2. Day 1: Hello Depression

I wondered how it would happen.  At 4:37am I woke up and KNEW my next epic fear.  It is DEPRESSION.  For the first time this pall, this cloud, this vortex of thought and despair did not make my heart go cold and my head go numb.  It had already happened the day before when a dear friend eked out:  “Everything is difficult; I don’t want to do anything; everything seems heavy; I don’t see the point any way; I didn’t want to tell you because I like to share happy things.”

I thought to myself later:  OH NO!!!!  Not again!  (several of my nearest and dearest have experienced the spectrum of depression from mild and occasional to severe and chronic).  Why is it ALWAYS DEPRESSION??  Why? Why???? Why??  I’m already tired to death of dealing with depression…..if they would just changed their mind….

Then Holy Spirit spoke easily, as if on cue.

HS:  You are vast enough to hold depression too; fear not looking at it.  What does it look like?  What does it feel like?  What does it taste like?  Notice your thoughts.  Ask depression a question.  Ask it to join you.  Notice it.  Extend love to it.  Say hello.

The thought of extending love to depression feels at once terrifyingly overwhelming and strangely thrilling.  Talk about an epic sleuth!  My fear is that I will get sucked in like quicksand and not be able to “get out of it” or come back to center. **

To be honest it is a relief to finally just look at depression without judgment and extend love to it from a place of rare clarity.  Depression affects so many people I love.  I have experienced bouts or periods of what I would call depression but those I love that experience chronic, deep, diagnosed depression only laugh at what I call depression.  I remember with great heart the quote from A Course In Miracles:  “There is no order of difficulty in miracles.”

So my fear is fear of depression rather than feeing depressed myself.  Oddly, my fear of depression can lock me in numbness, inactivity, a downward spiral of judgment and leave me asking “What’s the point of living anyway?”  This kind of sounds like depression to me.

Let’s look closer

I want to clarify my use of the word fear so it is understood  this includes the qualities of fear as well:  sadness, annoyance, hatred, terror, ignoral, denial, horror, tiresome, boredom, guilt, betrayal etc..  Fear is a spectrum too.  So many think “I am not afraid of anything!”, which is great, but I am not talking bout fear of spiders or tax returns.  I am talking about the thoughts and thought system that lies beneath our awareness.  On the surface we may feel exhaustion, annoyance, boredom, terrified, shocked but the root cause of fear is our way of relating to what is happening in front of us and is what gives us these experiences.

I have learned that most of our fears, ailments, pains and illnesses are two fold:

1.  the actual pain

2.  the fear of the pain.

I seem to be in the role of experiencing more the fear of the pain while those around me experience the actual pain.  It is vital to extend love to both the pain and the fear of the pain for complete healing.

In fact I believe the pain is ultimately caused by the fear of the pain, the pain occurs in order for us to notice the underlying fear.  This does not necessarily mean the pain disappears upon noticing and extending much love to it but the suffering diminishes markedly if not entirely.

** Thankfully I had already had my dream about diving into the quicksand as the way to my salvation!