This is really hard.

Do you ever have days that are just really tough?

Well, yesterday was one of those days for me... and I'm going to share how I worked through it in case you want to try it the next time you're having a crappy day.

I was so stoked to be recording an interview by Barbara Lally for her podcast, Trich Talks (more details to come!)... then in the middle fo the interview I had a major brain crash (not now, perimenopause!) and it took me an embarrassingly long time to reboot.

Then an learned that an appointment I had in the afternoon was cancelled.

Then someone said something entirely benign, but because it reminded me of a painful time earlier in my life that had nothing to do with them, it put me on edge.

Then I mixed up the time that my son needed to be picked up fro work, so I got there early and had to wait for half an hour.

There was more, but you get the picture.

I didn't want to do anything productive. I didn't have the focus or mood to do anything creative. I was even grouchy about losing a board game with my husband, which is really unlike me.

Logically, I knew all of this was small in the grand scheme of things and that I was going to be ok. I knew that my big flub would be edited out of the podcast recording. And my appointment only got pushed back one day. I knew the comment wasn't personal. I spent the 30 minutes in the car checking a few things on my phone, then did my daily meditation. And I knew I would have have plenty of games in the future that I could claim victory for.

But I didn't tell myself any of that. I didn't try to talk myself out of it. I didn't fight it or minimize it. Because the grouchy part of me didn't want to be cheered up.

Instead, I took a moment to myself, connected with the grouchy feeling, and I comforted it.

There are many ways to do this, but one of my favorites is to imagine I'm sitting on a park bench and my intense feeling is sitting next to me.

So there I was, on the bench with my Oscar the Grouch part. I gently asked what it was reminded of about the past and what it was worried would happen in the future. Then, I told it: "This is really hard. It really sucks that you're having a tough day. All this stuff has brought up old wounds and that's painful. It's ok to feel this way. I got you." Then I leaned over and embraced it, and we sat there on the bench together for a while.

If you want to try something like this yourself, but need a bit of guidance, there's a great IFS meditation by Bahia Miller on Insight Timer that I really enjoy when I'm worked up.

So the next time you're overwhelmed with any emotion, rather than try to convince yourself that the emotion that it shouldn't be there, try leaning in and comforting it. And see how different it feels.