For a while now, I've been feeling down, something that has affected my personal relationships, my hobbies. My life. I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation. In fact, it seems to me that there are more people getting depressed now than ever before. Just another side-effect of our brave new world, I expect.
In any case, this post isn't one for ranting, or discussing what I think is wrong, but rather talking about how to make things right. A question that has been eluding me for the past few weeks.
For a while, I've been considering various self-help options, and while that may be an idea, I'll write on that if I decide to pursue it. For now, I've just decided to allow myself some space.
One of the major complaints I had was a lack of time. While I was managing to touch all my goals, and finish what I set out to finish, I began to realize I was stretching myself thin. November was an incredibly tiring and busy month with my freelance work, and I would often comment that I'd worked enough for two months, both in terms of effort, and of cash.
So I decided that for December, I would take it easy. I've sustracted myself from work, and while I won't turn down my regular customers if they need something, I won't actively look for more work, either. I planned on taking time off for the holidays, starting somewhere around mid-December, but now, as the month begins, and I've had one or two days to myself, I realized how badly I needed it. And how it was right there. It seems impossible now to imagine how hard it was for me to see this.
As realization struck, I loosened my grip of the faulty anchors I believed would save me. Instead, I am focusing on quiet. Time. Space. Those elements I badly needed, and haven't got much of this year.
You see, for a long time, like many of us, I've been thinking about the state of our world today. Disastrous, tyrannical, hopeless are all words that come to mind. Yet for now, I am trying to focus on the things I can change. I understand that my own personal worries and concerns were increasing the brunt of external damage, so for now, I'm trying to repair these as I can.
December will be a month for writing. I'm working on a project I am very excited about, and that has provided a lifeline when it was most drastically needed. I would like the time to devote myself to that. Christmas shopping, which has always been a big pleasure of mine (not the spending, the act of organizing gifts, really), will also be a focus, as will various other things I would like to do for myself. A time for trial and error. A time for aimlessness. For reading. For music that's too loud.
It's always a shock to realize the extent to which you are contributing to your own misery. It's always so much easier to give in to helplessness and despair, than to take a balanced, realistic view of things. To understand the thoughts, and type of thinking that's accelerating your madness, instead of slowing it down - now that's half the struggle, I feel.
There's a saying in yoga - let go of that which no longer serves.
December will be a month of yoga.