I had a bit of a bout with depression this week. Seriously. It was one of those weird things that just happened. It didn’t even creep up on me. It plopped. Like, ker-plunk, in my lap, and there was nothing I could do about it. It caught me off guard, truly. And it played out over the course of a few days. Gaaah! I had no reason really to feel like maybe I was doing too much. That whatever plans I was beginning to lay out for this year would amount to nothing, so why bother? That I was dreaming too big, with no real way to make any of my dreams real. There were lots of “uncharacteristic” thoughts traveling through my mind at the time and I can only believe they were spawned by my work with Danielle LaPorte’s The Desire Map. OMG. It’s an amazing book that guides you through setting goals with soul. The only trick is, the second part of the interactive e-book is an interactive WORK book. This taint no, “oh, Imma read this jawn and get some insight but keep on with whatever I was up to before I started reading this book”. Oh no, boo. The Desire Map is a dig deep, roll up your sleeves and face your shit so you can fix it book. It’s certainly not for those who like to be life bystanders or dreamers who only like the idea of having dreams, but don’t actually want to live them type folk. I began the workbook process sort of poetic, like Danielle herself. The book, especially if you listen to the audio version as a prep, reads like a gentle poetry slam. It’s eloquent and interesting and peppered with brilliant quotes from some of the greatest minds who ever quoted stuff. I was utterly inspired, to say the very least. So I sat down for the workbook portion and the very first section is what she calls “Rapid Fire Starting”. They’re more like prompts. The first one was,
I crave:
I wrote: LOVE. Unconditional Ideas. Smart people. Color. Undeniable success by anyone’s standards. Peace of mind. Magic. Freedom from people who suck the life out of me. Being surrounded by people who are radiant, brilliant, funny, fun, adventurous, successful, thriving and sharp–people who LIVE the meaning of life in every tangible and intangible way–people I can learn, grow and evolve from and with.
Okay, I thought. That wasn’t so bad. I’m po-et-ic. I gotta reason. *Remy Ma voice* So, I continued answering stuff down the page and a little further down, the prompt was,
I need to give myself more permission to be:
I wrote: Free from burden. Open to different possibilities. Wrong. Right. Rested. Overwhelmed. relaxed. Inspired. Able. A game changer. Magnificent. Vulnerable. Rich.
I got through a few more pages of similar esoteric open-ended prompts and then this one showed up,
I get through tough times because:
I wrote: I don’t feel like I have a choice. I just plug away and keep waking up in the morning. I have things to do before I leave this Earth. I can’t stop until I do them.
It was then that I got exceptionally tired. Like instantly exhausted. Even now, as I’m writing this, there are tears tugging at the backs of my eyes because I’m reading back my life philosophy and it sounds exactly like the least fun someone can have on a Friday night. Plug. Along. What am I a barge? Glugging along life’s river if only because life plopped me there to carry a load? No ma’am. No. Ma’am. By the time I got through all the 11 pages of prompts, I wasn’t privy to move through to the heavy lifting parts like the “Gratitude & What’s Not Working” section. If I wasn’t so drained, I prolly would’ve deleted the damn book and thrown my phone for good measure. But I didn’t. I instead felt this overwhelming feeling of dread. And sulky bumminess. What did my life really amount to? Did my life philosophy inform my life experiences or did my life experiences inform my philosophy? What’s the meaning of life? What would Yeezus do?
Understand now, if you’re new to my blog and the kinds of conversations I’ve had on this forum for some time now– I’ve done TONS of inner work over the course of the last 5 or 6 years. TONS. I’ve unpacked and healed more inner gunk than a dry cleaner can press and hang in that time. I was dang on proud of my progress thus far. But when you’re asked to rapid fire your most authentic responses on an esoteric desire quiz (with the ultimate intention being to feel good) and you see in real time how you actually see yourself, shit gets real, real. Real quick. I can’t say I know what I was expecting, but I can say I wasn’t expecting such a simple exercise to dig so deep and become so prickly to my soul. Boo. So then I started cleaning. And baking simultaneously. At midnight. That’s how you can really tell when I’m going through something. When I’m my most creative, my brain works in series of intricate portraits. When I have deep shit to work through, I clean. And bake at the strangest of times.It’s my way of deconstructing a puzzle and putting it back together. The good news is that the cookies turned out amaze-balls (triple chocolate cinnamon–EVERYTHING). Plus, the house looks marvs. But even after I did all that, I didn’t feel any better. By the time I did my brief “Thank You” meditation and lay my head on my pillow, I felt downright defeated. I cried. But then, something miraculous happened. I breathed. Then I remembered something I had watched earlier that Rev Michael Beckwith said on Sunday at Apape Live (I LoveStream church ya’all). I’m paraphrasing, but the gist was this,
Breathe as much as you want cause the oxygen is free.
