I've had a difficult week. The kids have been great, but I feel like I've been in a funk.
Funks are difficult because it's not like you can retreat and gather yourself or just instantly change your attitude. I have found that when I'm in a funk, I tend to make decisions for myself instead of making choices for my kids. I'll try to read or do a crossword while they're playing instead of sitting down and engaging with them. I'll be quickly frustrated because I'm inconvenienced by being asked for help. I'll make a simple dinner because I'm lazy. I'll watch tv while the kids are napping instead of cleaning, reading, blogging, studying, praying . . . you name it.
Funks also cut to my heart. I hear things with a defensive ear. All the insecurities that I thought had progressed to have minimal impact on my daily life have all of a sudden come back in full force. I hate all of my clothes. I don't want to run into anyone I know just to tell them that I've been up to "the mom thing." I worry about my kids' futures constantly.
Avery asked me the other day why I was so big. Through my sensitive ears, my initial thought was to tell her it was because I'd just eaten about 80 Costco animal crackers. Really she was just asking how I grew so tall, but I was on the defensive! Ha!
So, how do you snap out of it? It took my ridiculous reaction to Avery's question to realize I was in a bad place. Initially, I chose to feel sorry for myself. Luckily I had Bible study that evening (we're studying insecurity - ironic, eh). It was interesting because I was completely under attack. Many of the ladies were talking about what they'd overcome. Everything they talked about seemed to trigger my anxieties. Afterward, I made mention of something to a dear woman and she showered me with encouraging words. She also implied that I was being quite absurd. That actually brought me to a place of realization.
In my funks, I put up a wall to everyone and everything - especially God. I don't want to pour into anyone or anything. What better way for me to become an ineffective mother, wife and friend? So, I'm now out of my funk, but it took a good friend, with her voice dripping with disdain to say, "Seriously?" Additionally, it took a lengthy conversation with Jesus - for most of which, I was silent.
Now I just need to figure out how I got into that funk in the first place.
Do you know what triggers your funks? How do you get out of them?
I appreciate your honesty so much, Sherri! Still trying to figure out what triggers mine; but I'm getting a little better at getting out of them. Sometimes. :)
ReplyDeleteOh man.. what gets me into funks? I'm like you in that I can see that I'm in a funk in a thousand different ways, and often I'll let it go far too long; usually it's that one completely innocent comment that makes me want to cry that pushes me over the edge into realizing that something needs to change. I think, at the very bottom of it all, is the fact that I've started relying or focusing on myself too much. It's so horribly natural for me to look at all the things I have to do and just go about doing them, relying on my own abilities and not at all on God. So then, when things start to falter (as they inevitably do :P) it again becomes all about me.. I'm the horrible friend, the bad daughter, the incompetent coworker. Because I haven't been turning to God in my busyness, I feel like I can't turn to him in my failure...and in my loneliness that is where the funk forms.
ReplyDeleteWay to put yourself out there and communicate all of this, my friend :) You're brave. And generally quite awesome :) Love you!
Thank you for your candidness as well :-) I'm with you, though. I can skate by for a short time on my own, but then I just hit the wall.
ReplyDelete