Hi everyone!
So excited to share this one with you! If you are a frequent listener of my podcast, WITH WHIT, (and you should be 😉 ) then you know Life & Spirituality Coach, Ryan Haddon! I had Ryan on in June this year and she is just the best. When I spoke with her I was in such a funk and she totally helped me get myself out of the hole I was getting in.
You can listen to the episode wherever you listen to your podcasts (here are links to Apple Podcasts and Spotify). We talked about the benefits of making a menu of what fills you up, not trusting all of our thoughts, and that by discovering our values and beliefs we can counter the concern of what other people think and so much more.
As mentioned, Ryan is a certified Life and Spiritual Coach as well as a clinical Hypnotherapist and certified meditation teacher with over 16 years of experience with clients around the world. Ryan is a sought-after public speaker for corporate retreats. Additionally, she does private workshops such as “Stepping Into Your Purpose,” “The Work/Life Balance,” and “Finding Your Center.” She’s also the in-house Life Coach at Kourtney Kardashian’s website Poosh, where she has written more than 50 mind/body/spirit articles. You can follow her on IG @ryan.haddon and find out more about how she works at www.ryanhaddon.com.
After we spoke, I really wanted to have her contribute to my blog! So that’s what is about to happen for you here!
Hope this is helpful!
xo
Whit
How To Get Yourself Out Of A Funk
By Ryan Haddon
Your life’s going along fine, then a series of unfortunate events create a pileup, and you come down with what feels like, a wicked case of the blues. Or maybe you’re straight-blindsided by a worse-case scenario and find yourself on a one-way train to the dumps. Either way, you’ve just landed in Funktown – and Bruno Mars’ happy vibes are nowhere to be found. It happens to everyone at some point. It’s a totally normal part of life and riding the wave is how we develop emotional grit and an inner stability. So how do you pull yourself up by the bootstraps and find your way back to livin’ your best life? Here are some concrete ways to get yourself out of a funk.
Contemplate And Reframe – What’s the funk about? Try to pinpoint the feelings as they rolled over you, knocking you off balance. This low-grade, semi-depression came from a disconnect; when your perception of a situation, caused you to short circuit. If you can figure out the narrative you are telling yourself around something that has taken place, you can also give yourself the power to shift your perception about it, too. You are the master of your life, and you have the wherewithal to reframe the story you’re telling yourself around something at any given time. Choosing to see it another way, can help you feel better about it. Stop playing the victim where you can, and create a new perspective around what’s bothering you. And your feelings will inevitably have to follow suit. Because feeling follows thought. You got this. Then breathe into your heart space and reconnect to you. Tell yourself you’re a strong, powerful being and you’re bigger than any one event in your life. This funk’s got nothing on you!
Meditative Walk – Get out in nature, stat! Doesn’t necessarily have to be a productive exercise opportunity, but instead it’s an exercise in practicing being in Presence. Spending time outdoors, we can call on all our senses to bring us into the Now. And in this moment, all is well. You have everything you need, right now, to be content in present time. You’re not reflecting on the past, nor are you projecting into the future. If you catch yourself obsessing about either, bring yourself back to the Now through your senses:
- Breathe – take in the scents around you, all the subtle layers of them: flowers, fresh-cut grass, morning rain.
- Feel – the air around you, the motion of your body, the earth under your feet as you walk, the sun on your face.
- Hear – the sounds, of birds, the wind, dogs barking, children playing, your breathing, and even your own heartbeat.
- See – allow your eyes to scan all depths of your vision; try to see past the obvious sights, the intensity of colors, the people you pass, the clouds above.
If the mind still wants to ruminate on something – as is its tendency – give it a phrase that uplifts the soul. Work with your breath here. On the in-breath, you could say something reassuring like, “I am loved.” On the out breath, say “I am safe.” Repeat on a loop, to change the feedback in your head. And then, bring your focus back to your meditation walk, shifting yourself into presence, where all is well. Plus, by moving your body, you will release some feel-good hormones, the mac-daddy endorphins. Not a bad offshoot!