This might not sound like much, but if you really let that sink in to your mid neck region, you’ll get it. As long as you can still breathe in that good free air, you’re okay. No matter what it looks like at the time. There’s no resistance to breathing. There’s no wanting to breathe. You don’t have to beg and beseech your body to do it. You just do it because that’s how you are able to live. When you honestly can’t breathe, you fight for every breath because you can’t live without it. It’s really that simple. Breath is life. Life is inextricably linked to our breath and if you can breathe, you’re okay. Mind you, you don’t get to breathe in the past or the future. You can’t breathe yesterday’s air. Or tomorrow’s. You get to breathe in the moment you’re in. That’s all you’ve got. This moment. In this moment, if you’re breathing, you can make the moment any way you want it to be.
The part that got tricky for me was the part where I was still feeling like crap after I realized all that. I was like, okaaaaay. I’m breathing. Now what do I do with all these funky emotions? It was then when I recalled a part in The Desire Map when Danielle said, quite blatantly,
Feel what you feel.
The gist of that little ditty was this. When you give yourself permission to have whatever emotions you have, at the time you’re having them, you give yourself room enough to be okay with it. When you’re okay with it, those emotions don’t feel like you’re ignoring them. They feel heard and seen and so they go play somewhere else. It’s really that simple. What you resist, persists.
I swear. Not but 5 minutes after I simply accepted all my gook as what it was–there–the feeling passed. Just like that. One minute it was there and the next it wasn’t. My lingering crappiness was instantly replaced with all of these gorgeous ideas on how to break down all my big goals and schemes into more manageable, doable, make it happen-able check points. I stopped feeling horrid about being a barge, plunked in the river of life to deliver a package to some off shore polluter. I started feeling more like a vessel, carrying something magnificent that I need to distribute–cause the world needs it. I’m here because I’m called to be and I chose to be. However I came to be, I’m here. And I’m still breathing. So I wrote down all those awesome ideas that came flooding in, in my handy journal straight away, and then finally nodded off to sleep with a goofy smile on my face. All with the possibilities of this new year still dancing in my head. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized I had sulked for nearly a week and it only took 5 minutes from my time of acceptance, to feel as shiny as a new penny. Gaaah!
What I learned from the experience is this. Our emotions are guide posts. They are designed to have us know where we are, so we can adjust ourselves in the direction of where we are designed to be. When we ignore or suppress or depress our natural ability to feel whatever we’re feeling, we miss a part of the big picture. We are constantly being molded into the divine creatures we are born to be. Part of the way we know which things need tweaking is through what we feel. You have to face it to fix it. Facing stuff can be hard. But it’s necessary. That’s how we grow. There’s no other way. When we listen, truly listen, we get good insight. Someone wise once said, evolution feels like anger when you’re starting from numb. There are levels to this. The point is, when we feel whatever we feel and allow it without judging the feeling as bad or good or worthy or not; we’re not resisting what the universe is trying to share with us. It’s when we ignore our inner guidance system of emotions that they linger and lag on in our lives until we want our peace of mind enough to pay attention and surrender. Either that, or bust a gasket. Feel me?
I am not by any stretch of the imagination saying depression doesn’t play out in way bigger ways than my mini bout did. I have experienced myself and know of and have heard of many, many people whose depression is not cured with a breathing exercise and some poetic rhetoric. Some of those people didn’t make it to their next breath. My hope in sharing this tiny slice of my life is that if you’re going through something, no matter how big or small, that you may find a little comfort in knowing that yuck, fonked up days and weeks and sometimes years happen to everyone. You’re not alone. It took me a lot of years to get to the emotional place I’ve been hanging out in recently. I’ll add here that I’ve had a lot of help from a lot of really great teachers. Bare in mind that the dawning of the new year is not a time of rejoicing and goal setting for everyone. Some folk are going through it big right now. Reach out to the people you know and love and ask them if they’re okay. If they’re not, engage your compassion gene and be prepared to listen without judgement. We’ve all been there, yes?
Yours in Technicolor Emoting,
-e-