I’ve never been great about keeping a consistent journal, so it’s interesting looking back at the last 2 months of posts to see my rollercoaster of emotions and hope versus desperation; seeing life as hard and seeing it as a challenge to overcome with triumph. Today, I feel like the weight of the world is too much to bear and I start to go down the spiral of no one understands and why did I bring this all upon myself? But the reality is that the weight of the world was the same yesterday and will be the same tomorrow. I don’t like writing to bitch and moan about my life but I realize a lot of these posts have been just that. I write what I feel like is the truth in hopes that if someone else is going through something similar they know they’re not alone.
But what’s weird is that the truth is not as black and white as we’d like it to be. It’s not always the complete picture. Today I feel like staying in bed with the covers over my head until the alarm goes off at the same time tomorrow morning. But yesterday morning, I felt like baking, writing, and playing grown up games. Nothing happened between last night and this morning to threaten my safety or joy other than the fact that it’s Monday.
Things feel hard so I started to ask myself what other hard things I have I done? One time I hiked 30 miles on the Appalachian trail. Another time I ran 24 miles through the mountains between Tulancingo and Pachuca and another time I ran 34 miles through Muir Woods and the Golden Gate Bridge. I completed 2 years of service in the US Peace Corps living alone in a tiny village. I completed a Master’s program while working full time and planning a wedding. I birthed a child, moved to a foreign country, and kept him and our whole family alive during COVID. I’ve started businesses, created jobs, and made products and services that people love.
So why the periodic waves of darkness that sometimes seem so dark I can’t see the way out? Can I blame it on hormones? Social media? I can’t blame it on genetics because all generations of the family on both sides are/were pretty anti therapy so no one has ever been diagnosed for depression, but the signs and stories certainly give some hints. Is it just human nature? The cave man brain?
This helped. Today is the same as yesterday and tomorrow will have its own mess, and we’ll all be fine. At some point, maybe even better than fine.
What are your methods for getting out of the darkness?
You're not alone - and I have some thoughts to share that might work. The below steps take a little practice and with practice, they seem to work better and faster each time. The "dark" feeling is a trigger - something's up (or down in this case). The dark feeling is a trigger, it's not the final answer, and therefore, we can change the dark days into dark hours, and then learn to convert dark hours into dark minutes, and at a "Blackbelt level", we can see the dark feelings a mile away and avert many of them in advance. STEPS: [1] Relate to that down or sad or dark feeling like you would relate to a Yellow Traffic signal. Yellow means slow down, pause. We don't question the Yellow Traffic Signal, and we don't take it personally - we pay attention and slow down. Asking "why the dark day" usually turns out to be a black hole that's harder to get out of the longer we stay in it. [2] Now in the slowed state, start looking for everything you can be grateful for - breathing, walking, seeing, smelling, feeling, driving a car so you can even be at a Yellow Light - doesn't matter - Get Feverishly Grateful - even if very small, "I'm grateful for that very last breath, and this one, and this one - isn't it amazing how oxygen works..." Say your gratitudes out loud, write them down, sing them... The Key is to get more amped up about things to be grateful for than energizing more dark matter to the dark day. [3] Go back to your accomplishments (like the great ones listed above), or your loves (like the cute little one who's a chatterbox, or the bigger one who creates Tiny House masterpieces - same note for all of us - find your loves), [4] Now - Re-engage with the loves immediately in your mind. Feel the love, joy, gratitude, happiness - feel it in your whole body, from head to toe, play those stories over and over in your mind. Feel them, see them, hear them, taste them. [5] Blackbelt level is learning to anchor these feelings - click your fingers, press your thumb into your palm, fold your hands, whatever - but when you access those happy feelings, anchor them physically. This can become a habit that a person does as often as they want, and now every time the anchor is pressed, they get the good goose-bumpy feelings all over again.
P.S. I think "dark dayz" are most likely chemical - I think they take us by surprise because we thrust our bodies into overdrive and literally run out of "brain happy juice" (dopamine, etc.) which takes time to replenish. Try the Yellow Light approach and see if you can reduce the amount of time in the dark zones - I also think the steps above also help replenish equilibrium faster.
I appreciate these posts because it’s such a helpful tool to be able to remember that you’ve done hard things and overcame them/survived. These dark moments have been temporary in the past so I hope and try to remember that they continue to be temporary.