What’s Your MISERY set point?

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the inevitable “aging and decaying process.”

I witness my own body and mind as I struggle with various aches, pains and wrinkles, as well as that of my friends and family.

There are days when I just hate it.  I cringe, complain, whine and moan….

In spite of knowing that I often do the best I can to offset the reality of time and gravity, I began to ask myself “why do I have so much resistance to what is so?”

I realize there no use in being miserable over things that I don’t have a lot of control over.

The last time I was in this deep of a quandary, I was in my mid-twenties.

I was severely depressed and having suicidal thoughts, I was on medication, and seeing a shrink.

In one of our sessions she said the most dreadful and life-changing thing to me: “I don’t think you are depressed enough.”

WTF?????

I couldn’t imagine being even more depressed than I already was.

Getting out of bed to go to work took every bit of effort I had.

Her words haunted me and as I thought about them I realized that I had to be willing to dive into the deepest, lowest depth of my depression and be willing to see what happened.

So I did.

And I discovered that not only could I survive being at the lowest possible point, allowing myself to go there gave me the motivation to fight my way out of it with everything I could muster.

I committed to figuring out how to heal myself and I realized that I needed to focus on how to be happy instead of focusing on how not to be depressed.

It didn’t happen overnight.

It actually took a few years.

But, what did change, was that I let go of the fantasy of finding the “magic bullet” fix.

I decided to begin to study the happy people that I knew (this was long before the internet or Google) and it worked.

I discovered how to take baby steps.

I learned to appreciate the moments, or hours, and eventually days and months when the depression lifted.

And slowly I transformed.

Whatever level of misery you are experiencing, the way out is through.

Feel it. Heal it. And most importantly focus on how you MOST want to feel – even if it means faking it until you make it.

Wishing you love, laughter and magical kisses,

Arielle