When we’re really going through it, it’s so easy to be hard on ourselves. Our inner critic is working in overdrive analyzing every mistake and misstep. It’s comparing, and judging, and bullying. Learning to be gentle with yourself and to stop being your own worst bully is a skill.
As someone who frequently goes through rough spots in my mental health recovery, I’ve thought about a few little mental notes that help me navigate them with a little bit more patience and grace. For a long time, I despised my rough spots, and since I couldn’t separate them from my own identity, I grew to despise that part of myself that frequently and so easily succumbed to them.
This is your stellar reminder that you’re not alone. Rough spots are perfectly normal. You’re not weak, pathetic, or sad. In fact, you’re stronger than you realize for always coming out the other side. Be gentle with yourself.
Here are some tips to help you through this rough spot:
Understand that everyone’s experience is their own
Everything is relative. Your rough spot is your rough spot-and thats totally okay. It doesn’t matter what “rough” looks like for you, you’re sticking with it, even though it doesn’t feel good. Stay away from images, media, conversations that make you feel less than, or not enough, and focus your energy on you.
In my endless experience of going through rough spots, something I’ve learned time and time again is that comparison is really the enemy here. The key is staying away from screens. I can’t really act like I’ve mastered this, because I absolutely have not, but TV, movies, social media, or anywhere else where you could see manufactured and carefully curated versions of life are not your friends.
Get up, go outside, reconnect with nature, and spend your time doing things that make you feel really present. I personally love going for a hot girl walk (check out my piping hot thoughts on this), popping on a motivating podcast, or throwing on some noise cancelling headphones and listen to some amazing, chill-inducing music (check out this playlist my bestie made me for when I’m in a rough spot). Focus on you, focus on the parts of life that you love (we all have them!), and little by little you’ll start feeling more centered.
Accept that you’re going through it (and that it’s hard)
Rough spots are uncomfortable. That’s okay. It’s perfectly normal. Sometimes, the only way out is through. Tell yourself, “I’m going to see the other side of this, and it’s going to be okay.” Sometimes, living in denial that we are at a low distracts us, or makes us feel better for continuing to “do” and “be productive.” It’s okay to rest.
A MAJOR mindset shift that I’ve been working on is that rest is also productive. It’s essential for long term, sustainable health. Hustle culture (*cough* capitalism *cough*) tells us that we always have to be grinding, working, achieving. When used in excess—which is absolutely our societal norm now—it’s just busyness for busyness’s sake. What use actually is that??
An amazing boss I once had taught me that sometimes you have to slow down, in order to speed up. By accepting the moments when our mind & body (the mind is part of the body, but you get what I mean) are telling us that we need to slow down, the better we will be able to move confidently forward, in the right direction, later.
This mindset shift is not easy. It defies everything we’ve ever been taught and shown in the society we live in. Be gentle with yourself while digesting this.
Turn guilt into self love
If you’re being hard on yourself for not meeting your expectations right now, instead choose to celebrate what you are able to do. Make mental notes like: “I got out of bed today, nice.” Take yourself for a 5 minute walk. Appreciate when you are feeding yourself and giving yourself nutrients. Accept that you need rest & recovery right now.
Guilt can truly eat us alive during a rough spot. Our minds are flooded with thoughts like: “why can’t I just function”, “I have no right to be feeling this way”, “so many other people have it so much worse”, “I should be grateful for everything I have but instead I feel so shitty about my life right now”, “they can do it so easily, why am I struggling???”
Yeah we’ve got to stop this. I know, I know, A LOT easier said than done. I can’t lie, I’m still working on this, too (thank you, anxiety). But, it’s absolutely critical that we work on shifting these intrusive, guilty thoughts.
Instead try:
“I’m so thankful for my body telling me that I need rest”
“I’m incredibly strong. I’ve survived every other rough spot, and I’ll get through this one too”
“Rough spots help me reconnect with what is really important to me. Thank you for the needed reminder”
This is incredibly hard. It’s a lifelong skill we need to teach ourselves (therapy can help if its an option for you!) and continuously practice. But, little by little, the self love thoughts will come easier and easier. And one day, those guilty thoughts won’t be as loud or as strong anymore. Practice, practice, practice.
You’re allowed to feel however you feel (& it’s valid)
We tend to put too much pressure on our emotions being “right” or “wrong” for certain situations. It doesn’t matter that someone has it worse than you. How you feel is how you feel. It’s a fact. And you don’t need to spend precious energy trying to convince yourself that your feeling fact is wrong. Accept your emotions, & sit with them to understand them better.
I don’t know if you’ll relate to this (I suspect some of you will), but I was raised to believe that emotions had to be correct or justified for a certain situation. For example, if something happened and I was upset, my dad would say “you don’t have any right to feel upset about this, stop frowning.” Now, my dad loves me very very much and is a wonderful father, but unfortunately, neither of my parents were raised with any emotional intelligence skills. Like many of our parents, they were instead taught to hide or push down their emotions and never discuss them. They passed this mentality down to me.
Obviously, this is not healthy. And it’s no surprise that a generation of children raised by a generation with that perspective towards emotional health (plus so many other unhealthy mentalities) is having mental health issues. How you feel is how you feel, and the first step towards shifting this mindset is changing the belief that emotions have to be “right” or “justified” or “deserved”.
Emotions are just emotions. Think of them like a 6th sense. It’s a data point that helps us contextualize and assess a situation. Stop trying to falsify your data. Just let your emotions tell you what’s up. Of course, the next step here is to put mental processes in place that help you digest that emotional data point so we don’t quantum leap from feeling to immediately reacting—something we all struggle with. But I won’t and can’t really get into that here since (a) I’m also working on this and (b) I’m not a therapist.
Therapy can change your life gals, truly.
Remember, you are not alone
Being gentle with yourself is hard, and rough spots are harder, but you owe yourself the care and nurture you need to slow down, recover, heal, and then get going again. This is a skill—one many of us have to teach ourselves—but it is possible to learn, it just takes practice.
Even though everything looks aesthetic and wonderful and easy breezy covergirl on TV and social media, the past few years have basically been one giant rough spot for all of humanity. You are not alone. This, too, shall pass.
Know that you always have a friend here!! If you want to get in touch, send me a note at [email protected] or send me a DM on Instagram.
Stay stellar,
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