The answer to all my problems for the last few years has always been “never give up”, and that approach has served me well. Believe me when when I say, that I know how ridiculously cliché that sounds, but no other truth is truer or been more helpful to my sanity.
I have always struggled a bit with depression. The way I personally describe it to myself is that “I have sadness in me”. That description sounds a lot more poetic, more cathartic, more unique than the ol’ typical, “struggle with depression”. I carry past trauma in my body, in my memory, in my soul and when things get tough the visceral narrative that immediately builds leads me back to negative self-talk that does nothing but dig me deeper, and deeper into darkness.
I don’t know where in my adult life I finally figured how to dig myself out of my dark moments. Perhaps it began with art-making in my teens. The mere act of using one’s hand to create something, anything, immediately breathes life into these desperate moments and draws one into a better space. Regardless of how this approach began it works.
Here is how it works for me. When you are down and feeling stuck emotionally and feel like your heart is ready to give up because things have worked against you for some time now; simply realize that when you are truly stuck you really only have two options. Your two options are to (1) stay where you are or (2) keep on moving forward. And with further analyses if where you are at the time is bringing you such misery, the only REAL option you have is to move forward. That is the essence of not giving up.
Now the “act of moving forward” needs to be an action. It can be learning something (new input) or making something (output). Whatever it is, is not really that important. What IS important is that new energy is created through the new learning or through the new doing. In birthing forth new energy we shift our life ever so slightly and new possibilities are revealed.
So next time you feel desperate and down, realize that in the mere act of moving, creating, learning, we can shift our energy back to a better space. The power of this new reality lies within our fingers.