Down and depressed. I recognize the feeling having been there many different times in my life. Depression has been my companion, my friend, my enemy, my comfort, and the framework through which I have seen myself most of my life.
I have decided that I want to change. Oh trust me I have decided this many times before and not succeeded. Why haven’t I? Hey, that statement is NOT correct. I have changed but the voices of doubt still come back. I haven’t conquered Depression. What is different for me this time is that I don’t want to conquer it. I want to give it less importance and just move on. I don’t care if I still have these depressive thoughts in my head. That is what they are…thoughts. What will make a difference in my life is actions. I need to take action in my life to be able to take actions to reach out to others. Whoa. Ok. I am getting way ahead of myself. This is how I usually make myself choose not to take action. I go overboard and scare myself with the shear size of what needs to be done and I just curl back up inside myself and confirm that I can’t change my relationship with the all-powerful Depression.
I have decided that I will change. I will work at making changes in my life that will help me become stronger. I will always live with physical pain and have limits on what I can physically do but so what? I can work at pushing my limitations rather than letting them push me down. Depression tells me that “it doesn’t matter what I do, I will still hurt. I will still be defective me. I will still not be able to change my body.” Typically I then maybe make an attempt to exercise and overdo it. I become more sore. I do more. The pain is real. I hurt. I quit. I don’t want to do something that makes me hurt more!! I want to hurt less! I curl back up inside myself and confirm that I can’t change my relationship with my body. I sink back into that relationship with the all-powerful Depression.
Wait!! Hold on a second. Who says Depression has to be so all-powerful? Is it me? Am I making it so powerful? What steps can I make that will make it less so? Can I make it go from being a Thing with a capital letter “D” to just another feeling with a small letter “d”? That is all it is after all, just a feeling. Many other feelings join in and help make it a powerful Thing: sadness, emptiness, loneliness, hatred, isolation and more. A feeling. Something inside of me. What steps can I make to control it? Opps. Control. That is a RED FLAG if ever there was one. Control??? I fear Control. It means restricting what I do or what I think. It is a direct way into failure for me as I always sabotage anything that has to do with Control. I freak inside. Inside I seek comfort from the one part of me that is a constant – my friend Depression. Depression doesn’t care if I don’t fight for control. Depression likes me best when I give free reign to all of my fears about control.
This is what happens when I stay in my head. Better off when I just take a tiny step and do something. And then I do something more…a little something more. Go outside. Sit in the sun for 20 to 30 minutes. Focus on something or someone outside of me.
bellscave 