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How to Keep Today Shiny and New
Does Today Feel Like Yesterday?
I could feel the bone-shaking spinning and hear the crunch as the car hit the central reservation long after the accident.
Even though I was safely tucked up in bed. That happened yesterday, and today is a new day.
When you think about the past event and bring it into your awareness, you feel the same powerful emotion you had at the time, even though the event isn’t happening now.
Studies report how the amygdala area of your brain doesn’t know if a threat was in the past or is happening now, so every time you activate a memory, it feels real.
I didn’t need to bring yesterday into today and feel as scared as I did then.
How often do you bring your yesterday into today? Or do the same things you did yesterday?
Or repeat today the same things you did yesterday?
You Aren’t the Parent You Were Yesterday
How often do you bring yesterday into today? How frequently do you wake up and immediately think about something that happened the day before? And then feel stressed?
Research reports that this type of rumination leads to anxiety and depression.
You might think about unfinished business or unmet deadlines from yesterday.
It’s frustrating; I get it. But if you bring the same thoughts about the work you did yesterday into today, you’ll probably get similar results.
It’s the same with parenting. If you went to bed thinking about how difficult your day was with fractious toddlers or surly teenagers, guess what? You’re bound to wake up in a similar frame of mind because this will be the first thing that comes to you when your brain switches on.
Your children might drive you demented. Even if you have compassion for your toddler when they scream the house down because they can’t put a potty full of poo on their head, it still gets a tad wearing.
And if your teenager grunts at you when you ask a question and refuses to bring the equivalent of a canteen of crockery out of their room, you might have raised your voice.
