There are times in our lives that come loaded with expectations of excitement and happiness. The New Year is a perfect example; carrying with it the expectation that we should suddenly be awash with euphoric energy and feel ourselves brimming with new possibilities. Reboot they say. Change. Transform. Be a new you. Be happy. Be focussed. Be better. Be excited, damnit! But what if you’re not feeling it?
When you’re just not that into it
What if you don’t feel invigorated and fresh and perky and all set for shiny new beginnings and exciting new adventures? What if you don’t feel like developing a vision board for a new year or defining your goals and setting your intentions for a new start?
I normally love all that stuff. But one New Year I didn’t feel excited or full of possibilities. I didn’t feel like I’d walked through some unseen gateway that magically washed away the year before … I felt beaten and bruised from a year that still hadn’t felt like it had ended at all. I was tired and worn out and I started worrying that something was wrong with me.
So is there something wrong with you?
We tend to rush to the extremes, the worst of situations. We’ll be thinking, Omg I must be clinically depressed. Or maybe it’s anhedonia – you know, that thing where you have the inability to feel any pleasure at all. Oh wait! It’s burnout!
Sometimes there’s so much information at our fingertips that we tend to spend all our time looking to the outside for a cause, or a fix, or an answer, when often, in my experience, it’s better to look within.
Of course, it absolutely goes without saying that if you’re concerned it might be stress, burnout, depression, anhedonia, or any of those things, it’s definitely time to reach out to a mental health professional, or, at the very least, your doctor.
I live with bipolar disorder, and I have for a very long time, so I know what depression feels like, and this time, that wasn’t it. So I did a little more inner self-exploration. Over the years, I’ve built enough self-awareness and mindfulness around my mental health condition that I could honestly say to myself, “Hey, I know I’m not depressed but I’m also not feeling excited about something that normally skyrockets me to a happy place, so what exactly is this?”
Our emotions can be our guides
It also helped me to know that my lack of excitement during this time was isolated to one event. It was just New Year’s that wasn’t eliciting the usual joy, and I definitely didn’t feel like celebrating or making lists or trying new things or charting new courses or whatever it is that we think we’re expected to do around a new year. So why force it? Maybe something was saying that I shouldn’t try to do all those things right now.
And so I asked myself, “What do I feel like doing instead?”
That simple little question took me on a little internal meander that made me realise I was in recovery. I was still processing a lot of trauma. Or perhaps more accurately, I was in those final stages of coalescing the latest chapters of my life story. I had done the work, the therapy, the healing, the self-care, but I still needed time to sit with the “old stuff” before I was ready to move on to (or even think about) shiny new things.
My inner world, my body, my emotions, my mind, they were all telling me that “new beginning” rituals were deeply inauthentic to me during that phase of my life, even if the rest of the world was celebrating a New Year.
And so I created rituals to honour all the old stuff without thinking about the new. And that felt deeply authentic.
Because our emotions can be our guides … if we let them. We know what songs we want to dance to. And when we want to dance to them. We know when we need to be still. And when we need silence. And that silence? That stillness? That’s a journey too.
Just one of a different kind.
Author’s note: it has been several years since I wrote this piece; when I was so worried that even though I wasn’t depressed, I wasn’t exactly excited about one of my favourite things … and I love that I chose to honour myself during that time. That I honoured my deepest, truest needs even when they were misaligned with my own expectations. Ditching my usual rituals and embracing ones that spoke to my current state of being was healing. It gave me the space to move on. And yes, once again, I’m totally in love with shiny new things and the promise of all the new beginnings that come with sparkly lights in the night sky.
Healing resources …
If you feel yourself withdrawing from things you normally love doing, pay attention. Your inner world is telling you something. Maybe you need a little quiet time, and maybe it’s something more. Signs of depression, apart from loss of interest or excitement, could include feelings of hopelessness, loneliness, isolation, worthlessness, and inappropriate guilt, fatigue, anxiety, irritability, and sleep problems. But it’s not “one size fits all”, it’s not a series of boxes to tick, and it’s not the same across all genders, races, or ethnicities.
In their article “9 Depression Symptoms to Look Out For”, Healthline offers a really helpful and inclusive starting point to help us understand if we might be in a depressive episode. Depression is not the same as being sad, so please honour whatever it is that you’re feeling and seek professional help. It can make a world of difference … and trust me, you are totally worth it!
Read more in “9 Depression Symptoms to Look Out For”
