Spring Will Bloom Again: 5 Tips for Recovering from a Spiritual and Mental Rut
The month or so when winter fades and spring looms around the corner is always a revitalizing time for me.
Usually some time after Christmas and the New Year, the aesthetics of the holidays wear off and I’m done with the cold. I’m done with the dreary days. I’m done with wintery clouds. I’m just . . . mentally and physically dull.
Unfortunately, this means that winters are tough and mundane for me. While I wouldn’t go so far as to self-prescribe this time as seasonal depression, I definitely would say that January through the first half of March are times where I just have to pull my head down and push through it.
These are what I call “rut seasons.”
Seasons where life feels mundane, I’m tempted to lay in bed all day, and getting up to complete a simple task is about the equivalent of moving a mountain or getting Congress to do anything productive.
And as humans, it’s normal for us to go through these seasons. It’s also totally okay.
So, even if you’re not currently in a rut season or trying to come out of one, you might wonder: “How do I bounce back from a rut? How do I return to normal life?”
Coming out of a rut takes time. It requires taking baby steps back to God’s arms, where He’s waiting and wanting to pick you back up, dust you off, and set you on solid ground again. Really, coming out of a rut requires God to change our hearts. But what you can do in the meantime is take small, simple steps that involve rewiring your brain, refueling your body, and renewing your vision. By focusing on God and refreshing your mindsets and routines, you will walk out of your rut in no time!
Tip #1: Know Your God
To fully come out of the rut, we must first reconnect with God.
I remember the first time God revealed this truth to me. After experiencing one of my worst depressive episodes to date during my first spring semester of college, my Spanish professor asked me if I could watch her dog and her apartment for a month while she returned to her native home. This month of solitude (just God, me, and the dog) allowed God to meet me in the dark and directionless state I was in. So, while reading John 15:4, God switched the light on in my head and heart:
“Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me.”
God made it painstakingly clear to me as I sat on the floor of that apartment and read a verse I had read so many times before: I was depressed because I wasn’t walking with God.
And how can we expect to have light in our lives if we are not walking with the One Who is light? The One Who created light?
From that moment, God turned my heart around entirely. The chains of depression immediately fell. The chains of anxiety melted. I was made whole, new, and alive again.
You can experience this healing and resurrection, too. But in order to, you must first reconnect with God.
I know that we don’t feel like doing anything during rut seasons. Even things like making a sandwich or taking a shower feels daunting and exhausting. However, we can dedicate at least five minutes of time to meeting with God each morning. Those 5 minutes do not have to be a fancy ritual complete with altar and sacrifice and lengthy prayers. They just need to be a time where you sincerely pour your heart out to God and let Him pour into yours. You can accomplish this by:
Reading a chapter from Psalms or Proverbs for the day. The Psalms and Proverbs are the go-to books of the Bible when you’re in a rough spot and need some encouragement. Plus, they tend to be shorter chapters than those in other parts of the Bible. Start at Psalm 1 or Proverbs 1, then just read the next chapter—day in, day out.
Writing a prayer to God. Grab a journal you have lying around and just journal a prayer to God. He loves these written prayers as much as He does your whispered ones. Plus, you can look back on your prayers in future seasons and see how God has brought you through thick and thin!
Reading an online devotional or Bible reading plan. The YouVersion Bible app is a great resource for this; also consider looking for devotionals you can listen to on YouTube, Spotify, or anywhere you regularly listen to music.
Life and light start with God. We cannot walk out of our ruts if we do not remain in Him, no more than a dead branch can find life again when detached from the vine.
Tip #2: Move Your Body
When your mind deteriorates, your body tends to follow suit.
Each time I’ve descended into another depressive episode, my physical health has suffered:
I lay in bed all day.
I lose my appetite.
I let go of my skincare routines.
However, God designed and formed our bodies to move. In His infinite wisdom, He created endorphins (those “happy” little chemicals in our brain) and implemented a natural trigger in our bodies to release them: movement.
And if this wasn’t convincing enough to get you to take one step—just one step—out of bed, then consider this:
“Don’t you know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, and you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.”
God bought our bodies with the blood of His Son.
God allows the Holy Spirit to reside in our redeemed bodies so that we can have a relationship with Him.
Is that not just . . . incredible? Exhilarating? Humbling?
God has made our bodies temples. The Spirit of the Lord literally resides in you.
The least we can do beyond worshipping God for saving us is to take care of the temples He has created within us. Treat it right, just the way God made it to!
So move.
