“Instructions for a Bad Day” by Shane Koyczan

instructions for a birthmothers very bad say

Coz Lord Knows Us Birthmothers Get Our Fill of Them

This is some seriously powerful stuff. I’m seriously all weepy.
Don’t think abut it. Just hit play .

WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT FOR YOUR INEVITABLE BAD DAY. A COMPILATION OF WORLDWIDE YOUTUBE CONTENT, THE CROWD-SOURCED DOCUMENTARY “LIFE IN A DAY” BY KEVIN MACDONALD, AND LOCAL FOOTAGE BY JON GOODGION.

AUDIO IS THE SPOKEN WORD POEM “INSTRUCTIONS FOR A BAD DAY” BY SHANE KOYCZAN.

RIGHTS REMAIN TO RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

‘Instructions For A Bad Day’

“There will be bad days.

Be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm slowly now. Let go.

Be confident.

Know that now is only a moment, and that if today is as bad as it gets, understand that by tomorrow, today will have ended.

Be gracious. Accept each extended hand offered, to pull you back from the somewhere you cannot escape.

Be diligent. Scrape the gray sky clean. Realize every dark cloud is a smoke screen meant to blind us from the truth, and the truth is whether we see them or not – the sun and moon are still there and always there is light.

Be forthright. Despite your instinct to say “it’s alright, I’m okay” –

Be honest. Say how you feel without fear or guilt, without remorse or complexity.

Be lucid in your explanation, be sterling in your oppose.

If you think for one second no one knows what you’ve been going through; be accepting of the fact that you are wrong, that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair have at times been felt by everyone – that pain is part of the human condition and that alone makes you a legion.

We hungry underdogs, we risers with dawn, we dissmisser’s of odds, we blesser’s of on – we will station ourselves to the calm. We will hold ourselves to the steady, be ready player one.

Life is going to come at you armed with hard times and tough choices, your voice is your weapon, your thoughts ammunition – there are no free extra men, be aware that as the instant now passes, it exists now as then.

So be a mirror reflecting yourself back, and remembering the times when you thought all of this was too hard and you’d never make it through.

Remember the times you could have pressed quit – but you hit continue.

Be forgiving. Living with the burden of anger, is not living.

Giving your focus to wrath will leave your entire self absent of what you need. Love and hate are beasts and the one that grows is the one you feed.

Be persistent. Be the weed growing through the cracks in the cement, beautiful – because it doesn’t know it’s not supposed to grow there.

Be resolute. Declare what you accept as true in a way that envisions the resolve with which you accept it.

If you are having a good day, be considerate. A simple smile could be the first-aid kit that someone has been looking for.

If you believe with absolute honesty that you are doing everything you can – do more.

There will be bad days, Times when the world weighs on you for so long it leaves you looking for an easy way out.

There will be moments when the drought of joy seems unending.

Instances spent pretending that everything is alright when it clearly is not.

Check your blind spot. See that love is still there, be patient. Every nightmare has a beginning, but every bad day has an end.

Ignore what others have called you. I am calling you friend.

Make us comprehend the urgency of your crisis. Silence left to its own devices, breed’s silence.

So speak and be heard.

One word after the next, express yourself and put your life in the context – if you find that no one is listening, be loud.

Make noise.

Stand in poise and be open.

Hope in these situations is not enough and you will need someone to lean on. In the unlikely event that you have no one, look again. Everyone is blessed with the ability to listen. The deaf will hear you with their eyes. The blind will see you with their hands.

Let your heart

fill their news-stands, Let them read all about it.

Admit to the bad days, the impossible nights.

Listen to the insights of those who have been there, but come back. They will tell you; you can stack misery, you can pack disappear you can even wear your sorrow – but come tomorrow you must change your clothes.

That when someone asks you how was your day, realize that for some of us – it’s the only way we know how to say, be calm.

Loosen your grip, opening each palm, slowly now – let go.”

About the Author

Claudia Corrigan DArcy
Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy has been online and involved in the adoption community since early in 2001. Blogging since 2005, her website Musings of the Lame has become a much needed road map for many mothers who relinquished, adoptees who long to be heard, and adoptive parents who seek understanding. She is also an activist and avid supporter of Adoptee Rights and fights for nationwide birth certificate access for all adoptees with the Adoptee Rights Coalition. Besides here on Musings of the Lame, her writings on adoption issue have been published in The New York Times, BlogHer, Divine Caroline, Adoption Today Magazine, Adoption Constellation Magazine, Adopt-a-tude.com, Lost Mothers, Grown in my Heart, Adoption Voice Magazine, and many others. She has been interviewed by Dan Rather, Montel Williams and appeared on Huffington Post regarding adoption as well as presented at various adoption conferences, other radio and print interviews over the years. She resides in New York’s Hudson Valley with her husband, Rye, children, and various pets.