Imagine if we, as a culture, could embrace depression. Imagine that in any life cycle there are, as in nature, seasons. Depression does not always have to be viewed as pathology.

The industrial age introduced clocks, the digital age upped 9-5 to 24/7.

We are not meant to operate outside of the natural order of things. Riotous springs are followed by productive summers. In fall, as energy wanes we’re motivated to prepare for winter and muster the energy to get things done. In winter we accept that little grows, days are short and if we give over to the darkness and rest, we’ll recharge.

I’ve learned from the creative people around me, as well as my own experience, that a depression is a terrible thing to waste. We will emerge from them. When we do, we can allow for the riotously creative personal spring that follows. It will be there when were ready to embrace life again.

To every season there is a time and a purpose.

Accept the winters. And please keep faith, your personal spring will follow.

Courtesy GardeningAtTheEdge.wordpress.com

See also: The Rose, Bette Middler’s timeless hit.

“Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows,
lies the seed that with the sun’s love in the Spring becomes the rose.”

Reframe your understanding of it. Imagine it as a love song for yourself.

“Seasonal Affective Disorder” (SAD), is also predictable and seasonal, but the above reflection is on the experience of major depression.

In organising BizCamps, support and networking groups and now Carlingford Forum, the mission has been to create a safe space and to start a conversation that gets us thinking about ourselves and our communities in a new light.

Think of this place as a fertile field. Our children are the seeds. Their yield will sustain our communities for another generation. Will they grow in seasons of dearth or abundance? Will we move on, leaving overplanted fields stripped of nutrients? Or we will dig in, hoe, clear the rocks, enrich and prepare a better field to ensure the future.

We can clear the plots defined by our acres and that is good. How much better would it be if we collectively prepared our own and helped our neighbours? Village wide, county wide, country wide and island-wide.

My grandmother was a simple woman. She shared her wisdom with “old sayings” that come to me often. Her response s were predictable.

• to my pained experience of mastering the sewing machine or kitchen gadget: “it’s a poor workman who blames his tools”;
• on my frequent whinges about my lot in life: “offer it up”;
• on any matter of importance: “two heads are better than one, even if one is a cabbage”.

The last was confounding. Was my opinion as valuable as veg?

Creative problem solving can’t happen in a vacuum. That was and is the most important lesson she offered.  It is what I seek to offer via this blog.  “Who does she think she is?” is the message I often hear when I raise issues. And the answer is: “No one and everyone”.

Once uttered, thoughts, threats, fears – all lose their power.  No more nighttime monsters under the bed. When we give voice to an issue, we throw open the windows and let in the light. The situation may remain scary – but we are no longer alone in the dark to imagine the demon, or to slay the dragon with limited weapons at hand. We’ve called in reinforcements. Reinforcements with a fresh perspective. They may be unarmed ones or ones who clear the debris obscuring the escape, the ones who resupply, or the ones who rework the strategy.

Perhaps, even a peacemaker who will whisper our demons to sleep.

So lest I be misunderstood, I am merely an observer and a facilitator. At best I seek to point out that we are undermining our collective potential. At worst, think of me as a mild annoyance. Often, it is my ignorance that is displayed – and your feedback serves to educate me.

The agricultural metaphor is not born of poetry but experience.

A client – twenty years ago, was delighted that we’d produced a resume she’d struggled over for months. She smiled when I abbreviated my grandmother’s thought – “two heads are better than one”.

“Even if one is a cabbage.” She startled me, I’d never heard that part elsewhere.

“Did it make you feel as dumb as a vegetable?” I asked. “No” she said – pooh-poohing that sentiment.

Her grandmother always generously finished the thought with, “because if all else fails, you can eat the cabbage”.

Food for thought. Wise women.

Sadly, last night I witnessed a poorly attended Dublin protest on the subject of the bank bailout.

This is not a post about economics.

The legacy of having lived so many years emotionally paralysed and trapped by an anorexic vision of my future, is that I am far too impatient when I witness it in others.  The old saw that “converts are the worst kind” is so very true.

