A Pre-Solstice Shift for the Better

I don't know whether you've noticed, but my blog posts of late have frequently tended to be a little . . . well, a little on the morose side.

This shocks my regular readers, I know. I'm sure the morose tone hasn't been noticeable in my posts at all. But it's true. No, really.

To be fair, that hasn't meant that I've been morose all the time and only blogged about it sometimes. It's more that sometimes when I have felt depressed and had something to work through, I have made blogging about it part of my process. I have laid this journaling process open to the world, in part because I hope that my work might be helpful to others who might relate to whatever I'm working through at that moment. 

Depression and I have gone a few rounds over the course of my life, and over the past while I think it's fair to say that it has had the upper hand more than I would want it to. Hence a high percentage of recent blog posts that have been morose in tone. 

I've addressed this recent bout of depression in several ways, in addition to blogging about it. The methods have been helpful, but they haven't seemed to solidly give me the upper hand over the long term.

Over this past weekend I went back to a method that has been quite reliable in the past: bodily experiential activity. Instead of simply ruminating on the roots of my negative self-judgments and how I might deal with them, I got up, got into my physical/emotional feelings, and did something with those negative self-judgments.

Specifically, I burned them. I printed each of those negative messages that I got--or perceived that I got--as a little kid, and that I've still carried into adulthood, onto its own slip of paper. I read each one aloud three times as I brought up and amplified the feelings associated with it. Then I imagined pulling that message--and all of its associated negative self-judgments--out of me and putting it into the paper. Next I burned the paper until it was completely reduced to ash. When the paper burned itself out I moved on to the next one and repeated the process until they were all burned to ash.

I wasn't destroying my Dad (nor the part of him that lives in me) nor anyone else I got those messages from. I wasn't destroying that wounded little boy part of myself. I destroyed the messages, intentionally or unintentionally sent and accurately or inaccurately perceived by me, that wounded that little boy in the first place. That's an important distinction.

When it was over, I filled the spaces left by those ripped-out messages with the "energy" of the Jungian archetypes of the mature masculine psyche--King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover--and with loving thoughts and feelings toward myself. In so doing, I finally felt a connection with that little boy who'd been down in the well (see my earlier post)--who once all those messages were gone seemed clean and happy and not at all feral (he didn't kick or bite me once)--and I let him know that I can and will take care of him.

I collected the ashes into a small wooden box. I have a specific plan for what to do with that box, but I wasn't able to do that on Sunday. So now it sits in my house, like a lead box containing plutonium. I don't want to do anything with it until I'm ready to dispose of it, and I certainly don't want to open it. That shit is toxic. I intend to handle the second phase soon by disposing of the box in the specific way I want to.

To the outside observer unfamiliar with such activities, such exercises can seem a bit strange. So what? I have known them to work well for me, and I have seen them work well for other people. It seems the human psyche can be highly responsive to such things. And while my PsyD had no input into the process beforehand, he thought it was a great process and he was pleased with the results.

Now I don't pretend this one exercise will be a "magic bullet" and that I will never feel depressed again or that these messages will never regenerate in me. But here's the thing: first, when they do regenerate they won't be building on forty years' worth of accumulation anymore. Second, I now know I am capable of pulling out and letting go of those messages. I'd held on to those messages for so long that I wasn't sure whether or how I could pull them out and let them go. Now I know. 

So it may not be a "magic bullet," but I am optimistic that it could be a real game-changer.  And so far this week, I have been feeling decidedly non-morose, to say the least. So I thought I'd blog about that for a change. 

Love to all. Including me.