Cycling through Depression

The drag of depression can come upon us at any time. Nagging at our edges, pulling us down. Often we are not expecting it. Clouds roll slowly in over our heads; or form suddenly, at the slightest provocation, and swarm into a massive thunderhead. The storm may build across years, or crash upon us all at once.

When it does, we can’t move. Things we once enjoyed pale; things we have to do weigh heavily. We may feel as if our life is falling apart, or too tightly wrapped in routine. Something is missing; something is wrong. Sometimes we are clear about what that missing thing is; sometimes everything is grey. Sadness soaks in or a lackluster indifference, perhaps laced with resentment. We don’t want to feel this way.

In such moments, the cycle of breaths (see side bar) can be a life-enabling intervention, for it opens up a sensory space in which we are able to discern this pain as an expression of our desire for spirit—we want more. More vitality, more direction, more belonging. And we can also appreciate the wisdom in these feelings guiding us to move differently, in ways that will support us in becoming who we are and unfolding what we have to give. Really?
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When depression grips or anxiety wrings, even if we don’t feel like doing anything, even if we can’t do anything, we can breathe. We are breathing, and we can allow our attention to rest on our breathing.

Earth breath (1/29). We can just let go and release the effort of trying to hold ourselves up. We can let ourselves lie down, sink down, touch down, breathing the length of our body into the floor.

As you breathe your cells toward the earth, notice the earth pressing back up at you. The ground is supporting you, holding you, doing all of the work for you. You can learn into it. You will not fall. You don’t have to do anything. You are breathing.

In such moments, the cycle of breaths opens a small safe place for us to affirm that we are. Who we are. Where we are. This is who I am right now. We stop fighting. I can only begin from where I am. I am here. Am here. Here. The earth, pressing back on us, gives us a sense we are lacking of our solidity, our weight, as we give ourselves to it.

Air breath (2/5). We breathe down into the earth, and breathing again, out through our skin into the air. Attending, we follow the breath in and out. Surfaces dissolve. Skin is porous.

As you breathe yourself light, the tight curl of your pain comes into view. Breathe around it, and slowly breathe through it, inviting it to unfold. As your sensation expands, it may grow large indeed, erupting in a cry of exasperation or despair. Breathing out, soften the jagged edges, and sigh with relief as you allow the sensation to be what it is. Your yearning. You want something you don’t have, but what? Possibilities shuffle before you. Food. Touch. Affirmation. Comfort. Security. Purpose. You feel constraints holding you back. You can’t. You won’t. You don’t have time or money. It is inappropriate. It is wrong.

As we breathe our pain open, our sense of it shifts. The movements I am making are making me. Split. Conflicted. At war with my own self. Out of control. Empty. Helpless. There is nothing I can do. We may realize how tired we are. How buried in work. How dazed by the noise and confusion of our lives. How immured in the walls of our dulled senses. We may also feel impulses to respond that flare with frustration at our weakness. We want to clamp down on ourselves or simply give up.

Breathing again, through the heart, down into the earth, up and out into the sky, let that breathe too. Let yourself breathe. I am here. I am doing this. I am breathing.

Fire breath (2/13). The fire breath sinks a deeper charge. We breathe down into the ground, out into the skin-touched light, and then into the cradle of our bellies. We follow the breath deep into our sensory folds and squeeze—pumping awareness through our flesh. We activate an inner sense of movement.

I am breathing and this pain is telling me that there are movements in me waiting to be made—movements crying out in frustration at being boxed in for so long. There are capacities to give—limbs of myself that are languishing for the relationships that will support their fruit. I can move. I am moving.

Water breath (2/19). As you squeeze and release, energy pulses through your self, up through your vital core. Subtle at first. Ripples then waves. It can be terrifying. For as energy flows, your feelings of depression, anxiety, or despair may grow stronger yet again. Clearer. This is what the movements I am making are killing in me.

So too, along with the terror comes an even stronger sensory awareness. The movements I am making as I breathe are making me into someone who wants to move differently, who can move differently. I am giving birth to myself as someone who is more than this pain. Who can find in this pain an impulse to move.
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When we practice the cycle of breaths, the shift in our experience of our pain happens instantly. Always. But sometimes, when the hurt is thick and layered, it can take time for the cycle of breaths to sink through and open up the possibilities for movement that lie within. We learn from our pain and pleasure how to give birth to ourselves as the people we are and want to be. It is the work of a moment, the work of a lifetime. This play is serious.

Next week: How and why the cycle of breaths (and religion) works.