[Photo from Dimitar Kazakov on Unsplash]
This week, I have spoken to a couple of people who described a good part of their experience of the last months as ‘feeling flat.’ I guess we can all identify those moments or seasons when we don’t feel much of anything … nothing much to complain about, no depths of despair, but no great highs of joy either. Aside from the emotional flatness, physically we might feel lacking in ‘umph’ or energy, socially we may be a bit withdrawn, and perhaps we also find our thinking or decision-making lacks its usual sharpness.
That pretty much describes my week. I got home from an intense weekend, my mind had been busy with possibilities and processing future plans, and I just sort of … flopped.
Of course, when we feel flat we can wonder at all the things that might be wrong. Am I depressed? Am I heading down the wrong track? Is there something wrong in my marriage? With my work? Have I moved away from God? Yet while any of those things may be true, it could simply be that our bodies, minds and emotions need a break. Perhaps the intensity of our circumstances - which could just as easily be positive intensity as negative - has left us a bit flooded and our system needs to reset.
These are the days when it seems tempting to stay under the covers until noon, to ignore all our phone calls, or to binge-watch junk TV shows. And there’s no rule against these sorts of coping strategies, only they don’t actually make you feel any better. Truth is, we tend to do these things because the flatness makes us a wee bit anxious. Rather than just be with the discomfort of this feeling, we want to avoid it or numb it just a bit. We’re worried about what may come to light if we simply let it be.
So what should we do when we feel this way?
I don’t know about you, but when I feel flat I need the safe container of my usual rhythms. Maybe just a touch ‘lighter.’ So, I need to move my body and I might choose to walk the dogs rather than go for a run. I need to read and reflect, and I may choose a devotional that’s a bit less demanding, or perhaps engage in a more structured journalling exercise that I don’t have to think too hard about. And it might sound silly, but when I feel like this it helps me to avoid video in my online conversations and stick to audio. I guess there’s a need for everything to be lighter than normal.
This reminds me of one of the workout programs I have done, in which the trainer coaches her crew to ‘lighten up but don’t quit.’ It’s okay to switch out our weights, to choose something that feels manageable for right now, without needing to come to the complete standstill of hiding under the duvet and eating ice cream for three days straight. It’s so much harder to get going again if we stop dead in our tracks. But it’s quite right to ‘live light’ for a little while.
These are some of the practices that help me in these moments:
- To get outside, to be in nature. Beauty is restorative.
- To pull away from social media and remember what is most real in my life.
- To focus on one or two simple and light practices that I can do TODAY and then again tomorrow.
- To breathe or meditate, to ground myself in this moment.
- To practice gratitude.
- To be around people who know how to show soul hospitality - allowing me to be me without trying to fix, counsel, or judge.
What is your ‘safe container?’ What are the rhythms of your life that nurture you, that you can fall back on when you feel flat? How can you make those rhythms light and manageable when needed?
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