Lately, I’ve been in a bit of a funk and as I sit back and think about it, I realize I’ve allowed myself to fall off of my priority list in some ways. I stopped making time to read the books that make me feel good. I stopped making as much time to practice yoga and meditate. Granted, it hasn’t been a long pause, but my frequency has dwindled from about 4 times a week to maybe 2. I’ve made excuses, “I just didn’t feel into it today,” or, “I didn’t have time,” I tell myself. Yet, I’ve found time to binge watch Schitt’s Creek over the past month. While the show is hysterical and a “feel good” show, it hasn’t uplifted me in the way that moving my body and reading often does. In fact, when I spend too much time watching television, I find myself feeling a bit sloth-like and lazy. It makes me feel a bit checked out of life and slightly disconnected from purpose.
When you know how it feels to be in love with life, you have a hard time settling for anything less. It becomes an act of love to do what is necessary to get back into the state of being that feels like bliss. However, it’s a bit paradoxical because the more you chase something, the more it eludes you. If I set my mind on wanting the bliss to return, I find that the opposite happens and I start getting irritated that I’m not feeling it, which draws me further away from it. When I do what I know to do and trust that nature is cyclical and it will return so long as I remain open to it, it usually does. It’s always just a matter of time, with some cycles taking a little longer to complete than others.
I used to say, “Do your best and forget the rest,” a lot at work. It was my way of setting boundaries. I’m giving it my all within the hours that I am committed to work, but when my shift is done, I’m going home and not thinking about work. It was my way of saying, I’m not going to kill myself for a place that would let me go in a second if it benefited them at any point to do so. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always done great work and I do care about serving in a high capacity, but I also know how to set boundaries and not allow myself to be drained of energy for something that I didn’t define as “my purpose.” It’s the same with finding my way back to my “happy place.” I do what normally makes me feel better and brings me joy. Even if it doesn’t bring immediate results, I commit to the activities that usually light me up while also staying open for other opportunities to feel good. Inevitably, I return back to the place of love where everything feels miraculous and appreciation for life is easily found.
It’s often when we’re in a funk that we find it hard to see the multitude of blessings that surround us. When we’re falling into the pit, we don’t want to do the things that will help lift us out, but we must unless we want to steadily descend until we reach bottom. When we’re overweight, it’s hard to start exercising regularly. It’s the last thing we want to do, but it’s the thing that will help us in the long run. When we’re deeply depressed, the last thing we may want to do is get out of bed to shower and engage in any act of self-love, but we must if we stand any chance of finding our way out.
As I get older, I’m finding that self-discipline is the most important trait that any of us can have. Self-discipline pushes us to do the things we “don’t feel like doing” for our own benefit. It’s the parent within us or the higher self that says, “I know you don’t want to eat your dinner, but you must if you are to grow and be healthy.” I don’t want to paint a grim picture for my daughter, but I often find myself telling her, “Look, in life there are plenty of things you aren’t going to feel like doing, but you have to do them anyway.” Generally, this is in response to her protests about taking a shower or leaving the house with us to go somewhere when she would rather stay home and play. It’s truth, no matter how many visualizations, meditations, prayers, or other practices we engage in, life will always have facets that we just don’t want to participate in. The key is to find the joy where we can and adjust our perspective so that we can do what needs to be done.
Life is never going to fully acquiesce to our every whim or demand. While we have the power to co-create our life by making choices that will serve us, we can’t control the outcomes. For example, none of us could have predicted that we’d be dealing with a pandemic this year. Nobody can predict a natural disaster and sometimes loss happens… whether it’s a job, a person, an opportunity, money, etc. The best we can do in these times is to fix our face and do what needs to be done in each moment, which requires self-discipline. Search for and find the light again and again, then hang on to it as long as you have it and enjoy it while it lasts… knowing that there will always be another opportunity to play the game of hide and seek.
Feeling good is intentional. It isn’t something that we can just sit back and hope for. If we want to get out of our funk, we have to climb out of it one foot at a time. Sometimes we have to dig deep and commit to doing that which we don’t feel like doing in each moment to lift ourselves out of the muck. One of my favorite biblical stories is in John 5 and is entitled, “Jesus Heals a Lame Man.” I’ve included it below from the New Living Translation for your reference:
Sometimes, we simply have to pick up our mat, and walk! It was comfortable lying on the mat for 38 years, lacking self-discipline to attempt to make himself feel better. I don’t believe the man was crippled physically, but mentally and spiritually (see definition 2 below):
The man’s state of being was uninspiring and dull, full of excuses and blaming others for what he couldn’t do. “Someone always gets there before me….” the man replies when asked if he wants to get well. He immediately goes into the “I don’t feel like it” and “I can’t” mode of thought. When we’re in a funk, our brains always default to all of the reasons why we can’t, yet if we just exercise our self-discipline muscle, we can indeed take the actions that will pull us out. We can roll away our “sleeping” mat and choose to come alive and be well. It just takes commitment and self-discipline… one action that we might not feel like doing at a time and we’ll find over time that we’ve left the comfortably uncomfortable behind.