Richness in Challenge

Just so you know, these words are about what’s working for me today. I’m sharing because I know it’s important to be in communication about this. My self care, my healing is going to be different — look, sound, feel, action, story — than yours. Your living is yours, love. Here’s my story for today.

I’m in and out of depression right now. different every day of the week. Different every time it comes around.

I do a lot for my health. But I’ve yet to elude the wisdom inviting me deeper into this much-less-than-comfortable experience. Some days, I can really live into my depression.

It’s a density that drops me down, shifts my energy, and invites me into the deeper spaces. There is medicine to be found here, in the caves of my experience.

If I lived in the forest, maybe I’d find a cave. As it is, I live in a west-facing apartment with a typically glorious in-pouring of afternoon sunlight. I’m high off the earth. Much as I love my spot, this is nothing like a cave. So I find my cave. I match the energy I’m attracted to.

Yesterday, I opened the windows to the rain, allowing the damp to move in. I turned off the light, lit a candle, made tea, and gifted myself some time to *be* with this experience. Because, as much as it challenges me, there is wisdom here.

In this space — talking about depression — I can’t do my normal. I can’t check 193 things off the to-do list in a day. I can’t do my laundry or make a veggie-rich, warm meal. But my body isn’t asking for normal. My being is asking for contrast. I carry the weight of the world. Sometimes it is light enough to bear. Sometimes I sink down with the weight, into the earth. Here I am reminded of how to transform the weight. How to be in relationship with my allies. How to be my own medicine. There’s a richness giving into just the feeling of it.

My experience of depression has been a major teacher to me, calling me deeper into myself, into the intelligence that permeates my existence, into the brilliance of this humxn experience. I wonder if this resonates at all with you. If it does, or if you have other thoughts to share, please send me a note. I’d be really grateful to learn how to continue this conversation around depression with you.