Why Do I Feel This Way?
Short answer – because life is a crazy, unpredictable ride.
For the record, depression sucks.
Most of the time I keep the black dog at bay. I do my mindfulness, meditation, breathing exercises, fencing, take my meds, talk to my therapist, and other self-care actions regularly. Yet, I’m only human. Sometimes thinky-thoughts make me feel sad, rainy grey skies feel oppressive, and depression sits on my chest like my cat, but without the calming purr.
Depression can be clinical, seasonal, manic, and more. It impacts everyone differently. What’s more, how depression feels today might be very different tomorrow. It’s utterly situational and totally unpredictable.
In this instance, what I’m feeling is a mix of sadness, self-doubt, disillusion, frustration, and just a hint of anger. Why? My biggest fear has been manifesting in a certain way that I’m working on understanding.
Abandonment. Not in the all-inclusive, everyone-out-of-the-pool sense. It’s more specific, tied to people I thought I was deeply connected with and close to who then either dropped me, wandered away, stopped communicating, or some combo of all the above.
This is calling up some past situations and experiences. That, in turn, is the impetus for this current bout of depression.
However, as Lao Tzu said,
“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
Ruminating on past ideas is full of pitfalls. Mainly because memory is imperfect, and the thoughts and feelings of yesterday aren’t knowable today. All we have are impressions of past thoughts, feelings, and intentions.
The only way to actively do something about depression is to work mindfully here and how.
For me, this begins with asking why.
Why do I feel this way?
I’m going to identify the root cause of why I feel this way. FYI, my marriage is in excellent health and none of this is about my wife and our relationship (which is amazing on every level, and I’m deeply grateful for that).
There have been 4 women in my life over the last 2 years who I have had very close relationships with. Two of them were platonic, very close friendships. Two were lovers.
All of them faded out of my life in one way or another. Communication either slowed or stopped outright. The closeness we had grew distant. Four people I loved moved on and ceased to be close in different but related ways.
Lovers and friends
With one of my lovers, I made a mistake. I apologized for it and worked to make amends. Despite the effort, she slowly pushed me further and further away, said one thing while doing another, and then mostly ended all communication. This one stung because we’d been friends long before we became lovers, and I thought our connection was far deeper than it proved to be.
With the other lover, I thought things were great. But then, something happened, she went through a major depressive episode, and ceased communicating for 6 months. Eventually, there was a tentative return, but I found myself initiating all communication. After requesting that she be more cognizant of this, she initiated one or two depth-free conversations. Everything remained guarded and tentative, then there was a broken date and I’ve left it to her to make all effort from there. There’s been none for more than a month. Again.
The other two, the friends, both faded differently. I thought in both instances we’d formed a really deep bond. We shared a lot. Yet, both moved on in different ways and both ceased communication subtly. Neither is entirely gone, but what we have now is barely a shadow of the depth of our relationships before. Two people I thought of as among my best friends are almost wholly non-present In my life, now.
Thinking about this, and its ties to my fear of abandonment is why I feel this way.
Mindfulness of fear
All my fears, mostly manifested in fear of success and fear of failure, come back to my fear of abandonment. I know full well that this is a by-product of my parents’ divorce when I was almost 6, and the impact that had on my young, overly bright psyche.
Also, for the record, I do not blame my parents for this. I’m just acknowledging the root.
The fear of abandonment has caused me to form bonds that were tentative at best, maintained friendships and relationships that weren’t healthy, and even caused me to choose both platonic and romantic relationships over opportunities and certain forms of stability.
It’s taken a lot of work to recognize this. Then more work to acknowledge it. After that, there’s been even more work to learn from it for current and future relationships.
All of the above relationships came into being after I’d spent a lot of time learning to get in touch with and know my feelings. I’ve done and am in therapy, take an anti-depressant, practice meditation, and do a lot of mindful work to be more present here and now. That, I’ve found, is the best way to overcome fear. But it’s also the best way to be as true to myself as I can be.
Knowing why I feel this way and mindfulness
How can you enter into any relationship with another if your relationship with yourself is misunderstood? I don’t think you necessarily need to love yourself, per se. However, you do need to be aware of yourself. Like really, truly, here and now, aware.
This is a matter of being consciously aware, here and now. In other words, mindful. To do that, you need to know what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, and what you are or aren’t doing. This is mindfulness in action.
With this knowledge, in the now, you can access your subconscious self. That allows you to see your fear, hesitation, beliefs, values, and habits in stark relief.
Such insight is how you can tie together past experiences with your present isness.
You can only be here now
The past is gone. It happened, and cannot be undone, redone, or done over. You can’t go bag, Similarly, the future is unwritten. No matter how hard you plan, or what you do to get to a goal or whatever, the unknown can and will occur and expected outcomes won’t manifest as expected.
What’s more, the past is colored by experience, bias, prejudice, and desires that can and do run counter to the absolute. Likewise, the future is going to be impacted by forces outside your control, period. You cannot do a damned thing about the weather, what other people will do, and you only control yourself and your own thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
Only the now, the present, this moment, is utterly, truly, genuinely real. Here and now is the only time that is where you can exert control over your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions to drive your life how you desire it to go. This is done via choices and decisions made here and now.
You, ultimately, get to decide who, what, where, how, and why you are. Yes, there might be extenuating circumstances that limit those things. However, when all is said and done, you can and do control them.
Where does this fit into the question of “why do I feel this way”? In explaining the past elements, I can see, here and now, why I feel this way. Knowing, further, how it ties into my depression, I can see actions to take that will alter my thoughts and feelings to shift this away from depression.
From here, I have the power to change how I feel.
This is important to note
One last, important bit here. My feelings are valid. Likewise, your feelings in any given situation are valid. Recognizing this opens you to being able to own and then change them, whatever they are.
No, it probably won’t be easy. However, in the long run, you can control your feelings rather than be controlled by them.
You are worthy and deserving of making choices and decisions for your life. When you ask why you feel the way you feel, only you can find the answer, and you have every right to find it, understand it, and then change it if that’s what suits you best.
Why do I feel this way? I know the answer. With that knowledge, I can change it, and you have the same power, too.
Recognizing and acknowledging why I feel this way isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of my thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct my actions.
When I pause, here and now, and apply mindfulness, I can get a handle on what is causing me to feel this way. Knowing that I can get clarity and that I’m empowered to change my thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions, I can make choices and do things to change the way I feel.
This empowers me. I hope that by sharing this it empowers you. Then, in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred and fourteenth (514) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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