“We are stronger than we think, we don’t have to accept reality as is, we can pull ourselves out of that.”
If you’re someone who has seasons of feeling down and out (if not downright depressed), you’re not alone. I’ve had what I consider a seasonal depression every November and December since high school. I felt like I couldn’t get out of my funk.
I can count what seemed like endless boyfriends that dumped me during those months because they said, “I changed” and just assumed it meant that it was because we weren’t a good fit. (I finally caught on to this pattern of seasonal depression in early adulthood , but it certainly didn’t make it easier to show up to life.)
I remember years upon years where I wouldn’t answer my phone for even my best friends, and I would lose weight I didn’t need to lose because it just felt so hard to do anything except sit with my inner negative turmoil.
It wasn’t until I went through coaching as a client in 2013/2014 did I finally kick my annual “funk.”
I went 5 years without feeling funky, but this past year (2019) that seasonal funk hit me again….and it was hard to go back to that place. I’m fortunate enough now to have had the tools and strategies to help me through it; otherwise, I may have stayed stuck there for much longer than I wanted or needed to stay.
I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. I have several clients and friends who feel funky year-after-year during certain times (if not at all times).
If that’s you, then join me on this week’s Become an Unstoppable Woman episode as I share my top strategies on how to fix your funk.
THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU IF YOU WANT TO LEARN:
- My top tips and strategies to flip the script and get you out of a funk
- Reasons your body and mind may be self-sabotaging you
- The surprising benefits of exercise on your mental health
- How my client changed her mindset from “I never get anything done” and “I can’t do this” to “Look at what I did!” and “I can totally do this” in under 2 weeks
- Simple day-to-day things you can do to boost endorphins and start to feel better quickly
- The top two strategies my clients say have changed their lives and emotional health, and how you can use them to change yours as well
And so much more!
While I’m a believer we all need to have funky seasons in life to help us grow, I also believe there is SO much unnecessary suffering in the world when it comes to our mentality. With just a few tips, you can smoothly go from feeling like you can’t change your life to showing up and feeling how you want to feel. You just need to learn how to get there.
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
→ Continue the conversation in my free online community
→ Get The 4-Day Accomplish Your Dreams Free Training
→ The Mental Health Benefits of Exercise
→ The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks
Full Transcript:
Episode 26: FIX YOUR FUNK
This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 26, Fix Your Funk.
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Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fear-facing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston. I’m a wife, mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world. I’ve lived through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better. We can’t fear the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to do just that. Join me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient, and powerful woman you were meant to be. Let’s do this.
[music]
Hi, there, you unstoppable woman, you. You may not feel that way if you’re listening to an episode about fixing your funk. Listen, we all go through times when we feel a bit funky. I know I do. Typically, as for me, in November and December and sometimes even through January, I just don’t feel like myself. I would even consider it a seasonal depression.
I have been lucky enough to not have those feelings for a few years now, but this past year in 2019, it hit me hard. Holy moly, I had not been in that place for, goodness, four or five years and I saw some of my clients going through that period. I know many of us experience this. I want to address this head-on because I did a couple of things this time around to pull myself out of that, that before I didn’t have those tools. I think that I avoided having that kind of funky seasonal depression for those few years because of these tools.
This year, it just hit me hard because of some up levels I may have going on, and other things that I’ll explain in the podcast here in a bit. I just want to talk you through this because sometimes when we get these funky periods, we’re just in a highly emotional state, lots of negative thinking. We become sluggish. We’re not as logical, and so we’re not as aware of how to pull ourselves out. Let’s talk through that.
Before we do, I just want to give a quick shout-out to everyone who’s leaving a review of the show, I’m so appreciative of you. We’re up to 72 reviews now I think, the last time I checked. I’m not going to stop asking until we get to a hundred. If you’re getting so annoyed by me asking, go leave a review and have other people that you know go leave a review. Listen to the show of course, and leave an authentic expression of what they think about the show, but I would be so appreciative.
On that note, share the show too. Go to your Instagram, put it on your stories, put it on your page, put on your Facebook, Twitter, wherever you want to share, go do it because there are other people out there who need this kind of content. I know sometimes when it comes to mental health, personal development, self-help, whatever you want to call it, we don’t want to put it out there that we’re listening to this kind of stuff, because people may judge us or we may seem weird, different, whatever.
