Making through a bad day

A bad day feels gloomy and agonizing. The constant pain that we are carrying doesn’t seem to fade away. Our heart feels heavy as if a heavy stone is placed there. It is excruciatingly painful and feels like we are bleeding inside. Nothing feels right. Things keep on taking a turn for worse. With each passing day our heart feels heavier than yesterday. It is hard to carry ourselves with the heart that seems to feel heavier than us. Sometimes the pain makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t as we even don’t know why we are feeling like this. Our heart keeps on aching. We are left to try things after things to vanish the pain or we simply give up trying hoping it will end. However, the pain doesn’t seem to go anywhere. All we want is to get out of it as fast as we can.

“ When will things be fine again? The question is if things will be fine again? Why are these bad feelings not going anywhere?”

Things don't seem to be on track. The sad part is we cannot bring ourselves up to align it back on the track. Due to the same paralyzing pain residing in our heart. The even sadder part is that only we know what we are going through. We cannot bring our pain to others.We pretend to be fine when we are not. But I can assure you, there is someone else having a bad day together with you so that you won’t feel alone.

Even though I write mostly on positivity, the irony is I go through these emotions often. Just that I couldn’t bring myself to share with you. The particular day when I started writing this article I was going through a bad day or say a series of bad days. I am still going through a bad day today.

I recently started my clinical postings and I was so over the top in initial days returning to hospital and getting to learn new things. It was how it used to before the pandemic started and I was very happy. But as time passed, I began to feel worried because of the current situation. I am self isolating but I am worried if my family gets sick because of me. The hope which I gained going back to my normal life is again dimming out that today I didn’t feel like going to posting at all. I felt down the whole day. But I did go to the postings and I still will do tomorrow.

During times like this, it is hard to cope with emotions. But there are things I keep reminding myself during days like these and the pain gets better and I make it through to the other side. I am writing now hoping it will help you to cope up with the things that I do myself. Things that I remind myself are,

1. It is okay to feel so

“It is not a good thing to be sad. We have to get out of it. Something is really going wrong with us. Please get out of it as fast as it can. Why can’t we get out of it? We are lacking indeed. We shouldn't feel this way. Something is wrong within us. ”

During time like these, it is easier to feel like our pain means something about us and it is something that will stick with us for a long time. But it will be hard to accept our emotion, our pain, our feelings and our situation when we constantly judge ourselves critically. When we think our failures mean we are failures. When we feel our difficult emotions means our life is difficult. When we think that our pain means we are lacking for not being able to erase it.

It is okay to have emotions but not okay to be judgemental over it as if it is a direct blow to our integrity. Right now what we are feeling is okay, it is normal. There is nothing to feel ashamed of. Emotions are signals. They want us to acknowledge them rather than discard them. When we give our emotions the space to exist, it will come and go. Their nature is like that. When we keep on holding on to it or deny their existence, the resistance is meant to hurt us. What we can do is give our emotions a space to exist and that too without any judgement. It is okay to feel this way.

It is hard to accept situations like these but acceptance means being kind to ourselves. It is in understanding that we are not perfect, things are not perfect and it is okay. It gives room for love. It is okay to feel what we are feeling now.

2. It is a phase

One day I woke up thinking of the days when I was so merrily happy that I was gleefully holding onto those days thinking it is my life and my life should always be like that. But then I also remembered those painful bad days, when I worked so hard. When I couldn’t bring myself to wake up to face the day but I still did. The aftermath of those days are so beautiful that looking back at those days it doesn’t seem like bad memories. So, I thought to myself it would be unjust if I only selected happy days of my life as the only days that define my life. It will be unjust to your life as well because our life is like that. Only when we go through darker days, do we see brighter days. Just like how days and nights alternate with each other but exist beautifully in harmony.

These are the days that exist to serve us to be more patient and mindful and tune in to ourselves within. It will pass by soon. What I learnt to remind myself is, it is just the phase. It will pass soon. Just reminding that it will pass by soon and things will be normal again, makes my heart hopeful. Someday this pandemic will be over soon and we will get to see normal days. Days like these are a part of our journey that makes the whole journey. So maybe it isn’t that of a useless day.

