This resonates deeply with my own experience, Vicki. When I sit down to meditate each evening - before I can even get to the actual meditation - I ask myself what am I actually feeling here (because I'm pretty much always anxious in the evening). Only when I dig deep enough into it, identify something at the core, and allow myself to go straight into that does it start to soften. This "thing at the core" is never the surface situation or first thing that comes to mind. And it's usually something I've subconsciously been trying to avoid feeling or facing.
I completely agree that the way out is through. It seems so simple, so obvious and yet when it comes to feelings that we resist a whole complex game starts to take place to avoid the whole thing. It is the game that is depressing in the end because it goes no where. Just kleenex box after kleenex box. Thanks for this thoughtful piece.
Hello Dr. Connop. I lost about 8 years of my life to depression, but think I have it beat now. It came during the time after I transitioned out of the military and I was no longer working at an incredibly high ops tempo (busy) due to Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) in the 2000s. The military gave me all of my life opportunities, so I am, IN NO WAY, bashing on that. I actually count joining the USAF as one of the best decisions of my life; finding my significant other was my other best decision. :)
It was the slower, down time AFTER I transitioned out of my Air Force that the major depressive disorder came. I am hoping maybe THAT counts as the sitting with it? Lol. Part of my ongoing (self-prescribed) treatment is to keep busy by helping others. That helps me a lot and has done so for the last 6 years, so will keep that up. Helping others gives me energy and keeps me moving and prevents me from falling into the well.
In conclusion, I am a little opposite in your recommendation, perhaps, in that I don't want to revisit sad memories anymore. I hope this is okay. I guess I will find out as life goes on.
Thank you for the advice and invitation for us to talk.
Okay @Mmerikani, enough sharing of private feelings to the public this week, lol.
I was depressed most of my adult life. Starting training to be therapist changed that. Weekly therapy sessions cut through my masking, my coping mechanisms and BS. I went deep and worked with what was actually going on with my child hood wounding. One of my biggest regrets is having to stop that process due to finances and illness. I know there is so much more to explore. I am not depressed anymore though and that has been priceless.
I love EMDR, and it has been such a catalytic and empowering experience for me in reframing these painful points in my history. In one of my sessions, I was able to create a visual lifeline for myself. In another, I watched my father turn into a caged tiger before regressing into a scared little boy. It was only through EMDR and somatic work that I was able to tap into feelings within my body, a journey I'm still navigating, but it gave me a means of making it happen.
And now in my personal diet recovery work, sitting with those uncomfortable feelings is the way through the discomfort. The reason dieting is so powerful for some people is that some of us are trying so desperately not to feel, and dieting gives us this sense of control over ourselves that feels very satisfying (at least in the beginning before our bodies begin to rebel).
I didn’t have a good experience with EMDR and as someone who has MDD the only thing that helps me climb out of a valley is allowing me to naturally be at a place to climb out which is to allow it to process and no amount of positivity will make it happen quicker. In my experience if positivity is flung at me when I’m in a valley is toxic positivity which only angers me
Fantastic piece - thank you for sharing. I recently had EMDR therapy and it honestly changed my life. Your words ‘therapists are the midwives of our pain’ are a perfect representation.
The line - “We often think of depression and sadness as the same thing, but they’re not. Depression is what happens when we don’t fully feel our sadness, our pain. “
🙌🏻 yes yes yes. There is such a misconception that a depressed person feels things too deeply - too much. When in fact, it’s the opposite. They aren’t fully sinking into the full range of emotions or feelings.
EMDR has been so helpful for me and my clients! Often when my clients identify the negative cognition associated with the memory they begin to cry and there’s a shift for them- it’s often centered around shame. Thanks for sharing this- an important reminder to me as a therapist and human ☺️
When you wrote about shame, and how we need to allow ourselves to feel the emotion that is the hardest one to face, the voice in my head that knows what I need urged me to pay attention. I was asked recently, after telling my mental health nurse my life story and all the things that have happened to me, and the ways I have hurt my own life, 'Have you forgiven yourself for all that?'.
