How to get through dark period By: Rachel Rofe
There are always ups and downs in life, and unfortunately sometime the downs last longer than we’d like. This episode goes over some of my best “get out of a funk” techniques, including everything I used to get out of my own recent not-so-stellar period.
I had recently gone through a pretty dark period where we just had, my boyfriend and I had all kinds of things happen to us. It all started early September. We were at the airport, moving to our new house, and literally at the airport, we went on our emails on our phone and we got an email about basically a lawsuit for something that we're actually completely innocent on it. It's the craziest story.
The first thing that really, really helped me was just to be able to get it out. I would just email my friends, I'm in a mastermind, and I would just email them and vent everything. I would get it all out, I would say exactly how I'm feeling, what's been bothering me, because it feels to just be able to be heard. Even if you're not in a mastermind, ask somebody you can trust if you can just vent to them. Say, "I don't need advice," but be very frank about what you want.
Something else that has been extremely helpful, and I know they say that this helps depressed people in general, it's one of the best things for depressed people, is to help somebody else. Because that gives you perspective, especially when you're helping people in a less fortunate position than you are.
The next thing is, feel it. So whatever is bothering you, don't try and trick yourself into thinking positively or thinking that you can just change your mindset and it will go away. Because that's just really like a short term band-aid. It's kind of like putting your hand over a fire hose, and then as soon as you go sneeze and you go to cover your nose or something, water's just going to come pouring out at you. It's the same for your qualms. So you've got to be able to release them.
The next thing is, make changes. If you're feeling depressed, then there's things that obviously need to change, right?
Another thing is get into nature. As humans, we're meant to go outside. It's how we developed. For years and years and years, we were always outside. Being inside all the time is just not natural, and I know now if you're listening to this in the winter, it's cold.
Another thing is to eat better food. When you're feeling like crap, it's easy to want to eat like crap. It's easy, I know I was just craving chips. That's kind of my weak link, chips. But you are what you eat, and when you're eating poor food, when you're eating crappy quality food, you're just going to feel sluggish. You're not going to have a lot of energy, and it's just going to continue the cycle of feeling bad.
Another thing is: look for the lesson. Sometimes you can't. Truthfully, sometimes you can't find the lesson. When I was going through all this stuff, I kept asking myself, "What is the lesson from this?" It was like "There is no lesson. This just sucks." Sometimes I can't find the lesson. So it's worth at least asking yourself, "Am I learning anything from this?'
Another thing is: learn something new. So we thrive when we're growing. That's one of our biggest happiness points, is when we're growing and learning new things, we feel better. And if you are going through a dark period - really at anytime but especially when you're in this dark period - take some time to learn something new. You're going to experience that novelty, which is great for growth.
Another thing is get together with friends. One of the things that was most helpful for me is when I moved to Las Vegas, I found some amazing, amazing friends and I just scheduled time to get together with them. Now I know when you're not feeling good, it's easy to just want to stay at home and just veg, but I know I felt so nourished every single time I went and hung out with a friend. It didn't necessarily last for weeks.
So I mean that's it. Those were some of the things that helped me. Listen to see if any of those help you. Maybe right now - thankfully - you're not in a dark period, and maybe you just think about this later on, if you happen to go through something later on which I know that we always will. I just think that these are some of the core things that you can do to be able to lift yourself up and start to feel better.