Feeling blue this Monday? Goals drifting and having a hard time? You’re not alone

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As we’re all getting our bearings in the new year, many of us are struggling. Today, January 15th is Blue Monday, so-called because of the post-holiday and mid-winter impact on mood and health. Add drifting new year’s resolutions and no wonder it can be hard going. In this blog I share insights about this experience and tools that can help you feel better.

Blue Monday, a term created by Cliff Arnall, then a psychology tutor attached to Cardiff University, has been criticised for trivialising mental health issues like sadness and depression and has been quoted as unproven according to scientific literature. 

Regardless of scientific evidence though, it’s still quoted across mainstream media and even in Police related newsletters as a day when people struggle with low mood. Samaritans, a mental health charity here in the UK, have even made it their own, tilting the name to Brew Monday.

So, why has Blue Monday caught our attention? And why is it still being talked about nearly 20 years later? 

Well, because many of us struggle at this time of year and relate to the experience of feeling blue at this time of year. 

The bleakness of festive lights gone with the holidays over, dreading the credit card statements, battling winter bugs, struggling with the dark mornings and the grim weather can have a bigger impact than you realise. This is a great example of how what’s happening in your social context, meaning what’s going on around you, affects how you feel. This is part of the social dimension of your health, your social health. You can read more about this in the blog titled: A 3D approach to health and recovery. 

Add pain, fatigue, stress and anxiety to your social context and the load on your health can feel even heavier. Finally, you may have set yourself new year’s resolutions or aspirations that you’re now finding difficult to follow through with. Bring it all together and it’s understandable that you may be struggling. 

Even though there’s no research to suggest that this experience peaks on any specific day in January, having a specific day to raise awareness of mental health challenges is a good thing, surely?

You are not alone

It’s helpful, not least, because it helps us to recognise that we’re not alone in our struggles. Indeed, a survey on the impact of Christmas on stress showed that 2 in 5 people reported a ‘very negative impact’ on their mental health, and 1 in 4 people reported ‘a fairly negative impact’. Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.) is estimated to affect up to 1 in 15 people.  

And then there’s the impact of eating foods that you don’t normally eat. This can disrupt your digestion. Being either more or less socially active than you’re used to can affect your energy levels leaving you feeling lonely or craving solitude. Change in social activities can affect sleep too. If you have underlying or ongoing health issues, these are more likely to be affected and often worse at this time.  

With this context in mind, now let’s bring a spotlight to new year’s resolutions. Do you or don’t you? More than half the people surveyed by Forbes were adamant not to do such a thing. The remaining 43% of people, depending on age group, were committed to a resolution focusing on familiar topics like fitness, better habits, etc. Whether you do or don’t, either choice can bring additional stress factors.    

What does this mean for you? 

Before you can do anything about anything, the first thing to do is to become aware of what’s going on for you. Without awareness, nothing is possible.  

Whether you’ve set a goal or not, whether you’re struggling or not, how are you supporting yourself and your self-care? Are you creating the conditions for the day and experience that support you and your well-being both now and going forward?  

“When I argue with reality I lose”

Too often we get stuck in thinking about the goal (or not having a goal) or wishing that reality today was different from what it is. Habitually doing such thinking can be unhelpful. You may get stuck on the proverbial “Roundabout of unhelpful thoughts”, going round and round in circles, feeling stuck. Your Inner critic may increase the pressure on you to the point that you do so much “doing” that you exhaust yourself and deplete your resources.   

Caring for your actual experience, not what you’d like it to be, is your starting point. The author Byron Katie says “When I argue with reality, I lose”. Take a moment to think about that statement. What do you lose? You lose energy, time, and focus, and most importantly you lose your agency (your ability to be the agent in your own life or, to put it another way, to be in the driving seat of your own experience). 

Now that you have more insights into this experience, what are some of the tools that can help you?

How to be aspirational and keep it real?

Your feelings, blue or otherwise, aren’t just something to focus on one day. Your feelings are information, and they are your guide to whatever is going on in your experience. Whether it’s joy, love, pain, fatigue, stress or anxiety, each feeling lets you know what you need at that moment.  

Recognising what’s actually going on for you and what’s real to you today rather than what you’d wish to be real gives you a firm footing. It gives you the data, the information that you can then work with.

Like a captain setting a course, knowing your destination doesn’t mean anything if you don’t know your place of departure. Once you’ve got the information about what’s real now you can then bring your aspiration of setting a goal or not setting a goal into your focus. 

Sherlocking the clues to your current reality

The first tool to use is sherlocking and map-making. This is the purposeful process of following the clues your feelings are giving you in order to help you understand the information they contain. This will strengthen your ability to make more helpful choices. Here you focus on getting curious about what’s real for you now. In the middle place a word or phrase that describes how you’re feeling or what you feel you’re struggling with. 

The next step is to write down whatever comes to mind that relates to that central feeling. These are your clues about what here feels like. Look at them each in turn. When you see your thoughts outside of your head so to speak you’re more likely to see new perspectives, opportunities and insights. 

As you do this, go gently with yourself and in your self-talk, treat yourself like you would a dear friend.  

Your aspiration is dependent on the conditions you cultivate

Whatever it is that you want to achieve, the invitation to you here is not about the actual aspiration itself. It’s about how you create and cultivate the conditions that will support you reaching it. Following on from our earlier navigational metaphor, the next tool to use is a compass. This is where you create your own compass to help you stay on the course you’ve set yourself. 

The compass is a tool that’s been used for navigation for centuries, and it can be equally helpful in supporting your self-care, including pain, fatigue, stress, anxiety and, of course, aspirations.

How do you create your compass?

