When we’re doing something that doesn’t seem so far out of the ordinary, unless we look into our past.

At first, there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary about this morning. I woke up about 8:00, went to the bathroom, drank some water, looked at the clock, and decided I wanted to sleep some more. It wasn’t that I was still tired, I simply didn’t want to start my day yet.

After laying down, getting up to throw a kitten out of the room, laying down again, and finally catching the second kitten and sending him out to join his brother, I settled back down with a pillow over my head to block out the sun and slept for another hour or so.

When Toby began expressing his displeasure with both his delayed breakfast and lack of access to the dry food, I looked at the clock again, deemed enough of the day gone, and started my day.

It wasn’t until I was dishing up cat food that it dawned on me. This was the same behavior I exhibited in the late 90’s, post divorce and post mom’s suicide when I was unambitiously trying to make a go of a bookkeeping business with clients who had simply fallen into my lap. I had recently parted ways with a company whose owner and management staff were more dysfunctional than any I’ve seen before or since. Being fired wasn’t really a surprise, nor a hardship as I’d been sick far too often with stress related issues. Although I ended up returning as a consultant when the woman he hired to replace me made a total mess of everything, it was on my terms and was, thankfully, short-lived.

But I digress. As time went on and I had less work to do, I found that I’d drag myself out of bed to get the girls to school, then crawl right back under the covers for another couple of hours. What I didn’t realize at the time, but do now, is that sleeping overmuch just because I don’t want to start my day is extremely unhealthy mentally. Even though I’m not feeling particularly sad, I know from experience that continuing to allow myself to follow this pattern will take me down a road I never want to see again, where motivation and caring about myself go by the wayside.

Fortunately, recognizing a negative behavior pattern and knowing when and how to nip it in the bud is about 90% of the battle. I know that I simply need to get busy and get moving. Whether it’s housework, gym routines, dancing in the living room or walking the neighborhood, my body needs more action than two nights of dancing.

Speaking of dancing, I’m continuing to experience an energy drain around 8:30 for no apparent reason. I didn’t really check with anyone else, but I know that a lot of folks left even earlier than I did last night. Even now, as I try to document the feelings, I am still not feeling a lot of energy. Instead, I’m feeling more like I need to pull these weird feelings out, hold them in my hands, twist them and turn them to get a better viewpoint, and analyze them to death, quite literally.

My rational mind, however, is getting louder by the minute as it tells me to get busy with something and shove those thoughts back into the handy little compartment where they’ve been for so many years. But then, I’ve been there before too. I bottled up my grief and guilt over my mom’s death for years until it came out explosively over something really minor. I’m not inclined to go there again either!

So what do you do with feelings which come back to haunt you?

If I learned nothing else form my healing training, I did learn that when feelings come back, you need to acknowledge them, recognize where they came from and ask for help in clearing them. The cause is long gone, maybe even forgotten, but some of the pain still lingers, like a ghost waiting for ties to be cut so it can leave the material plane. Even more, what triggered the return of those feelings? Why did they return at this specific moment in time?

I know where they were the last time, though I won’t swear that was the very beginning. In fact, I suppose these feelings started somewhere a lot further back and simply return as a result of some kind of trigger.

That will be my meditative task today. To identify the starting point, recognize the triggers and clear it all so I can go forward with a clear, happy mind and heart.

Do you know what triggers your depressive behavior patterns? Do you recognize them when they occur?

My gratitudes today are:
1. I am grateful that I’ve learned to recognize depressive behavior patterns in myself.
2. I am grateful that I no longer accept depressive behavior in myself and work on myself to clear the reasons and the results.
3. I am grateful for activities which regularly get me out of the house and around people, even when I am not in a particularly social mood.
4. I am grateful for daily conversations with my daughter. Sharing her new world is one of life’s many joys.
5. I am grateful for abundance: friendship, love, positivity, smiles, laughter, joy, motivation, inspiration, happiness, harmony, peace, health and prosperity.

Namaste