What message is your depression and mood disorders trying to share with you? Executive leadership expert Austin Vickers explains the secret message our mood disorders are trying to share with us.
AUSTIN VICKERS: One of the examples that I believe really illustrates this principle is imagine somebody was coming over to your house with a very important message for you and you heard them knock at the door. You are at home but you pretended not to hear them and not answer the door.
If this message was critical for you, of course what would they do? They would keep knocking. In fact they would start to knock louder and harder to try to get your attention, and if you continue to ignore them (but the message was critical), soon they would start to try to break in the windows or come in through the chimney or do whatever they could to get your attention.
Well depression is kind of like that invited guest. It’s like that person coming to our house with a very important message. As long as we try to ignore them, then they are going to continue to knock at our doors louder and louder, stronger and stronger, until we stop and listen. If we would simply let depression in and embrace depression and listen to the message that depression is trying to bring to our lives, then we would be able to listen to the values that it brings, listen to the gifts that depression brings, and then depression becomes free to leave.
It may be an odd thought or an odd idea to think that depression is somehow beneficial to our lives, but some of the greatest artists in the world know that depression often brings creativity, it brings introspection, and a lot of times for example, even in my own life, I know that when I feel depressed, it’s a time for me to be creative. I can either fight depression and it stays and lingers, or I can take the message of depression, which is always to be introspective, to be creative. And if I focus on those values and I learn to nurture and develop those values in my life by being introspective and being creative, then depression has given me its gifts and it no longer needs to appear in my life.
So the next time depression shows up in your life, rather than resist it, or feel like you have to take drugs to overcome it, or deny that it even exists in your life, move towards it. Open the door, let it in, listen to its message and then try to develop the gifts that depression brings and I think you will find that depression no longer needs to stay in your life.