From waking up “down” to being “up” now and how

This wasn’t the post I was going to post today but yesterday was kind of rough and I thought, “You know what, Rebecca? You need to share that.”

So that’s what I’m going to do.

I have no idea why I woke up feeling kind of “low”.

By the way, when you’re feeling a little “down”, this is NOT the time to take a new “selfie”. Oh, my gosh. I looked like I hadn’t slept for a week! I had just washed my hair and thought it looked good but I’m trying to grow out of bangs and think it makes me look older so there’s that.

Then the sun wasn’t shining, so there’s that.

It was really cold and I couldn’t walk outside, so there’s that, too.

I had a hard time reading my Bible and praying. I just felt really out-of-sorts. It’s that time of year in Michigan when everyone pretty much feels this way, too. I felt bad because my time with God was kind of a mess. My prayers felt hollow. But I prayed anyway knowing that the Holy Spirit understood my feelings and was praying in my stead.

I almost decided to do nothing. That was the mood I was in.

So what did I do?

(By the way, I haven’t felt that way in a long time. I was missing my mom so that probably didn’t help.)

I started thinking about all of you, how I’ve written over and over about mental health issues and tried to encourage and give hope to any of you who are/were having a bad day. I thought to myself, “Wait a minute. You’d better be able to walk the walk or just quit blogging about these issues.”

So I made myself get up and get moving.

It was hard.

I baked bread. I made two new recipes: a beef/mushroom soup made from a left-over roast, and a new chocolate chip cookie recipe. (Yes, I’ll be sharing them all with you.)

I did the laundry.

I got on the treadmill.

By the late afternoon, my mood was one hundred percent better.

Here’s what I didn’t do.

I didn’t feel quilty.

I didn’t beat myself up.

I didn’t feel God was judging me.

Oh, that’s another thing I didn’t do. I didn’t try to figure out why. That’s kind of a first for me.

But once again I proved to myself that what I’ve written about time and again does really work.

Distraction works.

Movement works.

Exercise works.

Trusting God works.

However, I want to add that had I decided to take a day off that might have been OK, too. Sometimes a mental health day is just what we need but I have found that it’s better to have a day like that when we’re in a good mood, not a bad one. It’s too easy to let one day like that spiral out of control.

Anyway, I hope this helped.

God bless each of you.

PS. I wrote a couple of posts last week you might want to check out. (https://faithsighanddiy.com/2018/01/10/how-to-really-describe-your-moods-and-why/ and https://faithsighanddiy.com/2018/01/11/how-to-overcome-your-painful-anxiety/)