As I write this I’m feeling pretty low. This happens in life from time to time, as I’m sure you will recognize as well. I feel like I’m drifting and not in a comfortable way. This is the uncensored version of what it looks like inside my head right now:

Why am I even writing that I’m feeling low? Nobody wants to read that. But it’s the truth. Right now I just want to go to my bed, draw the covers over my head and fall asleep so I don’t have to think for a while. I feel anxious and tired. There must be something seriously wrong with me because here I am, living in the most of idyllic circumstances and still I’m feeling low. I must be screwed for life if I can’t even feel happiness right now! Because by now I should just walk around as this glowing, happy, healthy, vibrant, radiant woman after not having had to work for several months. Instead I’m lying on my couch feeling low.

Lying on a couch feeling low reminds me of a scene from a movie called Bridesmaids. If you don’t know it, it’s about a woman called Annie (Kristen Wiig) who was supposed to be maid of honor at the wedding of her best friend but after many (hilarious) things go wrong, her friend cuts her out of her wedding. So there Annie finds herself, miserable and on her couch watching the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks. Little does she know that she soon will get a visit from Megan (Melissa McCarthy), also a bridesmaid. Megan enters Annie’s house with nine puppy dogs which she took from the bridal shower (don’t ask, just see the movie if you haven’t already, it’s really funny) and talks to her about life. This is what Megan tells Annie (link to YouTube).

It helps me to visualize Megan also wrestling me until I finally snap out of it and can reconnect with the spark inside me. I know that there is a lot of power inside me but sometimes feeling low just simply comes in between.

I am grateful for having learned not to freak out as much whenever I’m feeling low anymore. I can still find myself fighting what I feel momentarily but pretty soon I am able to come back to a different way of handling my feelings. And that is to accept them and let them be what they are. However much I would like to sometimes, I have found that there really is no point in fighting what I truly feel and wishing I would feel something else instead.

Nowadays I can most of the time observe my feelings and see them for what they are: feelings that move through me but that do not define who I am. I realize that I can use observing my feelings to go on a inner quest to find out what lies behind them. There is so much wisdom to be found inside ourselves if we dare to go there, I truly believe that.

As always, there are wise persons who have described this beautifully. One of them is Rumi, the persian poet and sufi mystic. This is his powerful poem called The Guest House:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

As fitting as it kind of would be to end this blog post with these wise words, I can’t help but also want to leave you with tips of some of my favourite go-to movies whenever I feel low. To disappear into the world of a feelgood movie for a while is such a wonderful way for me to take a little break when I feel low and overwhelmed! So in case you’re interested, here are some of my favourite feelgood movies:

Chef, The Hundred-Foot Journey, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Eat Pray Love, The Intouchables, The Holiday, Love Actually, Notting Hill, and Bridesmaids of course.

What are your favourite feelgood movies? Feel free to leave a comment with your best tips!

Photo: Jack B – unsplash.com