Gratitude

What do you do when you are stuck? When a mood descends and you are unable to lift yourself? When circumstances seem too big and too heavy to shift? I have had a week of being tightly wedged between depression and frustration and have been too tired to do much about it besides climb into my bed and feel sorry for myself. I find this tremendously boring and so usually end up getting up again fairly quickly, but this has been a longer run than usual and it has me thinking. I have spent the last several years building up a pretty hefty box of tools for healing, on whatever level, so why I am still lying here?!

Exercise is often prescribed for depression. Well, it's a possibility....

Muffins might also help.... but too many and I would have another whole problem entirely!

I'll tell you what helped, in the end, and that was communicating. I sent my misery out to a few trusted friends and they all responded and by doing so managed to reconnect me to the bigger grid. I had fallen off and just needed that helping hand of friendship and empathy to get back on again. It happens to us all at one point or another and, ultimately, it wasn't so much what they said, but more that they were right there and happy to share their energy with me when I needed to feel connected to something bigger than myself.

One poor friend was in A&E for a minor injury, but was big-hearted enough to send me jokes (really awful ones, at that!). Another sent me a funny picture of herself doing some building work while wearing pink rubber gloves (don't ask!). Another took a minute to drop me a few lines while she was waiting for a meeting to start. These are all busy women with issues of their own to contend with. The fact that they took the time to send some love my way made all the difference and I am so grateful to them all. There is a quote by Meister Eckhart, a medieval theologian, philosopher and mystic, that I love:

"If the only prayer you say in your entire life is Thank You, that will suffice."

Hopefully, regular posts will resume next week, but I know that if I dip down again I will not be alone. I hope that if you, too, are feeling down yourself or know someone who is, that you take a few minutes to communicate. The other thing that helps me is writing this blog, so thank you for reading.