BLUE MONDAY !!

Just a short blog this morning. I hardly have opened my eyes before I am inundated with messages on social media that this is the ‘most depressing day’ of the year – Blue Monday. Having now opened the blinds, yes it does not look the most appealing day I agree, windy, cold, grey and threat of rain (here in Holland), but come on … why I am almost having to be brainwashed with the idea that today is going to be an awful day, nothing is going to go right, it’s depressing and so on. Well if I allowed all this social media and also the newspapers and television (morning news) are running the same story, to get to me, I may as well just go back to bed and forget the whole day and get up afresh tomorrow.

Where does this rubbish come from? Loads of so-called experts have come to the opinion all over the world that today of all days, is Blue Monday. Why not Blue Friday or Blue Sunday? Why is January the month when apparently we are all ‘in a dip’?

Of course we can allow ourselves to be totally influenced by the media and by coffee time we all believe it!

I decided to look up where this idea comes from?

Well apparently Blue Monday (today 15th January 2018) is the date of the most depressing day of the year. Why I ask myself? It then goes on to say that: Blue Monday is usually on a Monday! Wow I wonder who came up with that thought?

The term Blue Monday, is as it often the case, derived from the English idea of ‘feeling blue’. Feeling blue means that you are sombre, down, or depressed. I am slowly getting to this point just reading the words!

Apparently the colour blue, which I personally associate with the word ‘peace’, comes from the shipping industry. If a ship lost its captain, the crew would put a blue band around a ship to depict their sadness. When the ship eventually came home, then people could see that the crew felt depressed by the loss of their ‘leader’.

The actual man who came up with the idea of Blue Monday is the British psychologist Cliff Amall. He made up his own scientific theory in 2005 that the Monday of the last full week of January would be a day when people were sad? Err what? It was all attached to the idea that their good resolutions had flown out of the window; the weather was bad (well at least that is true today, because since I started typing its pouring with rain too). The days are darker, shorter and guess what? Monday apparently is the first day of the working week, just in case you had missed this point somewhere along the line!!

Blue Monday is apparently a Western European/North American idea. In India for examples the Hindus’ are celebrating the midwinter time (the change over to longer days). They look at this darker period apparently half way through January, from the sunny side. From this moment on sunrise every morning will be earlier than the day before. This of course also relates to the difference between the northern and southern hemispheres. But if you like me are thinking, right let’s all go to India in January from now on, some people on the globe are actually celebrating.

Blue Monday is also known as ‘Depressing Monday’. People don’t think the word Blue is awful enough anymore to describe such a ‘bad’ day.

Right enough is enough!! The real answer is how much do you allow yourself today to be influenced by old customs and far fetched ideas. Isn’t this a day like any other start to the week when you can get out of bed in the morning being grateful for what you have. Grateful that you have a bed to get out of, instead of a piece of plastic somewhere in the middle of nowhere. That you have a job to go to which earns you the money to live? That January is like every single month of the year, it just happens to be the first one? The first one, why don’t we turn that idea around and think, yes, the first one!

I was just about to say ‘what a load of crap’ but I have to say that it is a dark day for sure, I have had to put the lights on to see my laptop better. But, I am not going to allow myself to be pulled down by some silly idea that I have to have a total depression day today. Actually I am in the flow, I am writing a new book (this happened last year 2017 at exactly the same time too). Ideas are flowing, I am being creative and yes, the weather might not be that wonderful, but I am spending my time doing something I really love, going into the fantasy world of writing. Expressing my thoughts, making a story (it’s a fictional book by the way, so no holes barred) and I am not going to go down the road of even thinking for one moment that this is a terrible day and I should not have got up in the first place.

Turn the energy around; think about all those people dancing with joy in India, they are celebrating, so why don’t we just join in? It is up to you whether you allow yourself to be dragged down into a feeling of depression, that nothing is going right, it’s a blue day, and then believe me that is exactly what will happen. You will just pick up this nonsense energy and be taken up in the flow. You can make the choice you know to think differently. Show that you are strong, you dare to not be just one of the herd!

This is such nonsense, have you ever heard of Pink Tuesday or Yellow Saturday??

Keep focussed on what your dreams are? What you want to achieve this year? Maybe some of your well intended resolutions have faded away? Is it that bad? There is always a moment like today when you can begin again isn’t there?

Come on everyone lift up your heart and don’t just go with this weird idea, which someone just came up with, medically or scientifically proven, or not? It is just an idea which mainly installs fear and fear means power. Have a think about that!

Happy, Happy Monday everyone! This is a brand new day and keep focussed.

On a more positive note and we all need that today apparently, the first new moon will occur on January 17th to be exact (marking the beginning of a new lunar cycle. The moon is between the earth and the sun, that is why we can only sometimes see the small crescent shape) and also the second full moon on the 31st January. This is really called the Blue Moon. The English saying: ‘once in a Blue Moon’ means that a big opportunity is coming and a lot of positive energy too. A really positive moment then!

Sorry Cliff Amall I think you got it all wrong.