How to Get Out of a Funk

Episode 23 of the Fuel the Fire Podcast hosted by Shanon Safi, RD, LDN.

Have you found yourself in this state of trudging through the day, feeling like you’re doing things but getting nothing done, or not even sure what to do to begin? I call that being in a ‘funk’. We’ve all been there, but do you know how you got there? And once we’re there, how do we begin to get out? In today’s episode, Shanon gives some tips about overcoming the funk and how we can stop ourselves from sinking into one later on.

In this episode we talk about: Reflection prevents repeating: Dig deep to figure out where resistance is coming from (01:35) Consistency is key: Do not pick up practices only for when things are bad (06:53) Open yourself up to receiving: Allow people to help when offered (10:17) Preventing the pendulum: The benefits of balance (12:54) It’s time to prioritize yourself (17:15)

Episode Transcript:

 You're just swinging back and forth rather than actually finding that balance, that happy medium between the two that actually feels sustainable. You shouldn't have to live a life that you constantly need a break from. Hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of the Fuel Fire Soul podcast with your host Shannon Safi.

I have been in such a funk lately and I've been talking to quite a few people and I feel that there's kind of this collective funk. I think going on, I think just with all of the chaos and everything going on in the world, I think it's really pushing people to really reflect on why they believe in what they believe, why they're doing what they're doing, and if it's really fulfilling them in the way that feels like it's meant to be.

I think for so long, so many of us thought that life was supposed to be one way, and through these different phases of your life, you start to realize that things could be different. A lot of what we have accepted into our lives is really just because we didn't know that there was something different that could be in our lives or that we could interact with the world in a different way.

And so, what I wanted to talk about today, if you're feeling like you're in a bit of a funk and you're having trouble getting out of it, I wanted to give some tips on how you can actually help yourself get out of this funk and then hopefully in the future kind of prevent these sorts of things from happening as often as they might be happening in your life now.

So, the first thing that I wanted to talk about is the importance of reflection. This is something that goes on in my courses and with my clients. It's such an important and necessary and vital tool to this entire self-development process. If you're not taking the time to really look back and reflect on your experiences, what's going to happen is you're going to end up repeating patterns in your life.

If you don't take that moment to really pause and reflect about what is going on, you're just subconsciously going to keep recreating the same sorts of problems that you're trying to shift or adjust away from or really evolve from experiencing. What's really kind of challenging about the reflective process is when you first begin, it's, it's actually really challenging to see yourself.

It really does take a lot of effort and consciousness and discipline to commit to this process so that you can actually get what you're meant to get out of it. So, with this, for example, you know, it's a lot of times what happens is we are repeating patterns, like we're going to find things continuously coming up cyclically in our lives that we've already experienced.

And that's where sometimes this fun comes up where it's just like, dang, how did I slip into this again? So, what we need to do in this moment is really just allow yourself to see what comes up for you and see how far back you can kind of trace that. Finding the true the start of where you started to get into this funk can be hard.

And the first time you start this process, you might not actually be able to get as deep as you need to, to completely clear this block. But the thing about it is, is you have to start somewhere and you have to start trying. For example, I'll kind of talk about a recent experience of mine that relates to this reflective process and how I applied it.

So, with me, there was a part where I really started to slip into that just, like, lacking personal boundaries for myself. I was in such a deep, like, people pleasing mode that it was just so easy for me to just slip back into that and start giving away so much of my time and my energy just in fear of upsetting someone else or risking someone else not getting what they want.

So, I would just get into these funks where I felt like I was just absolutely drained of energy, and it took me so long to really realize that it's this people pleaser in me that was actually causing it. So initially, when I sat down and I was reflecting why I am in this funk, I initially was kind of like, oh, you know what?

I'm just really burnt out. I'm expending way too much energy with work. So, then what I would try to do is set some time aside and allow myself to try to have some fun. And then what I was finding was I still felt blocked. Even though I was making time to do things that are fun, I was still not actually enjoying myself in the moment.

