I have a lot of bad situations and all-around bad days. Everybody does. But I think it's fair to say I take some pride in how I handle the bad moments, simply because of how poorly I've handled them in the past. My emotional management has come leaps and bounds from where it once was. Most notably, I don't purposefully injure myself now to deal with anxiety and stress. I've really learned to appreciate an utilize the therapeutic and medicinal value of exercise, meditation, recreation (in my case this is often video games), and other healthy releases of tension or bad feelings. We all have bad times, and for some of us with anxiety and depression disorders, it is often more impactful than it is for the average person without the same mental/emotional medical characteristics. But the fact that I no longer feel ashamed of the things I can't control as well as managing those inevitable emotions by doing my best to harness them and focus them on something productive has really done leaps and bounds for my overall attitude, outlook, and feeling of self-worth and self-value.
That being said, days like today are a struggle. When plans fall through, and those plans were for the very things I utilize for managing my anxiety and depression, it's hard to bounce back and re-focus the attention before letting the feelings of defeat and failure overtake my psyche and send me back to square one where I feel shame and disappointment for my feelings. Everyone is entitled to their feelings and emotions, even the negative ones. And some days, it's hard to find a silver lining. Some days even with perspective it's hard to stop feeling sad or angry or disappointed or frustrated. But sometimes you just have to feel your feelings. Some days maybe it's best to not refocus and to just feel negative feelings, even if only for a bit, just to remember, "This is horrible. I never want to feel this way 24/7 again. This is why I do the things I do. This is why I write and run and work and get out of bed in the morning. Not for the reward or the recognition that goes as quickly as it comes, but for the long-term outcome: That I no longer dread, fear, and hate everything." Allowing ourselves to continue to just feel bad for ourselves now and then isn't self-sabotaging so much as it is self-humanizing. Learning to accept our personal best over our expectations keeps us focused and grounded. It isn't the humility at the foot of an all-powerful God that I was told it was in the church but rather the reflection and humanizing of ourselves in the face of adversity so as to not let others expectations for ourselves trump our own. It's part of the human condition.
