PFL 43: Getting Yourself Out of a Functional Funk

Are you feeling a little out of your groove—trying to get into the new year but not feeling the motivation yet? Enjoy these jumpstart tips to break through!

 

Transcript

Hi, I'm Connie Sokol, a national speaker, bestselling author, program, founder and mother of seven and loving it. I'm reaching and teaching 1 million listeners to live a purposeful, organized, and joyful life. You can too, so let's go.

Hi, welcome back to Balance Redefined. I'm Connie Sokol and I have more fabulous stuff to share with you today about being stuck. Are you in a functional funk? Do you know what that is? Well, let us chat because I came up with this term. As you can tell, it's total Connie-ism, as you know, but a functional funk is that you are going about your daily life. You're doing it, you're putting in the wash, you're taking kids to carpool. You're getting that project done. You're doing that presentation, you're making it happen, and yet inside your soul is dying for some reason.

Something is not working. It's not aligning. Something's not clicking. You're feeling this sort of on the cusp of a depression or maybe anxiety fit or life is just kind of at this, I call it the tectonic plates where it's like two earth plates are just crashing together and the scraping sound as it's rising and one's going lower and this shift might be happening, but whatever it is, you're still making life generally happen.

However, you're starting to notice some things are just not working. They're falling through the cracks or they're all out. The spinning plates are crashing on the floor and that's how you know when something is not going well and you are in this functional funk and this is when you're kind of your own worst enemy because when we get in this sort of a feel or an a groove or this kind of rut, what happens is that we can almost, some of us go to the other side of being very, we can push through this, we can do it.

We're at the like 10th contraction from having this baby. We're going to do this, and you're just like, you're white knuckling. You're going to make it happen. It doesn't matter if you're exhausted, you're going to do that. One more thing that needs to be done. Then you have the other end of the spectrum, which is the group of people who just go, I can't even function. I'm going to go under the covers. I'm going to ignore life. I'm not even answering the phone. I can't, I'm paralyzed. I can't even do, I can't even think today. Don't even make me even do more than breathe. And that's even an effort. So when we're in this kind of a funk and we become kind of our worst enemy, those character traits that we have, like maybe we're driven, we're kind of that type three personality driven or maybe were more, given to reflection or we're slower about what we do and more methodical, which means that we, when the wheels really starts to stop, then they just like stop.

So, we kind of go into those two boot camps and it doesn't help either. One does not help. What does help is that we look for those little clues of what's happening. What suddenly isn't working in your life? What are you thinking you can do and what kind of pace do you think you can sustain? But guess what life's giving you clues that you actually can't.

I know a friend of mine who was incredibly capable, incredibly capable, dealing with some very difficult things in her own life that nobody else would know about, but incredibly capable and very out there in the public eye. But I'm really needing to deal with some really difficult things on the back end that no one would know and just seem like her schedule just ramped up and ramped up and ramped up and ramped up until she actually was starting to blackout.

And that's a clue. That's a clue that says, I need to, I need to take care of this. I need to look at something in my life and I need to do it differently. And we all get our clues. So what are some of the clues you might be having that you need to pay attention to? Because that will lead you back to what exactly might be wrong. So, is it that you're suddenly binge eating too much or maybe you're not eating much at all? Okay. That's probably the .001% of the United States. But I will just say maybe even globally, however, but maybe that's happening. But another really common one besides eating more binge eating is that you are not sleeping well. Sleep is one of the first things to go. and it's because our soul is still trying to process things in my mind.

Um, and it's not getting the rest at night to be able to process through our day. It's actually getting stuck almost like when you're watching a DVD and it just kind of stops and does zst, zst, zst, zst, zst and it drives you nuts and then you keep thinking it's gonna, it's gonna Click, it's gonna, it's gonna go right any second now it's going to do it. And in our lives we kind of do that. We think, well, it's all right, but it's gonna kick in. It's going to be okay, we're just going to get over this. But life will tell you if that's not the case because you'll find some of these things. Some other things are things that I actually experienced recently, which I did not realize. Well first let me go to some of the items. So the sleeping not sleeping well and then kind of being like snippy with people.

I don't know if you noticed that, maybe that's your personality, I don't know. But you'll notice that you're a little bit more abrupt, impatient, snippy, and you're not as may be able to just kind of roll with the punches as much as you usually could. So that's another big sign. So for me, recently I noticed all of those things. Plus, I noticed that I was really, um so sad to say, I was getting really avoidant about things that I actually wanted and needed to do and I was getting kind of this, um, I don't know how to describe it, but back into an old tape and an old role where I became really harried and sort of that harried mom thing. And um, oh, I can't think straight. It's my mom brain. Even though some of that is true, but it was my mom brain and avoidant, procrastinating and missing, um, being late to meetings on zoom and, and just different things like that that were making me become inept and like a self-fulfilling prophecy of my body and soul.

