It’s a Good Day for a Good Day
It’s a good day for a good day.
I had to walk my best friend, my writing buddy, my walking buddy, my furry companion of 12+ years to the rainbow bridge this past weekend. It hurt. It hurt bad. After two days of grieving and feeling lost, I logged on to Bodi for my daily workout. Elise, the instructor for the Barre Blend program I’m currently doing, pulled the card with the affirmation I am Positive to guide our workout. I almost closed my laptop and went back to grieving.
I’ve always considered myself a positive person, a glass half-full, you’ve got this, I’ve got this, we’ve got this kind-of-gal. But a series of life events have worn me down.
I lost my Dad just a few months before the world shut down to COVID, and my grief intensified during COVID as I watched the world grow weary from fear and death. For the last while, I’ve been walking beside a loved one battling a disease that is considered shameful, so they don’t receive the outpouring of love and support that comes to most of us when we are not well. And, of course, there is the relentless day-in day-out navigation of all the things we manage in our routine lives.
Losing my sweet Gunner was the final straw. I found myself in a slump – a continuous “life is freaking hard!” slump.
It’s a good day for a good day.
I wanted life to be different—happier.
I wanted my life and my circumstances to be “easier,” like everyone else’s on Facebook and Instagram. (Trust me, I’m laughing at the absurdity of my own statement here. But this is part of the slump. This is part of wanting something different, and believing it is out there for the taking.)
I wanted to call the shots, and BE IN CONTROL.
It’s fair to say that I wanted to be God. I would make everything sunshine and rainbows!
It’s a good day for a good day.
The struggle with the human condition is real. I don’t get a say in how long someone lives, or what they will have to deal with in their lives. I don’t get to wish away pain and sorrow and all of those other darker emotions I don’t want to deal with.
But I do get a say in how I handle my thoughts.
It’s a good day for a good day.
Affirmations are declarations that complement who we already are as a person, or confirm (affirm) who we want to be.
Affirmations provide hope and motivation to keep going.
Affirmations lower stress and anxiety, and help to heal depression.
And, affirmations create a better future by decreasing the negative thought patterns that tip our emotional balance into doom and gloom land.
It’s a good day for a good day.
Life IS freaking hard sometimes, but I don’t want to live there. I want to live in the hope and possibility that a good day is not miles away, or even tomorrow, but available to me today, here, now, in this moment. Thus, affirmations become an arm around my shoulder, a hug allowing me to accept and surrender to sorrow, anger, grief, and fear, so the emotions can move through me and out of me. These emotions aren’t bad. They have a place in my life, too, like when life is freaking hard because I’ve lost someone or a pet I love, or because a loved one is battling a disease that I wish I could heal.
It’s a good day for a good day.
You are a human having a human experience. Give yourself love and grace and patience to practice nurturing yourself. Allow a rainbow of emotions in your life. Allow yourself to cry while you complete a workout with positive affirmations. Allow the tears and the sorrow to coexist with the joy and the movement. Allow little moments of comfort and hope and possibility to blossom.
Allow it all.
Surrender to it all.
And still affirm there is more. You get to ask for more and dream of more.
It’s a good day for a good day.
I hope you will create your own personal affirmation, or allow this one—It’s a good day for a good day, or even Elise’s—I am Positive – to be a beam of sunshine beckoning you to get out of bed, out of your slump, and into a place where ease and laughter and joy return and coexist in the full experience of living.
It really is a good day for a good day.
