Brenda: Hope so much that you are feeling better today ...
Lorianne: Bon voyage!
I sat for 10 minutes this morning prior to going for interview. Also sat yesterday. It has become a bit like taking a shower, no obvious surface benefit but a sense that something is happening beneath the surface that I may not be aware of.
Have been following the depression discussion with great interest. My bouts of depression arrive via anxiety - I get increasingly keyed up and stressed about things (stupid and not so stupid) and then plunge down periodically. I do come up again but have a niggling feeling that I in fact have a chronic low grade depression that is with me all the time without my even being aware of it. I have tried the meds route but have trouble tolerating them physically (eg. Prozac makes me throw up).
My instinct then is to try other routes first which is what I am doing now (cognitive therapy). And I want to recommit myself to exploring other complementary routes as well (diet, exercise), and also recognising the help I have received for other issues through groups such as AA. I have a tendency to isolate so other people are an important part of my therapy!
And I am sure that the meditation will help get me there too .... except of course that it will teach me that I am already there.
Welcome, Colin. I, too, am sure you already meditate...
Lorianne, France!!! Oh, how wonderful!! Blog lots if you can, promise.
Mary, there are many ways to lift one's spirit, which at times becomes so weary, from exercise to diet to medication to therapy to close and loving friendships and relationships, to open-ended and liberating spiritual beliefs. And way more, each one of us finding special paths back into the loving and joyful when darkness and isolation and depression descend. I've never been at the point of not being able to get out of bed in the mornings, but I dip and rise. When I started doing yoga, it lifted all my energies and I saw that, in comparison, I'd probably always had a low grade depression. Do I work out like that now? Ack. But I am happier underneath than I was before the yoga and healing and meditation became a part of my life over a decade ago. So....
Sometimes it's okay to be depressed, to follow the tail of the monster down to the depths and wrestle the treasure out. They say everytime we do we emerge stronger, in spirit, in wisdom, in solid things like inspiration and direction.
Sometimes it's just the Winter, everything's gone inward, underground, it's frozen on the surface, but Spring is already preparing to burst forth with renewed fertility and life.
Please be gentle on yourself, and I hope it lifts, with all the different approaches you're combining, cognitive therapy, diet, exercise, meditation, the path through will become clear and you'll find yourself where you really want most to be.
Yesterday I had completely forgotten about the fall, until near bedtime, when a dull ache began in the back of my head. It's there today too. I'm lucky I fell on a carpet, it was only inches from a wooden chair. Yadda yadda. It was strange to feel myself falling and not be able to ensure that my rump would hit the ground first. Anyway, I'm sure the back of my head is a little bruised, and it'll take a few days or a week or whatever, but be fine. Grist for a piece of writing? How mercenary we writers are towards our own experiences- :)
I managed to meditate for 10 minutes yesterday morning and felt really pleased - and then watched as my day fell apart for no obvious reason ...and woke this morning feeling dark and at war with the world. It's kind of interesting watching myself feel like this and still being able to work with my clients' issues ...like I said, meditating really brings things to the surface for me!
re the depression discussion - I find that anti-depressants help some people and don't have any effect for some ...even a few who get worse on them ...They can be helpful in allowing people to feel better enough to address their problems (whatever those are). I know a couple of people who have given up on the therapy/personal development route and take prozac (or similar) for a few months every year - and are fine the rest of the time. It works for them. That's the main thing (and I guess the difficulty too)- to find what works for you ... I also know that alcohol (however nice) can be a depressant even when it isn't a problem in itself. Personally (of course as a counsellor I am biassed!) I think having someone (although not necessarily a counsellor)to talk with who is detached from your situation can be enormously freeing - especially with issues such as Ruth is describing, and where there doesn't appear to be any long term, calcified issues ...Ruth - since you and J seem very well versed in things PC/Mac - have either of you considered the possiblity of counselling on-line?
I'm now unable to sit until Sunday and that seems a long long time away ...
I'm home with a sick child today, so I had the luxury of sitting without a sense of time. Sat until my leg falling asleep got too painful. I'm guessing it was about a half hour, but I don't know. I wasn't terribly focused. Kept trying to count breaths in sets of ten and would suddenly realize I was up to seventeen! Ah well. Let it go, return to one.
Welcome, Colin, and Barbara - it's great to have you here and commenting!
Brenda - yikes! how scary! Sorry I didn't see your message until now, but I will hold you STEADY in my thoughts!