So, then, I realized I had another layer to peel back. So, from there, I was like, okay, I am still in this bunk, and I gave myself this time and space to have fun, but it's still not really feeling like fun. On surface level, it seems like I should be enjoying myself, but for whatever reason, I cannot. The next step from there, I peeled back that next layer of, okay, I'm actually doing things that I don't even really want to be doing.

I'm socializing with other people in this setting, but it's not truthfully what my soul is asking me to do. So even though it seems really cool on paper to like, go out with your friends or go, go grab dinner or, you know, Go take a fun class or something like that. It's in those moments when you're just still not really being present, where it's like you have to go back and really try to see what's blocking you from being present.

So then again, that next layer comes through where it's like, okay, I need to really come back into myself and really connect back to my soul, back to my heart and figure out what's actually happening here. So again, this reflective process, it's so important to carve that time out. If you're not carving out the time to sit there and actually do the reflective practice.

It's not going to happen, and you're not going to become aware. You can't just, like, out fun your funk, as silly as those sounds. Because I think a lot of times what we want to do is try to push these activities onto ourselves to force ourselves into having fun. But the thing is, if we're not really present, we're not really getting what we want out of that experience, because we're not fully there.

still so in our heads and really disconnected from what we're actually experiencing. So that's why it's really important to just go back in and go into that reflective process. So, instead of the step one always being, okay, like, let's just go have fun, let's distract myself from this difficult emotion that I'm unsure of what it is that's bringing me down, what we want to do is say, step one, let's reflect and see what's really going on.

And you really have to sit with it and revisit it multiple times for you to really get back to what's actually causing this and what's really blocking you. And that kind of goes into my next step on consistency. I think what tends to happen is we do these reflective processes, or we take the time to meditate, or we do these things with journaling, you know, whatever that might be that helps you start to really get into this and understand yourself a little bit better.

And we tend to reserve those for the times that we're struggling. But the issue with that is, is if we're only doing it while we're struggling, we're not actually maximizing the benefit and what this practice can actually really do for us fully. If we're only doing it when we're not feeling well, what's going to happen is you're going to slip back into that funk more readily.

What we really need Is consistency in these reflective practices and consistency in whatever practice or routine that you need to do to make sure that your energy is cleared and open and happy and vibrant and positive for the day. If we just keep waking up and we're not in these great moods and we try to go about our days, it's just not going to feel good to us.

We're not going to attract the things that we're meant to attract. And a lot of our actions just won't be in alignment with our highest good. So, really figuring out what your routine needs to have in it so that you are routinely reflecting and making sure that you're aware of what actually elevates your energy.

That can be a difficult thing in and of itself. A lot of people aren't aware of what actually elevates their energy because it's just not something that we actively... think about because a lot of times we're focusing on things that are externally fun rather than internally refilling us. So, there's a big difference there.

So externally fun could be like partying with your friends. That's like kind of, again, denying what your internal experience is and kind of numbing out or suppressing whatever emotions are actually in there. Versus when we talk about an energy lifting process, what that actually entails is removing whatever negative energy, whatever negative block we're experiencing, and allowing ourself to refill our cup and take in positive energy and really feel refreshed.

The part about elevating your energy, a lot of people think that it's something that is going to be maybe something like a fun process. And not to say that it's not an enjoyable process, because ultimately this is serving your highest good, but in order to elevate your energy, what you need to do is first observe what is actually weighing you down and draining you of your energy.

And that can sometimes be a difficult task. And that's not necessarily something that's like, A rainbows and butterflies process is what I like to call it. So, what you really need to do is figure out what it is that you have to release in these times. And that dark work, that's a really important part of this process.

However, on the flip side, going back to elevating your energy, what can really happen when we're in this funk is we are so focused on what's draining us what's not feeling good, and then we tend to manifest more negative things into our lives. through this lower energy or even just our experiences in general feel more negative because we're in this negative mindset.

So that goes into my next tip of expressing gratitude and focusing on what you are grateful for. This is a really good practice to make a part of. Your daily routine, and if it's not daily, at least weekly, but especially when you're in this funk, I, I do encourage it to be daily. And a lot of people say, do it in the beginning of the day and end of the day.

