How To Have a Bad Day

I booked the spa trip because I was feeling burned out. I wanted to shake up my routine and give myself a break from work. 

As we embarked on the trip, it became apparent that just because I was taking time away from doing things in my inbox, did not mean I was taking a break from thinking about my inbox. I have always been one to ruminate on things.

It turned out, there was a lot on my mind. No longer needing to concentrate on the tasks of work, my mind was free to contemplate how I felt about work--all the little nooks and crannies of the complex feelings that involve people, missions, structures, ecosystems, etc. At this point in my life, work represents a hero’s journey.

On the inside, intense thoughts and feelings were swirling through my experience, often creating extreme discomfort. On the outside, I was resting my chin on the side of a warm pool of water, calmly observing the inner cacophony.

In any other situation, I would have labeled the day a bad day. It was just bad. I was experiencing a hailstorm of negative thoughts and feelings all day. Everyone showed up to the party: judgmental thoughts about people and situations, limiting points of view about myself and what’s possible in life, old familiar stories about the ways in which I feel sorry for myself or why things are the way they are, catastrophizing thoughts about how everything’s doomed to end up horribly.

But I was in paradise, being soothed by the environment. It was a place of rest, relaxation and rejuvenation. A place where if you wanted to take a yoga class or go to a wine tasting or attend a sound bath, all you needed to do was show up at the front desk at a certain hour and a host with impeccable hospitality would show you the way. The sound of gentle running water followed me everywhere I went. Dark, warm pools of water were open all hours of the day and night, often empty of others, allowing me the privacy to have my shitty thoughts while floating on my back looking up at the desert stars for hours on end. Large teak outdoor bathtubs peaked out from their palm tree landscaping along the pathways, offering couples and groups a more personal way of taking a soak. The restaurant’s mountain view paired excellently with their matcha lattes. And best of all, I was allowed to wear a bathrobe everywhere I went.

Except for the thoughts in my head, the trip was absolutely perfect. 

Here, I was in the perfect environment having a bad day. Most of the time, my bad days happen in environments where people are being nasty or I’m encountering a roadblock or something unfortunate has occurred. I’m not used to having a bad day in places that are designed to make you feel amazing.

To have a bad day in such a beautiful place is a blessing. 

I was standing knee deep in 104 degree water, leaning with my forehead against a brick wall. It was 9:00 at night, and we had all day tomorrow to be at the spa, and the next morning too. No one at work was expecting to hear from me, and nothing in my inbox was urgent enough to be thinking about. But I was. There were a thousand thoughts zooming through my mind trying to figure out all of the many loose threads (of which there were way too many) in my life, and working through all of the bullshit ways my brain has learned to problem solve over the years.

At the same time, I couldn’t help but breathe a little more deeply in my belly. The sound of little waterfalls all around me, Oli rubbing my back, being able to stand knee deep in gorgeous warm water--the entire situation was so wonderful. 

As I stood there, trusting the wall with my body weight through my forehead, it became undeniably clear. Bad days are inevitable. This part was clear to me already, and had been for a long time. And for the first time, this next part became clear to me too. Since I can’t get rid of bad days, the next best thing is to optimize how I deal with them.

At the spa, my bad day had less power over me. In another environment, this bad day could have spiraled into a much less productive place. The spa encouraged me to not give up on the day--to live as if a new beautiful moment could be around the corner. I couldn’t walk 50 feet on the property without stumbling into a hammock or a duck pond or a yoga dome. This was in-the-moment evidence that my day had the potential to turn around at any moment. I realized how often I give up on the day sometimes, assuming that if I had an off morning or I over-allocated myself in the afternoon, that things will continue to be shitty for a while.

I began to see myself as the kind of person who knows how to handle their bad days. The kind of person who knows how to regard the thoughts that pop into their heads. The kind of person who is naturally attuned the present moment rather than their inner chatter box.

The thing about the bad day is that there are thoughts I can’t control. The drifting off into thought trails and the feelings that get stirred up happen on their own. In an attempt to enjoy my time at the spa, I was interested in experiencing the most tuned-down bad day possible. Instead of fueling those thoughts and feelings by legitimizing them, I attempted to turn the volume down on them, allowing them to play out on their own, but not ascribing any importance to them whatsoever. 

With the volume turned down, I was able to sponge up as much enjoyment as I could from the day.

“I’m sorry that I’ve been such a downer,” I told Oli at our last breakfast at the spa. 

“I don’t mind at all,” he said, “as long as I know what’s going on with you.”

I knew that was his way of thanking me for sharing my bad day with him, as I had been doing the past several days. I had attempted to pull back the curtain enough so that he understood what I was dealing with, without being overly dramatic about anything. Mostly, I had been gentle with him, and appreciative of our time together, even if it was riddled with an inner matrix of anxiety, guilt, shame, dread, embarrassment and fear. 

Bad days are by design. In many cases, they mean that you’re going through a challenge. You’re on a mission, you’re doing something you’ve never done before, you’re in uncharted territory, you’re stuck and fed up that you can’t find forward movement. You can’t change the fact that there are bad days, but you can change how you relate to them.

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