Ruth's revelations about depression and parenthood hit home for me; this is a very touchy subject. As a non-mother, I am very sensitive whenever people talk about motherhood as the only way women can ever feel completely fulfilled, or that this is the only valid path for us to take. I wanted children but my husband felt he was not cut out to be a father, because of his own difficult childhood. I think he was probably right. This was, then, a mutual decision but a very very difficult one, and it caused both of us, but especially me, great pain. I am a decade past that now, and realize that in spite of the grief and emptiness I felt then, I was given a gift of time and energy to develop my own talents, spiritual life, and relationships that most women my age simply haven't had - and I've tried to use it well. My husband and I have also had a different opportunity to deepen our relationship with each other and to create and nurture other things together. Perhaps this is how it really was meant to be for me; I don't have huge regrets now, and I am also very appreciative of those women and couples who do devote themselves to their children, because I think if you have children, they must come first.
All this is to say that my heart goes out to you and Julian, Ruth. I know from personal experience how difficult this can be - and also that there are many positive ways through, not all of which involve children of your own. But if you do want them, by all means adopt or become "substitute parents" for some of the so-needy children in our world!
Well said, Beth. I feel a little guilty for blithely stating, "I'm at home with my child" today, in the midst of that particular discussion. I apologize if my insensitivity caused anyone discomfort. I do have a child, and that child was hard-won. I've witnessed up close some of the challenges there are for those who can't have, as well as the rewards for some who don't make that choice. There are many paths in life and it's clear to me that no one path is right for all. My wish is that each of us find our own center of balance and that it may include considerable joy and love along with only the inevitable pains.
I didn't sit today. No excuses. I sat to sit and fell asleep for 10 minutes before the show. seemed to help. whatever....
Barbara are you J's ex Barbara?! (just a crazy thought!) and Leslee are you Leslee who runs yoga courses in the Dordogne? The world is feeling terribly (or wonderfully) intimate all of a sudden now personal issues are up!
I appreciate everyone's comments and above all candour regarding depression. It is surely a very interesting subject, and obviously looking at it is the beginning of a long journey.
The problem with living in France is the language. I am interested in on-line therapy as a concept...! J has expressed an interest in finding someone to talk to several times but it would have to be in his mother tongue. I don't really believe anyone is 'depressed' by nature, or that there is any reason to live like that so much of the time.
Personally, after about 8 years of it, and also a 3 year training in Voice-Movement-Therapy, I am therapied out, which is one of the reasons I came to meditation. I love the sense that the moment does not have to carry the weight of the past; the sense that I CAN choose to be with every breath, note, branch, broad bean....However, I am not suffering from depression. I mourned long and well - not that the sadness will ever go away - and someone had to hold the fort - or understandably believed he had to.
Bon Voyage Lorraine, I thought you were going to Ireland not France? If so pick up some nice tunes for me...
Lorianne is in Ireland, not France. That was my mistake, sorry!
Beth, I don't want my experiences as a mother, and what I feel I've learnt and am learning from mothering devalued either. Motherhood doesn't make a woman complete, not at all. It's really unfortunate that everywoman, young, old, gay, carries the referent "mother" in our culture, when we all need to be seen as women who are living and experiencing a life about which we have intelligent things to say, whether that includes children or not. I've been embroiled in this area for years since I was working on the maternal body (a most interesting body, to say the least), but ultimately fled academia. Sometimes I think the only real issue in feminism is motherhood; it certainly is the most problematic issue.
'To have' or 'not to have' really shouldn't be the question; it should be, no matter what a woman chooses or however it turns out, whether each woman's choices and experiences are valued.
I think your choices and the life you've led have great value, and in ways that mine never will; and probably vice versa. We can learn so much from each other.
And none of it has anything to do with being a complete woman; aren't we already complete, just as we are?
Brenda, there is no problem between us, I hope that is obvious!
You wrote: Sometimes I think the only real issue in feminism is motherhood and I would definitely agree with that.
And your statement: I think your choices and the life you've led have great value, and in ways that mine never will; and probably vice versa. We can learn so much from each other... Yes! exactly. I would say the same thing about you! The point is to share so that we can do that learning. You seem more comfortable with talking about your personal life, in some ways, than I do, so that is a place I am already learning from you.
10 Comments:
Hello all
Brenda: Hope so much that you are feeling better today ...
