Depression will at one time or another, to one degree or another, touch every human being. For some it is a short period of mourning, for others a long lasting deep-seated clinical issue. 

But every single one of us will rub shoulders with the feelings associated with depression: worthlessness, despair, anger, sadness, anxiety and anguish.

It’s at these times when everything else in our lives can get a bit muted. When you are fighting a hurricane of negative emotions, it can be so hard to accomplish the smallest, positive moves forward. In fact it often gets turned into a self-deprecating vortex of sadness, and the negative thoughts and emotions that surface work to hold us in that place. Instead of giving ourselves permission to feel the way we are, and to be with it, we tear ourselves down for not being able to snap ourselves out of it, just getting further depressed.

We fight fire with fire.

Maybe a tactic that would be better to use is to think of a time like this in your life as a transformational, gestational period. Like going into a cocoon to prepare for a metamorphosis. You are never meant to stay in a cocoon forever, and when you emerge you are a new better version of your past self. Maybe even this time you will have wings that will allow you to soar higher and access parts of your potential that you could never reach before!

If you suffer from depression then it is a part of your journey. It’s not easy, anyone with depression is already playing life on hard mode. The point here isn’t that you can will yourself out of depression, but that you can shift the way you label it. Instead of blaming yourself for how depression affects your life, start to work on your cocoon. Give yourself permission to feel, accept where you are without judgement, then do what small things you can to start to insulate yourself in your cocoon. Along with appropriate guidance from a medical professional, small choices with diet and fitness can harden your cocoon, protecting you while you figure this out. It’s not your fault if you are depressed, but you have some agency in how you react to it.

Use acceptance and love, not anger and judgement, then hopefully you can find a path out of your cocoon.


       

To find out more about this week's Pulse author, Kenzai Trainer Nate Belle-Isle, read his trainer bio page. Or visit his Kenzai Blog!