How do you deal with a REALLY bad day?

Greetings and Salutations! Kindly John Boswell here with a question of interest to... Me:

How do you deal with an exceptionally bad day?

Quick story: Today isn't nessecarilly my worst day ever, but it isn't the greatest by a long shot. In fact, I'd rate it among my top 20 worst, but not in the top 10.

Anyhow, whenever I have days like this, I usually know that life is just plaing sucking right now and tend to avoid the mat for fear of my anxiety joining me there and creating injury: to myself or others.

On the other hand, there is the school of thought that believes you should just "push through" such times, train through the pain so to speak... and let the problems of the day work themselves out. Well, sometimes that's just fine. Other times... ???

SO...

What do YOU do?

When you have a day, nothing goes right, everything goes wrong, everyone is pissed, people are ready to cry, you wanna walk out the door, quit your job and become a recluse... just what do you do?

Yoga?

Tai Chi?

Jim Beam?

I'm open to suggestions... but right now I gotta go, my next problem is walking in the F'ING door as I f'ing write this... right f'ing now....

BREATHE.....

Best,
And hope this is the last of those really awfull days,
Ron

Breathe?

Breathing is over-rated.

(* okay... okay... I'll work on it. *)

Hey John,

There is something I do. First, I don't take myself (or anybody) too seriously. This allows me to take things lightly and with a sense of humor. Whenever I know that the day is just plain sucking (I just had my worst streak of hard times since I graduated University 10 years ago), I find the smallest excuse to laugh. Of course, working on the problems, while laughing at them, made the whole experience far more liveable. Just my experience, FWIW...

U.

I try to train if I can . It is something I find enjoyable. Yea the stress is an issue cause you may have a hard time calming down to do aikido, and that could be problematic.

I find yoga stressing cause those asanas hurt!!!

Drinking has never done it for me.

Hate to admit it, but watching TV at least gets your mind off it.

Running. Meditation, talking about the problem also come to mind.

Sometimes just going to sleep helps too!

Training usually does it for me...kinda like a sanctuary for a couple of hours from the things that I cannot control...

Nothing like sweating out your troubles!

-C

It depends.
Sometimes I don't go to the dojo on a bad day, sometimes I do. And sometimes I regret the decision later on and sometimes I don't.
But whatever I decide, I try to tell myself I have a right to be in a bad mood. Telling myself I should be cheerfull is above all counterproductive, so I'm sorry for everyone, but I feel the way I feel.
And at my best I tend to enjoy being in a bad mood now and again.

Several years ago I was unexepectedly diagnosed with advanced cancer. (Stage three) This became my new definition of a bad day. Having dealt with this kind of illness gives one a whole new perspective. Much of the stuff that makes us crazy/angry/hurt in reality isn't all that important. I am not trying to trivialize your emotions but I would suggest spending a few minutes in reflection about whether or not they are worth all the negative energy you are giving them.

It depends....If I've got a generalized negativity or malaise, I definitely train. If I'm pissy, tired, etc I train. And I always feel better.
When I'm depressed, I make myself train as part of my self-therapy.
Back when I was a hospice nurse, every now and then there would be a day where what I really really needed was to sit across a dinner table from my husband and eat a meal and drink a bunch of good red wine. So I'd bail from training to do that.
Today I'm having a more generalized sadness, missing loved ones now dead, but I trained at noon class anyway because it beat sleepwalking through the day or crying. It really helped.

Depends on the day. If it's a day I can go to Aikido or Ju-jitsu on I go do that.
If it's a friday or a wednesday I go up town and dance it out.
Up until I can deal with it I just put my MP3 in and ignore the world, while drinking Yop.

all i have to do to get through a really hard time is think of something really good that will happen after the bad stuff is done.... such as a really bad day at work... all i have to do is say "i can make through the work day cause after work im going to do... (whatever i like to do)" (which is usually go to the dojo!)
so i say if you have a bad day... go train... itll make you feel better! (without the use of drugs or alcohol)

A nap always helps me.

Jeanne

It usually doesn't take me long to realise that there are many, many more people in this world who are much, much worse off than I could ever be. I have my health, the love and support of a wonderful family, real friends, a good job, a nice house. If the last two were to disappear then I would still have the first three and those are what I value above all. In short I have nothing to really worry about. When I become very conscious of the blessings I have then the shittiest of days seems to become irrelevant very quickly.

I have a kind of three-step plan for those days:

1. Chocolate.

2. More chocolate.

3. Go and train. Hard.

It works most times, but not always. If there is no practice then I have to leave out step three, of course. But I make sure I never leave out step 1 and 2.

Most places I go I can be easily distracted from what I'm doing, the brain wanders thinking about all the problems that I'm dealing with during the day (I work in a support environment) and all the other things going on in my life (including Aikido ) .

When I'm in the dojo, I never think about anything else other than Aikido, it's my haven away from the world for a couple of hours.

As for getting through a normal day, I find having a sense of humour and laughing a lot (I mean a lot) certainly helps deal with the stress . Having said that, I was told last night that one of my best friends has had a complaint lodged against him at his office because he and a colleague have too much fun and enjoy themselves at work. Go figure!


rgds

Bryan

Bryan Bateman wrote: When I'm in the dojo, I never think about anything else other than Aikido, it's my haven away from the world for a couple of hours.

I couldn´t agree more!

So far I have found 2 solutions:

1. When meditating, imagine you are a leaf carried by the wind or a river.
2. Go and practice.

I have found practicing normally relieves my tension in a way nothing else can.

Amir

Well, I did go to class. I almost lost my cool, but I kept it together.

In the end, the thing that helped the most was when my wife called and said," 124 beats per minute!" See, she tested positive for being pregnant a couple weeks ago... and yesterday, the Doc did a sonogram and gave her the news: there's a heartbeat and it's going 124 beats per minute.

Pretty good stuff...

Hi Bozz,

You know what I'm gonna say. <grin>

Train.

Seems the worse a day I've had or the less I want to practice....those are the times I really need to. I almost always feel better while training.

Chocolate and naps help, too. And reminding myself that this too shall pass. Everything is temporary.

Hope things get better for you.

i like to train is something a little more violent
but of course not taking me or anything else too seriously helps .

[quote=Jeanne Shepard]A nap always helps me.

naps rock

When you have a day, nothing goes right, everything goes wrong, everyone is pissed, people are ready to cry, you wanna walk out the door, quit your job and become a recluse... just what do you do?

Don't give up.


Take a break if you must. Give yourself time to work on your problems. But just don't give up -- not up on aikido but up on yourself.

Congrats John!

For me it depends on the nature of the bad day. I have stressful bad days when I sometimes ask a sempai to throw me around for a while so I can safely get it beaten out of me. Then there are food related bad days where my mind is just a big awful fog. Those days the best thing to do is not go out the door but stay in bed, for my own safety...

kvaak
Pauliina

Training then Jim Beam for me. Getting the order mixed up is bad though

Congrats Sir! Best wishes for you and the Fam...

Ron