Lorianne: Bon voyage!
I sat for 10 minutes this morning prior to going for interview. Also sat yesterday. It has become a bit like taking a shower, no obvious surface benefit but a sense that something is happening beneath the surface that I may not be aware of.
Have been following the depression discussion with great interest. My bouts of depression arrive via anxiety - I get increasingly keyed up and stressed about things (stupid and not so stupid) and then plunge down periodically. I do come up again but have a niggling feeling that I in fact have a chronic low grade depression that is with me all the time without my even being aware of it. I have tried the meds route but have trouble tolerating them physically (eg. Prozac makes me throw up).
My instinct then is to try other routes first which is what I am doing now (cognitive therapy). And I want to recommit myself to exploring other complementary routes as well (diet, exercise), and also recognising the help I have received for other issues through groups such as AA. I have a tendency to isolate so other people are an important part of my therapy!
And I am sure that the meditation will help get me there too .... except of course that it will teach me that I am already there.
..and welcome Colin!
Welcome, Colin. I, too, am sure you already meditate...
Lorianne, France!!! Oh, how wonderful!! Blog lots if you can, promise.
Mary, there are many ways to lift one's spirit, which at times becomes so weary, from exercise to diet to medication to therapy to close and loving friendships and relationships, to open-ended and liberating spiritual beliefs. And way more, each one of us finding special paths back into the loving and joyful when darkness and isolation and depression descend. I've never been at the point of not being able to get out of bed in the mornings, but I dip and rise. When I started doing yoga, it lifted all my energies and I saw that, in comparison, I'd probably always had a low grade depression. Do I work out like that now? Ack. But I am happier underneath than I was before the yoga and healing and meditation became a part of my life over a decade ago. So....
Sometimes it's okay to be depressed, to follow the tail of the monster down to the depths and wrestle the treasure out. They say everytime we do we emerge stronger, in spirit, in wisdom, in solid things like inspiration and direction.
Sometimes it's just the Winter, everything's gone inward, underground, it's frozen on the surface, but Spring is already preparing to burst forth with renewed fertility and life.
Please be gentle on yourself, and I hope it lifts, with all the different approaches you're combining, cognitive therapy, diet, exercise, meditation, the path through will become clear and you'll find yourself where you really want most to be.
Yesterday I had completely forgotten about the fall, until near bedtime, when a dull ache began in the back of my head. It's there today too. I'm lucky I fell on a carpet, it was only inches from a wooden chair. Yadda yadda. It was strange to feel myself falling and not be able to ensure that my rump would hit the ground first. Anyway, I'm sure the back of my head is a little bruised, and it'll take a few days or a week or whatever, but be fine. Grist for a piece of writing? How mercenary we writers are towards our own experiences- :)
Hi All
I managed to meditate for 10 minutes yesterday morning and felt really pleased - and then watched as my day fell apart for no obvious reason ...and woke this morning feeling dark and at war with the world. It's kind of interesting watching myself feel like this and still being able to work with my clients' issues ...like I said, meditating really brings things to the surface for me!
re the depression discussion - I find that anti-depressants help some people and don't have any effect for some ...even a few who get worse on them ...They can be helpful in allowing people to feel better enough to address their problems (whatever those are). I know a couple of people who have given up on the therapy/personal development route and take prozac (or similar) for a few months every year - and are fine the rest of the time. It works for them. That's the main thing (and I guess the difficulty too)- to find what works for you ... I also know that alcohol (however nice) can be a depressant even when it isn't a problem in itself. Personally (of course as a counsellor I am biassed!) I think having someone (although not necessarily a counsellor)to talk with who is detached from your situation can be enormously freeing - especially with issues such as Ruth is describing, and where there doesn't appear to be any long term, calcified issues ...Ruth - since you and J seem very well versed in things PC/Mac - have either of you considered the possiblity of counselling on-line?
I'm now unable to sit until Sunday and that seems a long long time away ...
warm wishes to all in your endeavours!
Thinking warm thoughts of you all.
I'm home with a sick child today, so I had the luxury of sitting without a sense of time. Sat until my leg falling asleep got too painful. I'm guessing it was about a half hour, but I don't know. I wasn't terribly focused. Kept trying to count breaths in sets of ten and would suddenly realize I was up to seventeen! Ah well. Let it go, return to one.
Welcome, Colin, and Barbara - it's great to have you here and commenting!
