“Restart My Day”- But how?
“Mom, I want to restart my day”. These are the first words from my son’s mouth whenever he gets into trouble for doing something wrong or is upset. He used to utter these words quite frequently when he was young, and he meant it literally and wanted to reverse the time. As he grew up, he understood that there was no way it was possible to rewind the time- day, week, or year. However, whenever he hits roadblocks or when things are unfavorable, the first thing that comes to his mind is, “I want to restart my day .” He used to be stuck on his demand of getting the ability to reverse the day somehow. I had intense discussions with him on this, saying it was impossible. He wanted to undo any bad parts and make everything “right.” Well, I understand “Right” is conditional and based only on an individual’s perception. It was illogical, and we can’t go against the physics of time, but it was hard to convince a 6-year-old.
How often has this thought crossed your mind that you could restart your day or life? I have often been through such situations where I wished to rewind the day or start over again. I want a mechanism to erase that part of the day and would like to begin fresh with a new perspective. But is this possible? It’s wishful thinking, but in no way is it practical. I could pretend nothing happened and move on. However, avoiding a tsunami of overthinking in my head is difficult. If you are emotional or sensitive, it is tough to forget those memories that started the chain reaction of thoughts.
If I look back and think about it, I think more than him; I took this literally. I never tried giving him tips or ways to handle those emotions better. I could not understand and deal with emotions crashing through his heart and mind. Many articles and blogs are written on “how to reset or restart your day,” but I never tried sharing these tips with my son. There are two reasons why I didn’t do this. One is my ignorance, and secondly, most of these articles will suggest or give you similar advice, which rarely works in reality. For example, they suggest taking deep breaths, changing your setting or scenery, meditating, looking forward, being positive, and whatnot. They will tell you to forget what happened. All great advice, but does it help? None of these techniques provide help or relief if anyone is having a bad day. At that moment, the only thing that comes to your mind is, I wish I could “restart my day,” OR wish the “incident would never have happened.” How positive you are, those moments after a nasty incident or situation are challenging. Any meditation or positive outlook advice will not solve the problem or relieve you. So, how do you restart your day? How to move one? What should I tell my son? Shall I say it’s impossible and keep sulking unless you get over it?
Of course not.
Every situation is different, and one needs to decide and take the next step based on that. If you are in a bad relationship and it’s not going as expected, why continue? Get out of it, and you can restart your relationship with the right person. Similarly, if you are in a job and you are not happy or satisfied, then why continue? Find something new and start living again. There are circumstances when you can certainly decide to restart your life. Deep in your heart, it’s just a matter of genuinely accepting that you want to “Restart.” There is a difference between saying and doing it. If you want to reset, there are ways to handle it. But for many other situations that lead to foul moods or days, you need to think differently to get out of overthinking or feeling depressed.
After understanding and based on my experiences of dealing with such situations, I am handling it a little differently with my son, who is 14 now. I constantly tell him that any lousy incident, mistake, or embarrassment is not the end of the world. Unfortunately, it happened, but it’s okay. It’s okay to fail; it’s okay to be in an embarrassing situation sometimes. And it is okay to make mistakes, and it is okay to get the feeling of undoing everything. As it stands, this is the situation. We need to accept the problem and the outcome. When we arrive at a place of radical acceptance, the case has less power over us. We feel free and guiltless. The key is not denying reality and wishing that you could reverse the situation. I always tell him to stop treating himself as a victim, senseless, or powerless person. Instead, think, how can you grow from this? What did you learn from this experience, and how did you avoid being in a similar situation? The setbacks and challenges can feel horrible now, but nothing in life is permanent.
Secondly, time is the best healer and a teacher. Pain will not go away immediately, but with time, one can work to make it less traumatic and damaging to us over time. It’s like any wound. It takes time to heal up. Similarly, with time, the bad memories are washed out by good eons. A few scars remain in life, but that reminds us of the learnings to continue moving forward bravely.
Lastly, we all need to learn to let go. Staying mired in resentment, wanting retribution, or focusing on payback keeps us holding on to past pain. We must develop emotional resilience and learn to let them go and move forward. Forgetting, forgiving, or accepting doesn’t mean it was okay; it just means you are no longer letting it weigh you down. Let’s not worry about restarting the day. Let’s accept what happened and continue moving ahead.