Advice Column: Making space to heal in a demanding world
The first edition of Ask Your Self-Help Bestie
Need some advice? A while back, I added a link to an anonymous Google form where people could ask questions for advice, and this edition of the newsletter is in response to one of the questions submitted. I hope this helps!
If you’re reading this and could use some advice yourself, please feel free to fill out this form and I’ll answer your question in a future edition of Your Self-Help Bestie.
Note: This newsletter isn’t professional or medical advice. I’m a therapist-in-training, sharing insights based on what I’m learning and my own lived experience. Please use your judgment and take what resonates. And if you or someone you know is in crisis, contact a licensed professional or seek immediate help.
Hi friend,
This is a great question — and one many of us are trying to answer for ourselves. How do we recover from a long stretch of feeling low, lost, and disconnected, while still living in a world that demands we show up in an exceptional way?
First, let’s talk about what you describe as the “multi-year long funk/depression.” I’m sorry you’ve been carrying this heaviness for so long.
Without knowing the full details of what this time has looked like for you or how your day-to-day life may be impacted, we have to rebuild your foundation: gently, intentionally, and with care. Everything begins with you and your most important job right now is to take care of yourself. So let me ask: how are you doing so?
If you haven’t been, the makes sense. When you’re deep in a depressive funk, even the basics can feel unreachable. It’s a cruel cycle: depression convinces you you’re unworthy of care and then steals the very energy you need to do the things that would help.
This is where professional support can make a difference. If you haven’t already, consider working with a therapist in an individual or group setting. Many therapy practices offer reduced-rate sessions with therapist interns and organizations like NAMI run free support groups.
But even if therapy isn’t an option right now, you can still begin tending to your healing with these starting points:
Are you eating enough and regularly?
Are you moving your body, even a little?
Are you spending time with people who feel safe and good?
Are you reading or listening to things that help you understand yourself better? (If not, check out High Functioning by Dr. Judith Joseph or the Mental Health Coalition’s resource library.)
These sound basic, but they’re the bricks in the foundation of your recovery. And when you’re in survival mode, even the smallest brick matters.
If you’re skipping the basics because of lack of time or energy, let’s slowly but surely introduce them in your routine because these are going to be an essential part of your mental health toolkit. We don’t need to overhaul your routine overnight, but we do need to make sure we are supporting your mental health with nurturing actions.
You are worthy of care and compassion, and you deserve to unapologetically pursue your own well-being, despite the demands and rhythm of the world.
As you begin showing up for yourself in small, consistent ways, I want you to also begin gently questioning the expectations you’ve internalized about being a person who can do and be it all because it’s likely that these standards are contributing to the funk. Where do they come from? Are they yours? And if not, why are you clinging on to them so tightly? Who benefits from you believing you’re not enough as you are?
When we listen to the world’s expectations for who we should be and how we should live our lives, we set ourselves up for failure. The goalposts are always moving, and no matter how much we do, the game is so rigged and focused on this “insane productivity” that unless we’re an actual robot, we will always fall short and never be good enough in society’s eyes.
Yes, you are capable of a lot. You’ve likely achieved more than you give yourself credit for, even in the midst of this multi-year funk — and you are undoubtedly more well-rounded, present, interesting and productive than you realize. Even still you are not a superhero. You are a real person with limitations and once you move towards accepting them, we can get into the meat and potatoes of who it is you actually want to be and what it is you actually want to do. You may not be invincible, but you’re deserving and capable of a life that fits you.
This is where building your own self-knowledge, trust, and acceptance is going to be essential.
Knowing that you are a person with human limitations who can’t do it all, what is it that is actually most important to you? How do YOU want to show up in this world? (And if you’re having difficulty answering these questions, this newsletter has some reflection questions that you might find helpful).
Answering these questions doesn’t automatically mean that you’re going to feel good every day, but feeling good every day isn’t the goal. Nor is endlessly chasing elusive perfection.
It’s about choosing to live a life that feels like yours, even when things feel heavy.
You don’t need to be exceptional. You don’t need to do or be more. You don’t have to prove anything or wait for anyone’s seal of approval.
No one is going to come to sanction you as interesting, successful, or productive enough. And with society’s ever-evolving list of standards, there is no moment where anyone feels like they’ve arrived.
So rest, repair, and know that you are enough, exactly as you are. What matters most is that you keep showing up and doing your best, whatever that looks like today.
There’s this allegory about an elephant who was tied up as a baby. He tried to break free but couldn’t. So as he grew stronger, he didn’t even try to escape because he believed he was still stuck forever. No one told him he had the strength now to break the chain.
But I’m telling you: you’re strong enough to break free from other people’s expectations and you’re allowed to move forward in your own time, in your own way.
You don’t have to stay in this space anymore.
Love,
Your self-help bestie