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"You gotta pay the price,” one of my clients is always telling me.
She’s referring to what is a law of physics, and also the way things
work – what goes up must come down.
The
higher your Christmas, the more exciting, chaotic and tumultuous,
the more likely you’ll be tumbling down just as far. Why? According
to psychneuroimmunologist (big word meaning the effect of brain and
emotions on health, i.e., immunology), Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., our
smart bodies want to establish equilibrium. Picture a graph on a
midline. The midline is calm, routine. We can get very happy and go
up; or very unhappy and go down. Therefore, if our emotions go way
up, there will come a time when our inner wisdom brings us down low,
so we settle back into that middle space.
Does this mean if you have a terrible grief or depression, you can
expect to be that happy at some time in the future? I’ve seen it
happen. It’s a tenet of Emotional Intelligence that if you don’t
fully experience one emotion, you stuff down ALL emotions. In other
words, if you face grief and go through it, not around it, you will
carve out a space to be filled with happiness. If you don’t, you
shut down, and become numb, in which case you don’t feel the bad,
but you also don’t feel the good, and greatly limit your experience
of life.
So,
if you’re having a “down” period now what do you do? First of all,
accept it. You can last it out. To speed it on its way:
1.
Get active. Exercise an extra hour. It creates physical energy, it
clears the mind, and flushes out toxic emotions. Do it especially if
you don’t feel like it.
2.
If you’re an introvert you may prefer something like yoga or Tai
Chi.
3.
Clean your house from top to bottom, doing the physical work
yourself. Do it like a ritual, that is, with meaning. This is to get
rid of the yuch, and make room for the sunshine. This is a tradition
in many cultures at the New Year for a reason – because of what
we’re all going through right now! Throw stuff out, sweep toward the
doors, vacuum then take the bag out and dump it in the garbage, wash
the furniture with something like Murphy’s soap.
4.
Accept quiet times and go with the flow. Curl up by the fire and
read good books. Coddle yourself with extra long baths with special
lotions. Get your nails done. Get massages. Fix yourself a warm
breakfast. It’s kind of a hibernating time anyway.
5.
Jumpstart your thinking brain. Start a new course. If you’re an
extravert, go to community ed classes. If you’re an introvert, enjoy
yourself on the internet with distance learning and take teleclasses.
6.
Start a new intellectual project at work and at home.
7.
Start anything new – new health club, new piano lessons, coaching,
fencing lessons, new hairstyle.
8.
If you live in an area where this is high allergy-time (such as
Texas), pay adjust your diet, because it’s cumulative - pollen PLUS
diet PLUS dust and mold inside your house. Clean our your air ducts.
9.
Laugh. One simple exercise is to put a pencil in your teeth
crosswise. This makes the muscles of your face into a smile, and
this helps our bodies. It gives us the same great relief a good
laugh does.
10.
Don’t fight it. There is no need to appear “Miss Congenialty” when
you aren’t feeling that way. It’s okay to be in a quiet place.
Also, because this is the peak of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder),
get more sunshine. Exercise outside. Take a Caribbean cruise. When
the sun crosses the bed in the spare bedroom, go lie down and soak
up the rays.
Change is the only thing that stays constant, so know that your mood
will eventually find its place. If you are seriously depressed,
check with the many mental health professionals available to help
you.
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