Back To Reality, Back To The Dark

We all have things we look forward to, maybe things we’ve built up in our heads, anticipated, or worked hard for, and when they happen we feel that high, that rush of excitement, of accomplishment, and we’re lifted up. But what a lot of people don’t talk about, or label, is the crash when we get back home and it’s over. It happens for me after I finish a project, I get that super rush of adrenaline, the endorphins kick in, and all is good, and then, it’s over and that all falls away. Things go back to normal, and things can, in comparison, seem dark, quiet, and the fear kicks in that I will never have it again. I see it, and hear it, in others, whether they’ve come back from a convention, a vacation, or have finished something they had been working on for a long time. They feel down. When this used to happen to me I didn’t know what it was for a long while, that let down, the blues, or the grays, and I wasn’t hearing anyone else talk about it, so I thought it was just me. I realized as I started to talk about it, that it’s not just me, it’s you too.

When you think about it, it’s only natural that coming back home, finishing a project, or just returning to our every day lives, that we would feel down after the excitement and exhilaration of what we had been doing. I wrote about this from a different angle in my blog, Are You Addicted To Excitement? There is a high associated with these types of events in our lives, of having something to look forward to, or being able to participate in something, or seeing a project come to life, so it seems only natural once it’s over we would feel a void. Now, if we’re not careful we can fall into the rabbit hole of depression, not labeling it for what it us, the come down from an event or job we enjoyed, it’s easy to let the negative self-talk kick in and tell us that we’ll never had what we just had again, that we are alone, that no one cares, and this darkness will never end. But it will end, we know it will because it has in the past, and, we can put an end to it. How do we do that?

Well, first we acknowledge it is what it is and not make it anything more than that. Don’t give it anymore power than you coming down from a high. Also, don’t let it tell you that you’re the only one that suffers from this, you’re not, and the more you talk about it for what it is, the more you’ll realize that we all go through this once something is over. So, how do we get ourselves out? Acknowledging it helps, and then we need to take some action. We need to get out and continue to participate in life, find ways, in our daily life to get that little shot of excitement we experience on a bigger scale during one of those events. Find things to do that you enjoy that make you smile, that challenge you, that allow you to give back. Find all the ways in your life that you can fill your heart, so when you come back home and are feeling down, you have a list of things you can take action on to get you moving out of the dark and back into the light. Life is not just a bunch of big events strung together with darkness in between, we need to fill those days up with light each day, and not depend solely on those bigger events in our lives to carry us through. And, also, to prepare for the crash after those events because we know it’s coming.

We can’t remove the come down after a big event in our lives, it still will happen, but we can lessen the impact it has on us by preparing for it in advance, knowing it’s coming, and making sure we are ready for it when it goes. I still feel it after something big, but I now know what to do to kick things back into gear and get life rolling again. Life doesn’t stop after the party, or job, or vacation, in fact, it’s after those things that we need to work harder to keep moving forward and keep from sliding back to something we can’t relive.

SLAY OF THE DAY: After a big event in your life do you tend to slip into a depression, or darkness? Have you realized this about yourself in the past? Or, do you just keep finding yourself there without the understanding of why? Think back in the past few years, to the events that stand out for you, did you find you crashed when you got home and back into your normal life? How did you feel? Why do you think you felt that way? Those feelings are normal SLAYER, we all feel them to some degree. It’s natural to feel down when we’ve felt so high. So, when you know you have something coming up, something you’ve been looking forward to, write down 5 things you can do when you get home to make that transition easier, brighter, and more productive, so when the darkness hits, you can look at that list and get into action. Trust me, that action will bring in just the right light to get you shining bright. SLAY on!

S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you