I dropped like a stone. Down into the chasm. The bottom of the pit. Dark. Hopeless. No glimmer of light. Optimism: pestle-ground to dust.
It was around 4pm a few Wednesdays ago. No rhyme, no reason. I had one group call and 2 x one to one coaching calls that evening. Great timing! While it didn’t cross my mind to cancel, I knew my ‘A-game’ would be nowhere near. ‘A-game!’ – as if I ever had it! I was a D-minus at everything in life. That’s the best grade I can be, down in the treacle-thick-molasses pit.
I looked at my next day’s schedule: 7 coaching sessions. Oops. More D-minus stuff for them, the poor souls! I knew I could shroud it. 99% of the time no one noticed before, so they wouldn’t again. I knew though. Damn. That felt worse. I was fake as well as rubbish.
Somehow I faked and rubbished through the evening. I slept badly. I woke up worse. I fumbled through Thursday. Dark. Hopeless... all that again. Eternal darkness. Eternal hopeless. Eternity in one day.
I knew enough not to poke around in there. Not to take a dagger to look for a reason to pin it on. I was tempted though. I would have found myself if I’d poked around long enough. The only reason I ever found to pin it on in the past was me. The familiar index finger of blame, right back at yours truly.
The client sessions brought some respite from the worst of it. A buzzing fridge of doom instead of incessant drumming. I did as well as I could. ‘As well as I could’ wasn’t good enough for me down there. The mood-pit cloaks everything. Nothing is simple. Possible is suffocated. Able is AWOL.
I wondered how long this spell would go on for… I’ve had depressive episodes that last months, even years. I could not and did not predict how long I’d have to endure this one, I knew that was futile. “Walk on my boy, it’s all you can do,” I said, as I grandfathered myself walking upstairs to bed that Thursday night.
On Friday, I woke up full of the joys of spring. The light was back. No clouds. No sticky. No more pit. Welcome back simplicity, possibility, and openness. What a bounce-back! I counted the hours… a 40-hour depression. Lucky boy! And grateful for it too. I knew I could never be immune from the human condition. Having feelings I don’t like. Having thoughts about me, other people, and life in general that I don’t like. Having moods that I don’t like. As a human, those come with the territory as much as opposable thumbs.
I was back on casters, gliding through the day. Smooth. Effortless. Clear. Radiant. Peaceful. I heard the simplicity behind all the complexity of what my clients were saying. I was back to surprising myself with the words I said – because they weren’t coming from my brain. They were from that mysterious deeper place that I can hear when the buzzing fridge in my mind isn’t what I’m listening to. Up here, it’s all different. And I did nothing to make it happen. I know that if I had tried, I’d have been using a shovel while already in a hole.
Fast forward to a different, more recent Wednesday.
Maddie was in session 5 of a series of 8. That day, we went deeper. She said things she told me she’d never said out loud before – even to herself – from the sheer embarrassment of it.
“I know everyone else is fine, perfect even. Not me, oh no!” she said. “They can have all the feelings, thoughts, messes and eff-ups they want, and I know they’re still fine. I love them just the same. With me, I can’t feel some things, because they make me wrong. Wrong to my core. It’s mad, I know, but I have to confess, I have spent my entire life controlling what I think, what I feel, what I do and it’s worn me out” she said and her eyes filled before Maddie threw her head back.
She’d said something similar to me the first time we met on Zoom 2 months earlier. This time it felt more raw, more real with more of her soul out on show.
Her head came back slowly and she looked at me on her screen. There was no screen, we were in the same room, 30 miles apart. We sat in silence for a minute, maybe 2.
“What’s the opposite of what you’ve been doing?” I said. It was another string of words I heard at the same time as Maddie. It was not a conscious question. And once I’d heard it, I almost disliked it enough to say something else instead. I bit my lip and stayed curious about where this surprising question would go for her.
More silence.
“Allowing,” she said, with a gentle nod.
We allowed silence again. There was more for this clear feeling in her to express, in its own time.
“That feels so freeing,” Maddie said as her shoulders collapsed from her ears. A long sigh followed then more silence. And a smile.
We chatted a little more and arranged the date and time for our next session. We said our thanks, our goodbyes and ended the call.
As the Zoom room closed, the word ‘allowing’ echoed in my mind. Allowing. All of me. In the entire range of human experience. Including low moods, depression, frustration, insecurities…. the works. If anything, that’s what helped the 40 hours not be as desperate as it could have felt. Or not make it last longer. Or not made me do anything I’d regret later while I was in it. Or maybe it was knowing that allowing lets nature take its course.. when it comes to moods: what goes down must come up.
With love and thanks,
Wyn