How being depressed became my greatest motivation!
I had a revelation yesterday!
This is happening more and more ... I don't know if it's because I'm getting older and my mind, like some tired old elephant, has finally been worn down and started giving me the answers I have been seeking after all these years or what ... all I know is ... I'm LOVING what I'm realising!
For those of you who have been following my journey (shame on you if you haven't ... as if ANYTHING could be more interesting than what's going on MY LIFE ...;-)) you will know that I recently (only about 6 months ago) went through a moment of depression far more horrible than anything I have ever experienced ...
For all intents and purposes and from the outside, I had it all ... I had a wonderful husband to whom I had just gotten married, I had a great (!) job that gave me time and money to finish my highly interesting course of study and I lived in one of the most beautiful cities in the world ...
However, on the inside I was a broiling mass of insecurities and doubt. My job was slowly killing me, my sex life with my wonderful new hubby was suffering horribly and I felt more trapped, fearful and helpless than I ever had in my whole life ... (which is weird because I have spent time in places that would make Chuck Norris nervous ... OK, maybe not Chuck but some other, not quite so awesome, martial arts super human).
In a moment of sheer desperation, I decided that I wouldn't/couldn't work doing anything that I didn't want to do anymore and stopped the frantic search for a new job that had become an all consuming time waster in those dark hours, dragging me away from my studies and bringing with it a sense of failure when the searches yielded absolutely NOTHING of interest for me ... (Whew, the DRAMA of my posts, eh!)
In that moment, when I stopped searching ... when I became still and decided to let fate have her way with me (wink, wink) ... an amazing thing happened. I became clear about which direction I needed to go in ... I started to know intuitively what I needed to do with my life ... I had NO IDEA in hell of how to begin going about it but the fear and insecurity began to be replaced by determination and focus.
I realised yesterday that if I hadn't gotten to the point of being so desperate that my ONLY option was to chase my dreams to become an artist, then I would NEVER have done it ... If my life was comfortable and easy I would never have given my ultimate dream a second thought ... I would have settled for less than I am capable of because there was no NEED to change anything!
Could this period of depression have been my greatest gift?
I'm not at the point yet where I am able to say that I'm grateful for it ... but I'm starting to see that EVERYTHING that has happened so far in my life has been leading up to this ...
The abuse I suffered as a child, that led to drug and alcohol abuse, that led to travel as a means of running away, that led to further education in an attempt to prove that I was worth something to myself, that led to studying in Bournemouth, meeting a person who changed my life and taught me a new language, that led to my Yoga Teacher Training and getting a job in Vienna because I could speak said language, that led to .... oh, you get the message!
My life has been a series of (some serendipitous, some ... not so much) events that couldn't have happened without the one before it ... so you see, it is only because of the shit in the fertiliser that new things can grow ...
So just remember the next time you are down ... wonderful things start to bud because of the crap that has been shovelled onto their heads!