3. Saying yes to life

I learnt during my journey that when we open up more to life, life opens up more to us. There are still things to do, experiences to experience, knowledge to gain and so much more to do in a given day. When we give in to life, life gives in to us.

I remember a particular incident while discussing this. It was during my pre med days. I had practice tests weekly. But that particular day, I didn’t attend the practice test because I was feeling so down. I didn’t have any will to. Maybe because of that it already precipitated the sadness within me. I still had a class after the test. I told myself then, I will just go to class carrying my heart even if it was feeling heavy. I got out and made my way to the institute. My heart was still feeling heavy. But as I walked, it disappeared slowly. I could see those autumn leaves lying on the ground and flocks of students appearing just after giving the test. I didn’t resent them. I didn’t even nag myself for not attending the test. I was just happy that I could make it through and what I was feeling had disappeared by then. I lived through that day and that day feels beautiful to me now for the fact that I kept going.

It is true a bad day feels like life has stopped but it hasn’t. There is so much to life than the beliefs we hold onto. It’s when we give up those beliefs and say yes to life we can understand how dynamic our life really is and how dynamic our emotions are really. It is a form of coping indeed by doing things that we need to do anyway. I tell myself I need to do anyway, might as well do when things start to get overwhelming and trust me it isn’t that bad as my mind thought it to be and it gets better as it goes. The worries may cloud my judgements for a while but going to clinical postings and learning is very beautiful and peaceful. I loved going today and I will love going tomorrow as well if only I hadn't focused much on self doubts. Showing up can make the difference between what is in our mind and what can be the reality. Thus, let’s show up to life each day without a fail.

4. Taking things slowly

Slowing down soothes my soul during days like these. I learnt that just because we have to do things doesn’t mean we have to do with rapidity as long as there is a choice. And in day to day life, slowing down is almost always a choice. For in life, changes take place rather at a slower pace.

Slowing down helps us return to our ground. It makes us feel that maybe things aren't as helpless as we think. It gives a room for us to relax and regain our composure that will help us tackle obstacles as we go. It prevents us from giving up prematurely due to the nagging expectations that surround us. It gives us room to be us. For slowing down, we can do things at a slow pace or we can even pause for a moment to tune into ourselves to be mindful.

Now, when things start to get overwhelming, I remind myself to go slow at whatever I am doing. I also take time to take long deep breaths and tune into my breathing rhythm. During bad days, you can even find me goofing around dancing around my room ,dancing to slow music. It gives me a room to realize that I don’t have to forget living while preparing for living and don’t have to give up as well. I know it will take time for things to be normal but it will be even, at a slow pace. So why don’t we give ourselves some time and room to breathe? :)

5. Vulnerability

Opening up to our feelings is a very hard thing when we know we are going to be subjected to judgement, of how others will perceive us if we opened up. It is harder to open up now more than before because we all show our happy emotions and good times only in social media. We feel suffocated because of suppressing our emotions. It makes us again feel like something is really wrong with us when everyone is happy. Ironically, I also do the same, I rarely express myself on my own social platform except for good times. But opening like this in my blog today, I want to remind you it is not picture perfect behind the scene and I am not always positive though I write on positivity most of the time. It took me a long time to realize this and I want to assure you that we all feel the same even though we don’t express it. We all go through bad days like these. But as it is not said enough, it feels like it occurs rarely. Someday maybe we can overcome the barrier. But for now, I want to assure you, you are not alone.

Talking about this, I want to describe my own immediate environment and how vulnerability has influenced my life positively. I am surrounded by incredibly talented flawless people. You may wonder if they have it all. But they also feel anxious when exams are coming, they also feel anxious before presentation or from the feeling that they might get scolded from teachers. But it is this feeling that is common to us and that bonds us. I think the beautiful moments between us friends are actually talking about what we feel unfiltered and consoling each other during hard times. We often tell ourselves that we didn’t know we also felt the same way that the other was feeling. It makes us realise we are humans after all with emotions that can feel overwhelming sometimes.

