Down Days and Light Ahead

I was having a conversation recently with a woman who works for a national non-profit that assists families impacted by MPS (the type of disease Anni has), and she asked me this question:

“What makes the difference between someone who does amazing things in the world, and someone who can’t get out of bed?”

I responded that

1)    People are not on an either/or path, they’re on a spectrum. It’s not that people are EITHER out there totally crushing it in terms of success, happiness, connection, etc. OR unable to get out of bed and crushed under the weight of depression.

2)    Their place on the spectrum changes over time depending on what else is happening in life. Age, hormones, nutrition, support (mental and physical), and additional challenges all play a role in overall resilience.

Resilience is a topic that has interested me for a while. I’ve wondered many times about what the deciding factor is in whether someone is able to bounce back from hardship and challenges or crumble under the weight. Western culture in particular has painted a picture that life is either/or, but I’m a big believer in the power and reality of both/and, and I apply this framework to pretty much everything in my life.

If we live with the belief that life is either/or (life is either great or sucky, I’m either a rock star or a train wreck) then we miss out on the truth that our human experience is complex and nuanced, and that sometimes it feels like we can barely understand our own patterns and internal motivations. Life is both great and sucky. I’m both a rock star and a train wreck (depending on the day).

There were days since Anni’s diagnosis that I just wanted to sleep. There were chunks of time when I didn’t want to hang out with people. I busied myself endlessly with projects. There were times when I watched hours of Netflix every night. I would have moments where I would go into my two other children’s bedrooms, look at them sleeping and be sure that they had cancer, some terrible disease, or have a premonition that something awful would happen to them. I was bombarded with anxious thoughts.

Then there were days when I felt like I could take on the world. I could do anything. I had energy and optimism. I would get up early and write, or flesh out a new business idea. I would eat well, spend less time on my phone, and more time with my family and friends.

When I had trouble pulling myself out of bed, when I felt numb, or when there was an undercurrent of frustration and helplessness, if I got after myself I wouldn’t address those issues. I would hide them, blame myself, blame others, try to motivate myself into feeling better with shame and negative internal talk.

Here is the power of the mindset shift to both/and: there is no judgment, only observation and curiosity. Judgment produces shame, observation and curiosity produce change. When we feel like we should be doing something differently than we are, we shut down our ability to see things from a different perspective.

We need to develop the space to let ourselves be fully human. Nobody is meant to be happy all the time. That would suck. I know it sounds nice, but can you imagine if we were happy at inappropriate times, like when a friend has a miscarriage, when you lose a parent, when someone you love goes through a hard breakup? We want to be empathetic towards others, and truly feel the depth of our emotion for ourselves. This is what it means to be human. When we cut ourselves off from how we truly feel about things, when we don’t allow ourselves to feel them all the way through, we are shorting ourselves from our beautiful, complex, painful, wonderful human experience.

Some days are going to suck. All the work we’ve done on ourselves to overcome limiting beliefs, change unhealthy patterns, truly feel our feelings, doesn’t mean that the hard days are behind us forever. We live in a type of spiral in our learning—some of the same opportunities for growth come around again and again.

Over the years I’ve developed some habits and healthy practices that help me get out of the slumps, not necessarily more quickly but certainly addressing what comes up more quickly and proactively. I pay closer attention now to what’s going on around me and inside me when I start to feel anxiety creeping in. I notice when my healthy habits start to slip. I pay attention when I have a more challenging time reaching for healthy food, going to bed at a good time, feel more resistant to exercise, spend way more time on my phone.

These are all my cues that something needs attention, not an indication that something has gone wrong. When we feel down, fearful, anxious, it does not mean that there’s something wrong with us. It means we’re human. Time to lean into that intuition, that self-awareness, that self-worth and love to understand what we need in those times. Notice what’s happening with you and in you when you start to engage in numbing or escaping behaviors.

We may need time away. We may need a nap. We may need a good cry. We may need a conversation with a trusted friend. We may need to scream in the car.

The message I tell myself loud and clear in those down times is this will not last forever. Sometimes that is the only thing that keeps me going when I feel so low that it feels like I won’t be happy again ever and I can’t remember the last time I was happy about anything.

Dark days come. They’re guaranteed.

But so is the light.