Dear Dr. Norquist:
I have a friend who is struggling with depression, and it saddens me to see her this way. Normally, she is full of life and caring towards others. Lately, it seems a lot of her spark is gone. She seems to be hiding behind a thick gray wall that hides her spirit. She is seeking professional help, but is having trouble moving forward. I know she is very hard on herself for any fault she can find. She has trouble going for what she really wants, because she sees that as selfish. She feels anger a lot and then feels guilty and down on herself for feeling angry. She is most down on herself for not having been able to make the changes she feels she needs to make. By nature my friend is such a loving and thoughtful person. It is so sad to see her treating herself this way. How could I be helpful to her?
Dr. Norquist responds:
When we care deeply about someone we open ourselves up to being strongly affected by the ups and downs in their life. Love makes us vulnerable to pain, sadness, and loss. This is part of the richness of living deeply and fully. Life can be painfully sweet.
Your friend has trouble treating herself with the love and thoughtfulness that she is able to give to others. It’s such a common misunderstanding in our culture to believe that we should treat others with love and respect, and yet feel it’s wrong, or selfish, to do the same for ourselves. Are we not all the same, in essence? Yet most of us believe somehow that others deserve love more than ourselves. This misconception is the root of an incredible amount of suffering
You could also say that to treat yourself as if you are not loveable is selfish because it entails focusing on yourself and how you are different from, and less than others. We are all human. In this we are all equal. To love yourself doesn’t mean you are always able to think, feel and act the way you think you should. In loving yourself, you are embracing your humanness. It is a given that we are all loveable. None of us is better than or less than another in this regard. Out of our feelings of unloveableness, some of us learn ways of pushing others away and trying to get them to concur with our beliefs about our unloveableness. But the innate fact of our loveableness remains.
When all is said and done, perhaps the most important thing in life on a day to day basis, is the feelings we carry toward ourselves. This determines our experience of whatever is going on around us and determines the resources we have to handle whatever life brings our way. Your friend is focusing on the outer layers of herself – the beliefs and emotional scars she has gathered traversing the path that her life has brought her. Ask her to go deeper. Ask her to focus on the essence that is at the core of each and every human life. At this core level, we can experience that we are all perfect and divine. This divine inner loveableness does not emanate from our individuality, as much as it emanates from the place where we are all the same. In this place, there is perfection. In this place we can experience Truth.
Share this question and answer with her. Perhaps it will help her to recognize your love for her, just as she is.
Dear Dr. Norquist:
I am a 24-year-old single mom of an 18-month-old son. I separated from his father in June. This is our first Christmas separated and I find I am getting very depressed thinking about the holidays. I just don’t seem to have the "spirit" and am worried about getting through, especially Christmas Day, without being a family. I worry that I have made a mistake, although I know it was right thing to separate. Any suggestions? Am I normal? I feel overwhelmed with sadness.
Dr. Norquist responds:
Many people feel depressed during the holidays because of their expectations of how they are supposed to feel. We don’t place as many expectations on the level of happiness we are supposed to feel in January, for example, as we do in December, as the holiday approaches. In relation to our inner expectation regarding the holidays (that we feel happy, and that our family situations feel close and complete), inner pain, sadness and loneliness feel all the more miserable. It’s OK and even normal to feel sad at the loss of your marriage, and "intact" family life during the first Christmas after separating from your husband. Often the healing process can proceed just by allowing the recognition and expression of whatever you are genuinely feeling. Let your feelings run through you and then let them go. Then focus on giving, focus on your son’s joy, focus on others’ happiness, and see if that "spirit" doesn’t just find it’s way into your life again.
(Dr. Sallie Norquist is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice and is director of Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center, a center for upliftment and enlivenment, in Hoboken.)
Dr. Norquist and the staff of Chaitanya invite you to write them at Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center, 51 Newark St., Suite 205, Hoboken, NJ 07030 or www.chaitanya.com or by e-mail at drnorquist@chaitanya.com, or by fax at (201) 656-4700. Questions can address various topics, including relationships, life’s stresses, difficulties, mysteries and dilemmas, as well as questions related to managing stress or alternative ways of understanding and treating physical symptoms and health-related concerns. Practitioners of the following techniques are available to answer your questions: psychology, acupuncture, therapeutic and neuromuscular massage, yoga, meditation, spiritual & transpersonal psychology, reflexology, Reiki, Cranial Sacral Therapy, and Alexander Technique Ó 2000 Chaitanya Counseling and Stress Management Center