If you are feeling down and your motivation is low, know that you are not alone. After the sparkle and joy of the festive season, many people experience a dip in January. It’s no surprise that this coming Monday, the third Monday in January, is regarded as the most depressing day of the year.
Known as Blue Monday and falling this year on January 19, cold weather, lack of money, lapsed new year resolutions and shorter daylight hours contribute to what is viewed as the saddest or most emotionally difficult day of the year .
The term “Blue Monday” was coined by former Cardiff University health psychologist Cliff Arnall in 2005. It formed part of a Sky Travel press release encouraging people to make holiday bookings, and has been dismissed by some experts since then as a marketing stunt or pseudoscience, rather than a real psychological phenomenon.
However, there is no escaping the fact that January is a difficult month for many, which is why mental health advocacy groups traditionally use Blue Monday to facilitate discussions about mental health.
Author, coach and celebrant, Aislinn Cambridge, whose business name is Minister4Happiness, runs manifestation classes online and gives workshops on creating your life consciously. When it comes to fighting the winter blues, she feels that it is helpful to put things in perspective, and she encourages people to have faith, rather than to operate on their fears.
“There’s an awful lot in life that we can be grateful for that can get us out of bed and get us excited, no matter what our circumstances are and no matter how we’re feeling right now,” she points out. “There is always that bit of hope, and as the saying goes, both fear and faith demand that you believe in something you cannot see.”
Aislinn says that the set point in our own happiness levels is 50 per cent genetic, so there is nothing that can be done about that, and ten per cent is based on our circumstances. This includes factors such as where we were born and if we’re experiencing situations in our life that we can’t control.
“The good news is the 40 per cent that is left over is down to our thoughts, actions and behaviours, so this is where the actual power is to change our life for the better,” she says. “I’m talking about the part you can control. I just finished the first draft of a book about manifestation, because that’s what I’ve been teaching for years – consciously creating more happiness in your life, whatever your goals are. Everybody’s different. There are as many versions of happiness as there are people on the planet, and we have to embrace our uniqueness.
“The first section of the book is all about our mind and thought processes and how our thinking affects how we feel. The second part of the book is about the actions we take, and our behaviours, which is where our power lies. And the third part is about who you’re around, because as the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all ships, so who you’re around is very important.”
Aislinn’s simple, practical tips for feeling happier include:
Focusing on your thoughts
“What are you thinking about?” she says. “What are you giving your energy to? What are you growing in your life? Because as much as you can blame everybody else, at the end of the day, when it comes to my life, I take responsibility for everything, because it’s me that’s doing the thinking. Even if I take an opinion from somebody else on board and it affects how I feel, that’s my choice to allow that thought in.
“We are the guard keepers of our own mind, so we either allow things in or we don’t”, she adds. “It’s up to us. If a stranger came up to you on the street and said, ‘Oh, you’re a complete fool’, you’d probably take no notice of them because they’re not important to you. And sometimes we take things so personally from people in our lives, and we start telling ourselves this story that isn’t who we are. So what I would say is, start monitoring your thoughts now, and see if you are thinking thoughts that make you feel good, or ones that make you feel bad?”
Encouraging good thoughts to flourish
Aislinn says that good thoughts are like flowers in a garden, as they make you feel good, they look good, and they elevate you. She uses the analogy of the “good gardener”, who goes out and plants the seeds for the trees and the flowers that they want to grow to create a beautiful garden, and knows that they need nourishment, sunlight and watering. Comparing this to our lives, she says that the beautiful things in the garden represent the good things in our life – our kind thoughts, the lovely memories we have, the things we get excited about, and the things that bring us pleasure.
“So by being a good gardener in your mind, you’re feeding those good thoughts and giving them light,” she says. “You’re seeing them more and watering them more because you’re thinking about them more. The gardener also knows that weeds will grow out of anywhere, and they’re resilient, and the quicker you pluck out the weeds, the less likely they are to take root and to take over your beautiful garden and suffocate your flowers. And in our mind, the weeds are the bad thoughts, the worries, the stresses and the fears.
Trying not to worry
“Ernest Hemingway said that if something is wrong, fix it if you can, but try not to worry. Worry fixes nothing, and I know that that’s easier said than done when we’re going through difficult times, but what I will say too is no amount of worry has ever fixed anything for anybody. Ever. We think we’re pushing a problem away when we worry, but we’re actually giving it energy.