We’re all humans. This is all stuff we all need. Just because there’s still this little stigma left about mental health, doesn’t mean you need to play into that societal belief that there’s something wrong with you because you’re working on it. That’s other people’s crap they need to deal with, not yours. If they judge you for it, that just shows their own character. I’d be so appreciative if you share the show and leave a review.
Let’s get into fixing your funk. Now I’m going to give you a couple of different strategies today on ideas of what you can do because sometimes we can hit it with just one thing and we’ll blast through that funk. Other times we need a couple of different strategies to bind together and help us boost those endorphins enough to switch the script in our minds.
As I said, we’re just going to kind of go through all of these and take what you love and leave the rest. Sometimes though, the thing that we may be most opposed to is the thing that we need the most. I’ll share my story about that and how I learned that recently, but the first tip that I want to give you is to move your body. This is not something that’s rocket science, you’ve probably heard it many, many times, the benefits of exercising and just getting moving, but I know when you get into these emotional funky states, exercise goes out the window.
The reason why is our mind tries to convince us that we’re really tired, which it may feel that way, and in essence, it’s really trying to self sabotage us. Let’s face it, when we’re dealing with negative emotions over and over and over again, it is tiring, it is hard and it takes a lot of energy, but here’s what I’ve realized and here’s what science has shown, and I’ll link in the show notes some of the science.
It shows that when we’re able to physically go out and do something and move our bodies, it changes that script. We have a focus on something other than what’s going on in our head, and that yes, it feels really hard at first. It feels really draining to go out and even move, but once we do that, we get a little bit addicted to those endorphins. We start thinking a little bit different about things, including that we’re just getting up and moving and doing something hard. We’re showing ourselves that we are resilient and we can do it.
It shows our mind too, specifically that negative voice in our head that I refer to often as the inner mean girl that, hey, you’re not in charge here, somebody else is in charge. We call that in my coaching programs, your authentic self is saying, “Hey, you may be trying to sabotage me with all these negative thoughts, but I’m going to get up and get moving.”
Now, that doesn’t mean you need to go and run a marathon or go do these huge workouts. Research has shown if you just run for 15 minutes a day or you walk for an hour, which I know still sounds like a lot to some of you, but you can go and walk in maybe two 30-minute periods around your neighborhood. I do that with my son all the time.
It makes such a difference because some days when I’m with him all day, every day, and I feel like I’m just watching the paint dry in essence on the walls is like, “Oh, my gosh, we’ve got to get out of here and do something different.” That always makes me feel better to go and do that. You can go see all the research on the show notes about the benefits of exercise. I’ll give you a little bit of it here.
It’s shown to reduce major depressions by 26%. Those are big, heavy depressions, not maybe what you’re experiencing of a little seasonal depression or just some funkiness you can’t shake, but it also reduces anxiety because of the release of those endorphins. It boosts the physical and mental energy. It helps you just, again, focus on different things. It reduces stress. What else does it say here? It reduces PTSD and trauma. It helps you have higher self-esteem, better sleep, more energy, sharper memory and thinking, stronger resilience. I say again, so many great benefits.
I will say I have not been in a normal, or I want to should I say not normal, but a frequent workout routine in two and a half years. Part of that was because I had my son, and then dealing with all the things after he was born. Now I’m back in the flow of it where I’m working out four days a week. Granted, I want to work up to more, but those four days a week are kicking my booty so bad, so bad right now, and it is so hard knowing where I was before I had my son, which I felt so strong and just so resilient and ugh, I loved it. It’s hard.
I will say this though, now just being two weeks into the routine, I’m already feeling better. Granted, I’m not in a big funk right now, I just left that period but even just the little remaining funkiness that remains is going away because I’m getting up and moving my body. It’s boosting so much positive thinking inside of me because I think if I can go and do that hot yoga class, even if I was in a child’s pose half the time, then dang, I can handle that voice in my mind because I can do anything. I feel so much more unstoppable just by doing those little things over yoga class.
I really encourage you to start moving your body, getting out in nature always helps me too, or going and doing workouts that I enjoy. I’m not going to go do a hit class or go run, those are things I don’t enjoy. I enjoy doing things like yoga and barre and quieter, gentler movements on my body. That’s just what I like.
