How Do You Get Out Of A Funk?

Anyone who says that they’ve never been in a funk / slump / black hole of emotion or whatever you want to call it is quite frankly a liar. We would put those very people in the same category as one of the overly obsessive or militant pageant moms from Toddlers & Tiaras or people who don’t agree that Timothée Chalamet is most definitely the next Leonardo DiCaprio. Okay, maybe we’ve gone a step too far with that one. We can hash out the Timmy-Leo debate another day. But, the fact of the matter is that everyone, and we mean everyone, experiences the ups and downs of this little thing called life. That’s precisely why it’s called “life”.

Just the other day, I was complaining to my partner about how disgusting I felt. It seems melodramatic, but true. And, don’t get me wrong. I bathed, I ate decently well (although I did indulge with several pieces of Halloween candy, but that’s nothing to mope around about), and from the viewer’s lens, it would appear that my day went, well, pretty decently. Nonetheless, I could not shake this overwhelming, gloom-and-doom feeling of simply not feeling myself. That’s the thing about a funk though, isn’t it? The gnarly awareness comes in waves, often abrupt, never looks the same as it did the last time it visited, and no matter how hard you try, it’s there. Prevalent and real, taking its toll on the mind, body, and spirit in whichever way it’s inconveniently predisposed to do so. But, enough about funks. Although we can’t speak to what yours looks like and how it’s affected you, we know you know them, too. They are, for lack of a better term, pretty funky.

Because we’re solution-oriented and consider ourselves optimists most days of the week, we want to skip ahead to the part of resolve. The part of the story where you tell us how you remedy these sometimes nasty fits and spells because as sure as we know a funk, we recognize that it’s part of a cycle. Soon enough, the light returns and we find things to smile about again. For me, I realized that I’m pretty much the complete opposite of disgusting. I’m compassionate and a great listener, and most days, I can put together a smoky-eye makeup look like nobody’s business. I reemerged from that pesky little shadow, a bit more aware of my sense of self and with a keener pulse on my emotions. I’m better for it. I know I’m not alone in this struggle either, so I’m opening the floor out of genuine curiosity and with the intention of this thread helping someone who may be experiencing the very type of situation we speak of as you read this. So, tell us how do you do it? How do you overcome a funk? Spare no detail. We’re all ears.