A TOUGH DAY

Tt was late in the evening, probably around 9 pm, when my phone rang and as I answered the call, a girl on the other end spoke out loud saying, "I've had a really tough day!!"

I wasn't sure who this person was, as the girl hadn't yet introduced herself, however, as she continued to speak I noticed her voice quavering and so I listened.

"This was the worst day of my life!!" .. She began to say, "Nothing....nothing went right for me, and top of that, three of my closest friends haven't responded to any of my calls."

She was now crying... Frustration, anger, helplessness, and desperation were some of the feelings I could pick up from her voice.

"So tell me, what time is it now?"I interrupted her as she was speaking and there was a pause, a moment of silence.

"9 O'clock" she replied.

" 9 O'clock in the night and the day is over," I said, making sure that my voice was visual.

" Oh, yes that is right, the day is over."

I now began to notice a change in her voice.

" Yes, you survived the day" I added on, matching my voice to hers, in the same tempo.

She laughed and said " Yes I survived! "

" That goes to prove that you can survive any tough situations", my suggestion made her pause. This time the pause was reflective.

"I think you are right Leo," she said, her voice now sounding confident. "Can you tell me, how did you face all those challenges of today?" I asked her this so that I could nudge her towards a different perspective.

She continued speaking about her day for a few minutes and once she finished I asked her casually, " So tell me, how was your day? "

" Actually, it was challenging yet eventful, and I now after becoming aware of how I have handled it, I feel that I can face many such situations confidently" As she said this I heard a burst of soft laughter.

Now that she was feeling positive and light, I asked her, "What is your name, young lady ?"

"Oh, I am sorry, my name is Sarah (renamed)" and she went on to introduce herself further.

This when curiosity dawned and she asked me, "What magic did you do Leo? You changed my state instantly" and I said "NLP "

This can happen to you and me. When we go through some challenges and face them, we focus on how tough the challenges are rather than how have we faced them.

If we focus on the challenge, we start blaming ourselves or others and end up draining our own energy. On the other hand, when we focus on how have we faced those challenges, our focus will be on our resources and we get into an energetic state. It is like an athlete running a race focussing on the outcome rather than the challenging track. That helps the athlete to focus on how to run rather than on what to run.

How often do we remain in the first state of mind and get drained? It could be any type of situation, a loss, hurt, fear, or anger.The more we focus on how we handled those situations rather than what made us go through them, we will feel confident about ourselves, and our energies will be high.

And then we know that we have survived!