Fixing the Feels

It’s another quiet nightshift. They’ve become slightly harder of late, as my adorable little patient has acquired a new noise machine. No problem, except it’s the same one I’ve used every night myself for the past decade. Talk about a Pavlovian response….

Between his cute little snores, the sound of rain outside, and my comfy chair replete with fuzzy blanket… The struggle is real, y’all. I’ve had to resort to watching shows or movies to stay awake: thus the lack of blog posts here of late.

But never fear- I just drank coffee. We’re back, baby.

There’s been a lot of sad news lately and the world feels heavy. I, along with many of you, have been struggling to find a lot of joy around. And that’s okay. It’s important to note that we don’t always get to choose our mood. We get to choose what we focus on, whether we approach any given situation with a heart posture of gratitude: yes, of course. But sometimes the world hands us a whole bucket of grief, and we have to process it. And that “processing” often requires feeling it a bit.

So while we all need to take a moment and “feel the feels”, we also don’t want to stay stuck there. Because God is on the throne, King Jesus is in heaven, we live in a masterpiece of creation that is our personal playground, and are loved beyond measure by our good, good Father…Life, is in fact, pretty great at the end of the day.

Even if we have days, weeks, months, seasons of weariness now and again.

So, tonight I want to share a quick step-by-step of how I personally deal when life feels a bit too heavy. It’s obviously not going to be the same for everyone, but hopefully something speaks to you or gives you an idea for next time you yourself or a loved one is feeling down.

So without further ado or reckless meme-ing:

Kelsey’s 7 Step Process to Fixing a [yucky] Feeling

1. First step: Figure out the Problem
   • I know it sounds trite, but you have to name what you’re feeling to actually begin fixing it. A doctor doesn’t treat a patient without first diagnosing their malady, and you can’t fix a bad mood without first figuring out its root. And I find it’s shocking how often the problem isn’t what I think it is. (Like, it’s rarely my husband, which is crazy, because it really *feels* like my husband a lot of the time. 😜 I kid, I kid… mostly)
   • The best way I’ve found to do this is get your thoughts out of your head. We don’t tend to think our thoughts in a linear fashion, so forcing them out into the organization of words and logic is often enough to clarify them. Journaling is great, even just phrases and sketches if need be. But even talking about it out loud, to a friend or to myself, helps bring me the clarity I need. And let’s not forget praying about it too- talking to God about how you’re feeling almost always brings the real problem to the surface. He’s good at that.
2. Once you’ve clarified and named what’s really bothering you… sit with it for a second.
   • We tend to rush over this part, but it’s so helpful to take a beat. The solution is coming, but if I rush right to it, I find I don’t often get the relief I’m looking for. For example, if I’m sad because one of my kids is sick, trying to push myself past it with a trite “Kid’s get sick every day, it’s fine. They survive” will fall flat rather quickly. But if I take a moment to validate the yucky feeling by saying “We live in a fallen world, and parents weren’t created to watch their children suffer. Thats why this feels so painful”… I allow myself to stop fighting and just be still for a second. Then, afterwards, I can move forward to the next step and stay there.
3. Speak truth to yourself
   • Listing the problem was also speaking truth, but now I’m going to add on. So to continue with my example: “My kid is sick, and that makes me sad because parents shouldn’t have to watch their kids suffer…. But the God Who loves me is the Great Physician. He loves my kids too. He promises to answer my prayers. He promises suffering is never for nothing (thanks, Elizabeth E). He promises to be right beside me in both my own and my loved ones sufferings….”
   • Whatever is true, lovely, noble, as the Bible says…. I start listing out those things. It doesn’t need to be a list of everything possible; during times of truly deep sadness, it might just be one or two things I can scrape together. But it’s always there, if I look for it.
4. Do the next thing
   • I’ve named my feeling, I’ve sat with it, and I’ve found gratitude to add alongside it. Now, I move my feet. In this vein, I was talking to a woman recently who has suffered great pain and loss in her life. She was reflecting on how she counsels young woman who are going through hard times, and stated – “I always say: ‘you’ve survived every horrible day so far. Today will be no different!’ I smiled as I added – “Right, and if you don’t survive this one, it’s heaven besides! So put on your big girl pants and do the next thing”. We laughed together, fully realizing this might be an oversimplification. But there is truth to the fact that sometimes the best medicine is to just do the next thing: the next chore, the next errand, the next check-off on the never ending “to do” list of our lives. We can’t just wait until we feel better to move on, and there is an odd healing to staying busy during heavy seasons of life. A blessed distraction that we often times rebel against, but is so needful. Drowning in our own self-pity is not the way we want to go out, so when we’ve named the grief and reframed with gratitude: it’s time to get up and get going,
5. Guard your Heart
   • This process is not a “one and done”, especially for the big heavy things of life. I’ve found that in true seasons of weariness, I often need to set up more boundaries around what I allow into my life. This has meant blocking social media (with one exception I’ll mention in a second), cutting off negative conversations, and even not watching sad movies or listening to melancholy music for hours on end. I don’t do this indefinitely, just in times when I know that my spirit is already handling too much. If we want to be joyful, we need to cultivate an environment for ourselves of joy. That takes intention and sometimes a bit of heavy handed editing during hard seasons.
6. Make room for humor and light.
   • I listened to a Lazy Genius podcast recently where the host, Kendra, mentioned balancing out your life. She said that when negative things happen, we can’t undo them, but we can purposely add in positive things to help “balance the scale”. I love this approach. She had her own ideas (give her podcast a try, I’ve really enjoyed the ones I listened to), but here are some of my personal favorites:
     • Taking a long hot bath with a movie or good fiction book. (If you need a recommendation, put a list of your favorite books of all time into ChatGpt and ask it for suggestions. It’s shockingly good at that). Bonus points for candles and Epsom salts.
     • Walk outside and sit in the sunshine just for a minute or two.
     • Go stalk down your husband and demand a long hug. Don’t release him until he’s twitching a bit. (This is a favorite, I cannot lie)
     • Find something to laugh at. I purposely have cultivated an entire Pinterest board of things that make me laugh until my side aches. Pinterest in general gives me warm and fuzzies, and this is my one safe “social media” platform. You could also just make a note in your phone of memories and memes that make you laugh. Whatever works!
     • Drink something. Anything really. Humans are houseplants with feelings, but not cactuses. You’re probably dehydrated and you know it. So find a drink that makes you happy (preferably not alcoholic or caffeine-laden, as that tends to worsen the problem… I digress) and drink it.
     • Call a friend, do a small art project, plan one of your favorite or easiest meals for dinner, paint your nails, make a hot cup of tea, light a candle… little wins, people. Little wins.
7. Rinse and Repeat as needed

So that’s my framework for re-framing a bad day. Do I always remember to do it? No. When I do it, does it always work perfectly? Also no. Like the prophet Elijah, sometimes my bad attitude can only be fixed with food, a nap, and a divine intervention. But it does help most of the time, and I hope it helped spark some ideas of your own to try next time you’re in a funk.

I’m going to get out of my chair now and do a quick lap before the noisemaker takes me out. But I hope if you’re reading this, you have a wonderful week. Feel all the feels, speak truth to yourself, do the next right thing and laugh a little while you’re at it.

Until next time!

Love,

Kelsey