Category Archives: depression

05.31.24
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There does not need to be a plan for everything

I have accepted the fact that I have a split personality…which means I plan for every eventuality while moving through life hopping on the “unplanned” train rails.

We recently made a lifestyle change to lease an apartment in another state for a year…it was totally the right choice to make. I recognize that at our age this may appear to be extreme; but falls into the thinking…if I’m not happy should I just continue to wallow or make a different decision and move on? Where I seem to be on the learning curve is to JUST STOP THINKING and not already question the next move forward. I know that the next moment will take care of itself if I listen within. (how often have I been hampered by the ‘learned fear’ of my upbringing vs the freedom of the knowledge that all things will work out when I release my need to control everything).

That being said….We made the decision to make this lifestyle change…okay honestly…we were able to make this lifestyle change because it seemed like each step in our thought process had a question and the solution in the same sentence. My contentment, my sleep, my frame of mind, my happiness is all thanks to the unplanned ‘riding the rails’ mode of travel. But my fear of the unknown voice pops in too often ..what happens when the year is up, what if I want to stay, are we wasting money, is this “right” decision actually a “wrong” decision…..and why do I think I must have a judge and jury outside of myself to decide the verdict.

Over the last 16 years, this blog has taken me from the depths of despair to where I am at this train depot. This is me actually ‘putting it down on paper’ which helps me work through it…similar to #JuliaCameron #morningpages in #TheArtist’sWay.

For this moment, I just am!

05.29.24
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I had no idea…

until the morning I woke up at 67 plus about 333 days, that I realized that age is just a number. The designation of age gives us a benchmark of when we can start school, get a driver’s license, know more than our parents, should be married and have children, should/could retire…and the biggie….begin wondering if I’m close to the age when I’m expected to die.

I recently experienced a short bout of depression. I recognized the signs when I started snacking a lot, wanted to only sit in the recliner and read or do New York Times crosswords and binge watch Britbox TV. I had no desire to leave the house for ANYTHING and found I could only communicate via text message. I had moved negative fears and experiences into my house and gave them a bed and 3 meals a day plus snacks! The thing was.. I knew exactly what the catalyst was for my mental burial but I was incapable of working through what was just beyond my grasp…because I could not stop ruminating.

I moved through the fear/sadness and with it came a knowing of how much damage I can do to myself by thinking and trying to control each moment. (my moments and other peoples moments). Attempting to live by a planned outline of my life….which is impossible. It is ridiculous to drive with one foot hovering over the brake. The enlightenment in my THINKING about what is expected at this age (pencil in a number) came by realizing that my thoughts about aging are legends of someone else’s history or the lips of society telling me how I’m supposed to live and think…fears are a hammer and nail.

03.17.24
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Growing up awkward!

Growing up awkward

I think it’s a given. At some point in the formative years, all children, kids, sub teens, teens go through an awkward stage. And this phase may stay with us throughout adulthood. Often this stage manifests in aggressive and cruel behavior, wallflower and shy behavior, arrogant and I’m-better-than-you vibes or as insecure and fearful! then we grow up and either work through our learned tendencies or grow into more exaggerated versions of that child….living through the emotions, fears and behaviors for a lifetime.

As an only child of older parents who required a trailer to carry their baggage from the 1920’s and 30’s, I was lucky enough to receive lip service of being totally loved, with a large dosage of marital dysfunction delivered with fearful and strong discipline…mostly mental but some physical. What I learned was to be a chameleon! Stop, look and listen to how I was expected to live my life in each setting I found myself.

As I work through self discovery of what makes the inner child tick or tock I found this quote by Tosha Silver and it was breathtakingly accurate for me.

“Pay attention to how you feel when you’re around someone. And also how you feel when you leave them. Pay attention. Don’t question your response. If you feel bad, simply move away”

Until next time….

03.12.24
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Included with the Upgrade…..

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I’m learning to block the INCOMING shots fired from the field by surrounding my heart with invisible window screening and turning down the interior spotlights so the target is not as easily visible from the outside. That’s how I’m learning to say the word NO, and selectively choosing my path in the cacophony of people-pleasing noise that has been the lifetime fuel for my engine.

I share this Facebook meme today because it hit solidly its target and interpreted as yes….it’s working…I can identify with it…instead of interpreting – ya…why do I feel the need to explain myself…why can’t I just say no, how do I stop the guilt of “should” when I do say no?

This particular meme that traveled its way to me through the Facebook algorithm was very timely and taken personally into my heart with a gratitude confirmation that I have choices…yes, no, maybe or more importantly, I do not owe anyone an excuse or apology for my decisions.

