“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”
William Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2)
January. Traditionally a time for ‘the blues’. The festivities are over, the lights are packed away, and for many of us, the bank account is looking far from healthy.
All the above things may be true, and none of us would be at fault if we didn’t feel a bit deflated after what is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. It’s back to work (in the dark), and not much to look forward to. Who wouldn’t feel the shine has been taken off things a little!
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be one of those terrible ‘new year, new you’ blogs. Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) doesn’t do toxic positivity. Life isn’t fun and festivities all the time (in fact that would be pretty horrible, don’t you think?), and acknowledging that sometimes things can be less than great is key to dealing with them.
Beat the blues with REBT
Like Shakespeare quoted above, one of the founding philosophies of REBT comes from the Stoic thinker Epictetus: ‘People are disturbed not by things, but by the view they take of them.’ By thinking rationally and realistically about a situation, we come to realise we are more than capable of accepting it and tolerating the discomfort it may bring.
So what might be the irrational thoughts about January that could be provoking our feelings of the blues?
That the festivities must not have ended? It’s probably only really Roy Wood and Wizard who wish it could be Christmas every day. Rationally, surely most of us understand it is the very scarcity of celebrations that make them special. We could, more realistically, admit that though we would prefer to have a nice time more often, we realistically understand this isn’t possible, and we only make ourselves unhappy by wishing for the impossible.
That January is an unbearably gloomy and boring time? To tell ourselves something is intolerable only ends up making it seem so (just ask Hamlet). Instead, let us accept that January is never going to be up there with the fun months, but we’ve tolerated several of them before, so we can tolerate this one too.
That it is awful to be facing another new year on a tight budget and in the dark to boot? In reality, this might not be great, in fact it might be objectively bad, but it is far from the end of the world. If we manage our expectations and instead see it as a time of year to hunker down, regroup and think about our plans for the year, it can become a time of if not unbridled joy, then perhaps quiet contemplation (or grim determination, you decide!).
Like it or not, it is January for us all. And yet not everyone will be feeling blue. If others can get through the year’s cold beginning with a more Stoic and accepting attitude, then we can understand it is not the month that determines how we feel, but how we think about the month.
And the days, in fact, are really getting longer. Hold on to that thought!
Nick Jones
REBT/CBT therapist
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