You will never forget the day that changed your life forever. It started like every other day, how would you know it was the beginning of the end?
How do you make sense of a day that sent your life spinning out of control? A regular day became the turning point for the rest of your life.
Everyone has one of those days!
Everyone has at least one “D-Day,” a day that changes the course of their life, many of us have several. Such as the day you face death, your own or someone else’s. It may be the day someone left you, your soulmate, a parent, or a sibling. Possibly it was something you did or didn’t do, an opportunity missed or a path not taken.
We often have flashbacks of those turning points in our lives. Those days become landmarks on which we focus unnecessary energy. They are given titles with an entire background story. This gives us some mental justification to dread, avoid, or even obsess over a single day. We will relive that single day or event over and over again. Sometimes, we are looking for what could have been done differently. We may be searching for the reason behind the event. What we want to find is a justification for the event. All of us dream there was a different result.
It was just another day
Before we turned “a day” into our own personal “D-Day” it was just like any other. Regardless of what events happen during any given day, the day continues. One day rolls into the next, which turns into a week, and so on. What does change is the meaning we assign to each day. An example is what meaning you would give if your child is born on the same day as a loved one’s passing.
It’s essential to give each day the attention it deserves—no more, no less. Every day holds the potential to be incredible when it’s free from the weight of the past. Approach each day with the understanding that events will unfold, but they don’t define the day itself.
My example is the day my father died. He died very suddenly and was gone in less than 24 hours. I never saw him alive, only spoke on the phone. When we returned home I found all of his things just as he left them waiting for his return. His book waiting to be read. Lotto tickets waiting to be checked along with his afternoon puzzle. It was just a normal day until it wasn’t.
Time to change the view
As a society, we view these days as “life-changing” assigning the day with a landmark image. We assign an emotion to all images and experiences. With that, often large dramatic images are given negative meanings. Soon we create a thought loop around the day and the event that is out of conscious control. With a negative meaning attached, the loop grows and can become all-consuming in our lives.
You can change your “Mental Thought Loop” creating a positive view. This gives the event and the day a whole new view and new meaning. This doesn’t change the event it just gives you a new view of the day (The goal is not to take away from the event or stop you from acknowledging the event but to separate it from the day).
Four Steps To Change
You can shift your perspective on what a day represents so that, even when life-changing events occur, you can still see the day for what it is. By keeping the following four principles in mind, you can reshape your view of both the event and the day itself. These principles help redefine the meaning of the day:
1. It was just a normal day – no matter what happened, the event was not because of the day, date, or holiday.
2. The event and the day are separate. The two have only one thing in common, the event that happened on that day, not because of it.
3. The day doesn’t control your emotions. It is the emotion you have assigned to the event on that day. You can change the emotion.
4. You have control over each day and its meaning. At the end of each day you have the choice, what meaning you will assign to each day is up to you. You also have the opportunity to reassign the meaning of the day.
I have had to reassign emotions for several days. The day my Father died and both of the days my Mother died. I learned to do this to keep having days I could face. With practice, you can have days you love again.