But I always say, choose that path of least resistance. If you're feeling really good doing it once a day at night, start there. Once you start to actually feel the benefit of doing it, you're going to want to crave it more and potentially add more of it into your day. And then you're going to start to see how this affects and influences how you're actually experiencing your reality throughout the day.

When you're focusing on what you're grateful for, you're going to find yourself attracting more things to be grateful for. You have to take these times to really rewire your brain and rewire your thinking to start looking for the positive. When we're in a funk, we're going to actually look for more negative to keep us in this funk, because that's the reality we're currently experiencing, and our brains find that comforting.

So when you're experiencing these negative things, again, you attract more... negativity because you are so focused on that negative experience. I know I just said negative like eight times in a row, but yeah, so it's, it's really that concept of energetically elevating yourself into a frequency where you can actually allow yourself to receive more positivity.

And a lot of times many of us have this block around receiving because it can sometimes feel uncomfortable because when you're so used to being someone that gives or over gives or people pleases, it can actually feel really uncomfortable to receive, which again, keeps us in our funk. So even when people are offering support or offering something nice or doing a kind gesture, somehow, we're still not allowing ourselves to receive that.

So, expressing gratitude and focusing on gratitude and being thankful when these positive things come up and being more aware that they are coming into your orbit. You have to practice the art of receiving and receiving gratefully. I mean, really happy for that. If you want to receive more positive things, you really have to see that they are actually happening for you.

And when we focus too much on the negative or what we're not experiencing, we're actually going to lose out on a lot of opportunities that are positive and encouraging and helping us get out of this negative state. The next thing I wanted to talk about. is balance. So, this is such a difficult, it feels like a mythical creature sometimes when I talk about balance, because we really tend to swing from side to side in this pendulum effect.

Usually what I say is like, you know, we have two ends of the spectrum of an issue that we're currently experiencing. So, let's say we'll use like fun versus work or play versus work. However, you want to look at it. We have the two ends of the pendulum, and we swing from side to side here, so there's gonna be times where we're like, okay, I'm having too much fun, it's actually starting to affect my work, I'm not showing up properly, my boss is getting annoyed, I'm coming in late, whatever that might be.

So, then we swing from the fun side of like, okay, like, now I need to buckle down and get serious, my body's changing, I'm not feeling good, let's go back to like, I'll work now. So, then we swing to the other side and we hang out there and we start to feel good again because we're doing that work again and we're accomplishing things.

And what happens from there is then we're like, oh my gosh, I'm spending too much time here. I'm feeling really burnt out. I need a vacation. I need to rest. I need to relax. And then we just keep swinging back to the other side where then it becomes, okay, let's go out to eat. Let's have fun. Let's eat. Spend our money.

And then we get into that overdoing it stage. And if you kind of get what I'm saying, you're just swinging back and forth rather than actually finding that balance, that happy medium between the two that actually feels sustainable. You shouldn't have to live a life that you constantly need a break from with that being said, really analyzing how you can actually incorporate more fun, more pleasure, more joy into your daily practice.

It really shouldn't be an extreme because you're just going to find yourself entering these, like, really high highs and really low lows. Rather than being more in a consistent state of energy and still being able to experience those spurts without having to sink so deep into these fungs. So, what we want to do is really allow ourselves again, going back into that receiving of fun and having joy, and then also being in that.

state where you're giving in a balanced way to what needs to be given to. So, a lot of times we're in that imbalance of like giving and receiving too, which goes along with this thought of balance in your life. So, there's a lot of things that might feel off balance and it's really good going back to tip number one of reflection and really taking a look at these, you know, some good scales, like fun versus work, giving versus receiving.

There's so many out there that you can really take a look at it because. What we do in this reality is experience these two opposite things existing all at the same time. And what you have to do is really find that ideal balance between those two things for you to be in your highest alignment. And this isn't like a one size fits all situation.

Some people are more task oriented, depending on what their work is, depending on what their job is, depending on what their responsibility is. Those might feel very natural in an alignment for them versus someone else might need more time in the fun, play, relaxation mode to actually be able to even show up in the best state for their work and vice versa.

