Stepping Back.
June 5, 2012 § 4 Comments
When you look at your life do you feel disconnected? Overwhelmed? Like you’re living in a dream?
“Well, that doesn’t sound like me!”
“Oh really? What did you have for breakfast?”
If you can’t remember, you most likely aren’t living in the present. Perhaps it’s time to take a step back, take a deep breath, and live.
When I took a step back last Sunday, I realized where my depression–unmet needs that were hidden from even my eyes–was stemming from. From Thursday on, I found myself stressing out, feeling angry, and being unable to self-regulate extremely easily.
For four days I kept trying to process what it was I was needing. My mom suggested a break and I had one on Saturday night even though I wanted to be with Trever after he’d worked all day. The break was refreshing and I was able to work through some things that were bothering me.
So what did I do? Here’s some tips on how to step back when you need to:
• Take an hour or two for yourself. Go some place you enjoy that allows space for your thoughts; drive in your car, take a train ride, sit at a coffee shop.
• Relax. Do some deep breathing exercises. Don’t try to force it.
• Talk to a trusted friend. Ask them if you can just dump. This is especially helpful for external processors. And for us internal processors, it’s community building and feels good.
• Listen to your depression/anger. When you take away the sad, lonely, frustrated, irritated, bothered, isolated feelings–and allow yourself to feel them–what is the need?
That’s really what it comes down to: Stepping back is uncovering the needs that are underlying under all of those feelings. Your feelings are doors into what’s going inside of you. They’re real. They’re true. They bring light and life into connecting to yourself and to others.
Connecting to yourself by unveiling your needs allows you to fulfill them or move towards fulfilling them. By discovering your needs, you break the depression and/or anger (aka unmet needs) and work towards meeting them.
Let me say it again, when you listen to yourself to hear what the underlying needs and feelings are, you break yourself out of the looping that comes from depression/anger. Those states of mind help us to uncover what we need. They allow us to take a step back.
By working through these steps on a consistent basis, over the last few months I have felt more in control of my needs and feelings more than I ever have before. It’s like a breath of fresh air after constantly being overwhelmed, anxious, stressed, depressed, angry, and so on. Yes, those feelings still come up. Yet now by using my tools, I can discover my needs and free myself from what ails me.
Community Discussion: What are some things that you do to get out of a funk?
Let’s hear it for the Gift of the Present
(Get it?!)
Yep! Hehehe. So true!
Before mamahood and attachment parenting, I’d get out of town: A long discovery road trip in the car alone or get on a plane and explore a new place. Now, I don’t know how to step back. I don’t even have time to strum my guitar. My calluses have softened, my easle is covered in dust, and my blog has been abandoned. I think now, it’s much simpler and condensed. I go into the bathroom, lock the door, turn on some soothing music, run a bath with some lavender and just focus on breathing. Breathe. Something I don’t consciously do very often any more. Breathing is now a luxury.
Mmmm, breathing *is* a luxury. And a hot bath. I hear you there. I travelled, sat at the piano and sang, read Kierkegaard at the beach…those were my favorite things to do. Ah, mamahood. I promise there’s a reprieve after the first year.