January Blues

My original plan was to have today’s blog be about the results of my “experiment” with reducing verbal language in my life, but something else has held my attention the last little while and refused to give way: my January blues.

January was a difficult month for me. I struggled: I felt more tired and pessimistic. And heavy... as if there were not only a weight on my chest but also weights hidden in my clothes. Everything seemed to happen slower and I felt out of sync with the world and the people around me, including those closest to me. Small negative moments that would normally slide away from notice on their own stayed at the forefront of my conscious mind and I thirsted for positive feedback like a plant leaning and straining for the sustenance of the sun.

I didn’t know what to make of it. I’m generally a fairly even-keeled and optimistic person by nature and when I feel down or low, I’ve learned to watch and see where these feelings move and how they transform or evolve. Often, I can clearly attribute it to a specific incident or to stress, lack of sleep, not eating properly or getting sick. Other times, I have no idea where the feeling is coming from, but I let it play out knowing that we all sometimes experience these gloomy or down moments. What could once disorient me for months now, thankfully, usually reveals itself in weeks and negative states that blanketed me for weeks now dissolve within days.

But for what felt like the longest, slowest passing of days last month, I walked around surrounded by a haze, unable to shed the inertia. I originally attributed it to the challenges of a new business, which was partly true, but it wasn’t until the sun came out last Monday that I realized how much of an effect the weather was having on me.

Out for a walk on the beach with my dog, I sat to stare out at the horizon and the water, a regular moment of pause and presence for me on these trips. As I silently took in the sights and sounds, I found myself suddenly reinvigorated, feelings of self-confidence, optimism and fortitude appearing from seemingly out of nowhere. It was such an acute reversal from how I’d been feeling for weeks that I was dumbfounded for a moment.

I began to wonder about how much of what I’d been feeling was due to the small amount of sunshine we’d had throughout much of January. I’ve known for some time that winter brings me down. I feel less energized, more sluggish and less interested in doing things that I like (possibly a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder); everything seems to take more conscious effort and willpower. It’s been better since I adopted my dog because she gets me outside and walking regularly.

But this year, looking back, I think the winter blues had more of an emotional and psychological effect on me because of the added challenges and stresses of building a new business and, in my case, not having a proper support system in place.

We can often fall into the trap of thinking of these things as completely distinct: the weather (and its effects) versus the stresses of work life. Carving out these boundaries allows us to try and deal with each more efficiently but we do lose something very important in the process: we become blind to the reality that both these things happen to and are processed by one very interconnected brain and body. To our brain (and thus also to our body), the effects of the weather and the stresses of life have no clear division but are integrated and overlapping pieces of information, alongside many other integrated and overlapping pieces of information. They fuse into one amorphous, ever-changing, flow of emotional, psychological and/or sensory experience that is our day-to-day lives.

So be kind to yourself. Even - or perhaps most especially - when you can’t figure out why you’re feeling “off”, know that every day we are always trying to find a new equilibrium. Without realizing it, we are constantly reacting, shifting, adapting to a multitude of inputs and influences – environmental, social, physiological.... Sometimes we fall short, other times we go too far; sometimes we unknowingly and accidentally find ourselves exactly where we need to be and other times, we seem to know intuitively what steps we need to take. Try to accept the moment for what it is, knowing that around the corner – if we’re lucky – will be another moment, another experience, another step in our journey.