You know the symptoms: feeling continuous sadness, or walking through your day numbed out to emotions and feeling shut down. Having trouble getting going in the morning, physically taking care of things (eating properly, sleeping, getting dishes or plans done), perhaps separating from friends and family when you most need support. Criticizing yourself (I’m lazy, if I only had more willpower, what’s wrong with me?) or losing faith that the feelings and situation you’re in won’t last forever.

Or maybe it feels less extreme than that, but there’s a constant lack of ease and low grade sadness, a feeling of there being an invisible barrier between you and your life that others may not even know is there.

Depression is tricky, especially when we live in a culture that demands action and showers us with criticism (that we’ve internalized) when we don’t meet its expectations for success.

And yet, depression may be your body’s way of telling you that you must stop and listen. That you can’t prod and push and perform anymore based on your own and others’ expectations: that you must, for your own health, stop and give yourself the space to slow down and find out what you really need in order to be here, in your body, in this world, living out your life.

Sounds scary? You might be thinking: ‘if I slow down, I will literally grind to a halt- I’m already barely moving forward’, or ‘if I slow down and let myself really feel, I will be overwhelmed and never come out of it’. And the truth is: you know for yourself what you can handle and when. It may be that at this moment, managing to function somehow, and numbing out as much as you need to, is just what you need, and having a therapist just hold that reality with you, is just right.

But maybe you are in a place where there is some opening to listen to the sadness and the numbing in a different way, to learn how it’s been trying to help you and what you need, to soften where softening is available, and to get to know yourself, your strength and your pain, and the love that you are capable of: the complex reality of this human life more fully. I can help you be with yourself in a way that honors where you are and helps to soothe the expectations and criticisms about that. Just that practice can open a door, open your lungs, and give you clarity about the next step for healing, and the next, and the next.