Brenda - yikes! how scary! Sorry I didn't see your message until now, but I will hold you STEADY in my thoughts!
Ruth's revelations about depression and parenthood hit home for me; this is a very touchy subject. As a non-mother, I am very sensitive whenever people talk about motherhood as the only way women can ever feel completely fulfilled, or that this is the only valid path for us to take. I wanted children but my husband felt he was not cut out to be a father, because of his own difficult childhood. I think he was probably right. This was, then, a mutual decision but a very very difficult one, and it caused both of us, but especially me, great pain. I am a decade past that now, and realize that in spite of the grief and emptiness I felt then, I was given a gift of time and energy to develop my own talents, spiritual life, and relationships that most women my age simply haven't had - and I've tried to use it well. My husband and I have also had a different opportunity to deepen our relationship with each other and to create and nurture other things together. Perhaps this is how it really was meant to be for me; I don't have huge regrets now, and I am also very appreciative of those women and couples who do devote themselves to their children, because I think if you have children, they must come first.
All this is to say that my heart goes out to you and Julian, Ruth. I know from personal experience how difficult this can be - and also that there are many positive ways through, not all of which involve children of your own. But if you do want them, by all means adopt or become "substitute parents" for some of the so-needy children in our world!
Well said, Beth. I feel a little guilty for blithely stating, "I'm at home with my child" today, in the midst of that particular discussion. I apologize if my insensitivity caused anyone discomfort. I do have a child, and that child was hard-won. I've witnessed up close some of the challenges there are for those who can't have, as well as the rewards for some who don't make that choice. There are many paths in life and it's clear to me that no one path is right for all. My wish is that each of us find our own center of balance and that it may include considerable joy and love along with only the inevitable pains.
I didn't sit today. No excuses. I sat to sit and fell asleep for 10 minutes before the show. seemed to help. whatever....
Barbara are you J's ex Barbara?! (just a crazy thought!) and Leslee are you Leslee who runs yoga courses in the Dordogne? The world is feeling terribly (or wonderfully) intimate all of a sudden now personal issues are up!
I appreciate everyone's comments and above all candour regarding depression. It is surely a very interesting subject, and obviously looking at it is the beginning of a long journey.
The problem with living in France is the language. I am interested in on-line therapy as a concept...! J has expressed an interest in finding someone to talk to several times but it would have to be in his mother tongue. I don't really believe anyone is 'depressed' by nature, or that there is any reason to live like that so much of the time.
Personally, after about 8 years of it, and also a 3 year training in Voice-Movement-Therapy, I am therapied out, which is one of the reasons I came to meditation. I love the sense that the moment does not have to carry the weight of the past; the sense that I CAN choose to be with every breath, note, branch, broad bean....However, I am not suffering from depression. I mourned long and well - not that the sadness will ever go away - and someone had to hold the fort - or understandably believed he had to.
Bon Voyage Lorraine, I thought you were going to Ireland not France? If so pick up some nice tunes for me...
Lorianne is in Ireland, not France. That was my mistake, sorry!
Beth, I don't want my experiences as a mother, and what I feel I've learnt and am learning from mothering devalued either. Motherhood doesn't make a woman complete, not at all. It's really unfortunate that everywoman, young, old, gay, carries the referent "mother" in our culture, when we all need to be seen as women who are living and experiencing a life about which we have intelligent things to say, whether that includes children or not. I've been embroiled in this area for years since I was working on the maternal body (a most interesting body, to say the least), but ultimately fled academia. Sometimes I think the only real issue in feminism is motherhood; it certainly is the most problematic issue.
'To have' or 'not to have' really shouldn't be the question; it should be, no matter what a woman chooses or however it turns out, whether each woman's choices and experiences are valued.
I think your choices and the life you've led have great value, and in ways that mine never will; and probably vice versa. We can learn so much from each other.
And none of it has anything to do with being a complete woman; aren't we already complete, just as we are?
Brenda, there is no problem between us, I hope that is obvious!
You wrote: Sometimes I think the only real issue in feminism is motherhood and I would definitely agree with that.
And your statement: I think your choices and the life you've led have great value, and in ways that mine never will; and probably vice versa. We can learn so much from each other... Yes! exactly. I would say the same thing about you! The point is to share so that we can do that learning. You seem more comfortable with talking about your personal life, in some ways, than I do, so that is a place I am already learning from you.
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