Introspection and post holiday blues

Book a trip inside your conscience via introspection

Have you ever experienced an excruciating emptiness once the holidays are over? If the answer is yes, it means that you’ve experienced the post-holiday blues, a psychological phenomenon that happens after you came back from a wonderful vacation to your usual life.

You start to slightly feel it after Christmas is over. The holiday spirit vanished, being replaced by anxious thoughts about long hours spent at work or by "The Spirit of Unpaid Bills and Debts," and you start to hate every Christmas decoration or Christmas related commercial because they induce some kind of nausea. Still, it’s not that bad because you know that there’s one more “superhero” that will save you from this horrible state and that is New Year’s Eve.

So, what now? Well, you’re trying to encourage yourself. “It’s a new year, it’s a new me!” Sounds familiar? Of course, you’re thinking that you will quit smoking, you’ll start a new healthy diet, you’ll work out more, you’ll earn more money, all in all you’ll be a better person and you’ll have a healthy lifestyle. Usually, all of these thoughts won’t be transformed into actions because of poor time management, lack of motivation, or depression.

One reason why post-holiday blues happens is because we tend to invest so much time, money, energy, hopes and dreams in one single day like there’s no tomorrow. In fact, Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve is just like a normal day which also has 24 hours and will pass by just like the others. The next day comes and we find ourselves exhausted and “naked” in the blizzard of our usual lives and in the chaos of depressive thoughts. Here’s where the introspection process could be very helpful.

The introspection process

Introspection is a psychological method in which you observe, analyze and explain you own mental states, behaviors and emotions. Many people tend to analyze themselves when bad times happen or when they go to a psychotherapist. But introspection could help us every day, even if it’s a good or bad one.

We prepared for you a list of introspective questions that will help you to put some order in your life, and why not, give you a motivational boost. Take some paper and a pen and honestly answer these questions.

1. How it’s my life right now?
2. How happy am I every day?
3. How are my relationships with family, friends, and colleagues?
4. How healthy am I? What is my stress tolerance?
5. What is my self-esteem level?
6. What do I do to nourish my mind? How many books have I read in the past 5 years?
7. What would I like to be? What’s my purpose and do I study enough for it?
8. What are my goals in life? To what extent have I achieved my goals so far?
9. How much money do I earn and how much would I like to earn?
10. What am I best at?
11. What I wanted to learn but I had no time or resources?
12. What do I offer to the people around me?
13. How is my love life? Is it good, bad or average? What can I do to improve it?
14. What would I get rid of to improve life? What should I add?
15. How about my spiritual needs?
16. Where do I see myself in 5 years? How about in 10 or 20?
17. Do I travel or explore as much as I want?

We often find ourselves entangled in our daily routine and we tend to forget about what is really important. So, we need to question ourselves, where we are heading in life. Are we closer to the adolescent's ideal self? If not, then we need to draw the line and refocus on what's important!