Sharing our feelings ease off the burden and pressure of perfection by serving as a channel to let our suppressed emotions out. Thus,it is a very powerful tool. But, it takes courage and I can understand if it doesn’t come to us naturally. It was hard for me to write this, to open up to my worries as well.. But as I started venting like this, my heart indeed feels lighter of letting go of all the burden of perfection and I want to assure you we are the same no matter wherever we live.

Opening up has changed my life a lot. When I said Hi, many waved at me. When I smiled many more times people return my smile than times they didn’t. It feels strange but this connection is what binds us together. When we open up to our near and dear ones, our heart feels lighter. Afterall, a human needs another human. Most importantly, when we open up to ourselves, our heart melts and we get to understand ourselves more.

6. Labels are labels.

“This should be like this. This shouldn’t be like this. That should be like that otherwise it is not acceptable. ”

What is right, what is wrong. We are all caught up in this circle. What I learnt is much of our life we go through defining life by labels. How attending a certain label means our life is fulfilled, we are happy if not we are doomed. But as I grew older, I felt how some labels are so redundant and I wished I hadn’t bothered pursuing them and making myself miserable. It can be anything from trying to follow each schedule to perfection to blindly following others just to fit in. So, it is always better to analyze pros and cons of anything before obsessing over it. What I realized is trends come and go but one thing that is always constant is us. If life has to be a certain way, we all would be the same. It is the difference that keeps us together. Letting go of unrealistic expectation will free us from the burden we are carrying.

7. Gratitude.

The most phenomenal thing that I learnt to make through a bad day or any day is gratitude. I know it can be a cheesy, unimaginable, unbelievable and unattainable thing to say to you but it is the truth because it works like a medicine.

During hard times, what we tend to feel is that everything is pressing upon us. There is no meaning to anything. Everything feels like it has turned against us and we feel like a victim to our circumstance. But what we fail to realize is that we put so much emphasis on bad things that we forget that there are so many good things happening to us already. It makes our heart bitter but with gratitude, we can get out of it. There are so many things that are there that make our life truly blessed. It helps us overcome this feeling of lacking as well.

Practising gratitude doesn’t need to feel like a compulsion or we should list things that we are grateful for just for the sake of it. I started practising gratitude through guided practice and what I learnt is on any given day, we can remember whom we are grateful to most during the day. Our friends, families and even strangers do acts of kindness to us but we may fail to look at it. Just remembering my mother’s smiling face puts my heart at ease. Gratitude is what we feel rather than what we say only. When we look at things and appreciate them we can feel the peace arising within us making us realize our life is not as lacking as we thought it to be. My father often says that not everyone can do good to us all the time and we should appreciate times when they could do good to us. It is very true. One day when I was feeling down, I suddenly remembered how my friend came and sat by when I was very sick. We don’t have time to talk often these days but just remembering that, my heart swelled and I felt blessed. In my daily life, there were so many good things but I failed to realize them previously.

We can look around in our daily life and see how things operate beautifully that we have been overlooking. How our body keeps on going despite hard circumstances. How our heart keeps beating without giving up on us. It is hard for us to be kind to ourselves but it is true, we have fought many battles. We can be grateful for ourselves for our efforts and for any act of kindness we did.

Gratitude is practice. It will come after practise by asking ourselves what we are grateful for today. It may be weather or some sweet compliment someone gave you. And even better is to express our gratitude for life is short. You never know how your words will make someone's day.

Now, I purposefully ask myself what am I grateful for today and there are so many things. I am very grateful to see my parents, my senior brothers and sisters, my teachers working and supporting us in this time of pandemic. I am equally grateful to you who are reading my blog right now who makes it worthwhile to write. There were many things that were good today too and tomorrow will be too. Let’s fill in our heart with this abundance of gratitude and take time to count our blessings. The day isn’t that bad after all isn’t it? :)

I am coming to the end of my article, I hope you are doing better than before like I am. Things that I wrote will serve as a reminder for me as well. Someday, when looking at days like these, I will remember them as beautiful ones that I make it through and the beautiful ones you make it through as well. I wish you all the healing and keep going while resting in between. Stay safe.