Hi friends from the inter webs,
I am writing to you in my lavender tank top and gray cotton shorts. Summer is in full swing. The sun is shining. In this season’s vibrancy, my mood does not match the weather. For anyone who suffers from depression and anxiety, I hope you could try to accept what you are feeling and let go of the expectation of a different reality. I know how painful it is to force yourself to be happy. You are in the depths of depression. Being is enough. Holding space for this dark despair is enough. And you are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. Please keep loving yourself and let others love you.
For me, being loving to others comes easy. Letting others love me takes more work. How about you? What’s your relational dance with the act of Love?
In the effort to let Love in, I tried to communicate with my friends about my depression – just share with them that my depression is visiting and let them decide whether they’d want to be with me or not. I explained to them about my turtling – the act of hiding and retreating from life and loving relationships until I feel able to hold my big emotions. My friends’ reaction showed me how much Love I was shutting out. One of them was surprised that I have depression at all since the only side they’ve seen me is my “good” side. One of them resonated with how I am feeling and shared how she copes with her depression and letting me know that I am not alone and she is there for me and she loves ME, all of me. I was dumbfounded. I told a story to myself about the relational dance of Love based on what I grew up with. And I was wrong.
Being an adult means that we have the freedom to choose and rewrite our stories and our beliefs. I believed that I was only worthy of love when I was feeling good and doing good. I believed that my yucky parts would stop people from loving me and I was responsible for holding them myself. And how grateful I am to have the unhelpful beliefs proven wrong by my friends. If I want to feel seen and heard as Me, I need to show my friends who I AM.
I am not suggesting going around and sharing our vulnerable selves to anyone in our lives – only to those who have earned the right to hear our stories. Our intuition to protect ourselves should be trusted. I think it is important to find people who make us feel safe to be vulnerable with. And trust takes time to build. For me, those people look like people with integrity and people who are honest – people whose actions and their words align; people who respect themselves and respect me – people who are able to respect our time and space together and apart; people who are available to connect – people who choose to connect with me and have shared interests and energy to meet each other’s needs; people who have clear boundaries of what’s their problems and what’s mine – they are not responsible for solving my problems and I am not responsible for solving theirs – we can provide healthy support to each other without jumping into rescuing. What would you add to this list?
I hope you’d find something helpful here. Life is endlessly engaging. I am under construction again. I feel exhausted and I feel lonely at times. I am reminded that the feeling of being lonely isn’t objectively true. I am loved. I am loved. I am loved. So are you.
To whomever is suffering, I am with you on this impossible journey. You belong here. I belong here. We are wired to connect with each other. And only Love will make this journey bearable so please let Love find you. Please try to open your heart and let Love in. I know you’ve been hurt and disappointed. I know how painful that is. And I also know how strong your heart is and how capable it is of loving. I hope we both give Love a chance, over and over again.
Xiaoyu
