This transition from winter to spring has been a doozy.  I experienced several weeks of not feeling like myself and it started to feel like forever.  Especially when I couldn’t pinpoint what it was that was making me feel so out of sorts. 

• Feeling more emotional

• “Unexplained” mental weight

• Lack of creativity

• Far less ability to handle stress, lack of routine and decision making

• Just a different kind of energy about life

The on-going stress of sick days, snow days and inconsistent childcare kicked the new year off with challenges that threw off the semblance of a routine I didn’t realize we were clinging to.  Going on vacation should have felt like a relief, but in many ways only exacerbated the stress with so many new daily decisions and feeling like I didn’t have the bandwidth to manage it.  Missing my mom on her birthday definitely added a layer.  And the universe had some energies it was contributing. 

It was all contributing to the anxiety I felt, where it was distorting my mind and affected my body.  Everything was filtering through this lens of overwhelm and every time something went “wrong” I felt them even more deeply.  I was struggling to see things as they were.  I could only see them as I was; overwhelmed, feeling like each day brought a new challenge I had no bandwidth to face. 

Our minds are fickle and love the drama of telling yourself that something is wrong with you, that you’ll never feel like yourself again.  It is often being selective about what we remember, creating the stories that stick with us.  Unchecked, this teaches us a learned helplessness by experiencing a stressful situation repeatedly and you come to believe that you are unable to control or change your situation.  You don’t even see how some things are improving or feel motivated to try and figure it out.

All the things were piling up into chronic stress and I felt like I was drowning.  No single event was a defining moment, in or out of this experience.  It sort of crept in like a fog and then slowly, slowly and all at once cleared by taking a few mindful steps.

Notice the Evidence

Working out how I was feeling in my journal was helpful, processing my feelings.  I nudged myself to see my thoughts as opinions versus truths.  Spending time in nature helped buoy my spirits some, talking things out to myself while I was on my daily walk.  But developing the practice of taking note of specific moments, small pieces of evidence that things were turning a corner was the most helpful in moving through it.  Beginning to look for proof, I wrote these things out in my journal; of evidence that things are changing, that it won’t always be like this, that my normal self is in there.  Looking for hope and promise of better days ahead, that the small efforts are paying off.

Capturing the evidence of what was working helped me shift my focus and grow my awareness of signals all around me rather than wallow and feel totally aimless.  So even while I didn’t fully know what to call what I was going through, I had proof that I was finding my way out. 

• Noticing when my usual mind chatter of ideas sputtered to life for a moment or two. 

• Noticing when I took some deep breaths and let the tension drop out of my shoulders the small sense of calm and peace, relief from all of the weight I was carrying.

• Noticing when I felt more at ease.

In those “I’ve got to see it to believe it moments,” of doubt, capturing little bits of evidence all helped build trust that I wouldn’t always feel this way.  That maybe there was a lesson or something to be learned in this moment.  That this was a test of my grit, recommitting to my well-being practices.  And to navigate it more confidently with a few points of light to follow.  I was also able to collect evidence that the self-care things that worked best for me to deactivate my stress response system and offer more love to myself.

• Outdoor walks vs on the treadmill, being present and connected with nature

• Hydrating and eating more consistently (instead of running on empty)

• Being gentle with myself in my inner dialogue, thoughts and actions

• Creating an ideal plan for the day based on my capacity

• Reading more novels (though self-sabotaging my sleep by staying up too late)

• Experimenting and learning with my watercolors

• Celebrating my growth in feeling the feelings I so often suppress

It helped give me a sense of permission to play around and do more of what fills my cup and feeling the connection with myself.  Slowly I wasn’t fighting the fog anymore.  I was shifting my mindset about this period of time.  I was adventuring of sorts, finding the recipe for what I needed.  Every successful action, recognized and celebrated, made me feel good and caused me to want more of the same.  And that maybe “fixing” this didn’t require that kind of effort at all.  Some time of just be-ing in the moment and allowing myself to feel what needed to come up.  Instead of fighting it, spending energy I didn’t have worrying, fretting, I leaned into it.  Going with the flow, even though it sometimes felt like I was wandering in the wrong direction.

Feel the Feelings

I’ve done more emotional releasing over the past couple months than I have in about forever.  I have been a chronic suppressor of my feelings.  It’s one of the enneagram 9 traits that I am working on evolving.  Learning through experiments and experience that my world doesn’t implode when I acknowledge that my feelings matter, my opinions and existence matters.  (I’m still learning how to share them in a more harmonious manner, but it’s not stopping me from figuring it out).  Just letting tears come when they burble up, let the wash of feelings pass through and truly noticing the energy shift and release as the moment passed.  Moments that came up while sitting in my car, watching a show, reading a book or seeing something beautiful.  Stretching my empathetic heart and not judging or suppressing the emotional energy that came up.  Allowing myself to feel and process these moments helped break up the fog and flow through it more easefully.

Evidence Journal

By intentionally keeping track of the pieces of something that I felt after doing my self-care actions, it felt like I was seeing proof that I was flowing out of this funk and gave me a glimpse of light through the fog.  Our brains are experts in pattern recognition and prediction.  But our brains are also fickle, often being selective about what we remember and what sticks with us, filtering things based on the evidence we choose to see.  Writing things down in the moment when I felt a hint of something as a clue let me capture it before the mind in me let it get sucked back into the mental swirl.  Having them collected in one spot helped take all of the bits of something and see them in a whole new way.  And soon my journal (and life) was overflowing with evidence that the funk had passed.

If you are looking for a tool to take with you on your personal growth journey, let it be this practice.  Gently tuning your mind into the pieces of information all around you with a different set of filters.  Intentionally collecting the evidence will help your mind have the proof of-

• your reality shifting

• your outlook improving

• your intentions working

And start to feel the mindset magic happening, one small shift at a time.

If you are ready to start your own perspective changing practice and begin collecting the evidence, the Firefly Scout Evidence Journal will help you take all those bits of something and see them in a whole new way.  The journal includes inspiration for what types of “cases” to initiate and what kinds of evidence to be open to receive.  Each of the pages will give you the spot to collect the evidence to reframe your mindset about how you are

• progressing on your goals or stage of life

• living a life with intention

• building a trust in your intuition

So when you are going through your own fog, funk or junk, I challenge you to stay open to what the phase has to teach you, challenge you and help you level up.  As they say, people who don’t remember history are destined to repeat it.  But when you focus on the experience, not the goal, it helps you sink into the flow and becomes intrinsically motivating as you actively retune your mindset and perception of the experience.  I encourage you to document the experience in your Evidence Journal and keep track of the evidence when you are trying to piece together.

It's time to start collecting the evidence...

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