Anyone else have random days where you just feel down? Where you just don’t feel like yourself?
You ask yourself a million questions:
- Who am I?
- What am I supposed to be doing?
- Should I do this or that?
- Why do I feel sad for no reason?
- Is this the beginning of depression?
You wonder if it’s your period, your age, The fact that you haven’t seen your 20 year-old son in two weeks and you yearn for him. (This is visceral by the way.) And you’re pretty sure he doesn’t miss you.
Who knows what it is. Maybe it’s just a day. Maybe it’s best to surrender it and let it be a day. Even when this is hard to do. It’s important to remember that it’s normal to have down days and it’s completely unrealistic to feel strong, good, happy, and motivated every day.
You’ll have some days where you feel inspired, positive, and high on your own empowering, ass-kicking ways. And then out of the blue, life will throw you other days where you feel sad, agitated, low, and totally uninspired.
And you might wonder what you did “wrong” to feel crappy like this.
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. There is nothing wrong with you. It’s totally normal to have those days.
I’m teaching myself to surrender to this feeling more. Sometimes I feel like peppy, motivating, energizing Kim has to be firing from all cylinders, and if she’s not, then something is wrong. I even had to tell my husband as well as my housekeeper this recently.
Sometimes I feel like I’m not allowed to be down, sad, depressed, unmotivated. And when I show that side of myself, the people in my life get worried. On this particular day, my husband asked me over and over, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Even my housecleaner said, “Something is wrong with you, Kim, you aren’t your normal self.” And I had to just simply say, “Sometimes I just need a break from being all happy and positive and need to feel my emotions. And I need you to be okay with that.”
Life is fast-paced and many of us are on the hamster wheel of stress and anxiety and it feels like there’s nothing we can do about it. We have meetings, birthdays, laundry, dishes, and a thousand other things constantly calling to us. Society has programmed us to believe that we aren’t supposed to ever feel low, sad, angry, or less than energetic. And if we do, then something is wrong with us.
Yet, sometimes we just have to slow down and tell ourselves, “Today it’s okay to not be okay.”
Take a mental health day. If you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, more irrational, sad, or just damn exhausted, it’s not going to help to always just keep pushing through.
It’s easy to convince yourself that poor mental health isn’t a good enough reason to take time off work or let yourself just have a day of doing nothing. Your mental health is just as important to your overall well-being as your physical health. Just like any bout of illness or bodily distress, your mind needs time to rest and recover. Sometimes we just need to feel our feelings without judging them so harshly.
Use your personal judgment and listen to your mind and body. Everyone needs a mental health day from time to time. Everyone deserves space to feel sad or low.
It’s just a day. I’m allowed to feel. And so are you.
