Following the release of my depression, I fell into a deep sleep...one that gifted me with some very colorful dreams. Next to flying dreams, colorful ones are my favorite. Dream-color tends to be more vivid that eyeball-color. Orange speaks orange out loud. Green invites me into gardens with plants conversing in foreign tongues, and as for red....well red is only second to blue. Blue absorbs and entering it, I can feel a gentle throbbing healing taking place.
Depression is a word to describe certain symptoms experienced by the body and mind. While all depressions are different, each depression changes unto itself as it moves through experiences. Each thought, image or happening produces it's own chemical marinade, each multiplying itself, so it's easy to understand how depression accelerates when it owns the car and the gas pedal.
Depression entered my life during early childhood, reinforced through parenting, and then through my desire for it....allowing me to play the power role of victim as I looked for love and acceptance. In those years I was not aware of what I was doing, but even now that it is recognizable, it calls out to me. We tend to flow towards the familiar. Most of the time I keep the details to myself as I continue to reside in this secret, lonely world.
Automatic writing or inner journaling gives me an opening for release. Sometimes the release comes quickly. This time it didn't happen that way. Instead, I nibbled around the outside of it, like eating the colored candy off an M&M before delving into the chocolate. This time the pain was both outer and inner, my body screaming with the tension, at night refusing to sink into the mattress, almost afraid to release it for fear of falling off the Universe. At first review, the mind revealed nothing out of the ordinary list of stressors, but a closer look turned up some mind games that probably pushed me over the edge. Selling our home in a down market, always working, never giving myself release time, aging, anxiety producing physical manifestations and a bundle of fears lined up to display themselves holding signs that told me there were more.
Sometimes releasing such a gambit is even more difficult that diminishing something bigger. There are so many camps to visit, change and then maintain.
I have some questions for my "Journal Master." I mentioned earlier that once the debris is removed, then there is space for creativity, in this instance creative questioning and investigation. I'm looking for growth, for once the nut is cracked, depression holds powerful and valuable gifts. Yes, the cracking was frightening and painful, but not as much as the thoughts that surrounded the idea of it. Once I stopped trying to control the bleeding, everything went smoothly, so...
"Will I ever learn to care for my tendency towards depression?"
My pen responds, "Look at your question and then you tell me the answer."
Oh, it's clear to me now. I've claimed ownership of the tendency towards depression by calling it "mine." Owning something reinforces it unto itself. During the past months...no, actually years, I've certainly claimed this ownership, donating lots of time and attention to it, actually befriending it. No...becoming it.
"Now I've created some space through release, but wondering what to put into that space, especially since all the things that brought me down still exist."
I know the answer before it hits the paper, for this is the way of "automatic journaling." My mind, open and receptive, already knows what I need to know. I've just been blocking with all the tightening.
This is life and life needs care. The body is always text messaging, so tune in. Right now my jaw is aching it's message to me. My compulsions are right outside the door, waiting for me to stop writing so they can take over. The "hurry-up twins" are pushing their way to the front of the queue, trying to bother me even during this special time for myself. I've found them at the gym and even in my meditation...pushing me around. A new breath enters my body. It's very deep and cleansing....the color blue. A healing breath holding a reminder image. My body absorbs both. I'm not alone in this and that is good to know.
