I am having a blue day. That is what I have come to call it. It happens from time to time. Well, if I’m being honest, it happens about once a month. I wake up and the world is just harder to be in; my enthusiasm drops dramatically, I fight against the day-to-day requirements of me, and if I had it my way, I would stay in bed eating fried food and cookies.
I typically operate at a pretty high level of efficiency and productivity. I get a lot done in a day. I keep my house organized and tidy, I maintain strict healthy lifestyle choices, for myself and my family, I exercise often, and I pride myself on producing content and plugging away at my business consistently.
When the blue days hit, all of this shifts. I’m able to only get the essentials done, but even those are devoid of any joy or enthusiasm and instead are covered in resentment and hopelessness like a layer of cloud over a sunset.
The motivation I had felt to move my body or nourish it with fresh food is now replaced by a desire only to sit, wallow, and consume “comfort” foods.
I do not like this feeling. I do not like losing control of my goals and my optimism. I do not like to feel as if there is an expanding gap between where I am and where I want to be. But that is what it is.
In previous times of my life, I may have agonized over why I’m feeling this way. I would also have added to my blues by stressing about the potential consequences of my low mood and the concern over whether this is a sign of my ultimate defeat.
Thoughts about “I’m such a failure” or “what’s wrong with me?” would have effortlessly punctuated my day, leaving me feeling both blue and forced into submission by my own self-generated guilt and loathing.
Recently, however, I’ve discovered a new perspective.
I’m having a blue day. And that’s ok.
I’ve come to perceive glimmers of a belief that when these blue days arrive it is my heart, or my soul, or very being telling me that I need to feel deeply.
You see, what is interesting about these times is that, along with the “bad” food choices and lack of general motivation, I also feel passionately drawn to moments of great emotional outpouring. I seek out movies or tv shows that show real human emotion and struggle. I feel an urge to connect to the saddest memories in my life. I’m searching for excuses to pour out my heart.
My heart is looking for a cathartic release
I had never realized this until now. Over previous blue periods, I focused instead on ways to “make myself feel better” instead of allowing myself to feel blue.
What I needed in these times was not to get better, but rather to feel more.
I had a dream the other night that my daughter had died. Worse than that, she had chosen to die. At 4 years old, she stood next to her own coffin, looked at me with pleading eyes, and said “I want to go now”. Then she lay down, closed her eyes, and drifted away.
This image, this dream has haunted my mental space ever since. Why would my subconscious send me something so horrific? I had been coercing myself to feel better for 3 days before this dream came into focus and, even after the image burned its way into my imagination, I still felt compelled to push away my reaction to it.
That is, until I couldn’t anymore. The image hurt so much that, despite my efforts to feel better, I fell on the floor and sobbed. My body found a way of forcing me to purge.
I think we spend so much of our time keeping ourselves in check – maintaining socially acceptable behaviors and responses to the world. But I am an emotional person. I feel a lot about a lot of things. So, it makes sense that from time to time my very being is going to feel an intense desire to purge all of that which I have kept at bay.
I cannot sit and sob in the carpool line or scream into a bag of flour at the grocery store, so I come home, put on a sad movie and I cry and cry and cry. I cry until all that was told “wait, not now” is given its chance to express.
Our hearts are trying to recover
When we are sick or injured, we do not tell our bodies “no, you cannot feel that pain, you need to get better now”. We give ourself time to heal. We recognize that the pain we feel is a symptom of our body hurt. If we eat poisonous food, we do not tell our body “no, you cannot get rid of that substance. It’s not acceptable.” We let our body do what it needs to do to recover.
So, when our heart is feeling heavy; when we have asked it to hold too much for too long, we have to honor its need to release that which it can no longer keep ahold of.
When we are feeling blue, we need to feel blue.
With joy,
Tara
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