We're trying to tell me something and I wasn't listening and so I was really doing some of these behaviors and I hope that makes sense. Um, it, I was getting really distant. I just wanted to be alone. I was gaining weight without even, maybe there was those couple of times and I was bingeing, but it wasn't like my bingeing is having, okay, three cookies. But I was like, I don't know how to describe it, but the stress, I could feel the shimmer of stress. And then I was not able to sleep as well at night, so I'm staying up til like midnight even though I don't want to. And then my sleep wasn't as restful and then my cortisol was through the roof, which meant I'm gaining weight even though then after that I was like, okay, I'm going to be super, super good and for weeks, I mean I even exercised over Thanksgiving weekend, come on people and I'm still, I was gaining weight.

I'm like, what is going on? These were all clues and when I paused and started adding them all together, I went, ah, this is what's going on. I am upleveling. I am having that ULP that Gaye Hendricks talks about in his book the big leap, that upper limit problem. I have all these good things before me. I have wonderful children that I adore and love and they are doing so great. I have this beautiful life. We just redid some things in the house so that it really, we did paint and just upleveled some things that we've wanted to do for, for a lot of years and it just is so fresh and beautiful and it feels so good. All of these things are so good that what happens is sometimes when so much good is happening, then you can almost be your worst enemy in that.

And it's not that you don't want yourself to succeed, but it's like you're afraid of, oh my gosh, everything's going so well, what's the next wave that's going to hit right for me? I was feeling this feeling of am I able to handle all of this now? And all the good that is coming because lots of good is happening. And I started to get all worried, you know how we go five steps down the road and before you know it well, you know, living down by the river in a box. And so I was thinking, oh, is this going to shift my life with my kids and is this going to be a negative? And if things go really so, so good and keep going, so good, will this actually be something I can't handle and will I implode? And I mean all of these things just started going through my mind.

Have you ever done that? Ever had that experience where the very things you've wanted have happened and then you're like, Ooh, I want to back out. I want to back out. Or maybe it's the opposite in so many things that are hard are happening and you just don't want to deal with it. You just want to avoid it. You don't want to deal with it. You don't even want to face it because it's just too much. It's too overwhelming. So if you are in that functional funk and you're being your own worst enemy, that functional meaning that you are, you're still able to get food on the table, just still able to do groceries. Even though I'll be it that, maybe you are missing days and you're not doing it like you used to, whatever. But still, you know people are alive, breathing, being fed, roof over your head, that kind of thing.

You're being really functional about it. Then it's time to step back and be able to go, wait a second, these are clues. What is it trying to tell me? So once you step back and you start trying to decipher the message, what I would encourage for you to better decipher that message. Because sometimes what happens is when we get to that place, we're kind of paralyzed so our mind goes blank or soul goes blank. We kind of have to remember what our name is. And so to get to a place of being able to process through that, once you realize, oh, I got these clues...to process it better, I can give you three little tips that I know work and have just recently worked again for me.

So the first thing was to nourish my soul. Now, this is gonna sound maybe kind of funny, but you figured out in your way of what that looks like for you. But for me, the first thing that I started doing was binge watching Hallmark movies. Those cheesy Christmas shows that I can hardly do on a regular basis, like in regular life, not even when I'm having a functional funk. And I have to tell you, I mean there's some really good ones, don't get me wrong, but some of them are so cheesy like within the first three minutes I got to turn them off. So I thought, really, why am I desiring to watch these Hallmark movies while I watch them with my daughter, which is so fun. It's kind of like our thing to do together. And I thought, well, maybe it's because I need to spend more time with her. Maybe that's what it is. No, like I really wanted to watch these. And it was hysterical. And you know what? It was so fun. We found some that were great, beautifully acted, so wonderful.

And from that I got ideas that were not about what happened in the movie, but unrelated, but related to the fact that I was watching fiction. And it related back to a couple of fiction stories that I had started a long time ago and started back and it just added to those things. I had scene ideas, I had some plotline thoughts. It was so, so fun. And when I stepped back, I said, okay, why was I needing to do that? And it made total sense to me. Number one, it was total fluff. I mean, I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to think, I didn't have to be productive. But the second thing, it touched that creative part of me, I was not spending a lot of time with my fiction and I keep feeling it over and over to spend time writing my fiction.

I keep shoving it to the side because it's not productive. It's not that official. I've got lots of official things to do with my nonfiction and with my podcast and my books and my programs and all of those things. I've got these really important things to do. So why would I focus on this fiction? Right? I have to, that's a therapeutic place for me. And it was so healing to allow myself that creative, fun, that side of it, that total, not for any productivity and yet it ended up being productive in the end. Isn't that hysterical? So nourishing my soul with something like that.

