There are as many ways to describe depression as there are those who experience it, though it is painful and heavy for everyone.  Some of the common threads of depression include:

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• Heaviness, apathy, lack of motivation or energy

• Emptiness, absence, disengagement from your life and relationships

• Feeling lifeless, “blah”, or like all the colors/emotions are mushed together

• A pervasive sense of disempowerment or helplessness

• Deep feelings of shame or worthlessness

• Sadness or grief that feels stuck or frozen

• Moving or speaking faster or slower than is typical for you

• Trouble concentrating or making decisions

• A sense of forgetting or withdrawing from your aliveness

 

Despite how difficult the experience can be, you are not stuck in your depression forever.  I believe we can choose to relate to depression as a powerful threshold, a call to relate differently to ourselves and to the world. One of my teachers, Karla McLaren, describes depression as "the sacred Stop sign of the soul." When we experience depression, we are called to ask ourselves,

 

"What do I fundamentally need to live an engaged and meaningful life?" 

 

Therapy is the container that holds you as you make the courageous choice to walk this path of inquiry through your body, mind, and soul. 

 

Some of what depression therapy might look like includes:

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• Exploring energy management.  Together, we will ask the important depression questions: What makes you come alive?  When have you felt most alive in the past?  Where has your energy gone, and why has it left you? 

• Holding your inner parts.  Inner child, perfectionist, rebel, critic—we all have a myriad of personas within us.  This is normal and healthy.  All of these inner parts ultimately need space to be witnessed and accepted by us; when we push them away is when they tend to become extreme.  When we listen to what they need, we can build trust with our parts, and often can find that they actually help us get where we want to go.

• Partnering with your emotions.  Emotions do not just come and go randomly: they contain messages about your needs, your values, your relationships.  Together, we will learn your unique emotional language, so that you can navigate the world informed by this wisdom.

• Cultivating inner worthiness.  Depression is often accompanied by feelings of unworthiness, guilt, shame, or even self-loathing.  We will rebuild your sense of worthiness through a combination of body-based tools as well as the trust we build in our therapeutic relationship.

• Grieving what needs to be grieved.  Because grief is such a hidden topic in our culture, many of us have not received the support we need in order to know how to move through loss when we encounter it.  Together we’ll explore where your grief might have frozen in time, and we’ll make sure you have the right kind of tools and support to move through it.

• Partnering with cycles.  We will explore how you are impacted by the different cycles of your life: the daily circadian rhythms, menstrual cycles, the cycle of the year.  We will get curious about what wellness looks like for you in every season, even the ones you don’t naturally like.

• Building a thriving ecosystem of relationships.  Human brains and bodies aren’t really built to be physically or mentally healthy in isolation.  In our work, you will receive the tools you need to build genuine connections with others that meet your needs, that are grounded in mutual empowerment, and that reflect your worthiness back to you.

 

Depression can include a withdrawal response from the world.  Therapy is a place where you can practice gently reconnecting with yourself and your life, in an environment where you know you will be supported and you won’t be pushed to go faster than you need.  With the right support, you will find your own unique path to getting unstuck and birthing into being a new way of engaging with yourself and the world.

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