How do you feel – and what do you do – when your energy is very low? Not just in a tired/overwhelmed/stressed/distracted way but truly low – when you drag yourself out of bed in the morning but may have problems getting to sleep; when you struggle to fulfil your most basic tasks; when your background physical/mental/emotional/psychological/social state doesn’t even have a name and you can’t clearly feel or define yourself or understand where you are in your life in this moment of time.
Maybe you had a stressful year; maybe you are recovering from an illness or just a really rough patch in life and you have close to zero energy for neither important nor for very basic things – and worst of all, you seem to lose hope that things will ever improve, that you will feel alive and energetic again, that your difficulties will resolve and your life will dress itself in vibrant colours of fun and joy or at the very least in calm colours of inner peace, comfort and contentment.
Somehow for many of us the end of the year tends to have this ‘low energy’ connotations – as if the year itself gets old and weary… This year for me was intense. It was not bad; just intense with many different things happening and I didn’t always had time and space to take it all in, and to understand relative significance of the events. Several long lasting conflict situations and problems surfaced which needed attention and action. While trying to deal with all this, towards the end of autumn and beginning of winter I started to feel like everything started to really. slow. down.
My energy plummeted and usual activities started to feel like impossible tasks. Externally, life went on as usual if somewhat less efficiently; internally, everything slowed down to a point where I started unintendedly observing myself. What I realised at this time was that apart from my beloved Colourpuncture (I’m lucky to have this as ‘at my fingertips self-care’ easy to do even in a very low energy state) and a (very!), insightful dreamwork sequence which I did together with my Dreamwork Level 2 group at that time – and my daily or so journaling practice – I was helped by a series of tiny daily ‘automations’ – some little practical lifestyle habits which I created over the years on my healing and self development quest. These were like mini stepping stones in my daily struggle to return to a better sense of feeling and being myself and generally feeling my life.
Grateful – to my former Self who searched for, created, committed and practised these habits till they became a supportive ‘autopilot’ routine, I realised just how often we dismiss what we already mastered and what has been quietly supporting us every single day, no matter our energy state. Being and working in deep therapies and personal development fields, you feel that it’s perfectly normal to move towards something better/deeper/lighter all the time: to achieve a better state of being, develop better clarity and deeper awareness and so on. Rarely do we stop and look back – let alone with a sense of achievement and feeling grateful for our own past choices.
We are getting used to things becoming and being better. We start feeling that this should be happening all the time – an uninterrupted constant upward movement: every area of our life becoming progressively easier and more exiting if we work on it. We are not looking forward to some rest and reflection at any plateau – let alone making allowances for setbacks and problems. However, life brings its little corrections…sometimes we face undesirable developments; sometimes, we face something from the past which we thought we already dealt with; sometimes the situation which was developing outside of our immediate attention and which we kept dismissing as not urgent or not important or somehow being ‘able to take care of itself’ – comes to a culmination point, suddenly becoming urgent and important and without us being prepared for it – very, very stressful.
We all tend to answer our life’s challenges and wake up calls; we react; we act; we are resolving problems and we are making things better. In the aftermath of it all though we may suddenly hit this low energy state, the emptiness and even a feeling of disorientation or temporary lack of direction. It is very often – being situational – transitory. However, if any difficult times happen on a background of us already struggling under a weight of chronic or complex problems, we may descend into a serious energy dip.
I found that a very simple reflection – done either with free flowing stream of consciousness writing or a quick and easy ‘list journalling’ – done under an angle of seeing ourselves as our ‘past Self’, ‘present Self’ and ‘future Self’ helps very quickly put things into perspective and regain a general sense on life making sense again. Choose what works for you – any journaling style, duration or media will bring you better clarity.
One of the quickest ways will be a short list journalling – list 5 (20 if you have time, desire and energy) simple, background habits which are helping you now especially when you are in a low energy state – which you (your past Self) created, decided on, committed to and practiced till they became a second nature. Acknowledge them, refresh them (your present Self) if you have forgotten and be grateful that these habits that you yourself created and worked on are making your life easier – no matter your energy state.
And once you are out of the the very dip in energy, focus (lightly) on what you can do for your future Self feeling better supported, curious and joyful on the life journey, moving creatively whenever your path takes you while your background daily automatons – helpful, reliable, sustainable habits will be diligently and lovingly holding the very foundation of your Being.
Have a wonderful festive season, build yourself up to a higher energy state if you happen to be tired – so you can make your New Year Resolutions if you are so inclined and I’m wishing you a warm and soulful reflection with a gratitude to the work you did in the past which is supportive of yourself at present.
End of year journalling and intentionally balancing order and chaos reflecting on your year will help a lot bringing many insights which can then inform and fine tune your plans and wishes for the coming year.
Any questions – please get in touch using the form below. If you would like to learn and practice various creative and simple journaling techniques for your daily self-care, making sense of your life experience or exploring deeper layers of your inner world, join us for Journaling Challenge ‘Letters to the Soul’ – it will give you a wide variety of tools to journal with ease and joy for years to come.
Related reading:
