HANH TAT

Despite having daily practices which support my overall health and well-being, such as exercise, eating healthily and meditating, I still find myself wrestling with really low moods at times. This might be due to things such as insufficient sleep, going through a particularly challenging time with my boys as a single parent, or more likely as of late, due to perimenopause-induced hormonal imbalances.

I have the odd day here and there where I just feel incredibly lethargic and I can’t seem to shake myself out of it no matter what I do. On these days, I can succumb to disempowering thoughts where I question all the practices I do daily to keep me on an even keel, What’s the point, they’re not working.

But then after I’ve recovered my energy through sleeping better, getting emotional rest or my hormones have found an equilibrium, I am able to easily see that my low mood was simply a transitionary phase, just a blip on the graph. I am reminded that my low mood was simply a signal from my body to tell me to rest or adjust my diet to support my hormones.

I had an experience of this recently, where things on my to-do list started creeping up to an unmanageable amount. This started to cause a low-level rumbling of anxiety within me and contributed to a low mood that seemed to correlate with the incessant rain that we were having at the time. Once I’d compiled an effective plan and worked on my anxiety, my energy levels lifted back to normal.

When I went for a run the next morning, I felt joyful as the sun beamed down on me in all its glory, contrasting starkly with the heavy rain from just the night before. This prompted a recollection of the saying that Sunshine always follows rain.

This was a happy reminder that no matter how long it’s been raining, the sun will always come out eventually. And just like the weather, no matter what challenges we’re going through, it can be helpful to remember, especially when life feels really hard, to have faith; that things will get easier, eventually.