On Asking Yourself Vital Questions, and Answering Them
As I wrote in my journal today, i had a terrible sense of worthlessness that just seemed silly to my conscious self. For one, it is a Saturday, it was before noon, I was sitting at a cafe enjoying a coffee, and I had also just finished with five of my seven "goals" for the day. Again, this is a Saturday. A year ago I would be wrestling with myself to even leave the house by this time, and today I had meditated, journaled, taken a short language lesson, shared gratitude with someone I love and did a kind gesture for a stranger.
Still, I felt ashamed at not having accomplished my first assigned task of the day (going to a 9am yoga class), so the rest of the day was effectively ruined to my ruminating mind.
My usual method for exploring these feelings is to have a Q&A session with myself, where I take turns writing thoughtful questions to myself within my journal, and then spending a minimum of 1 minute examining each question before jotting down my answer. I like this exercise, and it almost always produces quick and lasting shifts in my mental state, because it combines the benefit of a conversational bounce board with the knowledge that you can't lie to the person you're conversing with. You can call yourself on your bullshit, but you also get to treat yourself like a friend.
The root of today's ennui (or one of them, at least) appears to come from having effectively broken a promise to myself. That promise was the complicated combination of elements that I would wake up at a reasonable time, I would enjoy the mental and physical benefits of yoga, and I would still have the entire day ahead of myself to wander, think, and socialize with friends. To complicate things further, I dedicated the night before to "alone time" following the mental and social exhaustion of a busier-than-usual work week, and made the ill-advised decision to eat a weed brownie from one of my more questionable friends, which left me feeling like a tranquilized bear until around 10am today.
So, as you can see, it's not so simple as "missing a yoga class". Sure, I am sad about missing the class, and it's totally acceptable, logically, to enjoy a little lay in, but if you've read my last few posts you'll know that I've just spent the better part of the last year digging myself out of a hole of depression and the most consistent benefits to my wellbeing over the past several months have been waking at a reasonable time, moving my body, and spending time with people who make me feel good things. By sleeping in and missing this class I had betrayed myself and to the part of my mind that remembers what my life was like for the past few years, this seems a sign of impending doom.
Still, the Q&A has another trick up its sleeve. It lets me practice both criticism and creativity at once. The critic asks questions like, "is it the hour that you wake up that matters, or is it the momentum?" I don't know, I've never really explored that question before... "Well, the next time yoga isn't an option, what can you try to get yourself into a forward momentum?" I could immediately go for a walk, or I could take a cold plunge, or do some pushups.
The point is that these questions inspired these answers (as well as the associated excitement at each possibility) and all of it came from my own brain and effectively got me out of my own funk in just a few minutes. I haven't seen any friends today, and I've mostly just relaxed and played video games, but I feel good about it. I feel productive about it.
Maybe you will, too.