If you think you have had a bad day, do you subconsciously search for all the reasons why it was ‘bad’ just so that you can confirm that it was indeed a bad day, so you are justified in thinking that?
This is a habit that many of us, including myself, develop. It's our egos telling us about all the things that went wrong, filling our headspace with
the whys and wherefores of actions that made it such a catastrophe and before you know where you are, you are falling down the rabbit hole of self-deprecation.
It becomes difficult to climb out of this rabbit hole if you aren’t able to change the self chat that is going on in the head. The problems from this ‘one day’ can spread over to the next day, and the next. The thoughts and feelings about this day can spread and expand to include other things that you do, and
particularly if you know you have to repeat some of the things from your ‘bad day’ your ego will already be telling you that it didn’t work last time, so it's going to be the same next time.
This can damage confidence and self-worth, it can affect relationships, it can stop you from doing things and trying new things out.
Your ego will always have a ‘confirmation bias’ setting, in that it will find all the things to confirm what you are thinking and
feeling.
The challenge therefore is to change the ‘confirmation bias’ and develop ways of challenging the assumptions that the ego is making, and develop all sides of the ‘story’.
For example, sometimes if I teach a class and I don’t feel it has gone very well, certainly not gone the way I expected it to, I will go away from that class thinking about all the things I felt weren’t very good. My ego will search for all the cues I didn’t give,
all the modifications I missed, if I forgot to tell everyone to breathe, rushed and didn’t give enough time, the poor demonstration of exercises. It could put me off for the day, it could affect my teaching for the day. So I have to challenge my ego to go in search of the good things about the class, because there will always be some good things to celebrate.
Remember this if you have one of those bad days: start to train your ego to register the wins, big or small,
about your day. I promise you, you will find them, and then let your ego focus on them, and change and develop your story. This isn’t a ‘fairy-tale’ where nothing bad ever happens, because we all know that isn’t true, but it is important to be able to recognise all sides of the story, because among all the bad stuff, there will be some good stuff too.
Have a good week folks — keep looking, moving and feeling good.
With love
Jane
xx
