Am I Depressed?

Hey mama,

This week I got an email from a client and in it, she wrote:

‘I get these spells of time and I question if I’m depressed.

Seemingly everything is OK.

I have a husband and a daughter. I’m not majorly ill, barely a sinus issue, I have a good life, I have an anniversary and a birthday this week, we’re going out tonight and away for the weekend, but nothing really brings me joy right now.

I don’t have to feel happiness 24/7 but I should feel something and I just feel numb right now.’

Are you familiar with this feeling?

I know I am.

More often than I would like I am flooded with low energy, feel very drained and tired.

I don’t want to do anything – get ready, go out, be nice, smile or talk. 

All the things that we have to do to ‘show up’ in our lives, right?

So what should you do?

How to shift this around?

This is what I cover in today’s podcast episode (episode #110).

Hope this is helpful and if you resonated with my tips please share this episode with one mama in your life who needs to hear this right now.

It takes a village to raise a child AND a mama.

Do your part, show up for yourself and others.

Sending you much love and many blessings,

XOXO,

Dorit

p.s. Want to join the 5-day challenge: From ‘sucked dry’ to Strong, energized and sexy? Head on over to www.healthbeginswithmom.com/challenge.

We officially begin on July 8th @ 1 pm EST.

See you on the other side!!

Here’s the full letter I read on the show: 

It is the day before my birthday. My 43rd birthday.

And I guess like I felt like some reflecting, or more like ruminating today. I don’t know.

I have been in a funk for most of this week, starting Monday with super low energy, very drained and tired.

I did take the day off to rest, meditate, journal, listen to podcasts, so self-care I guess.

Then Tuesday I did feel much better, a little more energy, but concluded that it was sinuses.

Wednesday went well with an early dentist appointment for my daughter and a good call with Dorit and actually getting some work done in the afternoon, but by the evening I was tired, irritable, had a headache, and ready to go to bed and be alone.

I woke up today just blah.

Not really feeling terrible, but not feeling good.

I literally did not want to work today. Pretty simple, I didn’t feel like it.

Like getting ready, going out, being nice, smiling, talking – all the things that my job requires.

But I can’t stay home and hide, but I don’t know what I want to do.

I feel like I’m in limbo between momentum and survival.

I have wants and dreams and visions and I feel stuck at the same time.

I know that I haven’t been present with my daughter or my husband and have been short and irritable.

Dorit says it all goes back to food and I do believe that she knows what she’s talking about.

But it feels like more.

I get these spells of time and I question if I’m depressed.

Seemingly everything is OK.

I’m not majorly ill, barely a sinus issue, I have a good life, I have an anniversary and a birthday this week, we’re going out tonight and away for the weekend, but nothing really brings me joy right now.

I don’t have to feel happiness 24/7 but I should feel something and I just feel numb right now.

Not really one way or another with food, with movement, with sex, with activities, with the house, with plans I’m just here and this isn’t how I like to be.

I know that I am always looking for a reason ‘why’.

Why do I feel this way?

Why don’t I do something about it?

Why do I not do the things that I should?

Why why why.

Maybe that’s what exhausting me – all this questioning. All the analysis.

Maybe I just need to be for a while.

Even if it isn’t happy or sad. Just be.

I think that this is an illusion of something that I don’t know to do.

I’m always thinking and always questioning so much that I don’t let myself to just be.

I always need to know why.

So what are the tools that I have to shift this?

I have awareness, just being aware of what is going on and observing it, being curious without questioning.

I have support – people that I can turn to and ask questions or just get support through encouragement in words.

I have movement and I know that moving my body can shift my energy.

I can take a walk, do yoga, work out, play with my daughter, I can do this.

I have journaling, I can get my feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and emotions out of my head and on to paper to free up my mind to either just be or to move on.

I have breathing, I can take pause and center myself on my breath, to slow my body and mind down and ease or eliminate the anxiety that comes up.

I have action. I can take action towards the things that will bring me closer to how I want to feel one step at a time.

I can help others and I can share with others my work, or in my life, to shift the energy and mindset.

And I have food. I can feed my body what it needs to thrive so what stops me from doing any or all of these things even when I know that they will help me?

Me.

Resistance.

My monkey mind.

My replay of negative self-talk.

All of the above.

My mind can be a dangerous place and it feels like the less I lean into what I can do to shift things the more out of control I feel in my thoughts, beliefs, and actions.

I lose touch with myself and my inner wise voice. My gut, my intuition.

They just take a back seat, and my world starts to spiral around me and I can’t seem to grab hold of anything.

I need motivation, I need creativity, I need a spark to light me up, but that is all within me.

It’s all there waiting to be tapped into or turned on as Abraham Hicks says.

I just have to look deep enough. Dive down, be brave, have courage, have faith, and trust in myself to do what I need to do to get back to that place that I desire.

So what does that place look and feel like?

It looks like flow.

Freedom.

Ease.

Steadiness.

Magnetism.

Energizing.

Joyful.

Effortless.

Fulfilling.

Satisfying.

And present.

It is going through the day just knowing what to do and feeling good about it. Feeling the synchronicity, the ease, and the energy that comes from living in the flow.

And it’s not something that I can just make happen.

Although it does take effort, it just happens.

You just realize that all of a sudden everything feels good. Everything feels right.

Right time, time place, the right way, but not in a judgmental kind of way, just right.

It’s really hard to explain and can really only be experienced, but when you’re in it you know it.

You know that feeling and you want to keep it going for as long as you can.

And I think that’s where I am right now – in the contrast of that feeling.

I am not congruent with that feeling that I want to have and so my mind is playing tricks on me and forcing me to look the other way. To resist what I know would help bring me back to that feeling and sometimes it resists hard.

It puts up a very good fight against what I know will help me.

It can be stubborn and rude and uncaring and that is the opposite of how I want to be as a person, wife, mother, boss, friend, daughter.

It’s my job to put my tools to work, no one else’s.

I have to make the choices and take the action needed to turn the resistance around and show it who is boss of me.

I am in control of my mind and body, not it.

I can easily let resistance take over and live in the contrast, but I have seen the other side and I know how good it can feel and that gives me the motivation and drive to take it one step at a time over and over and get to that feeling.

I can get there again and make it better and better.

This is all possible and within me.