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The other day I woke up feeling bad tempered and depressed. All I could think about was what was wrong with everything – my breakfast, my schedule for the day, my hair – everything! It was tempting to try to make myself feel happy by using all the techniques I know for transforming depression into happiness. But I knew from bitter past experience that this is not a good idea. Trying to forcibly push up my mood in the past has resulted in feeling even worse, and set off devastating mood swings.
So instead I sucked it up and resigned myself to accepting that I felt bad for a while. I tried to focus on things that didn’t involve thinking or feeling, like watching the sun shi
ne through the condensation on the window, making it sparkle like diaphanous silvery fabric. Then I moved into my schedule for the day, trying not to get hung up on the fact that I didn’t feel too hot. I was late for my dentist’s appointment, which made me feel even more grumpy. I found a park, but then had no money for the meter. The day seemed to be going down the gurgler. Then the dentist said he could still see me and found nothing major wrong with my teeth after years of not seeing him. I got back to my car to find I hadn’t got a ticket, then realised I had a free 50 minutes in my schedule to do whatever I liked. That lifted my mood a bit although it didn’t last.
My mood went up and down for the rest of the day, but by evening I was feeling pretty good. As I’d anticipated from previous experience, simply accepting how I felt, keeping active and not trying overly hard to feel better had done the trick. By the next day I was back to my normal happy self. Giving myself a break and not insisting on feeling happy all the time and driving myself to feel better had been just what I needed.
So instead I sucked it up and resigned myself to accepting that I felt bad for a while. I tried to focus on things that didn’t involve thinking or feeling, like watching the sun shi
ne through the condensation on the window, making it sparkle like diaphanous silvery fabric. Then I moved into my schedule for the day, trying not to get hung up on the fact that I didn’t feel too hot. I was late for my dentist’s appointment, which made me feel even more grumpy. I found a park, but then had no money for the meter. The day seemed to be going down the gurgler. Then the dentist said he could still see me and found nothing major wrong with my teeth after years of not seeing him. I got back to my car to find I hadn’t got a ticket, then realised I had a free 50 minutes in my schedule to do whatever I liked. That lifted my mood a bit although it didn’t last.My mood went up and down for the rest of the day, but by evening I was feeling pretty good. As I’d anticipated from previous experience, simply accepting how I felt, keeping active and not trying overly hard to feel better had done the trick. By the next day I was back to my normal happy self. Giving myself a break and not insisting on feeling happy all the time and driving myself to feel better had been just what I needed.
This is a great post, Kaye. I feel it's something people really need to get their heads around. I'm glad you have written about it and shared your experiences. We all need to accept where we are RIGHT NOW. This doesn't mean we can't take steps to make change - it just means we aren't fighting with ourselves. 'What you resist persists' as one of the sayings goes.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know more about this, and how you personally know when it's time to not push yourself. Maybe there are particular thoughts or behaviours that you catch yourself doing and that's a signal to slow down. Or there are external 'triggers' that for you are the clues to taking a break.
Thanks Kirsten. I was thinking I needed to do a follow up post about how to know when to push and when not to. I have to work it out for myself first! But I think the bottom line is accepting that how we are right now is OK because we are OK, even if we're not enjoying it, and that we don't HAVE to be happy to be OK. It's nice to be happy and something worth working towards but it's not compulsory every moment of the day. I'll have a think and write something on knowing when to make an effort and when to just be.
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