WHAT THIS EPISODES ABOUT…
Hello, I’m Shauna Hoffman. And today I am going to talk about the fact that some days just suck. I mean totally suck. I am throwing out all of my great, self-help therapy terms today and just talking about reality. There are days that seem to be a perfect storm of everything that brings your heart and soul to a standstill. Whether you are single or in a relationship right now, it doesn’t matter. There are times that no one can lift you out of that dark space. And maybe for some it isn’t even that dark. Maybe it’s just that weird gray! Sometimes we know what is causing it and sometimes we have no clue. It is just there.
OK, a few facts we need to remember! We women do go through hormonal changes that attribute to this …sometimes. And so what! No! I am not taking away your gray, blue or black! I am just saying that sometimes we have no idea what is causing it and it could just could be hormones. After all, we are goddesses that rage… I mean have a range of emotions that are often triggered by our physical makeup of the day… or hour or minute! And so it is!
Listen in…
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CONTENT DISCUSSED…
• Guy Free Podcast: https://guyfree.com
• Guy Free Facebook Group: https://guyfreeworkingonme.com
• Shauna’s website: https://www.workingonme.com
WHEN DOES IT AIR…
April 11, 2020
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, I’m Shauna Hoffman. And today I am going to talk about the fact that some days just suck. I mean totally suck.I am throwing out all of my great, self-help therapy terms today and just talking about reality. There are days that seem to be a perfect storm of everything that brings your heart and soul to a standstill. Whether you are single or in a relationship right now, it doesn’t matter. There are times that no one can lift you out of that dark space. And maybe for some it isn’t even that dark. Maybe it’s just that weird gray! Sometimes we know what is causing it and sometimes we have no clue. It is just there.
OK, a few facts we need to remember! We women do go through hormonal changes that attribute to this …sometimes. And so what! No! I am not taking away your gray, blue or black! I am just saying that sometimes we have no idea what is causing it and it could just could be hormones. After all, we are goddesses that rage… I mean have a range of emotions that are often triggered by our physical makeup of the day… or hour or minute! And so it is!
And being totally a non therapist for a moment, I have a personal story. I had a friend who was an astrologer who noticed that every Taurus moon I shut down and wet into my own grey world. I tracked it for a while and she was right. Seriously! The moon was affecting my moods! Who knew?!
Another fact. Women are just plain the emotional beauties that we are. And why the hell not! We are actually the gender that is comfortable feeling to the depth of our beings! And I honor that in all of us. I want us to claim and love our emotions and not feel that we have to apologize for them, hide them or ignore them. Well… unless you are being cruel or disrespectful because of them. And that also means being cruel or disrespectful to yourself!
See when we are down, everything seems to spiral down with it. And part of that is how we treat ourselves. I talked in the last podcast about our rebellious or creative child side. This judgement that we have about ourselves comes from our critical parent side. I go into lots of detail about it in my book. And I will address it more in another podcast. Because remember… I said no therapy words today! But it seems that when we are sad, or depressed or low, all of a sudden our ability to think clearly turns just as grey, or black or blue as our emotions. Logic and facts go out the window. First we tend to become critical of the people around us, the circumstances around us and then we turn it onto ourselves. We become critical of how we got to where we are in our lives. We play over and over the mistakes that we made, or the bad judgement calls that we had. We become illogical about what was in our past. And worse, we become illogical about our present and our future.
Example- “Oh, maybe if I had just put up with all of my exe’s lying I wouldn’t be alone right now”. UH YEAH. True. You wouldn’t be alone, but you would be with a liar in your grey space! And let me tell you how quickly that grey space will turn black!
Or this one- “You know my exe’s drinking was really not THAT bad. I was just controlling, asking him to quit. Maybe if I just wasn’t so mean I wouldn’t be alone.”
FACT- do you remember how alone you felt being WITH that drinker!?
