A new rising

I felt a bit down in the dumps the other night.  But instead of watching a movie, playing my favourite song, nagging my older sister or phoning a friend (it was quite late), I tried something that I had never done before.  It worked and now I'd like to share it with you.

Let me explain the situation.  I wasn't bored or anything.  In fact, quite the opposite.  Even though in the holidays, I wanted to do a million things and had a whole list beside my desk. 

These were things that I had been planning for a while, but now, when I could finally get a start on them, exhaustion set in almost immediately.  Over a few weeks I had thought: "I need a break, I'll try to do something else first".  But nothing worked because I just avoided the main issue of why I wasn't able to start it.

So... I stopped myself feeling the 'downness', looked from a neutral perspective and in a way stepped outside myself.  I got a piece of paper and wrote down all the questions I could ask myself.  Somewhat like a well-meaning friend.

• So, what was wrong?
• How long have you been feeling this way?
• When does this feeling stop and start?
• What exactly makes things better?

And suddenly it did make me feel better, even if I couldn't answer all of my own questions.  It seemed peculiar, but amongst all the thinking I figured it out.  A part of me inside kept nagging me that I wasn't allowing myself to take a 'real' holiday.  That I was just working and working. 

But I realized that the ingredients of a holiday for me were: that I do something I liked that would be useful for the people that I loved.  That was it.  It worked.