Like a traditional compass, a self-care compass  is made up of four cardinal points. Each point is named for a ‘feeling’ or ‘focus’ to check in with to help you hold steady in the direction you want to travel.

To give you an example, here’s the compass for The Helpful Clinic:

North | Compassion

This is the first point to check in with. Are we being compassionate with ourselves and others? Whether it’s an email, blog or a consultation, this is always the first point we check in with.

South | Courage

Looking at what helps people to read and respond to pain, fatigue, stress and anxiety requires courage. This is not to be taken for granted. The same applies to aspirational work when we want to go beyond our comfort zone with our health activism and outreach.

East | Curiosity

Curiosity is essential for making changes, innovating and improving. This is particularly relevant for thoughts, symptoms, feelings and behaviour that’s been difficult to shift or resolve.

West | Commitment

Commitment and follow-through are needed to make any kind of difference. And so we provide steadfast and sturdy commitment to the people, projects and activism we’ve committed to.

How do you use your compass?

Whenever you’re faced with a choice check in with your North. Will this choice help or hinder what you’ve put in your North? If it supports your North then continue and check in with your other points. If the choice supports all four, it’s a good choice to make.

Your compass can also be helpful when you’re using your First Aid for Feelings ABC Awareness – Breath & Body – Choice technique as it can help guide you towards a more helpful choice in whatever situation you find yourself. 

Here’s a quick guide to using the ABC technique. You can read more about the ABC technique in the blog called Feel like you’re just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic? You can take this learning further including the seven sherlocking questions to help you read and respond to your feelings in the First Aid for Feelings Manual. 

Step 1: Awareness:

Become Aware of what you’re thinking, feeling, and doing.

Step 2: Breath and body: 

Bring your awareness to your Breath and body. Start with your breath. Use a breathing technique, like breathing in to the count of five and out to the count of seven three times, to help regulate your biochemistry and focus. Next, move your awareness to your Body in some way, for example by rolling your shoulders, shuffling your sitting bones and wiggling your toes. 

Step 3: Choice: Ask yourself “Is what I’m thinking, feeling and doing, helpful? What might be more helpful instead?”

Would you like to learn more about aspirational living? There are two blogs on aspirational living that you may find helpful if you’d like to have a goal or future-focus. Click on the title to read. The first one is Aspirational living – ready for the discomfort?  And the second one is Aspirational living: set yourself up for success with self-care 

Kim’s story: how Kim realised that his self-relationship was the most important relationship he has

Understanding how you’re relating to your current reality and your aspirations as well as how you are reading and responding to your feelings, is central to your ability to feel better. This is what Kim discovered through our work together. 

Kim was feeling deflated after the holidays. All the decorations were down and he felt like everything was just bleak and dark. The prospect of those dreary months ahead paying for all the costs of the holidays, presents, food, going out, etc made him feel desperate. He was struggling with feeling Tired All The Time (often referred to as TATT) and not being in his usual rhythm. His digestive symptoms had flared up too, and he was struggling to sleep. He felt pressure to get “all organised’ about his work and set goals and targets for this coming year but his heart just wasn’t in it. On top of that, his wife was wanting to be more intimate and give more care for their sex life and he had come to the sobering realisation that his libido was pretty much absent. 

In consultations he was able to get specific and map what was going on for him. He mapped how much energy and stamina he really had at this point and how much energy he was wasting on unrealistic expectations of what he could achieve in a day. He identified where he could affect change, both in terms of short-term hacks, and longer term changes he wanted to make.  The map-making helped him see on paper his current reality, not what he wanted it to be, not what his wife or others wanted it to be, but his actual reality. He noticed that while some aspects were worse than he’d wanted to admit, other aspects of his life were better than he’d realised. 

Kim and his compass for supporting the conditions that helped him feel better

Creating a compass to support himself in his everyday reality now, and to steer a course towards the everyday reality he wanted to have, helped him make choices that were truly helpful to him. He shared his compass with the people closest to him which helped them understand why he was now making different choices that sometimes affected them. 

Here are Kim’s cardinal points:

North | My digestion 

Kim realised that so much of his experience was affected by his digestion and IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) symptoms and therefore his energy and mood. He decided to make this his North, so the first question would always be: “Will this help or harm my digestion?” Whether it was food, people or tasks, this was his first point to check in with.

South | Permission to say “No”

Kim also realised that he needed to become better at advocating for himself and be assertive with others about activities and tasks, even what decisions were made about dinner. Giving himself this permission and practising saying no was an important point for him to feel better.

East | Courage

Kim was very aware that he’d need to draw on his courage to prioritise his digestion and be assertive with the people around him, as well as himself. When he thought about it, he realised he liked the idea of practising his courage and becoming braver. It made him feel good about himself. 

West | Credit (give himself credit)

Kim knew that he rarely gave himself credit and didn’t pay much attention to what he did well and the helpful choices he was making. Actively checking in with this point when making choices and decisions became an unexpected boost to help him hold steady with the other three cardinal points. 

How you can feel better too 

Kim used the tools shared with you in this blog to feel better and you can benefit too. 

Do your own map-making. Get curious and become aware of both your current reality and, if relevant to you, your aspirations. 

Have a play with exploring and creating your own compass. It can be helpful to experiment with different references and see what works for you. 

Remember, you are not alone. The Blue Monday experience really is a thing. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Whether it’s booking in a discovery call  with The Helpful Clinic, or asking a friend or colleague to help you talk through your map-making and compass, someone else’s perspective can give you extra clarity. None of us can see the back of our own head. If you’re struggling, being able to have the input from someone you trust may give you that extra boost, momentum and insight you need.

Myself and the Helpful team wish you the year you need and want. May your compass help you stay strong, sturdy and steadfast, every step on your way.