The thing about being overwhelmed with anxiety or being depressed is that actually you just don’t want to do anything very much. And it can be quite hard to move on from that state.
With everything the media – social and otherwise – throws out every day, you can end up feeling you are watching a speeded up film in shades of grey with the volume turned down very low.
It’s easy to feel uninvolved in anything much and pretty disconnected from almost everything,
So what you need is to find a road out of this that works for you – even if it’s a small lane to begin with, it may become a wider, faster road with time. One of the ways of finding a path to fight your way out of this grey world is to find some anchors for yourself in the real world.
Here are three things that can really help:
Doing It for Yourself
I was doing one of those interminable questionnaires on wellbeing that you find in magazines in waiting rooms when I came across a question that pulled me up short.
“Do you do something just for yourself at least once a week?”
I mused on this on the way home, and it dawned on me that no, I actually didn’t do ANYTHING for myself other than collapse in a chair occasionally, and read. This, I thought, has got to change.
I had always loved dancing, but hadn’t done any for years because there just didn’t seem to be time for stuff for me.
I decided to make time.
I found somewhere offering classes locally, and started dancing once a week.
It was interesting that having made the commitment, I managed to make the space to do it – and go. Everything else just had to move over for that one hour, and I managed to get to the class every week.
It was only one hour a week, but it made a big difference, because it was my time for me. I got fitter and generally felt happier and ended up feeling more positive about lots of things. I also learned that it was perfectly possible to make some time just for me if I was determined enough, and that the benefits of doing that stretched beyond the obvious.
Because I was happier, I was nicer to live with. Because I got fitter, I had more energy and got more things done. And clearing space to do something just for me made me realise the demands of work and family did not have to take my every breathing minute.
That’s a lot of gains from one simple question!
Try asking yourself the same question – and doing something to turn the answer into Yes.
Something for Somebody Else
If you are having a difficult time and you feel down and depressed, doing something for somebody else can really alter your focus and how you feel.
We all know that there’s always someone worse off than us. It doesn’t help much to hear it though, because we tend to be overwhelmed with our own stuff, shut up in our own feelings.
But one thing that can help is doing something for somebody else. If you make the effort to help somebody else, it turns your focus away from yourself and your own problems, and makes you look out towards others.
And if you help other people with difficulties they are facing, that often makes you feel better about yourself. You feel you are making a real contribution and helping other people – and you can see the difference you make. With any luck, you will also get thanks and positive feedback about your help, which will also contribute to you feeling better!
There are lots of things you can do to help others. You could offer to do the shopping for a neighbour who is not very mobile, walk a friend’s dog, or help tidy up the garden of an elderly person who can’t do much anymore. You could volunteer for a local charity, or simply take out the garbage for someone with their hands full.
It all makes a difference to someone – and it may make a difference to you too.
Find something to do to help other people as often as you can, and turn your focus outwards to where you can be part of something beyond yourself.
Being grateful
Human minds are strange, fascinating, complex and wonderful things. And over our lifetimes, these minds of ours develop habits – ways of thinking and reacting to the events we live through. Of course, we all know that. But what is less obvious to most of us is that these habits of thinking can be intentionally shaped by us, and this can affect our whole lives.
We often talk about a person being “a glass half empty person”, someone who always looks on the worst side of things and tends to have a negative viewpoint. We all know that it can be really tiresome to be with this sort of person; their gloomy views can be hard work and it often seems as if they become self-fulfilling prophecies.
But you can actually train your mind to have more of a “glass half-full” approach to life.
One way to start doing this is to think of three things that have been good, at the end of every day. They can be really simple things, such as that fantastic cup of tea you had when you finally got home with the groceries, and how much you enjoyed every mouthful of it. Or they can be moments – perhaps two minutes when you simply sat outside and breathed, or heard a piece of music on the radio. It could be the smile on the face of a fellow dog walker in the park or the fact that you got the washing in before it started to rain! You might remember the smell of dinner cooking or the touch of your child’s hand as you lifted them from the bath.
Of course, there are bigger things to celebrate some days, but finding the joy in small things seems to be the essence of what makes the difference. Because we don’t get big wins every day, but there are small things to enjoy and be grateful for every day if we look for them.
Some people choose to keep a journal and to write their three things down at the end of each day. Other people lie in bed and think about what three things they are most grateful for before they go to sleep, or share them with their partner.
The interesting thing is the more you practise finding things to be grateful for every day, the more positive and grateful you start to feel. You notice things you might have missed before, and you take the time to enjoy them. You go to bed with the positive things you are grateful for today in your head, and you wake up feeling more positive as a result.
You are training your mind to look for the good things in life and to celebrate them in a quiet but significant way.
Over time it starts to become a habit. You start to feel more positive and more cheerful more of the time. And this starts to affect everything – your glass feels fuller, and you feel better.
Taking the next step
As a homeopath whose special interest is in how people feel, I see a lot of people who are finding things an uphill struggle – sometimes this is in a big way, and sometimes it’s little things that are pulling them down.
Many of them have found the suggestions above have made a definite difference.
But all of them have found that homeopathy makes an even bigger difference.
If you are in a difficult space inside your head where you feel you have got stuck and it’s really hard to move on, or if you have physical symptoms that just won’t go away, homeopathy could really change things for you.
Homeopathy can bring about such a fundamental difference to your life and to your health – there is really nothing that compares with it.
It is simply the best way of being in the best health you can be.
You can learn more about this vital piece of the health puzzle by downloading Really Getting Better here.
There is a whole world of difference just waiting for you.
Or get in touch here to arrange a free call and learn about how homeopathy could help you too!
