Discussion: How do you restore color?
Share your tips for mental health
On Saturday I wrote about restoring the color when life turns grey, which prompted some good discussion in the comments. Many of you appreciated the checklist I consult when I’m in a funk, so today I wanted to open more discussion on this topic.
What are some coping skills you turn to when you have the blues or are struggling with anxiety?
Hit that comment button to join. I’m looking forward to reading your ideas, and while we wait for the conversation to start, here are a few posts I’ve read this week that touch on this same topic.
The Mind-Body Problem
Matt Anderson talks about the gap in mental healthcare for those addicted to drugs and/or alcohol.
“It’s not easy to ask for help. It’s not easy to know how to help. And even when you do know how to help—even when you have the best intentions—mistakes will happen. It’s like a game of Chutes and Ladders. No matter how close you get to the finish line, no matter how in tune your mind and body are with each other, you can always slide back. It’s not a moral failure on anyone’s part. Because it doesn’t matter who you are, how many hours you meditate, or how many therapists you have. The Chutes aren’t going anywhere. They’re a prerequisite of being human.
So, while we can’t get rid of the Chutes, perhaps we can build more Ladders. Whether you’re the director of a Mayo Clinic or just someone with a story, we all have skin in the game.”1
Zest for Life
Angeli Sivaraman on how meditation helped her.
“One major way I started anew was by learning to practice mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to the present moment, non-judgmentally and kindly, noticing the thoughts, sensations, and feelings that are occurring, without trying to change or manipulate them.
Just watching them pass like clouds in the sky.
For me, it was never about an end goal (another great lesson from mindfulness) but as I learned to pay attention to the present moment and let my thoughts pass, my mind would finally relax and take a break. I started to have “aha” moments of clarity, where I really saw why people meditate to begin with.
It’s a taste of bliss. It’s actually quite a beautiful phenomenon. No need to force, no need to change. Just showing up. Learning to surrender.”2
Socially acceptable anxiety is still anxiety
A brillian article by Adam Mastroianni—well worth the read!
"I had been chugging bottles of liquid worry, and the first thing I needed was someone to tell me, ‘Hey, that doesn’t seem to be helping.’
"I’d like to live in a world where we offer that to one another. A world where it’s fine to feel fear, but not to live in it. Sometimes bad things happen, and bad things might happen at any time. That’s scary, but we can't think ourselves out of it, and we shouldn’t let each other pretend that we can.
So, are you afraid? Me too—I’m the guy who can’t muster the courage to tell someone when he’s gotta pee. I regret to inform you that our fears will only grow unless we face them; unfortunately, we must be brave. But it’s easier to be courageous when you have company.”3
When I'm in a sighy fug (my own expression to describe my own feelings) I turn to the lovely simple things that I succeed at:
I cook a fabulous batch of soup, involving lots and lots of chopping. Chopping is therapy.
I make a no-bake cheesecake. Whisking is therapy.
I iron - I keep a large stash of hankies unironed just in case I don't have any shirts to tackle when the fug hits. Ironing is... sorry, you get it.
I reclaim the Tupperware out of my freezer, repacking into beautiful rows all the neat blocks of soup, beef stew, saag paneer and chilli that I've turned out with the help of a sinkful of hot water.
I go for a walk (and hope I don't get lost, but if I do, that's probably not a bad thing).
I do a crossword - the more challenging the better.
I love doing all of these things, and I'm good at them. They serve to remove me from the situation that put me into the fug, allow me to concentrate on something different, AND make me feel SMUG-A-F, because hey, I've succeeded at something.
Around 2016, I lost the ability to write. Or rather: I was capable of putting words out, but they were flat and lifeless. The reason was half a decade of dealing with a rapidly deteriorating family situation - my late Ma's dementia. Along the way, I had my ability to write in the way I wanted to & relied upon for my career (with curiosity, enthusiasm and a sense of adventure) completely scoured out of me.
My poor mother died in early 2018, and I spent the next year getting her affairs in order and selling the house - and then I took a year out, to try to learn to write again. But there was nothing in the tank. I had nothing to say.
So I'm really, really glad I did what I should have done, which was - read. I read widely. I read *everything*. I tried out fiction genres I'd never read, I read science writing on things I didn't even know existed, I threw myself in all directions.
What I think I was doing was getting out of my own head. That's the thing when you're greyed out and trying to kickstart yourself and nothings happening: you're relying on *yourself* to do it. It's an internal thing. It's like sitting in a room with yourself, and yelling at them "DO SOMETHING, COME ON, I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT, FEEL SOMETHING!"
But when you're looking outward, at the world, in a way where you lose your sense of self and just become a vessel and a conduit for all the interesting things you can learn that you never knew - well, that's a way for colour to creep back in. To let the world, in all its interestingness, repaint you, from the inside outwards...
(This process is also why I started a newsletter. Because it's not about me, it's about what I'm learning as I continue to look outward, discovering how amazing everything is when you take a moment to look closer at it. Self-therapy: check.)
So I think that's something that works: reading things that you would never, in other circumstances, throw yourself at. Reading "widely", as the term goes - but also trying to read things that you never knew, until now, existed in the way that they do. Embracing the utterly unfamiliar. (I guess it works for other media too - world cinema ahoy!)
Maybe, after doing that for a while in a way that fills your senses, you'll look back at yourself and see that things have been brightened up while you've gone?
#WorthATry