You need to have tools that will help you to deal with the moments when you feel down. One of the worse things is inactivity because it only prolongs the state of feeling bad.
It’s not the time that heals; it’s you who can heal yourself.
Recently, I’ve had a couple of conversations with people who seem to be caught up in a downward spiral after reaching a milestone. Naturally, they freaked out and worried that their lives would never change. Although I understand them, I don’t agree that they can’t reach what they want.
Feeling down from time to time is normal, and it’s human. It doesn’t mean that you’re a terrible person or that something is wrong with your life.
Moreover, before we find inner balance, we evolve in a spiral. To reach the next point, it seems, that we go down for a while. It’s the downward part of the spiral that scares most of the people and this is where people may get stuck.
Since 2012, many people (especially, lightworkers) have moved faster along the spiral of evolution. Thus, challenges and victories come more quickly than you may want them to appear in your life. The inner growth has speeded up for those who are ready to step into their potential.
A downward spiral
The chances are that if you’re an empath (or/and a lightworker), your mood fluctuates all the time. Especially, when you want to improve something in your life, an unexpected situation takes you down. Thus, you enter the guilty party, and your inner voice tells you that you’ve failed again.
Going the downward spiral is part of evolution. Often before you take the next level, the universe tests you to see whether you’re ready for what you say you want.
Usually, when you’re entering a downward spiral, you feel emotionally imbalanced, negative thoughts take over your mind, and you feel like you can’t change what you want. Additionally, you may feel depressed, lonely, and like no one understands you. Suddenly, the world doesn’t make sense, and you want to give up and hide until it passes.
If you’re in a downward spiral, I want you to know that you haven’t failed. Having ups and downs is natural. The energetical reason for feeling unmotivated and stuck (especially, after committing to change something) is that the feminine and masculine energies must find their balance. Before they do, you may feel like a walking mess sometimes. When the energies rise and descend in your body, the mood follows. And vice versa.
2 Little hacks when you feel down
Of course, one of the first steps is to accept that you feel down. When you know that it happens to feel down sometimes, it doesn’t freak you out anymore. Instead, you think: now I start to go down the rabbit hole, but it, too, shall pass. Hence, accepting that this, too, is a part of your path (at least until a certain point), is crucial.
The trick to deal with feeling down is to have some tools in your pocket that you know will help. These tools may differ from person to person. However, I’ll share with you two things that never fail, and you can accustom them to your needs.
1. Decide to show up for yourself no matter what
Decide on what you want is powerful. Mainly when you stand behind your decision 100%. However, when you feel down, you may not feel like making a quantum shift. On the contrary, baby-steps work the best.
When you feel down, prioritize a mental self-care. Commit to 10 minutes (up to 2 hours) each day when you focus on feelings and beliefs. This is the time when you show up for yourself, and you choose to shift the state of your mind.
At first, you may not know what would help you, show up anyway.
If nothing else, you can always meditate which allows your mind to gain detachment from your emotions and thus enables you to see that you’re not your emotions.
Another great tool when you feel down is journaling. When you let out your suppressed emotions and release them onto paper, you shift your energy. You can commit to 10-minute journaling every evening.
If writing your thoughts and emotions down is new for you, then you can begin by free-writing anything that comes to your mind. You’ll see that over time, writing will become easier for you and it will create more significant shifts.
So, the rule number one when you feel down is to set up time (each day!) when you proactively shift your emotions and examine your beliefs. Determine to show up for yourself until you feel good again. And preferably, even after.
When you decided to change your state (even though you may not know how), the universe supports your healing.
The right people will show up; you’ll feel guided to the right books, articles, podcasts, healing therapies. Most importantly, you’ll show yourself that you’ll not abandon yourself when life gets messy. For, us, adults, learning how to parent yourself is essential.
2. Go back to basics
Another of my tips is to go back to basics when you feel down. Very likely, overcomplicating and overstressing doesn’t help you. I’ve mentioned a couple of times that the fundamental spiritual truths and tools work magic. However, we must apply them.
Going back to basics means that you choose up to 5 things that you know always work for you. And they may or may not be spiritual. For instance, when you feel down, music and dance always help you. Or reading a good novel, watching a comedy, having long walks, taking baths, talking about silly things with your friends. So why not to have more of it?
What has always helped you when you’ve felt down? Write a list for yourself and after the step one (showing up for yourself), go back to basics and do something that uplifts you. Joy is great. Do something fun.
These two tips will not solve all your problems for good, but they’ll take you out of the downward spiral so that you can then work with the root cause of the reoccurring patterns. The trick is not to push yourself into huge changes overnight. Be compassionate with yourself, and commit to two little shifts each day. You’ll see that it will take out of the bad feelings.
Originally published at sylviasalow.com on January 22, 2019.
Also published on Medium.
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