What's Not Working?
Identifying what is not working for us is vital to living a positive daily life. For years I struggled with anger towards friends, towards some of my family, towards things at work, just all around me were things that I was unhappy with. A big part of me felt like I couldn’t control any of it because “it is what it is” and I can’t change people. That was actually the worst mindset I could’ve had! Let me tell you why…
A lot of times when we get mad or upset at something that is not part of our control, we want to just throw in the towel and leave it at that. It’s the easiest thing to do right? To just assume other things suck and that it’s totally out of our control. Whether or not something truly sucks or is truly unfitting for your life is not mine to say, but what I can say is that we should work harder on identifying what that tiny thing is that makes us upset.
For instance, I use to get mad at my friend for canceling me all the time. I don’t think she would necessarily lie to me to get out of the plans that we made, but it certainly felt like sometimes it was just really convenient for her to cancel our plans last minute. So one day instead of getting mad at her per usual, I asked myself why I was genuinely upset with her. I knew I would see her again cause she’s my best friend. I knew that this would not cause our friendship to end so then why was I letting it bother me? Turns out I didn’t like the way she would cancel on me. She would come off as “this is my truth so you can’t be mad at me for it” which would obviously upset me because it made me feel like I wasn’t allowed to be mad for our plans being canceled. After addressing with my bestie that she should be more aware of how she changes our plans, things have been less intense between us.
Another instance is my desire to just stay in bed most days. I mean who doesn’t want to just binge watch Netflix instead of going to work? For months I was getting annoyed with waking not being excited about getting out of bed and being productive with my day. I use to be a morning person and now seeing myself as an angry person in the morning was very out of character. I did the same thing as with my bestie, I asked myself why my mornings were off to a bad start. The reason was because I didn’t have one specific thing to do every day that would excite me enough and make me eager to start the day. I decided to pick something that would make me happy to wake up and do. I’m a coffee lover, yes primarily Starbucks vanilla lattes, but I knew I couldn’t be spending money on a latte every morning. Thank goodness for Amazon! I purchased a little kit to make my own lattes in the mornings and I even got a vanilla flavor to add that Starbucks touch. Now when I wake up in the mornings I get excited about making my own latte-which is even cheaper than a Starbucks one so there’s two things to be happy about! I know, I’m such a dork and this is probably so minuscule compared to my real problems that I should be facing.
The point is not figuring out which of your problems seem “worthy” enough. The point is that we are always running into things that make us angry or that can ruin our day. Most of these things are out of our control which doesn’t seem to help with our emotions. But many times we react with these negative emotions without truly knowing the pinpoint issue of the dilemma. Your assignment of the week is to catch yourself next time you’re mad at something-anything at all- and just take a pause to ask yourself “what exactly is the matter here? Why is this making me so mad?” The answer might just surprise you!