You complete your CalmUp® Journey, and your rating of peace and joy doubles from a “4” to an “8” on the 1–10 scale. Then on your way to the office, someone dangerously cuts you off in traffic, and your morning is now anything but calm. Your car is fine, and you’re fine. You just can’t shake the anxiety that seems to have taken hold of you.
What do you do? You have to get to work, and you don’t want to go in carrying the morning’s tension. No matter how much you tell yourself to stop being ridiculous, darker thoughts keep creeping in:
- That bleep driver!
- What if I’d have been hit?
- So much for moving up to an “8.” Now I’m more like a “2.”
- What if something were to happen to me, and I’m not there for my family?”
- I’m so mad!
It’s strange how your day can change in an instant. A careless driver is just one example of the type of occurrence that has the power to shift your mood from radiant to fatalistic. Even simple events can become upsetting or disrupting, like a clothing tear or a spill, a bad hair day or a blemish, something that gets broken or destroyed. More serious events can leave you feeling anxious or heartbroken, such as the death of a loved one, learning of a terminal illness, or an unexpected disaster.