Beat the Winter "Blahs"
(Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash)
Last weekend our neighborhood was blanketed in snow… then ice. Normally I’d be excited to wrap up in cozy clothes, cook hearty soup, and sip hot chocolate. But this time I wasn’t feeling it. In fact, I wasn’t interested in much of anything. I spent most of the weekend wandering around my house trying to figure out what to do with myself and trying to avoid playing LEGO with my son.
The best way to describe how I felt last weekend is: Blah. “Blah” includes all the fun things like: Dull. Uninterested. Unmotivated. Bored. Low Energy. It’s not heavy enough to be depression, but it still sucks. I’d rather feel passionate, excited, and motivated. But instead I felt blah.
Can you relate? These last few weeks of winter are really rough. We’ve been cooped up for weeks now. Changes in weather means changes of routine. There’s less time outside, fewer distanced walks with friends, and more kids off from school. Plus, we’ve been at this social distancing thing for almost a year. So yeah, feeling blah makes sense.
IT’S A DRAG
But staying caught in blah can be a drag. Literally.
Staying in blah lets human inertia take hold. Human inertia is that tendency to do nothing, to stay unchanged. The more it builds up, the harder it is to get back in balance. The longer you’ve been there, the less effort you feel inclined to make. Then it gets harder and harder to get yourself going again (I see you, Netflix on the couch).
You’ll know you’re caught in human inertia if one of these things is happening:
You want to do something about feeling blah, but because you’ve been there for a while you don’t know where to start. So you don’t start and you keep feeling blah.
You know where to start, you just don’t have the energy do what you want to do. So again, you do nothing.
Being bogged down by human inertia is more than consciously choosing to rest. Our culture is so DO-ing obsessed that I often recommend that clients take Netflix breaks and lounge in PJs. Human inertia is the feeling of less vitality, and less energy to do those things that bring you vitality. If human inertia sets in, an entire month could pass and you’ll miss it because you’ve been foggy, low energy, and uninterested in your life.
TWO WAYS TO BEAT BLAH
As you feel human inertia creeping in, it’s time to get intentional and direct.
The first thing you lose when you’re caught in human inertia is your intentionality. The inertia causes you to drift from activity to activity with no sense of purpose. But when you bring intention back to what you’re doing, you bring back clarity and purpose.
Getting intentional means making a plan for what you’re going to do to help yourself. Remember all the practices and self-care tips that have helped you in the past? It’s time to pull them back out, and make a plan to use one.
I did this recently when school changes kept wrecking my yoga practice. When I was in human inertia I often said to myself: “I want to practice yoga tomorrow”. Tomorrow came, and it didn’t happen. If I wanted things to change, I had to get intentional. When I said: “I’m gonna practice yoga at 6:30 tomorrow morning” there was a shift.
The first thought was coming from inertia - I knew I wanted to practice, but there wasn’t a plan. The second one is clearly intentional -I AM gonna practice and I know when.
BE DIRECT
Once you have an intention, it takes being direct to actually make it happen. Being direct means taking on your intention in the shortest way. Doing it in the way that has the lease complication or intervention. Directness cuts through the fogginess of human inertia. Instead of hoping that the intention will happen, you take steps to make it happen.
In the yoga example, my intention was to practice at 6:30 the next morning. But I’d gotten used to lingering in bed until 6:30… 6:45….7:30…8:00am. If I lingered, yoga wouldn’t happen. Being direct meant setting the alarm for 6:15 so I’d have time to wake-up and make it to my mat for 6:30 practice.
By being intentional and direct, I managed to get my yoga practice back on track this winter. It pays off because I feel more grounded, centered, and vibrant in my body. All of which help me when I’m parenting, teaching, coaching, and just cooking dinner.
YOUR TURN
Trying to get free from human inertia? Set an Intention and Be Direct.
Start with an Intention
Choose something that energizes you
Pick just one for this experiment
Make it clear
Make it measurable
Make it time bound
Be Direct
Figure out what has to happen for you to be able to do what you intend to do
Set up those things
Follow through with as little deviation as possible
As I’m writing this we are preparing for another ice storm which will cancel school. I’m already being intentional - “I will practice yoga starting at 7am tomorrow morning”. And being Direct - I just turned on my alarm. Now I’m ready to start my day in a way that will support me.
IT’S SELF-LOVE
Sometimes we think we don’t have the willpower to do the things that we know will help us. But you’d be surprised at how effective intention and direction can be. Once you have them, it’s easier to beat human inertia. You won’t need to fight your way through if your intention is strong and you are being direct. In fact, consider your intention and directness as acts of self-love that free you from human inertia.
The winter blahs are real, but they don’t have to keep you frozen. Don’t let another month pass with you feeling wishy-washy and unclear. Love your way through these last few weeks by being intentional and direct. Then see how much better you feel when spring arrives.