probably five times in my adult life i've woken up on the quote unquote wrong side of the bed and today made six. i know why.
i woke up on the wrong side of the bed for what might be the right reason. provided there is a right reason to wake up on the wrong side of the bed which, i'm not sure there is. is there? and even if there is, no sooner did i wake up on the wrong side for the right reason than i screwed the right reason up and made it wrong. (i'm high maintenance.)
the possibly right reason that i woke up on the wrong side of the bed today is that i had one of the most difficult sessions of my career yesterday. it was volatile, it was tense, it was intense, it was full of rage, and it called for every skill i had - and for some skills i didn't even know i had but somehow managed to pull out of somewhere.
the session ultimately ended well - very well, actually - so that wasn't the problem. the problem was, after a session like that, you're done. at least, i am . all you need to do after a session like that is go home, get into bed, and maybe never get out again - regardless of which side.
but this morning, i got out. i didn't know it was the wrong side at the time i got out but pretty much the minute my feet hit the floor i did. i was like, oh no, this isn't good.
what had happened was, i had soaked up all the negative energy of yesterday's session. i hadn't soaked it up on purpose but i didn't have to. negative energy just crawls in. like traffic inching its way towards wherever you have to be five minutes ago. it's there. there's nothing you can do about it.
except..........there is.
initially what i did was, i complained. that didn't help.
next, i complained some more. as if zero plus zero is gonna have a different sum the next time around.
i was never any good in math so i complained 3, maybe 4, probably more like 5 more times. zero times five (or would it be zero times 7 by now? i'm not good in math)......zero times whatever (and it could have been a billion - and i guess you'd have to ask the people who had the misfortune of having their circle intersect this morning with mine to know if that number is exaggerated or not - but probably not).....zero times whatever and it could have been a billion is still zero.
so what i did was, i did what i told my clients yesterday to do:
stop it.
it took them about 2 1/2 hours to stop it. it took me about 5.
tomorrow when i wake up, i hope it's on the side of the bed where good social workers wake up.
