A Bad Day

This spoke to me today. I would add that when having a bad day, it is OK to recognize and sit with your emotions. It is OK to feel down, or low, or bad but only for part of the time. Sit and feel bad for maybe 15 minutes. Then get up and do something that makes you feel good. It is hard to have a bad day when you are feeling good. The bad continues usually because you continue to beat yourself up, or you continue to avoid the truth of what is upsetting you and what you can do to change that. It is easy to say this but a lot more difficult to practice it. Try. Maybe a minute of happiness this time and two next time. It will grow if you let it! I have highlighted some thoughts further down:

January 4, 2015 Bad Days Hard Learned Lessonsby Madisyn Taylor We all have bad days and within these days is usually a gem of a gift waiting to be opened. We all have days from time to time when it feels like the world is against us or that the chaos we are experiencing will never end. One negative circumstance seems to lead to another. You may wonder, on a bad day, whether anything in your life will ever go right again. But a bad day, like any other day, can be a gift. Having a bad day can show you that it is time to slow down, change course, or lighten up. A bad day can help you glean wisdom you might otherwise have overlooked or discounted. Bad days can certainly cause you to experience uncomfortable feelings you would prefer to avoid, yet a bad day may also give you a potent means to learn about yourself. You may consider a bad day to be one where you’ve missing an important meeting because your car stalled, the dryer broke, and you received a piece of very bad news earlier in the morning. Multiple misfortunes that take place one after the other can leave us feeling vulnerable and intensely cognizant of our fragility. But bad days can only have a long-term negative effect on us if we let them. It is better to ask yourself what you can learn from these kinds of days. The state of your bad day may be an indicator that you need to stay in and hibernate or let go of your growing negativity.  Bad days contribute to the people we become. Though we may feel discouraged and distressed on our bad days, a bad day can teach us patience and perseverance. It is important to remember that your attitude drives your destiny and that one negative experience does not have to be the beginning of an ongoing stroke of bad luck. A bad day is memorable because it is one day among many good days – otherwise, we wouldn’t even bother to acknowledge it as a bad day. Know too, that everybody has bad days, you are not alone, the world is not against you. Tomorrow is guaranteed to be a brighter day.

Ten Tips From Dotty

In this article they used a word I like: The Deeply Forgetful!

Dotty
Went to Heaven on May 25, 2012

Dotty's Ten Tips for Communicating with a Person Living with Dementia 

1. You know what makes me feel safe, secure, and happy? A smile.
2. Did you ever conside this? When you get tense and uptight it makes me feel tense and uptight.
3. Instead of getting all bent out of shape when I do something that seems perfectly normal to me, and perfectly nutty to you, why not just smile at me? It will take the edge off the situation all the way around.
4. Please try to understand and remember it is my short term memory, my right now memory, that is gone -- don't talk so fast, or use so many words.
5. You know what I am going to say if you go off into long winded explanations on why we should do something? I am going to say No, because I can never be certain if you are asking me to do something I like, or drink a bottle of castor oil. So I'll just say No to be safe.
6. Slow down. And don't sneak up on me and start talking. Did I tell you I like smiles?
7. Make sure you have my attention before you start blabbering away. What is going to happen if you start blabbering away and you don't have my attention, or confuse me? I am going to sayNo - count on it.
8. My attention span and ability to pay attention are not as good as they once were, please make eye contact with me before you start talking. A nice smile always gets my attention. Did I mention that before?
9. Sometimes you talk to me like I am a child or an idiot. How would you like it if I did that to you? Go to your room and think about this. Don't come back and tell me you are sorry, I won't know what you are talking about. Just stop doing it and we will get along very well, and probably better than you think.
10. You talk too much -- instead try taking my hand and leading the way. I need a guide not a person to nag me all the time.