2024 has been a tough year for me so far. Considering that this is right on the heels of the past couple of years that haven’t been so hotsie totsie either, I’m struggling to keep up hope. I’ll bet I’m not the only one that feels that way right now.
I don’t need to go into the gory details of my tales of woe. Setbacks, losses, bad news, slumps, and crises are all part of life. My usual MO is to dig in and work harder, but I’m starting to figure out that strategy eventually catches up and does more harm than good – to health and psyche. Even though I know it doesn’t help to stay superhumanly busy to bury my head in the sand, facing every situation is too, too much.
But don’t worry about me. I am a survivor, baby! I always have a tiny shred of Pollyannaish hope that things will be better tomorrow. Life is a series of ups and downs, but just wishing things would improve doesn’t change anything.
My struggles may not be apparent to the outside world, and isn’t that true for all of us? When we make the hard stuff look easy, other people can’t see and probably don’t care about the invisible work behind the curtain.
I feel like I’ve lost my fairy magic. My light feels dimmer and less joyful. Even though it feels incredibly vulnerable to tell you all of this, a strong pull tells me that I’m not the only one who is depressed. Holding it inside and not talking about it only gives these feelings more power.
I’m tired of feeling this way. So, while listening to the Badass Women of Wichita Alliance Galentine’s party playlist yesterday, I started thinking about how to get my fairy magic back. Hoping and waiting for things to change doesn’t work. Teaching the Take Flight webinar every couple of weeks has reminded me of that.
I put together a list of little experiments to see what makes me feel better. I like to conduct my experiments by picking one at a time and trying it on. Some I do once, and others I do every day for a week. At the end of the week, I’ll take a few minutes to swim to the top and make notes about how the experiment panned out. Once I figure out which are keepers, those experiments will be on their way to becoming habits to keep the magic flowing. Cranking up the coping skills will help me deal with the ugly nasties when my hope meter goes up.
Limit doom scrolling time.
I’ll admit it. I’m a news junkie. Too many hours slip by without even noticing while I read about all the chaos in the world. I’ve quit listening to music in the car and mostly tune in to NPR. It’s not like I can change anything by voraciously consuming the news. It only makes me feel more helpless and sad and probably raises my blood pressure.
I plan to set a boundary for myself to allow some time to see what’s going on two or three times a day, and I will set a timer so minutes don’t turn into hours.
Read about it.
The time I spend doom scrolling is better spent reading something that will help me regain my fairy magic. I read a lot of fiction and gain insights from the stories, but that’s really more about escapism than healing. Researching what I’m struggling with helps give me clarity, whether I’m looking at books, articles, or videos. When I first started the Finishing School for Modern Women, this is how many classes were born.
I already know I want to make this a habit, so I’ve planned to restructure my reading routine to include a nonfiction book focused on what I’m working on between the fiction. Rather than start with doom scrolling when I pick up my phone, I’ll look for information that will help me first.
Get out and about more.
It’s easy to fall into the habit of staying home and not venturing out unless it’s vitally necessary. I’ve found myself stuck there over the past few years. It takes energy and gumption to suit up to spend time socializing, even when you’re a social butterfly. In our 20s, getting together to pregame and prepare to go out was as much part of the fun and excitement as where we went. Now, just changing out of comfy clothes and becoming presentable in public seems exhausting. I will stay home before going out in public in pajama pants.
This one is going to take a month. Once a week, I’m going to make a plan to go to a public event and actually follow through. I don’t mind attending events alone, but it’s way easier to back out than if I plan to go with someone else. It could be as easy as telling people I will be at an event and will meet them there. Buying a ticket to an event in advance makes the possibility that I’ll show up a bit better, too.
Spend more time listening to music and dancing.
It felt so good to listen to music. My tunes used to be a big part of my life, but after splitting from marriage to a musician, I guess I needed a break. My rescue poodle, Jack, loves to get up on his hind legs and dance around with me, so that’s a happy thing, too.
I plan to set a random alarm on my phone at least once a day to let me know it’s dance time. I think I’ll use I Like to Move It from the Madagascar 2 movie for the alarm. After the alarm goes off, I’ll take a one or two-song dance party as soon as I can. I’m doing this during work hours, too. When I managed a hair salon in the 80s, we broke into simultaneous dance parties when something good came on the turntable. Our guests loved it. Hopefully, my team and consulting clients won’t mind either.
