Don't Leave Room in Your Life for Depression

We have to keep elbowing depression/anxiety/angst/despair or whatever you call it out of our life. And we have to find an uptick wherever we can.

This morning I woke up in the old dark pit as usual. I picked some dumb phrase to thoughtjam it while I got up, made my bed, got on my inversion table for ten minutes while letting the the hot water run in the tub for my bath after I swam. But before I swam I took out the recycles, walked the dogs, checked on a leak in the irrigation system, took the book boxes out of the car since I did a booksigning this weekend (my husband helped me), asked my husband to get out the blower so I could blow off the patio(which I would do later). Then I took off the pool cover.

I just kept doing one small task after another which is why I can’t remember the dumb phrase I picked for thoughtjamming. Pretty soon my brain turned completely off the phrase because it had to keep up with all my little tasks which I made sure I was concentrating on as I did them. (Otherwise I know that sneaky mind of mine might try to dump me in the pit again.)

I never forget that the mind can only concentrate on one thought at a time and the brain always follows the direction of its most CURRENT dominant thought.

I keep a pool cover on the pool to save the water from evaporating since we have a drought here in California and, as I said, I have other leaks in my yard. Then I swam my 20 laps and during that time I had no thoughts except keeping count of my laps. “One, one, I’ve just begun,” “two two, zip de do.” and so on.  I always feel virtuous for doing 20 laps but that doesn’t mean I want to do 21.

When I finished my laps, I started to pull the cover back over the pool before I got out and was surprised that it seemed more difficult than usual. Wasn’t I doing enough weight lifting? (Not that I do all that much but I do some.) By the time the  pool was half-covered, I realized that the reason it was so hard was that one of my large German shepherd dogs had been sleeping on the cover and was enjoying the ride. I laughed. The joke was on me. Then (because I’m always looking for possibilities to raise my mood in the morning) I decided to REALLY LAUGH. Hey, thanks for the joke, God. I went in and told my husband about the dog. We both had a good laugh. Now I’m feeling good again. Sorry depression, no room for you this morning. See you tomorrow. Or whenever.