I have been struggling a lot with big cyclical waves of despair and the crawly feeling of not knowing how to exist in my own skin, and these are some short-term in-the-moment things that sometimes help. I do also go to therapy when I can, and would always recommend before anything, but this isn’t always possible, and doesn’t necessarily help with the all-day-every-day need to continue and get up and take breaths etc. Mainly writing as note-to-self:
- Cold water immersion. A cold shower, but even better - a swim in the sea. Being underwater, opening your eyes and just seeing green, not really hearing anything, not feeling heavy at all. Being completely held by water, and for a moment just thinking, ‘I am here’. And then a hot shower and a hot cup of coffee afterwards. It can be an enormous effort to make this happen, (particularly wearing swimming things when body-image is down the drain) BUT for short-term relief, more than running or yoga or journalling or talking about it, this can make a huge difference.
- Yoga with Adriene on Youtube. Any kind of yoga or breathing or intuitive movement can shift things and be great. But Adriene is particularly great, and sometimes being told what to do is needed. Lying on the floor and using your hands to release tension in the muscles of your jaw, smoothing your own brow with someone saying kind simple things through a screen -- the kindness starts to almost become believable. Having a cold shower after the yoga and putting on soft clean clothes and then lying down for a bit to feel how tingly and fresh you are -- this is also wonderful. And important.
- Listening to ‘Sketch for Summer’ by The Durutti Column. This is my second most played song ever, and it is the most believable little piece of hope, if hope was ever a sound. This is it. It’s like...somewhere out there, there is already a whole world, in the summer, and I want it.
- Going for a walk or a run at golden hour with dogs and trees. When I can get myself out the door just before dusk or dawn, and move on my feet in a place that is green and filled with beautiful dogs on their walks, it feels like...I don’t even need to be feeling good for good things to exist in the world (which sounds obvious but is not). Like I am participating in something that is already real and whole, and I step into it and love it regardless of how revolting I may feel. Trees and dogs have no idea.
- Talking to people you feel really comfortable with -- about yourself, but also about them. Getting close with people in an equal, human, genuinely caring way is important always, but is particularly helpful for shifting perspective. For feeling held and cared for, and for feeling that you can be of use to other people. You can listen to other people, and love them, and show up 100% for someone other than yourself, and decentralise the marshland of your own despair for a moment. You do NOT have to wait for the marshland to go away before attempting this. Everyone has a marshland. Allowing for this realisation can be HEARTBREAKING, but more often it makes everyone feel less weird and alone.
- Writing. I hesitate to say this one, because writing is my go-to for everything, including ‘being productive’ and ‘doing good work’ which is not what I’m talking about. It might not be this way for everyone, but writing is something that I know well enough to feel at home in regardless of what I’m thinking or feeling, and it can be a thread back to feeling like a person with something worth saying. Starting is always the hardest, but there is a huge amount of value (and the potential for catching yourself by surprise) in writing freely, and allowing for the possibility that you have some unsaid things that could benefit from being said. Whatever it is.
- BOX BREATHING. I don’t know why I didn’t list this sooner. You basically just focus on your breathing in a very particular way, and imagine that you are drawing a box. Breathe in, and imagine drawing one vertical side of the box, breathe out and draw the horizontal line, breathe in and draw the other vertical line, breathe out and draw the final horizontal line, and then start again. This is very very very soothing. Sometimes I just lie on the floor and cry and do box breathing and listen to Leonard Cohen singing ‘lullaby’ on repeat for an hour.
- Relinquish the expectation that you should feel good all the time, or that you can or should do something to ‘fix’ it (or that you did something wrong to ‘cause’ it in the first place). I can’t really describe what this would look like in practical terms because I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but sometimes it’s important and a huge relief to stop TRYING SO HARD to make it all go away and to feel smooth and sparkly and good. A lot of guilt and shame and fear can be associated with not feeling good if you have the added expectation of overriding it or making it go away -- or if you think you ‘caused’ it by being a flawed human. This is not how it works (although I do find myself thinking this a lot). Literally just relent sometimes. Listen to heartbreak pop. Arrive wherever you’re at. It’s all already right there. It doesn’t all have to be so hard.
This is not a comprehensive list, but just some things that I’ve been wanting to articulate and compile for future reference.
