Ever felt a bit lost or lonely or depressed?
(Ah, welcome to humanity circa… modern times.)
What about those times when you go into a spiral of lost, lonely or depressed that you can’t seem to get out of? Yuck!
That happened to me a few weeks ago, and I want to share with you how I got out of it!
❖ Ruminating ❖
First, I used to live this way most of the time. For me, I would get lost in my head, thinking about things, disconnected from any other intelligent part of me that could offer perspective, like my gut instinct or my emotional intelligence.
I’d start thinking about things like, “Why did he say that to me? Why did that happen? How can I defend what I did in response? How am I right in this situation? How is he wrong?”
I’d play the scene over and over in my head.
Sound familiar? Most of us do this type of thing. (Yay, us.)
It’s call ruminating in meditation circles, as in chewing over the same ideas over and over again…
Recently, I totally went into this heady downward spiral about reality… “What is reality? Is there any such thing as objective truth? How can I ever know?” It was a depressing mess that lasted about two weeks. Icky.
❖ Head, Body/Instinct, Emotional Intelligence ❖
Some people get lost in their heads, others in their bodies, others in their emotions. The point isn’t so much which intelligence center you choose, the problem is more that you’re getting stuck in it!
One way out is to remember that you have more than one way to “think” about or relate to things.
❖ Solution: Get Perspective ❖
One solution?
If you get stuck in your head, drop down into your body and see how you feel about it. Check out your emotions and see what your emotional intelligence has to say. Where ever you’re stuck, jump to somewhere else. Stuck in your body/instinctual reactions? Check out what your head thinks about it.
All of these parts are intelligent and accessing different ones of them can help you get out of being stuck in any one part! It’s not that the other parts will have the answers, it’s more that you’ll gain a broader perspective, which reminds you not to get stuck in the “knowing” of any one center.
Make sense? It’s kind of like asking for different opinions to broaden your thinking on a subject… suddenly the world gets bigger, the way seems clear and less depressing.
❖ Solution: Self-Care ❖
Another way out of ruminating is to focus on taking care of your body. We often stop taking good care of ourselves when we get stuck, so make sure you’re exercising, eating and sleeping well.
❖ Talk to People Different Than You (Social Perspective) ❖
Also, you could go and actually talk to other people, especially people who process information differently than you. If you’re heady, go talk to an instinctual or emotion based person. You don’t need to share your issues, more just get different perspectives on things. That can pop you out, too.
All of this is pretty simple and won’t pop you out of major depression. They are great tools for your everyday sorts of nastiness.
❖ Solution: Meditation (Personal Perspective) ❖
For me I needed to start practicing meditation again. I had stopped, as often happens in these cases, I had dropped my healthy habits. As soon as I sat down to practice and accessed my deeper wisdom, BOOM! I was out! Two weeks of nasty blues ended in 3 seconds. Amazing.
Do whatever it takes to get perspective. The healthy stuff, of course. And see what happens. Go ahead. Surprise yourself.
Enjoy,
Elena
www.ElenaFoucher.com