Why I'm Focusing on High-Functioning Depression and Orchids
Have you ever heard Glennon Doyle’s Super Soul Sunday talk? It’s called “First the Pain, Then the Rising” and, in the talk, Glennon offers people an unconventional piece of advice:
Stop running from heartbreak.
Slow down, she advises. Get curious.
When you feel your heart breaking, when the pain, fear and hot loneliness of human-ing flood your heart in an uncomfortable way…stay still.
Don’t run. Listen.
“Heartbreak is the greatest clue of our lives,” Glennon says. “Because what breaks your heart is different than what breaks your neighbor’s heart. For you, it’s racism, and for her, it’s hunger, and for him, it’s war, and for her, it’s animal cruelty.”
That’s not something to run from, she continues. That’s something to lean into.
Because when you lean into the thing that breaks your heart, when you allow yourself to feel how truly horrible it is and let that pain motivate your actions…
Chances are high that you’ll find not just your purpose but also your tribe.
That’s part of why I’m so into depression stuff at the moment. Depression is the thing that breaks my heart most because I have 1) lived experience that showed me just how painful it was and 2) a recovery story that features unconventional treatments.
Society’s predominant messages about what depression is and how to treat it – they were wrong for me. And, if listening to them were my only option, I’d still be depressed.
Actually, I might be dead. Because I have family members who have committed suicide due to depression and who’s to say that I wouldn’t have joined their ranks if I didn’t find a solution that worked for me?
So here I am, leaning into my heartbreak because I agree with Glennon: that’s a brilliant thing to do.
I’m focusing specifically on “orchids” who struggle with high-functioning depression because that’s the subset I feel most suited to serve. My struggles with depression didn’t come from having faulty neurochemicals. They came from being an oh-so-sensitive-to-my-environment orchid who needed to learn that she had permission to change her environment.
So that’s what I’m doing with sessions now. I offer energy medicine to help people in the midst of depression find a pocket of peace and calm inside them. Then I help them sign their own permission slip. Because orchids need to know that they’re not delicate little flowers who fall apart when adversity comes their way.
Orchids are people who are more sensitive to their environment than others. That’s it. They can be wildly resilient and up for the challenges of life…if and ONLY if their environment is right.
To me, that feels like a rather helpful thing to grok. To understand. To feel deeply in your bones. And to embrace without shame.
Sending thanks to the hubbalicious for repeated reminders that signing my own permission slip is the wisest thing I can do and hoping that other orchids get that reminder from their people.
In heartbreak,
Keely
