Kung Fu Tortoise

(Baby Step, Toronto, 2011)

I joined a Kung Fu studio…oh, months ago now, I don’t even know how long. I dutifully attend once a week, practice at least twice a week. That’s the time I allotted when I started, squeezed and eked from a life that’s flying too fast with so many hopes still beckoning. I knew what that meant, from the start. I knew it meant I would be “taking it slow.”

Here’s the thing I didn’t know. I didn’t know what that meant to me.

I’m not slow. In school, in work, I’ve never had to give it my all to keep up and even lead the pack. And here I am, with my under-developed body-sense (isn’t the body just here to carry around my mind and do things for it?), trying to learn a completely foreign discipline. Just being seen by other humans doing this causes my brain to scream, “hide!”

If I were training alone, I think I’d be quite happy with my progress. Each week I can do something I couldn’t before. Some things are coming more naturally, a little faster. I’m starting to remember some of the order for the forms. I'm definitely stronger and more flexible. I’m not stagnated.

The problem I’ve discovered is that it’s much harder than I thought it would be, to notice that I fall behind one cohort and then another. It’s a little painful being the class dunce, the slow kid in remedial. I know it’s probably good for me, I recognize the rich and fertile ground for my personal development. That doesn’t make it a pleasant feeling.

There are times when I want to say, forget it, I clearly am not committed enough to keep up, and being seen not keeping up is a bad feeling I don’t want in my life right now, when everything is already so uncertain and scary.

Someone inside me laughs gently, with love, and asks in a mild tone, “Is this not your own life practice? What have others to do with it?”

She strokes my head and whispers, “Today you are not the hare, you are the tortoise. Bask in your pace while others stress and run around. For this one thing in your whole life, just one step and then another. Despite the pack. Your speed is your own, unique to you. You are the only one training your training.”

Breathe.

One step. Then the next.

(musical accompaniment from The Music: Take the Long Road and Walk It)

or if you're feeling more mellow, try Badly Drawn Boy: One Plus One is One)

Depression as an element of Happiness

I'm exploring the idea that the unpleasant and sometimes debilitating feelings of depression are an opportunity for experience and practice. On the one hand, I need to learn how to exercise control that can reduce their interference with what's important. On the other hand, I need to provide myself with some "safe place" and time to explore and experience sadness, futility, worry, confusion, resentment, anger, fear and all the other emotions clamoring for my attention. My theory is that if I just shove those feelings aside in my focus on the unattainable goal of consistent happiness, I am shutting out a richness of experience that can strengthen me.

Maybe the feeling in my chest that comes with the perfect storm of emotion I associate with depression is like the aching of childbirth, as though the feelings are helping to open my spirit to empathy and understanding. Maybe fighting and avoiding depression keeps me emotionally and spiritually underdeveloped, stunted.

When they come along, I've wasted time seeking the cause of depressive emotions, or trying to immediately neutralize or eliminate them. When they come unbidden at inopportune times, I bribe them with food so they'll go away for the time being. I work hard to hold them at bay with deliberate positivity so that I can be a good parent, a good employee, a good partner, a good friend in the moment. I think this is important practice and will continue to use positive thinking to keep those feelings from taking dominance in my daily life. But still, eventually, they always come back for more, filling my head and sucking my patience, threatening my ability to keep all the balls in the air.

Recently, I had an opportunity to put down my burden of responsibilities for a few days, and my body demanded I pay attention by getting sick. With the kids safely away and vacation freeing me from work, I thought I would feel happy. I was frustrated and angry to find myself in unexplainable depression. When I stopped fighting it and felt it, I recognized my own sense of grief for my life before parenting, futility in the face of the world's complex issues, guilt about my children's first experience of separation from me, loneliness and longing for more true connection, and a host of other elements. It's like dissecting the flavours in a meal. Not a very pleasant meal, but still.

As I greeted each emotion, I danced with it, grieved with it, hugged it close - I fully FELT it without calling it "bad," without demanding its immediate retreat, and most of all, releasing permission to feel it. I realized I feel guilty for even having these emotions. Feeling sadness implies failure or dissatisfaction with my life, and the truth is, I have a perfect life. So what right do I have to feel these things, and if I do, does that mean I'm not happy?

I came to a place where I realized it doesn't have to be either/or. I can be both happy, and sometimes depressed. I anticipate one key for me is learning what to do with the difficult emotions when they are inconvenient or I can't take the time to experience them, without resorting to food or drugs. That will be a lifetime of learning, I think, and maybe I need to wean off the crutches while strengthening through emotional "physio."

Another key may be to accept the emotions I've called "depression" as integral to myself and my growth. I want to pay attention so these feelings can help me strengthen my empathy and through it, my compassion. I want to experience these feelings as a foil that amplifies my gratitude and appreciation, while keeping me honest about whether I'm taking care of my own needs in this life.

My hope is that living and even loving my "depression" as part of me will help me settle deeper into my self and my strength. It's an experiment!