Dear Readers,

I must confess it’s been a rough couple of weeks all around.

There have been deaths in the family, work stress, and parent stress and friend stress and well, quite honestly, just life getting in the way of my feeling good.

I suspect I am not alone.. so I wanted to give you my top 5 ways to feel better when you feel down….

1. Listen to some music that literally makes you get up and dance. I don’t mean that makes you bop along in your seat, I mean, you hear it and you MUST dance.

Like this video for “Sugar” – Maroon 5 went around and crashed all these people’s weddings and it’s just so much fun!

 

or Happy-

 

2. Watch something that makes you feel better— like this guy.. who showed us the evolution of dance…

and this guy.. who danced in lots of places

or watch a truly artistic feat by OK Go when they perform in zero gravity

 

Disney.. this one always perks me up… probably because the vultures remind me of the Beatles…

 

This Disney movie is all about the magic and loveliness of New Orleans.

3. Watch a movie that makes you cry–(I know it seems backwards, but stick with me)

Crying releases chemicals and that helps flush it out of your body, and then you feel better.. some go to “make me cry movies”

Steel Magnolias

Beaches

Morning Glory

Rudy

There are tons that make me cry, because as it turns out, I am a bit of a crier when I let myself going as any of my friends can tell you.. In fact,  one of my friends has a saying, “McKenna, you are such a weeper” which goes back a ways.

4. Go talk to a friend (e.g don’t stay by yourself and isolate) that you can just vent to.. and then let them do the same, it may be that they are on a high and encourage them to talk to you about what’s going well, it will make you feel better. I will never forget the time I had a promotion and a really awesome speaking gig that I hesitated to tell my friend about (mainly because she was going through unemployment and some family drama)  on telling my down in the dumps friend who was going through unemployment about my good news .. and when she asked (after venting her spleen about her situation) what’s going on with you? I told her and she was super happy for me because I have good friends, not selfish ones. I made a mental note then to always share with the idea of abundance not scarcity.

It will switch and she will have joy and I will have pain and vice versa. That’s life folks.

5. Eat some ice cream or cookie dough or whatever it is that truly comforts YOU.

For me, that is Haagen-Dazs Caramel Cone-

Yep, I said it. I am all for health goals (documented well on this blog) AND when you feel like crap it’s really hard to get yourself up and motivated to exercise and keep to healthy eating so give it up (not forever) but recognize you are in a season that is stressful so honor that and meet yourself where you are and do some comfort for yourself.

I hope that you don’t need this right now, but the way life works, you will at some point so tuck it away so you have some “go to happy” when you need it.

Please share your go to ways to feel better. I think we could all use that right now.

Think About it….