Working with Depression + Sadness
A Season to Our Feelings‣‣ The way you feel may change depending on the time of day or the season. It's important to acknowledge our relationship with nature and how this may affect us. We consider this often in Chinese medicine.
‣‣ Sometimes the season isn't literal but figurative. Sometimes in our lives we're in a high point; sometimes we might be in a low. Sometimes the low lasts a while. But there are ways we can support ourselves through this. |
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The Way is Up‣‣ When you're in a low point, all you want is to be higher. You want to find happiness but it feels elusive. That's totally normal to feel. It's not about feeling happy right away. Emotional transitions can take time.
‣‣ It would be unrealistic for us to expect that we could suddenly be happy. If that happens, great! But healing is really like a process of CLIMBING, one moment at a time. Sometimes we can do this alone, sometimes we need help. GET HELP if you need it. ‣‣ My preference is meeting myself in my CURRENT experience and finding a way to accept it and be kind to myself through it. |
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Working with Negative Thoughts‣‣ Do you feel like you can't shut off your brain? One repetitive, negative thought after another? You aren't alone, but it CAN stop.
‣‣ Developing a meditation practice can help you learn how to separate yourself from your mind... yes, they are two different things. ‣‣ Check out this process where I break down one way of deactivating negative, repetitive thoughts. |
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Your Feelings are Appropriate‣‣ When we resist our feelings and reject ourselves, we feel like shit. We feel empty, alone, wrong, alienated, depressed, anxious.
‣‣ I like to work with VALIDATING our emotional experiences. We do this by giving compassion to the parts of us that are hurting and tend to them lovingly vs accusing them of being wrong and invalid. ‣‣ Learning how to come home to yourself, to lean in to your feelings with compassion, is literally the most healing thing you can do. |
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What is Happiness?‣‣ The flip side of depression and sadness is happiness, right? What is happiness? How do you achieve it? I think a lot of us go about this from a backward process.
‣‣ Happiness IS attainable for you. One way to discover it is to change where you're putting your energy and focus. ‣‣ Conditional happiness is what most of us are accustomed to: things go our way, we feel happy; they don't, we do don't. There has to be a better, more sustainable way, right? |
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