So, it's really important to not so, I'm going to someone else that's going through this stage as well. You really have to reflect and see what is best for you specifically. Like I said, it's, it's just not something you can compare to someone else's experience because you are not the same. You do not have the same responsibilities.

You know, you might be similar in a lot of ways. But again, we're all individuals with our own needs and no one can tell you what that balance is going to look like. You really have to go within and find out and figure out through trial and error what that ideal balance looks like. And it's not to say you're going to just figure this balance out.

and never have a slip up or never swing from side to side in the pendulum again, but you're going to be able to prevent that swing from side to side in that situation. The more you are actually seeking that balance, the more you seek the balance, the more likely you are to find it versus not even trying.

You're not even going to give yourself the opportunity to find that happy medium. This goes into my next point of choosing yourself. This one. It seems so simple, yet this, I've been finding, is one of the hardest practices to implement, at least for me right now, coming from, again, that position of being such a people pleaser and really having that in my conditioning from such a young age.

And so, with this, it really takes me combing through situations multiple times to realize that I'm not choosing myself. The thing about it is once I've become aware of my body's response to situations or realities that are energetically draining, I'm so much more in tune with them. And so that's why that consistency in this practice makes such a big difference because you're going to keep yourself from getting so deep into the funk when you're consistently routinely going through and reflecting on these things, especially when things are going well.

A lot of times things go out the window when we're receiving or getting good things or, you know, nothing tragic is happening. But what we really have to do is even during those good times is analyze and think, why do things feel so good? How do I maintain this alignment? How do I keep myself in this elevated state?

And where did I slip up last time? Or where did I start to derail last time? Or, you know, am I having so much fun at this time and I'm actually Out of balance, because I'm ignoring my responsibility and my pain points. So, in the state of choosing yourself first, it's little things like saying yes to things that you don't want to say yes to, or giving when you're constantly giving and not receiving enough, or not upholding a boundary for yourself in fear of upsetting someone else.

These things are so small and tend to happen so frequently throughout our day, and a lot of times we slowly start to build resentment in these experiences when we're not choosing ourself first. So, it might take a few experiences or a few times of like giving away your power for you to start to notice that buildup happening.

But if you know that you can fall into this state of resentment readily or easily or even eventually, it's really important to start to become aware of what causes you to slip into that resentment. I'm going to give you another example for this. So, you know, we'll talk about like one specific relationship with an individual.

So, I'll talk about a friendship. So, for, for this example, if your best friend, let's say you, again, you're someone that tends to want to keep the peace and you want to give and you want to receive love in return for your giving. What will tend to happen is, like, you're over giving and draining yourself.

So, for example, my friend might say, hey, let's go grab some food. What do you want? And I'd be like I don't know. What are you in the mood for? And then they say, hey, I'd like this. Right there in that moment, I'm like, I really don't want that, but I'm going to say yes, because like, who really cares?

Whatever. So, you go and you have that experience and you go eat like sushi. Okay. So, you guys just had some sushi, but you really wanted a burger. So, you have that sushi and your friend's like, yeah, dude, I could really go for some dessert. And you're like, okay, I am feeling extremely full. I probably shouldn't have dessert, but maybe that'll make me feel better because I do like it.

So, you know what? Yes, I'm going to say yes. So, again, you're choosing what your friend wants instead of really honoring what your body's telling you. So, you go in and you have the ice cream. After this, your friend's like, oh, you know, I had to pick something up downtown. Like I'm just going to stop there.

And you have no choice but to go because your friend drove you there. So, you go along for the ride. Now you're getting home way later than you anticipated. You're feeling frustrated. You're feeling... exhausted, but you're not exactly sure why. You're just feeling bouts of anxiety because you're coming home at a later time than you anticipated, and all these little things have been building some resentment.

So, then your friend drops you off at home, you're home, you're like, oh my gosh, my house is a mess, now I feel this Urge to clean it because you know, it's like I've been gone all day and no one cleaned the house and even thought that like, hey, maybe I could step up. So, then we angrily, annoyedly clean the house, resenting everyone for not having done it yet.