Now, don’t mistake me here: I’m not asking you to get out of bed with your mindset still deep in a rut to run a marathon. Or to spend the next two hours in a gym. Again, start small and simple. Stretch your body lightly for 5 minutes upon waking up. Go on a gentle walk outside. Pull up a 5-minute ab workout on YouTube and then get it done.
Plan how you will move each day of the week. Think about what your body needs right now. Do you need to focus on light movements like stretching and walking? Would you feel up to heavier movements like weight lifting and resistance training a couple of times a week? Only God and you know what your body needs.
Once you consult with God and have an idea of how you want to move, sketch out how you’re going to move in those ways each day of the week. Here’s the movement plan I made for myself just last week (because I’m slowly coming out of a rut season myself):
My personal weekly “move my body” plan using Notion (a productivity app).
Just like with reconnecting with God, moving our bodies again does not have to be this grand, immediate task. It can be a slow, gentle, gradual process.
Process is where the true change happens.
Process is where you see progress out of the rut.
Tip #3: Fuel Your Appetite
Taking care of the bodies—the temples—God has given us extends beyond moving it in healthy ways. We must also fuel it properly.
Now, we all have read and heard what we should be eating as part of a healthy diet: protein, simple carbohydrates, healthy fats, fruits and veggies, water, etc.
And while fueling our appetite correctly must include these things, I want to focus more on a deeper problem that usually happens with our appetites when we experience a rut season: we don’t eat enough.
Just like we have trouble even getting out of bed, we have trouble even eating one bite. There have been so many times in my own rut seasons that the thought of making a PB&J sandwich made my body feel as heavy as rocks. I would have to drag myself into the kitchen and drag myself through the movements of making the sandwich.
We already know what we need to be eating to improve and maintain our health.
But implementing that is entirely another matter when our appetites shrink or when we feel pangs of hunger but do not have enough energy to feed our stomachs.
So here’s some tips on refueling your appetite when you are coming out of a rut season:
Reflect on your current appetite. You just need to sit down for 5 minutes and ask yourself some questions. What’s something easy and nutritious you can make this week for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Are you craving anything at all? And if you don’t have the energy to make anything, what are alternate options to obtaining nutritious meals to refuel your body? Consider healthy oven dinners, a friend who’s willing to cook a meal for you, or a restaurant with healthy food options.
Plan your meals as much as you can. You don’t have to create one of those fancy meal plan spreadsheets every cool and put together mom seems to have in her house (but if you have one, by all means, please share with the rest of us!) You just need to take your answers to the questions above and plan your meals accordingly.
Here’s what my current system for planning meals looks like:
My weekly meal planner using Notion (a productivity app).
Again: start small and simple. You don’t need 5-star home-cooked meals just yet.
You just need to eat. Even God sent an angel to give Elijah some bread and water when he was depressed and wanting to die in 1 Kings 19.
God’s saying to you today, “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you” (1 Kings 19:7).
Tip #4: Plan Your Day
Other than seeking God’s Presence daily, I think planning my day has always been the biggest game changer for me when coming out of a rut.
There’s just something exhilarating about sitting down in the evening and revisiting your checklist that you made earlier that morning, buzzing with glee as you check off each task (especially for those girlies out there who feel an overwhelming, almost illogical joy at checking off another box).
However, the transition from couch potato to confident planner takes time, effort, and—most importantly—discipline.
Because let’s face it: we don’t want to do anything during our rut seasons. We want to lounge in our bed all day and remain glued to our phone screens.
That’s why, after returning to God and taking care of your body through healthy movements and nutrition, you must then take care of your mentality.
Think about whenever you clean your home and instantly feel 10x better and capable of conquering anything. Planning your days again while transitioning from a rut season to a redemptive season is no different.
You may ask: “But Kaylee, how do you do this? How do you sit down, plan your day, and get anything done when you don’t feel like it?”
My friend, here’s how:
Establish a morning routine.
And please, do not base your post-rut morning routine on all the #thatgirl morning routines we see plastered all over Youtube and TikTok. These are advanced and ideal—goals to build our morning routines toward. But do not dive into these when your motivation and discipline levels are low. Instead, choose 3 small things you want to focus on in these three categories: spiritual, physical, mental. For me, this typically looks like 5-10 minutes of Bible reading and prayer journaling, 5-10 minutes of yoga, and 5-10 minutes of reading and/or journaling. By keeping my routine limited to 3 tasks and around 5-10 minutes each, I give myself space to do these things despite my low levels of motivation and discipline. I can tell myself, “Hey, it’s only 5-10 minutes. I can do that.” And as I consistently complete my 3 morning routine tasks daily, I build my motivation and discipline. Only then do I add on more tasks and extend the timeframes, building up toward that typical yet aesthetic #thatgirl morning routine.