Then nourishing my soul with some emotional, uh, cleaning out, being able to get it cleaned out. I did some emotional exercises that helped me to get some emotions cleaned out. I just, you know, it's kind of like the gunk in the water humidifier. You just got to get some hydrogen peroxide, get it cleaned out. You just got to go into some of those rooms, you just got to clean the Bay sports. You just got to get some emotional cleaning done. And so I went in and did some emotional cleaning of just leftover things that didn't belong that it kind of a little bit of dust and gunk that had kind of been collecting and just got rid of it. Oh, it was so freeing. And then I actually did some physical decluttering, went into one of my rooms, my office and some old files and things like that. Just went in and I was brutal. Even things that mattered to me a whole lot. I just went in and I just went through it and called it out. It was such a great feeling, a thing of beauty. And even though the irony is you could not see a difference on the outside (well at first, because after that, that led to me tiding up the desk and all of that.) But even though you couldn't see it at first, you could feel a difference in the room. And I don't know what studies show about that, but I have to tell you it was very real thing. So I did some emotional and physical cleaning out.

And then the third thing on nourishing my soul was I upped my spiritual practices. And so there's some places that I go that are sanctuaries for me. It's a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and I love, it's just so peaceful and oh, it's restoring. I love it. So I notched that up. And then also I notched up my scripture reading and my meditations. I had gotten out of the habit of doing what I know works. Ever been there? I don't understand why we as human beings do that. We do something, we finally get it to be a habit.

We know that it works. And then a year or two years later or something, we just randomly stopped doing it because life gets busy. I don't understand this. I don't understand myself. Why would I stop doing the very thing that I know helps me simply because life notched up. It doesn't make sense. But thankfully I became aware of it and started back to those meditations and you can probably feel the joy in my voice. I feel so good and so happy. So those things all worked really well for me. And I know they worked for me in the past and I know they've worked for other women. So especially with my coaching calls and things like that, I ask women, what's working for you? What do you need? What's happening? What's working with what I'm teaching? And so I'm telling you these are things that also worked for others.

So let's go to the second thing. I actually had an epiphany. I remembered years ago when I had adrenal fatigue and I remember what helped when my cortisol was just through the roof. And I remembered that one of the things I needed to do was stop working out so hard. In fact, for a little while, I stopped working out. And that sounds counterintuitive because I have just gotten back on that and exercising great. Doing Zumba, doing Ballet Beautiful, just this Pilates kind of toning and really going for it kind of a thing. And, and I really felt strongly, no, it is time for your body to rest. You've had a lot of good things, a lot going on, serving in a lot of different capacities from at my church to the programs and creating new ones and writing and social media posts and all of these different things and media and all kinds of stuff.

And so I really had to be counterintuitive with this because I thought, no, I love that feeling of exercising, but it was not helping me. And I noticed that when I was starting to exercise so hard that in the afternoon I was needing a nap and that's when I can tell I'm doing it too hard and it's not working for me. So I stopped exercising and I started resting. I use that time to rest and it was so hard. Now I'm someone who's like, hey joy, self-care, do it. It is so good for you, but when I've got deadlines looming and things that need to be done, it's really hard for me to do that on a, you know, more than 15 minutes or something even if I do it and I now know that I need to have you felt that before where you're like, I know I need to rest.

I know it's better for me, but I just gotta get this one thing done. And so I had to listen and take my own advice. OUCH! It's so painful to do that. Like listening to yourself speak. Exactly. So it was interesting because just the other day I was thinking, I really should rest right now. Nope, I should be productive. And it's those productive shoulder angels, you know, no rest. No, I gotta get it done and My 19-year-old daughter came into the kitchen, she looked at me and she said, I think you need to rest. I was like, wow, do I look that bad? But she said, no, I just really think that I really feel that. And here she was validating the very thing that I was thinking and feeling. Out of the mouths of Babes. Why is it that our children have to teach us how to adult?

I don't know. But anyway, I took her advice and it was fantastic. It was wonderful and then I started binge watching those Hallmark movies. Hey, got a book idea and some scene ideas who was great. So anyway, rested. And then I also enjoy the simple things, enjoyed stretching, enjoyed making a nice meal, not just I got to do it and get it done to get everybody fed. And yesterday, my sweet son, my six-year-old was just kind of having a hard day. So we spent the day baking, we just baked big pumpkin bars and peanut butter pots and oh they are so good. And Banana bread and ready to take stuff to neighbors later on with the kids. And it was just a joy. It was an absolute joy. Just didn't know what I was going to bake and do and there was no agenda.

