Tag: philosophy friday (Page 6 of 7)

Have you ever noticed that when you’ve had a bad day, or get into a slump of hopelessness, you fail to notice the good around you? The balance is off and you’re focusing on what’s wrong rather than on what’s right.

I get into this rut, and for me it tends to go hand-in-hand with being over-tired and world weary. Today has been one of those days; even though it was thankfully one of my days off. I slept late and still woke up very tired; I tried cleaning up the living room, but soon got very weary of crawling around on my bruised knees and maneuvering on crutches while trying to carry things to other rooms. I felt depressed that all I accomplished today was clean the toilet, set up my Easter decorations, feed myself, and make my lunch for tomorrow. In addition, the incisions on my foot got an infection this week, so I’ve been focused on them…monitoring them, and nursing them back to health.

Then I remembered that a wonderful way to lift myself from a rut is to focus on the things that are good and right in this moment. A few years ago during a particularly difficult period of my life when I’d just lost my best friend — my soul sister — in a car accident, I kept a ‘gratitude journal’. Each and every day during that horrible time, I would open my journal before bed and write down three things I was thankful for. Focusing on the things that were right and beautiful and good during that time really helped me cope. Even though the pain was searing and my own will to live was hitting rock bottom, I could still focus on things that I was grateful for each day, and that alone would uplift me.

I would definitely suggest starting a gratitude journal. At the end of each day, write just three things about the day that you were thankful for. It won’t be everything that you’re grateful for in that day; just three things. It’s a simple exercise, and doesn’t take much time at all. But what it does is shift your mindset, lift you up, and you smile inside when you remember those things that were good that day. Some days you’ll struggle to come up with three, other days you’ll have a hard time choosing which three to write down. But do it every day, and you’ll notice yourself focusing more and more on the good and right. I’ve just started a new gratitude journal today, after a long period of not keeping one; it feels really good to have begun that ritual again. 🙂

Time for another Philosophy Friday!

So the past couple days I’ve felt “off”, with feelings of depression, hopelessness, and despair. On the occasions when I dip into little funks like this, I’ve often have a hard time pinpointing the cause, which is frustrating. What I’ve discovered is that it’s usually not just a single thing, but a combination of things that cause the balance to tip.

It seems really elementary, but it’s something I’ve only recently discovered. I know when I feel “off,” of course, but in the past, I didn’t really think through the reasons why I might be feeling that way. I just knew how I felt, and sort of just rode it out. But when I actually started thinking about it, and noticing the things that seemed to tip my balance, they were — hark! — often the same things each time! Like I said, it seems so obvious now.

For instance, I can deal with too little sleep. Or with physical pain. Or with hormones. But when they happen all at the same time, I fall apart so much more easily!

It’s helpful to develop a little mental list of your own “frequent offenders” that tip your balance — maybe a lack of sleep, your cycle, a yucky day at work, physical pain, too much on your plate, etc. When you recognize that you handle daily stressors differently when you’re overtired, for instance, you come to understand yourself better. And with that comes being gentler with yourself when you’re feeling down.

Then, when you can actually identify what’s causing the bottleneck, you can begin working to regain your balance.

So when you feel out of whack, you can say “Okay, well, by looking at the calendar, sure enough I’m at that “sour spot” in my cycle…and yep, my feet were really painful today and I know that wears me down, and oh yeah…that’s right…I’ve been awfully short on sleep lately.” Bingo! You have identified 3 concrete reasons that are likely contributing to why you feel low. It’s so much easier to fix a problem when you know what it is, wouldn’t you agree?!! Once you know what’s wrong, you can take logical steps to fix it (tired? time to go to bed early!). This process brings the “I feel yucky” from a vague, nebulous feeling down into a concrete, solvable problem. Sometimes even just identifying why you feel bad is enough to make you feel better! 😉

It’s also a good time for some Good Medicine. Today, one piece of good medicine for me was reading Karen Bishop’s energy update. We all have different ways of getting inspiration, of course, and Karen’s updates are one of the very few things I read religiously. They give a more cosmic picture of what’s currently happening on Earth (her website was formerly called What’s Up On Planet Earth?), and her explanations & her own experiences of what’s going on are often very reassuring to me.

But anyway, the next time you’re feeling blue, take the time to actually notice some likely causes. It really is worth the time and thought to come up with your own list of ‘frequent flyers’ that tip your balance. 🙂

Happy Friday!