How Do You Spend Your Emotional Currency?

If life was a dollar bill and you had 100 pennies that you could spend, how would you spend them? How are you currently spending your pennies? I am the first to raise my hand and agree that bad things happen to good people and that there is enough chaos in the world to bog us down. And I will also admit that there was a time when I put way too many of my pennies toward being sad and feeling broken (I had my reasons). I definitely had to feel all the feels and go through the “stages,” but today I am more cautious in how I spend my energy. It didn’t happen overnight, but I’ve realized that if I put 60 of my pennies toward being sad about something, I only have 40 left to be happy about something.

I am not an expert on “allocating pennies,” but here are a few quick tips that I’ve found help me manage when it feels like my piggy bank has been shattered. Maybe they’ll help you lift your spirits, no matter what you’re dealing with.

5 Quick Tips to Lift Your Spirits

1. Smile. Whenever I am feeling sad about something, I quickly try to think of something that makes me smile. The goal is not to keep myself from feeling blue, but more to prevent myself from falling too far down into the rabbit hole.

2. Breathe. Of course breathing is always a positive. I try to take 10 slow breaths counting backwards or up by twos. The act of counting in a different way forces my brain to focus on the breathing and not just breath.

3. Share. My husband is my best friend but he isn’t the only one that I share with. Some days I need my sister. Others it’s my best friend. Find someone you trust that you can open up to and allow him or her to help you walk through your burden.

4. Sweat it out. Get your heart rate pumping and your body moving. Sometimes getting to the gym isn’t possible and all that I can do is crank up the music (even if it has to be “Elmo’s Got the Moves”) and move my body. By the end, I’ve probably pulled out some ridiculous dance move from college that has me cracking up.

5. Refocus. My husband calls it refocusing on the present. I calling it avoiding the coulda, shoulda, wouldas. The present is now and dreaming about how it coulda, shoulda, woulda been different won’t actually change anything,

This is your life. Here are your 100 pennies. You get to pick how you spend them. How will you spend yours? —Julie