What to do with a melancholy day

It happens. To all of us.

There’s no such thing as being happy, excited, elated, ecstatic, positively non-melancholy every single day. If the days you feel content outnumber the days you feel less-than-good, you’re doing well! Better yet, if you can say you feel generally happy on most days, carry on! You’re doing something right.

Inevitably, however, there will come a melancholy day.

Recognize it

Denial? Forget about it. The first step is to see your melancholiness and look yourself right in the face. Yup, it’s there alright. Say it out loud, if you need to. Yell it, perhaps. Write it down. Journal it. Do whatever it is you do to acknowledge its presence.

Accept it

There will be times when you can actually flip your whole day around. In these somewhat rare and awesome cases, a melancholy morning does not mean a melancholy afternoon. You manage to recognize your bad day, and make some kind of positive change to flip your attitude around to the side of happy. Cherish this, because it won’t happen every time.

Most melancholy days carry on being melancholy. Do you know why? Because your down-in-the-dumps energy simply attracts more of the same. And you wallow in your thoughts, and feel a little out of sorts, and allow your sadness to, well, just be.

Here’s the important part.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Sometimes we need to feel that change of pace and change of face. We cannot expect ourselves to be uppity, energetic, bubbling people living on Cloud Nine every minute of every day. So then, why not just embrace it? Let it be.

“I just give myself permission to suck…I find this hugely liberating.”
– – John Green

Vent it out

Find your favourite person to unload on. We all have at least one of these in our lives, or at least we should. I have quite a few, I’d say, although I certainly have my favourites. On your melancholy days, reach out to let it out. Give a warning or say your disclaimer, and then have at it. They’ll understand (because they’re your venting partner, of course). And you’ll feel so much better afterwards. This is the power of human connection.

I’m a big believer that bottling things up isn’t a good solution. Eventually, some day, some how, those feelings you buried deep will find a way to rise up and get out. And it likely won’t be in the manner you expect or want because they weren’t meant to come out now, but rather when you originally felt them – on your melancholy day.

Sleep it off

I love this part. After a not-so-great day, there’s nothing quite like that ridiculously satisfying feeling of letting your head hit the pillow as you watch a sit-com in bed for 10 minutes, smile and chuckle a little and then doze off to sleep. Goodbye melancholy day!

Chances are, you won’t wake up the same way tomorrow.