Taking my Funk out to lunch...

Most of us feel down at times. Sometimes this sluggish energy waits for us on waking and other times it just moves in for a little. A reader and I were talking about this recently. How emotions dip and one is left feeling like a squashed tomato.

She began telling me how she had handled her funk a while back. "I tried to move it for a couple of days, which is rare for me, but I couldn't get rid of it. So I took Funk to town and visited several art galleries I had wanted to see. We went to the Maud Lewis exhibition. And God, if anyone needed a funk it was her, yet she kept right on painting.

"After Maud, I decided to take Funk out to lunch at the restaurant across the street. The server asked if there was two of us. I said yes. She gave me a puzzled look and brought the extra fork, knife, and napkin. Funk and I actually had a delightful lunch. By the time I arrived home later that afternoon, Funk was nowhere to be seen."

I asked why she thinks to take her funk out for lunch worked? "Well, it was crying for heaven's sake. It was like a little being that needed attention, needed to be important. Besides, it didn't like Funk food.
"Good land, what's Funk food?"
"Oh, doing the same old, same old all the time. It needed something fresh and new that was different and something we both wanted to do. It needed to hold court, to be honored. Lunch out just seemed to fit. Besides, if I had asked Funk if it wanted another day of the same old, same old routine, it would have rolled its eyes and said, "Right!"

Later, I pondered the same question, why was taking Funk out effective? As she said, "For two days, I was fighting it but couldn't rid myself of it. I had to do something. So I put it outside of me and objectified it. Then I listened.  It was crying and wanted change. It didn't want to know what came next, and next, and endlessly next. It wanted to be acknowledged."
I quired, "That's it?"
"Well partly, Yet seeing the funk as other than me, I was freed from its identity which left my beautiful, natural, larger self in charge.

Looking satisfied, she added, "And next time Funk comes back, I am taking her to Winner's and buying her a new outfit."