It Pours

Today has been a decidedly weird day. Weather-wise, it's been intermittently glorious, rain downpour-y and hailing. Stace-wise, I started very productive and focussed but by lunchtime I had run almost entirely out of steam. It's Mental Health Awareness week this week and frankly, I'm rarely more aware of my mental health than during menstruation XD It's like my usual anxieties and tiredness and whatnot are turned up to 11. Today I am particularly battling with feeling a bit useless. I don't feel like I'm up to my usual standard at work, home, as a friend, as a wife etc. I almost wrote that I don't feel like I'm at my best there, but honestly I really am trying my best at the moment, it's just that my current best isn't quite where my previous best was. I really need to work on accepting that sometimes my expectations need to adjust based on where I'm at right now. Easier said than done though, innit? Anyway, as part of me trying to help my own brain today, I took a bit of time during this particularly violent downpour to open the kitchen door and just listen to the cacophony of rain sounds. I'm one of those weirdos who kind of loves rain (except if I'm going somewhere that I can't dry off or change into dry clothes), so it was rather lovely to spend a few minutes just listening and resting and not staring at my screen. 

I feel like I should give a bit of mental health advice even though I am crap at taking it myself, but hopefully this might help at least one person feel less alone or "weird" or what have you; if you're not feeling mentally great, give yourself permission to feel off. Don't even make excuses for yourself (even though though the current situation is a pretty flipping good one), just sit in the fact that you're not exactly feeling how you would like right now but that it's OK. You're not weird or broken or whatever, you're just going through a tough time. Allow yourself to ask for help if you need to. Take a moment to do something that calms or centres you, whether that's watching and listening to the rain, meditation, playing a video game, taking a walk, having a nice hot shower. You got this x