We’ve all experienced bad days where things don’t go as planned or something unexpected or even tragic happens. Maybe your dog eats your homework (which has actually happened to me recently), a car hits your car from behind when you’re stopped at a light, or you receive a diagnosis of doctor from your doctor. All are bad to various degrees. When bad days happened to me, I often found myself saying, “I wish it could be better.” In other words, I wanted things to be different than they are because I didn’t want to accept what happened. I might immediately go into blame (“You did this to me”) or shame (“This happened because I’m not a good person”).
Rather than saying “It could be better,” we can also say, “It could be worse.” In other words, what happened happened, AND things could also be much worse. What I’ve found is that by shifting my perspective to “It could be worse” allows me to acknowledge what happened and move forward rather than being stuck in shame or blame.
Still stuck in blame or shame? Consider asking, “What else might be true?“
Kindly,
David