And so it is……

11.13.23
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Happy 107th dad

As I posted a Facebook post this morning to recognize my dad’s 107th birthday, I had a strange understanding work through me from head to toe like a menopausal hot flash.  I realized that I was grateful that he did not live one more second past the hour he chose to take his last breath.  With his last exhale, he was at peace, with his last breath, he had completed the life cycle he had shown up for.

He showed up in so many different ways that I would not understand in the moments of my life.

My dad was just my dad until he became the Grandpa of my two daughters.  I witnessed the reverence, the love, the quiet adoration as he held and comforted them.  I realize now that the man born in the 19teens of the 20th century survived many hardships and fears and tears in his life.  He was an artist, a serious dad and family provider.  He did not appreciate crowds or often gatherings with extended family…He had a streak of depression that shadowed him throughout his life.  I wonder now if it was really depression or fear of the unknown that haunted him.  He didn’t respect the medical community and always believed mind over matter would heal his body…and he held onto that until he was 84 and passed while laying in a hospital bed after a heart attack no doubt very afraid of the next medical procedure someone was going to perform with his family’s permission to keep him alive another day or week.

He was ready to go.  This was never a question in his mind.  I knew it. I loved him, I respected him, I cherished him enough to be willing to allow him to make the choice.  And he did.

So many things I would like to ask you Dad, so many conversations I would like to have with you, but the one thing I know for sure is that in the end you made the decision and I’m at peace with that decision.

So Happy 107th, Dad…wherever you are.

05.15.23
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Just in……Bombshell

It came to me from behind the curtain…my view from behind the veil…and then the curtains slid back and all was revealed….starkly…in black and white…the understanding.

The Daily News of the world presented for our consumption brought to you by the “human reporters” predicting the future and enhancing the past in order to inject fear into our lives. What causes us fear is the stories we already tell ourselves about our perception of the next second, minute, day, lifetime. It works because we are programmed to react…..to fear and the great unknown!

If we examine our lives, we tend to live in the future…when they say this, I will say that…. What if this happens…..I heard they are going to do this ….what if we lose our house….what if that car behind me doesn’t stop…what if (name that soul) gets sick and dies….remember what happened last time.

This human scenario is what happens each time we glob onto what we hear or read from the “pick your opinion media” or “did you hear…” Constant expansion and retraction based on the future as explained by a human with an opinion vs facts. Because FACTS have not happened yet….and quite frankly facts are interpreted quite differently depending on how we filter these facts through our personal human event center…

Each moment our personal thoughts bleed all over our reality….and reality honestly only happens in each individual present moments of our lives. No one has all the pieces to predict what will happen in the next moment nor how each individual soul will perceive what just happened. Politics, war, pandemic, what medication will kill you, the next mass shooting, whether the United States will fall because of the debt ceiling drama. Stop the heartache of what might happen especially when it is being delivered to you from someone who really has no idea; but just reporting on the odds rather than the fact. The bottom line with the news media is it all comes down to who can instill the most fear gets paid the most money.

Until next time….

07.16.22
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Muting the trigger

A Facebook post by my friend, Tami, woke me up this morning. She is “healing” from back to back years of family deaths including her husband who was her soul mate, her love and Half of Her. Over the last few years she has included her authentic healing thoughts and fears and anger through her blogs and to and with her friends. This morning she posted the song, Dirt Road Anthem by Jason Aldean. It wasn’t a song I knew even though I think it is a decade old. But to make a long story shorter, I YouTubed it and these two lines stuck out to me:

“Memory Lane up in the headlights. It got me reminiscing on the good times”

I have meaningful loving experiences on a day to day basis. Often when I take a memory photo of my experiences, I feel like I am one of the luckiest people I know in spite of the hardships and the mental fears of the future that I continually give energy to as I go into battle with them. But I often look back at my younger years…say my early 20’s or 40’s and have wistful longings for the good ole days.

…..and I know I’m not the only person who lives a good bit of life in my memories….including the hateful ones I have not yet healed from. Tami’s post hit a trigger nerve and brought clear realization that I love to think about those good times but when I have a negative memory pop in, I often immediately go to anger and hatefulness and then realize I’m doing it again and Force myself to STOP thinking about it…but, maybe the answer is to just sit with the emotion for a few moments. (Not the story but how it made me feel). Perhaps then I can mute the trigger.

The good memories…let them come, I love to smile and laugh and remember those who made me feel love and joy!

