This is a discussion of the central depression concept of “ungrieved futility”, from a podcast interview I did with Sidewalk Talk.
(You can save a copy to your computer by right clicking on the audio bar–i.e., that shows the progress of the recording–and then clicking “save audio as…”)
Last month, I was interviewed on the Sidewalk Talk podcast by my friend and colleague, Traci Ruble. Sidewalk Talk is a project to bring empathic listening to the streets, literally: volunteers set up chairs on sidewalks all over the world, and fellow humans get to sit down for a bit, and just be heard without judgment or trying to be fixed. It’s a brilliant and heartful idea, and Traci has added this podcast to help support the hundreds of volunteers with different interviewees offering different perspectives on how to understand the project, and stay inspired.
So below are a few notes about the interview, and the link to the audio recording. Enjoy.
As the coronavirus keeps washing through the world, and many of us are paused in one way or another, the question of how to use this time keeps arising. There are many answers, of course, from topical to deep, and it’s to the latter that I address this month’s article. Depression often is phrased in terms of control or management of it, often as a medicalized condition, but it has a deep relationship to faith—the choice to remain open in the face of the unknown—that is not obvious on the surface.
So here, I’m suggesting a couple questions intended to help you parse out when depression is speaking in its “anti-faith,” and to expand your attention beyond the contracted and stifling confines that depression tries to impose.
I’ve been offline for a few months, in terms of putting out this newsletter, but it seems this is that time to get back in touch. For all of us. So, in this newsletter (and likely quite a few to come), I’ll be offering some initial thoughts on this COVID-19 period, as it relates to staying mentally healthy, and particularly with the challenge of managing depression.
May you be well, healthy, connected, and finding resilience during this difficult time.
In this month’s Tool, I describe something that can helpful in negotiating shame, that force in everyone’s psyche that points at us with a deep disapproval. It blocks desire and hopes, and the actions connected to them, and can be a heroic project to shift. This tool isn’t meant to take away shame, but to perhaps provide a wedge to make a bit more space between it and you.
August’s Tool-of-the-Month is a kind of exploratory/diagnostic one, not so much intended to change something about your experience. But it’s pretty cool, because what it does is help us realize (in our own embodied experience) that there is a difference between reacting to someone’s, or some part of ourselves’, demand, and taking it as a request. We generally have no idea how much of our power and self-control we give away routinely, until we start to see this connection—between request and response—is not fixed.
This month’s TYM has a short description of “proper therapeutic grammar”, specifically, the deliberate use of “ands” instead of “buts”. With depression essentially eager to get us to split off from the world at large, the use of language is one of its tools to get us to peel away from what was, pre-depression, attractive and motivating. So, therefore, the use of language can also get us to reattach to the world and see it for what it is (but what depression has got us to forget), energized, rich, and full of potential.
May your summers or winters (depending on your hemisphere) be going well, and as always, may you be getting only the challenges you’re ready for, and take in all the supports that you have.
Here’s a piece originally published with Huffington Post, that I think bears repeating, regarding the “ten non-negotiable realities of depression.” These seem to me to describe the whole nature and path of depression, which I know is a rather grand statement, but take a read (or two) and see what you think.
This month’s article concerns a pivotal issues dealing with depression: is the sense of futility that is part-and-parcel of depression an objective reality, or a subjective sense? Futility—that state where a goal cannot be realized, i.e., “made real”—is what depression arises from, essentially as a way of managing energy. When a goal is productive, then our systems allow us to spend energy on it; when a goal is unproductive, then our systems withhold energy from that goal. Knowing whether or not “futility” is an accurate assessment of a goal allows either energy to flow, or not, towards something we desire.
I hope, wherever you might be in the country, you’re starting to get some spring and finding, whatever your challenges, some way to enjoy it all.
May’s Tool-of-the-Month centers on the short question, “What is the most creative thing I can do?”, which is not easy to actually ask. Or if it’s easy to ask, it’s hard to act on. So, here are some brief thoughts about that question, and since experimentation is a big part of creativity, give the question a shot and see what happens.
