This Newsletter at a Glance

🌧️ Are You Stuck in a Dark Cloud?

🚨 TL/DR: 3 Signs of Trouble

💡 10 Essential Reflections to Lift You Out of Sadness 

🌞 Sol Bites: 3 Quick Checks

🎥 Video Bite: Melissa Impett on Regulating Emotions When Feeling Low

📖 Words of Wisdom

1) Busy to the brink

Non-stop hustle often hides deep-seated feelings we're trying to avoid. A lot of folks stay busy 24/7 as a way to sidestep uncomfortable emotions. Sure, it can provide temporary relief, but it also can set you up for a harsh crash later on, making you more prone to prolonged sadness or depression. So, does endless busyness directly cause depression? Not quite. However, it can make you more emotionally brittle, especially since it can mess with your ability to build genuine relationships—and those are key when you need to bounce back from life’s curveballs.

Constant busyness can make people more vulnerable to depression because it’s exhausting, and that can lead to lowered resilience, making it harder to manage self-doubt and negative self-talk.

Being busy isn’t inherently bad, but it shouldn’t be used as a coping mechanism. Often, people fall into that habit unintentionally, thinking it will help them feel better. However, avoiding problems rather than addressing them makes us more emotionally fragile, increasing the risk of depression.

2) Echoed Aspirations

Wanting something because someone else has it—and not actually because you truly want it—is a mimetic desire. Chasing goals influenced by others can lead to frustration, resentment, and even depression. It's crucial to constantly reflect on what is driving your desires. Ask yourself, "Do I want this for me or because I see other people wanting it?" 

3) Faking Happiness

Grief avoidance stems from a flawed belief that feeling sad will make you depressed. As inaccurate as that concept may be, many chronically depressed people cling to it, fearing that any exposure to sadness or grief will spiral them deeper into depression. That avoidance teaches our brains to view those feelings as dangerous, escalating our fears and causing even more avoidance. 

This vicious cycle can lead to a full-blown phobia of sadness, severely restricting our lives and increasing anxiety, making us more susceptible to depression. 

As counterintuitive as it may seem, the solution is to face those emotions. By allowing yourself to feel sadness and grief without wallowing, you can become more resilient and confident. 

1) Addressing Chronic Busyness 

If you struggle with depression, consider how having a jam-packed schedule affects your life. 

Schedule Assessment: 

Take 30 minutes to reflect on why you stay so busy and if it’s serving your well-being. Start with these two areas: 

Contact list review: List the people you interact with most frequently. Are these interactions deep and meaningful, or are they primarily task-oriented?

Quality check: Reflect on whether your busyness affects the quality of your relationships. Are you sacrificing deep connections to stay busy? If you have a large social circle, how many of those relationships are meaningful? 

2) Figuring What You Want 

To determine if you’re chasing your goals rather than someone else’s, you need to clarify your values and see how they relate to your activities.

Alignment Check 

Identify your core values: Write down your top 5 core values (e.g., family, health, personal growth, happiness)

Align your activities: Compare your weekly activities to your values. Do the things that keep you busy match your core values, or are they just fillers?

3) Facing Sadness Head-On 

Engaging with sadness can teach you about yourself and show your brain that the feeling isn’t harmful. Over time, this approach can help you break the avoidance cycle, making you less vulnerable to depression. 

Grief Check

Start by asking yourself these questions:

- Are you using fancy words like "stressed" and “overwhelmed” instead of saying you're sad or grieving?

- Are you dodging any people or situations that might make you feel sad?

- Are you wearing a fake smile and claiming life’s amazing to dodge any hint of sadness or regret?

If the answer is yes to any of the above, then you need to practice emotional validation. Here’s a quick summary of a sample internal talk track:

Step one: Acknowledge your feelings. Tell yourself, “Hey, I'm really feeling down right now. It's totally okay to feel this way.”

Step two: Show yourself empathy: Say something like, “ This situation is really tough—I can see why I'm upset. Feeling bad/ grief/sadness is not bad, and it’s not dangerous to me. These are perfectly normal human experiences.”

Step three: Offer yourself support: Give yourself permission to vent or zone out. And be sure to remind yourself, “I'll get through this.”

What we don’t need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human.