There are times when you just don't feel good. Times when depression or stress take away your ability to naturally do whatever it is that makes you feel good. You have to make a conscious effort to get up and get yourself ready for the day or to interact with people, to laugh and play, even to eat. Here is what the designer has to say about her reasons for creating this list:
Deep in the throes of postpartum depression, when it felt like I would never get better ever again, I made myself a list. The therapy was okay; my journal helped; my husband was great. But I needed to go at that thing with every possible weapon in the feel-good arsenal.
I read all the literature on depression; I researched neurochemistry as best I could. And then I sat down and listed every single thing I could think of that might help me feel better. Things my doctors had told me; things I knew about myself. I wrote them all down.
And then I started checking them off.
I never once got the whole thing checked off in a week, but working at it and seeing how much effort I was putting into my recovery made it start to feel like, well, recovery.
Now that I’m better I see that it’s not really a recovery list so much as a life list. It’s like my own best advice to myself. My own little reminder to be kind to myself, to make myself a priority, and to take time to stay healthy so that I don’t slide back down the dreaded, dreaded hill.
I just love that. As women, as mothers and daughters and sisters and friends, we all need a reminder to be more kind to ourselves, to take time for ourselves so we can continue to take care of the other people around us. Making a list is so simple it almost seems silly, and goodness knows I love a good list, but if that's what it takes to help pull you out of whatever it is that is dragging you down, then why not?
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