And we just had a ball. I was back to having fun. So nourished that body with doing delightful things. Here I was baking and we were sampling and eating and I wasn't thinking, oh, I'm eating carbs and I'm eating sugar. I was just enjoying that experience with him, which was so great. So that's the second thing. Nourish your body. So nourish your soul, nourish your body. And then the last one is nourish others. Now you're going to say, Connie, where in here is the three-point plan for how I'm going to get back to being more productive? Well, I'm telling you, this is it. It's this mind shift that you have to do. It's listening to your body, being gentle, getting it reset back to neutral, and then filling it up and then you can go forth and nourish others. And it was so joyful.

Like I said here, I started baking, I was thinking, well, why don't we bake for so and so and Oh, they would love that banana bread. And it became this joy. And you know, it was so fun is that while we were baking, it started to snow. And I was playing with him, we were doing transformers and laughing and running around and it was really fun. And then all of a sudden I hear the sound now my dryer just started kind of almost on fire. And so you can imagine, especially after being evacuated for fires--unrelated the two--that um, I am a little bit sensitive about sounds. I heard the sound rumbling sound and I was like, is that the washer or the dryer? But then I went, I did not put on the washer dryer this morning. So then I run to the window and lo and behold, our sweet neighbors are snowplowing my driveway, those cute things.

So guess what? I came running out and said, no, we can finish this and they were just so delightful. I said I know what I can do. And I went in and grabbed some of those peanut butter pots that were fresh out of the oven and just ran them out to them and they were so happy. So again, nourishing yourself helps to nourish others.

Then I got a call last night from a friend who has gone through really difficult time, difficult divorce, and the after-effects are difficult working with that person and different things and really just trying to help her children to go through it in a positive and grounded way. What she is doing an amazing job. But you know, as a mom and as a woman, she was struggling that day and just said, hey, can I talk to you? And it was the most beautiful thing.

It was right when I was needing to drive and go pick up my daughter from dance. So I had this time by myself to drive and was able to talk with her and reassure her and give her some thoughts and feelings and ideas that she can choose to take or not take and do something with or not. But it was this feeling of serving and helping. And you know what happens when you do that? When I got done with that, I felt so nourished. I shared truths with her. I was sharing positive, uplifting things and I felt buoyed by that experience only she did, but she didn't snore in the phone, so I know she was still awake, but I just felt this connection and this feeling and that, especially as women, is what we need and men need that too. And especially from women.

You know, studies show that men and women both feel better after being with a woman. Isn't that interesting? Just spending time with them. Yeah. The women are saying, well yeah, Duh. Anyway, all right, so helping others. I just think it's so fantastic that if we nurture our body and soul, guess what our natural instinct is to help others. Because guess what, now your pitcher of energy, joy, happiness is full and people can come and take their cups and they can dip right in there and you don't miss it at all because it's just this life giving water and joy that you feel.

So, I'm hoping that today if you're in a functional funk and you are being your own worst enemy, you are not listening to the clues. Believe me. Trust me. When I say, listen up, listen up girl, because life has a way of notching it up if you don't listen to it when it's low.

So I encourage you step back, look for the clues and then perhaps try one of these things to nourish your soul, nourish your body and nourish others. And then let me know post below and let me know what your experience is. Again, if you want more of this, I have lots of other facebook lives on social media and my books and my programs at all help you learn more principals like that. In fact, if you haven't seen the Five Steps to Balance Redefined, please check it out. It's a free masterclass and I have had the best feedback. Okay, I say it with a grain of salt, you know, and I didn't even buy them brownies, but I have had the sweetest feedback from that, which makes me happy because it's my gift to you. You can start shifting your life by the things that you learn in that free masterclass and people are and they are loving those shifts and they're simple, easy to do.

Starting right now. So if you want that, check it out. It's conniesokol.com/masterclass. You can check that out on my website or on my social media. I have stuff all over the place on there so you can check that out. It's my little free gift to you and as always, I've got lots of fun stuff on my newsletter, so sign up cause I can give you the latest and the greatest, the tips and the discounts, all the things that will help you with your life because that's what we're here for at Balanced Redefined my joy, my happiness, my sweet spot is helping you live a life of purpose, organization and joy. Boom.

That's what makes me smile besides my kids. All right, I'm sorry. It's, it's, you know, kids come first and then you guys really, really close second depending on the day and depending on the child. All right, have a fabulous day and stay tuned for more podcasts. on Balance Redefined.

Hi, I'm Connie Sokol and thanks for listening today to Balance Redefined. Don't forget to rate and subscribe and if you liked it, get even more life shifting learning with my facebook where you get more life hacks, experts, community, and connection. Join us and add your voice today at facebook.com/conniesokol.