depression and stress are notorious liars
I have been having a real hard time, lately.
I'll have brief moments where I feel lucid and embodied, sure. But about 75% of the past 2 weeks, I have been feeling incredibly disconnected and dull.
This madness, being aware of being separated from the body but uncertain on how to return to wholeness, is like that reactionary jolt your body does when a fly buzzes past your ears. Imagine tensing your body in perpetuity and a bzzzzt sound that doesn't go away.
Sometimes the noise is louder, sometimes it's faint, but overall, it is an incessant bzzt with ongoing bodily tension that I've slowly become numb to. I've always wondered how wild oxen, horses, elephants, etc. accepted flies constantly crawling and flying around their orifices. That is how these past 2 weeks have been (and maybe even longer, I am facing time blindness and blacked out periods as a result of this depressive/anxious/stressed state).
Yet today, I am finally fed up. I'm getting my ass out of here — here meaning a state of freeze & 'ignorance is bliss' coping methods — because I no longer accept being subjected to these annoying flies.
To break out of this state, I don't need more rest. I need action. Disruptive, ground-shaking action that alarms my frozen body to snap out of it and return to vitality and life.
I would ask you to slap me across the face to wake me up from this numbness but I'm actually pretty sensitive and will definitely cry.
There are things I have been avoiding, especially spiritually, like cleaning my altar, organizing my spiritual tools. I have effectively abandoned my personal spiritual practices as a result of dread and apathy.
Like my creative practices for the emotional healing and expression, I find great spiritual love and self-acceptance whenever I practice sound healing, tarot reading, and chanting. Dancing, singing, praying, I have been really having a difficult time returning to it, ashamed about feeling so powerless to the loss and recent grievances I've been experiencing in my personal life.
So I decided to do the things I've been avoiding and went straight to deep cleaning my altar. An old fortune — the ones you get from fortune cookies — caught my eye immediately as I started.
It read:
You don't become a failure until you're satisfied becoming one.
I nearly cried upon finding this. I felt embraced by its kind, well-timed message.
While I have been feeling like an absolute failure in many aspects, this fortune reminds me that I have not surrendered to being a true failure. I live and fight another day, I survive the hardships and I enjoy the abundance when it comes.
Life isn't black and white, all good or all bad, yet it can feel that way because when it rains, it pours.
I also recall, though, that April showers bring May flowers.
We will have our flowers soon.
Now, I pass the same kind message along to you. If you've been feeling at a loss, struggling with crippling anxiety, depression, stress and your inner critic is telling you that you're a failure, you're useless, it's hopeless, please know that none of the above is true.
Depression and stress are notorious liars. Your situation and your life is not hopeless.
I swear, this is the most cliché thing ever, but it will get better. It's an extra layered cliché because I need to believe it now as much as anyone who needs to hear it now, too.
It will get better, it has gotten better in the past, and it will get better again in the future. Now is hard but now is here and we can't skip past that, we can't rewind or fast forward.
For now, we go to bed and say we will try again tomorrow.
Because we're never going to be satisfied being a failure.
Write back tomorrow.
Thanks for being here.
Sincerely,
Nadine ♥