My husband loves to run, that’s his background and that’s where he goes when he needs that mental boost. Pick what you love, and if you haven’t been somebody who’s moved your body for a while, then start with walking. You just do something, and it’s going to feel hard at first, but I will tell you in a few days, if not weeks, you’re going to feel better.
The second one is to clear your space, clean it up, get rid of clutter, create white space. I can’t tell you how much this helps me when I was in my funky period in November and December, just getting up and starting to clear out different areas of my home. Now, granted, my home isn’t very cluttery, but there were parts that were cluttering. My daughter’s room, oh, my Lord. I don’t know where she gets toys from. I swear I don’t buy her toys, and they reproduce in the night.
Clearing that out, clearing out parts of my office. Every year I go in and I clear up my books because I am a little bit of a book hoarder, so clearing that out feels good. Going in my son’s room, what clothes don’t fit here anymore. Going into the kitchen, what utensils do I not use anymore? Going into my closet, clearing out old underwear and things of that sort, old socks and other clothes. Again, that gets up and gets you moving and you’re clearing your space.
I mentioned it earlier, on some of these days when I’m with my son all day, and it feels just so draining in regards to the amount of time that seems to just be going by very slowly, I’ll start getting up and just cleaning up the playroom and organizing things. It just helps. It makes me feel better. Of course, if you’re in a really deep funky place and if you’re around a lot of clutter, that is impacting you so much. I actually have a couple of clients who as we’ve been working together, they’ve been clearing out their home and that was one of their bigger goals.
One client in particular was moving. She just got a divorce, and she was getting into her apartment and clearing out boxes and going through all of her things that she took with her, which is a great time of life to be doing that, clearing out stuff from that marriage and all of that stuff. It helped her mentality so much, not only in regards to getting her new space but healing aspects of that relationship that had just ended.
I have another client right now who’s at the very beginning stages of working with me. For 21 days, she’s going in and clearing out just a little bit of clutter, and we’re only on, gosh, I think day 13, if even that, maybe day 11 of us working together. She’s already like, “Oh, my gosh, I feel so much better. My mindset has changed from, “I’m not going to be able to do this,” and all this negative thinking to, “I can do this. I am doing this. Look at me do it.” Just that alone has made such a difference in her life.
Don’t underestimate the power of cleaning and organizing and having a space that looks and feels really good to you. It’s pretty powerful. You can go and look up all the research on it. I did not for this, but go for it. If you questioned me on that, go look up that research. The next thing I want to say here ties into the other two tips I’ve given you of moving your body and cleaning your space, and that’s endorphining up. Anytime you’re moving, you’re boosting those endorphins. There are other ways to boost those endorphins.
One you may not know about is actually eating like a little piece of chocolate or a little piece of something that you really enjoy. A little piece meaning like go taking a little square of chocolate or for me, I love sour candy, going and taking a little handful of that and eating that. It makes such a difference. There’s just little things in my life that feel like little boosts of luxury, and they boost my endorphins every time I’m using them.
Recently, I was sick. I mentioned it on a couple of podcasts ago. When I was sick, I went to Target and I was walking through the aisles and we needed Kleenex, and I happened to find one that was something like cold lotion. I thought, “Well, this is cool. Let me try this.” Oh, my goodness, it was like heaven on my nose. I’m not a big sensory person either, but when I was sick, just having that cold feel of a really soft Kleenex, made me feel like I was the richest woman in the world. Same with rubbing lotion on my hands.
Like I said, those little pieces of things that I love of something I eat or something I get to go do, like having a bath, oh, my gosh. I just feel like a princess when I go and have a bath, it feels amazing. I have my bath bombs or maybe I have Epsom salts and I just sit there or I read a book that I love or I watch a show that I love. Those things helped me out so much in my everyday life, but especially when I’m in a funk.
I got to watch The Crown. I don’t really even watch TV, and that is my absolute favorite show, and that really helped me in November and December of getting through this really funky period that I was experiencing. I had these little bursts of sunshine of positivity of things that just helped me stay positive and stay in a mindset of, okay, I’m going to get through this, and I was going to be okay because sometimes it can feel really, really dark.
