This Too Shall Pass

Well, if there's one thing I've learned... well, mostly learned... about various emotional states is that:

"This too shall pass."

I was in the slide this past month, more like two. Each year in November, I seem to hit a depression. The past couple of years, I had to go on meds to help with the slump, and would often stay on for a year or so until the next year's April and would go off, be okay and then, LO! November!!

This November was no different, same depression. Well, actually, it wasn't the same. Not as deep as it has been in the past. And considering the stress I've been through the past six months with work and what not, you'd think it would be the worst year yet. But maybe putting all that energy into the stress helped me skip the hard core depression this winter. Hah. New therapy strategy for therapists... stress your clients out so much they can't think of their original issue. Like pressing that accupressure point in your hand to get rid of a headache.

So this year, I didn't feel the need to go on meds but I did hit some low points where that fear always arises, "Oh gods, here it goes again. I can't get out of it." That feeling you think you're never going to get out of. You're stuck. In permanent cement. That it will never pass.

And of course, it usually does. Maybe not in a huge way and certainly not permanently. It can be as small as five minutes. It can be grand scale as well; that 'light bulb' of inspiration, insight and change.

And it did for me. After the holidays, it was like some dark cloud had lifted up and I could breathe again. Things are still dark on occasion but seem to shift faster in the past couple of days. I can even view things with some amount of humor.

But this is so hard to remember when inside a mood of whatever kind. It feels like forever, no change possible.

Change. The only permanence is impermanence. This too shall pass.