A Walk Down Memory Lane – For a serotonin boost (those happy wonder chemicals in your brain’s command center) bring to mind good memories from your past.
- Write down 10 of your happiest moments and 10 things you’re grateful for in your life – really conjure them up. Everyone has them, and you can go as far back as that pony you got for your 5th Birthday!
- Pull out your phone and scroll through happier times, or take a scrapbook down from the shelf that captures great uplifting events, even going as far back as your childhood. Looking through them, will release feel-good chemicals into your system, and will give you a feeling of hope. Keep telling yourself while you’re scrolling, “I’ll be ok. This will pass. There are so many more incredible experiences ahead.” The combination of repeating these positive affirmations and visualizing undeniably happy times, not only flood your system with serotonin, but recruit your all-powerful Subconscious Mind on board, to get cracking on bringing some great new experiences down the pipeline. It’s the sweet spot for the SM, with the visualizing and the power of feeling, combined. Your Subconscious has no choice but to work on delivering you that next choice adventure, as it’s always working on your behalf!
Bucket List Time – Now for the dopamine express. Make a list of dreams you’d like to see come to life. Maybe a trip you’ve always wanted to take, a deep-sea dive with orcas, a trek through the Andes, a ‘cush’ position at work. Write them all out. Do a short-term list and a long-term one. Here’s the life coaching bit: come up with 3 actionable ways you can move each one forward, otherwise, it’s just that, a wish on a piece paper. And we want to feel we are moving the needle in the direction of our dreams, in a concrete way! No better time to contemplate our bucket list, than when it feels like a bleak, desolate landscape, in a moment of contraction. Remind yourself it’s a big, beautiful life and you’ve got s&*t to do, my friend!
Reach Out And Touch Someone – When everything in you wants to isolate, play The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony,” and scroll through an ex’s Instagram account… Fight the urge! Ok, give into it…for a short while. There’s something comforting about turning yourself over to the plight of being human, and wallowing in small doses, can feel oddly satisfying. But do set a time frame for the sad sack immersion. And then, call someone you love (who loves you back), a family member, a close friend, someone you trust and feel good with, and make a plan to get together pronto. When you do meet up: hugs, hand-holding, and physical affection in any form, is a super-fast way to move out of being funky-potatoes to releasing, the always welcome, hormone of love and wellbeing, Oxytocin! That physical contact and a feeling of real connection with someone, is a sure-fire way to bring you back to some semblance of your old, upbeat self.
Body love – We carry our issues in our tissues! We can’t process emotions, triggers, setbacks, shocks to our system fast enough sometimes, to reset before the next onslaught. When there’s that build-up of undigested emotions, the mind represses all those big feelings, shoving them away to be dealt with down the line. They can get stored energetically into parts of the body, and that’s when we see different physical ailments show up, as well as an unshakeable feeling of being in the pits. When that happens, it’s your incredibly helpful body’s way of reminding you to: “Clean up, on aisle 3!” The power of any healing modality such as Reiki, Acupuncture, Massage, Energy work, Cranio Sacral Therapy, or Breathwork cannot be underestimated. A skilled practitioner has the potential to literally move stagnant, negative energy trapped in your body, out through your entire system in an hour. You might lay down on their table like a wet blanket initially, and leap off by the end of your first session feeling right as rain! Body work is a gift to humankind… so why not take full advantage?
We have so many resources outside of us to lean into when a funk is having its way with us. Not to mention, our bodies that are always at the ready to flood our system with feel-good chemicals, IF we are willing to put forth a small effort to step off the Funktown Express. Sometimes that’s all that’s required, as well as reminding yourself that feeling down is normal and a part of life. After all, you can’t enjoy the rainbows without first having the rain… We learn to accept all of it as part of the human experience!