Not dark saying like, “Oh, I want to commit suicide,” but it just feels like, “Oh, when am I going to get myself out of this? This does not feel good, and I am tired of feeling this way.” Think about where you can have little endorphin spurts. I have my clients make a list called a do-you list. On that list, they’re listing out everything that they love to do. That includes big things like maybe going on vacation or going and getting a massage to little things of like I said, putting lotion on your hands, listening to a favorite song, eating little treats, getting a very nice Kleenex on your nose.
The options are endless. For a lot of clients, believe it or not, as simple and elementary as that exercises, that’s one of the biggest things I say they walk away with from me, of me teaching them to make that list, which I just taught you how to make that list, and then implementing it. I tell my clients, “Start with an hour a week of taking intentional do-you time, and then add in another hour until you get up to eight hours a week. I promise you, it will change your flipping life of being able to do that stuff.”
I really think that was one of the biggest tools that allowed me not to have that seasonal depression for basically from 2014 to 2018 because I had been so used to implementing that do-you time or self-care, whatever you want to call it in my daily life. This year, I didn’t happen to take as much, and I paid for it, to be honest. I was just busy with the baby. I didn’t end up weaning him from breastfeeding until March, and then I got right into my business.
A lot of times it was a great day, but it was a busy day and I didn’t take enough time for myself. Again, I think that’s why I had that little seasonal depression. Think about that in your life endorphining up. The other tip I want to give you here is to remember your why. This one is deeper. It is going to require for some of you some coaching because this is what I work with, with my clients, but why are you here? Why are you living? Why do you think you were sent to this planet at this time?
If you’re a believer and something spiritual, be it God, the universe, the divine, whatever you want to call it, why did God send you here? Why were you given these certain tools? Then why were you given these certain experiences and strengths and all of these other things? You may not know that, why, but knowing what your why is otherwise known as your life purpose, makes you get your booty up even on days when you feel like crap. I know it does for me.
My life purpose is love and showing love and teaching others self-love and how to love others in a deeper way. On the days that I feel really hard like it did in November and December, I knew I had to get through this period. I couldn’t just give up. I needed to make it through that because I have something bigger here, and that is to help people cultivate love within themselves and others.
Of course, if you’re a parent, for me, getting up for my kids is a huge reason of why I do all this work on myself with mental health, because I want to be the best parent I can be. That requires doing hard things sometimes like getting through a funky period. I’m just constantly thinking about when I’m getting in those periods of whew, okay, how am I going to get out of this because my kids need me.
Now, I know for some women who aren’t mothers, they don’t feel as much of a purpose because they don’t have these little beings that are looking at them for support and love and guidance, but you can easily, easily find purpose in other things beyond kids. If I didn’t have my kids like I said, I would be getting up still for people that I know I need to help including myself. I think a lot of times we teach what we’re here to learn, and sometimes that requires me of showing myself love and taking time to cultivate whatever I need to do inside of myself to get back to that place where I can help people.
Start to ask yourself what your why may be, and if you feel totally overwhelmed by that question, know that this is something I help my clients with is figuring out their life purpose and looking at all the puzzles of who they are and including their strengths and their values and their way of thinking and all of that to make a life purpose. When you have that, as I keep saying, it creates such a passion and a drive to get through those hardships even more.
The next thing I want to talk about in fixing your funk is the strategy of getting support. Again, not rocket science here. We hear it all the time, but as somebody who likes to be very independent and feels like, okay, I have the tools for success, I can do this on my own. I’ve recently realized how reaching out for support is something that I still need, and a sense of community is something that maybe I haven’t valued as much and put as much emphasis on, but it’s something that can really help me.
During this two month period in November and December when I felt really funky, one of the weekends in December, we happened to have a couple of birthday parties for adults on our calendar. It ended up being that they were on the same night, and so my husband and I went from one birthday party to the next. Not only was it great to have a date night with him and just be with ourselves versus being in parent mode, but going to these parties and being around other people who we like was great.
I realized at the end of that night after we left the second party, and that second party we were doing something physical there is, oh my gosh, I feel so much better just by getting out, talking to people, getting out of my head, getting out of my house, doing something physical while talking to other people, and realizing too and part of that, that I have such a support system that I don’t rely on enough, that why can’t I reach out to these people when I’m feeling down.
