There is a beneficial side to depression, as strange as it may be. Perhaps Darwin said it best: “Depression is the sadness that informs as it leads an animal to pursue that course of action which is most beneficial.” Charles Darwin
Depression is a sadness, a pressing down of energy that gives voice to our inner world. If you think a depressed person can just snap out of it, you don’t understand the biophysical state of being depressed. Most likely, you have not experienced depression first-hand. Its dark curtains close you off from the world, centering you on yourself.
Depression can cause you to question much of what you once believed to be true and purposeful. It’s a time of great self-doubt, dismantling your normal way of being. The confusion that depression often brings with it opens a space within you for examining and clarifying what you want.
The personality style that you used to greet the world, and the defenses you employed to keep this image of yourself going, have loosened. You have an opportunity now to make a personal change, if need be. You may for example have portrayed yourself as happy go lucky, avoiding anything that shows you as otherwise. Now that you are turned inward, you start to question if this way of being limits you. You just have to seize this down time, to examine where you are at, what you want and need to live more fully and with more contentment. Depression positions you for this type of examination.
Have you heard the expression, “if you haven’t been depressed, you haven’t lived”? I like this saying, because it speaks to depression as a necessary part of personal growth. If you are living, you can’t avoid loss and change and the depression that often comes with it. Depression is often necessary to change.
The good news is that the state of depression and all it entails challenges you to align your life style with what your true self needs to thrive. Depression challenges you to live more authentically. And, if you successfully meet this challenge, the next time loss and change comes your way, your emotional crisis will lessen and be easier on you. You may avoid it altogether.
The extent of the depression brought about by a turn of events informs as to how much of the life you have been living fits poorly with the needs of your whole self. You may have been chasing after things that have more meaning to you materially than psychologically and spiritually. So, when your world collapses, you go along with it.
Depression is a blessing in disguise, if we make it so. You may be taken out of life temporarily, but if you use the passage well—you’ll come out on the other side more whole, healthy and wise.
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