Find new ways to feel productive.
A year ago for me this meant making my bed first thing in the morning. Today it means getting out of bed before 7:30 and going to a cafe to work before noon. Cleaning my room, purging my closet, taking Jojo on walks, cooking and spending a little time on my hobbies every week (like blogging!) also help me feel productive. I still have my bad days where I don't get out of bed until 10 and sit on my couch pretending to work while actually dicking around on the internet until I notice it's almost 5pm and my Fitbit says I've only taken 1,000 steps and where did my fucking day go, but those days also have the unintended effect of signaling when I'm slipping. So they serve a purpose in my life - and that purpose is to push me to get the fuck up and out of my apartment.
I've mentioned this before, but I've also started volunteering weekly for a literacy nonprofit called 826LA. Tutoring terrifies me - mostly because teenagers terrify me, I've never tutored before, and because I worry that I'm accidentally going to say some variation of the word "fuck" to a 12-year old, but I'm now 2 weeks in and have found the experience extremely rewarding. Yesterday I participated in an in-school volunteering session where I gave feedback to 10th graders on their personal narrative first drafts, and it was awesome hearing these kids' stories and remembering what it was like to be 15 and discovering your writing voice.
Not having a conventional full-time job sometimes makes it difficult for me to feel like I'm accomplishing something tangible everyday, but having these tutoring sessions to look forward to and working with these kids has helped me feel like I'm contributing something to the world, however small.
Get to the gym.
In addition to going to yoga regularly, I've also started lifting weights on a regular basis, which has been a pretty cool addition to my exercise routine. Aside from the obvious benefit that exercise releases dopamine aka happy thoughts, working out gives me a satisfying sense of accomplishment when I outdo myself - whether by holding a challenging yoga arm balance better than I did before or doing more assisted chin-ups. Something about competing against myself (and ok let's just be real, competing against others too - told you I'm an asshole) helps me get out of my own head and focus on my achievements instead of feeling sad about the things that are absent from my life.
Don't underestimate the power of human interaction (and attention).
I've always prided myself on my independence and ability to enjoy time alone, but if I go more than 2 or 3 days without having a real life face-to-face conversation with another person, I'm almost guaranteed to go into full depression mode. One thing that I've learned since working remotely is that it's surprisingly easy to feel totally invisible when you're not required to go into an office everyday. And when you feel invisible, you feel like nothing fucking matters because no one's paying attention to you and who cares if you waste hours playing Minesweeper and don't shower for 3 days because no one will know anyway. It's not the best kind of existence to live.
Last year one of my New Year's resolutions was to be better at following through, and as a result I've since learned how to nurture new and old friendships more effectively than before. These friendships have been essential at maintaining my happiness levels and sanity post breakup and post leaving my cushy job that conveniently brought me to San Francisco on a monthly basis, and it would be remiss to not credit my amazing, wonderful friends for bringing me out of the throes of depression, whether they know that they're even doing so or not.
On a smaller level, it's also great working out of cafes if only for the brief conversations I have with a cashier or the chance encounters with other patrons. These small interactions are impactful at reminding me that yes, I'm still here. Yes, people still see me. And no, I'm not a troll living under a bridge, despite how I may feel on my more haggard days.
Go outside and walk it off.
One of the advantages of having a dog is that it forces me to get outside at least a few times a day. Walking Jojo is almost meditative - there's just something therapeutic about breathing in the crisp, morning air, feeling the sun on my skin, and walking without any predetermined destination in mind. It also disconnects me from my phone and my life, however briefly.
Talk about it.
Despite the many inspirational think pieces out there refuting the idea that emotions are signs of weakness, for some reason people are still hardwired to believe that confidence and happiness are the only acceptable emotions to express. And with social media curating only the best parts of our lives, it can be easy to feel like you're the only person in your network who doesn't have their shit together.
But you are allowed to feel the way you feel. Too often we allow ourselves to bottle everything up, expecting these feelings to one day dissipate and resolve themselves, which of course never happens. Instead they take root, until you eventually internalize all of this negative energy and assume it as your identity. i.e. I feel shitty because I'm a shitty person doing shit with my life.
I've found that the more honest I am with myself and with others about how I'm feeling, the better equipped we all are at supporting each other in our times of need. I no longer say I'm ok when friends ask how I've been and I haven't been ok. I keep it real now. And I've been pleased to discover that more often than not, people will return blunt honesty with honesty. I can't tell you how many times I've told someone that I've been feeling shitty and sad and have had them respond something to the effect of, "omg me too I don't know what I'm doing with my life we should hang out more," and I'm like cool ok and boom, nurture the shit out of that friendship.
