Feeling Down (in the dumps)

I remembered something the other day that I had long forgotten, something I used to do to make me feel better whenever I felt down in the dumps, out-of-sorts, a bit fed up. 

You know those days when you get up and spend an hour thinking you should do something, but everything you think of isn’t what you want to do?  You open a book, and put it down again.  You pick up your journal, but the pen hovers above the page and no inspiration comes.  You switch on the TV and flick through a hundred channels – each one as unsatisfying as the last.

Those days you just can’t seem to buck up.

I remembered that on days like those, I’d clean and re-arrange my bedroom.

I would move anything small enough to move out of the room, and I would shift the rest into one side of the room while I cleaned, dusted and vacuumed the other.  Then I would move everything over and do the other half.  Then when the room was clean, I’d move my bed so it was facing a different way, in a different place.  The other furniture would be shifted to somewhere new, or differently aligned, and eventually, the room would be finished and my mood would be elevated.

The new alignment of the room always made me feel better when I went to sleep – excited, in a way – because it was new.  Sometimes I would imagine I was now on a strange ship, sailing into the unknown, or like Robinson Crusoe, in my desert island cave.  And when I woke in the morning I would feel fresher than the day before, more energised. Re-motivated.

Proponents of Feng Shui would say I’d stirred up the energy flow in the room, and I think they’re right.  The stagnation I felt before is gone.  The room feels different, and so do I. Invigorated. New.
My energy seems to flow differently too.

I extended the practice to other rooms in the house – mostly the living room – changing the position of the sofa, the TV, the book cases and so on, and it would work there too. 

So, when I woke the other day feeling listless and unmotivated, I found myself (without even knowing why) cleaning the kitchen sink and draining board.  This progressed to the work surfaces and the oven door.  I emptied the bin, which took me to the garage, where I saw much that could be tidied and rearranged.  And so passed two hours.  I returned to the house feeling much happier, with more energy and a brighter outlook on life.  I think we become so in-tune with our surroundings that we can stagnate in the sameness of an unchanged room, so my advice would be – when you feel listless, stagnant, down-in-the-dumps, discombobulated and out-of-sorts, change something!

Rearrange a room, sort out a closet or wardrobe, clean the bathroom from top to bottom, declutter the garage or shed.  Get the energy flowing again!