get busy with helping to support you to feel better.
🌿 If you’d like to explore how you can spend your time and energy better this year in order to support yourself through the storm — join me for my Plan to Spend Your Energy Wisely online workshop on Saturday 30 January.
Yours, marching right here beside you,
Judy
*In April 2020 I began calling this Covid Fatigue e but that term has been used to describe something else entirely so I am now calling it Coviditis.
- “I have seen various psychologists and therapists but none of them have the skill of Judy in being able to relate to me and the way I think about things.”
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- “Perception is everything and working with Judy has helped me realise my true potential by changing my outlook of life into more positive ones. I enjoy walking out of a life coaching session feeling like I am in control again, less stressed and more energetic.”
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