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How many are looking forward to seeing signs of spring around the corner?  I know since I am from Texas I am interested in it coming earlier, but I’ll take the daylight savings change this weekend!  It’s usually this time that I start seeing green budding in the trees, but here in Colorado we have to wait a few months.

Some of why we enjoy spring so much is that we have more daylight in the day and we begin to see new growth.  I feel this always represents coming out of darkness due to feelings and circumstances that feel too big to handle. Some feel darkness because the winter brings more depressed feelings.  Some feel it because they have some relationship challenges that may seem insurmountable. And lately I am running into those who have been distressed due to job searching that is not coming through. Others may feel it because we don’t know how to stop that endless chatter that communicates messages in the head that pull us down.

What I understand about depression is it’s really an absence of feeling. It’s where our feelings got so numbed out that we stopped allowing ourselves to go there. Many times the root of it can be anger that gets buried deep down. If we grew up in a family where feelings weren’t ok to express because we had “no feel” rules, then we learn to never air our dirty laundry.

Feelings are God-given and if left unexpressed they get stuffed inside leaving us numbed out and many times depressed. Brene Brown who had done research in the field of shame and vulnerability says that when we numb out the negative feelings we also numb out the capacity to feel the positive ones.

So when we move through our feelings not stuffing them, we also exhibit a greater capacity to feel more joy and passion!

Tips for moving through feelings:

• Identify what the feelings are through writing them down.
• Move into the pain.
• Get to the root of beliefs that are causing the pain.
• Turn around your thoughts by replacing them with affirming ones.
• Be in a state of gratitude each day.

Several book resources that I can share are the following:

I would highly recommend Caroline Leaf’s book, Switch On Your Brain for those who want to understand how the brain works. www.drleaf.com. Another is Feelings Buried Alive Never Die by Karol Truman.

Allow the light to come in this spring!