Terrible Day or just an unpleasant moment

We can alter our experience simply by how we choose to look at it.  The key word is choose, yes, we CHOOSE how we experience life events.  It's empowering to feel that we have the right to choose. Choice also provides us with the opportunity to take responsibility (even at times when we wish someone else could take responsibility for us!).

The other day I was riding on the early morning bus when a woman standing beside me spilled coffee on her skirt.  She was clearly annoyed at herself and the situation, as many of us would be.  She proceeded to say, "What a terrible day this is going to be!"  I offered her some tissues and helped her the best that I could.  Being that it was before 7:00 am, I offered her something else; the idea that she could see this as just a bad moment and still salvage the rest of the day (being that the entire day was still ahead of her). Her face lit up and we had a little laugh together.  She suddenly noticed that the stain wasn't that noticeable and she was grateful she wasn't wearing something white.  The situation hadn't changed, but her mind did because she chose not to make the experience larger than a little bit of spilled coffee.  Instead of heading into her day with the idea that it was going to be terrible, she could leave that unpleasant event on the bus and in the past where it belonged.

We don't always have control over life's events, but we do have some say in how we perceive our world.  This is not to say that we deny feelings that are uncomfortable - not at all.  Allow everything to be there, acknowledge it, give it its time and space and then let it go and reunite with the present moment, the only moment that truly exists.