Picture this. You’re having the night of your life – there’s good food, an amazing circle of friends, the night sky is lit up with the brightest of stars, wine is flowing, good music is playing – nothing can go wrong.
As you go to grab your glass of wine from the table, you tilt it a little too far and it tips over and spills all over you.
A whole glass of red wine spilled all over your beautiful white dress.
The reality is, no matter how much you scrub in that moment, no matter the technique, you’re not going to get it all off right then and there. It’s going to take some time and multiple efforts. Also, depending on the fabric of that white dress, there are different techniques that will need to be used to get this stain completely out.
Is it going to completely ruin your night? Is then night over? No.
But the stain is there, and you’re going to have to simply give it love over time until it’s completely gone. Essentially, you’re going to have to ignore it for the time being so it doesn’t affect what otherwise would be an amazing night.
This red wine stain is much like one of those mental funks.
We all get in them. It’s that mental state where life is just moving, but our minds make us feel like we’re not actually there. That grey, blurry, almost delirious mental space that we know we’re in, but can’t seem to shake off or get out of.
Like the stain, we have to simply look at it, almost identify it as something separate than us, and simply try different techniques over time to truly move past it.
What we can’t do, though, is let it start affecting other aspects of our lives.
If we’re on a lovely date, or at a dinner with friends. we have to try and differentiate ourselves from this funk so that we can engage and stay present with what’s actually in front of us – we to stay out of our heads.
Although there is no one black and white answer to getting out of one, here are some ways I’ve worked on moving past being in a funk:
- Being present with it is the first step. Removing it from us, recognizing that it is not our mentality overall, it’s a passing state that we will get out of. Like a single grey cloud in the sky.
- Go outside – change your environment even for just a little bit. See the sun if you can.
- Dream about that future life you want for yourself. Try to transfer the down in the dumps energy into fuel for that future vision you see for yourself. What are some things you can do now to get even one step closer to that?
- Take a long bath.
- Crank up music and sing at the top of your lungs. Put crying songs or put empowering songs or put the wildest house or edm. Whatever it is, play it loud in the car or in your headphones and just sing and dance – it always gets so much out of me.
- Have a full blown dance party – shake everything out and hopefully the funk will shake out too.
- Do something you love – Ideally something that requires your hands and no technology. Draw, do a Crossword puzzle, paint, garden, cook.
- Do something active – bike, yoga, go on a hike, go to the gym, go on a walk or a jog, do a HIIT workout from YouTube, go rollerblading
Again, there is no black and white solution, but perhaps worth a shot next time the metaphorical wine gets spilled on your beautiful white dress.
As always, sending you lots of love. You’ll get through it – you always do.
Until next time,
Cristina
