Do you like to win free books, hear from your favorite authors and connect with other women who like to read? Join our Girlfriend Book Club, a closed Facebook group, today.
The past few years have offered me a doozy of bad days. I’m sure plenty (or perhaps all?) of you can relate.
From pandemic schooling to post-pandemic adjustments to anxiety-ridden days, weeks, months and years, it’s been a very rough run.
I’ve exhausted various methods of alleviating stress: I’ve taken all the baths, I’ve tried all the meditations and I’ve stayed at hotels alone, ordering ridiculously overpriced, luxurious room service. Sure, they help, offering glorious bouts of temporary relief — but then the bathwater drains, the meditation ends and it’s time to check out of the hotel and return to the anxiety and the kids and work and, well, life. Usually, I revert to my moody self in about four minutes. Sometimes, I can stretch the bliss to six minutes.
Amid my struggles, I stumbled across a powerful phrase that keeps me going. It’s concise, acts like a mantra and grounds me throughout the day. I first heard it during a cycling class on my Peloton:
“You’ve made it through 100 percent of your bad days.”
Robin Arzon yelled just 10 words while teaching her spin class, but they are perfection.
I’ve made it through a pandemic, through being trapped at home for years, through mental health issues, through crippling depression and awful anxiety. I’m a survivor.
Life is often difficult. It’s unpredictable and astonishing and disappointing and heartbreaking. But through it all, I’ve gotten up and survived another day. I figured it out and made it to the other side. Even on my worst day, I survived, even though, at times, it was unbearable, and I truly believed that I wouldn’t get through another minute or second.
My track record is still 100 percent. Translation: I can do this.
I love my mantra because it doesn’t disregard the fact that we sometimes go through difficult, seemingly unbearable times. It’s the human experience. We all struggle and have setbacks that seem impossible at the time. This may be your current reality. It’s mine quite often (yesterday, actually!). This statement accepts and acknowledges this truth and offers solace knowing that bad days are normal — but we are resilient, and we have grit.
How do we know this? Because we have already been through 100 percent of those bad days. That’s recognition of your resilience, and each of them has made you stronger and has given you the confidence to overcome future obstacles.
It also reminds us that bad days are transient. You have the ability to shape your experiences and use them as opportunities for growth. Maybe they’ll help you become more patient, more centered, more empathetic. You may look at those challenges as stepping stones rather than roadblocks.
The mantra is incredibly optimistic, it’s a vital antidote for your darkest days. It silences the negative self-talk that often plagues us and encourages me to keep going. No matter how bad my day or week is going, I can overcome this. I will not just survive. I will thrive.
Sure, there will be bad days in my future. But I will make it through 100 percent of them as well. You will, too. You’ve done it before, and you’ll do it again.
How do you make it through your worst days? Let us know in the comments below.
Tara Jacoby
Follow Article Topics: Lifestyle
