Frustrating days are long hard days. Starting with the alarm clock, and ending with a groan or moan hoping to sleep, trying to forget how bad today was. We all have these days, no one is excluded. Some of us however seem to have more of them than the rest of us do. For an unfortunate few, it is their lot that they have more bad days than good. For most of us fortunately, more than the occasional bad day is our own fault, and not the world plotting against us.
We live our life with a certain level of expectation. Personal boundaries are set by those expectations. Some of those boundaries we aren’t even aware we are setting. Our normal response to any situation is what our preset expectation is.
Pretend you have to be somewhere over ten miles away between seven and nine o’clock in the morning. how do do you feel about it? Do you feel apprehensive, do you feel frustration and mild anger start to simmer at the thought?
Unless it is the second day of a three day national holiday, there will always be a lot of people trying to get somewhere the same time you are. Set your boundaries aside, accept this as normal knowing everyone else feels the same frustrations, and be done with it.
Challenge those boundaries you have set in your life. Most of our boundaries are self imposed. We set up conditions, and fence in our life with our expectations. Our expectations play out every day day, which further reinforces our expectations. A self fulfilling loop is created in which many of us live.
Changing too much at one time is a sure fire way to have your fears come true. Changing too much and failing makes it easy to fall back into the same old patterns. Why try to change your whole world in one fell swoop? Pick one difficult moment of your day, and choose to approach that moment differently.
Think about one event in your day you want to change for the better. Smile while thinking about the moment. Smiling helps you feel and think differently. Even if your smile feels false, keep smiling for a few seconds – while thinking about how to handle the event differently.
It may help if you sing a few words of a happy song while thinking. Occupying your brain with other things allows your thinking to change from your normal limited patterns. Let negativity go, and let some sunshine in. A few moments of smiling, singing while thinking will lead you to new ideas for old problems.
Doing this is no different than going on a long walk, sitting in a quiet place, or exercising. You are changing your focus while looking for an alternative way to make a moment more pleasant and positive.
After some time has passed, it may suddenly dawn on you that you haven’t had a bad day in weeks. In fact it might almost be disturbing wondering what is wrong because everything is going so well. What has really happened is you have developed new ways of looking at problems, and created new tools to make what used to be uncomfortable situations comfortable.
With practice, smiling, humming, or singing a happy song, or feeling happy thoughts while thinking about one problem in your day will help your mind start thinking about problems differently. You will find you are reaching out, moving your personal boundaries farther away from you instead of pulling them in around you. People around you will start to be different too. They will be happier because you are helping them while you help yourself. Share what you are doing with others, and get them involved too.