I know I haven't. And there is more that she didn't hear about that also needs to be forgiven. The shame that has hung on me for my whole life is, I am sure, the deeper emotion that needs to be healed. Thank you for helping me find this clarity. Now the work can begin....
There is a deep truth in the need to be able and willing to feel in order to heal. We can't change anything unless we're able to fully acknowledge that it exists in the first place, and the Western mindset of numbing and medicating it away, so you can carry on being a productive member of society is so harmful to us all on so many levels.
And it's only getting worse. As we become more disconnected from our true nature, and from the natural world, being driven more and more into the slavery of technological and consumer addiction, feeling is becoming harder and harder. There is always something we can use to distract ourselves. I learned this the hard way when a plan to take January off Facebook laid bare the deep depression I had been hiding in plain sight for years. Reconnecting with the grief, trauma, pain and sadness I thought I had healed was hard, and still is, but I know that it's the only way I'll fully heal. And accepting that this is a life's work, that's even harder. There will always be more pain, more grief, more sadness, and remembering that it needs to be faced, not hidden from, is a daily challenge in a world that wants me to consume my way through it.
The line about being angry when you really need to cry struck me deeply. Crying was frowned upon growing up and so anger is my weapon of choice but often it only hurts me which adds to the hurt that was already there. I don’t cry easily but when I do it feels like utter release afterwards. Thanks for this really honest piece… it’s given me a lot of food for thought
I’m absolutely with you on the route out of depression being through the feelings we’ve avoided and agree that the key is to get to the deepest layers. Sadly I think we often don’t get to those layers and so all the talking we do about the surface feelings can make us feel worse. What you said about us looking for the feeling behind the feeling is such an important piece of the puzzle and I wish more people knew this.
This resonates deeply with my own experience, Vicki. When I sit down to meditate each evening - before I can even get to the actual meditation - I ask myself what am I actually feeling here (because I'm pretty much always anxious in the evening). Only when I dig deep enough into it, identify something at the core, and allow myself to go straight into that does it start to soften. This "thing at the core" is never the surface situation or first thing that comes to mind. And it's usually something I've subconsciously been trying to avoid feeling or facing.
I completely agree that the way out is through. It seems so simple, so obvious and yet when it comes to feelings that we resist a whole complex game starts to take place to avoid the whole thing. It is the game that is depressing in the end because it goes no where. Just kleenex box after kleenex box. Thanks for this thoughtful piece.
Hello Dr. Connop. I lost about 8 years of my life to depression, but think I have it beat now. It came during the time after I transitioned out of the military and I was no longer working at an incredibly high ops tempo (busy) due to Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) in the 2000s. The military gave me all of my life opportunities, so I am, IN NO WAY, bashing on that. I actually count joining the USAF as one of the best decisions of my life; finding my significant other was my other best decision. :)
It was the slower, down time AFTER I transitioned out of my Air Force that the major depressive disorder came. I am hoping maybe THAT counts as the sitting with it? Lol. Part of my ongoing (self-prescribed) treatment is to keep busy by helping others. That helps me a lot and has done so for the last 6 years, so will keep that up. Helping others gives me energy and keeps me moving and prevents me from falling into the well.
In conclusion, I am a little opposite in your recommendation, perhaps, in that I don't want to revisit sad memories anymore. I hope this is okay. I guess I will find out as life goes on.
Thank you for the advice and invitation for us to talk.
Okay @Mmerikani, enough sharing of private feelings to the public this week, lol.
Onward and upward! :)
I was depressed most of my adult life. Starting training to be therapist changed that. Weekly therapy sessions cut through my masking, my coping mechanisms and BS. I went deep and worked with what was actually going on with my child hood wounding. One of my biggest regrets is having to stop that process due to finances and illness. I know there is so much more to explore. I am not depressed anymore though and that has been priceless.
