Everyone falls into hard times, where it feels like everything that could go wrong suddenly does. Maybe those days seem to go on continuously, until it feels like that’s all you’ll ever find each week that you face. It gets hard to see the good sides of things, creating a person who feels unrecognizable.
Recently, I found myself feeling just like that, as if my luck ran out. I felt as though even the ways I had kept a good head on my shoulders were suddenly failing me. . I tried every piece of advice given to me, but it only felt as though things were never going to get better. Yet, just like everyone tells you, it does.
It Wasn’t Simple
As I mentioned, some of my usual strategies for feeling better were slowly slipping away from me. Every time I tried to put in effort, I felt myself slowly losing motivation. Even when I got the right amount of sleep, journaled, and tried to fill my time, nothing seemed to change. With each failed attempt at having a better day, I was harshly reminded of all the ways I wasn’t amounting to what I wanted for myself.
Everything suddenly felt out of my control. I had bad days I didn’t know how to handle, thoughts in my head that I couldn’t stop from weighing me down. Yet, the shift didn’t happen until I found it in myself to simply accept this: accept that I had no control and that sometimes I do not have the answer to make it better. I stopped waiting and forcing things to change. I let the days carry me to the next one, waiting to experience each one instead of trying to convince myself of a feeling that didn’t feel right.
I stripped myself of the ability to be disappointed, just for a moment. Just until I could level out my mind, until I could have a bad day and it wouldn’t leave me hopeless. I decided that if I stopped setting high expectations, there’d be no more room to be upset if I didn’t make it there. I decided that if I felt like I had no control, I would see what it was like finally being okay with it, just until I could find it again.
Refocus
I put more time into each day, starting with everything simple. I paid attention to the basic needs, and each day I found I naturally cared for more and more. Having no expectations each day allowed me to figure out how I’d spend my time, where I would put my energy now that I relinquished my control.
And slowly I rebuilt. It didn’t start as anything immediate; I had to wait and see how these things would go. I found that if I could be okay with that, I could start somewhere. I let myself have great moments, and sat in the way that maybe didn’t fix everything all at once. I took the bad times too, reminding myself it’d be impossible not to have both. The bad days didn’t stop coming, but their ability to run my life did.