“I Feel Best When…” #HAWMC
It’s Day 14 of WEGO’s Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge (#HAWMC if you’re on Twitter). Today’s question is:
“I feel best when…” Write about moments you feel like you can take on the world. Where, when, and how often does this happen #HAWMC
So this question has been really relevant the past few days. I had a hard time getting stuff done because of nausea from the treatment for my eyes and ears. Also, I was going through depression for several days. (I have bipolar disorder.) Often, physical pain and fatigue (due to Myasthenia Gravis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and psoriasis) make it hard to function.
I was doing my best to apply the tips I wrote about in 6 Ideas: How To Get Stuff Done When You’re Depressed. And it worked! What helped me a lot was focusing on one task at a time–finishing the most urgent task (Medicaid stuff) first no matter how long that took. After that, I was able to finish other things because I felt empowered.
4 Times I Feel Like I Can Take on the World:
- Taking a shower–If I have a day where I struggled to get out of bed all day, then I take a shower, I feel empowered. I tell myself, “Go you! You can do this.”
- Putting on a a great lipstick/getting dressed–When I get dressed, even if no one sees what I look like (I’m home alone), I feel better.
Never Underestimate the Power of a Good Lipstick #HAWMC Psychologically, when I look in the mirror and see what I look like despite how I feel, it makes me feel better. Never underestimate the power of a good lipstick! I prefer Strawberry which is a vintage-style red color from Arbonne. It’s very Mad Men. It’s my power color.
- Doing a good job at work–Almost all the time, nobody knows how terrible I feel. In order to be taken seriously, I couldn’t look as terrible as I feel or no one would hire me. That’s why I do things like wear kelly green or cobalt blue (my “go to colors”) when I am experiencing the most fatigue or pain. They instantly brighten my appearance–that and a great lipstick, of course. When I come home from work knowing my students learned a lot or we had fun, I feel satisfied. (The picture with my cane is a picture taken at work.)
- Exercising–It can be hard to exercise when you’re not feeling well, whether that’s physically or emotionally, or both. I wasn’t able to exercise Saturday and Sunday but yesterday, I did. It made me feel victorious. It was hard to do it–I prayed a lot and watched some favorite Rocky training scenes to get there. But I did it. Exercise is good for fighting stress and depression because exercise releases endorphins, AKA “the feel good hormones.” That’s why I force myself to do it even though I don’t feel like it. (See 6 Ideas: How To Exercise When You’re Depressed.)
Your Turn
What makes you feel empowered?
Stay Tuned!
Tomorrow, I’ll continue WEGO’s Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge by answering another question. (It’s a good one tomorrow.)
–Your Stylist, Jessica Gimeno
Love this post! All of these are so on (including the red lipstick!). I once had a discussion with a colleague about why I needed to get dressed nicely when working from home (one of my careers is work at home) and he didn’t understand. It just helps you return to being you instead of a conglomerate of all of the symptoms that are taking over. And a shower is THE BEST. I used to have a shower radio and I’d make sure it was always on something upbeat, so that my shower time was almost like a peptalk to myself. It worked a decent amount of the time.