News:
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Jamison has the honor of facilitating her new workshop, Parenting With Grace , July 23-24 at Triennial XIII . |
Have you ever had one of those days wherein you were caught in a series of small unfortunate events? I call them “Niggle Days” because days like these are not days of great crisis. Rather small niggly things that parade through it that appear with each task you attempt to do in an attempt to slow and wear you down – like making cookies for some event at your child’s school only to realize that you are out of sugar.
Recently I had a day like this. Now, for whatever reason the foundation of Niggle Days seems to be a lack of sleep. You wake up in the morning and somehow your pajamas and sheets have become covered in opposing strips of Velcro so that you physically have to rip yourself out of bed. Following this delightful exercise was the realization that there was no food for making school lunches, the kid’s toilet overflowing creating a mouse/cookie effect ending in a load of urine soaked towels, a game of shoe hide and seek, a van door that wouldn’t completely close so it beeped at me everywhere I went, and running to grab that bag of sugar only to be faced with long lines of people shopping for a major holiday that was two days away.
The thing about Niggle Days is that they tend to make me more self absorbed. I start keeping score of every event gone wrong in my day as I wallow in self pity and validate my bad mood. Therefore people around me are invisible unless they are an additional Niggle thrown in my path. For example, on Niggle Days everyone is a horrible driver whether navigating automobiles or shopping buggies).
So, It’s 9am and I’ve already got a beaut of a Niggle Day going and this woman in front of me, with two small squirmy children, no makeup, in freshly stained clothes, and a domed cart of food, notices that I have one item and insists that I go before her in the line. As I look at her for the first time (previous to this she was just a domed buggy of food that was slowing me down) it is SO obvious that she is having a Niggle Day as well. Still, she had the presence of mind to see me standing there trying to look patient and offered me her place in line. I honestly know that if things had been reversed I would not have been aware of the woman standing behind me with one item.
In this one selfless act my Niggle Day vanished because the generosity of strangers breaks a bad streak every time. So I was touched by her generosity, but at the same time I felt there is a valuable lesson here. What if Niggle Days feed upon themselves to keep the Niggles going? So, what if, instead of getting caught up and incredulous at the series of unfortunate events, I chose to not dwell on them, but put my energies into looking for someone else to help?
Sure enough, I have since had opportunities to try out my theory and being outward focused, looking for ways to be a De-niggler other people. Turns out, this is just as powerful an anecdote for my Niggle Days as some dear stranger showing me kindness.
So once again, it seems that events in my day do not control the emotional temperature of my day. My attitude and resulting actions do. That and getting enough sleep!