I am feeling so excited, appreciated admired and even loved at work…and that is something I have not felt for a long time! For the past 3-4 years I have been a very lonely person in a workplace of 100 staff. Few people gave me the time of day and to be honest at times I probably did look like something the cat dragged in. As a teacher I struggled to gain the respect and admiration of students, I struggled with confrontations, I often struggled to maintain composure and not have fisheyes from crying. I was depressed.
Now depression varies in it’s severity so sometimes – rarely – I would have a good time yapping with a staff member, and I did find a very small social circle in patchwork class – but that was about my limit. Now in these last 2 weeks something dramatic has changed – like flipping the record over and playing the hit song from side 1.
I decided to separate from my husband, to address the failure of our marriage and relationship, to confront the real problem in my life which was the fact that living with him had drained me of all my good stuff. See my response to ‘energy vampires’ for that bit of the story. This is when the record stopped playing. I took a few weeks to pull myself together and a fellow staff member who did spend time with me said – I have decided I want to try and do something to help and have a psecial treat for my birthday. Come to the hairdressers with me. My immediate reaction (habitual) was ‘can’t do that it costs money!’ I said – ‘I would have to check the finances but it sounded like a great idea. ‘ I was dumb struck – a staff member had invited me out with her! It was a real WOW moment! By this time my body language had changed – my smiles were genuine, I was taking the time to not look frumpy, and my grey hairs – well we won’t go there.
Since I have decided to adopt a ‘can do’ attitude I was in that moment realising it was time to put that into action. The next day I said ‘Yes – and book me in for colour too’. Hang the expense – I earn a good wage and had not been professionally treated at the hairdressers for over 2 years. I had learned to cut my hair myself and use supermarket hair colour. This would be a real treat and it so happens to be my birthday the week after. So I went along and got a cut, colour and a blowwave with my friend from work beside me encouraging me to go for it. I had a cheer squad!
As soon as I walked in the door that night my daughter said ‘hey mum that is fantastic!’. That night working with a bunch of guys on scenery for a show they all passed comment more than once – and at work the next day it felt like everyone had something positive to say including more than half my students. When you are depressed you fall into the habit of putting down a compliment – ‘nice shoes’ – ‘yeah I got them at the op shop’. ‘Nice work’ – ‘yeah but I could have done this better’. Yesterday I practiced simply saying thankyou…and God it FELT GOOD!
So…if you can let go, make a new you, here is the lesson I learned (and I didn’t have to spend thousands of dollars on a surgical makeover to get the accolades they do on makeover TV shows) Make a decision that will encourage optimism in you and lift your depresion. Go with it and your body language will change. It will stop saying ‘stay away from me I am a negative/depressed person. Then, when you are ready, do something as simple as a change of hair style and see what happens – it will only increase your self esteem and help you feel even more positive about yourself. Not everyone will notice – but you will be surprised how many people who would normally not give you the time of day will in fact pay you a compliment. Finally, top of the compliment with a simple ‘thankyou’. You don’t need to rationalise, just let it fill your empty emotional bucket!.
Flip the record over and play the hit tune! It feels good!
[…] it to the positive thinking tap that will make a differnce. I have seen the change – read my The body language must have said it all to see how much this has changed my life already. Now the flipping hose is under control and […]
[…] even with my body, so I instead I went around in a constant state of depression! (See my post on body language.) The feelings were repressed very deeply inside me. When I did experience them in any way I did not […]