That “conversion” was an emotional and creative recovery from a life where I limited the vision of what was possible. I refused to feed my hunger for a better life, a career & financial security, by focusing on deprivation and not abundance.

One perfect example was not returning to work after the birth of my second child.

Who will take care of them when they have sick days and day care won’t have them? How will I handle evening meetings and appointments? No one only works 40 hours and is good at what they do, how will I find a job that lets me work flexible hours?

That last option was not quite as common 25 years ago – but how would I know if I didn’t challenge my assumption? It really translates:

I don’t trust that in an abundant world everything I need will come to me if I take the first step.

I didn’t “test the water”; I decided in advance that even if it could be done, and others had, I couldn’t do it. So I stayed home, became depressed, self medicated with food and became morbidly obese.

I starved myself of the creative outlet of my work, the intellectual stimulation of colleagues and even the dreaded performance reviews that do leave you with a sense of accomplishment. Face it, even if we find child rearing more rewarding, the jury is out for nearly two decades. And when you’re in the throes of it, who knows how you are doing!

And lest you hear me beating myself up without cause, I had great training for it.

Many of us were reared to believe that facing difficulty is virtuous. Staying home with children was laudable. And it was hard, but hard was good, right?

Wrong.  I laugh now when I remember the day that a friend told me I was depressed because I was a perfectionist. My response: “I am not a perfectionist, look at me, I rarely get things right!”

If you can’t seen the irony in that, give it time, it took me years to really understand.

I did not coin this term “anorexic vision” – I owe it and so much of the language of my emotional & creative recovery to a book called The Artist’s Way. The author, Julia Cameron uses it to describe the process by which we empower ourselves with choice. When we refuse to feed our hunger for a better life by focusing on our deprivation we are assuming the universe wants us to have less than we want for ourselves. And I love the way she illustrates this point:

“Looking at … creation, it is pretty clear that the creator itself did not know when to stop. There is not one pink flower, or even fifty pink flowers, but hundreds….This creator looks suspiciously like someone who just might send us support for our creative ventures.”

I believe this now, because I have lived the result. I stepped onto a plane almost two years ago leaving a secure job, a house, supportive friends and family behind. By living my intent to pick up where I’d left off at 23, I was making way for the gifts that could only come if I actually began the journey.

“I am thinking about moving to Ireland” did not cause anything to happen. Visiting a friend and setting a date opened my world up to help from friends and strangers alike. Inside of six months, people had actually tracked down the paperwork for a passport (the documentation stymied me off and on for 10 years), located a house to rent, found me a job,  and even cared for my dog and ushered her through quarantine. And if that weren’t enough, within six months of my arrival, I’d established contacts who led me back to the career I’d abandoned.

“Regrets, I’ve had a few…”

Please don’t read “regret” into this. I reared three fine young women who learned and grew with the lessons I was learning. I have been late in modelling joyful, mindful living – and it was not an easy road for them, but we have walked this painful path together. They will, I pray, accept nothing less for themselves.

Do read this as- “it can be done”. This convert to living abundantly would like to preach the message of choosing life. The only obstacle is us.

My work as a career & small business coach and in facilitating groups is informed by my own struggle and success.

So be patient with my impatience when I hear you say: “Ah sure, but you can’t change it”.

The folks around me are doing and saying what I had done for years.

Believe me, there is another way: bank bailouts, closed hospitals, & senior/disabled citizens victimised by cuts to health care, will not change because we are thinking about it. As in my life there can and will be changes when we take a first step.

Nets do appear when we leap.

Permission to give up our perfectionism came with a directive that is thousands of years old:

“It is not your responsibility to finish the work, but you are not free to desist from it either”*

Stand up, speak up, and show up for life.

* If you think that 2000 year old quote has little relevance today – read what LinkedIn Influencer and Founder of Reputation.com has to say about it in his post – it’s about the effort, not the outcome!