5 Advantages I Take During Depression
Do you ever get depressed?
I do and during the past few months I have been having more and more fits with it. It’s difficult for me because some of the tools I have used in the past unavailable due to current societal restrictions. Compound that with the lack of human connection, even in places like the grocery store, and I’m a walking mess.
But, Mark… Aren’t you like some health coach who helps people with things like their depression?
Yes, I help people who struggle with depression, but I am far from being immune to the symptoms! Depression can come from a single thought or a single stressor and stick like pine sap to the fingers of life. Somedays it’s as if everything I touch becomes brushed with the gooey serum that’s plaguing my day.
This isn’t an article about how to make these days go away, because sometimes that’s just completely unrealistic, and that’s okay. It is days like this that I have actually learned to begin appreciating and here’s why.
1) It gives me a chance to go slow
This is huge. I’m always moving, always on the go. I’m usually out of bed before 5am and by 9am I have already had a workout and I’ve usually done an a few hours of working. At 9am, I clock myself in, which actually starts by clocking back out for 15 minutes. That’s right, the moment I clock in I take 15 minutes and meditate to clear my head before I begin accepting phone calls. Then the race is on and it usually doesn’t stop until the evening. I also cook all my own meals, so this adds to a little break from work during the day.
On depressed days, I have to take it slow. The stress otherwise, can literally debilitate me. So I purposefully clear my schedule and just put one task on my schedule at a time. When that one task is done, I reassess and put another task on. This always me to find grace, leading me to my next point
2) It gives me the opportunity to take it easy on myself
I’m only human. I make mistakes. I come up short. I’m also a perfectionist who is far from perfect making me my biggest critic. When I’m depressed, I don’t have the criticism opportunity. Instead, I have to practice letting myself off the hook. Like today while running on the track while doing 400m sprints. Usually if I don’t push myself to the finish line and give it my all for each sprint I punish myself by becoming the punitive coach inside my own head, the one I hate and the one I refuse to be to other people. I yell at myself and force 200m sprints after my set. Today, when I slowed down about 5 yards before the finish line on my last set, I let that voice rest and I found contentment, I found peace and it was okay, and it’s still ok. I’m not going to pull a David Goggins and find myself heading to the track in the middle of the night, in torture, because now that i’ve silenced that voice, I know it’s okay. This realization, the acceptance leads me to the next valuable item.
3) The things that matter most become more apparent
When I take it easy on myself, I see the things that really don’t matter, thereby illuminating that which does. I just moved to Asheville, NC and my life has been centered around stuff stuff stuff and decorating and nonsense. The same voice that yells at me to cross the finish line on my practice runs is the same voice that has expectations for me to have furnishing that match, clothes that fit my style, spoons that go with the forks, knives that look good on my counter. This same voice has expectations for me to always smell good, my hair to always look perfect, my abs to always feel tight. By shutting down this voice I am able to see that all of these things are superficial things that are actually weighing me down. My expectations, and the voice feeding them, is quite literally ruining my day and my perception of myself. When I toss this out I find out what matters most- my family, my mission, my God, and my sobriety.
4) Feelings that I otherwise neglect, become a focus
Feelings that I neglect are centered around the same ones above. Namely, the feelings I neglect are also the feelings the deal with family, my connection to my mission, my devotion to my god and my commitment to my sobriety. These feelings make me scared, but not when the inner voice ruling my expectations is silenced. Intimacy and faith and striving towards success in sobriety have been areas of my life that have led me to near suicide. I was unwilling to let others in and become close. I was unwilling to believe that there was a purpose for my life. I believed I had no choice but to get faded and to fail job after job after job. However, when the inner voice of expectations disappears the bright light of truth and love are able to shine. These new feelings drive me through the remainder of the day and each time this happens I become stronger and so does my family, my mission, my connection with God and my sobriety.
5) I also have reason to treat myself to ice cream or an extra workout.
The moral of the story is to avoid avoiding. Rather use. Utilizing the emotions that we have can bring us to a brand new freedom. We have these feelings for a reason, what is it? What can we glean from them? Instead of how can we get rid of them, let’s think about what we can do with them. They aren’t going anywhere so might as well use them.