One instance from that night we were talking about how one of the other students at my daughter’s school has cancer, and we were saying, “Oh, my gosh, if that happened in our grade, we would totally be there for one another. This is what would happen, and this is what we would do.” I just sat back and thought, “Oh my gosh, I am so grateful. I didn’t even think about how lucky I am that we have the support system. I’m just used to, as I said, doing it on my own and not feeling like I have a support system.”
That’s how I grew up was I just had to figure out a lot of things on my own and do things on my own. I’ve learned to undervalue people and people’s help because that’s just how I survived in my world. Just getting out again, boosting my endorphins a little bit by moving around and being with people, was really the tipping point for me to start to feel better in those two-month period. I feel like those last three weeks in December, even though I still felt kind of funky, was better than how I felt in November. November, whoo, man, November was hard.
On that note, I want to give you another thing to consider of why you may be feeling funky because this is what happened to me. In October, I had an amazing month. In fact, it was probably one of the best months of my entire life. We went to Disney World, and we did Disney World like we were kings and queens. We had saved up for it for so long. We stayed at one of, if not, the nicest hotel there. We basically took private cars everywhere, what they call Minnie Vans, and we had fast passes for everything. If you’re not in the Disney World, you may not know all these terms.
It seems like we were just kind of swept from one thing to another and everything flowed so well. The reason why is because we didn’t have to take public transportation. We got to stay at a really nice place like I said, with a theme park view, where we got to watch the fireworks every night. We had really nice meals. It just felt like, “Oh my gosh, we did this. We saved for this.” We didn’t make Disney happen on a way that we didn’t want it to. We just kept going at it, and we stayed disciplined to make this dream happen for us.
Then to that month, I hit my business income goal the first day of the month and almost doubled it that month. I had a really great date night with my husband, and my daughter had her birthday, and I was just like all these things came together in that month. As I was recapping the month in my power sheets, and you may have heard me talk about that tool, I love it. It helps me set intentional goals. I was recapping that month, and I was just looking at it and saying, “Oh my gosh, I had an amazing month.”
Then all of a sudden, I felt this negativity creep up in me and say, “Wow, this is pretty good, Lindsay. Now you’re going to go and get really fit and in shape again, so you’re going to have money, have an amazing life, be fit. Whoo, man, that’s a lot. You sure you’re ready for all that?” That’s how my negative voice– “You sure you’re ready? You sure you’re ready to be in that scene, that visible and have it all?” Like a storm blowing in, there came that negative voice, and November started, and I felt like crap.
What that is, if you experienced that too, is something called the Upper Limit Problem. It is defined very well in a book called The Big Leap. I mention it often. My clients get that book when they work with me in one of my courses because as they start to grow with me, and they start to diminish that negative inner voice, life starts to get pretty sweet. All of a sudden, they start encountering problems. I say, “You need to read this book because this is what’s happening.”
Our mind is so used to a certain way of living that if we get out of balance in some way, even if it’s in a good way, our mind says, “This is unsafe. I need to go back to what is safe. Even if my career is doing really well right now, let me sabotage my relationship. I kind of feel similar in emotionality as to how I normally feel. That’s what happened to me. I had such an amazing October that it felt really scary in some ways, even though it was amazing of, “Whoa, what is this new world that I’m living in now?” Boom, there came that self-sabotage.
Just ask yourself too, is it truly that you’re in a funk, or is it that you’ve hit an upper limit that you need to work through? The way to start to work through upper limit problems is doing deeper mindset work of looking at that negative inner voice. Why is that voice so scared? Looking at your memories and your beliefs that have come from those memories. I think a lot of people just accept, “Oh, this is how my life is. This is how I’m going to feel, especially during certain seasons.” It doesn’t have to be that way. I kind of played into that too.
I had a seasonal depression, basically from high school until 2014. After I did coaching, I realized that next winter, “Oh my gosh, I don’t feel funky anymore in the winters.” Then the next winter, the same thing. The next winter, the same thing. A lot of that was just because I needed to work through some inner internal mindset stuff with that negative voice to heal those things so I didn’t feel that way. That may be you. You don’t always have to accept your life as given right now. You can always change your life, you can always make it better.
Sometimes that just requires a little bit of mindset work to do that. Just think about that. The other thing I want to say here is two other things that may be pretty obvious. Eat healthy foods. When you eat like crap, you feel like crap. There are periods, especially during the holidays, when I’m just trying to get whatever I can. I’m eating sweet cereals, fast food because we’re traveling or whatever. Urgh, it feels horrible, versus when I’m putting good foods in my body.