Namaste

07.12.22
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The illusion of daily drivel

I fully recognize that I am not in a gentle place right now. I’m not doing my morning centering, meditations and I miss that contented 2020 peacefulness. That’s not to say I didn’t have a thin thread of fear running through my head about COVID but I settled in to experience those early months of the virus without the busyness that is overwhelming me now. He and I were content to just “be” in this house together…doing what felt right in the moment. We talked several times about how good it felt not to have a schedule, and not to have commitments. It was the first time I really understood that everything is vibration and energy. In simple terms, I understood the concept of sitting in the center of a room and watching my thoughts play out on screens around me. Those thoughts are not me, they are only visual concepts that change from one moment to another depending on what gets my attention.

So wah wah wah, I’m circling back! I’m releasing commitments and responsibilities that I chose for the wrong reasons. I know I must discern when my attention is drawn to those movie previews in my brain that apparently are causing me to “feel” uncomfortable, unsettled and irritable. I know that by focusing on the negative; by attempting to rationalize everything, I will experience instant karma serving it all back on a platter to me. I am what I think. Knowing I am capable of following my North Star, recognizing my emotions when I feel them….sitting with them until they subside and then with gratitude for the “I AM” soul that is me. There is nothing outside of myself that needs to be concerning or considered as I move forward in peace with my intuition and my knowing.

Namaste

03.03.22
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Changing life one coffee shop at a time

There is often a huge crevice between expectations associated with our choices and Reality… Capital R – Reality. Simply put, I’m in the drive thru of my favorite coffee shop, waiting for my turn to order, I make a snap decision and choose to get a large calorie laden coffee with caffeine, sugar and real whipped cream rather than my usual healthier choice of a regular decaf brew. In that moment of choice, I may set into motion a day of regrets and negative self talk because of the one moment (monumental?) decision. I’m hung up on the little jagged edge in the crevice as the the self talk…the disappointment in my choice…. morphs into the inner voice screaming why did I do it and why do I always make the wrong choice….this negative self talk and self irritation continues on and on even into the next morning as I step on the scale, not knowing that this one little coffee choice may be forgotten, but has become a building block for the next second, day, year, lifetime.

Sounds a little over-dramatic that a cup of coffee could set your life on spin but how many times do we make a choice, a decision that seemed right in the moment, but find out as life happens that it might not have been the best decision…..but…..oh how we fear intentional change…we fear the unknown. Like the wrong career choice, the bad marriage, the wrong investment, the wrong doctor. These “moment” choices can set our life on a trajectory of angst, hardship, anger or mental self abuse? When, actually, in any moment, we can make a different choice. Life doesn’t happen to us…We choose in each moment and each breath! We can step back and ask ourselves….hmmmm, “How is that working for me?” and then make a change, or a different choice by ordering the planned regular decaf brew!

The way we view our life is one drama after another drama or a sitcom after sitcom or an entire How-to HGTV day perhaps seeing other colors to use as our background. The choices and decisions are ours to make. In my life I have lived many stories. I’ve told myself and edited narratives while identifying with each story while also including play by play -free of charge- to anyone who would listen. It’s not an easy habit to break, but I realized that I created the monsters and the beauty of realization is that as soon as I “open my eyes” the monsters disappear. Until I actually believe they are real, they do not belong to me!

Namaste

02.21.22
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CLEANING OUT THE WOUND

A page from The Book of Awakening -Mark Nepo

“February 21. If I had experienced different things, I would have different things to say.

So often, I have felt troubled and guilty bearing witness to my pain, and yet, not to make things worse. Somehow, in saying just what Mother had done in her cruel need to be the center, or just what Father couldn’t do out of his fear of facing my mother; somehow, telling the truth as I know it makes me feel like a bad person – as if I’m making my pain up, as if I’m hurting others by saying bad things about them.

But the unshakable bottom of all this is that I’m not making things up. If I have unkind things to say, its because I’ve experienced unkind things. And so, my only guide in this witnessing is to be accurate and honest. While I am not a victim, I didn’t ask for certain shaping experiences to happen to me. I didn’t ask to be slapped or ridiculed as a boy or to be mistreated by lifelong friends later in life. In truth, If I had experienced different things, I would have different things to say.

What is most healing about bearing witness to things exactly as they are, including my own part in my pain, is that when the voice of the pain fits the pain, there is no room for distortion or illusion. In this way, truth becomes a clean bandage that heals, keeping dirt out of the wound.

To voice things as they are is the nearest medicine.”