Photo by Alexas_Fotos on Unsplash
For the last few weeks, I’ve been waking up feeling pretty ‘ugh’.
The film Inside Out 2 introduced a new character to personify this. The character was called ‘ennui’, with a stereotypical French manner of ‘bof’.
Ennui is essentially a feeling of disinterest and melancholy. It’s a good description of how I’ve been often feeling in the mornings and late in the evenings. (Although I preferred the first film better)
What’s been jarring about this is how much I’ve actually been doing recently that has felt positive. I’ve been feeling healthier. I’ve had some job interviews and progressing with my other projects.
Yet despite this, I often wake up with little energy to start the day. It’s hard to logically explain, because a few hours later, I can feel completely different. I get going with my life. Things feel in flow, and I’m enjoying my existence.
If I spend too much time thinking about it, I can end up getting super frustrated. After all, how can we have so many emotional shifts within the space of a single day?
When I’m back to feeling good, I end up forgetting about the harder moments. This is generally a good thing. After all, there’s little benefit in lingering on unpleasant emotions when they’re in the past.
But I can also be quick to pretend that I’m ‘fixed’ now. I can ignore the general sense of dissatisfaction and fatigue because I’m not feeling it at that time.
This works, until it doesn’t. The tougher moment comes back. I feel low again. But now, I also start feeling guilty. After all, didn’t I just tell people how things are going well in my life?
The more we get frustrated, the more end up spiralling into negativity. We end up asking ourselves rather dramatic questions: What if there’s something wrong with me? What if this is some form of clinical depression? Perhaps I’m broken, and am doomed to feel like this forever more(!)
With a bit of space and perspective, I can see that such thinking isn’t particularly helpful. After all, we can have a very flowing, calm relationship with our emotions. In fact, we all are pretty good with doing so. But we seem to be much better at practicing such a relationship when the emotions are pleasant ones. It’s a lot harder when they feel uncomfortable.
The moment we start feeling bad, we start to analyse ‘why’. Why do I feel bad? What must I do to shift this experience as quickly as possible?
It’s important to give space and time to experience the emotions, whether pleasant or not. I’m feeling life’s shifts. There are changes going on in my life. Some of these are internal to me. My perspectives on life are shifting, and my physical body is evolving. I also exist in symbiosis with the world. The shifting weather is challenging, and let’s not even mention the political climate.
An important part of life is finding ourselves in challenging situations. This truth is no different for me.
So when I feel in a rut, I usually end up returning to the same conclusion. Trying to force myself out of it rarely works. Sugarcoating my emotions with some ice cream is only a temporary fix. In fact, the idea of that doesn’t even appeal to me, because I know that it could end up making me feel worse after the sugar crash (and the guilt of it too)
And so, instead, this is about letting life be. Emotions come and go. But we persist. I’m proud that I can continue with the things I need to do in my life, even if I feel tired or down.
I used to get quite caught up in the idea that I’m meant to ‘figure out’ what’s going on. But I’ve become a lot more relaxed about that. After all, if there’s something big that I’m meant to be seeing, life has a way of showing it anyway.