I love EMDR, and it has been such a catalytic and empowering experience for me in reframing these painful points in my history. In one of my sessions, I was able to create a visual lifeline for myself. In another, I watched my father turn into a caged tiger before regressing into a scared little boy. It was only through EMDR and somatic work that I was able to tap into feelings within my body, a journey I'm still navigating, but it gave me a means of making it happen.
And now in my personal diet recovery work, sitting with those uncomfortable feelings is the way through the discomfort. The reason dieting is so powerful for some people is that some of us are trying so desperately not to feel, and dieting gives us this sense of control over ourselves that feels very satisfying (at least in the beginning before our bodies begin to rebel).
I didn’t have a good experience with EMDR and as someone who has MDD the only thing that helps me climb out of a valley is allowing me to naturally be at a place to climb out which is to allow it to process and no amount of positivity will make it happen quicker. In my experience if positivity is flung at me when I’m in a valley is toxic positivity which only angers me
Fantastic piece - thank you for sharing. I recently had EMDR therapy and it honestly changed my life. Your words ‘therapists are the midwives of our pain’ are a perfect representation.
Like this writing a great deal 😇
Thank you for this, Dr. Connop.
The line - “We often think of depression and sadness as the same thing, but they’re not. Depression is what happens when we don’t fully feel our sadness, our pain. “
🙌🏻 yes yes yes. There is such a misconception that a depressed person feels things too deeply - too much. When in fact, it’s the opposite. They aren’t fully sinking into the full range of emotions or feelings.
This essay should be required reading!
Thank you 🙏🏼
EMDR has been so helpful for me and my clients! Often when my clients identify the negative cognition associated with the memory they begin to cry and there’s a shift for them- it’s often centered around shame. Thanks for sharing this- an important reminder to me as a therapist and human ☺️
Great post, Vicki. I'm definitely interested in EMDR as a tool for getting through to "gnarly" emotions that may be hidden from ourselves.
When you wrote about shame, and how we need to allow ourselves to feel the emotion that is the hardest one to face, the voice in my head that knows what I need urged me to pay attention. I was asked recently, after telling my mental health nurse my life story and all the things that have happened to me, and the ways I have hurt my own life, 'Have you forgiven yourself for all that?'.
I know I haven't. And there is more that she didn't hear about that also needs to be forgiven. The shame that has hung on me for my whole life is, I am sure, the deeper emotion that needs to be healed. Thank you for helping me find this clarity. Now the work can begin....
Oh my. This reached deeply into my being.
There is a deep truth in the need to be able and willing to feel in order to heal. We can't change anything unless we're able to fully acknowledge that it exists in the first place, and the Western mindset of numbing and medicating it away, so you can carry on being a productive member of society is so harmful to us all on so many levels.
And it's only getting worse. As we become more disconnected from our true nature, and from the natural world, being driven more and more into the slavery of technological and consumer addiction, feeling is becoming harder and harder. There is always something we can use to distract ourselves. I learned this the hard way when a plan to take January off Facebook laid bare the deep depression I had been hiding in plain sight for years. Reconnecting with the grief, trauma, pain and sadness I thought I had healed was hard, and still is, but I know that it's the only way I'll fully heal. And accepting that this is a life's work, that's even harder. There will always be more pain, more grief, more sadness, and remembering that it needs to be faced, not hidden from, is a daily challenge in a world that wants me to consume my way through it.
The line about being angry when you really need to cry struck me deeply. Crying was frowned upon growing up and so anger is my weapon of choice but often it only hurts me which adds to the hurt that was already there. I don’t cry easily but when I do it feels like utter release afterwards. Thanks for this really honest piece… it’s given me a lot of food for thought
I’m absolutely with you on the route out of depression being through the feelings we’ve avoided and agree that the key is to get to the deepest layers. Sadly I think we often don’t get to those layers and so all the talking we do about the surface feelings can make us feel worse. What you said about us looking for the feeling behind the feeling is such an important piece of the puzzle and I wish more people knew this.