Everyone gets stressed. Even rockstars, yogis, coaches and therapists (loving seeing therapists and rockstars in the same sentence). So grateful for celebrities like, Megan Thee Stallion for spotlighting mental health (see Bad Bitches Have Bad Days Too) and showing us that even the most together people one can imagine, can still have bad days.

Anxiety, sadness, worry, insecurities…These feelings flare up for all of us and can steer us into a pit of gloom. My surefire way of steering clear, or shoveling myself out, is to write in my journal.

I start with the truth as I know it, and then begin my inquiry. For example try this in your journal.

1. How you feeling right now? If you don’t know how you’re feeling, start there and right I don’t know exactly how I’m feeling right now.

2. Then you can look for evidence or outline your theories for why you’re feeling this way right now. If you don’t know how you’re feeling, describe how your body feels, or the last time you how you were feeling, or describe experience of not knowing how you’re feeling.

3. After you outline your evidence for why you’re feeling that way, try to see the situation with the most compassionate eyes you can, as if you had outlined what you had written above to your therapist, or best friend. Surveying the situation with a loving, compassionate perspective, could there be another explanation?

For example, your three part journal entry might look a little like this:

1. I’m lazy and unmotivated and mad at myself for not being more productive!

2. I feel this way because I slept late instead of exercised this morning and instead of answering all my emails this morning at work, I had a leisurely breakfast and organized my desk.

3. Well, perhaps I’m not a lazy horrible person. Last week was my first week back after a really draining holiday week and I hit the ground running, running on empty, got so much done with so little sleep…This week I have fewer time pressures and maybe I’m just catching up…

You got to get the yuck out for the compassionate voice to emerge. Start with where you are. Honor your feelings. When we allow space for being where we are, we more freely move to where we need to be.