The past few weeks have been a doozy. You never realize how good you’re doing until things go off the rails, ha! Here are a few small things that have been helping me cope with big feelings lately:
Purely practical
I feel like I’m 100 years old, but I have two weekly pill organizers, and I set them up with meds and supplements every Sunday night. Love a good “set it and forget it.” Then, no matter how derailed the week might get, I don’t have to think about my meds—they’re already portioned out and waiting. 👍
Similarly, I fill out my planner on Sundays. If I don’t map everything out for the week in advance, I tend to feel scattered and overwhelmed. Incidentally, these were both good ways to harness my wild anxious energy this past Sunday! 😅
Immersive distraction
This could be whatever strikes your fancy—watching a show or movie, working out, taking a class. (In Normal Times, I would probably go to whatever in-person gentle yoga class was being offered!) These past few weeks, though, my immersive distraction has been playing video games on the TV (because I usually play on the handheld Switch). I’ll often set an alarm too. Yes, it is weird to tell myself, “You need to sit and do something fun for 30 minutes!” but a short time limit gets me to actually do it, and I usually feel at least a little better by the time the alarm goes off. It’s hard to anxiety spiral about your own life when you’re trying not to get Link killed in Breath of the Wild!
More meditative
(This is hilarious coming from me, because I have resisted anything resembling meditation for so long. I think it helps that this doesn’t feel like ~meditation~.)
The thought of meditating, of slowing down and going inward, terrifies me, I think because it allows the scared inner children inside to finally be like “HEY! LISTEN!” Annnd Adult me would traditionally pull a Moira Rose on them:
But engaging those scared inner parts in the process of meditating, rather than running from them, has been a game-changer.
When I’m really upset in the present, I often feel hijacked by my inner children and lose sense of my adult self. So envisioning the scared inner child(ren) getting support and comfort in the “inner therapy room” has been really helpful. I mean, Adult me finds therapy to be a source a great comfort, so why not give that to my inner children? What would they want to talk to my therapist about? How do they feel? What do they need? And is it something that I can give to them now? 💖
Self-care
I know “self-care” is a term that’s basically devoid of meaning at this point, but I have found small acts of kindness toward myself to be really nice when I’m upset. They remind me that I’m worthy of care and that I can treat myself with care. Honestly, this post from Jess Rachel Sharp has really shifted how I think about worth, feelings, too-much-ness, etc.!
These self-care gestures don’t have to be anything big or elaborate. If I’m doing it with a loving intention, just washing my face or putting on hand lotion or fancy lip balm can feel very kind. ☺️
Cry-vomiting™️
You know how you usually feel better after the brief unpleasantness of throwing up? That’s how I feel these days about crying—I don’t enjoy it, but it’s become a necessary release so I can get the feelings out of my system and move on. And I do usually feel somewhat better afterwards, so 👍.
If the thought of crying and listening to your inner child is a big NO THANKS right now, I get it. Some days, it is still a big NO THANKS from me! This shift happened organically, almost 10 years into my therapy journey, and only once these things started feeling safe enough to try. It’s all a process. 💖
What do you find helpful on a not-great mental health day?
