When The Black Dog Nips At Your Heels….
It’s taken me years to work out my solutions to feelings of depression. Now I know if I’m waking at 5am and anxious, I need to take some serious action and soon. I would never, ever dismiss the profoundly affecting nature of depression. I have however discovered that it is me and only me that can halt its process and turn it right around. The feelings of powerlessness only increase in a self-fulfilling spiral unless I intervene.
I need to quit thinking and analysing and using my brain to try to climb out of the pit. I need to employ my body and take action to make the changes.
Three things work for me: exercise is a powerful mood enhancer. No I am no gym fetishist bty, but regular walking, stomping through blustery autumnal days, and a commitment to swim, even if it’s once a week, will help carry me through the dark days of winters.
I also need people. Difficult to reach out to others when I don’t feel I have anything to offer, but, the long and short of it is that for my own sake, I need to get over myself and see people anyway. If need be I ask a lot of ‘opening questions’, so that I can avoid speaking of myself at all, then so be it!
The other thing that I REALLY need is evidence that I can make a difference. In order to evidence this potency I need to take some action. In order for this to be successful I need to choose an achievable practical task and do it! Then, and only then, will I begin to believe that I have any say in my own destiny.
Today I felt this feeling, it’s familiar and frightening and yet simultaneously alluring and I cannot, under any circumstances, submit to its request of me.
Thus I put down my brain and the tools of my coaching trade and picked up the practical tools of my decorating trade. I made a very good start at the secondary glazing of our freezing, but beautifully leaded, 1930s Windows.
Do you know what? I didn’t do it perfectly and nor did I finish, but I did do more than half the job, and that’s more than I have done for the past two winters. I can see that I have achieved something today in a physical, practical and very real way that is difficult to dismiss, however negative I feel. I am also genuinely tired which may lead to better sleep. In order to get the work started I needed to consult with several people, ending any self imposed isolation.
Best of all our Upstairs might well be considerably warmer tonight! Now that’s got to be a good thing, even on a dark day!
What helps you on your darkest days? Do tell.
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On my darkest days a cup of green tea helps and then another cup and then another and then moving into a new space, on a bike, into a wide open space, into the fresh air, the light from the sun, the rain, the wind, to feel the power and beauty of nature…
I agree – the blessed and blustery elements are perfect for bringing me right into ‘the now’. My forays are usually more caffeine fuelled :-)!
This rings true for me. I religiously swim in mornings to prevent/deal with things. I think for me people contact is the challenge – especially when the circle of thoughts start ruminating. “don’t think ,just do ” is my current mantra. Forcing myself to look at the world is also a must. Anything to notice anything other than me.
Entirely agreed Jon. Interrupting the thought-treadmill. Moving down from our heads into our bodies and hearts, ‘noticing’ the world outside our mental-constructs, maintaining positive people contact that reinforces our positive selves….. All invaluable in breaking those familiar but corrosive thought circles that can spiral downwards so easily. Takes vigilance 🙂