“You actually have to come away from it and do something else that changes the energy. You can’t solve that problem with the same mind that created it. So you have to actually learn to pluck that weed, and then all of a sudden, what happens is that life comes along in whatever way you want to believe – whether it’s God, the universe, life, whatever – and gives you a solution or help. But if you’re caught up with the problem, you’re in your own way, so we need to learn to pluck out those weeds.
“I’m not saying to ignore your problems, but if you’re worrying and stressing and not doing anything to change the problem, that’s not helping. So it’s about being realistic, and reality isn’t negative or positive. It’s reality. We can all have good days and we can all have bad days. To simplify it, your mind is a garden and your thoughts are seeds. You can plant flowers or you can plant weeds.”
Finding what you’re grateful for in life.
According to Aislinn, gratitude is the key to changing your mindset. “I wake up in the morning and think of three things I’m grateful for before I get out of bed,” she says. “That just might be that I can get out of bed, it might be that I have a roof over my head. It might be that I have work that I love to do, or that I’m well. So think of three things every morning that you’re grateful for, and then before you go to bed at night, look back on your day and think of what went well.
“And even if you think nothing went well, you made it through the day so that’s number one. You have a bed to sleep in, maybe that’s number two, and you probably had food to eat during the day. So there’s always something that you can be grateful for. And by changing our attitude to one of gratitude, we are elevating ourselves and our frequency.”
Giving out a positive energy
“We all know what it’s like to walk into a room and there’s bad vibes there, but it isn’t just what we’re picking up, we’re also putting it out,” says Aislinn. “If you are in a bad mood and you go out into the world and you’re angry and frustrated, you’re probably going to encounter a lot of people who are rude and not nice. This will justify in your mind, ‘Oh, sure, this is a crap day and I knew this was the way it would be.”
“Whereas, if you go out into the day and you’re like, ‘You know what, I can walk,, I can get outside, it’s dry today, we’ve had a really nice winter, we haven’t had as much rain as usual.’ There’s a lot to be grateful for. So you could even be grateful that you have the eyes to read this article, that you have the ears to hear the sound of the birds in the morning. There are so many things we can pull gratitude from, and that practice has been probably the biggest game-changer for me and the people that I work with, regardless of their goals. For being happy in the everyday, gratitude is essential. I think it’s the best currency we could have. And if you’re in that state of gratitude, you elevate your frequency, and then you start to see things in your life get a little bit better.”
Being kind
One of the top things that I love to do is be kind. There’s a difference between kindness and niceness, as you can be nice to somebody, but being kind is an action. This includes when you hold a door for someone, or do something for somebody that you know would mean a lot to them, such as paying for a stranger’s coffee, giving someone a compliment or helping your neighbour out. It doesn’t have to cost you money or put you under pressure. It’s about giving what you can and being kind.
“There’s actually a thing called the ‘helper’s high’, which is scientifically proven. When you give to others, you get more of a hit of dopamine, which is a happy chemical, than the person receiving the help. In the same way, when you’re not nice or rude and impatient and you judge people, that’s toxic to your body. And nobody needs to freak out about this, just become aware of it and have more of the good feelings and less of the bad ones. The bad ones are going to come – that’s life. But if you focus on creating more of the good ones and by being the good gardener in your mind, you will start to see your life get better.”
Watching who – and what – you’re around
This doesn’t just mean the people you live with, it also means what you expose yourself to on TV and on the radio and even the things you read, according to Aislinn. “If you’re reading something positive – even this article – the worst that can happen is that you feel better,” she says. “You need to be in charge of what you read, what you watch, even the music you listen to, and the people you’re around.
“For anyone who’s in a difficult situation in their life right now where they feel a little bit hopeless, and maybe they don’t have many people supporting them, and they need some glimmer of hope in their lives, there are many wonderful places you can go to find a tribe and a community. I’ve done work over the years with a beautiful group of people up in Nano Nagle Place called the Lantern Project, and they run courses for free for people who need love and support and non-judgement.
“So if you’re somebody who wants to increase your happiness this year, find your tribe, start reading positive content, and start watching happy shows or comedies rather than just watching the news. Don’t be inundated with bad stuff, because if you’re finding it hard to cope with your own life, how are you going to take on all the problems of the world? You’re not going to solve them.”
“Start looking at your life. You’re in charge of it, you’re the boss, you’re the CEO, you’re the manager, you’re everything. Take control of what you’re thinking and who you are around and if your goal this year is to be happier, make that your priority, because whatever you prioritise will show up in your life.”
Aislinn’s website is minister4happiness.com and you can follow her on Instagram on instagram.com/minister4happinesscork
