The cry for help is not HEY HELP ME! The cry for help often shows up like "I'm FINE!", "Oh no everything is good", "No, really I am fine", "Don't worry about me", or you make plans in advance to attend an event/party/activity and then decide you can't go for no good reason... This is the season of disappearing. The season of merry merry happy happy just not for you. And when I say you, I mean me. This is about me and how I am experiencing my life right now.
In all this celebratory reds and golds and silver tinsel and lights, and lights and more lights, I am finding myself blue. Intensely blue. Dangerously blue. Blue which is code for depressed. I am in this season of depression and I find myself doing more to mask my sadness than ever before.
Masking is being inauthentic, it is not walking in my truth. it is about putting on a front as to not alarm loved ones, so as to not have the focus be on me, to come from under the bright lights, to allow for others to shine, while I hold on and be present. My presence is needed and if I am smiling everyone else will smile. This is the season of Merry Merry Happy Happy. Tis the season of masking.
There are of course pockets of joy and surprise in each day. I love Christmas. This is the season of mystery and wonder and hope. This year just seems harder for me than usual. Perhaps my wants are greater than my reality. I could make a list, but I won't because it just feels like giving in and giving too much energy to that. Old wounds are itching, begging for my attention.
What to do? I am not without tools... a deep treasure chest of tools for just this kind of crossroads
1. Make time to sit quietly and be still
2. Read devotionals and other sacred inspirational words and poetry
3. Keep a Prayer journal
4. Get to Church and fellowship
5. Cut myself some slack and use kind words to myself
6. Seek opportunities to laugh more
7. Sleep fully
8. Eat good food, leave junk food alone
9. Listen to uplifting soul music
10. Pay attention to all the things that are going well
11. Allow those that love me to take care of me
12. Be kinder to myself
13. Be kinder to myself
14. Be kinder to myself
15. Be kinder to myself
2 comments:
You deserve all the kind words in the world.
1. Be kind to yourself.
2. Keep being kind to yourself.
3. If you forget to be kind to yourself, be kind about forgetting. It takes a lot of practice.
4. Even if you don't manage the excellent goals that you list above, still be kind to yourself. Every moment is a chance to try again.
5. See numbers 1-4.
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