There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path, don’t allow yourself to become one of them–Ralph Marston
This last week has been tough for me. I had cataract surgery on both eyes, and the doctor’s orders were to take easy for the week–no cardio, no weight-lifting, and no driving. This was not hard on Tuesday, the day of my left eye’s surgery or Thursday, the right eye’s surgery. When I finally did get some decent vision back, reading made my eyes tired. All of my “go-to” coping mechanisms were unusable. I don’t do “take it easy” well, either.
Topping all of this off is the fact that I am not as close to some goals that I desire and could not move any closer toward them for another week. By late Friday afternoon, I found myself deep in a funk. Actually, that is just a nice way of saying that I was feeling sorry for myself. Yet, I didn’t want to do anything about it. I wanted to wallow. After all, I did just have eye surgery and I wasn’t allowed to do anything but “take it easy.” My funk became my own difficult obstacle to an enjoyable recovery.
I am going to give you some solutions surviving the funk, but first I want to share with you ways not to shovel yourself in deeper:
1. Don’t watch the news all day. Between Hurricane Matthew, the 2016 Election cycle and the other negative events transpiring, I felt helpless to change anything and that made me feel hopeless. Don’t get me wrong, I do keep up with news, but in short spurts and mostly online.
2. Don’t go looking at other people’s Facebook pages. I found myself looking at everyone’s smiling faces, romantic get-aways and the accomplishments of those that are where I would like to be. I compared myself to others and found myself smack in the middle of feelings of lack and envy.
Blend hopeless, helpless, lack and envy together and I was drinking a dark cocktail of funk, WHAAAAAATTTT? What was I doing? This was not normal for me.
I decided that I not only needed to change my state of being, but it was what I really desired. Period. I wasn’t able to drive away from my environment, but I could change it right where I was. Here are some things that worked for me:
1. Be grateful. The doctor said I could walk my dog. Truffle and I ventured out into the breezy, cool afternoon to walk to the High School. I had my sunglasses on to keep the dust out of my eyes. Most of the time, just watching Truffle makes me smile. I became grateful for my new bright vision with the cataracts gone. I am also really healthy. I love where I live. I have a loving husband, family and friends. I am grateful to have the opportunity to add value to others through leadership training and coaching. I am thankful for my job at Life Options. I consider my faith to be a priceless gift.
Gratefulness kind of permeated my being and opened the door for a bit of joy to enter in. When I got back to the house, I looked at my own personal Facebook page. I decided to compare myself to me–how much I have grown, my accomplishments for this last year and the fact that I am a better version of myself than last year. The memories, the pictures and even the small wins made me glad.
This is my son, daughter and I at the beach. This always makes me smile.
2. Read a good book. By the time I got back to the house, I was able to read more. I read a book about my passions because I knew I could lose myself there for awhile. For me, those passions right now are leadership and communication skills. The impact of honing leadership skills is life-expanding and communicating better is definitely a goal of mine.
3. Eat ice cream–I always serve my ice cream in a little cake cup because it takes longer to eat and I can’t fit so much ice cream in one of those. When I get to the very bottom of the cake cone, Truffle can have a bite of that, because dogs can’t have chocolate. Ice cream always makes me feel better.
4. Pick your music–Listening to music has helped tremendously. I have a couple of songs that really drive me, that make me feel good, that almost make me feel like dancing. (I can’t do that until next Friday, either.) You know songs that bring to mind a great time or memory. You know which ones those are for you, too.
5. The picture above is of a great time on the beach in California that I had with my kids. That memory always makes me smile. what memory does that for you?
Needless to say, I am out of the funk. My circumstances haven’t changed (yes, I am reading longer and longer and seeing better and better), but I changed my environment and made it more enjoyable. Wayne Dyer quotes, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” That is certainly what happened to me.
I hope this helps you. If you have some other funk-defying methods, I would sure love to hear them. Make it a great week.
Gratefully typed,
Jan
Jan McDonald
John Maxwell Team
(still CEO of Life Options)
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