Have you ever had a slump?
The kind where nothing is quite right but you should keep sweeping the
floors and making the beds. The kind of slump that tempts you to lie in bed
most of the morning playing Candy Crush and hating
yourself? The kind of slump that keeps
dishes in the sink a day too long? These slumps encourage multiple pizza nights
and one or twelve too many glasses of wine.
You know, when really what you want to do is anything other
than what you have to do but you can’t really put your finger on what you have
to do or what the alternatives might be.
The papers pile up and nothing tastes good. Maybe you get a cavity or an ingrown
toenail. It’s a stale cracker time. You might even find yourself wishing for some
kind of minor non-life threatening and non-expensive catastrophe. Just enough to jar you. To get you going. To wake you up.
You’ve become a zombie.
Well, not you perhaps, but I did.
It was the midwinter for me. The
unexpected ice storm that, despite its beauty and the fact that we did not lose
power, seemed so out of place in Georgia may have played a role. Perhaps having to monitor my youngest child’s
homework in a way that I never did with the older two got to me. It has been the mid-winter of my discontent
to be sure.
Don’t get me wrong: I
got up. I went to work. I returned phone calls and bathed (not
simultaneously). But, I just wasn’t
feeling it. Neither was my family. We moped together. We discovered that the family that mopes
together gets on each other’s nerves.
Perhaps you have had too many inches (feet?) of snow and too
frequent subzero temperatures to really shake the blues. No sun for days? You know what they say: all clouds and no vitamin D leads to … unfinished
clichés and too much wine drinking. So,
what’s a person to do?
Take an exotic vacation around the world? Go on a silent, spiritual retreat? Out to eat with friends? The movies?
Stay in bed until being there actually becomes aversion therapy that
kicks you up and out and back into life?
Who knows. Sometimes we just have
down times.
Despite what all the magazine covers want you to believe, it
is perfectly normal to not feel normal.
You don’t always have to rearrange your closet or freshen up winter with
a colorful pillow or add sparkle to dinner with a splash of citrus or start an
energizing workout.
You can just order pizza and watch Netflix. It’s okay.
Our tendency, as driven Americans, is to berate ourselves if
we are not at the top of our game all the time. No time like the present to
start something new or find a new cause or just cheer up. Feeling down? Chin up! Press on. Put on a happy face! I disagree.
It seems to me that if we spend time berating ourselves
while we are in a slump we get even slumpier. If you are hating yourself for being in the
funk, then how can you expect to get out of it?
We are kicking ourselves while we are down. We treat ourselves so badly – worse than we
ever would treat a friend who was feeling down.
We really should practice mindfulness even and especially in
the slumps. Explore your slump – feel its
walls, explore its caverns, listen to its sighs. Take a deep breath of the slumpy air – taste it. Wallow in the pond of slumpiness; dunk your
head in it.
It will end.
Then, you’ll keep going – on your own schedule and in your
own time. The snow will stop
falling. The temperatures will warm
up. Candy Crush will become mind
numbingly boring. The cat will need food.
You will move to the next phase.
And, just maybe - if you have been in a mindful slump, you move forward – and you are
a new person with a better understanding of your life and
yourself.