Not saying, or maybe we just chronically complain about it, but never actually give anyone a boundary or a reason to take action and step up. Or, you know, we could have even asked someone to clean the house before left, but we didn't do that. And again, just resentfully clean it angrily. Just being annoyed with everyone at this moment, because this day did not go the way you wanted it to.

And now physically your body's not feeling great because you overate. And again, see, this just puts you deeper into a funk. And so, these little things, these little moments where you're not choosing yourself, or you're not establishing a boundary, or you're not being clear about what you want, really actually push you deeper into this funk.

And it's, it's so subconscious because we're so conditioned. To do these things. And it's really breaking that conditioning. That's going to keep you from sinking into these funks. Ooh, that was a really long-winded explanation, but I, I imagine a lot of people have experienced this. I speak to so many of my clients where they experienced this silent build-up of resentment.

And that's something that I know I experienced for so long because it felt easier to just build resentment rather than just expressing what I want. Because saying what I want made me afraid that it would be rejected or I would be judged for it or I'm just so used to not getting an opinion that I don't even think to ask myself what do I actually want.

Which sounds so wild, but I can't emphasize enough the importance of choosing yourself and being aware of your own energy. And where that is going, what fills you up and what drains you. So just a little recap. Really important. I want you to take the time to reflect, find consistency in your practices that you know help keep you aligned and help keep you feeling good.

Gratitude is an amazing example, a really powerful shift in focus on what is good so that you can continue to attract more good and happily receive into your life. Then you want to actually really look for that ideal balance through this trial-and-error process. Taking an action and making a change is better than just hoping for something to shift without any action, because that's a lot less likely to happen.

So, allow yourself. to mess up. You might try to rest more and realize that's not what you wanted. You might try to play more and realize that's not what you wanted. You might try to change jobs and realize that's what not what you wanted, but it's okay. We're going to mess up and it's just allowing yourself and forgiving yourself for that and saying, okay, let's try again.

Because ultimately, if you stop trying, things will never get better. So, it's really giving yourself permission to make these changes. To take a shot in the dark permission to take a step forward without knowing what's coming next. And lastly, always choose yourself. Choosing yourself will never be wrong.

Of course, I encourage compassion and leading with love. However, what's in the highest and greatest good for you will always be in the highest and greatest good for the other person involved. So, choosing yourself doesn't mean, you know, viciously reacting and yelling at someone for doing something that you didn't like.

It's simply stating how something would make you feel and choosing the thing that makes you feel good instead of choosing the thing that does not make you feel good. There is so much power that you have and so often we give away our power to others to make decisions for us when it's not really what we want.

We have to give ourselves permission to take that power, to own that power that we have, and to be able to turn around what we want to change in our lives. If you are in a funk right now, I hope this finds you well, and I hope this helps you getting your wheels turning and allowing yourself to start to explore different options of what can actually really help you get out of this funk.

The first thing you need to do is just really accept that you're in the funk to begin with and, you know, again, give yourself some grace for this. It's normal to be in a funk. We all get into funks. We are inevitably going to slip into another funk in our lifetime, you know. And so, what's really important is to not let ourselves sink so deep into it that it makes it that much harder to get out.

So, it's really honoring where you're at, honoring what you need. Acknowledging what you're experiencing and allowing yourself to work through it in the way that you need to, without allowing the judgments of others to weigh on you or affect the decisions that you make when you know it's really what's best for you in this time.

Thank you, guys, so much for listening to this episode. If you haven't left a review already, if you're liking these episodes, I would absolutely love it. I'd be so, so grateful if you could write a review or share this podcast episode with someone that you love that might need this. It's really important for us to come together and help each other.

The more you give, the more you'll receive. It’s so important to constantly think of how you are showing up in this world. for yourself, and that will naturally encourage others around you, and elevate you all together so that we all continue to have these awesome life experiences, and get to share the joy, and really keep the funks down low the only kind of funk we want is a little funky beat.

Oh my gosh, I'm so, so corny, that's embarrassing. But yeah, thank you guys again so much for listening. I can't wait for the next couple weeks to come up and share with you the next episode that I have. So, like I said, share, write a review, and thank you so much. Love you. Bye!