Getting Out of a Funk

Posted On September 1, 2020

For the first five months of the pandemic, I was doing surprisingly well. I had a few concerned friends checking in on me since I live alone but amazingly I was thriving during quarantine. My heart aches for everyone who has faced illness, loss, financial hardship, or other challenges, but on a personal level, my circumstances have been incredibly fortunate. I was proud of myself for finding new hobbies and interests and making the most of the extra solitude rather than dwelling on all the things I haven’t been able to do. In some ways, my happiness during the pandemic had been at an all-time high. 

But life has a way of keeping you humble. These past few weeks, between the heatwave and raging wildfires/smoky air in the Bay area and tragic news of continued racial injustice, finally got me down a bit. I don’t go through funks very often but with every rough stretch, I learn a little bit more about how to get myself back on track. 

Diagnosing the root of the issue:  In this case, I was sleeping very poorly due to the combination of the heatwave and the wildfire smoke. Most people in San Francisco do not have air-conditioning, and my sunny top floor apartment is perfect on the numerous cool crisp days in SF but the occasional heatwave is always tough. And unfortunately, I discovered my fan was broken on the first day of this heatwave. I ordered a new one but I had to wait a week for it to arrive, thanks to delays with the USPS. (The rage this unleashed in me was yet another sign that I was out of sorts). The wildfire smoke and poor air quality meant outdoor exercise and walks were off the table, and I couldn’t open my windows at night, so my apartment was sweltering. I slept hugging an ice pack, rotating every hour as each ice pack melted, and had my worst stretch of Fitbit sleep scores ever. Getting the new fan and setting it up with a bowl of ice water and frozen water bottles was the first step to getting out of my cranky mood. Side note: if you have recommendations on portable AC units, please let me know in the comments. The reviews on Amazon are not very compelling but I suspect heatwaves will become even more common so it’s probably worth the investment.

Gratitude: Thanks to my journal, my mind is wired to immediately think about all the things I should be grateful for. I had just read a great book by the founder of Acumen Fund about the villages in Pakistan and how badly they needed fans. It is heart-breaking to think about how much worse the impacts of climate change are for developing countries, and I feel blessed that I have electricity, and a freezer to store ice packs. I can’t imagine what it is like for rural villages that have no electricity or ways to keep cool during heatwaves upwards of 120 degrees. I was also feeling exceptionally grateful that I didn’t have to evacuate. I can’t imagine what it was like for all the people displaced from their homes amidst the pandemic. 

Self-Compassion: The risk of being so focused on gratitude is that I tend to berate myself for complaining about anything when my circumstances are so much better than millions of people across the world. I’ve found it’s important to balance that with being more gentle with myself. My journal is full of “tough love” pep talks but over the years I’ve tried to take a kinder approach with myself. We all go through hard times and it is understandable to struggle, even when I do have plenty to be grateful for. 

Acceptance: One of the key teachings in meditation talks is about accepting circumstances as they are. There’s a beautiful quote from a poem by Dorothy Hunt: 

“Peace is this moment without judgment”

Learning to accept that life has ups and downs and we can’t have hunky-dory conditions 100% of the time is part of the path back to happiness. I often find myself furiously googling how to solve a problem but sometimes I have to just accept there are rough patches in life, and remember this will pass. Having a lot of resistance to the circumstances and wishing for things to be different just makes it more difficult. 

Noticing mental proliferation: there’s a term called ‘papancha’ that comes up in meditation talks and is one of my mental patterns, basically the mind snowballing into the possible future dire scenarios. In this case, thinking about how these wildfires are the tip of the iceberg for what climate change has in store, coupled with anxiety about the election and all the civil unrest, etc. This is not productive and makes me feel worse. Meditation has been an important tool to become more aware of how often I am doing this. I increased my daily meditation practice to 45 minutes a day, which I think helped. 

Finding sources of nourishment: with every funk I’ve had over the years, I’ve added to my toolkit of tactics that generally help me to feel better. In this case, I knew that lack of exercise was just making my mood worse but I was having trouble finding the activation energy to get started and was using the smoky air as the excuse. I finally managed to embrace ‘indoor exercise’ and did a resistance band workout and yoga and immediately felt better. The trick was to just start; even just getting my heart rate up for twenty minutes was rejuvenating and helped jumpstart my mood. I realized I was also missing social connection since I had several weekends in a row of outdoor socially-distanced hangouts canceled due to the smoke. So I put aside my dislike of the phone and had a bunch of phone/video catch-up sessions with dear friends, and got to see some of my quaranteam for brunch.  That did wonders for my energy level. And of course, my most tried-and-true: writing in my journal and listening to talks from dharmaseed.org are always super helpful for me. Spending time in nature is also so good for the soul but that will have to wait until the air quality is back to normal.

Thankfully, I am back on track now. Reflecting back, it is amazing to see the power of attitude. I was feeling grumpy about little things before, and much of those circumstances are unchanged but now I am doing a better job of taking things in stride. We all go through ups and downs and 2020 has certainly been quite a year. It has been good fuel for practicing equanimity!  

How have you been holding up during this crazy year? What are your strategies when you are going through a hard time?