OK- here is another reality check- Sometimes we go into denial about our own mistakes! I had one client say to me, “Maybe if I hadn’t been so stupid, my ex would never have figured out I was having an affair. and we would still be together”. Hmmm. This was a classic tale of not wanting to take responsibility for her mistakes in the relationship.
Lying to yourself, denial is this funny thing that backfires on us. You see when our conscious tries to deny the truth our subconscious knows it’s still there. It can cause this low level depression that we don’t even know we have. Being inauthentic is a pre-cursor to depression… and in this situation it was definitely her rebellious child not wanting to look at her piece of the downfall of that relationship.
When we are down we tend to let all logic disappear into thin air. We create these amazing stories in our heads. In some of them we rewrite the past. Remember when I said in another podcast that we need to mourn the reality of a loss not the fantasy? Sometimes when we are in depression we tend to only remember the good things we lost. And that drives us deeper into that grey day. So, when you are looking at the past make sure that you remember the REALITY not the fantasy!
Here’s another thing….In some of our illogical stories we think our future is never going to be ok. Really? I love to ask my clients “Do you have a crystal ball?” When we predict our future with our wildly creative minds and choose to create it empty and lonely we are headed for a grey blue black hard days night! Come on! If you are going to be creative, and you don’t have a crystal ball then why not make it a fabulous future? You do have a choice!
Now let’s think about this! In some of our stories we are not ready to let go of the sadness. I repeat…We are not ready!
Ponder this! Sometimes it is OKAY to be sad. Sometimes when we are sad we know why we are feeling that way and other times we don’t. I had a client who lost her mom unexpectedly. When you lose a mate, a parent, a child, a friend or even a beloved pet, the mourning process is one of the most heart-wrenching times in our lives. The sadness is in the very depth of our souls. It seems that humanity allows that sadness for a while. But then they expect us to get over it. Or just hide it away. This is so difficult to do. Because the mourning never really ends. But it does cycle. It starts with months of sad days. Then you have a peaceful day, then another peaceful day until hopefully your heart begins to heal. But there are times on a grey day that we don’t even realize that why we are feeling that way is because we miss that person that we lost. It can be years later. But you miss them. And that’s what’s bringing on your blues. You know what? It’s ok! The depth of our sadness for those that we lost represents the depth of our love. So feel it! Honor it. Honor them. But don’t let it drag you so far into the past that you can’t pull yourself out of it. Don’t let it turn you from grey to black.
Here is a tough one that I like to check in with my clients and hey, even my friends about..
In some of our stories we take responsibility for how we got here, And In some of them we deny deny deny the choices or actions or thinking that got us here in the first place. I offer you this thought… when we make the subconscious conscious it can go away! You will hear me say it lotsa times on the podcasts yet to come.
Let me explain. Our subconscious is so aware of our past. When we are willing to look at our part of our past, deal with our part, forgive ourselves and then let it go… the depression can go away with it! FORGIVENESS for ourselves and others, for the good and bad in the past, is truly a key to creating the future that we want to have. BYE BYE grey skies!
Oh! Shauna take note! I think I’ll make the next podcast about forgiveness!
Ok, Now, I offer you this! Is it depression or are you just tired? There are days that we are just exhausted, and cranky and bitchy and totally bummed out. What the hell? I give you permission to just feel it! Sometimes we are not really depressed. We are just frickin’ TIRED! And when we are tired we have all of the same physical traits of being depressed. We mope around, we sleep, we are completely unmotivated to do anything. So do you know what I want you to do? SLEEP! Chill, take a day for you, be moody. Don’t take it out on anyone. Crawl into your she-shed, or room, or bed and just rest. Honor the hell out of yourself.
But try to differentiate between being tired and being depressed. After all, when a baby is tired, what do they do? CRY! Yup, you are only human!
This holds true for anxiety too! Jobs make us anxious, kids make us anxious, relationships make us anxious. Anything that we can’t control makes us anxious. And when we are anxious it is exhausting and then it is really easy to sink into depression. The thing is, sometimes it is really hard to figure out which it is! So, really try to become self aware when you are down. Check in with your thoughts, your heart, your body and see if maybe just maybe you are not sad, but you are anxious over something. Remember that anxiety comes from the feeling of being out of control in a situation. And that feeling often leaves us feeling helpless and exhausted and causes depression. Do whatever you can to look at what is causing you the anxiety and see if there is a way to take back your control.
Now the path to blue skies!
So what are some of the tools for you to get through a grey, blue black hard days night and see the sun?
First, check in with yourself, and try to be “self aware” of where the sadness could be coming from. Is it coming from your body? Are you in pain? Are you tired? Are you thirsty? Are you just having a shitty day? Are things going wrong all over the place with work, or home or kids? What can you do to deal with it? Sleep, scream, take action, do yoga, breath, call a friend, bitch? Try and find anything to help you get through it. Sometimes it’s just giving yourself permission to suck it up all day and then at 10 PM go into the bathroom alone and cry your eyes out! Or sometimes it means going into the bathroom NOW to cry your eyes out!
Secondly I want you to check is the depression because you are replaying your past? Are your stories worth reliving right now? Are you mourning someone or something? A job? A person?
When I lost my soul dog, Ransom, it took ten months for me to get over the heavy heart that I felt. After about 3 months I didn’t even know why I was feeling that way. I had this weight on my heart, this depression and had no idea why. So at about 10 months I decided to take off on a yoga retreat to spend some time alone and figure this out.It wasn’t until I had some time to myself that I realized that I was still heartbroken from his loss. That was what it was! That’s why I was so sad all the time. Ten months later! Once I made the subconscious conscious I could feel the sadness and not apply it to things where it didn’t belong. It was good and it was sad. But it was the first step to my healing and truly saying goodbye. I did this beautiful ritual for my soul dog on a crystal clear river and I said goodbye. And my depression began to lift.
Is there a person, or thing or relationship that you may need to emotionally, psychologically or even logically say goodbye to?
In moments like this if you can acknowledge your feelings, honor your feelings! If you can try to be fully self aware that is the first step to finding a way out of the dark day.
Now I want to say this. If you are truly in a depression that you cannot lift yourself out of I really encourage you to get help. Depression will make you feel alone. And it does this catch 22, it makes you even more anti- social which only makes you feel even more alone. If you are in a dark place that you can’t find your way out of please call a therapist! Or your doctor! Or a friend or family member and ask them for help. Put away your ego and find someone, anyone to help you! Please!!!
Sometimes all of us need help in our lives. Sometimes we need a therapist, or a good friend to talk to, or exercise or medication, or meditation or a DOG or a cat! The journey to self awareness is our opportunity to look within at not just our happy times, but our sadness to see what we can control to bring ourselves peace. But the first step is self awareness! Guy free working on me!A woman’s journey to SELF AWARENESS!
My mom was a holocaust survivor. She lost her mom, dad and baby sisters in the war. Then at 13 she was taken to Auschwitz. But in my entire life I never ever saw her sad. I look back on this and I am shocked! Here was a divorced woman with 4 kids she was raising on her own… three of them boys I might add! And I never saw her sad. One day I said to her, “Mom you must wear rose colored glasses”.She answered me, “Yes I do… because I put them on!” I thought long and hard about what that meant. She was saying that she KNEW the things that made her sad, but she chose to look at it all differently. She wasn’t in denial. Instead she chose in every moment to look at the joy and blessings in her life. If any of you follow A Course in Miracles, they say that a miracle is a change in perception. My mom’s change in perception was her rose colored glasses.
Not all of us are that good at practicing happiness. But it sure is something to strive for.
So I leave you today with the thought that on a hard days night… look within. Make the subconscious conscious so that it can go away. Cry if you want to! Then see if tomorrow you can wake up and see the sun!
Thank you ladies! Be good to yourselves! And I look forward to popping into your life again next week!