If you’re feeling funky and you’re eating like crap, now you know. That’s just such an obvious one to switch and make little steps. It doesn’t have to be this big overnight change of, “I’m cutting all of this fast food out tomorrow, and I’m going to do all this meal prep.” That is way too much for the system. Do a little bit, every bit along the way. If you’re eating crap every meal, maybe you just start with one meal. For me, it was starting with dinner and I did a meal service for a while so I can get into the routine and learn how to make healthier meals.
Then it was like, “Okay, now let me look at lunch a little bit different now. Let me look at breakfast.” I took months and months to just incorporate one thing. Then when I felt like I had that one thing, that one meal, it was like, “Okay, let me expand a little bit more. Let me expand a little bit more.”
Actually, I haven’t really talked about this publicly, but in 2019 near the end, I quit alcohol. I don’t crave it, I don’t want it, I don’t feel like I need it. Granted, I’ll have a drink here or there, maybe just socially sometimes. It’s not like I’m saying, “I’m never going to drink alcohol again,” but I’m at a point now where I don’t even flipping crave alcohol. How crazy is that?
I used to be a person who always wanted a glass of wine and to go out and drink. When I was pregnant with my son, I just was like, “Oh, I can’t wait till I drink alcohol,” and now I don’t even want it. Who am I? That’s the benefit here of just taking one step at a time, and you can do things that you never thought you’d be able to do. You’ve got to start taking steps in that right direction of, “Let me look at dinner, then lunch, breakfast, or whatever you want to do.”
The other thing here, the other obvious one, I talk about it all the time on the show, journaling. I can’t tell you how many clients say journaling has changed their life between the do-you list I mentioned earlier and journaling, they just say, “Lindsay, being able to journal and you teaching me how to journal out my feelings has made a huge difference in my emotional health.” It’s huge. You can go and you can look at the benefits of science that have shown this, but it’s powerful to be able to go out and journal your feelings.”
If you’re just sitting there stuck in your head all day, of course, all that crap is going to swarm around in your head. You have to have it go out somewhere. You have to put it down on paper because too when you put it down on paper, your logical mind is going to start working a little bit more too, and you’re going to be able to start to process things. Do not stay in that emotional tornado, put it down somewhere, and a journal can help. A great way to start journaling is just saying, “I feel statements.”
Pull up a feelings chart, sore words chart. There’s many ways you can word that. Just Google it, many will pull up and start saying, “I feel.” Look at that chart or that list. “I feel sad because ta da da da da. I feel mad because ta da da da da.” Get it all out on paper. Again, it’s the first time journaling, going to feel great? Maybe, but it may take a couple of days. It may take a couple weeks. Just keep going and keep going and keep trying.
The other thing I want to say here, I’m going to end it with this is I have these oak trees at my house, one of which is right outside my office window. I feel like I’m forced to watch this oak tree year after year. I think you may know where I’m going with this. An oak tree has seasons. Right now in the winter, there is nothing on that oak tree. All the acorns are gone, all the leaves are gone. Then spring comes, it starts to blossom again. Summer, it’s all out in bloom. Fall, it drops all that crap away and repeats the cycle.
I feel like, very much, I am like that oak tree. You probably are too. Humans are very cyclical, hopefully, I’m saying that right, in nature, just like with women and their periods. We go through the month, and we’re here, and then we’re there, and all that stuff. I am a believer that you don’t have to feel funky every year, but I’m also a believer that there are seasons when we’re more reflective and we’re slower. It doesn’t mean we have to feel like we’re depressed, but there are seasons when you’re not going to be out there and blossoming and massive action.
There are times when reflection is needed. I realized that this past year granted, I didn’t feel that great in November and December, but it was good for my soul to go within and really look at some of the blocks there as I’ve mentioned many times. I’m doing this marital coaching. It’s been rough and it’s been tough and looking at my childhood in a different way of why I’m doing certain things now and things I never even considered. It’s been a lot for me to incorporate.
