Getting out of my funk

For the past few weeks I’ve been in a funk.  Let’s be honest, and vulnerable here, I was depressed.  I was having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.  I have recently come to realize that there are a few reasons for that but one major one.  I feel like I’ve lost my purpose(s).  I had a job for 9 years that 3 months ago I lost.  I haven’t been unemployed since before 1997!  I have two daughters – one who is about to be 19 and one who just turned 17.  They are becoming adults.  And while I think that I still have a ton of wisdom to bestow on them, sometimes they don’t want to listen to that wisdom, or at least when you want to share it!  So, I’m having to adjust to not being “needed” as much by my daughters.  So, where does that leave me???  In a funk!  I don’t feel like I have a purpose.  Well, let me rephrase that “I DIDN”T feel like I had a purpose”.  Starting today, I find my purpose!  I know it’s out there somewhere!  🙂

My first step is to start taking better care of myself.  I feel like I’ve let myself, and the 3 people who supported me going, down by not doing a better job of that since I got back from True North.  There is a woman I follow on Facebook called “Mrs Plant”.  She lives in Texas and is about my age and is basically doing the same thing I am at least as far as our eating goes.  She shared this past weekend that she wasn’t where she wanted to be physically and that she had fallen back into some bad habits (hmmmm….that sounds familiar…).  I shared with her something that I had received at True North.  It’s called Conscious Eating and it’s a card you’re supposed to pull out when you want to eat when you’re really not hungry: 1. What sensations am I experiencing? 2. What emotions am I experiencing? 3. What might these be communicating to me? 4. What values are important to me? 5. What do I WANT to be experiencing? 6. How might I nourish my TRUE hunger? 7. Do I choose to eat? She said sometimes the answer to the last question is going to be “YES” but that if you’re honest and thorough with the answers to the questions above it most of the time it will be no.  This week I am choosing to make better choices about what I’m eating and pull out that card when I want to eat when I’m not hungry.  I am also choosing to move!  Notice that I didn’t say exercise.  I have a strong dislike of the word exercise and it brings up negative emotions in me.  So, I am choosing the word “MOVE”.  “Move” to me equals: Dancing, walking, riding my bike, interval training, yoga, etc.  Anything that, as David at True North said, gets my belly button off of it’s current plane!  He suggested that we focus on things that made our belly button move from it’s current plane.  So, lifting weights, on a machine at the gym, does not cause your belly button to move from it’s plane (well, at least most of them).  However, doing push ups on the floor or even against a wall moves your belly button from it’s plane.

My second step is to find a purpose!  HAVE A GOAL, VISION, PLAN…whatever you want to call it, I need to get one!  There are a few steps I’m taking in this direction.  First will be to start clearing my environment.  My sister (thank you again) reminded me of something that we have read in books and know to be true.  The condition of your physical environment will cause things to happen or not to happen.  (Being vulnerable again here…) The physical condition of my environment is HORRIBLE!!!!  There is clutter EVERYWHERE!!!!  How can I expect new things to enter my life when there’s old stuff cluttering it up???  By the way, if you ever want help with that aspect of your life there is a wonderful woman called the Abundance Whisperer (http://www.theabundancewhisperer.com/) who is wonderful at helping you clear out the “clutter” (both physically and mentally) from your home.  The reason I haven’t hired her is #1 I don’t have a job! and #2 – I would be seriously horrified for her to see the state of my environment (although that IS her job!).  Anyway… I will be working that on my own and making my physical environment something that reflects who I am and what I want in my life.  The other part of this is to get clear in what I want.  Where do I want to live???  What do I want to do????  How do I want my days to look???  Who is going to be in my “circle”??? Vision board to the rescue!!!  If you’ve ever read anything about the successful people in the world, more often than not, they have a vision board or something like it.  It’s a big picture vision of what you want in your life.  So, for example, on my vision board I will have “xeriscaping” because I don’t want to have to water or mow my landscape when I move to a “permanent” residence.  I will take a picture of my vision board and share it after I get it done!

I think that’s a grand start to getting myself out of my depressive state!  Time to laugh, dance and be joyous!  Have an outstanding week!