Leap Day
I’ve been feeling pretty fed up with myself lately. Can’t wake up in the morning. Don’t want to get out of bed, I’m so tired. Everything hurts. Headaches nearly every day. No energy. No motivation. Can’t be arsed to go for a walk. Can’t be arsed to make anything healthy to eat. Can’t be arsed to even take my multivitamins, even when I’ve got them out ready. Feels a bit like I remember depression feeling, all those years ago. Except, I’m not sad, I very much want to live my life and I have loads to look forward to. I just can’t bring myself to do the things I need to do in order to feel better.
Life has been very stressful over the last few months. My parenting duties are waaaay over and above what I expected them to be at this stage; my girls need a lot of extra support from me and while I’m more than happy to provide it, it leaves very little time when I can prioritise my well-being or even just actually leave my house. I haven’t been able to get out for walks, and hadn’t really realised until recently how much I need to spend time in the fresh air, get away in the open by myself, hear birdsong and the breeze in the trees. I’ve been sitting a lot, staying up too late, watching too many murder programmes and overeating whatever is quick and easy to lay my hands on. This is usually what happens when I stop caring about myself.
Guess what happens when you regularly don’t do the little things you need to do to take care of yourself? You start to feel shit. Your body starts to feel crap and your mind starts to work against you, affecting mood, motivation, self-worth, and your belief in yourself to accomplish anything worthwhile.
Super-friend Katie let me whinge and whine about all this to her today. “You’ve got to look after yourself too”, she reminded me. Then my lovely man Christopher listened to me moaning and gave me a cuddle and a pep talk. He showed me a story online about a 25 year old woman who, shortly before succumbing to a rare and aggressive cancer, wrote her advice for living, which was shared by her family after her death.
https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/leeds-woman-announces-death-heart-28723999
A couple of hours later, in my 1-2 hour window of freedom, I made myself go for a 10 minute walk, then decided to buy vegetables. I made a nice salad and really enjoyed eating it.
What are my takeaways from today?
1. I feel really rubbish when I don’t give my body what it needs: quality food, good sleep, regular exercise, plenty of water.
2. When my body feels bad, my mind soon follows, with negative thoughts and self-sabotaging behaviour.
3. When I feel like I can’t do anything, I actually can. I can take one tiny step in the right direction. Sometimes this looks like self-compassion (give yourself a break, you’re doing the best you can in this moment) and sometimes it looks like a kick up the arse (just start!)
4. One small action, even if it’s a drop in the ocean, is going to make me feel better than doing nothing.
5. Life is precious. You never know how long you will have on this earth, so don’t waste the time you have feeling crap and useless. Everyone deserves a life they can enjoy, but it won’t just land in your lap. Go get it.
I’m writing this today because I want to be accountable to myself. It’s leap day today, and by the time the next leap day comes around in 2028, I want to be in a better place (health and wellbeing-wise) than I am today. That seems doable, doesn’t it?
