When Your Life Feels Icky, Love Yourself

​It's easy to follow your joy when you're feeling inspired and excited and loving life. But sometimes contrast happens, and you don’t feel your best.  Habitual behavior might make sinking into those negative thoughts and wallowing in your woe effortless, it might even sound appealing. Or maybe you start judging yourself for not being your best version, been there a ton.  But those are the days we need to be the kindest to ourselves.  When the world gets wonky instead of falling into feelings of resentment, grief, anxiety, frustration, regret, blame, anger, sadness, disappointment, judgement, etc… Instead of focusing on what makes me upset or unhappy… I put all my effort into loving myself, comforting myself, pampering myself, nurturing myself. 
 
I'll sit in front of the mirror and say hello my sweet girl, what can I do for you in this moment? How can I comfort you?  I make space for myself, I'm soft, I'm gentle, I'm kind, I'm loving.  I give myself grace.  I prioritize my mental health and peace of mind.  I go gently through my day and ask myself what would make you happy my love? What would give you comfort?  I forgive myself, I nurture myself. I'll say out loud, “Today we'll just do our best”.  Loving ourselves gets top priority and everything else only gets the bare minimum needed to not add to any negative feelings or thoughts I could have about myself. It gets just enough to do the job right and I can do it slowly and in stages.  In between I'll just love on myself.
 
I like to think of it as dealing with yourself with the gentleness that you would a fragile friend dealing with grief.  You give them a safe and gentle presence.  You don't tell them they aren't doing it right.  You’re there with love, support, encouragement, kindness, and caring.  You celebrate simple tasks that are easy wins, with an abundance of cheering on a job well done.  “You brushed your teeth!  Fantastic job.  Look at you prioritizing yourself even when it feels hard!  Amazing.”  Deciding to do little things that bring joy.  “Fuck yes let's color in that coloring book!  Simple and mindless but still fun and it nurtures our inner child.  What a brilliant idea!”  Doing tasks in bite sized chunks.  “You can only download those names but not organize the spreadsheet, girl look at you still making progress!!! It took you 20 minutes to respond to a simple email?  Well do you feel like you did it correctly and with the right tone?  Yes?  Fuck yeah!!!!  You could have not done it, but you DID do it, and you did it well.  Amazing job!”
 
And, after spending some time on loving yourself, sometimes you can get to that place where you shift your perspective. It might happen in increments, but slowly we can get to feeling better.  I'll remind myself that the icky things in life usually precede something awesome.  And at the very least they teach me something, or help me more clearly define how I want to flow through life and what choices I want to make.  This is usually when I lean into forgiveness a little bit harder.  Forgiving others. Forgiving myself.  But if I can't get to a good feeling thought, and sometimes we can’t right away, I say “that's ok my love, we will.  Let's do or think about something that does make us feel good.  Or at least neutral”.  And sometimes, it's OK to dive into a book or show or movie so that we can press pause on thoughts altogether.
 
Life won't always be perfect and that's not only OK, but good.  It's how we handle those less than perfect moments that counts.  I'm always so proud of myself when I go into nurture mode.  Because I'm showing up for myself. I'm showing myself that I matter and that I'm priority number one.  And before long love and gratitude are dominant.  And eventually my perspective does shift.  And it's a win!  And I celebrate it.  Now I get excited when I see how the contrast is helping me be able to vibrate a little higher, to upgrade myself to a better version. And honestly the shift from ick to a win gets faster and faster.  The ability to be grateful for the contrast is easier. And even if it did nothing but show me just how much I've grown and improved I'm still pleased as punch by it.  Because who doesn't love a little validation?  Who doesn't love a reminder of just how much you've grown and learned and changed.
 
Here's the thing, you and I might be far from perfect, but in flowing through my “down” moments this way I can be (and am) damn proud of who I am even as I continue to get better.  We need to give ourselves permission to not always be at our highest and best, because that’s unrealistic.  But we can flow through the lower and less than ideal times with love, grace, and softness then that, in and of itself, is still winning remarkably at life.  I invite you to try it out, and see if it just doesn’t help shift you into a better feeling place.  Spoiler alert: loving your life enthusiastically isn’t far behind that better feeling.