Are You Depressed? There are Days You’re Not Going to Love Yourself

Iyinoluwa Oludiya

Are you unhappy?

There are dark days, days when you can’t help but relieve the past, mull over past failures and feel haunted by regrets. You’ll feel empty; like you have nothing positive to give out. There are days you’re going to pass through trying times that will make you sit and wonder what in the cool heavens is wrong.

Are you unmotivated?

There are days when the sun won’t shine as bright as it usually does and when all the colours around you are suddenly look dull. There are days when it’s going to be hard to see beauty in anything at all – much less yourself. There are days you’ll feel totally worthless and won’t even want to get out of bed. There are days the successes of others will come taunting you and all you’re going to want to do is hide your face. There are days when it’s going to be very hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Life Occasionally Sends Lemons Our Way

If it’s any comfort – all of us have had days like the ones mentioned above but some of us have learnt how to get up and keep moving when those bad days come. One thing is for sure – bad days will definitely come but it’s left to you to decide what to do about them. There are only two options for you to take – wallow in your sadness and make no effort to change a thing or pick yourself up and keep moving.

If you do choose to get over those bad days and keep pushing forward then here are a few tips that will be helpful

1. Just Breathe: This might seem like an obvious thing to do but it’s something most of us don’t do. Find a quiet place to sit, close your eyes and take in deep breaths, moving your focus from the things that are bothering you to the moment you’re in.

2. Talk to Yourself: By this I don’t mean start talking crazy, I mean ask yourself why you’re feeling the way you feel, and get to understand what’s bringing all this negative emotions your way. However, don’t put pressure on yourself to do so because it’s alright to not have all the answers.

3.Cry if You Have to: Most times when we don’t feel so good, we tend to try to ignore the pain or sadness that’s eating at us or try to be ‘tough’. I’ve found that crying helps more often than not to get out a lot of the emotions that are making me feel bad. Crying is not a sin nor is it a crime so just cry if you have to. Cry till you feel better; don’t just try to bury the pain.

4. Don’t be Hard on Yourself: At points like this, it’s easy to begin to say a lot of mean things to yourself and to let negative thoughts cloud your mind till you feel way smaller than you did when everything started.

There are times when you have to be hard on yourself no doubt but at times like this talk to yourself like you would a close friend who is passing through a really hard time. Don’t beat yourself up in any way but encourage yourself.

5. Do Something to Help You Let it All Out: Get up and do stuff. Stuff that’ll help you release the pent up emotions in you. Go out and take a walk, the feel of the sun in your face and the wind in your hair has its way of making you feel relaxed. Help someone out with something, helping people has its way of making you feel good about yourself and kind of gives you a sense of purpose.

Be creative, draw, paint, write – for me, writing helps me a whole lot, I can write about the way I feel, kind of like journaling my emotions or I can write something uplifting or I can make up a story, it doesn’t really matter which I do, I just go with the flow and I find that I begin to feel much better.

6. Be Grateful: Counting your blessings has its own ways of helping you see the brighter side of things and gives you hope that things aren’t as bad as they seem. It might be hard at first to think of something to be grateful about but once you get into it you’ll see that there are things that are actually working out well for you.

7.Talk to Someone About it: We were made to be social beings. At your lowest points it helps to talk to someone a lot of the time. Find someone you trust and who has your best interest at heart, someone who won’t judge you or inflict more pain on you and just talk to that person. It’s one very effective way of letting it all out and can even help you see things from a different perspective.

8. Pick Out the Lessons to be Learned: I believe that everything happens for a reason and I believe that there’s always a lesson to be learned from every circumstance we find ourselves in. Look for those lessons. Look for things you can improve on, ways you can change, habits you need to drop, just look hard enough and you’ll find that when you come out of these bad days you’ll come out with something that’ll help you in the long run.

9. Pray About it: I left the best for the last as this step is a personal favourite of mine. When things seem not to be going the way they should go and everything seems to be against me, I pray. Just open your mouth and begin to speak to God like you would to your best friend not trying to focus too much on saying the right things.

Prayer helps not just to talk about the problems and emotions but also to drop all of those burdens and cares upon the Heavenly Father and feel His warm embrace. At times like this it might seem really hard to pray and even when you get to it might seem like no one is listening to you but I assure you that if you call out to God out of a sincere heart He hears you – it might not seem like that at such times but He does.

Days when you feel no love for yourself will definitely come but I assure you that you’ll get through them and you will come out stronger if you handle them the right way. Don’t wallow in self-pity (it never helps anyone) but get up and do something about it. Life isn’t a bed of roses nor is it a terror. Loving yourself isn’t something you should contemplate on even on your worst days.