Now that I’m on the other side of this funkiness and on the other side of this awareness with marriage stuff, I’m so glad that I actually went through that. I’m glad that I had that period of reflection and mourning in essence and feeling a little bit crappy because now the joy is starting to come in and it’s coming in in a deeper way. Brené Brown says the best stuff, we can’t numb the sadness and the darkness because we’re going to numb the light and it’s so true.
I think we have these beliefs out there. We have to be happy all the time and feel good all the time and it’s a bunch of bullshit. It’s just not true and it’s not healthy. I used to think there was something wrong with me when I wouldn’t be happy. It’s just sometimes we need those seasons, but sometimes we can get through them too. We don’t need to stay in that, that’s where I see some women get stuck of, “Well, I know, this is just how I am.” Now I take an antidepressant or antianxiety or I’ve just let my weight go and things of that sort.
I’m not digging on medicine here by that. I’m just saying is that sometimes we are stronger than we think, we don’t have to accept reality as is, we can pull ourselves out of that. On the flip of that too a little bit of sadness and anger or whatever is there to create your funkiness is okay, but you have to learn how to get through it too. Hopefully, that makes sense.
For me, I knew, here we are, it’s November. I think this is where I am because of this and I may have some upper limit problems in this marital coaching and all that, and I started to use my tools to pull myself out of that. Versus if I was just to say, “Oh, this is my new reality.” That would be the problem because it’s not, I just needed to go through that.
This is one of those episodes where I wish that you were in front of me and I could ask you questions and ask you, “What are your takeaways? What are you taking away from this episode?” Because I want to ensure that you really get it and I wish I could customize the content for you like I do with my clients but here we are, it’s a podcast. It’s free content. I’m putting it out there. Hopefully, you’re taking what resonated with you, leaving the rest, and going and implementing something to fix your funk.
Feel free to come back to this episode anytime you feel funky again. Feel free to reach out to me too. I have a free community. All the links and stuff is in the outro of this episode, but go over there and come say hi and introduce yourself if we haven’t met yet. Let’s start talking through. If you feel funky and you need personalized help, I will help you in there for free because I want you to start to see the beauty and the benefits of using these tools and realizing that you can change your life.
As I mentioned earlier, I have a client that I’ve been working with just for a few days now, she came in saying, “I don’t finish anything. I have this really negative way of thinking.” Now she’s starting to change that in just two weeks’ time of saying, “Wow, I am getting through this. I am doing this. I’m making more changes than I’ve ever made in a long time.”
A lot of that is because she just knows the tools to implement, to make those changes. That’s so powerful once we know those tools and it’s such a rip off that we aren’t taught these tools earlier in life but anyways, just know you can fix your funk. You can get out of it, get moving, eat well, cleanse your space, endorphin up, remember your why, get support, journal, find your blocks, and accept that we’re like an Oak tree sometimes.
Sometimes we need seasons of that.
I will say if you’re in a season of more than three months of being in a funk, you need to start asking, “What can I do to get more support and more help here?” Even if you’re in a deeply grieving period, oh my goodness, please reach out for support. It may not be a coach, but a therapist or a support group or something.
When I went through my divorce years ago, I wasn’t ready for coaching by far and I was over therapy because if you’ve heard my therapy story, you know why? I just went to a support group every week. Granted, I sat there and I was numb for most of it. I just answered the workbook questions and watched these videos and just listened to other people talk and maybe once in a while, I would talk, but that helped me so much. It really was just about three months that I was still in that depth of mourning that relationship and then I was able to move on.
Anyway, that’s all I have for today. Thank you for tuning in and I hope I will see you next week on the show. We’re going to start a new segment and I’m going to have one of my clients come on and tell you about her coaching journey. This is something that was highly requested of people wanting to hear other people’s stories and how coaching helps them. Tune in for that new segments and I hope to see you again.
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Hey there, Miss Unstoppable. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend. Send them a picture of this episode via text, via email, share it on social media, I’m sure they would be so appreciative to know these strategies and tips on how to accomplish your dreams. If you are ready to guarantee you’re going to accomplish your goals and dreams, then it’s time to start coaching with me.
In my nine-month simple success coaching system, I am going to walk you every single step of the way to ensure that you get the goals and dreams that you want. The first step is to apply for a free 60-minute consult call. Just go to LindsayEpreston.com/apply to get started. As always, my friend, remember, you’re only as unstoppable as you believe you can be, so believe in yourself. You got this.
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