How Was Your Day?

Stories for Thriving
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“How was your day?”

“Good. Well, actually… not.”

That’s my daughter.
And that’s me.

She told me about an ouch she had.
I get it—because I do the same.

I know how the brain works. It stores painful experiences first—makes sense, right?

If you stumble down the stairs, your brain wants that pain to remind you—every time you go up or down—to hold the rail. Be careful or else!

So yeah. I get that.

I’ve always been like that—and I see it in my daughter’s answer, too.

I’ve also realized: I don’t want to live by the animal way of remembering life.

That’s been a journey for me.

I’ve learned—often the hard way—that simple uplifts matter. Why? Because I’ve ended too many days feeling like ‘nothing good’ happened… even when it wasn’t true!

But it’s like… if you’ve got one bag and a rotten apple is sitting in there, it kind of takes over. Even if there’s just one… and you reach in and your thumb goes right through it—
Ew. Gross. Bleh.

“How was your day?”
A better question might be…

“What did I savor today?”

If the answer is “nothing”… either life needs some recalibrating—or we missed it. Because something was probably savor-worthy.

I start my day with coffee.
The heat of the mug. The smell. Even just holding it.
Oh. So. Good.

“What uplifted me a bit today?”

You’ll notice I said “a bit.”
I’m not asking for heaven.
Just… what gave me a little boost?

Oh. That little white flower.
Or that blanket of wild violets—so beautiful. (They’re even tasty, by the way.)

“How was your day?”

I realized I’d been avoiding what others call a “gratitude list.”

Because by default, I was collecting all the things that were a struggle. That went wrong. That my brain decided were crucial to remember… or else!

So there was a bit of rebellion around a gratitude list.

I tapped on that.

That’s the beauty of EFT Tapping: it helps me shift.
I’m changing what gets stored—on purpose.

Now, at the end of my day, I say… a kind of grace.

And it looks like this: a bunch of bullet points.

  • What did I savor?
  • What lifted me, even a little?
  • What am I honestly and truly grateful for?

It turns fleeting moments into… I want THIS in my long-term memory.

It might seem simple. And yet—I do want my body, mind, and spirit to integrate it… As I sleep. As I dream.

I’m three weeks in. And something in me knows: This Matters.

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It helps me unwind the tensions of the day.
Helps me reflect and attune to what is thriving.
Even thriving anyway—despite whatever else happened.

And I’m noticing my recollections of The Good Stuff are getting stronger. And easier.

Moments that are precious indeed.
Worth dreaming about.

“How was your day?”

The other day, my daughter said school was, “Good. Well, not really.” Then she showed me a boo-boo on her hand and one on her knee.

After that, she grabbed a book—Unicorn Academy.
Snuggled up beside me.
Handed me the book.
Smiled.

And we read.

If you could see into my energy, my emotions, my memories forming,
you’d notice that that moment—her reading with me—is far more vivid than her complaints.

I share, authentically, that it wasn’t always that way.

It’s been a journey.

Decades of interpreting most of life as complaint-worthy… even when it wasn’t.

But I see now—mercifully— that the more we attune ourselves to what is uplifting, the more those blessings become accessible.

It quiets the noise.
It removes the rotten apples.
It gives us a taste of juicy goodness.

And no—of course not all of life is juicy goodness.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some…
Here.
Now.
For you. For me. For us.

May you discover those simple uplifts.
Build upon them.
Amplify them.
Magnify them.
And store them…

For your future Thriving.

Useful Concepts for Thriving in this Story

  • Awareness
    Noticing what our brain tends to store, and gently widening our attention to include what uplifts and blesses.

  • Simple Uplifts
    Letting small moments of pleasure, connection, and beauty land — and consciously including them in what we remember.

  • Reframing
    Shifting from the default negativity bias toward a narrative that includes delight, grace, and choice.

  • Acceptance
    Honoring our patterns — even resistance to gratitude — while allowing new practices to emerge gently.

  • Useful Questions
    Asking ourselves questions like “What did I savor?” that open the door to presence and thriving.

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I am working on an AI “Wisdom Extractor” and I had it walk through the original transcript I used as the basis of this story:

The Question Beneath “How Was Your Day?”

  • Our reflex to say “good” masks complexity—we often don’t pause to feel whether that’s true.
  • Our children echo our patterns. When they answer with a “good… well…” we hear the echo of our own neural wiring.
  • Pain leaves deeper grooves in memory because evolution favors caution. But that doesn’t mean it’s the whole story.
  • We get to choose: default wiring or intentional re-patterning.

The Mind’s Tendency Toward Bruises

  • The brain is a master of survival, filing away bruises and bumps like caution tape around memory.
  • Safety first makes sense—but it often crowds out delight, like a single rotten apple flavoring the whole bag.
  • Just because struggle feels heavier doesn’t mean it’s truer.
  • We’ve inherited an animal logic—but we’re not just animals. We’re storied creatures. We can curate what stays.

Simple Uplifts as Sacred Practice

  • Tiny moments—warm mugs, wild violets, a glint of beauty—can be enough.
  • We don’t need fireworks to feel alive. A flicker of “that felt nice” is already medicine.
  • Asking “What did you savor today?” shifts the whole lens. If the answer is nothing, it’s a call to recalibrate or pay closer attention.
  • There is quiet power in the partial uplift. It doesn’t have to be ecstatic to be worthy.

Gratitude as Rebellion and Rewiring

  • Resistance to gratitude lists can be rooted in loyalty to what’s “useful” pain—what to avoid next time, what went wrong.
  • But tapping (EFT) offers a portal: we can notice that resistance and choose differently.
  • Gratitude isn’t forced cheer—it’s choosing what we want to remember, what we want our bodies to store for later.
  • Bullet-pointed grace becomes a ritual of reprogramming. We mark the moments that made life more livable.

Sleep as Integration, Memory as Intention

  • As we rest, our minds knit memories into long-term storage. Choosing which ones matter is a form of devotion.
  • Turning fleeting sweetness into something to dream about is a way of honoring the sacred mundane.
  • Even after just a few weeks, intentional recollection makes the good more vivid, the sour less central.

Legacy of Attention

  • When our children recall their days with more balance—some “ouch,” some beauty—we see our efforts mirrored back.
  • The reading snuggle, the smile, the Unicorn Academy book—all of it lodged deeper in memory than the scraped knee.
  • Emotional vividness isn’t random. It’s sculpted by presence and choice.

From Complaint-Worthy to Blessing-Aware

  • Life hasn’t changed—our lens has. Once everything felt like it deserved a complaint. Now, some of it feels like a gift.
  • Attunement is a form of healing. We make blessings more accessible by noticing them often, storing them well.
  • The noise quiets. The rotten apple gets removed. What’s left is the taste of something whole and nourishing.

A Blessing for the Journey

  • May we build upon the simple uplifts.
  • May we amplify them until they’re loud enough to hear above the static.
  • May we remember: not all of life is goodness, but some of it is—here, now.
  • And may that be enough to carry us to the next moment with tenderness, gratitude, and a practiced hope.