Have a pity party.
In the show Shrinking on Apple TV, one of the characters has a fantastically intense cry where he puts on a song that hits him in the feels and blubbers like a baby in an ugly, snotty, hiccupping sobfest until the song is over. I rarely cry. When I do, it’s usually about sappy sentimentality rather than something I’m sad about, and even then, the tears just trickle down my face. As much as I’d like to, I can’t ugly cry. Maybe my sadness ducts are clogged. Doing something purposeful to allow myself to cry may be the plunger I need.
I plan to do this once to see how it feels when I have enough time and space to be fully present in that moment and reflect afterward. This experience makes me feel the most uncomfortable, so I must be on to something.
Be purposeful about joy.
I try to live by what I call the Joy Suck Rule. If something is sucking the joy out of my life, it has to go. But sometimes, it’s hard to pin down precisely what is sucking, especially when we’re using our strongest powers of denial to avoid facing what’s bringing us down.
I definitely need more joy in my life. Numbing the emotions we don’t want to feel, dampens the ones we do until we can’t even remember what brings joy. Creating a big grocery list of what brings joy is a good reminder and a resource to refer to when a dopamine boost is badly needed.
My plan for this experiment is to take a little judgment-free time each day for a week to add to these lists. The challenging part will be at the end of the week when I’ll analyze what I’ve written. Some items on the joy-suck list, like being stuck in traffic, can’t be changed if I plan ever to leave the house. And just because something brings me joy doesn’t mean it will be good for me in the long run, like eating fantastically decadent desserts. However, with a bit of strategic thought, I can lead what I want to happen and adapt by taking other routes or times for travel or having tiny decadent desserts every so often.
Keep an accomplishment log.
Sometimes, it feels like one step forward and two steps back, but is that the case? It’s easy to catastrophize the bad things in life so passionately that the good things get hidden in the big bad shadows. We also tend not to give credit to the smallest victories. Sometimes, just getting out of bed is a major triumph, even if we tell ourselves it’s a ridiculous place to set the bar. Give credit for a good job adulting today!
Every tiny win builds momentum. Even when there’s a setback, we’re still further ahead than we were before. My friend Toni calls this the Slinky Effect. Life is not a straight line but a series of steps forward and backward, like dancing the Chacha. But every accomplishment gives us the understanding to add new strategies to our toolbox, so our progress gets faster.
For one week, I’ll log my biggest accomplishments every day, even if my inner critic screams about how small or insignificant they are. I want to find out if focusing on what I am accomplishing as I go through the day will shine a light past the big bad shadows.
Ask for help.
I have always struggled to ask for help, although I am improving. In the past, I surrounded myself with people more interested in what I could do to help them than showing up for me when I needed a turn. Over time, that kind of disappointment makes it feel like asking for what is needed is and not worth the risk. Now, I try only to let people into my life who are equal parts giver and taker and understand how important it is to allow those who love me to express that love.
But asking for help is only the first step. Accepting the help is still something I’m working on. When people ask how they can help me, I don’t always know how to answer. I need to start answering that question by telling them what I need and asking how they want to help. But that’s where the vicious cycle begins. I have to know what I need while my inner critic works so hard to avoid asking. Sometimes, what I need is help brainstorming what I need.
I’ll take this one a little slower and spread the experiment over a month. Every week, I’ll reach out to someone to discuss how we can help each other and put together an easy action plan. Thinking about help as a collaboration feels much better and less all about me. Email me if you want to play.
Following through.
Putting together a list of strategies always makes me feel better, and it’s working already. I’m excited to pick a fabulous journal for my research logbook and get started. I’ll use this to track my progress and write about my discoveries.
But all these experiments feel overwhelming, so I am reminding myself to pick one a week. That’s all. Since this is my experiment, I can decide when to start the next activity, end it early, or skip it altogether.
The hard part is holding ourselves accountable for doing experiments. An article I read pointed out that the problem isn’t a lack of motivation but a lack of follow-through. If you’re interested in trying something like this and want to join an online group to help you follow through, please get in touch with me. I think that would be an interesting experiment, too.
Adulting is hard, but life is meant to be beautiful.
Much love,
Headmistress Jill
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