Establish an evening routine.
Just like with your morning routine, choose 3 tasks in the spiritual, physical, and mental categories. My evening routine mirrors my morning routine: 5-10 minutes of Bible reading and prayer journaling, 5-10 minutes of light stretching, and 5-10 minutes of reading or journaling. However, I might read a different passage in the Bible or just focus on penning a prayer. I might also choose to journal in the evening if I read for 5-10 minutes earlier that morning. Again, I’m giving myself space to switch it up slightly without sacrificing major change that might upset my motivation or discipline levels and cause me to not stick to the routine.
Bookend your day with a “power hour” and “turndown service.”
Within the past month, two authors and Christian woman content creators whom I follow (Ashley Hetherington and Hannah Brencher) introduced these two separate entities: “power hour” and “turndown service.”
And my life has never been the same.
Here’s how yours can change, too, using these powerful tools (which will be especially helpful when coming out of a rut season. Trust me!).
Begin your day with a “power hour.” A power hour essentially is when you set aside an hour for you to sit down, plan your day, and get started on the top 3 tasks you need to get done that day. Now, if you don’t have time to sit down for an hour to do this, that’s okay! Honestly, I’ve been doing “power hours” for the past two weeks, and some mornings look more like “power half-hours.” Either way, as long as you are setting aside time to sit down, plan your day with God, and get a head start on 3 tasks you need to do that day, you’re doing great! And trust me: this “power hour” truly will make you feel powerful. Because not only have you given yourself time and space to set yourself up for success, but you’re also doing something that isn’t lounging and stewing in your own rut. A win is a win, no matter what it looks like!
End your day with a “turndown service.” Some content creators call this a “closing shift,” which is the idea that you take some time to tidy up your space and prepare yourself for a relaxing evening. However, the idea of a “turndown service” feels cozier to me—like returning to your hotel room after an exhausting day of travel and sinking into freshly-changed sheets. Like with your “power hour,” this “turndown service” can be an hour. Each woman will intuitively know what works best for her “turndown service.” For me, this looks like cleaning the kitchen, preparing coffee for tomorrow morning, washing dog bowls, picking up dog toys in the living room, and recapping today’s checklist before setting up tomorrow’s checklist. These things take me maybe 20 minutes to complete, but they allow my body to relax because my mind thinks, “Oh, we’re shutting down for today. Cool. Let’s chill!”
Trust me, my friend: these are literal game changers, no matter if you’re coming out of a rut season or you just need a way to streamline and maximize your day. Bookending your day with these two things will empower you but also free you of any unnecessary stresses and worries from an untidy mind or an unkempt space.
Tip #5: Rediscover Your Joys
If you’ve implemented tips #1-4 so far, chances are you are already feeling like a totally new person and are feeling alive. Alive in God, alive in a new purpose, and alive in your heart.
Ready for the last tip?
Rediscover your joys.
Now, this sounds overly complicated. I get it. How can you rediscover joys that you lost during your rut season?
Honestly, more times than not, those of us coming out of a rut season just tend to stumble across things that used to bring us joy.
For example, in the first full month after slowly emerging from my rut, I stumbled across songs and artists that reminded me of better seasons I had in the past: specifically the Hamilton soundtrack (if you know, you know) and the Christian rap artist NF (a great artist to listen to when you’re coming out of a rut).
God will lead you to finding joy in Him. There’s no need to worry that He won’t. Because He knows that joy is found in the simple things. He knows that ruts are overcome by focusing on simple things. One step at a time, He leads us back to Him and out of the rut.
Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
God’s going to give you one thing to look forward to each day. Maybe it’s a new breakfast meal you’re trying for the first time, or maybe it’s a sweet treat. Maybe you’re looking forward to accomplishing that task tomorrow that you’ve been working on for ages (and putting off for ages, too). Maybe you’re meeting up with a friend at your favorite local restaurant.
Having one small, simple thing to look forward to in the upcoming day not only makes you excited for it—it makes you move throughout the day with purpose. And what else could you possibly need when emerging from a rut than purpose and joy (you know, other than God)?
Just like that old hymn says: “I have the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart today.”
And there you have it! 5 ways you can slowly emerge from your rut like a springtime bloom pushing out of the winter snow: realign yourself with God, move your body well, eat nutritiously, plan your days intentionally, and focus on something that brings you joy.
Remember, friend: it’s going to take time. And it’s okay if some days are better than others.
Just know that you are not alone. Just know that God is there with you every step of the way, slowly bringing you back to His loving care with a graceful, gentle hand on your shoulder.
Springtime will bloom again!
