Sunday Service : It’s OK to not be OK

Reading Time : 6 minutes

Day 3/30

Disclaimer : I am not a mental health professional. I am just sharing my thoughts and experiences, and sometimes what works best for me in the hope that it might help you too! As always, use your discretion and read my post with a grain of salt.

Is there even a difference between weekdays and weekends anymore? 🤷🏻‍♀️ I don’t know about you but I have been having a hard time telling what day it is. I have had to open the calendar on my phone and check where we are in the week. There’s no looking forward to Friday, because every day is Friday; there are no Monday blues, because every day is Monday. 🥵 Granted, I have only been feeling this since I stopped working. I can feel a stark difference between having a 9ish-5ish job vs. right now : no internship, no school, I have finished everything up on Netflix, I am extremely tired of mindless scrolling through Instagram and I am slowly reaching my maximum limit of being on video calls with friends and family. Now what?

“Weeks, months, years - these are all societal constructs. All we have is 24 hours!” - I can’t remember where I heard or read this a couple of days ago, but it has been stuck in my head ever since I did. The idea behind what I am 90% certain was a Youtube video (there is always some room for error) was that having long term goals is great, but having daily goals is better. I was obviously trying to watch something about being productive, tips and tricks and hacks. But that also made me realize that it is so true for times like today. There are no weeks and months and years in this ‘new normal’ life. We have the hours between when we wake up and go to sleep - and how we make the most of them. I would love to write about how I pulled myself together and started “killing it” during the Self-Isolation period but today is not the day for that. Today is the day that I talk about how it is OK to not be OK.

To take a break if you need to.

To understand that the world is going through a “maybe once-in-a-100-years” phenomenon and it is OK if you are overwhelmed.

That if you need to stop, and take a breather, you should do it.

In this age of the internet and productivity gurus all over on Instagram, it is very easy to bog yourself down and feel bad about not baking that Focaccia or not making that painting. I understand that it is all about the perspective - trust me I am all about the perspective; seeing things as positively as I can and pick up the best parts of it all. I am the person who gets motivated to buy yeast and make that focaccia and then put it up on my Instagram Story. But what I have also learned in the last 60ish days of being at home, is that sometimes the best thing to do to reset is to log out of social media, turn off the news, put on Sex & The City, wear a face mask (the sheet-mask kind, not the need-for-social-safety kinds) and get a whole tub of Talenti Ice cream. It is OK to not be OK.

It is so easy to ignore how you are feeling and divert your mind when you’re able to go out, meet people, find a new activity. One thing that this Quarantine Season is forcing us all to do is to spend more time with ourselves and with our thoughts - and boy is it uncomfortable! If there is one thing I suck at, and run away from, is being vulnerable. I absolutely hate not having my emotions or my life in my control and will do anything to “normalize” it. But with every passing day during this 2-month period, I have become more and more cognizant of how things actually make me feel. What upsets me, what annoys me, and also what gives me immense happiness. And this acknowledgment of my feelings, instead of running away from them, makes it feel like a huge burden off my chest. And so when I am able to admit that I am having a bad day, let myself have it without worrying too much, I feel much better the next day. And that’s why I wanted to put this out there today : It is OK to not be OK. Accept, acknowledge and then eventually move on.

In this 30 days of learning and sharing, I do want to share everything that makes it better for me, but I also do want to talk about the bad days. All of us have them - sometimes we just need a little nudge to get out of them.

I got on a call with my best friend in India this morning and we talked about our routines and how different this lockdown is for everyone. I am grateful that I live in a city where we started social distancing after finding about the first few cases. So now we are able to be outside in parks, walk near the lake, go out for drive - as long as “units” stay 6-12ft away from each other at all times. There is more cities that I can count in India that don’t have the liberty to do that. And that’s when I feel grateful - and that is what gets me out of the funk. There is no amount of trying to be “productive” that helps. I have tried exercising, helping people through virtual coffee chats, baking, cleaning - you name it and I have seen that list of “things to do when you’re self-isolated” and checked it off (once you have known me long enough, you will know I am a big fan of checklists). But there is something about being mindful of my feelings and doing a gratefulness exercise that helps the most. I am grateful everyday that I am healthy, everyone I love is safe and healthy as well. Every night before I go to bed, I use 2 minutes to write what I am grateful for that happened on the certain day in a 5-year journal (Linking it here in case you want to check it out). This was my little tip - take it or leave it because you are your own boss - YOU DO YOU, BOO!!

It is OK to not be OK, but it is not OK to not be OK for too long. What “too long” means is for you to decide and when you decide you’ve reached there, I hope you’re grateful for how far you’ve come.